The intent of Britain Knights is a very simple Ultima-like sandbox adventure game...kind of in the Spirit of the original AOL version of Neverwinter Nights, but also with a Ultima VII feel. It takes place on Britannia but has additional islands to the east so the world is pretty large.
You make a hero seeking fame and fortune and just adventure wherever you want and do whatever you want. The base is RunUO 2.2 but it was all kind of stripped back to how Ultima Online was originally released in terms of the thematic and feeling of the game back then. Alot of the skills were stripped right out of the game like begging, tasting, etc. It is just down do the very raw and necessary components to make an adventurer archetype (fighter, wizard, thief, bard). I have about 400 monsters. I snagged Xork's magic-spell-casting-item code and implemented that for potential magical items. Anything AOS related is removed so if anyone remembers wanting to find a katana of vanquishing will kind of remember the environment back then.
Because of Xork's EXAMINE code, I have descriptions for pretty much every item so new players can see what items are for. I also set it so when you buy items from vendors...you can hover over the items for sale and see this EXAMINE text. I think this, with the new HELP system I am writing...will give new players enough info to play.
I did keep some AOS elements though. When I started this project...and set it backward to an older UO version...I forgot that you had to single click everything back then. What a pain in the ass that was. So I kept the AOS "hover" code so you can hover over items and quickly see it is a katana of vanquishing...for example.
I kept the new house management system with the lock downs and such...but the custom housing code is ripped out. I took all of R&R's houses and put them into Britain Knights so there is a nice selection for players. I have it set where players can build a home in town if they find space for one.
I kept the crafting system of today as it just works better. People may remember that back in the original days...it was a small menu where you had right/left arrows to scroll the items to make and you picked them. I swiped Xork's crafting windows code to show stats on items that you may want to make. There are NO crafting skills in the game like other skills. They are simply trades in categories of carpentry, smithing, mining, etc...that have a value based on STR/DEX/INT and if you are in a certain guild. Like Ultima VII, crafting in Britain Knights is just a "something you can do if you want" element of the game.
With that stated...the game has zero concern or desire to promote the "meta". It behaves like it did in 1997...where you can EXAMINE a weapon and it will simply state "you need bludgeoning to use it and it can cause a good amount of damage on opponents" ... or something like "it has poison smeared on it". Just a vague description of things with other descriptions like "good condition" or "poor protection" or "well made".
I used old fashion traps that you can see in the dungeon if your eye catches them...like floor spikes, saw traps, swinging axes, or darts that come from a panel on the wall.
There is going to be a series of optional quests if one wants to become an avatar and/or collect runes and such. There are no rune stones you can buy to MARK, but instead it is setup like the old Ultima games where you find runes for the shrines...where those can be marked. So players may do a couple of the quest lines to get some runes for themselves...but they may not continue the pursuit to become the avatar. These quests are really simple...go here...search there...find this...type quests. Nothing super elaborate. There is no virtue system to become the avatar...as it will just work off the karma value. I won't gate keep anyone from going into any dungeon...meaning...I won't force players to find items to get through a door. Anyone can go anywhere and fight anything.
