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Citan
08-05-2017, 12:48 AM
Real quick update! We're extremely busy right now on the next snapshot, which will include a major overhaul of South Serbule as well as a new community activity.

Say Goodbye to South Serbule ...
... And hello to the new Serbule Lowlands!

New players often think that "South Serbule" is a location on the Serbule map -- as in, "the southern part of the Serbule zone." On the one hand, that's easy to fix: somebody tells them it's an entirely different place, and voila, no more problem. But on the other hand, it's a newbie zone, and there's already a tremendous amount for newbies to learn. I don't want to add more confusion for no reason.

But on the THIRD hand, the lore dictates that the area is part of the duchy of Serbule -- lands historically ruled by the Duke of Serbule -- and that fact will be important in the future! So I'm hoping that "Serbule Lowlands" sounds enough like a different place while still being obviously related to Serbule.

(And if you have other name suggestions, now's the time to share them!)


New Landscape, New Stuff
The name change is just a small detail in the overall revision of the area. We've remade the map from scratch to focus on the interesting things going on in the Serbule Lowlands: a full-on ranalon invasion force has set up camp near the big lakes; in response, the goblins of Sedgewick Forest have barricaded the road into their lands to keep the ranalon out.

In the meantime, there are farmers and other mostly-innocent people trying to make a living from the land -- and having a very hard time of it, since the fighting has basically cut off all trade. (Good thing players will be coming along to help them!)

Mix in some politics, some spiders, and some mysteriously abandoned locales, shake well, and we'll see what we can make of it.

Or rather, we'll see what you make of it -- because we're going to need a lot of playtesting for this one. The Serbule "revamp" was just an art revision, but this revamp leaves very little unchanged.


The Other Way To Leave Anagoge
There's a dungeon on Anagoge (the newbie island). It's surprisingly long for a newbie dungeon, and then you get to the bottom, and ... nothing happens, so you have to walk all the way back out. That's because it's unfinished!

The end of that dungeon is supposed to lead you out to South Serbule -- or rather, the Serbule Lowlands. (This new name is going to take some practice.) That connection is finally being added, giving newbies a second way off the island. Parts of Serbule Lowlands will be newbie-centric content, similar to what's in Serbule now (such as cooking recipes, vendors, etc.).

It'll probably take some iteration and feedback to make this new newbie-exit work well. There are so many little things that need to be learned, discovered, or unlocked, that it's very hard to make sure newbies find them all!

I expect having a second way to start your character will help a lot when there's more players, because not everybody will be driven to the exact same dungeons or to kill the same beasts at the same time. It also means that newbies will be learning slightly different sets of skills at first, so they can help each other more. Plus it's always nice to have different content to experience when starting an alt character.


Plus... Poetry Readings!
Another feature that's ready for the next snapshot is poetry recitals. Bards need levels in Poetry Appreciation in order to level, but poetry books are hard to come by. The answer? Recitals!

You start by finding a poetry book. But instead of reading it privately to yourself, you go to a poetry podium. (There's one in the Serbule tavern.) From there, you can "recite" your poem, which gives you and everybody nearby some Poetry Appreciation XP, plus the buffs that go along with that poetry book.

So what poems do the players actually see? Well, I wasn't about to write poems for all the poetry books in the game... that's your job! The person doing the recital will be prompted to provide a short poem in the style of the book (such as "Nature", "Funny", or "Inspirational"). This poem is shown to everybody nearby (within about 40 meters), and they're asked to indicate if it's actually a poem (or if you just entered junk), and whether they liked it or not. You then receive their aggregated reviews.

The poem and the reviews don't affect how much XP you earn -- that part is just for fun. But I think the sort of people who are interested in being a bard are also the sort of people who might be willing to look up their favorite poem and paste it in, or to write some poems of their own -- dirty limericks count!

[srand points out: you are still limited by the Code of Conduct, of course. So no racist limericks, please.]

The interesting thing about poetry recitals is that the reciter doesn't earn as much Poetry Appreciation XP as if they'd just read the book quietly -- only 33% of normal XP, in fact. But everyone nearby ALSO gets that 33%. So if a few people reciprocate and read you their poems in return, you'll all easily earn more Poetry Appreciation XP than if you'd just read your own books by yourselves.

But if you need a little bit more incentive, reciting poems also earns you Oratory XP. The more people that hear your recital, the more Oratory XP you earn, so you'll want to cajole people into gathering 'round to hear your recital! (Raising the Oratory skill gives synergy levels in skills like Bard.)

I like these sorts of "community" mechanics. It'll probably require some tweaking and iteration, though, so we'll gather feedback and see how it goes.


