What's about to come in the next months...

[Zwiebelchen]

As the amount of work that is ahead to complete 1.2 is enormous, I decided to cut all the 1.2 content into smaller pieces, which will be released one by one over the next months, to keep you guys on track and myself motivated.

-----------------------------

This is the general roadmap for the next months:
1.2.A: Release of a new quest hub and leveling grounds. The content will be placed in the non-snowed parts of the mountain terrain and will roughly contain 10-12 new quests, trashmobs up to level 46 (so reaching level 50 is finally possible), a level 42 a level 48 and two level 50 world boss encounters.

1.2.B: Release of a dwarven village and close sorroundings, providing several level 50 quests and implementation of the quest token system. Will contain the first 3 bosses of the new D4 dungeon and the new "weekly quests".

1.2.C: Release of 3 more bosses of D4 and increasing the playable area of the mountain terrain further. New level 50 quests and possibly 1 or 2 new level 50 world bosses. Finishing the D4 dungeon terrain, map will have shadows calculated at this update.

1.2.D: Release of the final bosses of D4, lots of story quest content.

1.3: Implementation of a gambling system. Implementation of 'Heroic Modes', adjusting D1, D2 and D3 to level 50 content with completely new boss fights.

 

[ChaosClouds]

Seems it's a great idea to release map part by part. Well done!

 

[Zwiebelchen]

Also, each single upgrade, except for the first will at least contain one new spell for each advanced class.

 

[Vestra]

Awesomeeeeeeee. Looking forward to properly testing out the talent system in April, get to it Zwieb!

 

[Gotenks]

Very very good idea that way people wont have to wait 1 year for it when they can get a small update in shorter time

 

[Femoika]

Looking forward to see it happen!

 

[TinyTeaser]

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW, so much Love, ahhh this game is awesome man haha, every update gets me excited lmao - even bug fixes haha, love how theres a wide selection of skills to pick from now as well ^^ everyone is finally different lol

 

[S0ulseeker]

This is the greatest news I've heard all day. Thank you for that I needed this

 

[water_Knight]

How if you fall behind people will bitch but other then that it is nice to see what is up and coming.

 

[Vestra]

people will always find something to bitch about

 

[krustnik]

Ho Ho Ho Merry Z-mas!!!

BR.

 

[Zwiebelchen]

Made a quick sketch over all the new bosses and quests planned, such as the general creep populations in the 1.2.A areas.

Looking great so far with almost 15 new quests, 5 new world bosses (level 44, 46, 47, 50, 50) with different difficulty levels and loot quality and 2 new quest hubs.

 

[ChaosClouds]

Nice, but i think the gap between the current highest lvl boss is too high (more than 10 lvl)

 

[Gotenks]

you should add some new creeps for lvl more than 37 so we can catch up (or increase the d3 creeps and bosses lvl ^^)

 

[Femoika]

Nice, but i think the gap between the current highest lvl boss is too high (more than 10 lvl)

Cloud has a point, no boss for 12 levels? Maybe go for a lvl 38, 40 then 44 one

 

[Vestra]

Cloud does indeed have a point. Would 38, 40, 44, 47 and 50 be possible zwieb? Give us one endgame boss for now. Or would you prefer to fill the backwards slots later.

 

[_lycan]

I'm sure this will make the map develop faster, since as stuff progress you will notice it was SUCH a hard thing, this always happens

 

[Zwiebelchen]

I think there is enough content for the 30-40 level range. A boss in that level range would be waste will all the D3 content.
Creeps will be from level 28 to level 46 for now, so that smooth leveling even without going D3 is possible.

Already got a lot of good ideas for boss encounters, which will be entertaining for sure.

About the boss level, I'd rather have more content there close to level 50, so that endgame wont be boring when the other updates are still not released.

 

[TinyTeaser]

looking forwards to these boss ideas ^^ (my favourite thing in orpgs haha)
Repeatable quest is gonna be so handy as well , ahh this game is coming all together, gonna be incredibly hard for something to beat Gaias.

