Miscellaneous observations - Dec 2009

[Dentin]

Amazingly enough, I've actually been morting recently.  I mostly tend to play lower and mid level characters, as those are the level ranges where we lose most of our players, but I do have some relatively high level characters as well.

Something I noticed that I was definitely not expecting has to do with mid level areas, and probably with all areas in general:  the mob, and often equipment levels are too far apart and too varied.  You could easily cut through a swarm of low level mobs thinking everything's ok, then get utterly nuked by the DemonWolf.  You could discover that those weak genestealer hybrids continue to give good exp up to level 28, wheras the much stronger genestealers taper off around level 23.  Or you could be level 30, spend an hour killing a dragon, and find a pile of level 20 loot.

In all these scenarios, the problem isn't so much bad building, as lack of guidelines.  It's only been recently that we had good ways of measuring things like this, and with the recent changes to rack check we might also have a way to enforce it.  I'll have to think about it more, but I think new players in particular can look forward to future areas having much more consistent difficulty ratings.

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Another interesting thing I noticed is that the web site shops (http://alteraeon.com:8080/shops) are stunningly effective.  It takes a little while to root through things, and sometimes a couple of days to wait for turnover, but between the shops and donation rooms there's no reason to ever be missing good eq.  Even better, at least 75% of the time I just hit the donation rooms.  People donate some amazing eq.

I understand that the Fire Towers have some pretty good stuff for sale in them, but even knowing where they are on our global god maps I have no clue how you'd walk there as a mortal.  Someone who knew the area already would have to summon me there, so even if the eq is better than what I currently have it doesn't really reflect what a newbie would be using.

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And lastly, strangely enough, I want an xp bar for the DClient.  I keep my stat window almost completely to watch my exp level percentages, and generally don't even look at it for anything else (ok maybe negative regen due to nox and stats when weakened.)  Hopefully I can find some screen realestate for that and get it added into the next client build.

[germs]

Another interesting thing I noticed is that the web site shops (http://alteraeon.com:8080/shops) are stunningly effective.  It takes a little while to root through things,

I agree, it takes a little while to root through things. A little long while. As I've suggested numerous times before, when we click on a shop link we ought to have two different ways of displaying their goods.

The old slow and tedious way:

The following items are available for sale at this time:

   [  Price] Worn on wrists:
-------------------------------------------------
   [  20000] (tot  90) a blood-soaked obsidian bracer

   [  Price] Worn on hands:
-------------------------------------------------
   [   7500] (tot  68) the Razor Gauntlets of Punishment
   [   2500] (lvl  25) a metallic claw

Ect...

And the slick new generation Y way:

[  Price] Worn on wrists:
-------------------------------------------------
[  20000] (tot  90) a blood-soaked obsidian bracer
This item has the following properties:
-------------------------------------------------
Item: 'blood bloody soaked obsidian bracer'
Weight: 6  Size: 1'0"  Total levels: 90  (relatively common)
Object is: ANTI_NEUTRAL ANTI_GOOD THIEF
Type: MAGIC   Composition: MAGIC   Ac-apply: 4
Wear locations are: WRISTS

Item has effects as:
Affects:  DAMROLL by 2
Affects:  HITROLL by 1
Affects:  DEX by 1


[  Price] Worn on hands:
-------------------------------------------------
[   7500] (tot  68) the Razor Gauntlets of Punishment
This item has the following properties:
-------------------------------------------------
Item: 'gauntlets razor magic magical punishment'
Weight: 11  Size: 1'0"  Total levels: 68  (relatively common)
Object is: ANTI_NEUTRAL ANTI_GOOD WARRIOR
Type: ARMOR   Composition: MAGIC   Ac-apply: 6
Wear locations are: HANDS

Item has effects as:
Affects:  HITROLL by 1
Affects:  DAMROLL by 2


[   2500] (lvl  25) a metallic claw
This item has the following properties:
-------------------------------------------------
Item: 'metal metallic claw hand'
Weight: 2  Size: 0'0"  Level: 25  (relatively common)
Type: ARMOR   Composition: IRON   Ac-apply: 3
Weapon speed: normal
Wear locations are: HANDS

Item has effects as:
Affects:  STR by 1
Affects:  DAMROLL by 2
Affects:  DEX by -1
Affects:  HIT_POINTS by -7

Ect...
Do you see how all the stat data is laid out in one long list?
I believe scanning information in the new way would prove to be far less a waste of a mudder's time.

