Posted by Skye

Delteria CM? it said maloria, but ill change it if you want.

Even worse on my part. If you'd actually like to discuss the matters you brought up without bogging down this thread I'd be happy to discuss the differences in development between a server like Classic and a server like Delteria.  

Posted by Dusty

Even worse on my part. If you'd actually like to discuss the matters you brought up without bogging down this thread I'd be happy to discuss the differences in development between a server like Classic and a server like Delteria.

There is an obvious different in development because you guys have a larger player based and adhere to more people applying if thats what you mean. Any server with a larger playerbase is going to have more money thrown into it by the owner, its a smart business decision. I wont deny that.  

The interesting part, having some experience in the field, is that it can be much more lucrative to release a smaller 'disposable' game than an elaborate one that keeps players coming back for more. Just look at angry birds. In the case of delteria (or other knock off graal servers) it isn't hard to skin the game and make it appeal to another client base who may or may not have had interest in previous servers... if it costs 99 cents, the average consumer doesn't think much about it, but if you get 10,000 clients spending 99 cents, it's pretty clear that this is worth a little effort.

Take it on the other side where you have 100 or 200,000 players who have high expectations and have already paid their 99 cents... you can see where this goes.  

Posted by 4-Lom

The interesting part, having some experience in the field, is that it can be much more lucrative to release a smaller 'disposable' game than an elaborate one that keeps players coming back for more. Just look at angry birds.

That's true. You also have to take into the fact that Classic is sort of run by the players. It's a community game in that having friends and doing things with your friends is what makes the game a blast.  

Posted by Skye

That's true. You also have to take into the fact that Classic is sort of run by the players. It's a community game in that having friends and doing things with your friends is what makes the game a blast.

This post makes me happy  

Posted by 4-Lom

The interesting part, having some experience in the field, is that it can be much more lucrative to release a smaller 'disposable' game than an elaborate one that keeps players coming back for more. Just look at angry birds. In the case of delteria (or other knock off graal servers) it isn't hard to skin the game and make it appeal to another client base who may or may not have had interest in previous servers... if it costs 99 cents, the average consumer doesn't think much about it, but if you get 10,000 clients spending 99 cents, it's pretty clear that this is worth a little effort.

Take it on the other side where you have 100 or 200,000 players who have high expectations and have already paid their 99 cents... you can see where this goes.

I dont think the server's necessarily get their money from the app purchase itself but rather the in app purchases. The reasons for the in app purchases can be minimal as well such as small perks (guild houses, ad-disables, etc.) You are correct that the company always keeps itself as priority but an unhappy player base isnt the best. Although it is hard to nudge a game with such strong foundations such as graal  

Posted by Skye

There is an obvious different in development because you guys have a larger player based and adhere to more people applying if thats what you mean. Any server with a larger playerbase is going to have more money thrown into it by the owner, its a smart business decision. I wont deny that.

It's really nothing like that.

The size of a playerbase does influence development somewhat, but it's not very extreme. Most of the time it's cutting some ideas because it wouldn't really work well with the size of the playerbase. Some things just don't scale up very well. Sometimes it's the way lag can effect the content. For example Crab chance had to be completely rescripted the hour before Destiny was released because while on the dev server it seemed fine when moved over to the main server the lag made it very easy to keep track of crabs, or sometimes they would teleport which ruined the game. Not only that, but lots of players want to play games like that, so you also have to implement an instancing system for minigames that will be useless in a few months when the hype dies down. Speaking of lag, that's the biggest problem. Releasing new content funnels players into the same area which stresses the server. What was supposed to be a nice release is tainted and stained by the poor experience players are getting. It sucks working months on content only to release it and get nothing but negative reaction because of lag, not because of content. That's something out of everyones control but Unixmad's.

