Forbidden City Level Concept

## **Level Concept Forbidden city [William Deighton 1701611]**

*To know your Enemy, you must become your Enemy - Sun Tzu*

**Foreword:**

As Beijing descends into a civil war the Mystics seek to
dethrone the Knight’s leader who has hidden himself away inside its hallowed
halls. Now as the Mystics fight to reach him they realise that something much
bigger is hidden in the Forbidden City.

**Facts:**

Introduction to area: you move with the reconnaissance group
to fight and establish a breach head to attack into the city and kill the
Leaders of the Knights.

Area backstory: The Forbidden City stands in the centre of
Beijing and is home to the ruler of Beijing as it once did before. It is
guarded by the knights religiously and has other more supernatural defenders
who attack all trespassers on sight. The Forbidden City is full of screaming
howls of unnatural beasts and demons defending the city.

Player motivation: Kill the leaders of the Knights to free
Beijing from their tyranny and learn more about what draws you to the forbidden
palace.

Level range: 39 - 40

Key areas:  Spawn room, door room, Knight’s Headquarters,
boss arena 3

Number of key events: get through the door! , find Knight rulers, get to the
throne room, fight the dragon 4

Factions: 3

Special content: this zone is a massive 3 way battle between the
Knights, the Mystics and the supernatural inhabitants of the Forbidden City.
You are friendly with the Mystic faction but the other two factions will aggro
on you and each other. This leads to the player being able to tactically move
around the raging battlefield attracting less aggro as the NPC’s fight each
other as well as the player.

Why this zone is interesting/unique: Set in the Forbidden
City with a raging battle being fought with a mix of magic, technology and a
mix of both. This contrasts greatly with the Forbidden cities ancient
architecture with a wide array of enemy types and a large melee throughout most
of the level that the player will have to navigate to achieve his objectives.
This will make the zone a non-stop fight to the finish where the player will
have to fight for every inch he advances. As the last fight in the Beijing hub
it serves as the lasting last impression of the zone and intends to make a
splash with the player.

**Area**
The zone is a nonstop fight to get through the streets and
buildings of the Forbidden City with scripted events and ending boss fight in
the throne room.  From the very get go
the player will start fighting before even being able to accept the quests in
the level, you will have to clear the spawn room of enemies and then fight
through hordes of enemies that slowly respawn making it a challenge for the
player to push through the level. The player will have supporting Mystic troops
who will push through the level with him, these units will push against the
hordes of enemies but will need the players help to move through the zone
effectively. It’s intended to make the player to feel like he is leading the
charge throughout the level by leading a wave of Mystic forces with
accompanying important NPC’s.

Map Overview:

This
rough map shows off the rough level design and how the level will play out. The
4 named rooms are where most of the dialogue and plot will take place
throughout the level as well as the scripted events. The Red lines represent
barriers that can’t be passed until certain events happen. This will mostly be
character dialogue and quest handouts/hand-ins. This zone is intended to be
nonstop action to get to the Knights Headquarters where the player expects the
level to end. The only safe spaces with no enemies in them will be the corridor
to the boss room and the spawn room after it is originally cleared out.

Timings:

It’s intended to take the player to take roughly 25 minutes on
this level for a aptly levelled and geared player.

Rough level timings:

3 minutes to clear spawn room and pickup level quests

7 minutes of fighting through the corridors to get to the
Door room.

5 minutes fighting the event in the door room.

4 minutes clearing out Knights headquarters and reading the
dialogue from the NPC’s

6 minutes fighting the boss in the boss room.

This is as the name suggests the room where the player spawns
in when they originally enter the level. The room is covered in a skirmish
between the Knights and the Mystics, the player will have to clear out the room
before getting a set of quests to complete throughout the level.

Enemies: Knight Crusader, Knight Crossbowman

NPC’s: Mystic Gerrer, Brother Zahler

Corridors:

the winding corridors heading further into the city are an
all-out war between the Knights and the supernatural. As you fight through with
your mystic entourage you will fight and clear a path through the melee to get
to the next objective.

Enemies: Red Demon, Caster Demon, Demon Raider, Knight
Crusader Knight Crossbowman

Door room:

Corpses are strewn across the floor but nothing shows what
caused their gruesome ends. As you reach the door you realise it’s magically
sealed and that it will take a while to get through. As the Mystics start to
work on the door you start to hear a grinding noise as the stone statues that
surround the room come to life and start to slowly march towards you.  Fight and try to take the minimum casualties
of your forces

(Event room: hold out for 4 minutes against an enemy that constantly
respawns and slowly kills off your supporters.)

