ttlanhil

But if they are not at the computer for two hours or longer, why should they still be on? after that long, it's unlikely that even chatlogs would be all read. you can save resources simply by logging them off

Wasn't really sure where to put this... stories seems close, but that's not so much quest stuff.. so it ended up here, which is the more generic suggestions area... after the manu/craft meet with L_c, a few of us were throwing around quest ideas; pennifuin, ciara, myself mainly, about half way through L_c came back and joined in the convo, and we had a few thoughts and proddings from leonon one quest, and one set of quests came out of it, first off, single quest (easier to write 8^) Some people talk about boredom, just working on your skills isn't exciting, having more quests and visible story would help. so, we're proposing some questing with story to go with. if it gets in, it'll give people something new to do. ----- pet/familiar quest ----- Ever played a game where you got a familiar or pet? adds a bit, doesn't it? we'd like that too. a number of people have asked about having pets before, usually they're told that there's summoning, and that's enough. but we can do better, and add a quest at the same time. Now, having it fight is a bad idea, because it can die. plus there's the lag from extra things at storage, and all that fun stuff, so it'd be an inventory item that you can't drop (maybe another equipment slot for familiar, or a toolbar icon, something, but you can't lose it, it can't die) you use-click it to open a conversation with it. There would be a start location where you are told what options for a familiar there are, then you decide, and go to the location for the quest to get the one you want different familiars would have different conversation topics, and hopefully special abilities. the different types would suit certain types of players, an imp for the magically inclined, an owl for the forest type, a badger for the miners, etc. the conversations and abilities would suit what animal and its type were chosen. because it doesn't fight, if the abilities are equal enough, there will be a wide variety in what ones are chosen.(if it was allowed to fight, everyone would want a bear, or chim, or whatever) for example, if you just want XP boosts, badger for harvest or manu, owl (as the forest type) for combat(maybe less of a bonus, as fighting needs less, helps balance it) and magic for the imp (more of a bonus, as magic is a lower used skill) having more than just xp bonuses would be strongly preferable, however. since you can only get one, you could even make it a perk, and if so, could require pickpoints to have your familiar/pet summoned for you we didn't at all discuss what sort of quests would be needed at each stage, but they would be appropriate for each type of familiar at that part, and something basic to find out about your choices the locations for the familair/pet options would also be appropriate, the imp in the magic school, for example and yes, how to have a familiar that's not droppable may mean more changes than the usual for a quest, but it can be used again (you could come up with other things undroppable, in some games cursed items are like this, so it's not unusable) ----- tailor/hairdresser quest ----- this one is also a lead-on to more quests. this'll keep people busy a while 8^) one of the shops in portland can be made into a combination tailor/hairdressers place. The tailor would be in residence, but retired, sitting around not doing anything. when you talk to him, he says he's retired. you can ask what happens, if you do so, he tells his story. A long time ago, he and a friend (these people need to be named, i haven't done this yet) were in the navy, made a fair bit of money as they didn't waste it all in the taverns when they came to shore, and decided to go into business when they got out. this man learnt to become a tailor, and his friend a hair dresser they set up shop in portland with the money they had saved, and made a good business for themselves. but trouble was coming, in the form of new fashions from (some place here, as appropriate, if possible a community in the new continent that is rather fashionable and new with style). the tailor wanted to change everything, stock and shop, to suit the new styles, while the hairdresser refused, saying their current customers should take preference over potential new ones. they argued, then fought, and then things broke down completely, and the hairdresser left. He now lives in a new town (we have one picked, but i think it'd be better not to say yet, i'll come to that later) there will be a number of tings to be done in order to patch things up between them, again, i won't say what we thought of, but i'll give you a hint... it'll involve charm. after all, it's unused and supposed to be used for quests sometime. before you worry too much, though, we plan to have charm make it easier, if you have 4 charm, you can still do the quest, but it will be far harder/longer at the end, they'd be friends again, but decide to stay where they are and set up shop again, and meet up from time to time (we don't see this, but they're friends, basically) now, the reward at the end of this quest, we're hoping, would be that the tailor and hairdresser (that's why these occupations) would, for a small fee, change parts of your appearance (hair style, colour, shirt, and pants) I'm told this is something currently paid for in real dollars, but it'd be nice to have it available ingame from a quest; plus i figure the cost is more to cover the time of changing it that money for the server, less time manually adjusting = more development time also, you may wonder why you can't change your footwear in the list given above. well, that's because that's the next quest 8^) The tailor finds out that he's no good at fitting boots, and is a little busy with work anyway, and wants an apprentice. that's your next quest. You'll be told of a few places where people are good at making boots, it's up to you to go to these places and see if you can find someone who fits the bill (depending on release time, these places could include the new continent) you will eventually find the mother or father of the potential apprentice, who are not too sure of letting their daughter move away for work (being a teenager in a port city like portland). so there's charm again, and ocne again, you can't fail this with little or no charm ability, but the more you have the easier it gets. convincing them may take conversation(the tailor is a good man, she'll be looked after), money(i'll set up a place for her for this amount), fetch items, or other tasks (yes, low charm may well mean you pay a lot of money) once this is complete, the apprentice moves to portland and is set up there (note that you never see her, you talk to her parents, and then she works in the back of the tailor's shop, so you can interact with 'her' in two places) the reward is that you can now also have your boots changed another suggestion is that you may earn charm points by doing these quests, as you have practiced the skill a lot (and a charm point isn't same same as earning a PP, plus this would make it a base of 5, so a reset would take it back to 5, and not allow you to gain the PP for other uses) further to this, there would be another quest, probably for the hairdresser, where stock is being stolen, and the quest is to find out who's doing it. not a lot on this quest yet. there can also be a quest in the life of the apprentice, a courter, perhaps, or a more mundane issue. not much on this yet, but enough to show that there's significant storyline possibility here as for the details, where the hairdresser is, etc, i'd rather not say that here, and leave it for if someone wants to add this quest, then it'll be a suprise even if they read it here any of this can be adjusted and adapted, if required, though we'd kinda like it to be more similar to what we thought of 8^) also, i'd be happy to come up with the dialogs for these quests, or the initial version at least, and then someone could always polish it a bit if needed that's all for now, comments please, and any devs who are interested, please get in contact. there's only a bit left out for the sake of hiding what's coming, but i can provide that if you like. oh, and any suggestions on this, if having it on the forums could make it a spoiler (like location, what you have to do in the quest, etc) then please PM it and don't post on here, if it's on here it's less likely to be used <ed> to recycle people (less NPCs to add) the person to see about getting an imp could be the magic school clerk (or other employee) there could be an NPC in forest of the fall, who has the owl familiar, and is an expert on combat and hunting, and suggected by tutorial NPC and the badger from a dwarf, don't know of any available at the moment... or if it's manu as well as harvest, tankel may even fit the bill

