16.18 Update Highlights

[Rotem]

Hey there TWC!

Today we've updated TWC to 16.18, here's some of the important changes we did:

• It's the day before valentines, 2 new items were added for it. Remember gifts can't be opened at the moment, feel free to wrap  up gifts to your loved ones, there's a special wrapping for it
• Killing Basilisk is important for enchanting but it's so hard to kill Basilisk only to receive a U-No-Poo, the chances to receive a good item were doubled, we also made it slightly easier by adding a special exit door and reducing the time needed to get back there.
• Beep boop! You'll now hear a sound (unless disabled) whenever an event/class occurs and also when you get PMs, if the flashy minimized window didn't grab your attention this will!
• If you like titles, we've added about 3 new ones and fixed Slayer titles enchanting bug, that's fancy.
• A new boss random event was added "Willy the Whisp", he's quite tough, personally I think Snowman is stronger but Willy sure has a neat trick.
• Automatic classes! More below.
• There are now 9 random events, totaling to about 90% for a random event to occur, TWC should have more things going on now.

I feel the auto classes are important part of this update, it's quite simple, when a class starts, you'll get 5 minutes to get there, then the NPC teacher does a short lecture, after that the teacher stays and class guidance is on for 30 minutes. Players including late joiners can click/talk to the teacher during that time to receive a practice wand, when the wand is equipped you can use the spell, you'll require x uses to learn it, once you've used it enough, you get the spell and the wand poofs.

Currently all spells require 10 uses except projectiles, they require 1,000 uses, this is because unlike other spells, you can get uses from A) using it, 1 per use, there's no drastic cooldown so that's cool. B) Killing monsters, 5 uses a kill and C) killing players, 100 uses a kill.

I feel this method for projectiles encourages fighting, with time and lots of feedback and suggestions we can change this so that certain actions are required to learn spells, for now it's just simple usage for most. This is where feedback is important.

Another thing to pay attention, this is a whole new system and it may have errors, I imagine the most common would be wrong details on the lecture, do report any mistakes or missing details you see. Another possible error would be uses not counting down with spell usage, I don't think it should happen but I may have missed something. Any bugs you find, please report it.

Now you must ask, when do classes occur? They can either happen randomly like any random event or be scheduled similar to how scheduled clan wars work. This is handy, it can cover all time zones, be used as a NPC sub for teachers as well as happen randomly just in case.

For now we are still using the old tradition of human classes in addition for random classes, as things are fully tested and feedback is received from players we are most likely to improve the system more, once it's done the plan is to use this as well as GMs but to re-define the GM job to be less dependent on a schedule (unless they choose to make it so) and more focused towards creative entertainment. I always told GMs that if I wanted them to follow a script I'd make a robot do it, guess what, I finally did what I said I would.

I spent a lot of time thinking about this, asked for a ton of feedback and I still am asking for feedback, I'm open minded as to how this can be improved further and what should happen next, I don't even mind scrapping it as long as it is what's best for TWC, please don't be hating for no reason and please do provide feedback and report any errors you may find.

[Lucifer]

[Rotem]

I realized it's worth noting since people don't realize this.

Every update I release often brings the source closer to being modernized, it makes it easier to achieve things. For example, automatic class make use of both random events and scheduling like clan wars. It combines things that I previously did in TWC, it's easily done. This sort of changes are often done, there's a giant list of them.

In this update we added practice wands that require you to use a spell successfully, this in the future will make it easier to make use of 'spell skill trees' or 'spell mastery' or even a quest that requires you to use a spell.

It isn't just features that have this effect, bug and runtime fixes are also important, they help everyone who touches the source focus on what's important, it helps when shit is removed and finally you can focus on interesting content and worry less about how this spell can impact safe zones because it was all done before and it's known to us.

Of course feedback and bug reporting helps a lot, Dylan figured one abuse in safe zones and reported it, it's now fixed. I really do try to listen to suggestions, take them and use them. We took Lucifer's suggestion and made automatic AFK optional, while it may not be his original suggestion it is just as effective.

One day we'll really be able to add in the more complicated suggestions you guys have, having automatic events and classes is something I never thought I'd actually add to TWC but it's here. It really freaks me out every time 'The Evil Snowman' event starts and some crazy boss monster is entertaining players and I have to do nothing, to think that snowman actually acts like a real boss monster, giving a challenge and a reward, it's amazing.