Keramory

A little extra nugget of information. After the main arc and main release of the game, the expansion would have been for the Adonis Arc as previously mentioned. One thing we didn't mention is that Holyground was having a major upgrade from the original game. As someone who has been in churches and chapels around the world, I didn't want to leave such an iconic concept limited to only one room. There was going to be a main lobby room with the first floor leading to the main chapel. However there were also stairs allowing people access to the second floor sides of the chapel, letting people spy on others down below. One feature we were going to add was Graves hiding on the second floor staring down at you at the corner of the cam. The big secret though is beyond the chapel was the hidden room where Adonis was imprisoned. We wanted to leave the next big story under peoples noses. Think similar to Zelda OoT's master sword room. __ The one BIG issue we had with story development was what exactly was going to be the items collected to release Graves. This was something that was not set, unlike most things. Which was strange because we had down exactly how the tug of war between the Phases and the player were going to happen. This was put on hold as development slowed down though... so we never actually had the items/concept visualized as a final decision.

As mentioned before the purpose of the "Main Story" is to give the appearance of The World being a normally functioning game. Same as in R:1 and R:2. They both had stories, objectives and quests that were "built into the game". You progress in this as you would in any game. The "side story" or the "REAL story" was to give that actual .hack feel. I can't legit create an AI that ends up putting people in coma. We can't have hackers creating their own worlds. A real, REAL .hack isn't all that possible by intent. So I can only do the next big thing, creating a .hack like storyline within the game for those who want to be .hackers. You have the choice to be the chosen one and dive deeper into the game. We stayed away from doing real PC pretending to be NPC stuff that CC was famous for. Being a part of the problem, I can safely tell you people abuse that and is very difficult to fully manage. Maybe at most we could have PC pretending to be NPCs off on the side for small things and rumors... but not for full on stories. This leads to excluding people that cannot be on at times the PC player is, or singling people out.

Thank you Siegfre for taking the time to post this. Although it is little excuse, we were not blind to the requests to the community or ignoring it. Siegfre was working hard on the backend to do everything he can to make sure the project continues at an acceptable rate. I also share a lot of the blame for slacking on my end. Also as mentioned before to a few people, Siegfre was the sole person responsible for managing and keeping the money gained from our kind community. This was done to make sure there was no misuse of the money or drama. I can safely say that we made the right call in that regard as the money always went into the project, with even more out of our pocket. I’d be happy to share more of our project plans in terms of lore/story of the game as well for those who wish to create their own version. Thank you

Hey Everyone! With Siegfre's update of the game being somewhat suspended and development slowed, I thought it would be fair to finally release some of the planned story and the ideas we had for progress throughout the game. I'll start with some of the cliff notes and an example of slightly more detail of one of the particular sections: Story wise, the game was designed to have two separate stories. A main story line and a side story. This was to give the .hack feeling of a hidden layer of mystery on top of what the expected was from the game. For example in GU, there was an implanted story and lore within the quests for the "normal game" with the addition of everything that went wrong in the game. Main Storyline The main storyline comprises of what MUST be done to continue throughout the game. Mainly by going through each town. It is impossible for example, to travel to Mu Hel without getting its crystal from beating Aqua Polis's Arc. Main Storyline is comprised of 4 chapters. Claws Chapter Neko Chapter Night Chapter True Sin Chapter (comprised of the last two Root Towns). Although its untrue, in game's logic, True Sin is the ultimate boss and protagonist of the game. Beating him in a sense, beats the game. So here is the chapters, which I separated by town and a little update on their status. Aqua Polis History - Aqua Polis, being located on an island of great riches, used its imports to hold power over the other kingdoms despite its small size. During the Chaos War the city was attacked by Sin's Wrath. However eventually with the aid of others, the city was restored. - Later the city for unknown reasons was flooded, destroying the city. Aqua Polis is now being rebuilt as a small town. Now - Aqua Polis is the starting point of the game. - The Chaos Gate is broken to travel to other areas outside the island and must be fixed. Side Arc (Claws Arc) - A goofy arc of the hopeless plot of Nick Claws to rule The World. At first Nick Claws appears to be a happy and kind Mayor trying to restore Aqua Polis of what it once was. Children go missing and you are sent to check it out. It turns out as you continue the quest Nick Claws has been working with the Goblins to destroy The World with an ancient ritual that involves