Kasgoroth

I see what you mean and I've already thought about that, though I can't put it in math no matter how hard I try :lol: - so someone else gonna do it. The calculation that include both your current MANU LVL should give the blacksmith more chances to guess the hidden value as he LVLs up in MANU. example: Let's assume that the range of valid values stays at "0-50.000" and as your MANU-LVL you must come as close as 500 to the hidden value in order to see some improvements: MANU-LVL: 21 Hidden value = 4500 Whenever you choose to use a number over 5000 or under 4000 you will only get this very low chance of 1% (or maybe 5% ?) to create an enhanced item. Besides the advancement of % rises only slowly as you approach the hidden value (perhaps with 4300 your chance will only increase to 20%, and at 4450 to 50%, so at this MANU-LVL you'll have to be VERY close to the hidden value to get your higher chances). Now with higher MANU-LVL the range around the hidden value where the %-chance starts increasing is extended to 700. And so on... Of course the range decreases again if you try to make an item that requires a higher LVL to make it will you get reasonable chances of guessing the hidden value or at least coming close to it. You can play around with the values as long as you like, the valid range may be 0-1.000.000 instead of just 0-50.000, once we figure out the basics values can be adapted and improved by testing the system out. ---- As for Durability, it's a property for a weapon or armor that is quite often used in games (online or single-player). I believe that each game had different formulas for calculating the durability of a weapon/armor (it isn't as simple as giving a weapon only 130 possible hits and then it breaks). One way would be make a check each time you hit a monster/other player with that weapon for one durability point to decrease. e.g. if a weapon has 100 Durability it may break or become useless after 400 hits, or after 500 - it depends on luck and perhaps some other values you put into the formula. For a weapon durability means: how long can you use that weapon "efficiently/at full strenght/or at all", so as durability of a weapon drops it may or may not affect it's power (it's up to the game designer to decide which exact properties durability should have), but once it's at 0 the weapon will either break or just become useless and you'll have to repair it. For a piece of armor durability means: actually almost the same, only it affects it's ability to absorb damage. You may add certain LVLs where durability will affect your armor, e.g.: Plate Armor with Durability of 100 - gives you AR +5 As long as the durability of that armor stays over 70 the armor uses it's full potential. When it drops to 69 and goes down it loses it's armor bonuses. Perhaps by 1, so at DUR 50-69 it will absorb only 4 damage instead of 5, at 30-49 only 3 damage, and so on. It's totally up to the game designer how exactly DUR will work in a game, but I hope you got the basics. Have I left anything out this time? It's a shame that I can't create a functional formula for you, but here I come to my limits *g*, so if you Knightbane or anyone else actually undestands what I'm trying to suggest here and is able to put it in math I'd definitely love to see it. It would be also quite interesting to know if the implementation of such a system into EL is possible at all :wink:

