Jump to content

  •  





Content Updates

Posted by PunkBuster, 08 April 2014 · 904 views

The goal of this post is to introduce players to our server's development system, and what to expect of the near future.

--------------------------

First, a little bit about myself:

Unlike most of our previous Developers, I am not an experienced programmer. The previous staff usually included people whose real life occupations were, or included, programming. Often, they were professional game creators. Unlike them, I have had little programming experience before becoming a Developer. My real life activity is being a Mechanical Engineering student. Though my classes included C language(Ragnarok is 99% writen in C), the focus of those classes didn't include "How to make games". Instead, we're taught how to solve problems. Due to this, I have a different perspective at approaching problems compared to usual RO Developers.

Unfortunately, this also means that there are often issues which I am not skilled enough to deal with. When a skill break, or doesn't work as intended, I usually turn to other Developers for help. Sometimes, that means we have to wait for an official skill fix, and that can't be helped.

For that reason, I surround myself with experienced people capable of filling in for my weaknesses. Maever, Borf, and more recently, Gurrath. All of them are capable programmers, members of the community, whom I call for help with I am in a pinch. Weren't for them, there is no way we could run the game, much less have created AvRO3 in the first place.


--------------------------

How we operate:

The most basic form of development includes the input from the AvRO Staff community. Valanar, Soshi, Arkay, and Jette(our current support and event staff) call me up in-game or on Facebook and ask us simple tasks, such as making custom monsters for events, or seasonal events. For instance, we're cooking up an Easter event for you players over the next few days, and the previous Valentine's day events all came from requests like this.

However, the core updates for the game come from pet projects the staff members have. When we first announced AvalonRO3, both Klutz and I announced our personal projects for AvalonRO3. I promised the 2.0 Legendary Weapons, and Klutz had already started on his RO Achievements project. At present, we're underway with the 2.0 Legendary Weapons, though we've had to put off the Achievement System due to Klutz' resign because of real life issues he was facing.

The third and last type of update we add to the game are changes that are needed because of unexpected issues, such as bug fixing. This category also includes changes we had not expected to make, such as the much-requested revamp of the MvP Room, and the recent change made to Thanatos Tower Quest(which makes KSing impossible).

Overall, Developing a Ragnarok Server is like contracting  a perpetual backlog of things that need to be done. We try to get as much done as we can every maintenance, within the time we can spare for developing every week. We try to put emphasis on things that need more urgent work, though sometimes we go off and work on less important things when creativity compels us to. The feeling is akin to something such as "Oh boy, I just had a great idea, I want to work on this immediately". Things like the Zeny Statistics NPC and the Super Novice Skill Point Quest were born of moments like this.

--------------------------

Upcoming changes and features:

Our modus operandi for AvalonRO3 is like the construction of the ISS. The AvalonRO3 launch was the first, basic, naked environment we created. Overtime, we will add extra modules that will add to the game experience. The 2.0 Legendary System, the Cash Shop, Caspen Dungeon, Achievements, and more. Those things will take time, but it's not like you players don't have enough content to explore right now. The upcoming changes we had planned for you are:

Priority List:

1) New MvP Room System. It will NOT be an instanced MvP room, but we will change the format in order to end ambiguity due to MvP KS reports;
2) Homunculus and Homunculus S. The reason we don't have this yet is because we didn't have the time to balance their skills during the Beta Test period. I've promised this for within this month(April 2014);
3) Website and Voting sites. I'll set up voting site links as soon as our ongoing banner contest ends. The Website will follow shortly after, hopefully(We've hired an outsider to do it for us. This is where the money from your purchases plays into. Thank you for your support);

Normal Development:

1) Legendary Weapons
2) PvP Rewards System(This one deserves its own post, which I'll make soon)
3) Caspen Dungeon
4) Leviathan MvP(The fishing quest will not be going in again. The original author has withdrawn authorization to use it, because he intended to make his own server)
5) The Battlegrounds System Implementations. The BG weapons are way too strong, and will not be implemented. Some other sort of reward will be given for use of the BG, though this has not been set at the present time

Bug Fixing:

1) Bugged Skills(when fixes for those skills become available from the Hercules community, or if we ourselves manage to repair them)
2) General Exploits we find. Keep reporting them !!

--------------------------

Long term objectives:

Just before I joined the AvalonRO3 effort, I had intended to get get started on another project. This idea was an old promise to the community, which I believe will add much to the game experience: The RO Houses Project.

The basic concept is: You are able to earn/purchase a private residence for yourself, or your guild, that grants previleges to the user. I had already selected the maps which I was going to use, and I fully intended to give them as prizes for the 2013 Best of Best Tournament(Stop asking me about it, Melk). However, the AvRO3 project took priority, and I had to dump the idea. I will be implementing this, but not anytime soon.

Klutz' project, the Achievement System, has also not been discarded. This is, by far, the hardest one to do. It's not just an in-game feature, it also requires an extension to the website, which shows which achievements you have on your characters and accounts. This is heavily inspired on the Khara System from Ragnarok Online 2. There is so much we can do with this, and we haven't outlined the concepts yet, but also fully intend to add it.

--------------------------

This is all from now. I'll make more posts over the next few days/weeks regarding more details of what's coming up. Thank you for reading.




January 2025

S M T W T F S
   1234
5678910 11
12131415161718
19202122232425
262728293031 

Recent Entries