Opening: Over the years I have been archiving Poxnora; whenever a database went down I did my best to preserve what I could. I began to learn and understand the games various mechanics and design practices much better this way and overall I think the history of Poxnora is something to reflect on positively. Playing religiously in high school the decline of Poxnora was frustrating to see as games like League of Legends, Path of Exile, Clash of Clans (yes all very different games) grabbed the attention of the gaming community. What lead definitively to the decline of Poxnora can be speculated on and from what I have seen there are too many factors that, in the current state of affairs are much too large to tackle individually or as a whole to keep Poxnora as we know it. 1. The Decline Letting the dust settle and the news sink in that, yes Poxnora is, will be...or may be no more...pending further development from a closed developer/producer. In the past 10+ years of Poxnora's life it has gone through two acquisitions, leading to multiple overhauls of the client and game mechanics. What can ultimately be boiled down to as poor foundational code bug after bug has left the game in a state of disrepair. All that being said what is it that lead to or inevitably would have lead to an imminent downfall post launch. Lots and lots of things. 2.Development Plan From what I saw there was a solid lack of development that went on over the years, a lot was being done so that there was good footing moving forward and I am not neglecting those efforts individually, however as a whole the game itself became stagnant due to the continuous polish and lack of spring cleaning. A development team needs to be able to support or cull growing problems, the response and reaction to increasing problems ultimately created the Doomball state of affairs we are in now 3. Buffed up Nerf-Zilla Doing what works is not just iteration after iteration of STAT shuffling or race and class cycling. At some point the artwork cannot support or does not support the lore that each asset is built upon. If there was a given base line for Runes to be created it was never standardized or left as the standard, there was always an amendment to the rule which pigeon holed design. Had a Grey Faction been designed to standardize Protectorate vs. Wrath the conversation would have been able to open up with more understanding for mechanics in mind. Lack of standardization over time crippled Poxnora due to the increasing complexity of mechanics and limited resources put to educate a playerbase. 4. Game Potential I don't want to say that anything should have been this or that cause I still love Poxnora with all its ups and downs. Reflecting on my experience and with the conversation about cloning/purchasing Poxnora, I have to start sorting through my thoughts in order to create a better business model for Pox, as I see it. Blockchain is an interest of mine and I see potential with a few titles being developed under a new IP. Closing: I'd like to continue this conversation of past gaming experiences, what games we play and what Poxnora has been to us while trying to pinpoint the core mechanics for a new model. I am in favor of a Grey Faction which can progress in various ways, thinking more mathematically I like to bound the problems I am working on and incrementally work through the process. What are you thoughts on: Single Player/Campaign Sandbox features (scaling/progression/modding*) Rune accessibility via lvl 1-100 progression in addition to other means Rank Ladder Leagues - Unique game maps/modes/mechanics
Horribly inept design teams who could not develop their way out of a Microsoft Word document. That caused the population to dwindle/not grow/not stay which caused the money to go away. Stage-two of death was when the game made barely enough money to be semi-viable if it was able to share resources/cost centers as a part of a larger studio. Stage 3 is now, when the game devolved to a point to where its only value is the assets which are next to worthless. It's no longer a viable entity, kickstart, crowdsourced, player-purchased, block-chained or anything else won't change that. The market practically screamed for games "like" this all along this game's stubborn march to death. Pox was never ran or developed by anyone with the ability to see beyond the forums. Not a single person with any vision whatsoever. No an ounce of courage.
Taking a look at the leveling process for both Champion and Avatar/Shrine. I think these have a lot of potential to bring in more focused experiences or make some barriers easier to understand. CP has three stages, by default when a rune is acquired they have 0 of 300 CP. Tokens are the only item/currency in the game that directly influences CP, otherwise the only way to increase a Champions CP is to deploy that rune in a game. Trading a Champion keeps the CP it has earned, in this way the CP earned by each Champion is entirely of it's own, capped at 300. There are several points here. 1. Tiered Three Stage Combat Power System 1a. Gain access to ability upgrade options/choices for a Champion Rune 2. Tokens are divided into Bronze/Silver/Gold - Tokens give CP to a Champion 2a. Tokens are Tradeable 3. Champions have their own CP level unique to other Champions - CP is similar to a Battle Record 3a. The CP cap of 300 limits future Champion Identity; increasing the limit or making utility for each champion with their own CP is something to work on Taking a look at Avatars/Shrines and the utility they bring to the entirety of Poxnora (in and out of game) they can be scrapped and replaced with a Nexus mechanically speaking. Units are garrisoned in Shrines before deployed on the battlefield. Controlling a Nora Font allows runes to be deployed from that Nora Fonts Deployment Zone. None of these mechanics are influenced by the Shrines level, this works out fine but is also limited in scope. While playing Poxnora it is not necessary or very beneficial to consider any kind of game to be played with Avatars/Shrines. However these mechanics may be structured to create a narrative in and out of game that has not been acknowledged before. 4. Avatars/Shrines mechanically speaking is the loop that needs to be broken to win a match, short of Friendly Quit or Surrender. 4a. If a Shrine Transfigures into an Avatar there is Champion-like playability granted, however this is not a main or even focused loop in Poxnora. 5. Runes start concealed inside each Shrine before the game starts, mechanically speaking a rune is randomly drawn or selected from the top of a deck. Two schools of thought can be seen here: 5a. Players can imagine themselves as Sentient beings selecting from a deck of cards. These cards directly influence the game world. There is an exchange of one player to another which creates the turn based system Poxnora is set in. 5b. Players can imagine themselves exploring the inner workings of each Shrine/Nora Font and in that they gain access/affinity with Nora. Deploying Runes and casting Spells is how players manipulate Nora. 6. Deployment Zones are a gimmick mechanic (Maps and Campaigns are for another post) that based on rotation can be anywhere on the map. This is a bad approach to the game, currently. There is definite utility in having static maps that players can all interpret from, ie Tournament Maps or Campaigns. 6a. On their own and currently designed now Avatars/Shrines have almost no utility or needed presence in Poxnora, not to dismiss lore, but the only reason for these points on the game board is to create a win condition. The assets themselves do not need levels or even a Transfigure ability. To wrap this up there are a lot of disconnecting features throughout Poxnora, they are complete systems in a sense but looking at them as modular systems also creates more of the sandbox feel that Poxnora tries to play as. From what I see Avatars & Shrines should get their own unique treatment that pushes a direct feature of Poxnora. The player level is capped at 100 but also has no utility throughout Poxnora. A trinity can be created with the leveling system for Players, Avatars, and Shrines. An example would be to have Shrines grant access to Campaigns but only be playable at a certain Player level. TL;DR In this post I break down some of the mechanics I see in Champions/Avatars/Shrines. This is to identify the utility as it is now and what can be done to open up a better narrative for future points of discussion,I will expand on these points next: Rune Delivery & Accessibility Maps & Campaigns Tournaments & Leagues