I think that you have just eliminated the need for me to open another thread LOL :!: , really. I had a couple of ideas that differed with your first post a lot, so I though about making a new thread but your last reply made me believe that it's actually better to continue yours :wink: My argument with the "+2 Damage" vs "+4 Damage" was actually more targeted at the fact that weapons/armor, or in fact ANY item in EL is created within seconds if you have the ingredients needed. Combine that with the fact that I replied to your "regulated bonus system"-post and what you'll get is a blacksmith who buys tons of steel bars (or produces them himself) and makes 50 swords with "+4 Damage". For a Two Edged Steel Sword you'll need 2 iron and 16 steel bars, so 50 swords would require 800 steel bars and only 100 iron bars. If you've been trading with middle-to-high-lvl players you know that means almost nothing to them (especially if they produce the bars themselves and don't need to pay for them or have friends who smelt bars for them). This means one high-lvl blacksmith could make large quantities of high-quality swords in a quite short amount of time covering ALL demand from the current playerbase. Even if he'd sell them for 20K each (or even cheaper) he would still make a profit. I hope I made it clear to you, though it doesn't matter now that you dropped the "regelated bonus system"-idea in favor of a system based on chances. I just felt the need to explain myself :roll: Anyways, what I had in mind is quite similar to what you have already suggested, or could be handled as an addition. For my examples I'll take the formula you've been using: N...................Level to make item. Nc..................Current Manufacturing Level What if we had some values to choose from while making weapons? e.g. next to the MIX button (or over it, whatever... just imagine an advanced manu-menu) you'll have boxes where you could put numbers in out of a certain range, like: - 0-50.000 for Strenght - 0-50.000 for Special Monster Bonus - 0-50.000 for extra Durability and so on, there can be more (or completely different) modifiers that may affect the manu-result, just be patient and wait for my explanation *g*. Now before you do your mix, assign the numbers (just by choosing one out of the valid range), like this: - 340 for Strenght - 4500 for Special Monster Bonus - 7600 for extra Durability then you MIX. The unique modifiers the weapon gets right after the mix (like "+4 Damage", or "+2 to Hit", OR "+3 to Hit Goblins") will depend on the numbers you assigned for the 3 special values (as above), this can work as an additon to your suggestion Knightbane (not instead of it). Though I haven't explained yet what I mean with those modifiers :wink: So to come to the point: each item you'll try to produce can have fixed hidden values (in my example out of those 3 above) for a successful enhancing attempt based on the players Nc e.g As you reach LVL-30 in MANU your char will get fixed (hidden) values assigned for each weapon/armor you can create with your MANU skill based on your Nc of the item. example: to make a very good "+# Damage" sword you'd need to enter the number "3450" into the first of the three modifier boxes, thus Strenght. But you won't know this perfect number, you can only guess it while you are still LVL-30 in manu. If you enter "200" for Strenght you might get a 1% chance to increase the damage done by the sword by a number between 1-3. Coming closer to the hidden value of "3450" for that sword you'll get a higher chance of creating a powerful item. So to say, if you happen to enter the value 3300, which is quite close to "3450" you'll get a 70% chance of giving the sword you'll produce a damage of a higher range, like 5-13. Then after you LVL-UP your MANU to 31, all those hidden values for ALL items you are able to produce will be calculated again, by using the same formula with an aditional modifier so ppl won't be able to backtrack the calculation. So to give you one more example: You are 30 in MANU and you're trying to make an enhanced Iron Sword. - The hidden Strenght-value for the Iron Sword would be 3450. - The hidden Special Monster Bonus-value for the Iron Sword would be 25700. - The hidden extra Durability-value for the Iron Sword would be 35.600. You enter the following numbers into the value-boxes as followed: - 3.000 for Strenght - 700 for Special Monster Bonus - 40.000 for extra Durability Accoring to those numbers the chances to enhance the Iron Sword would be: - Strenght: 60% chance of making an Iron Sword with "+3-6 Damage" (where any number between 3 and 6 will be assigned randomly) - Special Monster Bonus: as you completely missed the hidden value here, you'll only get a 1% chance to get a weapon with "+1-3 To Hit a certain kind of monster" - extra Durability: you are close to the hidden number, but not close enough, you'll only get a 30% chance to increase the weapons Durability by any number between 1-5 I'm well aware that I haven't provided any real formula, but unfortunately I'm really not so good in math, to be honest I'm quite bad in calculating numbers and resolving formulas :roll: but I hope I could at least explain my idea, so if the dev's like it, or at least find parts of it interesting I'm sure they can come up with a decent formula for it.

rebootedrock, you NEVER need numbers in a game, in fact in 90% of all the online games (if not 99%) out there you won't be able to open a char with a number in it's name. I have the feeling some of you ppl never played another MMOG before... And for names like "jggeidfg" there can always be ppl who report them, no one who seriously intends to play a game would want his char to be called like jggeidfg... :?

Just to support both suggestions I'll post a reply, but you should know by now what Ent thinks about this...

You ppl got so excited, but don't you see the flaws in a "regelated bonus system"? I'd like to see bonuses, but in a unexpectable way (I'll explain later when I write my own idea down). First imagine what's gonna happen with those weapons made by LVL-32 manufacturers if there are a few LVL-52 manufacturers around... No one would care to buy LVL-32 manufactured items, everyone will wait for those few ppl who reached the 52-manu to make them +4 Damage Bonus swords. Would YOU want a "+2 Damage" sword if you can have a "+4 Damage" one? You just need one high-lvl manu-guy who will sell his swords at reasonable prices and no one will buy the "weaker" versions. I wouldn't favor a predictable crafting system... that's boring and actually the same as just making new kinds of weapons with better stats. And second even thinking about LVL-100 manu is insane :lol: you'll never reach that state, unless you completely forget what RL is for a year or so... make yourself one of those toilet seats receiving injections of drip-feeding to keep your mortal body alive, and voila! You're a suuuper-duuuper blacksmith, one if it's kind. I don't wanna dis you Knightbane, you have good ideas, I'm just listing the flaws in such a system *g*, don't take it personal. I may be wrong of course - that's also a possibility :wink:

