Since it’s been over a year since the announcement that World of Magic will be completely revamped into Arcane Odyssey, I decided it’s time to make a post outlining things such as gameplay, the goal of the game, progress so far, and other things such as reiterating things stated in the original announcement post.
History
Arcane Odyssey is the sequel to Arcane Adventures, a similar Roblox game that existed from 2016-2018 until it was broken when Roblox forced FilteringEnabled on all games. Arcane Adventures was started in late 2015 when FilteringEnabled was still a relatively new thing, and since I knew nothing about it at the time, decided to make AA non-FilteringEnabled knowing that some day, FE may be forced and the game would break.
Arcane Adventures was the greatest game I’ve ever made, with a unique experience unlike any other Roblox game even today. It was a completely open world, story-based, PvP game set on an ocean, with its own lore and lots of attention to detail. This is exactly what I’m trying to do with Arcane Odyssey - make it like AA, but better in every single way, with more features, better gameplay, and an even higher attention to detail.
Many of you may read this and ask “why not just remake AA then?” which is a question that’s been asked many times since the game was broken in 2018. The reasons I never did that are because:
- I didn’t want to spend months or potentially a year remaking things I had already spent 2 years creating. I enjoyed creating new content for the game, but it would be way too draining to make the same things all over again.
- At the time it broke, my coding skills were not ready to take on the monster task of recoding the game to make it work in FilteringEnabled. Even Adventure Story’s code - a game I released in late 2018 after AA broke - is very bad compared to how I can code today due to what I’ve learned from my mistakes. (side note: I don’t regret making Adventure Story either, since it was a stepping stone in my learning process on how to make games more efficient and easier to update. I want to update it again some day, but it may take time since a lot of its code needs remade.)
When I started World of Magic, all I wanted to do was create a magic arena style game similar to Fairy Tail Online Fighting - a game I created in 2014. After deciding the game should be a part of the Arcane Universe though, things got a bit messy, such as some features of the game being Fairy Tail-inspired and some being Arcane Universe-inspired. The arcane lore was also messed up in order to force World of Magic’s continent into existence. The game had some major issues - mostly performance related - but overall I feel it could have been at the same level Arcane Odyssey will be if it continued to be updated.
Instead I chose to stop updates and rework the game entirely, which I don’t regret at all. Revamping World of Magic into Arcane Odyssey allows me to recreate the feeling and passion of AA, but in a better, more modern way, without making the exact same islands and story again.
What is Arcane Odyssey?
In Arcane Odyssey, you awake on the shore of an island with no memory of how you got there, with the only person nearby being Morden, a young man you knew before losing your memory. While trying to recover your memory, the War Seas conflicts are at an all-time high as kingdoms struggle and kill in order to collect as many Sea Curses as they can. The story will be a large-scale adventure, hence the name “Odyssey”, but you’ll have to wait and see for yourself what will happen.
For more information about the Arcane Universe’s lore: Full Arcane Lore
You sail the seas, slowly becoming stronger in the arts of magic, weapons, hand-to-hand combat, or some combination of multiple of them. Due to your actions, you make many powerful friends and enemies throughout the story. You can train your skills, sink pirate or kingdom ships, uncover mysterious ghost ship wreckages, venture into the great Dark Seas in hopes of legendary treasures, and much more. Fight other players, or befriend them and form a clan, allowing you to capture islands and build your own kingdoms or strongholds.
For more details about gameplay and things that will be added, check out the Trello lists: Arcane Odyssey
There are 4 different stat routes: Vitality, Magic, Weapons, and Strength, as well as 11 different “builds” made up of combinations of these stats. For example, combining weapons and magic will allow you to imbue any weapon with any of your magics, increasing their damage and applying unique effects.
PvP is enabled everywhere in this game, though it is not a major focus, just like in Arcane Adventures. Despite this, PvP will be fun and enjoyable with constant balancing changes if necessary, as well as tournaments hosted by me post-release for rewards such as unique vanity items and titles. There will be plenty of other activities to do besides PvPing as mentioned above.
Development
I develop Arcane Odyssey by myself, and so far I’ve gone through 3 minor “slumps” while developing the game - while revamping magic effects, while revamping the weapons system, and while creating the Level 50-100 weapons. During these slumps, the speed of development slows down since doing these repeated tasks becomes very draining. I work on Arcane Odyssey every single day, and record every change and addition to the patch notes, which you can read on the Trello: Arcane Odyssey
I’ve also not been satisfied with the direction the development has gone, since a lot of the time so far has been spent revamping combat-related features. Because of this, I’ve decided I’m going to push back most PvP/PvE related content more towards release, so that I can focus on story and gameplay instead. Focusing on these things keeps my motivation and passion high, and I consider them a much more major part of the game compared to combat.
For development updates and Arcane Odyssey previews, follow me on twitter: @_vetex
In the original Arcane Odyssey announcement post, I mentioned it would only take about 4-6 months. This was true at first, but I wanted to take the game to the next level and make it my masterpiece, which will make it take much longer. I want this game to be the greatest I’ve ever made, something I can work on for many, many years. I will only release the game when I think it’s ready, unlike World of Magic, which I was forced to release very early due to lack of money.
Arcane Odyssey will hopefully release some time in 2022. If it takes longer than June 2022, I may reconsider taking my time and just release the game ASAP since I wouldn’t want to keep people waiting another year, but we’ll see. Thank you for your patience and understanding!