2018-04-03 16:12:02

I mean to look up the location yesterday, but I normally deal with the internal coordinates. It game coordinates the tri-form arch to the beta area is at 0 degrees 10 minutes North latitude and 0 degrees 10 minutes East longitude. If you need to be moved, let me know.

A new feature coming out this week is that in larger temples you can go into the confessional and take on the god of that temple as your patron deity. Once you do that, you will be allowed into the nave in larger temples. One room in there will let you gain prestige with your god by tithing your wealth. Another will give you missions to perform. Right now the only mission implemented is to take a message to a hermit. that's the "hermit mission". I have other missions planned, and further rooms in the nave to do things like trade in prestige for more powerful weapons from your god. But I had to iron out some difficult bugs and that took up some time. But they will come up the next update.

Sorry about your insomnia. I've had waking-up-tired problems for a while now, even though my kids have been sleeping through the night for a few years now. So I feel for you!

2018-04-03 16:50:18

Nah, the trek will do me some good so I'll walk.

One thing I was thinking might be nice to make quests matter is to have some of the rewards you can get from them better than stuff you can buy. Right now all the divine gifts are duplicates of good, but still duplicates, of other magical items. I was thinking perhaps in divine gifts or where you can trade this stuff in that there might be some hard-to-get, but truly unique things there.

Just thinking.

Happy working and happy gaming

2018-04-04 23:14:51

Just pushed the latest update. As above, the big new feature are more interesting cities in the premium section, including revamped temples. Temples in smaller cities may not have the healing pool in them. Larger cities are more likely to, as well as a confessional, in which you can choose to dedicate your team in service to the god or goddess of that temple. Once you have done that, some temples will have a nave which you can now enter. On one side you can tithe one tenth of your wealth to your god. Or you can go on a mission and deliver a message to a hermit. These will earn you "prestige points". Right now they just earn you badges. But in the future there will be a supplication room where you can ask your deity for favors and get your holy weapon improved.

To your suggestion of benefits you can't buy, I've been thinking of support additional monsters being summoned in combat. My first thought was a curse to a weapon so when you use it a creature is summoned. I have to admit, the original aim was comic: "Where are all these chickens coming from?" But if I can support monsters fighting on the player's side, it could be a blessing. For example, when in battle and using your holy weapon creatures are summoned to your aid.

Probably not chickens.

2018-04-06 23:46:03

I'm afraid I'm going to have to walk back some comments I made earlier!
6 Swords has been invited to participate in Amazon's monetization trial. We have accepted because it also comes with a promotional package, which is what we really need to get more users into the system.
We're still plotting out the changes, and since this probably won't change our decision to be non-commercial, our primary focus will still be on making a great game for the visually impaired community. At the current stage of discussion we're looking at creating a subscription model, where you pay a modest of fee (currently looking at $2 per month) for access to the premium area. Play in the regular overworld will always be free. We'll probably also look for opportunities to add in other in-game purchases. Things like if a character dies you have a resurrection option right after the battle, and things like that.
We want to grandfather in existing players who have spent quality time with the game and given us valuable feedback. We're talking about something like a number of months free proportional to the time you have been playing the game. That nicely gives our most dedicated players the most time. I've got to run some numbers and see how that all adds up.

We welcome any feedback on what you think would be good options!

2018-04-07 00:01:26

That's wonderful!

Haven't been playing for more than a few months myself but that doesn't bother me at all.  and can't wait to see what you pull out. The Amazon guys helping you out is a great thing to hear too.

I've still got a ways to walk before I get to the premium area, but going to getthere and expect maybe to have another level on me when I arrive. Right now I'm somewhere near 1' 27" degrees east 42" north, but that's not too rough a trek.  and I should be there soon enough.

also, you mentioned a while back that you only had divine gifts for the Roman gods. Has that changed? Because of my own leanings I'm a big fan of Aztec/Mesoamerican stuff myself and you said you had a region for that so was thinking of hanging around there for a while once I got into the premium world.

Also some more balance commentary.

I think you might want to cut the number of bugbears down in the groups they show up in. Currently I frequently find 25 or more of them in one place in many cases. They hit pretty hard for monsters that appear in that number, as several giants I've fought are about as hardy and hit about as hard. They almost always hit me with double-digit damage and things could go pretty bad with that many attacks being made at your characters.

If you do some test-fighting and think I'm wrong, on the other hand might want to increase the numbers of low-end giants that show up in groups, 11 giant trolls are significantly easier to deal with than 25 bugbears and 2 bugbear leaders.

But I like the slight monetarization ideas you have, particularly the option for instant resurrection after a fight if things go really bad, just for those times you think you can take the giants, enormous army of mooks, or flock of wyverns only to find the digital dice are against you and things go horribly wrong.

Thanks for making such a great game and glad to hear you're getting some help from amazon on this thing.

2018-04-09 03:18:59

At some point there will be tri-form arches to the premium area in each town and city in the starting world. I'm still waiting for details from Amazon about when I can release the new stuff and if it requires certification.

