See? It's working. All we need now is for one of Sylandra's past true loves to come out of a coma.
Everiine said: The reason population is low isn't because there are too many orgs. It's because so many facets of the game are outright broken and protected by those who benefit from it being that way. An overabundance of gimmicks (including game-breaking ones), artifacts that destroy any concept of balance, blatant pay-to-win features, and an obsession with convenience that makes few things actually worthwhile all contribute to the game's sad decline.
Gnomish Cardcutter - 75 dingbats.
Allows you to CARDCUT (ikon rarity) to destroy 10 of that rarity to make a random single ikon of the next rarity up. Will not draw from gestalts. Fails if you don't have at least ten of that rarity.
Anklet of Gender Fluidity - 100 dingbats. Changes your gender, but only works once a year. Also adds a third, nonbinary gender to choose from, and people who have more knowledge about that can figure how that works.
Gnomish Tattoo Arm - 100 dingbats. Manse artifact, activate arm to set it into a room permanently. Room must already possess a tattoo bench, and manse must belong to user of the arm. This allows tattooists to tattoo themselves at double the power cost (to power the arm).
Everiine said: The reason population is low isn't because there are too many orgs. It's because so many facets of the game are outright broken and protected by those who benefit from it being that way. An overabundance of gimmicks (including game-breaking ones), artifacts that destroy any concept of balance, blatant pay-to-win features, and an obsession with convenience that makes few things actually worthwhile all contribute to the game's sad decline.
Could TOPGUILDS be changed to separate out the different components of the member score? So it would show a column for vote/credit purchase activity, a column for channel usage/guildfavour frequency/news posting, and a column for number of logins/non-manse login time? An aggregated TOPNATIONS would be cool too.
Also, could it show a rolling 12 Lusternian month average, rather than just the last month only?
And one more thing, could TOPGUILDS give a small bonus to the best and worst performers each month?
An incentive for reaching the #1 position (if it can be weighted so as to not count novice score and unreasonably favour huge guilds) might be a small experience/essence bonus for all members, or a free transport skill, or something. And for the lowest performer, maybe make it possible to join the guild through a new NPC (if you aren't an enemy) that automatically forgets any conflicting skillsets at 100% lesson retention. These would be placed into a lessonpool that can only be used while a member of that guild, and has the heaviest possible transfer cost to another lesson pool. Sort of to encourage more people to join and try to revitalise the guild, with little cost.
I know factions will soon replace guilds, but they could function in a very similar way.
I realise this is pretty damn minor in the grand scheme of things, but it still jars me sometimes:
You purchase 50 gold for 1500 gold.
That seems like a terrible deal!
Could we better differentiate gold bars from gold sovereigns? For example, do we even need to call our money gold, if we don't have any other type of sovereign? Maybe:
You purchase 50 gold bars for 1500 sovereigns.
Only problem then is learning how to properly spell sovereigns in less than two attempts.
I realise this is pretty damn minor in the grand scheme of things, but it still jars me sometimes:
You purchase 50 gold for 1500 gold.
That seems like a terrible deal!
Could we better differentiate gold bars from gold sovereigns? For example, do we even need to call our money gold, if we don't have any other type of sovereign? Maybe:
You purchase 50 gold bars for 1500 sovereigns.
Only problem then is learning how to properly spell sovereigns in less than two attempts.
I've handed people huge stacks of gold bars by accident before, too, while trying to pay them for things. The gold/sovereigns mix-up has filled me with so much paranoia over the years, I can't pay anyone for anything without checking my inventory and attempting to inrift everything about three times.
While it doesn't prevent the confusion entirely, gold bars can be targetted with goldbar, while gold sovereigns can be targetted with sovereign/s, cash, money, and coin/s
The purpose of writing is to inflate weak ideas, obscure pure reasoning, and inhibit clarity. With a little practice, writing can be an intimidating and impenetrable fog!
While it doesn't prevent the confusion entirely, gold bars can be targetted with goldbar, while gold sovereigns can be targetted with sovereign/s, cash, money, and coin/s
I never knew this was already a thing! This is amazing.
Mayor Steingrim, the Grand Schema says to you, "Well, as I recall you kinda leave a mark whereever you go."
Apologies if this has already been suggested, but I know other IRE games have something like RELAX INSOMNIA granted through the discipline skill equivalent. Could we have the same, by any chance?
@Aeldra Only the convenience of not using up herbs, if sufficiently skilled. I don't see why one's discipline over sleeping wouldn't extend to being able to relax again, too!
Could the level restrictions on NPC in-guilding (eg. ASK LEKARI JOIN SPIRITSINGERS) be removed if you are already a member of the city/commune?
It would be nice to be able to change guilds in the same nation without having to catch the right person online, particularly if you generally play during quiet (ie, oceanic) hours.