 

[_lycan]

Zwieb do this please, make leveling be from -5 levels, example:

level 45 mob let's you level up to level 40. that way it will make the leveling actually harder and team oriented, instead of no brain farming :/

 

[Zwiebelchen]

Zwieb do this please, make leveling be from -5 levels, example:

level 45 mob let's you level up to level 40. that way it will make the leveling actually harder and team oriented, instead of no brain farming :/

That doesn't even make sense.

 

[Gotenks]

I dont understand that idea either but rly why not just increasing whole d3 creeps and bosses level

 

[Vestra]

I think there is enough content for the 30-40 level range. A boss in that level range would be waste will all the D3 content.
Creeps will be from level 28 to level 46 for now, so that smooth leveling even without going D3 is possible.

Already got a lot of good ideas for boss encounters, which will be entertaining for sure.

About the boss level, I'd rather have more content there close to level 50, so that endgame wont be boring when the other updates are still not released.

Well that's the thing, content as it is, currently, stops at 32, hence the request. We may level to 37 now but that's only because we can. Having one boss at 50 would still give us endgame farm. If you want, throw in another boss somewhere to make it 6 new bosses ^_^

Just saying, after Shade and The Blazing Flame, there would be fuck all in between there are the new 40+ bosses. That isn't necessarily a bad thing just something we want you to consider.

 

[Zwiebelchen]

In the end, adjusting the levels of the new bosses is always possible. But I need to make sure the boss levels fit their sorroundings, so basicly I'm limited to that with the current area design. But we will see.

I started coding the first of the new bosses, but I can't guarantee a lot of progress over the next two weeks, as I might be busy playing some Heart of the Swarm. Well, I don't think it will take longer than 1 week to finish the soloplayer campaign and then I'm back in action.

I have a small text file on my machine with all the quests, creep placement sketches and boss designs. Wish I could have you guys take a look, but I don't want to spoiler, so, meh.
All I can say is that I got a little bit of a headache when deciding over the boss locations, because the mountain terrain that is not covered with snow is pretty narrow and there's almost nowhere enough space for a real boss battle. I wish Shapy could assist me with making interiors again (so I could make them in seperate areas like the ogre boss), but he didn't offer anything yet.

And well, I gotta say its a refreshing change to be able to focus completely on content making for now. No new systems planned and all the heavy shit already implemented with 1.1m and 1.1n... pretty fun, actually. Basicly the only feature that Gaias is still going to see in the future is the quest token system and an item reward system for quests. Both not really complicated and can be done with less than 10 lines of code, lol.

Oh, I haven't talked about the weekly quest feature yet, so I might give you some intel on that:
It's a repeatable type of quest that can not be saved to the characters save code, but will be repeatable after a certain time span (currently planned 3 or 5 ingame days, which is roughly every 30/50 minutes).
To avoid people remaking the game to shortcut the cooldown, the quest will only get active for the first time after at least 30/50 minutes in the game.
Possible weekly quests will give gold, xp or mana crystal as rewards. They might also reward with random materials or charged one-shot items like buff potions. A (single charge) item used to summon a boss is also possible [which can not be saved, so no reloading possible in case the boss doesn't drop what you want, guys ].

 

[Vestra]

Truth be told, there was a neat spot on top of a hill. 'could always flatten the edges a bit and make room?

That sounds interesting, the weekly quest stuff, as something to do whilst farming. Good idea that, good idea indeed.

 

[Ihazdialup]

I think it'd be nice to see a wyvern type of boss in that ice canyon with all the spikes, that would be able to fly for parts of the battle, and landing, kind of chasing you around the canyon to dodge big aoe breath attacks.

 

[Zwiebelchen]

I think it'd be nice to see a wyvern type of boss in that ice canyon with all the spikes, that would be able to fly for parts of the battle, and landing, kind of chasing you around the canyon to dodge big aoe breath attacks.

