Kranodor's Log

Hello everyone … well, whomever may still read this. Activity has been low those last few months, and it seems as if only recently we had some new players. Yeah, it’s the same old song – developers being busy irl and so on.

We’re still lacking a pixel artist, I’ve not heard a lot from Sheck those last few months, probably because I, myself, was busy as hell, first failing, then coping with having failed, then trying to get back on top and… guess what – yeah, I’ve made it. I have survived, I’m still here, I’m still twitching. I’m okay, don’t worry.

Thing is, I’m going to start a full time job in november, and thus my time will be severly reduced – again. I’ll have to see if I can get back to writing up stuff some of these days. Maybe a bit of feedback would be a motivator. Well, I’ll have to see.

[reply to this]

Hey guys, as Tremir pointed out, it’s been a long while since anybody from the development team said anything. Actually, only three people currently do any development whatsoever (and even if it’s just theoretical talking) – Ranger Sheck, Pro\/idence and myself. And of us three, only ProV is actually productive. Sheck and myself are very, very busy in real-life at the moment, don’t know exactly about Sheck, but I’m approaching a crucial deadline, fast, and after hours of writing and thinking about what to write, and reading and processing information, I’m usually not really excited about doing pretty much the same stuff – albeit on a different level – for leisure.

The team currently has one large problem besides that: We do not have a pixel artist who could draw consistent NPC images. Anything we do will have to use the same old images we currently have, and with the amount of NPC groups required for Xinoloux alone, things would repeat fast.

And there is that big update, with a possible reset, although details haven’t been worked out yet.
Thing is, we’re about to jumble up a lot of things. We’re introducing a new equipment slot, a new concept, and a new skill tree using both (and two more are planned, one of them was originally planned for Xinoloux, but will likely be put onto a later content update). The new skill tree, as hinted at in the Autumn Harvest Festival, will be the long-asked-for Ranged Weapon tree, including Projectile (Long and Short Bows, as well as Slingshots) and Thrown Weapons (sorted as Light, Heavy and Snares).
We’re also completely re-organizing how actions are acquired, there will be much less actions per skill on lower levels, and others will gradually become available as people level up the skills.
Of course, both of this requires that we re-consider all foes in the game, add Ranged Weapons, if appropriate, and change their weaponry so they don’t end up with an action pool that’s too small or lobsided. It’s also a reason why I’m not doing Xinoloux yet, as I’d have to completely re-do all of it afterwards.
We’ll also downscale a lot of equipment rewards and stuff. Once the dev team formed, and began making missions and NPC groups, we approached the upper end of what’s possible, equipment- and foe-level-wise, too quickly. It’s time to correct that.

I’d personally hope for two or three other coding updates that we had talked about: The base level update (instead of using 4 characters’ melee or metatherics value, using the highest skill value per character to define if a mission becomes available), the AI update (better targeting and action choices on the AIs part, which is a complicated matter, but has proven necessary) and the variable update (technical stuff that I’d need to do something I’ve got in the back of my head… and that I had already in mind when I wrote DCI3).

The new concept, by the way, is ammo. No worries, it will only affect Ranged weapons (and the other two probable skill trees that are planned to use it), and they’ll have some features to offset that problem. Ammo will not have to be re-bought, instead we chose to go with a concept akin to that of Mount & Blade (if you know that game) – while ranged weaponry does have limited ammo, the limitation is on a per-battle basis. That way, ammo can be used as a tactical resource, and items with more ammo will have a higher value, without forcing players to constantly re-stock.
Another change we talked about was that we might change up health altogether, not forcing you to wait for regeneration anymore, but replenishing health like defense on a per-battle basis as well. This would come with some changes to defeat/fleeing, and a change to medkits, but we think it’ll be generally more enjoyable that way.

Now… Xinoloux. The problem is that this area is huge. Three towns, countryside roads, and even some small steads. There will have to be at least two new bandit groups for the roads, all towns have arenas (and I want to put at least three different groups of NPCs in there, per arena), and the (first) intro mission has three or four encounters as well.
Originally, my plan was to introduce one of the other trees using the ammo mechanism in Xinoloux, for the sake of diversity in foes, but Sheck and I decided to postpone that, so now I’ll have to see how I make the foes there diverse enough to matter with what I have available.
Even without the update, this requires a lot of items and number crunching and stuff.
That and the intro mission has to be written (it already exceeds the maximum amount of text a standard .txt file can handle on my computer and had to be split into two) and to really kick it off, at least one or two other missions within the realm should be completed for release as well.

