Surprise: Treasure chests!

[LigH]

It appears that one can find now treasure chests in different locations, all over Yliakum. Pick them up (warning: heavy!) and "consume" them (drop on your inventory avatar) to loot the treasure for some random content.
 
Please don't spoil the fun searching them by telling where they are! You know the policy...

There are a few things I wonder about, e.g.:

• Will I find each of them only once for each character I have? Or do they respawn after {a while | loading the map}?
• Will there be achievements if I found a certain number (at least 5, 10, 20 ...)?
• Are there also dangerous (trapped) chests?

[Gilrond]

They respawn.

[LigH]

Indeed. Probably about each 15 min.

And they contain slightly randomized, but rule-based loot, their name attributes reveal some possible content.

[Candy]

Is there anything in-game that tells you you need to drop the chest on your character, other than players who know this? I've found two and thought they were just decorative.

[LigH]

Well, every player who participated in Danow's Quest. One of such was reward for each.

[Eonwind]

Glad you found them 
For now they are a bit experimental but I felt like they were fun to have.

Is there anything in-game that tells you you need to drop the chest on your character, other than players who know this? I've found two and thought they were just decorative.

no sorry, not yet. As I said they are experimental but I think we can add them to new player's guide http://planeshift.top-ix.it/pswiki/index.php?title=Players_Guide

Just a suggestion: camping by them isn't really good "netiquette", other players (not camping by) may have hard time finding them and they were designed so that in the same time it takes for them to respawn you can surely earn more trias by practicing other skills in game. So my suggestion is: explore, find them, take them, enjoy them (hopefully) and leave the place so other player can have fun too! 

One last thing, I noticed one of them is "buggy", was already fixed in testing so you will be able to enjoy it at the next update.

About achievements why not, we really had no time to add them for the 0.6 release but could be done in the future.

[LigH]

Eonwind ... I don't expect you were in PS already when they still had crystal hunts? Pre-combat era. These chests appear to be slightly similar.

I already pointed out to you that I like the concept of "meta items". But I expect just as well some other people who prefer to complain about this technique. So I wonder if there are other examples of a useful application of this technique.

[Eonwind]

the same technique is used for the mugs at Gugrontid, the apples in hydlaa and afterall even the herbs and plants are just "re-spawned" by the server

[LigH]

In the second paragraph, I don't mean the "technique of respawning items"; I mean the "technique of meta-items which act like looting a dead NPC".

Regarding respawning chests, randomizing their positions (at least among a few sample coordinates) may be an additional challenge; not sure if it would be worth the efforts, or appreciated by the players, though.

[Rigwyn]

Hold on...

* Rigwyn scratches his head

So you find a spawned chest, pick it up, open your inventory, and then drop it on your body?

With all due respect, this sounds a little unnatural. Adding instructions to the player guide, while well intentioned, sounds like a band aid approach to fixing something that's a little wonky by design. Yes, adding this info is better than nothing... >.>

I think you would expect a looted chest to act more like a sack? You pick it up, put it in your inventory, then open it up and see what's inside. If you don't want a million empty chests laying around, then perhaps the chest breaks when you open it and the contents either go into your inventory or fall to the ground? If this were the case, then there would be no need for an explanation in the player's guide. It would just make sense on it's own.

I'm not bashing your idea, in fact, I have not even see this yet... Just giving back a little player perspective.

On a positive note, its nice to see these new things being added to the game.

[bilbous]

I think it would be better if you had to unlock them or bash them open. Have some critters drop keys in rare cases, allow players to practice lock picking or risk damaging the contents by brute forcing them. You could even make them fixed to the ground and have the contents re-spawned once in a while. That, however, might not be unique enough for this game.

[Moja Aere]

(I think that the guide should essentially be thought of as something useful for those who play PS for the first time, not as something that 'old' players should consult to find any newly added feature.
this, just to say that perhaps the guide is not the proper medium which shall be used to explain new stuff available in PS... or, at least, it is not enough - just my humble opinion, though.
however, this thread here was linked to this page http://planeshift.top-ix.it/pswiki/index.php?title=Azure_Spirit, in PSwiki
anyway, about the strange behaviour of those treasure chests: can't a note be simply added in their description? or  in the help.xml file?)

[LigH]

@ Rigwyn:

Of course it would be better to have a real "Chest" item usable as container, with a filled own inventory. But then people might start hoarding chests for being a container? And furthermore, I believe there are issues having money as separate items in a container.

These "lootable meta items" are just the "small reward" they are. No matter how "unrealistic" their use appears now. But yes, we have to get used to their handling; or invent another kind of handling which is both "more realistic" and "easily implementable".

[MishkaL1138]

Think about it: you can play lotto with them. Just pick a few of them, sell them at a good enough price, and have fun with them. Kind of like scratch to win?

[Eonwind]

Regarding respawning chests, randomizing their positions (at least among a few sample coordinates) may be an additional challenge; not sure if it would be worth the efforts, or appreciated by the players, though.

That's really not worth the trouble. There is already the possibility to give a random range, but with no change to have them spawn in a valid position in the map. And believe me changing that (either by coding) or adding data is really not worth the time.

anyway, about the strange behaviour of those treasure chests: can't a note be simply added in their description? or  in the help.xml file?)

right, can be done to both

@ Rigwyn:

Of course it would be better to have a real "Chest" item usable as container, with a filled own inventory. But then people might start hoarding chests for being a container? And furthermore, I believe there are issues having money as separate items in a container.

exactly, trias are not an item, they can't be dropped, moved or spawned so even if we would "real" chest (and the term real makes me laugh a bit  ) you would not be able to loot any tria.
Other than that, while people may argue as much as they want it's not real enough it save a lot of unnecessary work server side and code wise, this way there's no need to spawn a chest item, spawn X items inside the chest and randomize them. Really much to do for very few gain.

Hold on...

* Rigwyn scratches his head

So you find a spawned chest, pick it up, open your inventory, and then drop it on your body?

yeah  what's so wrong with that, that's the way you tell your character to use something be it a potion, a food, a beer, an oil or a salve ... wait I bet you're not fool enough to eat a salve or a paste or drink an oil  ... best way to use them is using them to rub your skin