Normal Unedited Server

[SymKensaki]

 

NORMAL UNEDITED SERVER

Now open for testing

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Normal Unedited Server is a Survival-styled server with a tongue-in-cheek name meant to mask its many worldgen, item, and monster changes.  As of right now, I am looking to stress-test the server and see if it can handle a large number of players (18 maximum at the moment).  Once stability is tackled, I would hope to not only host this server as a permanent fixture in the listings, but to also keep updating it with more and more content as it comes to mind.

 

That said, below is a list of things that are included in the Normal Unedited Experience. Entries have varying degrees of specificity to preserve the integrity of exploration and experimentation:

 

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Worldgen:

• Huge world:  

  • World size has been set to huge, and its object distribution increased to avoid the barrenness typically created by using this setting.  These adjustments are made using a special system that circumvents the usual carpet-bombing that happens when using the game's default method for increasing object frequency.

• Land loop:  

  • This server's generation is, unfortunately, a land loop.  As much as I had hoped to avoid this, some technical issues with how the game generates its landmasses clashes with many of the significant pieces of my map's topography.  To compensate for the lack of branching, a wormhole has been placed in every single biome to attempt to reclaim adventure from being one-dimensional.

• Additional biomes:  

  • Normal unedited server features many of the normally-chance-based biomes, by default. This means multiple swamps, deserts, deciduous zones, mountains, etc.  An abundance of biomes should result in plenty of areas for people to settle, should they choose to not all work as a single unit.

• Set pieces:  

  • Many new and unseen set pieces, as well as some familiar ones, have been integrated as common fixtures in the world's generation.  This does have the side-effect of creating a potentially more dangerous world, but it should also make it a more interesting one.

    • Far-reaching influence:  

      • When a major set piece appears in a biome, it will often have an impact on that entire biome, changing the rules that one would normally expect from it.  Example:  A Tallfort spawns and brings with it a number of Smallforts that pepper the rocky sections of its biome, representing their dominance of the area.

    • Conflicts and stories:  

      • Sometimes multiple set pieces will find their way into the same biome.  If this happens, there will usually be an interaction between the two.  Whether it be one's conquest of the other, or the influence of one's mystery affecting the other, interactions have varying degrees of intensity and outcome.  (This is perhaps the most important system in place, and the number one goal I have for moving forward with my designs--to continue to create interactions that make each generation fresh-but-familiar.)

    • As above, so below:  

      • Players will find that sinkholes are connected to many of the major set pieces of the world, and often, in that sense, are more protected or hidden than usual. Sinkholes that begin the game open will lead to a section of underground that is reflective of the area above, where plugged ones will rest above a more traditional cave exit.  This attempts to create cohesiveness, or at least as much as can be created within the strange logic of the underground's connection with the overworld.

    • Native competition:  

      • The pigs are perhaps the most significant sentient lifeform in the Don't Starve world, and have been increased in presence and variety to reflect that.  Not only will the Pig King be seated in a variety of locations, but his subjects may not always be as passive--or loyal--as you have come to know.

    • Traps and puzzles:  

      • There are many mysteries to be uncovered, and many dangers that protect them.  Can you figure out how to safely avoid disaster?  Or perhaps will you attempt a more brute-force solution..?

 

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Creatures:

• Garbage collection:  

  • Though a system still in its infancy, some creatures of the world have been given means of clutter removal that (hopefully) feels natural and not too punishing.  I plan to expand this a bit further, but the philosophy is that things should be useful enough to transcend a lowly position like "garbage", so not many of these systems should be required.

• A.I. adjustments:  

  • Several creatures have been fitted with adjustments to their behavior.  A minor change, currently, but it should be pronounced enough to be visible.  Pigmen in particular will be the most noticeable, but they are certainly not the only ones.

