Build Time! – UPDATE: The Buildport is UP!

BuildPort status: The buildport is back up, but we are still in the process of leveling things out. Stay tuned!

Talk about area files, quests, theory, any of that cool stuff in here.

This OP will get fleshed out as we get a better picture of things.

Personally, I think we should look into adding more content to the areas we have. LOTJ doesn’t need another block of 50 rooms with the usual landing pad/hotel/workshop/shops layout. We should add more interesting content – places to explore, quests, event instances, alternate sources of income, purpose to visit to the planets we already have.

Gral always spoke fondly of the hub/spoke concept to areas. You have your hub planets where players congregate (generally planets with clanbases and the Arkania de jour) and then your ‘spokes’ where you go to harvest the lyleks, collect the molds, what have you.

I feel like Coruscant should be improved to be able to rival Arkania. Arkania is so popular because you can level just about any class there easily.

It’s made Arkania the “center” of the Galaxy, when realistically it should be Coruscant. It was the capital of the Republic and Empire for a reason: because you could do and get whatever you wanted from it.

For the most part, it’s the easily repeatable quests. The BH quest is easily repeated, the slicer quest, leveling combat, smuggling quest, etc.

Here’s my suggestion:

Put an Entry Level quest for each class that can be easily repeated to get newbies started. Putting the majority of people on Coruscant will allow the based clan to recruit easier, and it will usually be home to more experienced players that can help.

Then you can have your ‘mid rim’ planets which have Mid Level and Senior grade quests, possibly often requiring the people to travel between the planets except for the ‘easily leveled’ classes, like piloting. There’s no point to leveling piloting via quests when you could just fly between two close planets for a couple of hours, so make it as easy to quest as it is to fly. Canonically the mid rim had lots of travel and trade business too.

Then have the ‘outer rim’ which has the Professional grade quests. Only experienced travelers of the Galaxy would go to the outer-rim anyway, so why not have the experienced players out there. This could be the gathering quests too, like Lyleks and such.

Then, have the “opposing clan” base out here too with easily repeated quests on it to get them trained as well. They can also utilize the mid-rim and outer-rim and it will create a feeling of ‘separation’, in order to foster hostilities between the two.

This should help bring Coruscant back into focus as the primary planet. The areas are good, since it’s fairly easy to move between them, but it may be best to keep the quests contained. Smuggler, BH, espionage on the lower levels. Leadership and Diplomacy in the senate area, medical of course in the hospital, piloting and slicer near Eastport, etc.

I’d be happy to help outline some of these quests too, so I’m not all “do this” without helping.

I think the last time they updated Coruscant, they said it was going to be the last time.

Planets that need updating:

Roche (BADLY)
Mon Calamari (Still uses the old turbolift system)
Lorrd (Mountain areas and “destroyed village” areas)
Tatooine (Mos Eisley is a broken mess)
Alderaan (Needs a hail location on the north side of Aldera City and maybe expand the wilderness/add another city)

if we added more random moons and asteroids that would certainly make the galaxy seem more interesting as far as ‘exploring’ is concerned… one of the biggest teases is that NPC on coruscant who hints he found a a disk with hyperspace coordinates. if we had more or these seeded throughout the galaxy that’d be cool. Possibly change up the coordinates every so often so people do not just camp out on them.

The moons/asteroids would not even need to be very big. A landing pad and something the size of dantooine(or smaller if it is just a series of caves.) Maybe have 1 asteroid with just various rare spices to mine, one with a blaster crystal, one with lightsaber crystal etc etc etc…’quest’ asteroids so to speak. Find a trapped miner and if you help him he gives you ONE crystal and it is non-repeatable (but you can fail as well.) Clear a nest of mynocks and find a chemical for explosives (again 1 time deal.)

if we limit these things to 1 per person but rotate the location of these quest asteroids some things stay *somewha*t accessible as long as you put the effort in. I hate the current ‘planet is no longer accessible but someone stockpiled 999 dantooine crystals’ situation or ‘i know X clan is going under so lets stockpile the developments so they suddenly reappear 3 eras later from the same person’ situation. We need to nip stockpiling in the butt because it creates an imbalance when X’s alt suddenly appears with tons of stuff to help out X’s new clan every era or every few months. It has happened numerous times this TL.

