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Post by erikbreau on Mar 27, 2010 13:13:23 GMT -5
Europa is Reborn! It has come to be, as it was in the beginning and shall be again. Why?
....The gods have willed it so! "...And with a crash and a thunderous roar like a wounded lion, the dragon was unleashed...and Europa suffered...thus did the dark age begin..." This is a rebirth of the game server Europa, not to simply expand but, rather to return to the original concept I drew up over a year ago. Britannia was in sorts a testing ground, a place to test and develop concepts, ideas, terrains and scripts. With the new Europa, many of these will be retained, some will be removed and others will be expanded upon. This will be the new Europa: -Four starting human cities to chose form as of login. -A total of 13 cities of Human, elven, dwarfish and mixed races. -200 explorable exterior areas. -Many hidden places with several access points each. -Known and lost temples, shrines, oracles and dungeons. -New uses for Reknown, such as gaining access to limited dungeons and areas. -A worldwide portal system that gives access to cities, temples and shrines, as well as to some ruins. -Quests that are not just hack-n-slash based, but skilled and action based as well. No longer will arcane or rogue characters be forced to fight to gain quests, they will now be able to chose quests that require 'other' skills. -Many more skill check events that will allow to discover lost places, secret passages, plot and quest clues, and more. -Quests will no longer be just 'quests'. Each quest taken will have a % chance of revealing some piece of information, either to another quest, a piece of history, the information to a possible hidden area or to the Story Plot itself ! -Towns and cities will be smaller, but the immediate areas will be populated by NPCs as well. City core areas will be surrounded by farms when lvl 1 Players will be able to adventure in safety until they feel strong enough to go beyond the safety borders. -Multilevel spawns! Each area will no longer simply spawn creatures of 1-2 levels, but possibly monsters of 3, or 4 levels higher, offering more challenge to more powerful parties of players. Also look for Boss spawns and .... ambush spawns! Raiders, thieves, ambush predators! ...and much much much more! Attachments:
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Post by pelleplutt on Mar 28, 2010 6:07:44 GMT -5
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Post by erikbreau on Mar 28, 2010 12:52:28 GMT -5
Perhaps, but, we are talking about a large scale revamp of the system that is still under testing, and has many many bugs.
It might take them months, maybe years to fix it. Which still doesn't address the REAL issues in NWN2, which are server and game-mechanic related.
E.
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Post by grob1of20 on Mar 30, 2010 11:05:12 GMT -5
"-Towns and cities will be smaller"
Great idea. Low movement speed makes small areas seem large and large areas seem empty.
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Post by erikbreau on Apr 11, 2010 17:24:39 GMT -5
A question was raised by some new players:
"will the current Europa characters be transfered to Europa II?"
The answer:
Yes, within limits. Characters that were leveled through testing or exploitation of tests will not. Also, players will be asked to pick one character to transfer over, no more than 1. As more areas of Europa become available and IF the server proves reliable, then transferring more characters may be discussed.
Now, it is important to remember one critical aspect and this should be considered which character you will be transferring: ~Europa II is far less hack & slash than Europa I~.
There are many skill based explorations; Lore, Search, Spot, Spellcraft are all but a few of the skills that will reveal hidden areas, knowledge and quests. A pure (100%) monster-killer fighter with little to no other skills than his brute power, will be an almost obsolete character, incapable of anything but mercenary work and will end up being very dependent on a party's help, keep that in mind.
Chose well.
Erik.
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Post by erikbreau on Apr 14, 2010 14:46:18 GMT -5
Another suggestion made to me by a occasional player at a development meeting on my last visit north was:
- Make the monsters in the immediate areas outside the starter-cities neutral, that is they do not attack the PCs unless attacked.
Excellent suggestion!
• Thus new monsters such as lvl 1 wolves and boars will be created and added to a collection of existing creatures such as deer, weasels, rats & other vermin, all at lvl .5 to 1, and situated in the immediate areas surrounding the city.
• Thus, a lvl 1 player can roam about the zone containing the city and the surrounding countryside, as well as possibly a portion of the adjacent lvl 1-4 areas in safety, as long as they do not attack any of the creatures.
• However, should they attack, they must chose their targets carefully as the AI of the creature attacked will summon other creatures of the same faction to its defense!
Erik.
