Spice: Be better than what the Highlord intended.

[nauta]

PS: The situation that was described higher in the thread? About people snorting some spice before each hunt? Never happens. I'm sorry.

I haven't yet learned the coded benefits of spice, although I can guess at them from the help files.  However, that said, in the last two years I've had three occasions where the group I was with spiced up with war spice before heading out to war (or battle) -- and it made perfect IC sense to do so.

So it does happen.  Now whether the spice had an effect on our stats or it was just RP, or whether we all tanked in our stats afterwards, I have no idea about since I wasn't paying close enough attention.  But there's nothing more fun than snorting a bunch of spice and sallying ho!

(Outside those cases, I've mostly played my spice use as coping and not warring - it is a harsh desert planet, so spice and booze your way through life.)

[Riev]

I feel like that is part of the struggle, that even the coded effects of spice aren't "gud enuff" to warrant using because of the harsh comedowns and people who are code-focused not wanting to voluntarily 'lose stats'.

On the flipside, its an RP prop, and Kadius is FULL of RP props that nobody buys.

[Molten Heart]

.

[Riev]

Its happened before but that usually requires someone of high enough rank to be ABLE to stop an entire Argosy worth of materials at the gate for inspection.

I like to think it happens virtually, or that there are echos.

I would love to see occasional wagon-yard inspections. Arm of the Dragon just raiding some Kadian wagon because they heard the new "Plushie Gwoshie" toys are smuggling in spice.

[Doublepalli]

Let's be honest. No one but nobles buy spice in allanak!

There was a time, LONG ago under different staff, where I was told by an entire clan (with a wagon/argosy) that they "didn't need to buy from me" because they "just put it in some trunks and stuffed it away in the wagon after a trip to the Outpost". Like, in character, they told me they were doing the smuggling themselves. Then staff said "No they don't because they're not allowed to do that anymore."

I never did get to sell spice to them.

I actually remember this..

[Dresan]

I have no problem seeing raw spice become even less desirable to use. However, I still would have loved to see kuraci spice be more tempting to use.

Unless you are playing a character specifically with an spice addiction (instead of drinking, sex addiction,etc) there is no real temptation to use spice except for recreational fun once in a while.This especially  true in allanak since the short duration usually means it wears out before it is even useful. 

[Hauwke]

The only reason people dont use spice frequantly in Allanak, is because it is illegal. Everyone uses heaps of booze, to the point where some people are codedly able to outdrink a halfgiant (which is absurd).

[TheGoose]

...Oh geeze. Okay. I haven't caught up with the comments here, but please do keep in mind that most people's understanding of Real Life drug use is heavily colored by propaganda and the unfortunate consequences of prohibition.

It is very difficult to do permanent damage to yourself with drugs. Certainly not impossible, but you're not going to drive yourself perma nuts binging meth for a month. Seriously. Sleep a few days and stop doing meth, you'll be fine.

You have to be doing an insane amount of most drugs to do anything permanent to yourself, and spice should probably reflect that.

[650Booger]

...Oh geeze. Okay. I haven't caught up with the comments here, but please do keep in mind that most people's understanding of Real Life drug use is heavily colored by propaganda and the unfortunate consequences of prohibition.

It is very difficult to do permanent damage to yourself with drugs. Certainly not impossible, but you're not going to drive yourself perma nuts binging meth for a month. Seriously. Sleep a few days and stop doing meth, you'll be fine.

You have to be doing an insane amount of most drugs to do anything permanent to yourself, and spice should probably reflect that.

sorry but this is really bad advice!

don't do drugs, kids.

[WarriorPoet]

I am a casual and sometimes not so casual drug addict.

Despite being hideously ugly I am pretty high functioning despite thoroughly abusing myself or 20 years.

[650Booger]

are we talking about meth?  the quote was about meth.  if you've been a heavy meth user for 20 years and are still high functioning, you are the extreme exception to the rule.

[tapas]

The reason street meth is considered dangerous is that the potential for abuse is huge and the drug is often laced with impurities from the meth lab that is just bad for you.

But there are millions of people that use a similar product at smaller doses to either enhance performance or curb the symptoms of ADHD. And they do it for years without suffering addictive symptoms.

The difference between the two is basically dosage, temperance, and social stigma.

[chrisdcoulombe]

There are significant coded effects from spice and after coming down there are some temporary coded defects with certain types.  It would be cool to have addiction code though.   

[650Booger]

The reason street meth is considered dangerous is that the potential for abuse is huge and the drug is often laced with impurities from the meth lab that is just bad for you.

But there are millions of people that use a similar product at smaller doses to either enhance performance or curb the symptoms of ADHD. And they do it for years without suffering addictive symptoms.

