by Elifia Wed May 29, 2013 5:52 pmAfter all the shameless plugging of Dark Souls on their forums, I figured it'd only be fair to send some people from here to there as well. Trials of Ascension is definitely not a game for everyone, but you guys are the Dark Souls community, so I know you can appreciate niche games 
http://trialsofascension.com/
Note: This is a game still very early in development. It's gonna be on Kickstarter later.
Basically, this game is what one might consider the 'Pure Sandbox MMO'. It's a low-magic fantasy setting. The main goal of the game would probably be considered survival. There's a great many ways to die (including starvation), and you only have limited lives (currently set at 100), so die too often and you'll die permanently.
Cities
You'll be able to build cities, or rather, settlements. You can build loads of things into your settlements, like taverns, arenas, etc. Settlements are a great way to provide reprieve from the dangerous world. Settlements can also wage war with other settlements. Taking over a settlement can take days or even weeks. It takes a lot of preparation, as the defending settlement will always have the advantage.
Innovations
One awesome feature is 'Innovations'. Basically, as someone spends a lot of time doing something, they can learn an innovation. They will now have unique access to this innovation until they teach it to someone else or until someone manages to interrogate it out of them (which is very difficult). Innovations can range from anything as small as figuring out how to make bread more nutritious to learning to be able to build ships and traverse the seas. Basically, the Innovations system allows the devs to organically and continually expand the game.
Combat
Combat is most likely going to resemble something like Mount & Blade or Chivalry (close enough to Dark Souls considering it's an MMO, right?). Perspective will be 3rd-person. It will also be pretty difficult. A simple bear will probably own the **** out of you, so let's not even mention the dreaded Mawktopus. Also note that there's no way to tell how strong your opponent is until you actually start fighting them. That feeble-looking hermit might actually be a master-swordsman. PvP is free for all, but due to how difficult it already is to survive, it's probably best not to start picking random fights. Not to mention that witnesses (including the victim) can report you either at the victim's home settlement or whatever settlement you are in, marking you for kill-on-sight.
Magic
There is magic. Anyone can learn magic. However, almost everyone will perma-die before learning their first spell. Once you do manage to learn a couple of spells though, you can become very powerful.
To learn magic you have to gather a lot of hard-to-get materials to create a spell-book.
After that you must go hunting for arcane energy. When you find arcane energy, your mind will be transferred to some kind of different dimension or something, and you have to fight the arcane energy, which is very difficult to defeat, and you will have zero help from other players. Your physical body however will still be present in the real world, vulnerable as ***.
After you have defeated enough arcane energy, you'll be able to track down arcane creatures. It's basically the same concept as arcane energy, only arcane creatures are even more powerful, and if they defeat you they mark you. When this happens, the arcane creature will be able to summon you and force you to help them whenever they get into a fight with a different player or a different arcane creature.
Once you have defeated enough arcane creatures, you'll learn a random spell based on what type of spell-book you have. You can modify aspects of your spells, like for example the size of the area of effect.
Crafting
This will be very in-depth. Take for example a simple sword. First you'll need a bunch of materials. Throw them in the forge to smelt yourself some metal. Now use that metal to form the basic shape of a sword. You will be able to decide how much time you want to put into this. The more time you put into it, the greater the quality of your sword. Now that you have the basic shape, you can temper the blade to make it tougher. Again you can decide how much time to put into this. After tempering you can sharpen the blade. Again you can decide how much time to put into this. As you become better at forging sword, you can decide to specialise in one of these techniques. If someone else specialises in a different technique, you can work together to make even better swords. You can also learn innovations that add even more steps into this process.
Races
As for the player races, for now there's only humans planned, but eventually there will be a lot of different races, including dragons. These different races will feature totally different gameplay. For example, the dragon will start as a hatchling, and you'll have to try and grow into a full-sized dragon by hunting stuff for food and avoiding the humans who will no doubt try to kill you before you reach adulthood.
