WIP Roma Gloriana — Narrative-driven ORPG set in a massive reconstruction of Ancient Rome (WIP)

[shmitterwink]

 

Introduction

For a while now I've had some ideas for an Ancient Roman themed MMO with a dynamic, Bethesda style storyline. Now that Intersect has grown more stable and the event editor works properly for the most part, I've decided to start the project myself using the engine. 

Roma Gloriana is a WIP online RPG set during the Roman Republic's transition to an empire. The world is an approximately 1:4 scale replica of Ancient Rome and the surrounding frontier. Each of the blue grids below represents a 32x24 map in Intersect.

 

Story

You are a gladiator, sold into slavery under the wealthy politician and general Pompey. When by chance the marauding Julius Caesar arrives at your camp with his legion in search of men, you are faced with the decision to either join him on his quest to take over Rome, or remain loyal to your captors and save your home from dictatorship.

 

After taking part in a slave uprising, players will be introduced to a war-torn Rome with three factions vying for power and men. These are:

Caesar and the Populares - want to transform Rome into a military dictatorship with Caesar in control

Pompey and the Optimates - want to retain the power of the Senate and put a stop to the usurper Julius Caesar

Vercingetorix and the Gauls - want to massacre everyone and pillage Rome

 

After deciding who to side with, players can embark on the main story, a series of quests where they must win the support of the five sub-factions of Rome: the patricians, plebians, senate, army and gods. While the quests are the same regardless of who you side with, the objectives will be different. For example, a quest for the populares may have you fight in a large-scale battle on one side, while the same quest for the optimates might have you fight on the other side. 

 

In addition to the main story will be close to a hundred side quests to be completed alone or with friends, and hopefully activities such as gladiator dueling and chariot racing.

 

So what?

This is still in an early planning stage. Right now I'm working on the story/characters and developing the map. Most of the custom sprites and tiles I've been working on are finished at this point. No estimated release time, I just wanted to throw the idea for my project out there and see what people think. I will keep this post updated over time as I make more progress.

 

My ultimate goal here is somewhat of a New Vegas-esque experience with a branched story and narrative fail-safes. I want you to be able to do quests for Caesar the whole game and then at the last minute decide to assassinate him and conspire with barbarians to sack Rome. As far as I know everything I have planned is possible with lots and lots of switches.

 

Misc stuff

a small percentage of the items and armor I've been working on (everything has paperdolls)

 

a handful of custom sprites and edits

 

[Damian666]

approved, looking good

[yanis69]

Nice, GOod Luck 

[Sethis]

Am I the only one to find this .... astounding ?

 

That's quite a piece of work mate, keep it up !!

[Neeknog]

Very impressed.

[Miharukun]

Looks amazing! Can't wait to try it xD

[HeadClot]

Hey this looks awesome!

 

Keep up the awesome work

 

[Aesthetic]

The sheer amount of mapping you've done already is incredible, but I have to ask, do you fully understand the amount of content proportional to explorable map you'll have to create, as well asthe time and work that entails? I'm by no means trying to dishearten you, quite the opposite in fact. I'm going to be paying close attention to this. It's very ambitious and looks fantastic already, I wish you and your project the best!

[shmitterwink]

25 minutes ago, Aesthetic said:

The sheer amount of mapping you've done already is incredible, but I have to ask, do you fully understand the amount of content proportional to explorable map you'll have to create, as well asthe time and work that entails? I'm by no means trying to dishearten you, quite the opposite in fact. I'm going to be paying close attention to this. It's very ambitious and looks fantastic already, I wish you and your project the best!

Yep, that's why I'm not even bothering to put an estimated release time. This is a huge project that I will likely be working on and off for the next few years. The world map comes out to be ~ 1 sq km and will have close to 100 interiors - only a fraction of the buildings in the game will be enterable and even less will be significant to the story. The fact that the map is mostly urban makes it seem bigger than it is, really it can be traveled across in 8 minutes. A lot of the dense residential areas (which make up around half the city) are treated like wilderness in any other game, and are really only for passing through. That being said I'm shooting for an 8 hour main story that will utilize many if not most of the iconic locations of Rome. So basically the scope of this project is large but comprehensible. 

[rebeca]

This looks very cool

[Shaunfroggydog]

Wow this blew me away! And there is only one guy working on this? That's amazing!

[Giligis]

This is absolutely amazing, does it use Intersect?

EDIT: Read a lil more, it is Very nice, I approve. This is great work, I love the Colosseum tiles.

[shmitterwink]

Just checking in to say I haven't abandoned this. Still inching through development.

[Alatar]

This looks really impressive! It's nice to see an historic-inspired RPG in the works in a world where fiction/fantasy-based RPG are way more common. 

 

Chariot racing sounds intriguing.