Direction of development

[Chapter Master Mel]

Dungeons and progression are cool but what people really want and have been asking for

-More control over quests
-items and inventory, make your own items
-combat to not look like a flash game
-make more than 10 custom prefabs, expanding the ability to shape the environment, rivers. lakes.

[AG2590]

Would love to see all of this! Especially designing items

[Niteχ]

Yeah my main thing would be items and terrain editing.

Making legendary weapons and armor and assigning them as dungeon loot would be cool especially seeing your players wearing them.

As for terrain I want more verticality. It's currently impossible to make cliffs or pits and the world is far too flat.

No issues with combat for me, it's okay for what it is and more customizable quests would be cool but not as important as the above things.

[AG2590]

Originally posted by Niteχ:

Yeah my main thing would be items and terrain editing.

Making legendary weapons and armor and assigning them as dungeon loot would be cool especially seeing your players wearing them.

As for terrain I want more verticality. It's currently impossible to make cliffs or pits and the world is far too flat.

No issues with combat for me, it's okay for what it is and more customizable quests would be cool but not as important as the above things.

I would love to see an update overhaul quests (proper quest chains, like how World of Warcraft has) and overhauling loot, that YOU can design. I'd also love to see raids. This game has a ton of potential and is so so so so much better than it was when I first bought it, I hope the dev continues - It's really fun!

[VectorStorm]

Originally posted by AG2590:

I would love to see an update overhaul quests (proper quest chains, like how World of Warcraft has) and overhauling loot, that YOU can design. I'd also love to see raids. This game has a ton of potential and is so so so so much better than it was when I first bought it, I hope the dev continues - It's really fun!

I'd love to ask a little about what you're thinking about for some of these.

We already have NPCs who give a list of quests that must be done in order, the last of which doesn't have to have the player return to complete it. That's intended so that the final quest can be used to send the player to the next NPC in a desired quest chain. (we definitely don't explain it well enough that that's how this works; is the issue that it's not obvious, or are there more features that you're looking for, here?). This approach also allows players who've missed the first NPC entirely to pick up the chain midway through from the second NPC, similar to how WoW typically handles this.

I *am* planning to do a major revamp to quest editing at some point in the medium-term future, so it'd be great to hear details about where the current system is falling short so I can have them in mind when that happens!

RE: loot, I've been hesitant to spend a lot of development time simulating individual items because it's mostly not going to be visible; you're simply not going to ever *see* most of the items that players pick up, so we track how many items each player has picked up and of what quality level, but the only items we track individually right now are their weapon and their potions. (And I fully admit that we display this data in literally the most boring way possible; presenting this stuff more like a traditional Diablo/WoW inventory grid has been on my "someday" list like *forever*). But over the years, my attention has mostly been focused much more on larger-scale stuff that I hope will be more visible to players; stuff such as the raids that you mention (which is on our development roadmap!)

An earlier commenter mentioned terrain editing, which has *always* been on my wish list, but was a huge technical challenge because of how large our map is; naively storing changed terrain was just exploding our save file size far past what I was comfortable with. (But with that said, I had some neat new ideas for how to do it less wastefully while I was working on the Progression update, and I've scheduled a future update to begin playing with those ideas!)

The other common request is about custom weapons and armor. Our big trouble there is how varied our character models are; it would feel unfair for us to ask the player to make (for example) a custom breastplate model, but then be unable to display it on a particular player because they're playing as a spider or a dragon or something and it simply doesn't fit on the model. We could definitely simulate things like custom armor in the back-end of the simulation and know that a particular player had earned it, but it has the same problems as customised items; it feels like it'd mostly be invisible; you'd probably have to dig down into information windows to see what people had. Is that something that people would be interested in, even with that limitation?

I suppose I could possibly customise an individual character's model colors to try to indicate that they have better armor, or maybe put a status icon over their head, but I'm not sure how obvious any of that would be for players. Definitely interested in hearing opinions about any/all of the above!

[Niteχ]

Originally posted by VectorStorm:

I'd love to ask a little about what you're thinking about for some of these.

Items:
The weapons and armor limitation is understandable. Even if you can't see them on the character models, it'd still be cool to create custom armor and weapons with rarity tiers/colors and have them show up in droptables and set percentage chance of dropping or just sold in stores. Maybe you could click a player and see what they have equipped as well as a stats screen showing how many players have acquired each item.

The fun would be in creating the stats and any additional effects. Rings, necklaces and custom potions could also be a thing.