That said, I can’t promise anything. I know it’s my fault that I even started talking about stuff we had planned, because development doesn’t always go as planned, and especially coding is a kind of work that does rely on breakthroughs and epiphanies from time to time. But since Sheck and I (and ProV, of course, as well) are doing this as a hobby, for fun, for leisure, it does suffer a lot more from a heavy real-life workload than it would be if it was a professionally organized and marketed product.

Some of this info Sheck and I talked about, and agreed that it should be shared. A bit of it, I’m not as sure. Take it with a grain of salt – make that a good cup full – as I’m talking here about what I know, and what I think. Ultimately, Sheck is doing most of the work, and only he knows how complicated which of these points are, and if and when they will be finished.

Sorry.

[reply to this]

Ha, that even makes for an acceptable pun, at least for fans of Song of Ice and Fire.

Well, it’s all my fault (of course), since this time, I can’t blame it on anyone else. Graphics were there, to be reused, writing was all mine anyways, and implementation… well, mine too. Anyhow, I’ve been either busy or down those last few weeks, and was totally and completely unable to deliver in time.

Sadly, I can’t really offer anything to compensate for it. I’ve worked a lot on the mission the last few days, doing implementation (something that may – no, will – help me in the future) and now: I’m done! The event is implemented on the development and testing server, and I’ll be testing it the next few days, to make sure I didn’t mess it up. Especially those hybrid NPC groups have to be checked… god, that could save us a ton of work for new areas with missions. And yes, I’m looking at you, Xinoloux!

And here’s the good news: The event will go live, in full effect, some time before christmas and last until some time in early january. It does have all the stuff I wanted it to have. You will be able to fight against all the foes you know from the previous Autumn Harvest festival, you will be able to loot Butterknifes and Cucumberswords as well as the four Turkey Medals, the Produce Sash and the Victual Crown.
I’ll release a spoiler information later on, because not every foe of a specific kind may carry the associated accessory.

There’s also a chance to get up to three out of four new weapons for those who beat the mission. They’re event stuff, and mission rewards, so they’re not too shabby (although I’ve kept them in some sort of balance). Finally, the event mission does provide some foreshadowing on something that might come in 2010, and I am currently planning on giving another small reward – later on – to everyone who actually beats all 10 rooms of the mission.

I doubt that my writing on this one was as good as on other missions, and I think the design is somewhat simplistic for what people might expect, given how long it has taken me, but nonetheless, I hope you’ll have a fun event. On the upside, it is done, it will run during an actual holiday, even if it is the wrong one, it will have everything the last event had and more, and it will keep the event restricted to an area where people who want to may seek it out – no bothering the people who don’t want to participate.

Plus: I finally learned implementing NPC groups and missions myself. Along with implementing skills, actions, items and locations (which I learned earlier on), this pretty much enables me to really create content all by myself. Can’t stress it enough.

Anyhow: Next few days I’ll be testing, and I expect Ranger Sheck will send out a mail to the users when the event finally starts. Sorry again for the delay, and I hope you will find enjoyment in this years… winter harvest festival.

[reply to this]

It’s that time of the year again… well, what has the dev team been up to? Everyone has been very busy in real life, so we’re progressing kinda slow. As we’re working on BIG updates at the moment – and I’m talking about “main version” updates, the kind of thing that makes a game go from 1.x to 2.0 – so that still adds to the slowness of things trickling down.

You’re gonna LOVE what we’re working on. Most of it, anyways. Some of you will probably not even notice some of the stuff we’re working on. Anyhow, while Sheck is trying to get some coding done, and some of the major projects, I have been assigned to remake the autumn harvest festival. As time isn’t exactly abundant, most of the stuff you’ll see will be somewhat recycled from last years event.

But we’ve learned our fair bit: We’re going to keep the normal game normal. Noone will be forced into the event. There will be no roaming groups on the normal roads. If you want to ignore the event, you can safely do so.