Remember that all boss ideas must be RoC or TFT models. The wyverns/dragons don't have a walking on ground animation, so that is not possible.

 

[Vestra]

They can always swoop down, yet still remain airborne, just give them some ridiculous air streams or some shit.

 

[Zwiebelchen]

They can always swoop down, yet still remain airborne, just give them some ridiculous air streams or some shit.

Would look ugly. If there's going to be a battle with air units, i'd probably use a different mechanic.

 

[water_Knight]

You used the crows and they don't walk there you could do his idea you just don't wanna

 

[Vestra]

Would look ugly. If there's going to be a battle with air units, i'd probably use a different mechanic.

You used the crows and they don't walk there you could do his idea you just don't wanna

^ agreed, you're dodging a neat fight. I'm fairly sure it wouldn't work with the agro system anyway but a boss fight that chases you through that canyon would be mind blowing, dragon or not.

There better be a dragon up in there somewhere, a few even, then again idk if you want them in the lore but hey, they're awesome and they better be awesome if you implement them.

 

[Zwiebelchen]

^ agreed, you're dodging a neat fight. I'm fairly sure it wouldn't work with the agro system anyway but a boss fight that chases you through that canyon would be mind blowing, dragon or not.

There better be a dragon up in there somewhere, a few even, then again idk if you want them in the lore but hey, they're awesome and they better be awesome if you implement them.

There's gonna be dragons. But definitely not before level 50 and not neccessarily in the canyon.

 

[TinyTeaser]

Gaias Retalaition 3 : Skyrim xD

 

[Vestra]

There's gonna be dragons. But definitely not before level 50 and not neccessarily in the canyon.

Alrighty!

 

[Zwiebelchen]

Just a little update on this:
I recently got 1 week off from work as my saved up vacation days were about to elapse and I couldn't get them to be paid out.
This means I got almost every day to work on Gaias a little, which should be good news.
I still need to play through the last chapters of Starcraft II HotS, but when I'm done, I'll go straight for 1.2.

 

[Vestra]

Badass. I wants me some hardcore beta work for this version good sir.

 

[Shapy]

There is one point left that might is important before or right after the releasing of 1.2. I talk about gaining ppl with advertisments.

I would love to see more gameplay videos about gaias, so why dont make a contest about trailers and reward the winner with a item/npc named like him. (of course trailer really dont make to much sense right now, will be way better with the upcoming content)

furthermore improve the facebook gaias page. There arent any news/updates at all. Might there is a change to add more admins for the page so ppl can post news about upcoming versions/changelogs/pictures and so on. i know its AnektoD page and i dont critise him for his work thats just the way i feel how a page should be run. What do other ppl think about that ?

 

[FunnyDog]

Advertisments for gaining new players is a good idea, but WC3 is kinda dead, so you won't find that much people anymore, but may still be worth it. I think, that many once active gaias players are inactive at the moment. For example, I'm inactive since 3 months too, because I just can't afford the time for playing this awesome game. Anyway I'm looking forward to play it for hours and hours again . I think, that with the upcoming 1.2 content, some old gaias players will come back. Gaining new players is kind of hard, because I seen so many random people already joining the game, downloading it and when it started, they just picked a hero, died to a wolf and quit. For me it seems, that most of the new players just don't get the game after playing it for 2 minutes and that's why they think "Oh, I don't understand the game and im already playing for 2 minutes now, this must be shit". Then they die and just quit and search another map which they can play.

Btw, awesome work Zwieb, i really appreciate that you are still continuing the map, looking forward to the new content, for which i can hopefully afford some time.

 

[pleasetellmewhy]

I think gaias community should make some video introduce about " fight boss", "game play", "system item", "system skill" in gaias ver 1.2, and then upload to youtube, I hope that will help new player get the awesome of this map.

