Lotusreach
West Ronfaure
Out in the wilds the monsters live their own lives now. They graze, sleep, patrol and squabble by the hour, the weather and the moon. They notice you, they talk about you, and they remember what you did to their kin.
Walk softly. They are watching you too.
Monsters that fight smarter as they get stronger, and a Living World where herds graze and sleep, packs stalk, lookouts raise the alarm, grudges last a day and more than thirty events find you in the wilds.
The stronger the monster, the sharper its mind. From level 16 they use their moves and spells well; from 31 they go after your healer, stun your casters, dispel and heal each other; from 51 beastmen call a comrade, make a last stand and rage when their kin fall; past 71 they regenerate and call two. Sleep and bind wear thin the more you use them. The first levels stay gentle.
On the test server
A wandering goblin with a sack of wares and a jackpot gamble. Save him when he's ambushed on the road and he won't forget it.
Beastmen and demons think, tigers and wolves are cunning, rabbits and sheep run on instinct, bees and bats swarm, skeletons and slimes are mindless. Each one chooses from nineteen ways to spend its day: grazing, drinking, basking, sleeping, standing lookout, patrolling, foraging, haunting a ruin, sheltering from the rain.
Monsters move together: herds with stragglers that hurry to catch up, packs that follow a leader, and a new leader when the old one falls.
Prey looks up and backs away from an adventurer far stronger than it, predators stalk the weak, and lookouts raise the alarm. "Alarm! Alarm! Me no have bell. Me am bell!"
Nineteen families talk, each in its own voice, goblins, orcs, quadav and yagudo with close to nine hundred lines apiece. What they say fits your level, job, race and nation, comrades talk to each other in pairs, and no line comes back until the rest have had their turn.
Slaughter a family and it holds a grudge against you for a day. Spare a deserter or save the goblin merchant and that is remembered too, and so is the outpost you took and the alpha you slew.
Stand on their toes, follow them, block their path, stare, sing, wear their kin's armour or fish in sahagin waters. First a look, then a glare, a stomp, a pebble that misses, then they have had enough. Point and they look away while you sneak past; bow and they calm down; mention food and a goblin forgets all about you.
Say something out loud near a thinking monster and it answers you.
More than thirty events, paced at random so no evening is the same: a cookout, a herd crossing, a mandragora dance, the dead rising after dark; an ambush, bandits, a duel, a lost chocobo, a treasure goblin, a wounded adventurer; war bands, a skirmish where you pick a side, a caravan to guard, a night of falling stars, and a titan that walks from zone to zone.
Now and then the sun goes black inside a burning ring, the dead climb out of the ground and the beastmen fall to their knees.
Rabbits, sheep, tigers, hounds and dhalmel graze, lie down to rest, sleep, sniff the air, look round, stalk and startle, every pose shaped from the game's own motions.
Make an account in two minutes, install the launcher, and walk out of the gates of your home nation again.
