Grand Aera Online (WiP) (Updated 3/2/2018)

Okay, so I tried the demo and I liked it quite a lot! I’m not usually that big a fan of fantasy, but I do like the whole ‘stuck in an MMO’ thing.

There was one thing that irritated me, however, and that was the fact that I couldn’t choose to be a female Half-Gond (I apologize if that’s the wrong name) who is muscular without having a giant chest. It may be a pet peeve of mine, but I hate this tendency in games to give big female characters giant boobs to match. Especially since really muscular women are simply unlikely to have big breasts. Less fat = less badoinkadoink. (Correct me if I’m wrong.)

I personally don’t think it’s necessary to describe the female character’s chest at all, but that doesn’t bother me so much. I’d simply like an option to be a big strong beast without balloons attached to my chest.

Well, to play Devil’s advocate, it IS an MMO, with presumably a majority of male designers, and all that it entails when it comes to designing female characters.

(perhaps a line of the MC rolling his/her eyes at the sight might be a nice touch, in fact)

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Missing a cleric too. But adding a cleric without adding a darknight would be kinda … shitty?( my opnion ) :fox_face:
INstead of adding a whole new class. It could be made in a way that, later in game, gladiator would be able to improve stregh or learn some magic( ex: learn healing. became some kind of paladin/ holy knight) and priest wouild be able to improve strgh or healing/ holy magic (ex: improve strengh became cleric).
I think it would be easier to add this kind of class upgrade intead of new classes, but it still would be hard to think and code all the variables for each class :thinking:

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An arrow would have more range and accuracy, it is easy to get critical hits with it, it is more stealthy and silent, it wouldn’t cause friendly fire and it will cost no mana/energy to fire unlike something like a fireball.
Arrows are also more versatile and you can use different kinda of them (poisoned, fire, bomb, electric, water etc) especially if they are magic arrows. Some enemies might be immune to magic damage as well, or they could disable you from using magic/silence you so you’d have to use a physical weapon.

Finally in some games (like Skyrim for example) bows have a much better damage scaling than spells as your damage is based on your bow and your stats while magic damage is based on your stats alone, making an archer with a godly weapon far stronger than a mage.

It might kind of late, but… man that was awesome!. About time someone write an MMO based story with choicescript. ( dunno if there had been any here, since i haven’t login to the forum for quite sometime).

i always have that idea to write story about mmo like yours, but more like an entire e-sport academy based solely on VR-MOBA… ( one objective, 3 classes such as Tank/Carries and Jungler) and then i remembered all the creeps, tower, jungle and stuff. The i decided to stop the idea altogether lol.

anyway, i’m gonna wait for the update and look forward for it.

Since we’re not talking about an actual MMO by an actual company, that would be up to the author. Mind you, everything is, so therefore it’s up to them whether to keep the boob descriptions as they are in memory of all the real MMOs with giant-chested ladies.

Personally speaking, I could simply do without it. Those things would be a total drag in a fight.

Hey everyone, answering one thing real quick since it caught my eye. I’ll try and do a better post tonight when I have time. I’ll also give a progress update about the ranged class. And clear-up class ascension paths.

@blackrising
Sorry about this. I actually changed the Half-Gond descriptions away from bust sizes in the last update. The line you’re noticing, if it is the one that describes the build’s large chest, is bad (and lazy for coding reasons) word choice. It’s meant to read as chest, like broad shoulders and muscular. I haven’t used it that way before before then, so it’s unclear. It’ll be changed to torso next update.

Range is a variable thing, just as you have shortbows and longbows, different types of magic have different range

Stealth is hardly ever a mechanic in an MMO, which is what this story is modeled after but again, not all magic necessarily produce sound

Friendly fire? How so? if you mean magic is clumsier than a bow then that’s just derogatory. If you’re referring to AOE then again not all magic is AOE. Besides, most MMO use auto aim and use stats to determine whether you hit rather than actually letting the player aim

Versatile? perhaps but isn’t there always a trade-off between dexterity and strength? A mage is less versatile than an archer but casts spells that put arrows to shame.
The variety argument is just nonsensical here. Obviously there will be more types of magic than magic arrows( since you need to use magic to make them in the first place)

Enemies immune to magic damage? How about enemies in thick plate-armor that completely deflects arrows? Disable magic? How about creating a force field that stops projectiles?
Every enemy as well as hero has their strengths and weaknesses.

Skyrim is a great game but here’s the thing: in most MMOs, the staff/wand/scepter is also a contributor to damage

Generally, I feel like you’re arguing why there should be a bow in the game rather than actually why a class specialized in something completely different and superior in certain cases should have a bow on hand. If you love bows so much, just vote for an archer class

Thank you for clarifying! The instances that jumped out at me were the race descriptions (since it was specifically talking about how the females of the species were quite tall, the ‘large chest’ portion had me thinking of breasts), the appearance choice (since each of them seemed to talk about chest size), as well as the moment when the MC wakes up for the first time (I choose the ‘pretty…er’ preset because it sounded like that had the least amount of boobage and MC notes how their chest seems so much larger when they look down at themselves).

