Twilight Forums

So, I've gotten a couple requests to post a new podcast thread.

Just ask your questions in here and, when it reaches critical mass, I'll lock the thread and put up a podcast with the answers. Please try not to answer other people's questions or comment on them, it makes it easy for me to miss things as I'm going through.

If you're wondering what I'm talking about, you can check the previous thread or listen to the podcast from those questions.

Although he may regret it after my last ramblings, Harry Dresden offered to do transcripts for people who'd rather read.

Cheers!
Kinak

So, what stuff are you working on at the moment?

How about the last skill (elemental level 16)? We gonna see that soon? I kinda want the complete set (and I bet there is gonna be a merit badge for that too)

Any chance we can get some new merit badges to achieve, Kinak?

What do you consider more important, long term - more content within the retcon range of lvl 10 or 12, or more higher level content?

I am really waiting for this one too. What I would like to see as well is one lvl 50 skill for every class and one lvl 100 skill. This would make higher lvl retcons a lot more fun...

Thanks for the questions everyone. The podcast is now available here.

Cheers!
Kinak

Close enough pronunciation

Huh. I'm trying to imagine a level 100 skill. Coming up with equipment for level 70 was hard enough. To prevent their use in a retcon setting would probably require costs in the hundreds of PP just to use to. To say nothing of the horrible grind it takes to get 21 million XP to hit level 100. To compare, level 50 is 1.4 million XP.

I could sort of see a level 50 skill, but level 100 is way out there. And even still, what would a level 50 spell do? Just another combat skill?

_________________

The churches are empty / The priest has gone home / And we are left standing / Together alone
--October Project: "Dark Time"

Something world-shattering? Which would basically boil down to retcon, just with different narrative.

Transcript!

Kinak: Greetings, denizens of Twilight.

Question: So, what stuff are you working on?
Answer: Currently, the big project is Leagues. I’ve been trying to weave in other smaller projects in between, like the recent new B quest. We were working on a different B quest at the time of the last podcast, but that got shelved in favor of the jousting B quest. Just an example of how liquid things can be. We’ve got another little project for this month, and maybe a surprise coming at the end of the month. (hint, hint!) Further out we’ve got Leagues, the B quest that was pushed back, and then a pretty serious quest coming that may or may not wait until after Leagues come out. It’s a pretty major project. I like to get one or two cool things out in a month.

Question: Are we going to see the level 16 Elemental skill soon?
Answer: That is another thing on the front burner right now. I think we finally have an idea nailed down for the skill, and I’m hoping it’s out by the end of the month. Catalyze and Metalmorph still need some work, too, so they work with skill points.

Question: New merit badges to achieve?
Answer: I’ve actually added one since I started working on, and I think there are 3 or 4 Ryme put in that still haven’t been discovered. Some are hard to find, but some people have come very, very close. My instinct is to add way more badges, but I have to restrain myself. Like the struck by lightning thing, which I almost made a badge but did not. Too many badges makes them lose meaning.

Question: More important long term, retcon content or higher level?
Answer: My preference is having a steady stream of quest content, to allow for a smooth flow of play. Things like the Brute quest, which span 2 levels post-run so that you’re not having to grind several levels to reach the next quest content. Also, things like the B quests which give you a choice to either play them for the rewards or skip and just focus on the main storyline quests. There may also be some future quest revamps, ala the Bind Mender quest. (Kinak briefly muses that there is a cool thing that people haven’t discovered yet.) Basically, expect to see roughly equal amounts of stuff in retcon range and after, building off of it.

Question: Chance of level 50 or 100 skill?
Answer: I’d be really surprised to see skills at levels we don’t have quests leading up to. Expect to see a level 17 skill for every class long before a level 50 or 100 skill. Not to say there won’t be non-class skills floating out wherever. I wouldn’t want them to be useful for retcon, as well. Once we get to a point where there are quests through level 25 or wherever, then maybe a higher level class skill can be considered.

Kinak: Thank you all for playing, donating, and enjoying the game.

Something like the cookie spell would be funny (as in, something with little impact on the game), but more useful (as in, not useless).

That... is a lot of XP. Just sayin'

Thanks, Harry!

Cheers!
Kinak

Okay...

_________________

The churches are empty / The priest has gone home / And we are left standing / Together alone
--October Project: "Dark Time"

lol (250pp? ), that is pretty much as useless as the current cookie spell.

I was thinking something more alike the shining trapezohedron, can only be used by high levels and grants a limited number of useful (I just sell then anyway) things a day.

I love it.

I think there are plenty of ways to make skills useful only at higher lvl:
- Make them scale by lvl like effect*(lvl-50) meaning no effect until lvl 51.
- Give them a high PP cost like you already suggested.
- Make them unusable until you reach a certain lvl.
- Make them enhance certain kind of eq which would only be useable at higher lvl (for example, enchant offand equipment, this could add a bonus to your offhand but at the same time increase the lvl requirement).
- Let them enchant usables only usable at high lvls (like your example)

There are plenty of ideas for that. I don't really see why you don't want them to be useful in retcons though. Someone who actually goes to lvl 100 at least once deserves some bonus in their next life.

The skill you suggested sounds ok though, it gives a small bonus but nothing game breaking. This would however, mostly be for people who already finished their retcons and already made all skills permanent. I have a feeling giving out lvl 50 and lvl 100 skills would keep people longer in the game for a rather cheap development cost.

I respect the decision to slowly add quests one at a time though and slowly add skills after that, just throwing out ideas...

Is it the fact that the "A Septic Scandal" noncombat can still be found after the quest is done? Because I just found it a couple of times and it doesn't agree with the wiki

That's not what I was talking about, no, but there were some changes in the noncombats down there as well

Cheers!
Kinak

I know I missed the February podcast, but there's no official March question thread yet, so I'll say it here. What are your plans for marketing, from here on out (or are there any)? For quite some time, even before you took the reins from Ryme, growth in the playerbase has been pretty slow. I know the gameplay and content are solid, so I think it's merely a lack of advertisement that's causing this. There have been ideas on the forum before about player-advocated advertising, but so far as I know there wasn't really a strong interest in player-based advertisement (probably because of the cost on the player's end for shirts and other such things). I'm still confident that TH can be a very successful game and community, so I hope you have or will put some thought into advertising.

_________________
Leader of PFE league. If you wish to worship me, ask me about joining my secondary league Cult of Satan (the largest league in the game!).

Absolutely. I've thought about it a lot.

That said, it'll probably still be some months before we can mount even a small incursion into the realm of paid advertising. That's just the nature of the beast and I can assure you it's not because I've been building my Scrooge McDuck money pit (too many papercuts).

But given a few decent months (or one balls-to-the-walls awesome month), we'll have enough of a cushion for advertising to be an investment rather than a gamble.

In the meantime, I am working on some more banners for people to use on forums. That's taking longer than I'd like because the cats decided my laptop (the one with Photoshop on it) needed a drink *sigh* But, kitten antics aside, that's free for everyone. So, bonus.

Cheers!
Kinak