Content and creation

[Shabago]

Rather not need to clean out needless/salty posts while trying to get something productive done here with all of you and/or end up in a thread lock.

- City Elf Tribe
- More Noble Houses open.
- Pclan reworking (in a round about way)
- Some sort of outfit/clothing QoL (code, but it was read/noted)

What else?

[lostinspace]

I'll take the opportunity to ask, because it's something I really want.
Full Class mages alongside sub-class mages as options, maybe with a karma cost equal to the highest karma cost sub-class. 3 for whira/krath/drov, 2 for viv/ruk

[Pretentious]

Does reinstating the GMH hunter branches count as 'new'?

[number13]

More important than opening and closing clans, or making X, Y, Z role available/unavailable, I think it might be fun to introduce a LARP-ish structured narrative to the game.  Importantly, the narrative would have a metagame scoring that is shared with the community at the end of a chapter.

For example, let's say there's Coconuts of Quendor scattered all over the Known, in a couple dozen various odd locations. Some of the coconuts could be placed in very difficult locations to reach, like islands out on the Silt Sea, or dangerous monster-filled anti-magic caverns deep underground.

Finding the coconuts is one problem. Doing anything with them is more complicated. It might require a mini-RPT to actually fetch up a coconut.

Each clan/tribe would be given a directive related to the coconuts, and earn points for fulfilling their obligations.

1) The coconuts are sacred. Make sure they stay protected and undisturbed in their original locations, so that they'll sprout up into palm trees.
2) The coconuts are dangerous. Find and destroy as many coconuts as possible.
3) The coconuts are valuable. Gather up as many coconuts as possible, and once they are in your possession, keep them safe.
4) Who gives a shit about coconuts? Earn as much obsidian as you can helping out other clans with their coconut-related activities.

There could also be secondary goals, for which the clan earns less points. For example, a d-elf tribe might earn points for palm trees on their own turf, and have some incentive to steal coconuts from other places.

After a period of time, the narrative ends. Points are tallied, and broadcast OOCly to the community. There's a narrative result determined by storytellers, which feeds into the next chapter.

(In case it's not clear, coconuts are a stand-in for a McGuffin. It could be iron scattered around by a meteorite, or strange elemental crystals growing out of the sands, or...some sort of gross alien coconuts that boiled from unknown origin.)

[BadSkeelz]

I've been thinking, what if we limit House public noble representatives to 1 per House and use the 8-9 players we had to open each of the 9 Houses? It would certainly create a dynamic political scene where you have a House that does nearly everything.

This has been suggested a lot. Rather than consolidating, spreading it out. One Noble per clan, but a choice of clans, versus 3 nobles per clan and you can choose only my favorites.

I imagine nine open houses all vying for attention from staff would be a lot to handle.

Doesn't change the fact that most noble houses have jack-all to actually do. Give the ones we have open now more to do before we further bloat the top-heavy structure of Allanak.

Suggestion: De-Virtualization of Noble House Activities*
Let the Nobles have actual jobs that require actual PCs to do, so that they can hire on crews (both in-house or otherwise) and accomplish those tasks. Try and limit the amount of "work" that needs to be done via the request tool, and get as much in to the actual game. A noble that's hired on 6 workers to see their pet project done is adding at least 3x more play-ability than one noble who just hires an aide, then sits around waiting until they need to hire an assassin to kill a Merchant who hasn't delivered an order for six RL months.

What I'd like to see is more of the "virtual work" of Houses being brought in to the game world, so that PCs can take over from VNPCs. The Amber Wyverns are a historical example. They were a PC crew that belonged to House Borsail, and were charged with bringing in wild animals for the Arena. They even managed to do this somewhat successfully, although my impression was that they were fighting with code as much as it was working for them. If it was easier to capture and haul (N)PCs across the Known, I could see a clan like the Wyverns (or regular bounty hunters) being more successful. Let PCs do their jobs without having to have a six-week back-and-forth planning session in the request tool. Things like better subduing and confinement code, or even just more varied forage rooms in certain-places could go a ways towards providing PCs ways to play out their Houses better.

Suggestion: Remove Crimcode
Speaking of giving people more things to do: remove crimcode. Give the Byn more jobs to do in town, give soldier and House servant PCs more of a point for existing, increase the turn-over of sponsored roles. Make Allanak more chaotic so we have something more to react against.