For some fun with rare items with low % droprate, once enough players have found a certain item drop you could have it become known to the playerbase where it drops and add behavior for players who enjoy grinding to try to farm for them if they don't have it yet or if it's an upgrade. Maybe some players could just be item collectors.
-----
Terrain editing:
This would be huge if you can do it! I guess I'd want the ability to raise and lower terrain either steeply or smoothly, square/circle resizeable terrain brush types, and the ability to raise/lower the water level per zone. Maybe also a terrain painter to change the way the actual ground looks like adding dirt patches, foresty ground, rocky ground, etc.

[Folv]

Originally posted by VectorStorm:

Originally posted by AG2590:

I would love to see an update overhaul quests (proper quest chains, like how World of Warcraft has) and overhauling loot, that YOU can design. I'd also love to see raids. This game has a ton of potential and is so so so so much better than it was when I first bought it, I hope the dev continues - It's really fun!

I'd love to ask a little about what you're thinking about for some of these.

We already have NPCs who give a list of quests that must be done in order, the last of which doesn't have to have the player return to complete it. That's intended so that the final quest can be used to send the player to the next NPC in a desired quest chain. (we definitely don't explain it well enough that that's how this works; is the issue that it's not obvious, or are there more features that you're looking for, here?). This approach also allows players who've missed the first NPC entirely to pick up the chain midway through from the second NPC, similar to how WoW typically handles this.

I *am* planning to do a major revamp to quest editing at some point in the medium-term future, so it'd be great to hear details about where the current system is falling short so I can have them in mind when that happens!

RE: loot, I've been hesitant to spend a lot of development time simulating individual items because it's mostly not going to be visible; you're simply not going to ever *see* most of the items that players pick up, so we track how many items each player has picked up and of what quality level, but the only items we track individually right now are their weapon and their potions. (And I fully admit that we display this data in literally the most boring way possible; presenting this stuff more like a traditional Diablo/WoW inventory grid has been on my "someday" list like *forever*). But over the years, my attention has mostly been focused much more on larger-scale stuff that I hope will be more visible to players; stuff such as the raids that you mention (which is on our development roadmap!)

An earlier commenter mentioned terrain editing, which has *always* been on my wish list, but was a huge technical challenge because of how large our map is; naively storing changed terrain was just exploding our save file size far past what I was comfortable with. (But with that said, I had some neat new ideas for how to do it less wastefully while I was working on the Progression update, and I've scheduled a future update to begin playing with those ideas!)

The other common request is about custom weapons and armor. Our big trouble there is how varied our character models are; it would feel unfair for us to ask the player to make (for example) a custom breastplate model, but then be unable to display it on a particular player because they're playing as a spider or a dragon or something and it simply doesn't fit on the model. We could definitely simulate things like custom armor in the back-end of the simulation and know that a particular player had earned it, but it has the same problems as customised items; it feels like it'd mostly be invisible; you'd probably have to dig down into information windows to see what people had. Is that something that people would be interested in, even with that limitation?

I suppose I could possibly customise an individual character's model colors to try to indicate that they have better armor, or maybe put a status icon over their head, but I'm not sure how obvious any of that would be for players. Definitely interested in hearing opinions about any/all of the above!

Sorry to dig up an old post, but I wanted to jump in and share a thought about the concern with items “not being visible.” Personally, that’s feels like an odd worry to me—because, honestly, most things in this game aren’t really “visible” in the traditional sense anyway. Everyone looks the same for each class, there isn't really enemy-variety for each type (other than making new enemies entirely). The fun of it isn’t in flashy visuals or deep loot systems—it’s in the RP experience, simulating what it feels like to run or play in an MMORPG world. For what it is worth, a lot of that is happening in the head, believe it or not.

The mechanics are pretty simple and straightforward, with a lot happening behind the scenes. And yeah, there’s a bit of sameness to it all. But that’s not really an issue with this particular game. What players seem to enjoy most is customizing their own world, crafting stories within the worldshaping itself and the npc's they make to place inside it. Making items or gear is less about gameplay impact and more about immersion and expression—which is a huge part of what makes this game special.

That’s why I think backend improvements to these systems—even if they don’t show up in flashy ways—are actually a big step forward. Just giving us the tools to create and define things adds so much value, even if they’re mostly for our own headcanon.

So, if I could offer a small suggestion for where to go with these kinds of content features: start simple. A basic backend “skeleton” for custom gear or item naming would be huge. Even a shallow version gives us something to play with. If deeper functionality comes later, great—but just having that foundation would really elevate the experience.

You could even tie it into a simple rarity system (like Common, Uncommon, Rare, etc.), and make item acquisition feel like part of the progression loop for the 'players' in the game. And since there is already a category of gamer type who likes progression and "showing off loot" as the game puts it, I feel simply tying the acquisition to player happiness and overall game appeal is an easy way to make it have weight.