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Post by Haldir on Apr 14, 2010 16:24:26 GMT -5
Based on my limited experience on Europa (up to level 4), I have some suggestions to make things more friendly to new players.
1. As mentioned, Level 1 is a major hurdle. In any given fight there is a high possibility that a solo character will not survive, and this is mainly due to having a very low number of hit points where one lucky hit can kill the character. I would suggest increasing the experience awarded for one or two level 1 quests such that characters can advance to Level 2 relatively quickly. One suggetion would be the Jarl's rabbit quest, maybe 750 experience. It also might be worth considering making the feather quest non-repeatable but also increasing the experience awarded to about 750. This way new characters can get to Level 2 relatively quickly and many of the issues regarding the need for non-aggressive creatures near town will go away, given that Level 2 characters are much more hardy than Level 1.
2. The kill experience awarded to players in groups seems to be split evenly. Because it takes much longer to travel between creatures than to kill them, this effectively penalizes players that party with others pretty harshly. This same penalty does not appear to apply to characters with mercenaries, where the experience seems a little lower, but not substantially so. I would suggest providing some amount of bonus experience (maybe 30-50% for each player) to those who group up. This would encourage people to group up with each other, rather than penalizing it severely. For example if a solo player got 100 experience for killing a creature, under the current system each player in a duo would only get 50 experience. With a 50% bonus (which I admit is on the high end) the total experience for the creature would be 150 and each player would get 75. For 3 players the total creature experience would be 200 and each player would get 67.
I hope these ideas help and might increase your retention rate of newer players.
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Post by Haldir on Apr 14, 2010 16:37:50 GMT -5
Here are some ideas for future development. I'm sure not all of them could be implemented, but hopefully it spurs some ideas.
1. Crafting world items.
One of the things that drew me to Europa was the implementation of a crafting system and player housing. Beyond just things that your character equips, it would be a lot of fun to be able to craft persistant world items. Some ideas would be houses, boats, furniture, walls, cities, etc. These items could require a substantial number of resources such that they would be difficult to produce. Characters would also have to procure the recipe (Item mold) which could be a quest unto itself.
2. Housing
For people with good world building skills and creativity, it might be nice to allow them to design their own house. These would have to fit with the Europa theme and would be subject to DM review. However, once paid for (or built) these would provide players with a much more personal place to call their own.
3. Travel to home base
As the world becomes larger and more players join together, it would be nice to have some way to travel back to a particular home base (maybe Lundenwic or some other city). This would allow players to group up more quickly as well as be able to get to a safe spot before logout.
4. Rare recipes and crafting quests
For crafters it might be fun to find a unique item mold or recipe that allows for crafting something outside the current system. This might be a unique combination of ingredients. Such recipes might have a quest associated with obtaining them. For example, a mastercrafter might be willing to share their secrets if the player crafted for them a number of specified items (like a workorder). These would be given to the mastercrafter in exchange for the unique recipe. Alternatively, a crafting quest could be used and reward the character with an item or other benefit (e.g. experience points).
I hope you find some of these ideas of interest.
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Post by erikbreau on Apr 14, 2010 18:59:33 GMT -5
Excellent suggestions!
I'm going to do some research to see which of these could be done, how and to what extent.
Erik.
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Post by erikbreau on Apr 14, 2010 20:22:35 GMT -5
Crafting world items.
- The issue here is persistence. Scripts can be created and materials gathered for the construction, but at the end of the day when the server is rebooted, any item added via scripting will be reset and thus removed. It has to be done in the toolset at my end.
>>> A workaround could be this: the player would have to cultivate the materials (wood, iron, stone, etc) and signal his/her intention of the construction to the DM/Builder (me). A set amount of materials could be established in regards to the size of the project. The next step would require the Player to develop a rudimentary use of the toolset, determine which of the building templates will be used (because in NWN, it's ALL set templates) and communicate the selection to the builder. Color swatches, sizes, templates, all would have to be recorded and passed on as information. From there, the PC would have to somehow accumulate the hours in game play to compensate for the construction time. This can easily be accommodated by a scripted animation comparable to that of the farming/woodcutting/mining when gathering materials, the delay on the animation would simply need to be prolonged. At the end of each animation, a construction token could be accumulated towards a specific total desired. Once the total has been accumulated, then they could be exchanged with the DM who will simply add the building into the module at the next reboot (done every 24-48 hours).
