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Classes:
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-As you advance in class, your sprite becomes bigger. Sort of like in RO. You would start out as a kid and get an older sprite as you moved up in Class.
-Start as some sort of newbie class, and move onto the first stage of classes.
(Warrior, Mage, Scout)
-Each Class has 3 classes that sprouts from it that you can move onto at higher levels.
>The classes are split into 2 specialists and a jack of all trades
-Warrior-
Abolisher: High str/low def bonus, access to higher lvl weapons and attack skills
Tanker: High def/low str bonus, access to higher lvl armors and defense skills
Barbarian: Mid def/str bonus, access to some of the higher lvl armors and weaps and some attack and defense skills. (Jack of all trades, master of none)
-Mage-
Wizard: High int/low wis bonus, access to high lvl wands and attack magic
Priest: High Wis/ low int bonus, acess to high lvl staves and defensive magic
Magicsman: mid wis/int, access to some wands and staves and low lvl attack and defensive magic
Wizards would have high lvl magic spells, some could be area effect. They could be so powerful that to balance it out, mSpeed changes to 0 for a certain duration after the spell is cast. Their very low def makes it harder to lvl at very low lvls, and the delay after casting a spell would make it depend on parties.
Priests could have high lvl buffs and some of those could be area effect as well. Buffs basically every good type of buff out there. They are penalized with very long delays after high lvl spells are casted. Their low attack power makes them rely on party members as well. Have to take VERY long to lvl.
Magicsman can't cast area effect spells and can only use minor buffs that boost defense on itself.
-Scout-
Hunter: high dex bonus, low agi bonus, access to high lvl crossbows and skills
Fletcher: high agi/low dex bonus, access to high lvl bows, and skills
Theif: mid of both, lower lvl weaps and skills
Hunters don't attack as fast but pack a punch. cross bows are slower than bows. Their skills raise range and attack power.
Fletchers are very fast and their skills raise range and attack speed.
Overall: Some very high level skills and weapons, will only be able to be gotten once a day through quests. Like A Monster that spawns once a day and has a 2% chance of dropping the quest item. That way high level skills can be a little rarer.
The reason for these 3 classes, is One would mainly be for PVM, another for PVP, and a third for those who like to do a little of both. The Jack of all trades is generally used to do both Even though any character with the exception of priest can PVP (priests can still be killed) Can only use mage skills to attack.
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Environment:
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-The most boring part of most RPGs is all the walking you have to do. Sure pretty graphics do help in aiding this bordom, but little twists could be added to enhance a player's experience. Ever walk a little close to a River and fall in? I think when you walk against a river there should be a little resistance so you don't fall in, but if you take 3 steps at it or something, you could fall into the river and be pulled with the current. The current would just consist of a tile that would push your character in one direction towards another tile that would do the same. A plus for this is that this could allow developers to insert puzzles. Like a dungeon that would be a system of water currents that you would have to find your way to get through the dungeon. This would at least make it a little more exciting.
-I really liked the idea someone put forward about killing rock NPCs for mining, trees for lumber, and so on. In caves and dungeons there could be rock NPCs that have to be broken to clear paths and they would spawn at random. Just things to keep people's minds occupied other than the usual hack and slash game.
-Day and Night-
-Plant Type monsters could become imobile and get a huge def bonus with attack reduced to 0 until the sun comes out. Just a little neat idea Nalyid and I came up with.
-Nalyid suggested monsters that only come out at night that you can't see. It would be cool if they could be faint shadows on the ground that reveal a monster once it attacks. Ghosts and Undead only come out a night.
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Quests:
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Static and Dynamic Quests:
-Static-
Static quests are quests that are always there. Everyone goes to the same NPC and does the same quest. Everyone gets the same rewards.
-Dynamic-
-Dynamic quests would be like some npc spawns in some random town, giving some random quest. These quests could be to find a certain item for them, Escort them to a different place.
-Dynamic quests would be on a ranking system. Each area (like newbie town vs one that's hard to get to) would have a rank cap. So newbies wouldn't be asked to bring retrieve Bob's new armor who lives in the hardest town to get to. Depending on the rank of the quest, exp/gold/item would be rewarded. Higher lvls that do low lvl quests would recieve less xp by pluging the quests into a formula such as:
Exp = [Quest Base XP]*([highest lvl to gain full XP]/lvl)
That way lets say the level cap was lvl 12 and the quest gave 2000 xp. You are lvl 8:
Exp = 2000*(12/8)
Exp = 2000*(1.5)
Exp = 3000
What if a lvl 20 tries to do the same quest?:
Exp = 2000*(12/20)
Exp = 2000*(.6)
Exp = 1200
So you don't get lvl 1s doing lvl 50 quests, you put caps on that will effect what lvl they can start the quest at. If the person was too low a lvl, the npc could just say, "I was looking for someone a little stronger".
