Any estimations on map change?

[DeadlyPencil]

does it really have to be a new map? couldn't they just change the resource locations?

[sabinati]

it has to be a new map

[Jfloyd]

Character starting choices

You know, one of the things I appreciate very much with Haven as it is, is precisely the fact that you don't get to choose anything while creating a character.

This is just like saying "Hey, we'll put you here, with nothing really useful. Have fun grinding for two hours, then trying to figure out how to survive, then finding people" to me.
I really want a choice in how my character will develop, even if it could be special titles like, thinker, or perfectionist, and things like that, that give bonuses to the start.
An example of what I'm saying is, say you choose to have the perfectionist title. You'd get a slight bonus to everything you craft because of that, but maybe your crafting time is MUCH longer. Things that give starting diversity, but jump away from the normal. "Ok, have this skill, and this skill, and this skill, now grind for 10 days for no reason to make them better".

[Jackard]

Character starting choices

You know, one of the things I appreciate very much with Haven as it is, is precisely the fact that you don't get to choose anything while creating a character (apart from gender, which is just cosmetic anyway). I very much like the fact that a new character is entirely free of preconceptions and ready to be shaped by his path in the world (which is something I very much intend to capitalize on and emphasize further when the LP system is replaced).

In fact, with the new Kin system in place (and the "peer-to-peer" naming that it entails), I've almost even considered the idea that characters shouldn't even be given names as part of their creation.

but players do choose starting skills, youre simply forcing them to grind campfires/stuff in order to do so

think about that 1000lp branch bonus for new guys, why do you have that again?

[Jfloyd]

I feel that to be...undesirable.
"Fuck yeah! I can mine now, all it took was burning these unlimited branches, and living off these seemingly small apples for an hour!"

[loftar]

but players do choose starting skills, youre simply forcing them to grind campfires/stuff in order to do so

Well, that is obviously one of those things that would be nice to change. I think it would be a better solution to make the early game more fun rather than to actually introduce choices during character creation, however. Also, I would to make it so that a character's surroundings have a rather profound effect on what kinds of skills and such that he will learned, as outlined here. In that post, I only wrote that the available resources should determine what kind of equipment will be available to characters, but since then Jorb and I have also begun formulating theories on how it could be made to determine also what skills and crafting recipes are learned.

[Jackard]

It might help the early game if there were more actions characters could take without skills, even if theyre not very good at it until they learn the skill.

things like digging, fishing, swimming, jumping down cliffs (been playing zelda 3 again lately)

[theTrav]

I think what Loftar is getting at, is that players ideally shouldn't be making more choices than they have to before they're in the game, interacting with other players, being part of the world.


You can give people close to instant low level skills while still satisfying that goal through things like tutorial quests "go get me a hammer from my shed and I'll teach you smithing" which would be heaps easier than "pick 1000 branches from a tree then buy one of the many skills in this list with no indication of how useful it will be or how likely it is to get you killed"

[Chakravanti]

As long as it can be done without NPC's that sounds fantastic.

I wouldn't be opposed to having Charter stones function as a sort of demi-god psuedo-NPC with fetch-quest basic crafting tutorials.

Any way it goes....that's a lot of fucking UI work.

Maybe if we could see some sort of system preview we could help write the actual individual tutorials. Or, through some interface, Each owner of a charter stone can write their own fetch-quest tutorials. This would eliminate that godawful need for a noob town to ask for the donations of fucktons of cellar stones.

Such a system is obviously contingent on the LP system revamp and more fully developed village management.

[loftar]

You can give people close to instant low level skills while still satisfying that goal through things like tutorial quests "go get me a hammer from my shed and I'll teach you smithing" which would be heaps easier than "pick 1000 branches from a tree then buy one of the many skills in this list with no indication of how useful it will be or how likely it is to get you killed"

Indeed, that is one aspect of it. It might be worth mentioning here (just to clear one or two things up) that the kinds of quests we've been considering so far are not NPC-based. Rather, we've been thinking more and more of introducing psychological aspects of characters (which will probably also be a part of the replacement of the LP system), and that these kinds of quests would probably show up as things that the character has become "curious" about. Like "Hmm, this 'clay' looks interesting. If I dig up a couple of more pieces of clay, I might think of something to do with it."