[Dentin]

Yeah, but expanding it like that also comes with its own set of trade offs, including excessive spam for blind players.  I've also shopped at a lot of places with hundreds of items.

One thing I was toying with was the idea of tagging equipment based on groups of effects.  Like hit/dam/attacks, stats, saves, cl, that sort of thing.  I would think with half a dozen flags one could cover most types of searches.

[germs]

Yeah, but expanding it like that also comes with its own set of trade offs, including excessive spam for blind players.  I've also shopped at a lot of places with hundreds of items.

"we ought to have two different ways of displaying their goods."

One thing I was toying with was the idea of tagging equipment based on groups of effects.  Like hit/dam/attacks, stats, saves, cl, that sort of thing.  I would think with half a dozen flags one could cover most types of searches.

Yeah, that would be fine, IF it was the shop owner who was doing the tagging and not some smart-code.

[Darkhell]

On germs second quote i would like to say, there are any number of things dentin could do to arrange a "smart-code" display that worked very well. He could rework a little bit of code so things like hit/dam, clevel, manaregen, hpregen would show up with priority levels so that eq would be sorted or any number of things.
Dentin is leet.

[ouch]

I like every observation. I do want to say don't sweat too much the level difference thing. Its is more or less balanced first of all. Second, players get VERY frustrated when areas move around a lot. Third, that is part of the fun of exploring. The areas are now *relatively* within each other's range.

All together the game has been made more and more fun.

My favorite island is Kordan. Yet to most the stuff there is half hazardedly put together. Yet it intrigues me. And I love it. So that is to show the positioning is what it is sometimes...

(Please consider moving Archais to the mainland on the basis that some mainland areas are low enough. Players should be more then "prepped" by the time they leave Kordan)

[Dentin]

Draak fought pretty hard against Archais as well, but I think it works well as a separate island.  Yeah, there's stuff on the mainland that is in the same level range, but we really only left it on the mainland because it was too solidly integrated to move.  By contrast, most of the lower level newbie areas were pretty easy to pick up and move.

Even so, Archais is just big enough to be interesting.  If anything, it needs to be expanded, because leveling slows down so much in that level range.

The most important part of Archais, like the other two islands, is the fact that pretty much everything on the island is 'safe'.  There's no level 99 instanuke mobs or areas that you can wander into without knowing better.  If you're level 20 to 25, no matter where you go exploring on Archais, odds are good you'll at least be able to survive long enough to flee.  The same can't be said about the mainland.

[ouch]

Okay well its your call. And I understand and agree with most of it. Just one thing. There is a con 99 instanuke who can killa whole group if you sneeze on him the wrong way. That little boy that hears voices in the viking inn? yeah he scares me.

But then again, he won't attack you first.

[boa]

Yeah, but expanding it like that also comes with its own set of trade offs, including excessive spam for blind players.  I've also shopped at a lot of places with hundreds of items.

One thing I was toying with was the idea of tagging equipment based on groups of effects.  Like hit/dam/attacks, stats, saves, cl, that sort of thing.  I would think with half a dozen flags one could cover most types of searches.

Seems to me the best compromise would to be listing an abbreviated UUID so the display would be like:

 [  Price] Worn on wrists:
-------------------------------------------------
   [  20000] (tot  90) a blood-soaked obsidian bracer {f45g78}

 Then make it so list f45g78 would show:


Item: 'blood bloody soaked obsidian bracer'
Weight: 6  Size: 1'0"  Total levels: 90  (relatively common)
Object is: ANTI_NEUTRAL ANTI_GOOD THIEF
Type: MAGIC   Composition: MAGIC   Ac-apply: 4
Wear locations are: WRISTS

Item has effects as:
Affects:  DAMROLL by 2
Affects:  HITROLL by 1
Affects:  DEX by 1