Update: 8/05/09

I had hoped to wait until the end of the month for an update.

Rashka's updates are the most visible, and I had hoped those would be enough but it seems that even an update to tell you there is no update is enough for some.

We still do not have a name for the new classes, though we haven't really stopped to give that much thought. The healer progression is mostly settled, currently we've broken off to work on the spell system some. Right now we've mapped out the debuffs, buffs, shielding and healing types of spells we're likely to see in the game. It's probably not all-inclusive, but it's very very darn close I'm sure. In addition to mapping out what kinds of spells we'd like, some of the more tricky ones now also have mechanics. In particular the signature heals for each realm's healers have some preliminary formulas.

Unfortunately, making a game is not easy. It seems the more you try to drill down into a thing the more you find you have to pause and fill in some bit of info somewhere else. In the course of getting down to the 'bottom' of spells we've filled in a lot of our expectations for combat in general, such as what all of the factors are when someone attacks or casts a spell, down to what kinds of settings armor and weapons have, and how armor should react to elements (not to mention the discussion about which elements we'll have).

These discussions are usually day long affairs, and preclude programming time for that day (unless it involves tweaking something we're talking about.)

On the programming side, the client has not progressed at the moment as I wait for some more front end graphics. Currently, I am working on a back-end tool for Livor and I to use in order to make more intelligent decisions about the mechanics of some of the attacks and spells we have in mind. To be more accurate, I'm working more or less from an old tool we had for the same purpose back in the early alpha.

This tool needs to be a little more detailed though, and should allow for a lot more variables such as:
>] player\mob stats.
>] Spell effects
>] 'Tags' placed on the avatars by other commands.
>] Skills
>] abilities
>] level

The purpose is to model the combat formulas in general so we can gauge how armor performs vs certain weapon\element types primarily, and then we'll use that as a jumping point to start prototyping spells and special melee attacks using the math we've come up with so far.

It should be mentioned that we believe we already have a strong core for the basic combat module. We did a lot of work on it during the alpha, and we're happy with those results. It's now time to iterate on it and build a few more intricacies into it. Some examples:

>] Elemental damage was not a part of the old engine, and it's time to integrate that.
>] Materials will play a larger role than simply durability, materials will contribute to armor's weapon and elemental bonuses\penalties.
>] Sigils and Weapon enhancements need to be more 'first class'. The first engine had modules but they were tacked on.
>] The module has to be able to read tags and look for abilities that affect rolls.
>] The module has to support spells.

We lovingly call this project "the number cruncher" as that's what it is, essentially. It allows us to derive statistics that will help us with balance. We are none of us the type to just guess and see what happens.

That's all I've got for now. I'll have more at end of month, as originally planned.

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