 

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Items and Equipment:

• Upgraded powers:  

  • Certain pieces of lesser clothing have been revamped to serve a new and unique function in addition to their basic ones.  This change attempts to keep them more competitive with some of the popular favorites like the backpack or tier3 winter wear.  Many of these powers are responsive to environment, and even weather or season.

• Set bonuses:  

  • Many pieces of equipment that go together in theme, or are redundant in effect, are now empowered to grant additional bonuses when worn together.  It should be noted that not all relevant matches have been included, because as with the Upgraded Powers section, these are largely targeted toward lesser, compromising, or redundant pieces of equipment.  Where this inconsistency might result in a somewhat time-consuming process to figure out what does what, keep this in mind:  The full extent of most bonuses might not be immediately apparent, but when you look your best, the weight of the world always seems just a little bit easier to bear.

 

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Objects and Structures:

• General:

  • When first entering the world, players will have a small chance to acquire flint from many basic gathering activities.  This chance will diminish over the course of several days, until it is gone.

• Mounds:  

  • ????

• Sinkholes:  

  • Sinkholes will no longer produce bats.

• Telelocator focus:

  • Teleporting to a gemmed focus will no longer destroy any of its gems.  Gems may still be removed to deactivate the focus.

• Spider den:

  • Now tagged as a monster, and will be subject to attack from many creatures.  Residents will still serve as a line of defense against assailants.

• Wasp hive:

  • As Spider Den.

 

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Characters:

• Wilson:  

  • Wilson now trims his beard stage-by-stage when using a razor.  This does not change the amount of beard hair that he can produce, but allows more control over beard modulation.  

  • I would much like to add free item storage for the later two stages of beard growth, but I believe it might be beyond the scope of my abilities.  Stay tuned.

• Webber:  

  • Trimmable beard, as Wilson.  

  • Help calls from spiders allied to Webber no longer summon spiders from nearby dens.

• Maxwell:

  • All Puppets:

    • Shadow puppets can now be upgraded up to 5 times by giving them nightmare fuel.  

      • Upgrades increase health and damage absorption.

      • Giving fuel to a fully-upgraded puppet will heal it for a large amount.

      • Duelists receive greater benefit from upgrades.

  • Worker Puppets:

    • Worker puppets begin with knowledge of some common objects related to their tool, such as trees, stumps, and rocks.  Additionally, active puppets will learn to work on any object that Maxwell works on, so long as that object matches a puppet's appropriate tool.  Finally, using the Codex Umbra will remove all knowledge from each of Maxwell's active worker puppets, allowing them to be re-taught.

 

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This thread will also be where I dump my patch notes as things are added. Please leave any feedback here if you are so inclined.

[Arlesienne]

This sounds quite intriguing. Could you please tell us more about the code for the worldgen? Are you making a mod? I'd be glad to help stress-test the server as well.

[SymKensaki]

This mod does not use the official API, and I hardly know the first thing about making a proper mod.  My only way to learn things is by taking them apart and putting them back together, so this is 100% hackery, as the greatest volume of educational material is the source material itself.

I know almost everything I'm doing here could be produced using the modding API, but I do not know if it could manage the most significant component of my worldgen: catching the tasks and rooms as they are being deepcopied into generic versions of themselves for placement.  This allows me to make changes to rooms based on task, such telling a task to add additional information to its rooms depending on things like the room's name or ground type.  Using this, I can quickly and easily include a new scenario or set piece, and then pitch relevant information to the task that piece is invading to change the rest of its rooms accordingly, while still keeping its familiar structure intact.  It works somewhat like the "room_tags" task parameter that the ruins uses to give the "Nightmare" tag to everything, just expanded in function.

There's more to it like checking set piece spawn locations against eachother to make sure that it feeds the right parameters to the task in order to create the appropriate scenario (i.e. The tallbirds from the tallfort trampled the queens gathering to create nesting, or the spiders overcame the tallbirds and claimed their rocks)

 

I'd love to have it be a real mod just so anyone could use the materials, and so fixing it after updates would be less of a pain, but I just don't think I have the fortitude or the ability to learn how to play nice with the API.  I might release my set pieces as a package though.

