Quests
I kind of run out of ideas for new things to add to the game, and I decided to focus on one aspect we were lacking: Quests.
In fact, I always wanted to have a game with lots of quests, that can be played much like a single player game, if the players chose to. But there were always other things getting in the way, so for the past 4 years there were no new quests (besides for a few new god quests).
Adding quests is a lot of work, and you have to be really careful and test them properly, or else there will be problems. Implementing a good quality quest can take 20+ hours, but since I have to do other things as well, it can take more than a week to add a new quest.
One of my dreams was to have about 10+ NPCs per map, all which are part of quests, or at the very least give some background information, to make the game feel more alive. All those NPCs must be connected in some way or shape, for example the NPCs on one map will talk about the NPCs on that map and even NPCs on nearby maps. Ultima 7 and Ultima 7 II do exactly this, and for this reason they still have a pretty big fan base.
Anyway, for the next few months I will try to focus most of my development work on adding more quests, and I hope people will enjoy it.
P.S. Most, if not all of the future quests will give experience in some skill[s], which will eliminate part of the boring, repetitive aspect of the game, and will give the new players a chance to level up faster. For example, if a quest gives 10K attack and defense exp, that's a lot for a level 20 newbie, but very little for someone who is level 80+
In fact, I always wanted to have a game with lots of quests, that can be played much like a single player game, if the players chose to. But there were always other things getting in the way, so for the past 4 years there were no new quests (besides for a few new god quests).
Adding quests is a lot of work, and you have to be really careful and test them properly, or else there will be problems. Implementing a good quality quest can take 20+ hours, but since I have to do other things as well, it can take more than a week to add a new quest.
One of my dreams was to have about 10+ NPCs per map, all which are part of quests, or at the very least give some background information, to make the game feel more alive. All those NPCs must be connected in some way or shape, for example the NPCs on one map will talk about the NPCs on that map and even NPCs on nearby maps. Ultima 7 and Ultima 7 II do exactly this, and for this reason they still have a pretty big fan base.
Anyway, for the next few months I will try to focus most of my development work on adding more quests, and I hope people will enjoy it.
P.S. Most, if not all of the future quests will give experience in some skill[s], which will eliminate part of the boring, repetitive aspect of the game, and will give the new players a chance to level up faster. For example, if a quest gives 10K attack and defense exp, that's a lot for a level 20 newbie, but very little for someone who is level 80+