New blood

[Kira]

got upcomming vacation and i'm not going anywhere sure there's gonna be some spare hours for computer stuff

[aldath c'om]

Id be up for spawning and testing.

[Iktomi]

We've taken on one person so far (Dargon), and once we see the speed of progress with that, we may gradually add more.

Additionally, we're hoping to have a restricted testing area opened up sometime mid-August, at which point we'll probably add 10-20ish people who will have access to this area with special things setup for testing skills and the feel of the shard, etc.

[Cyrus Tegyr]

FYI I've had skype for years, just never used it for pang terms as icq was fine for it, but it is installed and ready to go if you guys want me still.

I and Ivan have been discussing pang runuo and seems we've both shown interest in helping out with what we can.

One of the things he and I discussed is back story for mobs in general, I'd personally like to write up a history for my favorite race of mobs, Shabooli's and I am certain Ivan would gladly be interested in contributing lore in terms of dungeons/mob races.

I've already got two histories written up for Shaboolis, one more in line with story telling and the other specifically written up or nearly written up for a D&D campaign I'm in the process of developing which goes more in depth in terms of Shabooli culture/language/weaponry and life in general. I'd be willing to contribute this to better enrich the Pangverse and would gladly be willing to help with any other lore writing in terms of races as well as dungeon storyline and themes.

Ivan and myself discussed dungeon themes that both work and do not work as well as various mobs and what they could essentially become as opposed to just being a mob we kill, giving mob races a specific storyline makes them feel more of an interactive force in the world rather then just those pesky annoyances we have to kill.

For instance, why do the Shabooli's and Praetors hate us and attack us on sight? I've got that worked out for the Shaboolis and am certain others would gladly be willing to help out in this minor but important area, we complain about lack of RP well this is a great way for people to contribute and make the Pangverse more immersive and rich full of story.

And in terms of skype I've got my Blue Yeti Pro setup and ready to go as well if you guys do voice parties though I must warn you, I have a Californian accent!

[Quintoz]

@Cyrus, I know the feeling, I got some ideas that I doubt are being considered in the Risk vs Reward part of it but all we can do now is hope they need more manpower.

[Zaradon]

There could be a new NPC behaviour implemented when you guys are at it since i had pretty many ideas on how the NPC AI could work. I was giving big ideas for Ares where he was working on the AI aswell (along with the new mobs).

I'm not sure wether i am needed or not, but if i am. My pm's always open (yes, i do have skype aswell)


Anything you need help with, give me a call.

[Cyrus Tegyr]

Ivan and I discussed things such as:
Dungeon themes and Story - we're both kind of on the same page in terms of themes, elemental themes are OK but what'd make more sense is consistency, spawning only certain mob types in a single dungeon for instance, why throw praetors on one floor and lizardman on another, I don't mean in terms of difficulty either I mean praetors in this example would easily overrun the feeble lizardman and expand their dungeon home to the other floors so they just don't fit. Storyline is another, why is this dungeon the way it is and in terms of mob races why are Shaboolis attacking players on sight?
Rarity of Mob types - dragons for instance ought to be rare finds not a run into restate and there are 20, making them territorial in their story and AI would be something cool but again this is not just limited to dragons in scope.

We've discussed other things like sieges and what not too but I won't even open that can of worms with how id like to see sieges work.

We talk of rp and improving it but we have a Hodge podge of random mobs that have no storyline and as I said here I believe and to iktomi id love to write a backstroke for Shaboolis as well as other mob races and am sure others would love to. AI is one thing but an immersive world filled with discoverable lore turns a good game into something great.

[KrondorZuula]

I would be interested on getting in on those discussions of dungeon themes and such

[Cyrus Tegyr]

Well I'm not sure what's been done thus far on pang runuo in terms of dungeon spawns, but as I understand it very little has been done in porting over some of our current custom mobs such as praetors and Shaboolis as if I understand the runuo structure a little, it's not as simple as just adding an entry into a cfg file and unloading the file or just restarting the server as it is with POL.

But, if little has been done in terms of dungeon spawning, I think now would be a good time to discuss themes and story for dungeons. Not everything dungeon wise needs to be spawned at this moment but if there is a game plan in place for each dungeon and what types of mobs, story and any other considerations are in place before spawning occurs, it makes it that much easier for those who will be spawning dungeons to look at the checklist for that dungeon and say "undead mobs only with a possible necromancy theme, this is a medium difficulty dungeon, the story for it is this which gives me perhaps a little more leniency/restriction on how I ought to spawn and decorate this dungeon."

I don't know, call me strange but I like game plans, ideally I'd like to have it be more specific such as, if this dungeon floor is fully spawned, how many mobs should be present on this specific floor. This cuts out any cluster mucks that might occur cause some knobhead decided to set a floor of a dungeon to be over spawned thus unplayable.

I'd also love to see less hack n slash and more thought provoking puzzles, for instance you come to a room and clear it of the few mobs in there, there in the center of the room is a book, you open it and inside is a riddle. You say the correct answer to the riddle which then triggers a door to open and remain open for X amount of time after which time both the door is locked and the riddle reset to a completely edifice rent riddle and answer. Again, perhaps I'm the only one who finds puzzles used for dungeon advancement enjoyable but it adds something to the game, it doesn't have to be riddles either it could be something like Skyrimesque where you have to turn three statues by double clicking them to face a different direction and once the three face their proper direction something happens. Obviously as some, and I mean this with all the love in the world, idiots might assume, these puzzles would not be meant to be engaged in whilst running around with mobs chasing you, they could be engaged during combat but the idea is after you fully secure a room or passage, you are then able to try and solve this puzzle before you in relative peace and safety.

I'd also like to see traps be randomly spawned in different areas perhaps on a 24 hour period, this keeps things fresh instead of knowing where not to step after you have run a dungeon once or twice.

These are just a few other things I would like to see in terms of dungeon setup and spawning, instead of just a hodgepodge of this and that thrown together just to spawn a dungeon. It might take a little more time to think things through and have a game plan but in the end the results will be wonderful.

[Vaux27]

Sheesh. Take Cyrus, he knows what he's doing.