Some of you have asked how character creation and development in MMX works. What happens automatically, where can I distribute points manually? And what role do the trainers play in MMX? Here's a small roundup! (Please note that all the screenshots have been made at the current state of production and are showing work in progress. Also, they have been cropped and scaled down to fit on the blog.)

Creating your party      

When creating a party in MMX, you can either create it manually, use the default party or the random option (we have already mentioned this in an older blog post).

But whatever you do, choose wisely. Once you started the game, you can't dismiss or exchange your party members anymore.

Character choices

When creating your own characters for your party, you can choose the class (which also defines the race), a gender, and change the default character name to a name of your choice. Furthermore, you can change the character portrait, set an acoustic voice, modify the attributes, and select additional start skills. Each race has some specials, Humans for example are more resistant to Light Magic and Dwarfs have more Health.

Attributes

Each Char has the following attributes:  Might, Magic, Perception, Destiny, Vitality and Spirit.

You can only modify the attributes in a positive way, which means that you cannot lower them below their initial value. Each character comes with 5 attribute points that you can spend on them during character creation. Of course the attributes can be improved throughout the game.

(This is not an ingame screenshot!)

Skills

Skills allow your characters to learn spells or increase their stats. Also, there are skills that grant special features (like strike twice or increase critical damage) or allow your character to equip certain items. For example, there are skills that allow your characters to wear medium or heavy armor. Without these skills, they can only wear cloth.

Each class has default start skills. You can select two additional start skills for each character. Both default and selected start skills are automatically on skill level 1. Whenever you spend one skill point, the skill level increases by one. If the skill level of a tier is maxed out, you have to visit a trainer to unlock the next tier before you can spend any more points on that skill. There are four skill tiers: Novice, Expert, Master and Grandmaster. Each tier grants special features when unlocked. These features are cumulative, which means your character's old features don't disappear when you unlock a new tier.

Novice Tier is unlocked by default. But in order to unlock expert, master or grand master tiers, the character has to see a trainer. Additionally, grand master tier can only be unlocked by characters who have also been promoted  to their advanced classes.

Advanced Class Features

Each class can be upgraded to its advanced class. For example, as mentioned here, the advanced class of the Freemage is the Archmage. The advanced class has access to the "Grand Master" tier skills and generally improves the character with additional attribute points and resistances.

Level-up

In MMX, level-up happens automatically whenever a character has accumulated enough XP to reach the next level. When your characters reach a new level, they gain a certain number of skill points which you can spend on skills freely. Still, the rules of spending skill points have to be respected.

Also, on each level-up, your characters gain five attribute points which you can spend on their attributes freely – and the character's maximum health and mana points are increased automatically depending on their class.

What's the role of the trainers in MMX?

In MMX, you don't have to visit and pay for a trainer in order to level up your characters. However, you need to see a trainer in order to unlock higher skill tiers. Trainers are located all over the map, which means you have to find them first. Also, when visiting a trainer, make sure you bring some cash!

And how do my characters learn spells?                                                          

If you want your characters to learn spells, you have to buy them at the merchants in the arcane libraries, which can be found in the more densely populated areas of the Agyn peninsula. Again, make sure you have some cash ready when visiting them!