On Teleport Rings

[trollson]

On the Teleport Rings

 

The new Irrilion teleport rings have been introduced as relatively expensive, high crafting items. I believe that the reason for this is to give crafters something more to challenge their skills, which is really not a good justification.

 

However, I can see a number of problems with this approach as the game world grows further:

• New continents introduce new sets of rings, more combinations and icons are required.
  
• Using the new rings to provide ever-higher crafting challenges has the side effect of discriminating between continents in terms of accessibility; rings in Seridia cost ~50-100gc, in Irrilion ~300gc, and then in C3, C4...?
  

As an alternative, and more scalable solution:

• Define a finite set of teleport rings for intra-continent travel. These could be combinations of gemstone and metal.
  
• Each map may have an associated teleport ring type, unique within its continent, but not necessarily unique within the entire world.
  
• Using a teleport ring takes you to the associated map within the current continent (if any); these teleport rings do not cross continents.
  
• The expense of intra-continent ring travel remains basically the same on each continent.
  
• Inter-continental teleport rings, if desired, are one design per continent, and can be expensive high level items.
  

For example: The current Ring of Portland is gold set with a ruby, associating Portland with (gold, ruby). On Irrilion we may decide to associate Bethel with the same. So what we currently call a "Ring of Portland" would take you to Portland when in Seridia, and to Bethel when in Irrilion.

 

Only one new ring per continent is needed; that for intercontinental travel to those lands.

 

With more metals and gemstones (?) coming to the game, the matrix of (metal, gem) is increasing. Not all ring types need to be supported on all continents, some could be treated rarer than others, in association with scarcer metals and gems. Travel to a particular map on a different continent could be performed by 'use-with' the continent ring and the appropriate map ring (cf. international dialing?).

[ttlanhil]

Only one new ring per continent is needed; that for intercontinental travel to those lands.

this is the one part I'd like to comment on (the rest I generally agree with)... I see the posibility for intercontinental rings to be, rather than mass-produced, to be an enriched teleport ring (although you could do the same as with RoP, being able to make with a semi-rare ingredient)

[Vanyel]

I'm not crafter, but it sounds reasonable. The new rings are amazingly expensive (in comparing to old ones).

With any changes I would rather wait for an outcome of the newest Entropy's poll/request for opinion.

Just one question:

if the rings are all making cheaper, what about experience points?

Edited April 25, 2006 by Vanyel

[trollson]

...intercontinental rings to be, rather than mass-produced, to be an enriched teleport ring

 

The approach outlined does take away a set of advanced craftable items, so it may be better to keep these available for crafters. Otherwise I would agree that they could be enhanced forms of the local rings, it would be a nice touch.

 

Since the rings are one-use items, there is a limit to how expensive they should be to create. If they are too expensive, then no one will buy them, nor would they be of any use for levelling (I really dislike placing focus on levelling, but thats the current driver...). That may already be the case with the current set of Irrilion rings?

 

One limit could be that you can only make the intercontinental ring for your current continent. Not sure how feasible that is though.

 

if the rings are all making cheaper, what about experience points?

 

One set of intra-continental rings could span the range of difficulty and experience covered by the current set of Serida and Irrilion rings. Some rings could still be expensive to manufacture, used to reach maps which are difficult to reach (all down to matching the magical harmonics of a place, dontchaknow).

 

The issue is not with the cost to make the rings per say, but to keep such costs under control as new continents are added.