Basic Info
What Seed is all about (This game is no longer in service)
- Sci-fi MMORPG
- Personalized stories
- Social/political gameplay
- Believable NPC's
- 3D comic book graphics (This game is no longer in service)
Interactive
stories Experience stories suited
for your playing style.
In Seed you will be involved in several
stories at any point in time.
Some are on a personal level: to gather
the resources needed for production of repair
tools; to identify the strange fungus you
discovered in the machine pit.
Some involve fellow colonists: To help your
friend getting voted in as an administrator;
to find out who has been spreading rumours
about you and why.
And yet some involve the entire colony:
What to do with the terraforming process;
should contact to Earth be re-established
no matter the cost.
Regardless of impact or scale every story
is personalized and interactive. Dynamic dialogue
Communicate with both players and NPCs,
using emotes and nuggets.
In Seed, your actions define your role
and your personality. This especially
shows when communicating with the AI-controlled
NPCs, where emoting, proposing and informing
let you influence any NPC in any direction.
Your most powerful communication tool
is the emote systems. You can choose
from more than 50 emotions that you
can physical signal to players and NPCs.
Believable NPCs Taking NPC intelligence to the next level.
All Non-Player Characters - NPCs - in Seed
are intelligent to some degree by having
their own behaviours, motivations and goals.
It is a significant part of the gameplay
to interact with NPCs. They take parts in
your stories, they are supporters to your
ring, etc. Therefore, we have focused on
making them varied and interesting to interact
with.
To achieve this we use several AI techniques.
These can roughly be split into an Emotional
system, a Knowledge system and an Event
Response system.
Evolving game world Decide the fate of the
colony.
Seed lets you take an active part in developing
the colony, both physically and society
wise.
At launch the entire gameplay takes place
inside an isolated colony tower on a distant
planet. The terraforming process has come
to a halt, the space elevator to the orbiting
space station is broken, and contact to
Earth long time gone.
What happens from here depends on which
paths the colonists choose. Should the terraforming
process be restarted at all cost or is it
wiser to admit defeat and use the limited
resources to extend the living areas of
the tower' Is contact with Earth all-important
or unimportant' You - and all the other
players decide.
Every choice is a trade-off. Going for terraforming
may mean using ressources and machinery
needed for the space elevator, and so on.
There is no "right" choice, and
every one comes at a cost.
Personalized character
Shape your character in any way you
want.
All characters in Seed are inhabitants
of the space colony tower on the planet
Da Vinci.
Most of the people of the colony are
"grown" in artificial wombs,
called float beds, to the apparent age
of about 18 years.This is a question
of efficiency and tradition: A child
is not a productive member of society,
and natural childbirth is not only messy,
painful and dangerous, it also makes
the mother unproductive for a while.
To make sure it hatches only fully functional
colony members, TAU provides basic knowledge
and skills in what is best described
as dream courses. The character creation
process reflects this.
Flexible skill system Combine skills freely
and be all you can be.
Skills define the expertise and know-how
of your character. In that way they determine
which jobs and duties your character is
able to perform.
Each character in Seed starts out with a
number of pre-learned skills. You will be
able to improve these skills as well as
learn new ones while you play the game.
Your skills are measured in levels, indicating
your expertise. Skill levels go from 1 to
5, the higher the better. E.g. a character
with "Mechanical Repair 3" is
more skilled than a character with "Mechanical
Repair 2".
It requires a teacher to learn a new skill
- a teacher may be another player, a NPC
or TAU. If the teacher agrees on teaching
you a skill, and you both spend the necessary
time you will learn the skill at level 1.
As soon as you have learned a skill, you
can train it to a higher level by yourself
over time.
Initially, 50-75 skills will be available
and more are to come later on. 3D comic book
Immerse yourself in a graphic novel.
Seed takes its main look from comic
books, where the amount of drawings
is much smaller than in animation and
the detail in colour and texture therefore
can be somewhat bigger. Especially European
hand coloured comics (watercolour and
inks) are a major influence, e.g. Valerian
(& Laureline).