Now on to the core problem: Classic's gameplay design and content. The problem, plain and simple, is that Classic's is not designed in a way that can be scaled up with simple additions. What I mean is for example, in an RPG if you want to reward a player with a new item there is so much to give them. Basically, RPG's have very big reward pools. There is so many options for what you can give a player. You can give them a sword, you can give them armor, or an accessory. But wait, that's only in the first dungeon... 50 levels later you can do the same thing! You can reward them with a better sword or better armor. So much variety for so little work, development wise. And players love it! New armor is only new graphics and a few new numbers plugged in. Same for any new item. And there's so much you can add... entire new armor sets, hundreds of sword varieties. If developing Classic was as easy as sitting down and creating sword graphics all day I promise you Classic would get plenty of updates. Even placing chests on Classic is a bit of a pain because what can we give the player? Gralats? That's fairly boring and simple. We can give things like bomb skins, or other cosmetic aspects because that's what Classic is all about. There are other options but I'll elaborate on those later.

And then we come to the actual content. Everything about an RPG/MMO is built on recycling as much as possible. A new town can be added in an RPG and on its own, content wise it's nothing... but add some characters, dialog and quests that are designed using an already existing questing system, sprinkle some shops and suddenly you have an entire town with purpose and content. Classic gets no such luxury. Destiny took a long time because every aspect of it had to be created from scratch, and nothing gets the benefit of simply relying on a system that already exists. Quests have to be designed from start to finish, to stand on their own. We have to design towns to the best of our ability to have purpose and reason to come back. Hence we try to design content that can be replayed... but that's time consuming to do. We have no quest system, so developing stuff like the crab chance took time. Creating the treasure map system took time. Creating the fireman quest took time. Creating the black market quest took time.

Speaking of Destiny, we had to create new baddies. RPGs/MMO have the benefit of taking simple gameplay and masking it with lots of choices. At its core mobs are pretty basic, some variety of either running at the player, or running away, or performing an action. It seems simple, and it is, but when you can kill these baddies with different skills, weapons, classes... it's hard to notice. Nearly every baddy on Classic needs to be created on its own. Lizardon's don't share the same behavior as anything else, neither do spiders or swamp soldiers. Every baddy needs its own behavior, which means scripting entire AI for each one, some more complex than others.

So simple AI is countered by a variety of skills and classes. The closest Classic gets to this is weapons, but we can't just add new items. Making a hammer is easy, making a boomerang is easy. In fact it's very fun to make that sort of content, I actually love doing stuff like that. I wish I could just sit and design new items, just like I would love to come up with new skills and spells. It honestly sounds really fun. It's the sort of content I like making the most for Classic, the rare times I actually get to. But say there is a hammer made... then what? We can release it as a reward for some quest but what would the player do with it? In an RPG, a new loot item, skill or spell can be used in combat, further giving the player more variety to gameplay that revolves heavily around progressing in one thing(combat). But in Classic using a hammer to kill baddies may add variety, but in the end there is no ultimate benefit. It could add variety to PvP as well, but that's more difficult to balance. PvP can range from one player attacking another on the overworld, to a group of players attacking and defending a fort, to a mob of 100 players blocking the entrance to a town. I can balance the use of a hammer against another player fairly easy... but it may negatively effect towering. One player using a hammer to slow down a player is predictable, but what if guild members find out they can time it right and completely lockdown an area surrounding the flag? Even then, not all players PvP so what bigger purpose will a hammer give players? I can sprinkle chests and rewards behind stakes for players to find but that goes back to the problem of no true reward system. Small reward pool = gaining an item that ultimately has little usage.

And that is where things really start to snowball. Releasing new items usually means releasing a new area that rewards the item, and then having an area that gives reason for the item. The hammer for example would probably be obtained in the gnome mines. That's one new area, creative with all the above problems in mind. Now you have the hammer and you want to use it, that means adding a new area that opens up with the hammer because in Classic/Zelda that is by far the best feeling when you get new items. It's not necessarily like that all the time, releasing a new item doesn't mean releasing two whole areas, but it can. This is why new items like the hammer and such aren't out yet. The hammer has been made, it just lacks a purpose. It would be nothing more than a draisine if we released it now... at least the draisine gets you around.

