For the last two years I've done a "Year in Review" news post for Wyvern, detailing the important news of the past year and linking to the full articles so that returning/new players could catch up or so that regular players could quickly go over it and see if there was anything they missed and wanted more information about. They took quite a bit of work to put together, especially the 2009 version (that beast took a number of hours to conquer).
I originally conceived of this idea shortly after the game came back up following what is known as the 15 month hiatus. It seemed like Rhialto was going to be more active from this point on and that updates and news posts would be forthcoming as a result. Therefore, I figured I could do a big blog post at the end of 2008 catching everyone up. Unfortunately, things didn't work out that way and there weren't really enough highlights that year to make it worthwhile. It seemed like the same would be true the following year, but that changed a few months in and the news began to flow so rapidly that people couldn't keep up. Thus, "Wyvern: Year in Review" was born.
Unfortunately, it's not possible to put up a news post this year, but I thought I'd continue the tradition as a blog post per the original idea. So for your reading pleasure here are the highlights of 2011:
Celebrating the 10 year anniversary of Wyvern we brought to you a fun weekday party that introduced a lot of new content to the game. Out of this day, we saw new maps, new quests, new monsters, a new [and only somewhat buggy] Minath Monster Arena, the return of costumes, and artifact armor. We then followed this up with a "suggested playing hours" feature that would allow players to get extra experience while training throughout the game during specific hours of the day.
Such updates were the first steps toward focusing a bit more on attracting players to the game after spending quite a lot of time working on balance/bug fixes that hampered players during the bulk of our work. We still had more work to do to balance the game, but with most of the quick fixes taken care of, work would have continued more slowly in the future and therefore we wanted to also spend some time keeping all of our very loyal players entertained until we could be finally be done with old balance problems and turn our complete attention to building the game up.
Following these exciting two updates, Rhialto announced a temporary downtime for March 7th... and with that we end this edition of "Wyvern: Year in Review." *cues dramatic music as the camera pans out - I now begin to fiddle with my shirt in an attempt to remove my mic while the credits role*
Showing posts with label wyvern. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wyvern. Show all posts
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Wyvern Videos Segment 2
Welcome to another segment of... *drum roll* Wyvern Videos! Please, please... try to contain your excitement. It's been awhile but for your viewing pleasure, yours truly has compiled another selection of Wyvern videos for you to browse through. Enjoy [or die].
Hentoko Graveyard by SsalkandWyvern LQ Gauntlet by BlazerV60
Wyvern Ancient Vesimas by BlazerV60
32 RD Levels by ICUTUUU
Wyvern Promotional Video by Ssalkand
Hades by ICUTUUU
Wyvern BlazerV RD by BlazerV60
Mykenubie's Ultimate Downfall by Ssalkand
Wyvern on Lag by TheRealCrytearea
Have a Wyvern video that hasn't been included in any of these segments and you want me to mention it? Leave a comment with a proper link and I'll be sure to keep it in mind for future segments.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Wyvern Videos Segment 1
Ever find yourself wondering what Wyvern videos there are out there? Well even if you haven't, there are a growing number of them out in the cyber world (some of which are better than others) and for those of you who might find yourself interested in checking them out, I've compiled a selection of them in this post for your viewing pleasure. Whenever a significant group of new videos comes out I'll do another Wyvern Videos segment on this blog in an attempt to save some of you the endless minutes of searching and to introduce them to those of you who would otherwise never know they existed. Enjoy.
MMA (Minath Monster Arena) by Kohora
Wyvern Battles by BlazerV60
RDing (Random Dungen adventure) by Kohora
Gauntlet by Kohora
Ziggurat by Kohora
Wyvern Gauntlet by Garoodude
Post Nerf Orcus by Kohora
Wyvern by Garoodude
Macabre by Kohora
Wyvern (a promo video) by Kohora
Minath Monster Arena by Irano
Btw, if you ever notice that one of these videos has become unavailable, do me a favor and let me know by leaving a comment that says which one it is so I can edit it out.
Sunday, January 13, 2008
A Day Better Forgotten
Well, folks, it's been 5 years; today in 2003, at about 11 AM-ish, I made the mistake of replying yes to Rhialto's tell asking me if I was ready to be promoted. Now I am doomed to wander the halls of Wyvern, wailing to players about rules until the end of days.
But that's not where I made the first mistake that led me to this end. No, it all started at the beginning of January. In the previous year I came to the conclusion that games might be my best bet for the creative outlet I so desired. I tried learning how to write code, but as I have since realized it wasn't for me. However, while I was entertaining the idea of going down that path, I spent quite a bit of time on arcadepod, looking through games as I kind of liked the java applet format to game creation and I was busy generating game idea after game idea and recording them in .txt files. But, while doing so, I ended up finding this game called Wyvern that mentioned being able to make areas for the game and after checking out the link, I learned that no programming was required to do so. Excited, I thought this would be a great way to use Wyvern as a way to see if I was kidding myself in thinking that I could do this and if I wasn't it would be a great way to get some experience before moving on (naive does not begin to describe how I view that thinking today). So, I downloaded the client and logged in.
I was immediately impressed with the game as, while walking through New Verden, it felt very reminiscent of good classic games (needless to say I am a big fan of classic games). So I continued to look around and after getting to level 2, I headed over to Alaria and explored a bit. The big thing that I would do there is play Sokoban as I had a version of the game on my computer which I previously played so it was familiar to me and I enjoyed it. But every now and then I would head over to the towers and do a little fighting to get some XP. During this time, I also used the world map and went to every city, just looking into the first map or two, and then I headed back to Alaria (amusing tidbit: for a very brief time I didn't know there was an inn there so I would save in the Kings Road Inn and run there before every reboot to save again like the message said to).
Shortly thereafter, I thought I had a good enough feel for the game and so I sat down to work on some maps. I created a four map dungeon first that had a demon lord and some other random monsters in it; it was bad, but it was intended to be bad. I was trying to get a feel for the mapmaker and how things worked, so I simply filled it with a wide range of things. Once I was done with this practice run I deleted those maps (which, btw, had a plot to them as I am incapable of making anything without one). Then I opened up a new map and tried to think of something to make next.
That, of course, isn't the best thing to do as you should never stare at a blank map, hoping ideas come to you. You should generate those ideas ahead of time, plan them out, and then sit down and work on them. But rather than do that, I started playing around with the objects in the mapeditor again and I suddenly took the dark earth terrain and I just started drawing it. I didn't necessarily expect to be coming up with the idea that I would be submitting but, as it happened, I started thinking of reasons why would there be dark earth all over the place and then it hit me... this was a lifeless, ruined area.
After that, I was on a roll and idea after idea just kept jumping at me. I put some ruined structures down (I think one the guard towers came first) and then I added a little water. At some point I got to the right hand side of the map and for some odd reason decided to draw some grass under this mansion. Why would there be grass in that one spot if it was a lifeless area though? Hmmm ... magic. Yes, but who's magic? Well I went through the list of monsters and saw a hill giant in green clothes. I then looked back at the green grass and combined the two (as you can guess, I knew nothing about hill giants as I was not a fan of fantasy). Next thing I know there's a hill giant planning to conquer Alaria (I later changed it to New Verden) and he needed allies so there was a place for pirates. But wait, he couldn't go unopposed so there was the guard tower and the Orcs/Undead were what remained from the time when the village turned into a lifeless area. Meanwhile, somewhere in-between I came up with the name Forgotten Oak after seeing the word "forgotten" written on something to my left and I came up with the idea of the magical oak to explain the name. I think all of this took me about three days of doing nothing but sitting at my computer and, from doing that, I ended up with somewhere between 60 and 70 maps (I want to say 63, but I do not remember for sure).
