---

 

 

Happy Holidays from Petroglyph

A new look for the new year

 

It is my pleasure to present to you this new site and forums! What a ride in development it has been, but here we are. Everything is in place, though we will of course be tweaking and enhancing areas as the need comes up. Hopefully you will help us spot those areas that need additional attention.

 

Since you've had a few days to look over the site itself, I'm sure you have some immediate comments on many of the pages. The forums especially have had quite a bit changed. While content remains the same, here are some of the things we've adjusted in order to give you more tools for discussions:

 

* Upgraded the forums from IPB 2.x to IPB 3.x and added a new skin
* Adjusted some of the categories and forum locations
* Re-organized the Usergroups. We have cleared the "Community Leader" group. If you are a community leader, please see this thread.
* Implemented the new rules & guidelines

 

That's about it! Lots of changes in a few key areas, and many more on the way. I hope you like what we've developed for the community. We're all ears on your suggestions for improving the site and forums. Browser compatibilities and other small issues are bound to come up, so we appreciate everyone's patience while these are cleaned up.

 

We'll be sending out an official announcement and contests as soon as you've settled in. Happy Holidays from all of us at Petroglyph!

 

- Berek, Community Manager

 

---

Mytheon Q&A

The Syndicate asks about Mytheon

 

The Syndicate: "A good many of games with the "Free to Play" title don't do so well in the North American and European market. Why will Mytheon be an exception to what seems to be a fairly common trend these days?"

 

Petroglyph: Mytheon was built from the ground up as a high quality and production value title offering a full gaming experience, much as one would expect from a retail product. Most free to play games miss the mark on both of those points. The gameplay in Mytheon is quite different than the standard grind-and-level RPGs that flood the current the free-to-play space. You have stones at your command that can be used in combat to summon intimidating companions, structures, or power spells.

 

The Syndicate: "Can a player be competitive and really enjoy the game without participating in any micro-transaction purchases? If not, would the recommended level of purchases to be competitive be on par with a typical monthly subscription fee based game?"

 

Petroglyph: Anyone can play and enjoy Mytheon whether or not they buy anything in the game with real money. Most item loot that can be purchased has an equivalent item that can be found in the game's normal loot drop system. The majority of the items purchased offer convenience not advantage. For example you can buy Experience boosting potions, bag space, UI quick slots, resurrection potions, etc.

 

In addition, we want players who pay for things to be able to share their purchases, so most of the items that give boosts affect all members of your party as well. So really, you can play through the game without any money being spent at all, but if you want that little boost or want a different look, you can spend a few bucks and look cool without actually gaining an in-game advantage over other people who didn't spend money.

 

The Syndicate: "The mythology that Mytheon is based around is very rich and deep and should offer a wealth of interesting content for players. Can you tell us one particular encounter, quest, story line etc... that the development team thinks is a good example of what will compel players to do "just one more quest" or play "just one more hour"?"

 

Petroglyph: Much of the mythology of Mytheon is based on a "what would happen if...?" mentality. We take Mythology that people are familiar with and continue it past the end of the original story. One of the first major names players will run into is Arachne. Her pride caused her to run afoul of Athena and end up being transformed into the world's first spider. We continue the myth, allowing Arachne's rage to build, transforming her from the small spider weaver into a monstrous Shelob-type monster. When the war between mankind the gods begins, Athena offers Arachne freedom for her curse if she will eat all of the Stone Casters trying to make their way to Argos (our Greek-based hub city). The first encounter with Arachne is pretty startling for most people that have tried the game so far.

 

The Syndicate: "So logistically, how does the game work? When players think of an MMO they tend to think of a large world with thousands of players online milling around and doing stuff. When you venture out into the wild you may come across many players off doing their own thing or competing with you to achieve the same goals you are. Is that that the mechanic that Mytheon employs or is there more of a Diablo type feel where you can team up with buddies (or go solo) and adventure in basically your own instance of the world?"

 

Petroglyph: Mytheon is closer to a Diablo or Guild Wars setup. The hub cities will be open to all players and will serve as the social location to visit merchants and the broker house, meet with friends, form guilds, and get a group together to go out and adventure. From the hub, the group leader and three other players (or the solo player) can pick an adventure instance from the world map and travel to that location.

 

The Syndicate: "Collectability is a big aspect of Mytheon with terms such as "hundreds" of different power stones being possible to collect. One of the most common player complaints in games that revolve around "collecting stuff" is a lack of storage space for everything they find and want to keep. Will players be limited in how many they can own and store?"

 

Petroglyph: A player's stone collection is infinite in size and can contain multiple copies of every stone available in the game. Storage space for loot items is more limiting; you will be able to increase the bag space via micro-transaction. The free bag space will, of course, be large enough to not be an inconvenience for most.

