PlaneShift
Gameplay => General Discussion => Topic started by: Xillix Queen of Fools on April 21, 2009, 05:18:43 pm
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How does one make mechanics support roleplaying?
Cast your ideas here.
Flames will be mercilessly removed.
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I'm going to state the obvious here, the leveling and skill system has much to do with this I think. How the hell does your character play a single role when it's trying to max out everything? The current skill system is good for testing but that's about it.
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I'm going to state the obvious here, the leveling and skill system has much to do with this I think. How the hell does your character play a single role when it's trying to max out everything? The current skill system is good for testing but that's about it.
I agree, it's both a strength and a weakness that every character can learn every skill as well as every other character. It's a strength, in that you can develop your character in whatever way you choose, but it's also a bit unrealistic. Maybe some sort of character classifications would be good, maybe not. I don't know if I'd really like having limits on how far I could advance in certain directions.
I don't think mechanics should bear the burden of supporting roleplay directly. I think so long as mechanics support realism (or as close to realism as you can get in a world with elves and magic) then the mechanics are adding to roleplay.
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Here're my thoughts after what I read...
Keep implementing items that play along with Yliakum's history. The more us roleplayers are given in the way of real, physical items to use, the more inventive we will become as the game expands to allow more features. If you talk about dueling mechanics or anything, then a good roleplayer simply needs to have a straight head on their shoulders and know when to give or take. Otherwise, new content alone will boost the curve of RP.
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Regarding the leveling mechanic, I think it should be the responsibility of the player to limit their characters ability in a given field. If your characters is a poet then don't go training them to be a warrior, a cook, an assassin, etc... all at the same time. Limits would cause the character to become too stiff and possible flat. After all, people can change their professions to something radically different at any point in time in real life.
I think a job system should be set up. People RP having a profession, but that is usually all you can do (RP having the profession not really doing it). The economy is not quite strong enough to have it fully player dependent so NPCs are needed, but just selling stuff back doesn't help RP much. Have characters that train in a craft accept crafted items from players. Maybe as a regular quest or maybe as something like the change making service where you hand over an item and get something in return. Having an employer will give people something to do with the skills they've acquired and would allow them to train it in a better for RP way. killing rats to train in cooking isn't quite the most effective way to learn how to cook in real life.
For instance, as a special quest you can have Harn respond to a specific prompt to take you straight to this quest and have him tell the player to craft him an axe or so many axes to help him fill an order. In return Harn can offer less than normal pay but higher than normal experience as that seems more realistic. When learning a trade or working under someone, you will earn less than them but you can still pick up techniques and learn from them. It would be better if the items requested and the number needed varied. Better still would be if quality played a part in how much money and experience you received, but I'm sure that would be a long way off. Since some stuff requires certain skill levels to make, it would be good if the NPC could request items based on skill level or asked the player if they are high enough level to fulfill the quest, like NPCs do with asking if you have winch access.
As a similar function to the change making service, you would make a crafted item, and then give it to the NPC who would then give you a reward or money and experience if possible similar to the quest system. But as it would be easier to do it this way. Money and experience would probably have to be even lower.
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How does one make mehanics support roleplaying?
Use it.
Then augment with text rp if more detail is needed since things aren't fully developed.
And then try to continue developing the mechanics so that text rp is needed less and less.
Try and use the economy...buy from crafters/miners/smelters/, hire the services of warriors/guards. Having a party? buy some food from a cook.
Create a way to brew booze and we can sell it at Kada-El's.
I dunno....try and play a roleplay game?
It is difficult to do this though with things still in development. And we need more people. And a way to schedule things consistently.
/me is off to think.
would being able to hit or cast on an inanimate object be handy? Thoss needed to cast Freeze on an object to help some people instead of attack them, but didn't know how without attacking a character so I had to text it.
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I like illysia's ideas too, a job/economic system that is worth the efforts would help alot. I've tried to sell items as roleplay for the heck of it, but it's hard with the picks dripping tria.
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I can stop picks from dripping tria quite easily.
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I agree with Illysia that being able to have every skill maxed out simultaneously isn't in the interest of roleplay. But it isn't in the interest of the economy either. If a single person can, all by him or herself, mine ore, purify it, craft it into a weapon, and then use the weapon as a deadly killing machine, then that person doesn't have to interact with other players as much to create an interactive and dynamic gaming environment.
