Dura Aris
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New Server - Valor
Dura is launching a New Server - Valor. We're very excited for it's launch and have great hope for an unforgettable experience for Players. We've gone back to the drawing board, starting from absolute scratch, about how we think a Game Experience for an MMORPG such as Dura could be. Therefore Valor will not only capture the original spirit of the game, while yet making it harder and more challenging through our System Overhaul, System Addition, and Custom Content, but it will do so with immense innovation accompanying that vision. The result of this compacts all that Dura is into a Condensed Gameplay Experience -- with fun being the priority over all else.
Valor is based off of Dura, which is now to be Dura Classic. A server that launched nearly four years ago and without resetting even once is still active today with a thriving community. Dura Classic is based from 7.4 Tibia. It's Game Mechanics started identical to 7.4, courtesy of reverse-engineering: Maps, Monsters, Spawns, NPCs, Quests, Lore, Core Mechanics, Niche Mechanics, Items, etc. etc. everything you can put your finger on. However that was only our starting point. Immediately it was necessary to improve upon that, because while original Tibia was good enough when we were young to challenge us and bring us adventure it cannot claim to do so anymore as we're all masters of the game twenty five years in. And so now finally, years later, Dura has evolved into the game we always wanted: Something that when played you will feel as if you're playing 7.4 back in 2003. Every single corner you turn round will grant you surprise; every spot, mechanic, or area you come across will have something new for you -- above all so you'll feel like you did when you first played.
Understanding where Valor comes from, that is what it is based on, we now note that every single thing in it: maps, quests, raids, items, lore etc. etc. will be identical to Dura Classic except where explicitly stated in the Game Settings, Rules, or other such categories. Valor will also have a Tournament System in-built within it. In total to the winners we will be handing out $3,500 in Dura Coins to be used in Future Servers.
Technicals
| Release Date: | November 16th, Saturday, 19:00 CET / 15:00 UTC -3 / 13:00 EST |
| Website | Latest News - Dura (https://valor.dura-online.com/) |
| Client | Custom |
| Host Location | United Kingdom :: Pings :: Warsaw: 32 :: USEast: 73 :: USWest: 132 MexicoCity: 118 :: Sao Paulo: 151 :: RioJaneiro: 149 |
| Server Type | Open PvP |
| Map | 7.4 - Highly Customized with Added Content and Custom Updates |
| Network & Structure | Spared No Expense. Four years field tested. |
| Security | Anti-DDOS. Optimized Protocols. |
| Protection | Anti-Rollback. Optimized Protocols. |
| Proxy System | Yes. Fully Optimized. |
Valor's Mission
- It's mission and purpose above all else is fun.
- Playing Dura offers a wealth of experiences and adventures to be had, but it does come with a few catches -- It takes time to fully enjoy Dura, years to hit endgame. Secondly getting there can be arduous; the gameplay is challenging and deadly, killing you is not a question, the question is how much; and when you die in Dura it hurts, as it should.
- Therefore our goal with Valor is to allow a person to experience all the thrill and adventure Dura has to offer in a much more compressed timeline; we believe the average player will be able to experience everything in Valor from beginning to end within 2.5 to 3.5 months.
- And we want that progression of 2.5 to 3.5 months to be experienced at a smooth and even pace, something that rivals how level 1 to 50 feels in the original game; that is as you play the time it takes for you to keep progressing will feel more or less the same, level by level, skill by skill, new area by new area, items and so forth. This of course is a tight rope to walk, because if you make the game too easy and too fast the game's consequences to your decisions fall flat and the gameplay end's up feeling cheap and hollow.
PvE & PvP - Further, while PvE and RPG gameplay will be more than enough for many and you certainly won't need to do more than that to enjoy yourself, the Game Set will promote and support a robust setting for PvP, making for truly unforgettable moments of sport and carnage. There will be blood and hopefully lots of it, but because of our design, though PvP will definitely have impact, ultimately players will have great resilience to be able to bounce back and get up again and keep going.
- Across all of this, both PvE and PvP, the key word for this design is 'arcade'. We want the game to feel like a kind of drop in, shoot, reload, shoot again arcade experience -- a non-stop ride, where though there will be a slight push and pull of consequences it will never be so severe that even for a moment you'll want to get off out of pain, distaste, or worst of all boredom.
Game Arc - Valor's endgame with the arrival of our newest update is a minimum of level 160. To get there you will wage through countless lands and dungeons, monsters and foes, quests stories and tales, raids and bosses, ambushes, events, item progression, and more and more. This is all what you will get to experience -- three or so months of immense entertainment and adventure!
Rule Set
The core rules for Valor are as follows, they differ from Dura Classic in not all but many respects:
- Multi-Client is forbidden. Punishment: deletion.
