Sooooo, what’s next for Belly in Indel? It’s a HUGE city, but surprisingly empty. People come to Indel for a few items and very few areas, then promptly leave the city.
What needs touching-up? Or what needs to be added to the city?
My Spring Break is almost over, but I can still work on things during the 4th Quarter and probably have something new (if it’s large) by the beginning of Summer. If it’s just a few NPCs or something, I can probably crank it out sooner.
I would like to see a or some miniquests with the Embassies in Indel and the respective cities? Does the Indel Castle quest still work, if it ever did? I can’t remember that one too well. An expansion of martial row and the guards of Indel could be cool, lots potential there. Indel is such a big city that possibly you could have a war between some of the badies and good folsk in Indel, an almost necro vs. cleric thing going on with the “Families” of Indel involved. Some of the families has such rich description and I sure that there is already some task related things there I just don’t know them or maybe they are defunct now. Heck you already have some really high level NPC’s that could “lead” the war in the city. Indel is such a great city that I spent so much time in as a midbie and even more crushing and being crushed in the moat I would love to see it return to prominence! Rock on Belly!
If you remember Heaven, it was a relatively boring place. It was a copy of the “wilderness” rooms (which aren’t real rooms, just virtualizations), so there were no searches or anything interesting. The NPCs were worth good XP at the time, being level 20s, but now that’s common. And of the legendary items that were originally included by Flash and Rose . . . most were deleted in a fit of anger ages upon ages ago.
I’m currently considering either a strongly-good-aligned area or a strongly-evil-aligned area. Which is more needed in Indel and/or around the mud? (NPCs would be roughly 18, with 21/22 boss.)
A good-aligned area is much more needed. There are plenty of areas for aristo-levels to kill that are evil - Underdark, Barb Caves - pretty much any area underground. And there are basically no good-aligned areas outside of shades and treehouse, and both of those are kind of slightly below aristo-level. I think that is an explanation for the lack of necros around.
Firstly, I know of the Hayashi Valley. Secondly, I cannot fathom how there are only 77 evil NPC’s in the game. I would never believe it if I were told that, and I still don’t. And while I don’t doubt that there are more good NPC’s than I originally thought, the reasoning behind that is because good NPC’s are “scattered”. There aren’t really a whole lot of solid XP areas stocked full of good NPC’s. There’s a few here and there, guards here and there, etc.
This report just polls what’s been loaded during the Boot - so there are undoubtably other NPCs around that may not have been loaded. But your central point of “scatter” is definitely valid. It’s quite annoying to have to kill 1 here, run there to kill another 2, run to a new city to kill 2 in this area, 3 in another building, etc.
I had a nice idea to add some more undead to Indel and connect them to the graveyard and a certain Lord’s house . . . but I can just as easily come up with something with some virtuous virgins for you to slay . . .
I do love slaying me some virgins. Almost nothing more fun. Except how they no longer remain virgins… even after death. But that’s a whole different type of fun.
There is one more point I forgot to make about the need for good aligned areas. Necromancer is pretty much the only alignment specific class anymore. With the change (and possible subsequent change) to clerics with devotion and different gods, not all forms of cleric require to be good aligned I believe. Therefore basically any class except necro can kill anything and anywhere it wants. Now I’m not complaining about that though, I like the idea of alignment being critical.
How’s this for a suggestion though:
In every story, good people only fight evil people. However, evil people will often find evil people as well - sort of fighting for supremacy among their own kind. And let’s be honest, they are evil, so they don’t care about anything, they just want to kill people - regardless of others’ alignment. Why not allow necros to kill evil beings for substantially less, or possibly even no penalty? And wouldn’t it conceptually make you more evil if you went around just killing everyone? regardless of their alignment?
That idea has been brought up before - and I think it’s valid. It is, however, a tricky thing to implement due to the way that Alignment is done. Now, it’s possible, so maybe we’ll see . . .
Easier for little ol’ me is to just add those virgins for you to . . . you know . . . do your thing with . . .
Aha your posts only support my desire for both evil and good areas warriing in Indel! I love that NPC recap there Belly. I never would have thought it broke down like that. Would you mind resposting it on a weekend to see the difference in the stats. My casual observation is that the player base on the weekends is different from the players on weekdays.
Evil vs. good war in Indel that is what I want! And, are some places in existence that could be be increased there like the crypt, the castle, martial row, etc.
why not introduce a new group into Indel that is in the midst of a turmoil, they split many years ago due to differing intereptations of their beliefs and now are pretty much in a conflict against each other. One side being good the other evil. This way the player can pick a side, get some associated quests and then go kick butt.
I’ve tried that on three separate occasions, and there haven’t been many takers. There are two factions in Uluitur and a player can choose to help one; there are three factions in/around Pylus and players can help two (or choose a third option, which in the code I call the “Duke Nukem Option"); and there are two factions within the world of NPC Clerics wherein a player can choose a side.
For the area in Indel, it’ll be a ~24-room area of level ~18 good-aligned NPCs, centered around a Hospitaler mission, under the auspices of a relatively unknown lawful-good god, Tyr. [As an aside, have you ever wondered what your own alignment is? Take a quiz and see ...] I should be able to open the new area by the beginning of summer vacation, unless I get too distracted by some other shiny object ... oooo, keyyys . . . . !
Sounds like a plan! Looking forward to some new areas. And if it is a “hospital” area maybe ther will be some goodies in there for a little cleric. he he.