So yeah, I think it's time for this topic.

The way I see it, there are three kinds of outlooks on Terulia:

"Terulia's gonna make it in the end and be a good game even if it kills me."
--Gaku and I fall into this category for obvious reasons.

"Eh, I'll play it when it comes out. I'll just hop on the forums every now-and-then to see how things are going I guess."
--About half of the community falls into this category.

"Terulia's never going to be as good as FFO no matter what happens, Gaku's wasting his time."
--Here's where the other half of the community falls into.

Look, I know Terulia is supposed to be geared away from this community, but frankly Gaku, we're your guinea pigs whether you like it or not. We're the ones who are gonna be testing this stuff. We're the ones who are gonna be knowing what's going to work and what's not going to work, because most of us also played the **** out of FFO to the point where we know it inside-out (some of us more than others). We know what's going to make or break Terulia. And unless you make it so anyone who ever connected to FFO is instantly banned from Terulia just for the sake of making a new community, this community is going to be here when Terulia is born.

Now on the other hand, this community is a herd of egotistical and deceitful little ****s who will do -anything- to get on top. We've all seen how much that skewed FFO's "balance" in like, 90% of the suggestion topics that were longer than two pages. If that's any indication of how Terulia is going to run, then it's going to fail without a doubt. I can't think of a single person who actually ever said "yeah, I think this thing I'm using is a little too imbalanced, let's fix this". We ***** and moan to no end over whether or not a spell should be doing 20 more damage a cast for 2 mana less a split second faster with a 5% faster prof rate, and anyone who says otherwise is a cocksucker, ******, or whatever insult-of-the-month is next. It's all about numbers to us, and unfortunately, all we ever want are the high numbers, no matter what it takes.

But like I said, we're all Gaku's got for Terulia at the moment.

So what about Terulia's future? I already know what a lot of people think about Terulia, for better or worse. They've played the testing server, they know what it's like. They also have a general idea about what's wrong and why most everyone prefers FFO over Terulia (probably the biggest indicator being the revert, as well as Dricien buying his way into getting a "classic" server).

It's been, what, a little over four years since Terulia was conceived? If it were anything less, I probably wouldn't be bothering with this, but after this long, I can safely say that there is an issue. But what is the issue? What do you guys think is wrong with Terulia? What do you think would help make Terulia successful? What do you guys want in order to make a good replacement to FFO?

What do you sincerely believe would help Terulia?

And don't just go "less ***" or whatever. C'mon guys, get those Elias posts rolling!

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I can't really see anything wrong with it though? He might be going a bit too minimalist on skills and equipment, but not too badly. And it's sort of hard to crit things when you've only really played a barebones testing server of them. I think the main thing that's happening is major sour grapes because we only have ideas from forum posts and something that's barely even a demo. (Unless you count allowance. The answer is allowance, everyone but like ten people hate allowance because they can't autofollow to win. shhhhhh)

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The biggest thing that would help terulia, would for it to be playable. Honest opinion. Ive been waiting for this game for more than 4 years now. I've played ffo For a very long time (on and off) And there were times when I thought that terulia was around the corner. Years ago. And look where it still is. Like mint said, it's not even a demo.

Honestly, get something together, make it playable (on a more than once or twice a month every 3 or 4 month basis) let people play it, test it out, watch it, and make fixes as you see fit.

I don't even have faith most days that this game will ever be released.

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reply to Magnus Sforzando:

byond://www.terulia.com:2448

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I used to fall under the same outlook as what you claim you and Gaku have, regarding Terulia. I sought to help out a lot, but there was something drastic I realised part of the way through that has led me to a bit of indifference; I think Terulia could be a great game, but given every bit of knowledge available, I do not expect it to ever reach that potential point of greatness.

Yes, I know I could help more. No, telling me to won't change my mind or motivate me to help more.

Shortly after the time I understood why Gaku did not want the general populace of Final Fantasy Online to be a defining part of Terulia, I also felt there was a major flaw, or really a conflict, in the game design surrounding Terulia.