What I’ll be trying to do will be a dungeon of sorts. Multiple levels with increasing difficulty, and that organised as a mission (or probably several smaller missions). You can play on through the dungeon, getting rewards at certain levels, and/or you can replay any level at your leisure, hoping for some of the drops (those who have been around for events already know that drops are rather rare among event foes). I’m hoping for at least half a dozen levels, maybe more, but I’ll have to see what I can do. And yes, there will likely be a new item or two. Some of them might be exclusive to this years autumn harvest festival, but I’ll have to consider that as I go.

Oh, and there will only be a “dungeon” in Hopitan.

[reply to this]

Okay, some quick notes: Sheck decided to push the update online now, but it lacks some of the stuff I tried to hint at with my last Dev Diary update. Don’t worry, they’ll come, they’ll just take a while longer. But some problems with the new battle interface led to some new solutions, and an overall performance and compatibility improvement – at the cost of IE 6 – spurred the thought to push the update on right now.

It does have the new area, new foes and new actions, and I think it has a change or two to existing actions (Protective Blades/Bludgeons now should work as intended as a “Double-Blade/Blunt-Defense for others” – be careful, it only lasts until the next turn of the guy you’re trying to defend, and it depletes the movement of the character using it. Boomerang Throw and Geostab got minimum ranges, Ranged Strike was renamed to Reaching Strike.) but there is still a lot of stuff in the works.

That just from me for the new update.

[reply to this]

As you all may know from my journal, I’m still officially on hiatus due to my final exams being this month. I don’t get to do a lot of work for aethora, but I still try to do something here or there. And of course, the rest of the team is adding new stuff (on the testing server) and testing it…

It’s interesting, because the first larger update by the (back then newly created) development team has been about one year and two weeks ago (May 3rd). Sadly, I don’t know about the coding effort some of the more advanced features will still take, so I’ll keep my mouth shut on any release dates.

What’s likely to happen?
In due time, Sheck will announce and probably do the next update. I don’t know when it’ll be. Could be still in may, could take into June, could take longer. I simply don’t have a clue right now. Some of the features included take a lot of coding, the time to do I cannot possibly estimate, and a lot of stuff needs thorough testing.

This update will likely contain:
New actions. We’ve had a good amount of new action proposals, they’ve been implemented on the testing server already, and are in the process of being tested. If the tests are okay, they’ll likely get onto the server with one of the next updates.
New Battle Interface. Again, this has already been implemented and is being tested. It takes some getting used to (especially if one has played on the old one for a long time) but it opens up a number of interesting possibilities.
New Area in Southern Tiasa. It’s already written up, and populated with the first handful of NPCs. Since it’s likely that we want to realize one or two larger projects (that are to remain secret for now) when we get this area in, it may still take a while until it’s completed.

What about Xinoloux?
Xinoloux will still take a bit longer than the rest. It’s a somewhat larger area than that in southern Tiasa, it can be expected to have a bit more diversity in NPCs, it is supposed to come with a mission, and not only do I have another secret project for it, but one that also requires the development of some of the coding still required for one of the two southern Tiasa secret projects.
So it pretty much depends: I can’t start to work on Xinoloux a lot until june, and then it’ll still be a lot of work to do. Depending on how quickly Sheck solves the coding issues, you may see an early update without Xinoloux at some point, and a Xinoloux update later on, or it may still take a longer while to do the update, but then it’ll likely include Xinoloux.
I wouldn’t bet on this or that variant, because I have absolutely no clue how quickly I will be able to churn out content for Xinoloux, once I can start doing so, and I have even less of a hint of a clue about how long it’ll take Sheck to tackle the coding required.

Any infos on those secret projects?
Umm… well, there are three secret projects. Two of them have already been hinted at (and by “hinted at” I don’t mean that I have already mentioned “there is a secret project”, but actual hints). One is something that has been requested for a long time, and a lot of times. The other could already be seen at some point. The third secret project is… oh, it’s interesting.
I guess most of you will like them. At least the first and the last, don’t know about the middle one, but that was the one the dev team had to discuss about the least. (One was a player request that was hard to do, and discussion rolled back and forth, the other was something I proposed… and… I had to convince Sheck, but it’s looking rather good right now.)

That’s all for now. And remember:
I have given no release dates, because I don’t know any. Sorry, can’t stress this one enough, because I have seen once too often how eager players are to see something come at a “promised” release date.

[reply to this]

Just a really quick update on the development process. I’m currently working on the Realm of Xinoloux. While I have to learn a lot, I still have some spare time each day that I gladly use to write up new stuff.

