TWC Changes

[Rotem]

Hello,

For the last few months I've been working on TWC and I'd like to put highlight on a few changes and discuses where I want to go with TWC next, let's start with some of the more controversial features of TWC that I changed and then move onto exciting things that are very interesting to adult TWC community like affordable player housing.


Guilds

I still believe in them and I still think guilds were not given a chance, I've added them way too late when activity in TWC died down and even then a certain bug made people very frustrated to try them out, not to mention they were expensive.

Guilds are now cheaper and the member cap was increased, I also added back old clan robes and brought back old clan names, basically, your guild is "Deatheaters" or "Aurors" based if you're the biggest guild for whichever side, you get clan HQ and now also clan robes.

The idea is to maintain everything that was good about old clans in addition to the new system. I still think more guild activities are needed, I want to promote player interaction. There are ways to improve and hopefully, with your feedback, we'll make TWC dramaful again.


Safe zones

Safe zones?! I thought those would never change, well turns out that as I grow with age I also gain experience which allows me to come up with nice alternatives, old safe zones are now used only in classrooms, instead you get a hostile witchcraft timed protection, if you've fired a harmful projectile within the last minute you're free game, anyone could kill you.

Peaceful AFKing players would remain safe but in theory a fight in Hogwarts could break without any event or GM, pure player interaction. Hopefully this take on safe zones would be received better.


Auto classes

Automated events have proven to be generally liked but automated classes were never fully embraced by the community, a lot of players I talked to preferred GM classes and would like it if auto classes just stopped.

Here's the thing, when I implemented auto classes I didn't do it because it was the best solution to the problem, I just added it because it's a solution, it does solve the time zone problem with classes but at same time it gave players too many spells too quickly.

The amount of auto classes triggered by the game has been drastically reduced, instead players could start auto classes by themselves if conditions are met (x players in class, cooldown, no other event going on).

The hope is that player interaction would still exist if you had to gather players to initiate a class and perhaps a GM would take over (Are we still enforcing the whole "Don't ask a GM to host a class"?), if this solution does not work, there's probably others we could employ, with your help and feedback.


Stat points

As you log in, you'll notice 4 new lines in your stat panel displaying elemental levels, in short, every level is +1 damage and every 2 is +1 damage protection from that element.

This will be expanded further as we go, I'm hoping to add cool effects related to the elements and have their level effect your spells in more than just damage, I wonder what your imagination can come up with, I know mine's running wild.
To level them right now you just need to use projectiles with those elements, I think exp gain is better way to "stat train" than old RNG based system.

Of course there's other features of TWC that take over stat training like enchanted gear, pets, wand leveling or obtaining elder wand but this offers a more immediate way by just shooting stuff.


Hopefully with those changes I can give some of you the feeling you're heard, I am willing to walk forward and change TWC to be better, nothing we did so far is final and we can always improve, with your feedback TWC can improve.

P.S. Clouds were changed because Lucifer did not like them. I listened to him like I listen to every single complaint ever made on the forum, this is probably unhealthy but I always did it anyway.

I would very much like to get excited with you about TWC and what we could do with it, think of the possibilities! Which leads us to the next set of feature highlights:


Affordable player built housing

I'm using the words affordable and player built because it costs 0 artifacts and 0 gold, you just walk out there cut down trees and build it yourselves. There is a whole z level dedicated to this where you can farm trees, build walls, doors, place decoration and claim a nice little plot of land to call your own.

You can even place a bed and spawn in your house if you so desire (an option, you can still spawn in school if you so choose).

There is however a catch! Your house can be burned down by other players because of this protecting your house both actively as well as with building tactics is important, perhaps you'd like to group with others and make a giant base?

This is quite fresh as we go (with your feedback of course), we'll be adding stronger walls, more decoration and other goodies.

Personally, I'm very excited to see how this will go and what sort of house stuff people will ask for, I've done some basics but there's so much more that can be done!


Party system

There is no member cap for parties, you can group up, share exp and chat with as many friends as you like.

I've previously added the ability to gain more than 1 prize drop from bosses, the idea here is to continue encouraging co-op, in the future I'd like to sort of encourage co-op behavior like assigning tanks, healers and dps roles or perhaps just simple joint farming.

On this note, Basilisk was changed yet again, the freeze ability is no longer single target with unlimited range (and with no way to dodge) instead a red warning sign appears in 4 directions for 4 seconds from Basilisk, whoever stands on red gets frozen after it disappears, gets frozen.

This is because I would like boss fights to be more tactical and less RNG/"Skill", dodge the huge red on the floor and you're good to go.


