Rookville - 5th Edition

[Eldin]

Greets fellow adventurers and creators,
The time has come for another run, the fifth edition of Rookville is finally here.

Rookgard is no longer a place for beginners, but the main place for your entire experience.
I came up with the idea over 10 years ago (was probably not the first one) and created and released my first RookWar server about 8 years ago which you still can search for here at OTland. We all began in Rookgaard and we all can relate, it holds a special place in our hearts some way or another.

Rookville is based on real tibias Rookgaard and has expanded throughout the years to also have many other areas and highlights from real tibia. All hunting grounds has been switched out for main creatures and the entire experience has been customized with loads of content, features, custom advanced quests and more.

Original Rookgaard Map:

Stats:
Exp: Stages 5x - 2x
Skill: 4X
Magic: 2X
Loot: 1X
Type: RPG - No Hotkeys!
Client: 10.98

Previous rounds:
First Round: Rookville [10.35]
Second Round: Rookville [10.41]
Third Round: Rookville [10.77]
Fourth Round: Rookville [10.77]

For the first time, I feel that the server is complete.
What do I mean by complete? As a developer, you always feel that you are behind due to the amount of work it takes to crush bugs and balance everything while also creating new content. The content is now great enough to run for a good amount of time and all requests from previous runs has been adressed.

I have loads of things that I would like to spoil, but I will keep that for the advertisement thread.
The server is complete for the next run and is planned to be hosted by the one and only @HalfAway in a couple of weeks.

They say that you never forget your first dragon, but what did you never forget from Rookgaard?
I saw a plate shield and a pile of 100 gold coins in the trading ("depot") area, I was hooked.

Anything that you would love for me to include or change this time? Let me know!
Thanks for taking your time.

 

[Kaspar]

Rookville brings out the kid in me. I apologize to Eldin in advance.
Looking forward to the launch.

 

[Wirox]

What has changed since the last edition, besides new content? I don't know if you remember my list of suggestions, but have some of them been implemented?

 

[Eldin]

@Kaspar - I wouldn't have it any other way! (Might have to set a high bounty on you from start!)

@Wirox -What a great question!
I had a long list of suggestions and general feedback, I believe I adressed most things. I have to admit that I no longer can't remember who exactly said what as I deleted the feedback when I adresset it. (I do for sure remember you! <3) You still have the chance to bring feedback! Do you remember anything specific or got anything on your mind? I would happily answer it!

@Paco - We do for sure have something in common! I have actually seen your server, well done! So nice to see other Rookgaard creators out there! Rookville began as PvP (RookWar) and turned into RPG as that is closest to my heart and it turned out the players loved it as well. Anything that you would like to bring to the table that is a must have? Hope to see you online exploring getting another (or similar!) take on Rook!
PS: Love Mexican food!

 

[Wirox]

-What a great question!
I had a long list of suggestions and general feedback, I believe I adressed most things. I have to admit that I no longer can't remember who exactly said what as I deleted the feedback when I adresset it. (I do for sure remember you! <3) You still have the chance to bring feedback! Do you remember anything specific or got anything on your mind? I would happily answer it!

I actually still have the full list of suggestions, but since it's quite long, I'll just summarize what I mentioned there:
1. Removing socket traits which aren't useful, fixing bugs related to all other traits, making the system more consistent in general.
2. Making quests more worthwile and making questlog more organized.
3. Bringing hotkeys back.
4. Making donator shop less pay-to-win.
5. Making the skill point system more interesting and more balanced.
6. Increasing death penalties, nerfing blessings, removing the penalty for having higher level in pvp.
7. Making sure that all obtainable items and creature products are sellable.
8. Adding information about rates and custom mechanics to the website.

Edit:
I've missed one suggestion when going through that old list.
9. Making mother soil able to remove any socket, not just the last one.

 

[Eldin]

@Paco - Thank you! I will for sure look through it, looks like you managed to create and add several cool features including a very special RPG touch to the NPCs! Looking forward to hear your thoughts once Rookville is online! You should never say never, we seem to have quite a lot in common!

