General
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Who develops Requia Online?
The computer game Requia Online was developed by me (aka Oliver aka Lord Devil) and is set in Aurelis - a fantasy world, which was mainly created by my wife (author of the fantasy series Requia). I myself have been a software developer for a European company for 20 years, but it has always been my dream to create my own online game. Driven by the high quality of e.g. Blizzard games - I never wanted to create just a small indie game but made it my goal to create a simplified version of a MMORPG/TCG which is very demanding but still feasible as a small team. Together with my wife I hopefully succeeded with Requia Online. -
How long has Requia Online been in development now?
The first concrete concepts emerged at the beginning of 2017 and since mid-2017 I have been working on them regularly in my spare time, so to speak. -
When will it be ready?
Probably never
- since this is a ever changing and growing world - there will be no end to it, as you are used to in normal single player games. As long as there are players who like to play it and support us, RO will continue to grow even after the release.
About the game
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What makes Requia Online special?
Requia Online not only combines one of the most popular genres, such as collectible card games and role-playing games, but also manages to break the barrier of real-time card games. Most TCG games are turn-based and thus require a relatively large amount of patience on the player’s part. In an online game, of course, this can be somewhat of a hindrance. However, since Requia Online is strongly oriented towards MMORPGs - it was important to develop a fluid and fast combat system - which uses the strategic advantages of collectible card games but at the same time is not hindered by its static. On mobile devices, everything has to work quickly and easily, and this is exactly where this gameplay principle lends itself particularly well. -
How can you imagine the real-time combat in Requia Online?
In Requia Online, as in any TCG, cards are shuffled at the beginning - but instead of being picked off turn by turn - they move from left to right - along a path - and you use the cards you need at the moment. Besides the direct attack cards (based on force) which are spoken immediately, spells or companion cards require mana and must be activated on the available summon slots before you can use them. One-time item cards such as healing potions are also available … however, these cards disappear from your deck immediately after they are used and are not replenished (if there are enough left) until after the battle. When all cards of a deck have been used - they are shuffled again and all cards which are not in action can be used again. The battle lasts until the opponent or you are defeated. -
What is the RPG component all about?
As in all common RPG games, you have a character - which can be improved by using equipment cards. The attributes of the character influence the cards used. For example, attack speed describes how fast the cards move across the screen. Attack and defense values define the basic damage a card can do. Each card is just an ability based on your character’s stats. So you can think of cards like skills in RPGs/MMOs games. A card (skill) is thus influenced by the weapon and armor worn. -
Are there classes?
The big advantage of Requia Online is that it doesn’t require typical classes, since everyone is free to decide on their deck and equipment cards and thus can choose an individual play style for themselves. So a healer will mainly use healing and enhancement spells, while a fighter tries to equip his deck with as much physical bang as possible and a wizard invests everything in damage spells, debuffs and possible companions … ! Furthermore, there are no levels or stages and thus everyone is free to switch between all roles at any time just by adjusting his ability and equipment cards. (!) -
Arel there levels?
I myself am not a big fan of the now very exhausted linear level systems and it would limit such a free game very much. That’s why in Requia Online all attributes of a character are only defined by his equipment cards and not by an imaginary level! This has the advantage that you can play every imaginable role with a single character.
Of course, every RPG game needs a certain progress - that’s what makes those games so appealing. So in RO every player has a rank. This rank is determined by the equipment cards used. In the course of the game you will get newer and better equipment cards, which will then increase this rank and thus give a rough overview of the basic strength and experience of a player. Nevertheless, the equipment cards will always bring only a limited game advantage. -
What are the current features of Requia Online?
In addition to exploring the world, killing monsters and powerful bosses, fighting through dungeons - alone or with a friend, taking some duels or chasing some monster highscores etc. there is a lot of other activity you can take part in. For example you can craft your own item and equipment cards, you can complete various quests or just trade with other players via either the auction house or directly from mobile to mobile. You can also take part in the weekly events or upgrade your duplicate cards and collect valuable resources in order to create even more cards… -
How can you imagine exploring the world on your cell phone?
The world itself is a simple bird’s-eye view map - you can interact with objects there by tapping on them. So you don’t play a character directly, but you find treasure chests and resources or kill monsters by selecting the objects and interacting with them. When certain monsters are killed - a part of the shadow fades from the world and you keep discovering new monsters and areas. To create the feeling of a real online world, there are rare, strong and special monsters at certain times, which will also disappear as soon as they are killed by other players, or rare treasure chests & resources will appear, which should not be missed
In addition, there are dungeons to explore and other challenges in the future, which will be added gradually throughout the game. -
What about collecting and crafting? Can you also make cards yourself?
