Hi there. Another idea from me. (I enjoy thinking about how to use the tools we have to manage things we thought we couldn't or in a new way.)
This idea takes into account two problems specific to private servers:
1) People want a more exciting experience with more rare items.
BUT:
2) Rare items become pointless when they move into the 'real' world of Mir.
Also:
3) People always want a challenge. Too often this dissapears or plain can't be captured in private servers. A new, harder boss to compensate for added stats and levels? So what really... we gotta try harder.
The solution: the ShadowProvince.
It's a zone, set wherever you want it to be, accessed however you want it to be, and it's just FULL of various bosses and really hard mobs. These DO drop, as often as normal, but there's one difference:
- The drops and mobs aren't 'real', you make "Shadow" versions. Eg. "ShadowWT" hits just as hard, but has its own dropfile. This has everything removed, except for the really decent stuff, and this has the same chance of dropping, but it's "Shadow" version, eg. "ShadowDSS". (Btw: you'd have to do this only for a few, most uber, items. 10 would be a good number to limit yourself to.)
These shadow items have the same stats etc, but they can ONLY be used in the ShadowProvince. In the rest of the game they're worthless. So you're not REALLY doing any harm giving out uber stuff, as long as it's here. People can't hunt with it (outside here anyway) or fight with it. Just use it in here. So it's good, but not too good. Still fun to collect.
How you manage this is only way out of ShadowProvince is through a tele man. He won't tele you if you're carrying a shadow item, so you're stuck.
(Note: The place you arrive in when teleported into shadowprovince has to count as a town or people can just tele out. You have to avoid people telehomeing out too, perhaps by making the guy who teles you in refuse to take you if you're carrying telehomes or telehomebunnies. Obviously don't then sell these inside lol.
- There can be no storage NPC in shadowprovince or it all falls down!)
So you can't take the Shadow items back with you. What you can do, is store them. But not properly. There's an NPC that lets you "store" shadow items, but not REALLY store them - bcoz ppl wud just get them out outside of ShadowProvince. Something like this:
[@main]
#SAY
What would you like to do?
<Store items/@storeitems>
<Retrieve items/@retrieveitems>
<Nothing/@exit>
[@storeitems]
#SAY
What items would you like to store?
<ShadowDSS/@storeshadowdss>
<Back /@main>
[@storeshadowdss]
#IF
checkitem shadowdss 1
#ACT
take shadowdss 1
set 980 = 1
....You get the idea. You use a variable to say you've got one stored, he can then give it you back. This also gives free repairs (unless you include a storage fee) - but it stops specialities on swords and luck/curse from being stored too.
Basically - you can have an uber province for the uber people, maybe lvl50 or something to enter, where people have to hunt in groups and even then can be squished very easily by all manner of uber stuff, with decent rewards which are exciting but at same time COMPLETELY seperate from rest of game and don't unbalance things.
This would let you have an 'endgame' of sorts, to use a phrase popular in other MMORPGs while not effecting the rest of your server that badly..
This idea takes into account two problems specific to private servers:
1) People want a more exciting experience with more rare items.
BUT:
2) Rare items become pointless when they move into the 'real' world of Mir.
Also:
3) People always want a challenge. Too often this dissapears or plain can't be captured in private servers. A new, harder boss to compensate for added stats and levels? So what really... we gotta try harder.
The solution: the ShadowProvince.
It's a zone, set wherever you want it to be, accessed however you want it to be, and it's just FULL of various bosses and really hard mobs. These DO drop, as often as normal, but there's one difference:
- The drops and mobs aren't 'real', you make "Shadow" versions. Eg. "ShadowWT" hits just as hard, but has its own dropfile. This has everything removed, except for the really decent stuff, and this has the same chance of dropping, but it's "Shadow" version, eg. "ShadowDSS". (Btw: you'd have to do this only for a few, most uber, items. 10 would be a good number to limit yourself to.)
These shadow items have the same stats etc, but they can ONLY be used in the ShadowProvince. In the rest of the game they're worthless. So you're not REALLY doing any harm giving out uber stuff, as long as it's here. People can't hunt with it (outside here anyway) or fight with it. Just use it in here. So it's good, but not too good. Still fun to collect.
How you manage this is only way out of ShadowProvince is through a tele man. He won't tele you if you're carrying a shadow item, so you're stuck.
(Note: The place you arrive in when teleported into shadowprovince has to count as a town or people can just tele out. You have to avoid people telehomeing out too, perhaps by making the guy who teles you in refuse to take you if you're carrying telehomes or telehomebunnies. Obviously don't then sell these inside lol.
- There can be no storage NPC in shadowprovince or it all falls down!)
So you can't take the Shadow items back with you. What you can do, is store them. But not properly. There's an NPC that lets you "store" shadow items, but not REALLY store them - bcoz ppl wud just get them out outside of ShadowProvince. Something like this:
[@main]
#SAY
What would you like to do?
<Store items/@storeitems>
<Retrieve items/@retrieveitems>
<Nothing/@exit>
[@storeitems]
#SAY
What items would you like to store?
<ShadowDSS/@storeshadowdss>
<Back /@main>
[@storeshadowdss]
#IF
checkitem shadowdss 1
#ACT
take shadowdss 1
set 980 = 1
....You get the idea. You use a variable to say you've got one stored, he can then give it you back. This also gives free repairs (unless you include a storage fee) - but it stops specialities on swords and luck/curse from being stored too.
Basically - you can have an uber province for the uber people, maybe lvl50 or something to enter, where people have to hunt in groups and even then can be squished very easily by all manner of uber stuff, with decent rewards which are exciting but at same time COMPLETELY seperate from rest of game and don't unbalance things.
This would let you have an 'endgame' of sorts, to use a phrase popular in other MMORPGs while not effecting the rest of your server that badly..
![[Shadow]](/forum/data/avatars/m/6/6212.jpg?1550430741){kind=avatar}
- Would be more if I could actually get a client working and test+play about with stuff!
