Ilkor: Tavern Talk
I thought you might be interested to hear about Tavern Talk which is our messaging system for Ilkor: Dark Rising. We've been working hard on this part of the game and it is now basically finished.
You might wonder what a messaging system is. Well it's the way players, gamemasters and characters will be able to communicate amongst one another. We won't be revealing anyone's email address, but rather you'll be able to send private message to individual characters and even groups of characters or you are able to post messages in the rooms that you have permission to enter.
Technically, we've used PhpBB3 which is a forum application (open source) and have skinned it to blend in with the game and spent the last few months modifying and customizing it's functionality. We've named the forum Tavern Talk and it will be hosted as a sub-website of Ilkor. Tavern Talk isn't available yet, but it will be eventually available on http://tavern.ilkor.com.
Tavern Talk will be a private forum. It won't be available to the public. You will gain access to Tavern Talk when you signup and create your character to play Ilkor: Dark Rising.
We've fully integrated Tavern Talk with the game, so you'll be able to gain access to Tavern Talk directly from Ilkor after logging in. The same password will be used.
Tavern Talk has been designed and configured so that your only have access to the rooms that you are allowed to. For example, if you are a Fighter, you'll have access to the Fighter's Guild. Only fighters will have access to this room and you'll be able to post messages amongst guild members.
Below I'll included a handful of screenshots. Hopefully they are pretty self describing and you like what you see.
This lists the rooms your character has access to. The two rooms in the 'Arcandia Chronicles' are available to all characters and considered rooms for general chat.
This sections lists all the characters in the game (player and gamemaster characters). As you can see from the list, there are just 3 characters in this demo game, a GM and two adventurers. Note how their broad location is also revealed.
This character profile is available to all characters. Everyone can see one another. We feel it doesn't give too much away. From this view you can see that Durfur is a 1st level Dwarf Male Priest along with this avatar. This location tells you that he is in the region of Caledon and currently in the Beren kingdom.
Here you are able to manage your character, write posts and messages to groups, rooms, adventurers and gamemasters. You are also able to manage other aspects of your communication.
And that really it for the moment. There is much more to Tavern Talk, but hopefully this gives you some idea of what you can expect.
Cheers for now.