Lost Souls

[Myhrginoc]

Long time member Rattlecage has joined us on the dark side...burning the midnight oil making mods!

Lost Souls

Creator: Rattlecage
Patch Version: Diablo II Expansion 1.10 or 1.11x

Storyline:
No changes. All dialog will be changed to make it more interesting though. NPC's will also give hints about how to defeat certain monsters and also about runewords and cube recipes.

Items:
There will be at least 1 unique and 1 set version of every item. All magical affixes will be rebalanced and new ones will be added. I have already begun unique items and new magic prefixes. All runewords will also be changed.

Skills:
Characters will have 30 skills, and most of them will be new and play differently. So far, there are 15 druid skills done, with 15 more already in the works. Skills will be divided into two trees per tab, five skills in each tree. Example: Druid skills: Tab 1: Fire Tree: Lava Bomb, Flame Wave, Meteor Storm, Flame Shield, Hell Inferno. Tab 1 Cold Tree: Frozen Shard, Frost Nova, Glacial Tomb, Cold Grenade and Ice Age.

Monsters:
Monsters are smarter and more difficult. There will also be many new monsters waiting to challenge you. Monster skills have also been changed and if you are not careful, you will get an asskicking. Example: Fallen Shamans now have a powerful firestorm ability. Shadows steal life on hit.

Here are several screenshots:
album_page.php?pic_id=2223
album_page.php?pic_id=2230
album_page.php?pic_id=2889
album_page.php?pic_id=2894
album_page.php?pic_id=2895

Much of the planning (except for character skills) has already been completed, all that is left is the implementation.

[Rattlecage]

Hey! Sweet, I've got my own topic now!
Ok, here's the scoop:
25 of the 30 Druid skills are done. Once I finish the last five (tomorrow) I'll starting working heavily on new monsters and teaching old monsters new tricks.

Unique items are coming along slowly but surely.

I've also been working on new/modified Magical prefixes. Once those are done, I'll be doing Magical suffixes.

I'll keep you guys posted.

UPDATE: April 10 2008

All 30 druid skills are implemented. I've been play testing tweaking skills as I go along. I've also begun implementing new monsters.

Screen shots will be up in a few days.

Until then, here's a little bit more info:
The Druids three skill trees are as follows: Annihilation, Sunless Aeon and Pagan Rites.
Annihilation includes Fire and Cold skills, Sunless Aeon is Melee and Poison and Pagan Rites includes Summoning and Miscellaneous Support skills. All in all, the druid has a total of 26 brand spanking new skills, and four carried over from LoD.

Once I am finished with Act 1, I will move on to doing the Sorceress. In Lost Souls, the Sorceress will become the Machinist. She will be able to build robots and various turrets. She will also have several bow/weapon skills to create an interesting combination of builds. The Machinist is still in the planning stages, but you'll find out more once I start implementing her skills.

Until then, PEACE

UPDATE: April 11, 2008
Four new dev shots, showcasing some cool things Lost Souls brings to the table:
album_page.php?pic_id=2903
album_page.php?pic_id=2904
album_page.php?pic_id=2905
album_page.php?pic_id=2906

UPDATE: April 13, 2008
For the most part I'm done with Act 1. I've been adding more unique items as I go along and today I started working on skills for the Sor- I mean Machinist. Her level one bow skill is Rocket, which fires a homing missile from her bow.

Here are some more devshots:
album_page.php?pic_id=2909
album_page.php?pic_id=2910
album_page.php?pic_id=2911
album_page.php?pic_id=2912

PEACE!

April 15, 2008: ITEMS!
Alright! Time to talk about ZOMG ITAMZ!!!111!!1

Magic: Magic items have new and rebalanced affixes in Lost Souls. As can be seen in the screenshots above, some of these affixes are very powerful. There's one problem though. Magic items can also be cursed! Yes, Magic items have the potential to grant negative bonuses or, very useless bonuses. One of the affixes that can spawn on a magic items is "of Unusability" which sets the level required to 128 (max character level is 127).

Rare: Rare items are items that can spawn with more than two magical affixes. Rares are greatly enhanced in Lost Souls and have to potential to be more powerful than unique items. Also, unlike Magic Items, Rare items will NEVER spawn with cursed affixes.

Set: Item Sets in Lost Souls are overall more powerful/useful than in cLoD and can have magical properties that never spawn on Magic or Rare items. Single items are designed to be useful, but not as powerful as say, most unique items. It is when the set pieces come together that they become extremely potent.

Unique: Overall, unique items have been improved but there are none that are blatantly overpowered. So, no Buriza. Unique items can also spawn with properties not spawnable on Magic and Rare items, such as Crushing Blow and Deadly strike.

Next Time: Monsters

[Rattlecage]

This Mod is still being worked on. Sorceress and Necromancer skills are coming along this very moment. Once Sorc and Necro skills are fully implemented, I will finish up monsters and begin implementing more unique and set items.