To top it off I had two ideas for other areas that came about around the same time. One was the temple on Forgotten Oak which was to lead to a hidden elf area. I made one map for it (the one you enter when you use the teleporters in the temple) and left it as is thinking this could be my next project. The other was for a dwarf area on the land mass south of Forgotten Oak which later turned into a gray dwarf area. I never really did much with that one but generate ideas and draw the male gray dwarf graphic (which is what inspired the idea that it should be for them and not regular dwarves) and I have since realized I did not need to start another complex area considering all the other projects that I have yet to finish.
In any case, on the 11th, a little bit before midnight, I sent Rhialto these Forgotten Oak maps and the one hidden elf map. Well, not really. I screwed up and hit enter causing the email to send without any text in the body or my attachment. The only thing it had was a title saying; "Forgotten Oak (large map submission)" and I was horrified when Rhialto emailed me back (almost right away) to tell me my attachment didn't make it... which I didn't realize until after I sat down and finished writing my best attempt at a professional email describing who I was and what my area was. It was 746 words and included a joke which I cringe at when reading right now; "Why choose Forgotten Oak to be added: becus u lik itz da bes! ;)" I am really embarrassed by it now, but maybe in another entry I will post it (typos and all) for you guys to chuckle at.
Anyway, I got an email back telling me he would look at it. Then we conversed a bit about a problem with boats vanishing in maps. Ahead of time I was fully prepared to get an email back telling me more work needed to be done and was ready to make any changes that were needed until it was good enough. But, to my surprise, I got an email on the 13th, after he had time to look at my area, and to my utter shock he said he liked them to the point where he thought they were of exceptionally high quality. To this day I don't get that and I think you'll see why when viewing my early maps below. Maybe it was my ability to follow instructions and get the teleporter paths right (something which few people did, as I later realized) or the fact that it had a story for it, which is rare at the time... or perhaps even that I had another area in the works already (most wizards would make one area and then stop). I don't know, but at the time stupid me was pleased and unaware of what horrors awaited me. So I logged into Arilou (the account I made on the 8th to save the name as I knew that would be the name I wanted to be a wizard) and got to level 2 while waiting for him to find me.
I remember running through Garignor's a bit and then being in Alaria's main map when I got this tell from this Rhialto fellow. I was confused as my highest level account was level 6 (this was when the level 15 rule was just a suggestion) and so all I knew of the game came from reading the manuals and my little experience with leveling that account. Who was this Rhialto fellow? I knew him as Steve so it was odd, but after a brief pause I said yes without stupidly letting on about my confusion and waited in his workroom while he set everything up (incase you're wondering, at this point I caught on that he was the person I had been conversing with in emails - I'm not that dense, despite what Teshuvah may have told you).
After this, I devoted all my time to getting these maps online (which ended up happening on the 16th). I then met up with Legolas who took over and did the actual testing of my maps before they went live. It was a little odd and a lot to absorb at once, but he helped me out in ways I cannot put to words. The very first bit of advice he gave me was after a player sent me a tell asking me to give him something or whatever and would not relent (this guy must've thought the new wizard would be an easy target). I asked Legolas what I should do and he told me something along the lines of; "Before you silence, always warn them... and then warn again." Basically, I've modeled by entire attitude, (the real one, not the joking, 'I'll banish you all' one) in regards to being an admin, on that. After that he helped to make me a better mapmaker and a better wizard. I consider him to have been my mentor and on a good day, where I'm not trying to kill him, I cannot say enough good things about how he helped me and how much of a great guy he is.
I don't know what else to say after that, I really should end it now as nothing will top that last sentence, but I first must show you Forgotten Oak of old and even before that I just want to say one thing - When I was first promoted, I had no intention of being an admin. I thought it was crazy to get involved in it as I knew how bad people could get from my past gaming experience. But I'm the type of person who cannot see someone being abused because of someone else breaking the rules and not do anything about it. So despite my promise to myself that I would just be a mapmaker, I ended up becoming one of the most active admins. As such, my mapmaking has suffered since I have had less time for it. It also caused me to become the mean wizard in the eyes of some and it's generally a lot of stress, but I've continued always for two reasons;
One, I see it as a way I can give back to Rhialto and the game as I am very grateful for the opportunity I was given. The ability to express myself with my maps is something I love doing. Even if nobody gets to see them, I am just happy that my vision of something can be brought to life in the way it can when I upload it to the server or (to a lesser extent) see it in the mapeditor. So I am very thankful as I was given a chance I don't think I deserved at the time.
Two, I do it for players most of all. I know some of you like to complain, but then there are a lot of you who like to praise the game for its great community and even go so far as to say that's why you play. So, just knowing that you guys can login after a hard day and relax to have some fun with as little stress as possible because people aren't cursing at you to no end or doing a whole host of other stressful things, makes it all worth it.
Anyway, I hate being sappy and I hate talking about what I do like it's something of importance (i'm not curing cancer here) so remember this as you're probably not going to hear such candid talk from me again. In fact, if you repeat it I will probably threaten to eat you after roasting you alive. Now, let's get on to the part where you get to make fun of my awful mapmaking abilities of 2003 already. We both know that's what you came here for, after all.
I'm sorry to say I don't have the unedited version that was sent to Rhialto, but this is pretty close. Here is basically how it originally looked. I added the dark abyss crevices after the maps were live for a bit. So imagine the original with more open space. There were also no empty tiles in the left hand corner, (at least I don't think) no dirt hole, no undead unicorns, and no buildings with new graphics. Meaning, the graveyard was the normal graveyard, the inn was the normal ruined inn, the two small houses were these white ruined buildings, and the castle had blue towers. Also, there was no ruined wall in the right hand corner. I added that later thinking that, in an extreme bit of irony, I could add a plot point about how the villagers were just building a wall to defend the city before the attack and had only done that one bit.
For fun, here is an updated version of that map with all the new terrain I drew. It's a lot better, but still needed work. Specifically it needed to be split up into multiple maps and have a lot more going on in each. If you go to Forgotten Oak right now you can see how much better the west part of the map looks now. Well just think of that style continuing eastward with ever more maps, each with more buildings to explore and things to do, including monsters in each of them. That would be so great... when I get to it in 10 years.
Here's a really bad one for you to laugh at. It's a big square map that is way over the size limit and is filled with junk. I made four maps for the entire castle, one for each floor. Go there now and you will see about 20 maps just for the first floor alone (I didn't get to doing the other floors yet). It has all the same points of interest; the stables, the dining room, the entrance to the dungeons, and the throne room. However, there's so much more. There's an outer wall for extra defense that has space for archers to shoot out at enemies, there's a kitchen, (a dining hall without a kitchen was brilliant, but had to be fixed) and the entrance to the dungeons is fortified so if a break out happens they can't just run into the throne room and kill the king. Also, in the original version those stairs (which were white in the version Rhialto got since the colored stairs came later) were just random dungeons, but when I'm done with the castle there will be lots of good quality maps there instead.
