Classic Needs Reform

[GoZelda]

This thread still hasn't died?

[Mark Sir Link]

Originally Posted by GoZelda

This thread still hasn't died?

gtfo pls

[Tyhm]

Hear hear, it's hardly condusive to conversation for drunkards to stagger in amazed that said conversation continues.
Night was an idea. Whether it was good, whether it was bad, we'll never know 100% - it wasn't the right time for it in any case. I thought it added a nice spot of ambiance and, had we the scripting power to either enforce lighting or simply invisible everything outside the cone, it would have been smashing. However, and getting back to the point, that would require a common script base, a systemic NPC reprogramming: trigger (moved) if (incone) showlocal; else hidelocal; something like that, but on every NPC ever. Or just in a terrifically clever NPCW. Or, in a System NPC. But I'm going into the ether a bit - a perfect world would have absolutely nothing without the system's permission; no people, no NPCs, no tiles would be visible without it. Which is to say, it would be so "from-the-ground-up" that not even the core graphics code would be in it. Unhackable perhaps (override the system and get a blank screen), but that's a freaking headache.

[jake13jake]

I really don't want to give you guys any candy, but since it relates this is a script I made that uses showpoly to draw a circle of visibility. It actually draws a donut, and you can change the inner and outer radius, but hey... didn't take me but like 20 minutes to figure out what I was breaking when I made it.

[Tyhm]

...damn, that's a fair point. Showpoly isn't a lighting effect and wouldn't be immune.
I mean, I was always trying to make the outer area /dim/, but that woulda been just as good: if you can't handle lighting you see twice as much perfectly and the rest not at all.

Ah well, it's a bit late now anyway. The point is that Classic needs a system before it can have content. How elaborate a system? Perfect movement and swordfighting should suffice, one would think. As long as you don't need "noplayerkilling;" or "disableweapons;" and your quest doesn't involve anything fancy like arrows, bombs, shields, push blocks, pull blocks...

Classic will be ready to go when the newbie house quest is up and running. That's when you know it's truly arrived.

[jake13jake]

I actually have decided that I'm not going to release any more quests until I have everything up to forest quest done, then, even if forest quest and water quest are done, i'll make you guys wait to see those and finish making the fire quest and desert quest. Overworld updates though, that will happen once we have the castle quest done.

[Tyhm]

I wouldn't recommend that. I think you underestimate the ammount of debugging that a quest requires the instant it hits the open market - no matter how thoroughly you check it for glitches, someone always finds a way to walk diagonally through the bar of the crane game, then someone else cries "hacker!", etc.
In any case, have it uploaded and locked so in case of emergency (ie, the server's eminent shutdown or takeover) you can upload the level with the link and Poof.

[jake13jake]

you're right tyhm about debugging, but it's not like they'll get through every quest in 10 seconds.

[Mark Sir Link]

Putting classic into a strangle-hold of development and giving us nothing at all until everything is ready isn't truly a solution, since we've waited 8 months for 2 quests.

Edit for Massokre:
So until Storm is back, you'll mooch ganis off me as well, running the risk that Storm may reject myself being hired? I really don't feel like making more without a guarantee that I won't of just made them for no credit.

[jake13jake]

It isn't really a stranglehold, we're actually getting a lot done compared to uhh... recent teams. Luda, Exodus, and maybe Racil are working on our new castle. The overworld will be the next update you see. Probably in two weeks when Storm is back, I'd rather have him around just incase something goes terribly wrong.

[Tyhm]

Less can go wrong in small doses. One quest at a time.

[jake13jake]

Tyhm, you know I agree with you.

How about this scenario:
-wait until quests up to point A are done.
-put up the first one.
-debug the first one.
-repeat the last two steps with the subsequent quests.
-meanwhile work on the new quests as well.

And you know Tyhm, most of the problems I have with quests are caused by the system.

[jake13jake]

No, I seriously doubt you'll be hired Kevin. You lack the necessary talent. You just need some more practice. If you made good ganis, and you were to get along with the rest of the team, then I'd hire you.

