What Royal Valor is

A free-to-play action-adventure MMO for macOS.

Royal Valor is a 3D action-adventure MMO you can play on your own or with a party, across a world of maps and quests that keeps growing after launch.

It is free to play. The shop sells appearance — never power.

See also: No pay-to-win · Your first hour

Your first hour

Sign in, claim a hero, and find something to hit.

1. Create an account and claim a hero. The realm mints the name — there is no name field to fill in.
2. Press Enter the Realm.
3. Press Tab to target the training dummy, then 1 to strike it.
4. Stand still and it hits back. Step out of reach during the second before its blow lands and it misses.
5. Open the journal with J and take The Post.
6. When the chain sends you after a wolf, look for the ringed mark on the compass — and go in at full health.

Every objective in the top-right corner is something the realm already counts. Nothing there is busywork invented to fill the space.

See also: Fighting · Quests, valor and levels

Races

Five peoples, and what each one trades.

Every hero is a race and a class. Your class is what you do. Your race is who you are: a small lean on your health, on your class’s resource — rage, focus or mana — and on how quickly they come back.

No race is stronger than another. Each gives something up for what it gets, so the choice is how you like to play, not which one wins.

The five races

• Valorborn — the realm’s own. Balanced: no lean at all, recovering at the ordinary rate. The one to pick if you are not sure.
• Sylvan — of the deep wood. 15 less health and 15 more of your class’s resource. Taller and slighter.
• Stoneborn — cut from the keep’s own stone. 15 more health and 15 less of your class’s resource. Shorter and broad.
• Ashkin — of the burnt road. 15 less health and 8 less of your class’s resource, but health, mana and focus come back nearly twice as fast. Strong across a run of short fights, weak in one long one.
• Merebound — bound to the mere. 15 more health and 8 more of your class’s resource, but health, mana and focus come back at about half the speed. Strong in one long fight, with a real wait before the next.

A lean is a fixed amount rather than a percentage, so it matters most while a hero is new and fades as it grows.

Your race and class are chosen once, when you make a hero. A Rename Token buys a new name, never a new race or class.

See also: Classes · Weapons and colour

Classes

What your hero does, what pays for it, and the part it plays.

Your class is what your hero does in a fight: the abilities on your bar, the resource that pays for them, the weapon you fight with and the part you play in a party. Every class can play alone; in a party, each leans towards a role.

The four classes

• Knight — sword and shield, and the party’s tank. 20 more health, and rage: it starts every fight empty, builds as you land blows and take them, and drains away once the fight is over.
• Ranger — a bow, for ranged damage, spending focus. Not ready to choose yet.
• Mage — a staff, for burst and area damage, spending mana. Not ready to choose yet.
• Warden — mace and ward, for support, spending mana. Not ready to choose yet.

The Knight’s abilities

• Strike (1) — a plain blow that builds rage.
• Shield Bash (2) — a shove with the shield. The foe’s next swing waits.
• Challenge (3) — foes near you turn on you for 6 seconds. In a party, it is how a Knight takes a fight off somebody else.
• Valor Blow (4) — a heavy blow that spends 40 rage.

Your class is chosen once, when you make a hero. To play another, make another hero.

See also: Races · Fighting

Weapons and colour

What gets stronger as you play, and what is only for looks.

Every hero starts with a Training Blade. Better weapons are won from foes, never bought, and each adds its bonus to every blow you land.

• Training Blade — no bonus. Every hero starts with one.
• Sylvan Knife — +3 damage. Dropped by Vale Wolves in Greenwood Vale.
• Cinderbrand — +6 damage. Dropped by Cinder Hounds on the Ashen Road.
• Serpent Fang — +9 damage. Dropped by the Mere Serpent at Ironmere Crossing.

Open the bag with B and press Wield.

Your colour is chosen when you make a hero, and it is how people tell you apart in a crowd. It changes nothing else — and neither does a weapon finish from the shop, which changes how a blade looks, never how hard it hits.

See also: Races · No pay-to-win

Fighting

Targeting, reach, cooldowns and getting back up.

Your blows go where the camera faces — turn to aim. A swing at nothing is a miss, and a miss still costs its cooldown and its mana. Tab picks a target to watch; if it is in front of you when you swing, it is the one you hit — and if it is in reach but beside or behind you, a grey Miss appears beside its frame.

• Your class’s abilities are on keys 1 to 4 — Classes says what each one does.
• An ability’s cost is written on its button, and its cooldown sweeps across it.
• A swing reaches two and a half metres — a sword’s length and a step — and covers what is in front of you, about a third of a circle. Anything beside or behind you is missed.

A training dummy hits back about a second after you hit it. That second is the mechanic: step out of reach and the counter-blow misses.

Health comes back on its own, but only once nothing has hit you for six seconds — a fight is won with what you walked in with, or with a potion. Mana keeps coming back the whole time.

Two things to fight

• A training dummy waits to be hit. It answers your last blow and nothing else, so you can walk up to one and learn the window in your own time.
• A vale wolf does not wait. It swings at anyone standing within its reach, whether or not you have touched it — so the step back that dodges a counter-blow is the same step that keeps a wolf off you entirely.

The compass says which is which before you are close enough to find out. A crimson dot is a person, a gold diamond is something to fight, and a gold diamond with a crimson ring is something that will fight you first.

Falling costs you five seconds on your feet. There is no corpse to run back to and nothing is taken from you.

See also: Quests, valor and levels · No pay-to-win

Quests, valor and levels

What playing pays, and what it buys.

Quests are taken and handed in from the journal (J). Progress counts from the moment you accept — not from anything you did before.

Handing one in pays experience and valor. Experience raises your level, which raises what your health and mana pools hold; a level restores you to full.