Seed tries to capture the same vividness
and handmade quality. With a loose and
clearly painted style the overall impression
of the game is more organic and human.
The graphical style is a balance between
creating something that looks hand drawn
and coloured but still has sense of
depth and a high fidelity in light and
shade.
Terminologies
Key terminologies »Emotes
Emotes can be signs of
your own mood (e.g. by smiling or looking
angry, sad or scared), or they can be direct
attempts to influence others (e.g. by pleading,
provoking, charming or threatening others).
The NPCs will react according to their mood
and their relations to you. Using emotes
may earn you friends as well as enemies,
and they may trigger unique stories that
uses the situation as a starting point.
» Trading information
Information often turns
out to be a very valuable resource in the
colony. This is represented by information
nuggets - pieces of knowledge you are able
to physically store, share or may be sell.
Nuggets may be rumours about the local Administrator,
test results from a lab machine or an idea
for a revolutionary new item. Nuggets may
appear when hearing stuff from NPCs, when
stumbling over an alien microbe, when drowsing
in the steam bath, etc.
You may keep the information nugget to yourself,
or you might want to share your idea or
knowledge with other players or NPCs. One
thing is curtain: there will almost always
be someone who is interested in your piece
of information ? and who might be willing
to offer you something in return.
»Favours and simple
questions
With the prevalent barter economy you
can of course ask the NPCs for favours, and
they might ask you for some as well. It is
up to you to decide whom to please, provoke,
or disappoint.
In addition, the NPCs are able to answer basic
questions about the nature and whereabouts
of persons, locations, machines and items.
You type in what you want to know, and the
answers depend entirely on the NPCs mood,
knowledge and their relation to you or to
the person in question.
»Emotional System
The emotional system gives the NPCs
a short term memory, or internal state, which
will allow another character to change their
behaviour; a NPC might be unwilling to help
if he is angry, but will be more helpful once
he has cooled down.
NPCs react directly to player emotions. Typing
"/smile" may make a NPC more friendly
towards you. Likewise you can flatter, threaten,
bully or charm your way around.
»Knowledge System
The knowledge system describes what
the NPC knows about the game world. It allows
the NPC to answer questions about the game
world and it affects which actions the NPC
will take. If for example an NPC knows that
another character is a scientist, he might
go to him for help with a difficult problem.
»Event Response
System
The Event Response based scripting
system basically consists of a list of events
which are mapped to appropriate response actions.
This allows us to create a story appropriate
response to a specific question, and it determines
their behaviour when not involved in a story.
»Developers standing
by
Expanding the game world is an integrated
part of the Seed design. The entire development
team remains dedicated to expanding the game
after launch.
You will be introduced to various paths for
the colony society to follow. The more players
devoted to moving in a certain direction,
the more likely it will be the development
path for us to follow.
While minor changes will be implemented relatively
quickly, major modifications, like expanding
the game world, will take much longer to complete.
This should reflect the amount of in-game
time needed to complete the work.
»Character creation
Although artficially created, each
colonist is unique in sense of appearance
and personality. To secure diversity in the
colony population TAU has a database of hundreds
of DNA profiles to breed new inhabitants from.
This means that you are able to take personalization
of your character to a high level. From a
base of six body structures, you can customize
facial features, skin colour, eye colour and
other visual characteristics.
The final part of character creation is to
choose the initial skills for your character.
In Seed there are no "character classes",
instead your skills describe your talents
and define, what sorts of tasks you're suited
for taking on.
During gameplay you will be able to develop
your skills and learn new ones. It's up to
you, whether you want to continue specialising
in your initial skills or you want to move
into a whole new direction.
»Skill
effects
• Access:
A skill may give you to using items
and or machines, e.g. you must have
"Structural Repair 3" to use
an "arc welder" item. Some
skills also require other skills, e.g.
you will need "Mathematics 3"
before you can learn "Physics 1".
• Knowledge
Access: You may need certain skills
to gain access to certain knowledge,
e.g. the output from a DNA analyser
can only be interpreted by people with
"Microbiology 2". Likewise
some information nuggets require certain
skill levels to be read.
