So... we just launched Wyvernclaw 3.0.

It - and the CERIX system that accompanies it - has been a long time in the making. More the CERIX system than the wands, but then redesigning the spells to do both normal AND use CERIX AND take your color modifications AND use force AND manage energy AND...

You get the idea.

The thing that is frustrating about this is how few users are really in a position to understand how complex this system really is. Hell, we spent a month arguing over the slight nuances of the scoring system - how much energy should be taken up, how fast it should regenerate, whether score should affect healing or recovery from stuns, how the overall score was to be handled, how to normalize the initial wild swing of scores in a percentage-based lifetime scoring system...

Trust me. It was complicated.

If you're reading this, I ask you to keep this in mind. CERIX was an attempt to bring FPS-quality play to SL (FPS means first-person shooter). Not just dumbfire bullets and percentages floating over your head, but full cinematic effects, mouselook FPS operation, resource management, strategy, the whole shebang. Anybody can register collisions and take off life points; we wanted to make something really unique in SL, something that would really challenge the user to manage resources and take care to strategize.

I'll give an example. I was dueling today with DaeymonDarksoul DeCuir, who kindly agreed to help me try out the dueling dias I was developing for events. In ordinary SL combat, I'd have simply psiTEC'ed him to death and that would have been over in two swift clicks. Gee, fun. People like the big power weapons but ultimately combat sucks because of them if you're looking to actually, y'know, compete.

Instead, the duel had rules about how much power we could use, plus I was running low on energy anyway, having leaned heavy on the trap spells to keep him from hitting me. I was about 10 points away from death and had enough energy for maybe one big spell and a couple of small ones.

I cast the new Gladius spell, which creates spinning swords around the target for a sort of trap-by-threat. The target can move, sure, but if s/he hits the swords, they cut and do damage. Since I couldn't goad Dae into moving, I simply cast cheap Magnus (pull) spells at minimal force - just enough to yank him forward a few inches into the blades over and over again until he died. I'm sure he would have Terminus'ed my Gladius if he had enough energy, but he'd spent a good amount of time tossing me about with push spells, and Terminus was expensive energy-wise.

All this sounds very geeky, but the point is this: the game was more challenging - much more challenging - because I had to manage resources. I was more proud of the system for forcing me to think up this spell combo than I was of myself for pulling it off. With resource management such a, y'know, thing, I had to think on my feet, which is sort of the whole point, isn't it?

As you play the game, try to keep in mind that almost all of the decisions we made were made to keep the game intriguing and challenging. Sure, we could develop spells that, I don't know, make giant rocks fall and kill everybody in the sim for like no energy cost, but what would be the point of that? Instead we've tried to provide - and are still trying to provide - a challenging user experience that requires ingenuity in equal measures with spell collecting and good aim.