For being a game that is supposed to most definitely not be Final Fantasy Online, it draws a lot of the wrong elements from its origin. For some of the goals intended for Terulia, its design is inherently fractured - even if We, The Players of FFO do not transfer directly over to Terulia, the game exists in such a state that has a high chance of drawing a very similar community: Of which is, in itself, one of the largest flaws of FFO to begin with. Not that the community is ****, but that the game even encourages griefing, giving players the tools to be the worst they can be with no realistic reprimand. Players who choose not to be scumbags are left with no defenses and no options, and in an ever shrinking player-base size the effects are even more apparent. In the early years of the game, this was not as prominent, but because of this design, ultimately the "good" players have left and all that remain are the "bad" players, which are thus fueled by their own horrible attitudes and outlook on the game.

Let's face it. FFO sucked ass. The issues of FFO ran so deep that to have truly balanced it, a complete facelift would have been required anyway. In theory, this will be resolved within Terulia, but some issues are so complex that even some great game designers have failed to come up with adequate solutions to. The growth and progression of power is a large one. In FFO, there are many points where an otherwise regular point of progression offers an unusual reimbursement of power: class change, later levels, gear upgrades, later domains, permachests, Garland and the quests in general, necklaces. Minimal effort is required to generate maximum reward with some instances, and players capable of applying this knowledge through meta are given an innate advantage, where it is then to their benefit to prevent everyone else access to these rewards as possible, thus furthering the gap.

Just knowing things has always been an immense advantage - to such an extent that over time FFO Basically had to be leaked because it became such an integral advantage that eventually transitioned into a necessary repository to be able to refer to. On top of that, it has been largely ingrained upon the community to share as little knowledge as possible - such as not talking about prof requirements over NSay. It's bad. Wouldn't want to give the new players the same advantages which the regular players have, right? The attack order was another big thing, which slowly leaked out over time. Now, I am pretty certain everyone at least knows it, even if they don't know how to use it to their advantage. The ability to control what mobs attack, and even control what Berserked/Raged/Feared PCs attack? Yeah. That's pretty powerful, for such a small bit of knowledge that was -kept hidden- from the community.

Even more, through abuse of the mechanics of the game, players of slightly more skill than others could garner immense advantages, themselves. The ability to move while casting is absolutely priceless in any scenario, and for an even more mind-blowing one, having exact control over your character while Confused? Only the slightest bit of skill is required to have a handle on these things, but the amount of power or utility they offered was unparalleled.

It has not really been shown whether or not Gaku has learned from these issues and knows how to prevent them, or stop them, but I do feel that because Terulia will ultimately have massive amounts of grind similar to FFO, just in different methods, the core issues of progression-power, knowledge-power, and skill-power I expect will still be preserved through Terulia. Even for how much I once knew of Terulia, I saw nothing that was planned for the purpose of driving away these issues or even rooting them out. They're still there, and so far almost everything has been simply trying to cover them up, not fix them.

Oh, and lest we forget, this is all running on the BYOND engine. I'm fairly certain that, these days, better games can be made with Game Maker. BYOND is a dead program, with a dead community. BYOND is a pathetic husk of what was once a thriving hub of an immense variety of games and opportunities for a lot of people to get their mother****in' code on. BYOND is just no longer a relevant platform for anything, and the fact that Gaku has remained with it is possibly one of the most disheartening parts of seeing Terulia progress.

What does Terulia need to be successful?

A new platform - so it no longer runs off of BYOND's stone-age logic.
A new engine - so it is no longer FFO's direct successor.
A new plan - so it avoids the problems with power that creates the horrible community Gaku wants to avoid.

Edit: TL;DR, less ****.

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Well, first Gaku needs to finish his PhD so he has time to work on it. :P

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reply to Shane:

A couple of very quick things...

I don't think the platform is a problem, and moving to a more "advanced" system just introduces a whole new series of complications. For example, a theoretical move to 3D would require one or more experienced 3D modellers. A move to something not tile-based would similarly require a massive overhaul to the point where it wouldn't even be a remotely similar game. And as evidenced by people who play games like Dwarf Fortress or roguelikes, platform has never really been a concern.

I agree with you about all of the problems inherent in FFO; that is why individual combat prowess is NOT the intended focus of Terulia. This is also why one of the first things I worked on was to improve the "mercenary" AI.

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Grameramera wrote:

reply to Shane:

A couple of very quick things...

I don't think the platform is a problem, and moving to a more "advanced" system just introduces a whole new series of complications. For example, a theoretical move to 3D would require one or more experienced 3D modellers. A move to something not tile-based would similarly require a massive overhaul to the point where it wouldn't even be a remotely similar game. And as evidenced by people who play games like Dwarf Fortress or roguelikes, platform has never really been a concern.