 

The Syndicate: "Also on the topic of power stones, will there be a limit to how many a player can have easily accessible at once? If so, is it on par with the typical sized 'action bar' present in many MMOs?

 

Petroglyph: Your stone collection contains all of the stones you have found or purchased with your character. From this collection you select a battle set, which contains all the stones used in an adventure instance. When you enter an instance, six active stones are randomly activated from your battle set. You cast your stones from the six available, and as you cast one the slot is refilled from your battle set. Once your battle set is empty, it automatically renews. So at any one time you will have a set of six stones to choose from. You can have five stones active on the field at one time; stones "time out" eventually, the length depending on the type of stone (Structure, Companion and Spell).

 

The Syndicate: "The minimum specs for Mytheon are extremely reasonable and achievable by the vast majority of gamers today. Will the game play well at the minimum specs? Or will you be sacrificing a good deal of the 'eye candy' to get good playability at the low end?"

 

Petroglyph: Like any game, you will lose some of the bells and whistles as you get closer to the min spec. This will include things like shadows, particle effects, specular, anti-aliasing, etc. However, the game looks great at min spec anyway, and it will still play great!

 

Petroglyph: Thanks for the questions regarding Mytheon! To learn more about The Syndicate, head over to their official site.

 

 

---

 

Quest for Flight

The search for Nufai's missing mode
Article by: Strategist

 

Ah, Nufai. The sneaky, devious, traitorous, vile, not-so-little alien nightmare. Besides being so in the story, Nufai's character traits are also present in his in-game hero unit, as anyone who has used him to single handedly destroy an army of enemy units should know. However, this corrupt character had one other ability known only from a single render shown early on for promotion and a single post from the Petroglyph forums: Flight.

 

According to the (now retired) Adam Isgreen/Ishmael, Nufai at one time had the ability to take off and quickly soar through the air, avoiding all combat below. However, the initial play testers apparently did not like this ability so it met the chopping block... or so it would seem.

 

The first clue to the possibility of resurrecting this alternate mode came from Alien_Hero_Effects.XML, the file that (as its name suggests) contains all of the effects used by the Hierarchy's hero abilities. Within the section marked for Nufai was the following entry:

 

[10/23/2006] Phased Flight: while flying to a destination, Alien Hero Nufai goes into phase over a few seconds, becoming intangible. His sight range is reduced to almost nothing while flying phased. He must keep moving for several seconds before he will phase.

 

Exciting! Thanks to this entry and its attached effect, the key elements of this mode where now known. However, the ability would prove useless without an animation or model for the flight mode.

 

Luckily, the developers appear to have missed a few things while removing unused content, as a few quick searches through Universe at War's models with Mike.NL's alo viewer revealed another gem: a model by the name of Alien_Hero_Nufai_Air.ALO.

 

Armed with two key items, the alternate mode could now begin its reconstruction. First, one had to make a backup of the original "config" file (just in case) and locate Nufai's XML file via some sort of editing program (I myself use FinalBIG).

 

Now inside, one had to consider the best way to make the flight mode a reality. Universe at War already contains several units that can switch modes, such as the Founder or Orlok. However, the coding that transforms one unit into an entirely different one (such as that used by the Founder) is the easiest to work with since it allows one to create the alternate mode with little work involving somewhat tricky effect generators.

 

First, one has to make a copy of Nufai for the basic framework of the new aerial Nufai and paste it below the main entry in Nufai's XML (as seen in the Founder's XML). Then, one should replace the model with the air version, add the "variant of existing type" code (look at the Founder's XML for it) replace the "walk" locomotor with that of the Saucer or Dervish, and finally remove Nufai's "phase claw" and "consumption" abilities since the new model lacks attacking animations.

 

After the duplicate is created, copy the "switch type" coding from the Founder's XML and past it into the original Nufai and his flying clone (replacing the unit names as required). Then, set "Alien_Hero_Nufai" as the primary unit and replace the animation used by Founder with "none" for now. Finally, one will need to copy the transformation ability from either the Founder or Field Inverter and edit the unit names in the code again.

 

With luck, the above should result in a very happy Nufai that can take to the air on command and swap back again.

 

However, he will not phase as no effect generator was added. To make Nufai match the description salvaged from the Effects file, one must add an effect generator that will be in constant operation on the air-mode Nufai. Copy any effect generator coding you wish and set the duration to -1 and target "Self". Then, simply replace the effect name with AlienNufaiPhasedFlight and...tada!, you have a Nufai who is phased while flying (Note that this means he will die if he transforms while flying above something).

 

For further improvements, try adding animations for the transformation, changing the sound effects for the ability activation, adding a delay to the phasing effect, or perhaps even adding some sort of brand new attack to the aerial mode.

 

Well, what are you waiting for? Get out there and teach the Keeper of Secrets some new tricks!

 

- Strategist, Petroglyph Forum Moderator