Skill judgement?

[Tomaseth]

I\'m curious, since there is not a \'base\' level, how will one person be able to determine the skill of another? Like say I want person A to join my group, but how will I know if person A is fit enough to join me? Or examble B, what if Person A wants to duel me or vice versa, how will I know it will be a fair duel? This is more of a question than a request but if this topic has not been visited by the dev\'s I would like to see something like this in the game.

[Kendaro]

Basicly there are several things you get for your experience gained. you have several \'points\' for your experience. You can almost say that you buy these \'points\' with EX. There are \'points\' for stats and \'points\' for skills. how these are distributed makes for your power. Your power is then calculated and read in a consideration. If you have played many MMORPGs you will recall considerations as right clicking on a NPC, MOB, or PC and you get back a msg writen in color. Green for week, blue for a nice fight but a basic win none the less, white for an even match, yellow for a bit tough, and red for if you attack this thing you will have to remove your head from your bum to take a dump.

Though none of this is in code at this time, I don\'t think Venge would have any trouble coding it.

[Tomaseth]

So you think they\'ll be using a considering system like in EQ and other MMORPG\'s?

[TheGeneral]

Will it be by the armor you are wearing, or the sword you are wielding. Or maybe the colour of your name will change? I think there has been a post about this some time back, and i can\'t remember getting a clear answer, most likely it has not been astablished yet. ?(

[Tomaseth]

All those could quite possibly be right (assuming there won\'t be twinks) but if there are super rare high level \"no drop\" (items that can\'t be traded, sold or dropped -- EQ) that have a cool looking effect, like an illumanited blade or something, quite possibly when someone reaches a high level they get a title before their name?

[Vengeance]

Based on the number of variables involved here, as a programmer I can tell you not to count on that conning being very accurate.  It will just be a guess.

As far as how to judge the usefullness of someone joining your group, I think that is an excellent question and one that I have posed before in the dev channel.

One thing I believe we will HAVE to do regardless of how we answer the above question is to make skill levels inspectable by other players, so people don\'t have the ability to lie about having a 200 in Swordfighting and a 185 in Pie Making.  In games with levels, those levels are public knowledge to everyone.  In our game with no levels, we have to have something that is public knowledge also.

- Vengeance

[Kada-El]

Why should it be necessary to immediately know a persons skill level by the simple click of a mouse? If you picked a fight in the street the only way you would have a clue about their skill is by assumptions made on their physical appearance, or their reputation as someone not to mess with. There is far more danger and excitement involved in not knowing exactly what a player\'s attributes are, especially when it comes to arena player Vs player fights.

Fear and respect of a player should come through reputation. I like Tomaseth\'s suggestion of titles possibly earned at high levels or for certain quests or achievements. You could always bluff your enemy that you are far more talented with a weapon than you actually are and scare them into backing down, but that would be part of the fun

If you are concerned about people saying they are a high level in order to get into a guild, why not provide the facility for guild houses to maybe having something like a proving ground, where potential recruits would have to run some kind of gauntlet. Maybe a cellar dungeon where they must prove their worth by killing the beasts within. Perhaps the guild master could be given the ability to set the difficultly of the trial (or the level/type of monsters), thereby controlling the level of people in the guild. Hmm maybe I should put that on the wish list, I think it would add a lot to guild life.

[Kiern]

i agree wtih kada on the part that you shouldnt immediatly have all your skills visible to just anybody

maybe you could have control whether if they see your skills are not?  so if you just joined not that long ago but have some ok stuff they do not see you as new, so its easier to get help....since a lot of people are annoyed by new people\'s questions, you couldnt tell the difference

but like for a duel or join guild the person your dueling/leader of the guild could ask to see your skills before you join

[elKano]

I completely agree with Kada about reputation.

About guilds, I don\'t think each guild should have a test dungeon.
At first, not all the guilds are fighting guilds; it would not be a good way to test smithery abilities by sending the smither to a battle.
At second, it would increase unecessarily the task of the server.

I think the guilds should test their want-to-be members using the existing world; I mean, for an example, a smither should prove his value by making a good weapon or armor, a fighter by beating a guild member in the arena, or helping members with a quest, etc.
Each guild should choose its way to select its members using the usual functionalities of the game; not special things...

[Kada-El]

Be a lovely addition to any guild I think, the guild leaders, members and applicants could have loads of fun with it

I\'m sure you could easily adapt the idea for smiths/rogues/bards etc or other skills by introducing anvils or locks or whatever.

I don\'t see why it would task the server unecessarily, these areas would just be part of the game world, if you think the number of guilds would be too great, then reserve a feature like this for only the most powerful/oldest/most successful/richest (or whatever).

I see your point about just using the game world, I just thought it would be quite a nice little feature that I\'ve not seen attempted before.

[Shanky]

Ok, i have some ideas...
The idea of titles is nice, but it wouldnt be consistant with roleplaying if they were mandatory, whereas one character would love to show off his title, another might want to be reclusive and not draw attention to himself. what should be implemented beside that is an \"anon\" filter, so you when you did a /who check those who are not anonomous show up as [Title]Player for example, and those who are anonomous show up as [None]Player or [Unknown]Player:
Current Players Online
-------------------------------------
[Octarch]Shanky
[Unknown]Kada-El

also, it is my understanding that registered guilds are going to be furnished with houses, i think it is a bit much to ask them to add private dungeons to that. Requirements for entering a guild should be decided by the guild themselves, and structure around the public zones/areas, as i dont think it is the dev team\'s responsibility to deal with inter-guild affairs.

[Kada-El]

Originally posted by Shanky
i think it is a bit much to ask them to add private dungeons to that.

It wouldn\'t have to be much at all really, it could be as simple as a caged beast if resource was tight.

Originally posted by Shanky
Requirements for entering a guild should be decided by the guild themselves.

That\'s why it would be at the control of the guild leader. Why would the devs be involved? The leader would decide who joins and if anyone was to take the test as way for them to prove their worth if stats are not on display.

[Kiern]

they\'ve already said titles are planned for the game, and that they will be earned titles such as for quests and other things, just look for the post called \"Titles\"

[TheGeneral]

Ah, this \"Title\" dealy could cause a problem. When you join a guiuld, and if you are in the top 10, you are awarded a title by the guild leader, in our case, i allow our members to pick titles, since i find that it really shows what type of a player the person is, and what character he/she will be playing. But anywho, when you get that title, and you type \"/who\" in the server caht window, your title apperas, followed by your name. Now, if they were to add more titles, the window space would get so crowded, especially with 10+ ppl in the same area.
Ex. The Brave Rouge Kada-El in [Insert Guild Here]

[Vengeance]

Well I guess I\'m in the minority here, but I completely disagree with all of you.

Imagine you are in a group heading for the Stone Labyrinths and you are going to fight XYZ monsters.  You know they are pretty hard and three of you are friends...  one is a fighter/tank/melee guy, one is a caster who can nuke really well, and one is a rogue with good backstab skills.  You have fought together and know each other\'s capabilities, but there is no healer around whom you\'ve fought with before.

So you annouce you are looking for a healer to come on your Labyrinth run of XYZ monsters.  And then some n00b (peanut) or some jerky kid comes up all twinked with his big brother\'s stuff and says he\'s a healer and he wants to go with you and get phat lewt.

How do you decide whether you take him or not?

Remember, if you guess wrong and he isn\'t as good as he claims, all four of you DIE and spend the rest of your r/l day and night in the Death Realm maze trying to get back to Yliakum... not fun.

- Vengeance