Objects - rarity and timers - TL/DR

There are several different types of 'powerful' objects, with various limitations, that can be built on Alter Aeon:

Rarity based: Only a certain number of the item can be on the game at once. The limit is a long term (multiple week) average, so there may be none or there may be a lot of them on at any given time. If the long term average is too high, the item stops loading.

Binding: The object binds to whoever picks it up, preventing trading and selling. There are usually a low number of these per zone, between 0 and 3. The building code warns if there are too many of this in any given zone.

Artifact: One artifact is allowed per zone. Artifacts can be much more powerful than normal equipment.

Rare: Two rare items are allowed per zone. Rare items can be a bit more powerful than normal equipment.

Timered: The item has a timer and will at some point self destruct.


Each of these four classes can be more powerful than normal equipment, and as names like 'artifact' suggest, sometimes they can be very much more powerful. Some of these different classes interact with each other, making the calculations and code messy; for example, Rarity and Binding contribute to make Artifacts more powerful, but only to an extent.

This complexity in itself is problematic, but there are two other major issues to consider as well:

Rarity based: For any 'good' and useful piece of rarity equipment, it is obtained repeatedly until it is well past its loading limit. If the item is also Binding, it can't be traded and eventually it begins loading again as players stop playing the game. If it's not Binding, players trade occasionally (one or two trades per year) for the few pieces that exist, and it never loads again.

Timered: Noone will ever use the item. If it's not permanent, people aren't interested.


Rarity doesn't make any sense if all it does is give a small number of players a monopoly on an item; for them it's not rare, it's just a part of their set that noone else can ever get. For everyone else, it's so rare as to be impossible to obtain.

Timers on the other hand are the opposite end of the spectrum. Regardless of how good it is, people won't use it if it's timered. There seems to be some small exception for this with timered enchanted equipment, but I suspect this is because the timers are really long and the equipment doesn't self destruct when the enchant wears off.

Timers are of course, the obvious natural mechanic for controlling rarity based equipment. If something is limited load, simply make its duration in-game finite. This would guarantee turnover and make the item available to more people.

One final thing to consider is the way that timers currently work: they're not based on real time, but rather some amount of game time. You get an item, and you know it'll time out after you've used it for a while, but you never quite know when without checking it each time. If you log off for a week, you're likely to forget about it and suddenly find an important item vanishing unexpectedly in the middle of a battle.


This leads to one possible improvement: RL timered equipment. You have something, but you know exactly how long you have it for. Having something say "This will expire at Mon Apr 19 11:33:15 2010" is very different than having it say "This item will last for two RL days of game time, which could be two months from now if you don't play very often". It also has a built-in sense of rarity attached to it.

I like it.

Miscellaneous Update

I have been a bad developer, and have not posted recently. Part of this is due to things going on in my life, but more of it is due to lack of incentive on my part. I seem to have cyclical swings, and if I follow the historical pattern I should come out of it here in a week or so. But enough about my problems, let's talk about the game!

Of the major events recently, I'd say the biggest two are quicker movement regen, and the str/dex changes. The movement regen change is really only a net improvement of about 25%, but the important part is that it regens on every prompt instead of every tick. For new players, this is absolutely critical; nothing sucks more than being one step away from a safe room and unable to walk there for the 30 seconds it takes for another tick to hit. It changes the newbie game from a 'move a few squares then rest for 30 seconds' kind of game to a 'move more slowly through a few squares and look at stuff' kind of game. It's definitely more pleasant for me when I'm playing, and I've gotten similar remarks from pretty much everyone else.

Strength and dex are another matter. Several very vocal people have already complained, though since I was expecting it, it bothers me less than it initially did. It also helps that nearly everyone who is complaining has already figured out how to change equipment with the least amount of damage. There are also a handful of people who dislike the change because they feel it hurts their characters, but at the same time see the logic behind it and support it. In their view, it affects everyone equally, so it's fair if nothing else.

I only put in the first stage of str/dex in this last update. This limits the spells to +6 and widens the range of boosting to +8, flat across the board. (It used to be +5 or higher depending on how low your natural stat was.) In February, I plan to lower the limit to +5, and in may to +4. I don't think I'll raise the boost range, as it seems to me that +8 is probably sufficient. I'll have to collect more information on this going forward.

One minor change which is actually pretty major is a sort of 'freak' multiplier for randoms. It's just a single line in the changelog, but it's actually a pretty big deal from an equipment standpoint - it's like getting a really kick-ass unique in games like Diablo II. There's four different levels with about a 1 in 8 chance for each successive level. Each level adds 30 composite points to the total, so if you get all four (about one in 4000 odds), you can add nearly 4 hit/dam to the total of the object. Of course, odds are good you'll end up with most of the points going elsewhere, but it basically allows for 'super' random objects to appear from time to time. I don't think this will break the game, as it will be much harder to accumulate sets, and it's much more likely to happen on bound equipment.