@Wirox - I remember that list for sure! Let us go through each point!

1. Sockets:
I removed the negative "broken" weapon levels so everything you get are positive bonuses.
Elemental bonuses, specific animal type bonuses and everything that was not perfect or used was also all removed to focus on the main upgrades. This also means that it now will be a higher change to get the main bonuses.

I also added information about the system in the questlog window:


2. Quests & Questlog:
The entire questlog has been updated. You will now find clues where to begin the quest you are searching for and will find progress during the way. The needed minimum lvl in order to complete the different quests will also be shown so you will get a good overview what you completed and not. I would love to hear about quests that didn't feel useful enough, it is the first time I got that feedback!



3. Hotkeys:
A Rookville without hotkeys is the perfect experience in my opinion, it is the very foundation of a unique PvP & PvE system which was removed from Tibia as cheaters overtook the fair gameplay. Hotkeys for Runes & Potions (a.k.a auto aimbot) will not be activated. You will still be able to use hotkeys for spells and everything else.

4. Donation Shop:
To be honest, I don't think you remember Rookvilles donations correctly.
I have been very careful to not make it pay to win. Instead, you could buy unique outfits and mounts, premium account to get the full access and a couple of unique items (Like teleport to town). The unique items and premium accounts can be found/are gainable in game.
May I ask what you consider a Pay to Win shop and what you believe are good things to have as donations to keep the server online?

5. Skill Point System
It will give you extra health, mana or capacity. It is different amounts depending on vocation (balance) while all will be possible to select to customize your character further.
Do you have any examples of making it more balanced and more interesting?

6. Death Penalties and Fair PvP Systems:
You will get auto-bless up to lvl 30, that was created to avoid low level players quit because of being killed by higher level players. Also to ease the start a bit, lvl 30 will be gained very quickly so it is a first extra luxury in the beginning to get into the game.
Blessings are more expensive this time to make it more of a cost (penalty) to have them and die. The cost is based on a minimum cost + your level.

The Fair PvP System was created to give lower lvls a small buff if they attack a higher level while a higher level got a small nerf if they attacked a lower level. It is quite often that higher levels are attacking a lower level, which isn't fair at all.
The buff & nerf was triggered when it was a difference of 20 levels, that has now been changed to 50 levels as from your feedback.
A player that is 50 levels higher should be able to manage a small nerf as it is far from fair to begin with.

7. Selling all obtainable items and creature products:
More has been added! It is quite a big task and I can't promise that all are but I will do my best to add them as we go if I get reports about it!

8. Website Information about Rookville:
Good point! This will be updated for sure! I also created a lot of information about things in game that is reachable from the questlog. (Similar to what you found in the screenshot above)

9. Mother Soil / Remove Socket Slots:
I am not sure how to make it possible to remove any other then the last one at this point, so it is still the last one. It is however a very valid point and something that I will look into an extra time.

Thanks again for all the great thoughts and points! Looking forward to continue to shape Rookville from everyones feedback!

 

[Wirox]

2. Quests & Questlog:
The entire questlog has been updated. You will now find clues where to begin the quest you are searching for and will find progress during the way. The needed minimum lvl in order to complete the different quests will also be shown so you will get a good overview what you completed and not. I would love to hear about quests that didn't feel useful enough, it is the first time I got that feedback!

Unfortunately I don't remember the details, but I recall many of the quests being quite difficult to complete, especially for someone who did them for the first time, and the rewards were usually underwhelming. One of the problems was that I had no idea what I'd receive for completing the quest and it often turned out to be something I didn't even need. I think it'd help if there was some kind of a hint regarding what type of a reward it's going to be, so people who aren't interested in it (like mages won't be interested in melee weapons) will know they shouldn't attempt the quest.

