Module Update Update!

[Badwater]

Module Update Update

No sure where we're at on Battle Sands. It's in LT's hands right now and he may be working on some suggestions I had for new loot items.

Delisha is working on an ambitious Fandar Update, complete with a druidic back-story for the island. Between the two of us I think I'm going to insert a druid-only quest on the island, too, and maybe a druid-only merchant. Along the lines we are endeavoring to create something special for a quite ignored class.

In the meantime, I'm gearing up for the introduction of The Blight, set in the Lomatin Foothills areas. Getting through The Blight is how you're going to get to The Lost, btw, and between the two it should be quite the epic adventure. I'm going to talk with LT about changing up some locations of keys and type of loot we have there so we keep the areas and make the adventure not quite so stale. We will also alter things so that there will not be soloing restrictions there.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

So this is what is slowly coming about - Peridotia, Fandar, Sunken Fortress, and Dorigin Island are or are becoming the low level areas.
Peridotia, N+NW+NE of Lomatin, Sunken Fortress, Dorigin, Tartaran Mtns, and Fandar are becoming the sub-to-low epic areas.
Peridotia, Kitharmin Mtns, Halidian Flats, Lorehaven, Dorigin, The Lost, Battle Isle, Lomatin Mtns, Tartaran Mtns, and a couple of other places are becoming mid-to-high epic areas.

I've slowly been changing the nature of how the new character enters into and experiences Talus. It used to be that a new character could find themself in an epic area within 3 areas of the old Lomatin Welcome Hall. I'm not there yet but we're steadily going on that direction.

Talus 2 will be much the same, where if you want to go into an epic area it's going to involve a bit of traveling to get there.

[Badwater]

It's coming soon:

[Badwater]

So here's the latest - I took a break from building over Thanksgiving to just do some playing, so I haven't made much progress on anything this week; but, it was fun to just play.

Before I get the Blight areas in, I've been tweaking The Blight. The Blight were very high powered for their CR - even by my standards, if you can believe that! I'm very close to having them where they need to be and then I need to do area detail work and lay down encounters and loot. I'm probably a few days away from having them in.

After that I will go ahead and make the minor changes in the Battle Sands and get those new areas in. What I'm doing won't change the nature of adventuring out there or LT's quests. Look for that hopefully by next weekend.

Then, I will be making encounter changes in boring areas north of Lomatin and will place the new trolls we have. The new trolls can only be finished off with fire or acid, so keep that in mind when you're out there.

Delisha is about 90% done with Fandar and that will add or replace over 20 areas on Fandar. It's close to getting to me where I will make some adjustments and get that in.

So there's a lot that's going to be added or changed in the next few week - just in time for your holiday adventuring!

[Badwater]

Hopefully Charter comes back later today and we have a connection to the server. That mean tonight I will be updating the server and it will have the updated Lomatin Mountains areas and Battle Sands, both of which are about 95% complete. All that is left is to adventure in those places and make any needed adjustments.

Fandar is coming soon! After that I'm going to divide my time between more updates on T1 and starting up again on getting basic T2 issues out of the way.

[Badwater]

I will be getting to Fandar shortly, but it turns out that I've been doing some playing. It's easy to get lost in the details of a few related areas and to me it's important how updates flow with the other areas they're connected with. Plus, I think it's good to revisit old updates to see if I get the same impression as when they went in.

I was traveling around the Tartaran Mountains, and I don't like the low xp that the harder Halidian Fire Giants hand out compared to how hard it is to kill them, especially the Grand Elders. I'm going to tweak and update that. I'm also going to tweak the loot in the Fire Giant Fortress, and expand the Fortress some. It was always a notion of mine to connect the Halidian desert areas with the Tartaran crater by means of an underground Fire Giant fortress lair so I think I'm going to do that while I fix the xp issue on the giants.

Should have that by the end of the week and then Fandar is next.

[Badwater]

I've been sick for the past few days so haven't gotten too much done. I'm playing through the Blight areas to address some of these issues about them being overpowered or not giving as much xp as I think they should for the fight they put up.