*Edit to add: This can really go for any clan, not just the Noble Houses. They just came to mind first based on the discussion.

[triste]

Does reinstating the GMH hunter branches count as 'new'?

+1000000 upvotes. See recent discussion in http://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,55629.0.html

Also upvotes to Skeelz comments related to this on opening more common jobs.

[Narf]

More ways to codedly lose a conflict without dieing.

Example 1: Give templars the ability to magically (or physically) mark a character as a pariah. This mark is either attached to a character's wear location or added to their main description. PCs can see it, and NPCs that would care about such a thing won't deal with the player. A mark can be removed by any figure of sufficient authority.

Example 2: Give high ranking criminal figures the ability to mark a character for harrassment. NPC criminals will attempt to steal from them, either through pickpocketing or knocking them out and taking their things. Merchants aligned with the criminals won't deal with the character, and may have their guards attack them.

Example 3: Codedly allow PCs to bribe guards to forgive violent crimes as long as they're not murder. The character won't become wanted (or loses wanted status) for one crime as long as the target lives through it. This could be set up in advance (command example: bribe guard Talia: Now targeting Talia will not create a wanted status until Talia dies).

[molecricket]

Brands and/or tattoos for criminals would be good, Narf. I think Luirs has something similar already? Don't quote me on that. Maybe for Allanak, they could be brands for extra southern brutality.

I know the topic of slave characters is kind of contentious, since they were tried and removed due to how restrictive they were. That, and I didn't actually play while they were in use, so I can't argue for or against that sentiment. But I had an idea that I think would make the concept both work, and also allow House Borsail to actually participate in its main source of income. Introduce a labor camp (i.e. the obsidian mines that Allanak is said to have) that a variety of characters could be sent to. Criminals, prisoners of war, hapless grebbers/tribals. Depending on the circumstances they could serve different sentences (or life, and just have some opportunity to escape), and there would be opportunities for prison gangs to form and the AoD/Borsail to regulate the place. One of the main complaints that it looked like arose for slave chars prior to their removal was that slaves would be starved for interaction if their master's weren't on, in a labor camp sort of system this'd be alleviated by having other slaves to interact with. And of course, a player could just choose to store as a virtual prisoner, if they don't want to play such a scenario (as is currently the case). There could be quotas for obsidian mined, weighed in stones, and bonuses for the slaver Houses based on performance/number of slaves provided.

Of course, it's probably not the easiest undertaking (I have no clue as to what would go into making something like that), but one of the main complaints I see buzzing around is that Borsail's (like other clans) primary function isn't really factored into real gameplay anymore.

[betweenford]

I'd personally like to see a revamp of the availability of "plant fibers" shift from just one plant, to multiple plants across the Known. Making sandcloth by hand for self-sufficiency is sort of painful as it stands due to the singular sourced nature of the components.
Raised availability for cotton... It's practically impossible to obtain in anything more than a singular length for every few days.

More "automated job" style jobs for the sake of variety in the Vrun Driath and improvements to ones that already exist, like clearing "weeds" in Yaroch in return for flour/money. Working for pay in the obsidian mines, adding "clay patch" items to New Menos, wrangling chalton in the chalton ranch, messing around with the barakhan horde in the chalton ranch.

[Olafson]

So Sorcerors.
I played one quite a few years ago who went to the end of one of the spell path progressions, this was when the paths were not that old.  As soon as he died (so it seemed) more spells were added, but what would have been great was the ability to learn other paths.
How they would do this?  Who knows.  Have to learn/kill/steal the soul of another sorceror of a different path.  I always think back to Heroes with the stealing of powers when one died.  This could be implemented for all I know, but from my knowledge, would be very nice.

In fact, could extend it to elementalists.  Can actually learn the other aspects through some method (death preferable).  Maybe it's not coded but staff can set up.  Would give max magickers something to keep working towards and add distrust.

Very nice and would lead back to the old days (for us old players) who remember the full socs and elementalists.
- Olafson

[Erythil]

I've only run into them a couple times but the random animal dens are cool.

I would like to see this code expanded to create more emergent content for military types and explorers to try and seek out.  Random ruins, random bandit camps, random tombs, random sackable villages for the PC raiders, the rare not-quite-entirely depleted iron vein.  Lot of new room assets to make, I guess, but it would bring back the feeling of surprise and adventure.