An organic job system will emerge if your level in a skill decreases if the skill falls into disuse. It would mean we can still change our characters, switch professions, and explore different skills and skill combinations, but we would have to pick and choose which skills to have a high level in at any particular time.
Clothing is a big one. Clothes tell others about your status in society and a little about your personality or history, including possible cultural backgrounds.
I think that if skills could be maxed out more quickly, people would spend less time grinding and more time interacting with other players.
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ither. If a single person can, all by him or herself, mine ore, purify it, craft it into a weapon, and then use the weapon as a deadly killing machine, then that person doesn't have to interact with other players as much to create an interactive and dynamic gaming environment.
Keep in mind that you can do that with alts. But then again if you were forced to have a dedicated farmer/miner alt and a dedicated blacksmith alt then would that qualify as mechanics supporting roleplaying?
I think that if skills could be maxed out more quickly, people would spend less time grinding and more time interacting with other players.
I know this has been brought up before but what about an Ultima Online-style skill cap? If you couldn't level for more than, say, 700 times then it would be impossible to max everything in the game but you would still have the freedom to tailor your character's skills to have some functional purpose. I think the actual game in PlaneShift is the endgame and not the leveling because if people weren't leveling they would be interacting with other players. Then again with the number of implemented skills there wouldn't be much point to doing something like this right now.
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The major part is to make mechanics promote player to player interaction. Currently, you can do everything on your own, no one depends on someone else. That promotes roleplay per se. Another thing is the training system. You shouldn't need to mine 24/7 and then kill a zillion tefusangs in order to gain a crystal way level.
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The major part is to make mechanics promote player to player interaction. Currently, you can do everything on your own, no one depends on someone else. That promotes roleplay per se. Another thing is the training system. You shouldn't need to mine 24/7 and then kill a zillion tefusangs in order to gain a crystal way level.
I agree with Donari, it is unrealistic to mine then to kill tefusangs to level up in anything else. I think that maybe if experience is done by practising the skill you want to level, and that no experience would be needed for Training with Trainers, but that maybe something else could replace it. Also, maybe skill-training and stat-training should have different ways to be trained. If one mined and killed tefusangs to get a higher charisma, it wouldn't look natural at all.
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I still think that limits and caps are a bad idea. Better to leave it too open than to clamp down to hard. People who want to level probably don't care about RP is it takes time away from training and people who RP won't max a ton of skills at once as it will interrupt RPing.
I think that leaving it open and one day having a mechanic that will allow your unused skills to gradually lower in level will be enough to prevent people from being able to do everything all at once. Although, as the renaissance proved, having people proficient in a wide variety of skills isn't a bad thing. (i.e. Leonardo da Vinci) But any skill that isn't used will eventually be forgotten in real life.
Regarding player interaction, the only thing that will promote player interaction is player interaction. Players will have to step up on this one. If you want to get more player interacting with your character you will have to get creative and be proactive. Find reasons for your character to engage other characters. It is out of the comfort zone of most RPers but it is what needs to be done.
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I still think that limits and caps are a bad idea. Better to leave it too open than to clamp down to hard. People who want to level probably don't care about RP is it takes time away from training and people who RP won't max a ton of skills at once as it will interrupt RPing.
I think that leaving it open and one day having a mechanic that will allow your unused skills to gradually lower in level will be enough to prevent people from being able to do everything all at once. Although, as the renaissance proved, having people proficient in a wide variety of skills isn't a bad thing. (i.e. Leonardo da Vinci) But any skill that isn't used will eventually be forgotten in real life.
Regarding player interaction, the only thing that will promote player interaction is player interaction. Players will have to step up on this one. If you want to get more player interacting with your character you will have to get creative and be proactive. Find reasons for your character to engage other characters. It is out of the comfort zone of most RPers but it is what needs to be done.
To me all this sounds true. Although a mechanic that would lower unused skill has downsides (people always practising every skill to prevent them from lowering, for example), it also has very good sides, which might be bigger than the downsides.
Regarding the Player-to-Player interaction, I agree that your suggestion is out of the comfort zone of most RPers. But, maybe an update of the Guide to Roleplay should be updated to add a list of tips to help RPers slowly integrate that in the comfort zone of the RPers.