Oh, and one last thing. We can't even do dungeons Zelda-style because Classic is a multiplayer game. Why player a multiplayer game and force players to quest by themselves? Or you can design dungeons around multiple players but that's very complex. Do you design it for a fixed numbers, like say you need four players? Or do you try to allow puzzles and content that works with 2-4 players... but that's even more complicated. How can a puzzle work for two players but also four? To top it all off allowing players to complete dungeons together means adding a party system and an instancing system for the dungeons. Two things Classic does not have currently, which means more stuff being thrown onto an already full table. Then there's the lag, multiplayer dungeons means serverside baddies, serverside baddies mean lag. Imagine playing a game like Zelda when enemies lag and glitch around. And the time it would take to design a complex dungeon would be counter-productive to experience players would get. RPG's dungeons can be replayed over and over for the grinding/looting aspect, but again, little purpose in that for Classic. Time-trials maybe? Gralats perhaps? But a puzzle-based dungeon would get repetitive after being played a few times.

Yeah, Classic gets the benefit of being a "cosmetic" server but that's a blessing and a curse. Look at how many custom hats, bow skins, mounts, morphs Classic has. It's marked as "a pointless update" because they have no purpose but if this was an RPG server like Delteria, or a server like Era, we could slap a few numbers on those items and suddenly they would be much, much more useful. If a hat had an armor value, would players complain? I doubt it. But sadly that is not what Classic is. All the mounts and morphs that are made would be the equivalent to creating a new monster. Think of how many dungeons could be filled with the variety of morphs Classic has... but they're just cosmetic.

Sorry it's a bit of a TL;DR and a bit of a mess to digest but these are issues encountered when developing for Classic. It's unique, and I think that's a good thing, but it makes development much more difficult. I always wanted to do a sort of blog detailing the sort of work that goes into an update like Destiny, but I have a hard time organizing my thoughts into ways that would actually be pleasant to read. Also I'm not trying to belittle the work that goes into a server like Delteria, but I don't think it's fair at all to compare it to a server like Classic.  

i wonder if classic can turn into a game with many mini games.
increase it to 3 servers, remove towers, spar becomes instance matching.
each town has different set of mini games. tetris, bomberman, freeze tag, ctf.
pretty much a game that only requires skills on everything.  

Posted by Dusty

It's really nothing like that.

The size of a playerbase does influence development somewhat, but it's not very extreme. Most of the time it's cutting some ideas because it wouldn't really work well with the size of the playerbase. Some things just don't scale up very well. Sometimes it's the way lag can effect the content. For example Crab chance had to be completely rescripted the hour before Destiny was released because while on the dev server it seemed fine when moved over to the main server the lag made it very easy to keep track of crabs, or sometimes they would teleport which ruined the game. Not only that, but lots of players want to play games like that, so you also have to implement an instancing system for minigames that will be useless in a few months when the hype dies down. Speaking of lag, that's the biggest problem. Releasing new content funnels players into the same area which stresses the server. What was supposed to be a nice release is tainted and stained by the poor experience players are getting. It sucks working months on content only to release it and get nothing but negative reaction because of lag, not because of content. That's something out of everyones control but Unixmad's.

Now on to the core problem: Classic's gameplay design and content. The problem, plain and simple, is that Classic's is not designed in a way that can be scaled up with simple additions. What I mean is for example, in an RPG if you want to reward a player with a new item there is so much to give them. Basically, RPG's have very big reward pools. There is so many options for what you can give a player. You can give them a sword, you can give them armor, or an accessory. But wait, that's only in the first dungeon... 50 levels later you can do the same thing! You can reward them with a better sword or better armor. So much variety for so little work, development wise. New armor is only new graphics and a few new numbers plugged in. Same for any new item. And there's so much you can add... entire new armor sets, hundreds of sword varieties. If developing Classic was as easy as sitting down and creating sword graphics all day I promise you Classic would get plenty of updates. Even placing chests on Classic is a bit of a pain because what can we give the player? Gralats? That's fairly boring and simple. We can give things like bomb skins, or other cosmetic aspects because that's what Classic is all about. There are other options but I'll elaborate on those later.

