Can we have more interesting spice?

[Nana]

tl;dr: can we have a new spice or two, useful to non-violent, non-mudsexing characters? Something codedly useful to boot.

What follows in this post is a quote, which is extremely whiny in tone. What I am trying to do is quote someone who might feel this strongly about wanting some new spice. However, I don't personally care whether or not new spices get added. The game is great as is, and I personally like spice fine as it is. But I speak for the people, and someone out there does feel this way.

Hopefully that makes me immune to any attempts to troll or flame me, which I seem to get every other post I make here. Yeah, I'm noticing a pattern. Okay I'm done, enjoy.

Nana

    <rant>

I formally raise for discussion the notion that spice, as it is, sucks far too much to get anyone but the typical war-spice huffing hunters to want to do it regularly. For now, let's forget those non-soldiering PCs who do smoke it, namely, obscenely rich magickers, the obscenely rich salaried clan members, and the Kuracis, all of whom do not count.

Yeah there are some spices that might be fun -- IF I was playing a whore -- but sorry, I am not looking for aphrodisiacs. I'm looking for something that would be habit forming. I want to get ADDICTED and I don't want everyone to look at my character, addicted to this new spice X, and say, "Oh, gee, that player just wanted their character to be addicted to spice to look cool, but otherwise there's no reason why they would have gotten hopelessly hooked." Get me?

Therefore once I again I suggest that truly useful (preferably not more "help me kill stuff") spices be coded and added. I don't care what they do, you guys would know what's actually useful, surprise me, etc, etc. I want to do spice but I'm sorry, I also want to pay my fucking play-money rent, and I don't feel like wasting my (precious) RL hours grinding sid just to smoke a little useless shit just to show off to people, no offense to you grinders who have time for that.

(For those of you who aren't convinced by my twinkish, f#!$ you argument, maybe you'd be intrigued by the IC consequences of a highly addictive, powerful spice suddenly inundating the market, creating economic and political instability and therefore leading to new plots.)

final notes:

I raise this issue because I have officially "been here a while" now, and I simply don't see that much spice intrigue going on. I am not *currently* playing a Kuraci, and no, I'm not trying to get them richer. Keep in mind this wouldn't necessarily do that, as other events could balance any potential gains they may make with a new -good- spice.

Finally, of course I understand a decision this drastic rests entirely in the IMMs' hands, and nobody else.

</rant>

[lordcooper]

Powerful, highly addictive drugs are generally not taken IRL because they give some temporary boost to your skills.

The most useful spice w/should probably be the most pleasurable.

E: If you're after the opportunity to play a real down and dirty mess of an addict, you already can.

[Zoan]

If the drug from Limitless existed, I would be taking it forever, be damned the side-effects.

[Barzalene]

It sucks?

Ok.

[Nana]

It sucks?

Ok.

As evidenced by the fact that I rarely see addicted PCs, yes.

Powerful, highly addictive drugs are generally not taken IRL because they give some temporary boost to your skills.

The most useful spice w/should probably be the most pleasurable.

E: If you're after the opportunity to play a real down and dirty mess of an addict, you already can.

Wrong, a lot of people take all kinds of drugs to "boost their skills." Coffee, perhaps? There isn't coffee in Armageddon. Neither is there anything with what I feel is a well-coded version of tobacco's effects on the brain.

[Samoa]

mansa played an extremely well-known and high-profile spice addict some many years ago. It seemed to work OK for him.

[Jeshin]

Lets look at spice shall we?

You have jittery energetic spice
You have heart thumpity blood rush spice
You have brooding and face bashing spice
You have the imaginary confidence spice
You have the sex spice
You have the chill spice
You have the tree hugger spice
There's even shrooms spice... man!

Every single RL drug is represented above. Lack of documented information on spice and maybe a lack of imagination at possible RP options from the echoes is what makes spice seem bland.


***EDIT
Technically there is a coded addiction to spice which I've never seen on my own PCs. I have seen one PC going through spice withdrawls in Tuluk in the last year.