[VectorStorm]

Originally posted by Folv:

Sorry to dig up an old post, but I wanted to jump in and share a thought about the concern with items “not being visible.” Personally, that’s feels like an odd worry to me—because, honestly, most things in this game aren’t really “visible” in the traditional sense anyway. Everyone looks the same for each class, there isn't really enemy-variety for each type (other than making new enemies entirely). The fun of it isn’t in flashy visuals or deep loot systems—it’s in the RP experience, simulating what it feels like to run or play in an MMORPG world. For what it is worth, a lot of that is happening in the head, believe it or not.

It's not even an old post, my comment was from yesterday! :D

Thanks so much for your comments and suggestions, they've given me a *lot* to think about! I'd been writing off going into much detail on the whole 'item' side of things mostly because of difficulties in making it visible on the world map. But if that's not a huge turn-off for people, let me cook a little and see what I can figure out that might scratch the itch a little. :)

[BabyNinjajesus]

i dont think that people not been able to see the loot physically on the characters would matter much, but even just a inventory display system ala d2 / d3 / d4 / poe / last epoch etc, where you can see what the character is wearing and the stats /rarity

then been able to create your own loot tables and assigning loot to rare / ultra rare which could segway into trinkets and mounts etc (which would then yes, would have to show up on the character model, but if you've got like spider race and its too hard to add spider race on horse mount, then just race restrict it, what are they gonna do, put in a ticket and complain?)

[Chapter Master Mel]

Originally posted by VectorStorm:

Originally posted by AG2590:

I would love to see an update overhaul quests (proper quest chains, like how World of Warcraft has) and overhauling loot, that YOU can design. I'd also love to see raids. This game has a ton of potential and is so so so so much better than it was when I first bought it, I hope the dev continues - It's really fun!

I'd love to ask a little about what you're thinking about for some of these.

We already have NPCs who give a list of quests that must be done in order, the last of which doesn't have to have the player return to complete it. That's intended so that the final quest can be used to send the player to the next NPC in a desired quest chain. (we definitely don't explain it well enough that that's how this works; is the issue that it's not obvious, or are there more features that you're looking for, here?). This approach also allows players who've missed the first NPC entirely to pick up the chain midway through from the second NPC, similar to how WoW typically handles this.

I *am* planning to do a major revamp to quest editing at some point in the medium-term future, so it'd be great to hear details about where the current system is falling short so I can have them in mind when that happens!

RE: loot, I've been hesitant to spend a lot of development time simulating individual items because it's mostly not going to be visible; you're simply not going to ever *see* most of the items that players pick up, so we track how many items each player has picked up and of what quality level, but the only items we track individually right now are their weapon and their potions. (And I fully admit that we display this data in literally the most boring way possible; presenting this stuff more like a traditional Diablo/WoW inventory grid has been on my "someday" list like *forever*). But over the years, my attention has mostly been focused much more on larger-scale stuff that I hope will be more visible to players; stuff such as the raids that you mention (which is on our development roadmap!)

An earlier commenter mentioned terrain editing, which has *always* been on my wish list, but was a huge technical challenge because of how large our map is; naively storing changed terrain was just exploding our save file size far past what I was comfortable with. (But with that said, I had some neat new ideas for how to do it less wastefully while I was working on the Progression update, and I've scheduled a future update to begin playing with those ideas!)

The other common request is about custom weapons and armor. Our big trouble there is how varied our character models are; it would feel unfair for us to ask the player to make (for example) a custom breastplate model, but then be unable to display it on a particular player because they're playing as a spider or a dragon or something and it simply doesn't fit on the model. We could definitely simulate things like custom armor in the back-end of the simulation and know that a particular player had earned it, but it has the same problems as customised items; it feels like it'd mostly be invisible; you'd probably have to dig down into information windows to see what people had. Is that something that people would be interested in, even with that limitation?

I suppose I could possibly customise an individual character's model colors to try to indicate that they have better armor, or maybe put a status icon over their head, but I'm not sure how obvious any of that would be for players. Definitely interested in hearing opinions about any/all of the above!

Even if the armor doesnt display, having items with stats and an inventory would be cool. I don't really need to *see* the players wearing the loot (maybe an exception for weapons?)

[VectorStorm]

Originally posted by BabyNinjajesus:

i dont think that people not been able to see the loot physically on the characters would matter much, but even just a inventory display system ala d2 / d3 / d4 / poe / last epoch etc, where you can see what the character is wearing and the stats /rarity

then been able to create your own loot tables and assigning loot to rare / ultra rare which could segway into trinkets and mounts etc (which would then yes, would have to show up on the character model, but if you've got like spider race and its too hard to add spider race on horse mount, then just race restrict it, what are they gonna do, put in a ticket and complain?)