Here's another bad one. I had this thing where I would make 25x25 maps and just fill them up with junk for no good reason whatsoever. I since have learned to make smaller maps and have them look like they belong to the structure that represents them. The current version you see when going to Forgotten Oak isn't the best and needs to be redone yet again, but it was better than this garbage. But anyway, another interesting thing about this and the Orc Tower is that it shows Alaria's influence on my early maps. It's all I really knew, so this is based off of the Southern tower in Alaria and the Orc tower was based off of the Northern one. Oh and for the record, the wooden floors you see in this graphic have updated graphics.
This is pretty close to the original, minus using Legolas' cliffs for walls. It originally used the cave wall terrain. When you see it today it's black and looks great, but back then it was this horrible looking piece of garbage that I hated having to use. So after a suggestion from Janica, I started using the cliff walls for cave walls (for the record, today I'm a cave wall terrain kind of mapmaker). Anyway, this map is an example of how far I've come. The original Elemental Dungeon consisted of 6 maps where as now, it's 15 and still not done. Plus it is what I consider to be some of my best work thanks to some of the brilliant new artwork we now have available to us, including that dark terrain that I came up with at some point. I just love making areas with it.
Here's just another example of my making 25x25 maps and filling it with stuff. This is unedited from what Rhialto got and there's absolutely no need for it to be this big. Go have a look at what it is now. I updated that map awhile ago, but it still holds up.
I don't want to talk about it and you don't want to know. Trust me, it's better this way.
Well although this was part of a different area, I'm going to conclude this entry with this "gem" (ha!) of a map since it was included with the package to Rhialto. As you can see, I knew next to nothing about fantasy monsters as the ones I placed here are all wrong (although I knew what scorpions were and I put them in a forest map, so I can only use that excuse so much). The demons/undead are out of place, gorgons mostly live underground, same with umberhulks, the blood angel shouldn't have been next to the floating eyes, and best of all... it's so beyond amazing that the fox is just wandering around and has not been eaten. Of course, in today's map you will see that it links to other maps. That is something that I did when I tried to complete this idea and turn it into a quest (that story is for another blog). After deciding to scrap it all I took the 3 maps that attached to it, redid them, redid this main map, and left it there despite having to throw out 200 maps.
For fun, I'll let in you in on a secret - You know the map that connects to the serpents? That used to be a lich map. I mean liches, out in broad daylight, just hanging around a forest with dimwitted monsters. How amateurish was that?
But that's not where I made the first mistake that led me to this end. No, it all started at the beginning of January. In the previous year I came to the conclusion that games might be my best bet for the creative outlet I so desired. I tried learning how to write code, but as I have since realized it wasn't for me. However, while I was entertaining the idea of going down that path, I spent quite a bit of time on arcadepod, looking through games as I kind of liked the java applet format to game creation and I was busy generating game idea after game idea and recording them in .txt files. But, while doing so, I ended up finding this game called Wyvern that mentioned being able to make areas for the game and after checking out the link, I learned that no programming was required to do so. Excited, I thought this would be a great way to use Wyvern as a way to see if I was kidding myself in thinking that I could do this and if I wasn't it would be a great way to get some experience before moving on (naive does not begin to describe how I view that thinking today). So, I downloaded the client and logged in.
I was immediately impressed with the game as, while walking through New Verden, it felt very reminiscent of good classic games (needless to say I am a big fan of classic games). So I continued to look around and after getting to level 2, I headed over to Alaria and explored a bit. The big thing that I would do there is play Sokoban as I had a version of the game on my computer which I previously played so it was familiar to me and I enjoyed it. But every now and then I would head over to the towers and do a little fighting to get some XP. During this time, I also used the world map and went to every city, just looking into the first map or two, and then I headed back to Alaria (amusing tidbit: for a very brief time I didn't know there was an inn there so I would save in the Kings Road Inn and run there before every reboot to save again like the message said to).
Shortly thereafter, I thought I had a good enough feel for the game and so I sat down to work on some maps. I created a four map dungeon first that had a demon lord and some other random monsters in it; it was bad, but it was intended to be bad. I was trying to get a feel for the mapmaker and how things worked, so I simply filled it with a wide range of things. Once I was done with this practice run I deleted those maps (which, btw, had a plot to them as I am incapable of making anything without one). Then I opened up a new map and tried to think of something to make next.
That, of course, isn't the best thing to do as you should never stare at a blank map, hoping ideas come to you. You should generate those ideas ahead of time, plan them out, and then sit down and work on them. But rather than do that, I started playing around with the objects in the mapeditor again and I suddenly took the dark earth terrain and I just started drawing it. I didn't necessarily expect to be coming up with the idea that I would be submitting but, as it happened, I started thinking of reasons why would there be dark earth all over the place and then it hit me... this was a lifeless, ruined area.
After that, I was on a roll and idea after idea just kept jumping at me. I put some ruined structures down (I think one the guard towers came first) and then I added a little water. At some point I got to the right hand side of the map and for some odd reason decided to draw some grass under this mansion. Why would there be grass in that one spot if it was a lifeless area though? Hmmm ... magic. Yes, but who's magic? Well I went through the list of monsters and saw a hill giant in green clothes. I then looked back at the green grass and combined the two (as you can guess, I knew nothing about hill giants as I was not a fan of fantasy). Next thing I know there's a hill giant planning to conquer Alaria (I later changed it to New Verden) and he needed allies so there was a place for pirates. But wait, he couldn't go unopposed so there was the guard tower and the Orcs/Undead were what remained from the time when the village turned into a lifeless area. Meanwhile, somewhere in-between I came up with the name Forgotten Oak after seeing the word "forgotten" written on something to my left and I came up with the idea of the magical oak to explain the name. I think all of this took me about three days of doing nothing but sitting at my computer and, from doing that, I ended up with somewhere between 60 and 70 maps (I want to say 63, but I do not remember for sure).
To top it off I had two ideas for other areas that came about around the same time. One was the temple on Forgotten Oak which was to lead to a hidden elf area. I made one map for it (the one you enter when you use the teleporters in the temple) and left it as is thinking this could be my next project. The other was for a dwarf area on the land mass south of Forgotten Oak which later turned into a gray dwarf area. I never really did much with that one but generate ideas and draw the male gray dwarf graphic (which is what inspired the idea that it should be for them and not regular dwarves) and I have since realized I did not need to start another complex area considering all the other projects that I have yet to finish.
In any case, on the 11th, a little bit before midnight, I sent Rhialto these Forgotten Oak maps and the one hidden elf map. Well, not really. I screwed up and hit enter causing the email to send without any text in the body or my attachment. The only thing it had was a title saying; "Forgotten Oak (large map submission)" and I was horrified when Rhialto emailed me back (almost right away) to tell me my attachment didn't make it... which I didn't realize until after I sat down and finished writing my best attempt at a professional email describing who I was and what my area was. It was 746 words and included a joke which I cringe at when reading right now; "Why choose Forgotten Oak to be added: becus u lik itz da bes! ;)" I am really embarrassed by it now, but maybe in another entry I will post it (typos and all) for you guys to chuckle at.
Anyway, I got an email back telling me he would look at it. Then we conversed a bit about a problem with boats vanishing in maps. Ahead of time I was fully prepared to get an email back telling me more work needed to be done and was ready to make any changes that were needed until it was good enough. But, to my surprise, I got an email on the 13th, after he had time to look at my area, and to my utter shock he said he liked them to the point where he thought they were of exceptionally high quality. To this day I don't get that and I think you'll see why when viewing my early maps below. Maybe it was my ability to follow instructions and get the teleporter paths right (something which few people did, as I later realized) or the fact that it had a story for it, which is rare at the time... or perhaps even that I had another area in the works already (most wizards would make one area and then stop). I don't know, but at the time stupid me was pleased and unaware of what horrors awaited me. So I logged into Arilou (the account I made on the 8th to save the name as I knew that would be the name I wanted to be a wizard) and got to level 2 while waiting for him to find me.