3. Hotkeys:
A Rookville without hotkeys is the perfect experience in my opinion, it is the very foundation of a unique PvP & PvE system which was removed from Tibia as cheaters overtook the fair gameplay. Hotkeys for Runes & Potions (a.k.a auto aimbot) will not be activated. You will still be able to use hotkeys for spells and everything else.

I'm definitely not a fan of manual aiming in Tibia because I don't believe RPG games should be about clicking as fast as possible (and people using bots will have a huge advantage over fair players because of this), but if that's your preference, I don't think I'll change your mind anyway ∶p

4. Donation Shop:
To be honest, I don't think you remember Rookvilles donations correctly.
I have been very careful to not make it pay to win. Instead, you could buy unique outfits and mounts, premium account to get the full access and a couple of unique items (Like teleport to town). The unique items and premium accounts can be found/are gainable in game.
May I ask what you consider a Pay to Win shop and what you believe are good things to have as donations to keep the server online?

I think in this case I'll just paste what I had written back then because at this point I don't remember how exactly the shop looked like:

With enough money a player can make each of their items +9 with any possible socket traits you can imagine, and have various other bonuses this shop offers – it definitely needs to be toned down.

These are the rules that I think every game developer should have in mind if they don't want to make their game pay to win:
A. The shop shouldn't offer anything that can be repeatedly bought to give a player more and more advantages.
B. The shop shouldn't offer anything non-cosmetic that cannot be obtained without spending real money.
C. The shop shouldn't offer anything that, even if is obtainable normally, gives a very significant bonus.

This is why I would remove the following from the donator shop:
– Gear Crystal (violates A and C – the worst possible thing that could appear in a donator shop – by buying many of these you can gain a huge advantage)
– Homestone (violates B and C – an extremely powerful item, that cannot be obtained otherwise, and in general doesn't really fit Tibia's survival-like theme)
– Ring of Ending (violates B, C, and partially A – this item greatly increases your power, especially if bought over and over)
– Tibiora's Boxes (violates A – you can buy any number of these to get more and more items)
– Money (violates A, obviously)
– Friendship Amulet (violates C – one of the best amulets in the game)
– Frozen Heart (violates B and C – +100 hp isn't that much, but it's a bonus above anything else)
– Magical Globe (violates B and C – +100 mp isn't that much, but it's a bonus above anything else)
– Soul Refiller (violates A and B – by buying these repeatedly you can have infinite soul points)
– Experience Boost (violates C and partially A – a player who uses these all the time would gain exp twice as fast, which is a very significant advantage; if you really want to keep it, I would change it to give +25% exp, but for 4 hours)

I think that donator shop should mostly consist of cosmetic items. If you make these cosmetic items interesting enough (they can even be unobtainable otherwise), I'm sure some players will want to buy them.
Some examples of cosmetic items include:
– exclusive outfits and addons
– infinite magic light wand
– exclusive house decoration items

You can also include some non-decoration items that, however, don't have a serious impact on a player's power, like skill point reset (assuming you want to keep this system).

5. Skill Point System
It will give you extra health, mana or capacity. It is different amounts depending on vocation (balance) while all will be possible to select to customize your character further.
Do you have any examples of making it more balanced and more interesting?

I just think increasing health/mana/capacity isn't overly... exciting? To me it was more of an annoyance because I had to do it after every level-up and if I misclicked there was no way to undo it. I'm not sure how you could make it more interesting without significant modifications, but personally I wouldn't mind just seeing the system gone. As far as the balance goes, with it being dependant on vocations, I feel like knights for example would always go for health.

6. Death Penalties and Fair PvP Systems:
You will get auto-bless up to lvl 30, that was created to avoid low level players quit because of being killed by higher level players. Also to ease the start a bit, lvl 30 will be gained very quickly so it is a first extra luxury in the beginning to get into the game.
Blessings are more expensive this time to make it more of a cost (penalty) to have them and die. The cost is based on a minimum cost + your level.