I agree with you about all of the problems inherent in FFO; that is why individual combat prowess is NOT the intended focus of Terulia. This is also why one of the first things I worked on was to improve the "mercenary" AI.

Normally platform isn't a concern, but with BYOND I feel it should be. I don't think BYOND has a very good future - it's very outdated.

And while that is somewhat better, that still leaves many unknowns and can very easily just shift the balance of power in an awkward way. This comes down to more of just no one really knows what -you're- planning except you. We have vague ideas of the direction you want to take Terulia, but we don't know any of the fine details. (Probably because most people don't really ask good enough questions about what they want to hear, but the point remains.)

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reply to Shane:

You'll align with one of the factions (or be independent if you prefer), and most everything that takes place will be in context of the factions. Each faction will have its own safe area that cannot be conquered, and each faction will have one or more landing zones on the mainland of Terulia. How they build, expand, and interact on the island is largely up to the players in addition to chance events. Much greater emphasis will be placed on NPCs and NPC interactions, and wars will be fought by NPCs as directed by players (since not everyone wants to fight themselves). NPCs will be tracked individually and not be treated as domain statistics like they are in FFO. "Other aspects" will impact wars and zones of control and determine things like how effectively NPCs will fight (e.g. espionage, raids, etc.). There will also be an element of forum integration, so you will likely have an impact on the game by simply using the forums. That's the plan at least; whether it becomes reality is primarily a matter of time.

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Shane wrote:

What does Terulia need to be successful?

A new platform - so it no longer runs off of BYOND's stone-age logic.
A new engine - so it is no longer FFO's direct successor.
A new plan - so it avoids the problems with power that creates the horrible community Gaku wants to avoid.

This, except i'm fine with the FFO engine, i think it's pretty good, it just needs some work.
BYOND is going to make your game ****, no matter what.

Double Mallet op, i hope someone fixed that.

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Grameramera wrote:

reply to Shane:

You'll align with one of the factions (or be independent if you prefer), and most everything that takes place will be in context of the factions. Each faction will have its own safe area that cannot be conquered, and each faction will have one or more landing zones on the mainland of Terulia. How they build, expand, and interact on the island is largely up to the players in addition to chance events. Much greater emphasis will be placed on NPCs and NPC interactions, and wars will be fought by NPCs as directed by players (since not everyone wants to fight themselves). NPCs will be tracked individually and not be treated as domain statistics like they are in FFO. "Other aspects" will impact wars and zones of control and determine things like how effectively NPCs will fight (e.g. espionage, raids, etc.). There will also be an element of forum integration, so you will likely have an impact on the game by simply using the forums. That's the plan at least; whether it becomes reality is primarily a matter of time.

But there's no way right now for us, the playerbase, to really know much about this - we are given basic summaries like this from time to time and (those of us that pay attention) can form a good idea, but there's no real fine details to it.

I believe entirely that you are capable of creating a very excellent game. However, with Terulia's current state of development, there is no way for us to know whether or not it's going down the right path because we don't know everything that you know. Just basic idealistic snippets of what you want the full game to be.

These snippets don't necessarily mean the power imbalances will be gone. They can still be there, just in different forms, and that's what I'm wary of.

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Gaku:

Is it possible in the future someday to transmute Terulia, as is, to a different engine, so you could host it on your own website without requiring an association with Byond? If so, the possibilities would be amazing. You might even be able to get it work on mobile.

Also, to your description of Terulia: That seems very ambitious and interesting. I don't know the current state of Terulia development, but given what I do know I'm guessing we're a long way away from that. Are all of those features going to be included at release, or will it be released before all of that is ready to go?

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I always lose interest in playing the test server after 5 minutes because It takes way too long to kill anything outside of the fort. Then I run out of mana, and then patience and then just quit.

EDIT: I also find that starting helper to not be very helpful at all.

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Magnus Sforzando wrote:

I always lose interest in playing the test server after 5 minutes because It takes way too long to kill anything outside of the fort. Then I run out of mana, and then patience and then just quit.

EDIT: I also find that starting helper to not be very helpful at all.