And then we come to the actual content. Everything about an RPG/MMO is built on recycling as much as possible. A new town can be added in an RPG and on its own, content wise it's nothing... but add some characters, dialog and quests that are designed using an already existing questing system, sprinkle some shops and suddenly you have an entire town with purpose and content. Classic gets no such luxury. Destiny took a long time because every aspect of it had to be created from scratch, and nothing gets the benefit of simply relying on a system that already exists. Quests have to be designed from start to finish, to stand on their own. We have to design towns to the best of our ability to have purpose and reason to come back. Hence we try to design content that can be replayed... but that's time consuming to do. We have no quest system, so developing stuff like the crab chance took time. Creating the treasure map system took time. Creating the fireman quest took time. Creating the black market quest took time.

Speaking of Destiny, we had to create new baddies. RPGs/MMO have the benefit of taking simple gameplay and masking it with the option of skills. At its core mobs are pretty basic, some variety of either running at the player, or running away, or performing an action. It seems simple, and it is, but when you can kill these baddies with different skills, weapons, classes... it's hard to notice. Nearly every baddy on Classic needs to be created on its own. Lizardon's don't share the same behavior as anything else, neither do spiders or swamp soldiers. Every baddy needs its own behavior, which means scripting entire AI for each one, some more complex than others.

So simple AI is countered by a variety of skills and classes. The closest Classic gets to this is weapons, but we can't just add new items. Making a hammer is easy, making a boomerang is easy. In fact it's very fun to make that sort of content, I actually love doing stuff like that. I wish I could just sit and design new items, just like I would love to come up with new skills and spells. It honestly sounds really fun. It's the sort of content I like making the most for Classic, the rare times I actually get to. But say there is a hammer made... then what? We can release it as a reward for some quest but what would the player do with it? In an RPG, a new loot item, skill or spell can be used in combat, further giving the player more variety to gameplay that revolves heavily around progressing in one thing(combat). But in Classic using a hammer to kill baddies may add variety, but in the end there is no ultimate benefit. It could add variety to PvP as well, but that's more difficult to balance. PvP can range from one player attacking another on the overworld, to a group of players attacking and defending a fort, to a mob of 100 players blocking the entrance to a town. I can balance the use of a hammer against another player fairly easy... but it may negatively effect towering. One player using a hammer to slow down a player is predictable, but what if guild members find out they can time it right and completely lockdown an area surrounding the flag? Even then, not all players PvP so what bigger purpose will a hammer give players? I can sprinkle chests and rewards behind stakes for players to find but that goes back to the problem of no true reward system. Small reward pool = gaining an item that ultimately has little usage.

And that is where things really start to snowball. Releasing new items usually means releasing a new area that rewards the item, and then having an area that gives reason for the item. The hammer for example would probably be obtained in the gnome mines. That's one new area, creative with all the above problems in mind. Now you have the hammer and you want to use it, that means adding a new area that opens up with the hammer because in Classic/Zelda that is by far the best feeling when you get new items. It's not necessarily like that all the time, releasing a new item doesn't mean releasing two whole areas, but it can. This is why new items like the hammer and such aren't out yet. The hammer has been made, it just lacks a purpose. It would be nothing more than a draisine if we released it now... at least the draisine gets you around.

Oh, and one last thing. We can't even do dungeons Zelda-style because Classic is a multiplayer game. Oh, and because the time it would take to design a complex dungeon would be counter-productive to experience players would get. RPG's dungeons can be replayed over and over for the grinding/looting aspect, but again, little purpose in that for Classic.

