So, I wager most people that were interested and willing to contribute to this whole thing have moved on to other things. Can't blame them, The idea was initially promising but ultimately it very clearly looked to be a typical "Herocraft Plan".
That is to say, it offered vague concepts and ideas, with no follow-through.
But I am here to say that that is no longer the situation, and hasn't been for about two months. Give or take.
I have returned.
I'm back, and arguably much later than some others that were far more dedicated to this idea than I. A makeshift team has come together around Kainzo's original call to arms, and we're trying to get the ball rolling. It has been a slow start (technically it really got up and running around November last year), and with Hytale being announced, the whole air is a bit fuzzy, but I can say that actual progress is being made.
Additionally, I've put forth enough time and effort that I'm committed to the act. Unless I run into something that I think will completely destroy the perspective of this "new server" being something that will cater to "us", I'm going to follow this through to the end.
So what's in store? In short, I (we) want to bring back the glory days (Zeal/DG/Bastion) but with a fresh coat of paint.
No attributes.
No "prepared skills".
No left click stamina bullshit.
No Global "Auction House" Trading.
Bring the Player Economy Back.
Re-enabling PvP Globally.
Item drop on death.
Graveyards.
Oldschool Mob Arenas.
Oldschool PvP Arenas.
Actual Group PvP focused gameplay.
No more Legendary Classes.
No more "crafting item clutter" from the custom item plugin.
New and Revamped classes featuring skills your mom has never even
heard of before.
...and much more.
As with everything "Game Development" related, nothing is set in stone yet. I'm not determining the rules alone, and even among us oldschool players, not everyone agrees. Kainzo also has a hard "No absolutes" stance on these sort of statements, but rest assured we'll fight to the death for the truly important stuff. Kainzo is much more willing to let us drive than in the past, but he's still the server 'owner'. We all know what that means, but take this statement from someone that left on less than pleasant terms with him though--"the outlook is good. We can do this."
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For those of you that know me, I hope that you can trust I know what's up (within a certain degree of error, of course). Ultimately we are trying to look at what has been done in the 5-ish years since Bastion, and determine what part of the server has actually changed for the
better, and undo what has changed for the
worse.
There's been a few pings to people who still float around the old HC community, but to be frank, the number of actual worthwhile contributors on the team isn't super high. We've got me on coding most of the Heroes related content (new skills, class designs, fixing/removing all the dumb stuff)
@MysticMight and
@werwew19 helping on that front as well,
@Jrr_ on that architect thing, and a few other dedicated individuals working to provide input on the big picture / "Vision" stuff. But unsurprisingly, there's a lot more that needs doing.
I want this shit done, and I want it done fast.
I wager most of you wanted this a year ago, if not two. Well tough luck, it didn't happen. But it can happen
now. Ideally we will have something that is playable and complete by the
middle of this year at the latest. The only thing stopping that from happening, or preventing it from happening even sooner than that, is a lack of people that can actually get work done. Coding work is a big time sink, but there's a lot more in play here.
If you read this and think that you or somebody you know might be able to provide
actual, tangible work to the team, we'd love to talk to them. This could range from doing a lot of nitty gritty plugin config files, architecture stuff, advanced plugin setup (Mythic mobs / custom items will be in, in a very different way than the current server), actual plugin development, or god knows what else. Later in the game a sort of "PvP Beta Balance Team" might make sense, but not right now, not yet. If you've got a usable skill, let me or Werwew know directly, or just write it out in this thread.
Ideas are all fine and well, but let's be real.
We're pretty good on ideas. This thread and the other one where Sam made an absolute ass out of himself have more or less filled the quota on ideas. Obviously the current team has their own, and we have a limited amount of skillsets and time to implement everything that everyone can think of. The important part is filtering out which ideas have the cheapest time / effort cost, but give the highest benefit to the server quality as a whole, and I think our current team has that covered.
So yeah, that's it. There's my Delf novel. Stay tuned for more info from Kainzo, Werwew, or myself in the coming weeks.
