Afar ~ 1,000 Players

[Ellie]

Tiben Town

The central area of Tiben Town has been remade in the new town format, it looks a lot better than it did before hopefully. All the usual links in it are in the same place, just now it is a bit more pleasing on the eye.

West Gate

The West Gate outpost has now been remade in the same format.

Again it is fully interactive with some things to do, keeping the same links to other maps as before.

Inventory

The inventory interface has been redesigned to make it easier to see and find useful links.

Useful things:

• Hover over an item to view it's description and how many of it you have
• Click an item to use or equip it (green = equip, red = use). The cursor changes appropriately
• Right click any item to view it in the item database
• Hover over a piece of equipment in your inventory to see how your battle stats would change if you equipped that item
• Now shows a message when you equip something

Store

The second hand store has been recoded to use the new message system. The items in the store now update when they are bought/sold so you always know what's in stock! Before we used a silly system involving a seperate page telling you what you bought. The new system tells you what you bought and for how much. This is the amount you can sell it back for so it's quite useful!

The store is now more accessible from the inventory.

Minor Updates and Bug Fixes

- Mug of mead fixed. Previously broke the game.
- Using worked metals no longer breaks the game, although they still don't do anything yet. Sorry about that. (Update: Iron now does something)
- Icons were mixed up for the Robin Hood set; never realised. This has now been fixed.
- Four new faces have been added to the face selection screen. (There are now 67 available)
- Steel Sword has been renamed Old Sword and it's shop button now changed accordingly.
- Two game crashing bugs fixed: messages added when attempting to buy an item you can't afford, or that has already been sold from the second hand store.

Clickjacking Attempt

Some users are experiencing messages telling them of a potential url highjacking attempt. This is solely users who use Noscript.

The problem in question comes from the Facebook button on the homepage and the fact it is in an iframe. There is no risk to users and this is a false positive.

I will look for a way to stop these messages however I fear it is out of my control and in Facebook's hands.

There is no risk to users from this incorrect message.


I think that's all?


----

Apologies anyone who saw that, I accidentally turned debug mode on! (All that does is draws white boxes around map links..)

Tiben East

I've knocked something up for Tiben East. Took a lot of working out because Tiben East has so many features! I've brought back the retired Tiben message board, which is now located in Tiben East instead of Tiben Centre.

Please note that a quest NPC has been moved into a house.

New Boss Battle

An aggressive hawk has been added to the coast maps. This is a required battle to progress further West.

Those who have already been West will still be able to -- although to access some maps you will have to fight the boss battle.

To get to the boss, walk from Tiben East to the Sea Fortress; the boss battle is on the way.

Please let me know if you feel the battle is too difficult.

 

[Injury]

battle was easy...then again I crush almost anything at this point

 

[Ellie]

Thanks for trying it. I will work on a test character whose stats I can manipulate and see if it's under or overpowered.

Some updates from the forums:

Port Glade

Snowfields outpost Port Glade has now been remade, although there isn't much to do there yet. Still, it's in fitting with our Christmassy theme!

Ivan Camp

Another outpost has been remade: the Ivan Camp in the snow fields. This camp originally had a long history planned for it but it never happened; perhaps in a future update the snow fields will be better explored. There isn't much to do here other than unlock a new world map location.

Desert

Damascar Town (part one) has been made in the new style although there is nothing to do there as the desert lies unfinished largely.

Towns like Tiben and Damascar are pretty important locations and so eventually will have several of these kinds of maps.

Tiben North

Tiben North was created a while back as a quest location but never used. For now, it has been given a shopping street, although nothing is open yet! Look out in the near future. At the moment this map serves no purpose other than to look nice and replace the "under construction" text. It also helps Tiben seem like a lively and large place.

 

[Injury]

You should try hitting up the sewers, I know its small, but it would be nice to see that part finished along with all these updates your doing.

 

[Ellie]

You're right, in fact it's the most mentioned thing whenever someone finds a link to the game. I've given it some text and graphics but I think it will be part of a quest in the future. I think it's also a chest spawn point?

I've also added a map for Tiben Castle which is for a planned quest. Not much to do there but adds some exploration value I guess.

 

[Injury]

OK, cool idea then!

You have a creepy hermit who is down there. He has a key which you need to get from him, but only after you started the quest elsewhere...The key would be used in the north on the well that sits there. You use the key and open up a new area/quest/blah?

Maybe the creepy hermit could be a vampire trying to get back to the myre after getting kicked out...idk

Just throwing around ideas here. Glad to see the sewers got some improvement!

If your still lacking in textual descriptions of areas, make a list of the areas and I'll help if you want. I'm bored as shit. 109 days until I ship out so please give me something to do haha

PS- The Damascar castle looks badass! MORE OF THIS PLEASE

 

[Kingdom Ablaze]

i played for like 30 sec and got this screen(after clicking resume game) just wanted to know if i broke it or what ever lol.