Yeah, Classic gets the benefit of being a "cosmetic" server but that's a blessing and a curse. Look at how many custom hats, bow skins, mounts, morphs Classic has. It's marked as "a pointless update" because they have no purpose but if this was an RPG server like Delteria, or a server like Era, we could slap a few numbers on those items and suddenly they would be much, much more useful. If a hat had an armor value, they would be viewed much differently. But sadly that is not what Classic is. All the mounts and morphs that are made would be the equivalent to creating a new monster. Think of how many dungeons could be filled with the variety of morphs Classic has... but they're just cosmetic.

Sorry it's a bit of a TL;DR and a bit of a mess to digest but these are issues encountered when developing for Classic. It's unique, and I think that's a good thing, but it makes development much more difficult. I always wanted to do a sort of blog detailing the sort of work that goes into an update like Destiny, but I have a hard time organizing my thoughts into ways that would actually be pleasant to read.

Sorry for Choppy Reply Ill try not to repeat myself too much;

Lag has always been an issue for servers, especially small games on iphone and whatnot but the beauty of that is you can upgrade serves as the problem is not the mobile that is the problem. I remember in classic 2014 or whatever you would be able to see all players on the ENTIRE screen, but now there is a limit according to x/y and how many players are in the square. It probably costs alot of money to upgrade a server and keep it running but it is obviously something a manager has to look into when he is seeing his server growing at an exponential rate and has his staff having to LIMIT the workload due to this. Obviously you always want to take functionality into account when exposed to lots of stress. Though it is not something you can directly control, I agree with that.

I dont agree that you can comapre that of a game with dungeons and stats to a game such as classic. Classic is simple, every player has the same amount of health, same weapon, same attack, everyone has a level playing field. So what is there to do then? You can re-skin. That is all I see on classic these days, there is nothing new that is being added to the game CONTENT wise. Sure graphics are hard and take wrong talent dont get me wrong there, I absolutely respect people who make art. It is raw skill. But what is it contributing to the game play aspects?

The thing that bugs me the most is the fact that you describe the locations you guys create as somewhere where players can re-visit and that you make it seem like its very hard to make new towns. So why are you destroying the old ones? The old haloween place was destroyed, there was also the multiple islands off of classic that were removed. The upper area to snowtown was removed. All places that were WIP's were just removed and never released to the public. The thing is, players will always flood to area's where they are rewarded. No one goes to snowtown anymore because anyone that goes there is just there to take towers. The whole crab change thing is amazing and I love how you guys are adding more interactive content, but its just an event and is already being limited by several factors you have mentioned earlier. Again this brings up the topic of classic being a whole "community game" where you guys dont need dungeons. You dont need new weapons. You dont need anything new because the playerbase THRIVES on itself. The players love talking and meeting new people, thats something all Graal servers try replicate and loathe classic for. Its self sustainability.

The whole destiny thing is cool I like how you guys introduced new baddies and It does take time to make these things. But what are you accomplishing by doing this? Like you said you could introduce new weapons like the hammer but that is so arbitrary to use in combat and you guys perfer the whole level playing field because if something with different stats is introduced you must properly balance all other things in accordance to it. Then you go on to erase previous content in the game, things become inaccessible and are ultimately just removed. It really all loops back into stress, you dont need a location if no one is going to use it or its seasonal. You only need it x months of the year, and mabie next year it would be completely overhauled.

I dont like to bash about how "everything is just a re-skin" but content wise lets look at your updates for the past months:
-Sept 5: Favorite Player's
-Sept 1: GST
-Sept 1: VIP
-Aug. 27th : More GST
-Aug 22th: More GST
-Aug 8th: Hats
-Aug 1st: VIP
-July 22nd: Olympics (No one will use this ever again)
-July 16th: Re-Skin of railway things
-July 8th: Hats
-July 1st: VIP
-June 24th: Weather Toggling in Houses
-June 22nd: More Hats
-June 21st: Prizes
-June 17th: Umbrella's (Astetic)
-June 11th: Player House Ratings
-June 8th: Hats
-June 1st: VIP
-May 30th: Bomb Re-Skins and Hats