the ping only would only count if they're in an area with no activity though... AFK at storage will get a lot of traffic, if my network conneciton light is any indiciation

erm... the two ants online are still wandering the IP campfire, shouldn't they have explored away by now?

sometimes it is accidental though, the stuff in the bag blends in with what was already in inventory...

that's downright scary!

I can see it now: "here ant, come, ant, come get the nice bag! follow me to this PK map..."

where would the ant hill be, if one may inquire? and are you able to set it so that areas like IP are on a sort of warning for them, so they tend not to go to crowded places? or would that mean a lot of work?

there was recently a poll as to whether the ants should come back, i think most people were in support of them. if there's an issue with them wandering around the already crowded IP, that's something you could ask learner to deal with

no, we blame the messenger too. iffn yawl stopped and didn't repeat this spam, it would stop. no passing the buck, everyone who passes it on shares the blame

that one was reported just a bit above... and it was probably a different entrance the second time, right?

One of the things that can give a real sence of acomplishment is affecting your world. Now, in the linear single player game (or multiplayer, in most cases) you generally have an epic tale, and are a major influence. That's a lot harder to do in an MMORPG, I know to a limited degree, and yes, not enough, being able to generalise int he game works towards this. If there were many more skills and things to do, it would help Perhaps there could be made available tools so that people can write their own quests, make NPCs, items, maps, etc, and play them out... in a miniveiwer sort of setting, this would help development because then you can test anything without connecting to the official server. Yes, I know, this would be a huge task. for pets, I think it would be cool to get a pet or familiar, posted something about it here though there's a lot more to read, so just read the first part. a music skill could perhaps be expanded into bardic skills, including acrobatics, song, dance, instruments, etc... on invention, what I think would be really cool (and of course that means a lot of work) is custom designed equipment... using this, you could would pick what materials to use, how much of each, what techniques to use in manufacturing, any magical effects you want to use (which crafting already does, so that's not a far fetched idea) for example, you may decide to make a sword with a steel/titanium alloy blade around a titanium core, handle wrapped in leather, maybe some crushed quartz could be used to tinge the metal, get some rarish magical ingredients and be able to get extra effects (ranging from +1 to att or def up to additional magic damage). You would need to read up a lot on all of the skills you wish to use, and it's not until you've made the weapon that you know how well it worked... there'd also be bonuses or negative effects based on the player... a master swordsmith will produce the finest plain iron swords, while someone of intermediate skill will make a poor serpent sword. if we ever do get depletable resources, gardening could be used to grow more flowers... the problem is how to restrict the amount and locations appropriately, of course. fishing and hunting could be ways to gain food astronomy could come under a group of 'skills' in the sciences, which have different effects on a player cooking could certaily be expanded on, and make use of fruit, vegetables, wines, etc. walks in the park, sitting and looking at flowers etc could be a form of gentle meditation, clearing the mind, helping your research (nothing else to think about, you can just curl up with a book). this one is prone to AFK research problems though photography is already covered quite well, being able to press a key like PrintScreen and EL saves in a 'screenshots' folder could make it work a lot better than the current setup. heck, you could even build up a system where you have people assist on a farm making grain, then others work in a mill, more in a bakery, and out comes bread... you could get paid a bit for your work, of course. to look at how extensive this could get, have a look at a game like the settlers (If you know it), there's many jobs you can give the people, forming a large web, that becomes the economy. for this to work in EL, you'd probably need an NPC in charge of each area, talk to them to get the work, sit