Good news, I have most of the scripting for the upgrade alter figured out!

[Lansolyn]

Good news eh?

The alter should be done and submitted to morrus by october 28th.

The way I have it planned to work is thus...

You will obtain blood gems from monsters.

You will then take these blood gems to the alters, if you can find them.

The upgrade choices available to you are dependant on the power and type of the gem that you bring to the alter.
There are 4 types of blood gems (emerald, sapphire, diamond, and ruby) each has a different type of upgrade associated with it. There are 5 different levels of power associated with the gems (from least to greatest: dark, dim, normal, bright, blinding) these correspond to +1, +2, +3, +4, and +5 enchantment bonuses.

Please note a few things:
A) I know that upgrades may not match their pen and paper enchantment level. Most of this is on purpose and done for balance.
B) If you have duplicate enchantments please know which ones stack. IE skills don't stack, so if you have +5 to lore on one item and you put +5 to lore on another item you're still only going to have +5 to lore.
C) I am also thinking about putting the first 3 levels of enchantments on a merchant. This merchant is meant as a sink hole for the unholy amount of money in the game. Enchantments will cost Bonus^2 * 1 Million gold. (1, 4, and 9 million gold.) Such is the price of fame and customizability. If you don't see the merchant in the game it's probably cause morrus didn't want him there and that's ok.
D) I was thinking about putting an enhancement bonus limmit on a per item basis (IE no item could be more than +10.) But I think that I am going to reconsider and instead balance the bonuses with xp costs.
E) To Upgrade an item will cost XP, and lots of XP. XP cost is calculated based on the CURRENT ENCHANTMENT LEVEL of the item. The cost will be BONUS^2 * 400xp. So if you've got a +10 sword and you go to enchant it, it will cost 40,000 xp. You should not be able to enchant an item if losing the XP would make you lose a level. The cost is steep to stop level 3 players from running around in level 19 gear. But it's not meant to keep epic players from equipping themselves for the underdark.


Thanks all =)
L

 

[valn]

Lansolyn,

Will there be only one altar, or multiple ones (like one for fire damage, one for cold, etc)?

Obviously, if altars are specific, another internal control is where you set it up (ie the monsters likely to appear in that area).

All in all, sounds great to me.
You can fine-tune it after we've had some time to play with it...
Good job!

 

[youspoonybard]

This sounds really nice! First of all, thanks for the effort, Lansolyn.

Although I think it makes more sense for the XP cost to be calculated on the difference between the costs, like how P&P does it. The cost of putting a +1 enhancement and a +5 enhancement on the same sword being the same doesn't seem right to me...

 

[Chaz]

I dont know what you are talking about when you say so much gold in the game. Ive not had a char with more than 2 mill gold and i have more than one epic char. 9 mil?? are you joking? And xp cost?

Sounds like *&^%$# to me.

Peace

 

[youspoonybard]

I think it's very reasonable.

An XP loss is temporary. I think the amount of XP is kinda large, but that is easily tweaked.

As per gold, you don't have to buy the gems; you can find them by killing things. And while I've never had 9 million, I could obtain that rather fast in the Underdark. I think it's a good idea; you obtain so much gold that you literally have no need for. And you can always hunt for the gems on your own. The merchant is really designed for epic-level players only. You don't need gold if you find the gem off a random drop.

 

[Chaz]

hmmm maybe... skeptical, but willing to se what happens

Peace