Originally Posted by Mark Sir Link

Edit for Massokre:
So until Storm is back, you'll mooch ganis off me as well, running the risk that Storm may reject myself being hired? I really don't feel like making more without a guarantee that I won't of just made them for no credit.

I need to tell you though, if you don't like this castle, I am going to hunt you down... Exodus has spent hours upon hours working on it. You have no idea how hard it is to make a castle look half-decent.

[Mark Sir Link]

Originally Posted by jake13jake

No, I seriously doubt you'll be hired Kevin. You lack the necessary talent. You just need some more practice. If you made good ganis, and you were to get along with the rest of the team, then I'd hire you.

While making ganis that are better/unstolen than the majority of classics.

I need to tell you though, if you don't like this castle, I am going to hunt you down... Exodus has spent hours upon hours working on it. You have no idea how hard it is to make a castle look half-decent.

Yes, I've never attempted to make a castle.

[Tyhm]

Bah, don't tell me the team's gone off focus again. You're redoing the castle? The main castle? Again?
Yeah, wrap it up, but seriously - don't bother. If something functionally works, leave it alone, you'll just waste hundreds of hours that could be better spent chipping away at new quests, places, towns, islands, player houses, etc.

If you have a set release date in mind, ie you intend to have several (never give a number) quests ready to go in time for the V4 release date (oops) or the beginning of winter break/Dec14th (nice round number) then go for it, just focus on getting as much as possible working properly by the deadline, slam the system against a guardrail until it accepts your quests, and by all means have SOMEthing ready by the deadline. 'cuz while I could probably pull the appropriate strings to look at what you got ready, I'm on the player side of the fence now, and hidden progress looks just like no progress at all.

I highly recommend SNick's Construction Graphics. The very illusion of progress is comforting. Plus it gives people something to try and sneak past.

[jake13jake]

Originally Posted by Tyhm

Bah, don't tell me the team's gone off focus again. You're redoing the castle? The main castle? Again?
Yeah, wrap it up, but seriously - don't bother. If something functionally works, leave it alone, you'll just waste hundreds of hours that could be better spent chipping away at new quests, places, towns, islands, player houses, etc.

Well... this castle IS a new quest. And the outside is wrapped up (everyone should want to have sex with Exodus after it's up). The guard NPCs and graphics for the exterior are all that are needed now.

If something functionally works leave it alone? The old castle was not functional at all. You have no idea Tyhm, seriously. What the hell was that thing you had in store for the Graal's and where they would take you in the bottom of that dungeon? There were far too many rooms without a purpose. If you want to save Classic's gameplay, rooms have to have a purpose. I'm not just going to have baddy room after baddy room after baddy room. The basis of gameplay will be puzzles. Sure there may be baddies as obstacles to completing the puzzles, but it's not going to be oh, I killed all the baddies, next level.

The most decent quest Graal had was the Destiny Pyramid quest, and that one was certainly bug-laden. The problem with Graal that is making it's audience decline is that there is way too much focus on RPing rather than gameplay. Who seriously wants to press the D key in a mine level all day long? Gold Servers? There the RPing havens. Meanwhile, Classic hasn't been able to pump out a single quest in years. Do I consider what is up on Classic right now as quests? No. They are side quests. The freaking maze quest doesn't even mean anything. The LAT is going to have to go back to that and redo it in some kind of similar fashion but not quite so terrible. The same with the stuff that Com put up.

Reasons I'm moving the Onnet Castle Quest to the GC Castle are:

1. Onnet is a very bad place for a castle.
2. Sardon's tower had a fairly good structure that we might be able to modify and save.
3. The Onnet Castle was not clearly a place that a player would think to go, not big enough.
4. We could have parts of the quest on the exterior of the castle if we had a larger space to move it.
5. The GC Castle has a more centralized location and is closer to the river, which will be important for Storm's storyline.

Ironically, King Tristam is going to be the king once again if I can convince Storm (and I'm sure I can).

