Unseen Studios

Theres been some debate as to weather or not bags should be in the game. So heres a poll

Pros of not having bags-
Game has a dangerous element to it like old xen
Gives people a reason not to die
Gives people a good reward for pking

Cons of Not having bags-
Noobs constantly being pked for all there gear by higher lvls
People losing years of hard work everytime they die
Things like Raids and Bosses will become practically impossible without mass gear loss from the deaths.

Pros of having bags-
Can safely explore
Not having to worry much about losing your hard earned gear.
Being able to fool around without worry

Cons of Having bags-
People have hardly any penalty for dieing and become reckless
Pking becomes very pointless with such a small reward
The dangerous feel of oldschool xen is not there.

Compromise: The game can begin bagless, and bags will be added when needed.

That really wont be a good compromise. there really is no way of compromise because people who want bags just want a safe world no gear lose people who dont want bags want to lvl faster than everyone and pk them for their gear. basicly if we have no bags there will be assholes who play 24/7 and just get 50 in first 3 weeks of game and pk everyone and become extremely rich. The everyone else will quit becuase they are tired of loosing hard earned gear.

how many times must this discussion be repeated? There will be NO bags in project volucris. this is not a game for pansies.

You should calm down Vitriol, this thread post was during the other one in the Project Volucris area. Since bags are a part of "Game Mechanics" he posted one here with a poll to get an idea of what people wanted.

The harsh attitude is seriously not needed. You could chase away people that could have potentially good ideas if they feel like all you are going to do is shoot them down.

Vitriol wrote:how many times must this discussion be repeated? There will be NO bags in project volucris. this is not a game for pansies.

i guess its also not a game for more then 3 people?

not at all! I completely welcome ideas that will enhance the game as long as it isnt making the game too easy.

a_link_to_the_past wrote:You should calm down Vitriol, this thread post was during the other one in the Project Volucris area. Since bags are a part of "Game Mechanics" he posted one here with a poll to get an idea of what people wanted.

The harsh attitude is seriously not needed. You could chase away people that could have potentially good ideas if they feel like all you are going to do is shoot them down.

agreed, no idea is stupid. it is the people and their ideas that makepv what it is

Vitriol are you making the game? Every post you make you make it sound like you will have the final word and will have the game the way you want it. People are just throwing out ideas and you jump on them for having an opinion.

Blue Tiger wrote:Vitriol are you making the game? Every post you make you make it sound like you will have the final word and will have the game the way you want it. People are just throwing out ideas and you jump on them for having an opinion.

He's just trying to give the creator some idea's since he can't come up with everything himself.

I personally think the game needs bags, gear is 85% of the character and if even 1 thing is lost, The person gets stressed out. But haveing a bag makes the game fun and you can explore around without haveing to log off and get on a noob and ask for help when somthing freaky pops outa nowhere.

i believe:

bags should drop, but not drop too much,

id love to see one rich mofo, who we think is rich on bags, but isent, and is only wearing tha 1.

make em rare, but not too rare, just like lsa's but more lsa's droppin than bags.

id say if you found 1bag, at somehow .. lets say .. lvl 10-15, youd be extremely, very lucky.

Simpo, I think that bags should be slightly rarer than that even, make them drop as rarely as some of the odder weapons in xenimus now, like sanctus gear or something. I'm not sure how the consequences of dying will be, but that will affect the demand of bags. If we go with a exp debt system, then dying won't be as feared, you could say. To compromise, magic bags should last longer, maybe like 5-10 deaths, so you don't really need to hog them or anything, and people won't have storage chars with a storage full of magic bags (that will also free up regular storage space, maybe).

or what you said works.

im not down for havin some high lvl stock up on bags. or anyone "rich" for that matter.

wouldent you love to see some character with mad gear .. lil we know he cant afford bags?

then .. he drops to some other crazy charater and them drops like some sort of item?

god .. i can see old xen comin backk.

Paz the Spaz wrote:people won't have storage chars with a storage full of magic bags (that will also free up regular storage space, maybe).

Since you struck this note and it is relatively on the same topic I thought I would go ahead and throw in the idea of making bags stackable.

