First off, thank you so much for all of the responses to last week’s blog post! There were a ton of great questions, and the comments made in support of both the game and the new weekly blog posts were much appreciated. Receiving feedback from players on these weekly updates will be super helpful to the process, so keep the comments coming!
In this week’s update I’ll be providing a brief outline of what player owned ships are like and how they work. What follows is meant as a primer for this topic, as I’m sure that you’ll be hearing much more about player owned ships in future previews. I’m going to avoid significant story and gameplay spoilers here, but if you are completely adverse to any type of spoilers for the expansion then now would be a good time to stop reading.
How Owning A Ship Works
You’ll be boarding your future ship within minutes of starting Key of the Exiles (KotE), though it won’t be under your command just yet. After meeting some new key characters, you, your companions and Krasus will set sail for the western continent. Your primary objective is still to find all of the Luanan Runes and prevent Mardeck from obtaining their power. Thankfully, after having spent a bunch of time in Mardeck’s library, Krasus has a pretty good idea of where the remaining three runes are located.
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Before long you’ll be in command of the ship, and Krasus and the other NPCs on board will stick around to help guide you. Most of the new content in the expansion is non-linear, meaning that you get to choose where you go and in what order you go there. Your ship will act as a hub for most of your activity in KotE; when you board the ship from the overworld you’ll actually go to the main deck. From there you can explore your ship and talk to NPCs, or take the helm to cruise around the overworld.
Each player’s ship is essentially a unique instance. When a group of players boards a ship, everyone will be transported to the party leader’s ship. That means that you’ll probably be hopping on and off lots of different ships during your travels, and last week jozeppi asked a good question about ship relocation:
Q) I would like to know: if one teleports via recall or a hearthstone, will the ship come along as well like in DW3, or will it be left where it was disembarked?
A) Yes. As in most of the Dragon Warrior games and other JRPGs of the era, using a Recall ability will also teleport your ship to a location nearby your destination in the overworld.
Customizing Your Ship
Because you’ll be spending so much time aboard your ship, you’ll almost certainly be interested in purchasing some upgrades to make it feel more like home…
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There are currently five major upgrades that you can purchase that will change the actual structure of your vessel. These upgrades can be purchased in any order. Ex: you can purchase the Inn upgrade before the Companion Ranch upgrade, or vice-versa.
In addition to the functional upgrades, there are also many ways to customize the look of your ship. You’ll notice in a couple of the shots below that the ship can have different color schemes, and you can proudly display your guild’s emblem on the main sail as well. Assuming that you have enough gold banked to purchase these customizations, you’ll be cruising around the ocean in style in no time:
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That’s all that I have for today! Feel free to fire away with questions if you have them, and check back next Thursday for another NEStalgia weekly update.
** Note that any information presented in Key of the Exiles previews is subject to change, though I generally won’t cover a topic unless the design is fleshed out and/or it’s already implemented. **
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