My New Role as Faction GM & Next Steps

I am truly honored and thrilled to be serving as the Faction GM for Illyriad. I’ve been playing Illyriad (with the exception of a few hiatuses along the way) since 2011, and it has been a pleasure having the opportunity to play the game with all of you through many generations of the game. I’ve learned so much from the inspired and creative player base here at Illyriad, and I bring the love of this game and the players’ hopes and dreams for its evolution with me into this role. 

For many years, “the game” for me has been chiefly about making the game more fun for everyone. I always took to heart GM Stormcrow’s insistence that Illyriad is indeed a sandbox where players have just as much a role in shaping the game as its developers. As far back as my time in SIN, I had an interest in leveraging the rich lore and legend of the game’s NPC Factions – a gaming approach that Belargyle and the Dwarven Lords began in 2010 and continue to this day. A few years ago, I came back to the game and launched Faction Play – a player-led initiative that utilized the rich content of the NPC Factions, the power of Illy’s data feeds, and the strong but latent desire by many in the game to roleplay. It was the success of this initiative and the passionate, steadfast effort of many players and alliances that got Stormcrow and me talking, which in turn has led to this new chapter in the game.

The Factions are waking up

Over the past 9 months, we’ve established a new roadmap for developing the long-awaited “Faction AI” overlay that will bring the dynamic characteristics of Illyria’s factions to life in ways that the player base has longed for. Our goal is to provide an immersive gaming experience with the expansion of the NPC Factions so that their influence comes to bear on virtually every aspect of the game. So, if you’re an avid city builder, a trader, a tournament champion, a diplomat, or a warlord, the Factions will be playing a key role in all of these aspects of Illyriad.

Central to our upcoming Faction features will be the opportunity to interact with Factions, raise and lower your rankings with them, and benefit (or suffer) from those rankings accordingly. The variables for which a player and his or her alliance ranks with a Faction will be complex, evolving, and ripe for endless experimentation. Think of it as a new puzzle or mystery in the game that you, your alliance mates, and the player community at large will work towards understanding and mastering.

The result of this new initiative will be fully functional NPC Factions that will provide palpable benefits to you and your alliance through every facet of the game, as well as potential peril from the Factions that view you negatively. You will need to choose your Faction allies wisely and learn how to safely and effectively play the Factions off of one another to optimize your benefits and mitigate your risks.

A roadmap for Faction AI

Our plan is to release the “1.0” version of this new system “soonest,” which will debut new ranking factors and Faction interactions at the player level. The design for these features is already complete, and coding and testing is currently underway. Once launched, this initial set of features will give players an opportunity to experiment with the new features and begin to develop strategies for how they interact with Factions. 

The second phase of development will introduce additional ranking factors and interactions between alliances and factions, opening up even more sophisticated opportunities and scenarios for alliances to sculpt and shape their relations with nearby Factions to help in achieving their overarching strategic goals.

The third and fourth phases will introduce further enhancements to the ranking algorithms as well as new and imaginative ways to interact with the NPC factions, and vice-versa. These next-generation iterations will breathe even more life into the Factions and further enhance unique characteristics that will allow players and alliances to unlock even more powerful benefits (as well as more perilous consequences).

The Faction GM Role

As Faction GM, my role will be to serve as an ambassador for these new features and seek to combine them with the vibrant and growing community of Faction Players in the game today. There is most certainly a place for the player-led Faction Play gaming circuit to complement and overlap these new features, and I will continue to work with those in Faction Play to support their community. I will also be transferring Faction Play’s Slack server to Illyriad so that, in addition to the Herald and forums, we will have yet another platform for communicating and playing within the Faction space. All of the server’s Faction-related features and functionality will remain as well.

You can join Faction Play Slack here.

I will also continue to help design ingame Faction-related features, as well as create Faction content and aid in addressing any issues that arise with the new release. Remember: this is a new system, and it is bound to need some tweaking. I can’t think of a better online gaming community to help us crowdsource these tweaks better than all of you.

Setting out on your journey with the Factions

I hope you’re excited about these new developments!  I can tell you that I am eager for all of you to begin interacting with the long-awaited Faction AI features. As we put the finishing touches on the upcoming launch, my advice is to begin to familiarize or re-familiarize yourself with the NPC Factions – particularly the ones that are close to you. We’ve already launched new and more nuanced Default Racial Standings – think about how these may impact your initial standings with the Factions. 

We’ll also be overhauling the Inter-Faction Standings as well. These, too, will be critically important to understand if you are to successfully optimize your relationships with the Factions that you’re most interested in. 

Be sure to also take note of the Factions’ military units, as well as any weapons, armor, or other items in the game that are associated with Factions or with their races. This knowledge base will come to bear in all of what we have planned for the 1.0 launch.

Finally, for those of you who delved into some of the technologies that were developed for Faction Play’s ranking algorithm, I can say that your knowledge of that system will give you a head-start in imagining how Illyriad’s own Faction AI might work (albeit with a much higher degree of sophistication).

And let's be sure to continue the discussions about Faction AI and Faction Play in this new section of the Forum.

As always, I thank you all for your passion and inspired commitment to improving Illyriad’s gaming experience. Let’s work toward making the launch of Factions a new epoch in Illyria’s history.