By The Baron
Domo Oregano fellow dungeon keepers! In case you were wondering, that mean’s “Hello dungeon keepers” in Japanese. I don’t know much Japanese, but I’m trying to learn so I can watch all my favorite shows without those icky fansubs :( But to the business at hand, which I’m sure you’ve all been drooling for: More info about Quest For Time! My previous articles have all been rousing successes, generating a lot of fanmail for me, and also a few letters from party poopers (luckily I was able to put them in their place). In this column I will be discussing the battle system I’ve come up with for Quest for Time. Enjoy!

Part 1 - Quest For Time
Part 2 - More Ideas
Part 2 - Reader Mail
Part 3 - Battles




One of the things that excites me most about creating a revolutionary MMO is coming up with the battle system. My ideas stem from the amazing fighting seen in J.R. Tolkien’s Lord of The Rings films. Peter Jackson is simply the best director of all time, I hope to see him do a film version of the Silmarillion soon!

I know many of you were very disappointed when you played LOTRO (lord of the rings online for the ignorant) and found that the battle system was the same boring click-fest that Worlds of Warcraft provided. As I was playing that game I kept finding myself wishing that I could do some of the amazing battle moves which Mr. Tolkien wrote about in his books so many years ago. But instead I was left clicking the 1 2 3 4 buttons and clicking my mouse on crummy old wolves and killing trees. Last time I checked, trees did not fight (unrealistic anyone?).

Quest for Time will revolutionize battles in MMOs forever. The battles are not turn-based like Final Fantasy, and they are not dumb-based like Worlds Of Warcraft. Here are some features:

• All battles take place in real time. You can run around, slash anywhere you please, and cast (amazing) spells at any time using your Majics (unless you are a Dwerz, then watch out! Your Majics might backfire on you and singe your beard!)
  
  
  
  
  
• You have a “Special Moves Meter” which fills up slowly over time, and after it is full you will be able to execute Majic Moves, which are supermoves to decimate your enemies (more on these in a later section)
  
  
• Players have the ability to interact with every item in the world. They may swing from a tree branch and kick down enemies, throw rocks and rotten stumps, and even hold an enemy’s head underwater to drown him. Simply amazing.
  
  
• Eat the lush forest plants as powerups during a battle. Majic mushrooms make you grow to an enormous size and you can stomp your enemies (make my monster grooooww!), Herb plants restore your valuable lifeforce, and flameflowers allow you to breathe fire and toss fireballs at your foes!
  
  
  
  
  
• Some races have the ability to transform into a terrifying beast. Beasts grow in size and grow claws, and ban roar to frighten enemies and (literally) charm the pants off of female enemies. This is my personal favorite; I am a big fan of women

Along with these features, there are also no experience points as we know them. A bar or meter filling up to show how much you’ve fought is not at all realistic. In Quest for Time your experience is gauged by the expression on your characters face. A new player might battle with a scared expression on his face, but as he fights more he will begin to grow more confident. At the highest levels your character will fight while smiling, and when you gain a level your character shouts and winks at the screen to let you know to pick some new skills and stats.

Quest for time is not content to give players a few new skill points at each level. Every time you level up you will receive 400 skill points to allocate in each of these categories (there is no maximum point value):

Strength	How strong your character is
Spirit	How well your character fights
Endurance	How many hits you may take before giving up the goat
Intelligence	Governs your replies and retorts in battle. A character with high IN might have clever things to say when an enemy hits him
Vigor	Your character’s fighting spirit
Majic 1	How many Majic points you have
Majic 2	Each point you put in here doubles your current Majic 1 point score
Fear	How afraid you are of enemies,  more points equals more fear
Good	How good your character is
Evil	How evil your character is
Chaos	How often your character does crazy things
Perception	Shows how good your character can see. A character with high PER might spot a gold coin across the room with little effort
Luck	Duh, this is how lucky you are!

This section talks about the coolest moves you will ever see in a video game, Majic Moves. Majic moves are special moves your character can do when their “Special Moves Meter” fills up. These moves will leave you with your mouth wide open, but don’t expect to do them often. A Majic move becomes available only every 2 minutes.

Fruit Punch	When you activate this cleverly-named move, your character will punch an enemy so hard that they go flying and hit whatever is behind them. Imagine you punch an enemy and he flies back and lands in a wheelbarrow which rolls down hill and into oncoming traffic. You’d laugh for weeks.
Neck Chop	A simple but effective move, the Neck Chop follows from the amazing action star Steven Seagal’s Tae Kwon Do style of martial arts. You simply press a button and your character chops and enemies neck, knocking them out instantly.
Surf’s Up	Everyone cheered in the Lord of the Rings movies when the beautiful elf prince Legolas surfed down the stairs on his shield, shooting arrows as he went. The Surf’s Up move allows you to do this move anywhere at any time for free, just have a shield and a bow equipped and press the “S” key.
Kinfes in your Eye	This deadly move has your character toss a sharp knife in the enemy’s eye. Ouch!
Fat Man / Little Boy	In honor of the bombs that were dropped on the Japanese cities if Hiroshima and Tokyo, this move allows you to stop one bomb thrown at you by an enemy. Just activate the move and it protects you until a bomb is thrown.
Avoid the Roids	You raise your hand to the sky and call 1 2 or 4 asteroids from space to crush your enemies. The number of asteroids is dependant on your Fear statistic.
Joker’s Wild	This move will have your enemies rolling in the aisles! When you activate this funny power your character will come out with a hilarious one-liner in the tradition of legendary comedians Carrot Top and Jim Varney! This move is based on your Intelligence score.

I thought I would end on a lighter note and include some of the great one-liners that the Joker’s Wild Majic Move can cause to occur. Some of these can be tear-jerkers, so be sure to have a tissue handy!

• (An enemy comes at you with a sword) “My sword is bigger than your sword!” (you knock the sword away)
  
  
• “Have a nice TRIP (You trip an enemy), see you next fall!”
  
  
• (Your character puts his sword so it appears to be sticking out of his crotch) “SHHHWIIINNGG!”
  
  
  
  
• “All your baseballs are belong to us” (Take out a bat and hit a baseball at the enemy for an instant kill)
  
  
• “You’re even uglier than you look!” (when fighting an ugly enemy like an ork)
  
  
• (Pick up some rocks and throw them at the enemies) “We-will-we-will ROCK YOU!”
  
  
  
  
  
• (when fighting a female (or gay) enemy) “Hey baby how about we go back to my place and have a kissing battle!”
  
  
• (Cast a spell to turn the enemy into a Weiner dog) “You’re the man now DOG!”
  
  
• (Walk up to the enemy and point to his shirt) “Hey, you’ve got something on your cloak. (Then when he looks, flick his nose causing the Berserk effect on him)
  
  
  
  
  
• (When playing as a Grobot) “Go go gadget copter” (Punch the enemy)

As usual, don’t be shy to write in to the site with questions and comments about my article and the editor will be kind enough to forward them to me so I can post a reply here. Thanks for adventuring with me!