sacrificing children. This was attempted before but backfired, which caused the flood that destroyed Aqua Polis many years ago. YES. An evil Santa Claws is hell bent on destroying the world with little elves (goblins) by sacrficing children. You fight Claws, as your first main boss that summons minions, and you save the children. You also gain a crystal fragment of Mu Hel. Known NPCs Nick Claws - Mayor of Aqua Polis with a long history of trying to rule the world. Goofy and horrible about being evil. Evil Santa Claus because my childhood was strange. Mu Hel City History - Located on floating rocks within the mountain ranges of Mu Hel. - Neko races homeland and origin. - Nekos created a device to create some mountain tops to break off and float above the sky, keeping them safe. - Despite history, the reality is an experiment backfired and de-evolved the Neko. Now - Arrive from Aqua Polis to Mu Hel. - Neko are currently everywhere as small cats, especially near a ranch where you can gain a mount after raising one. - Home of the Rune Gun. Side Arc (Neko Arc) - The technology that is keeping the city afloat is failing. The player must work with Professor String (secretly an advanced Neko) to fix it. After going through several quests and gaining a mount, you work together to discover another advanced Neko, String's brother Yarn, who not only was the cause of De-evolving the Neko, but trying to destroy the City as well. You defeat him, as well as a mind controlled Dragon and save the city. After freeing the Dragon from Yarn, the dragon gives you a crystal to the next town. Npcs - Professor String- Secretly an advanced Neko who was, along with his brother Yarn, caused the De-evolution of the Neko. Being tricked by his brother to do so, Professor String is doing what he can to fix what he has done. - Professor Yarn- The evil brother of String who tricked String into causing the De-evolution of the Neko. Tries to destroy the city by taking key parts of the generators that keep it afloat. His evil is composed by his religious belief in the Neko God Dolly, a spiteful creature that wont allow anyone to be more powerful then her. - Dragon - No name yet. Gets captured by Yarn and is mind controled into doing his bidding. *Note: Opening up future possibilities to playing with the Neko's past. Time Travel and what not. Lia Fail History - Lia Fail was the capital of Auroum (or w.e I named it in Chaos War). - Lia Fail was actually fated to Darkness due to Lore. One of the few times the story is accurate. Now - Lia Fail is the biggest City in the game. -Lia Fail has access to the Arena and other things. - Lia Fail has a temple Lia Fail's Arc - By traveling to Aura's temple you meet the head priest there. The Darkness around Lia Fail is getting thicker and if it is not stopped the city will be consumed. You are sent to recover ancient artifacts of the temple before it was destroyed that are located within one of the strongest Orc Fortresses (that you discover after finding a few Orc Outposts). There you fight the Orc Leader and recover the artifacts. Before you do though, the Deity Morgaan reviles herself and taunts you, saying that the artifacts wont hold forever. You return to the priest and save the city. You discover that one of the artifacts is a crystal to Biramha Stronghold. -EDIT. I want to add Raven and the Arena into the story. Raven will turn out to gain his power from the diety Morgaan by the raven on his shoulder. *Note- I am opening up apart of the Undying Arc in the future, where at one part you must Free Adonis. Of course Graves will be defeated by then so you must go after his deity Morgaan to find his location and free him. B. Stronghold History - Was created to keep the monsters residing on the island away from the rest of The World. - Is commanded by Auraom when it was still a Kingdom and run by it's old military, which still remains to this day despite the kingdom being distorted. Now - Is run by the...Phoenix Knights I think we called them? - Leader is General __, a red haired female - PvE sieges are here that tie in with the story. True Sin Arc - You are accidentally sent to B. Stronghold instead of Arboros. Due to a lack of supplies because of the constant hordes of monster invasions, ability to travel to Arboros is impossible. You show your worth during an invasion and become enlisted by the Phoenix Knights. After a few missions you rise up the ranks and get noticed by General Redstreak herself. There is great concern by the recent activity of the Monsters as well as their more coordinated movements. You are dispatched as General Redstreak's guard to discover what is going on. Eventually you are lead into Sin's Tower, and traveling deeper into it discover The True Sin is being revived. You try and stop the ritual and kill The True Sin's commander (who's turns out to be a Dawn Soldier), believing to put a stop to it. The True Sin recovers regardless and easily pushes you aside. General __ commands you to travel to Arboros and talk to the YingYang Twins, throwing her personal transport crystal at you. You leave with General __ trying to hold off The True Sin. NPCs General Redstreak - Female Leader of the Phoenix Knights. ??? - Captian under General __. Turns out to be a Sin general in disguise who revives The One Sin. S. Arboros History - Home of the most powerful magical secrets within The World - Located in dense forests, constantly being attacked by Imps Now - The Town is split apart by Warlocks and Clerics, their leaders being the brother and sister Ying and Yang. True Sin Arc continued -You