Hell

I decided that my optimised relaxation was too much stress. This doesn't mean I've abandoned my Japanese work, I've just taken a day off. ;)

So I have spent some time working on an old hobby I resurrect from time to time; computer game design. The following series of articles will follow my stream-of-consciousness approach to game design for one specific incarnation - an MMO. (I decided I liked the idea of running an on-line game when they were still known as MUDs, but that term now implies text-screens...)

One of the problems I have with most existing MMOs is their inability to solve the consistency problem. This is roughly the inability of interesting content to be customised to each player - the basic reason why everyone who plays game A kills ten rats (and similar tasks) before doing anything else.

The long-term solution to this, I feel certain, is player-created content. Unfortunately, because of the GIFT effect, a small minority of players cannot be trusted to create content for others. I'm not proposing any specific solution to this problem right now, but it's one I'd like to address, and I'll be thinking about ways of doing so through this exercise.

I spent some time considering different milieux, but had already decided to let my first attempt to write up a design be a relatively mainstream one. That means focusing on a setting where I could justify lots of combat, because - let's be honest here people - combat is easy to design. So, what setting justifies endless violence, plotting, and fighting?

Well, it's obviously Hell.

I'm thinking of a detail level somewhere between a typical RPG and a RTS; a more tactical focus, something similar to Fallout or UFO: Enemy Unknown. I might even borrow from Fallout's game mechanics; I think the feel is different enough for the result to be distinctive.

To which Lord will your soul Fall?

We have two excellent literary sources for Hell. One is Dante's Inferno; the other is the Wizards of the Coast interpretation, Baator. These two documents have very different areas of focus; Dante discusses the landscape to some extent, but is mainly concerned with the inhabitants, whereas Wizards focus mainly on the rulers.

Dante defines nine circles of Hell:

• Limbo : The virtuous pagans and unbaptised. Those whose fault was a lack of faith. The lower 8 layers are selected between by Minos
• Second Circle : Lust. Their souls are blown by a violent storm without hope of rest.
• Third Circle : Gluttony. Cerberus guards those who are forced to lie in mud and consume their excrement in continual cold rain and hail.
• Fourth Circle : Miserliness and decadence. They push weights around against one another. Guarded by Plutus.
• Fifth Circle (River Styx) : Wrath and Sloth. The wrathful fight on the surface, the slothful lie drowning. Phlegyas.

The lower circles are within Dis, which is surrounded by the Stygian marsh.

• Sixth Circle : Heretics are trapped in flaming tombs.
• Seventh Circle : the Violent; the Minotaur guards the entrance to its three rings. There are different punishments for crimes against property, suicides, and those violent against god, nature or art. Respectively these are boiling blood immersion, guarded by centaurs; suicides turned to bushes and torn at by harpies; and the desert of flaming sand.
• Eighth circle : the fraudulent. Malebolgie of many different tortures.
• Ninth Circle : traitors. Guarded by giants. Frozen in ice.

Wizards, on the other hand, describe nine planes and their rulers. Fortunately, like Dante, their first plane of Avernus can be ignored (its description is dependent on the Blood War, which I don't intend to include in my cosmology). That leaves eight planes and eight circles of Hell to match up.

• Dis ruled by Dispater (The City of Burning Iron)
• Minauros ruled by Mammon (an endless bog of vile pollution)
• Phlegethos ruled by Fierna and Belial (just Belial in 1st ed) (Volcano and lava)
• Stygia ruled by Levistus (Geryon in 1st ed) (the Styx-ocean)
• Malbolge ruled by Glasya (Baalzebul via Moloch) (an endless rocky slope)
• Maladomini ruled by Baalzebul (ruins and gruesome places)
• Cania/Caina ruled by Mephistopheles (unimaginably cold wasteland)
• Nessus ruled by Asmodeus ("pits and ravines")

Obviously there are some problems with a one to one match. After playing around with a few options, I decided on the following correspondence:

• Stygia, ruled by Lephistus, is the Second Circle, the freezing Styx-Ocean with its iceberg capital. The souls here are mariners and those lost on the water.
  
• Minauros, ruled by Mammon, is the Third Circle, an endless bog with foul rain and hail. Here the gluttonous feast on excrement. They are the revolting dead - zombies and suchlike.
  
• Plutus, ruled by Glasya, is the Fourth Circle, a place of laborous torment. (As in Wizards' work, Glasya is the daughter of Asmodeus and rules as Queen, served by the former ruler, the god Pluto.) The minions of Glasya are weak-willed but numerous.
  
• The Fifth Circle is Maladomini, ruled by Baalzebul. This bizarre realm of ruins and subterranean dungeons is immersed in an endless swamp. The wrathful fight a continual war above the surface as the slothful drown forever beneath the water.
  
• Dis, the city of Dispater, is the Sixth Circle. The heretics burn here in flaming tombs. Dispater's minions love intrigue and ceremony, although their lord rules definitively.
  
• Phlegethos is the Seventh Circle, the domain of violence, ruled by Fierna and Belial. There are several geographical environments here, all hot. The denizens are the most violent of all Hell's creatures.
  
• Caina, the frozen Eighth Circle, is ruled by Mephistopheles. Here the traitors are locked in ice eternal. You should not avert your eyes from them, as they move faster than their condition implies.
  

Finally, the Ninth Circle of Hell - Nessus - is the domain of Asmodeus, who is somewhat above the endless squabbles of the other Dukes. The Lord of Nessus rarely leaves his home in the deepest pits, except to punish those who insult him.

Although a variation from both my primary sources, this is one that I find satisfactory. It produces a few of good hooks and synergies; Mephistopheles the traitor, Glasya the woman behind the throne, Asmodeus distant and all-powerful.

By building a correspondence, I now have two sources to draw on for each Lord of Hell, which gives me more variety to use in creating their minions and their single-player mission structure. (I did mention that, right? No - well, there will be a campaign for each Lord, something like an normal offline tactics game - your progression in which will determine what units you can deploy in free PvP).

I'll post something about the combat system, probably tomorrow. I've spent quite a bit of time working on it, and I hope it'll be fun to play with.