Other Stuff Too
The next snapshot also has a bunch of other changes, including improvements to many existing food recipes, various treasure mods changed or added, a bunch of bugs fixed, and some new crafting recipes to discover. I'll cover those changes in more detail when the update is ready.

There's a lot of work left to finish for Serbule Lowlands, so I'm not sure when the snapshot build will be ready. I'd say odds are slim -- but not zero -- that it'll be ready this week. More likely it'll be ready in a week and a half, or thereabouts. We'll keep you posted!

jackybah
08-05-2017, 02:22 AM
Good morning Citan,

Thanks for your update. The Lowlands part in the name feels a bit weird for me, since the player will be traveling UP into the mountainous area of ' normal' Serbule to reach the portal to South Serbule / Serbule Lowlands.
Have you considered Serbule Highlands ?

Kind regards
Jack

Oxlazr
08-05-2017, 02:45 AM
So I wonder when changing low level zones what sort of approach you want players to take - I'd guess in some capacity you'd have high level players go through and steamroll the content without being able to really gather any meaningful feedback.

I know that additional character slots were meant to be a premium feature or some such later on, but is there any chance we could at least temporarily see that cap go back up for things like this?

Ideally I'd like some other tools to play the game differently each time I start fresh, but that's another discussion.

Anyway, failing that, it might pay to actually promote the game to new players in some capacity when these sorts of updates go live, seeing as they're most likely to provide the most useful feedback.

kazeandi
08-05-2017, 03:49 AM
Any news on Animal Handling damage? :)

Khaylara
08-05-2017, 03:51 AM
I'm excited about the poetry changes (i think there were few suggestions along those lines). About character slots, yup it would be nice to go back to 8, right now I'm using a second account to test stuff but it's not really handy (plus I'll have 8 slots anyway at launch). I am aware most would use those as mules but it's still handy for testing purposes.

Silvonis
08-05-2017, 06:48 AM
Just to nip this is the bud, we don't intend on increasing the character cap at this time.

Gervase
08-05-2017, 07:22 AM
When the UI is updated. I'll probably start playing again. It was teased so much a few months back and nothing has come from it.

Khaylara
08-05-2017, 08:51 AM
Just to nip this is the bud, we don't intend on increasing the character cap at this time.

Idc either way, I don't do mules so just a suggestion...and smart marketing. Do you think a player who got used to 8 slots will go back to 4 or pay a subscription? My guess is people will sub post-launch in order to keep their 8 chars. If you make it clear that the default will be 4 character slots imho it's fine to let us have 8 during testing (providing the slots are used for testing and not for mules, you can ban mules usage as far as I'm concerned).
Also not saying you should "at this time" but if more stuff is added for lower levels count this as a suggestion:) It kinda breaks my heart to delete characters in order to re-start from scratch to test newbie stuff.

Sorry for (ever so slightly) off topic

drivendawn
08-05-2017, 09:16 AM
Awesome, I am looking forward to exploring all the new things in the lowlands.

Niph
08-06-2017, 02:56 PM
About poetry recitals, the way I read it, it would work like this: someone with a Poetry book, and with enough level in Poetry Appreciation to be able to read it, goes to a poetry podium. This is, I guess, a new static interacting item, like a chair or bed. When they click it they are prompted to put in a book, then to paste some text. The recital then begins and everyone around can read the text. After some delay, they get a prompt with "Like" and "Dislike" buttons, and after some delay everyone can see something like "10 people liked this recital, 2 people disliked it". Everyone receives the poetry buff and xp, the reader receives some Oratory xp.

Thoughts:
. I like it. :)
. I don't know if you want to restrict recitals to a specific place like the Serbule tavern, for some reason. If not, maybe we could craft podiums with carpentry? There must be some better place in the world than a mere tavern for nice recitals (Lord Sedgewick's throne room? I can't remember how it looks like).
. Any chance high level in oratory can increase duration of poetry buffs when given in a recital? Some of these buffs are actually useful in combat, like the +Max Armor ones. I typically use a book once my group is ready to go, inside the dungeon, in the hope it lasts until the boss. With recitals I must add the time it takes to get to the dungeon and be ready to go.

Silvonis
08-06-2017, 03:36 PM
When the UI is updated. I'll probably start playing again. It was teased so much a few months back and nothing has come from it.

The new GUI is currently being internally tested with the first round of updates just being applied. I'll share more as we continue to progress.

Atis
08-07-2017, 01:29 AM
But on the THIRD hand, the lore dictates that the area is part of the duchy of Serbule -- lands historically ruled by the Duke of Serbule -- and that fact will be important in the future! So I'm hoping that "Serbule Lowlands" sounds enough like a different place while still being obviously related to Serbule.