[Nana]

Okay, that's maybe three people so far who retorted to my argument with "lack of imagination" points.

I guess that means 95% of the playerbase has a lack of imagination, which is a far cry from the ~40% of the U.S. that drinks coffee, most of them daily.

Come on people, players barely drink alcohol, and many fewer use any other kind of substance. Aren't you all bored of just eating and drinking water?

[Nana]

mansa played an extremely well-known and high-profile spice addict some many years ago. It seemed to work OK for him.

For now, let's forget those non-soldiering PCs who do smoke it, namely, obscenely rich magickers, the obscenely rich salaried clan members, and the Kuracis, all of whom do not count.

Thanks for the post Samoa but I'm asking for drugs that lots and lots of people would want to use and get hooked to.

The problem is that all the spice in the game now tries to replicate the "hard drugs," and they're too expensive, too useless. Good for high profile addicts. Not good for the regulars.

[RogueGunslinger]

Mmm. Can you suggest a new coded spice affect that is useful in the ways you suggest? It's like you're trying to squeeze us for ideas without being able to come up with your own. Saying we really need [something] but are inable to specify exactly what that [something] is.

[Nana]

Sure, Roguegunslinger.

At the basis of all my suggestions is the creation of a new need. As it stands there's really nothing that people need enough to warrant making any new drugs. So maybe a new need could be created.

I guess this would trouble a lot of people, but tiredness is very generously coded as is. As it stands people can go for some number of days, I don't know exactly how many, before they start to feel the coded effects of going without sleep or rest. And those effects seem to be quite mild.

If that code were mode tougher, than people would, as they are in real life, be in a fairly constant struggle to maintain alertness, energy, and so on. Living a "healthy" lifestyle with fairly regular sleep would negate this, of course. But for people who have irregular work/sleep schedules then over time this would create an "addiction" to things that restore energy, with sleep cravings.

Or, there could be a spice that temporarily mollifies that need for alertness and energy and give it to you.

AS I UNDERSTAND the current spices that do this don't handle this need in the way I describe, but they instead give a temporary boost to things such as how far you can travel. Those spices are useful but that's not the kind of thing one would end up needing on a daily basis.

ANYWAY: I don't think this needs too much more discussion on the boards, because I now have some ideas for things I might do ICly for this post, and I think they're feasible. So thank you, those of you who retorted to my OP, because having to defend the points just a little stimulated my thought process on the matter.

cheers.

[number13]

There's cheap, relatively easy to find spice alternatives in game right now -- at least four that I personally know of.  They have drug like effects.  Find out what they are, and try to play a peddler who sells these things for a few coins a piece.

The real problem is that spice code punishes regular users too harshly.  Though it's probably realistic, it cuts down severely on the number of PCs willing to buy drugs, because they don't want their stats to get futzed up.

EDIT to add:  Not to mention there's a variety of teas you can brew, which have various purported (if not coded) effects.  If you really want to add to list of drugs commonly consumed by the masses, I suggest apping either a Kuraci or Dasari family member and making it happen IG.  Or get yourself hired by one of the above as an enterprising herbalist.

[Nana]

There's cheap, relatively easy to find spice alternatives in game right now -- at least four that I personally know of.  They have drug like effects.  Find out what they are, and try to play a peddler who sells these things for a few coins a piece.

The real problem is that spice code punishes regular users too harshly.  Though it's probably realistic, it cuts down severely on the number of PCs willing to buy drugs, because they don't want their stats to get futzed up.

EDIT to add:  Not to mention there's a variety of teas you can brew, which have various purported (if not coded) effects.  If you really want to add to list of drugs commonly consumed by the masses, I suggest apping either a Kuraci or Dasari family member and making it happen IG.  Or get yourself hired by one of the above as an enterprising herbalist.

Ah, wow, thank you. Kudos to your post, you basically gave me the hints I needed to know about. I'll get cracking on this.