[Mark Sir Link]

Originally Posted by jake13jake

Well... this castle IS a new quest. And the outside is wrapped up (everyone should want to have sex with Exodus after it's up). The guard NPCs and graphics for the exterior are all that are needed now.

Must we encourage players to homosexuality?

If something functionally works leave it alone? The old castle was not functional at all.

At the moment, I'd take that castle over the current shadow in Onett Town.

You have no idea Tyhm, seriously. What the hell was that thing you had in store for the Graal's and where they would take you in the bottom of that dungeon? There were far too many rooms without a purpose. If you want to save Classic's gameplay, rooms have to have a purpose. I'm not just going to have baddy room after baddy room after baddy room. The basis of gameplay will be puzzles. Sure there may be baddies as obstacles to completing the puzzles, but it's not going to be oh, I killed all the baddies, next level.

Puzzles are something I'd like to see, yes, but don't think push and pull blocks will be the key.

The most decent quest Graal had was the Destiny Pyramid quest, and that one was certainly bug-laden.

It's amazing how classic worked as well as it did, without having all sorts of new coding and the like.

The problem with Graal that is making it's audience decline is that there is way too much focus on RPing rather than gameplay. Who seriously wants to press the D key in a mine level all day long? Gold Servers? There the RPing havens.

Considerable point, but no one on classic wants RPing and jobs. They want gameplay, so you pretty much ranted.

Meanwhile, Classic hasn't been able to pump out a single quest in years.

Yet you want to strangle the releasage of quests to build "tensity" and "excitement"

Do I consider what is up on Classic right now as quests? No. They are side quests. The freaking maze quest doesn't even mean anything.

Why not replace it with the labyrinth? I've already completed the GMAP for it if you'd still like it.

The LAT is going to have to go back to that and redo it in some kind of similar fashion but not quite so terrible. The same with the stuff that Com put up.

Com currently has levels on classic?

Reasons I'm moving the Onnet Castle Quest to the GC Castle are:

1. Onnet is a very bad place for a castle.
2. Sardon's tower had a fairly good structure that we might be able to modify and save.
3. The Onnet Castle was not clearly a place that a player would think to go, not big enough.
4. We could have parts of the quest on the exterior of the castle if we had a larger space to move it.
5. The GC Castle has a more centralized location and is closer to the river, which will be important for Storm's storyline.

Ironically, King Tristam is going to be the king once again if I can convince Storm (and I'm sure I can).

Don't forget the reason that, well hell, that's not where the original castle was.

[Tyhm]

Yeah, fair point - it barely worked when I made it, nobody liked it, the freaking over/under bridge was nigh impossible to work...it was just The Quest Hub. Been two years since you were on? Talk to the king! He'll tell you what to do! Don't want to do that? Talk to Chad the Advisor, he'll tell you what you really want to be doing!

Oh yeah, and the QGD was going to lead to the Dark World, where the Golden Sword was sealed away. The whole gyp was going to be that you can't take the Golden Sword out of the Dark World, possibly not even out of the final temple. I don't think anyone was going to like that. Then there was the whole final boss thing, something about time travel...I don't even remember. Pipe dreams all, but there was a plot to it.

[Mark Sir Link]

Only source of fun on classic now is to tell newbs to alt + f4

[Lomgren]

All I can say is that it is very sad to see classic in the state that it is in. I knew the NPCserver was going to be put up, but I thought they were going to have some quests converted by then. Then a few months ago, I log in and see that classic has pretty much been destroyed, with nothing going on.

And just recently I log on again, and explore and find the catacombs. I have to agree with a lot of people in that they are pretty much a guild advertisement of Ventrue, and that they are huge and unneeded. And I don't really like the tiling style it was done in, looks pretty ugly to me.

Call me crazy, but I liked it when Tyhm was LAT admin... things actually got *done*, and they were usually interesting. Of course, I am probably biased because I was one of the LATs working under his guidance

It is still a little surprising that so little has been done in rectifying the situation, at least on the surface. I'd try and join LAT again, but I don't have the time anymore, unfortunately.