• Passive effects:
A skill can automatically boost a characters
ability to perform in the game. Passive
effects are always positive, e.g. a
skill may make the character faster
at performing specific repair jobs,
may make the character spend less resources
when using tools and items, etc.
• Trade-off effects: Trade-off effect
skills, like passive skills, boosts character
performance at specific tasks, but they also
entail a penalty. A trade-off skill could
be "Jury Rig", allowing the player
to repair faster, but less efficiently. Trade-off
skills must be activated to have effect, thus
you decide when to use them.
• Social effects: Some skills affect
the way NPCs react to you, e.g. allowing you
to be a more convincing liar, to seem more
likeable etc. Some social skills also allow
the player to use emotes, social gestures,
such as threatening stance, cute smile etc.
A skill comprises a number of the above effects,
e.g. "Structural Repair" gives you
access to a number of structural repair items,
passively boosts your ability to use these
items, and allows you to access specific pieces
of knowledge.
»Technical details
The graphical style in Seed may resemble
cell shaded graphics, but it's somewhat different.
Soft shadows and realistically blending with
the textures and "fogging" is used
to give a more three-dimensional and less
"flat" experience than with cell
shading. At the same time spectacular highlights
are kept at a minimum not to give the style
to much of a plastic 3D look.
A lot of objects are given black outlines,
especially the characters, in various ways
to tie up the overall comic book feel.
Gameplay
»Rule
the world - until you're ruled out. In Seed players are eligible
for most administrative positions. Administrators
control the colony resource and production
flow, i.e. the making of items, components,
tools, accessories, services and so on.
This is the foundation of the trade economy.
Players can influence large-scale development
of game world society by deploying or withholding
resources for projects. Such a project could
be funnelling resources into rebuilding
the space elevator and getting the dead
space station above the colony back in action.
As an Administrator it?s up to you to keep
the optimum balance between what to produce
and when to produce it, what to repair and
what to recycle, and when and what to build.
The more people use your machines, the more
"income" you get.
»Create and improve the tools
of the colony. In Seed you are able to craft items and
machines.
Items are handheld devices capable of performing
some function, e.g. repair tasks. Machines
are stationary devices capable of producing
something or extracting knowledge from items,
e.g. a DNA analyser might discover an alien
microbe in a blood sample.
To craft a machine or item, you will need
a design containing a number of blueprints
and a number of components.
»Set
your clear and hidden agendas. The colony is a decentralised democracy
using publically elected Administrators
to determine what to use the limited
amount of ressources for.
Administrators are elected through referendums,
simply called polls. Everyone has the
opportunity to participate in the democratic
process by voting and by casting votes.
NPCs also take part in the democracy
voting according to personal opinions
and to the reputation of the involved
colonists.
Many colonists have formed political
project rings to promote and support
their different viewpoints. Political
campaigning is an important part of
life in the colony.
»Large scale changes
call for large scale efforts.
Curing a new disease,
digging out new living areas in the tower,
or inventing a revolutionary new technology
calls for a number of colonists to work
together in constellations known as projects.
As a colonist you may participate in several
projects at a time.
You will be notified
automatically when you come across a situation
that opens for a project to be started.
For instance if you conduct an analysis
of a blood sample from a sick colonist,
you discover that it contains an unknown
microbe. You are then notified that in order
to do a full examination of the microbe
and eventually come up with a cure for the
disease, you will need to initiate a project.
A project will show up
as a diagram of nodes which all need to
be completed. In the microbe example you
will see a set of 10 nodes; the first telling
you to gather 100 blood samples containing
the microbe in order to be able to do a
thorough analysis. When you have gathered
the necessary number of samples, the next
node in the diagram will reveal the next
step and so on.
After completing a project
you will have immediate access to the results.
It may be blueprints to new or enhanced
items, permanent changes in the tower, access
to new locations, etc.
All projects call for co-operation. Some
can be completed by 5-10 players in a week's
time; others need the work of hundreds of
colonists for a month.
