moving starting town to port joesph

cavesomething · Post by **cavesomething** » Tue Aug 23, 2005 11:23 pm

I am going to suggest this and see what reaction it gets.

what if the main starting town was changed from being scorn to port joesph?

currently it isn't uncommon for players to start, go to scorn then head north to the undead church and get killed.

port joesph is out of the way, yet has enough room to have enough to get a player started.

The way I would envision this, the moogley bill quest would be moved completely, probably to wolfsburg (as well as portica's house).

the inn would also budge, and the barking mule from scorn would replace it.

the general store would remain, but contain lots of information on how to use shops.

beginners 1 and 2 would move across to port joesph, as would the fun house and maybe mike the millers house (unsure of this one).

the town hall would move across as would the basic spells shop

Instead of having alters, there woud be a building which acted to convert players when read (a repository of sacred texts?) - this would also have lots of information on praying.

most of the other tutorial stuff in scorn would be removed, or moved to port joesph.

without alters or a wide variety of shops there, port joesph would not hold players much further than about level 3-4, at that point most would probably make their way to scorn.

This would hopefully stop the problem where new players get immediatly OoD, and die (either by hitting the old city, or getting through the gates and getting lost) whilst giving single locations for explaining how things work in the game (no temple currently explain how praying works, because there are about 8 of them in scorn).

Mith · Post by **Mith** » Mon Aug 29, 2005 11:59 am

nice plan!
Whether or not it should be Port Joseph that's assigned as newbie-playground doesn't matter much. The idea to have some 'save area' is perfect!

I would suggest to add a 'feature', a friendly wizard, for example, that appears whenever a player is about to die, casting a full heal. (kind of lifesaving) Of course it should be stated that this wizard only appears in this special 'sandbox'
Maybe force a player to apply some armour (make sure he knows how to do), wield a weapon (if possible) etc etc.

As soon as a player reaches lvl 2 or 3, he'll be teleported to what now is nexus. His XP and equipment should be removed/resetted. The training area could be removed.

cavesomething · Post by **cavesomething** » Mon Aug 29, 2005 3:31 pm

well, I was thinking port joesph would be the destination after the newbie house., and that the nexus would prevent anyone going to scorn or navar by default, probably using some sort of password activated door (the scorn one could be chain, to be consistant with the gates in scorn).

Navar could have a similar one, so that someone who hasn't played the game before, would be forced to go to the newbie house.

I don't know that I like the idea of having XP reset though. I think it would be better to just make everything give very low XP.

The wizard idea is interesting, although I don't know how you would implement that (possibly something could be crufted with python, although the plugin for that seems to be in a state of flux at the moment).

Also I think rather than being teleported to the nexus again, I think it may be better (from a storyline point of view) to have ships that would take you to one or the other, and have them shipwreck on the way there (yes, a cliche, but one that has been used successfully before (monkey island, kings quest 6)) - in that way, you could justify having the equipment removed, without it seeming to be too obviously an external contrivance.

Aaron · Post by **Aaron** » Tue Aug 30, 2005 1:36 am

well on mikees server you cant go to navar unless you know the scorn gate pass.

and if you give the player some decent starting equpiment, but stuff that its easier to find better, like +1 and one +2 item, and about half XP on the monsters, so theyre familiar enough with the game by the time they reach lvl 3-4.

then have one lvl 4-5 quest that gives you the password to get on a ship to scorn, or maybe just fight your way to the docks? then when theyre good enough, they can go into scorn?

Mith · Post by **Mith** » Tue Aug 30, 2005 12:45 pm

cavesomething wrote:well, I was thinking port joesph would be the destination after the newbie house., and that the nexus would prevent anyone going to scorn or navar by default, probably using some sort of password activated door (the scorn one could be chain, to be consistant with the gates in scorn).

Navar could have a similar one, so that someone who hasn't played the game before, would be forced to go to the newbie house.

I don't know that I like the idea of having XP reset though. I think it would be better to just make everything give very low XP.

The wizard idea is interesting, although I don't know how you would implement that (possibly something could be crufted with python, although the plugin for that seems to be in a state of flux at the moment).

Also I think rather than being teleported to the nexus again, I think it may be better (from a storyline point of view) to have ships that would take you to one or the other, and have them shipwreck on the way there (yes, a cliche, but one that has been used successfully before (monkey island, kings quest 6)) - in that way, you could justify having the equipment removed, without it seeming to be too obviously an external contrivance.

