Stendhal Development Meeting 2010-06-20/Result Log

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• Result Log
• Raw Chat Log

First steps of new players

• Some improvements since the last meeting:
  • Cleaned up the tutorial, it was still talking about double clicking for example.
  • Rats in Semos Village don't run away anymore so it is be easier for new players to kill them.
• There were suggestions to tell new players about:
  • Players can run faster than most creatures to get away #3020813
  • Player can eat while fighting. #3020115

Voice

• A voiceover might be an effective way to get information to new players (we need a warning if they have no sound)
• An in-character introduction when you create your account was suggested
  • Telling that Semos is a rural town, in need of protection because the army is far away
  • And that you are the one who is going to protect it. Well, if you can convince Hayunn that you are strong enough
• NPCs could give more helpful hints when asked help - we'd need hint ideas (omero)
• Players are not directed to semos farm land by anything currently (but it's a good place for low levels) - a sign?
  • It needs more NPCs - someone hoeing the weeds in the wheat field? (omero)
• Books in the library could help to add information - we need text ideas

Marking dangerous zones

• Marking dangerous zones, or more general, making suggestions to player which zones are good for their level.
• a compas or a thermometer which shows danger of the zone for example
• should dangerous areas be marked using colors on the map?
• Excel file listing number of creatures and their level in every zone: Zone_statistics_without_collision.xls
• A zone is something like int_semos_bank, 0_semos_city (see column A)
• Column D seems to be a good measurement: Density of danger (the sum of the levels of all creatures in there divided by the size of the zone).
• Clever tweaking needed to map those danger levels to player levels.
• I tried a simple approach (column B) of saying hell is good for player level 597. And calculated the other levels on a linear basis. But applying a linear scale did not give good the results. Level seems to be a bit like a log scale.
• Suggestions are welcome using /support or in #arianne on irc.freenode.net. There is a "Chat" link on http://stendhalgame.org
• more guidance for players to find areas that are safe for them

Min level on items

• If new players get a high level item quickly, leveling up may become more difficult (for example because they are not hit anymore and therefore do not get atk/def xp).
• help wanted on creating a list of suggested min levels ({3016679})
• the lowest creature that drops the item can be a starting point for defining minimum levels
• fine tuning needed because:
  • strong items with very low probability
  • NPCs selling items (for example xin blanca selling low level items),
  • quest rewards?
• laguz is going to work on the creature based approach

New dungeons

• killerm proposed the creation of a new Dungeon
• there is a tutorial on how to add maps at HowToUseTiledToCreateStendhalMaps
• Stendhal Creature Ideas explains which information is necessary to create new creatures and HowToAddCreaturesStendhal is the technical counterpart
• please join #arianne on IRC to discuss the creation of new dungeons in great detail

New quests

• omero suggested a 'cheque' you can spend at one of the seller NPC

Random Teleport

• love_puppet suggested that players are teleported at a random time to an area where they have to do some task.
• should have a good reward
• can catch bots
• may be annoying if you are on a journey with friends

Bank Book

• torvald suggested a bank book, which shows all your bank accounts
• being able to remember where you put things or come up with your own organisation system, is a challenge
• perhaps as a good quest reward but maybe not as an item you always keep

Fetching books quest

• omero suggested a repeatable fetch the book quest for different npcs (add quest link)
• the npc would have the book and the player collects it
• it could be hidden around them for player to find
• laguz added to this that something could be forced to be read from the book - a keyword

Runes quest

• reading a word from a book to collect which is hidden is similar to a runes quest idea
• runes could be used to get players into dungeons

More storage

• Players ask for more space in chests #1713621
• You already get more space as you grow stronger and get access to banks in more cities
• Many players don't seem to use the far chests like Ados or Zara's much
• We are working on containers so that you can buy or get rewarded a bag, a box, scroll wallet, etc #2933768
• But putting a big box inside a chest sounds strange
• Changing size of chest mid game is not possible.
• Pets could have bag spaces #1937766
• Chest in spots like dungeons, maybe just storage spaces under a stone, say, but open to all, not private. i think that storyteller suggested something very similar #2974131
• Portable chests

Account and character handling

• hendrik described the changes, which are now summarized at: Stendhal Account Merging
• existing accounts can be merged (see link above)
• I can login my characters "hendrik" and "hendrikus" at the same time even after merging them into one account
• there will be is a new page variant of on the hall of fame: Me and my friends
• merging accounts is optional, it is fine to keep them separated
• server admins can unmerge account, for example in case of password theft
• if someone is password sharing and the other person wants to exploit that, he can simple take all items.
• this has already happened in the past and is no new risk with account merging.

Password Sharing

• rules should be translated (start is done, please help)
• it is prohibited to share passwords for a number of reasons:
• one is that it is very unfair to other players if you let other people make progress on your account.
• that means you didn't make your own progress, someone else did.
• another is that sharing passwords might seem 'ok' between friends, to the friends. but things can turn bad. the friends can steal items from each other and then it makes a support problem when they complain.
• it has wasted a lot of spare time of the developers, therefore it is likely that you get banned
• you should never trust anyone with your password.

Website

• it is possible to change password there
• (next version of Stendhal will have a menu to open the password change page)
• on http://stendhalgame.org there is a "login" link in the upper right hand corner.
• this login button should be made a little bit more eye-catching, perhaps over the "Play now" and over the "Download" button
• the website has information which may also be useful to see in game, e.g. drops from a creature

Testing web starter

• please test the web based starter at https://stendhalgame.org/account/mycharacters.html
• click on your character and wait a bit
• does starting the game work for you?
• if you are not using Webstart normally, it will ask you to dowload on the first try.
• it works for axelf, but he only sees the coffee icon instead of the Stendhal logo icon
• tigertoes is missing box of text

Getting the word out

• I did some research into how people learn about new games and new applications and 'word of mouth' was the best method
• So, anyone who has a blog, or some site they can post links, to tell their friends what they are doing, do please feel free to share about Stendhal :)
• how many players can be on at once?
  • don't worry about player number limits.
  • stendhalgame.org is a real server in a real data center.
  • it can handle a lot more players and traffic than all the other Stendhal clone server hosted on home internet connections.

Translating

Translating rules

• We have started to translate the introduction in various languaes.
• A big thank you to every one who worked on that.
• If you know other languages, please help with that.
• Either by improving already existing translations or adding new ones.
• Oslsachem translated to Spain and offered to do Portuguese
• omero offered to translate the rules to Italian

Translating game

• The translation system we had in place was removed since nobody ever completed 5% of translation needed
• It was promised that if anyone completes more than 75% it can be re added
• Coding it is rather simple
• Commitment would be needed to keep translating new material also

Closing meeting

• We'd like to thank everyone for attending.
• We put up a chatlog and a summary on the wiki and put a link on http://stendhalgame.org
• Feel free to join us in #arianne on freenode at any time.