So we basically can tell at a glace that most content being produced is going to be re skins or hats (Still takes alot of skill please dont murder me coco)

Im going to try and bring this full circle to the actual topic. Classic Developement vs. Other servers, Im going to mainly use Delteria since its where this started. Delteria completely relies on content, it relies on blancing, it relies on jobs, it relies on economy, it relies on quests. There are SOOOO many things are need to be managed concisely. With classic every idea has to be taken with a grain of salt since you have to take as you said the playerbase size into account and other things. Classic introduces new items that help the community people feel important. There are also other things such as basing that keep people playing. I believe the Development for a server such as Classic is more uniform; Keep making the players interested in the game and make community based items. Its cool! But it doesnt appeal to all people. Other servers like Delteria focus on more aspects such as weapons and other things that require little balancing because we have such a small player base. Due to the unique factors of classic so many things must be asked when you guys develop stuff. How will this affect the players? Will it cause issues? Will it be re used? What could we possibly do later down the line with this or is it just a dead end?

Classic is unique and has some pretty amazing aspects. The art and customization is endless and absolutely stunning. But all games are different and thus all Development is different, Delteria is more pertained to exploring and collecting cool items! Whilst classic is more accustomed to having fun with your friends, which dont get me wrong is totally fun! I also was addicted to classic when I was younger.

I dont think your hats and morphs and mounts can be compared to making dungeons, new AI, and other factors. Let me lean on another server here, Zodiac. Those dungeons take time and effort and each monster has unique abilities, weapons, and cool new looks that need to be customized so they are not unbalanced. Classic does 1/3 of that, they make new cool looking stuff that is appealing to the eyes that doesnt require any other extra out the box consequences.

TDLR: I agree with the point that all development is different but I dont see eye to eye on you that you can compare the Graphics of Classic to something of making new dungeons or perks on a server like Zodiac or Delteria.  

My point is servers/games like Delteria are at their core, designed for recycling. If Classic was in the same position as Delteria we could easily churn out entire new towns, quests and dungeons with little effort. All that "customization" would be the equivalent of new items that could be put as loot. All the morphs and mounts would be the same amount of effort as creating a new baddy.

But Classic is not designed for recycling, and that's the problem. We can't create a string of rooms, fill them with newly skinned baddies that use the same AI, and drop the same items but with better stats and call it new content. Sure, a baddy on Zodiac may have a new ability that another baddy doesn't have but that's very simple to add, especially if it's something like a spell that players already use. Adding a new ability is not the same as creating new AI and behavior.  

Posted by Dusty

My point is servers/games like Delteria are at their core, designed for recycling. If Classic was in the same position as Delteria we could easily churn out entire new towns, quests and dungeons with little effort. All that "customization" would be the equivalent of new items that could be put as loot. All the morphs and mounts would be the same amount of effort as creating a new baddy.

But Classic is not designed for recycling, and that's the problem. We can't create a string of rooms, fill them with newly skinned baddies that use the same AI, and drop the same items but with better stats and call it new content. Sure, a baddy on Zodiac may have a new ability that another baddy doesn't have but that's very simple to add, especially if it's something like a spell that players already use. Adding a new ability is not the same as creating new AI and behavior.

I agree that MMORPG servers are generally recycled content. But some baddy AI is unique to that certain baddy. Take a boss for example, although It is only one instance in the entire dungeon It is unique. It has a special weapon that must be skinned, there is no base template made for it so It is completely made from scratch. Then things such as abilities and when to use the abilities need to be added to the code. I do agree some baddies are just re skinned versions of other things.