- Botting or Use of Macro is forbidden. Punishment: deletion.
- Selling/Buying/Trading/Sharing Gold/In-Game-Items is allowed.
- Selling/Buying/Trading/Sharing Accounts/Characters is allowed.
- Power Abuse is allowed to the Maximum; GMs have no oversight on this whatsoever. It is entirely for Players to navigate the world they play in.
Game Set
All these Rates below stack multiplicatively. Examples will be below.
| Setting | Rate |
| - | |
| Experience | Staged 1x - 3x* |
| Skills | Staged 1x - 6x* |
| Health Regeneration | 2x* |
| Mana Regeneration | 2x |
| Base Loot | 2x |
| Valuables Loot | 1.5x* |
| - | |
| Raid Loot: Creatures Under 1200 Exp | 1.6x |
| Raid Loot: Creatures 1200 Exp and above | 1x* |
| Legendary Items Loot Rate: Elites | 1.8x |
| Legendary Items Loot Rate: Raids | 1.7x |
| Legendary Items Loot Rate: Bosses | 1x |
| - | |
| Spawn Rate | 2.2x |
| Elite Creatures Spawn Rate | 1.1x |
| Raids Spawn Rate | 3x |
| Boss Spawn Rate | 4x |
| Heroism Max Exp | 3.00x |
| Heroism Max Loot | 2.25x |
| - | |
| Server PvP Type | Open PvP |
| Red Skull | 3 Unjustified Kills |
| Auto Banishment - Unjustified Kill Count | 12 Unjustified Kills |
| Legendary Items: Power | 60% - 100% stronger |
| Legendary Items: Loss Rate | 70% drop | 20% keep | 10% break |
| - | |
| Realms Aid | 2.25x more runes per level |
| Rune/Supply Quest Rewards | 2x |
| Experience Quests | Scales above level 50 equivalent to Exp Stages |
| Free Premium Account | 7 days on Start |
| Be online on both Classic and Seasonal at Same Time | Yes* |
Additional Notes for Game Set:
- Experience: There are things like, e.g. experience quests, elite monsters, heroism and more that make Dura 1x faster than 7.4 1x.
- Health Regeneration: Knights largest bonus. Paladins less. Mages least.
- Base Loot: Loot is 2x but there are other things, e.g. Elite Monsters, Custom Quests, and non-base-loot which augment Loot even further.
- Valuables Loot: This means things like non-permanent rings and amulets, jewels, gems and other valuables.
- Raid Loot - Creatures over 1200 exp: These creatures can drop Legendary Items. This is why they are not 1.6x.
- Auto Banishment: You will be banished for 30 days.
- Be online on both Classic and Tournament: Having one character online on each server is okay. It is never okay to have two of your characters online on one server.
- Kill a Demon on Max Heroism at Level 70 - Exp: Exp-Stage 1.75x * Max-Heroism-Exp = 5.25x
- Kill a Demon on Max Heroism: To avoid a big equation cluttering space with it's nuances: Base-Loot * Valuables-Loot * Max-Heroism-Loot = 5.62x
- Looting Legendary Item from Elite Monster: Base-Loot 2x * Elite-Mon-Legendary-Item-Loot-Rate 1.8x = 3.6x
- The Stacking is very powerful but we've spent great time balancing it to get the gameplay we want. Fun and Challenging, but never cartoony, your decisions and strategies will still matter and carry weight and consequence.
Staged Experience, Skills, and Magic Level
This will likely be the most controversial and confusing game-setting. Most people are used to the idea that when a Server starts the rates should be high and as you level up the rates should slow down. This is actually the opposite of what should be done. Fundamentally the problem here is Time-To-Progress is being confused with Rates.
Typically a Server runs as follows: Due to the game starting with high-rates you speed through most of the game's content in less than a week or so, skipping near everything the game offers. Then right when the game starts to naturally become more tiresome, lengthy, and monotonous due to the extreme demand on time to level up the rates are slowed. So in effect the game is sped up where it doesn't need it and slowed down where it does.
The fact of the matter is that at Normal Rates (1x) you already fly by the first 50 or so levels of Gameplay (especially in Dura since we have things like Experience Quests, Rune Quests, Realm's Aid, Heroism and more). Meanwhile when you approach the upper levels at say around level 100 to 120 the progression needs to accelerate if you are to have anywhere close to similar pacing that the first 60 to 80 levels offer. This is why our settings are designed the way they are.
With the Staged Progression we've set we estimate, conservatively, the **average player will be roughly:
- about level 50 in two weeks
- about level 60 in three weeks
- about level 70 in four weeks
- about level 100 in two months
- about level 130 in three months
**We define an average player as someone who plays 4~ hours a day, 5 days a week, someone who plays more will progress much faster.