How’s the work on Xinoloux progressing?
The Realm of Xinoloux currently has about 40 visitable locations throughout three towns
…for comparison:
Chaduk Desert (including Chaduk Haven, Desert Road South (toward Tiasa), Sidetracks (Danmam Lab and Bandit Camp) and the last bit of road before Hopitan West Gate (which technically belongs to another area)),
Martuso Mountains (including the Mines, Martis, the last bit of road before Hopitan East Gate and the two locations south of Martis (towards Plateney, including North of Plateney Woods))
and the Plateney Woods (including Deep Within)
consist of a total of 41 locations. (Temporary (Event and Mission) Locations not included.)
For the start of the realm only a small number of additional locations are planned (about four permanent ones within the Realm and a handful of temporary mission ones as well as two or three more permanents for the Chaduk Desert Road beyond Chaduk Haven towards the realm.).

What still has to be done?
Finalizing touches on the locations (ca. 12 additional locations)
Mission Writing (I just trashed – more or less – the existing start, so I’ll start mostly from scratch. The idea is a multi-part mission consisting of … five or six parts. Some of them will be rather “light” on the writing side, but most of them will likely feature multiple mission encounters, which leads to…)
NPC Design (Roamers, Arena Opponents, Mission Encounters… that’s AT LEAST nine different groups of foes, and I’d like to add some variety… although a couple of those groups would/will be pretty similar to each other.) With that of course:
Item Design (I’ll simply treat this as a subcategory to NPC design)
Battle Map Design (Of course, the arenas where you will fight will have to be designed as well. Three arenas, some five or six different mission battle locations, at least two different battle locations for random encounters “in transit”)
Secret Project (Maybe, maybe not. If yes, it’s additional work for additional fun and content. Since it’s not sure if this will be added, I’ll keep it a secret for now.)

What’s not on this list: Graphics. Those likely will take some time, as all our graphics specialists/pixelartists are absent, and I am neither good nor quick at this.

When can Xinoloux be expected?
No release date yet. After deciding that instead of playing games to relax from learning (reading and writing, mostly) I’ll be writing and designing stuff for Aethora I guess I’ll progress quicker than for the last couple of months. This will still take at least a couple of weeks, more likely a couple of months.

What are other Developers doing?
Sheck is designing new content as well, stuff in Tiasa with some new concept we had in mind to do for quite a while. He also has designed a new Battle Interface that’s up for testing on the development server and looks really, really nifty.
Yotta is creating new actions by the dozen. They haven’t been implemented yet, though, and thus can’t be tested yet. That’s something else that will have to be done throughout the next couple of weeks.

There was some mention of new skill trees (besides Festival) … any news on that?
Yes. The new and currently unused Skill tree leaves Paratherics and Pseudotherics that got added with the Pioneers Week Event will likely be removed again, only to be added back in a different form. As it stands now we have:
Metatherics
. Physical
.. Pseudotherics
. Forces
.. Paratherics
The current plan is to redo this, so Paratherics gets to be the “base level” of the skill tree, while Pseudotherics, Supratherics – currently known as Paratherics¹ – and a third, secret sub class of Paratherics will be the branches with some more specialized leaves. You will learn what all this is about when it’s done, so don’t get too nervous, it’s still a long way to go, and probably some of it will still change before it’s added. However, it is quite clear that this skill tree will be monster-only and not player-usable.
What else? There are three (!) more (player-usable) skill trees down the line that are being worked on, but that are too complicated to implement them on the continent of Hopilus. One requires SERIOUS considerations on how to make it stand apart from current skill trees, while the two others may need modifications in how equipment is handled, and require a whole new set of conceptual features to be coded.
Another, simpler, player-usable skill tree is currently being discussed and may become available with the Xinoloux update in the far future.

…
I can only say: I’m pretty excited. But that’s all for now.

¹ We do have ideas about these concepts and what they will do and how they will be used. So don’t wonder why we rename something that “doesn’t exist” yet. We do have a plan for it, and so, the idea already is there… and thus, if using its name for something else, we have to find a new name for it.

[reply to this]

Okay, it is finally here. I won’t be able to write much, since I am quite busy (and thus technically still on hiatus as a developer) but I wanted to say that I have indeed added a small spoiler page about the event to my spoiler section, just in case you need it.

Have fun, everyone!

[reply to this]

Don’t you dare looking at my last entry to see how long I took… I’ve become awfully slow.

