trollson

Measuring purely in experience points is misleading -- you don't lost your skill levels, so reset has limited effect on experience point gain (attribute levels aside for the moment). A better, though not perfect, analysis is to consider what your OA level would have been without reset, when you reach your pre-reset level. This "level loss" is surprisingly constance at 10 levels lost for OA in the range 40-80 (loss is less below, slightly more above). (Ref: Fred Penner EL pages) Attribute loss has mixed effects, mostly benfiting fighter types (counter argument?), but with high-level experience gaining still intact you will cover the first dozen levels in an hour in the titanium mine.

I personally don't like the reset option, but I understand that it can help new players who may make mistakes early on. So, allow reset only upto some overall level; high enough that players should by then know what they are doing, but low enough so that it doesn't work as an exploit. Between level 10 and 20? It may be useful to allow negative perks (perks which cost negative pick points) to be bought-off, for more points than they originally gave; say +1 point. Similarly, positive perks (for example Monster Magnetism) could be discarded for a small cost (1 pick point).

Something similar cropped up in a thread on custom armour and clothes. AFAIK EL has difficulty with custom items, since each item or customisation would have to be a seperate item type (seperate slot in storage etc). However it may be possible to modify the appearance of armour and clothes depending on who is wearing it: When we created our characters, we choose their "birthday suit", which is basically a set of colours (torso, leggs, footwear). I would suggest that a set of reservered colour values are used in armour and clothing models, which when donned are replaced by the primary colours of the wearer. For example, plate armour could include a surcoat which is coloured as per the characters torso. Other items could be trimmed accordingly. This doesn't support temple or guild colours, but may be more readily implemented (I havent looked into this in any detail though).

Maybe such a scheme would alleviate "bagjumper" (etc) issues -- the old adage to get rid of a social problem, legalise and tax it! 2c worth... Pickpocket skill -- vs targets pickpocket+perception, failure increases criminal score, critial failure also makes PK-able (until next killed). Easier to take from sat-on bags, more difficult to take from person, critical success takes equipped items! The ability for players to "denounce" characters who have just bagjumped them (given some safe guards), to add to score. The server could even add a point each time the character uses "smeg" words... As criminal score increases, less NPC resources are available -- first shop keepers, then magic, then storage (!). Eventually perminant PK (wolfshead!). Criminal score could be treated as another "skill" (increasing overall experience???), but reducable by paying fines. Ho hum... This may be better in the Suggestions box though...

The antisocial perk seems to me to be more akin to an outlaw status, in that "official" NPCs refuse to have anything to do with you. Somewhere less sever than being PK-able. Maybe an official character trait would be an outcast level, going from minor inconvenience, to fully PK-able. Goes up if you bad, down if your good (or contribute heavily to good causes!)

Why the two "Titanium Smelting" entries?

The tracking skill or ability I described does not aid in locating the animal, for the reasons given there. The character would still have to find it the hard way. The skill or ability just increases the range at which one could initiate an attack. Maybe tracking is not the best term for it -- hunting, ambush, trapping?

One bit of EL which does irritate me is the "Benny Hill" chases when trying to hunt animals (or larger game), which is basically down to: Everything moves at the same rate. It is sometimes hard to click on the right part to initiate combat. Trying to attack something out of range doesn't make any attempt to move you closer. So creatures frequently wander just out of sight (which isn't very far), never to be seen again. However, whether a "radar" view for tracking is possible depends on whether the server sends information on the presence of distant creatures to the client. I would guess that only nearby creatures are sent (save bandwidth at least). My thoughts where that a character could learn a tracking knowledge, which would increase the range at which they could initiate combat on animals (or higher creatures), based on perception attribute. This would still be limited to the current field of view though.

Curiously, the system of measurements in the US are defined in terms of the metric system -- its just that they have never got around to adopting the decimal system. See this page on the metric system in the USA. (OK, admitted deviation from the original date format topic, but had been mentioned above)

For a god of defence, Aluwen sets a pretty aggressive first quest. I thought that following this god would be a good choice for a non-fighter; but the first quest consists of getting 20 wooden shields from skeletons in the titanium mines. Well, I am now 50 skeletons into the quest, and have yet to see a shield, wooden or otherwise. A quick guestimate then is that it may take ~2000 skeletons to achieve this quest! This far exceeds the quests of the attack god... Last night I took a break and did all the other quest requirements Aluwen, in anticipation (except the titanium short sword, for which I need to make some steel first). Have I missed some crucial point in this quest? Is it still valid -- do the skeletons ever drop wooden shields (if not, is there anywhere else I can get them from?). Above all, is the relentless hack-and-slay quest appropriate for Aluwen?... SOLVED Lakeside blacksmith sells wooden shields, skeletons no longer drop them. Maybe time to update the quest instructions?

Ah! Thanks freeone, I missed that entry (spent ages looking for an NPC sellar as well!) Sod the fighting then...