What you buy, you carry

Anything you buy goes into your bag — press B. Potions have a Use button; a cosmetic sits there because it is yours, not because there is anything to press.

• A Healing Potion restores 40 health, a Mana Draught 30 mana.
• The Warhorn of Valor puts your whole party back to full — but only out of a fight, and only if you have a party. It is the walk back between fights, bought.
• There is one cooldown across everything in the bag, so a fight cannot be drunk through by alternating bottles.
• You can only use something while you are in the world — and not while you are down.

Two purses

• Crowns are bought with money and buy appearance.
• Valor is earned in the world and buys everything that touches a fight.

There is no exchange between them, in either direction.

See also: No pay-to-win · The Royal Shop

Parties and friends

Playing with other people.

Invite somebody nearby from the in-world menu (Esc). An invitation arrives as a card in the party frame with Join and Decline.

Friends (F) belong to your account rather than to one hero, so switching characters does not empty the list. Ask for somebody by their hero’s name; clicking a name whispers them.

See also: Chat and safe chat

Keys and the camera

Everything the keyboard does.

• W A S D — move. S backs away more slowly, still facing forward. Shift runs, or walks, depending on your Controls setting.
• Drag with the mouse — turn the camera. Scroll to zoom.
• Tab — target. 1 and 2 — abilities.
• C — character sheet. J — journal. F — friends. M — the map.
• B — your bag (I works too). V — the Royal Shop.
• ⇧J — fold the objectives away, or bring them back.
• O — hide or show chat. Return — start typing. / — start a command.
• ⌥Z — hide every panel, for a clean look at the world. Press it again to bring them back.
• Esc — the in-world menu.
• ⌃⌘F — full screen, the same as the green button. The world opens the way you left it.

Invert look and walk-by-default are in Settings (⌘,).

See also: Making the screen yours

Making the screen yours

Moving panels, folding them away, and putting them back.

The screen is meant to be rearranged. Everything here is remembered on this Mac, so it is the way you left it the next time you play.

Moving panels

Your bag, your character, the map, the journal, friends and the shop can all be dragged where you want them, and stay there. Open your bag and your character together and put them side by side.

Dragged something somewhere you regret? Settings ▸ Display ▸ Reset panel positions puts every one of them back where it opens by default.

Folding things away

• ⇧J folds the objectives. Folded, they still show the quest you are following — you lose the list, not your place in it.
• O hides chat. Return still opens a single line to speak from, so you can answer somebody without the log covering the world.
• ⌥Z hides the lot, for a clean look at the world or a screenshot. Esc still opens the menu while it is hidden.

Size

The interface sizes itself to your display — larger on a television, smaller on a laptop. It can only measure the screen, not where you are sitting, so Settings ▸ Display has the number if the guess is wrong for your desk.

The performance readout

Off unless you ask for it, in Settings ▸ Display. It answers one question — is it the game, this Mac, or the connection — and puts where you are standing into a screenshot when something looks wrong.

See also: Keys and the camera

Chat and safe chat

What you can say, and what you are shown.

Zone, Party and Whisper are the channels. Safe chat is a setting on your account and it holds in both directions: with it on you send from a list of preset phrases, and you are not shown language the filter catches.

It is enforced for you by the server — never asked of the other player.

See also: The guardian lock

The guardian lock

A four-digit PIN, and exactly two rules.

Set the lock in Settings. While it is on, safe chat is held on and crowns cannot be spent — valor, which is earned by playing, is unaffected.

Unlocking needs the PIN. It removes the rules; it does not turn safe chat back off, because widening what a child can say and be shown should be a decision rather than a side effect.

Playtime limits are deliberately not here. macOS Screen Time already does it, across every app, with a passcode you already have.

See also: Chat and safe chat · No pay-to-win

No pay-to-win

The promise, and how it is kept.

The shop sells appearance. It does not sell damage, health, drop rate, experience, inventory space, or a queue you can skip.

If a thing changes an outcome, it is earned in the world by everyone on the same terms, or it does not exist.

This is not a policy the client is asked to respect. Crowns and valor are separate purses on the server, an item names which purse it takes, and a request cannot ask to pay in the other one.

See also: The Royal Shop · Quests, valor and levels

The Royal Shop

What is for sale, and in which currency.

Open it with V, for vendor. The shelves are named for the purse: Earned buys potions, draughts and the warhorn; Crowns buys cosmetics and the rename token.

Heraldry can be either. A crest you fought for and a crest you bought are worth the same in a fight — nothing — which is why both may exist.

See also: No pay-to-win · Buying crowns

Buying crowns

How the App Store sheet behaves, and how to ask for a refund.

Open the shop with V and press Top up. The App Store’s own sheet appears over the game; the price it shows is Apple’s, in your own currency, and the charge is to your Apple Account.

Crowns arrive when Apple confirms the purchase, not when the sheet closes. If the connection drops in between, they arrive the next time you sign in — nothing is lost.

If the sheet loses the buy button

Click away from the game while the sheet is open — to another app, or on the desktop — and macOS hides the sheet’s buy button. This is the App Store protecting a payment, not a fault in the game.

• Press ⌘-Space and then Escape to close Spotlight. The button comes back.
• Or switch to another desktop and back.
• Escape closes the sheet, and nothing is charged. Press Top up again when you are ready.

While the sheet is open, clicking the desktop does nothing at all. That is macOS holding the screen for the payment; close the sheet with Escape and the desktop answers again.

Refunds

Open the shop, press Top up, then Request a refund. Your recent crown purchases are listed, and pressing one opens Apple’s refund request. Apple decides; if it is granted, those crowns are taken back — even if they have been spent.

See also: The Royal Shop · No pay-to-win