trollson

Yes, I admit I am brilliant at times It would be rather useful to have a few 'object' creatures in the game now; whos only purpose would be to serve as a barrier. For example, a bolder or rubble 'creature' could act as a rock fall, blocking corridors, and have to be 'killed' (dug out or broken down) before it was possible to pass through. Minor return damage as with mining. It would 'spawn' in more dangerous mines and caves. Similarly a 'door' creature to block access, which must be broken down to get through. This would have to spawn in a specific place and orientation to work though.

Letting people in to your room: This may be a difficult one to handle in the current game. Having a key is a good idea, but it would somehow have to be a 'unique' item, which I have only seen in quests (as non-material items, such as the flower in the leather quest). Although if you have a key, then let it be tradable (stealable!)... Then you really have to be careful handing them out. The only easy way to implement access would be by invitiation; stand by the door and '#knock fred' to enter fred's room, and fred would get the choice to open the door (so long as they are in the room). This would get around issues of whether the caller also had a room in the same block. You shouldn't be able to kick out characters in your room though. If they go off line then they shouldnt reappear in the room of course. They should leave when asked, but we've all had guests linger too long. If the worst comes to the worst, call the police (read: moderators). Skill training I've no objection to a character training a skill while in the room. They should be able to do anything they can do when in range of one of the public storage NPCs -- this would clear some space in these areas! Assuming the rooms have some perminant store. What shouldn't be allowed is a combination of features which can be expoited to unfairly level-up. Minor things like ready food ('use' food on table, non-harvestable) are probably ok. The bed may act as the regenerating perk or cloak, which characters can already get and would not be cumulative, so should be ok as well. New skills which require fixed equipment (room features) to use are an interesting idea. Although it may be argued that if you can smelt ore and cast swords without a fixed furnace and forge, then what skills would justify fixed equipment? Maybe some fixtures could reduce the ingredients list? A forge could, say, account for 2FE in any manu process (Iron would then just take 7 ore and 3 coal to produce). Or maybe add a bonus to the effective level in determining success. I like the idea of a wardrobe. I believe that currently you have to pay in hard cash for an appearence change? If so, then to preserve income for the Hosts, a wardrobe could just let you switch between changes in clothes which have been purchased? Payment Favor a large initial sum, and a smaller monthly rental. Characters could be absent from the game for a while (as RL interceds), so could rental charge be skipped if the character is not used for a while? (Esp. if the room contains 'payed-for' features). Large initial sum forces the player to think carefully about the room and fittings. The smaller monthly charge covers the occasional 'hard times'.

We haven't established what damage a shot from a firearm would do. My guess would be moderate damage but with a high critical damage (as an impaling type attack). Early guns did not have a very high mussle velocity -- a sling shot was actually faster and carried more kinetic energy -- but like the bow required an awful lot of skill! Possible outcomes of firing a shot: Fail to fire (don't lost shot) (high probability?) Gun blows up in face (damage self, may lose gun). Miss wildly (most probable). Hit, flesh wound, moderate damage. Critical hit, high damage, ignore armour etc. Even if fire rate cannot be limited further than the 'use' limit (1/sec), then the effective rate of hits can be limited by adjusting the 'miss' rate. Since this is not a skill dependant process, the only factors here are probable the weapon used. Since the character is wielding a gun instead of a melee weapon, they would also be handicapped if directly attacked. A lot of this would depend on how missile weapons in general are to be implemented. Anyway my original premise was that firearms are a bad idea in this type of setting, and it is best left to magic to occupy this particular niche. However, it is interesting to try to work out how they could be introduced without unbalancing the game. Time for sleep... Addendum: I do see your reasoning roren, but I feel that if guns (hand cannons) required a high skill to use it would make them something else -- such as the effects of spells, which may be a better interpretation. There use or effect can be limited in other ways while allowing them to fit into the same technological/economic niche without having an overwhelming impact.

Who said anything about a quick rate of file? Guns have a slow rate of fire (compared to longbow), though possibly higher than a crossbow (depending on type). You can already stock up on 'ring of damage' if you wish. Do you see this as a problem in the current game? The control here would be the same -- supply of the weapon and the shots. As for killing high level players easily; that was a consequence of firearms once they became developed enough to be reliable weapons -- any peasant could pick up one and take out a Noble Knight. ...which, incidentally, is why I don't like them in fantacy/medieval games!