+1 to the idea of clear-cut 'prestige' progression for magic classes.  Maybe have a prestige progression option for every class. Like if you fullbranch your PC and max every spell or every craft or fullmaster a weapon, you can select an otherwise unobtainable ability.  I suppose these could be RP goals instead of code goals, but I think the more things are automated the less people cry bullshit and favoritism.

An ability to make herbs into dyes would be nice, they already have colored tints.  Right now there is no organic way to source many of them except through shops.  This isn't really anything that is desperately needed but it seems a rational expansion on existing craft system architecture and would give a use for some of those less-desirable herbs.


While many cry for fewer high magic elements, I would like to see these generally made more accessible.  Not in the hands of NPCs, but in the hands of players.  I'd like to see potions and scrolls and staves and all kinds of buggy nonsense that has been put under the rug come back.  A handful of niche expensive anti-magic charms or tools usable by mundanes only would be cool--I have ideas for these but describing what they would act against and how would be spoilers for magic code.


I would like to see Tuluk opened but not actively staffed with player orgs and apartments.  Just having it as a visible location to trade in, perhaps with new added dangers for foreigners in certain districts, would be nice.

[th3kaiser]

This is obviously a long shot but something I've wanted for years but would require just a ton of work.

I want the silt sea expanded along the outside of the Known and have it stop near Luirs or some such thing. It'd immediately give another purpose to skimming and more options for travel. Skimmers right now just feel mostly pointless except for the occasional niche need and I'd love to see them have some utility.

[Doublepalli]

 I am not for city elf tribes. I don't feel people are responsible enough or understand the tribe mentality behind elven roleplay - from former interactions with city elf playermade tribes.  It never changes. Its borderline trolling. Most take a playermade celf tribe as an excuse to do boldly suicidal things, that bring great threat to the tribe and to themselves, and that just doesn't make sense in an elven mindset.

Unless they have handicaps. Obvious dos and donts, that will get you exiled/murdered by your own tribe and preferably an npc animation.

Bring back the Kuraci Fist!

[triste]

This is obviously a long shot but something I've wanted for years but would require just a ton of work.

I want the silt sea expanded along the outside of the Known and have it stop near Luirs or some such thing. It'd immediately give another purpose to skimming and more options for travel. Skimmers right now just feel mostly pointless except for the occasional niche need and I'd love to see them have some utility.

I love it whenever this idea comes up. It's tricky thinking about where we might stick it given the geography, but any expansion of the silt sea that adds utility as you say -- or maybe even makes the silt-sea necessary as the only source of some materials -- would be great.

I love the creativity people have had around "fishing on the shore" for silt horrors, but it's one of those recent practices that further put a nail in the coffin for anyone wanting or needing to silt skim.

Expansion of the silt sea in the way you describe might also allow for a good entry-point for skimming. We all comment on how often fatal silt skimming is, and how this also contributes to people not utilizing it. New content like this might allow for an adjustment of the very steep "starting to silt skim" curve, AKA an easier to raft down silt river leading to the silt sea. That said, I am fine if you are proposing the new silt areas would be equally fatal and vast.

I've played maybe four some years, on and off over a span of ten years, and I've never once "had" to ride a silt skimmer, so my characters never have. I literally haven't seen a skimmer in use in game, and it's ironic that the first time I have seen and interacted with a silt skimmer was in a MUD based of Armageddon and not Armageddon itself.

[th3kaiser]

I've absolutely used skimmers but I've had to purposefully make PCs with the intention of buying a skimmer just to explore. I've gone through most of the current iteration (as of a few years ago) of the silt sea and while it's super neat, it's not a necessary or particularly profitable place to go. And I love the idea of Stormers having the ability to just sail up to a northerly location for trade/pillaging. Silt Vikings FTW.

[Dresan]

First off let me begin by saying I love these types of threads. Over the years there have been many ideas popping up in the forum,and many of them do get implemented. Everything from "give my warrior backstab" to many other smaller ideas and asks.

Elf Tribes and indie clans
I think if you play an elf in any of the main locations there are options now for you to join a clan. Playing in these in some of these clans as c-elves have draw backs but its part of the drawbacks of being an elf. It is good enough, but if anything I believe that indie groups as a whole need much more support then they currently get and some things should be more streamlined like being able to rent out compounds.

