A few questions about the game world

[gagaliya]

I am just curious about a few aspects of the this gameworld that i dont think was covered(of course i can be wrong).

1)The rare items, how will you deal with that? How do you make them rare and also do not make coins less valuable. As more and more items come to the world and coins harvested from dead monsters over time, everything devalues. Will you use the standard approach, that make monsters drop rare items randomly. Or a more interesting approach for example having a merchant visit towns or a festival once a few months, where players can buy rare stuff for a large sum of coins. Henceforce it will make the items rare, at the same time make coins valuable. Also eliminates the buildup of same rare items over time, since the next festival/merchant can carry different stuff. So you will have control over how many of each rare items get leaked into the world. As you can see i clearly favor option2:P What are you guys planning to do about this issue?

2)Will there be full time merchant skills? like UO, you can make a living by not killing a single monster, and maybe setup your own shop to sell stuff?

3)Will assassin rogues be actually assassin rogues? like 1 stealth sneak backstab will actually kill the monster, not the lame EQ rogues like a warrior with more damage. of course it should be difficult to pull off the backstab, i guess this is more related to the next question.

4)How will the hp work? will it be realistic like 1 good slash from a sword can actually kill you or knock you out, or the more common types such as you have 1000hp, 1 slash takes away 56 hp and you got 944hp left?

5)How will replenish life/mana work? the EQ apporach or D2 approach with hp/mana potions everywhere. or something more interesting?:)

6)Will there be global chats? and yes i agree /tell is a bit unrealistic, perhaps you can have some type of gems that let you "transfer thoughts to others" which is more ingame, like it has 50 charges once used up you need to buy a new gem to /tell again. An idea i found from one of the muds that's very realistic and solves the problem. and please no OOC channels(how do you expect to roleplay with a builtin ooc channel lol)!!


that's all, the gnome must sleep:P


Gagaliya Ba'La'Boom!

[Lordosis]

Let's see...

(1) Well for one thing, there are no static spawns in Arcanity, and hence no static rare drops either. Very rare items will enter the game with a purpose, not just because a "monster" has one for no good reason. As far as the economy, we'll have control over the economy in case inflation runs rampant. We'll be able to play with various factors to balance the economy if need be. This will probably be most evident during beta. I guess the main thing to remember is that the fundamentals of Arcanity are so much different than current MMORPGs that I think we'll face different types of problems than they face, since we are designing Arcanity to solve most of the current problems.

(2) I suppose it would be possible, but it wouldn't be very fun. I don't see how it ever could be. Basically, the "trade" type skills are secondary skills that you can train independently of how much "experience" you have. So yes it would be technically possible to become a master blacksmith without ever adventuring, but it's not likely. Mostly because the costs of training will require you to have some capital. Our secondary skills are really meant to suppliment the adventuring experience and/or provide a diversion from time to time. You will be able to own a shop if that's your thing, but you won't have to literally stand behind the counter all day selling things to everyone that comes in. That wouldn't be a very fun game. You could just go down to the local mall and they'll PAY you to do just that.

(3) We haven't designed thief-type "classes" yet so I really can't tell you how this is gonna work yet. But no, it won't be like EQ rogues, I can say that much.

(4) Well, we originally wanted it to be completely realistic. But it doesn't work for a couple reasons. For one thing, in real life, you pretty much lost the fight if you get hit with a sword once. So at very high skill levels, you'd be looking at very long fights with no one hitting each other. Hit points are meant to represent more than literally just your remaining health. They help to make a more exciting game by having more interesting battles. But I think we will definitely be CLOSER to the realitic system than most RPGs are today. Somewhere in between.

(5) It WILL NOT be the EQ approach, which is quite bluntly: Sit on your ass for hours on end. That blows. It also won't be like a first person shooter where you will just find "med kits" lying all over the ground. It will be more like the good ol' fashioned RPGs of the past, where you could buy potions and the like to replenish yourself.

(6) We debated back and forth in the early design stages, but we ended up deciding in favor of tells. It's just one of the realism sacrifices we think we have to make in order to create a funner game. For example, not having to ever use the bathroom isn't too realistic, but I don't know of any game that makes you go to the bathroom or else you start loosing stamina or something. (Well.. actually I remember a bathroom scene in one of the Leisure Suit Larry games, hehe). But no /ooc and no /auction (there will be other ways to peddle your wares).

[Slitherrr]

Hey, I sense another former Gemstone player, if I'm not mistaken... With the merchies and the AmuNet and other stuff. Interesting game, if it was graphical and still able to be the way it was, I would still play it. And I tend to agree with Rich's ideas concerning being a tradesperson. It'd be fun to be a wandering merchant though... Perhaps on that same vein, it should be possible for a person to hire bodyguards from a village (for a reasonable sum), so they can be laden with things to trade without having to worry so much about highwaymen.

