Your View: Tech Team Projects

[Sporadic 2844]

In this thread comes the progress report of the latest Tech Team meeting. You will be happy to know that the meeting, while long, went exceptionally well, and that the downtime on the server was in fact NOT a ploy to get you to watch the livestream of said meeting (which did not exist).

 

I hope you will all join in a moment of silence for the resignation of former Team Leader Telanir. The appreciation for his service was encouraging. I am glad to see his hard work did not go unnoticed by all of you. I am happy to report that our Java Wizard is still a very enthusiastic and able programmer, and you will probably not have seen the last of his contributions. Rest assured, then, that your favorite Nexus features are fully retained, and will be released on an appropriate schedule.

 

Many things were discussed, and many plans were made. Many things still you can weigh in on, which is why this thread is a "Your View®" instead of a News and/or Announcement. While your votes are not the only factor taken into account for decisions, I would stress that your opinions and constructive feedback on these matters do help immensely. So make sure to answer all of the poll questions above.

 

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• At Rittsy's insistence we've put the VIP perks on an accelerated track, and the VIPs, especially the higher ones, will soon see a trickle of new features coming their way. 
  
   
• Racial bonuses have been coded and can be implemented at the drop of a hat. The bonuses are two-sided, including a batch of combat-related bonuses on the one side, and a series of experience gain bonuses on the other. Combat bonuses address the age-old "A halfling can beat an ORC!" criticism of PvP default. XP bonuses give Halflings compensation for this gruesome fact, but are of course fine-tuned to each Race's lore. Mostly, Racial Bonuses exist to make the RP experience of different races feel that extra bit of unique.

 

• Optimization has been discussed at length. For those who missed my latest post on the subject, please go to the following link: http://www.lordofthecraft.net/topic/106758-feedback-stop-adding-plugins-start-optimizing/?p=1000640 . It's long, but it will tell you all you need to know.
  This thread is your prime and best chance to let us know how much you value a smooth server. Remember, a smooth server might mean that we have to impede on some of the features you have been taken for granted before. Make sure to let us know if this is what you can live with.
  
   
• We've spread the workload on professions among all of the coders, ensuring that these will be able to be released within an appropriate timescale. To further balance the project to your RP enjoyment, we have toyed around with the idea of releasing plugins separately. This way, each profession can be properly balanced and tested, and you can provide feedback that is MORE likely to be implemented. Maintenance by a single coder also prevents confusion. What do you think?

 

• Professions will be FULLY separate between Personas/Characters. You can have an amazing Miner character, but switch (rather) easily to one that is a Fisherman or Archer, and you obtain a different set of skills in the process. To prevent abuse of this system, switching between persona's has become slightly more difficult. We really wanted Characters to feel more like stand-alone characters, so that you don't have to choose to favor just the one.

 

• Seasons have been discussed based on a 4.0 idea thread in the past. For now, we've come up with the following features seasons would bring:
  • Winter is a harsh time to harvest crops, but the Grand Harvest will be very generous to farmers indeed
  • During Winter, the grass will be darker, and snow will fall (although it will not leave a layer of snow as it'd be too annoying to clean).
  • During summer, there will be far, far less rain, making it a good time to hold events in a lag-free environment.
  • If players would like an Anthos year to last 1 week again (down from 2), we could sync up each Summer with the weekend, ensuring the busiest Server Times and event days would not be interrupted with nasty rain.
• Newbie protection is an experimental feature that may or may not be given in. New Personas are given a timer, a few hours, in which they cannot be PvP'd. This gives new characters a chance to explore the world, find a town, settle down, and not have their first experience be (somewhat offputting) getting slaughtered by a merciless highwayman and losing their location and all of their initial items in the process. It also prevents new Personas to be made purely to PvP in a warclaim. But perhaps you guys think this is unnecessary.
  We get that Newbie Protection might be abuseable, In the sense that people would 'recreate' their character over and over in order to get PvP immunity. However, this will cause them to lose ALL of their experience with each reset, as discussed above. So you would never be able to enjoy the rich variety of professions coming your way by abusing as such. Not to mention we will still ban you for abusing mechanics in such a wya

 

That's all, folks!

[Telanir 6975]

Huzzah! Congratulations to Sporadic. :)

 

 

Edit: Victory over the druids has been verified. Alan has been defeated, leaving the Techies victorious.

[Alan 1815]

first

 

Telanir go back to being retired, you humiliated me. I cri evertim. :<

[Daisy 9735]

first

Very good stuff!