I also noted that, when choosing the ‘really big y’all’ preset, the chest doesn’t get mentioned upon waking up and it gave me a much better impression. (I also laughed out loud at the descriptions of MC’s new and oh so glorious muscles.) I liked it better because the focus was very much on the strength of the race.

Perhaps, on the occasions you’re refering to chest size rather than breast size, a different adjective might do the trick. A ‘broad’ chest, for example, would make it pretty clear what is being refered to.

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I kinda like that idea, but as a D&D DM, that pushes my buttons a little. Gladiator seems like a generic fighter, so I think it would be better if they learned offensive spells or became an expert fighter. Turning them into a cleric seems… Off…

But I do get the “Don’t add more classes.” Just offering my personal opinion!

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Large chest doesn’t need to be breasts. It just happens to be where they are on people. Given that one of the races was described as tall and powerful I interpreted that to mean well muscled. That people seem to be jumping to boobs and objectification raises questions.

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I kinda meant it as what use a bow has. If you are a mage usually you don’t want to use one, cause you won’t have the agility/stats to do proper damage with it. Magic is generally weaker at 1vs1 but much stronger when against groups. A fireball can wipe out a whole group of enemies while an arrow only kills 1. Magic can also have other uses like teleport, levitating, telekinesis etc while bows are just for killing mostly. As for the versatile one learning a lot of spell types is difficult (and in some games it’s even impossible to get every element) and arrows can just be crafted without learning any magic.

Boob and Butt sliders is what I’m looking forward to. On the male side too.

I’m sorry if this offends but your name is perfect for that comment

Of course not!~ :^)
Trash is there for a reason!

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@Otaku_King
All classes will be able to use special abilities which involve the use of magic, though maybe not the same magic that Sorcerers tap into. For Shinobi the abilities will be focused on stealth, trickery, and movement, but will not be limited to those. I’m very glad you enjoyed it, if you ended right after killing the goblin try again. Be sure to venture into the forest blindly. There isn’t too much extra, but it’s a taste.

@kingzug
Thanks for finding that typo. It’s been fixed for the next update. Also glad you liked the Talisians. I’m not sure how I feel about them yet, so they may change a lot once I figure out where exactly they fit in the world.

@kyros @FabricSeat @Talyrion @FutbolDude21586 @Frogs
There will be a some variety of ranged weapons. Combat has to be turn based due to how CS works and can’t be too complicated. To that end they’ll all behave somewhat similarly. Especially the randomly generated ones. I’ll be able to say more about combat when I’m closer to finishing it, as it is now I’m still finding out what does and doesn’t work. Most, if not all skills will not have friendly fire.

@RedNovember
Thank you for your kind words. I won’t say too much because I want there to be surprises about class ascensions, but you’ll enjoy one of the priest’s.

@iRgrunt
Thank you, these comments make doing this worth it.

@Alder
Your idea sounds very fun, if you do change your mind I’d love to give it a try. And thank you for your compliments.

-To Be Continued

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Ran out of mentions last post, here’s the rest.

@blackrising
Glad I could clear it up. And thank you for pointing it out. I’ll try to be better about word choice in that area in general. I reworded several builds, and didn’t go through the wake-up code like I should have. I’ll try and make it so it matches the builds listed in the next update.

@Sanjay
You’ll be very happy with the new class. I hope, at least. It’ll be implemented in the next update, so I’ll save the details for then.

@Hearts @RedNovember
Actually, that is currently the plan for priests. Which brings me to ascended classes.

The current plan is for an arc where each class will be able to ascend to one of two classes. I won’t be saying what they are for each class, even though you should be able to guess one of Priest’s. But, the general idea for each classes ascension options is:

a. Changes the way a class battles. Think changes to preferred combat range, equippable armor, and equippable weapons. For example Priest->Paladin
b. Doubling down on the classes nuances. Wizard->Archwizard

Each ascended class would still be able to access the abilities of the base class but not the other ascended class.

In other news, the next update, or the next next update will be hosted on a new link since it will be a play-test. The randomized loot system, and inventory system will be in game, and while I am currently testing them I will not be able to catch all of the bugs. So, in the future I’ll have two builds hosted on this thread, the demo - a stable, happy build that you can show your friends; and the playtest - a scary place with bugs…but more content.

I’m still out of town, so the update will probably be out next week.

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Think of it as an instinctual reaction after too many games that did focus on boob size. Mind you, I’m not complaining so much about the objectification - it’s more that a focus on it seems weird to me and always has when playing a race that’s all about muscle and strength. Like, if I’m playing an orc or similiar I wanna know about the gloriously bulging muscles, not the chest area.

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Played the demo and I love it. I haven’t seen many stories where the MC is trapped in a video game… Well at least good ones. Not to mention my everlasting love of MMOs.

I understand why it would be put there whether it be as a little extra details or for “IMMERSION” it to me just seems a little bit unnecessary.

I think you both need to google pictures of bodybuilders of both biological genders. The chest has a large concentration of muscles and can become quite broad when bodybuilding.

“Large chest” is not inaccurate, focusing it in a direction it isn’t going seems more that people are fishing for drama where there is none.

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