I remember running through Garignor's a bit and then being in Alaria's main map when I got this tell from this Rhialto fellow. I was confused as my highest level account was level 6 (this was when the level 15 rule was just a suggestion) and so all I knew of the game came from reading the manuals and my little experience with leveling that account. Who was this Rhialto fellow? I knew him as Steve so it was odd, but after a brief pause I said yes without stupidly letting on about my confusion and waited in his workroom while he set everything up (incase you're wondering, at this point I caught on that he was the person I had been conversing with in emails - I'm not that dense, despite what Teshuvah may have told you).
After this, I devoted all my time to getting these maps online (which ended up happening on the 16th). I then met up with Legolas who took over and did the actual testing of my maps before they went live. It was a little odd and a lot to absorb at once, but he helped me out in ways I cannot put to words. The very first bit of advice he gave me was after a player sent me a tell asking me to give him something or whatever and would not relent (this guy must've thought the new wizard would be an easy target). I asked Legolas what I should do and he told me something along the lines of; "Before you silence, always warn them... and then warn again." Basically, I've modeled by entire attitude, (the real one, not the joking, 'I'll banish you all' one) in regards to being an admin, on that. After that he helped to make me a better mapmaker and a better wizard. I consider him to have been my mentor and on a good day, where I'm not trying to kill him, I cannot say enough good things about how he helped me and how much of a great guy he is.
I don't know what else to say after that, I really should end it now as nothing will top that last sentence, but I first must show you Forgotten Oak of old and even before that I just want to say one thing - When I was first promoted, I had no intention of being an admin. I thought it was crazy to get involved in it as I knew how bad people could get from my past gaming experience. But I'm the type of person who cannot see someone being abused because of someone else breaking the rules and not do anything about it. So despite my promise to myself that I would just be a mapmaker, I ended up becoming one of the most active admins. As such, my mapmaking has suffered since I have had less time for it. It also caused me to become the mean wizard in the eyes of some and it's generally a lot of stress, but I've continued always for two reasons;
One, I see it as a way I can give back to Rhialto and the game as I am very grateful for the opportunity I was given. The ability to express myself with my maps is something I love doing. Even if nobody gets to see them, I am just happy that my vision of something can be brought to life in the way it can when I upload it to the server or (to a lesser extent) see it in the mapeditor. So I am very thankful as I was given a chance I don't think I deserved at the time.
Two, I do it for players most of all. I know some of you like to complain, but then there are a lot of you who like to praise the game for its great community and even go so far as to say that's why you play. So, just knowing that you guys can login after a hard day and relax to have some fun with as little stress as possible because people aren't cursing at you to no end or doing a whole host of other stressful things, makes it all worth it.
Anyway, I hate being sappy and I hate talking about what I do like it's something of importance (i'm not curing cancer here) so remember this as you're probably not going to hear such candid talk from me again. In fact, if you repeat it I will probably threaten to eat you after roasting you alive. Now, let's get on to the part where you get to make fun of my awful mapmaking abilities of 2003 already. We both know that's what you came here for, after all.
I'm sorry to say I don't have the unedited version that was sent to Rhialto, but this is pretty close. Here is basically how it originally looked. I added the dark abyss crevices after the maps were live for a bit. So imagine the original with more open space. There were also no empty tiles in the left hand corner, (at least I don't think) no dirt hole, no undead unicorns, and no buildings with new graphics. Meaning, the graveyard was the normal graveyard, the inn was the normal ruined inn, the two small houses were these white ruined buildings, and the castle had blue towers. Also, there was no ruined wall in the right hand corner. I added that later thinking that, in an extreme bit of irony, I could add a plot point about how the villagers were just building a wall to defend the city before the attack and had only done that one bit.
For fun, here is an updated version of that map with all the new terrain I drew. It's a lot better, but still needed work. Specifically it needed to be split up into multiple maps and have a lot more going on in each. If you go to Forgotten Oak right now you can see how much better the west part of the map looks now. Well just think of that style continuing eastward with ever more maps, each with more buildings to explore and things to do, including monsters in each of them. That would be so great... when I get to it in 10 years.
Here's a really bad one for you to laugh at. It's a big square map that is way over the size limit and is filled with junk. I made four maps for the entire castle, one for each floor. Go there now and you will see about 20 maps just for the first floor alone (I didn't get to doing the other floors yet). It has all the same points of interest; the stables, the dining room, the entrance to the dungeons, and the throne room. However, there's so much more. There's an outer wall for extra defense that has space for archers to shoot out at enemies, there's a kitchen, (a dining hall without a kitchen was brilliant, but had to be fixed) and the entrance to the dungeons is fortified so if a break out happens they can't just run into the throne room and kill the king. Also, in the original version those stairs (which were white in the version Rhialto got since the colored stairs came later) were just random dungeons, but when I'm done with the castle there will be lots of good quality maps there instead.
Here's another bad one. I had this thing where I would make 25x25 maps and just fill them up with junk for no good reason whatsoever. I since have learned to make smaller maps and have them look like they belong to the structure that represents them. The current version you see when going to Forgotten Oak isn't the best and needs to be redone yet again, but it was better than this garbage. But anyway, another interesting thing about this and the Orc Tower is that it shows Alaria's influence on my early maps. It's all I really knew, so this is based off of the Southern tower in Alaria and the Orc tower was based off of the Northern one. Oh and for the record, the wooden floors you see in this graphic have updated graphics.
This is pretty close to the original, minus using Legolas' cliffs for walls. It originally used the cave wall terrain. When you see it today it's black and looks great, but back then it was this horrible looking piece of garbage that I hated having to use. So after a suggestion from Janica, I started using the cliff walls for cave walls (for the record, today I'm a cave wall terrain kind of mapmaker). Anyway, this map is an example of how far I've come. The original Elemental Dungeon consisted of 6 maps where as now, it's 15 and still not done. Plus it is what I consider to be some of my best work thanks to some of the brilliant new artwork we now have available to us, including that dark terrain that I came up with at some point. I just love making areas with it.
Here's just another example of my making 25x25 maps and filling it with stuff. This is unedited from what Rhialto got and there's absolutely no need for it to be this big. Go have a look at what it is now. I updated that map awhile ago, but it still holds up.
I don't want to talk about it and you don't want to know. Trust me, it's better this way.
Well although this was part of a different area, I'm going to conclude this entry with this "gem" (ha!) of a map since it was included with the package to Rhialto. As you can see, I knew next to nothing about fantasy monsters as the ones I placed here are all wrong (although I knew what scorpions were and I put them in a forest map, so I can only use that excuse so much). The demons/undead are out of place, gorgons mostly live underground, same with umberhulks, the blood angel shouldn't have been next to the floating eyes, and best of all... it's so beyond amazing that the fox is just wandering around and has not been eaten. Of course, in today's map you will see that it links to other maps. That is something that I did when I tried to complete this idea and turn it into a quest (that story is for another blog). After deciding to scrap it all I took the 3 maps that attached to it, redid them, redid this main map, and left it there despite having to throw out 200 maps.
