Welcome to Aion Rising
As a cataclysmic storm rages across the landscape, the continent of Cambria stands upon the brink of a great upheaval. The sky rains fire and iridescent auras of shimmering energy shower the heavens. If the prophecies are to be believed, the Aion Rising is upon us, and a new Age of Heroes has arrived. Welcome, adventurer, to the turn of the tide.
Aion Rising is an RPG idle game built on the Polygon network. Players assume the role of Heroes that compete for the control and mastery of Aion — a mysterious and powerful energy that has begun to permeate the world in the aftermath of a devastating magical storm. Heroes will compete to channel and harvest Aion, fight enemy Heroes, complete quests, craft powerful weapons and items, align themselves with in-game factions and assemble a Retinue as they grow in stature and power. In-game actions will reward players with the $AION token which is used for a wide range of game mechanics such as character progression, crafting, marketplace trade and cosmetics.
Depth and integrity of gameplay are the foundational principles of our game design. Underpinning our decision to build Aion Rising on the blockchain is our belief that players should share in the value generated when a community pours their time, effort, skill and passion into a digital game world. Building on the Polygon blockchain ensures absolute ownership of in-game assets by the players while keeping gas fees and costs low.
We would like to be clear, however, that we are not aspiring to create a completely decentralized game, and our design decisions will always favor gameplay over decentralization. We are building a character-based RPG within a living and breathing world in which Heroes will decide the course of the narrative through gameplay mechanisms such as world events, questing and faction diplomacy. The complex interplay between these elements will require careful iteration, testing and balancing on an ongoing basis which would be complicated by a decentralization process.
We would rather pour every resource we have into building and refining the game, and frankly speaking — most projects pay lip service to the idea of decentralization without adequate thought and execution behind it. The structure and details of the tokenomic system will be completely transparent, clearly-communicated and certified by third parties. With that said, we look forward to ongoing, close collaboration and communication with our community throughout the course of development, launch and beyond.
Game Introduction
Aion Rising is an idle-style, narrative-driven RPG set in a continent called Cambria. Heroes are front and centre of the game and are the vehicles through which players will navigate the game world. Currently there are 3 Hero classes — Warrior, Ranger and Mage — and each brings a different set of strengths and weaknesses to the table. All Heroes can venture out into the world and harness Aion energy which is used to level up, gain traits, craft items and build your Hero’s Retinue. However there is always the danger that another, more powerful Hero can ambush yours and steal your Aion.
At launch, there will be ten different Regions available for Heroes to travel to and explore on the World Map, each with Aion sources to harvest, quests to complete and enemies to vanquish. World Events will also crop up in various places around the game world and Heroes are free to attend to those Regions to participate.
Ultimately, it is up to each player to decide in which direction they wish to develop their Hero. For the artisan craftsman, much time will be spent obtaining rare recipes and exploring for the materials needed to craft the most powerful items. Other Heroes may seek to enter the larger conflicts happening across the game world, enlisting their sword or staff in the service of their chosen faction, and go to war. Our game design philosophy is that there are no “right” answers, and that different playstyles should be rewarded in equitable but differing ways.
Factions, Diplomacy, World Events and Retinues
Cambria is a land teeming with danger and opportunity. The Aion Storm has shaken up the old power structures and created possibilities for new kingdoms, factions and individuals to rise up and stake their claim to power. Players will have the opportunity to align themselves with in-game factions, kingdoms and other groups and direct their actions to benefit the chosen factions. World Events will offer players the opportunity to pick sides in multi-sided conflicts and the aggregate results of player decision-making will result in consequences for the game world such as kingdoms expanding their borders, new lands being opened up for exploration and Aion harvesting by Heroes, and much more.
As Heroes continue to rise in stature, they will unlock the ability to form a Retinue. Historically, notable persons formed a loyal group of advisors, attendants and companions called a retinue which provided advice, protection and all manner of service to their sworn leader. In Aion Rising, Retinues are a trading-card-like system attached to Heroes comprised of NFTs called Retainers which provide active and passive bonuses to a Hero. Retinues have their own system of progression related to the power of the Hero they serve, and Retainer slots are opened as Heroes rise up in level.