A short update, as I now know a bit better what kind of content is to be expected:

• 34 different roaming NPC types in different groups everywhere where you could find them during Harvest Festival PLUS in Volum Forest. (Okay, granted, some of them are just different versions for different areas, and not that different from each other, but hey…)
• 9 droppable weapons, 3 droppable accessories.
• More than 88 special festival actions for NPCs (in plain english: 88 special festival actions for roaming NPCs alone)
• 2 Mini Missions with accessories as rewards, and with NPC foes that have skill tree leaves of their own, and own action lists (which is why I know that there will be more than 88 actions)
• Have I mentioned the fact that this event will have 9 different skill tree leaves to it? (7 normal ones, for roaming foes of different locations, plus one for the foes in each the two mini missions)

How do I know this stuff? Simple:

• The Mini Missions are already written out (except for NPCs, Items, and Actions)
• The Roaming NPCs are already written out (completely, including items)
• The Action List for the roamers are already written out (completely)

What’s left to do?

• Implementation, getting all this into the database and the code. (I can only help with the items and maybe the actions… the rest (setting up NPC groups, mission implementation) is up to Sheck)
• Testing. Testing. Testing. Testing.

The event is planned to go live on march 5th, hopefully we’ll be able to do this. I can sadly only work until mid-february on it, which means I can’t participate in testing it, because I have already put more time into it than is healthy for me, exam-learning-wise. So let’s hope that some of the other Dev Team members will show up to test this, so we can safely launch it on the day we planned to do so.

[reply to this]

Ha, as if it was something else at any point. Okay, those last weeks have been pretty busy, very much business, especially important “once in a lifetime” steps taken busy. I’ll spare out the exact procedures and stuff, and get straight ahead to my point:

These last weeks, very few things moved on the development team and server. Bron seems to be inspired right now, but hasn’t worked it off, if Sheck could, the game would likely be twice of its size by now, that much does he want to add stuff and work on it – but he doesn’t have the time, and I just completed what had me occupied over the last few weeks, just to realize I went out of the frying pan and into the fire. (In German, this figure of speech is “out of the rain, into the eaves/gutter”, by the way.)

Still, there are some plans left. Sheck will do stuff again when he finds the time, Bron wants to put stuff up as soon as he gets them written down. I’m currently planning an event that will, if everything works alright, hit the live server in March. It will be non-seasonal (no winter or spring event) and it will also be used to introduce a new “normal” skill branch, although a non-player usable one. I’ll have to see when and where I’ll put up a new huntable location with these skills.

The details of the event have to be worked out still – we do know the topic, we do know some basic storyline, but we do not know what subdivisions we’ll make for the Festival Skill tree… we’re only sure we’ll put a new branch to it, with at least two or three new leaves.
The event will likely consist of roaming NPC groups much like the Harvest Festival Event, though we’ll have to see how many of these foes will drop what kind of items. It will also hopefully sport at least one mini mission although I hope to make several ones. Don’t expect too much, we’re talking “Welcome to Hopitan”-scope here. After all, there are actions to write, foes to name and to design, items to think up and the mission has to be written… and then, all of this has to be tested.

Oh… it’ll be fun.
As always, you can ask questions. (If anybody bothers to read this. Heh.)

[reply to this]

Okay, it’s a new year, and most of the Dev Team members are still very busy in their real lives, including me. Still, I’d like to do some foreshadowing for what is planned for this year – there are, as always, no guarantees, and I won’t name any dates.

I still have plans for another NPC groups Deep within Plateney woods with new items to get (Accessories, for example, but weapons too). I have plans to make these guys a good bit tougher to beat, and a lot less rewarding (by quantity, item-wise) than most foes throughout the game. I’ll wait for the AI update*, though, in order to keep them from getting slaughtered by the usual combinations of actions… at least up to some point.

Also still in the works is the Xinoloux Area. It’s a lot of work. Currently, two of the three towns within the Realm have been made (they don’t have NPC markets yet, and it isn’t sure if they will get some and their arenas don’t have foes yet, either) and connected. Only one is missing, plus everything around them (sideroutes, smaller villages…)
There have not been any items or foes designed for the realm yet… this still poses a significant problem because of the multi-part mission that is supposed to be the lead-in to the realm. I still don’t quite know how to make the mission work as intended, so it’s somewhat stuck at the moment.