Stages in Detail:
- These stages are floating or smooth. This means that the rate-change is not sudden upon reaching a new stage, it rises steadily as you move through the given stage. The rate listed is the rate at the end of the Stage.
- For example: a floating formula of rising exp from 2.00 to 2.25 spread across level 80 to 89 means that roughly at level 80 you will be 2.00x, at level 81 you will be at 2.025x, at level 82 you will be at 2.050x, etc. etc, at level 90 you will be at 2.25x.
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Systems & Features
Monster System:
Our Monster System is one of our most core systems. In a phrase you'll never ever really know what's around the corner. Our goal was to push the game away from the mastered mechanics and knowledge bases we all completed long ago, the spirit-crushing and mind-numbing grinding, to something that constantly demands you to think on your feet, employ circumstantial strategy, and test your talents -- all using native 7.4 knowledge and skills.
Monster Variability: In Dura monsters are far more sophisticated and threatening. Each given monster, upon spawn, draws at random from a ranged pool of stats and abilities pre-set for that Creature. This means that each individual fight or confrontation will be different and unpredictable, and thus challenging. *This doesn't mean the monster itself will change, say between a minotaur and an orc (spawn-layering) -- it means the monster itself will have different 'versions' of himself, minotaur who throws a knife vs minotaur who has stronger defense.
Example: These are 2 of about 10 random abilities a Cyclops can spawn with. Every monster has it's own ability pool which it can draw from.
Example: Some warlocks have different shapes to their beams.
Spawn Overhaul: We've also slightly altered the spawns to make them more varied compositions engendering a many-headed challenge. So spawns (types of monsters in a given area) themselves will be different, but then so will the monsters themselves who inhabit them; in the hope of multi-layered unpredictability. *Literally meaning where you may be used to 4 orc riders the spawn might now be default 3 orc riders and 1 orc shaman.
Monster AI: Monsters in Dura are far more clever and deadly then you are accustomed to. Their general behavior is more engaging, you'll have a much harder time tango'ing with them then what you grew up with.
Monster Spells and Abilities: Dura has put much time into evolving monster abilities. You will encounter a wide range of threats and dangers. For example not only one-shot-damage-spells or some Wild Warriors that shoot arrows or the occasional necromancer that is able to use haste, but also damage through sequenced abilities you need to anticipate and dodge, abilities that can teleport you, teleport the monster, stun or root you to the ground, create obstacles in your path, give temporary invulnerability to the monster, and on and on. Again, new ways to challenge your brain and brawn.
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Example: In this video you will see that a Tar Ooze is capable of casting a Pulse-AOE-Healing spell that stays for a certain time after itself moves still, that is it stays independent of the monster's location. Every time it pulses it can heal the monster. This creates a dynamic challenge, requiring actual engagement on the part of the player, bringing him out of monotony. Note: It's also an elite so you will be a bit overwhelmed with it's other abilities visually.
Closing Note: But please don't think we became carried away. The Monster System, as with all of Dura keeps the game in the 7.4 Spirit and Atmosphere: In explanation the spawns do not differ in essence from what you expect -- not just by Power-Level but also Aesthetic; and the monsters themselves, their abilities and stats are in keeping with what their core characteristics are. We've woven and layered nuanced changes but in terms of feel it's just as any other time you've entered a Dungeon in 7.4.
Spawn Layering:
This is a system where a given spawn/monster can actually spawn as many different types of monsters and (even plural monster compositions). You might walk into a given spawn and it might be a Minotaur, but then maybe 10% of the time you walk there it's a Minotaur Guard, and maybe 2% of the time it's a Minotaur Mage! But what's more, maybe also when you walk there, say 5% it's going to be Two Minotaurs AND Two Minotaur Archers instead of that one Minotaur it 'normally' is. This system again doubles down on unpredictability, variety, and challenge.
Custom Monsters:
On top of all this Dura has many custom monsters, well over Twenty. And of all types: some melee, some ranged, some more powerful than a Demon, others as weak as a mummy -- everything you would expect from a monster!
Elite Monster System:
When a monster spawns there is a chance the monster will take “Elite Form”. An Elite is much more powerful than a normal monster, it has the same core characteristics but comes with increased health and special abilities that make it a far more deadly opponent. With its difficulty comes just reward -- when you conquer an Elite you will receive more exp, more loot, and a mysterious treasure bag.
The following demonstrates a couple of abilities: Sequence Paralysis. Recloning. Teleportation. And a Field Beam that you wouldn't want to step on. There are many more.
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