KinslayerMUD Forums

Let's discuss the idea's in this thread and worry about semantics later, it'll be more constrcutive I would like to point out two things I think people should take into account.

These changes will affect the entire playerbase and as someone has previously mentioned we should take into consider the various types of player. Yes there are wolves and sheep but there are also casual players and then there those who can spend 4-5 hours on at a time. To appeal to a greater number of players nothing should be tedious and time consuming, mining for instance is quite fun and the rewards are good for the amount of time invested. Mining beforehand could cause the involuntary and repeated appearance of words 'You are idle and are pulled into the void'.

Secondly consider that the only level part of the playing field are each characters stats, practicable skills and currently equipement. Unfortunatly there will always be a big difference between individual players levels of skill, balance will always be an issue. A bonus should be availble for those who earn them, be it through pk or rp, but they should provide a small advantage. The idea of small is of course open to debate but not here.

B)

Quests (aka things for sheep)

These are in the works and soon to be implemented. I agree with Chase on the point that they shouldn't be setup to allow qps farming. However if the player is asked to put in time and effort into completing a quest they should be justily rewarded, no matter how many times they may do it. Borrex put 6 hours into smobbing for a lot of top end eq for which I think he rightly deserves.

Sonea talked about an interactive world, this is a great idea but very difficult to create and maintain. One way to do this would be to see interaction between mobs and between cities. A day/night cycle effect for instance whereby by shopkeers are not there at night (having gone home) or perhaps a trade system between cities, whereby large amounts of ore sold by the player in baerlon create cheaper armor/weapons prices in Caemlyn. The trick here I think is to acheive a noticeble change in the game by the player/players over time.


Economy and Item Decay

Firstly item decay is as Evilina has said would be tedious and detremental to the great atmosphere we have here. I don't see an issue with the current levels of equipment we have, it allows the casual player, wolf, sheep or newbie to have a top end set without to much effort which is great for playability.

However we need some kind of money sink and I understand the easiest way to create some would to have players loose and then buy equipment. I've an idea for a fairly complicated tier system of equipment with features that would involve loosing/buying eq that I'll post up soon but atm i'm too tired to see all it's implications.

Other types of money sink are still viable but they need to be numerous, of varying price and they need to be something we want. People have posted a few idea's for money sinks here and elsewhere that are worth considering and I'm sure we can think of a few more. Throw away items ( e.g vials) are great but perhaps some more permanent items are needed.

Consider this, every clan has one room with a chest and their head mob. For a price of say 300 gold they may purchase another room up to a total of 4. Each room provides some form of a bonus. The money for each can be collected by the clan treasurer (mob) over time and can eventually be used to purchase a particular room. If rams were again used to break into clan rooms you could also add purchasable doors of varying strength.

1) Main clan room: Chest and Head mob
2) Garden room: Where clans can grow their own herbs
3) Clan stables: Where for 2qps they can purchase a horse (with a description written by the clan) that has say 10 extra moves.
4) Clan armorer: Retooled equipment availble, with perhaps 3 pieces per set (dodge, combo, abs) that would provide 1 extra pb, db or 1 less lb of weight.

Trouble here lies in finding bonus's that are small enough not to create a great advantage when used altogether but enough of one to make it worthwhile.

A day/night cycle effect for instance whereby by shopkeers are not there at night (having gone home) or perhaps a trade system between cities,

Guess I should finally imp Whitebridge Has both, well one functioning atm.


I really like the clan upgrades idea. I would suggest that it be a more periodic cost. Say 5 gold a month or something to keep some particular perk.


I would also agree with you that having a highly interactive environment would be great but I don't think we have the man power to keep up with hundreds or thousands of things and keep them working. We have been working on several things including quests, which will have finite availability, and Koradin has put lots of time into trade skills.

Thank you Tiberius for getting us back on track, lets stay that way!

Although it seems the playerbase wants to keep their bonuses that give them an unfair advantage in pk, hopefully the idea of removing the amount of top end equipment is dead.

I already offered different money sinks in the other thread.

Lamgwin's idea from the other thread:

For those of you wanting money sinks:

The ability to buy a horse that you can name and that can only be ridden by you.

The ability to retool equipment into whatever flowerly rp thing you want, for a cost.

The ability to buy a pet that will increase your experience gained, and that you can name, for the duration of a reboot.

These are just a few money sinks off the top of my head that won't screw up fairness or balance.

Trin's ideas:

I think mining by itself is fine. However, I think other elements should play: PvEing, buying items to make gold more valuable, stuff like this. Sitting there mining for several hours a day doesn't mix things up and make you interested. I was quite bored with just the plain mining system. It wasn't very interactive. This craftable gear should be a very interactive multi-layered exercise.