Housing.
- Housing is also possible, however, as with the item issue the problem is persistence. I can create a placeable workbench where the PC can work to create any item in the toolset, but, the destination MUST be predetermined and not by the PC, but by installing a destination tag, either that or the item would be created next to the PC or the bench! Once created, the item is non-movable, nothing can be done about that. Once the server is rebooted, all the items created in this fashion would be reset, and thus disappear.
>>>The resolution again is the PC crafting the item in their own toolset, exporting the final work and mailing it to me. From there, I can add it to the module or simply duplicate it. At next reboot it would be added permanently.
Travel to home base.
- Easily done, the ring of recall was actually implmented a few months ago. The only issue was this, it turned off all the scripts for crafting. That's right, the geniuses at Atari made it so that only ONE unique power could be in play on a world at a time. I could rewrite all of the crafting to be conversation based, taking me .. well, the better part of the next year, but I'm not doing that...lol. So, ring of recall, no go, not unless we are willing to drop crafting in Europa II.
>>>However, what CAN be done is place a destination portal in the PC's home or yard and they could teleport from any existing portal to home. But then again, if you are near a portal, you can all just decide to meet at the same portal ... and no one is going to build a home outside of the cities, they would be in constant threat of attack from monsters.
Rare recipes and crafting quests.
- It's funny you mention that. Several aspects of that were already being implemented in Europa II under different formats.
1) No more magical items will be sold by merchants. That's right, you will NEED to either visit the auction house, build them yourself or get them from another PC!
2) Molds & Recipe Books will still be sold in the crafting guilds, but you will need to travel to find the right guild, shop around in sorts between all the cities. There will be 4 starting cities and each will have different guilds (warrior, thief, clerical and arcane), each containing specific molds & recipe books. Scimitar molds & books on Alchemy will be found in the eastern lands, etc etc. However, some molds & recipes will need to be acquired via crafter's quests as part of their apprenticeship in a guild. Once the quest has been completed, these molds & recipes and new ones like them will be made available to the PC. This is easily achieved by a simple skill level check conditional script.
3) materials will be placed according to their legendary origins. Mithril in the dwarven hills, darksteel on secluded mountain tops, Shederan wood in the west and zalanthar in the east, etc. Player will need to travel to get the special materials they want.
4) Gems will no longer be sold by the jewelers, they will be mined. As a matter of fact, they have been reduced to only 1 of each as it is in Europa I, so as to removed the temptation to stockpile! Thus gems will become as much a part of gathering as any other of the materials needed to make magical items, of which there will be quests where you will be paid not in money and XP, but rather in crafting materials and gems ... these will be part of the crafting quests and PCs will need to have a certain level in their selected crafting skill to be able to take them.
What do you think?
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Post by erikbreau on Apr 14, 2010 21:59:16 GMT -5
XP Party issue: Yes that can be changed, how, I'm not quite sure yet. I am looking into it right now, give me a few days to see what can be done. The question then becomes, what WOULD be the XP division suggested? Remember, the more players in a party, the better the chance of survival. Also, where do we draw the line in rewarding the party players over the single player? I have the sinking feeling that modifying the XP awards system will affect the random drop system on creature kills... damn you Atari! Erik. Added: This might be a good solution... please read and make a comment. nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=NWN2Scripts.Detail&id=294E. |
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Post by pelleplutt on Apr 15, 2010 20:33:13 GMT -5
The xp system you suggest looks great. In fact, I have played on other PW's that has it implemented. I'm all in favour of it! To get the right xp balance will probably require some amount of tweaking. There's a lot of variables so Erik will play a bit with those to get it right.  Regarding the crafting of items and houses, I think Erik suggested something good. If the player wants a persistent item in the game (with DM/Admin approval) then PC will need to spend some time "creating" the item by collecting "construction tokens". I like the idea. It's good to limit the gems too. In E1, they were never the limiting factor in crafting, which made crafting almost too easy. The portal system works well, although it's a bit unrealistic (well, it's just a game which is quite unrealistic in itself! Werewolfs and bugbears???). And instead of a "ring of recall" there could be a transport service available. For example, you talk to an NPC coachman or ferryman, pay a travel fee according to the distance travelled (unless you can convince him otherwice (diplomacy) or threaten him (intimidate)), get onto the transport veichle and wait a minute or so for the transport veichle to arrive. It's all done through scripting (says me who knows next to nothing about scripting  ). But portal system works well now but a few more portals scattered around would be better, not just one in each town. |
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Post by erikbreau on Apr 15, 2010 23:36:29 GMT -5
Actually, in response to the portals, Europa II will have many more "one way" portals suchas the one in Luitcoyt, but with a different appearance. These are portals that you can use to get to a city or other site, but are not destinations of themselves. These will be situated in abandoned ruins, ancient sites, etc. and provide a quick escape route or a way to regroup elsewhere.
