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Features
Races, Gender and Appearance Orcs, Humans, Elves and Undead in
both male and female genders will be added as the only four playable
races. Crossfire had several playable races, but this made it difficult
for game balance. Also, the world lore of Wograld is quite different
from that of Crossfire. You will be able to customize your hair and skin
tone, along you race and gender, and possibly facial features as well. I
have noticed that these four races provide numerous play style options
and plenty of opportunity for role playing without feeling overwhelmed
as in numerous MUDS. You don't necessarily want to be thinking what the
heck is a gifberdush or a lalacorn while trying to keep track of nearly
twenty other races like that when you run into them. Also, the fact
that these four races are basically humanoid in appearance makes it easy
and explainable that they can all use the same basic gear, and don't
need things like pants with four holes, or shirts with multiple arm
holes.
Crossfire was missing in a gender option as well. Most current games
have the option to select your gender, with the exception of races that
only have one gender. This makes sense since these races are basically
humanoid and so would have some human like characteristics.
User Interface One of the initial problems when converting
over from Crossfire to Wograld was the user interface, the X11 as well
as the other clients present a terrible and unappealing game. Most of
the screen is taken up with your stat and skill bars, as well as your
inventory, and chat, and not enough of the screen is devoted to
immersion in the world. This was made worse by the fact that resizing
the windows caused the needed stat bars to disappear with no way to get
them back. A window system more like a bar such as having the ability to
close tabs taking only a small part of the screen that are docked at a
certain place on screen. Ultima online had window bars that floated all
over the place, thus it was difficult to make them go to a place that
was reliable and consistent. People do not need their inventory system
open when they are fighting so long as they have hot keys to grab what
they need from inventory. Tabs that are needed are probably this. some sort of chat bar, this could go permanently at the bottom of the screen and would not have to be closed. Skills window, this window would have your skill caps as well as your current skill levels. Stats,
You would probably want things that get depleted like health and mana
to show up on the screen so you know how much you have left, but details
such as your strength, dexterity hit chance, intelligence etc could be
hidden elsewhere. Macros, so you know what hotkeys, you set up to what spell, skill action emote whatever, and can go back and check it. Inventory,
I like the paper doll system where you put items on your character. It
is nice when you can see them right on your character rather than just
having a generic paper doll, but even a generic paper doll would be
much better than what we have currently, that is just a scrolling
inventory system. You could have a system of bags that hold even more
bags within bags. up to a certain maximum weight or volume when your
character can't carry anymore. Options, this is the tab to do things
like turn sounds on/off adjust the video settings, resolution or things
like that. It should have its own tab as it probably won't get used
much. Quest lists, this can be very handy in games to keep track of what quest you are on and how close you are to getting done. Extensible,
once these things are in place, we may need systems to do things like
adjust alignment highlighting, chat options etc, any new menu should
have another place to put it in the bar so you can manage it.
Wearable clothing One major problem with crossfire is that you
are stuck with the look of your particular character class and/or race.
Even in games with very little customizable, the armor you equip shows
up on the character you have. In less sophisticated games, this is
usually things like leather armor, scale, or plate, depending on what
you happen to equip. In better games, you can actually wear several
layers of clothing, for instance, wearing a dress and then a shirt under
it, so the sleeves show through. At minimum the helm or hat and the
suit of armor should show up, but ideally we should get right down to
the shoes.
Ability to dye clothing And this brings me to the next great
feature that allows for customization of character appearance. Ability
to dye clothing. It isn't merely enough that you can wear various
things, there has to be some way of dying or recoloring them. Ultima
Online had a dye tub where you could select from numerous colors with
one set of dyes. Personally I think it would be more fun if the various
dyes and colors were a bit harder to obtain. Nothing like finding those
contested spots where you can get dragons bloom seeds for that luxurious
purple, or crushed fire beetle for the blazing orange. Perhaps
different stores would sell different colors, or you would have to
obtain them from various plants, animals and monsters in the wilds.
Armor dyes are needed as well. What good is plate mail when it only
comes in one color, especially if there are not enough layers to wear
anything over it. Leather dyes are a definite necessity as well.
