Zeranoth Informer
Issue #2 - 12.12.2012
Alright! The 2nd issue of "Zeranoth Informer" is here.
Introducing the upcoming comic and giving a glimpse to the project's past.
In this issue:
- Project's past.
- The trope of kleptomaniac hero.
- MS Paint Adventures.
- Legends of Zeranoth comic
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1.Project's past.
Believe it or not, this project started nearly 10 years ago and took on many forms.
Although the concept of the multi-faceted "Land of Zeranoth" didn't take shape till 2009, its fantasy roots are evident.
It all started as a "Baldur's Gate" style RPG in your standard "Dungeons & Dragons 3.5" setting. The game told a story of a nameless hero raised by dragons, who would unite a land shattered into several islands.
It was scrapped in favor of an RTS game, in which opposing races waged war across multiple planes of existence (plus underground).
That was replaced with an action-RPG about a dragon slayer, who (through an elaborate assassination plot) ended up as an undead half-dragon himself. Awakened in the distant future, his quest was to travel back into the past to prevent his kingdom from falling.
However, that was replaced by a story of a student, who awakens in his burned-down school to fight his inner demons.
At this point, I burned out and experimented with writing - that's how the Land of Zeranoth came to be. The story (prequel to the previous one) was about a bard, who made a reckless bet in a tavern to go into a forbidden forest and was caught by thieves.
However, since the forest was haunted, they were spotted by the Night Shadow (a mysterious wraith knight) and forced to flee. The story centered around the bard and a professional monster hunter, who would go on a quest to unravel the mystery of said forest.
Not while ago, I decided to go back to making games.
I gathered what remained and created a new story about... gathering what remained and restoring a long-lost fantasy world.
Well, that turned out more "meta" than expected...
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2. The trope of kleptomaniac hero.
Another issue that caught my attention is nearly-omnipresent in RPGs.
At some point, we accepted looting dead bodies as normal.
I gave more thought to this and came up with few interesting solutions.
In the real world, the person's belongings are inherited by their relatives once the person dies. That would include tombs and other hidden complexes, which also belong to their family.
Yet RPGs predominantly reward players for grave robbing, looting and even breaking into other people's houses - why is that? In the previous issue, where I criticized "Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow", I pointed out that its frequent rewards to make the player keep on playing.
That's what I think looting is in RPGs - a cheap way of dispensing little addicting rewards for the player, to make him feel as if he accomplishes something.
Is there a way to avoid this tired old (and pottentially incriminating) trope? Sure, but they require more creativity than the regular approach.
Maybe something like in "The Elder Scrolls" series, where they mark stolen items, but mark any item taken from a corpse as stolen. Perhaps a greater emphasis on the player talking his way through to get the best gear to help him on his quest (making interacting with NPCs more meaningful). Burrowing items from NPCs might also be an option, but you wouldn't be able to sell it and would turn "stolen" when time is up. And of course enemy items could be cursed anyway (or have a built-in security measure like some police guns do) to prevent adventurers from using them.
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3. MS Paint Adventures.
People wrote often about "Homestuck" a lot on "TvTropes", so I decided to check it out myself.
Undoubtedly, it was part of a huge series of web comics (which I had to dig through) called "MS Paint Adventures".
My personal favorite was "Problem Sleuth", which involved 3 detectives trying to escape their offices, which lead to a surreal adventure.
Pretty much one of my biggest complaints about it was that it became too convoluted early on and spoiled "Homestuck" with its over-the-top scale.
Knowing that, its biggest enjoyment comes from keeping track of and trying to figure out the web comic's many puzzles.
It was was also quite enjoyable to see the struggle of the detectives, as exiting a building turned into an epic quest spanning entire worlds.
Nevertheless, (in comparison) the plot of "Homestuck" seems quite predictable (with its interface-based gimmicks) and has trouble taking off, compared to its predecessor.
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4. Legends of Zeranoth comic.
To be honest, I read quite a lot of web comics.
Aside from "MS Paint Adventures" and "Brawl in the Family", two particular deviantART comics caught my attention. Those are the intertwined Spyro fan comics - "The Guardians" (by DragonCid) and "Feuriah's Dawn" (by Weird Hyenas, formerly Wolf of Sorrow).
I've been mosty reading them, but a recent documentary about an RPG called "Dragon Quest" gave me an idea. JRPG was a new genre at that time, so the game's creator used manga-styled manuals to introduce players to this new phenomenon.
I thought that, instead of (just) writing those text updates, I might as well make a comic myself.
This would be a more exciting way to introduce you to the Land of Zeranoth and its cast of characters. The comic would be a prequel to the game and tell the story what happened before Zeranoth needed to be restored. As a bonus, this will allow me to practice drawing the characters and further flesh out their world.
Honestly, I'm really looking forward to it.
Now the question is - how am I going to handle the updates for the period during Christmas?
Thanks for reading and see you next time!
(and just in case, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!)
-Michael
P.S. I thought about starting the game in Nemo's flashbacks (kind of like in "Castlevania: Symphony of the Night", where you fight Dracula in 1st few seconds). Then it would switch to Nemo's day-to-day life, his time at work passing by like a rhythm game, trying to make most of his spare time to complete his invention. With it, he might return to the Land of Zeranoth and his love - queen Shadowwing Metalia, who meets him in his dreams.
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