To really explain my thought process behind this game, I suppose a blog entry should suffice. As past members would know, Oracle's Mandate, or "OM" as most called it, was first hosted here back a couple of months ago. By all accounts, it took me about a full month to really get the basis for the game formulated. In fact, the various components to OM have spanned many pages and separate documents in Microsoft Word.

My inspirations for OM come from many things. I think the top two things that helped me along however would have to be The Elder Scrolls games, most notably TES IV: Oblivion. I found that the setting, cultures, and geographical spread was ideal for my storyline and would be able to be modified as much as I wanted to meet my needs. The second would probably be The Lord of the Rings and other J.R.R. Tolkien works. His lore has always mystified me deeply and really has always been my favorite fantasy stories. I found that the dynamic characters, the types of enemies, and the overall feel to his universe was such a grand scheme, yet held unimaginable potency... enough of which to deeply influence my idea process when it came to OM's plot.

I found that this question always came to mind, before I made OM:

"Why isn't there a fantasy out there yet on LS, that could have such a deep and enthralling feel to it? Maybe I should make something like that... but where the hell would I start?!"

But, after asking such a thing... I started to think. There should be a serious baddy, the likes of which none have seen yet in an RPG online game. There should be multiple cultures, races, and lands. The lands should differ in interesting / maybe mysterious ways. I need to come up with a kickass lore.

And thus, my thoughts began, akin to a meteor strike.. it all just kind of dawned on me. The game would take on the premise that the land was "ending" or "slowly seeping into darkness", and that "an articifact or something" [which would later become the Oracle's Mandate] should be the key to restoring balance. As soon as my backbone plotline was created, albeit with some late minor adjustments, I started to fill in the meat.

Every world needs a past...

All people need a culture....

Thoughts such as those buzzed through my mind as I thought of the plot. I started making up a history that was completely unique and far surpassed any of the work I did in previous games. I just kind of.... kept going. I created an "age" system for the land that I named "Ryerdae", created a complex timeline of events leading up until the games start. Cultures and peoples were cultivated, a map was born... or actually several, and then suddenly small intricate details that I would have never thought of previously popped up.

Soon enough, an entire lands general history was made, a currency system was developed, governments were born, internal strife and political policies capitalized on... I finally found a lore that was befitting of a month worth of work. If I had to be honest, the games work ended only weeks ago when I developed an ancient language for the older ages of Ryerdae called "New Temperian". It was surprisingly easy, as I just made up words that sounded cool and meshed the Japanese and Spanish systems together.

Yes, a lot of people that I know would probably call me insane for taking the time to do such a thing.... but really, I had a lot of fun with it. I was using the imagination that I was gifted with I suppose, and maybe I will use these ideas of mine later in my career as a game dev. So, was it really wasting time, or investing in my future... ?


As a last little note, I added some "easter eggs" as they are called. They essentially refer to references in popular culture (IE Videogames, movies, people, etc.)

• Being the history buff that I am, I made multiple references to past events in the real world, and emulated them in Ryerdae.
  
• I also made many references to historical figures that either mean something to me, or tend to make me laugh (you wouldn't understand)
  
• One easter egg, and in this case it is 'macho sized' is the day and month system that I used for the game, which is the very same as that in TES: Oblivion.
  
• Some character names were also derived from certain figures in LOTR.
  
• An entire country and their culture was essentially copied from another one of my RPG's called EPICivilizations [Anumias].
  
• The 'TEMPERA' in New Tempera is a reference to "tempera paint" which obviously hearkens to the fact that I love art (ironically I hate painting though)
  
• Many pictures used for certain places were directly taken from TES Oblivion
  
• The ancient elven race named the "Ayleids" was a reference to the ancient race of high elves in Oblivion called Ayleids.
  
• The Vurstarians are a reference to the old Soul Calibur series' Lizard Man character.
  
• Hyporion was originally named New Capua, a reference to Redcoat's civ in EPICivilizations.
  
• The New Temperian Empire, and their general culture is based primarily off of old Rome.
  
• The number "5" in OM is derived from the Japanese kanji for the #5.

Hope you enjoyed this general blog entry. Any questions or comments are obviously welcome.