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Skill System:
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-Expanding on storms idea of having attack range with certain item's and skills, I think that in the cases of casting type skills. If you get hit before it is casted, it would cancel the spell.
-As for skill lvls in general, Maybe a skill tree where you need to add in points as you lvl, or the skills gain XP themselves could fit.
-What i thought of was a sort of system, where the more successfull attacks you make would put your character in some sort of zone. Like the more you play basketball the better you get, but if you don't play for a couple of months you get rusty. Some sort of meter could be in the bottom right of the screen or something, where as you use the same spell over and over again successfully, the meter goes up. The higher the meter, the higher of a bonus you would get on that skill's attack. When you change skills, the meter would go down by chunks at a time. If you use two different spells in a row, then the meter goes back down to zero and can be applied to a new spell. Over time the meter would go back down. So if you don't use the spell successfully for 5 seconds after the last time, the meter would go down a little bit. Each time you don't cast successfully, the meter goes down as well. The meter could go to a maximum of like 160% of the skill's damage.
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The World:
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-Ok for the World and towns in general, I suggest a grid type system where each map is divided into areas. This combined with seamless maps, put a lot less strain on the server.
Looking at the diagram when you are at the edge of 2 maps, the server only has to focus on what is within the 2 highlighted areas instead of the whole map.
The reason for all of this is so that the server does not have to keep track of all the monsters on both of the maps at the same time. That would be very inefficient. It would be like having extra players that arn't doing anything in particular. If a person leaves an area that has spawned monsters, the area just simply is ignored by the server. The monster data does not need to be erased. Only erased when the monsters hp <= 0. This way the coordinates, hp and so on are still there, just the server doesn't look at it. When an area becomes active again, the monsters continue on life and begin to do what they do. An area is only active if a player is within 5 tiles offscreen of it. Instead of keeping track of 40 monsters on a map, the server only has to keep track of like 3-5 in each area.
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Good and Evil System:
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This can be applied to PvP as well as involving quests. PvP would be considered murdering. Everytime you kill an innocent player, your karma goes down and you become wanted. Each town would have a wanted board for surrounding areas. NPCs could also be murdered as well. The board would say something like:
<Player Name> is wanted for the Attempted Murder of <NPC's Name> our town's friendly <NPC's Job>.
or
<Player Name> is wanted for the Murder of <Player's Name> who was passing by one day.
When a player is on a wanted board, and they are PKed, they would lose a certain amount of XP depending on their lvl. To help prevent abuse, of buying XP from players, The person who puts a murder to justice goes to the sherrif of the town and recieves and a portion of the XP lost by the murder. If a player murders too many players, they have a chance of being sent to jail on their death for a set amount of time, or until they complete a special task.
Players who are evil would gain access to special evil only places, items, quests. Same with good people. Each time you kill a murder your karma goes up unless you are on a wanted board in an area. PKs in places far from towns would not change a players name red, but would still lower their karma.
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Equipment Window:
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each player serverside contains a section noted as Equipment.
It could contain the following properties...
Head [3] {High, Mid, Low}
Chest[2]{armor, shirt}
Back[1]{cape}
Hands[3]{left, right, gloves}
Legs[2]{leggings, lower legs}
Feet[1]{shoes}
Armor and weapons would hold similar properties. If it you use a sword then you could have a little script like, set player hands[1] = <item number>.
When a player equips and item, the server will check to see if the player has space for the item before it is put on. Like if the player uses a two handed sword, the script could look like, set player hands [1] = <item number> and set player hands [2] = -1 which would mean that the other hand is in use. This way you don't get double instances of a weapon in a character.
Each piece of equipment could be set in an items database containing the following fields...
Use:
----set of instructions that are excecuted when an item is used----
UnUse:
----set of instructions that are excecuted when item is being unUsed---- (find a better word
)The script wouldn't have to be complex, It just has to be able to modify the char files. When a weapon is equiped it just changes the value of hands 1 and/or 2.