I’m willing to take a close look at any area and ‘update/revamp’ it. Actually kinda made an interesting plan/idea for a revamp of Roche.

I kinda like where Veric is going with the ‘random’ small planetoids with 1 time quests on them.

I know a spot in the Lorrd mountains has a series of bad exits, stuff looping in on itself, repeatedly.

I know there were projects in motion to add areas to Tatooine and Naboo. The Outer planets really need some work. There’s really not much of a reason to go to Naboo at the moment, which is why Otoh Gunga was being worked on as a quest area/exploration zone. I can see a lot of planets benefitting from one or two more areas, even if they aren’t super complex.

on the subject of stockpiling…

…how if there is a player wipe does someone stockpile stuff and get it after the wipe?

im talking era to era stockpiling not TL to TL stockpiling.

ohh…thought that was same thing….so there aren’t wipes between Eras, just TL changes….

Coruscant is traditionally the safe planet of the in power clan and major clan base. Ideally we hope major clans will be supportive of new players and teaching, but in my experience that seems to be the exception. There are individuals that are highly motivated to teach and guide newbies, but major clans as a whole rarely are. There is too much going on and too much demand on the experienced players time to devote to the repetitive teaching of basics. I like having a neutral territory where a new player can level, learn the game, and decide where and how they want to play. Most characters aren’t really complete until they’ve finished levelling, even the master quests should be newbie accessible, but encourage exploration. The employment offices need updated. I think making whatever planet (Arkania or any) that has all the entry level quests, a safe neutral planet centrally located, might really help segway from Banvaar. No one can own it, everyone can use it.

More quests, yes. More planets, no. I remember when we had some barebones planets/moons with [almost] nothing on them. I’m okay with having them around, but it was a little sad to see the ghost towns. Expanding on the main planets seems the way to go.

If Coruscant is the center of the galaxy, the most important, and the jewel everyone is fighting over, not making it safe and letting them fight over it seems a good way to go.

As I recall, the reason the tiered quests were implemented and entry level quests co-located was because most of us felt the real joy of the game didn’t begin until you had finished levelling. Making levelling harder (spread out quests) didn’t hinder experienced players much, if at all, while newbies were subjected to grueling grinds, futile searches, and their initial LOTJ experience was miserable. The tiered quests then split, and many encouraged multiple planet travel, in order to introduce them to the galaxy at large.

My suggestion isn’t so much a whole revamp of Coruscant so much as making Coruscant FEEL like the Capital planet again.

I remember when the plaza on Coruscant constantly had 4-5 people in it. Nowadays, that’s Arkania, on the opposite side of the Galaxy from Coruscant.

I’m all for adding more quests to ‘Scant because it needs them. Arkania is far more newbie friendly than Coruscant is and I don’t feel like that should be the case.

The popular planets have shifted many times over the years. There was a time when Lorrd was a hot spot for activity. Coruscant is the capital of the Republic, but there is no Republic right now. People tend to flock to where the clan bases are. That’s not to say that Coruscant couldn’t use some love, like many planets could, but I don’t think it’s a necessity that Coruscant is the central hub of the galaxy.

Making any one planet the central hub of any Era or Timeline is just a natural thing. People will generally flock to certain locations for any given reason. The unfortunate side effect of this is that other planets are generally never visited unless they have something really worthwhile there (Tatooine BH Trainer for example). There are just too many planets that don’t have enough interesting things to warrant visiting often if at all. This timeline has seen many planets just abandoned in general in favor of Arkania and Corellia regardless of whether or not it was safe to congregate there. Everything else has pretty much just been abandoned.

So the fix would to rework the quests on the unfavorable planets and/or add more quality material?

Someone was suggesting earlier about have more multi-planet quests that take you through the galaxy in T2 and T3. Granted those could be “broken” should a planet not make it into a new TL and part of the series not be reachable.

Something I like is quests that only let you pick up one item to transport at a time instead of camping and collecting for an hour or two. Those would keep you moving and exploring to some degree. Higher chance of running into somebody on less populated planets when different quests have a leg on the same planet instead of all enclosed on one planet.