Pre-alpha screenshot. Art and interface will change.
Until now the only things that fought back were wolves and the odd cornered deer. This week the world got its first monsters, and the tools to put them where they belong.
Spawners
A spawner is a marker in the world that keeps a few creatures alive around it. I give it a kind, a count, a radius, a leash and a respawn time. When something dies, the spawner waits a random time in that range and brings one back.
Spawners can run all day, only by day, or only by night. A night spawner clears out its creatures at dawn, as long as no player can see them go.
The leash keeps camps where they are. Drag a goblin too far from home and it gives up, walks back and calms down for a few seconds.
I place spawners from inside the game with an admin window. I don’t have to touch a file or restart the server.
The three monsters
Goblins come in small groups. They have 40 hits and hit for 4 to 8. Attack one and up to four of its camp-mates join in. They carry clubs, daggers or short spears, and drop between 30 and 75 gold.
Bandits are tougher, with 93 hits and blows of 10 to 23. A quarter of them carry a short bow. Archers try to keep 5 to 9 metres away and back off if you close in. Bandits are murderers, and their names show in red. When one dies he drops everything he wore.
Trolls hunt alone. They have 115 hits and swing a club for 8 to 14. They’re slow, so you can outrun one if you keep moving.
All three attack a player who comes within 20 metres in plain sight. All three run when they’re nearly dead and losing. A wounded goblin facing a healthy player will usually bolt.
What they don’t do
Monsters leave the animals alone, and the animals ignore them. Wolves won’t eat a goblin. The ecology keeps working the same with or without monsters nearby.
Right now the world has a few goblin camps in the south-west woods. Bandits and trolls are in the game but I haven’t placed them yet. That’s the next thing I’ll do in an admin session.