The Newness - 18AUG10 |
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GM Stormcrow
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GM Joined: 23 Feb 2010 Location: Illyria Status: Offline Points: 1808 |
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Topic: The Newness - 18AUG10Posted: 18 Aug 2010 at 15:39 |
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THE NEWNESS
We had a 3-day internal workshop recently, where many of us sat down and thrashed out - in a few, fleeting periods of lucidity inbetween frankly unfeasable levels of drunkenness - some sort of 6-month plan for Illyriad and our development prioritisation. There are so many things changing that it's almost hard to know where to begin. So I'll start at some of the major items, and then give some prioritisation indication. 1. GEOGRAPHY, TOPOGRAPHY & BIOMES Most players in Illyriad define their geographic location in terms of quadrant "I'm in the Northwest" and distance from the center of the map "I'm 300 squares out from the center". We always wanted Illyriad to have a serious, proper geography - with each server essentially as a Continent; and with geographical features that make sense in terms of a real, living world. However, we ran out of time before launch and so we got the homogenised, random-seed square world that we currently have, surrounded by highly unsatisfying streams of endless volcanos.But no longer. The World of Illyriad will shortly receive a complete makeover. We have written fractal algorithms to regenerate the whole map into a work of naturalistic beauty - complete with seas, rivers & lakes, mountain ranges and sprawling forests, deserts, jungles, archipelagos, islands, glaciers, volcanic regions - basically all the works that one would expect to find on a real continent. These geographic zones are called biomes. The biomes we are adding are:
Further on top of this fractal biome, we've added topographical height / weighting, so you will get (eg) mountain ranges appearing on the map. We're treating the current "top" of the map as the Arctic, and the current "bottom" of the map as the Equator. Don't worry - your cities won't be moving anywhere, and the terrain that you have built your cities on won't be changing either. New players will still be seeded into "temperate" zones (ie they won't start on a desert tile). We've even written the algorithm so that it won't touch the 5 squares around any currently settled square, so you won't suddenly find yourself beset by threatening glaciers or volcanic lava flows - and will have room to expand in your neck of the woods. There are a few players who have settled out in the back of beyond - as far from the center as possible - and we're making sure that they will be attached to the mainland rather than floating out on an Island in the middle of the sea. For the moment, this new geography won't mean very much - except that there will be a visible geography to the world and we know everyone likes pretty, shiny things. You will also be able to point and giggle for a while as your horses walk on water. This will, however, change over time, in the following quite dramatic ways:
... actually, very soon for the first part. We need to - at the very minimum - generate the biomes and major topographic features before there are so many players in the game that we can't easily make a wholesale change like this; which is why this change is happening with high priority. We hope you will agree that this is a very exciting enhancement to the game. Edited by GM Stormcrow - 18 Aug 2010 at 22:30 |
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GM Stormcrow
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GM Joined: 23 Feb 2010 Location: Illyria Status: Offline Points: 1808 |
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Posted: 18 Aug 2010 at 17:13 |
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2. FACTION ENHANCEMENTS
With the new world geography, and in preparation for Trade v2, we're changing NPC Factions in many key ways.
Let's illustrate how this might work with an example of a New Faction called "The Gnomes". THE GNOMESSo, that's the (brief) backstory. But we want the Gnomes to actually respond to and be influenced by the world in which they live.
Edited by GM Stormcrow - 18 Aug 2010 at 19:37 |
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GM Stormcrow
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GM Joined: 23 Feb 2010 Location: Illyria Status: Offline Points: 1808 |
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Posted: 18 Aug 2010 at 18:59 |
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3. TRADE v2
Trade v2 is, really, the cumulative focus of all of the above. Trade v2 rocks. I mean, really rocks. There are 4 main steps in the path to Trade v2.
We've also got some ideas in our heads about the possibilities inherent in player-to-player Contracts, banking, entrepreneurial ventures and mercantile Guilds. Edited by GM Stormcrow - 18 Aug 2010 at 19:42 |
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GM Stormcrow
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GM Joined: 23 Feb 2010 Location: Illyria Status: Offline Points: 1808 |
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Posted: 18 Aug 2010 at 19:49 |
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4. EVERYTHING ELSE, AND PRIORITISATION
Well, we can't do everything at once, but we can do things in parallel. There are some things we're doing now because they get more difficult to do the longer we leave them (such as the Geographic changes). However, we're acutely aware that we have promised some things (new spell schools, anyone?) for quite a long time, and these items were kept forefront in our minds when drawing up the prioritisation list. So, here's the Priority List (headline items). ![]() I realise this is a peculiar way of presenting it, but it was the best we could come up with when we were sitting in a garden without our laptops.
