It took a heck of a coding marathon and the lives of a million tea leaves were lost to the cause, but the basic structure for inscriptions is complete and fully functional. This means that, on my local codebase:
1. A new item type exists - 'scrolls'.
2. The new command 'read' allows a player to read said scrolls.
3. Players can learn new inscriptions by reading the appropriate scrolls, and view their current inscription tree (or those of other players) with the 'inscription' command.
There's a ton of unspoken detail in there, but that's the basic summary. The reward structure which I've spoken about previously involves, in part, the addition of these scrolls - different quests and events will offer access to scrolls with a wide variety of different inscriptions.
Of course, you don't know precisely what inscriptions are for, yet. That's the (nearly) last piece of the puzzle which I'm working on as we speak - the 'empower' command, which is related to the gibberish clues I've provided in previous entries. Once 'empower' is finished:
1. A player will be able to 'empower' him/herself with... something. :)
2. This empowering provides benefits in and of itself, but more importantly, it allows access to the customizations a player has chosen through learning new inscriptions.
I expect to finish testing of 'empower' tonight or early tomorrow, after which this will all go live in one major update. (I do still need to pretty up the output for these new commands - it's pretty ugly-looking at this point.) There is a strong element of mystery and the unknown built into the system, and helpfiles will be scarce at first, so the Sixth Sense will be a good resource for those of you who enjoy unraveling the intricacies and depths of a new in-game system. =)
Thanks for your support and patience. Back to coding!
Monday, December 28, 2009
Friday, December 25, 2009
Holiday cheer!
Best holiday wishes to all of you! Thank you all for your kind thoughts and concern. I am safely back at home, and hard at work on the system alluded to in the Nov. 14 post. Paper design is done, and I've made a ton of coding progress in the past two days.
In the spirit of the season, as well as the spirit of toying with you all, here's just a few pointers as to what the new system will be about:
1. The gibberish in the Nov. 14th post is part of the foundation of the new content.
2. The name of the Nov. 14th post is significant in some way.
3. Inscriptions.
Enjoy your eggnog; I'll be working hard to get you some much-needed code love!
In the spirit of the season, as well as the spirit of toying with you all, here's just a few pointers as to what the new system will be about:
1. The gibberish in the Nov. 14th post is part of the foundation of the new content.
2. The name of the Nov. 14th post is significant in some way.
3. Inscriptions.
Enjoy your eggnog; I'll be working hard to get you some much-needed code love!
Friday, December 11, 2009
Emergency leave
I'm sorry to push back the long-overdue content releases, but I will not be able to provide any updates this coming week. Due to an immediate family emergency, I will be unavailable until the 20th. I'll resume working on updates when I return. Until then, best wishes and good health to you all.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Blast from the past
Hi! Here's a quick progress report, by request, on what's working its way through the Nodeka creation pipeline and how far it's gotten.
Last week, I inquired if anyone talented with the pen would be interested in helping me out with room/mob descriptions (one of the bigger "busywork" obstacles for me in releasing an area, as it tends to take me a long time to tweak these). Several people responded (and thank you all for your willingness!); one of those players is now helping me with the Fields of Guidance descriptions and should get back to me this weekend. Once I manage to integrate those, the Fields should be just about releasable.
For the rest of the players who responded, I may be tapping your talent in the future given the numerous areas I have in the pipeline; I'll work it out via e-mail when the time comes, and thanks again! =)
In the meantime, I've been working out the details of a certain new in-game system which underlies a lot of the new content. One of the challenges in designing new content is the reward aspect - once the "new toy" sheen wears off, how do you keep this content relevant to the players? The current setup of the Ruushi Invasion is a good example of a failure on my part to set up a compelling reward system (compounded by the fact that numbers correlate to success in the current setup, exaggerating the inertia of increase/decline in participants). This is a mistake I don't want to make with the future content, and so I'm cleaning up this particular in-game system to interlock with the next few areas' reward structures.