Nearly but not quite... Their use could be treated in the same way that rings are used -- that is, the skill in a 'ring of damage' is applied in its construction, not in its use. Imagine that a gun consists of two parts -- the weapon, which must be weilded as normal, and the bullets and charges, which we could merge into a single 'shot' item. The shots are stackable, and carried (in the quick access boxes). The character fires the gun by 'using' a shot. This gives the possibility of different types of gun while keeping the same shots. Whether a knowledge (ie, book reading) is required before a character can use a Gun is another matter, depending on how we may restrict their use (other than restricting their manufacture). No that was the bit I was objecting to. The point of guns was that they did not require high levels of skill to use. Given that a bow in the hands of a skilled archer is a far more potent weapon than an early firearm, why would anyone use the gun? Less damage, less range, less accuracy...

Wrong way around -- the point of guns (and to a lesser extent crossbows) was that they moved the skill requirement from the front line soldier to back-room industry. Gun use was essentially unskilled. The inherent inaccuracy of the early gun meant that hitting the target was mostly a matter of luck (and aiming at big targets nearby!) -- you cannot really learn from the experience to improve a related skill. If early firearms where present in EL they shouldn't require any skill, since the weapons were so inaccurate that skill didn't come into it, but their use would require a knowledge to be learned. They would be more akin to rings as usable items (maybe require gun to be equipped, 'use' bullet/charge item).

Early guns and grenages The problem with early (late medieval) guns is that they where often more dangerous to the firer than to the intended target -- with terrible accuracy and a prepensity to explode in your face. Comparing these guns to, say, longbows -- the longbow has a greater range, rate of file, and damage, but requires a highly skilled user. You had to force you peasants to practice archery every Sunday if you wanted a competent archery detachment. Or recruit Welshmen. If you really want 'firearms' and 'bombs' in a fantasy-medieval setting, dress then as magic items. Black power was the work of devilish Alchemists at least!

There is a current topic on General Chat about monster drops, which suggests increasing the amount of gold dropped as compensation for other recent reductions. Would it be more interesting for monsters to drop other valuables rather than just gold coins? Why should monsters carry just cash, unless they have a thriving monster economy (not necessarily impossible). Perhaps part of their cash drop could in polished gems instead -- "shiny pretty things". There should be an NPC who would buy these (if not already), to establish their minimum worth, or they could be sold to Crafters to ease off the sandpaper crisis. Addendum: Unlike gold, gems take space and have mass. So fighters may have to come in from the fronteers more often to trade or store their haul. Obvious bonus to the lowest ranking skill of the Crafter! Prices at which NPCs will buy polished gems need to be established.

Model a stationary, siege, or other fixed weaponary as a 'creature' with limited movement and (depending on type) a ranged attack. This would allow it to be 'summoned' into existance by a high level manufacturer. The only issues then are: How to direct its fire or attack (you can't direct summoned creatures to attack a particular foe at the moment?). Although it could be well armoured, it would have little other defense against direct physical attack, difficult do defend unless on a multi-combat map. When taking about siege weaponary, I am thinking primarily of the following types: Ballistia -- the Roman large crossbow-like device. Man portable bolt thrower. Line-of-sight ranged attack. Catapults (including trebuche) -- rock (etc) throwers. Indirect (arched) ranged attack. Battering ram types -- direct attack; these require some form of mobility. Actually, with respect to aiming and firing, this could be done by having each type of weapon 'creature' behave in a particular manner, seeking out an appropriate type of target (battering rams would seek out 'door' creatures).

One the subject of swearing and substituting smeg... Have any of you actually looked up the derivation of that word?!

One observation (of many)... The relationship between brute strength (might) and damage does not hold true for all melee weapons (only really crude crushing weapons?). Although for heavier weapons fatigue is the more serious issue in long fights (as I recall from my re-enactment days...). It would be interesting, and may add variety to fighter physiques, if some weapons where capped in terms of might-bonus damage, but used perception to increase the change of critial hits. Take for example slashing/impaling weapons, such as dagger and rapier. Increased strength should not increase the damage they can do beyond a certain point, but perception and coordinate (already a factor) could increase the change of a critical, hitting a weak or vital part and impaling. Back in my AD&D days (80s) we modified the (then) combat rules to include the 'speed' of weapons and the encumberance of armour into a variable attack rate. This had dramatic effects on the Fighter types in our group(s) -- as some abandoned the heavy armour and great swords for nimbler rapier and leathers. It added a lot more flavour and variety to a game that was getting rather steriotyped and stagnant.

Well, if there's a spell to decrease both positive and negative effects, there should be a spell to increase them. Take the damage hit in exchange for increased change of finding the stones...

I don't think that longer lists of names are really necessary, though a few other categories would be nice -- such as the all-rounder list suggested some time ago, where characters would have an 'underall level' of their lowest skill level, and be ranked by this (still with the highest levelled characters at the top). Instead of increasing the length of the lists, I would be interested in seeing the distribution of various skills, so that players can see where their characters fit in the overall population. For example, produce percentile tables for skills*. This would give the percentage of characters at or below a given skill level, and is relatively easy to compute. However, to avoid bias by spam characters, only include characters with a OA over some minimum (20?). It would also be interesting to see the overall distributions in levels between the different skills. You cannot make many assumptions about the difficulty or ease of a skill from the top few highest ranked characters, since these usually represent statistical anomalies with little bearing on the overall population. *If you read my other posts, it may seem like I am obsessed with this statistic! I have found it very useful for this sort of thing though. Spot the mathematical modeller...