Hopefully Sheck will find a solution to some of the mission code requirements and tweaks. My favorite ideas are:
1. Base Level Rule. Currently, you need four characters with Melee X or more, or you need four characters with Metatherics X or more, depending on mission. Goal of this change is to make all missions require you to have four characters with either value (the higher of Melee or Metatherics) to be above the limit, regardless of speciality.
2. Something invisible to players regarding mission variables. Indeed, this is a requirement so “The Double-Coil Inventor Part 4” can be implemented. Oh, yeah. Part 3 hopefully will come out this year.
3. Repeatable Missions. Why? Because we have a lot of plans about these. Some notes? Making Arenas more interesting. Double Coil Inventor Repeatable Mission after the whole chain…
(Keep in mind: This is just a listing of the ideas on Shecks programming list that I personally anticipate the most, not the order of priority or implementation.)

Of course we hope to be able to do another Festival Event or two, we’ll see what topics and dates we can find to work with.

I further plan the addition of two more monster/foe-only Skills and Action lists (in addition to “Biting/Clawing”). The idea is… well… that some animals and beasts have special metatherical properties that should be usable to them as metatherical creatures, while the other… ah, no, that’d spoil the surprise.

That’s all for now. I know, much info you already had, but feel free to ask questions by replying here.

*Ha, almost forgot. What is the AI update?
Currently, the AI operates largely at random. We have limited options to designate one of two strategies in one of two aspects to a specific type of NPC, as well as having some basic rules that are embedded within actions.
Apart from these things, we barely have control over what the AI does in a battle – while in low-level arenas and areas this isn’t a problem, it becomes one in areas where foes are (and should be) expected to use weapons boasting four different skill leaves enabling them to use a ton of combinations.
So, the AI update will be mostly pruning. Being able to take away specific actions from specific NPCs that would, by their equipment, technically be able to do it. Being able to enforce other actions by prioritizing them. Of course, targetting will also be reworked. While we don’t have any results yet (as it hasn’t been finalized and programmed yet) the changes should reduce randomness and increase effectiveness in AI actions and make the game a tad more challenging.

[reply to this]

Sooo… I guess that’s it for Winterfest, nothing will be coming. Sheck is coding other stuff, mostly (good stuff, you’ll like it when it comes out) and I won’t be able to do much until next year. Sorry.

On the upside, the Realm of Xinoloux is another step closer to being accessible. It will still take a while, but it’s progressing.

If anybody has questions on the development or stuff, you can ask here (simply reply) I’ll do what I can to answer, as this entry is somewhat short.

[reply to this]

It’s looking… mixed for Winterfest. Problem is: All devs are volunteers, and most of us have quite the stress on christmas/new years themselves, so we would have to start making Winterfest stuff ASAP, to get it tested before it goes live – and that’d mean no more work being done on “real” content this year.
Sheck had a good idea for something smaller than Autumn Harvest (4 different roaming groups plus 4 arenas was… much for a “little event”) so maybe it’ll come.

Other news? Ough. Recent frustration with AP denial and stuff re-sparked action design discussion. We may have to do an overhaul of the whole action system – massive changes.
Why is that needed?
A huge amount of actions were in the game when the dev team was called. At that point, the AP cost of an action was solely based on the slower weapon involved. There was no friendly Area of Effect action. Actions only had a maximum range. There was no “self-centered” AoE. There was no knockback effect.
Sheck added AP cost modifier and Knockback effect. We made new actions – quick but weak ones, strong but expensive ones, normal expensive ones with knockback. We didn’t change the old ones.
Sheck modified AoE to enable friendly AoE – we made new, friendly AoE versions of existing actions.
And so on. Of course, some of these things were invented for new actions (self-centered AoE, called whirlwind (you target a foe in melee, and strike everybody around yourself, but him most) for example, was only invented for new melee actions that strike everybody around you – so all actions that used this had to be new actions) but some of this stuff would have made sense to add to existing skills – AP cost modifier and minimum ranges especially.
So we’re likely to take some chances and rework a host of actions to get skills properly balanced, for enjoyable and fun combat, and to make use of the full versatility of our action system in all skill tree branches and leaves.

Even if this means: Changes.

No date, no hints and no warranties on this one, yet, though.

