Just killed Blood Raven....

[Endless Mike]

This is he first mod of D2 I've ever playd, and i admit to finding it highly cool.
Good:
- The blood moor is fairly hard. I was lvl 5 or 6 before I left it!
- The increased champion and U monster is great. I assume Nighmare and hell are even better. I did notice a lot of LE's though. . .
- Seems like drops are better, but it could be just me.
- Starting equipment is cool. Possibly super cool, just beacause when i roll into the Rogue camp as a pally, I look like a pally and not some hick.
- The giant spike monsters are neat, but are kind of easy. . .
- The Skeleton archers are pretty badass in the Moor.
- I like your crafting recipes a lot, but I haven't had a chance to use them yet.
- the swarms of spike shooters and fallen are great, and actaully make them a little tougher, even though they are still pushovers.
- The extra monsters and U monsters in the burial grounds was great. That zone neads to be a lot tougher, and what you did is a good start.
- like the imporoved gems.

Bad:
- After I left the Blood Moor, things got a little easy again (maybe I'm speaking too soon?)
- blood raven = easy raven. still.
- the crypt and the mausuleum seemed underpopulated compared to everything else.

Suggestions/ideas
-Mule feature maybe? If there was a guy in town who could hold stuff fro you untill you logged in again would be super cool. een if you had to pay him likea ton of gold, it would be great.
- disable gem specifics for char crafting, and make it so no matter waht gem they use, they get their class specific item. This way players won't build up tons of basically (less) useless gems and will be able to craft more.

Questions
- is there anything diffenerent about the drop rates of monsters or exp that I should know about?
- is there anyplace I can find a list of the crafting recipies in the mod?

[enq]

Thanks for giving the mod a go, I'm glad you are enjoying it!

Also thanks heaps for the feedback it's really helpful and the good news is that some of these things I have fixed and/or improved in the next version - which should be released in about a day or two

Good:
- The increased champion and U monster is great. I assume Nighmare and hell are even better. I did notice a lot of LE's though. . .
- Starting equipment is cool. Possibly super cool, just beacause when i roll into the Rogue camp as a pally, I look like a pally and not some hick.
- The giant spike monsters are neat, but are kind of easy. . .
- The Skeleton archers are pretty badass in the Moor.
- I like your crafting recipes a lot, but I haven't had a chance to use them yet.
- the swarms of spike shooters and fallen are great, and actaully make them a little tougher, even though they are still pushovers.
- The extra monsters and U monsters in the burial grounds was great. That zone neads to be a lot tougher, and what you did is a good start.
- like the imporoved gems.

Yeah there are quite a few LEB's and FEB's around - I had nothing to do with it, seriously
Starting equipment is now better than before with colours and sockets
You're right on the money about the looks I tried to have the characters look like they do when you select them on the character creation screen
The Quill Rat style monsters get pretty hectic once you start getting near the Outer Cloister

Bad:
- After I left the Blood Moor, things got a little easy again (maybe I'm speaking too soon?)
- blood raven = easy raven. still.
- the crypt and the mausuleum seemed underpopulated compared to everything else.

Once away from the areas immediately outside of each of the towns there are fewer monsters. This is intentional as I really wanted it to seem as though the towns were under attack – it does pick up as you progress further on though
I agree that the Crypt and Mausoleum should be harder as they are the source of the undead - I'll beef them up a bit
I'll give old Blood Raven a bit an improvement

Suggestions/ideas
-Mule feature maybe?
- disable gem specifics for char crafting, and make it so no matter waht gem they use, they get their class specific item. This way players won't build up tons of basically (less) useless gems and will be able to craft more.

Regarding the mule idea, while it would be very very cool to have, sadly there is no way I could do this – heavy code editing would be needed which is way over my head
And as for crafting... it's already been done in the next version!
There are slightly fewer recipes: 945 compared to the ~975 IIRC that there are currently.
They work in a similar fashion to the way Blizzard set them up: Caster, Blood, Hit Power, Safety and Deadly. I’ve just added two new styles: Elemental and Nature so each gem has a use in crafting and everyone has access to the recipes
I agree with you on the gem build up and nowhere to use them effectively - hopefully I've got the jewel drops right and crafting should be really easy to do

- is there anything diffenerent about the drop rates of monsters or exp that I should know about?
- is there anyplace I can find a list of the crafting recipies in the mod?

In the Blood more there is slightly higher exp from the Quill Rats and Zombies (so you get that head start and can actually start to take on the Skeletons )
The drop rate for set items is slightly higher and in general bosses do have quite a good chance to drop nice items. There are some forced drops from SuperUnique monsters (I'll be fixing that page up on the site also - currently it's at the bottom of the monsters page).
As for the crafting recipes I’ll be updating the site after release with some specifics on the new crafts but in the meantime the new descriptions that will be coming with the new readme, give clues to what will be the result – and if my own play testing is anything to go by, you will really like what comes out of that cube no matter what craft you use!