I think I'll leave it at this, but there is so much more information to find on their website. If I've sparked your interests, check their features page: http://trialsofascension.com/features
Check their FAQ: http://trialsofascension.com/faq
And after that, maybe join the forums: http://trialsofascension.com/forum/
http://trialsofascension.com/
Note: This is a game still very early in development. It's gonna be on Kickstarter later.
Basically, this game is what one might consider the 'Pure Sandbox MMO'. It's a low-magic fantasy setting. The main goal of the game would probably be considered survival. There's a great many ways to die (including starvation), and you only have limited lives (currently set at 100), so die too often and you'll die permanently.
Cities
You'll be able to build cities, or rather, settlements. You can build loads of things into your settlements, like taverns, arenas, etc. Settlements are a great way to provide reprieve from the dangerous world. Settlements can also wage war with other settlements. Taking over a settlement can take days or even weeks. It takes a lot of preparation, as the defending settlement will always have the advantage.
Innovations
One awesome feature is 'Innovations'. Basically, as someone spends a lot of time doing something, they can learn an innovation. They will now have unique access to this innovation until they teach it to someone else or until someone manages to interrogate it out of them (which is very difficult). Innovations can range from anything as small as figuring out how to make bread more nutritious to learning to be able to build ships and traverse the seas. Basically, the Innovations system allows the devs to organically and continually expand the game.
Combat
Combat is most likely going to resemble something like Mount & Blade or Chivalry (close enough to Dark Souls considering it's an MMO, right?). Perspective will be 3rd-person. It will also be pretty difficult. A simple bear will probably own the **** out of you, so let's not even mention the dreaded Mawktopus. Also note that there's no way to tell how strong your opponent is until you actually start fighting them. That feeble-looking hermit might actually be a master-swordsman. PvP is free for all, but due to how difficult it already is to survive, it's probably best not to start picking random fights. Not to mention that witnesses (including the victim) can report you either at the victim's home settlement or whatever settlement you are in, marking you for kill-on-sight.
Magic
There is magic. Anyone can learn magic. However, almost everyone will perma-die before learning their first spell. Once you do manage to learn a couple of spells though, you can become very powerful.
To learn magic you have to gather a lot of hard-to-get materials to create a spell-book.
After that you must go hunting for arcane energy. When you find arcane energy, your mind will be transferred to some kind of different dimension or something, and you have to fight the arcane energy, which is very difficult to defeat, and you will have zero help from other players. Your physical body however will still be present in the real world, vulnerable as ***.
After you have defeated enough arcane energy, you'll be able to track down arcane creatures. It's basically the same concept as arcane energy, only arcane creatures are even more powerful, and if they defeat you they mark you. When this happens, the arcane creature will be able to summon you and force you to help them whenever they get into a fight with a different player or a different arcane creature.
Once you have defeated enough arcane creatures, you'll learn a random spell based on what type of spell-book you have. You can modify aspects of your spells, like for example the size of the area of effect.
Crafting
This will be very in-depth. Take for example a simple sword. First you'll need a bunch of materials. Throw them in the forge to smelt yourself some metal. Now use that metal to form the basic shape of a sword. You will be able to decide how much time you want to put into this. The more time you put into it, the greater the quality of your sword. Now that you have the basic shape, you can temper the blade to make it tougher. Again you can decide how much time to put into this. After tempering you can sharpen the blade. Again you can decide how much time to put into this. As you become better at forging sword, you can decide to specialise in one of these techniques. If someone else specialises in a different technique, you can work together to make even better swords. You can also learn innovations that add even more steps into this process.
Races
As for the player races, for now there's only humans planned, but eventually there will be a lot of different races, including dragons. These different races will feature totally different gameplay. For example, the dragon will start as a hatchling, and you'll have to try and grow into a full-sized dragon by hunting stuff for food and avoiding the humans who will no doubt try to kill you before you reach adulthood.
I think I'll leave it at this, but there is so much more information to find on their website. If I've sparked your interests, check their features page: http://trialsofascension.com/features
Check their FAQ: http://trialsofascension.com/faq
And after that, maybe join the forums: http://trialsofascension.com/forum/