If there was an NPC buying polished gems for a reasonable price (and I must admit that I haven't looking into this), then that would form a minimum price for the stones. What do you think a reasonable base price for polished gems should be? I did some calculations a while ago for the cost-to-manufacture * for most items. For most gems this was approximately 30gc, except diamond was about 60gc; this due to the price being dominated by the cost of buying sandpaper. This doesn't account for time or effort, or demand of the required skill levels, which are less deterministic. Given that NPCs traditionally buy stuff for less than it cost to make, polished gems would have prices something like 10/20/30/40gc. * Cost-to-manufacture is based on what the character would get for selling the components at NPC prices, and/or the cost of buying unmanufacturable/harvestable components. A 75% success rate (from loss of materials) is included, as well as a nominal amout for food.

I think that gems should be a direct substitute for gold coins, based on some NPC established sale price.

Just a quick thought from reading Enyo's thread on undroppable swords. Could an undroppable item be made using a Rostogol stone as a component? The undropability would only apply to the item created of course; not the rest of a character's inventory. I don't know enough about the process of equiping modable weapons to see if this is feasible with the current process, since there would be little point in making an undroppable sword if that was its only property!

So I'll have to stockpile any I make for the timebeing... zero so far (counted them twice) Like a (cumulative) "careful guy" perk then?

The load would depend on the crime. If we assume people will go AFK, then larger loads would be applicable. How about disabling the 'stop on event' when breaking rocks in prison? If a prisoner goes AFK, they could get hit my multiple rockfalls and killed -- leaving their deathbag next to characters of ill repute. Rider to this -- Don't take away characters equipment when they go to prison. If they are loaded down already, then rock breaking will take even longer (and more to lose if they accidentally die). I would assume that there is no food in the prison either. A possibly amusing addition to an EL penal system would be prison uniforms, including ball & chain and manicles. While a Mod could reset the offending character's clothing colours to orange or arrow-stripes, it would be more useful if there were items which could only be 'equipped' and 'unequipped' by a Mod (ie, the player could not remove them by themselves). This could be related to 'cursed items' discussed elsewhere. For example: Body slot: Prison tunic, arrow stripes. Legging slot: Prison pants, arrow stripes. Feet slot: Ball and chain; large encumberance, reduced mobility. Hand slot (L&R): Manicles; encumberance and reduces dexterity. These would prevent the wearing of armour or equipment in the same slot of course!

Guild storage would have to solve the problem of concurrent access. Either by limiting access to one character at a time (need different interface to per-character storage), or some lower level locking of transactions. Not trivial, but not impossible to coordinate.

I did not consider levelling as a reason to have rentable rooms, as I for one find levelling a very unsatifactory form of play in an RPG. I was far more interested in having a meaningful home for our characters, more than just a place they regularly go. Having persistant storage is probably the only easy way to make a place distinct (as oppose to just being a room that looks the same each time you visit). Being able to open your chest or wardrobe and finding your things still there would be a good feeling, IMHO. Bed rest recovery: What is the difference between using a bed to hasten recovery of hitpoints and mana, and creating the necessary healing or mana recovery potions? Surely the latter case is also earning experience in alchemy and/or potion for yourself or another character. Manufacture in Rooms: With a personal storage in-room, large manufacture projects (and I include alchemy, potions, and crafting in this) can be conducted there. One positive consequence of this (IMHO) would be to clear some space around the public storage NPCs. These areas can become rather crowded at times! I don't bother going near the storage in VotD anymore... I don't believe that the combination of a personal room and storage would, by itself, gives characters anything they cannot already get from squatting around a storage NPC. But since they are paying for the privilege, there should be some bonuses (food on table, inherant tools, possibility of special projects...). Customised Appearance: Just an afterthought; if there where a few textures (bitmaps) reserved for player customisation, these could be used for carpets, paintings, maps, and other flat surfaces in a characters room. This set of graphics is only used in rentable rooms, and default versions are shipped with the client. The player could then replace them with custom images. This would mean, if it worked, that when viewing the room on the players installation of EL, it is customised for that player (or installation), if not for that character. This does not extend to the correct view for visitors though (viewing on another client installation). I don't know if the 3D map models would support this. If not, could some similar method be used? For example, substituting variants of a particular 3D model with the same properties -- in this case a selection of models would have to be provided.

