Stendhal Development Meeting 2010-06-20/Result Log

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First steps of new players

  • Some improvements since the last meeting:
    • Cleaned up the tutorial, it was still talking about double clicking for example.
    • Rats in Semos Village don't run away anymore so it is be easier for new players to kill them.
  • There were suggestions to tell new players about:
    • Players can run faster than most creatures to get away #3020813
    • Player can eat while fighting. #3020115

Voice

  • A voiceover might be an effective way to get information to new players (we need a warning if they have no sound)
  • An in-character introduction when you create your account was suggested
    • Telling that Semos is a rural town, in need of protection because the army is far away
    • And that you are the one who is going to protect it. Well, if you can convince Hayunn that you are strong enough
  • NPCs could give more helpful hints when asked help - we'd need hint ideas (omero)
  • Players are not directed to semos farm land by anything currently (but it's a good place for low levels) - a sign?
    • It needs more NPCs - someone hoeing the weeds in the wheat field? (omero)
  • Books in the library could help to add information - we need text ideas

Marking dangerous zones

  • Marking dangerous zones, or more general, making suggestions to player which zones are good for their level.
  • a compas or a thermometer which shows danger of the zone for example
  • should dangerous areas be marked using colors on the map?
  • Excel file listing number of creatures and their level in every zone: Zone_statistics_without_collision.xls
  • A zone is something like int_semos_bank, 0_semos_city (see column A)
  • Column D seems to be a good measurement: Density of danger (the sum of the levels of all creatures in there divided by the size of the zone).
  • Clever tweaking needed to map those danger levels to player levels.
  • I tried a simple approach (column B) of saying hell is good for player level 597. And calculated the other levels on a linear basis. But applying a linear scale did not give good the results. Level seems to be a bit like a log scale.
  • Suggestions are welcome using /support or in #arianne on irc.freenode.net. There is a "Chat" link on http://stendhalgame.org
  • more guidance for players to find areas that are safe for them

Min level on items

  • If new players get a high level item quickly, leveling up may become more difficult (for example because they are not hit anymore and therefore do not get atk/def xp).
  • help wanted on creating a list of suggested min levels ({3016679})
  • the lowest creature that drops the item can be a starting point for defining minimum levels
  • fine tuning needed because:
    • strong items with very low probability
    • NPCs selling items (for example xin blanca selling low level items),
    • quest rewards?
  • laguz is going to work on the creature based approach

New dungeons


New quests

  • omero suggested a 'cheque' you can spend at one of the seller NPC

Random Teleport

  • love_puppet suggested that players are teleported at a random time to an area where they have to do some task.
  • should have a good reward
  • can catch bots
  • may be annoying if you are on a journey with friends

Bank Book

  • torvald suggested a bank book, which shows all your bank accounts
  • being able to remember where you put things or come up with your own organisation system, is a challenge
  • perhaps as a good quest reward but maybe not as an item you always keep

Fetching books quest

  • omero suggested a repeatable fetch the book quest for different npcs (add quest link)
  • the npc would have the book and the player collects it
  • it could be hidden around them for player to find
  • laguz added to this that something could be forced to be read from the book - a keyword

Runes quest

  • reading a word from a book to collect which is hidden is similar to a runes quest idea
  • runes could be used to get players into dungeons

More storage

  • Players ask for more space in chests #1713621
  • You already get more space as you grow stronger and get access to banks in more cities
  • Many players don't seem to use the far chests like Ados or Zara's much
  • We are working on containers so that you can buy or get rewarded a bag, a box, scroll wallet, etc #2933768
  • But putting a big box inside a chest sounds strange
  • Changing size of chest mid game is not possible.
  • Pets could have bag spaces #1937766
  • Chest in spots like dungeons, maybe just storage spaces under a stone, say, but open to all, not private. i think that storyteller suggested something very similar #2974131
  • Portable chests

Account and character handling

  • hendrik described the changes, which are now summarized at: Stendhal Account Merging
  • existing accounts can be merged (see link above)
  • I can login my characters "hendrik" and "hendrikus" at the same time even after merging them into one account
  • there will be is a new page variant of on the hall of fame: Me and my friends
  • merging accounts is optional, it is fine to keep them separated
  • server admins can unmerge account, for example in case of password theft
  • if someone is password sharing and the other person wants to exploit that, he can simple take all items.
  • this has already happened in the past and is no new risk with account merging.

Password Sharing

  • rules should be translated (start is done, please help)
  • it is prohibited to share passwords for a number of reasons:
  • one is that it is very unfair to other players if you let other people make progress on your account.
  • that means you didn't make your own progress, someone else did.
  • another is that sharing passwords might seem 'ok' between friends, to the friends. but things can turn bad. the friends can steal items from each other and then it makes a support problem when they complain.
  • it has wasted a lot of spare time of the developers, therefore it is likely that you get banned
  • you should never trust anyone with your password.

Website

  • it is possible to change password there
  • (next version of Stendhal will have a menu to open the password change page)
  • on http://stendhalgame.org there is a "login" link in the upper right hand corner.
  • this login button should be made a little bit more eye-catching, perhaps over the "Play now" and over the "Download" button
  • the website has information which may also be useful to see in game, e.g. drops from a creature

Testing web starter

  • please test the web based starter at https://stendhalgame.org/account/mycharacters.html
  • click on your character and wait a bit
  • does starting the game work for you?
  • if you are not using Webstart normally, it will ask you to dowload on the first try.
  • it works for axelf, but he only sees the coffee icon instead of the Stendhal logo icon
  • tigertoes is missing box of text


Getting the word out

  • I did some research into how people learn about new games and new applications and 'word of mouth' was the best method
  • So, anyone who has a blog, or some site they can post links, to tell their friends what they are doing, do please feel free to share about Stendhal :)
  • how many players can be on at once?
    • don't worry about player number limits.
    • stendhalgame.org is a real server in a real data center.
    • it can handle a lot more players and traffic than all the other Stendhal clone server hosted on home internet connections.


Translating

Translating rules

  • We have started to translate the introduction in various languaes.
  • A big thank you to every one who worked on that.
  • If you know other languages, please help with that.
  • Either by improving already existing translations or adding new ones.
  • Oslsachem translated to Spain and offered to do Portuguese
  • omero offered to translate the rules to Italian

Translating game

  • The translation system we had in place was removed since nobody ever completed 5% of translation needed
  • It was promised that if anyone completes more than 75% it can be re added
  • Coding it is rather simple
  • Commitment would be needed to keep translating new material also


Closing meeting

  • We'd like to thank everyone for attending.
  • We put up a chatlog and a summary on the wiki and put a link on http://stendhalgame.org
  • Feel free to join us in #arianne on freenode at any time.
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