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Like I said earlier, someone that determined to level is probably less concerned with RPing. The idea is not to force people to RP but to help out those who already wish to do so.
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But any skill that isn't used will eventually be forgotten in real life.
I don't really agree with this, that's just not how long-term memory works. Look up fluid and crystallized intelligence (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluid_and_crystallized_intelligence) and you'll see what I mean. When someone is rusty on a skill, that person has had the experience before and it should take a very significantly less time to regain the knowledge than those who have never had his skill level. Even then when you use a skill, like Heavy Armor, there are other skills that you are not even using, like Baking. I'm not going to explain how such a mechanism should work, but I think having a decrease-over-time would punish players who don't use skills altogether.
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If you never use baking, how will losing skill in it be a punishment?
And if you want to account for only becoming rusty then you can have the mechanism only lessen the skill up to a set percentage of the skill level at the time you last used it.
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I guess that if you haven't practiced something for a long time, the skill level will decrease, but as it happens in real life, when you start doing it again, it comes back quick.
So for someone who hasn't played an instrument, this is easily verifiable, but to some (and to me) if you start playing it again, you won't take the same time to relearn as you did to learn.
Implementing this would add to realism, and thus IMO add to RPing possibilities.
To a instrument player, it wouldn't matter that much, as he could practice a little again to relearn it.
But to a person that suddenly only has a bow and some arrows in combat, and hasn't used them in a long time, then it will make the difference.
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I'm gonna go try some things out in-game...anyone care to join?
If so see: http://www.hydlaaplaza.com/smf/index.php?topic=35142.0
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What about having a mechanism for locating others who are currently on line and who want to rp ?
Perhaps something that would anonymously match players according to their alignment and RP preferences ?
Regarding leveling mechanics they are not perfect but I think they are good enough for now. I think making
the leveling system dynamic/automatic for some skills would make sense.. ie - endurance/stamina and strength should increase by itself with frequent use.
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I still think that limits and caps are a bad idea. Better to leave it too open than to clamp down to hard. People who want to level probably don't care about RP is it takes time away from training and people who RP won't max a ton of skills at once as it will interrupt RPing.
I think that leaving it open and one day having a mechanic that will allow your unused skills to gradually lower in level will be enough to prevent people from being able to do everything all at once. Although, as the renaissance proved, having people proficient in a wide variety of skills isn't a bad thing. (i.e. Leonardo da Vinci) But any skill that isn't used will eventually be forgotten in real life.
Regarding player interaction, the only thing that will promote player interaction is player interaction. Players will have to step up on this one. If you want to get more player interacting with your character you will have to get creative and be proactive. Find reasons for your character to engage other characters. It is out of the comfort zone of most RPers but it is what needs to be done.
To me all this sounds true. Although a mechanic that would lower unused skill has downsides (people always practising every skill to prevent them from lowering, for example), it also has very good sides, which might be bigger than the downsides.
Regarding the Player-to-Player interaction, I agree that your suggestion is out of the comfort zone of most RPers. But, maybe an update of the Guide to Roleplay should be updated to add a list of tips to help RPers slowly integrate that in the comfort zone of the RPers.
But people shouldn't be practicing levels just for the sake of having high levels. That's treating levels as their own ends, when levels should only be a means to an end.
If you're using your skills to actually do things, then you won't need to practice them.
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Actually making things is practicing Zanzi. ;) In terms of game mechanics they would be one and the same.
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I guess that if you haven't practiced something for a long time, the skill level will decrease, but as it happens in real life, when you start doing it again, it comes back quick.
It depends. I think this is less true when you were at a high degree of competency before you fell out of practice.
One solution might be to make the benefits of each level nonlinear. So the raw difference between level 2 and level 3 is less than the raw difference between level 3 and level 4. It would be like compound interest. So someone might drop from level 50 to level 49 in the same time someone would drop from level 5 to level 4. The person who dropped to level 49 lost a lot more skill than the person who dropped to level 4, even though they both fell by only one level.
Actually making things is practicing Zanzi. ;) In terms of game mechanics they would be one and the same.
Typically, practice means working on the skill for the purpose of maintaining or bettering the skill, as opposed to using the skill at your job etc. When you use it as part of you're occupation, you don't usually call it practice.
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I guess that if you haven't practiced something for a long time, the skill level will decrease, but as it happens in real life, when you start doing it again, it comes back quick.
