Ember Online

So i have been keeping track of stuff and seeing how everything is going. I have NOT and i do repeat have NOT spent all my time on the forums reading every single post so this might have been addressed already but even if it has i would like for it to maybe in greater detail with no fluff.

I get we are new trust me i understand that FULLY but at the end of the day stuff has to be considered befor the game gos any farther.

I noticed while leveling that no one character will be able to do item runs (be it OAD or % drops off bosses) and if they are altered to do so we would ether have to:

A) Make characters stupid strong then try and balance pvp which would take away from the grinding feeling we all loved growing up. (So basicly bow down to casual players like Blizzard did with every game they make now)

B) Program every character to have more skills, spells, and probly give them more attacks to do so with. (which would also cause more balancing problems due to haveing to figure out numbers based off attacks so the game isnt to easy. Not to mention burn out chris even more due to having to code in a bunch of shit that he shouldnt have to.)

C) Open up the game to allow every player to have 2-3 alts to allow solo players the ability to kill bosses due to lack of community. (I dont like this idea i do enjoy the feeling of knowing im not going to be ganked by 1 player with a god army.)

We got to be rational about all of this. I get this ISNT rok trust me yall keep saying it yet yall wanted a rok clone and so far everything is lining up to be the exact same thing as rok. We origenaly just wanted rok back, When it couldnt come back yall wanted chris to make a clone, now that he is making a clone yall are wanting him to alter it to a differnt game while not keeping in mind that MUDS are dead as shit. The community MIGHT grow to a number of 200 and im being REALY generous about that number but even with that number if it was 200 on round the clock you still wont have the ability to run bosses enless they are stupid easy or everyone joins no more than 10 clans (which we all know isnt going to happen) and helps one another out. We all loved rok cause of its simplicity thats y the game took off and thats y it lasted as long as it did. Trying to revive something that died so harshly is going to be difficult and its already difficult enough to get a rok clone off the ground so instead of putting in ideas on how to change it how about we try to fix what was once a fun game and focus on bringing back the community we once loved. After we perfect what lance should have years ago THEN we can alter shit and make it differnt if it falls in line of the game.

At the end of the game im trying to help this game but it seems our community cant get in line with anything everyone bickers about everything when in reality there shouldnt be anything to bicker about hell we have had a layout of what we are building since 97 (altho rok had a few fixes since then) but the base idea has been there.

And trust me i know half of yall hate me and the other half are just hateful as it is lol so im sure ill get lots of trolls saying stupid shit as always. Hopefully at the end of the day a few of yall will notice what im saying makes sence and will stop trying to put more work on the ONE fucking coder we have and let him do what we all started out to do which is make a game we all love cause every damn time yall give him more ideas it causes shit to take longer and he gets off track! Hell when the first spell and skill was put in they should have ALL been put in. Then moved onto the next thing. Blah anyway just ranting on at this point anyway maybe this will help smooth something out.

Scytso wrote:I noticed while leveling that no one character will be able to do item runs (be it OAD or % drops off bosses) and if they are altered to do so we would ether have to:

A) Make characters stupid strong then try and balance pvp which would take away from the grinding feeling we all loved growing up. (So basicly bow down to casual players like Blizzard did with every game they make now)

B) Program every character to have more skills, spells, and probly give them more attacks to do so with. (which would also cause more balancing problems due to haveing to figure out numbers based off attacks so the game isnt to easy. Not to mention burn out chris even more due to having to code in a bunch of shit that he shouldnt have to.)

C) Open up the game to allow every player to have 2-3 alts to allow solo players the ability to kill bosses due to lack of community. (I dont like this idea i do enjoy the feeling of knowing im not going to be ganked by 1 player with a god army.)

I don't know exactly what you mean but I take it that you mean you won't be able to do OADs alone. This was the same in ROK for harder OADs. But the way I would look at it is that lets say rok took 2 to run BFS, and 10-12 to run Obsidian Circlet. Then if we had similar values, it would be 1 to run BFS, and maybe 4-5 to run Obsidian circlet. Even if we adjust characters being stronger for OAD purposes (which to me doesn't make sense, since you can balance HP, dodge, etc) then you could just increase the HP of monsters. Potions could have higher timers but heal more, etc etc. But what I'm saying is you had to rely on people for alot of high end OADs regardless.