(And if you have other name suggestions, now's the time to share them!)

Whatever starts with "Serbule" will be Serbule in new player's mind. Suggestion - dont start name with "Serbule". "Lowlands of Serbule" or whatever will remove emphasize from "Serbule".



As for Poetry - getting enough players together to significantly profit from recitals will be hard, especially with low pop. Higher %% of XP might be needed.

Tagamogi
08-07-2017, 11:13 AM
I think anything with Serbule in the name is going to have the potential to be confused with Serbule. Going with a simple name like "The Lowlands" and then making it clear through NPC interaction/lore items that it is party of the duchy of Serbule might be easier. Or, rename the Serbule zone, too, and have two areas now called, say, "Serbule Keep" and "Serbule Lakeland", so that Serbule is no longer synonymous with the current Serbule zone.

It's hard to come up with a good name for South Serbule when we don't know what it's going to look like yet. "Lowlands" sounds really pretty to me and has an appropriate mental association of sheep but it also seems to imply that there is something higher up which there isn't really at this point in the game. Given the name, I'd sort of expect there to be Serbule Highlands and maybe a Serbule Mountain zone, too.

Since it sounds like lakes will still be a major feature of South Serbule after the revamp, I kind of like the idea of using "lake" or "water" as part of its name. Sheep would be my other association with South Serbule, mainly because I've slaughtered far too many sheep while looking for that Wooly Bastard. So, um, Lakelands, Meadowlands, Farmlands, Sheep Hills, ... Or Lowlands. Whichever. :p

Crissa
08-07-2017, 11:06 PM
Have you thought of renaming Serbule to 'Central Serbule' or 'Serbule River' or something so that it's on the same syntactic footing as south serbule aka sebule lowlands?

(also, isn't it weird that the sea coast isn;t the lowlands?)

Syrcanus
08-08-2017, 04:41 AM
I don't think that Southern Serbule should be renamed to the Serbule Lowlands due to the player having to travel up a mountain pass to enter the region. If anything I think it should be called the Serbule Highlands as was previously mentioned. The Serbule region with its coastline would make a lot more sense as the Serbule Lowlands because of the lower elevation, although i think naming it Central Serbule as mentioned above would sound a lot more fitting and possibly help abate others confusion even more.

If Serbule Lowlands is still going to be used it would be nice to see the entrance changed to reflect that the southern zone is in fact supposed to be lower in elevation.

Silvonis
08-08-2017, 05:18 AM
Traditionally, in our real world, low lands doesn't necessarily mean the area is below sea level but generally the area is flat and has a country feel.

That said, that's our world. We are crafting our own universe with Project: Gorgon.

All that said, we are also considering Serbule Hills.

kazeandi
08-08-2017, 06:32 AM
This is a non-issue. One question in the chat, and someone will help the newbie.

However, South Serbule has no newbie feel to it, since you land in Serbule and then have to go out of your way to travel there when you could just run sewers/crypt and move on to Eltibule.

When I started, I wanted to do Bard ASAP. I soon found out, via Wiki, that I had to go to SSerb for the trainer and was afraid of going there, because I assumed it's a zone with highlevel mobs.

Counterintuitive.

That being said, having Animal Town all the way out in Sun Vale strikes me as a bit inconvenient, too. On the one hand, you encourage newbies to try out animal forms, with that piggy event, on the other hand, you stash animal players' lifeline away in a lvl 30-40 zone, hidden between aggro mobs with knockback and poison and some higher level pigs, plants and fae.

Both Animal Town and a newbie camp should be in S. Serbule.
Crypt, Sewers and maybe another dungeon should be there, too.
The teleport default should be newbie camp in S. Serbule.

Khaylara
08-08-2017, 07:07 PM
I have a few questions about the poetry update (one that Panic actually pointed out, I didn't think of that)

-Isn't it going to become trivial to level it? You can level really fast just by listening to few high level poems.
-Let's say it's a level 45 book I am reciting from and the full exp is 1500; 33 % is 500, if I recite the poem to an audience of players who have low levels in poetry are they going to be able to absorb my sublime verses? What I mean is a player who has poetry level 3 will get the same exp as someone who has it at level 45? It's poetry appreciation after all, imo the exp should be gained according to level (level of appreciation that is), obviously a novice wouldn't understand a poem as well as a talented and dedicated poet.
-will bards only be able to recite or anyone who has poetry appreciation and a book?

