[Gameplay] Settings and Options for a small Server

Good Day

This is a thread to discuss and share ideas that relate to people running small servers. When I say small I don't mean "lite" repacks, I mean 5 - 20 people playing on the server.

I run a server over the weekends at a friends house and people come and we play in parties. Sorta like D&D, we delve into a dungeon and help another complete as many quests as possible.

Anyhow share your tips and suggestions as to how to make the GAMEPLAY best for a low population server.

Where possible state what repack you are using. Try to keep the same format as below when sharing your tips.

I am using UWC 1.3.4 with Spirits recent scripts pack.

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Things I Have Noticed:

Questing: For the first hour or so, players will stick together. But on most repacks, you can get higher experience for killing mobs in the time it takes you to complete a quest. For this reason I have set the gain rate for killing mobs to 0.5 and I have multiplied the XP rewards for completing quests by 3,I have also increased the money rewards. This gives players incentive to work together to complete quests.

I have also reduced the requirements for quests. Having to kill 20 insane salesmen for every person in a party takes FOREVER! The way I have worked it is the average party size is 3.5 people, so I multiplied the requirements for quests by a factor of 0.6

Additionally I have converted kill quests to delivery quests, I did all of this using my Quest Updater Application. Which I admit isn't completly elegant but it is effective!
My players really like this as they no longer have to time who gets the killing blow in when doing kill quests. Simply kill the bastards get their remains and split amoungest the party until everyone has the required amount.

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Traveling: It is a BIG world. It is a World afterall. For a small party to get around takes a long time, I would rather be questing than running for 10 minutes to catch up to my party.

I have modified the hearthstone, so that you have two way travel. Additionally you can teleport to another players bindpoint, which is helpful. One person sets their bindpoint in the caves, you have yours at the merchants. Additioanlly I have set the cool down time on the hearthstone to 30 seconds. (You'll have to modify whatever anti-cheat you have to not ban your players for "cheating"!!! Update the relevant cool down periods on the hearthstone spell).

Additional consumable teleport stones (with cast time! instant cast make things too easy) should by vendors, that bring you back to that vendor have also been popular.

Question: Could one create crafting of teleport stones a profession? has anyone tried to add custom professions? I haven't as yet the idea simply came to mind. As you learn new recipes, you can learn new "locations" (more specific and remote the harder to craft).

Question: Teleporting to a party member.. how to set this up so that is useful but so that players don't exploit it! Perhaps an item with a half hour cool down and long cast time?

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Looting: Need space for me loot, Arrrr!! I give new chars an additional 10 slot container at start up. The item is soul bound and has no value (they can't get money for the container).

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Skills: Useful skills, mad skills! Rather than being an item, how would you feel about giving players the hearthstone ability as a spell? I do think it is better as it is one less valuable storage space used.

Bull Rush, is a nifty spell that allows for an hasty retreat from battle. It lasts 30 seconds and has a five minute cool down. I am thinking of perhaps making the cool down 10 minutes.

Amnennar's Wrath, is a spell that re-directs mod agression towards yourself. Now I know that fighters have taunt, etc. But often there isn't a fighter in the group? Now your spell caster foolishly pulled a monster that is busy frying him alive and your healer is manaless. The spell has a fairly short cooldown, I think a similar spell but with a 1 or 2 minute cool down would be fine.

Suggestions: Running Speed?
spell 21353, Mount Speed Buff DND is a buff that doesnt show up but actually increases the running speed of a player by 50%. Initially this was to fast so I made a copy of this spell changing it to 30% faster. As running around takes a real long time. I am sure someone mentioned the emu walk/run speed is slower than official - I wouldn't know - never played official. :no:
Question: How do I autocast this spell on a player at login? Although I tell my players of this buff and that they should cast it, some people just don't learn. They land up, way behind the rest of the group. I would like to make this an autocast spell.

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Professions: Why don't you get a job? I have given players the option to have unlimited professions. As there are so few players, everyone eventually tries there hand at just about every profession!

Suggestion: Give professions as racial traits? If I was a dwarf and was old enough to swing an axe, but couldn't mine I wouldn't show my face outdoors! Additionally, what adventurer goes forth without at least knowing how to make 2 minute noodles!!! Sure go find a trainer, but is yet another lengthy and costly trip players will have to make.

Here's my draft list:
Dwarves, Orcs: Mining, Blacksmithing, Bakery
Humans, Undead: Tailoring, Enchanting, Fishing
Gnomes: Enginering, Alchemy, Bakery
Trolls: Skinning, Leatherworking , Fishing
NightElves, Tauren: Herbalisim, Alchemy, Fishing

My other suggestion is give players beginners rank in all professions. So they can try their hand at professions from the word go.

