Show Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.


Topics - khoridor

Pages: [1]
1
If you played before version 0.5, and upgraded to find  your Quest Window empty, your Quest Notes gone, don't panic; there is nothing to fix.  \\o// All is normal. All quests have been wiped, along with faction points.

The reason I write this is because I just spent several hours trying to find out how to convert my Quest Log to some new format, as it has been necessary for some files on previous updates.  :detective: Maybe someone confronted to the same mystery will now find a quick answer with a search on "quest window", "quest notes" or "quest log".  :sorcerer:

Ok. Now back to real testing. Thanks, The Team, for the Christmas gift called 0.5, and merry holidays to all.

2
Wish list / Read, unread, and updated books
« on: November 27, 2008, 11:44:20 pm »
I don't spend my life in Jayose's library. However, once in a while, I would go there and spend a couple of hours reading, looking for new books, sometimes refreshing my memory with older ones.

It would be nice if there was a way to quickly spot a book that one has already read. Maybe a (read) or (unread) mark after the title, or just a different colour for the title font, anything as see fit. A "read" flag would be set as soon as the book is open, to keep it simple, and of course it is the player's responsibility to read the content. Ok, so far, you can tell me that it's up to me to remember if I read something or not; even when hundreds of volumes will be available; yes, but...

It gets useful when a book is updated. If I do remember that I read a specific book, well, I'll probably won't read it again. Meanwhile, words may have been changed inside, following the inconsistencies hunt, world development, whatever... So, if all statuses are set back to "unread" for all players after a change (or from "read" to "updated" if you want to be more precise), we'll know that we'd better read it again.

It can be a bit heavy on the database (flagging each book for each player), but at least it's technically simple. Not to mention other uses you could come up with (quest requisites, statistics for the setting team, etc.)

Hem... I hesitated adding the following in the same post, but here it goes: It would also be nice if Jayose advertised his books a bit. If only to mention the latest additions to his shelves. I may be a rare case, but I don't read the automatic NPCs' messages anymore; I tend to overlook them as some sort of repetitive "pollution" in the chat box. That would be one way to renew our attention. Or we could ask him about his latest entries (at the time I'm writing, I realise I haven't even tried to ask this, so forgive me if it's there already; now I know I should have kept that in a separate post  :)).

3
Wish list / Mining fish and hunting trees
« on: November 12, 2008, 05:13:53 am »
In parallel to all the threads on how to make activities more fun, I was wondering: why aren't there other activities using the mining mechanics to harvest different types of resources?
I was thinking about fishing, gathering plants, hunting (although there isn't such a skill), wood cutting, and there would be others. How far are these skills in the planning?
The existing process is basically like this:
- go to a spot where you know the resource can be found
- equip your best tool
- wait for a while
- move a bit if you were successful or try again anywhere if you found nothing.

That system could easily be copied for:
- fishing: go to a pond or river spot, equip your pole/harpoon/net, then /fish
- woodcutting: go to a wall of trees where the wood is worth something (or where it's legal to cut), equip your ax, then cut
- herbal: go to a mushroom/flower/grass spot, equip your knife/sickle, then harvest

Hunting with traps could be similar, or slightly different: you go to a spot where you see small, harmless animals, and they disappear (hide underground or in trees); you leave your trap there (instead of equipping it), then walk back a bit, and come to check once in a while. Yes, someone could steal your trap if you walk too far away.

I know this doesn't make mining better, nor does it make the nature life that fun, but it has the advantage of a cheap addition for the sake of variety, while waiting for specific improvements. The more similar these processes are, the easier it will be to propagate the improvements.

About fun, btw, I also thought about a system along these lines:
- go to the spot, equip your tool and start as usual
- when successful, instead of just getting your price and the yellow message, you get the focus on an object, captured in a way similar to how an attacked creature is focused on. You're now in "harvest" mode.
- you have to "fight" with the resource, using the 5 head icons (aggressive and such) until its "health" bar reaches 0. Your skill, equipment and actions determine the "damage" you inflict.
- your life is not at risk, but one of your progress bars goes down, and if it reaches 0, you lose the catch. That's the failure. For fishing for example, it would be a fight of endurances (fish's red bar vs your green bar). For mining, it would be your gray bar (willpower).