[gagaliya]

I never liked the number system combat in gemstone, i played dragonrealms instead which i still consider one of the greatest accomplishments in the gaming industry, the whole combat, social and economy systems were lightyears beyond anything. Too bad tis text :D

[Slitherrr]

Holy crap, and I thought I'd be the only person that's played DR here! Used to be my favorite text-based MUD ever, but I didn't want to pay ten bucks when I could go graphical... I liked their skill system, learn by doing, and anyone could pretty much learn any skill if they took some time doing it (like my barbarian that could pick locks).

[Lodahl]

I like Ultima Online ideas for the thief.

He is capable of stealing from other players, and gets flag grey (criminal act), if he is not 100% succesful in his attempt.

He can hide, and stealth away from danger (also a great assassin skill)

The only thing missing is his surprise attack (backstab), which I really miss.

In other words try take a look at Ultima online's Thief skills. maybe you can "borrow" some ideas there.


My to cents for 2 day

[Kymeri mac An Iolar]

I agree that the /tell system is not the best, but the most practical. I am glad to hear that /ooc /shout /auc will not be in game. Whew! the amount of spam I got in EQ was unbearable. There are some good features such as group and guild chat. Also, the friends list and the ignore list.

[Wrentia]

they should not be limited to any amount....after all if done right they should be no more than a small text file with names in it....and each of my characters should have their own friend/ignore lists. I'd also like to see something like a notes system, where I could save small text notes to myself that would be easily retrivable by the client....these notes could possibly be linked either to an npc (NPC Coriana sells Blackberry leafs which are a component for the darkness spell), a player character (Kymeri is a master mage and makes enchanted jewelry), or an area (Last time I was here some goblins tried to ambush me in that narrow pass)....

Just some ideas...

-Wrentia

[Kymeri mac An Iolar]

yes I like the idea of being able to make notes to myself in game. Would save a few trees.

[Wrentia]

yea, I use 3 X 5 cards.....need to start buying them by the case....sheesh

-Wrentia

[Kymeri mac An Iolar]

Me too, I should invest in a paper company for the amount I use

[Lordosis]

Rolfe and I used valet parking ticket stubs for notes. They were all over my freaking apartment last summer. "Ladanger is a jerk, don't group with her". "Aesope gave me a free fine steel sword, cool". We had big lists of friends and "foes". We didn't use the word "foe" but hey, this is a public message board.

I'd rather have notes on paper all over my floor, but if you guys want them on your computer for some CRAZY reason, fine by me. Just remind me if I haven't done it by mid beta. Perhaps you better think how you want these notes sorted... Otherwise it's not gonna be any less messy than your paper notes, just in a differnt place.

[Kymeri mac An Iolar]

There are a couple of ways to do it I guess. Players could have a journal that they could open with so many set pages. UO had blank books that you could buy off vendors that had about 25 pages in them. Thats pretty versitile, players could organize the info in the books anyway theywanted.

[Wrentia]

/em pulls out a 3 X 5 card and writes down a note to remind Rich to put a note facility in the game.....:)

-Wrentia

[Kymeri mac An Iolar]

Your going to have a stack of 3x5 cards for this game evern before we start :)

[Slitherrr]

I dunno, I'm a big fan of Post-It notes myself... You shoulda seen my computer in the middle of the summer, when I still played EQ, it was almost totally yellow ;-p

[BelDragos]

At least you aren't using white-out on the screen. I like the idea of blank books that the players can buy in game.

[Kymeri mac An Iolar]

Yes, It was very fun to play with and very versitile. My brother and I used one to leave messages for each other in out vendor house. Many people wrote stories or guild histories in them. Was alot of fun.
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Only Fools rush in where the Gods fear to tread

[BelDragos]

I guess we better take the writing skill just in case they like the idea.

[gagaliya]

wow amazing! just bumped into this thread i started about 6 years ago, while searching for some stuff in google.

how is this game going now?!?! :eek: :eek:

ps 6 years later, still searching for my dream game!

[Rolfe]

wow, cool. Well welcome back. Arcanity revived about a year ago. It's free to download and play. It's a playable game, but it's a bit short on content. Currently there are some key things missing because of a recent change from the open skill-based system to a level and class system. Check it out and let everyone know what you think.

[Lordosis]

Holy Resurrected Thread, Batman! :eek:

[Wrentia]

and hey, it even had a few old posts of mine....

[BelDragos]

Mine are in there too