What is this in-game system precisely? I'll talk about it more next week, hopefully after the Fields of Guidance have been released. For now, I'll just leave you with this indecipherable gibberish: ra znv yd sji. =)
Last week, I inquired if anyone talented with the pen would be interested in helping me out with room/mob descriptions (one of the bigger "busywork" obstacles for me in releasing an area, as it tends to take me a long time to tweak these). Several people responded (and thank you all for your willingness!); one of those players is now helping me with the Fields of Guidance descriptions and should get back to me this weekend. Once I manage to integrate those, the Fields should be just about releasable.
For the rest of the players who responded, I may be tapping your talent in the future given the numerous areas I have in the pipeline; I'll work it out via e-mail when the time comes, and thanks again! =)
In the meantime, I've been working out the details of a certain new in-game system which underlies a lot of the new content. One of the challenges in designing new content is the reward aspect - once the "new toy" sheen wears off, how do you keep this content relevant to the players? The current setup of the Ruushi Invasion is a good example of a failure on my part to set up a compelling reward system (compounded by the fact that numbers correlate to success in the current setup, exaggerating the inertia of increase/decline in participants). This is a mistake I don't want to make with the future content, and so I'm cleaning up this particular in-game system to interlock with the next few areas' reward structures.
What is this in-game system precisely? I'll talk about it more next week, hopefully after the Fields of Guidance have been released. For now, I'll just leave you with this indecipherable gibberish: ra znv yd sji. =)
Friday, October 9, 2009
A steady hand
The latest update is pretty self-explanatory. =) Speed, at least at high values, is now tied somewhat to dexterity - if you're superloaded on speed but completely skimping on dexterity, you'll start to notice the attack degradation. Only speed-based attacks beyond your dexterity-based "steady attack" cap are affected - having more speed is never a liability. The benefit simply scales down if your dexterity is too far behind.
At the current numbers, the change should be mild for anyone who isn't on the crazy side of imbalanced (say, rocking 1000 speed while augmenting their dexterity down to 200). In addition, the renown additions will provide a constant 5% boost to your incoming xp and gold from now on once you've accumulated renown up to the base of 500. (Assuming, of course, that you don't get pkilled!)
Questions are welcome, as always. It's a super busy time for me - back to work!
At the current numbers, the change should be mild for anyone who isn't on the crazy side of imbalanced (say, rocking 1000 speed while augmenting their dexterity down to 200). In addition, the renown additions will provide a constant 5% boost to your incoming xp and gold from now on once you've accumulated renown up to the base of 500. (Assuming, of course, that you don't get pkilled!)
Questions are welcome, as always. It's a super busy time for me - back to work!
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
We're driving 60 miles an hour
As promised in the MotD, here's a slightly more in-depth discussion regarding the new speed change.
Before this update, entities gained an additional attack at certain speed "breakpoints" (388 speed, 412 speed, etc.) At higher speed values, these breakpoints were absolute - you either had enough speed or you didn't. There was no difference between, say, 320 or 381 speed in terms of attacks; the extra speed points were "wasted".
Now, however, every speed point contributes slightly to your attack frequency. The base underlying "breakpoints" remain similar (for example, about 490 speed will net you about 12 base attacks, just as before). However, that number of attacks is no longer set in stone. For example, at 400 speed, you will usually perform from 10-11 base attacks, with more 11-attacks than 10-attacks. As your speed increases beyond 400, your 10-attack rounds will decrease and your 11-attack rounds will increase, slowly increasing your average. By the time you hit about 440 speed, 10-attack rounds will be rarely seen, 11-attacks will be much more common, and you will start to see 12-attack rounds beginning to pop up. As you approach 500 speed, you'll be doing 12-attack rounds more often than 11-attack rounds... and so on.
The net result is that speed is no longer a game of "hitting that breakpoint", but a stat that scales just as the other stats do. This should make gearing for speed a bit less restrictive, as you won't have the "I can't take off my speed wristband because it will drop me below a breakpoint" problem anymore. If you were previously right on a breakpoint and had more than 300 speed, you may notice a slight decrease (half an attack, or slightly more at very high speeds as those breakpoints were shifted up a few points).
