Zodiac V2 Update: July 19th 2009
 

Alright just a new update to show how far I am on the item system, it no longer deserves to be considered basic anymore.

http://feare.net/img/zodiacv2_socket1.PNG

The [Red Socket] text is just a placeholder till I can get a graphic for it, none the less it all works. :)

The prefixes and suffixes on the item are just example and don't actually do anything but are just for show.

I don't know if having prefixes and suffixes on high end level armor is such a good idea to be honest. Remember the good ol' days of Damask plain? Level 45 Armor

With that said, armor should be more predefined and end game bosses should drop a variety of things than one certain thing. I just think prefix/suffix armor is overrated now and annoying to trade for...

An option for transparency would be cool.

I think the best way for an armor system is to rely on its graphics. Instead of having a billion names, I think the shape/color should have an influence on how defensively strong the armor is. You could either base it on shape, which making a million types of armor sounds annoying, or you can have a scale. The cold colors, or dark colors will be low levels, and the warm hot colors will be high level. Such as, a violet is level 20 and a red is level 45. I don't know how effective that would be, but if you had a color scale like this:

Attachment 49000


That would be an example, so instead of memorizing prefixes, you just learn the color values, and you know automatically what levels they are, and how strong they are. You could have blue colors for mages, red for warriors, green for archers, ect.

What would be cool is if you actually made each armor different and just put a 4x4 pixel block of one of those colors to tell how good it is. This in return you could press r and go to armor info tab (once created) and check how strong that color is.. Just a thought.

Prefixes and suffixes are so easy to remember though.

I can have an option for it done later, the gui's do this weird thing when alpha is applied where the body of it appears more transparent then the edges.

We don't plan on using prefixes and suffixes the same we have used them on current Zodiac, ideally I imagine players will be looking that drop or piece with the correct color and amount of sockets, or looking for <Items> to help them create the items themselves.

I believe I stated it in another thread but we do plan on having an extensive weapon and item selection this time around.

As for labeling things by color.. I'd rather just stick with what most games do and label them by defined rarity.

I just like the transparency option while pking so I can look through my inventory if i need to equip something I don't have hot keyed without running into the person trying to attack me or a wall. Also random dungeon generation would be cool to use so you hardly ever get the same instance.

What would also be cool is having some dungeons with mixed monsters. Such as maybe a group of ogres will a group of goblins, or a group of elves with a group of vampires. Of course they would be roughly the same level, but I think it would give more variety in a level instead of just the set theme. However, I do like themes, one or two variety dungeons wouldn't hurt.

That would be ugly.
It's just extra work for the development team to make a random useless dungeon which no one will probably use x.x O_O ^_^ :D

/facepalm

Yeah because diablo and a few other mmos totally couldn't pull it off. /sarcasm