Clash of the Coterie - Guild Progression, Project M, Optional PVP

[Caryatis]

So this server will be opening in about 2 weeks time but I figured its shaped up enough to start some buzz. The short version is imagine The Combine(progression server) meets Project M meets Guild Wars.

Alot of the progression of your character is determined by the progression of your guild. You can get a snapshot of your guild's progression at any time by using the #progression command, which pops up a window like this:



Unguilded people are unable to progress beyond Antontica(so if you get deguilded, you lose your access to zones beyond the initial). Your levels are also tied to your guild's progression, so you are unable to level beyond 50 until your guild has defeated that expansion.

Every zone except the hub zone is able to be 'owned' and by that I mean if you are able to conquer it(kill every killable NPC, then a boss) you will gain points from it daily that you can use to purchase upgrades for your guild. Bonuses are broken into 5 categories: Cities, Territories(non-city, non-dungeon, non-planar zones), Dungeons, Planes and Continental. In order to own anything, your guild needs to control at least 1 city zone on a continent. Dungeons require you own the zone that connects to the dungeon(ie traks teeth for Seb). Planes are handled differently, they involve an instance with a much higher respawn and reduced loot. If you conquer a plane, then the mob in the real zone(ie Cazic Thule in non instance fear) will spawn with the appearance and name of your guildleader. Continental bonuses are the most powerful and the points are only gained if your guild controls all the territories on a continent.

You are able to view your conquests using the #conquests command(which has 5 options, city, territory, dungeon, continent and plane):



The PVP comes into play if your guild wishes to own zones or you wish to visit owned zones. You are able to port to any zone under your control from your guildhall, if you do this you are also turned in a random mob in the zone(name, appearance, position) and your monster flag is set so you are able to kill and be killed by other clients. This is how you would defend a zone from an attacking guild or to keep undesirables out of your zones. If you die and use the SoD client, your respawn window will allow to instantly repop as another random mob(you do lose exp however if you die as a monster to a client).

The bonuses gained spending the points gained from owning zones range from straightforward hp increase to perm effects like Multicast(like twin cast but more). You can view your guild bonuses using the #bonuses command:



You can also use those points to upgrade the zones themselves. You can upgrade the exp, give benefits to your guild members or even give penalties to those not in your guild. The upgrades are permanent though, so if you lose control of the zone then the new owners gain the benefit. Continental bonuses are similiar except they stack with the individual zone bonuses(to maintain continental lock, you must possess all territories, if you lose just 1 then you no longer recieve the continental bonuses).

You can see a snapshot of the effects in a zone(and descriptions of them all) using the #upgrades command:



There are quite a few other customizations but I think this gives a good picture of where the server is going.

[Secrets]

Interesting idea. I am not sure I like the idea of progression and optional PVP honestly.

The PVP should be required in a scenario at all times, though you'd lose some playerbase either way, mechanically speaking though I prefer one way or the other, not both for the sole reason that people will come to the server and see that it's 1) PVE and quit, or 2) PVP and quit. Depending on the server type you see a different crowd coming to the server, and from my experience if you mix the two together it becomes either a wasteland or you end up caving into a certain playstyle entirely, because balancing them both is a mechanics nightmare from a dev standpoint.

I am not 100% sold on that the progression aspect will be a major success, however making content from scratch is a pain in the butt, especially considering approx. 20% of eqemulator servers get balancing right (PEQ, P1999) and those are livelike servers. Part of the reason there is because you have a balance already written, and the client loves to adhere to it as well as the server architecture itself (in fact, i've considered just using stock code with minor custom code changes like this for the sole purpose of balancing things.)

I am not sure that a progression based game could work in a PVP scenario as well, so I think it is good that you DID make pvp optional for the time being. Main reason is new players will get thrashed by the old players unless the newbies are very skilled in PVP, just due to the old players' gear. Some may argue that they earned that gear, but with no competition it's really unfair. Such is the life of a game like this though, I suppose.

Now that i've unleashed my negative feedback on this, i'd like to shed some light and maybe even suggestions for your server.