 

[Gotenks]

me and soul duoed whole d3 a while ago and he still havnt uploaded the video *yawn*

 

[S0ulseeker]

I've been working from 7am-9pm :[ I haven't even gotten time to edit it

 

[Xonok]

Gaining new players is kind of hard, because I seen so many random people already joining the game, downloading it and when it started, they just picked a hero, died to a wolf and quit. For me it seems, that most of the new players just don't get the game after playing it for 2 minutes and that's why they think "Oh, I don't understand the game and im already playing for 2 minutes now, this must be shit". Then they die and just quit and search another map which they can play.

I used to be one of those people, since I didn't figure out how important resting was.
All I saw was "WTF, this game requires healers to even beat lvl 1 creeps!?"
Later I came back to this game and understood, but most people wouldn't bother.

So what's missing is any kind of tutorial/introduction. The map just assumes that everyone knows what to do.

 

[S0ulseeker]

So what's missing is any kind of tutorial/introduction. The map just assumes that everyone knows what to do.

This would be kind of awesome and would LOVE to see like a starting 'tutorial' area or something, maybe just within the starting house even, but As of now I'd rather see the progress of 1.2 advance and I think we can hold off on a intro tutorial for new players until after 1.2 content starts getting pushed. I mean ultimately Gaias isn't THAT hard to understand those people who can't figure out how to play are probably pretty bad players anyways XD lol

 

[Gotenks]

Its a nice idea but i think most new players would just skip it bcuz thats what most of new players do skips tutorials.
What could be done is to add some "Hint" messages with also a cmd to turn them off or on like "To heal youself you can (Rest) ability to heal out of battle" *type -hints off to stop this messages* something like that

 

[TitanDeath]

I think it would be better if the NPC at the starting area had a skill on him that would show you the basics of the game, most people would probably not like to wait and watch a tutorial. And since he has a quest it would grab peoples attention.

For Example:
(Skill next to Talk and Accept Quest)
Help For New Players
Use -save to save your hero.
Click 'Rest' in your abilities to restore Hp and Mana.
You may only load a hero 3 times per game.
You cannot pick up dropped items that were created before your hero.
You may only gain experience from enemies + or - 4 levels of your hero.
Etc.

Something like that.

 

[TinyTeaser]

I think it would be better if the NPC at the starting area had a skill on him that would show you the basics of the game, most people would probably not like to wait and watch a tutorial. And since he has a quest it would grab peoples attention.

For Example:
(Skill next to Talk and Accept Quest)
Help For New Players
Use -save to save your hero.
Click 'Rest' in your abilities to restore Hp and Mana.
You may only load a hero 3 times per game.
You cannot pick up dropped items that were created before your hero.
You may only gain experience from enemies + or - 4 levels of your hero.
Etc.

Something like that.

Seen this in other ORPG's, worked to a certain extent... no one likes reading a block of text...

 

[TitanDeath]

Except it's faster and more efficient time wise to use. Making a tutorial would probably take too long and would delay 1.2. A hints system would be slightly ineffective due to them being more random and with a time delay.

Personally it's my preference to see information all in one place instead of spread out. It's quicker for the player and easy for them to discover and use at their own pace, instead of having to go through a tutorial section to learn the game aspects (the whole beginning to D3 is basically a tutorial in itself already).

 

[_lycan]

No one would use it, it's just bullshit anyone who played an mmorpg or any other ORPG excluding crap OPRG's like twillight should know how to play the map and that if you're a helear you need to heal yourself to beat a lvl 1 creep

 

[Vestra]

Truth be told, both would be neat. Have the basics on the signs man, use signs, i love signs. direct the to F9 I hate seeing all those little info tabs on npcs it looks messy.

Then, give them a link to a basic forum guide. If there is a hints system, give them a link to a complete list of hints.

A tutorial would be a good idea though.

 

[TitanDeath]

I just thought of a suggestion, I think you should change the Magus Right Hand item to give spell haste, the attack speed doesn't really have a use on a mage anymore since the mana spell passive was removed. And the craft item Glowing Emerald Staff is better to use than it lol.