Facts
Project Title: Anthador Ultima Online RP-PvP Shard
Project Status: Completed (Shut down)
My Job: Co-Founder, Administrator & Creative Direction
- Concept/Story Lead
- Player Support Lead
- World & City Design (Logard)
- Web-Design and Programming
Project Description
Anthador was a Freeshard for the MMORPG Ultima Online using the RunUO Emulator. After being GameMaster and Administrator on other Ultima Online Shards for over five years, we finally wanted to create our own personal vision of Ultima Online.
In the very beginning, it was just a two-man project, including Draxx, a fellow GameMaster and myself. When we started designing the world of Anthador, our focus was on creating a small but intense and realistic “low fantasy” world. While there was magic and monstrous creatures such as Ettins, Orcs and Dragons, we tried hard to stay away from what we considered as inappropriate clichés and concentrate of the dirty every day life of the average fantasy character. There were no races or classes, as we believe that they rather limit the freedom of players (and role play in general).
Instead of limiting player choices by putting them into a rigid system of classes, every character was able to perform any skill or ability, just as in the original Ultima Online. To prevent imbalances, such as plate armor wearing arch wizards, we introduced a number of attributes to amour and weapons, that affected movement speed, mana regeneration and spell power. Thus, while it was technically possible to play a mage that wears a heavy plate armor, s/he would require huge amounts of strength, in order to wear the armor.
Since the overall stats were limited, more strength means less intelligence which means less mana, and less spell damage. Even more, the iron of the armor would further reduce the amount of mana and interfere with the process of spell casting, so that a mage in leather or cloth armor would be way more efficient than a plate wearing mage. This is one example of how we tried to move the decision towards the players: Instead of saying “No, you are a mage, you cannot wear plate armor!”, all we said was “Go ahead, try it out!” and let the players realize that while possible, it might come at a high cost.
Factions & Player Driven Politics
Another aspect we wanted to focus on was politics. We tried to create what we called “Social Darwinism”. There were three main factions, represented by the three main cities of Logard, Sakar and Jal Marr. Each city represented a set of attributes and professions:
- Logard is the city of the Mountains, home of Miners, Blacksmiths and the most experienced and heavy armored infantry and cavalry. However, they shun the use of magic (so you could basically call them Dwarves). Logard also resembles some of the greatest empires of the real world and it’s politics and structure can be compared to the roman empire and is somewhat equally hated and feared throughout Anthador for its bold and conquerors ambitions.
- Sakar once was a logardian outpost but over time grew to it’s own importance. It is the city of the Woods and Forrests, of Rangers, Archers and Scouts. There you can find the best leather armor and bows and they have a strong understanding of guerrilla warfare, mostly because of their history and rebellion against the logardian suppressors. It barely has any noticeable politics, apart from trying to maintain a low profile and fighting on either sides, Logard and Jal Marr.
- Jal Marr is the oldest known center of civilization throughout Antahdor, located in the middle of the vast southern desert. It’s tall sandstone walls provide cover for the numerous magic academies and alchemists laboratories. Jal Marr is the arcane metropole of Anthador and any mage or wizard or even necromancer with ambitions sooner or later ends up in (or in the vast tunnels and labyrinths under) Jal Marr. It’s politics are rather shady and deceptive and it is said that the Arch Wizard (the political leader of Jal Marr) employs a whole army of assassins and spies. While once befriended to Logard, the two largest cities now lie in constant conflict.
- Weidenblick is more farmer’s village than town and settled in the fertile heart of Anthador, where all the trade routes meet. While it tries to establish a somehow stable political stand, it is torn between loyalties for Logard and Jal Marr.
New players always start in the town of Weidenblick, which is also considered the “Newbie Area”. There they can meet new players and encounter their first bandits and undead minions. As they develop their character’s roles, players are encouraged to join one of the three larger factions, which best represents their profession and characteristics. However, they can always stay loyal to their hometown or even go their totally own way. It was our mantra never to interfere with player politics, as long as they followed the basic ruleset, employed on our server. We wanted players to create their own social structures - encouraged and inspired by the first political scenery that we introduced - and to solve all in-game conflicts with in-game solutions. This meant that there was little to no GM interference or other acts of arbitrating out of the game context, but instead players were encouraged to form their own militia, police forces and law enforcement.
The End
After two years of development and alpha/beta status, our team had grown from two to 15 people, divided into focus groups that were responsible for World Design, Concept and Story, Quests, Player Support, Programming, and Account- and Guild Management.
We reached the phase, where all planned features were implemented and the game world was completed as planned.The Faction system worked, our tweaks to the original Ultima Online systems were balanced. All towns and cities were built, all Dungeons filled with Creeps and we stared looking forward to implement new ideas and systems.
However, Ultima Online has come to high age and our player numbers were dwindling. We always saw Anthador as a small and rather homely server, so we never had large player numbers. But as the world stayed empty for a few months (except the last brave players who adventured alone), we decided to shut down the server.
Thanks to GM Vanth, who still hosts a backup copy of the old Anthador Website.
Additional Information & Links
- The History of Anthador (german)