As it is right now, E1 only has 4 portals and 1 'one-way' portal in Luitcoyt ... so it's kind of hard for players to see the effectiveness. But when you add a dozen or so travel ports to the 4-5 portals in each quadrant, creating a network of 20-25 portals and 40+ quick 'one way' portals, PLUS the ships that can ferry a player to various shores, then a much more effective travel system will become apparent.
Portals will also be something you can discover and unlock. They will become quests on their own in a way, such as unlocking the portals to a Dwarfish or Elven city, or maybe at a lost temple or Oracle?
To ADD to the housing career crafting topic, I was throwing around another idea... Careers. Now, I don't have the know how to create career feats, but! I can create a version of the Europa contract item that each player receives, and tie a career level to it! It would work like this. PC wants to learn a career, say, carpentry. PC starts as an apprentice and must do a quest to gather materials and build a simple item, like a chair! Success, NPC takes Europa contract and add to it the fact that you are a carpentry apprentice. But, you cannot craft anything higher than basic furniture until you accumulate enough reknown to buy more experience in your trade. You buy the next level, adept carpentry, and you can make doors, sheds, fancy furniture... you gather more reknown, and gain more experience and can make small homes, etc etc etc. ...until you become a master carpenter! All of it can be scripted, no need to spend skill points on new skills or feats when you level, it gives a new use for reknown and allows players to progress in a career at a reasonable rate of advancement. This advancement and reknown base could even be tied into the PC level requirements.
As for what could be built and what will be the material costs? Tomorrow I will be building a 3 area server called the "Europa Bazaarium". It will display the homes that CAN be built, you may enter and look at possible decors, examine the sign out front to see how long and how many materials will be needed, as well as where this house can be built...
Additionally at this bazaar you will find all the furniture available, and by "examining" an item you will see the construction and cost details. This "EB" server will be online in the near future.
More suggestions? Comments?
Erik.
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Post by erikbreau on Apr 15, 2010 23:56:12 GMT -5
Another idea I was throwing around would be 'religious devotion'. In effect, it would involve the PC becoming a devotee of a particular deity of a particular pantheon. When doing so, they receive a token of that divinity's image, be it a neckless, ring, robe, cloth, etc, or just something they carry in their inventory. The item is then bound to them, although it it weightless, preventing them from simply swapping devotions.
Benefits: When you go to a shrine of your deity, you automatically receive bonuses appropriate to your deity's sphere (healing, war, magic, etc).
Drawbacks: You are only allowed to worship one divinity! So chose well!
Comments?
Suggestions?
Erik.
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Post by grob1of20 on Apr 16, 2010 17:25:26 GMT -5
I've played in a NWN1 world that had a crafting system similar to what I think you are describing, and thought it worked well.
Each time you crafted something, there was a % chance your scripted crafting skill would increase.
For example, my archer carried a Greataxe at all times to be able to harvest lumber from usable tree objects by bashing them (% chance to get lumber based on scripted Lumberjack skill). The lumber would be turned into bags full of low quality bow parts, and my archer's Bowcrafting skill would increase in the process. Special woods like Zalantar would produce stronger results but required more skill to use. Fletching was a separate skill, and a variety of different shafts and heads were sold at the blacksmith. Each step up in quality for both arrow head and shaft would add a +1 bonus to the finished arrows, and required more skill to succeed in the crafting check and not ruin the expensive pieces. For example, Iron Arrowheads combined with Oak Shafts would produce Arrows +1, and so would combining Steel Arrowheads with no-name Wood Shafts. Steel Arrowheads with Oak Shafts would produce Arrows +2.
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