[Arlesienne]

By all means do. Perhaps you can find some other modder to help you out?

[SymKensaki]

Worldgen:

• Caves:
  • Caves no longer have scrambled biomes.
• Resources:
  • Resources should be less overwhelmingly abundant. This will probably see some more passes as I figure out exactly is causing them to be so inconsistently massive in number.

Creatures:

• Bees:
  • Shadow bees will no longer fail to damage your sanity.
• Glommer:
  • Staves and/or winter are no longer required to reach Glommer's Statue.
  • Glommer now sheds the light of the full moon during dusk and nighttime.  This moonlight is not as strong as that of a natural full moon.

• Tentacles:
  • Shadow tentacles will no longer sometimes revert to normal tentacles.
  • Shadow tentacles will no longer fail to damage your sanity.
• Treeguards:
  • No longer tagged as "monster" or "hostile".  Creatures know not to provoke them, and they will only attack when provoked.

Objects and Structures:

• Ice Flingomatic:
  • Will no longer extinguish fire that is not fire.  This includes cold fire and shadow fire.
• Mercy Resources:
  • Mercy resources from gathering will now only occur after the first three days, reflecting the original game's mercy resources intent.
• Mounds:
  • Added a fourth question mark.

[AlbertDelRiver]

I would love to play on a big server with my a couple of friends, even if it's semi-vanilla!

Say, when will it be up? Do you need my steam community ID? Do you want me to add you?

[SymKensaki]

The server is currently live, and has been since even before this thread was created.  Just do a search for "normal" with no filters, and I'm sure you'll find it.  Although, do note that it is not in the beta branch.

I would love to see some more dedicated people playing.  I've already received some excellent feedback and have made adjustments to fix a lot of minor issues.  It would be fantastic to have some people in it for a longer haul than the first 20ish days, though, but I also know that is a common issue across all survival servers, so my expectations are tempered.

Regardless, I am happy to see some interest.

[Destros09]

On 1/11/2017 at 5:18 PM, SymKensaki said:

Mounds:  

• ????

What is this

[SymKensaki]

5 hours ago, Destros09 said:

What is this

Mounds are a curious fixture in the world of Don't Starve:  Once dug up, they leave behind a hole and loose dirt that sits there seemingly without purpose until the curtain falls.

You ask me what the question marks are about?  In truth, I do not know.  

Perhaps you should ask the hounds.

[Destros09]

The hound mounds? Slurtle mounds? Grave debug spawn?

[SymKensaki]

Voting has been disabled for the time being.  This may change, but will likely remain as it is until Klei devises a better solution.

As a compromise, the Telelocator Staff is no longer restricted from use against other players.  Where it is true that this can also be used for griefing purposes, it is much less likely such a tool will fall into the hands of someone seeking some quick laughs at the expense of others who have put in the work.

So make your amusing Telelocator Focus jails and death traps to cast the unworthy into the nightmare abyss.  Or do it to the innocent.  I don't care.  It's your world to play in, jerks.

[SymKensaki]

Worldgen:

• Set Pieces:
  • Added two new set pieces and one new set piece conflict
• Abandoned Swamp Town:
  • Wormhole farm expanded in function
  • Danger levels increased

Objects and Structures:

• Merm House:
  • Mermless houses in swamps are now built to last
• Mounds:
  • Fixed loot initialization and saving
  • There seems to be a rumbling below, but it shouldn't be too important

Items and Equipment:

• Equipment Sets:
  • Added additional equipment sets
• Ancient Equipment:
  • Ancient equipment improved to reflect its rarity and non-renewable nature, as well as the unparalleled mastery of shadow magic displayed by the ancients.  This may be evaluated when ruins renewability is added to the base game.
• Lazy Forager:
  • Can now be refueled with Nightmare Fuel