travel to Arboros and search for Ying and Yang. At first both refuse to aid you due to their petty fight of which magic is more powerful. The rise of Imp attacks make them discover the real threat of The One Sin's return and they agree to help. You must travel to previous cities and go on several quests to recover seals of both magics so that Ying and Yang can create the ultimate seal that trapped The One Sin before. Each seal you recover reviles a flashback of the past. You discover that Ying and Yang were the only survivors of The Chaos War's advanced party that defeated The True Sin last time. You also discover that they had to seal Karel Redstreak as well, in order to keep The True Sin still long enough for the seal chant to finish. Over time Karel was influenced by The True Sin and became warped, becoming The True Sin himself. You travel back to Sin's Tower and face off against The True Sin after seeing General Redstreak being held hostage. You and your party defeat and seal The True Sin once again. Side Story This is the optional but far more interesting story. This is the story that we've been plotting for a long time, with the phases, Graves, Aura, and Luna. This story goes on the more mythical part of the world, going into gods and goddesses, unlike the main story which was all concret. This is also less spoon fed to the players then the main story. This is also not broken up by root towns or by various chapters that have nothing to do with one another. You start the storyline and finish the same storyline by endgame. A reminder of the basics: Graves is trying to revive Luna to restore his powers. Graves is using the phases he created by extorting their powerful emotions. Phases believe they're taking over The World. Phases are looking for something that is needed to revive Luna Despite efforts, Luna is revived and kills Graves out of Anger. Random Notes- - Phases are always split up in pairs - Usually but not always, Phases are fought one at a time (one per mission). Exception would be for example killing one phase, and then the other attacking for revenge. - Apathy, the little girl, will finally learn the value of love and friendship. She will be killed by Panic. - Phases have two forms. Regular player and then Phase form. Exception is Graves who will have an extra form or two, as he is a god. - Somehow Aura will be summoned to stop Luna from just killing the players after she kills Graves. Story As the backround lore shows, Luna was sealed away and Graves was forced into Human form. Although not revealed yet, Graves gathers the phases, granting them powers and promise of taking over The World. However its really to release Luna and put him back to full strength. The phases are looking for pieces of a Plate with 3 Orb Slots. Put together they create a power to break the seal. The story starts off with meeting a Samurai NPC (named Keramory for now). He has in his armor the plate with the slots. You do a few quests with him gathering treasure. Eventually Keramory and yourself are ambushed by two Phase members. After a quick duel you are defeated. Keramory holds off his own but is then ambushed by the other phase and his arm is cut off...the plate being ripped off his armor. The story then goes from trying to stop the Phases from gathering the Orbs to complete the Seal break. Through alot of conflict, eventually the phases gather the orbs (Graves getting the last one, the rest dying in the process slowly one by one). Graves battles the players while the Seal is weakning and at the end Luna is released, Graves being trapped by Lunas wrath. For the Alpha and Beta...I think we were set on only Aqua Polis being released (with obviously the fields). As such I'd suggest we grant full Main Story to the end of the Claws Arc, and only the first section of the Phase Arc (when "The Samurai" get's lynched by Fury). This way we can excite people for the phase arc, not worry TOO much about the development of the story...as the Claws Arc is light and goofy. This and we can add a few small quests. First I purpose we add an introduction through Ultimite in the same way they introduce the game in IMOQ/GU with Altimit. Step's go as follows: Opening -Popup as soon as Ultimate loads for Login - First time Login, popup along the lines of "Welcome to The World! We would encourage all users to first check their emails for updates! We also see you already have a new message! Someone is popular already!". This forces the user to check their messages and cannot login to the game until they do. If they try a message comes along the lines of "Don't ignore your fan base already! Go check your messages and see who wanted to say hello!". - Check the message and its from an NPC which says along the lines of: Subject: Hello there! "I see you recently registered to become a new adventurer within The World! This is great we need all the support we can get over here! After you're done sight seeing come pay me a visit! I'll be at the town square when you arrive in town. The Boat will leave quickly so hurry up and log in! Attached is a picture of my amazing self so you know who to look for. Try to last with just this selfie until you arrive!" (I don't know how I feel about this, I envisioned the story to never give context to the story to more or less break the 4th wall). -After checking your email you can login to the game. - Create your character and class. Details should go into another thread of character customization - This part can go two ways, but either way I want a cutscene to show the town (with "city