We've already figured out how to do mounts across all character variants; I expect mounts are going to be relatively easy, once we get there!

The big question for me is whether we'd be talking about having multiple player-named global-scope drop tables ("boss_drops", "trash_drops", "level3_weapons", etc) that can be selected (or *multi*-selected) for each enemy encounter, or whether a single generic drop table is enough and maybe let individual bosses have a couple extra items to add to the drop table. In a real MMO, you'll have hundreds or thousands of drop tables, and I do worry a little about whether the naming for those and the UI to select between them is going to get out of control if we try to do that sort of scale here.

[Folv]

Originally posted by VectorStorm:

Originally posted by Folv:

Sorry to dig up an old post, but I wanted to jump in and share a thought about the concern with items “not being visible.” Personally, that’s feels like an odd worry to me—because, honestly, most things in this game aren’t really “visible” in the traditional sense anyway. Everyone looks the same for each class, there isn't really enemy-variety for each type (other than making new enemies entirely). The fun of it isn’t in flashy visuals or deep loot systems—it’s in the RP experience, simulating what it feels like to run or play in an MMORPG world. For what it is worth, a lot of that is happening in the head, believe it or not.

It's not even an old post, my comment was from yesterday! :D

Thanks so much for your comments and suggestions, they've given me a *lot* to think about! I'd been writing off going into much detail on the whole 'item' side of things mostly because of difficulties in making it visible on the world map. But if that's not a huge turn-off for people, let me cook a little and see what I can figure out that might scratch the itch a little. :)

I misread the date completely, whoops. Lol. I have a lot of friends who enjoy this genre, and I ran the same thoughts by them and they all agreed for the most part. I would also recommend of thinking of any number of game development tycoon games. You don't see the games, the most substance you get out of them is from sliders; but naming it, feeling apart of the game-development world through yearly convention popups and other randomly named games/companys really brings the RP immersion to life.

I think this games path forward is in the smaller details like that to be honest. Things that are substantive for roleplay, creative imagination, and personal-touch customization. And it just so happens that method of development is significantly less burdensome and time-consuming :P

Glad to hear your response and has me quite excited for the future of the game.

[Folv]

Originally posted by VectorStorm:

Originally posted by BabyNinjajesus:

i dont think that people not been able to see the loot physically on the characters would matter much, but even just a inventory display system ala d2 / d3 / d4 / poe / last epoch etc, where you can see what the character is wearing and the stats /rarity

then been able to create your own loot tables and assigning loot to rare / ultra rare which could segway into trinkets and mounts etc (which would then yes, would have to show up on the character model, but if you've got like spider race and its too hard to add spider race on horse mount, then just race restrict it, what are they gonna do, put in a ticket and complain?)

We've already figured out how to do mounts across all character variants; I expect mounts are going to be relatively easy, once we get there!

The big question for me is whether we'd be talking about having multiple player-named global-scope drop tables ("boss_drops", "trash_drops", "level3_weapons", etc) that can be selected (or *multi*-selected) for each enemy encounter, or whether a single generic drop table is enough and maybe let individual bosses have a couple extra items to add to the drop table. In a real MMO, you'll have hundreds or thousands of drop tables, and I do worry a little about whether the naming for those and the UI to select between them is going to get out of control if we try to do that sort of scale here.

I don't know how current weapons are being handled on the back end, but I don't think it needs to get 'much' more complex. Have many scaling variations, color themed as-per-usual as fits the mmo genre. I would perhaps recommend allowing players to place the items on a per-enemy/per-location/per-elite(boss) enemy basis. This would also open the door for world-boss or world-content in the future where many players in an area all come together to fight one powerful, large event or monster in an area. I see a lot of potential value to the system and the doors it opens for other very low-effort additions that can be thrusted into the game almost off the back of already existing code and content.

Edit: Heck, adding rarity items can open the door for a low-interaction [but high immersion] Auction House gold sink for players in the game. Making it fun to watch them save gold to purchase better items off the auction houses. And any fan of MMORPG's know there is nothing more "MMO" than a good gold sink ;)

Side note, the game is in desperate need of a workshop support or ingame method to share creations/classes/etc that is a bit more user friendly than finding files posted online and folder-dropping. I think you would see substantial increase to community growth if that was streamlined in some way.

Anyway; not my game. It's fun to spill a wishlist into the forum but as you said you've got plenty to think about as is. Thanks for taking time to consider it.