 

[Ellie]

Sorry about that. Resume Game takes you to the last location to visited, but if you haven't visited anywhere yet it seems it broke. I've added a wrapper for it to fix that (it will just take you to the index).

Resume Game stores the last place you visit from explore or world map.

 

[Kingdom Ablaze]

oh ok :D soz

 

[Ellie]

Things were a bit slow over the holiday period, however today sees a large update which will lead to further expansion in the future: the spellbook.

All users now start off with two spells automatically equipped: fireball and rockfall. (Nothing new there). Now however, you can find new spells in various parts of the game, which can be learnt. Once learnt you can choose up to nine spells to take with you into battle.

To access the spellbook and choose your nine battle spells, click Inventory and then Spellbook on the right hand side of the screen.

There are currently four spells in the game. Fireball and Rockfall are learnt by default.

Lightning Bolt and Heal are two new spells. You can learn these by using two new items from the inventory, knowledge scrolls which can be found by fighting enemies as occassional semi-rare drops.

More spells will be coming in the near future. If you find any errors or problems with this or any other updates, please let me know ASAP.

 

[Injury]

OMG sweet tits! *runs to check afar*

 

[Injury]

Afar is broken?

I logged in and it looks like a mobile version of Afar. Can't access menus at all...Moved around and then got stuck in a location because the arrows are clipped.

 

[Ellie]

o.O It should only do that if your user agent contains either afar or iPhone, that's weird.

I have removed that functionality for now -- is it fixed?


--

A new spell, Phantom, has been added. This spell is obtainable from a scroll which is dropped by some enemies.

It costs 15mp to cast, and summons a tiny ghost.

 

[Injury]

much better thank you! I'm using chrome btw

 

[Ellie]

Tonight should see an expansion to nine spells in the spellbook, one for each of the proposed elements. After that there will be enough to have to choose your spells carefully before going into dungeons and such.

Heat
Earth
Electric
Healing
Emotion
Water
Cold
Air
Light

Hopefully a future update will introduce the concept of status effects, making spells so much more useful and strategic. Enemies will also be able to use them. Depending on how much time I have I might even get started on that tonight but no promises.

Tonight by minimum there will be the nine base elemental spells, anyway.


Le Big Update

UPDATE

There are now nine spells to choose from. They correspond to the base elements.

Heal heals the player (funnily enough). The rest act on the enemy, causing a variety of damage depending on the spell.

All spells are subject to future buffing/nerfing as required to balance them; they have been given prospective stats for now. Please let me know if you feel they are too powerful (or not powerful enough!)

Spells will have more impact once status effects are done. Enemies will also be able to use status effects to inflict things such as poison, freeze, etc on the player (and vice versa), adding an element of strategy to battles which is much needed. Watch this space.

The Spells

There are now nine spells then, two are learnt by all players to start them off; the other seven are learnt from spell scrolls which are currently obtainable from battle.

They are:

Fireball (heat)
Rockfall (earth)
Lightning Bolt (electric)
Heal (healing)
Phantom (emo)
Sonic Boom (air)
Shard (cold)
Splash (water)
Stardust (light)

They do a variety of damage and require different MP to use, to add some variance, however elements are not yet implemented. Spells will be more useful once elements and status effects come into play.

So, happy hunting!

I have given each spell scroll a different level of rarity, to make things more interesting. I thought they might be too rare, however I have picked up a few on my travels.

Basic spell scrolls can be sold and bought at the tat exchange, however more powerful scrolls in the future may not be buyable or sellable, and some may only be obtainable from quests.

___________________

Introducing another hefty update to the battle system:

STATUS EFFECTS

When fighting an enemy, they may invoke a special status effect on you. You can have more than one effect on you at the same time.

Currently the only effect is poison.

If you have poison, you are dealt an extra four damage per turn on top of any other damage.

How do I know if I am poisoned?

Your HP bar will turn green, and you'll see a large green +4 on the screen when your damage is shown.

How do I get poisoned?

Some enemies (currently all snakes) have a random chance (about 1 in 2) of invoking the poison condition.

How can I poison enemies?

Some items can be used in battle to poison enemies! Currently Fungi (the green mushroom) can be used to give the enemy poison, and this is a 100% chance.

==

NEW SPELL

There are now ten spells in the game (so you'll have to choose carefully what to take with you!).

Toxicity is a non-damage-dealing spell. It invokes the Poison condition on the enemy.

You can learn it from a RARE knowledge scroll obtained from battle.

 

[Ellie]

Everything Burns

Making battles more interesting again: stacking status effects.

There is a new status effect called Burning, which basically means you're On Fire.