hall"), ocean, boats, and maybe the island castle (for arena champions) in the distance. Option A: The player arrives to Aqua Polis from a boat. This is my prefered option because without it, we cannot explain why the chaos gate is broken or not powered enough for long distance travel (cant travel to other root towns). Option B: The player arrives to Aqua Polis through the Chaos Gate. We just don't explain [censored]. - Either option will lock the player in town until they talk to the NPC from the email. If they arrive through a boat an npc or two will explain to explore areas and what not. Most NPC's in the town are helpful with information on buildings and shops. Main Storyline For full NPC conversation and quests, refer to the correct thread. This is just an outline to discuss. Remember that the Storyline Revolves around Mayor Claws trying to flood the town to make it a water park. He has happy little goblin elves he enslaves to do his bidding. First Section - Meet with the NPC from the email. He discusses with you the town. He tells you he needs a lacky to help him carry the treasure from a dungeon by the request of the Mayor. - Meet him at the Chaos Gate and he explains the gate to you. - Chaos Gate pops up. You need to either go to the premade map combination option or put it in manually, depending on how we do it. If you choose another option you're rejected and the NPC tells you the correct words to put in. - The Map is *INSTANCED*. You will not meet other players on it. To ensure bullying doesnt happen and makes it easier to use NPC's with you. You meet the NPC at the field and he goes over the games basics. - You add him to your party and a monster comes after you, and you defeat it. - Travel through the dungeon with some funny comentary from the NPC such as "You went the wrong way!" or "I shouldn't let you navigate anymore...". Hit the chest for cutscene. You get the treasure. You see a goblin in an elf like hat peeking through the corner as you two warp out. - After talking to the NPC near the chaos gate he runs off after, thus opening the chaos gate for free use. He advises you to check the quest store for jobs and tells you to see him again when you're strong enough for a real job. Second Section - Must be Level 5. - Again you're free to do what you want at this point. If you want to progress in the story though you have to talk to the NPC again. - You're told to talk to another NPC for a discription of the next treasure to find. You find out there are two possible locations to the treasure. You go back to the starter NPC and he suggests to split up. - You travel to the dungeon. More goblins and other monsters. Rarely you'll encounter a goblin in a elf hat and he'll run away. - You get the treasure and return to the starter npc. Third Section - Level 10 - You talk to the NPC and he tells you that you need to travel to city hall and talk to the Mayor himself. - Travel to City Hall and meet Mayor Claws. He tells you he is proud of your work and you see a few elf goblins. He tells you about how his little helpers have been watching you. He tells you about how you've been gathering pieces to a technology to protect the town from goblins. He asks you find the last piece. - The starter NPC brings up that a number of children have gone missing. Mayor Claws states not to worry about that but the starter NPC insists. Mayor Claws loses his cool for a second then tells the starter NPC to investigate pretending to be concerned. - You travel to the dungeon and get the last piece after fighting a mini boss. When you grab the final treasure you return to City Hall. - Mayor Claws congratulates you while the starter NPC states he had a lead on who has been kidnapping children and will continue investigating. Claws drops the treasure and blames you and tells you to leave. - You go to the offical for your reward. She tells you to come back when he's cooled off. Fourth Section - Level 15 - You talk to the offical and she tells you to go into Mayor Claws office. - You come in and he does an evil laugh over his desk without noticing you and tries to cover up what he's doing. He tells you he needs the energy source for the device because /you/ broke the generator for the piece. He tells you that his goblin elf will accompany you so nothing happens again. He whispers something to the elf evily. - You go to the dungeon and again...mini boss. Get the treasure and the goblin elf knocks you out from behind. You wake up and Evil Claws is laughing and tells you his grand scheme of destroying the town with a flood like before to build a water park, putting the town on the map. He explains he only needs to wait for the moon to be full to use the device, sacrificing the children to flood the town. He leaves you to his minions. - You fight countless minions before starter NPC saves you. He tells you he found out its Claws stealing children and you need to regroup. - You meet starter NPC in town and he tells you Mayor Claws is gone. He'll search for clues while you prepare. Last Section - Level 20 - You meet starter NPC and he was told he has an informent who will divulge the location of Claws. You must go alone while he searches for other leads. - You go to the dungeon and in the boss room is a goblin elf about to tell you the secrets. Then a goblin elf comes in and summons a boss. You defeat him and the goblin elf tells you the location of Mayor Claws. - You travel to the lost ground and go into the instance (a basement under) with the starter NPC. You find Mayor Claws and tied up children. He states that this water park is