[reply to this]

As I’m writing this, the Autumn Harvest event is on the roll, with a daily battlecount that’s almost awe-inspiring, even though I guess it’s mostly a handful loyal, very active players doing lots of battles, with some others doing single fights in between.

Of course, I’m somewhat nervous. As Sheck said, the event was a lot of work in little time, work done mostly by him and me, and while he can have the confidence coming from having written/programmed this game and maintaining it, I’m much more dependant on the verdict you – the players – will return upon the little things that I do, that I help with… such as this event.

I’ll ask Sheck to make a feedback page on the Developers notes when the event draws to a close, so you can give full, detailed opinions on how you feel about the event – if it was too much, too little, if it was good and funny, or if you would have liked something else. I know he’d like to know these things, and you can bet that I’d want, too.

But: Some questions that may come up, answered:

What about your spoiler page, will we find more information there?
Yo. Nyes. Dang, it really doesn’t work in english. Yes and No. I think a community should always be somewhat self-sufficient. Some players like to find out about stuff themselves, and even more to be teachers for others who do not yet know. Under almost all circumstances, I’ll let the community do research, make theories about how things work and let them confirm it themselves.
Our community – at least the regular and very active community – is rather small, the event is time-limited and was not only made, but also announced on short notice. So we have only a small part of our not too big community trying to find out lots of stuff within a very limited timeframe. I have no doubt that we do have a handful of players who may find out a lot about almost everything, even in this short time – but they would have a hard time confirming their or other peoples findings, especially about the harder stuff (Plateney Turkey Accessory, for example).
That’s why I put up some spoilers, so you can find your confirmation there, or can find info if you are not a “researcher” type of player and/or have only very limited spare time, and still want to get something out from this event.

What about Accessories? Will they be available after the event?
The accessories you will find will stay active and working. As the event ends, they will be no longer obtainable, except by buying them from other players. The thing is: Accessories never were meant to be a common commodity. It is planned to have only a limited selection, and that all except the most active players will likely not have eight accessories (either not at all, or at least not such types that you’d consider optimal). They will only be sparse, we’ll try to keep it that way. So either they’ll be time-limited event drops (and rather rare, there, too!) with some drawbacks, or they’ll be very hard to reach, on a very rare foe, with only a very small chance that he has them or, and these will likely be the “best”, as mission reward (as in: once per player). This, and the different flavors they come in (own action increase, foe action decrease, point regeneration (no, there will be none for health, only move, action and defense), passive aggression (like firecoat)) for the different skills, will hopefully make accessories a good, rare and valuable commodity and prevent overly devaluation, as with weapons.

What will come next?
Depending on Shecks summary of the event and your feedback, there may or may not come a Winterfest event (Christmas/New Year) and it may or may not be similar to this (only roaming? only arenas? both? something else?) but likely somewhat better planned and executed (as we have, like, six times as much time to prepare and, on that timeframe, some other team members are more likely to contribute as well). Apart from that – now I’m talking only for myself (I do all the time, actually, but usually I try to guess what the rest of the team is thinking/doing) but this does not mean that I’m working on anything alone… in fact, I practically never do. – I’m currently working on the realm of Xinoloux, as well as the mission that will open it up for the players. This is a true monster, a giant thing to do, and it will still take a while to write, and then to implement and test. I can’t give anything even remotely resembling a release date. I’m also helping out a bit in the graphics department, trying to modify some item images to get some more diversity (a test run may well come before christmas, but don’t expect too much, it’s really simple changes). Last but not least, I’ll likely come up with one or two new locations, with new foes, with new weapons, that will be really tough to beat, and that will likely have the chance for a boss leading them that has, in turn, a chance to wear an accessory that’s droppable. I even have some ideas for one of those places already. When? Depends. It’s not that much work, but I do have some stressy times ahead, so don’t expect it too early, but I plan to do it within the next two months.

Possible Winterfest Event – what’s possible, what’s not?

