A new Idea to help in my opinion

[kieros]

Hello everyone this something that I have been thinking for a while, but I am sure it will be heavily criticized. Last night I was on playing with my high lvl warrior and getting items with a healer, things were going good killing for rares and actually getting a few items. Feeling big and brave we decided to go through underworld which was "fun" but found that nothing was around. This took me way back to my frustrations in the early years when good rares are simply not around because of hoarding and player inactivity. I do not know if this is possible but I think an interesting concept with rare items and uniques is that players that have them should be around. One way to ensure this is on a monthly basis rather than time played it should be amount of people you kill. Since this is a pk mud and eq and lvl based then that should be a factor. Let's say you are a big bad legion and made it to 50 got rared out now you don't want to die so you don't play. No knights come on because no legions are on and vice versa. But if you don't make your 10 kill quota by the end of the month you lose your rares. I think this would help encourage people to play simply because they don't want to lose their items. Also if they were not even planning on playing the items would be in circulation anyway which would make the greater public happy. With more people about killing and dying I think it would attract more people to play. Of course I am not limiting this idea to cabal people, it would go for the general public. I understand that some people do not have as much time as lets say myself to play, but if I want to invest my time here, what reward is there that no one is around and there are no items to get for even fight someone for. Anyways I eagerly await your thoughts

[Olyn]

Play time - Meeting a minimum amount of playtime is 'being around' by definition. You don't play enough, you don't keep your rares.

Kill quotas - A bad idea. Let's say Knights are the dominant cabal and there are very few unoathed evils around. How would they maintain their quota for the month? Justices aren't very active in PK when one of the other cabals is not at war with them and we certainly don't want Justices encouraging law breaking just so they can apprehend the criminals. And then there's the non-aggressive coteries. Nobles, Heralds, Mystics, and Patrons are all generally docile in PK and they deserve opportunity to gather/keep rares.

No rares around - Several measures were put into the game to help those who play often but can't seem to find the rares they want. There are respectable non-rare weapons for sale in Darkhaven and Winter, there are shops to gamble high level rare-quality items, there is the forge in Grimforge, and there are recipes to imbue less useful (and often available) rares to have new properties.

[Erlwith]

I was thinking about this, and I think it should be a min. of 3 hours a week to keep your rares. If you don't log your 3 hours that week you lose 1-2 rares depending on how many rares you have (2 if you have 8+, 1 if you have less).

imo if you can't log your 3 hours a week you really shouldn't be hogging the rares for people who can. and if you have to go away for a week or two you only lose a couple of rares instead of getting raped at the end of the month.

[Xerties]

I agree with Olyn on all counts. The system that is in place now is working just fine. There are many avenues to get really good armor these days, especially compared to the way it was several years ago.

[kieros]

I agree with Olyn he brought up some things that I didn't consider, for the average player I think you can learn a lot from gambled items and the grind of it. I was hoping that forcing people to play or they lose rares may increase the amount of people around. Strange as it may be I was on last night for two hours and suddenly three level 50 people showed up, one wanted to kill me of course. My objective with this post was to not only get more well known rares in circulation, but also to get more people around. Even with one cabal dominating it only takes on slip up and the whole cabal goes to crap. Knights were big stink and what happened, everyone deleted because they died a few times. And now being butt hurt no one is in a cabal or even made an appearance. I don't think forcing people to play or lose rares is going to solve our problem, we need something new to breathe life into this mud..... I say we need more variety like with vamps, things that people can first prove with getting to 50 then apply to be a monk, druid psionicist or a hell-streaming thief something that people can do to get interested and excited to play again

[_Clifton_]

I really like the minimum kill count idea. Although it could be tweaked to have aggressively adrenaline. I'm a big proponent of keeping rares only if you plan on using them (ie: PK). Yeah, you can rig it so you can do just go hit a buddy OOC or something, but at least its proof that you've done something with your rares this month. Heck, you could even just spar in the arena to keep your rares.

This wouldn't be that difficult to implement, you'd just need to switch the rare wipe check to see whether there's been aggressive adrenaline (you can increment a counter or whatever) in the pfiles instead of time played.

[Resatimm]

But it was a good point that goodly aligned characters (IE knights) would run into cases where they physically cannot kill anyone to keep numbers up (because there isnt anyone they CAN kill). I dont have to think any further than that!!!

[Vertas]

Yeah I agree, keep system as is. I owed money for taxes, so yesterday I went to the post office to mail the check and the 1040 form. A bunch of people were standing outside the post office. One of the signs said "are you enjoying your tax haven in panama and the bahamas? Oh wait, you're not a billionaire..." Another one said that taxes fund Israeli aggression.... The comparison here is yes some of the taxes go to the military and yes some people can afford to go on vacation... A + B does not always equal C however... There's perhaps a bajillion other factors that we don't understand.


So lets say that Resatimm has a character that's really active at the beginning of the month, but he gets in a card accident and smashes his left hand and is unable to type for the rest of the month. Can't pk with only one hand...

[RebornShadows]

[Ceridwel]

[_Clifton_]

I'd going to renege on my earlier statement. I thought about it a little more and I think kill counts are a fantastic idea.