I think you're right about the storyline point of view

About that wizard stuff... an invisible livesaving item that does not stop functioning would be fine (but how to make sure it ALWAYS is lost when a player leaves the island, no matter how?) The worst problem is to suggest a wizard heals you with clues more than a poor message.

I really should comment on some of your ideas in the opening post, but i'll do that later (if i dont forget)
A thing that sounds the alarm bells is stripping armour. As is, Port Joseph contains an area where a lvl 3-5 char (depends a little on his initial stats) can easily get a Mithril Chainmail. (but only if he knows where to go!) It wont be nice to strip that chainmail from a players body. (And it would not be a good idea to move that area to Wolfsburg either, since wolfsburg mor e or less aims at lvl15+)

cavesomething · Post by **cavesomething** » Tue Aug 30, 2005 3:01 pm

Mith wrote: A thing that sounds the alarm bells is stripping armour. As is, Port Joseph contains an area where a lvl 3-5 char (depends a little on his initial stats) can easily get a Mithril Chainmail. (but only if he knows where to go!) It wont be nice to strip that chainmail from a players body. (And it would not be a good idea to move that area to Wolfsburg either, since wolfsburg mor e or less aims at lvl15+)

Yeah, forgot about goblin isle. Obviously getting mithril chainmail so early on would be silly.

If port joesph is somewhere that is left to which you do not return (much like the newbie house is now) then the boat behind the prison in scorn is free, and goblin isle could link to there.

Mith · Post by **Mith** » Tue Aug 30, 2005 9:21 pm

cavesomething wrote:Yeah, forgot about goblin isle. Obviously getting mithril chainmail so early on would be silly.

If port joesph is somewhere that is left to which you do not return (much like the newbie house is now) then the boat behind the prison in scorn is free, and goblin isle could link to there.

Heh, Goblin Island actually has to be there for the story in Scorn Prison (or would the dependency go the other way around?)

Anyway, it is very well possible to get that mithril chainmail at very low lvl. It might even be possible to do that as the very first thing... One only has to beat kobolts, orcs and some goblins. Maybe a single ogre and a bat, that's it. But again, you need to know where to go.
It would be fun though if there was some explicit hint in Scorn that goblin island contains some pretty treasure.

cavesomething · Post by **cavesomething** » Tue Aug 30, 2005 9:57 pm

well, if it connected directly of the boat from scorn prision, it would at least be easier to find.....

Mith · Post by **Mith** » Tue Aug 30, 2005 11:38 pm

LOL, it wont be much easier... it's one boat less

poof · Post by **poof** » Wed Aug 31, 2005 4:14 am

Looking at everything from the Nexus and the existing newbieshouse I think expanding off the existing newbieshouse would be a way to implement what you people want. I posited some ideas on IRC about this. Basically, noobs would stay in the newbieshouse and surrounding area (I would expand it) and would have to get 2 or 3 quest items (quests easy enough for level 3 to 5) that they have to drop on altars to get out of the newbieshouse area.

Also the two newbie houses in Scorn would be moved to this area for allowing a newbie to level up killing mice and such. Once they get to level 4 - 5 and can complete the quests then they could leave and get the gate password for Scorn but get set OUTSIDE the gates of Scorn OR get sent back to the Nexus with the password to choose another destination. Noobs that are actually old players with a new character could use passwords to access the other points in the Nexus. The gate password for Scorn would be used in the Nexus to get to Scorn or Navar. Or there could be a Nexus only password for Navar and any other locations but there would need to be some way to discover that password other than looking at the map in the map editor.

I have been thinking of making Brest a fourth location in the Nexus, again with the Scorn gate (or Nexus only) password, but if you guys all want Port Joseph then that could be put in the Nexus with no password to lead noobies to Port Joseph that have completed newbieshouse. This idea of stripping players of their belongings or damaging their belongings is a non-starter with me. I am absolutely NOT fond of that idea.

Personally, I'd rather upgrade the existing newbieshouse than make Port Joseph a default destination. I also see no real problem with people staying around Scorn. We'll move them out by moving the attractions like Valriel and Gorokh random maps. Perhaps put Valriel random in another town and Gorokh random in yet a different town. AFAICT those are the only maps still keeping high level players around Scorn. Having permanent apartments in the other towns will help too.