You use the word Simple on the aspect of new abilities, but dont you think making a new baddy has to be a bit more complex than using a mount template per say? The baddy has to be made from scratch or re skinned, the mount has to be re skinned or made from scratch. From there the mount is done. However with the Baddy things such as respawn rates, drop rates, unique and rare abilities, cool things that can only be found there if done in certain sequence. I just cant seem to understand how making a monster and making a mount can require the same amount of effort. If the same graphics artist makes both, then one must be coded but the other one doesnt have to? Its like the hats, you can probably make 2-3 hats in the time it takes for someone to make the baddy, then pass it on to the coder, then the animations need to be done for it, and then finally it needs to be placed in game and balanced.
Also this brings me back to the fact of developers. If you were to take Classic as is and it basically make it function the same as Delteria whilst keeping the playerbase than more people would want to work for you. Mabie classic has the resources to actually pay their artists for the work, Im unsure. But the outreach of classic has made tons of people go into pixel art and work for classic. Deleteria? Not so much  

Posted by Skye

Any server with a larger playerbase is going to have more money thrown into it by the owner, its a smart business decision. I wont deny that.

im laughing all the way to the bank with my checks  

Posted by Skye

I agree that MMORPG servers are generally recycled content. But some baddy AI is unique to that certain baddy. Take a boss for example, although It is only one instance in the entire dungeon It is unique. It has a special weapon that must be skinned, there is no base template made for it so It is completely made from scratch. Then things such as abilities and when to use the abilities need to be added to the code. I do agree some baddies are just re skinned versions of other things.

You use the word Simple on the aspect of new abilities, but dont you think making a new baddy has to be a bit more complex than using a mount template per say? The baddy has to be made from scratch or re skinned, the mount has to be re skinned or made from scratch. From there the mount is done. However with the Baddy things such as respawn rates, drop rates, unique and rare abilities, cool things that can only be found there if done in certain sequence. I just cant seem to understand how making a monster and making a mount can require the same amount of effort. If the same graphics artist makes both, then one must be coded but the other one doesnt have to? Its like the hats, you can probably make 2-3 hats in the time it takes for someone to make the baddy, then pass it on to the coder, then the animations need to be done for it, and then finally it needs to be placed in game and balanced.
Also this brings me back to the fact of developers. If you were to take Classic as is and it basically make it function the same as Delteria whilst keeping the playerbase than more people would want to work for you. Mabie classic has the resources to actually pay their artists for the work, Im unsure. But the outreach of classic has made tons of people go into pixel art and work for classic. Deleteria? Not so much

Some baddy AI is unique, but all of it? Therein lies the problem. How much do you have to do when you want to create a new baddy, in general, for an RPG server? I'm not talking about that one baddy that has a new skill, but what about a common baddy that's just there for players to grind on? A boss is not a common occurrence, but you make it sound like making a boss is a lot of work... and I don't doubt that it is. In fact, I agree. It's unique, and only one per dungeon? Now imagine the time it takes to make a boss on Delteria... that's the time it takes to make every single baddy on Classic. Because nearly every single baddy is unique.

And I didn't say making a mount and making a baddy is the same thing, but it's a good portion of the work for any RPG. If I had an RPG dungeon... let's say the first cave the player enters has rats. Rats are common enemies. On an MMO fighting that rat would be simple. You hit it, and it aggros at you and chases you. It either chases you, or runs away, and sometimes attacks. Creating that first baddy that uses that sort of AI would be hard. But let's say 50 levels later there is a new area. And a new bigger rat. What do I need to change to make this new bigger rat worth a level 50 player? I'll make a new graphic for it of course, one that looks like a large rat. Maybe make it look rough and tough. But if it has the same stats as the rat from the first cave what good is it? So I give it more health, more strength, maybe a little faster, slightly more defense. Yeah I might have to balance it but that's just tweaking some numbers. Maybe I'll give it a rare drop, "Rat's Claw". A giant rat claw tied to a stick. Melee weapons already exist so I'll just add a new melee weapon with a new graphic. Stats will have to be balanced, but again, tweaking of numbers until they're right. Even then you can release it and tweak it later if you really need to. And add a new ability? Maybe I'll make the rat spawn smaller rats from the first cave. Pretty easy imo. Maybe I'll make it do something more unique... maybe a spell. Why would a rat need a spell? I dunno but it's the most complex thing I can think of that a baddy would need that's unique. I'll give it meteor storm. I can probably make a meteor storm in a few hours.