A Gem System In Diablo2, there was a system of gems that you
could acquire from fighting monsters and opening treasure chest. but in
an rpg, it makes more sense that you could get most such things from
mining. The neat thing about this is that you could take three lesser
quality gems, and make one of a higher quality up to five levels using a
device known as a hordric cube. Then you would take the magic gems and
use them to add properties to your weapons and armor. Unfortunately,
only certain types of items had this property of being socketed. But
wouldn't it be neat if, instead of random properties, player crafters
could create items with the desired properties such as this using the
gem system.
Skill gain system To
many games do the skill system wrong, such as Ultima Online. They made
you do the same skill over and over again thousands of times just to go
up one tenth of a point. This lead to people being afk while they
repeated the skill over and over again. It would be better to have it
more like World of Warcraft.
Demonic Quest skillcap raising system. One
idea that World of Warcraft had right is the idea that you needed to do
certain quests in order to raise your skillcap. Instead of having some
npc in town give out the quests, however, it would be more fun to have
to summon up demons to teach you skills. This would also give a good
world lore reason that npcs have very little in the way of good items in
their shops. They simply don't know how to obtain them because they are
unwilling to do the necessary work. It also makes the poor AI seem
more realistic.
typical town npc: ooo, demon summoning is bad, I would never do that.
player: but they can teach you all kinds of skills.
typical town npc: knowledge is the root of all evil and the reason for the fall of this world.
and that is
just the human side, undead, orcs and elves all have their own reasons
for not liking to summon them up. For elves it upsets the balance of
nature, for orcs, it is panzee humie stuff, for undead it sounds like a
form of slavery.
typical elf: Demons are unnatural creatures who upset the balance of nature.
player: but this one teaches herbalism.
typical
elf: and alchemy, alchemy is why the rivers in blackwood are poisoned.
All those alchemist dumped thier concoctions in the river.
typical orc: da blood god gave us war!
player: this demon teaches battle tactics.
typical orc: honor not sneak and hide. Just swing and smash.
player: that's not what our warchief says.
typical orc: warchief demon pawn then.
typical undead: Demons enslave those who call them.
player: I want to learn the art of necromancy, this demon teaches it.
typical undead: That's exactly what necromancy is, enslaving the dead to the living.
player: zombies and skeletons are mindless anyway.
typical undead: and how do you think they got that way? Demons!
Removal of the God System
With the world lore being the way it is, it does not make sense to copy
the world lore of crossfire, given that is a completely different world.
Each game has its own magic system, skill system, lore etc. There is no
need to make it all the same unless the games are part of the same
series, such as using the same lore for a strategy game, rpg and arcade
style game, or having several different story line based games in a
series. Wograld is not crossfire, and players who have played crossfire
should not feel that they are just ending up in a redone version of the
same game. Therefore, the god system will need to be taken out. The
demon skill quest system fulfills some of the lore and game play needs
already, so the old crossfile system is redundant and out of place, not
to mention crafted with an entirely different set of races in mind.
Removal of the Level System A
big problem with a lot of pvp games, and rpgs in general is a reliance
on levels to determine how strong a character is. Then too much time is
spent on gaining levels by fighting the same sets of monsters over and
over, or certain monster types depending on your level. This often takes
away from the role play aspect of the game as well. You should be able
to gain stats up to an easily reachable maximum amount just by using
skills as in ultima online, building the type of character that you
want. There is no need to have a level 100 character who has hit points
that a thousands of times greater than a newbie. In fact, stats should
not really be more than twice what they are when you start out the game.
This is to give the game so balance and not give trained up characters
an overwhelming advantage. Sure, a trained up character has more skills
and knows how to better use them, but they are not't having hit points
thousands of times greater than the newbie who just started today. Also
level based games tend to focus too much on the level grind rather than
the endgame. If all this time is put into developing your character,
people who played for years have too much advantage over those who just
started, leaving the new players to quit and the old players to get
board of seeing the same faces over and over again.
Stat system
Crossfire currently has several stats. I am not sure what they are all
used for yet. Most games I have played have a simple set of statistics.
Strength, that determines things like how much you can carry and how
hard you hit. Strength also frequently determines what kind of armor and
weapons you can wield. Dexterity determines things like swing speed,
chance to hit and chance to evade. Hit points, or vitality,
unfortunately part of strength in ultima online (something kind of silly
since it isn't like that in other games. Determines how much you can
bleed, or or rather how much health points you have left before you die.