It used to be much easier to be an indie or part of an indie group in Tuluk, you could also be a excellent grebber/hunter and have access to the political content in that city. I think some of that needs to be analyzed to see what can be learned from it and try to encourage it more.

I feel this is important, because indie clans rise and decline, all while bringing a breathe of fresh air and content to the game.

Clan compounds and apartments
On the subject of clans, I believe that some of the compounds are way too safe, conversely apartments are still deathtraps. I believe clans should provide safe storage, a rent locker system should be implemented, with a guard handing out the key to rented out lockers. Of course, sleeping areas should be well patrolled as well. However, I would make climbing out of the compound easily accomplished.

Having spies, competitors, thieves and even assassins finding ways into their 'safe' compound should be a concern of all clans.

With apartments, doors should lock only from the outside and when an apartment door closes, it should lock automatically. If someone flees with in the apartment in the direction of the door, the door should open letting the person run out.

These changes would encourage players to use these areas in new creative ways.

Tuluk and Luirs

City of Tuluk should not re-open. That said they should bring Tuluk back by adding a couple tuluki nobles in Luirs or even having Tuluk nobles fleeing from the city take over luirs.

Luirs is still too closely tied with Allanak, since merchant houses cannot go against their clients the allanak nobility. If you fuck up in either area you only have Redstorm to move into. Additionally, this would put merchant houses back into a tight rope balancing the interests of themselves with their two large clients tuluk and luirs.

Underground Caverns, passageways and caves

I would like to see a larger network of underground caverns and passages way under allanak's sewers that would extend all the way to redstorm. There should be reason for grebbers, hunters and explorers to risk their life to go there. There should be no water or light (basically you can visit but you can't stay). The passage ways would not be suitable for mounts. This would be wilderness rooms but stamina costs should be 0-1 or 2 at the most).

Opening up an area like this to be shared between redstorm and Allanak players would be wonderful and just be a source of amazing player and staff content generation.

[LindseyBalboa]

To be honest, I love the idea of a competitor for Allanak. I'd like to see that, as I think a lot of people would.

However, just listening to everyone talk about Tuluk and hearing the differences between each player about how it was, and seeing how much exploded just now from re-opening a completely changed small tribal group, I think Tuluk has to stay dead. I wouldn't wish staffing a re-opened Tuluk on my worst enemy.

So, something else. Someone takes over Tuluk. A new Sorcerer King. A new city, not even Tuluk, or a massive camp of invading savages led by a sorcerer-King a la the Legion in Fallout. Something that gives the GMH leverage to play off one another, and gives nobles a direct enemy, and gives military companies a direct enemy, and gives raiders a place to flee or people to play off one another, two cities that can both hire mercenaries against one another.

I just think Allanak needs a real, constant enemy for balance, whether mostly virtual or not. And I also think Tuluk as-is should get wiped off the map in the process.

[JustAnotherGuy]

So I want to speak on the Hunter Branches as I was apart of it a bit at the time of the removal.  As for what Staff are doing now about it, I have no say nor opinion on it, but I do have some suggestions.

Hunter Branches of the GMHs in an economical sense to the Houses were to expensive.  Paying someone a consistent rate month after month, and they brought in what you needed... sounds great and all, but let me tell you from my experience in those clans how it worked out.  I've played as an Agent and Merchant, and have some intimate relations when it comes to the GMHs.  So what happens is you have a crew of hunters that go out and hunt, it was great... but then you get item bloat, so much junk and unneeded items that it became a chore to handle and maintain.  As a crafter, I HATED going into a craft hall and digging through the absolute mountains of materials... it was even worse if it wasn't organized.  Then you'd tell the hunters to stop hunting... they'd get bored, get themselves killed... then you'd have to hire more.

As for leader roles, to operated a GMH clan at the time of hunting divisions, there was the Sponsored Hunter leader, then Agent & Merchant.  So three sponsored roles.  Normally there was need for a second leadership position for the Hunters, so the hunter leader would try to find one.  (Oh note, I've played a sponsored role hunter leader also.)  So we have four potential leadership positions there, then add in the senior crafter... we're talking some leadership bloat here.

Next we have all those hunters, we're talking normally 4-5 hunters per clan, normally this number would get up to 6-8, so in the top days of this, that is 24 hunters between the three GMH clans that would use hunters.  No GMH house needs that many hunters, but then if we cut down on the number of hunters per clan, we get 3-4 per clan.  New hunters would go out on their own because not everyone is on their play times, then they would end up dead.  Rinse repeat, find new hunters.