That system needs more tinkering (meaning of "health" bar, of aggressive or defensive actions, etc.), but it has the added advantage of reusing the fighting icons (it's sort of... ecological  ;D).

4
General Discussion / Ancient public buildings
« on: October 31, 2008, 01:38:45 am »
This is not a fully formulated wish, rather a suggestion for future developments, and a basis for potential wishes. (I hesitated to put it in General Discussions).

The setting uses a variety of buildings to make Yliakum a rich environment. We have great temples, forges, a fortress, taverns, various shops, a library, soon a university and a hospital, etc. Many of them have a very modern flavor (tavern, library...), while some very common medieval or antique elements are not there (yet?). I'll try to avoid the ones probably in the making (jail, brewery...), as well as shops, and mention things not seen on the 1st level (and maybe already in the making).

So here are a few:
Mill: A very important building in an agricultural world. And windmills look real cool.
Outdoors shrine: That's where you pray when you are on the road.
Hall: That's often just a big empty building where communities gather. Think of a plaza with a roof, basically. In some cultures, that's also where people sleep, together.
Baths: A favorite of many ancient civilisations, and still of modern ones; very high tech for the time. Another place of high social importance. References: anything sophisticate from the Roman bath houses to the Finnish sauna or the South East Asian massage houses. Thermal spots can fit in the same category.
Cistern: The water supply buildings are much more common than the sewers systems. A cistern can be a pretty big outside building, or an even bigger underground room (Istanbul, for example). Complex cistern networks are fed by aqueducts (through great distances).
Granary: Another very important building, where a town stores its food supplies. Or is there no risk of starvation in Yliakum?
Balance: Towns used to have one where markets took place, as a reference for buyers and sellers. Obviously, we don't need one since we know exactly how much we carry, but it still has its place for embellishment.
Bridge: The most important thing about a bridge is that you pay to cross it  ;D. There will be water (and swimming) some day, so there will be bridges.
Construction site: Always overlooked in games. Large and complex buildings take a long time to complete. A construction site can last for several generations (or several centuries in RL history). So there's nothing wrong with half a building that never seems to advance in IG time. That's actually where, I guess, the build skill would be put to use.
Clock tower: We all know what time it is in game, so that could be the reason why. I don't know if Crystal shadows can be used, but mechanical clocks and clepsydras don't sound to high tech compared to other stuff in game.
Field: Ancient cities have fields inside their walls, both for farming and cattle.
Tunnel: Fortified places have more or less secret tunnels, when the underneath rock doesn't make it impossible. They serve mostly in times of siege, to bring in supplies, for messengers and scouts, and sometimes as an escape route. (not a public feature, I agree, but some very few characters can be granted access to it, if not already the case)

Then I try to think of things more specific to Yliakum, a place where people are supposed to come back from the dead. This is so central that I believe it should impact the life, and the culture, in more obvious ways. There are other sources of course, like the geography, that brought us the Winch.
Cemetery: body are disposed of, but that doesn't mean there isn't a place dedicated for mourning and celebrating ancestors. Specially in a very religious setting. It's not a room inside a temple, since temples are dedicated to 1 god. It would be more public, and more monumental. It could be a field of raised stones, or a wall, or a staircase, or a sort of museum (musoleum, eh eh), or something else.
Asylum: heal spell is of very easy access, which means professional healers have very little to do on that side. But what about mental troubles? With all these people passing through the DR, some of them are bound to lose some sanity, so how does society deal with them? I'm not talking about affecting the players through mechanics, but having a building with a social purpose, and incidentally also a place for RP. I would make it old fashion, of course, noisy, dirty, smelly, closer to a jail than to a health institution. And PCs would be interned on their own request (they can always commit suicide to escape ICly).

Ok, I don't want to be too long, so I stop here. What I would like is for you to come with your suggestions, and build a pool from which the dev team can pick up what they want. Don't develop too much on each idea, so that it stays more like a list; a specific building can be developed in its own thread if it has a rich potential.

Pages: [1]