I would prefer the storage over regeneration myself. If you cannot store personal belongings in the room, then it is much less a personal space. You cannot customise it in any other way? I would consider personal storage the minimum feature. A few options to limit exploitation as a leveller's paradise: No or reduced experience gain in the room -- would still permit manufacture, spell casting, etc. Require workshop* to permit manufacture (etc), don't rent suites with both a bed and a workshop. A bed implies rest, so no other activity is permitted (sleeping!), and no bonus until some period of inactivity as passed (falling asleep). Character would of course have to be sitting on the bed! Just price exploitable combinations high -- bed and workshop? * By 'workshop' mean fittings to allow the practice of a skill. There would be basic workshops for alchemy, potions, manufacture, and crafting (but not attack or defence). There could be more advanced (expensive) workshops for further specialisation, or to permit construction of complex/advanced items. Who should benifit from bonuses of a room? Just the tenant. Those allowed access, if guild or buddy list access has been included. Characters invited in (ie, anyone). Some of the above with additional cost to rent (cf. guild suites).

You probably didn't mean random Crannog, but for clarification for others, the rented room would not be random, but deterministic. The character would get the same room whenever they returned to it, until they give up the lease. The room would be unique, but the 3D map representing it would be shared between all instances of rooms of the same type. Since rooms and suites can be equipped differently, depending on what the player pays for, different models have to be used. Some rooms will have a bed, some will have an anvil and forge, some will have a dining table, and so on (and combinations). For variety only, there may be multiple models with the same fittings. When a player rents a room, and choose the level of fittings (depending on what combinations are available), a suitable model is chosen and recorded. Whenever the player returns to that rented room, the same model is always used. This should give a feeling of home

Not much of one, I was just mulling However, some really large items (by which I mean major buildings, castles, forts, countries...) could be priced in platinum (in EL terms).

Thankyou Lyn. I started this suggestion in a previous post on another thread. How can the game support rooms for all the characters? <_< Basically, there doesn't have to be a one-to-one relationship between maps and places in EL, which is useful if the places are fairly generic, such as rented rooms. The server (I assume) tells the client which map to use for the current environ, and who and what are present there. Therefore, we can define a map-file containing a varied selection of rooms and suites (cf. map files containing collections of building interiors). The rooms/suites can vary in their content and fittings. By 'suite' I mean a connected set of a few rooms. Obviously, teleportation and harvesting should not be allowed on these maps. So, a character rents a room in a large building in WSC (for example). When they try to enter the building, the server can associate the character with the building, and moves them to their rented room -- this is a unique place within the game, but not a unique map location. Different buildings (or groups of building) could have different features. Rooms in the magic school for instance, would have a different set of available facilities and appearance. How would renting work from a players perspective? Well, there will be an initial cost, plus a rent cost per game month for a room. How much this is will depend on what facilities are provided by the room or suite. The monthly rent will be taken automatically from the character's storage gold (another way to take money out of the economy!). Only gold is used -- platinum is not accepted. If the player doesn't have enough gold then they can either/initially be locked out, or loose the room altogether. Anyone in the room is booted out into the street. Should a character be limited to renting one room or suite only? What do I get for my money? The main feature which would be required of a room is some more perminant storage. This could take the form of a chest ('use chest' to open), with the same interface as a bag. Capacity may be a feature of the room. If the room is lost (rent not payed), then the contents are dumped into the characters storage (or lost). Other things which could be in the room (at extra cost): A table with a meal layed out ('use meal' to eat, not harvestable). Workshops with tools (equiped while in room) -- opens the possibility of some items requiring non-portable tools to be manufacturable (anvils). A bed for improved healing/mana or just dreaming (sit on bed, 'use bed'). ... I am sure there will be plenty of suggestions. Who can enter the room? Well, the tenant obviously. There may be an option to make the room open to fellow guild members, or those in the buddy list (if held on the server). There should be some way the tenant can admit somebody else ('use other character on door?). Of course, anyone in the room can make use of its facilities, and raid the tenants fridge and drinks cabinet... Can a storage space (bag, chest) be safely accessed concurrently by multiple characters? OK, limit access to the chest to one character at a time (lock it when open). But anything dropped in the room is automatically 'swept-up' and added to the contents of the chest. Assuming the tenant payed for a maid... Any suggestions or comments, or calls for clarification? Addendums: I wouldn't expect rooms to be customisable -- this does not appear to be possible in the current architecture. So we would be limited to the set made available on rented-room-maps. While it is possible for a character to rent multiple rooms, these would have to be in different buildings (or more strictly, behind different public entrances). Whether a character is allowed to rent more than one room is another matter.

I think we have a winner! What a splended solution. This solves the AFK problem. Something tedious that the players must work through before being released.