It depends. I think this is less true when you were at a high degree of competency before you fell out of practice.
One solution might be to make the benefits of each level nonlinear. So the raw difference between level 2 and level 3 is less than the raw difference between level 3 and level 4. It would be like compound interest. So someone might drop from level 50 to level 49 in the same time someone would drop from level 5 to level 4. The person who dropped to level 49 lost a lot more skill than the person who dropped to level 4, even though they both fell by only one level.
Yes, I agree, but relearning should also take less time as higher you are.
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Not that I don't think it should be realistic but keep in mind we are talking mechanics not real life. ;D For the sake of the game, making an item and practice should be the same thing and for the sake of the programmer, the system should probably be linear.
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Like I said earlier, someone that determined to level is probably less concerned with RPing. The idea is not to force people to RP but to help out those who already wish to do so.
You may not be able to force people by such mechanics, but you can give them a little push, that might have a strong long-term effect. I would certainly be helped into roleplay by such pushes, and I am quite sure not to be alone.
Besides the already suggested mechanics to completely avoid people to be able to mine, cast, smith and kill at the same time, you could just make it extremely difficult in comparison to being able to do just one of these jobs.
Mechanics, that could do that, were skill costs that rise with the PP, that were already spent (instead of a cap).
Another option would be a maximum rate of PP, that can be spent per day (RL day to prevent ressource wasting AFKers). This might be combined with unspent PP decaying over RL time to prevent players from rotating characters.
All the suggestions about limiting the number of crafts, etc. could be modified in such a way, that you can get quite far in every job, but can only excel in one or few, so to create an item of extraordinary quality it needs more than one player.
A lot being said about levelling, I will throw in some general ideas, for the details of which I have no idea yet, but someone else might have:
- For completness's sake and knowing well, that this is a real challenge: What would really improve RP is a realistic PvP-System, that is able to prevent mindless player killing.
- The non-violate conflicts could also use some support, since they cannot be felt: The races get along fine with each other, there seem to be no big political debates, only the religions seem to squabble a bit. Of course there needs to be some background for a good debate, which would be a task for Settings, but I think, Game Mechanics could provide something too.
- What about guild houses? On one side, I have not yet been inside one, so I might not be that qualified for this topic. On the other hand there is a reason, why I haven't: As far as I understood it, a guild can open the house or parts of it to the public for sales, games, recruitment, advertising, etc. However there is no way to find those open houses without checking all of them (I want big flashing neon signs, telling me, that they are open). So this is something, that could be improved.
- There could be help to people playing merchants: Different buying and selling prices in different locations, that change over time; big carts, that can be used to carry around huge amounts of stuff, but cannot be disbanded and inhibit from anything but moving and trading.
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Making things more difficult tends to be slippery territory especially as attaining higher levels in anything is already rather difficult. However, decaying PP sounds like a good idea. Goodness knows I have tons of them that I never use as I dislike training.
The only thing that can be done to improve PvP from an RP standpoint is to make it train something. Like dueling with a dagger will train use of dagger and gradually raise your speed as it is a light weapon. Or, dueling with a warhammer will train hammers, gradually raise strength but will gradually lower speed as it is so heavy.
Non violent conflicts only need player creativity. Like a recruitment drive of Laanx worshipers outside the temple of Talad in Gugrontid. Perhaps when factions are more developed, they will provide a catalyst for conflict.
As it stands, Guildhouse are not sectioned off. There is one great big fairly open space. Look in the Octarchal residence to see what the inside of a guildhouse looks like, texture aside. If it could be sectioned off, that would be wonderful and parts could used for all sorts of things, but that will require a new guildhouse model and that most definately would take time.
Different prices and carts would be nice, but for the carts storage and ownership become a problem.
I personally would like to be able to purchase containers outside of the winch, so I can store cooking ingredients when I am trying to do restaurant style cooking. For all the various ingredients, there never seems to be enough places to store it all. t could help merchants as well, as you should be allowed to put stuff in without others being about to take it out. This would allow people to browse, be not necessarily take when the owner of the stuff moves away. I find that guarding doesn't extend quite far enough. When I cook in gugrontid, I have to set ingredients on the counter but when I go to cook or serve people, a new person generally comes in takes everything then is gone before I can do anything about it.
