Game Development: Prelude

[Tapewormz]

Next Monday better be a patch to fix this horseshit, because capped leveling means i might as well go back to playing 'normal' MMOs..

To quote someone else:

I'm sorry you feel that way, and good day to you.

lol you beat me to it...

[Darruin]

If I recall correctly the current map size at 175000x175000 had about a 20ish-hour travel-time radius (by foot) to the edge. Since the new map will be 25000x25000 it should take a few hours instead.

I'm not sure how I feel about this. Now that, perhaps, players will be crawling over each other it would certainly lead to more (forced) interactions. Even moreso if the playerbase jumped up. But won't this cause the hermit players, who aren't as competitive as the large organised groups, to be at a disadvantage? Thus requiring new methods of avoiding conflict? The only weapon they had was their solitude.

Rather than forcing players together, a world where players (especially the terrified and defenceless hermits) had more incentive to build close to others would be ideal. So even if the world was infinite the hermits WOULDN'T build in isolation due to the lost benefits. I'm talking about a vassal system.

[MagicManICT]

I'm not sure how I feel about this. Now that, perhaps, players will be crawling over each other it would certainly lead to more (forced) interactions. Even moreso if the playerbase jumped up. But won't this cause the hermit players, who aren't as competitive as the large organised groups, to be at a disadvantage? Thus requiring new methods of avoiding conflict? The only weapon they had was their solitude.

It's already been stated that no, this hasn't ever been an issue. I will say that w6 or w7 one was almost immediately expanded to 7x7 supergrids after the start of the world, and maybe it was both. Maybe with the number of players that jumped back in on w8 after 6 and 7 it's an indication that we should just start at 7x7 instead of 5x5.

[gad432]

Will there be before the new world a full list of changes and innovations?

[ramones]

Will there be before the new world a full list of changes and innovations?

No, u need to find them out the hard way and sometimes die from them. Its how devs enjoy it

[stya]

My stance is: in case you won't buy the subscription at all, then there is no need for you to be in the game.

My stance is there should be an amount to pay to get full access. Honestly I'd like to insult you, your post negates years of h&h.

If you want the classic experience then cough up 15€ once to get verified and play legacy, which you seem to miss. If you want to play the current version the amount is 6 to 10€ per month, depending on for how long you want the subscription to last, for full access.

How that negates years of h&h is beyond me, unless you are an ungrateful fuck which, since they let you play legacy for free all the years, is now under the delusion that you are entitled to free access in the future.

You missed A LOT of my posts and my whole point, I paid already.

[Chebermech]

First off, props for end world game event, the best world ending so far, keep it up!
Also I like the idea of character progression cap, and here are some short and long term benefits:

* Players wouldn't be afraid to die as much, and interact more with the outside world.
* NPCs will be more of a challenge, thus adding stronger NPCs will be easier to balance both challenge and reward.
* PvP skills will now be a lot easier to balance (i still hope you make all the combat abilities useful, maybe even change the whole system for that matter).
* Removes the unnecessary grind of numbers, in order to be afraid to lose the pointless progress.
* Removes a massive amount of chores and gives players time to actually play and enjoy the game.

Now the problem with the current version is it doesn't have the end game because there was (or still is) no end, only chores and paranoia. Resetting the world now is a smart move, because it gives players a new hope and it sets us back in progress, giving devs enough time to think through and implement the new late game aka siege mechanics and kingdoms for pvp, as well as to make changes to how animals work, maybe add a couple of new ones to keep us occupied and challenged. So hopefully by the time we reach this cap, game will be ready to provide more.

On the new payment system, i wish there was a way to make money without drawing a line between players who spend money from premium from the rest, it would only make healthier gaming environment and attract more players, although having one time payment to separate "free demo" from the actual game is fair. Having caps is great, but having different caps is a questionable decision. Having different progress rate is fine (if there is a cap), but monetizing the game through cosmetics is even better if you can pull it off.

A few ideas on the cap, I think that 200 skill/stat cap is good, if you balance out the requirements and make it more difficult to reach that max but not difficult enough to be paranoid on losing it. If you decide to go on a 50/125/200 route or something along those lines, I hope it will still be possible to surpass the cap with items. Also it would be nice to have some sort of use of food after you surpass the cap, say have a gluttony session (similar to salem but not really), where you would stuff your face with food in one session, increasing your stats temporary and get a debuff preventing you from another session until the stats you've buffed, decay back to your cap (in 24 irl hr or something). Another idea would be to have a limited amount of skill points and stat points you can have, so you would distribute and play around with the balance yourself, specializing your characters heavily into one thing. Since there are plenty of useless foods at the moment, make some of it reduce some of the stats instead. Also make skillpoint reset cost as much LP as to gain one, and make LP work as Feps, each next skillpoint would cost the maximum skill *100 (ex. you have 200 UA which is your max skill, and 50 Stealth, to gain or remove 1 point in stealth, or any other skill except UA would cost 20000 LP, UA would cost 20100).

tried to keep this small, but ended up with a wall of text as always, hope you don't skip it through
That's it for now, love the update, keep it up - don't fuck it up!

[SiO2]

Another idea would be to have a limited amount of skill points and stat points you can have, so you would distribute and play around with the balance yourself, specializing your characters heavily into one thing.

screw the skill system! lets make a single farming/fighting slider.
PS Same for stats.
PPS Pay to make slider looonger.

[lachlaan]

So in the end have you already decided on the new payment system or is feedback still being considered? Cause I still see lots of talk of caps going on :\

I've friends with limited time that admittedly were still constrained by 14 hours of verified time, so do indeed like the idea of no time constraints, but a stat cap would just mean that we'd end up limited after a few months :\ I mean we'd not quite passed 125 in attributes, but skill wise I was getting decent survival for hunting and whatnot, and if we take the time to get serious about anything, even with a sub, hitting the cap would pretty much feel like game over. Base design wise we'd be done by then, most qualities would be capped by skills past that point .. there'd be no grind, nothing to do. And if you think shiny numbers for the sake of shiny numbers aren't a good motivator to play I would politely beg to differ.

[jorb]

is feedback still being considered?

Yupp!