First, the PVP monster scenario seems like a very, very good idea and could be excellent if done right. Kudos on that, it's pretty unique and I have not seen it anywhere else so far.

The global, continental, and local objectives seem like a good idea, one that i've attempted before and failed to implement due to rushing the server out for production before it was ready. Make sure you actually use some sort of packet to world to control all of that DB stuff, because if you are using zone as your db connection... it's gonna detract from the gameplay's performance. Hell, even use UCS or something to handle the db stuff, just make sure it doesn't run on the same box. I tried doing the direct DB (and perl w/ mysql even) stuff and it isn't pretty performance wise. It would be kind of cool to see that in sync with all the other zones but effective enough to not cause your zones to lag (mysql in perl is notorious for this)

Will zones have a point cap? That's another good question; sure you may be able to upgrade a zone, but at what point does it reset? Would it be better to reset points on zone capture for replayable content's sake?

All in all it sounds like it could be a good PVP mixed with PVE experience, take what I say with a grain of salt though, I haven't made a server in forever.

Best of luck, Caryatis.

[Caryatis]

I make servers not to cater to a market but to do what I like to do(its nice when other people have fun too). The primary focus of the server will be the RTS(PVP) aspect however to be able to compete you need to do the PVE part as well.

I view PVP alittle differently though, most everybody is ok with saying that a max level player in end game raid gear should be more powerful than a guy in defiant armor who just hit max level. Similiarly, I don't see any issue with somebody who has invested alot into their character being able to destroy lesser gear/etc character with ease. This can lead to frustrating cases of new players getting slaughtered endlessly however to accomplish that on this server would require control of a ton of zones and no competition. Its possible but its not a given like on most PVP servers.

In regards to the zone upgrades resetting or capping. Most of the upgrades have caps(few are unlimited, like the exp boost), however they won't reset or anything. The reason for this is so people don't have to focus on one continent forever and to help players get to the next expansion. As guilds upgrade zones, people will level faster, get more aa, etc which will allow more and more people to get to the next expansion where the process can begin anew. It also allows guilds to have a headquarter zone if they wish where they can pimp it out to make it very hard to capture(keep in mind the points used to purchase the upgrades are the same as used to buy the guild bonuses, so I imagine the upgrades will be used sparsely).

Most of the work was figuring out ways to make it so I don't have go to every zone and make a mob, with a script to write and read information. The system I have now it will take me a few hours work to add an expansion and it all involves adding information to arrays(besides adding some perl to the actual progression mobs). Once we get to GoD then things will slow down expansion-wise but that bridge is a ways away.

That all said, who knows how it will turn out but thats half the fun.

[notknowing]

Sounds Great, stick to your vision. Looking forward to testing it out.

[kalo661]

Of course it sounds great, and the wait is killing me !

[Secrets]

Originally Posted by Caryatis

I make servers not to cater to a market but to do what I like to do(its nice when other people have fun too). The primary focus of the server will be the RTS(PVP) aspect however to be able to compete you need to do the PVE part as well.

That's the kind of thing I like to hear. I am glad you are sticking to your concepts and ideals rather than what the potential playerbase wants. That's something not a lot of people can do, and is even harder with a team to do.

I view PVP alittle differently though, most everybody is ok with saying that a max level player in end game raid gear should be more powerful than a guy in defiant armor who just hit max level. Similiarly, I don't see any issue with somebody who has invested alot into their character being able to destroy lesser gear/etc character with ease. This can lead to frustrating cases of new players getting slaughtered endlessly however to accomplish that on this server would require control of a ton of zones and no competition. Its possible but its not a given like on most PVP servers.

Maybe it's just me wanting perfect balance in all scenarios. More and more I am starting to realize that the more things become unfair, there is a reason for it other than gear. Some players' skills may be lacking, I suppose. I am starting to realize that to be fair and balanced in PVP, you need to put the effort in that the other players are putting in, plain and simple. I am also realizing that unfairness is part of PVP at times, and that it can make people feel really good when they go against the odds and win, even if it's just sniping off a few people.

