Game Pillars¶

Product Pitch¶

Build a browser-native fantasy MMO that feels like a classic RPG world, but is playable as a companion game. Each player follows one adventurer, makes short-session decisions for that character, and then lets travel, combat, gathering, crafting, and trading resolve over real time while they do other things.

Core Pillars¶

1. Async Expedition MMO¶

The game should not depend on constant live control. The player issues intent, equips the hero, prepares supplies, sets risk limits, and commits to a timed action.

2. Classic MMO Structure¶

The world still needs familiar MMO expectations: towns, gear progression, parties, guilds, markets, professions, factions, monster families, and regional identity.

3. Survival as Pressure, Not Punishment¶

Hunger, thirst, fatigue, climate, and injury should affect what expeditions are viable. They should create preparation gameplay and economy demand rather than permanent lockouts.

4. Player-Shaped Economy¶

Food, tools, crafted gear, maps, coordinates, transport, and contracts should all be tradeable. The economy should be driven by player production, logistics, and information.

5. Regional Knowledge Matters¶

Players should learn areas over time. Frequent hunting and scouting should reveal more about local monsters, routes, hazards, and resources.

6. Lightweight Infrastructure¶

The design should favor server-authoritative timers, state resolution, and shared ledgers over expensive constant simulation. This is required to keep Cloudflare costs reasonable.

Player Fantasy¶

The intended fantasy is that the player directly inhabits one capable adventurer living in a dangerous high fantasy world. This is not a detached character-management sim. They are not clicking every sword swing, but they are still making decisions for their own adventurer about where to go, what to pack, who to travel with, what risks to accept, and how to turn outcomes into wealth or influence. Later systems may let that character hire NPC help for narrow support tasks, but launch remains centered on one player-controlled adventurer.

Non-Goals¶

Twitch combat as the main experience.
Large continuously simulated open-world movement.
Managing a stable of player characters or a pure indirect-adventurer management game at launch.
User-uploaded arbitrary art or mod content at launch.
A globally frictionless economy with no travel or regional identity.