There are plenty of ruined towns around; more that there are intact ones!

You lucky lucky people; the date format generally used in the code I deal with has the form: DDHHMM MON YY Z

Hidden ant hill... I guess that although the client needs a copy of the map data, the links between maps (teleport or doors) are controlled server-side. So... The Ant hill could be continually evolving and changing. Its actual map consists of lots of segments; chambers, corridors, junctions, etc. These are connected by teleport-like points (unmarked), to form a maze like map. Every so often, these teleport points are changed, so that the layout of the Ant hill changes. So, players could create a map from the map-file, but it wouldn't be much help to them in finding their way around it! There could also be an entrance to the Ant hill from several maps, hidden in various places and moving as well. Anyway, just a thought... (this was to follow JaneMuffin's post, but got delayed)

Beaver inuendos aside, its a splendid horse. Any chance of a giant ant for those pesky Ants?

When I read about the Ants on the Forums, I rather expected them to look like giant ants... Maybe this could be slotted into the next update? <_<

Just a few quick thoughts on invisibility (total invisibility of a character, not hiding items). If it where done, then model it as a fragile shell, dispelled by any interaction, such as if the invisible character... picks up anything, including by harvesting. moves to another map. initiates an attack. casts a spell on another character or creature. another character or creature bumps into them *. The invisible character would still be able to spy, and may get a surprize bonus in combat (I don't think that there is such a thing at present?). They could still drop items, though strictly this may be considered shell-breaking. A weaker form of invisibilty would be hiding, which would also prevent movement, but needn't be magical. * By "bumps into" I mean clicks to move into the same square. Pathfinding may be allowed to circumvent the invisible character.

Its already present and goes by the names Grue and Resync!

I was only using your concise definition of the problem There is a difference between Wytter's implementation and my suggestion... Wytter's implementation needs a two stage confirmation from the participants (lock offer and accept trade), therefore requiring a change to the client. Otherwise there is nothing wrong with the approach. I was suggesting that the server has all the information necessary to give the same result without changing the client interface; server side only changes.

Simple solution: Have the server unselect a participant's "accept" tick box if the other participant removes any item(s) from the trade window. Complex solution: When a participant selects the accept tick box, the server also records the other party's offer (that last sent to the acceptor, in case of simultaneous accept/removal). If the other party changes the offer such that it does not contain at least that originally accepted, then the first participant's tick box is unselected. Both the above would be server-side changes. Or introduce a the wonderfully fluffy Auction Forum

That should work well -- the more hit points, the more dangerous; the more damage causing, the more dangerous. There may be some creatures which break this model -- cause non-material damage or something. This could be accounted for in other places though (better drops). Actually though, fighting unarmed still gets you more defense exp, since the fight takes longer, the creature gets more attacks which can be avoided (similarly for just defending). So still go bare handed. Made-up numbers to illustrate, as you where doing. If you factor in attributes like P/C, you are effectively reducing fighting experience for fighter stereotypes: In the extreme, everyone, regardless of ability, would advance in levels at the same rate. Characters with high fighting-related attributes should advance better in those skills.

This sort of graduation is why we have exponential experience level tables: Killing the Ogre at level 10 may advance you half of the way to the next level. Killing the same Ogre at level 20 may only advance you 1/10th of the way to the next level. Don't think in terms of experience points earned, but in fractions of your next level, and you'll see this is already worked in. Of course, exponential experience tables are a remnant from dice&paper RPG (the "true form" ). With computer moderation, we could have equally spaced levels and run-time relative-level experience calculations. But frankly there isn't any benifit in doing that, and its less clear for players.

Are you sure your graphics card supports OpenGL version 1.2? I tried EL on my Windows laptop and discovered that this SiS card didn't (ever&never) support it, and had some bad behaviour (I cannot recall whether it was the same as yours though).

Giving experience for just taking the kill has problems of its own (as mentioned above). It shouldn't be necessary to adjust the experience based on the respective levels of character and monster either -- this should be covered by the exponential experience table (high levels require more experience). If the objective here is to encourage more realistic use of weapons, then there are other approaches. For example, I posted a suggestion on weapon specific skills in a previous thread. That approach can be added to the game relatively safely (does not invalidate what has gone before), but would increase effective A/D (limit tends to a doubling), which would require some meaty monsters to face up to!.

There have been shield-pistol combinations. AFAIR there was an example in the Royal Armoury, c. Henry VIII (?), of a thick bullet-proof targe, with a centrally mounted pistol (probably matchlock). The idea being to use the one shot from the firearm, and then draw sword and fight as normal. I suspect that it was too cumbersome to use in actual melee though, and probably would have been dropped after use in that case (though still a precuror of the gun shield on artillery?). However, I suspect that firearms (the technology) would undermine the worth of magic. In medieval-fantasy settings, let magical items take the place of firearms (what do you think a "wand of fire" looks like?). (TODO: find the ref. to the shield-pistol later, not in the books onhand).