For fun, I'll let in you in on a secret - You know the map that connects to the serpents? That used to be a lich map. I mean liches, out in broad daylight, just hanging around a forest with dimwitted monsters. How amateurish was that?
Saturday, January 12, 2008
The Ever Approaching Hour of Discontent
Greetings all. As it turns out, this Sunday marks the day that I became a wizard in 2003. So I will be doing a special blog tomorrow in honor of the day that began my prison sentence. There will a backstory regarding how I became a wizard for you to read, a look at what I submitted to get promoted in all its awful glory, what was going through my mind as I was making those garbage maps, and similarly boring content to look forward to...or similarly exciting content, depending on what kind of meds you've been taking.
As part of an early preview, I posted a map I once made of Oaken Village before its fall. It was made in the months following my promotion as part of a bad idea that will never come to pass. You see, I wanted it so you can go through the ruins in the middle of the lake and find a rift in time (and space) that lead to the Oaken Village of old. It was to take place in the days leading up to the attack so you could explore the island and find the Orc hoards surrounding the village while life within was tense, but went on as preparations were made.
The reason it never came about was because creating two versions of the same area, set in different periods of time, is impossible to do. I, of course, realized back then that Forgotten Oak wasn't the best set of maps and one day I would find a way to improve upon them. But if I created the Oaken Village maps based on the then current Forgotten Oak version I would end up having to redo nearly 200 maps rather than just 100. Then, if I ever ended up redoing them again, I would be in that same boat. So I scrapped the idea and with the plans I have in my head for Forgotten Oak now, trust me when I say it was a smart move.
That said, I would still like to have a way to let players see the glory that was Oaken village (my poorly designed 2003 map doesn't do it justice) and I think the way to handle that is simply to take the one map that exists for the village right now and make a second version of that which shows how it looked before the fall. Then, allow players to view it via a magical orb which made a viewable record of that one place 200 years prior. That way if I ever redo that section of Forgotten Oak, yet again, I won't have hundreds of maps to redo which are set in the past. Instead I'd have just one. The thing that prevents me from doing it is that it requires new graphics as I need a good looking magical oak, I need a version of the castle which doesn't look so spooky, etc, etc. Plus I don't want to do anything until I have all of the village done and decided if I am going to make any further changes to that one map. So it's just one of those things that is a lot of work for something so minor and can't be done for awhile anyway.
But I digress. As you can see, tomorrow's blog entry will be something to look forward to as if I can go off on this much a tangent regarding one map, all that I have to cover tomorrow should send me over the edge. Maybe I'll even begin to foam at the mouth as local kids poke me with sticks... yet again.
Sunday, January 6, 2008
Binyamin's Wyvern Video
This issue of Wyvern Ideas (which will return tomorrow) has been interrupted to bring you simple minded little creatures a glimpse into what Binyamin has been up to lately. No, this has nothing to do with his love for singing songs about how great he thinks he is (but worry not as that is on the way). Rather the little devil with a love for all things Barney has put together an extremely cool Wyvern video (yes I said cool... stop looking at me like that). You'd be remiss not to have a look so here it is your for viewing pleasure (in case you were wondering, no this is not the Binyamin video that kills you if you watch it - I'll post that next week).
If you like it, head over to YouTube (http://youtube.com/watch?v=SWgruMNI7oo) and let everyone know by rating it and/or posting a comment.
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Testing Wyvern
Well, kiddies, it's been a long night of testing Wyvern. I took a few screenshots for you people as I know some of you live on this sort of thing (Note: I can change my image at will). Anyway, some things that were taken care of during the night were as follows:
- Monsters and players couldn't wield or ready weapons.
- Map load objects (those things that we use to move items from different maps in quests and the like) weren't loading.
- Spike traps, firespouts, and the like didn't give damage messages.
- Makeshift additions to the game that the elder wizards made in the past are now directly in the maps where said changes were made. This means no more boulders over Minath Prison. It's now just gone.
- Misc errors with the website (there are probably still more issues, such as dead links, that went unnoticed, so keep an eye out) were corrected.
Other changes that I can remember off the top of my head only affected wizards. so there's no need to list them. Plus I am multi-managing at the moment. which means I keep switching between writing a few words here and the game. so I do not have a lot of time to go into great detail at the moment. Hopefully this will be a sufficient update to hold you over for the time being.
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Evolution of the Undead Unicorn
Very briefly, (or so I assumed when I began writing this) I thought it would be interesting to show the evolution of the Undead Unicorn graphic within Wyvern. For those who aren't aware, the Undead Unicorn is a creature that I created for the Forgotten Oak chapel. I was a novice that wanted to expand on the limited number of undead monsters the game provided me with and so I came up with something I thought I could make with my limited microsoft paint skills. However, I ended up really liking the idea as it added great significance to the plot in that it allowed me to show just how devastating the effect of losing the magical life giving Oak tree was to the area.You see, the tree dying had an extreme negative effect. All the magic it had pumped into the area suddenly turned dark in reaction to the Oak dying a painful death as it slowly burned. As such, all plant life died, the blood that soaked into the soil was preserved, (which lead to the strange looking terrain you see now) and the dead were reanimated. In order to show how really awful this was, I felt that it worked perfectly to have dead Unicorns reanimated into an undead fiend as a Unicorn is a symbol of purity and light and to be defiled by becoming an undead thing for anyone is an extremely vile evil. However, Unicorns are normally protected from this kind of perversion and so it is a big deal (in my mind) for Undead Unicorns to exist anywhere.
Anyway, I originally gave the regular Unicorn graphic Zombie skin and added faded wounds. Why exactly the hooves and the tail/mane also turned green I do not know. Looking at it in the first time in ages, I realize that I should've gotten rid of any hair, blackened the hooves, and turned the body green while adding ridges to show that the fur had fallen off and you were just seeing rotted skin. However, I apparently was not thinking back then and so players got stuck with this oddball.
Later on, Legolas suggested that the Undead Unicorn be drawn as a skeleton and I thought it was a great idea. So I created the 3rd graphic you see at the top of this post. Here I basically copy, pasted, and very slightly tweaked the Dracolich ribcage and placed it over the Zombie Unicorn graphic. Then I used the colors on the Arch Dracolich's claws for the hooves and finally, I drew bones over the pre-exiting template. When I was done with that, I just removed the green bits. If you zoom in you can see how poorly put together the leg bones were, but I am not artist so it's amazing to me that I was able to make it at all.
Later still, a quirky little paper bag (aka Abbess) came along and said she would redraw the Undead Unicorn for me after I was having a discussion with players about the quality of the skeleton version I had created. Being an amazingly talented artist, she came up with the final graphic. The tail bone looks better, the legs aren't odd looking, and the bones in general have a smoother feel to them. All in all, it's great and I am quite pleased that someone that knew what they were doing was able to take my mangled junk and perfect it.
Unfortunately, Undead Unicorns stopped being in the game awhile ago as I began cutting away at Forgotten Oak in an attempt to improve upon the quality of the original maps. As such I ended up deciding to make a multi-map version of the large rectangular map that previously existed for the village. However, I only made one of those replacement maps and the Undead Unicorns would've been in a part of the village that I didn't feel like making at the time. Of course, I'll get around to it one day, but until then Abbess' version shall live on here... for all four of you to enjoy.
Friday, December 21, 2007
The Future of Content in Wyvern
For a number of years now we've been pushing the boundaries of what came before. The graphics have improved, the design of our maps have gotten better, and our overall standards have skyrocketed. There was a time when an area like Florina was considered good (minus the unbalanced updates that came later). Now you couldn't get promoted with something like that if your life depended on it.