While on fire you'll take an extra 5 damage every turn.

Currently, the only way to be set on fire is a chance attack from a dragon (hidden boss location).

But there's a twist

Status effects can now stack. If you're on fire, taking 5 damage per turn, and are then poisoned, you will take 9 damage per turn as both still take effect.

(You'll see this by a chain of numbers under your hit counter for each effect on you).

In future there will be negative damage effects (continuous healing, sometimes referred to as regeneration or regen in other games), which also stack. So you could take -2 damage from healing, +4 damage from poison; in total you'd take 2 damage.

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

When fighting melee with a fire sword, there is now a 10% chance that you will set the enemy on fire.

Fire swords have therefore been nerfed to +1 melee.

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

Kamekaze

A new spell has been added. Somewhat of a dud really, given what it does, however it is useful in some situations!

Kamekaze takes 50mp, and deals 5-10 damage to the enemy.

...it also sets everyone on fire.
...and deals 1 to 10 damage to the player.

This is a very rare spell (level 5 rarity) and is available from battle.

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

Prepare

Spell number 12, and this is an exciting one, as it paves the way for multi-spell Builds, which is the point of the spell selection system.

Prepare is a spell that is designed to be used in conjunction with another spell. It deals no damage (so essentially, you skip a turn, while the enemy can still barrage you with attacks), however it does give you a temporary status effect called Prepare.

While under Prepare, the next spell you cast will cost 20MP less.

Prepare itself costs 5MP to cast, so essentially overall you save 15MP.

What's the point? Well, imagine you have two spells: one uses all of your MP; one uses 12 MP. You want to use them both so...

Go into battle and use Prepare (-5mp, leaving you with 45mp)
Use say, Kamekaze (should be 50mp, instead costs 30mp, leaving you with 15mp)
Cast Rockfall (costs 12mp).

Note: Prepare wears off:
1. at the end of the battle
2. as soon as another spell is used

You can reuse Prepare straight after it, however there is no point, it will just be the same as skipping a turn. Prepare cannot be used to gain negative MP.

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


Forum Changes

The "Design Notes" forum has been split in two and renamed to better reflect what goes on there.

From now on:

News is a board where news and updates will be posted as well as important information. Discussion is encouraged!

Development Blog is a board where the concepts, future updates, and anything that comes to mind while working on the game, will be posted. Again, discussion is encouraged, and very useful. This is where the game will be shaped and where you can get your feedback directly into the game while it's being programmed.

Old "design notes" threads are being dumped in "news".

 

[Injury]

I picked up a "Heal" scroll thingy and I used it. It said it taught me "Phantom" and that I could set it in my spellbook. I went there and had both spells. I'm not complaining, but that might be an issue :P

 

[Ellie]

Oh wow, that's what happens when you miss out a break;. Sorry about that (although it's probably not much of an inconvenience :p)

All is fixed.

 

[Injury]

Hey

When your at the bulliten boards around the map, you can post and select "take me back to the last forum" and it will take you to where the actual boards are, not the content and its posts.

http://afar.ws/v/viewforum.php?f=14&aforum I think?

 

[Ellie]

Fixed, thank you. The secretforum is now unviewable to members.

Also fixed a reported bug where fighting a map battle on a map that had a boss meant you couldn't then go on to fight the boss.

Some more updates I think were missed here:

Christmas Cape

Christmas Cape (rare item) is now retired. A new rare item or set will probably appear to celebrate 750 players. 60 people picked up the item.

Clans

Clans have been introduced (called Guilds in other games, however after a good suggestion from Sevith, Guilds are going to be doing something else... more info later.)

A clan is a group of gamers, currently just operated by a forum thread ala games such as Battleon of the past. Someone has created a vampire clan, and Injury a beard clan, so join one of them (or create your own!) for endless... fun... hmm.

Clans will have more purpose once the system is automated. Clan leaders will be able to manage them, handle invites and kicks and such; clan battles will be automated and clans will have their own private leaderboards and such.

Homepage Modifications

Changed the layout of the landing page with new buttons and got rid of one of the scrolls. Thoughts welcome.

Faces

Nothing big, some new faces added on request.

Actually I thought there were more added than that to be honest, must have been lost somewhere, I'll look into it. More to come soon anyway.

Edit:

To make up for it have another 14. This brings the number of faces in the game up to 83, so there is a decent selection. Please let me know if you feel anything is inadequate or missing!

Source: http://www.tekepon.net/fsm/modules/refmap/ and my own edits. Please do not use these in your own game; see the Refmap license for more information on this.

------

Apologies for the constant changes, however I feel this one is more adequate as a battle monsters button:

Replaced with:

The idea is to make it more visible and obvious it's there, as many people miss it.

Feel free to offer your opinions.

As a reminder here's what we started with: