Hyperspace Bag Guards & Surprizes

[trollson]

Keywords: hyperspace bag, hbag, summons, traps, eggs.

Objective

 

To mechanisms useful for building on-time scenarios and quests by both players and mods, without pawn scripts.

 

Trigger a monster spawn when a character attempts to access a hyperspace bag; representing a monster guarding its treasure, an entombed spirit or djinni, or some other threat.

 

Requirements

1. The monster is spawned before the hidden bag is revealed; the skeleton key is not consumed and the bag remains hidden.
   
2. The creature must be hostile and aggressive (red name, cf. invasions), otherwise the guard can be circumvented and abused by monster magnetism.
   

What this is not

• This is not a way for you to protect your hyperspace bag from other characters; the guard does not know you, and affects all equally.
  
• This is nothing to do with character advancement.
  

Implementation

1. A set of objects, "tokens", represent different creatures which can be set as guards. These are non-stackable, non-storable items.
   
2. When placed in a bag they occupy slots as normal. When the bag is hidden, they continue to occupy slots in the hidden bag.
   
3. When a skeleton key is used, a pre-check is added before any bag is revealed and the key consumed. This checks for any special items in the hidden bag, such as a guard token; if found the effects of the first such item are applied, the item is consumed, and the key-usage aborted.
   
4. Thus, a bag can contain any number of guards, with a maximum of ten different types (for the ten slots); the creatures are revealed one at a time.
   
5. Tokens (or other special items) placed in a hidden bag can never be recovered.
   
6. Only when a hidden bag contains no special items is the skeleton key consumed and the bag revealed.
   

Example uses in scenarios

• Find an out of the way location, place a guard token in a bag, along with some appropriate treasure, and hide the bag (recording its location).
  
• Make a background story for the treasure; "the grave of a famous knight", "beigebeard's last treasure", etc.
  
• Devise rumors and misinformation, which if collected and pieced together lead to the location of the treasure. Seed these into the community.
  

This could be done without the monster of course, but without some risk at the end it is just a paperchase. At least this gives a reason to bring a long some fighters!

 

Exploits and Worries?

• A character stands on a hidden bag with a pile of dissengagement rings and a skeleton key, and spawns out a host of monsters to harass passersby.
  

• • Tokens should not be easily obtained, but as a scenario tool, neither should they be cost-crippling -- used properly they are intended to add to the RPG side of the game.
    
  • If no one else fights the spawn, it may turn back on the exploiter.
    

• If the adventurers fail to deal with the spawn, and all die, then there is an enraged monster on the lose on a map where it wouldn't normally be expected.
  • You mean like an unexpected invasion?
    
  • Somebody now knows where the treasure is at least, so they could come back and try again.
    
  • Sh@t happens; its not like this is going to be a massive problem, and could add some fun: "A mad phantom in the marshes! Heeelp!"
    
  • Monsters spawned could be treated as summoned monsters and expire after a time.
    

See also:

• Interacting with the Map -- for player generated rumors, and using static container objects (which also hold special items).
  

Edited September 15, 2006 by trollson

[chaoogie]

seems like a good idea, and a possible use for Summon Stones, although i doubt many would buy/use these because they dont recognize you as being the *the master* or w/e.

[maximos]

don't make it red or it will attack people that are sitting around you

[Aislinn]

don't make it red or it will attack people that are sitting around you

That's part of his plan.

Which I like btw.

[JohnTheWarder]

Well I since they already added VotD invasions might as well add this, sounds pretty cool to me

[trollson]

Yes, the creatures guarding the bag must be red tagged. The point is not to protect your bag, but to provide something a bit more spicy when you find hidden treasure at the end of what might be a very long quest.

 

I also use the term "special items" a bit more generically, since there could be other surprizes in the bag which get activated and consumed by an attempt to open it. Suggestions?

 

Now, back to feeling cr@p... wheres the beechams...

[Cycloonx]

So I put a protected hyperspace bag at the silver ores in mm cave, I dig it up and I take a diss ring with me, I diss from the monster and I hope they kill someone else, k? How funny would that be!

[chaoogie]

another small problem, is those who want to cause problems can buy/make these token's and hyper/unhyper them in votd/near raven or w/e soo ya although its a very interesting idea i just see more bad coming from this than good.

[Atlantis]

yep I agree with Cycloonx, this allows you to invade cycs etc to a bunch of unprepared people. wouldn't be fair if someone did this at votd or nc storage, for example

[trollson]

So I put a protected hyperspace bag at the silver ores in mm cave, I dig it up and I take a diss ring with me, I diss from the monster and I hope they kill someone else, k? How funny would that be!

Yes I mention this possibility in the original post, the tokens need to have a greater effective cost than the equivalent summoning if they are available to all -- which need not be the case.

 

Further, the abuse described would be the equivalent of summoning inappropriate creatures and would be handled the same way. That is, its already covered in the rules.