In regards to the zone upgrades resetting or capping. Most of the upgrades have caps(few are unlimited, like the exp boost), however they won't reset or anything. The reason for this is so people don't have to focus on one continent forever and to help players get to the next expansion. As guilds upgrade zones, people will level faster, get more aa, etc which will allow more and more people to get to the next expansion where the process can begin anew. It also allows guilds to have a headquarter zone if they wish where they can pimp it out to make it very hard to capture(keep in mind the points used to purchase the upgrades are the same as used to buy the guild bonuses, so I imagine the upgrades will be used sparsely).

Expendable upgrades, now that you have explained it, makes a lot more sense than only unlimited (which I assumed was the case) upgrades. That seems like a better long-term idea. Guards and the like would likely be some examples of it, right? It would be very cool to incorporate all sorts of defense mechanisms in the game for defending an area.

Most of the work was figuring out ways to make it so I don't have go to every zone and make a mob, with a script to write and read information. The system I have now it will take me a few hours work to add an expansion and it all involves adding information to arrays(besides adding some perl to the actual progression mobs). Once we get to GoD then things will slow down expansion-wise but that bridge is a ways away.

I know the feeling here, and when I attempted my faction-based PVP I made the mistake of using perl for it; making new areas was a total nightmare, and the performance of the server suffered in general.

That all said, who knows how it will turn out but thats half the fun.

I personally can't wait to see what the finished product is. If you need any help with it, let me know on IRC; I know i've critiqued you in the past but this sounds like it could be the start of a good objective-based server.

[Caryatis]

Since I had a few questions figured I would post alittle more info. The server isn't vanilla EQ with guild stuff on top, personally Ive played straight EQ enough and I also want to take advantage of all the new effects that are available.

One of the largest changes is that all loot has had a type 30 aug slot added to it. Type 30 augs drop globally within each expansion(so old world has tier 1 versions, kunark tier 2, etc). Each aug will add a proc to your char, there are 18 different effects for the augs and they come in 3 flavors: melee, caster and ranged. As example:



As you may notice they fit in all inventory slots and they do add a proc from whichever slot they are in(max procs for a char is set to 50 and the proc code was reverted so there is a chance to proc every hit as opposed to every round). Obviously they arent singularly as strong as a normal weapon proc however it allows for nearly infinite variations in character set ups(which I think is important for PVP).

The leveling mechanicism is also different(past 50). Once your guild unlocks Kunark and you are able to level to 60, its not as simple as it was getting to 50. In order to raise your level cap, you must delevel to 1 in the process you are granted an essence which is used to purchase breath weapons(and their upgrades). There are currently 5 different breath weapons available, this is one of them:



Now to reach the max level in any breath weapon is going to take a lot of effort seeing as by the time you reach the max level of 85(SoD), you will only have 35 essences which gets you to around 21-22(and this breath weapon is one of the cheaper ones). Once you reach max level, you can delevel as much as you want to continue gaining levels. However, once you gain a breath weapon, you also gain access to a very expensive AA that will eventually reduce the recast of that particular breath to under a min(from 5) so their will be choices where exp will be spent.

To make the deleveling process not as painful, all required and recommended levels have been removed as well as required click levels, worn levels etc as well the pre level 20 dmg restriction.

[Lane]

Any update on this server?

[Caryatis]

Had to delay the opening a while as I have been ultra busy with work lately and just havent been able to put in the time needed. I was going to try to beat the EQ progression server but had too much stuff to do so would rather take my time and get it right instead of playing catch up.

[Huppy]

Caryatis, I couldn't even start to imagine how you and other server admins manage to squeeze in the time to work on a bigger development server and
try to maintain a job and the rest of a normal life. I've been off work for over
a year now,(with an injury) which gives me time to work on my own cheesy
little server on a daily basis, but as I learned over the last couple months,
compiling and getting the server running is the easy part, lol
I never realized how much work was involved in the development of just a
simple server, let alone the kind of accomplishment in your goals and others
already running on here.
If I was still working, it would be a long time to get done what I've worked on
so far.(without anything custom done)