I didn't ask for you opinion Hosan, rather for experiences from ppl who actually casted the spell and I doubt you with your 18 in magic ever did. Though I've looked up the website a couple of minutes later (after my reply) I still decided not to add anything because the site offers a rather vague info and I hoped for a reasonable answer not a flame. You missed the point dude. So any ppl who tried it out?

lol, yes Cicero I remembered that one right after posting, looked it up, but I thought I'd leave it for the staff to correct Btw: what will you do if a normal player gets copied? I suppose nothing, as you don't mention anything about it in the rules, which would be actually quite unfair, don't you think? (like let them their freedom, as long as they do not harass me)

ShadowKnight I have to disagree (although it's a rather pointless discussion since I know Ent disagrees with me *g* so you guys can rest assure that no one's going to take your numbered or "I.R.-BABOON" accounts away :? nor force you to change them). First of all, some games I know impose naming policies that work quite well and manage to create at least a proper visual environment to the virtual worlds they offer. In fact the restriction of entering numbers is most common (I will bring only one example - EverQuest... with thousands of users I must add, not just 200 or 500) as well as the use of GM (GameMasters) in-game who watch out for ppl who violate the naming policies. No, you won't change the ppl, but you can at least try to give the world a better look, a touch of fantasy if you like. Taking away numbers and watching over the world does help and don't tell me you'd like to see a "ShadowKnight1" or "5h4dowKnigh7" running around in-game. Come to think of it, Ent was offended by this Entropy2 guy - ok this dude was banned for other things as well, but according to EL's naming policy at least naming his char like that was quite a valid choice... You won't be able to use the SAME name for a character or as your Forum-nick in MOST of online services that the internet has to offer (I'd say 99% of them) - provided names are NOT case sensitive of course. With numbers you keep seeing scenes like this: So much for a world of fantasy... And excuse me... if someone could come up with Sephiroth, don't you think he/she/it can also think up another good name? Besides restriction to rules may vary, my main concern was with numbers, you extended it with names being more or less "original". While I agree that in some cases it's a nice rule to have, I have no problems with a SonGoku running around as long as there is only one (although there are exceptions) - so what? Most of our names are already taken from somewhere (be it a book, a movie or another game). You think Entropy or Cicero are so unique? They aren't worldwide, but in EL they are (and they do sound cool btw *g*, they fit into this world or any other...). In Ultima Online for example names are also not made unique (but you surely won't see any numbers there), there was quite a funny story where 10 or 20 chars named "Barney" were hiding around a shrine attacking anyone who came close enough (surprise! *g*) and the most interesting thing is that they actually RolePlayed and it was fun (well except for those who got killed that is *g*). If you like, you can read about it HERE. So as you see different approaches have been made throughout the history of MMOGs, but none of them AFAIK allowed numbers. You wouldn't name your son Jonny5 IRL.... or would you? To sum up my point is: numbers in nicknames are teh evil.... Asking ppl to use fantasy names for their chars is also not such a bad idea, it can only have a beneficial effect on the world EL is becoming, but unfortunately I doubt it will ever happen here. So Njoy your stay, dear

dang... the last post was mine. Now the Forum-bug 's got me to :shock:

whoot... I do have lots of posts to read and while I'm at it: I'd love to read this TO-DO list. If I knew what Ent considers implementing and what not I wouldn't waste lots of time on theories no one cares about :wink:

Adding numbers to nicknames is just a lame excuse for lack of creativity :twisted: It is very common in computer games to use nicknames (fantasy nicks when speaking of RPGs) which are suppose to be rather unique. Therefore in most games you're given the option to enter letters, but not numbers and so far it worked quite well everywhere else. Changing your name in RL is a serious decision, but the virtual worlds of online games give you unlimited possibilities, unless you use something very common, if not to say hyped like Darth Vader... :roll:

How much gold do you get in exchange? 1gc per bone? If that's the case I would suggest a higher value. So, can anyone give an answer?

Yes me for example Numbers are good, but not in names of characters in-game. I'm sick of all those "L337SuX0r"s or "Mimi123456"s out there, that just ruins the gameplay and has absolutely nothing to do with a fantasy world anymore. It rather reminds me of being in a prison (I'm sure you can relate that to some movies *g*): - Hey wat's ya name?! - 12345 sir! :roll: And while I see that Ent wants EL to be as free as possible IMHO this is at least one of the things that should be restricted. But... it's for dev's to decide of course... as for me I don't ever speak to ppl who have numbers in their char-names and I don't help them, no matter how friendly they are, I don't care - I just don't feel comfortable around them, that's all.. no offense.