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I find that guarding doesn't extend quite far enough. When I cook in gugrontid, I have to set ingredients on the counter but when I go to cook or serve people, a new person generally comes in takes everything then is gone before I can do anything about it. <-- sounds like mechanics are forcing you to cooperate and get a helper.
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Where to start... (those with short attentions spans or do not like to read my wordy ways, skip to the end)
Roleplaying, to most people, seems to mean players interacting with other players in an in-character manner. A lot of ideas posted above are fine, but are putting the cart before the horse. Most are trying to force people to RP instead of leveling by making leveling either harder or easier, both with the intention of making people prefer to roleplay...
Not going to work, simple as that.
The core of what needs to be done is making roleplaying (the interacting of player characters) more beneficial, so more people will choose that path and actually get something out of it, mechanics-wise. Yes, you can get things from friends, but so what. With enough training you can get all those things yourself.
So, what player to player interactions can we have that benefit players and give them what they want, yet allow for 'rewards' for doing so in a not GM hand-holding manner. Being that what most players want (including me, Mr. RP)... the obvious choice would be the dreaded Levels themselves, and letting players teach each other. Ignore all the current mechanics in that suggestion, as most of the system relying on NPC training would have to go (death to PP).
My suggestion to guide more people to roleplaying is to start with the base idea of player to player training.
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I find that guarding doesn't extend quite far enough. When I cook in gugrontid, I have to set ingredients on the counter but when I go to cook or serve people, a new person generally comes in takes everything then is gone before I can do anything about it. <-- sounds like mechanics are forcing you to cooperate and get a helper.
Yeah, I've tried that too but easier said then done. People prefer to join an up and running operation to helping build one from the ground up.
Where to start... (those with short attentions spans or do not like to read my wordy ways, skip to the end)
Roleplaying, to most people, seems to mean players interacting with other players in an in-character manner. A lot of ideas posted above are fine, but are putting the cart before the horse. Most are trying to force people to RP instead of leveling by making leveling either harder or easier, both with the intention of making people prefer to roleplay...
Not going to work, simple as that.
The core of what needs to be done is making roleplaying (the interacting of player characters) more beneficial, so more people will choose that path and actually get something out of it, mechanics-wise. Yes, you can get things from friends, but so what. With enough training you can get all those things yourself.
So, what player to player interactions can we have that benefit players and give them what they want, yet allow for 'rewards' for doing so in a not GM hand-holding manner. Being that what most players want (including me, Mr. RP)... the obvious choice would be the dreaded Levels themselves, and letting players teach each other. Ignore all the current mechanics in that suggestion, as most of the system relying on NPC training would have to go (death to PP).
My suggestion to guide more people to roleplaying is to start with the base idea of player to player training.
I've tried this too and basically. new players are the ones that would benefit the most but getting one that will hang around is very hard to do. (but not impossible. I've met and trained a few. ;) )
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Form a guild for "Illysia's Eatery" or something. Get some people, host some bake sale events, buy a guildhouse, host a restaurant.
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Illysia Since I have an interest in cooking I'd be willing to help you out some time in game. It would be nice to have an excuse to work more on my cooking.
I have trained a few guild mates in the basics of how to make swords and also in cooking.
Reading this thread made me think about the possibility of hiring out to guide newer players to the various mines around the map. Of course the newer players who need this type of Info also don't have much trias so not sure how profitable this could be.
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In a case like this, it wouldn't be about profit but a free service to help new players adjust to game.
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Regarding leveling, while I had supported the idea of gradually reducing skills with time I now tend to disagree as it only increases the amount of time players would spend grinding instead of RPing. Instead it seems better to me to have a 'skill cap'. I previously suggested an overall stat cap, and this is pretty much the same idea. I'd say a 1-8 ratio is the best for skills (so if you had 200 as the individual cap, 1600 would be the overall cap). This would allow players to train 2 combat skills (a weapon and armor), 2 magic skills, 2 job skills and 2 from the various skills pile. A player could be a jack of all trades, but a master of none. Or they could focus on a particular area, such as fighting or blacksmithing. Stats would follow the same principle (except with more like a 1-3 ratio), forcing characters to choose which stats to max, and making it so that players couldn't be some sort of Spartan/Einstein/Michael Jordan monstrosity.