Some suggestions
- one is what I already mentioned, exp gain proportional to one's existing level of poetry appreciation (otherwise it will become trivial to level it imo)
-bards should be part of a recital, maybe a bard song accompanying the poet would make the poetry buff last longer
-something I already wrote up a while ago: players who have the skill should be able to create their own verses (in the fashion of goblin or elven verses) that would give only minor buffs and exp but wouldn't require a poetry book/tome/volume (the dropped item), only some ink and parchment, maybe a blank book for the more advanced poets. For example a player who is lvl 30 in poetry could write a verse that would only give 3o exp (divided with the audience that's 10 poetry exp), not gamebreaking or particularly fast leveling but more for the social aspect and to help lower levels gain exp slower and steady.

As I said I don't know how this update is going to work yet (my points might be completely worthless) but I thought I'd write some suggestions anyway.

Atis
08-10-2017, 06:25 AM
All that said, we are also considering Serbule Hills.

Central Serbule is surrounded by hills, so "Serbule Hills" is too vague. Need name that would be naturally shortened to something that is not "Serb". Valley of Serbule (gotta emphasize valley over Serb), we even have valley sheep there. Or Vale of Serbule, or Serbule Lianoss - not too accurate but easy to remember - "where do I find sheeps? - Check Lian, dude"

Ste.L
08-11-2017, 01:43 AM
Hi Citan,
I'm looking forward to new changes to south serbule area and updated newbee dungeon, for the naming issue as already mentioned by a few players I agree because it a separate area I think it would be nice to have it called a different area to avoid any confusion with the existing Serbule area for newish players.

Just a suggestion but how about either calling it "the highlands" or a different name you could make up i.e. "xxxx hills" and add some extra lore about existing abandoned house and npc's in south serbule inn for example "xxxx highlands was previously the homeland of the xxxx clan based at xxxx mansion (now abandoned house) before they were over run by goblins and invading Ramelon settlers. The only remaining survivor of clan xxxx is npc xyz now at south serbule inn and is now either a shield/ bard/ surveyor/ dance/ cooking or brewing trainer ???????

anyway keep up the good work

cheers
Ste

ShieldBreaker
08-11-2017, 08:15 AM
Might as well join the crowd and try my hand at the renaming game. How About:

Hinterland of Serbule
Annex of Serbule
Protectorate of Serbule
Dependency of Serbule

Kind of like Hinterland or Annex, easy to remember and spell.

Roekai
08-11-2017, 08:57 AM
Serbule Commonlands

Tagamogi
08-11-2017, 10:23 AM
Serbule Commonlands
Since the ranalons are rather lizard-like (or at least both amphibious and annoying), I think Serbule Feerrott would be more appropriate. ;)

drivendawn
08-11-2017, 04:23 PM
Serbule Basin or Swale of Serbule maybe?

Barthorn
08-12-2017, 02:05 AM
I personally like Serbule Hills. It reminds me of Everquest with Qeynos and it's connecting zone Qeynos hills.

Vaeaelin
08-12-2017, 04:12 PM
How about Sebulian outlands

Sasaki
08-15-2017, 02:56 AM
Went down to the Pizzarrhea. Came back with Gonorrhea.

Sorry, practicing for the new gameplay mechanics.

Now I just need Fairies to come out so I can be a Fairy bard at the Fair Fairy Faire for Friendly Fae. I can't wait to be involved in slam poetry battles.

PezOfDoom
08-15-2017, 03:33 PM
The Other Way To Leave Anagoge
There's a dungeon on Anagoge (the newbie island). It's surprisingly long for a newbie dungeon, and then you get to the bottom, and ... nothing happens, so you have to walk all the way back out. That's because it's unfinished!

The end of that dungeon is supposed to lead you out to South Serbule -- or rather, the Serbule Lowlands. (This new name is going to take some practice.) That connection is finally being added, giving newbies a second way off the island. Parts of Serbule Lowlands will be newbie-centric content, similar to what's in Serbule now (such as cooking recipes, vendors, etc.).

Any chance this latest snapshot will also include perhaps some other surprises in the lower levels of the dungeon? Just wondering if it's time to repeat my multiple hours pressing against every wall and mouse scanning every scone, banner, book/bookshelf, other dungeon-esque items to see if there's a hidden passage leading to something interesting.

I'm still trying to decide if I had fun doing that or I'm just crazy focused on finding every alpha easter egg I can. :p


Regarding other names for Serbule Lowlands:

Dukes Landing
Lake Serbule
Caroline's Repose (maybe a better name for a dungeon)

Question:
It's mentioned that Lord Serbule loved the art of Statuary, and was considered an expert stonemason

Are we eventually going to get a Serbule quarry?

Khaylara
08-16-2017, 08:58 AM
Who's Caroline?:O

Atis
08-17-2017, 04:23 AM
Who's Caroline?:O

"The Duchy of Serbule was once ruled from Serbule Keep by James II, Duke of Serbule, and his wife Caroline." (c) wiki