Why is that? Well, we've had some very talented people come in who have pushed the boundaries of what once was and made us see that can do better and therefore we have expected more. People like Binyamin, Legolas, Raeden, Teshuvah, and Zifa. Some were great right out of the gate, others took time to build their craft into something amazing. The point is we have a lot of expectations these days and so I thought I'd take some time to share some of the ones that are most important to me with you all. You may have seen hints of some of these things in the game already, others have yet to be released. But, in the end, the game will move more toward these visions of the future and older areas that do not hold up with be phased out.
Cities
The solution and now requirement for all new cities and villages is that you design it with multiple maps to begin with and never limit it to just one or two. Now you should have districts and paths between them that are made up of farmland, woodland, a simple city street, or whatever you think best fits. We see this in areas like Amita, Bura Shaan, and Glacier Point.
While doing that you should create areas around the city where you can place monsters while limiting their exposure within the city. If you're going to put them inside of the city be creative. For example, Alaria is by no means perfect in this department and still needed to be split up into a lot of different maps but, in the final product, one thing will remain and that is the random house near the hospital. Sometimes you will go there and you will meet a nice family, other times it will be infested by Orcs and Ogres who locked the family in the attic.
But don't try to do everything with monsters. Find ways to make these houses interesting. Give all your NPCs detailed conversations that include important plot points, have them get angry at you for breaking in, (again, in a creative way) or add mini quests/special items. Someone could be angry that their neighbor stole their good silver and they want you to investigate. For which they will reward you once you have returned their property. Another alternative is to let players find special things in these houses only, like my hydra food, gizmos, and bags that generate random prizes. Bottom line, wizards should do things to encourage players to go into houses and never forget the importance of these places as they are of extreme value for making you feel like you're exploring this massive fantasy city and not just wandering around looking for things to mindlessly kill.
Dungeons
One of the big mistakes that people continue to make involves creating monster maps. Okay good, we got people to move monsters out of cities. But even though it may make more sense, it's often just as easy to kill monsters, minus the easy access to healing fountains. Generally what you see is a single ruins map, off to the side, that has a half a dozen structures or more and each has only one map to their name (which then has a few of the same monsters lined up for you to kill). We've been getting rid of them, but you still see it in Varak and in the Minath Ruins. Make no bones about, this is a dressed up zoo. It allows people to pick and choose which creatures they want to fight and always gives them easy access to treasure.
Instead, each of those structures should be a dungeon with at least 3-5 maps, but hopefully more. Each dungeon should have puzzles and traps. You should have to work to get keys or find levers to get to the next level. Further, there should be mini bosses throughout and a final boss at the end. Make your monsters challenging and be sure not to forget the plot. You can add some monsters that are good against archers here, some that are good against fighters there, etc. You can even make it look like monsters are fighting for control of a level which, by the way, will allow you to make sense of using a wider range of monsters and give you a plot to build on. Also, one should make sure that the really good treasure is a reward for completing the whole thing.
If one takes the time to create a particularly complex dungeon, they can consider making something totally unique. It doesn't have to be something that's hard to code. It could simply be an item given for bragging rights or you could find a key that unlocks another dungeon. Better yet, there's one key in each of those half dozen dungeons and only when you collect all 6 can you unlock the mega dungeon. You don't want people just doing the first level or two and leaving, you want to encourage them to go all the way through and you want to make it hard for them to do so. Take the Gauntlet in Alaria as an example. There are hidden keys in each room (in more complex ones you can actually make the keys move around) and little tricks that you have to learn to get to them. One might be hidden behind a wall that you can walk through, another might be guarded by a thief that steals your items, another yet might be impossible for you to get without locking yourself in and seemingly needing a partner who will let you out. Creativity is your friend when it comes to designing a good dungeon.
Also, group dungeons are very important. Someone making one should do all the things said above, but they need to find ways to make it unsolvable, nearly unsolvable, or more difficult... if done alone. This can be achieved by adding monsters that target certain players. For example, Black Dragons are hard for mages to beat since they have a chance to block their spells and they are hard for fighters to beat since their acid does a lot of damage in close range combat. But archers can easily clean their clocks. Higher level players have no problem with them, but a version can easily be designed that does the same thing to them as mid-level players currently experience with this version.
Further more, a good wizard should utilize tricks that force you into combat with those types of monsters. You might need to kill all monsters in the map to move on or the monster may be holding a key you need. The latter allows you to make a dungeon that isn't just a straight forward level based dungeon. You can have one that branches off to the side where players then have to defeat various different monsters and collect their keys in order to get to the end. An advantage of having a group would therefore not just be that you need them to defeat these different types of monsters, but that you can split up and collect your keys at the same time and then meet up at the end. This is something players can't do if you just have each monster one floor down from each other and you have to get past each one to reach the next. While that's fine for a standard dungeon, the point is that by being creative, you can create more interesting scenarios for players.
Anyway, another method one can utilize are signs and random paths. For example, if you're a dwarf, you can read a sign that tells you which of 5 paths to take to move on where as if you're not a dwarf and don't have one with you, you have to randomly go through them all and risk extreme danger. This also adds a huge amount of flavor to the game. Finally, the reward at the end should either be something players can split or something that is worth it for players to go back time and time again to help their friends get after they've done it. If done properly these group dungeons could be large events that clans and players in general plan for weeks.
In the end, things like the elf houses and these one map monster areas should be non-existent. If you want to fight elves, you should have to go through a forest dungeon filled with traps, elves waiting to ambush you, and various other dangers before reaching something good at the end or you should have to fight your way through something like an armed elven keep. Right now, people can almost fall asleep while training in certain places. They just click, run right through the monsters that they are willing to handle, and then they run right out. Dungeons that keep people on their toes with hidden dangers and puzzles will make a huge difference in keeping people "awake." Especially once monsters are able to travel between maps. Right now you can run out of a map to heal or make quick use of the apply key and your spell aliases to "fight" monsters from the safety of the previous map. However, once monsters can follow you throughout an entire dungeon, the game will be much more like a war.
Instead, each of those structures should be a dungeon with at least 3-5 maps, but hopefully more. Each dungeon should have puzzles and traps. You should have to work to get keys or find levers to get to the next level. Further, there should be mini bosses throughout and a final boss at the end. Make your monsters challenging and be sure not to forget the plot. You can add some monsters that are good against archers here, some that are good against fighters there, etc. You can even make it look like monsters are fighting for control of a level which, by the way, will allow you to make sense of using a wider range of monsters and give you a plot to build on. Also, one should make sure that the really good treasure is a reward for completing the whole thing.
If one takes the time to create a particularly complex dungeon, they can consider making something totally unique. It doesn't have to be something that's hard to code. It could simply be an item given for bragging rights or you could find a key that unlocks another dungeon. Better yet, there's one key in each of those half dozen dungeons and only when you collect all 6 can you unlock the mega dungeon. You don't want people just doing the first level or two and leaving, you want to encourage them to go all the way through and you want to make it hard for them to do so. Take the Gauntlet in Alaria as an example. There are hidden keys in each room (in more complex ones you can actually make the keys move around) and little tricks that you have to learn to get to them. One might be hidden behind a wall that you can walk through, another might be guarded by a thief that steals your items, another yet might be impossible for you to get without locking yourself in and seemingly needing a partner who will let you out. Creativity is your friend when it comes to designing a good dungeon.