• Roaming NPCs that attack players on the road? Possible.
• In-town arenas for players to fight? Possible.
  Both have been done for this event. It was about four or five days of hard work to get everything somewhat done, another day to fully implement, and then we had a day or two to test it. This time, we’d have about three weeks.
• Special NPC shops that sell some christmas- or new-years-themed items? Possible, but unlikely.
  Technically, NPC shops were and are an emergency solution. They’re more likely to get reduced over time, as the player market is strengthened. (Likely only leaving some sort of start-equipment shop for beginners that want to re-skill a character without paying too much, under ideal circumstances. Maybe with some routine/process that lets “the system” buy stuff from player market somewhat randomly. We’ll see.) So… enabling you, the players, to acquire something so stupidly easy is rather far off. Maybe some really funny items, if we can come up with some, maybe some wacky combinations (no metatherics-metatherics or melee-melee) but in any you can expect items sold by such NPC vendors – if there are any, and there likely won’t be – to be a good bit sub par, compared to other stuff you can find or buy from players.
• A special event mission? Nigh impossible at worst, highly unlikely at best.
  A mission requires much more writing work, is much harder to implement and takes much more testing to be put into the game properly. Three weeks (some of them likely the stressiest part of the year) aren’t enough to do anything meaningful, mission-wise. If we can technically do a mission, it won’t be much more than “Welcome to Hopitan” – few textboxes, one, maybe two encounters, and practically no decisions to make (as these require the most time to write and test properly).

That’s all for now, folks!

[reply to this]

Okay, most of you know by now that I’m a member of the development team. So, what’s the Development Team doing right now? I’ll drop some hints: Accessories, Xinoloux, Missions and more!

Accessories. The purpose of the fourth inventory slot will be revealed in the not too distant future, although the “real” deal will only come with time (first off, there will only be very low quality accessories available). Stay tuned.

Xinoloux. The area west of chaduk is being created. It will still take a while, because it’s such a huge project, but rest assured: it’s currently being worked on.

Missions. Of course, the team is always working on missions. Currently, we have one already written mission ready for being implemented, another two written, but not yet ready, and another two are currently being written.

more! There is a top-secret project that’s currently being worked on, and I have a hunch that it’ll hit rather sooner than later. Plus, there have been a lot of coding updates, some of them you won’t really notice (they just add options to what we devs can do) while others may get noticed very well – and others, yet, have been implemented, but aren’t quite used yet.

And finally: A little “How To” on mission writing. How is it done?
Step 1: Plot Bunny Stage
The easiest part of it all, technically, because it’s the shortest. Sometimes done as a group, as a brainstorming, sometimes done by someone who just dishes out Plot Bunnies en gros, this is just the point where someone says: “Wouldn’t it be cool to have a mission that deals with…?”

Step 2: Story Writing(1)
This step is what our volunteer writers were hired for. Actually, it’s not that hard, but it’s a lot of work. This is “where the magic takes place” – the story gets written, textbox for textbox that you’ll read when playing through the mission. Of course, this is also where the different decisions get written out – what decision will lead to what path during the mission. It also includes giving ideas about the encounters, from a story perspective

Step 3: NPC and Item Design(2)
This is a design job, and has to do with juggling numbers and skill tree leaves. So here, the “desert bandits” get named, and get equipment, and their equipment is invented. It’s a lot less work than story writing, but it requires a lot more thought.

Step 4: Review(3)
This is a first feedback step. The other devs have a look at the plot line and the NPCs and the items and say what they think. Usually, this is the first step to correct some misspellings and stuff.

Step 5: Implementation/Data Entry(4)
The most complicated and likely, important part. This is where the mission actually gets into the code to become playable. Some stuff is easier to do (items for example, or locations), other is rather hard (NPC templates, and, most of all: the mission path itself). Some of this stuff can only be done by Ranger Sheck, who is usually busy doing all the coding requests for new features, so sometimes it can take a while (especially if the writers make very complicated stories with no coherent formatting and stuff).

Step 6: Testing
The Devs play the mission, and see if everything works, every path can be used, but only intended ones, every reward gets created. While a little playtesting on difficulty is included, this is usually mostly testing if everything works as intended.

Step 7: Done
The mission is marked as final, likely tested a bit more, and then, at some point (usually with a bigger update with additional missions and other stuff) transferred from the development server to the live server, where it can be played by you: The Players.

(1) This is, where the writer may first request graphics to be done from the graphics department.
(2) The writer should have sent his requests to the graphics people by there, or else…
(3) This is the part where the graphics people will likely have a look and see what they can assume to “have been requested” by that particular writer.
(4) This is where the graphics are needed. Tough luck.

Of course: My infos are subjective, so I can’t claim they’re 100% correct. Believe at your own peril.
And: You may ask questions. They may be answered or not, but they may give me an idea what you guys would like to know about the development process.

[reply to this]