Quote (njaguar @ 14 Apr 2010 18:08)

I suppose classic RPGs like Wizardry, Bard's Tale, Dragon Warrior, Final Fantasy, none of those are good RPGs, cause you don't see/play your character with skills like Diablo II. Gotcha. Spoken like a true non-LS player.

Quote (njaguar @ 14 Apr 2010 12:07)

1) They will be in the same box. I am considering ways to make the loot window a bit "nicer".

2) You mean if you don't have enough actions, eg, the healer, and you couldn't pick up items before? No, that will go away with this new system, since the primary reason for it was to prevent sniped items from loot box leechers. Since that's no longer an issue, it no longer needs to be in effect.

Quote (njaguar @ Apr 14 2010 11:03am)

Normally I don't like to pre-announce some of the changes, but...

One of the things I'm working on now is a loot system for catacombs. I came up with a solution to the issues that make it so traditional loot systems don't work so well. Namely, in most MMOs and other games you have these basic loot types:
1) Roll/Pass -- Doesn't work for LS, because too many items drop, would slow the game down to a CRAWL for the players, since they'd have to be rolling or passing all the time. YUCK.
2) Auto Distributed Loot - Yuck, so much stuff drops, and what people want varies a ton. Would suck for those looking for specifics for skills, like Glyphing, or even just trying to fill holes in their sets.
3) Free for all, first click gets - we already have that.

So, my solution is a hybrid between FFA and Roll/Pass, that doesn't stop gameplay. Basically, think of it like a *short* (3 to 5 seconds) timer that appears when someone wants an item. If you want it, you have that time to click it to get "in on the rolling". At the end of the timer, the server rolls randomly for each player that clicked the item, and auto sends the item to whoever it rolled the highest for.

Additionally, since there will be timeouts for items, instead of items just poofing when you engage after a fight, they will also stick around for a short period of time as well. That solves another of my personal gripes about catacombs; drivers that go too fast and skip tons of great items. It's also great for healers, now they can get in on the action as well.

Not looking for feedback, complaints, yada yada. It's already in progress, and no additional changes are planned for it. Initially I was tinkering with an option to turn it off, but it looks like that will be more hassle than it's worth, not to mention being exploitable by a greedy group leader. I don't want people to have to choose between a greedy group, or no group; that's not very nice either. You can still do "on your honor" split loot systems in your group, just there will be the 3-5 second (haven't decided how long yet -- will do some real play tests on beta to determine) timer before it's delivered to who clicks it.

Anyway, I hope it's not a mistake to pre-announce this, don't let me down. I'd like to be able to share more with you guys, without it sucking away all my motivation to work on the game.

There are other updates planned as well, but this is the one I'm working on right now. Other changes are already done as well, but mostly minor things.

Back to coding. Please don't PM me questions about this, I won't be able to answer them. Seeya soon, hopefully!

Oh, and I'll pre-announce my ETA on reset ahead of time, so no need to worry about it conflicting with your Mirror Maze runs. Thanks

Quote (Rippeman @ 14 Apr 2010 12:51)

Sounds like a great update!
perhaps it would be possible to make the lootbox customizable, id like to have it diagonal, then it can be placed out of the way from the mobs and still have full sight of the dropbox
like this:

[][]
[][]
[][]
[][]
[][]

and place it to the right of the screen

Quote (njaguar @ Apr 14 2010 01:54pm)

You mean vertical.

This has been on my to-do list for a while, so we'll see.

Update: Testing is going great! Server coding is complete, and the testing looks like it works flawlessly. Client is mostly updated, the timers appear, as well as an indicator to show the ones you've clicked on. Just need to update some other client code to make it not purge the items at various spots in the code, and instead do a timer expiration instead. That is the part that is going to be a bit more complicated and tricky.

Quote (njaguar @ 14 Apr 2010 19:54)

You mean vertical.

This has been on my to-do list for a while, so we'll see.

Update: Testing is going great! Server coding is complete, and the testing looks like it works flawlessly. Client is mostly updated, the timers appear, as well as an indicator to show the ones you've clicked on. Just need to update some other client code to make it not purge the items at various spots in the code, and instead do a timer expiration instead. That is the part that is going to be a bit more complicated and tricky.