The herbs was just an example of an interesting money sink with parts of the system in game already.

I also mentioned gardening. If you had to buy pots, soil, fertalizer and whatever else. And than every once in a while someone had to water your garden and you could make herbs. But someone could come by and pick them and steal your herbs and make some interesting drama/wars.

I really like the idea of buying and selling between cities. Make money worth something. Then make certain cities buy and sell stuff. Like WB pays more for abs since it is rare there, but Fal Dara has a lot so its cheaper. And the player can make the margin. Also you could invest in shopkeepers to make them have extra money.

Ok this a quick overview of an idea for an eq system, this is designed to work with the current eq we have but doesn't cover weapons. The values i've used are arbitary, they are just there to provide an example and would obviously have to be balanced against weapons.

Tier 1: Low end mob eq, this wouldn't be sellable is simply there for mobs and asethetics.

Tier 2: Newbie eq, or mid end eq. This would load on smob heads and be widely avaible in shops. Low resale price in shops, enough to ensure the newbies can buy basic things like a white hore, lanterns and food.

Tier 3: Pk eq, would load on smob heads and be availble in some shops. Requirment to get a set would be to take 80% from smobs and 20% from shops. Note this eq would be below current standards, e.g a full abs top end abs kit would have 60% abs as opposed to 64%.

To maximise your eq you would be required to pay for it to be toughen, cure or lightened. This would return it to it's current value, e.g abs having beeen toughened would be 64% instead of the normal 60%. Once this has been done a decay timer would start, a toughened piece of equipment would last 2-3 weeks before falling apart.

The idea here is allow people to pk without spending money and have slight disadvantage or pk with a slight advantage having paid to have the eq upgraded.

Tier 4: Rare eq. This would load rarely on smobs and in one or two shops radomly and at a high price. This would starting decaying straight having been brought or smobbed after 2-3 weeks.

1 of all its spell tear

2 of all y do u want 4 of the same city in the game LOL redumdant

yeah, sounds good

I really like tiberius's idea. We would just have to make the smobbing loads easier to get a full kit on, atm it takes like at least 4 hours of smobbing to get a combo set, and maybe 5 for a dodge. But it sounds great, and it would keep rares circulating more!

I don't think the point of it is to go hit a smob and have a full kit. Smobbing for several hours to get a high-end kit is reasonable.

Er, I mean I don't want to spend 5 hours per kit every 2-3 weeks, and that is if I don't rip. But 3-4 is fine.

smobbing= not fun.

pk= fun.

I don't know why everyone wants to make the former take up more time and subtract from the latter.

That is your opinion. Plenty of people, I believe, enjoy smobbing. Just because you don't doesn't mean others dont. If anything that would force you to buy things from smobbers if thats how the system turns out.

Do smobbers have to pk before they smob?

The idea was to create a money sinks that all players (pkers/rpers) would use on a regular basis and therefore increase the value of money without making it too much of a chore. The idea being you could still pk with a set that wouldn't decay but that would very slightly below a top end set, the figures I used were just there to illustrate my suggestion.

Moving back to the main idea of this however, we could do with some ideas on how to make the mud more interactive.

There's a great mobol in Caemlyn rent with Basil playing stones, ok it doesn't add interaction element but it does add feeling of depth to the game. Perhaps some more mob interactions like that could be used.

That's a good idea Tibs, do you have any ideas where such mobol could be placed?

Lol well sitting around anywhere for five minutes is just inviting a stab but I guess the most frequented places. Citiy sqaures, shops and the roads. I left out anything in the main pk zones since it might be spammy and the rest are the first places a newb will visit.

LS: Baerlon Kitchen, Baerlon mines, on top of the Whitebridge, Luggard fountain, statting area south of Luggard, Caem bank/grocer, Tv's fountains/stable.

DS: 1e dump, at the DL's, 1s Orglosh(sp) - the vial load in SH and maybe something just south of RK.

Some ideas:

1) A shady hawker mob, wandering around a city offering the 'lastest and greatest in lanterns' or 'almost new, quality cloaks'.

2) A Zealous Child of Light, preaching along the roads to all who will listen between Baerlon, Luggard and Caemlyn.

3) A nagging couple, I can imagine them in a shop or along the road moaning about the weather/neighbours/odd smells and walking sticks not being what they were.

4) A old miner, saying things like 'I've been mining for thirty years! Man and boy!' or 'Alright sonny, you know you don't do it like THAT!'.

The great thing about Basil's mobal is that it takes a long time to listen to it has great detail. This is what gives the impression of life going on without you, integral for immerison

the main reason i like this, is for the people that play off pk time, it will give them something constructive to do