Given that the reason most people want rares is to use them as status symbols, and if the goal of AR at 50 is to have an intense PvP environment, requiring a minimum kill every week or two to keep rares implies that the people who are wearing full suits of rares are really the best of the best. But at the same time, they're proceeding in such a way that keeps them constantly challenged where there is risk of losing the items.

The point was mentioned that PK-restricted groups such as Heralds and Mystics would be excluded from being able to hold onto rares. This situation would exist only if the rares they held were not a desired commodity. Otherwise, Mystics and Heralds would be attacked for their items. Additionally, the PK-clause would force them to be more involved in PK by not quitting out on the first sign of danger. (Liraleyn comes to mind really heavily in that point).

If people are unwilling to attempt PKs regularly, then there is always the generic dragonblood/dragonwing/deflective equivalents of rare items. The stats are just as good and attaining them may or may not be easier. But the fact remains that a person in a full suit of winter/underworld rares is going to hold a lot more prestige than a person in full dragonblood, thus making rares more desirable, meaning that they should be more difficult to keep instead of dragonblood being a fall back for when rares are out of circulation.

The biggest reason argument for a PK requirement for rares is to keep rares in circulation. When was the last time you saw 'The One Ring' on Frodo? Or the bracelets on the apprentices? This clause means that if those items aren't being used for PvP, they often get returned so that it can be used for pvp.

With more rares in circulation, this also means that there are more reasons to go run endgame content. I would bet that a good handful of people have never cleared all of Redhourne, Underworld, Winter, Xymeria, D'al Kadar, and Gasteride. Those areas are fun and challenging to run through, but there isn't much point if there isn't any reward. The circulation of rares would mean that these areas should have items. Which would also mean more active 50s.

If there are no opponents for the Knights to fight, then purging them of all their rares effectively reset the playing field so that they restart on a level footing. Knights are in living wood/mithril, Legion in Red dragon/Tainted. First team to winter gets the advantage, but not so much that they're completely overpowered. It would place more emphasis on player skill as well as re-gearing (ie: rare gauntlets go poof, got to find a suitable replacement).

An algorithm that could work is incrementing killCount by 1 for each kill and then having that deprecate by 10%(killCount) - 1 all the way down to 0. So if you have 10 kills, then it would take about 6 weeks or so without any pk activity to be rare purged. Also, killCount could be halved per level up to prevent lowbie niching, but PK records do something similar to that already. Numbers can always be adjusted.

[kieros]

I am glad you like my idea

[Davairus]

The next complaint will be "waaa there's too few people to kill, I can't keep my rares" which means that the proposed fix doesnt address the actual problem of too few people, which is an important factor for rare amounts. I don't want the game to become just a race to gear after each monthly purge and then back to hoarding after 1 pk. Better solution: get voting/bringing in players, it will increase the rare amounts and the people to kill completely naturally. I believe the problem with the game is its playerbase has fallen below a critical mass needed to stimulate the majority of the mud playerbase to actually be interested in signing in more often... we're not going to win them back by threatening them with rare revokes.

[kieros]

I am going to have to respectfully disagree with you. Keepers would always keep the rare battle alive. Thanks to Korro and the long standing of Hrimoyan they have created a pretty decent following. Regardless when I am playing I usually see a keeper float around which means someone will be around to fight your rare hoarding behind. Which brings more of a role for keepers with killing someone to keep your rares because they are killing you to take them. I think the standard should be set a little higher than 1 pk to keep the rares but I am just happy Davairus responded to my post lol

[Thorgoth]

i think druids and psi's would be a breathe of new life into the mud, maybe making something like crusaders for human paladins only, kind of like a good spin off of vampires, but at the same time the headache of dealing with balancing issues and all that would have to be solely on the imm's. i haven't seen a vampire in forever, especially a good one, though i've noticed a handful of wannabe's running around but i think they all got tired of waiting and deleted because i dont see anymore, but they are badass and if you can't be patient enough then good riddance. though i have to admit that everyone loves lynching vampires so maybe a new one might spice up the pk scene lol

[formalism]

Hey Dav, if you really want people to start playing again, make it significantly easier to level (either facilitate solo-leveling or make experience much easier to attain, e.g. surge levels as standard). Probably totally subjective criterion but this is almost the sole determinative factor in my decision to not return (that, and the empty playerbase, but obviously they feed into each other like that).

[kieros]

please do not talk about leveling in this thread. for one leveling is especially easy, I am a complete nerd rager and I can delete a lvl 30 and get back to lvl 30 in two days with our without surges. Leveling is easy as hell these days.

[formalism]

[deauja]

things are fine, fast levels are cheap. i've never had a rank fifty char. ranks aren't so important if you just play for fun. nonetheless i hope you reach the zenith, i cant wait to rank fifty a char. and start making gold in place of experience. gold shines. it's not easy.

[_Clifton_]

The problem isn't the number of people playing the mud, it's the issue of activity at 50. There really isn't all that much to do at 50 if there's no one else on. Like you said, it's either "wahh not enough people to kill" in which case people need to spend time re-equipping. Followed by a gear to race, which promotes activity at level 50. You'd know better than I, but I'm sure there's quite a few people with 50s who don't log on because there isn't much to do. So they just go and rank another character. Additionally, by keeping track of the kills, it gives the big guys a nice cushion. That means in order to get rares back, the little guys have to take out the big guys together or just deal.