 

In any case I did not discuss how these items are to be obtained: Since the point is to provide in-game tools and mechanisms for creating scenarios and quests (this suggestion being just one aspect), there is no need for them to ever be accessible to regular character.

 

Hence the double meaning in "not for the likes of you"

Edited September 15, 2006 by trollson

[Happy_G]

i like the idea, and even if they were just used by admin/mods for adding to the role playing side of the game, very good

[sithicus]

if someone has a contest and a mod announces it, it might be used? Then the chance for abuse is nil. The whole 'token' thing seems merely a game-developers way to implement it, not the description of an item like any other.

Edited September 17, 2006 by sithicus

[trollson]

if someone has a contest and a mod announces it, it might be used? Then the chance for abuse is nil. The whole 'token' thing seems merely a game-developers way to implement it, not the description of an item like any other.

Yes quite.

 

Currently quests need to be programmed on the server, requiring developer skills and testing.

 

However, my view is that it should be possible to build a "toolkit" of mechanisms into the game, by which Mods (as characters within the game) can set up scenarios themselves.

 

Unlike quests, these scenarios would be one-off events.

 

They needn't be "announced" like a current quick events though -- other mechanisms could be used to seed rumors of treasure/lairs/tombs around the world, which if players could stumble across, piece together, and unearth. These may lie dorment for a very long time.

 

This introduces a new mechanism into the game engine:

• Special items triggering events when an hyperspace bag is about to be accessed.
  

Here it is used to create guard monsters. However, other special items could trigger different events, and some of these may be "player-safe".

The game engine would need other mechanisms added to support more interesting and varied scenarios. This is just one component.

[peeper :)]

i like the idea keep um coming

[trollson]

Modified Special Item Handling

This may allow for more interesting combinations of events:

 

During the pre-check on an hbag, one special item is taken from each slot containing them, and activated in some item-defined order.

 

For example: A hbag contains the following items, one slot per entry:

• 2 x "Ogre Token"
  
• 3 x "Hobgoblin Token"
  
• 1 x "Boss Monsters" item
  
• lots x treasure.
  

Attempts to open the bags go as follow:

1. A double strength Ogre and double strength Hobgoblin appear.
   
2. A normal strength Ogre and Hobgoblin appear.
   
3. A Hobgoblin appears.
   
4. The treasure is revealed.
   

Other Special Items for Event Triggers

Besides the monster tokens, there is scope for other special trigger items to spice up the loot at the end of a long hard quest. They must follow the rules of EL items of course.

Obvious Ones

There are any number of general effects you could define in a special item. Here are a few, to save people suggesting them:

• Fyr Bomb does fire damage to all in range.
  
• Bombe Bomb does cold damage to all in range.
  
• ...and number of boobie traps, poisons, flying sharpend chipmunks, etc...
  
• Boss Monsters doubles the strength of any monsters spawned at the same time.
  
• Hordes of the Things doubles the number of any monsters spawned at the same time.
  

Really Would Like But Breaks the Rules Ones

• Rumor revealed -- It would open up a lot of possibilities if some written information could be revealed to the characters (on local chat) when a bag is opened. Unfortunately, this breaks the rules of EL items, as it requires unique item. However, it could be done if the 'quantity' field in the bag was used as a 'message ID' for retrieval. This would require special treatment elsewhere.
  
• Named Monsters -- So the phantom you finally meet and defeat is called "Ghost of Mydrain" and not just the anonymous "Phantom Warrior". Again, not possible without serious hackery (named spawns in general would be good though ). Could use the same techniques as suggested for rumors, although at this point it would be better if each bag had an additional integer field as an index to additional information which could be queried (made by sending PMs to a pseudo-name or channel number given when the bag is closed).
  

Experience Bomb

Gives out a reward of bonus experience for completing a quest. This is probably a must have.

 

Various ways to implement this, but in the absense of a 'team' or 'party' group identity, just reward all characters within some radius of the location. Experience should just go to OA.

[Derin]

I like the bag guard idea. That would surely open up some nice event possibilities.

 

The experiance bomb I am not so sure about though.

[trollson]

The experiance bomb I am not so sure about though.

Well, its easy to come up with nasty surprizes, but there should be some good ones as well. Some quests already give out bonus experience at the end, which is what the experience bomb is intended to represent.

 

These quests are one-shot team activities, so it would be unfair to give bonus xp just to the bag opener. Since we also do not have the concept of a 'team' or 'party', the best approach is just to dollop out xp to all within range. This of course can land on passers-by as well as the questors -- but that can be rationalised (the passerby was there when the event happened, and can spend hours in the taverns telling the story).

 

 

But wait! There is more...

 

I have a proto-idea for a more flexible and extendable design for setting up event triggers from within the game. This is hinted at in the "Really Would Like But..." section above. I'll think it through a few ways and post later when I have a clearer idea.