There is, indeed, a Mezoamerican region. It is called Yucatan, and it's an almost-island, only accessible by a narrow land bridge and by ferry. Head for 4 degrees 20 minutes South latitude and 7 degrees 16 minutes East longitude when you are in Enuma Elish.

To address your balance concerns, I've tweaked the system where monsters are assigned challenge ratings. Before it assigned, say, challenge rating 5 if an average group of those monsters would defeat a part of level 5 about 50% of the time. Upon reflection, prompted by your comments, I've moved that to somewhere around 30-40%, which seems more reasonable. When the next release comes out, let me know if you think it's made a difference.

And we just fought some Bugbears in the face-to-face D&D game I play and I thought the DM had his finger on the scales. But when I looked them up I found they really did do 2d8 damage. So I agree, they hurt!

I've just finished an internal re-vamp of the combat system. If I've done things right, there will be no obvious change. Rather the effort was to introduce the capability for there to be "monsters" on the player's side. I did a test run and created the sword "Stormbringer" which has a 20% chance of summoning a minor demon to fight for its wielder on every hit. This should allow for some fun things!

2018-04-12 16:31:38

This week's update has gone out. There's some behinds the scenes work on better integration with the premium content area, but I had to comment that off since Amazon hasn't rolled out their monetization stuff yet. Most of the rest was stuff that hasn't surfaced or bug fixes.

"About mission" and "About location" should work better now, at least on Google Home. Surface location descriptions are now more context aware, and take into account what direction you entered from.

2018-04-13 12:39:50

Hi.
I have just got a Sonos One speaker which supports Alexa. Alexa is totally new to me, and I'm just getting used to how skills works.
I have logged in on alexa.amazon.com and activated the 6 Swords skill, but I haven't given it a try yet. Is it really that simple to get started? I don't see any ways to pay for the game. How am I going to pay for the subscription, if I wanna do that later on? I have read through most of the topic, but don't find any answers to this question. My guess is that Alexa is so simple to use so it seems confusing at the beginning. smile
I have used other skills on Alexa. that didn't required me to activate the skills from the website. I don't get why I need to activate the game like this, and not just by saying enable 6  swords. I thought I had to create an extra account, but I don't see this option either. So I'm not sure if I'm doing something wrong. It would be annoying to launch the game to find out my progress is not being saved, or if I manage to start it in a wrong way which might brake something. I'm good at braking things, especially when I don't know what I'm doing. smile

Best regards SLJ.
Feel free to contact me privately if you have something in mind. If you do so, then please send me a mail instead of using the private message on the forum, since I don't check those very often.
Facebook: https://facebook.com/sorenjensen1988
Twitter: https://twitter.com/soerenjensen

2018-04-14 00:42:40

You should be able to activate by voice. But it doesn't really matter either way.
Don't worry about paying. You do that from within the game. And it hasn't been turned on yet anyway. I keep asking Amazon if they are ready to go, but they aren't so good at responding.
And, as for breaking things, that's a great skill! Quality Assurance is an underserved field in programming. :-) Please, do break as much as you can, and give me the feedback so I can fix the stuff.

2018-04-14 10:26:58

Hahaha, thanks for your answer. smile
Yep I was right. It is so simple so it seems confusing at the beginning.
The game looks great, but I haven't found any quests yet. I have traveled a lot, visited a lot of castles and killed a lot of enemies. Sadly, it could end up being pretty boring without any quests. Am I missing anything?

Best regards SLJ.
Feel free to contact me privately if you have something in mind. If you do so, then please send me a mail instead of using the private message on the forum, since I don't check those very often.
Facebook: https://facebook.com/sorenjensen1988
Twitter: https://twitter.com/soerenjensen

2018-04-20 13:57:51

6 Swords is a bit light on quests at the moment. If you go to a fort, castle or outpost, there's an office that will give you bounties. In the premium area there are temples where you can dedicate yourself to a patron god. That unlocks the nave, and you can get missions to do from there. We're working up to a larger plot involving two factions of a civil war. But there's a certain amount of groundwork that has to be laid first.

2018-04-20 16:17:51

have to go into something that has possibly changed since the last update. I am not sure of the programming so not sure.

Previously, when I got in a fight with a lot of really easy monsters at my level, my characters would make multiple attacks. For example, my characters would make six attacks against kobolds or Goblins, not including special tough ones like chiefs and stuff, which would often take a character's focus for an entire turn.

I got in a fight with like 180 goblins Yesterday and my heroes were only killing one goblin at a time, and it didn't seem like  they were making the big number of attacks they usually made against such small and weak opponents they normally immensely outclassed. If it has something to do with being ridiculously outnumbered (I'd never fought that many goblins at once but a fight with over 300 bats in the past still had multiple attacks) or maybe it just had to do with the sheer number of special goblin elites in that group (over 25) or whether despite not saying so my characters were just going after special ones. But they only made one attack per turn instead of many.

2018-04-21 10:36:12

Thanks for your answer. I'll try to find it.