I agree about B) I don't think it's needed yet. The game needs to be BALANCED before we add anything out of the 'normal', unless it just simply works from the get go.

I also don't think we should open up more alts just yet as it's too early to say anything. The goal is that all classes are useful, and the game can work well with smaller parties.

Scytso wrote:We got to be rational about all of this. I get this ISNT rok trust me yall keep saying it yet yall wanted a rok clone and so far everything is lining up to be the exact same thing as rok. ... After we perfect what lance should have years ago THEN we can alter shit and make it differnt if it falls in line of the game.

You are right, this isn't ROK. It's a base off ROK, but it's our own game. I do agree about fixing up and adding what needs to be done first, then adding extras. I don't see a harm about people talking about ideas and such though. But the goal is to pretty much get it stable and working as it was, then adjust it and balance, then we can see about adding some of the bigger things people been talking about.

But I know to limit myself regardless of what people post. I think even if you say it here people are going to be excited about the game. I think for spells and skills not being added all at once is more because I like to space myself doing different things. Spells/Skills are actually part of the script system which is modifiable without messing with the EXE. It's an external editor.

The benefit now though is that I have most generic scripts for spell types, it should be very easy to add the remaining. The only longer class should be druids, since they differ from the norm, but the rest of the spells should be a cakewalk now. Most of them just take a few values and you can modify the damage and add additional things if you want (Poison/etc).

Anyways, I get where you are coming from, and I agree we need a little better on the structure side, will be working on that as I see. Once I actually pick out some head chefs it should be easier for management. But for now I'm alright 8)

I understand you have a pretty good handle on game design which is great but keep in mind most of this community is pretty good at it too. Hell I make a living off game design so I must know a few things?

Right now max level is 8 not much has been balanced yet and there about about 5 skills in the game total so im not sure how you can see all these issues when you have not even seen the game.

I understand a few people are confused how rok could work without alts but there are about a million other games out there that don't allow alts so I am sure we can figure it out here too. Once we got that going the game is going to be attractive and inviting to more than just 20ish returning players we have.

You gotta think bigger picture and put yourself in a new players shoes. There is nothing inviting or approachable about a game where you must run 2 clients to play the game. There is absolutely no way we will attract or keep players with the alt system involved. I know first hand since I spent months after the reset inviting and helping new players get started with rok. I have about a list of 60 players that I helped try to get started with rok and about 2 of them ended up sticking around for longer than a few days. Telling a new player to pick a class then hey yea you gotta make a paladin/cleric too or else you cant play is just horrible design and scares players away faster than anything. You can not honestly say an approachable system so why revert back to something that has been proven to not work?

Yes there will have to be some changes like you suggested but like i said before some have already been made skills are being re balanced, food/water recovery system is in and the biggest change of all will be area design (areas designed for single players rather than alts). So hold tight let some of these changes sink in before dismissing the game. We have a lot of talent here and all want the game to succeed.

Option C seems like a very reasonable and logical step.

I learned to play using 1 alt. My wife would plan on another computer and loved to tavern sit so I'd be going it alone most the time. That said, I was also capable of running a 6 alt army after we got our charter and I could take down about any OaD solo. It isn't more fun being able to take down big OaDs solo, you just get your Morvik Battle Badge. Basically it means you can multitask and have a good computer. Now being able to take a single character and charge into a OaD where you come out victorious is FAR more enjoyable.

As a game designer, I try to balance my areas and oad type items to a certain set of players. If I design it for 3 players then someone with a multi-alt army can slip right in and out with no difficulty. The same thing is true for a really good solo player who has developed skill and knowledge over brute force. There is truth in the saying "you get out what you put in". Do people want a tavern sitting alt again? Are you afraid your paladin will be a waste without someone to guard? Are you fearful your sorc will die an ignoble death? Sit back and wait. I haven't seen which way Nitehawk is taking this puppy yet so I'm willing to sit back and see what comes of it.

It's safe to say the majority of us support chris.

We're not here to dog each other. This is, effectively, a beta test. Those of us who started playing RoK early on remember the days when what we had looked very similar to where Ember is right now. It took years for RoK to get where it was but there were countless flaws with the game; not just with the server and designer being down and out. There were fundamental issues with the play style.