After thinking about it for a few, the fact that bags protect so well in Xenimus, probably contributes a lot to the fact that EJ had to put in durability to increase the gear flow, because the game is just way too damn safe, if someone isn't wearing a bag, they are wearing a redo, most are wearing both.

I think how long a bag lasts should be random, I think its pretty much random anyway. Though I think that if you don't have one and you die, you should just lose one item you have equipt, as well as what you are carrying.

I've actually come up with a several ways of removing items from the game, so I don't think that will be a big issue like it is in Xenimus.

The problem is that, with no way for items to exit the game, high-level and/or rare items pile up and become not so rare. Having no magic bags lets these items flow between players, but never leave the system. I'm actually trying to come up with a way to keep the game interesting without magic bags at all. Here's an idea I had, but it has a major flaw--maybe one of you can figure out how to fix it?

My idea was that (1) all storages are shared between players on an account and (2) whenever a player dies, they drop a random item from their storage but never from their equipment. This way, any items the players are actually using don't drop--only the excess items.

Unfortunately, I know that people will just create secondary "mule" accounts to get around this, and keep their storages on that account.

I've thought about the bag issue quite a bit in the past and Ive come up with this idea. We want to keep the risk/reward of bagless Xen but also keep people from constantly losing all thier really good gear correct? Let's combine both schools of thought!
There is already a mechanic that after a random number of deaths you lose your bag...so how about when you lose that bag you also drop an equipped item at the same time? There would then be reward for pk'ing because there is a chance to get a piece of equipment, but the pk'd character doesn't automatically lose gear...but there is a chance. I'm not a math wiz or anything so I don't know what the drop chance is on a bag or how'd you'd want to tweek it but I think this would solve the problem.

I had a question too. How are the chests in Vol going to work? I think the chest mechanic but EJ has is pretty broken. All people have to do is constantly farm chests to get good gear (as well as using thier increased chance at 5 lvl intervels) and that ability leans more towards casters who can port around quite a bit without much time/loss of gold whereas fighter types who want to do the same thing are going to spend quite alot of gold on ports/trans wands. Also, I've noticed people make fast lvling characters just to lvl up and pull chests. Why not lean more towards a mob drop type economic system?

I'm still trying to think of some good ideas to replace gear int he economy too. Will get back to you when I figue out some decent ideas.

Its an interesting idea... but I think that would make players liquidate their assets... breaking armors and weapons they don't need into gold leaving the only armor they wear physically on their characters... which a lot of the players only have what they wear.. only a select few have the luxury of saying... hmmm should I use my wand and shield day... or this spiffy staff... or perhaps the fighter thats torn between an axe or a sword... most people only have what they wear... so items that would be lost would be your run of the mill collection of amulets, rings, and potions.. which are used up on a regular basis to begin with..

Edit: BTW this was a reply to Karls idea.

So that was the other part I've been considering--reducing the amount of gold available. This has to happen by eliminating the unlimited introduction of "wealth" created by merchants that instantly liquidate items.

Here's my logic, see if it makes sense:

If merchants buy items for gold, then those items which spawn frequently and sell for a reasonable amount of gold will be sold directly to the merchant and liquidated. This allows a huge amount of wealth to be generated and stockpiled with minimal effort. As a result, inflation takes over and the monetary system becomes defunct. Just look at Xenimus: the only thing you can really do with gold is buy potions or supplies (bags), which is why any reasonably good items have costs in the hundreds of thousands of gold. Thus, players more regularly trade in other items because gold is acquired so easily by high level players. VTs have long been a form of Xenimus currency with a fairly stable market value (aside from EJ's periodic upsets). That is how money in PV should work--it should be reasonably stable.

An idea I had to resolve this would be to use the consignment merchant (I'm calling this feature a "bazaar") as the main way of liquidating items with high value. Bartering (trades) will work as they did in Xenimus--that seems to go fairly well; however, the bazaar would encourage players only to list more valuable items and the market is not inundated with gold as a result of the easy liquidation of monster drops. In other terms, gathering an inventory full of firestaves might be impressive, but it won't be as easy to get an immediate liquid return. The key distinction is that the merchants don't set a gold-price for these items, and thus inflation by the unlimited introduction of monetary wealth should be minimized.

