Item Drops at Low Levels - Start-up

[Tintomara]

I have a suggestion that isn't really v2 related, more general GoS.

Starting can be really hard if you start at a time when the first few to start have reached a few levels, and there aren't any dead chars of lvl 1-3 about the place. Unless you're in a clan (and if you're completely new to the game, it's not entirely certain that you dare approach a clan) you're not going to get any new items until you get high enough to beat the lowest chars around, which can be really frustrating. As long as you lose, you get no item drops and no gold from battles, so you can't buy anything, either. So I would like to suggest that during the first few levels, maybe until lvl 5 or so, you can get item drops even when you lose. The chance of getting them doesn't have to be as high as when you win, but it would be great to get something at least! I'm sure it would make it a little less frustrating, because at least you get the impression that you could become strong enough to win a battle sometime.

I'm not entirely sure how codeable such a feature would be, but if it can be done, I think it would make for a less frustrating start, and make it easier to keep new players when they show up. (And I'd love it too!)

[Tim]

Good point. It really shouldn't be too hard to implement. Just another check before finding the items. Newbs need all the help they can get. Hopefully in the next release I'll have a better solution for these people (v3, not v2), but for now this sounds like a fair solution.

[Crom Cruach]

A better solution (for v3) could be creating a few "monsters", which is to say non-human-controlled low-levelled characters with custom features.

It should be reasonably easy for the new players to beat these monsters, in order to gain the first few items. The monsters would have no money so they wouldn't be exploited for that purpose, but they could be used as an "experience pool" (indeed it's hard to gain exp when the world is not much populated).

This way I'm resurrecting an old idea about the introduction of monsters in GoS, but in a softer way. Indeed, in this case the monsters would be passive, there'd be no need for creating any AI or extra code, just a few characters and a bit of graphic to give them trolloc-like images.

[Tim]

Dec 9, 2008 16:49:15 GMT -6 Tim said:

Hopefully in the next release I'll have a better solution for these people (v3, not v2).

Dec 10, 2008 13:24:33 GMT -6 Crom Cruach said:

A better solution (for v3) could be creating a few "monsters",...with custom features.

...beat these monsters, in order to gain... items. The monsters would have no money so they wouldn't be exploited for that purpose, but they could be used as an "experience pool" (indeed it's hard to gain exp when the world is not much populated).

Are you a mind reader? No comment. Just asking.