The Repopulation - FAQ
by J.C. Smith · 12/31/2008 (10:09 pm) · 1 comments
After several months of being down due to a server move and lack of time, The Repopulation's Web Site is back online. This is still a work in progress. It does include some new screenshots, build notes from the original alpha build (though the current test build is not online as it is a work in progress), and perhaps most importantly a very detailed FAQ Section is online.
In other recent in-testing improvements, some of the more notable things since the last update here:
- Implemented Zone Wide Events. These are similar to our engagements, but on a zone wide and non-instanced basis. Anyone who has played Warhammer Online would be familiar with this type of system, as it is similar to their Public Quests. These events will automatically occur based on some random time intervals, and will cause a certain activity to trigger in the zone. In the original implementation, Lesoo invade Tunnelwatch. Without player assistance they will overtake it, requiring army assistance to regain it. Waves of mobs from both sides will engage to defend or attack the city, including chances at boss mobs. In the end, if the players side (OWON in this case) is successful at defending, then anyone who participated in the event will be given a share of military experience, and have a chance at obtaining an item reward or a military commendation for their effort. The chance is increased based on their participation in that event.
- Our Options Menu has been upgraded signifcantly. There are now sliders for adjusting how quickly to fade your detail levels for interiors and other shapes, for adjusting maximum view distance, at which range to display objects at all, adjusting precipitation density, and for adjusting the amount of groundcover to display, as well as the radius to display it in. There are also on/off toggles to allow players to disable Cubemapping, Normal Mapping,.Screen Space Ambient Occlusion, and Specular Highlighting. There are on/off options to display player or NPC names over their heads or not, as well as being able to toggle Player Lights on or off. And finally there are options to tweak the quality of your Screen Space Ambient Occlusion. Last but not least, there are now some quick auto-configuration options that will set your default settings based on the speed of your system.
- Groundcover has been improved signifcantly. You may now scale the radius of the groundcover, increasing how far you can view it in the distance. This occurs in realtime through the options menu, so you can see your changes as you go. The calculation system has also been adjusted so that the number of groundcover objects created is handled per grid, rather than per map.
- We revamped our boss mob system in this update significantly. Our bosses are still split into tiers and support bosses targeted at solo players, small groups and raids. Bosses are assigned from a number of tiers which determine the special abilities they can have. In our former iimplementation though each boss could have access to all of the special abilities on that tier. The new system allows us to choose how many special abilities each boss mob has at their disposal, as well as selecting a tier of those abilities for them. Rather than having the full compliment of special abilities at their disposal they will randomly choose that number of abilities from the total pool. They are chosen from a pool of 127 abilities across 7 tiers and include a wide variety of different effects. This should allow our generated bosses to be challenging, but to allow players to adopt strategies during the course of a battle based on what that particular boss can do.
- Retextured Plymouth City
- Added in 2 new vehicle models and 4 new vehicle texture variations
Those are the major changes in the past week.
In other recent in-testing improvements, some of the more notable things since the last update here:
- Implemented Zone Wide Events. These are similar to our engagements, but on a zone wide and non-instanced basis. Anyone who has played Warhammer Online would be familiar with this type of system, as it is similar to their Public Quests. These events will automatically occur based on some random time intervals, and will cause a certain activity to trigger in the zone. In the original implementation, Lesoo invade Tunnelwatch. Without player assistance they will overtake it, requiring army assistance to regain it. Waves of mobs from both sides will engage to defend or attack the city, including chances at boss mobs. In the end, if the players side (OWON in this case) is successful at defending, then anyone who participated in the event will be given a share of military experience, and have a chance at obtaining an item reward or a military commendation for their effort. The chance is increased based on their participation in that event.
- Our Options Menu has been upgraded signifcantly. There are now sliders for adjusting how quickly to fade your detail levels for interiors and other shapes, for adjusting maximum view distance, at which range to display objects at all, adjusting precipitation density, and for adjusting the amount of groundcover to display, as well as the radius to display it in. There are also on/off toggles to allow players to disable Cubemapping, Normal Mapping,.Screen Space Ambient Occlusion, and Specular Highlighting. There are on/off options to display player or NPC names over their heads or not, as well as being able to toggle Player Lights on or off. And finally there are options to tweak the quality of your Screen Space Ambient Occlusion. Last but not least, there are now some quick auto-configuration options that will set your default settings based on the speed of your system.
- Groundcover has been improved signifcantly. You may now scale the radius of the groundcover, increasing how far you can view it in the distance. This occurs in realtime through the options menu, so you can see your changes as you go. The calculation system has also been adjusted so that the number of groundcover objects created is handled per grid, rather than per map.
- We revamped our boss mob system in this update significantly. Our bosses are still split into tiers and support bosses targeted at solo players, small groups and raids. Bosses are assigned from a number of tiers which determine the special abilities they can have. In our former iimplementation though each boss could have access to all of the special abilities on that tier. The new system allows us to choose how many special abilities each boss mob has at their disposal, as well as selecting a tier of those abilities for them. Rather than having the full compliment of special abilities at their disposal they will randomly choose that number of abilities from the total pool. They are chosen from a pool of 127 abilities across 7 tiers and include a wide variety of different effects. This should allow our generated bosses to be challenging, but to allow players to adopt strategies during the course of a battle based on what that particular boss can do.
- Retextured Plymouth City
- Added in 2 new vehicle models and 4 new vehicle texture variations
Those are the major changes in the past week.
Associate Steve Acaster
[YorkshireRifles]