Er... you can't join a guild without being a member of the city/commune. The net effect of that suggestion is to just remove the level restrictions for NPC inguilding period.
Sorry, I was under the impression that if you were a freshman novice you could use the NPCs to join any nation.
They're different NPCs (and different tasks). They do have the same level requirements afaik, but inguilding != incitizening / welcoming. A newbie still has to join the organization first (yes, they can use the org-NPC) before they can try to use one of the Collegium teachers to inguild 'em.
Could the level restrictions on NPC in-guilding (eg. ASK LEKARI JOIN SPIRITSINGERS) be removed if you are already a member of the city/commune?
It would be nice to be able to change guilds in the same nation without having to catch the right person online, particularly if you generally play during quiet (ie, oceanic) hours.
Bolded and italicised for emphasis.
Everiine said: The reason population is low isn't because there are too many orgs. It's because so many facets of the game are outright broken and protected by those who benefit from it being that way. An overabundance of gimmicks (including game-breaking ones), artifacts that destroy any concept of balance, blatant pay-to-win features, and an obsession with convenience that makes few things actually worthwhile all contribute to the game's sad decline.
@Xenthos's point is that all guild joining is when you're already a member of the city/commune so... yep, exactly the thing @Elryn is asking for, with added pedantry.
I do think it would be nice for people already a member of an org to have a higher level at which they can auto-change guilds, while leaving it so that joining the org has a lower level cap. So someone level 50 (say) who is a Serenwilder could leave the Spiritsingers and autojoin the Hartstone but a rogue who is level 50 could not auto-join the Hartstone (because they won't qualify for autojoining Serenwilde). For people below level 21-30, there will be no change of functionality. For people above level 50, also no change of functionality.
Bonus points for allowing the orgs in question to set their own custom auto-joining thresholds via a leader priv command.
There still will be reasons to want to join a faction, and I expect that factional npcs and factional auto-joining will still exist in an equivalent form.
One more thing, that I think would be good for the game - could GWHO/CWHO/CGWHO/OWHO and so on show all players regardless of which plane they are on, providing they're not out in aetherspace?
I think the nations and guilds look a lot more empty than they actually are, usually because a lot of the people are spread out through the planes or hiding in manses.
Something like:
**************************[ THE SPIRITSINGERS GUILD ]**************************
Currently, there is 1 member on this Plane and 4 on other Planes.
I think it would be reasonable to hide people if they are in a room flagged with the privacy power (like the manse artifact), but since we can communicate across planes already I think it makes sense to show people who just happen to be bashing/influencing off-plane.
Not only would this make the guilds and nations seem a lot less empty most of the time, but it would also help novices and newer guild members see who is available to help without having to ask blindly (ie, "Is anyone awake that can take my test?"). Note that because of this, I wouldn't suggest that seeing people off-plane be linked to skill level at all.
Skip manses, since they're generally the AFK place to be. Odds are that if you're in a manse, you're AFK. Add in all known planes (including Limbo, since I believe the *bix rooms are there) and it should be fine.
Comments
Estarra the Eternal says, "Give Shevat the floor please."
Are you trying to drive Sylandra away to Glom?
Anklet of Gender Fluidity - 100 dingbats. Changes your gender, but only works once a year. Also adds a third, nonbinary gender to choose from, and people who have more knowledge about that can figure how that works.
Gnomish Tattoo Arm - 100 dingbats. Manse artifact, activate arm to set it into a room permanently. Room must already possess a tattoo bench, and manse must belong to user of the arm. This allows tattooists to tattoo themselves at double the power cost (to power the arm).
Also, could it show a rolling 12 Lusternian month average, rather than just the last month only?
An incentive for reaching the #1 position (if it can be weighted so as to not count novice score and unreasonably favour huge guilds) might be a small experience/essence bonus for all members, or a free transport skill, or something. And for the lowest performer, maybe make it possible to join the guild through a new NPC (if you aren't an enemy) that automatically forgets any conflicting skillsets at 100% lesson retention. These would be placed into a lessonpool that can only be used while a member of that guild, and has the heaviest possible transfer cost to another lesson pool. Sort of to encourage more people to join and try to revitalise the guild, with little cost.
I know factions will soon replace guilds, but they could function in a very similar way.
I do think it would be nice for people already a member of an org to have a higher level at which they can auto-change guilds, while leaving it so that joining the org has a lower level cap. So someone level 50 (say) who is a Serenwilder could leave the Spiritsingers and autojoin the Hartstone but a rogue who is level 50 could not auto-join the Hartstone (because they won't qualify for autojoining Serenwilde). For people below level 21-30, there will be no change of functionality. For people above level 50, also no change of functionality.
Bonus points for allowing the orgs in question to set their own custom auto-joining thresholds via a leader priv command.