Grassy Map Expansion & Gang Points
 

Hello Ol'Westerners! It's time for another update. But first, I wanted to get everyone's feedback and opinions on this before we continue. The reason for this is so that everything is balanced and everything that should be included is included.

I am working very hard on re-leveling the top left portion of the map so that it's covered in grass and trees. The reason for doing so is because I thought "Hey, in the west it wasn't all desert, was it? I know there's grass somewhere!". Now because we're putting in grass and rivers, that opens up a whole new range of skill and job possibilities!

We plan to release 4 new skills, and many more, in the new future. Two skills that will be released alongside this grassy map expansion are Woodcutting and Firemaking. Fishing and Cooking will be released shortly after this initial release, as well as other skills. There will be several types of trees scattering the grassy areas which can be cut and used to level up, similar to mining. Each tree will require a different level and will reward you different amounts of EXP. Same for Firemaking, there are different types of fires you'll be able to make depending on which logs you use. Possibly after the fire is lit for a certain amount of time, it will disappear and ashes will be left in it's place and can be used to craft something later on? Do we use Flint & Steel to light to fires? Let us know what you think will work best!

Aside from skills, we plan to release a reward system for gang activities. The reward will be "Gang Points", or possibly another name used for it. These points can be gained into a central bank which the leader has access to. The points are rewarded per-hour for each hour you hold a base, or possibly several at once for other gang activities which can be made in the future. These points will be used in the "Gang Shop" (Also need a new name for this). We have yet to determine what items can be purchased or redeemed in the shop.

Now that you all have the details, get creative! We need a new name for the grassy village, and new names for the points which you receive and for the shop. I'm also curious how you guys think Firemaking should work, as well as Woodcutting! In addition to that, any other skills that you all think should be added, elaborate on it, though it's best to focus mainly on Firemaking and Woodcutting to start off with so that we can add these in and release the new grassy map as soon as possible!

http://i.imgur.com/tH8OKYY.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/DQdaOVz.jpg


We also need ideas on what should be included in the new town, which is the main purpose for this thread. So please, give any and all ideas so that we include everything in the new town which should be there:)

Thank you everybody :)

This update seriously has me hyped! :D

Awesome! I can't wait for more skills to be released in Ol' West. The Grass Map looks really great right now!

Yes yes yes! Those trees will be replaced soon with new ones which can be cut as well.

First of all, I'd like to express how happy I am towards your efforts(and other staff members) in providing great updates.

I really love the idea of having different trees to cut. There are so many possibilities with having different types of logs; it can be used for different types of recipes - used to build furniture, different colored furniture - different colored weapons etc!

Cooking will also be a really nice idea! There should skills for cooking, too. For example, different levels to cook certain types of food! And it should involve the player more, for example - adding a GUI for cutting carrots with a knife etc :D

For creating fires, flint and steel would be a good idea - and a GUI should come up to choose what to put in your fire, plus there would a pretty flame behind the GUI crackling away!
But would it be campfires, or fires in houses? Such as furnaces? And what's the point of having different types of fires?

The gang point system seems like a really great idea. Although i'm not much of a 'baser' myself, i'm sure other people would benefit from this. My idea is if a gang reaches a certain amount of hours, for example 1k - they would recieve a huge point reward in which the leader can choose to give out to his members for them to choose what they want, or spend it all on a 1k hat( the hat obviously needs to be approved)

Names 'n' stuff:
I'm not really creative, but here are some ideas
How about:
-Oasis
-Oasis Resort
-Oasis Corner
-Oasis Village
-Oasis Haven? (Haven because cowboys and Indians are free to roam the town regardless where it is)
You get the idea. Anything with oasis in it, lol. I'm sure someone can come up with something better XD

Gang points? I actually have no idea. How about.... Beans? I'll let someone else think of it.

Now, for the stuff included in the town. Considering it's a healthy, green town - there should be the usual shops. 1-2 hat shops and weapon shops.

A few NPC's would be great. NPC's that provide jobs - dailies. Such as 'I need 30 panned gold minerals. Come back to me when you're done.' These provide rewards, of course. There should be something for cowboys and Indians. Maybe include other wildlife? Such as chickens?

A few places to hang out: Benches - Chairs. Simple stuff. ( Oh, you've already updated the post with a picture)

Since it's more of a green area, there should be markets, stalls. Now should also be the time to introduce more crops/plants to grow and sell - and also cook!

Fishing: If you remove that area with trees around the lake, and expand it a bit more - it can be used to provide a place for people to go fishing? I know it's the desert 'n' all, but it'd be an interesting kind of job.