Also called constitution. Another thing is intelligence, something that
often determines how much damage your spells do. Wisdom, or mana
points, determines how many points of mana you have before you run out,
maybe it should be called something like concentration. There are also
things like stamina points that you run out of if you run around too
much and try to get away from monsters or pkers. Then there is Charisma,
it is often used to determine the effectiveness of healing spells or
how much you can get out npcs. Charisma doesn't work on other players
however, making it a silly stat that we would probably be better off
without, to be replaced by an alignment system that would determine
things like whether you are banned from the towns of certain races or
how much the shopkeepers charge you.
Then you have other stats that are mostly gained from items such as
resists to various forms of magic or physical damage, defense chance
increases and perhaps even extra stat like hit points, strength or other
bonuses, things that could make up for weakness in particular character
stat configurations. This was one of the fun things about diablo2,
finding the armor with the extra life points on it. Shouldn't armor give
you more life? The one problem with adding stats in armor or weapons
is the fact they might permanently alter character stats in a bad way if
it is coded poorly, then again that is what bug testers are for.
Honestly, I'm not sure what kind of stat system I want to go for, just
something that doesn't make l33t players overpowered, or force all
players to build thier characters the same way.
Race Alignment System
Each character could have alignment stats for each race. Let the value
drop to low and you can not enter the town of that particular race, at a
high enough level even the fanatics of the race won't kill you on
sight. For characters not of that particular race, the level would be
capped, and the cap would be lower in opposing races (elves vs orcs or
humans vs undead) To race the alignment, you would have to do quests for
the race that you can not repeat with in a certain time frame (say a
week to keep people from twinkling the system.) to lower your alignment
you would kill npcs from that particular race, or preform other unsavory
actions to the group. I don't really like the idea of a hard line
faction system such as alliance vs horde, I think it makes the game more
interesting if there is a certain amount of complexity and playing for
the other side. The other interesting idea I had was that characters
could change thier race (human to undead or vice versa, and then orc to
elf or vice versa. and have a series of quests as well, as a stat and
skill penalty for doing it. The benefits to changing races might be
wiping certain alignment/quest etc stats. Giving yourself a fresh start
without completely starting over.
Implemented Features
Skill System
There is currently an implemented weapon skill gain system. There is also reading books to learn spells.
Custom Houses
We have a house customization system. The main negative is having to go
out and buy materials. Also, the house design client could be made
easier to use. I much preferred the ultima online method, go into design
mode, design a house, press commit and then you are done.
Banking System (needs work)
I thought there was a banking or rather loot storage system, but now I
don't think so. This would have to replace storing all your items on
your character. We also need to implement a secure trading system such
as those found in other games.
Combat System (needs work)
Combat in this game isn't actually that awful, but it isn't that great
either. Combat balance is usually an ongoing thing that the developers
are never done with, so trying to focus on that to the extent of
ignoring other features is a waste of time. This is the kind of thing
that needs to be play tested extensively as well.
Quest System
There are quests in crossfire. Unfortunately, the rewards are the worst I
have ever seen in any game. For instance, there is the undead church
quest. You go to the bottom of the undead church, only to find out the
horrible truth. You have just lost experience points. Once you take out
experience lose, however, that whole quest does't seem so bad.
Crafting System(needs work)
Crafting is implemented. From the limited playing of the original
crossfire, I know that the failure rate is high and it is expensive. The
crafting will have to be redone. Also, newbie alchemist should not be
using alchemy to wreck havoc in town. In Ultima Online, this would have
gotten you quard wacked. Some kind of reputation system should be
implemented to prevent that kind of thing. Newbies shouldn't be able to
create that kind of havoc anyway, because how would they have access to
that sort of power.
45 degree isometric tiles
This is the first feature that was ever implemented into Wograld. Our
lead developer spend 6 months working on it, until he temporarily gave
up figuring out x11.
Maps and Zones(needs work)
A lot of games have maps or zones. Even Ultima Online had server
boundaries and guard zones. The thing with zones is they could be set up
to allow pvp or not.
Saving(needs work) This
is actually a big problem and new to Wograld. Step on the wrong map
tile and your character is not saved. This is what happens when newbie
programmers introduce bugs into the code. If you step on the wrong map
tile and the map is not found, you should just stay right where you are
instead of crashing the server or client. Instead the client should send
you a message, this area is no complete and cannot be entered, or
something like that.
Wograld is
hosted on SourceForge!
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