In theory you may be
able to complete entire projects yourself.
In reality you may find it to be an infeasible
task; having 10 people gathering 10 samples
each is more practicable nevertheless. You
may also find that you do not have all the
skills required to complete all the nodes
in the project.
»Keep the world from falling
apart. The colony tower is no longer the strong
structure it used to be; it was constructed
to terraforming a planet, not housing a
colony. The harsh environment causes the
outer walls to crack, the extensive use
of power required to maintain life support
causes electrical systems to superheat and
short-circuit, and so on. Left unattended
damage will spread, causing more systems
to fail or causing larger, more serious
cracks in the structure.
Unnecessary to say, repairing these hazards
has top-priority and people making those
repairs are generously awarded with Access
Points. Thus, several colonists make themselves
useful as damage controllers.
Repair jobs are issued by either TAU or
by administrators in charge of the area
or the machinery. When accepting a repair
job you "log it", tagging it as
being carried out.
In order to complete a repair job, you need
the appropriate skills, equipment, resources
and the necessary time.
»Assure day to day survival - and lead the way to the future.
Alien spores and substances
get into the colony through cracks and air
vents almost on a daily basis causing illness
and corrosions. The safety and future of
the colony depends on keeping potential
hazards at bay and finding new and effective
use for the limited resources. In other
words, the colony is in need of effective
research.
Research is divided into "field research"
(gathering data) and "lab research"
(analysing and processing the data). Field
researchers use items, while lab researchers
use a variety of machines. No matter which
you prefer you will often find that research
is in high demand amongst TAU, NPCs or even
other players.
»Join like-minded colonists
and come closer to your common goals.
Sharing political beliefs,
visions for the future, or general views
of life have made many colonists form rings.
Rings are social networks, by many colonists
viewed as a large family or a trusted circle
of friends. Any colonist can establish a
ring and thereby define the purpose and
goals of the ring.
The advantages of ring affiliation are many.
Colonists in a ring can share knowledge,
items and access to facilities. A science-oriented
ring might offer you access to a lot of
research items and as a member you might
have priority access to a series of coveted
lab machines.
On the other hand rings often work at cross-purposes.
If one ring works towards increasing the
lab space capacity of a cluster, another
may work towards increasing living space
or production capacity in the same cluster.
Ring clashes are often most apparent before
votes, where either side tries to find favour
for their views amongst other colonists.
You can be related to only one ring at a
time. When joining a new ring, your membership
of your previous ring is automatically cancelled.
Ring membership is taken very seriously
by many colonists thus switching ring is
often frowned upon.
You may of course be with out ring affiliation
if you like.
»Seed might have those iron bars
you want. However, it would be nice
to move ahead in your lab queue...
There is a
shortage of resources in the colony
and an abundance of opinions on how
to use them. This opens up for a lot
of trading activity. Although all trade
ought to go through Administrators several
colonists have figured out that it is
easier and quicker to bypass the official
trade routes.
Literally, every thing is tradable:
Resources, items, access to facilities,
votes, favours, etc.
Metal Black, this is another MMO unveiled by NCSOFT. Metal Black bases on classic games such as Commandos and Contra, personally I think its style is more similar with Kill Zone. By the addition of growing system firstly in Action Shooting game...
As being a GunZ vet for 4 years and playing S4 League on the korean version, I will CLARIFY everything being a reasonable person and looking at this "argument" from multiple points of view...
'The Divine Tears' is the strongest source of power ever known to the world. A fist-size red jewel in the shape of a heart, it is the treasure the greatest treasure ever known to the world and is said to possess mystical powers of the entire universe."...
Is it hard for you to count the slow days for the Runes of Magic's CBT? Have some of you even prayed the closed beta comes soon? Today you wil be relieved a little from the agonizing wait. The CBT OF Runes of Magic eventually comes...
Battlefield Heroes is a brand new Play 4 Free online game developed by EADICE studio from the people that brought you the multi-million selling Battlefield 1942 and Battlefield 2. It's a fun cartoon-style shooter which caters to players of all...