Well, thanks for reading. These are just the ideas I have.

It looks great!! ^0^ Awesome job! What if there was a pet shop in it? For people to buy and possibly have roam around their house :)

Just some of my ideas:

- Since the new expansion will introduce new images (mushrooms, trees, etc.)
this should be be included in a new furniture shop.

- Should have a new shop where you can buy new house packs (that are like grassy).

- Can craft new foods from the new plants being introduced.

- Outside base? Could be like a maze made out of bushes. Multiple entrances leading to the vault.

- Flint and steel could work for lighting fires. There could be a crafting recipe for it, using an iron ingot and a rock or something. Then maybe it would also use tinder to light? You could find tinder as tufts of grass and cut it with your knife like any other plant. Then you could craft the tinder, flint and steel, and wood log together (portable crafting?) and it would make a fire. The flint and steel would use up durability, and the tinder and log would be consumed.

- As for fishing, there could be a shop nearby that sells different kinds of fishing rods. Better rods have a higher chance of catching rare fish. Then you can either sell the fish to fishermen or cook them.

- Different cooking recipes is always an option too. If you combine several food items and then cook them, it could either come out to be an actual food recipe or just a pile of inedible goop. Once you craft a successful recipe then it automatically gets added to your list of food recipes. That way people will have to experiment and try different food combinations for themselves.

- I'm not very good with naming places, but maybe Paxton or Pax Valley could work. Pax is latin for peace, and this little grass valley looks like a peaceful place. If not, maybe something like Shady Grove, Oak Creek, or Brick Valley. ;)

- I don't really spend my time doing gang stuff, but I think the word "posse" would make more sense for this era. Also, I think credits sounds better than points.

Really looking forward to this alpho. Good job!
Maybe betry picking where there are random bushes in the grassy part and different berries can spawn on the. Raspberries blackberries, strawberries and blue berries. Just an idea :p

Add a crafting recipe for paper and a crafting recipe for a random crafting recipe.

Example- 4 wood arranged in a square gets you a sheet of paper, 1 coal next to 3 sheets of paper placed in a vertical line gets you any crafting recipe at random. Say, in this example, you get a recipe for a diluted health potion, which gives health regen until fully healed, while another person might end up with the recipe for sawing off the barrel and stock on a double barrel shotgun.


Edit: I know it barely has anything to do with a fertile land, but it does have a little something to do with woodcutting.

Someone please work on a new water tile, that one is an eye sore

Gangs
 

For gangs, I think there should be two separate parts of it. Your gang will be neutral once it starts. Basically, you can use that guild shop to choose what type of gang you want it to be. Tribe-Indians, Posse-Cowboys. You can still recruit Indians even if you are a posse if you like or vice-versa. After you choose what type of gang you are, you can only buy things from that part of the shop. If you want to switch, there would or wouldn't be a fee( your choice), but once you switch all your gang points will reset(not hours), and all your rewards will dissapear. If your gang is neutral, you can't use the shop yet.

Also, gang points shouldn't be rewarded just for basing. Perhaps gang events which reward you points if your gang wins and gang spars, every x amount of gang spars you win earns you x amount of points. Stuff like that.

Don't think firemaking should be its own skill, it was kinda pointless in RS lol

Only need two types of skills, gathering (woodcutting/mining/fishing) and crafting (fletching?/smithing/cooking) and thats good enough really, maybe more skills down the line but thats plenty for now.

Not entirely related to the OP but referring back to the skills, I think the max level needs to be looked at, the fact its 99 has obvious ties to a game we all know, there needs to be some seperation (100?)

Another skill that should be added is hunting. Right now, in the rare occurrence of finding animals that drop sellable hides, they don't do so very often, and usually the animals kill you before you can even kill one or two of them. With the addition of a hunting skill, it could be made so that higher levels of hunting increase the damage done to animals and increase the drop rate of hides.

Looks nice :o

Verdant Zone/Town
 

Verdant means "(of countryside) green with grass or other rich vegetation." so it suits the area well.

Fire-making:

Cowboys can use flint/steel to create fire, perhaps Native Americans can rub together two pieces of wood to create fire in the natural way. Possible benefits/weak-points to either side?

It's possible that Native Americans could use the ashes in some kind of ritual? Being that they're supposed to be closer to nature than Cowboys I think that would be a neat idea (Rituals could be used to gain temporary bonuses?).

Fishing should be similar to the (old?) Unholy Nation fishing system. (Fish bob at your rod and you pull them up before they get away).

