In addition to the exciting announcements below, Eric DeMilt, Development Director of Culturalization for Skyforge, will be doing a LIVE Q&A session in the comments from 12-2pm CDT 7/2/2014
It’s time to continue the journey through the world of Skyforge! Today we are revealing one of the most significant features of this game, the Divine Observatory. For the residents of Aelion, the Divine Observatory is a global surveillance and warning system. Its task is to monitor and display the pleas for help of Aelion’s mortals and send immortals to their aid. For players, it is a single point of entry into all sorts of adventures!
The Divine Observatory, as well as special Access points located throughout the whole planet, will quickly take you to where your help is needed most.
When you first begin your journey from immortal to godhood only a few adventures will be open but more and more will become available to you as you progress. During the first hundred hours of play time, the immortal heroes of Aelion will participate in more than 40 exciting solo and group PvE adventures. There are also five different types of PvP competitions for PvP fans and ten vast open world locations that can be explored for hours and hours.
There are a multitude of activities open to players in the Divine Observatory, and your choice is not limited in any way. It’s up to you to decide whether you would like to develop your character for PvP or PvE and then quickly jump into the content you prefer.
A normal adventure can be completed in an average of 15-25 minutes, while open world locations can take hours and hours to explore.
The Divine Observatory is updated every 40 minutes. Any changes in the adventures open to you or their rewards will be immediately displayed on the globe, a miniature projection of the planet. The system updates the list of “hot spots”, allowing players to easily see and participate in all currently active events.
You are free to replay specific individual and group PvE-missions you enjoy again and again, and their rewards grow as your prestige grows, so they remain useful to your development and progression. After repeating an adventure several times, the difficulty will increase, and so will the amount and value of the rewards. Of course, other types of content also remain relevant to you as you grow as well. For example, the matchmaking system always tries to find the most suitable opponents when it picks players for PvP battles.
Open adventures and their rewards are updated every 40 minutes.
There are also additional recommended events which will appear in the Divine Observatory from time-to-time (adventure of the day, week and month). These recommended events are a great way to test your characters progression or try a different class. Sometimes the reward for the recommended event is so high that even an avid PvP player may decide to participate in a PvE adventure, or a confirmed Paladin will set off for Factory 501 as a Cryomancer.
The number you see in this picture above is Prestige – the main indicator of character development. It is affected by new unlocked classes, abilities, talents, equipment upgrades and many other things. When you reach a certain amount, new adventure and content are automatically unlocked.
Over time, there will be an abundance of adventures and content available to you.
As heroes complete PvE-and PvP-adventures, they receive rewards including; Credits, the most common money on Aelion. Gems of Insight, which are used to develop your characters skills and talents, unlocking new classes and characteristics, and Exotic Currencies, which can be used to buy new outfits, customizing the look of your character.
As your prestige grows, the list of rewards expands. While at first characters receive only Gems of Insight, later their adventures will yield other, more valuable resources. Over time, more and more difficult tasks will become available to you, including massive guild activities with their own rules and prizes, but that’s a topic for another day.
Let us know what you think of the Divine Observatory and remember to leave any questions in the comments below! If you want the chance to see if it for yourself make sure you sign up for the Skyforge Beta now! Our Skyforge Wiki is still in the process of growing and we’re always looking for more contributors. If you’re looking for a place to start getting into editing, you can check out our Help Page or the more general Gamepedia Help Wiki. If you want some personal help with something, you can always visit us in the #Gamepedia channel on IRC.