Enemies: Stone guardian, Stone commander, red demon

NPC’s: Mystic Gerrer, Brother Zahler

Knights Headquarters:

As you finally break through the door, you see more
destruction and the Knights Headquarters in absolute disarray. The knight’s
leaders are dead and are surrounded by demons. After you clear the room you
find that one of the leaders is hanging just onto life. He tells you that they
thought they could control him but they couldn’t before passing into the
afterlife.

Enemies: Red Demon, Caster Demon, Demon Raider

NPC’s: Mystic Gerrer, Brother Zahler, Commander Weir

Boss room:

As you enter the boss room you are greeted by Lord Fei Hong
after a short cutscene conversation he turns into the Dragon of the East and
the boss fight ensues. The Dragon spawns sets of demons as he flies above the
player out of reach. Keep the Mystic casters safe as they force the dragon
down. After the dragon is down the player can begin to fight the boss. The
player will have to balance protecting the casters (who keep the dragon down)
and killing the boss. The player also has the option to use a Knight
Techno-magic machine to take down the door to allow more Mystic supporters
through to help in the fight.

Enemies: Red Demon, Demon Raider, Dragon of the East

NPC’s: Mystic Gerrer, Brother Zahler, Lord Fei Hong, Dragon
of the East

**Character**
the player character has to take the Forbidden City to free the denizens of
Beijing and find out what’s been drawing him to the Forbidden City.

Story Flow:

The player leads the charge against the dangers of the
Forbidden City. As a now well proven warrior he leads by example, from the
front, and fights through the demons and Knights. In the Door room the player
is instrumental in keeping the Stone soldiers at bay while the Mystic Casters
worked on the door. After striking the final blow on the dragon the player is
heralded as one of the saviours of Beijing.

**Factions**
The mystic Faction inhabit the outer ring of populated
Beijing. They are believers of free magic use and want more access to the
internet (A scarce resource in Beijing used to trade and to detect monsters). The
mystics are unfriendly at best to the Knights and hostile entirely to the
supernatural.

NPC’s: Mystic Gerrer

Mystic Gerrer: Gerrer is the unofficial leader of the
Mystics. He pulled together the squabbling sub-factions to overthrow the
oppressive Knights. Gerrer’s family were killed because they weren’t deemed
necessary. Gerrer’s story mirrors many others in Beijing and he is an advocate
of more access to the internet to keep people safe from the supernatural.

**Supernatural:**

The supernatural are the creatures summoned after the
re-enchantment they come back to their homes only to find it in stone and with
humans abound in numbers they’ve never seen before. The supernatural hound the
edges of Beijing raiding and pillaging the outer layers of the city for their
own supernatural gains. The supernatural are unfriendly to all other factions.

NPC’s: Dragon of the East

Dragon of the East: The dragon of the East came and wreaked
havoc in Beijing after the     Re-enchantment.
The dragon was “defeated” by the Knights in a large battle between the denizens
of Beijing and the unnatural. After this defeat he took refuge in the body of
Fei Hong the leader of the Knights and the striker of the final blow. Soon he
broke the man’s will and ruled Beijing from inside however, he couldn’t stay
entirely hidden forever. He forged an agreement with the knights to exchange
information for his life.

**Knights:**

The Knights of Earth referred commonly as Knights are the
current rulers of Beijing. They hold their own elite society in the centre of
Beijing while leaving their peers on the dangerous outer edges of Beijing. They
control the internet access to stay in power and control who comes in and out
of the city.

NPC’s:

Brother Zahler: Brother Zahler was born after the cataclysmic
Re-enchantment and from an early age idolised the bravery of the Knights for
holding back the demons and slaying the terrible dragon. Luckily for him being
born into a wealthy family joining the knights was easy for him and he quickly
rose in the ranks. Soon after he realised how twisted the knights had become in
their lust for power and he escaped. Zahler sought out the Mystics to try and
tell them of the wrong that the Knights were committing but was distrusted and
not listened to. Zahler fell into an alcoholic fuelled depression until the
player finds him. He is one of the player’s staunchest supporters and shows him
around Beijing and fights with him till the end.

Lord Fei Hong: Lord Fei Hong is from a noble line with links
to Chinese royalty. Tutored from a young age to be strong and kind he was well
reputed for helping refugees after the Re-enchantment and originally formed the
Knights of Earth as a final hurrah to the chivalry that this world had left
behind. When he struck down the Dragon he felt elated but knew something was
wrong. He fought the dragon inside of him and told his comrades about his
plight. After finding no way to remove the dragon the Knights eventually turned
on him exchanging his body and soul for secrets that the dragon gave. Fei Hong
was incarcerated within the forbidden city as he slowly lost his soul to the
dragon.

**Summary:**

The forbidden city is the crescendo of the Beijing zone, it
is supposed to feel like a gratifying uphill fight against wrongdoing. The
player will be challenged leading the charge of his Mystic allies on the
Forbidden City.