The Plan So Far (in rough)

[ffcmike]

Having undergone further discussions with the Development Team and Master Storm, i'd say that most (if not all) of us are in agreement as to what we should be looking to create and what approach we should take in order to build it.

I would like to keep things rough for the time being but perhaps further elaborate on each of the following steps individually at a later point in time.
I just wanted something that was written down in basic and i'd like to be public with our intentions.
Keep in mind that we are not strictly limited to these ideas,
there is likely to be ongoing thought towards such aspects as guild rivalry/factions, sparring/pking, overworld field games, competitions for example.

1. Scrap the current server, it's systems, and start afresh from the ground up.
I don't believe there is any disagreement that the foundations right now make it hard/impossible to focus on the long term, while there has been work and changes done towards it over the years it's never really yielded much feeling of progress anyway,
some of the systems are exceptionally messy and it's not a matter of being able to unplug them and plug something else in, and the fact that they're only understood by a few of us is a large problem and concern in itself.

2. Shrink the Overworld, start with the Core Graal City levels, and gradually expand outwards towards a plan in a strategic manner at a later point in time.
One of the main problems with the current server is the sheer quantity of empty levels on the Overworld.

It's easy to say that we should therefore just fill the Overworld with content to make use of the space, but it's an unrealistic thing to put into practise with an overworld that was built unstrategically, or with some areas that have no plot.

Now I admit exploration is an aspect of the game but I believe it is driven by the hope of discovering something of interest or benefit that you wouldn't otherwise discover.

This is why I believe that when designing an Overworld it is important to take "Content Density" into consideration, you can have alot of content overall, but if it is spread around a huge space that still generates the feeling of emptyness and causes the problem of seperating players, also nobody likes spending too a long time travelling from place to place.

On the other hand, even with a relatively small Overworld you can create the feeling that it is complete, however players would be kept knitted much more tightly together, which is more likely to encourage some of the basic things like PKing.

This would also leave us the room to expand outwards and design each specific area with care, perhaps strategically based around what Quest is located there.

3. Work towards a dynamic economy.
One which covers extraction of natural resources, manufacture and goods production, markets and services.
it would take into consideration supply and demand, where basically no resource would be infinitely available, mass extraction of a resource would gradually lower it's availability, while possibly increasing the availability of related resources.

There would also be more control on currency itself,
we're thinking a limit on the amount of Gelat that can be held by players,
such as wallets, however upgradable.
Also there would not be a bank deposit/withdrawal system implemented until there's an Economy structure in place.

4. A more professional appearing and abstracted events system from the ground up.
One system which allows us to maintain control of all Events from a single script.
It would incorperate automatic summoning, and greater statistical records (wins, losses, etc), there would also be a system designed specifically for making it easier and saving time to create more team based events.