General suggestions to improve fredian

[jazzadellic]

Hi all,

i'm fairly new to the island of fredian, but one thing that really stood out to me as something that could be greatly improved is this ----

add some more creatures to exisiting areas!! I'm spending too much time searching for something to do!

I have spent several hours exploring various areas, and i'm surprised at how few creatures there are! Just as an example, I went through the entire swamp area, which is a fairly big area, and only found a few stirges, and a few kobolds. That was it. Total xp made for exploring the entire area -- probably less than 200 xp. Total loot found --- pretty much nothing.

same deal with the 'road to willhiem' area. Pretty large area, only encountered a couple small groups of orcs that were not worth much xp and all the loot I found was a lvl 1 wizard scroll i think.

Now I know some of the triggers are spawning level appropriate creatures and loot, but that is not what I am complaining about. My frustration is over spending several hours exploring areas only to find a total of 2 creatures that drop nothing useful to boot.

this makes it real hard to level or find any useable items. Even the dungeons that are more creature spawning orientated are too empty in my opinion. After a long period of looking around for something to do, I finally stumbled upon the castle dungeon areas. Only to find that there was a huge map with only a few creatures to battle, on each level. And after using up all my characters resources and narrowly escaping death in one battle, I still had only made a small amount of xp and was rewarded with a robe of lightning resistance, of which I now have 3, and they are so cheap you can easily buy them at the magic shop anyways.

I think the biggest problem that this lack of creature population presents is it makes people camp the few spawns that exist. I ended up spending a whole hour triggering the 2 zombies that spawn near the castle, because this was more xp rewarding than exploring entire map areas. And at another point, i found one or two particular spawns in the mines that was actually worth decent xp, so I kept going back there over and over again because this is the only way I could find to make xp towards my next level.

Ok, the best part of this problem is that I think it is pretty darn easy to improve.

You could literally improve the playability of the server 10x by just adding several creature spawns to already existing areas. Go to the swamp area and I'm positive you could fit in another 20 creature spawns, without running out of room or making it too crowded.

It would be nice to be able to spend an entire session just battling my way through one map area, the size of the swamp area for instance. With enough creature spawns, a person could easily spend an hour just making his way through that area, make good exp, and find some loot that is either usable or sellable for profit. But as things stand, I could spend about an hour or two, exploring a few areas, and find only a few creatures and no loot, being bored, and not making any progress towards leveling my character.

It would also be nice to ocassionaly find buildings and caves and things like that. Most of the buildings I have found have been 'private residences' with locked doors. And the few other buildings I have found have been just big empty buildings....with maybe a single chest that spawns 1 item like the robe of electrical resistance that I now have 3 of

Well I don't like to seem overly negative, and I want you to know that I appreciate all the effort that has gone into running the island of fredian. It would be just be so much more entertaining if there were dungeons and areas that you had to battle through inch by inch, with plenty of xp and loot to be found

[Silentus]

Wel, the buildings an caves comment is totally off the mark - explore more - theres a boatload out there. There are over 50 underground areas I believe, with entrances from over a dozen differnt places. Houses and such are even more abundant - but mostly in city areas.

As far as creature population, I like it te way it is BUT I am not very focused on fighting. I believe that overall there may be a use for this, but at the same time I tink by limiting th egeneral spawns, it causes peple to see more of the island... I believe that is Makz reasoning, but Im sure we'll hear from him on this topic soon

[Makzimia]

First of all jazzadellic, welcome to Fredian.

Thank you for your opions, and now if I may, allow me to explain why things are as they are, and also point you perhaps in the right direction.

Fredian went live in August of 2003, and that time I began by having a set plan from the experiences I had gained of running firstly, MOD's made by others ie: dark rangers treasure, curse of the azure bonds, nordock, and finally before Fredian, I hosted and made quest/areas for World of Talus, formly Cliffs of Challenges by Lanthar.

Anyway, creature AI/Spawns are the single greatest thing that can cause lag on a server other than badly placed placeables in the paths of NPC's constantly wandering. XP scale on Fredian is set at 10 and as a result firebeetles which are very easy give 20XP at level 1 and so forth upwards, meaning a player, even without farming, can actually advance fairly swiftly, even with a ECL 5 subrace.

In addition to that, there are 26 persistent, resetting each at 7 days, quests or so, a lot of which can actually be done, some dozen, at low levels. These help you explore, give plenty of XP and gold also. Plus crafting of course if you want to labor and make a lot of gold and gain XP, this ATS is the version we made for the community, and gives 100XP per 20 skill points in each craft.

Within each area it may surprise you that there are actually a lot of spawns, a lot are not obvious to the fast runner low observance player, and most are near entry triggers or off the road to make it more realistic with the creatures in hiding behind cliffs or trees etc.

So, to some it up, low spawn numbers per encounter = less lag, more XP per creature = less kills needed to gain XP for levels.

In addition to that, the world is designed with a lot of care to detail, and is meant to be explored, not simply fought in, and cause lag for others all the time, and I know a lot of killing only does go on, but the numbers of creatures at once adds to the over all stability of the server and a relatively lag free enviroment 95% of the time server side anyway.

Finally, as Silentus pointed out, you have a lot to find yet, if you have found little treasure creatures definitely are not the source of treasure generally speaking on Fredian, but I assure you, there is plenty to be found. We are very popular for many reasons. You'll find them, I am sure, have fun!.

Makz.

[Ihavenofeet]

I viewed this as a problem at first as well Jazz, then i went further from styne. Try the deserts and beyond. there are plenty of dungeons hidden throughout the world. Obviously there are more popular ones that are usually occupied but i found a few that i was able to run few the entire place without a problem. And as far as narrowly escaping...maybe your biting of more than you can chew. Fredian wasn't made to be played as a hack n' slash server.

[AvengersWraith]

One of my favorite entrances to a dungeon, a stairway creeping doen the edge of a cliff into te cave you cannot see when standing over it, that's thje kind of entrance for my house when I earn it.