Login reward

I added a nice little animation that appears starting from your 2nd day, every day you'll get 1 out've 27 possible prizes, some are trash, some are nice, some are even more nice and every 50 days you get 5 not random prizes.

When I figure out unique item prizes I'd like to have them set for x logged in day, let's say after 100 days you get some special wand and so on.

This is not consecutive days login but just total logged in days, I personally prefer it this way, consecutive days would frustrate me if I missed a day.


Protego is no longer a useless spell

Remember Protego? It's now more like Protego and less like whatever it was meant to be, protego will reflect spells back at the caster, when you hit someone hit someone with your projectile spells which includes all spells in modern TWC (transfiguration, binds, flippendo, harmful projectiles etc), it would be as if you hit yourself, taking effect instantly.

I can already see it happening "hey use protego for a second I wanna transfigure myself, MEOW".

Protego is now enabled in arenas/matchmaking, it lasts 3 seconds with a cooldown of 30 seconds, also damage projectiles are scaled down to 1/4 the damage, I feel it would be too overpowered otherwise.

Subject to change with feedback


Player Apparition

Apparition was added, this is similar to GM short apparate (in fact, GM one was removed and this takes place instead), there is a catch, it has a cooldown of 10 seconds.

I wasn't sure how many seconds to do the cooldown, especially due to "cooldown reduction" possibility. We'll see how it goes. I also wonder what to do with long range or side by side apparition.


Pet bankers

You can now drag an item onto your pet, your pet will then walk to the bank and place the item for safe keeping, your pet will really walk to the bank, all the way from you to the bank, which means it might take awhile to bank more than 1 item.


RIP Meditate, long live MP regen

Meditate was removed, replaced by a new stat MP regeneration, the idea is that an extra macro "Meditate" is pointless, at best you forgot to meditate and ran out of juice for a few seconds, this is not a nerf as 10 MP per projectile is hardly draining your magic pool.


30 FPS smooth TWC

TWC is no longer running at 10 fps, you now get 30 fps, this means beta movement is now the main movement, more on this below.


New art

Big thanks to Kai Long, Kole and Justin for drawing new pixel art, you'll notice those changes pretty quick seeing as inflamari's all brand new... Don't worry glacius is also different... so are the torches... and snakes, hissss.


Invisibility cloaks and Divo

For a very long time Divo sold us shady cloaks and one day they all crumbled to dust because sadly there is only 1 permanent invisibility cloak and everything else is fake, Divo is still out of business but he appeared again near his shop offering you a quest to obtain a temporary cloak, this cloak will become less and less transparent as time goes by, the way it should be.

There's 2 quests, one to obtain the cloak and another to renew it's transparency, I'm not sure on how grindy the quest should be or how long the cloak should last, one again, player opinion is greatly valued here.


This might've became clear if you read so far but I ask for a lot of feedback, this is because as I develop I make a lot of decisions all by myself and I'm not exactly sure they're the best course of action, I do what seems best in theory but in practice it is never true, this is why your opinion matters and why it is so very important to let me know what you think.

There was a instance in the past where people found a bug but thought I am intentionally trying to make things impossible, this was going on for a month and I was not aware until one day a player raged at me, the next day the bug was gone. It is so very important to me to get this point across, I want to work with you to make the game fun.

There are of course, many more changes like a new login screen, new UI with health/mp bars, custom color options for your interface, a free pokeby for everyone, pokeby pets I mean, an actual pet that follows you and many more changes I forgot about, we'll have to discover them together.

[Rotem]

More about movement and FPS

In the above post you might've read TWC is now running at 30 FPS, this brings with it a change to the movement system, this new movement system has been in beta for quite awhile when TWC was up and saw many changes, I've drastically improved it and it's quite nice now and mixes well with old movement macros.

Any movement macro you've made previously is still supported and old movement are still there and function alongside new movement, you can mix them.

Diagonal movement macros will always be old movement, in new movement in order to do diagonals you mix keys, left and down will move you diagonally 1 step instead of 2 separate steps, I think it's more intuitive and easier to understand, especially if you have a laptop and no numpad.

Note about numpad, when numlock is off, up/down/left/right on numpad will be using new movement but if numlock is on old movement macros will be used, allowing you to wave normally if you have any problems waving with new movement + old movement diagonals (since diagonals are always old)


If you want to create macros for previous old movement it's still the same .east .north .southwest etc.

Try them for yourself, I worked hard to make movement acceptable as I myself used to love dueling and I will probably improve it further.

[Vanchi]

Thank you for spending your time on the game we all love!