All in all, a completely new baddy, mostly relying on systems that already exist and needing to fill in the gaps. Even the most unique things needed to create this new baddy isn't that much compared to Classic's process:
- New graphics
- New behavior design, concept, and ideas
- Scripting said behavior and AI from scratch. This includes its walking pattern, its chasing pattern, its attacking pattern, as well as wall collision and anti-sticking methods. A baddy stuck in a wall is a useless baddy since once they're stuck they're not going to unstick themselves unless they respawn. There's little in the way of attacking a baddy in a wall on Classic, so we try to avoid this as best as possible. Sometimes still happens sadly due to lag, but it will respawn with little loss.

We could just take the already existing rat baddy and make another rat with different stats but on Classic there's no reason to do that. Baddies only drop gralats. They don't give experience, they don't give loot. So on Classic the only worth-while reason to add a new baddy is for variety, and because it's more fitting for a new area. Destiny has a beach, the most logical baddy we should put there were crabs. Crabs were especially complicated because they can dig underground and resurface to align with players and try to get in a swift attack. It wouldn't have made much since to put a reskinned rat on the Destiny beach.

And what do players get for this new crab? Nothing, baddy kills. If it dropped loot it would be a much more rewarding experience for players don't you think? But there's little we can reward players for grinding, and grinding is a very easy method of gameplay to design for.

Even if you aspire to have more fulfilling content for an RPG content, which you may... you don't have to. You have a choice! Say you're working on a big dungeon and let's assume it does have lots of unique content and work put into it. But months have passed, well-deserved months of work. But still, months, and players are becoming restless. If you really want to, you can push out a filler dungeon to keep them happy for a while until the big stuff is done. It might take a few weeks or even a month to do, but you can cut corners. Leave out the unique stuff, but still give players something to do and they'll be happy. There isn't anything like that on Classic. At all.  

Also I will say Classic has toyed with the idea of procedural dungeons. Dungeons that are randomized but filled with predefined content and rooms. Every time you played the layout was different, rooms would be different, filled with different baddies. You beat a floor, go down further and get a larger floor, with tougher monsters. Do this until you die.

That's the dream for Classic, at least my dream for Classics dungeons. I think something like that would put Classic on par with other servers to a degree. And no I'm not spewing stuff out of my ass.

If Classic had a system like this in place we could release "new dungeons." Dungeons that had a new theme, say, an ice dungeon. Ice baddies and such. Most baddies would just be recycled from a base, for example what was a rat in the other dungeon would be an ice rat in this one. But players wouldn't care. We could even give it ice-themed abilities(current rat on Classic has a rare version that explodes when touched) that could spice it up and make this dungeon different than the other dungeon. A system like that is a system that is built for recycling, and what could make developing on Classic somewhat easier.

But there is a huge upfront development cost to this, and cost aside it's nearly impossible. Procedural generation would put a strain on the server that it can't handle. It would need to be offset to another server. Then there are other problems, such as multiplayer vs single player. Multiplayer means dumbed down gameplay. Because a dungeon filled with just mobs in a Zelda-like experience means dying and getting kicked out due to lag would be infuriating and unfair. And dumb mobs are just boring imo, when the entire focus of the dungeon is fighting them. Hence emphasis on pathfinding and creating smarter enemies that would be fun to fight. But pathfinding + serverside(because of multiplayer) = a big nono. There were too many obstacles to overcome, and it would need to go through channels that wouldn't get it done.

But, if Classic had this then yes, I think we could compare the development effort to Classic to that of MMO's. It would provide Classic with its base for a core gameplay mechanic that builds off of recycled content.  

Off topic here but the dungeon thing kinda remind me the binding of Isaac which is a very entertaining game and If something like that was ever implemented into the classic server I would probably never stop playing it