down, work with a timer like harvesting has, once your 'shift' is up, you can get another shift, or leave. any work not done by players is done by invisible NPCs, so there's still enough bread to get dumped at the lightpole on IP 8^) I realise I may be focusing a bit much on what's actually useful out of the hobby, not looking at it as just something we can do... but newbies will probably look at it the same way anyway. being able to form groups outside of the guild lines could be good, for example, the people interested in astronomy could have a group, they chat, put together articles for a player based EL newsletter. ooh, that brings me to another point. I know at the moment there's the eternal sun (I think that's the name), but how about if people could sumbit entries through a more official method, then whoever could be working as editors, entries get a yes/no, and what's accepted goes in as a type of book, disposable because it would be replaced the next day or week or whatever with newer columns. <edit> wow, i took far too long typing this up, some of the ideas were already posted before I finished!

well, there's exploring, wandering around and looking at things... it's not the most exciting thing to do, but it can be interesting for a few hours spread over a week or two

I don't like the idea of limiting books, that's a strong step towards class-like restrictions. one of the things I like a lot about EL is that i can do whatever I like (with the penalty that the jack of all trades is master of none)

I like the idea that stuff can break when dropped. that will make people more cautious about dying, less deaths = less whinging when deathbag s missing

would mortos (and maybe selain, since they worked together) have enough of a following that their deciples could have people kidnapped and ritually killed? would they be able to get enough souls for mortos to play with and create monsters?

Lets get the ants searching for death bags!

well, selain is the god of summoning, and might object to mortos dabbling in his field. and the curse was altered by a number of the other gods, led by aluwen in that, to its current form, so mortos isn't really in charge anymore mortos being able to claim some souls sounds interesting though. perhaps those from long ago found a way to escape the endless life and aging, some sort of ritual, or better yet, offering their services to mortos, and those are where he got some of his souls

not just beginners, either, there are players that rent themselves out as a mule or general service on market channel... granted, an hours work is not the same as fetching pickaxes, but the storage part is close for rent-a-mule as for newbies, things like this could be suggested as 'jobs' they can do to make money, though i don't know where the jobs would be listed

in other games you lose your equipment, can also lose part of your experience... as it is, the possibility of losing equipment is pretty light, really, only partly made up for by the fact that you have to go through the underworld, not just respawn at nearest town

What' that supposed to be? a rat?160517[/snapback] it's a chicken, beak, head, comb... hence why it goes 'bock bock' and wants grain

I looked in my EL directory, and didn't see any files for these, so I assume that it's coded into the client itself... could it be done using the same system as the encyclopedia? also, how much do you want to cover with the help system, would community-contributed walk-throughs be likely to be added?

just one point, an avatar is traditionally an embodyment of a deity (it's hindu, i think), champion may work as a better name

actually... on the issue of making the underworld harder (which is kinda side-topic to the start)... I have a better idea the underworld, like most places, is made easy by using a map and experience... now, it'd be a huge coding job and all, but having a number of underworld maps (or even dynamically generated ones, ouch) makes it take a lot more work to fight your way back to the land of the living... maybe make a few things you have to do before you can leave as well, ring a bell, light a candle, fetch a stone for a ghost, whatever, just to make more work, and the underworld more of a punishment

You'd have to nullify monster magentism as well fo this to work... and I generally don't like OA used as an indicator of much, a reset makes it artificially low, and it's not relevant to how good you are in most skills (yes, p/c are important to fighting as well, I know, but a/d are independant of OA)