just the begining, he will flood the world and then make water parks everywhere. Starter NPC explains that if he sacrifices all the children, no one will be there to go to his water parks. Mayor Claws is stunned then gets angry and attacks. You beat him and his minions and save the children. - Starter NPC meets you back at the City Hall and becomes the new Mayor. He gives you the power crystal from the treasure telling you he is going to destroy the device once and for all. He tells you to use the crystal on the gate to travel to the next city. End of Claws Arc. You cannot travel to Theta in Beta. Popup will state such. Side Storyline For full NPC conversation and quests, refer to the correct thread. This is just an outline to discuss. That's it for now. As for how far we mapped it out? An expansion after the main game focusing on Adonis. The main game would give you the fall of Graves and a brief sight of the Goddesses themselves... then we'd slowly show them more and more with Adonis and after. As for how detailed we made the quests? We had the first parts completely dialoged out. Looking for actually as I cant seem to find it >.> In very short, the main was going to have a very light silly tone at the start and slowly get somewhat darker as it went on. The side story though was going to be very dark. Very, horribly dark. We were planning the scenes/sounds/situations in which we wanted people to flat out cry at say Apathy's death. One of the greatest moments in gaming or anime I've personally experienced was watching or playing through similar situations. The was definitely one aspect we wanted to re create.

A bit early for this announcement but I myself can hardly contain waiting as some may know, the last few weeks have been rough. A lot of rumors were going around and many of us were in the dark about the situation with the staff. That being said...we're back! We are the first to admit the lack of communication thus far for not only ourselves but to you, the players as well was inexcusable. So we are going to try and make that up as much as we can. A few small things to make this up. 1. From what I understand Siegfre found ways to fix the major problems with the lag in our game. It's still being tweaked but I know for many this was a large concern. 2. As you can see the Development forums are open with old content for the game. The developer blog for donators is still active however, and for new content it will be posted there as it's being made. 3. Speaking of the Development forums, I made a new thread (while forgetting my old thread was only under it by a few, opps) about reconstructing Holyground. I plan to make it bigger and more worthy of a .hack game. 4. We would like to host a small event, similar to our last one for the players. This time however, you guys decide the theme of the event. Granted we want to limit the resources used for this event to a minimum as to not hurt development, but on the forums let us know what sort of theme and gimmik the event consists of. Don't be scared when posting because of my limited resources comment, we will let you know as people post what we can and cannot do for this. Some examples would be a summer, winter, or fall festival. It could be located on a beach or lake, or some sort of other area. It could be a tournament (assuming PVP is up to date). You guys decide! As the more popular ideas surface, we will put it to a vote. 5. Many of the older members from CyberConnect already know about this, but for those who don't, I want an alternative for those seeking a more active forum or .hack game while we continue to progress in ours. As many know I've had a stance that our community doesn't need to seek growing until we have more done. Although ideally we should be farther in development we are not, so I want to push this stance again and give people some options. When CyberConnect went down, an older project from many years ago, the community divided. A division of those members can be found here at Cyberconnects2. http://forums.cyberconnects2.com/index.php I personally along with the rest of the staff do not have anything to do with the project or development and have nothing bad to say against it's staff. Actually I've known one of them for years. For those more interested in a .hack clone or a 2d game to make the time go by, here is a good alternative. For one thing we are still lacking, and needed desperately, is 3D modelers (who can texture) and animators. Please pm me if you are interested in joining the project if you are a 3D modeler and/animator I hope these small things are enough to satisfy some of you while we continue to develop The World. Thank you, Lee Keramory

Hello this is Lee Keramory, executive and head of the graphic department at CyberConnect. Yes we are a real company, and no so you are not mislead, we are not CyberConnect2. We are proud to show, to the point of going out our forums, our newest product. This of course, is the new online .hack game. And yes, it is in 3d. A brief video of Mac Anu, our 3d root town. Our company site can be located at www.cyberconnects.com Our public forums can be found at www.cyberconnects.com/forum, where many other users waiting for the game interact. For GU users we have a very active RP forum for them, because our games are based off R:1. For any questions, feel free to ask. There has been much confusion with CyberConnect and Bandai to the public eye which can be easily corrected while I'm here. For my personal work, feel free to photobucket "Keramory". Thank you for your time, Lee Keramory