Also, group dungeons are very important. Someone making one should do all the things said above, but they need to find ways to make it unsolvable, nearly unsolvable, or more difficult... if done alone. This can be achieved by adding monsters that target certain players. For example, Black Dragons are hard for mages to beat since they have a chance to block their spells and they are hard for fighters to beat since their acid does a lot of damage in close range combat. But archers can easily clean their clocks. Higher level players have no problem with them, but a version can easily be designed that does the same thing to them as mid-level players currently experience with this version.
Further more, a good wizard should utilize tricks that force you into combat with those types of monsters. You might need to kill all monsters in the map to move on or the monster may be holding a key you need. The latter allows you to make a dungeon that isn't just a straight forward level based dungeon. You can have one that branches off to the side where players then have to defeat various different monsters and collect their keys in order to get to the end. An advantage of having a group would therefore not just be that you need them to defeat these different types of monsters, but that you can split up and collect your keys at the same time and then meet up at the end. This is something players can't do if you just have each monster one floor down from each other and you have to get past each one to reach the next. While that's fine for a standard dungeon, the point is that by being creative, you can create more interesting scenarios for players.
Anyway, another method one can utilize are signs and random paths. For example, if you're a dwarf, you can read a sign that tells you which of 5 paths to take to move on where as if you're not a dwarf and don't have one with you, you have to randomly go through them all and risk extreme danger. This also adds a huge amount of flavor to the game. Finally, the reward at the end should either be something players can split or something that is worth it for players to go back time and time again to help their friends get after they've done it. If done properly these group dungeons could be large events that clans and players in general plan for weeks.
In the end, things like the elf houses and these one map monster areas should be non-existent. If you want to fight elves, you should have to go through a forest dungeon filled with traps, elves waiting to ambush you, and various other dangers before reaching something good at the end or you should have to fight your way through something like an armed elven keep. Right now, people can almost fall asleep while training in certain places. They just click, run right through the monsters that they are willing to handle, and then they run right out. Dungeons that keep people on their toes with hidden dangers and puzzles will make a huge difference in keeping people "awake." Especially once monsters are able to travel between maps. Right now you can run out of a map to heal or make quick use of the apply key and your spell aliases to "fight" monsters from the safety of the previous map. However, once monsters can follow you throughout an entire dungeon, the game will be much more like a war.
Randomization
This is a great concept. It makes it possible to create interesting mini-games and more exciting areas, (as I mentioned a bit in discussing dungeons) but it really does wonders in quests. All quests are now required to be randomized. Secret words will now change, paths that you thought were safe can now be dangerous, key items will move around, objectives will change, traps will appear in places you didn't before see them. It really sucks for cheaters. You may have been told to look in that general store on that exact spot for the Orb of Goxii and then hop on one leg, but suddenly it's not there. Where did it go? It may be in another part of the general store, another building entirely, or you may not even need the orb this time around and need to talk to that NPC all over again to find out what to look for.
It's great, but best of all it makes quests interesting again for people doing them on multiple accounts. With it, you can no longer run around and mindlessly do what you did last time to solve it in a few minutes flat. If you try without taking the time to check, you'll probably end up having to wait a half hour so you can start the quest all over again. As time goes on, we're going to find more ways to use this which, in turn, will make a more challenging and interesting game for the players. If you ever can metaphorically fall asleep at your computer because you're going through simplistic motions over and over again, you should quit because you're no longer playing a game, you're doing a choir... something Wyvern will be anything but in the future.
It's great, but best of all it makes quests interesting again for people doing them on multiple accounts. With it, you can no longer run around and mindlessly do what you did last time to solve it in a few minutes flat. If you try without taking the time to check, you'll probably end up having to wait a half hour so you can start the quest all over again. As time goes on, we're going to find more ways to use this which, in turn, will make a more challenging and interesting game for the players. If you ever can metaphorically fall asleep at your computer because you're going through simplistic motions over and over again, you should quit because you're no longer playing a game, you're doing a choir... something Wyvern will be anything but in the future.
Good vs Evil
This is a big thing for me. The idea is to make two different games. One you can experience if you make a character that follows the path of good, the other you experience if you follow the path of evil. As a result, whole new worlds open up to you. There would be different quests that can only by solved by either type of character, different advantages when doing dungeons, different monster training areas, unique items, and different risks.
Of course, the game is very limited in the way of that right now, but imagine if certain cities would arrest you just for being so evil that tales of your villainy as reach them or if you're a certain race which they consider to be naturally bad and, in traditional simple thinking, they aren't willing to give you a chance. If you want in, you'd have to sneak in, wear disguises, etc., and always risk being caught. Same with good players. You think those drow are just going to let you, a human paladin, walk through their city without a fight? No chance. What about the cities belonging to a dark empire that threatens the cities of reason and light?
But it's so much more than this. I could go on, but a lot of this involves ideas that I have which aren't things we've started pushing for yet, so I'm just giving you a glimpse. However, one thing that will absolutely be important are good and evil items that you wield/wear depending on your alignment. Unfortunately the code doesn't work right now, but once it does you will have to decide... be evil and wield this new powerful sword you found in a dungeon or continue to be good and miss out. Sure townspeople won't flee from you on sight (another idea that you may one day see) but training will be harder. It's things like this that extend gameplay in a way that is fun for the player. We already have it to a certain extent with players making new characters just to experience new characters, but we can do a lot better.
Of course, the game is very limited in the way of that right now, but imagine if certain cities would arrest you just for being so evil that tales of your villainy as reach them or if you're a certain race which they consider to be naturally bad and, in traditional simple thinking, they aren't willing to give you a chance. If you want in, you'd have to sneak in, wear disguises, etc., and always risk being caught. Same with good players. You think those drow are just going to let you, a human paladin, walk through their city without a fight? No chance. What about the cities belonging to a dark empire that threatens the cities of reason and light?
But it's so much more than this. I could go on, but a lot of this involves ideas that I have which aren't things we've started pushing for yet, so I'm just giving you a glimpse. However, one thing that will absolutely be important are good and evil items that you wield/wear depending on your alignment. Unfortunately the code doesn't work right now, but once it does you will have to decide... be evil and wield this new powerful sword you found in a dungeon or continue to be good and miss out. Sure townspeople won't flee from you on sight (another idea that you may one day see) but training will be harder. It's things like this that extend gameplay in a way that is fun for the player. We already have it to a certain extent with players making new characters just to experience new characters, but we can do a lot better.
Originality
In short, the sky is the limit. If you can dream it up, we want it. A lot of people think of Wyvern in very limited terms, but it has always been the goal of this game to be a little quirky and expand into extremely creative content. The only thing that has been stopping us is that areas like that need entirely new graphics and most map makers cannot make them so they make do with the medieval style ones that already exist. But, we want wizards to wow us and you're going to see a lot more wow as time passes.
Anyway, I really could go on and I would like to expand on each one of the things I mentioned, but I don't feel like it would flow together if I did. Something like that is better for a manual (which it already sounds too much like one as I often seem to be addressing the reader with things they should do and not things that would be done) and so it doesn't work in a friendly attempt to introduce people to semi-new concepts that they will be seeing more of.
My Personal Wish List
There are also a lot of things I'd like to see on a personal level which may or may not ever happen. Some examples:
New races that are unlocked within the game. After doing a very special high level quest you are bitten by a vampire or werewolf and your character wakes up to find it is level one with nothing it had before, but you get to run around as this new race which is a step up from the characters you can pick from when you start the game (inspired by something just like this which Zifa once suggested). In addition to expanding the game in a fun way, it's also a status symbol.