The wind rearranged the priority list a couple of times, but this was the latest version; if you can't read it, it's actually a larger image if you right-click on it and open it separately. We're split into teams, so the items in the three main columns are being done simultaneously, and we're working down the list from the top. Please be aware that this is not a complete list, it's simply the headline items we're willing to share and/or that you might be interested in. We understand that these "headlines" may not mean much, so here's a recap of what each one (broadly) means: Edited by GM Stormcrow - 18 Aug 2010 at 22:36 |
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GM Stormcrow
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GM Joined: 23 Feb 2010 Location: Illyria Status: Offline Points: 1808 |
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Posted: 18 Aug 2010 at 19:50 |
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LEFT COLUMN
WORLD MAP 1 - Issuing out the new world biomes and geographic features - Sovereignty graphics - New Town graphics TUTORIAL - Hero Commander, retinue, troops, quests - Speed Up the relevant techs with tutorial rewrite INCIDENTAL ICON GFX - Concept icons for Mailsystem revamp - Sovereignty & Quest + Compose New, Sent, Inbox - Saddle, new Leather Armour icons (HUMAN) TOWN UPGRADE GFX - Graphics for the town buildings (and underlay) that upgrade as the city grows RIVER GFX OTHER RACES TOWN GFX MORE AVATARS HERALDRY GFX Edited by GM Stormcrow - 18 Aug 2010 at 19:51 |
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GM Stormcrow
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GM Joined: 23 Feb 2010 Location: Illyria Status: Offline Points: 1808 |
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Posted: 18 Aug 2010 at 19:55 |
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MIDDLE COLUMN
BUGS / QUICK WINS WORLD MAP EDITOR (internal tool) CLICKFEST 1 (Clickfests are essentially our efforts to reduce the number of clicks people have to make to do things ingame, which becomes more arduous the more cities you have) - Multi town building and production summary - Army / Diplomatic Multi-town Summary - Click between towns to retain "page" - Sending out armies at specific time or to arrive at specific time (up to 48hrs in advance) (Possibility of overview at alliance level), requires active prestige account CHAT 1 - Links to: Player profile, Ranking, Send Msg, Private Chat, Report Abuse - Block and Unblock NEW GENERIC WEBSITE FORUMS 1 - Maximum Characters - Edit & Delete Threads and Posts - Full HTML editing UI V2 - Research Tree - Player, Town, Alliance popups and link standardisation - Mail System revamp - All pages with new standardised templates RIVERS WORLD MAP 2 - More Zoom Levels - Alliances, by relationship type - Colour coded by King's Favour - Colour coded by Personal Relationship - Coloured by Alliance Relationship - Population Density - Trade Volumes - Casualties in the last X hrs FORUMS 2 - Look and Feel - Smilies :) DIPLO 2 - Allow diplomatic units to have a reinforce & occupy timer - Diplomatic units alertness. Alertness to raise by type of attack/severity (when attack is successful) - Alertness doesn't rise if attack is detected and put in casualty resolution. - Alertness to decrease over time, and - New spy unit - New T3 spy unit can report on a town's current alertness and last X diplomatic actions based on number of spies sent - Sleeper unit checkbox and Census technology - Fanaticism which would kill all units if any one is detected, thus preventing interrogation and casualties, but also preventing success CHAT 2 - Private chat, invitable for other people, popup when people come in - Chat channels (player run and moderated), password-protected and/or invite only - MOTD - Players in the room list - All non-global chat channels to be blank until joined - Options for showing ticker and race - Internal URLs allowed - Windowing/tabs, docking/undocking, minimising chat windows - Moderator version 2 - Access to all global, public channels - New Player Chat - Not for the moment - Chat when room set up it's public or private, default language is set, and a category chosen - Roleplay - Trade - Geographic - Race - (Guild) - Abuse Reports can only be made on Global chat WORLD MAP 3 - Draggable - Zoom in, zoom out mousewheel - Army Size Icons WORLD MAP 4 - Visibility / FoW - Watchtowers - Forts - Visibility Mechanism - Scrying spell schools - Pathfinding - Road building & variable movement speed - Waypointing - Interceptions and ambushes - Tolls - Defensive structures on world map (walled areas) - Vanity towns & Monuments HERALDRY Edited by GM Stormcrow - 18 Aug 2010 at 22:31 |
