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Rocko- 11-29-2006
Greetings all,
As title said, I am look for someone who share similar interest and taste of the type of shard to work together. Before wasting everybody's time reading, I do prefer to have someone 18+ in age (no discrimination, just personal preference, as I am 30+ and I feel sometimes more comfortable to communicate with people not too far away from my age group).
I currently work on a small server, and have intention to make it public after roughly 4-6 months development. Here is the type of server I have in mind:
Some baselines:
* Non-PVP, family style.
* Preferrably small size (20-30 target average online).
* No freebies: all skills are hard earned, using experience system (a prototype already coded, skills gain is so that each skill would require roughly 30 hours to GM). Reasonable skill/stat cap.
* Limited magic items. No uber gear, no neon hue.
* RP encouraged but not required. Expecting mature behavior and talking from players. No to minimum leet talking or any fancy stuff.
Feature wise:
*Start from RunUO distro, and add a few top packages from RunUo forum (already done including my favorite XMLSpawner), then keep adding and tinkering custom packages written by self (a few packages in, including town invasion by mob; crops/fruit trees with various events - I have a release on runuo forum under the name of rocko wang; henchman; will add EQ like bard songs; and most recently instanced dungeon). Remove some distro features if needed.
*Most custom features will be developed to provide the players a mature and fun place to hang out. What I have in mind is a server somewhat like the POL shards "world of dreams" and "Ackadia" (no secret I am a fan of Dundee and Drocket's work), and hopefully leverage the power RunUO provides to push things further.
Some exmples of things I plan to implement are:
* Fun but not overcomplicated crafting system. For example, I will not provide more than 10 types of ore, but instead of crafters tossing all the low level ingots, each type of ingot could be given some very special use.
* Balanced crafters and adventurers (two way flow: crafters will be vital to support adventurers in terms of consumable and high end gears, and provide plenty of gold sinks for adventurers; while adventurers provide high end material for crafters).
* Useful and fun but not overpowered henchman (I personally think is an important feature for a small shard as it's not so fun to hunt alone). Prototype in, need some more fun AI
* Instanced dungeons (prototype in and working. Need more tinkering). This is mainly for group hunting and quest. Somewhat similar to Lost Dungeon of Norrath on EQ.
* Dynamically generated dungeons (a wish for the moment since item counts may limit whether and how it can be done)
* Town siege and defense between player and mob groups in a more intelligent way than just spawn the mob as my current invasion spawner does
* Encourage party hunting by using features like experience bonus for party players
* Prefer to develop strong in game story/culture elements
* Town government where everyone can get involved than just the mayor. Example being on defense side, player can play guard, guard captain, defense administrator.
Ok, if you dont feel this sounds like something interesting to you, then you may want to stop here. If this does sounds like a server you would be interested to work on, then read on.
Development wise, I am currently throwing in about 5-6 hours per week to do scripting. I am a full time software engineer using C++, writing code has been the interest for me, so I can say I am pretty dedicated. However, off work hours are really limited, and I start picking up RunUO scripting not long ago, so development is in a more like layback style. What I want to make sure is I do this for fun, under the assumption it does not interfere my real life (well, not too much).
So the style of development would be overall casual but consistent. There will be updates every week even every day, but any big plan will take probably a couple of weeks to shape into scripts. It doesn't matter if you currently are working on a different shard as well (it would be an issue if you participate in scripting though). However, if you eventually do decide to join, I do expect you to show consistent effort with the project, means not just showing up for a few days in a frenzy mood and then totally cool down and disappear.
Ok, if the work style seems to be not inline with your style, then you may want to stop here, as I want to ensure whoever participate do have fun in what they do. Now if this still sounds like an interesting project, here is my general expectation of someone I want to work with:
Skill wise, I am not asking for anything specific. If you could do the scripting, or world building/decorating, map making, that would be great pluses. Since I myself has been only taking up the scripting so far, and probably need quite some learning for world building/map making (probably not too bad with the right tool), so any skill are welcome. If you dont have any of these experience, but you are willing to help me test out features by playing on my test server and then report any bugs or request features you think would be necessary or fun, then a quality control type of position will fit you very well too, and we do need urgently a couple of such positions.
I do have one requirement on scripting. If you do want to involve in scripting, then I do expect you to work on this server only, and first I would need to see you able to finish some small tasks I give you (not asking to see something you did before, but give you a task and ask you to script it, it will be a little more than just custom item/mob) before I could let you access the whole script package I am working on: since being a software guy, I know how important it is to stay away from trouble by qualifying the developers first. Besides, I do plan to not release the script package to the public to keep a little bit of uniqueness until maybe the server has established a good sized playerbase after going live. So that would be an additional requirement for script developers. If that is a problem with you, you may want to choose to let me handle the script and focus on other tasks.
Since the server is still under development, GM are not the type of titles I would look to give out at the moment. Rather, I would call everybody who wish to join developers, regardless of the area you work on. Again, people who can test out features, report bugs, suggest features, discuss ideas, are very welcome. As the development matures, GMs will likely naturally come from the developer/QC group. As I see it, a GM is someone who has time and patience to invest in the game and stay at the front end to interact with players, helping the players resolving problems and conflicts and organizing events. Those who has very limited time, or more enjoy development type of work, can just stay at the back end being a developer (many probably have most privileges of a GM in order to work effectively).
One last comment, host machine. I have a dedicated PC for that, and I will host it on my own DSL (would upgrade the speed if necessary but for now in development phase I think it is sufficient).
OK, I am not expecting a lot of responses since I am probably being very specific of what kind of people and server I want to work with, but I figure it wouldn't hurt to ask. if someone enjoy an old-school mature family style game environment to hang out where you can contribute in any way you like, PM me and we will talk more.
Thanks for reading the long post.
Rocko