[Mark Sir Link]

Originally Posted by Lomgren

Call me crazy, but I liked it when Tyhm was LAT admin... things actually got *done*, and they were usually interesting. Of course, I am probably biased because I was one of the LATs working under his guidance

I wouldn't call it bias, Tyhm's stuff was revolutionary considering the tools he had at hand, it WORKED (even more amazingly)

[jake13jake]

lol, Tyhm actually had baddies. I have to make new ones, but I can be creative at that. They won't even all need the hit detection overhaul.

I have to wait on Storm's Movement/Damage overhaul to complete some of my baddies. The frog baddy is a bit different and I need to rescript it. If you don't think we're overwhelmed with work, or doing work... here.

Projects (that I can think of off the top of my head) List:

Frog Graphics: Preexistent
Frog Ganis: Myself, need to be redone
Frog Script: Myself, needs slight modifications.
Black Spider Graphics: Myself = done
Black Spider Ganis: Myself = done
Black Spider Script: Myself = done (waiting for damage function)
Mountain Spider Graphics: Preexistent
Mountain Spider Ganis: Unassigned
Mountain Spider Script: Myself
Stone Turtle GFX: Cappa = done
Stone Turtle Ganis: Racil
Stone Turtle Script: Myself
Carnivorous Bush Graphics: Cappa = done
Carnivorous Bush Ganis: unassigned
Carnivorous Bush Script: Myself
Troll Graphics: PKT (needs some touching up, Storm demands they be used)
Troll Ganis: Racil
Troll Script: Unassigned
Guardian Tree Graphics: Preexistent/Luda (needs slight modifications)
Guardian Tree Ganis: (Kevin's Attempt of an LAT app)/Myself
Guardian Tree Script: Myself
(to kill guardian tree)
Red Bomb Plant Graphics: Cappa = done
Red Bomb Plant Scripts: Unassigned
Castle Guard Script: Myself
Weapon Hammer: IDK who made it = done
Weapon Jolt Bomb: GrowlZ
Weapon Bruges' Bird: Unassigned
Weapon Birdshot: Myself
Weapon Lantern: Myself = done
Lantern Dark Room: Myself = done
Sliding Door Script (Dynamic): Kohan
City Gossips Script: (will be) Kohan
Pretext Quest: Myself
Quest Scripting: Myself
Graal Castle/Dungeon Levels: Exodus (in charge), Racil, Mighty
Graal Castle/Dungeon Graphics: Luda
Gnome Cave Levels: Raistlin
Swamp Town/Kull's Fort Interior Levels: Unassigned/Exodus
Onnet Town/Sardon's Tower Interior Levels: Unassigned/Racil/Exodus
Forest Island Levels: Mighty
Water Island Levels: Drastic
Desert Island Levels: Unassigned
Lava Island Levels: Jaffer or reuse Big City
Forest Island Dungeon Levels: Exodus
Water Island Dungeon Levels: Myself = done (needs tweaking)
Desert Island Dungeon Levels: Unassigned
Lava Island Dungeon Levels: Unassigned
Quest Key Graphics: Ghost = 3/5 done
Quest Big Chest Graphics: Luda = done
Overworld Expansion: (mostly)Exodus/(tweaking)Myself
Bug Storm About Movement: Everybody
Bug Storm About Damage: Everybody

Right now we're working mostly on expanding the overworld, and I'm mostly trying to keep things organized.

Oh wait, the pretext questing isn't done... oyy.

[Lomgren]

I kinda figured that there was a lot more going on behind the scenes - unfortunately, the players don't care about that, they want visible results. And I admit that it is a bit depressing to see so little change during the months that I didn't log in to Classic. Is there any simple stuff that you have done that is high quality and can be added quickly, or is it all pretty in-depth stuff that has to be changed?

[jake13jake]

I could probably start some work on Onnet, some of the stuff there that I had partially in mind for the quest would be pretty easy to script.

[jake13jake]

Old Message Removed: DELETE DIDN'T WORK FOR ME!!!