I was trying to explain this to Gaku the other day. Your guy starts out moving so incredibly slow. And then when you finally make it outside the fort you manage to spawn a few mobs and then you fumble and miss a ton as you try to hurt the simple mob. As a mage, I would imagine it even worse. You probably can kill a bit faster with magic but I imagine you run out of mana so fast.

But at the same time, it seems like those who have leveled up some have it pretty easy. One of them could confirm this?

If that's the case, I think maybe it's just TOO slow of a start. And it's hard because there aren't that many mobs but I really do think the slow, frustrating pace at the start will indeed turn people away.

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Having seen the stats and such (like anyone can do with diagnostics), as well as the fact that suffixes do not exist at all, I sincerely believe that Gaku needs to double all the starter stuff. Everything. Hp, mp, stats, speed, stamina, and even regen rates and level up gains (also, increase all stats by 2% upon level so that levels actually, y'know, do something. Seriously).

Even with cheating to get skills like Meditate, Pray, Regen, Refresh, and Temper, characters start out way too weak for any sort of training.

I am fully aware that this is supposed to be a group/partying game, yes, but that's going to be pointless too when your party members are just as pathetic as you are.

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There's no point in having a group/partying game if you can't stay interested long enough to meet people to form said group/party.

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Wow, Actually kind of glad to know I'm not alone with that feeling. I Always pick out novice to start, I haven't really tried any of the other 2 classes/jobs but even with magic I still don't manage to kill anything effectively. It only does about 5 or 6 more points more damage than my scepter to some of the mobs, and personally I just feel like I shouldn't have to cast a spell that many times to kill something at that level. The scepter misses more than it hits, even with saber. And when it does hit I'm lucky to do 6 points of damage.

All in all, It's just frustrating.

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In regards to what I was saying earlier about how levels mean nothing and characters are too weak...


Letha
Main Class: Initiate
Secondary Class: N/A
[image not found]


See how insignificant levels are? How many profs it takes to get to level 20 all for, what, 120 hp and 16 mana?

But wait, half of your profs to level have to be skill/ability profs, almost all of which cost mana, which is such an extreme scarcity at the moment that a prof 5 Fire is probably the most OP your magic damage will ever get. I fiddled with my levels about ten minutes ago and my mana still hasn't fully regenerated from 0 to 52.

HP and MP need to be doubled at a bare minimum if anyone wants to be able to do anything. I am dead seriously certain that this will benefit greatly.

In addition, double the hp/mp natural regeneration rates. God, maybe even triple them if they're this painfully slow.

In addition addition, have a 1.02 multiplier on each stat upon level up. This way, levels are not solely just for the sake of HP and MP, but also grant a more subtle yet effective bonus, while not being so grossly effective that it creates the kind of level schism that FFO is notorious for.


An example of this going through would look like this:

Letha
Main Class: Initiate
Secondary Class: N/A


(the stats can just get rounded if it gets too annoying with decimels)

I can't show stamina, movement speed, or regeneration rates on a table like this, but trust me when I say that those need to be increased too. Like I said about regen, just give that a massive steroid boost or something, really.
Stamina? Double it, or make it increase by 1.1% per level or something.
Movement? Ach, that's gonna take a lot more than just numbers. There were verbs Balancers used before to alter the speed of things (you know what I mean Gaku!), I suggest putting those back in so we can tinker with those manually to find the perfect base speed for players.


Just my two cents.



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reply to Dr. Letha:

you said something?

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good info, there.

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Byond makes game making fast the multiplayer aspect of byond is extremely easy. most other platforms are extremely hard to make multiplayer or would require a team of talented individuals willing to work long hours on a game for no reward.

Organizing a team can be as much work as doing the work itself and trusting those ppl can be another big problem.

Byond has less players now because of the copyright scare, but i think there is still a great population there. I think if terulia was live on byond hub it would have a lot of players and new players all the time. This would also give ffo more/new players.

FFO is a pvp game and without making that unrealistic like some games having the on/off pvp switch. You will have the same problems as those games. Emo ppl rage quiting because some kid is playing 24/7 cause he is ahead. This is minimized when you have 50 players cause there are other groups and parties and a larger world so there are places to hide. It will always happen though, its just this small of a community losing 1-2 players is huge.

I think there is much urgency for terulia to get on byond. We need more players and that is the best solution.
To me it seems that terulia has a long way to go..

I also thought that the monsters outside the fort made me want to quit also. When you start a game u want to go explore not figure out party systems and find friends.


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