So economically, it more feasible for the GMHs to buy only the materials they need directly from hunters, but from what I understand, it can sometimes be hard to find those hunters.  If they GMHs get only the materials they need, they are happy.  Hunters get paid for what they bring in, they are happy.  So we really have two problems here, GMHs need hunters, but they don't need them in clan... but having them in clan makes it more convenient, though it adds bloat to the clan.

Here is my suggestion... Hunter Clan in Luir's.  A singular sponsored role hunting clan, similar to the Byn in a way.  I could see the GHMs coming together to sponsor a Hunter Clan of sorts.  This could be a great Newbie entry clan also, just also like the Byn.  I think the issue is that this SHOULD have come up already with the Player Clans, but I don't think the current Player Clans rules allowed for it to come to become a fully sponsored Clan by Staff as easily as it should.

Having this Hunter Clan they could easily sell goods to each of the GMHs, maybe one GMH will pay a bit more to get one material that is commonly used by many.  Each of the GMHs don't need their own hunting division, what they need is a group of reliable hunters they can buy from.  A sponsored clan make it more reliable and can have documentation and rules to go along with it.

I don't know, I'm just spitting this idea because I think it is very fitting for the world.  Now that I think on it, it would have been likely a better idea for the GMHs back in the day, but the Player Clan Rules came out also... so I'm sure the intention was to see this come out of the player clans, rather than created by Staff.

Once again, this is my own thoughts, my own opinions.  I appreciate any constructive criticism.

[number13]

So, something else. Someone takes over Tuluk. A new Sorcerer King. A new city, not even Tuluk, or a massive camp of invading savages led by a sorcerer-King a la the Legion in Fallout. Something that gives the GMH leverage to play off one another, and gives nobles a direct enemy, and gives military companies a direct enemy, and gives raiders a place to flee or people to play off one another, two cities that can both hire mercenaries against one another.

I really like the idea of an invading Empire from outside the Known. Their camp could be small, but their support and culture huge...they could have virtual city-states back home supplying them. But maybe Allanak/Tuluk have some sort of advantage that allows them to resist the endlessly surging invaders...like maybe they don't have any elementalists in that corner of the world.

GMHs would have to decide whether they want the trade routes with the invading empire, or to support the current regime, or to play both sides.

To play my broken record again -- I vastly prefer strong narrative direction to opening clan X, Y, Z. I don't see opening clans as adding much of anything to the play experience, unless that opening coincides with a story event that everyone can participate in.

[SodaDogARM]

Not clan related but going to throw it in here anyway.

More things to smoke that aren't spice. I often feel like my characters would be chain smokers but not in a spice kind of way, so preferably something casual and available, akin to tobacco.

Like Jherweed menthol cigarettes.

[DesertT]

I'm going to suggest, once again, the ability to select your subclass AFTER chargen.   

This way, you can start getting involved into roleplay and make more of a selection based on what's happening instead of a predetermined path.

[Alesan]

Not clan related but going to throw it in here anyway.

More things to smoke that aren't spice. I often feel like my characters would be chain smokers but not in a spice kind of way, so preferably something casual and available, akin to tobacco.

Like Jherweed menthol cigarettes.

#LegalizeKrentakh

[deskoft]

It's easy to think that removing crimcode would be a good idea, but in my mind, it would destabilize a lot of thing, from Templar bribes (which is the leading way they make coins) to the ratio of murders that happen. 5 guys can't patrol a city that realistically is patrolled heavily.

[Ol 55]

Not clan related but going to throw it in here anyway.

More things to smoke that aren't spice. I often feel like my characters would be chain smokers but not in a spice kind of way, so preferably something casual and available, akin to tobacco.

Like Jherweed menthol cigarettes.

Attempted that as a Kuraci agent.  Did all the research, and I have a file somewhere with all the tested affects of the various plants.  It fizzled out, but I can't recall if it's because we didn't have the crafter or staff said no can do, but I do recall that Nyr did not want cigars in the game.  Too anachronistic, I think was what he said.

[Awentawa]

There is a process set up that players can go through to get their own clams

YES I LOVE CLAMS

It's a lot of work but also I think a skilled/determined rper could definitely pull it off.

I really like the idea about outfits. I know in another MUD there are clothing dummies you can dress up and then swap outfits with