The difference between the two is basically dosage, temperance, and social stigma.

I can see I've lost this debate.  fine.  meth is awesome.  smoke dat ice brah.

[boog]

The reason street meth is considered dangerous is that the potential for abuse is huge and the drug is often laced with impurities from the meth lab that is just bad for you.

But there are millions of people that use a similar product at smaller doses to either enhance performance or curb the symptoms of ADHD. And they do it for years without suffering addictive symptoms.

The difference between the two is basically dosage, temperance, and social stigma.

I can see I've lost this debate.  fine.  meth is awesome.  smoke dat ice brah.

Hyuck, okay.

[manipura]

Laying off the meth and getting a few days of some really decent sleep will fix that person up, good as new! 

[Hauwke]

In all fairness, those teeth dont even look like teeth. The hell is a molar doing where an incisor should be?

[gotdamnmiracle]

I don't really understand this derail. Spice =/= Meth. Arm =/= real life. If they coded in soothing that made spice permanently fuck your character no one would use it. Doesn't lashing cause permanent HP loss after a while, but most PC store after that happens so it's somewhat of a rarity?

I really wish this community would get over this "But it's not realistic" kick. I play a fantasy game because it isn't realistic, and so do you. Realism is not equal to fun, but often in video games translates into tedium.

I imagine if we made spice more useful to players in the game people would use it more. Yes, the argument that drugs aren't "necessarily" useful IRL is valid, however you're not running around and chopping up giant bugs with hunks of stone, so as far as I can tell your point is moot.

[James de Monet]

I'm far from an expert, and this excerpt is from drugabuse.gov (which is to say, if an article was going to include propaganda, this would be it), but....FWIW (emphasis mine)

Some of the neurobiological effects of chronic methamphetamine abuse appear to be at least partially reversible. In the aforementioned study, abstinence from methamphetamine resulted in less excess microglial activation over time, and abusers who had remained methamphetamine- free for 2 years exhibited microglial activation levels similar to the study's control subjects. Another neuroimaging study showed neuronal recovery in some brain regions following prolonged abstinence (14 but not 6 months). This recovery was associated with improved performance on motor and verbal memory tests. But function in other brain regions did not recover even after 14 months of abstinence, indicating that some methamphetamine induced changes are very long lasting. Moreover, methamphetamine use can increase one's risk of stroke, which can cause irreversible damage to the brain. A recent study even showed higher incidence of Parkinson's disease among past users of methamphetamine.

Meth isn't a "sleep it off" kind of drug.  And dopamine transporters are your friends.  Those are how you experience pleasure.  If I was going to violently assault part of my brain with a chemical hammer, it wouldn't be that part.

[Molten Heart]

.

[evilcabbage]

i believe it's more like dune spice.

afaik your teeth won't fall out.

but you won't see the future either, unless staff intervenes a bit.

[WarriorPoet]

I just want gnarly blue eyes.

Score.

[Marc]

Glowing blue eyes require a spec app.  White walker

Edited to add:  why not remove the gate search?  More casual usage if you won't be disemboweled for carrying some spice to devotions

[gotdamnmiracle]

Glowing blue eyes require a spec app.  White walker

Edited to add:  why not remove the gate search?  More casual usage if you won't be disemboweled for carrying some spice to devotions

Eh. I think the gate search is fine. As it stands you can slip past with a good chunk, so long as you have the coin to pay it forward.

[Vex]

If we wanted spice to be more common, the best incentive, I think, is to eliminate the NPC script at the gates, in Allanak. The guards there will find your spice, make you wanted in all Allanaki holdings, and then jump you with 4-8 NPCs, which includes half-giants, INSANTLY, making you dead.

It isn't that most PCs think drugs are bad, or care about prohibition, or that there are other IC factors that keep them from away from spice, as a vice. It's that there is a mechanic at the gates, a highly lethal and unrealistically efficient mechanic, that makes using spice as a coin dump, or character facet, an extremely risky and tedious prospect.

The high risk combined with the coded detriment, in the form of stacking stat degradation that lasts a very long time, means that no one who comes and goes from Allanak, with any regularity, will ever include spice as part of their character concept. The risk vs reward is, imo, too skewed, especially with how brutally punishing the grind here is. It just isn't worth it, not even a little bit.

I think that, if people could come through the gates in Allanak with spice, and the threat of being busted came from the soldier PCs, instead of death by scripted NPCs, because you're exhausted from school/work and totally forgot your character had a few grains in their pocket, there would be MUCH more interest in casually owning, using and peddling spice.

Allanak is, atm, the heart of the game world, and those scripts make sure, spice, as a thing, has almost no chance of lasting plot relevance, or impact, because of how those scripts work, and how they impact the people who need to come and go from Allanak, to do their thing.