The thing is that low-level players already lose very little after dying – if someone was to quit playing in that situation, I'm afraid Tibia simply isn't a game for them. Having autobless for everyone up to level 30 will only lead to players abusing this mechanic and doing otherwise very risky things.

The Fair PvP System was created to give lower lvls a small buff if they attack a higher level while a higher level got a small nerf if they attacked a lower level. It is quite often that higher levels are attacking a lower level, which isn't fair at all.
The buff & nerf was triggered when it was a difference of 20 levels, that has now been changed to 50 levels as from your feedback.
A player that is 50 levels higher should be able to manage a small nerf as it is far from fair to begin with.

The issue with this system is that it punishes players for having higher level. This may lead to situations where players will avoid gaining experience, and will try to become more powerful in other ways (raising skills, upgrading equipment, and so on).

 

[Sheradial]

Sounds like a fun project, looking forward to play . Maybe make a discord server so it's easier to discuss things?

 

[Mr Geni]

ETA?

 

[Eldin]

@Wirox

2. Quests & Questlog:
Interesting thoughts! Hard balance, I would personally like everyone to complete every quest and not just attempt the ones they "Need/Want the reward for". Many quests are very easy (just a monster challenge) while many quests are a bit tricky as I love to customize and add something more to a quest, the more tricky quests often holds a better reward. I do however get your point and will take any feedback to update any quest when Rookville is online as this is the first time I got this feedback. I don't remember what level you managed to get last time, did you had the chance to experience the greater quests?

One of the first small quests:

And a later one, would you dare to see what rests in the chest?

3. Hotkeys
I take your point. My healing system was created in order to stack and not having to "spam a button", one healing potion will as for example heal you multiple times (3-4x) instead of using 3-4 potions, which will give you time to cast spells and take other actions during the time. If you are skilled and need more healing, you could also add spells and runes (including some faster regeneration) which will stack and heal you more then you can imagine, but it require skills and timing. It will also be a custom client and more "bot proof", I believe you will be able to aim runes one everything on the battle window this time but simply not auto-aim by a press of a button.

4. Donations
Wow! You still got the list! Very good points (A, B, C)! I believe that the key is in the type of server for when what applies, (A, B, C) as I in general agree with you.
I do however feel that consumables and items that can be found in game is alright as long as it doesn't ruin the gameplay on Rookville.
(Except like super equipment that is 0.1% chance to loot in a great boss, good items are never okey, and even the Homestone is gainable in game)
It is the second (or third?) time that I have a donation shop (Even if I developed servers for 15 years) and I will be very careful. So thank you.

5. Skill Point System
Fair point, it was more created as a small opportunity for everyone to customize their character more. Maybe the Knights would love to use it all on mana, a paladin might want more cap and the mages might want more HP as mana shield is limited? It is not possible to reset while you can wait before you add it. (It will stack, so you don't have to do it every level if you want to wait) Everyone loved it as far as I know, but I will yet again keep a close eye on it while the server is online.

6. Death Penalties & Fair PvP System
I could agree with you, while players don't seem to agree these days. The Auto-Bless to lvl 30 is more seen as a "tutorial stage" to get people going and learn the healing system etc, but I'll look over it once more. Now when the "Fair PvP system" is raised to 50 levels in difference, it might not make a difference so I might remove it. I could also look into giving the lower level a small buff without nerfing the higher level! The higher level would then don't suffer anything while the lower level would be given a small chance to fight back and stand a chance.

Sounds like a fun project, looking forward to play . Maybe make a discord server so it's easier to discuss things?

Of course! Discord:

Join the Eldin Projects Discord Server!

Check out the Eldin Projects community on Discord - hang out with 31 other members and enjoy free voice and text chat.

discord.gg

Welcome to our warm home!

ETA?

Friday?

A lovely comment from last run:

Time to start working on the website!

 

[Destruckto]

Hey @Eldin im very excited about the 5th version man I played every single one from the start when do you expect to launch the server?

 

[Kaspar]

I highly disagree with changing the hotkey system just because one user subjectively thinks it's better with hotkeys for runes.
That's actually one of the main features me and my friends loved about the server.

