Weekly Spotlight: Crafting in SW:IF, part 1

Hey again guys! Glitch here with the first of a series of weekly design spotlight posts, where I'll be sharing with you the big changes in design that are happening in the transition from SW:KoD to SW:IF. Today's spotlight: Crafting.

In perhaps one of the most jarring (but also, we believe, most necessary) changes from KoD to IF, the engineer class is being removed entirely from the game. We feel that the engineer as a *class* has very little gameplay associated with it, and as we want to make the game very quest-oriented and provide a lot of end-game PvE and PvP content, we feel the engineer class has little to add to that type of gameplay, and would be a sort of odd-character-out that won't be a desirable choice to join any party.

As such, rather than have engineering be its own class, it will now be a sort of side-game available to anyone regardless of class - very similar to in most modern MMOs. You will still have to level it up (which will be much harder), you will have to gather resources (which will be harder), and we will be adding multiple types of engineering that a person can embark upon. (For example, one person will be able to craft armor, another will be able to craft weapons, etc. No one person will be able to craft everything.)

I know what you're thinking... won't this make it even harder to get all of your gear? Well, yes and no. It will make it harder to have all the best gear in the game, and this will be intentional, as gear will become leveled and you will have to achieve maximum level and find a lot of rare items to get the best possible gear in any given category. And it will require interaction with multiple characters to make this happen.

But as a concession, we will be altering some rules on alt transfer. And by altering, I mean removing. Every account will have a multi-character shared bank, so if you have all engineering types leveled up on different characters, you can make your own gear when you can't find anyone else to make it for you.

Also, Skye, yes... ship crafting *will* be one of the professions you can follow.

More details on exactly what professions will be available, and what each one will be able to craft, in the future.

And one final thing: If you can make it, you can repair it. That is all!

More updates to come! Thanks to all of you for your support during our transition from KoD to IF!

-Glitch

Star Wars: Infinity Forgotten is born!

Hello, people of KoD. This is Jaedyn Draper, AKA Glitch. I'm here to inform you about something exciting that's happening with Knights of Darkness: As you may have guessed already, Knights of Darkness is about to be reborn as Star Wars: Infinity Forgotten.

This rebirth comes with a lot of changes. Most of these are changes that have been needed for a very long time, but that we've been unable to feasibly implement iteratively while keeping KoD running the way it currently is.

• One of the biggest changes is to the code. The code for KoD is 30 years old and has been through so many iterations - from DikuMud to Rom to CircleMud to SMAUG to SWR to KoD, just to name the biggest ones - that the code is frankly a mess. It's a pain to work with. Even worse, the mprog scripting language (even after my changes) and in-game editing of levels are just awful. So, KoD is being ported over to a brand new codebase I've been writing from scratch, called Matrix Engine.
  
  Matrix is a full C++ codebase, rather than a 30-year-old C codebase that's been partially converted to C++, allowing us to take full advantage of C++ features in coding the game. Furthermore, Matrix has Python integrated as an in-game scripting language, which allows us to drop the existing mprog language in favor of a much nicer and more powerful scripting language, which will dramatically open up the options for what our in-game scripts can do.
  
  Finally, Matrix will bring with it an offline GUI editor for builders to work with, making building changes both easier and safer, as each builder can work on it at home and then move it through a pipeline of testing before it goes live.
• The biggest problem with KoD at present is the terrible state of the content. It has no clear level progression, no clear quest system - essentially players are randomly dropped on Coruscant and have no idea where to go, so the only effective way to level is to be power-leveled by someone else. This isn't what we want. Unfortunately the only solution for this, really and truly, is to sack our entire universe and rebuild it from scratch. That's the ultimate reason for this reboot. So once the conversion to Matrix has reached a level that is ready for this to happen, we will be hiring as many builders as possible to remake our world from scratch in a sensible, quest-driven way that newbies can hopefully figure out without any help from other players. This will go a long way toward both acquisition and retention of new players.
  
  Additionally, along with this, there will be a large focus on adding world bosses, instanced dungeons, high-level rare loot, and other end-game content, so that players don't run out of things to do once they've maxed out (which, once we've made leveling fun, will no longer be possible in a day).
• With the other changes, we're resetting KoD's timeline. This, I know, will be a very controversial change, as it will require a pwipe. I sympathize with those of you who will be losing your characters (few have put more into their characters than I have into some of mine), but ultimately, I believe it's necessary to increase our population size. Note, however, that those who do come over with us will be reimbursed for any RPP and QP they've earned and spent on their characters, to get their characters a headstart in the new game. Existing players will also get some other form of bonus (TBD) as compensation for the loss of their characters.
  
  JUST to be clear, though: The current KoD is not shutting down, simply being deprecated. Your characters will still exist on that port if you wish to play them. But we are officially dropping immortal and development support for that port, and existing characters will not be brought over to the new SWIF.
  
  The new setting for KoD (hereafter known as Infinity Forgotten) will be ~25,000 BBY, long before even KoTOR. We will follow the era just after the collapse of the Infinite Empire, a time known as the Unification Wars, which ultimately led to the dawn of the Republic as that ruling government of the galaxy. Returning to such a young state in the galaxy gives us the opportunity to place you, the players, as pioneers of galactic government, and explorers of a galaxy that has barely been touched, allowing you to find and discover many new and important pieces of galactic history. More on all of this in a future update!
• Gameplay will also get a lot of changes. Most of it will still be very familiar, but there will be changes to some core concepts, such as the way classes and leveling work, changes to the crafting system, and most importantly, the way PvP works. We will also be instating new, better RPP rewards for non-forcers as well. Again, more on these in a future update.

I know this is a big change, and for some of you, it will be hard to accept. But one only has to log into KoD right now to know that our current way of doing things isn't working. There is a lot that needs to be changed, and it can't be done incrementally due to the sheer scope of it. We hope that you will still be willing to join us on the ride, because we think the ultimate product we put out at the end of it will be the best, most modern, and most *fun* Star Wars MUD ever to be released! For those of you who don't want to come, though, we will be leaving the existing KoD running for the time being, as-is, but we are hereby officially dropping our support for that game - there will be no more updates to what we will now consider the legacy Knights of Darkness codebase.

Thank you all who have stuck with KoD thusfar. To those of you who join us moving forward, welcome! To those of you who don't, we're sorry to see you go. But in the end, I think we are doing what's necessary to transform KoD from the mediocre, half-finished game it is into something great.

-Glitch