Best regards SLJ.
Feel free to contact me privately if you have something in mind. If you do so, then please send me a mail instead of using the private message on the forum, since I don't check those very often.
Facebook: https://facebook.com/sorenjensen1988
Twitter: https://twitter.com/soerenjensen

2018-04-29 01:22:04

I did a retooling of the combat. I may have flubbed the multi-attack for less than one hit dice rule. I'll check on it. It's totally essential for slogging through those masses of goblins.
And, apologies; I've been a bit distracted recently with a machine transition and the monetization beta from Amazon. Not as many updates as usual.

2018-05-09 09:13:02

Hey, Jjaquinta.
I was wondering if you ever reached out to Rich De steno?
I know that I sent you a email a while ago.
I think that is games would be awesome on the echo.
I just got done playing the Oregon trail on the Amazon echo.
It has sound effects and music.

2018-05-18 08:18:09

OK so I just got an echo the other day. Any tips for a brand new player? I've done a little exploring and cleared out a dungeon, but I've yet to get a single gold piece. This thing seems massive from what I've seen so far. Think it's one of those games you can spend literally hours on.

Take care, it's a desert out there.

2018-05-18 14:59:32

in regards to what to do, get the best equipment you are able to get, as well as filling out your adventuring party with the best guys you can get. There is the premium area which is  not randomly set out but the other area in the overworld seems to be procedurally generated. Look out for gypsy caravans as they are a good source of good equipment, check out every shop you come to in every town you visit, and if there is time passing and you wind up at the same dungeon you did before, do it again.

2018-05-18 15:28:25

How do you get  to the premium area?

Take care, it's a desert out there.

2018-05-18 19:22:00

I think the premium area is at 10 minutes north and 10 minutes east, you enter there by going to that point and saying "enter" Also, the closer you are to roads, the safer you are. Usually animals don't have gold but a lot of monsters like dwarves have tons of it.

Also, unless you have money to bring your guys back, (100,000) don't try dragons, they are pretty tough and dragonbreath can do a lot of nasty damage. and frequently kill you from  full health. That might have changed as it has been a couple updates since I tried to kill dragons myself, but until you have really good stuff, my advice is don't try to kill dragons. Also specters, wraiths, and wights are creatures you find until you get a lot of favor with a particular god or goddess. If you don't, they can drain your levels from you which without godly help can be a major problem.

2018-05-20 18:54:46

I've been working to get the Amazon monetization stuff released. That's why there have been no new features in the past couple of weeks. On the plus side, many towns and cities will now have a "Tri Form Arch" that will lead to the "premium content" area. I'm still working on the logic to grandfather existing players in, so feel free to explore there for now.

2018-05-23 19:00:34

Joquinta

Played the game for quite a bit this morning and had a good time, but wanted to let you know of a monster area that is lacking and could use some tweaking.

I was in an area where I was constantly being told that it was super-dangerous. I know from walking around the overworld in areas like this that I had to run from almost everything and so things were pretty scary.

I came upon a dark fey grove in one of these very dangerous areas and went inside to see what sort of scary fey threats I'd be experiencing. The danger rating continued to be listed as extremely dangerous or 'you could die easily here." But all I found were at most a group of 34 sprites. I'm almost level 9 with all my party and I slaughtered these guys without a second thought or any significant trouble.

I think that when you add the next batch of monsters, it might be helpful to either add some high-difficulty fey or on the other hand, allow the max number of them you can fight to be much higher if you are higher level.

Anyway, just thought I'd let you know of something I noticed.

2018-05-23 23:38:02

Speaking of level, how do you see what level your guys are at? Haven't seen a way to tell that info yet. Also, I wish you could rename your initial team, I'd much rather go with a group named after my friends than a party of randos, but that's just me.

Take care, it's a desert out there.

2018-05-29 19:57:20

Maybe the sprites were a "warm up" monster. :-) When a generated region like that is populated, graduated monsters are put in. In the deepest part is put a "boss" which is usually a challenge level or two higher than the area you are in. Then, going out from there are put in lesser and lesser challenge monsters. So if it's a big place, you might get a few wimps. Of course, with a randomly connected place like a fey grove the "depth" may not be obvious.
Or, it might be the monster selection code will only "beef up" monsters to the original listing level in OSIRC. As we get more high level people I should look at that, and consider letting it "overclock" monsters to fill in gaps at the high level.

You should be able to see what level your characters are at by saying "about name". If you keep saying "more" after that it will tell you all sorts of details.

If you let me know your party name, I'm happy to rename your party or any of your characters. That sort of thing is hard to do in-game, because the recognition isn't quite up to it. But I can do it at the admin level.

2018-05-29 21:21:44

actually, just to let you know the toughest monster fight in the fey grove wasn't the boss fight. It was actually a really easy one I think near the entrance.

But thanks for explaining that.

2018-05-30 17:59:33

Six Swords is at it's one year anniversary mark. I should do something special. Any suggestions? A birthday shield or something?