[Crayfishchris 751]

I have pride in being fourth. But so far, this all looks good. I cannot wait until the future!

[John Ivory 4546]

Racial Bonuses: I chose choice number one, as racial bonuses make choosing a race more important of a choice and I'd love to see them implemented.

 

Skills: Release all of them at once. I don't see why they'd need to be separate.

 

Optimization: Try your best to optimize without taking away key features. I'd donate if better optimization was put in.

 

Priority: Optimization and professions, in that order, are the highest priorities.

 

FTB plugin: You're trolling, right? I don't see the need for it but if it was added, at least make it the last priority.

 

Seasons: I'd absolutely love seasons.

 

Soulstone: I'd love for it to teleport the player to their racial capital. I've always supported that idea.

 

PvP-free: I don't support this and it's abusable.

[MamaBearJade 2090]

Yes to all of it.

 

And I was all for the 1 week = 1 year even on my hummies~

[CosmicWhaleShark 2488]

I only voted for the FTB plugin because I want the tech team to go through coding polyphonic moaning and hate their job.

[Hobolympic 1093]

Unless you can make the grass switch back to the original and designated biome colour after winter season, I'm no fan. (For instance, all biomes become winter biomes 2 days a week, and switch back to their appropriate-coloured grass, no specified grass colour for the rest of the four seasons, so biomes stay unique.)

[Overland 349]

  Most of this seems quite good. But, if possible can you disclose more information about how the persona system will be harder to switch in-between? I'm also not so sure about a FTB plugin... If you intend on really doing it... I'd rather it be just a blackened screen, the rest of the idea seems rather... Odd. 

 

  But as always, I look forward to seeing how this plays out.

[Evilbanana5757 154]

FTB PLUGIN YUS!

[Shadeleaf 1021]

I'll start coding the FTB plugin it seems. There shall be ghast screeches, and particle effects, and packet sending.

Oh it'll be great.

[Hiebe 2493]

Im disappointed the professions plugin hasn't even started yet ( from what I read). Dont drop 4.0 till that and the region plugin are done

[Iosif 72]

This is the big issue with racial spawns, combat perks and xp perks.

What if you are a Human, living in the Conclave who uses a bow? Or an ork who happens to prefer swords over axes? What if you are the best damned baker in all of 4.0 who also happens to be an ent? People will start setting thier races to fit their characters combat styles, and just put "Is actualy a human." in their character cards.

Also, what if your character isn't one of the 6 main races? Many people have cards that say something like "Ent" "Shade" or something else that only a select few really have?

This is my suggestion: You get a certain amount of xp to spend on whatever combat or domestic skills you want, right off the bat. This allows for more creative characters, and for non-decendants to be acomodated.

[Sporadic 2844]

Unless you can make the grass switch back to the original and designated biome colour after winter season, I'm no fan. (For instance, all biomes become winter biomes 2 days a week, and switch back to their appropriate-coloured grass, no specified grass colour for the rest of the four seasons, so biomes stay unique.)

 

That'd be exactly what would happen, so don't worry.

 

  Most of this seems quite good. But, if possible can you disclose more information about how the persona system will be harder to switch in-between? I'm also not so sure about a FTB plugin... If you intend on really doing it... I'd rather it be just a blackened screen, the rest of the idea seems rather... Odd. 

 

  But as always, I look forward to seeing how this plays out.

Depending on implementation, but in all likelihood you will have to visit one of the pre-determined places in which you can switch your Persona. This will generally be as easy as soulstoning to spawn, switching a Persona, and soulstoning back to your race home or wherever (soulstone cooldowns reset when you switch Personas, so this is possible). I know it doesn't actually sound that much harder, but all we want to prevent someone quickly switching to perform Profession-related action.

 

 

Im disappointed the professions plugin hasn't even started yet ( from what I read). Dont drop 4.0 till that and the region plugin are done

 That's a bit of a stretch. We've coded some professions so far and are on the way to code more. The real achievement here is that the underlying professions SYSTEM is done, and with it all the big hurdles and the majority of coding is done. We're in advanced stages. The rest is still work, but it's all the fun part of work.

Of course there's not going to be hype for the coding of boring underlying system (despite how deliciously OPTIMIZED the system is). It's hard for players to appreciate the thousands of lines that only exists behind the scenes. But someone had to do it, and now it's done.

 

And of course Nexus-Craft is mature as well.