The game almost, solely, catered to experienced players by the end. It was, incredibly, hard for a random new player to start playing and not feel overwhelmed or not feel like they just wasted their time rolling a character that was the "wrong" race. The character gap wasn't bad in the beginning of the game. But the system went out-of-wack as the game expanded and holes started to show in the armor. The economy was broken because OAD's and gold went unchecked. There are already features in this new game that seek to fix those issues... Which is a great start.

You're also missing a few fundamental development ideas, though.

A) Make characters stupid strong then try and balance pvp which would take away from the grinding feeling we all loved growing up. (So basicly bow down to casual players like Blizzard did with every game they make now)

You say you' know this isn't RoK, but you're making all of your assumptions based on that. You have to let go of the mental framework of RoK. This game will be pretty similar to RoK in nature, but it is a completely different core. You can change the system to a 1-alt game without changing the dynamics of how RoK worked. This game can be designed so that some OAD's will require teams and some can be solo'd. Balancing races and classes against each other is the hardest part. Once you find that balance (or at least something close to the balance you're aiming for), you can change the game values around it. Monsters don't hit as hard, dodge less, have more/less hp... It isn't difficult to setup a OAD that only requires one skillful/geared person to take down... it's just as easy to develop a monster that will need a team of 5. All it takes are some very basic tweaks; all of which are tested before they're implemented.

B) Program every character to have more skills, spells, and probly give them more attacks to do so with. (which would also cause more balancing problems due to haveing to figure out numbers based off attacks so the game isnt to easy. Not to mention burn out chris even more due to having to code in a bunch of shit that he shouldnt have to.)

Again, this is irrelevant if the monster itself was designed appropriately for X number of players in a party around the game's core balancing. You design around the core, not the other way around. Yes, if you tried to solo OC in RoK, you'd get wrecked. That's because the OAD was designed for at least 9 to 12 characters to run it... which was based on a 3-alt assumption. That's easily changeable.

C) Open up the game to allow every player to have 2-3 alts to allow solo players the ability to kill bosses due to lack of community. (I dont like this idea i do enjoy the feeling of knowing im not going to be ganked by 1 player with a god army.)

Same thing as above. You won't need to have 2-3 characters to kill bosses that are designed for 1 person to kill. Some bosses might require 3 or 4... but any OAD in RoK worth having required even larger teams than that.

You also have to keep in mind: RoK allowed 3-alts, so the OC was designed for 12 character teams assuming 4 people ran a OAD. The values were arbitrary and can be adjusted to 4 character teams.

Hell when the first spell and skill was put in they should have ALL been put in. Then moved onto the next thing. Blah anyway just ranting on at this point anyway maybe this will help smooth something out.

There is a very specific design reason for this: it mitigates bugs on implementation. It's a style of phased development, which allows Chris to troubleshoot bugs and balance the game on a much smaller scale. If you implemented an entire game all at once, you might not know where your bugs are stemming from as easily.

Ultimately, we're testers right now. That's the entire goal of the players right now. We're here to make sure the game runs smoothly, properly, all the time. We're here to see if characters are out of balance in the small scale we see. When/if we do, it's our job to let Chris and the build team know so they can put a cap on that portion of the build and move on to the next thing.

You have to let go of the rules and framework that RoK has built in your mind. This game will function very similarly. It's just going to be built around a 1-alt system. All of the cities and monsters around the map can be adjusted to fit that new framework.

Eyxom wrote:This is, effectively, a beta test.

I would liken it to an alpha test actually. It is still in heavy development. We are creating content faster than Chris can implement it because he is still building the client and infrastructure.

Zilveari wrote:

Eyxom wrote:This is, effectively, a beta test.

I would liken it to an alpha test actually. It is still in heavy development. We are creating content faster than Chris can implement it because he is still building the client and infrastructure.

I only call it a beta test because it's open to the public. Alpha is a closed, invite-only testing situation by definition.

As far as the scope and size of the test, I agree with you, though.

Eyxom wrote:You also have to keep in mind: RoK allowed 3-alts, so the OC was designed for 12 character teams assuming 4 people ran a OAD. The values were arbitrary and can be adjusted to 4 character teams.

I actually designed it to work with 8 characters. It could be done with 6 or 7 if people had the right combo of race/class. This game will be as good as the coder and builders can make it. No use in anyone getting bent out of shape while still in the development phase.