Spice: Be better than what the Highlord intended.

[Dar]

There is plenty of infrastructure, entire clans even, that will smuggle spice for you into Allanak. For them the gate search is an obstacle that have long been overcome and neutralized.  The criminals are not doing a good enough job, if it is difficult to procure spice. The problem is not the difficulty of procurement, but the fact that ... it's not worth the effort. Even for clans which get spice for free and in any amounts, it's not worth the effort in 9/10 of Arm situations. There is always the '10th' situation. You're moving apartments and you cant pick up that wardrobe. Snort it up. You're about to walk into a cave of spiders and you know you'll either beat it, or you'll have to escape in minutes, snort it up. But RPTs? Long rides? Arena games? Anything with abnormal, unpredictable time factors? Forget it.

[gotdamnmiracle]

I agree with the above. I loved trying to use it as a Delf for RP as preparation for a big hunt or something, toking Krelez and then dancing around, painting myself up, etc. But the sad fact about RPTs is that they require a LONG time to get to the gore. By the time you've encountered the silt wizard or ash Vampyre then all the benefits are gone, and if you're really unlucky your coasting on the Spice crash at that point.

It'd be great if different intake had vastly differing time affects. Snorting had a more pronounced effect that only lasted at most half of a day, while smoking, though less potent, can make the high last over the course of one or two days (roughly an hour and a half to three hours IRL). Suddenly, I WANT to have a stock of war spice handy and I don't look like an idiot for stopping outside the ankheg cave and saying "Hold on. I need to toke up." because no one wants to put their RPT on hold like that.

[Veselka]

I agree that making the effects last longer might make them more lucrative, when it comes to war spice for sure. Having larger +/- would also make it less...Reliable? Or something that you would want to do every time. So instead of a strain of spice always boosting a certain stat, if it were a few stats, a lesser amount, and perhaps lowering another stat, or a chance of it.

I also agree that the NPC scripts in Allanak are...Draconian. It might be a really fun thing for soldiers to have to coordinate/do (actually track the smugglers/sources of spice).

[James de Monet]

I think some of you may be opining based on old information.  Getting caught smuggling at the gates of Nak has more scripted outcomes now than I was aware of before.  Arrest/Death is not a certainty.

[Cind]

The reason I usually don't casually use spice on my non-naki pcs is because there is nothing in the docs stating, "Hey, this isn't the worst kind of drug you could possibly imagine, and is more like Dune spice," and some people are really dead-set on treating folks as addicts with one foot in the grave if they see a pipe in their hand, a passing interest in spice, residence in the village, etc. I've seen all kinds of pretty stupid causes for that reaction. I've never used narcotics in real life and never will, so I don't draw resemblances between the effects of spice and real-life drugs. This has always been jarring to me, and is an OOC thing which I avoid through IC actions. I'm kind of hoping someday someone will add on a tack to the end of the spice doc so I can have casual spice-users again (or avoid spice, if they decide to go the other way.)

[Cind]

I say make the soldiers less effective, but keep the chance that they will catch a spice smuggler.

That way, it'll give the Arm something to do (track down spicers and smugglers, or find a reliable one to obtain from) and not every Johnny and Jenny at the bar will have a tube hidden in their inventory.

[nauta]

I think some of you may be opining based on old information.  Getting caught smuggling at the gates of Nak has more scripted outcomes now than I was aware of before.  Arrest/Death is not a certainty.

This is why I'd like the scripted response to be more perspicuous to the player.  It's just not the sort of thing you want to find out IC again, especially if the first time you did so it was ganksquad.

[Riev]

5 years ago, this meant insta-kill on a PC.

Things were changed. We asked what was changed.

Find out, they said.

Find out if the room that kills you instantly, still does. Go ahead. We dare you.

[Veselka]

I think some of you may be opining based on old information.  Getting caught smuggling at the gates of Nak has more scripted outcomes now than I was aware of before.  Arrest/Death is not a certainty.

As others have said...It's not exactly the kind of thing you want to test out on your PC.

I'd love it if on top of arresting or even fining (because I think that's a part of the new script, taking a 'bribe' from the PC), the PC's sdesc is reported to the Sergeant of the Arm. They can choose to follow up on it (shake down, arrest, get in on the action) or not.

I don't think spice is broken per se. Like many of the good things in this game, they could be made great if the opportunity presented itself, but all the changes around Red Storm with spice sifting and delivery and a plethora of other changes makes it seem sort of alright now.

It'd be cool if addiction code were more blatantly obvious, rather than blasting you with the come down message over and over again. It'd encourage more RP and less player despondence/annoyance that way, I think. It'd also be cool if it wasn't 'you aren't addicted' and 'you are addicted', and if there were a process inbetween where someone started getting cravings, similar to hunger.

[Miradus]

It does not instakill you, at least not for smallish amounts. I've accidentally smuggled spice through there so many times. If you've hidden it well on your person (I won't reveal those details) then the guards won't catch it, but if they do catch a small amount you're not going to be instakilled. If you've got five bricks in your bag and a thal in the pipe in your hand, then I don't know what they do. You can test that part.

As far as who should be policing spice, I've always felt the Guild should be more concerned about that than the Arm. Someone's bringing spice in and the Guild didn't sanction it? Find them! Deploy the bag peekers to the Gaj! Send the burglars to the rooftops! Get the hitters on stand by.

[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.

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

Or pop an addy.

We can both be right?

[Molten Heart]

.

[WarriorPoet]

All drugs are better when you poke 'em in your butt.

Mild toothache? Sawbones says cram some aspirin in your ass.

[Dar]

All drugs are better when you poke 'em in your butt.

Mild toothache? Sawbones says cram some aspirin in your ass.

That's actually true. If you stick it deep enough for the drugs to get absorbed into the intestine. Much better then swallowing it anyway.

Also, why the heck are we discussing RL drugs, when we're supposed to discuss spice.

[Inks]

Smoke spice
Sniff spice
Shelf spice

Idea :Allow shelving of spice.

[TheGoose]

I rode into Allanak with a tube behind my ear.

Gate guards charged me 50 'sid and took the roll.