MedievaLands Forums

Greetings fellow Yserbians, I am Reginald Hangif, originally hailing from the far-off servers of yore such as INN, and the more recent, but more defunct servers of INNRevival. I have found this ambitious project and have already begun to indulge in the quest to learn more about King Cleowyn and eventually learn more of the mad wizard Arnakkian once again.

Here's hoping I cross paths with you eventually in the volcano.

- R

Hail Reginald, and welcome back to Yserbius. Like you, I played Yserbius on INN. The game was a formative experience for me: I was enchanted by the dungeon and the welcoming community.

I've always wanted to return to that experience - you can still find my younger self's posts about the subject on dusty and cobwebbed INN boards across the 'net. Finally, after years of thinking about the subject, I now have the programming chops necessary to make this a reality.

Of course, the community has been scattered - but I plan on advertising a grand release across as many venues as I can manage when I feel that this game is ready for its fifteen minutes of fame. Expect more on this in 4-5 weeks.

Of course, my intention is not to create Yserbius-as-it-was exactly. Yserbius is almost 30 years old, and there are places where the game design could be updated to improve the experience of playing the game.

I've thought about what my 'statement of design philosophy' might be for this remake. I have landed on the following - I want to:

Preserve the core play experience (dungeon crawling with friends) and mechanics (levels, classes, spells, attributes, etc.) of the original game,

Remove design choices that punish players for playing the game,

Add mechanics that make it easier to understand the game world,

Increase the number of ways that characters can interact with the world, in terms of character advancement and socialization with other players.

There is more to come, of course. I hope you'll be with us on this journey.