Keen observers have noted no updates in awhile in Loka. This is two parts, one, I'm busy, two, Jobs.
I made a dumb choice by not fully thinking through the inevitable breadth that Jobs should encompass. I wrote them quickly to let town owners make quick and dirty jobs for new members to do and help player retention. Having not thought it through to the very obvious logical end, I've been stuck with revamping the way Jobs work (mostly backend stuff) in a big way because of how Jobs should really be.
How they should really be and will be soon (hopefully this weekend) is that anybody can make a job on the server for anybody else to do. This is in fact just as important, if not more so, than having towns have their own internal jobs. The concept of the reverse market is sort of the reason Jobs exist in a way; you make a request to get X and be willing to pay Y for it, rather than dump surplusses on the Market and hope they are bought.
Further, once all the types of Jobs are supported (kill quests, bounties, quest-chains, location-quests, etc) are all made, it's almost a "done feature". Players will have the tools to create as simple or as complicated a quest as they like. Should Jobs become hugely popular, I could very easily see a Job upvoting system so that quality jobs rise to the top rather than the inevitable trolly jobs that will likely appear.
Finally, because Jobs can have lore (either a simple description or an entire Written Book), it's certain that our exceedingly skilled Lore players will not only create "good" jobs but great ones, thereby creating a system of Questing that is 100% driven by players, and not forced to be made by Admins for Official Quests. This is huge and I think will be a great feature for the server to have. New players with not much to do will be able to visit the jobs board/NPC at spawn to see what they can do and what they'll get for doing it. This will be a great way for towns/players to create their own content for new players to consume.
Of course Towns can still do their own inside-quests, but because I wrote Jobs hastily, I'm stuck going back and writing it the way it should've been. Once jobs is out, I can start fixing bugs again that have been creeping up (and adding brand new ones).
Go Forth!
I made a dumb choice by not fully thinking through the inevitable breadth that Jobs should encompass. I wrote them quickly to let town owners make quick and dirty jobs for new members to do and help player retention. Having not thought it through to the very obvious logical end, I've been stuck with revamping the way Jobs work (mostly backend stuff) in a big way because of how Jobs should really be.
How they should really be and will be soon (hopefully this weekend) is that anybody can make a job on the server for anybody else to do. This is in fact just as important, if not more so, than having towns have their own internal jobs. The concept of the reverse market is sort of the reason Jobs exist in a way; you make a request to get X and be willing to pay Y for it, rather than dump surplusses on the Market and hope they are bought.
Further, once all the types of Jobs are supported (kill quests, bounties, quest-chains, location-quests, etc) are all made, it's almost a "done feature". Players will have the tools to create as simple or as complicated a quest as they like. Should Jobs become hugely popular, I could very easily see a Job upvoting system so that quality jobs rise to the top rather than the inevitable trolly jobs that will likely appear.
Finally, because Jobs can have lore (either a simple description or an entire Written Book), it's certain that our exceedingly skilled Lore players will not only create "good" jobs but great ones, thereby creating a system of Questing that is 100% driven by players, and not forced to be made by Admins for Official Quests. This is huge and I think will be a great feature for the server to have. New players with not much to do will be able to visit the jobs board/NPC at spawn to see what they can do and what they'll get for doing it. This will be a great way for towns/players to create their own content for new players to consume.
Of course Towns can still do their own inside-quests, but because I wrote Jobs hastily, I'm stuck going back and writing it the way it should've been. Once jobs is out, I can start fixing bugs again that have been creeping up (and adding brand new ones).
Go Forth!