The map contains countless locations, which are equipped with various resources. There you can invest work points to collect various resources and then process them using the crafting system. This is mainly so that you can be productive during non-active game times. There are 5 different gathering skills and 6 different crafting classes - which you can improve by using them. The higher a gathering skill, the more resources you can store before you have to collect them and the higher your crafting class, the faster you can produce and the higher is the chance to get a critical success. -
How do you actually get the cards?
You get your first ability cards at the beginning of the game in the tutorial. So that you have a playable deck as a beginner, all players get the same cards in advance from us. To grow your own deck, you can either buy card packs for real money, or earn them regularly through daily quests, the event system or by chasing achievements. These card packs then include 6 random cards as used from other trading card games. The first card edition Taresh I now includes 274 different ability cards. -
Can you trade cards with other players?
To make sure that social interaction is not neglected in RO, there is another unique feature that allows the direct exchange (face2face) of cards with other players. After all, trading, as already included in the name, is a core component of a „trading card“ game.
In my past as a player, I always saw the biggest problem that free trading was fuelling the third party market and players often used a lot of real money to buy items and other advantages from illegal trading sites. These are then easily traded ingame via the trade window. Almost every MMORPG is suffering by this problem nowadays and there are very few publishers who have done something about it. Most of the time their measures lead to enormous restrictions in gameplay etc.
So in Requia Online you will only be able to exchange cards from person to person. That means you can exchange cards and coins with your friends without any problems, but only from person to person. This is realized by a sophisticated barcode system, with which 2 players can easily connect with each other via cell phone (camera and barcode). Thus, the basic principle of a trading card game is promoted, while the use of illegal third-party sites is made much more difficult.
In addition, it is now possible to also trade globally via the secure auction house under strict rules to get valuable equipment, item, resource and skill cards, or to earn a few coins. -
The game is Free2Play, so what about Pay2Win?
I know that this is a very difficult but also important topic. So I have long thought about how I can take the right path in RO to be able survive financeially, but on the other hand to offer the players a fair environment. The first step is that I clearly separate ingame currency (coins) and real money currency (crystals) ! Players will be able to buy card packs with the crystals (as usual in a trading card game) and they will have a larger selection of cards and duplicate cards faster. But to improve these cards, these players also need ingame coins. Moreover, equipment and item cards can only be acquired in active combat (as loot) or while collecting and crafting, so it is not possible to gain huge advantages with unlimited funds. These players have to play the game primarily to get ahead !
The same is true for crafting - you can bypass the crafting time by using crystals - but since you can’t speed up the mining of resources - it is also ensured that you can’t get an unfair advantage by using real money.
Apart from that there are a few other ways to show me your support - e.g. by uploading your own avatar picture with crystals or by replenishing your lives faster etc …
In a time where Free2Play is almost expected and games with monthly fees are a rarity - I think this is the fairest way for both sides. -
What about cheaters?
The big advantage of an online game is that I can check all the data on the server. Since I myself know how much cheats can harm an online game, I have dealt with this issue very strongly. Even though many people think that you shouldn’t waste too much work on avoiding cheats (before a game has reached a certain size) - I think that you can’t invest enough here preventively. That’s why I played through many possible scenarios from the start and included various cheating detections on the server side. Besides exact logging of fights, transactions and other important data - I will always work on offering a cheat-free game experience. If there are any violations of the rules, you can be sure that I will not show any mercy - there is a zero tolerance policy on this.
Technology
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What hardware is supported?
Currently we are supporting iOS and Android. Windows tablets/PCs are also planned in the near future. The game is optimized for tablets and cell phones with a wide variety of screen formats. -
Network
Since the game is fully online a constant internet connection is required. Due to the fact that most commercial network engines are very generic, I decided to develop my own network engine. This engine was optimized to use as little data as possible and to reduce the load on the server. Several hours of playtime don’t even need as much data as a single streamed piece of music. The bandwidth requirement is also minimal and amounts to less than 16Kbps. -
Server
Just because this is an indy game, the server quality should not suffer of course :). The servers are hosted in a cloud and the database is also replicated geographically separated. Furthermore, backups are made every hour.