Quest Points working like alignment. If you do Shrouded in Darkness you get -20 quest points. If you do Demon Hordes you get +20. Both give you the same bonus where the high scores are concerned so if you have the same exact xp and gold, but you have -122 quest points and the other person has +120, the one who has negative points will be higher. This also serves to punish you for doing every quest even though they may go against the ideals your character holds and will factor into the game in more ways then just the high scores - NPCs will treat you differently, areas will be locked/opened to you, etc. Some quests could even serve to offer two paths so you can do something like steal the item for someone rather than give it to the monk to get negative quest points rather than positive.
New races that are unlocked within the game. After doing a very special high level quest you are bitten by a vampire or werewolf and your character wakes up to find it is level one with nothing it had before, but you get to run around as this new race which is a step up from the characters you can pick from when you start the game (inspired by something just like this which Zifa once suggested). In addition to expanding the game in a fun way, it's also a status symbol.
Quest Points working like alignment. If you do Shrouded in Darkness you get -20 quest points. If you do Demon Hordes you get +20. Both give you the same bonus where the high scores are concerned so if you have the same exact xp and gold, but you have -122 quest points and the other person has +120, the one who has negative points will be higher. This also serves to punish you for doing every quest even though they may go against the ideals your character holds and will factor into the game in more ways then just the high scores - NPCs will treat you differently, areas will be locked/opened to you, etc. Some quests could even serve to offer two paths so you can do something like steal the item for someone rather than give it to the monk to get negative quest points rather than positive.
NPCs that talk to you differently based on race and alignment. If you're a drow you could get screamed at by simple villagers, but if you're a human they may talk to you about what a fine day it is.
Holidays within Wyvern. Not real ones, but made up ones that are always automated. For example, right now when you go into Stensele you are told about a holiday that is going on. Instead, once a year you could enter it to find a party has overtaken the streets. Everybody is happy, everybody is drinking, and there are games/prizes that you can take part in during that day only. It gives people something to look forward to without offending anyone in this very international setting Wyvern is apart of and it just adds a great bit of flavor to the game. All the holiday maps would be made in advance and code would be written that takes you to those maps instead of the regular ones during a certain 24 hour period. There's a game called Dark Castle which did something like this. If the clock on your computer was ever set to Friday the 13th, you were in for a special treat. Minus being able to change your clock, it's an amazing thing to look forward to once you hear about it and even more amazing if you stumble on it by accident.
Overhaul of Dragons. New graphics are drawn for young dragons and ancient ones. All the 2x2 dragons are turned into medium sized dragons which are about the strength of the current Red dragon. 3x3 Dragons are created to be major bosses akin to Riagors and are meant to be standalone monsters. Meanwhile the 2x2 Dragons of today are replaced with new 1x2 young dragons that aren't old enough to pose much of a threat. Most of the maps with dragons in lairs would suddenly make a lot more sense as the dragons we currently have piled together are too old to be living together, but they aren't dangerous enough to make it worth it to players if we split them up.
Well, that's enough for now. In a future blog post I'll probably write an equally long post that goes more into this, but I've been writing too long so I'll end it here. Plus I don't want to give away all my blogging material all at once. Thanks for listening boys, girls, and circus freaks. I hope some of this generated some excitement and if not, I mock your pathetic attempts to cling to the past.
By the way, as you clearly see I changed the template on the blog. I think this one fits better with Wyvern's old look, but feel free to let me know what you think. If enough of you disagree I'll change it back.
Well, that's enough for now. In a future blog post I'll probably write an equally long post that goes more into this, but I've been writing too long so I'll end it here. Plus I don't want to give away all my blogging material all at once. Thanks for listening boys, girls, and circus freaks. I hope some of this generated some excitement and if not, I mock your pathetic attempts to cling to the past.
By the way, as you clearly see I changed the template on the blog. I think this one fits better with Wyvern's old look, but feel free to let me know what you think. If enough of you disagree I'll change it back.
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
A First Glimpse Down The Rabbit Hole
Greetings and salutations Earthling vermin. You have stumbled upon the wizard Arilou's first blog post. Aren't you a lucky fella? I'm sure you're thinking I'm out of my mind for making a blog and you would be right, but I talked it over with the voices in my head and we thought a blog dedicated to some of my work in Wyvern might be of interest to two or three of you out there.
Now, I of course have a policy against sharing details about future projects of mine as I have found that doing so only gets people overly excited and then they are really let down when I don't finish it for three or four years and instead jump to one of a dozen other projects I have going at any given time. So, there won't be much of that here (but from time to time I may post a screenshot or two of something interesting that doesn't give away much of anything..."Yay," is what I'm sure you're all saying right now in not at all sarcastic tones).
What this blog will instead focus on is existing content. Specifically I was thinking that whenever I release a new area I could then hop on here within the next few days and discuss some of my thoughts and ruminations on what I had just completed while also responding to some of your questions and general comments. Of course, given that I'm a generally lazy fellow, I don't release an area that often so if, as a member of the Arilou fan club, you were hoping to read my brilliance on a regular basis I am ever so sorry to disappoint. But please, try not to shed tears over this news. I'd like to say I'm not worth it, but we all know that just isn't true, so actually, yeah, go ahead and cry your little hearts out as I am sure each and every one of you are doing at this very moment.
That said, we'll see where this goes. It might evolve into something entirely different or, more likely, I'll get bored and forget this stupid thing exists. In the meantime, I was thinking that every month I would pick one site from my list ( not yet compiled ) that promotes Wyvern and post it here while asking you to review/vote for Wyvern on that particular site above all else. This way instead of trying to get people to go through every one of a dozen sites, you guys can promote Wyvern on a new one each month and in the process attract different types of people who frequent that particular site. This way Wyvern's name is out there more and the type of people who are coming to the game become more diverse. Especially now, in light of the hit the playerbase took after such a long downtime, I hope you people try and take a few seconds out of your day to support this. Well actually I couldn't care less, I just thought it would be a nice thing to do for you people since none of you would be able to promote this as well as I could and most of you want a thriving community again. But that's neither here nor there, just like it's neither here nor there that I enjoy to eating a nice, plump human for dinner every now and then.
 Review Wyvern Wyvern is a massively multiplayer online RPG written in 100% java. It runs on... Review Wyvern |
And with that I bid you all farewell. Later on; "Inside the Disturbed Mind of Arilou," I think I'll post some old screenshots of the awfulness that were Forgotten Oak's first maps since I will have been a wizard for 5 years as of mid January and I figured what better way to mark the passing time than to berate myself. I just have to dig through my old email archives to determine the exact date that I became a wizard back in January of '03 and then you get to be blessed with another blog post from yours truly. I know, I can barely suppress my joy as well. But, for the sake of the children, we absolutely must try.
Of course, I'd much rather sacrifice the little brats in hopes of getting a decent harvest next year, but the pesky government tells me I can't do that. Something about laws and angry parents. Oh how I miss the days when parents would let you sacrifice their first born in exchange for a pig and some stale bread. Meanwhile, the law could care less so long as the brat wasn't of noble blood. Now those were the days. Unfortunately people today make a big stink for nothing about trying to cut the beating heart out of some peasant child and it's truly a damn sham... what's that? Too far? *walks off grumbling about mortal swine... in a nice sort of way*
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