The Worklog

[Neus]

Has it really been three months since I started working on the game again? I figured we'd be up for public testing by now... But it's better to dump content into the game before doing that, I think.

* Redid the way items are handled... in terms of stackable items. The system is hopefully much easier now, though I'll need my testers to mess around with bows and arrows to make sure I didn't break them...

* Wrote down several ideas for locations, items, and such. Will let you know when I add them.

* Some logic changes to Youkai and Monsters. Knowledge now, at least, plays a basic part in how they act.

* A few changes to the Survival skill's Check Time usage; if it's too dark, now, you can't tell what time it is. This mainly accounts for late night-early morning. Everything else is the same though.

[Neus]

* A hopefully painless transition for item properties. The way they were handled before wasn't perfect, and the new way is less resource-intensive. I didn't see any major changes during my own testing, but I rarely see big problems during said testing anyway.

* Several items added; mostly loot drops.

Still trucking.

[Neus]

* Added a new building to Doraington; the Bounty House. It's a house where you can collect bounties; the primary feature is the NPC there who buys different kinds of monster gore at different times. There's also a Bounty Board, where you can view a list of bounties (from both the House and other players), and you can put up your own Bounties for items/players, though there is no automation for player bounties for obvious reasons. Currently, you can post up to 2 bounties at a time; depending on if I add a Quest or Item to do so, there might be the ability to add more.

In addition to this, player bounties are persistent; they will save with the world. However, house bounties reset with the server.

[Neus]

* Finished converting the existing stackable items (oh god, why were things ever so bad). There may still be a few bugs with it but that's why I have private testers~

* Added a new Craft Potion recipe, will add more.

On a side note, I was pleasantly surprised that Rune Magicians have a minimal amount of problems with how their stuff works now. I plan to redo the Rune Crafter now that 4.0 has brought about the magic of interfaces, but it's low priority on the list.

[Neus]

* Added a brief explanation 'quest' for level 1 Summoners, since they're a little confusing. Maybe some for other classes too.

* Added a new binding system, so you don't always have to wake up in the Doraington Inn when you die or whatever.

[Neus]

* Player turns are now timed; if you don't finish your turn completely within 1 minute, it gets skipped. I may adjust this as issues with it become relevant, but it is there to prevent people from doing nothing all day.

[Neus]

* The inventory has been moved to a seperate control on the main skin. I don't know, there was a lot of room there and it seemed like not putting it there would be too silly. Anyway. It's there now, and there are two display options; Simple and Detailed. Detailed will organize the inventory into 5 different categories of items, while Simple just displays it all as it is.

[Neus]

* Mapped a small area to the west of Dormeho.

* Some more class development. I'll document it here, of course. This is all stuff added today, not full class progression forms.

Rogue
Level 2
- Technique: Southern Wind
Level 3
- Technique: Western Wind
Level 4
- Technique: Eastern Wind
Level 5
- Technique: Northern Wind
Level 6
- Technique: Flight of the Merganser
Level 7
- Ability: Filtcher Bird's Grace

[Neus]

Some more progress with class development. The reason I'm focusing on this, specifically, first is simply because I don't want to have to program retro-save updaters in case they're kept. You know, because I'm cool like that. Also it's a nice, simple thing to do. Anywho! This time, the Martial Artist.

What I was going for with this Technique tree is a sort of 'combo fighting' thing. For example, "Distance Breaker" is a technique that increases Movement Speed without taking up an Action; the third level technique, "Heartbreaker", hits an adjacent enemy with an unarmed strike that does not miss, and if the character has a Movement Speed boost, that boost gets added to the damage and it leaves Lingering Damage of the hit. In this manner, techniques form into combos and sort of represent just what Martial Artists are all about.

Martial Artist
- Level 2
Technique: Distance Breaker
- Level 3
Technique: Heartbreaker
- Level 4
Technique: Heaven Kick
- Level 5
Technique: Dense Thunder
- Level 6
Technique: Crashing Sky Chariot
- Level 7
Technique: Like A Hurricane

[Neus]

Decided to disable Dual Wielding of weaponry. It was buggy, and didn't really add anything. I may re-add it in the future, but for now, it's been turned off to make things simpler on me.

[Neus]

Martial Warrior's turn.

Martial Warrior
- Level 2
Technique: Distance Breaker
- Level 3
Technique: Precision
- Level 4
Technique: Wealthy Step
- Level 5
Technique: Fatal End
- Level 6
Technique: Greater Precision

[Neus]

I redid the way quests were handled and such, and changed all of the current quests in the game to this system. It's a lot easier to work. I also fixed Jonas' quest, which wasn't working in private testing, we noticed.

[Neus]

* Craft Armor now implemented with a few uses.

* New mini-quest in Dormeho.

* Iconed some more youkai and added some new ones. I want to finish up a few more, though.

Not too much left to be done for public testing.

[Neus]

* Long over due Trade function.

As for public testing... should be very soon.

[Neus]

* New Character Race: Mechanations

To put it simply, Mechanations are living dolls. Like most technological leaps, Mechanations were originally created in Karaten, and are as close to creating life via Arcana as the mages have gotten so far. Their bodies are typically constructed of several materials; rubber, hard metals, and various arcane amplifiers to increase the lifetime of all parts and most importantly, the Mechanation itself; however, Mechanations are superficially similar to Humans. The only non-replaceable, yet vital, part is the Llarian Scar; a deep carving inside of living material (usually located deep inside of the head of the Mechanation, and usually made of heart and brain tissue). This Scar holds all information, and is essentially the brain of the Mechanation.

Mechanations are generally stoic, as most do not possess the sense of awareness to put them on the same level as normal living beings. However, in some cases, emotions and human habits develop in them (which is also a part of the Llarian Scar) due to long interactions with living beings. As a statistical representation, Spirit generally shows just how 'in-tune' the Mechanation is; normal ones have low Spirit, of course, while ones that 'awaken' to their emotions have slightly higher Spirit scores.
Naturally, due to their supremely low Spirit scores, they cannot become Magicians without extreme dedication to the stat, or 'upgrades' that make them more capable.

Statistics:

Agility: -3
Constitution: +5
Spirit: -4
Strength: +3

Abilities:

Llarian Scar - Reduces Experience lost by respawning to 10% original penalty, but cannot be revived by 'Raise Dead'.
Mechanation - Maximum weight doubles, but prevents access to the 'Learned Magician' class. In addition, bestows several resistances and weaknesses.

I plan to add several race-exclusive weapons/abilities/etc for this race, as well, and have already added one as of the time of posting this. Definitely going to be adding more afterwards. This was another thing I wanted to add before public testing, and here it is, added. Hooray!