Rivers open the gold-panning job. I don't play Ol'West so I don't know if this is in the game yet, but in the real Old West gold-panning was a major profession, and used to happen in rivers.

Minus the air pollution, lol.

Looks cool, wish era had some sort of similar update.

Again, please.

Man, Alpho. You did it again just right after the Mining Update! How many great ideas do you have in your head? I'm amazed at your creativity for this. O_O

At least it's not going to take Ol' West's staff team 4 years to finish it.

I seriously liked it! :D

Yes there should be more grasses in Ol'West, but not too many grasses. It still need to dirts, half grasses and deserts perhaps?

That's what the grass map extension is.

**It has only been 9 months 'Nabu'.

Well 'Howl', Coop's thread on graalians about countryside from 2011/2012 (don't feel like searching for it) says otherwise. So please, get your facts right before you question me.

On another note, this update looks amazing. Can't wait to check it out when it comes out.

Sorry it was my bad, I made a mistake, it was actually 8 months.

http://i.imgur.com/qXz9h8c.png

Oh, it feels so good correcting someone who thinks they're right.

I got a new water tile:)

Coming summer 2014 @era countryside?
Wow

He did say on the thread on "graalians". Era-go hasn't been around long enough to have a thread 4 years old.

I suggest you back off a bit and grow some common sense mate. If releasing a grassy area is copying Coop's countryside update, then goddamn, might as well go criticize any server with more than one level's worth of grass.

I swear to god, your posts get trashier and more redundant as time goes by.

If you were to go with a pet shop maybe the pets could mainly be ranch animals

ex) Cows, chicks/chickens, sheep, ext.

And those ranch animals could also make you money as well, but at a slow rate that's dependent on the animal

Yeah aha. Ranch animals.

Cattle, pigs, chickens and sheep.

All animals can be grown and slaughtered for meat which can be sold or cooked for the cooking skill.

Cattle will also give leather, sheep wool and chickens feathers which can be used in crafting ingredients. Or sold.

Pretty good idea to have ranch animals for whoever brought it up lol.

I like the idea of having different types of furniture and weapons depending on which type of wood is used to craft, great! We could definitely do this quite easily.

I dont want to give bundles of points for 1k hours, I would rather give a hat or something and then just give points per hour to the gang bank or whatever we decide on.

Daily activities sound like a great idea, but a lot of work, so that would be implemented after initial release if we do that.

Also, we've decided on Oasis, thanks for the name idea! Oasis is exactly what this place is.

I think flint and steel is the best way to go for fire making, if we end up making that a skill.

Pets are a fantastic idea, I've thought about it in the past. It's a lot of work and I need graphics people on-board who can make animals quite good. I think it would be a great thing to add to Oasis, though it would have to be in a future update IF we do it.

Yes, all of the images used in Oasis will be sold as furniture for sure! I want to have several furniture shops all over which have different themes. Maybe greenery in one, other objects in another - not sure.

A new grassy house or two would be great too, great idea.

I want to add another base really badly, but we dont have enough players for it at this time. Perhaps in the future when our player count rises we could add another base!

Yeah, Flint & Steel is the best route I think for lighting fires. I still want everybody to use the crafting tables though and not have portable ones. If anything I would make it a furniture item, but definitely not on-the-run-crafting.

I plan to make fishing rods craftable or purchasable, still haven't decided which. I also want people to cook their food on fires they make or in an oven if they're a high enough level.

Yes!!! We will be adding bushes, similar to iClassics, which can be eaten by horses. Except on Ol'West there will be different types which can possibly drop different items or have different purposes. Some could give berries if you chop at them like weeds or so, and some could have other purposes. Great ideas!

Paper is a great idea. Having paper would open so many new doors for things that could be made for sure!

We could introduce other water tiles throughout the river and such so that there's some diversity, similar to how there's different types of grass.

Great!! How would this effect the current gangs though?

Yes we will have gang events which give the points as well.

Fire making should be its own skill if we make it have a purpose! I was thinking fires could give you health if you grab them and you'll sit by them. After sitting for some time by a fire you'll gain health or whatever.

I do agree that the max level should be increased. I was thinking about 150 or so, we'll just have to add more content for that.

Not sure why you're being sarcastic about this. Zone also added grass to their map.

This!!! For sure!

Definitely! This could create a whole other job / skill!

Also for houses, perhaps you can buy more rooms like a farm/garden room. I want to decorate the outside of my houses, but all of my farm plots block most of the space

About the current gangs, they should be automatically neutral. If your gang is neutral you cannot buy items from the gang shop, till you choose either tribe or posse.