This change was implemented and tested with crafted gear in mind. If things work out as I hope (with balance remaining fair and the restrictiveness of speed easing up a little), I may be able to leave speed gear at its current levels rather than tweaking it as mentioned on the Nodeka 411 discussions. (I have some ideas in store for the attributes that are just slightly undervalued at the moment by many classes, such as hit and dexterity.)
And, in the meantime, the wood-based crafting fix should open up more crafted gear possibilities for you in certain slots (such as caster/finesse weapons). I pushed this particular fix up the timeline because of a serious bug which was brought to my attention by Iron (with a wonderfully descriptive, analytical e-mail, I might add - makes bugzapping so much easier, thank you!). In fixing that bug, I had to rewrite some of the same AI that was causing the wood-based crafting anomaly, so I mashed the bugs together and made an update stew. Now, I need to step away from this little distraction and get back to the Fields of Guidance. =) Thanks for playing, and thanks for your patience - great things are coming, folks!
Before this update, entities gained an additional attack at certain speed "breakpoints" (388 speed, 412 speed, etc.) At higher speed values, these breakpoints were absolute - you either had enough speed or you didn't. There was no difference between, say, 320 or 381 speed in terms of attacks; the extra speed points were "wasted".
Now, however, every speed point contributes slightly to your attack frequency. The base underlying "breakpoints" remain similar (for example, about 490 speed will net you about 12 base attacks, just as before). However, that number of attacks is no longer set in stone. For example, at 400 speed, you will usually perform from 10-11 base attacks, with more 11-attacks than 10-attacks. As your speed increases beyond 400, your 10-attack rounds will decrease and your 11-attack rounds will increase, slowly increasing your average. By the time you hit about 440 speed, 10-attack rounds will be rarely seen, 11-attacks will be much more common, and you will start to see 12-attack rounds beginning to pop up. As you approach 500 speed, you'll be doing 12-attack rounds more often than 11-attack rounds... and so on.
The net result is that speed is no longer a game of "hitting that breakpoint", but a stat that scales just as the other stats do. This should make gearing for speed a bit less restrictive, as you won't have the "I can't take off my speed wristband because it will drop me below a breakpoint" problem anymore. If you were previously right on a breakpoint and had more than 300 speed, you may notice a slight decrease (half an attack, or slightly more at very high speeds as those breakpoints were shifted up a few points).
This change was implemented and tested with crafted gear in mind. If things work out as I hope (with balance remaining fair and the restrictiveness of speed easing up a little), I may be able to leave speed gear at its current levels rather than tweaking it as mentioned on the Nodeka 411 discussions. (I have some ideas in store for the attributes that are just slightly undervalued at the moment by many classes, such as hit and dexterity.)
And, in the meantime, the wood-based crafting fix should open up more crafted gear possibilities for you in certain slots (such as caster/finesse weapons). I pushed this particular fix up the timeline because of a serious bug which was brought to my attention by Iron (with a wonderfully descriptive, analytical e-mail, I might add - makes bugzapping so much easier, thank you!). In fixing that bug, I had to rewrite some of the same AI that was causing the wood-based crafting anomaly, so I mashed the bugs together and made an update stew. Now, I need to step away from this little distraction and get back to the Fields of Guidance. =) Thanks for playing, and thanks for your patience - great things are coming, folks!
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Everything old is new again
Busy busy busy! Still hacking away at that Fields of Guidance update; it should be pretty soon now. =) There were a lot of underlying issues I had to poke at, and even tasks that sound simple (such as writing the quest text) present some surprising challenges.
In the meantime, I've addressed a few of the current discussions over at Nodeka411, so if you're feeling a little information-starved, mosey on over to these threads:
http://www.nodeka411.net/forum/showthread.php?t=423
http://www.nodeka411.net/forum/showthread.php?t=433
In the meantime, I've addressed a few of the current discussions over at Nodeka411, so if you're feeling a little information-starved, mosey on over to these threads:
http://www.nodeka411.net/forum/showthread.php?t=423
http://www.nodeka411.net/forum/showthread.php?t=433
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