A Rogue Server - Now Open!!
 

Been messing around with this server idea for a while. I've enjoyed running a few characters through it...Hopefully others will enjoy it too.

Remember the game Rogue? It was essentially a time-waster. You had one life. One shot to run through the dungeon hoping for the best random drops and praying not to die. And when you did die...Poof! It was all gone!

This server hopes to recreate some of that, yet add enough depth and fun that it's not just wasting time anymore.

-PvE Only
-Classic thru PoP (will expand later)
-Max Level Is 65 (will increase over time)
-Random Loot (all level/diety/proc/click/rec/req/etc requirements removed)
-Death will reset character level to 1
-Gear remains on corpse
-High EXP rate so leveling (and re-leveling) is not a chore
-Auto Skills & Spells on level
-PoK Bank has NPC porters, merchants, etc
-Single IP (No Boxing)
-No warp/speed/etc

Balancing will continue to take place. The more feedback the better.

Make friends. Kill enemies. Have fun!!

I'm a big fan of rogue-like mechanics in general and they can be a lot of fun in EQ. I actually had a server similar to this some years ago. It never got any significant population, but there were some die-hard players who really explored the concept to its fullest and we all had a good time of it.

I modelled mine after Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup, which is one of many really good rogue-likes out there. Part of the random loot distribution included a variety of weapons with diverse procs (or brands, as they're described in DCSS). To pull these off we chose an appropriate spell and cranked the proc rate up so that your weapon was going off all of the time.
We also had wands, which were basically 5-10 charge clickies that could be instantly cast. Some of these included AoE spells so the caster could meet a quick end if they tried to blast the more powerful wands at close range.
I attempted managing hunger and thirst but aside from being a boring and annoying mechanic, it was a pain to keep it synced with the client.

If you're trying to work with the existing world you might also think about innate racial abilities to spice things up. We found that it was very enjoyable to see yourself rise to power quickly but still keep the possibility of dying horribly at the hands of a new or unknown foe.
Basically our thinking was to make a spell set with the racial abilities we wanted per race that we wanted to augment. You might want a slam for ogres that has a mean knockback, incrementally nasty poisons on all snakes, maybe a bleed dot for lions, etc.
From there I would use a script to hook the spell sets up to any NPC without an existing spell set that has a matching race.

Alas, I digress. I don't mean to hijack your thread or anything, but I would love to see a server like this really become established and get some polish so I figured I would share some of what we tried and intended to try.

Good luck and keep up the good work!

rof 2 not supported?

Not right now - UF and Titanium working. Will try to get RoF up and running this week.

Tabasco - Just wanted to say thanks for the ideas!! I have been looking into randomizing the encounters a bit!! Also LOVE the wands idea using clickies...Can't believe I didn't think of that!!

I wish I could get the hunger and thirst thing working, but like you said it is iffy at best. I have been playing around with making it so that if the player doesn't have a specific food or drink they get a low level DoT on them...But it seems bulky right now.

Hopefully this version of the Rogue Server proves to be a fun distraction for some. I'll continue to refine it down the road.

Good job, Soak, really enjoying the server so far.

Is there anywhere to see updates, server status, downtime, etc.? As I notice the server is currently down.

Cheers.

any notice when the server comes back on? Been excited all day but was offline when I got home from work :(

It's been down for about an hour or so before my last comment, went out for dinner and still not up!

Soak is a great person and I highly endorse anything they do!

hmm okay.. the server has been down for 2 days now? :o Soak whats wrong?

Is this server officially dead? Has anyone heard anything?

havent heard a thing, too bad, I really enjoyed the server, if it really is dead and someone decides to start something akin to this, gimme a tell :)

That was quick.

After looking at the general idea I'll give it a go. Except everything will be completely customized from classes, to spells, to how you obtain said spells. No ETA, but I don't assume it'll take too terribly long.

awesome :)