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View Full Version : Anagoge Island Rework for Steam Release



Daimes
02-16-2018, 09:30 AM
After a little bit of discussion with friends and guildies, I wanted to know if anything is planned to change Anagoge Island (Newbie Island) at all in order to better accommodate incoming Steam users? I know that any planned updates for it are probably hush-hush for now, but even then, I would like to make a few suggestions and ask a few questions:

Instanced: I know, at the moment, instancing is not something that's really thought of much, but with a potential large influx of new users, I would imagine the island might be a very competitive, or quite unresponsive and laggy, environment. Are there any plans to make it "better" by introducing instanced versions of the island per player? If not, are there plans (if not already in the game) to have persistent necessary items to progress on the island, such as the amethyst and empty bottle, so players don't have to sit and wait for respawns? Can Anagoge handle a lot of players on it at one time?

Gajus the Big-Headed: For some new players, Gajus won't be the first boss they encounter, but a suggestion I thought up to help the players that do find Gajus first is to somehow explain to them the severity that a boss poses to the player. At the moment, most boss encounters just display a flashing warning with almost completely arbitrary warnings attributed to them, such as a likelihood of death that is changed seemingly randomly and lore-filled quips from the boss, and was wondering if something lore-friendly can be added to try to explain that dying to a boss leads to debilitating curses. I figure it would be good to explain that before a relatively easy boss with a relatively harmless curse (to new players, at least). That way, players who do discover Gajus will at least be prepared next time they get warned and hopefully won't stumble upon another boss, such as Maronesa, without at least having being warned previously about the dangers of attacking a boss.

Restricting Chat: After a discussion with guildies, another suggestion that popped up is the possibility of restricting global or global-style chats to new players who are on the island to prevent spam (because let's be honest, it will be filled with spam; both by trolls and actual cries for help from newbies).

Feel free to add/subtract to my points, or make fun of them.

Silvonis
02-16-2018, 09:43 AM
Anagoge Island was originally designed for the Steam Early Access release in mind and was tested at around 250% normal player capacity. With that in mind, we've seen areas that needed improvements due to a surge in population and have already made changes and have tools in place to make further adjustments.

As for instancing, no there won't be any instances in this regard.

Citan
02-16-2018, 12:29 PM
To help put worries at ease, I want to mention that quite a few items on the island are actually "instanced" for each player. There's always a sword in that first backpack, and the amethyst bag is always there (in one of two places) for every player. There's always two spoons hidden around, two bottles, five mushrooms, a few other things. (Plus however many other "non-instanced" items spawn on the island.) These instanced things are only visible to the player -- other players can run right through them.

So no matter how many players are there, it's always possible to complete the basic tasks and leave the island. We don't have the ability to instance entire areas, the engine just can't do that. But we do use this sort of pseudo-instancing in places that might be crowded.

Crissa
02-16-2018, 06:12 PM
I do hope that global is hidden from new players and they default to 'help' instead.