My opinion would be to keep it as it is. If you consider changing it, then I would suggest you to also consider making a poll for it.

 

[Sheradial]

Hey @Eldin im very excited about the 5th version man I played every single one from the start when do you expect to launch the server?

He said Friday as an ETA literally above your post
Best you can do is join discord and wait with us -> Join the Eldin Projects Discord Server! (https://discord.gg/askUXb)

I highly disagree with changing the hotkey system just because one user subjectively thinks it's better with hotkeys for runes.
That's actually one of the main features me and my friends loved about the server.

My opinion would be to keep it as it is. If you consider changing it, then I would suggest you to also consider making a poll for it.

I agree, even though I haven't played earlier releases, the unique healing system described above seems really nice combined with no runes/no potions on hotkeys

 

[Eldin]

@Destruckto - Good to see that you are still around my friend, now I know that Rookville is safe. Join the Discord channel if you haven't already!

@Kaspar - Hotkeys will not be turned on. I ment that I get the point regarding "clicking as fast as possible".
No hotkeys is perfect for Rookville, especially with the custom healing systems which actually gives everyone a chance to heal without being ultra fast. Easy to learn, hard to master.

@Sheradial - Correct! Around 17:00 GMT +1 on Friday!
I was about to post an advertisement thread today but couldn't proceed to post it as I need the website. The website URL is almost ready so hope to post it tomorrow!

A small spoiler - Why not?
A Loot Guide will now be accessible from your Questlog.
Auto Looting has also been added so that you never miss the most common, unique or wanted item that you may want to loot.

 

[/Liro]

Lets go!!

Liro

 

[Eldin]

Advertisement thread created!

[France] [10.98] Rookville - 5th Edition - Starts 20TH MARCH 17:30 GMT+1

Rookville is a medium-low rate RPG server based on the map of Rookgaard. The server will be online from this Friday, 20th of March, launching around 17:30 GMT+1 Rook, a place where beginners were trained to become heroes. You are back where you once began in your biggest quest ever, to save...

otland.net

Get ready for a new adventure!

 

[Eldin]

17:47 The server has reached a new record with 20 players online, all players online who visited their depot atleast once received: some items in the depot inbox.

Custom client can be Downloaded on the website:

Rookville - Eldin Projects

 

[Kaspar]

@Eldin
Not sure why you would decide to make sorcerers completely useless by not being able to use AoE runes. You classified Sorcerers to be "SINGLE TARGET DPS", while they have never had that role in Tibia. Ever. No one hunts with SDs at higher level.
I'm signing off at least, it was a good run, although it lasted way shorter than I thought.

Decisions are being made without any good reasoning, sporadically. This has lead to almost everyone quitting unfortunately.
I'll see you next time.

 

[Eldin]

Greets,

We have had an amazing start, which followed with a couple of rough changes. We are finally getting to a stage where most is working as intended so that we can focus on improvements and new things. It hurts to do the sudden changesI would like to explain a bit further.

BUGS that we had to do quick changes for: (It was never the idea to have them)

• Undead Gladiators didn't take any damage in the beginning and became a popular hunting ground
• You could aim runes on players in the battle log
• You could use hotkeys on some runes/potions
• You could create SDs easily to use as your only hunting runes
• You got loads of extra exp for being 4 different vocations in a party
• The Enchant system was broken in many ways, one was the high regeneration and things that didn't add up
• The latest was OP mages (Super high reg + super high dmg)

MISSTAKES BY ME THAT WAS REVERSED:
- Rough changes to create a DPS Sorc and AoE Druid


VOCATIONS - What happened & what will happen now?
Rookville started out with the somewhat balanced vocations from the previous run. What I didn't know was that the calculation of the new OT code didn't apply on the spells correctly, which made some spells great and some useless. This created a series of rough changes. The new code was applied which made mages OP, so you got a free run for a couple of days with a mage that was not supposed to be killing a dragon in 2-3 shots from a regular spell at lvl 30. (You won the lottery a couple of days, congrats!)

