SAGA Unleashes its First Expansion: the Undead…

SAGA has released a new faction for the Brotherhood, with over 20 new units and an expansion to the SAGA world map.

The first expansion to the SAGA MMO RTS (by Silverlode Interactive) world adds 17 new Undead troops and 6 spells to the core unit set and enables the Undead as a playable race. The Undead are a fearless faction, featuring such powerful units as the self-regenerating Undead Dragon, and the Lich, who dominates with his Terror ability, which breaks the morale of even the most resilient foes. The Undead expansion also adds new quests for players trying the new race, as well as a number of new quests advancing the SAGA storyline for all races and factions.

SAGA has an ever-developing storyline, with new quests and content added every other week; each faction has a distinctive play style and back story. In the near future, Silverlode will implement an innovative story system, where players’ choices will affect and determine the direction and events of the ongoing saga.

Here’s a summary of the storyline so far:

With the unleashing of the Undead, SAGA has advanced to the Third Age. When SAGA first launched in March ‘08, the five factions were at perpetual massive war, every faction for itself. In the Second Age, the Elves, Dwarves, and Giants formed an allegiance called The Order, determined to wipe out the darker factions…

The Orcs and Dark Elves were thus compelled to form their own blood pact, known as the Brotherhood. Outnumbered and under attack, the Brotherhood formed the Shadow, a dark society, who devotedly schemed to loosen the bonds of an Elder God, (Goth Azul, the God of Death), from within his Underworld prison, to join them against the Order. Though not yet freed, Goth Azul was strengthened enough for the dead to rise again, and the Undead have now joined the Brotherhood, restoring the balance. The Third Age has dawned.

The saga story will unfold as new quests and game features are added every week or two. Be a part of the saga as it continues…

Here's a small glimpse at the Undead:

Abomination - Rare Special: (passive) Abomination has a +100% AR, +100% Damage, and +100% DR against infantry.

Name - Rarity Special: (passive) Bone Wagons have a +100% AR, +100% damage, and +50% DR against mounted units.

Deathbringer - Rare Special: Plague Shot - Enemy units in target radius (15m) suffer -50% to attack and movement speed for 20 seconds. Cooldown: 30 seconds.

Diabolist - Uncommon Special: Balefre - Units in target radius (15m) suffer 20-30 damage per Diabolist. Cooldown: 90 seconds.

Forsaken Rider - Uncommon Special: Forsaken Charge - Unit gains +50% movement speed and +50% damage for 30 seconds. Cooldown: 90 seconds.

Forsaken Warrior - Uncommon Special: Regeneration - Forsaken Warriors gain 40 - 50 hit points. Cooldown: 60 seconds.

Humongous - Uncommon Special: Cleave - Unit gains +200% AR and does +200% damage for 10 seconds. Cooldown: 60 seconds.

Lich - Rare Special: Fear - Unfriendly units in target radius (25m) suffer -100 morale and -15% movement speed for 15 seconds. Cooldown: 30 seconds.

Necromancer - Uncommon Special: Mending - Friendly troops in target radius (25m) heal 45-50 hit points per Necromancer. Cooldown: 120 seconds.

Shadow Dragon - Rare Special: Unholy Reversion - Shadow Dragon gains 600-1000 hit points and suffers -25% AR for 30 seconds. Cooldown: 90 seconds.

Undead Arbalister - Uncommon Special: Poison Bolt - Target unit suffers -5% attack speed and -2% movement speed per Arbalister for 30 seconds. Cooldown: 90 seconds.

Undead Archer - Uncommon Special: Fell Shot - Target unit suffers 5-7 damage and -4% movement speed per Archer for 30 seconds. Cooldown: 60 seconds.

Undead Knight - Uncommon Special: Shadow Shift - Unit teleports up to 150m. Cooldown: 60 seconds.

Undead Pikeman - Uncommon Special: None Shall Pass - Pikemen and all nearby units (15m) are unable to move for 1 second per pikeman. Cooldown: 60 seconds.

Undead Raider - Uncommon Special: Cursed Volley - Enemy ranged units in target radius (30m) suffer -3% movement speed and -4% attack speed per Raider for 30 sec. Cool: 60 sec.

Undead Reaper - Uncommon Special: Dripping Wounds - Target unit suffers -5% DR per Reaper for 30 seconds. Cooldown: 75 sec.

Wight - Uncommon Special: Chilling Winds - Flying units in target radius (25m) suffer -6% DR and -12% movement speed per Wight for 30 seconds. Cooldown: 60 sec.

Creeping Dread - Uncommon Rank 1: 10 CP, Warm 30, Cool 120, Cost 25 Each troop in target radius (15m) suffers -25% movement speed for 30 seconds.

Earth Fire - Rare Rank 1: 25 CP, Warm 90, Cool 180, Cost 40 Unfriendly units in target radius (15m) suffer 15-25 damage every 3 seconds for 45 seconds.

Fell Trance - Rare Rank 1: 15 CP, Warm 45, Cool 180, Cost 15 Unfriendly target unit cannot move or attack for 9 seconds.