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GM Stormcrow
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GM Joined: 23 Feb 2010 Location: Illyria Status: Offline Points: 1808 |
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Posted: 18 Aug 2010 at 19:58 |
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RIGHT HAND COLUMN
BUGS SIEGE - Siege Arrival doesn't bounce if other armies are on the square - Sally Forth allowed against multiple squares with individual 6 hour timer - Sally Forth if outright win then pauses sieging army for 4 hours - 30 Siege Engines max per bombardment (can send more, but only 30 will participate) - To hit ratio of anti-building siege engines redux - To hit ratio of anti-wall siege engines *drastically* reduced PRESTIGE 1 - Insta-complete Sovereign Structures (solo) - Naming of Squares - Prestige Descriptions, simplicity, cleanup - Reset Commander Skillpoint assignment - Unlearn spell schools - Allow sitters to spend their own prestige on sittee's towns COMBAT MAGIC - Blessings & Curses - Include mana spend to increase range of spells (generic) DIPLO 1 - Scouts & Spies don't trigger generic runes (no ill intentions) - Spies to report on the amount of resources on harvestable squares - Advanced Scout ability to find out composition and destination/action of their armies abroad - Advanced Scout ability to find out troop number, arrival time & source of armies inbound, to include siege camps and blockades - Stealth (Covert Ops) for Diplo units - Both Stealth and Covert to reduce army/unit movement speed by 50% - Advanced thieves should prioritise advanced resources ALLIANCE RECRUITMENT - Making it easy for a new player to find a local alliance that matches their goals and objectives, and is recruiting DATA SHARING - Multi-town overview of unit movements (inbound and outbound) - Alliance-level Troop Movement Summaries (inbound and outbound troops, non-Covert, permission/role based) TRADE V2 - FACTION - Faction Content + Faction Hub (- New Faction AI - moved to further down) - Faction map assignment - TRADE V2 SYSTEM -RANKINGS - Historic data for atk and def - check combat res SP for correct assignment of points - Add points to bombardment - Reset Trade and new for v2. Add Trade score increases for trade quests completed. - No trade score for direct trades or non-hub trades - Reset Diplomacy. (Diplomatic casualties to each side, and a bonus for success with Diplo 2 above) - Diplomacy score increases for diplomatic quests completed - Population needs to change to sum of towns - Magic points. Base cost of succesfully casting a spell. - Standing (non-total score) NEW ARMY ATTACHMENTS - Allow armies to be attached to caravan convoys as military escort MEDALS, TROPHIES - Achievements suggestions thread - Achievements in ranking - Retrospective Achievements - Combat - Offense - Defense STANDINGS AND KING's FAVOUR - A system for protecting new players, limiting siege attacks. NEW INTER-ALLIANCE DIPLOMATIC OPTIONS - Mutual Defense and - Joint Military Maneuvres - NAP/Confed/MDP/JMM cooldown before War CLICKFEST 2 - Multi-town trade summary - all caravans in motion inbound and outbound - stockpiles in each city - trade to a single point - Quicklist - Friends (online, offline - reciprocal vs one-way) - Ingame Notepad - Locations - Ability to auto-assign produced units to divisions PRESTIGE 2 - Move Town Buildings - Customise colour (?) CRAFTING NEW SPELL SCHOOLS Edited by GM Stormcrow - 18 Aug 2010 at 22:20 |
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sityviper
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Joined: 05 Jul 2010 Location: USA Status: Offline Points: 76 |
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Posted: 19 Aug 2010 at 01:00 |
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sounds like you guys are going all out; SWEET!!!
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§.i.†.Ą.V.‡.¶.€.® 3
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GM ThunderCat
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GM Joined: 11 Dec 2009 Location: Everywhere Status: Offline Points: 841 |
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Posted: 19 Aug 2010 at 01:28 |
With a few tricks up our sleeves along the way
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Aelfric
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Joined: 05 Jun 2010 Status: Offline Points: 76 |
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Posted: 19 Aug 2010 at 01:42 |
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Words cannot express how excited I am.
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