The idea is not to create a copy of the real tibia damage, but make it as we think it should be for a certain vocation. Knight is more blocker and survivor, paladin all-around (but rough when getting melee hits), Sorcerer highest dmg but glasscanon (High death change when hit) and Druid high damage but support aspect, also easily killable. With that said, everyone should be able to hunt solo while you can't kill as good things as if you would team up.


KNIGHTS - Should now be "perfect", unless some nerfing is needed.
PALADINS - Should now have a slightly higher damage as the previous calculations didn't add up
SORCERERS - Much better than real tibia but less Mana Shield, will get further boosts. The intention is also to make some Single Attack spells of the Sorcerer a bit stronger.
DRUIDS - Much better than real tibia but less Mana Shield, will get further boosts. The intention is also to make some AoE spells of the Druid a bit stronger.


ENCHANT SYSTEM - What happened & what will happen now?
The enchant system has honestly been bugged from the start. You, the community, found things that I didn't while testing it. Merlin helped to solve most things and are working to solve the rest.

The easiest way would be to remove it directly, while I believe it would hurt the players further.
Therefor, (unless we decide to remove it) we will have to live with bigger changes from that system when we together try to optimize it.

Regeneration is one thing that has been broken, it should almost work now. (Report if too low)
High regeneration with the Enchants should give around 20-30 hp/mana per second, maybe slightly more if optimized.(All vocations should use potions for HP/mana while regeneration is a bonus)

Known enchant-bugs that we are looking at:

• HP bonus doesn't always get added
• Skills don't always add up to the correct bonus
• Players sometimes have to re-logg/re-equip to get the complete bonuses

TRAINING / KICK TIME
The high amount of new players at the start directly banned us from OTservlist as they thought we created fake characters to gain online amount of players. One fix that we tried quickly to solve it was to kick people after 15 minutes. We seem to have another solution as other servers have online training so this was now reversed, you can now train online as you could in the beginning.


OTHER: (+REQUESTED UPDATES)

• Newbielator, Prehilator and Annihilator can now be done multiple times
• Dragons & Dragon Lords was removed on the way to the Hero spawn to reach them more easily.
• A few more monsters was added on the Fibula ground level as well as a small bridge to make the spawn a bit better
• The Spawn time of Bosses around the Hydra/Serpent Spawn area has been raised
• More Deeplings and Sea Serpents was added in the underwater area below Folda
• Volcano Island stair spawns has been adjusted to be more huntable
• Knights now start with 20 in skills to be able to hit their first targets (Rotworms) smoothly
• A party with 2 people or more will gain 20%+ bonus experience while hunting, so team up!
• Holy Missile Rune improved for Paladins to be used while also casting other spells

UPCOMING:

• Further Vocation Balancing
• Further Enchant System fixes
• New Areas (First will hopefully be live tomorrow!)
• Improved Existing Areas
• Sell more Items

Thank you for having the patience with the rough changes the happened, it is not the idea to do them that suddenly. Hope to have almost everything working as intended today, and keep in mind that you have a huge impact of how it should be as well, so make sure you note it. Remember, the key to level is to explore! A good tip is to do all quests from lvl 8 and follow the questlog.

@Kaspar - I hope the information above explains it a bit further, I apologize to the community for the sudden changes that was made as things was in place that was never supposed to be in place. (On me of course) It caused a series of sudden rough changes as I felt I had to act quickly. The big change of mage classes was however a wrong move by me, and came from the urge of giving them a better purpose as the sudden death rune changed. I reversed that and boosted mages which are now a lot better then real tibia. I do take this rough lesson with me and will do my absolute best to make sure it doesn't happen again. It finally seem to be more balanced according to feedback and gameplay and I will continue to work on improvements as the community deserves it. We'll see if it is too late this run or not, I'll do my best.

Good luck and hopefully see you in game!