In the mean time, here's the new title screen:
album_page.php?pic_id=2974

[freykin]

Hey there, just wanted to say your mod looks really interesting so far, I like the look of the new druid skills and am curious about how the sorceress has turned out.

Any chance you will want some playtesters at some point? I'd love to to help in that regard.

[Shakewell28]

i want to test this

[amit469]

wow mate, this mod looks really nice!!!
if u need testers as freykin said just pm message me!!!
i'd love to

cheers

[gogodanny]

wow looks really great! this mod still in development? I really hope so ...

[Rattlecage]

It's been awhile since I've posted, but this mod IS still in development. I've just been busy with other stuff. I'll have a few more updates within the week. Stay tuned!

[Phlebiac]

Give me a call when Barbarian skills are in .

[Phlebiac]

Sorry for Doubleposting.

[Rattlecage]

Ok, so no posts for a long time. This mod has been in development hell for the last few months because I've just been really busy with school. Now that it's spring break, the work load has started to ease up, so I will be able to work on this mod again. What I will do for character skills is instead of just working on one character at a time, I will develop all characters at the same time. That will make it a little less tedious for me. Stay tuned for future updates!


UPDATE:
Changes to Armor
Armor.txt is being reworked. Armors are being divided into heavy and light. Light armor has lower requirements, and a higher defense rating than heavy armor. Light armor is generally for casters/ranged characters and will be more likely to spawn with affixes for such. Heavy armor has higher requirements and lower defense than light armor, but also absorbs damage. Heavy body armors slow down movespeed as well. Heavy armor is generally for melee characters and will be more likely to spawn with affixes that help melee characters.

Armor Expertise
Every character class will have access to two passive skills that increase your armor expertise. One is for light armor and the other for heavy armor. The defense of armor increases based on your expertise You are only able to chose one or the other. You cannot put points into both. Besides, why would you want to put points into both? So you can be the equivalent of an armor transvestite?

Druid skills being redone... again.
I really wasn't too happy with how the druid turned out before. Too many skills that did pretty much the same damn thing. The druid is being reworked again, and so far, is much more fun to play as .

One Necromancer, coming right up!
Once I finish the Druid's cold tree (3 more skills) I'll start redoing the Necro. Unlike in vanilla, where he was just a straight up caster/summoning whore, the Necro of Lost Souls will become the Dread Knight; somewhat of a melee/caster combo.

More news plus screenshots coming shortly!

P.S. I know I lied about more updates coming within the week last time, but trust me, this time I PROMISE!

UPDATE 2:
Druid Cold and Fire skills done!
That's right. The druid's five fire and five cold skills are finished! I'm very happy with how they turned out and can't wait until I get to do more balance testing with them. Each skill behaves differently from the others and their effectiveness varies with different situations. Lost Souls is shaping up!

Necromancer skills underway
Now that I'm done with the druid (for now) I have begun to work on the Necromancer's unholy skills. Once I have those five done, I will begin his cold skills. The Necro is slated to inherit the druid's "Ice Age" skill from the previous test version. Here is a screenshot of one of the skills I have done so far: album_page.php?pic_id=3283

More updates coming soon!

[Rattlecage]

Necro almost 1/3 done
I'm about 1/3 of the way done with Necromancer skills. I'm currently working on his Unholy and Cold trees. I've got 2 more to do for each. Once I'm done with those, it will be back to the druid to do 10 more skills for him.

I can has summonz?
Once I finish the Necro's Unholy and Cold trees, I will start doing summoning and bow skills for the druid. The druid's new summons will have the same effect the druid's old spirits; i.e. grizzly will have oak sage aura, dire wolves will have heart of wolverine, etc. Once I finish these skills, it will be back to the Necromancer.

Armor.txt almost completely redone
I have worked tirelessly to split armor.txt into light and heavy armor, creating new base items when necessary. All I have left to do are boots, belts, pelts, auric shields and necro trophies. Pelts will recieve bonuses from both light and heavy armor expertise, whereas auric shields only gain bonuses from heavy armor, and trophies only gain bonuses from light armor.

Amazon class weapons removed
Why should the amazon get her own bows, javelins and spears, when the nonclass ones are good enough? I'm working on giving her a new set of class items, although I don't know what those will be yet.

More news and screenshots on the way!

[Rattlecage]

Four New Screenshots

Unique Items:
album_page.php?pic_id=3284
album_page.php?pic_id=3285

Heavy Armor:
album_page.php?pic_id=3286

New Necro Skill:
album_page.php?pic_id=3287

[Rattlecage]

I've decided to abandon this project for the time being. The D2 game engine is just too {filtered} for me to be willing to deal with it ant more. If metalstorm gets and Nef releases an "open source" version for us modders to dink around with, I'll jump back on this.

[onyx]

If you decide to resume the project, let me know and I'll unlock your thread.