July Update

Jeremy Saunders

1. Continue RP events

2. Releasing the major new area.

3. Classleads

4. Release Merc tournaments.

5. Cults, Sects, and Shrines

6. Commodity Work

Okay, here is a quick update on what we are currently working on.

EVENTS

Obviously we have been doing more in this arena. This last month we had three events; the Necromancer event, the Ouroboros event, and the current event with Gordul. There were also a couple small sect events. Events were the number one thing people have been asking for, so that has become a major focus. As stated last month, we have planned out several for the next few months, with a major story lines developing from the events this month. 

We are trying to keep events in shorter time lines of about a week at most. This should hopefully help with people getting burned out on them. We are also slowly working in some historical information in these events, in particular the Gordul event will be dealing with the Eastern history.

I think people were mostly happy with these events. In particular people seemed to enjoy the game like mechanic of gathering dead entity essence. We will do similar events in the future.

NEW AREA

The new area is done. The bosses are coded, the quests are in, and the event is ready to go. I am currently spending all my time testing the bosses and the quests a final time. This will probably only take a couple more days. When the time is right we will run the event and release it. This area is aimed at level 100 characters who like bashing, questing, figuring out bosses, honours, and so on. I am semi considering making the entire area open PK, but I have not thought this out completely.

CLASSLEADS

Garryn is finishing this up and will release it once player testing is done. This is currently taking minimal amount of code work from Garryn.

MERCENARIES

With Jesse moving over to Achaea, mercenary development has obviously slowed. Garryn has just started delving into the code and we will have tournaments out for players very soon.

CULTS, SECTS, SHRINES

I am plugging away on this. Still in a design phase, but as soon as the new area is out, this is all I will be working on. I really, really want this to be a very cool system so I am taking my time on it.

COMMODITIES

As mentioned last month, Garryn will start into this earnestly after the merc tournaments. You can read the general ideas of his plans in last months post here: http://forums.imperian.com/discussion/377/june-plan-of-attack

Wysrias

Glad to see the update, and I'm looking forward to what's coming!

My only comment would be that I don't think any new endgame area should be open PK - and I say this as an admitted PK whore. We have plenty of ways of generating conflict when parties are interested, and that very very rarely coincides with bashing. Maybe have some objectives that can be contested/render someone open PK, but I think placing that on the area as a whole will just discourage others from exploring it - and if the area is as exciting as you've described, that would be a shame!

Sarrius

I think we do need some places that everybody absolutely wants to go regularly that are also open PK. Knowing my lack of caution, I would probably give it a whirl with the new area. However, as Wysrias said, it would be a shame if Open PK warded away people from exploring the area. That's why I think we should give it a shot and, if it doesn't hash out, revoke it somehow and then design another area with that sort of content in mind. My opinion is that the people who genuinely want to explore this new area are probably going to be the best way to get fights in the area - not jumping them specifically, but jumping the people trying to attack them will turn in to all out brawls of varying size.

EDIT: To be honest, I think we could take a leaf out of WoW's battlegrounds formats for Open PK areas. I don't know how we would initiate them or manage them (or access to them), but I see a gold mine of possible cool ideas in that regard. I remember suggesting that we write something like them, gating access to them via a one-time expense of our Tokens of the Creator.

Caelya

I think that if any area is ever made 'open PK', it should relate to something faction-based. For example, there could be three bosses in the area, and each pertains to one of the circles' interests somehow, so the three factions could fight over who gets to kill which boss. People who are just bashing or questing relatively non-violently should be left alone. We have no idea what this new area is about at the moment though, so I can't really comment on how things would work with it.

I'd also like to take this time to say that I'm enjoying the direction of this storyline progression with Gordul, and I'm looking forward to it building up further.

Verexa

You could also initiate events every so often where open-PK is allowed for an allotted amount of time so everyone gets something to do in the new area. Otherwise you run into the same issues @Wysrias and @Caelya have already detailed their posts.

Mercer

]MERCENARIES

With Jesse moving over to Achaea, mercenary development has obviously slowed. Garryn has just started delving into the code and we will have tournaments out for players very soon.

wheeee

excited to see how my mercs are compared to others

Khizan

If you make that area open PK, I will kill everybody who goes into it that I am capable of killing and I will do so without shame or remorse, and if they cry about wanting to quest there or about how they just wanted to hunt I will laugh at them. If I am lucky, they will insult me and I will get to kill them again when they're in a regular bashing area.

Most everybody here knew that already, of course, but I wanted to say this upfront before you decide on what to do with the area. As much as I'd like an open PK area like this, it's probably a bad idea because, well, people like me exist.

What I'd like to see as far as open PK goes are things that are profitable to do but which provide PK reason. A anti-magick crusader camp in the area, say, whose commander is a boss and allied with Antioch/Ithaqua. Other circles also have camps, and those camps can give out quests to attack another camp. Sabotaging siege engines, burning supplies, gathering resources, etc. People in the opposing camp or working on these quests can totally be killed for them.

The quests take a decently long time to do, so that if you decide to do them you've got to hang around the area for half an hour or so. And they provide a fairly decent reward, so there's incentive for people to do them. "If you want this reward you have to risk being killed" is a way better idea than "If you even peek in here you will get dogpiled".

Svorai

The new area will not be open PK. There may be something that grants open pk on you, but the entire area will not be open pk for using it.

Iniar

There is a funny Venn diagram waiting to be drawn for AM/M/D + OpenPK/NoPK :]

Khizan

I imagine it is something like this:

Iniar

Upside down Mickey Mouse :>

Garryn

Jeremy said:

COMMODITIES

As mentioned last month, Garryn will start into this earnestly after the merc tournaments. You can read the general ideas of his plans in last months post here: http://forums.imperian.com/discussion/377/june-plan-of-attack

As a bit of a progress update, the work on this is starting now.