[Synthesis]

Spice sucks?  Uh, no.  You probably don't see many coded addicts in the PC population because it's pretty damn expensive, and nobody wants to spend the vast majority of their time doing repetitive bullshit just to support their PC's spice addiction.

When you say you want something "codedly useful," you're either talking about stats or skills.  There's already a spice for every stat.  There's at least one (maybe another) spice for regen.  There's a spice for certain skills.  There's one that's purely recreational AFAIK.  What else do you want?  It seems to me that the set of skills that could plausibly be boosted by spice is fairly limited, and is probably already fairly well-represented.

I mean, even the stuff that's purely recreational in real life is already fairly well-represented.  The major classes are sedatives/hypnotics, hallucinogens/entheogens, and stimulants...all of which are already represented by coded spices.

[manipura]

Wrong, a lot of people take all kinds of drugs to "boost their skills." Coffee, perhaps? There isn't coffee in Armageddon. Neither is there anything with what I feel is a well-coded version of tobacco's effects on the brain.

Look harder 

(Edited to fix my quoting mistake...and to add a winky...)

[number13]

Spice sucks?  Uh, no.  You probably don't see many coded addicts in the PC population because it's pretty damn expensive, and nobody wants to spend the vast majority of their time doing repetitive bullshit just to support their PC's spice addiction.

Spice is essentially free if you know where to find it. Ten minutes can net enough to last your PC a RL month. I stand by my statement -- there aren't that many addicts because people don't want to see their stats plummet.

[Old Kank]

Like Synthesis and others have said, there's already a spice for pretty much everything you could want.  We don't need more spice.

What we need is a better system of addiction.  Rather than just fucking up stats fairly early on, spice should give you cravings.  The effects should be bigger and last longer.  It should quell hunger and thirst, and maybe reduce injuries.  Up the ante for active spice use, rather than just using it as casual RP flavor.

[Synthesis]

Spice sucks?  Uh, no.  You probably don't see many coded addicts in the PC population because it's pretty damn expensive, and nobody wants to spend the vast majority of their time doing repetitive bullshit just to support their PC's spice addiction.

Spice is essentially free if you know where to find it. Ten minutes can net enough to last your PC a RL month. I stand by my statement -- there aren't that many addicts because people don't want to see their stats plummet.

Well, spice is free if you don't count the insane risk involved in doing anything around Red Storm, or all the time you have to spend foraging the spice-equivalents elsewhere.

[bcw81]

Spice sucks?  Uh, no.  You probably don't see many coded addicts in the PC population because it's pretty damn expensive, and nobody wants to spend the vast majority of their time doing repetitive bullshit just to support their PC's spice addiction.

Spice is essentially free if you know where to find it. Ten minutes can net enough to last your PC a RL month. I stand by my statement -- there aren't that many addicts because people don't want to see their stats plummet.

Well, spice is free if you don't count the insane risk involved in doing anything around Red Storm, or all the time you have to spend foraging the spice-equivalents elsewhere.

I would beg to state that you can get free spice in a very non-risk way with the right connections.

[Synthesis]

Well, yeah, when I was playing a merchant I was making so much coin that I had to do -something- with it, so I bought expensive shit and gave it away to my homies, but that's sort of an exception to the rule, since most people aren't running around with spam-crafting sugar daddies.

[bcw81]

I can't get too far into this, but lets just say that that's not the only way.

[Barzalene]

Now that Nana has complained about the sex and drugs on Arm, I'm waiting anxiously for the post on how our rock and roll sucks too.

[manipura]

On a day when I'm not feeling particularly....cheery, this

....most people aren't running around with spam-crafting sugar daddies.

and this

Now that Nana has complained about the sex and drugs on Arm, I'm waiting anxiously for the post on how our rock and roll sucks too.

definitely brought a smile to my face...

[askaran]

Dont want new spice. Want docs on the current ones.. Or atleast someone who knows what they're doing to tell me where to look.

[Cind]

maybe a spice that's white and looks like opal, opaque and makes your magick explode.