To balance selling, I've considered sectioning the bazaar by "quality". Each player would be able to list a certain number of items in a given quality group; for example "beginner equipment", "intermediate potions", "expert armor". Each would roughly correspond to a level group. But this way, even high level players could list low-level items. There will be a limitation to each quality group to encourage players not to try incorrectly cross-listing to make more money (for example, putting high level items in beginner equipment).

Thoughts?

I have to say thats very interesting Karl, I believe that sounds a very feasable approach to the economy maintaining stability and reducing the masses of wealth.

Just on a side from that about categorizing weapons into 3 different quality types for the Bazaar. Would it not seem more effective and give you more flexibility to include item classes? I mean I am no expert (yet ) but i'm sure that an item class would allow you the ability to prevent people from posting expert items into the beginner items tabs.

And also with item classes you can expand even deeper, such as:
--------ITEM CLASS---------////-----ITEM QUALITY----------
<> Beginner's Equpiment ---> Low, Medium, High (Quality)
<> Intermediate Equip"" ---> Low, Medium, High (Quality)
<> Expert Equipment""" ---> Low, Medium, High (Quality)


From there we develope further with magic properties for example:
----ITEM CLASS-----////------------------ITEM QUALITY----------------------
<> Beginner's Vest ---> Low (+2 Armour), Medium (+3 Armour), High (+4 Armour)
<> Intermedi Vest ---> Low (+5 Armour), Medium (+6 Armour), High (+7 Armour)
<> Expert's '''' Vest ---> Low (+8 Armour), Medium (+9 Armour), High (+10 Armour)


Even Further with damage ranges:
------ITEM CLASS-----////------------------ITEM QUALITY------------------
<> Beginner's Sword ---> Low (5 - 10), Medium (12 - 17), High (19 - 24)
<> Intermed's Sword ---> Low (26 - 31), Medium (33 - 38), High (40 - 45)
<> Expert'''''''s Sword ---> Low (47 - 52), Medium (54 - 59), High (61 - 66)


Differentiating expert weapons from beginner could include the following possibly?:
-----ITEM CLASS-------////-----------------------------------------------------ITEM QUALITY--------------------------------------------------
<> Beginners Swords ----> Low (No Overlay), Medium (No Overlay), High (Slight Transparent Green Overlay)
<> Intermedi Swords ----> Low (No Overlay), Medium (Slight Transparent Yellow Overlay), High (Slight Transparent Blue Overlay)
<> Experts'''''' Swords ----> Low (Slight Transparent Deep Blue Overlay), Medium (Slight Transparent Purple Overlay), High (Slight Transparent Red Overlay)


Moving further into the professions or merchant? Converting Items quality for players to increase items potential bonuses available
----PROFFESSION CLASS-----///-----ITEM CONVERSION (QUALITY)-------
<> Beginner Item Forger ' ' ---> Low to Medium
<> Intermed Item Forger ' ' ---> Medium to High (ONLY)
<> Expertis Item Forger ' ' ---> Low to Medium to High
Another slight idea, maybe not plausable but still is potential
----PROFFESSION CLASS-----///-----ITEM CONVERSION (CLASS)-------
<> Master Forger ' ' ' ' ' ' ' -----> Class Modify (One Class Modification Only). Low to Medium, Medium to High.

One class modification only justification - When a low quality item has been through the Master Forger for modification it will be developed into a Medium Quality item. Once this has been achieved a flag will be set to say, This item has been modified. No other class modifications can take place. This limits the over all godly status a forger could potentially have when changing everything into high level items and dominating in that respect. So Items will need to be found at at least Medium quality to be brought into the High quality status, Therefore economy will be disregarding Low Quality items as such, but will be interested in Medium (For Modification) and High Quality because of its rarity with no modifications needed. Obviously High Qaulity items would need some form of bonus at some stage, just like Medium can be Modified, High quality item would be extremely rare and the bearer granted some form of bonus available to that item due to its un modded state.



These are just a few advantages, but i'm sure the advantages of an item class and or quality class will benefit in a lot more different ways and allows you to make tonnes of Different items using the same models. And that will increase the value of High quality Newbie items for the Bazaar. And such with High quality Expert items, making Low Quality items less valuable and more than likely invaluable compared to high quality.