Horror - Rare Rank 1: 10 CP, Warm 0, Cool 120, Cost 20 Units in target radius (15m) suffer -50% AR for 30 seconds.

Regeneration - Uncommon Rank 1: 30 CP, Warm 30, Cool 120, Cost 30 Target friendly unit heals 35-60 hit points every second and suffers -50% AR for 30 seconds.

Visions of Death - Rare Rank 1: 20 CP, Warm 60, Cool 120, Cost 40 Units in target radius (15m) suffer -35 morale.

Just a quick update on the status of tournaments:

The public testing of tournaments has gone very well over the last couple of weeks. We'd like to thank all the players who have helped to test the tournaments, and we hope that you've had fun while helping us out. With the launch of the Undead, players have had a chance to play with the new Undead units, as well as against them.

Full-featured tournaments will be launching soon, complete with prizes for the winners. We hope that you will continue to enjoy the tournaments as you hone your skills against other players and learn to incorporate new strategies into your repertoires. Stay tuned for the full release of tournaments and for the addition of new tournament types in the future.

We sat down recently with Brad (one of our programmers), who, after weeks of research and coding, has implemented a new scripting language for SAGA's quests.

Up until present, our quest-writers had been limited to a very specific set of options when it came to quests. Brad explained, "I was kind of tired of the kill everything quests." It was hard for the quest writers to make quests that were very detailed.

So what did Brad look for in a scripting language? "I looked into several scripting languages, and liked the way in games like Unreal Tournament players can writes mods for the game and have a lot of control. I wanted quests to be more interactive."

Brad's favorite part of switching to a newer scripting language for quests? "Tower Defense." He created a sample quest where you receive peasants that have been given special abilities unlike anything yet seen in SAGA. Once you've positioned your 'tower builder' peasants, you can use their special ability to instantly create a tower in that location. Once you've built your towers, your towers must destroy all the enemy units who are trying to make it through your defenses to the other side.

"The new scripting system allows for quests to be far more interactive than before. The fourth Undead territory quest, for example, uses the new system. The boss' AR rating is something like 4000 to start with, but now the new system allows us to modify things on the fly. Every time you capture a temple, the boss' AR level decreases."

So will this change the way that players quest? "Definitely. Before, a lot of quests could be exploited by sending in flying units or something that the enemies can't attack easily. Now, quests will be able to adjust to what units a player has deployed, and deploy anti-air units, or whatever will counteract that player's units."

In addition to adding further complexity to quests, this scripting language may allow for a number of new features in the future. If the new scripting system works well enough, we may add the same scripting capabilities to other areas of the game. Some ideas being kicked around the office: giving units secondary special abilities, having items grant new abilities to the unit equipping it, modifying the terrain of a map, or maybe even abilities that players can train for.

We also caught up with some of the quest-writers, and asked them what they're most looking forward to doing with the new scripting engine.

Adam - It'll be nice to have a wider variety of quests. It'll be nice to go back a fix a lot of quests to get them closer to where they were originally intended to be. For example, the scripting will allow us to go back and randomize more elements of quests. Needle in a Haystack is a good example -- in Needle in a Haystack you have to find the right farm among a whole bunch of farms. Currently, the 'correct' farm is always in the same place, but with the scripting, we can randomize which farm is the correct one.

Carson - Better story-telling. Events in quests that make the game more engrossing. Currently, we're working on two questlines that each contain 35 quests ranging from level 1 to level 35 and tells the story of SAGA from a point of view that isn't just 'go kill things'. Also, the items may get upgraded, which means that loot would be way cooler.

Terrence - Better triggers. We can have areas of the map set to glow, and if you stand there at the right time, it could cast a spell, add a buff to your units, or even add buildings.

We know from experience that even slight changes to an MMO can be met with anger from the player community. When changes are made to virtual property, however, the backlash can be tenfold. For these reasons we are very carefully considering any changes to the spell system in SAGA, and would like to be completely transparent with our ideas and gather feedback from our players before taking the next big step. In the end, we strongly believe that a new spell system will be a vast improvement for the longevity of the game and gameplay in general.

Currently, spells have a CP (command point) cost, which takes away from the CP available to deploy troops. Many feel that adding ranks to a spell costs more CP without improving the spell's power enough to make it worthwhile. This results in players bringing multiple copies of the same spell rather than one of a higher level.

We are proposing to make significant changes to the spell system. We believe that changes will greatly increase the usefulness and desirability of spells. Obviously spells will need some rebalancing so that players with the resources to field 3 fireballs won't dominate the battlefield. We would like spells to add flavor and strategy to battles, rather than completely turning the tide as can sometimes happen when you’re hit with 3 ranked up fireballs in a row.

What are your thoughts? This evening we will be opening a thread in the suggestions forum to discuss the proposed spell system. Please stop by and give us your opinions and suggestions.

In the most recent patch released, many changes have been implemented. Here are a few highlights:

• The Undead have launched! Undead boosters are now redeemable, and the Undead can be used as nations and in tournaments.
• Many game elements have been expanded for the Undead (The Quest map and several GUI elements, for example).
• The load time for quests has been improved for many players.
• Weapon Upgrades are now known as Siege Gear.
• Several bugs have been squashed.

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