So Alpho, what are you thinking about for the cooking skill? What could it do besides make healing items? I would really like to see a hunger/thirst system implemented eventually. You could stop by at a pub, bar, inn ect. to grab some bread and water for free, and cooked food made by players could be a portable alternative in addition to giving buffs.

And if food gives buffs, make sure there is food that makes you 1.5x faster and deal double melee damage for 5 minutes.

Yes I want to add garden rooms! My idea is that I don't want gang houses. I want normal houses that are bigger than others and might cost more to purchase originally. Maybe some house that aimed towards gardening or some other thing.

Fantastic idea. I like everyone being neutral and having to choose. Perhaps you need 50 hours on your gang or so before you can go to the gang shop or whatever we call it to change your gang to a Posse or Tribe. And from there you will start receiving gang points (name still to be determined)

I was thinking they could walk faster and do things quicker if they eat a certain item maybe? Not sure. That's a great idea though.

Yeah exactly.

I still want to talk with everybody about everything before the skills are implemented, so that everything is ready to go and agreed upon.

-----
Edit:
Here's an update on trees:
http://i.imgur.com/Zw13PkT.jpg
Tree types and graphics are subject to change

Is that a freaking magical diamond tree? 0.0 I mean, it's pretty darn cool looking but wow it sorta seemed out of the blue yknow?

It's a crystal tree. I want to add some oddities around Ol'West and make it more interesting. Possibly adding new types of rocks too that have original names and everything.

Edit: I was thinking it would be a higher level tree and only a few of them exist

What do you mean "only a few of them exist"?

If he said it was coming Summer 2014, then he must have made the thread sometime in late 2013 to early 2014, you would not make a thread in 2011 about something that is coming in 3 years time, as that is pretty ridiculous. I don't even even think I saw a thread on here about countryside.

I never said he was copying, every other server has this sort of area to be honest, so it is only right Ol' West had something similar, as after all, the sandy desert does get boring after a while.

On a lighter note, here are some ideas:

Hunting would be pretty cool, you could level up and make hats and furniture out of the 'loot' you get from the animals. You could also buy better tools, which you could kill larger and rarer animals with.

Cooking, as someone suggested would be nice too, it could tie in with hunting, as the loot you could get would give you new recipes to cook.

One that has not been suggested yet could be like, horse racing? Where you have to jump over obstacles and get the best time possible, not sure if people would think this is copying Classic, but it'd still be pretty cool.

You could also release simple farm jobs that reward you with gralats, like getting the eggs from the hen house and bringing them somewhere, shearing sheep for wool (again, this could tie in with hunting) and rounding up sheep.

You know what would be cool though? Having different terrains and biomes, like a rock biome, which could tie in with ancient mayan history, you could have artifacts e.c.t., an ice biome and a forest biome. I see you have trees made for those things, so I guess that'd be pretty cool to do.
I think that'd be pretty cool.

Adding on to the food, a hunger/thirst system would be nice. The only consequences of being thirsty/hungry is a small speed debuff. If you are completely full, you would have a speed boost(if you don't have VIP already), and as you turn hungrier and hungrier the slower you become. Don't make the speed debuff too much though. You can buy permanent canteens that you can refill, but food is a one-time use which you can either craft/buy/trade.

Gang points sound awfully familiar to the system Era has...

Era doesn't even have a gang points system currently I believe. I could be wrong, haven't been on in awhile, but the last time I was on (2-3 months ago) they mentioned having a system but has yet to actually implement one.

Not iEra. Era PC...

Then I have no idea about Era's current gang system :P.

I hope those cliff tiles are updated before release, they'd potentially spoil a lot of hard work given their graphic's style is off when considering the hard outline of the grass. Doesn't look right at all.

They'd be harder to come across, in harder to reach areas, and not as many of them on the map as other trees.

Hunting jobs would be nice. Even turning it into a skill with EXP too.

I dunno about horse racing. Maybe as an event.

Yeah, I want trees to only be found in certain areas. More muddy and grassy areas have a certain tree, or more muddy and water, or more muddy and sand, etc.

Never played Era PC, nor do I know anything about it. Enlighten me.

I think you're right. Rocky cliffs would be better where you could see the rocks and boulders.

Will we still be using the craftable axes to cut down trees or will it be like the pickaxes? wood iron gold and diamond

The reason we can not release country is because for various reasons all our scripters have either left for other servers or been fired.

tldr; can't do any scripting without scripters.