While lvl-ing up my manu I noticed that Trik gives me more plat than he said he would. Trik: "I'm willing to pay you 1 platinum coin for a Chain Gloves" However I sold him 21 Chain Gloves and got 30 plat in return. I tried to sell other amounts until I ran out of bars, here: - for 1 Chain Glove Trik will give you 1 plat. - for 5 Chain Gloves Trik will give you 7 plat. - for 21 Chain Gloves Trik will give you 30 plat. I suppose it's a bug, since Trik didn't mention giving me more money for larger quantities of weapons.

It's for you to decide.

Perhaps we could use some more female-armor? I mean c'mon, I don't think the ladies are feeling comfortable under the armor initially made for us guys :twisted: I know that would mean a hell lot of new work for Roja, so it's more like wishful thinking :wink: perhaps it might be possible to do in some far future? PS: I know that leather armor (and I guess any other) takes the contours of the female body, but I was talking about giving the same types of armor a bit different looks for female characters.

Excellet I planned to post this suggestion myself, but then an old friend visited me and I was off for almost 2 days... reading all the new posts right now (whooot, "suggestions" had the most new posts! *g*) I think numbers and special signs in names ruin the gameplay A LOT. Personally I don't PM people who have names like "l337SuXX0r", even if they ask for help - I just feel uncomfortable to be drawn that far from the gameworld. That ain't fantasy anymore... Also there should be a rule that would forbid ppl to use names like "LittleBitch" or... well you get the idea. That shouldn't be hard to implement, just give those with SuX0r-names some time (like Hosan said 2 weeks seem reasonable) to rename themselves after this time they will only be able to login if they change their names. If this isn't done now, it will be harder to do in future with more new players joining EL every day.

We will end up with a crowd of ppl doing deep knee bends I suppose... :lol:

@sirdan: oh, he can still talk to you, but with filters this conversation will be quite one-sided: ------------- I call this short episode: Filter kicking in ------------- sirdan: smeg smeg? DealerOfDeath: Is there something you wanted from me sir? sirdan: sme smeg smeg smeg smeg smeg! DealerOfDeath: I'm very sorry sir, but you don't seem to speak the common language of this world, you may want to visit the library of WSC and study a bit. sirdan: sme... ------------------------------ :lol: :lol: I agree with dealer, but it's still good that ppl are allowed to choose between using and disabling the filter.

Well, but don't you think it would give a proper fantasy feeling to the gameplay if you were to use an item to teleport, instead of typing a command? How about a ring/amulet/medallion/whatever for the house owner with infinite charges? An untradeable item that you will never lose? My point is to make things more real within the game, to give you the feeling you are in a different world, rather than having constant reminders that you are only playing... EDIT: my answer was to your message that contained only "Anti-Ring is the message here good sir" *g*, that's unfair you edited your post - cheater!

I think it's a good one, only I would suggest binding this "feature" to an item, like an additional ring that can be bought somewhere and worn only by the owner of that house. But with the same effect as with normal rings, meaning one-time use. Let it cost 1plat as all the other rings and it shouldn't be a problem for ppl owning houses to to buy those things. Why a ring? Well, after the "#beam me up" command is removed, house owners would get an unfair advantage over normal players if they get the ability to teleport an infinite amount of times without the need to use items for that purpose. I mean buying a ring shuoldn't be a problem for players with a good income.

well.. If races with different abilities will ever be introduced to the game (as of now, being a dwarf just gives you another look, but no advantage/disadvantage over a human - but that is how Ent wants it to be IIRC), I would suggest an option for p2p players to change their RACE anytime they want, for a certain amount of platinum. BUT every time they change the race, their stats should be rearranged according to some kind of system so a character who played a Dragon (wheee.. dragons... *g* I wanna be a black one too - me evil :twisted: ) won't end up with the dragon's positive abilities - like higher strange and so on. I think that would be really cool - on one hand we will get the chance to be anything we want (as Ent wants it t be), and on the other we can have different races with different abilities. The whole process should be visualized though... something like a Race-Changing-booth perhaps? (think of Futurama *hehe*) Oh, and concerning Dragons: there should be male and female Dragons of course! That would be so awesome *dream on*

