Aeon
Member
Somehow whenever I play this game it feels like I should be able to add dungeons in the same way that you add towns. It has always bothered me that you can't do that. :P
BTW, is there anywhere where I can find some detailed information on what everything does? I mean, do certain statistics actually effect anything for characters and monsters, number of employees, etc..?
Yeah, I agree with you Aeon! I keep going back and forth about what quest creation should be like. My current thinking is that most quests should be created automatically by your employees, but that the player should be able to place a few types of "epic quests":
One type of "epic quest" would be placing "boss monsters" in the overworld; these would be like strong versions of regular monsters, and would probably require a party of players to band together to defeat them.
Another "epic quest" would be a "travel quest", which sends the player a very long distance away; further than a player would usually travel in day-to-day play, or into or through dangerous high-level zones. The player would specify the destination for the travel quest, and subscribers who made the trek would be likely to set that destination as their new home. These would be an awesome way to kick players out of their starting areas.
The final "epic quest" type would be a dungeon. Dungeon entrances would function like town buildings, in that players vanish off the main map when they're entered, spend some time inside, and then return. I'd really like to expand on dungeons in future versions; in 1.2 or later, I'd love to be able to double-click on a dungeon entrance to go to a dungeon editing screen where you could lay lay down a general structure to the dungeon using an interface similar to zoning regions on the main map. But that's all a ways down the track, right now.
In 1.0.x, a new quest is automatically generated for him each time a subscriber goes to his home. In 1.1.x, this is no longer the case; quest-givers can be placed on the map, and each of these generates five static quests that it gives to players. Once a player has done all five of these static quests, the quest-giver will then give one randomly selected nearby Epic Quest (if any is available). After that, that quest giver will not give the player any more quests. So in 1.1.x, you need to make sure that you have enough quest-givers for your players to gain enough experience to gain a level, or they'll complain about having to grind levels.
Anyhow.. As for detailed information on what everything does, there isn't very good documentation right now, unfortunately. 1.1 will have a full-on tutorial which will teach all the concepts of the game, so that'll help.. but for right now, I'll just say that virtually every tweakable parameter in the game has an effect. The only one which does nothing right now is the "number of employees" option. And one could argue that the subscription prices don't do anything useful, as the money system isn't balanced well enough in the 1.0 series to make you ever have to worry about running out of cash. And there are no ill effects to running out of money, even if you somehow found a way to do it.
Anonymous
Unregistered
A dungeon could maybe have a time limit too. If it was too high, people outside would complain. If it was too low, people inside would complain. It wouldn't really be necessary or anything(you could just make it 0), but it could help for dungeons that are so big that nobody could get in until the current players finish.
I had actually been thinking about having "dungeons" be instanced mission areas; each party that entered would be in their own copy of it, so that you didn't have the queueing users problem.
On the other hand, that would basically prevent the player from zooming in and watching users fight their way through the dungeon. Is that a fair trade-off, do you think?
Aeon
Member
How do towns currently work? Is there a limit to the number of users that can be in a town at once?
Aside from that, it seems awkward to have extensive designs for dungeons while having nothing but totally abstract designs for everything else. You can't even name your towns, but you can design dungeon layouts? I'd be happy with dungeons working just like towns do now, only with a different purpose.
You might also allow dungeons to grant users experience bonuses when they are completed, which could be used to determine each individual user's desire to visit that dungeon. I mean, if a level 4 dungeon grants 100 experience while the level 10 dungeon only grants 25, which one are you going to visit repeatedly?
But you should consider adding more depth to other parts of the game before you go into anything advanced in the dungeons department.
jasond315
Member
Personally, I'd rather see all people playing at all times.
I don't know if this would be possible (or if the amount of work involved would be worth it) but what about a vertical box, off to the side of the zones (or a horizontal one at the bottom), where any active instances would be displayed, and could be zoomed in on.
How towns work in 1.0 is very different from how towns work in 1.1.
In 1.0, a "town" is a point in space which abstractly represents a couple factors; it's a "home" for players, it's place to pick up quests, and it's a place to heal. All an adventurer needs to do is get vaguely near the town, and it's assumed that he's inside and can do anything that a town allows.
In 1.1, a "town" is actually a collection of discrete buildings; you place a town, and your developers go to work placing the individual buildings that make up the town. These buildings appear on the map as you zoom in, and adventurers actually enter the buildings and vanish from the map while they're using the building functions; the player cannot ever see inside these buildings.
I hadn't considered putting a cap on how many adventurers could be in a building at once.
And yes, any depth to the dungeon-building possibilities will wait until after I'm fully happy with behaviour on the overworld map. And there's a fair way to go before I'll be really happy with that. :)
Anonymous
Unregistered
Aeon: "I mean, if a level 4 dungeon grants 100 experience while the level 10 dungeon only grants 25, which one are you going to visit repeatedly?"
Monster density? If there are a cluster of monsters overpowering you in the level 4 dungeon, but only a few quick kills in the level 10, I'd go to the level 10 dungeon. Then again, teamwork might help.
Right now, the XP system is loosely based on the one in City of Heroes (as it's a very simple and relatively intuitive system). You define a "combat level range" (in CoH, it's 3). Fight an enemy more than that many levels away from you and you won't earn XP for winning the fight. If the enemy is higher level than you, then you earn extra XP (up to twice normal XP, for enemies exactly 'combat level range' levels above you). If the enemy is lower level than you, you earn fewer XP.
I had been vaguely thinking about doing this same deal with dungeons and quests; Any XP reward from completing a dungeon or quest would be modified based upon the difference between the adventurer's level and the dungeon/quest level. Work through a level 4 dungeon when you're level 8, and you won't earn any experience for it. Do it when you're level 1, and you'll earn double XP. That is, assuming that you do manage to survive.
Anonymous
Unregistered
I've been thinking about Dungeon Time Limit vs. Instance. What if an instanced dungeon would cost a tad more due to the extra load/maintenance on the servers? That way you could make that server cost more over time, while lowering the price on the instanced dungeon on purchase. Time limited dungeons would cost more in the short run, but would be cheap in the long run. This also allows for the time limit of 0, that would annoy the outside subscribers more or less depending on the dungeon traffic (queues) or the time it takes for the subs inside to complete it.
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