Gosh I think I am ultimately that bored at work...I would rather be posting my interesting ideas to everyone! - So many keep pushing through me...


Hows things going Karl?
Thoughts?


All the Best Guys


Richard

Richard:

Although I appreciate the thought you put into this, I hadn't considered making this system quite so complex yet. One of the things I found most alluring about Xenimus was the players' ability to define the game. If I implemented the system you proposed, that would define the value of items very specifically. For example, a low-quality item is defined as being worse than a high-quality one. Although item crafting will be possible in PV, I'm taking it in a slightly different direction. I can't say too much more because the design is still in the works

As far as the game itself is going, I've finished revamping the battle system so that it includes items and weapons and it seems to work great! I still have to touch up a few parts of it, and the combos aren't yet thoroughly tested, but I should have that done in the next few days. At that point, I'll create a few spell visualizations, release another movie, and move on to the next part--adding the stats and key-binding screens, then adding equipment. My schedule is starting to get a little tight, but I'm pushing harder and committing even more time to this project now.

Very interesting idea Karl. The idea seems sound to me. Because players won't be able to just zap an inventory of junk into a pile of gold... (cutting down the amount of gold each player has)

Will you have gold drop from monsters occasionally? and pulled from chests? I'm not saying that every monsters should drop a considerable amount of gold, but I think that chests should always have gold in them. Not only would it make chests more worth their while... but it would increase exploration, and give players something to do aside from grinding xp for an hour.

Yes, link, I do intend to have monsters drop gold. Gold coming from chests seems logical, too! I am going to think for a long time about how to implement chests, because they're a tricky thing to balance (being as they just give away items for nothing) but I've made a note of that suggestion and I'll keep it in mind.

i thought we worked out the bag issue along time ago (No bags)... players drop thier carried inventory plus one equipped item. no gold or storage. and if the are wearing a LSA they can revive on the spot with 1/2 life and mp. or type -home to return to thier home town... to avoid standing and getting pked again losing a second item. i really hated being pked by a cleric/pally in Xen... they kill you and res you then kill you and res you... it was uber lame.

It's true we've been around and around with the bags issue. I'm sure you can tell from the lengthy discussions that item loss in PvP is a very difficult thing to balance, since it also is highly integrated with the rest of the game. This is yet another design point that requires careful consideration, and I haven't made a decision on it yet.

As far as death goes, there will be no LSAs in this game. They're a useless (if logical) feature, like "lives" in Super Mario World. Here's why: LSAs are cheap. Everyone over level 8 can buy one, so everyone always has an LSA on. The only time they don't is when they have recently died--which makes the LSA's only point to hurt those who are careless with their HP.

There are other ways of accomplishing the same thing. One idea that I've worked on for a little while is making it so that, when you die, you have several options: you can respawn in town or stay on the ground and eventually "recover". Once you have "recovered" you can get up (with some low amount of HP left), or respawn in town. Being "resurrected" simply eliminates this recovery time and gives you both options instantly.

I think this is a good mechanic for several reasons. First, I think the recovery time is a much harsher penalty than losing EXP as per LSAs. During the recovery time, you are sitting there on the ground unable to do anything while your equipment lies at your feet--if you are in PVP, chances are someone will nab it. If you are doing PvE alone, it's an inconvenience since it slows down your hunting. However, this method also prevents you from getting stuck somewhere and having to kill yourself to get out. If you go somewhere way out of your ability and die, you can have the option of returning to town with a small sacrifice (an item you drop). This allows you to possibly get help to get the item back, even if you aren't on a link.

the revcover doesnt seem to be a great idea... or rather waiting a long period of time before i can despawn at town. If im Hunting in a popular area, some guy could doing the same and run up and snatch my gear, i suppose this is a probability in any case, but the long the "recover time" the greater chance i lose my gear when a monster has killed me

heh i like my idea, and im a stubborn bastard so im going to say my idea does sound best

some type of ring or amulet that takes a spot on your inventory and grants you the ability to ressurect on the spot or return u home when u die. and of course u would drop your inventory Pluss ONE equiped item wether or not u are wearing an LSA or w/e it may be. players should get a slap on the wrist for dying... not kicked in the balls.