by Gorka » Fri Apr 26, 2019 5:54 am
I have spoken with Neptune and come up with an agreed mapping format which I have used to produce maps for all of the new areas recently added to EU. Neptune has fairly high standards (so I found out), which I think is ultimately good for the game - and I think that shows in his area design. Draft maps I will make available in the next few days, so any small detail can be corrected, before my final submission of all 12 maps. Creating maps is far more work than you'd expect. I've spent a good part of 5-7 days doing this. The work of the first day is almost completely wasted due to the learning curve of figuring out how to do things better. I am no graphical artist like Zaq, but new maps will be easy to read and functional. In fact I remember someone commenting about the drachma Zaq received for creating the original EU maps, and he said that it wasn't worth the drachma... something I now perfectly understand.
Regarding the new areas in general... I am very impressed, because the xp, items and coins I think offer the future of sloth in regards to improved area design. The areas are deadly... however I found no blockers, so get your fly, water breath, visage and spell shield up and you can ferret around down there fairly easily. Walking around unshifted without -14ac is ill advised, however if you do get attacked by something... best to web it in place before you retreat. If you get mobbed by a few mobs, you'll end up recalling.
I do believe that the group sized non-epic mobs could be run continuously there, however without maps to navigate it's difficult to string a run together, something I hope my maps will go a ways to addressing. There are some issues that could make some of the zones unfavorable, rivers, no gate rooms and swarming little aggros, but if players were to make some blast triggers for some mob actions, things could be more smooth.
There are a lot of useful potions and small jewels popping down there - I suspect that half the group would be spent spinning the wheel. Regarding the jewels, it would be better if the leader saved them up, sold them at the jeweler and split the coins at the end of the group. Regarding the potions, the heal ones should go to the tank, and mana ones to the healo if you put the interests of the group first - but there is always that one entitled player who thinks the game revolves around them whose bound to whine about "not getting anything" for all the botting and bad attitudes they have been contributing.
I will look into creating a list of capture texts for all the small mobs so you can write actions for them if I get around to it, some mobs do have vulnerabilities. I also should like a Potion Identification Substitution list.
Tomorrow before the quest I may lead a few hours there - just the non chop mobs to start forming a group xp run and to see how the group xp counters fair. I think it's a mistake to see EU as an epic chop and eq area. We need to start seeing it by all the other angles worked into the design such as small group, two man and large group non chop xp. See you at the quest.
Gimme a G! Gimme a ORKA!