@Kami: well.. you definitely have your points there, but you base your ideas more on NOW, on the current state of the game, whereas I suggested this for future. So the problem with lagging crowds "may" disappear one day, with a better server perhaps, improved code or both. Other games also have situations where masses of ppl fight against each other or against monsters... of course the games I'm thinking of have a lot more money for development and better servers, but I think EL is also trying to reach that state, where dozens of ppl can interact with each other without lagging like hell. As for "uncertainty and surprises", we could need more of those... yes, but your suggestions introduce other problems. e.g: if monsters all of a sudden attack WSC they will most likely find a ghost town, because anly few players ever go to WSC, mostly newbies to middle-lvl players anyway. So perhaps there will be 3-5 ppl who get killed or manage to flee into houses, but where's the fun? It's like you'll be implementing a feature no one can really enjoy and see it happen. So after WSC gets attacked and you send your "blue message" into the world telling other players where the monster are, the same thing will happen as you described - players will first gather at storage places to change their gear and then just go to WSC - where is your surprise? There is none. I probably know what you will say now: what if monsters attack a storage place, like VOTD? There will be at least 10-20 ppl on that map - and here's the surprise. Ok agreed, BUT first of all such attacks would favor only those ppl who hang around storages all the time, instead of exploring the world and second you might end up with ppl being pissed off because they lost their precious items. Myself I agree with you and I wouldn't rant even if I lose all my armor and weapons, because I think that whenever you lose something you get the chance to gain even more, and it's fun to do so, but a lot of ppl will disagree.... unfortunately. On the other hand... hmm... you could balance it by saying that being in the open you risk an attack, as opposed to the storage place in Portland for example. But then again, one problems stays... players who like to travel and explore will be disadvantaged, because they will never be the first to experience such an attack - rings of teleportation might help, but the outcome of this situation will depend of the capacity of EL's server to handle the crowds of ppl and monster. With rings you'll have dozens of ppl teleporting to the place of attack in to time. Maybe adding a special creature to the monsters, an orcish shaman (?) who will prevent the use of teleportation rings in this area as long as he stays alive? So ppl will at least be forced to take the "longer" road by using the ships... btw: I never said attacks should occur at Isla Prima, IP should stay a safe place, after all it's a separate island. Of City Guards & Scouts: if you try to base your arguments on realism and bring example of how it was handled in RL, then I can counter with a lot of stuff. But it will get to complicated.. taking account of everything is unnecessary. Guards can see pretty far from their walls, there can be sentries all over the island to watch for hostile activities (as it would really happen IRL if a city get's attacked by some creatures at least once, ppl will start making up preventative measures to avoid being overrun the next time). As I said before, owners of magic shops, can have crystal balls (that's more fantasy than RL now *g*), and so on and so forth.... an endless list comes to my mind. The bottom line is.... if dev's have no intentions to implements raids into the game at any time, just talking about it now won't bring us far. Although I enjoy the conversation, the RAID-SUGGESTION is based on so many in-game things that may change as development goes on and with new features added we may end up with a completely different concept for the raids.

hmm.. yeah... black might really fit manu... but then... I'll have to lvl-up manu to be able to wear that cape!! not for the manu-skill bur fot the cape! *g* As for the manu cape itself... there should be a better bonus and above all a realistic one, other than giving you the ability to use 1 leather instead of 2, how would the cape do that? :?

@theghost19: A couple of good rudiments IMHO, but they don't really fit in here. An MMORPG is a constantly evolving world adding the element of conclusive death would ruin EL for most players since only few would find the will to start over again. You can't make it "real-life", there are so many aspects that are different. The idea itself is not that bad, just recently I've read somewhere about a game that implemented that feature, but it doesn't fit into EL and you should concetrate on improving EL (not ask for a completely different concept) when you make a suggestion FOR EL. Concerning points of no return in EL and your example with Garis - this has nothing to do with the gameplay-system of EL, you don't need to change anything within the gameplay to make a good quest. If you want non-linear quests, then you could write one and send it to the appropriate staff member (Slayton, who is one of the Questwriters for EL) or just wait until someone else does it and hope that the quest turns out to be interesting. We need more challenging quests, but that's up to the Questwriters... @Kerrighan: basically I like the ideas, would be fun if some of them get implemented, BUT I don't agree with you saying: "...it's ok for some things like combat but should be this way for some other skills...", because it isn't ok. Combat makes out a big portion of the gameplay and it definitely has to be improved the way some of us suggested it.