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Regrowth: Fix me up!
I have greatly slowed regrowth of HP/Mana etc. I found that spellcasters were able to far to easily keep on throwing spells. However, I have added health/mana/rage potions to a lot more vendors.
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[EDIT]
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Some non standard ideas I have:
I put these separate they are really non-official like. A lot of people don't like these ideas, which is fine by me. Personally I feel the best option is find a medium between, official like and "fun" servers.

So discuss these point with that in mind.

Sanctuary: A place (one for horde, the other for alliance) that has all types of merchants, trainers, professions in a single and easy to navigate place eg. GM or Dev Island (or another cool un-used location - suggestions?)
Now you may say, there are the capital cities! But they are tedious to navigate! At the same time, this place should only be accesiable by a single item/spell with a LONG (2 Hours??) cooldown. (So somehow have to make my bind stone un-useble in this place). With the long cool down, there will be times when it is easier to simply return to the nearest town.

Sancutary will also have teleporters to the starting areas of related factions. So set the starting point of all related factions at sancutary, so players of a faction can play together regardless of race, creed or colour!

Waypoints: I mean like another game that should be familiar to us all. This would need to be maintained in a DB. But basically it would allow you to return to an area you've been to before by activating an object that would then show all the locations avaliable to you.

Armour Classes I can't see why a mage who is determined to, couldn't learn how to use mail. Sure he won't find any armour sets that benefit his abilities in the mail class, but that shouldn't stop him from wearing it! The learning of the other armour types should be tier based and cost a fair amount. This would help small parties where there is no real tank to the group. So you can take turns being the gimp.

Super "No Requirements" but HELLISHLY expensive items if a group is willing to save their pennies they should be allowed access to some really awesome kit. Of course there has to be some downside to this and that is that these items are really really really expensive. But sometimes saving for the +100 Sword of Dragons Bane is really really really worth it!

Gambling Like the before mentioned other game, gambling! Paying extrodinary amounts of money for what could be an awesome-but more than likely rubbish item you don't know about!

Mobs less HP but do more Damage as you have noticed I am about flow, the sooner you kill a mob - the sooner it can respawn and someone else can kill it again! But as with balance there must be a change elsewhere. So the mobs have slightly less HP (say 25% less) but they will not go down without hurting you (say 75% more damage). Additionally it means that a smaller party can take on more mobs at a go, but should be careful to keep everyone alive and well.

Is there a doctor/priest/druid in the house? as a singular warrior life is tough. In fact it's down right impossible at times. There should be a way for combat types (fighters, thieves, hunters) to fix themselves when in a tight spot.
My suggestions are:
* Give them a decent rank in first aid
* Give them a LONG cool down instant heal ability (target self only)
* Watch them suffer.

Weapons: Which end do I put into my foes? Again like the armour suggestion. If a mage really really really worked at it they could learn to use a 2 handed sword, once again they wouldn't get any real benefit from high level swords. Additionally they would need to train and first learn how to handle daggers, short swords, long sword then 2 handed swords. I mean it can't be that hard to work out which is the pointy end!

More general skills There are a couple of general skills that provide some cool effects but seem unleanable. Firstly we would need to check these skills actually work! But then I can't see that learning some of these skills (at the right price/lvl etc) would ruin gameplay.

:batman:
Interlinking Storyline Quests now the quests avaliable do "sort of" link together. But there is no real story or epic quest, but that is expected as it is a mmorpg. But what I am thinking:

a set of quests that could be plugged into any repack, using standard common NPC's.

In the quest log, the Area/Location for the quest would be something to the effect of Alliance/Horde/Main Quest or something so that it is easily identifiable. These quests should be written with the lore and setting of the world in mind.IE. They aren't intended to run-through kind of quests, you'll need to read the description of the quest. Additionally the rewards choice can be items that start a spefic branch of a quest eg.

Code:

After killing 20 rabid salesmen the heroic party return to Edmond the Raving and are given two maps to the two remaining Gold Plated Tooth Picks. The one lies beyond an undead infested graveyard, the other is on the property of a wine loving giant.

So the one choice would require you to kill plently of undead the other would have you running to collect grapes for the drunkard giant. This way you actually can do quests that suit your party.

There are those that would say, rather fix the current quests. I agree lets fix them, but personally I am getting a bit bored of the same quests. A lot of these quests are designed for single person or for situation where the dam Share Quest button works...

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I hope you find this helpful and please do share your gameplay tips.

Remember that not every one will agree, but that is why we do what we do. So that we can do things our own way!

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Client 1.8.0
UWC Repack 1.3.4

Working on:
http://www.uw-crew.com/thread.php?threadid=2275
http://www.uw-crew.com/thread.php?threadid=2198
http://www.uw-crew.com/thread.php?postid=18908