Crafting, Materials and Marketplace
Crafting will be a major game system in Aion Rising and the majority of items Heroes will be equipping will be crafted by players themselves. Crafting will be a skill that every Hero will have but will need to hone in order to create increasingly powerful items. To craft an item, a Hero will need to know the requisite Recipe, obtain the requisite Materials and be of the appropriate crafting skill level.
A host of standard item recipes will be known to all Heroes from the outset in order to provide everyone with an early-game picture of what it is possible to make, and to give players the power to decide which kinds of traits they want to start focusing on early. Recipes will be available variously as random drops, quest rewards, faction rewards and other game mechanics. The Aion Marketplace will be the hub for the trading of all in-game assets including crafted items, the Materials needed to make them, and Heroes themselves.
Protecting Against Pay-to-Win
We understand that there is always a concern about the potential for big spenders to trivialize or dominate games that contain Marketplaces with tradable items. We are working to strike a balance between allowing players to extract the value they accrue in the Aion ecosystem and limiting the ability of a player to simply outspend their peers in order to obtain an unfair gameplay advantage.
Our primary solution for this from a design perspective will be the implementation of a Bound item state. Bound items will not be tradable between Heroes or sellable on the Marketplace. Many recipes will require Materials that are Bound, meaning that the Hero seeking to craft the item will have to obtain a specific Material for themselves through gameplay and will not be able to simply purchase it on the Marketplace. Equipping an item to your Hero will also bind it, which will help to combat item inflation and keep the item economy fluid. There will be many ways for players to invest in their Hero that do not translate into in-game power such as custom artwork, portraits, cosmetics, titles and much more.
Breeding and New Hero Generation
As a game centered around the progression of individual characters, the question of how new Heroes are minted on the blockchain is an important one. Our goal is to create a sustainable system that will allow us to scale the player base while protecting against a spiral of endless creation and speculation; we are not interested in creating a pyramid scheme of character-breeding.
With this in mind, the initial mint of Hero-NFTs will be issued by the developers in order to raise capital and control the initial bootstrapping of the player base. Thereafter, we plan to allow players to develop an ‘apprentice’ Retainer within their Retinue which can be minted as its own Hero NFT after a moderate amount of gameplay progression.
This is a game mechanic that we very much want to work with the community on in order to arrive at a solution that feels fair, equitable and ultimately serves gameplay outcomes in the best possible way.
Player-owned Land and Plans for the Aion Ecosystem
Over the course of designing Aion Rising, we developed many interesting ideas and directions for additional game systems and the grander Aion ecosystem. Chief among these was a system of land-management/settlement-building which fit in beautifully within the structure of an idle game set in an expansive high-fantasy world populated by kingdoms, empires, city-states and factions. Ultimately, we decided that our priority was to build an RPG, and presently all of our technical resources are completely dedicated to shipping Aion Rising and all of the core features we have planned for it.
We have, however, continued to work on the framework and game mechanics for a player-owned land management game within the Aion ecosystem which we are tentatively naming Aion Kingdoms. It will be a module connected to the Aion universe and will synergize with the existing gameplay mechanisms and tokenomics of Aion Rising. Players will be able to own land plots of varying sizes which will provide new economic levers of activity and gameplay loops alongside those in Aion Rising, such as generating resources, Materials, items and even the ability to invest in NPC characters who can themselves produce recipes, and much more. The idea is that players can participate in either the Rising or Kingdoms modules, or both, and experience deep and engaging gameplay via two different games that are linked by core mechanics, resources and of course a shared world.
Aion Kingdoms is set to be released at a later phase of development, once we have built the major game systems of Aion Rising. Further information about all things land and Kingdoms will be forthcoming later this year.
Lastly, be sure to check out our official website and join our Discord to connect with us directly and receive all the latest news and updates, including details on our upcoming Genesis Hero NFT sale.