I'm also working on a project that will put a new, extensive Fire Giant fortress underground between Halidian Flats and the Tartaran Mountain crater. Look for that to be in soon!

[Badwater]

I'm close to putting in a working connection that will have fire giants underground between Halidian Flats and the Tartaran Mountains.

Some things to look for:

• There will be less in the way of fire giant encounters above ground in Halidian Flats.
  
  
• Asabi encounters will be changed and the boss camp moved.
  
  
• Stingers area(s) will be updated and improved upon.
  
  
• There will be more in the way of beasties above ground.
  
  
• Players will not encounter fire giant elders above ground. Those will only be around the updated Fire Giant Fortress.
  

I'm going to test the connection and then I'll change the Halidian Flats areas.

[Badwater]

I am currently playtesting some of the new areas. You are welcome to explore but be careful, as some of the encounters leading to the Fire Giant Fortress seem to be more difficult that I had intended (I'm tweaking that a bit right now). Also there is no loot in the Fire Giant Fortress itself yet, so don't expect a big payday yet from barely surviving the Elders. I still need to run a couple of characters through there before I decide specifically what to do. There will be a few brand new items in the loot collection there. You may not get them if you go through because loot in all new and updated areas is randomly generated.

I will updated the Module Update thread when I have, for the most part, finished the update.

[Badwater]

The fire giant fortress areas are in so play away!

Before I load in Fandar, I realized I hadn't quite tested out the Blight areas so I'm doing that this week. The Blight are tricky, and I'm testing that fine line between challenging and certain death. Also, I probably need to raise their CR some but I'm trying a few scenarios first.

After that I will add Fandar, but the new Fandar will not be generally accessible until I run a few characters in it. Fandar is quite ambitious and it might be more than we need on Talus...T1, that is. I'm going to play through it but I'm looking at the possibility of tweaking the areas to fit on T2.

[Badwater]

Mar 16, 2010 11:11:11 GMT -5 Badwater said:

...

Before I load in Fandar, I realized I hadn't quite tested out the Blight areas so I'm doing that this week. The Blight are tricky, and I'm testing that fine line between challenging and certain death. Also, I probably need to raise their CR some but I'm trying a few scenarios first.

...

Do not adventure in the Blight areas yet. Despite my efforts, they are quite deadly and are mowing down my level 31 character with ease. I'll be doing some more work with them today.

[slidermike]

hahaha
sounds like a challenge to ellis !!

[Badwater]

The Blight are quite the little horror show. I originally envisioned the Blight as being on the way to Akrona but they are harder than Akrona, so I'm rethinking this. I am now leaning toward having the entrance to The Lost be in Kitharmin Death Mines and then flesh out the Blight areas and put better loot there. I also still need to tweak xp and the strength of them. 3 different types of Blight tore up my level 31 fighter (well, 3 enemies too) and we're not even talking any clerics or wizards yet! Not even near any boss areas! So I'm still trying to find a balance, and I'll probably be working on that thru the end of this week so I can set aside the Blight and work on other things instead.

[Badwater]

I'm still playtesting the Blight, doing small tweaks with them. In the meantime, as I'm dealing with them, I'm also going to be doing the following changes:

• Updating the Collapsed Tunnel (Cthorna's Rare Flower quest).
  
  
• Updating Lomatin Sewers, and Johnny's quest.
  
  
• Updating Stone Tower.
  
  
• Updating encounters in Halidian Flats.
  

I'm going to start building the new Alvar. Many of the things that are in Lomatin will be moved to the new Alvar, such as the prison, crafting shops, temples (not all of them - Temple of the Waters will probably go away), sewers, real estate, etc. I will have an updated Alvar fully running before a natural catastrophe hits Lomatin and wipes it out.

I was fooling around T2 the other day and noticed a possible issue with the new coin system as it related to OnDeath monster loot drops. I will look at that first before doing any T2 stuff, because what coin system we use is fundamental to how that PW will function.

Look for these and other updates soon.

[Badwater]

I haven't been doing much in the way of updating because my shop is currently demanding much of my time.

I expect that in the next week I'll be able to take care of some things and do some playing as well.

[Mekerek]

Impressive you are still going.. .it's a lot of work!