As a result, yes, you would have to grind at first. However, after you have reached the 'max' it becomes a system of tailoring your character to what you want to roleplay being. I do think that once you hit this max, you shouldn't be stuck with it. I'd say you could do this 2 ways. One would be that players could select another skill that would decrease if any others increased. The other possibility is all other trained skills could be reduced to say, 75% once a level had been gained in another skill.
In the end though, it all falls on the players. It goes back to the horse and the water... if you're strong enough, you might be able to drown the horse, but then... well, you've got a dead horse :P
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I guess that if you haven't practiced something for a long time, the skill level will decrease, but as it happens in real life, when you start doing it again, it comes back quick.
It depends. I think this is less true when you were at a high degree of competency before you fell out of practice.
One solution might be to make the benefits of each level nonlinear. So the raw difference between level 2 and level 3 is less than the raw difference between level 3 and level 4. It would be like compound interest. So someone might drop from level 50 to level 49 in the same time someone would drop from level 5 to level 4. The person who dropped to level 49 lost a lot more skill than the person who dropped to level 4, even though they both fell by only one level.
Yes, I agree, but relearning should also take less time as higher you are.
I'll use piano as an example since that's what I'm familiar with.
When I'm at a moderate level of practice, I can fall out of practice and I'll get worse. I can pick it up again pretty easily to the level I was at before.
But there have been times when I've practiced for hours every day, often six hours per day or more, for a few weeks in a row in preparation for some kind of event or exam. I find myself at a much higher level of skill at those times. But if I miss just one day of practice, it doesn't set me back a day - it sets me back almost a week.
It's just the way it works.
About guilds: Can the minimum number of players be reduced from 5 down to 2? More freedom to create a guild may mean more freedom to roleplay. The 20k fee could also be rethought.
About grinding: Many players spend all their time grinding now without decaying skills. What do you think of my position that levels shouldn't be seen as an end unto themselves?
Said differently, some people define "beating the game" as having an entirely maxed out character. (I'm not making this up... some people have said this is what they think.) I'm of the mind that high levels are important only because they allow you to do things you want to do. And as you do those things you want to do, your levels will increase. So there won't really be grinding... there will just by players doing what their characters will do, and the levels of those characters will come to reflect those character's actions.
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Not really necessary, but it would help a lot with some RP: Improve the chat window. Make it easier to write longer chat lines (Maybe multiline edit) and support copy and past from the chat history. Maybe customizable tab-completion not only for names but also for some often used words like Hydlaa or Yliakum (allow people to add their own words to the tab-completion).
Already suggested a few times, but I still like the idea: Add a specified /roll command for stats to support Role-plays that the mechanics doesn't cover (and maybe will never cover. I doubt there will be ever support for arm wrestling in game. But with both players doing a "/roll strength" and comparing the results this could be still possible with game mechanics involved somehow). I don't think it's a very good idea to limit RP only to what the game mechanics support. Role-playing is something very creative (The reason why I'm so bad in it ;)) and no game mechanics will ever be able to support everything. So I think it's better to give people some generic tools for certain RP situations that still allow them to involve game-mechanics in some way.
Not sure if possible with the current mechanics, but create a guild-message board with an un-takeable book for each guild (if the guild wants it) that the owner of the book can still edit. Just a place where all guild can announce their events without involving GMs each time and paying for the posters.
An improved /ignore command that allows you to only blank out what a certain player says in the main chat. Just a tool to stop ongoing RPs from being disturbed but that allows to clear the situation and talk to the player afterwards when there is some more time for this ;). Yes, I know...I should try to get along with all players and their way of playing...but sometimes it's really too annoying to deal with a player immediately and stop the RP for this. So I think a Mainchat-ignore with a short message to the player that he is ignored will be helpful in this cases. And I for myself think I will have much more patience with other players when I can choose the time when dealing with them and don't have to stop the RP for this.
Remove number values like slash, speed or quality from items. Knowledge like inferior or finest steel stock should be enough and will force players to exchange much more knowledge about the different looted weapons to find out which weapon is better. And without these values the information exchange will be more IC too I think.
And now just some thought on the training system:
I like the possibility to change a chars profession after some time (or some RP events, like a injury or such). That's why I'm against a skill cap. The loosing levels idea when not using a skill seems to lead only to people spending much more timing training to keep their skills from decreasing. So not too sure if this would really support any RP. I prefer if each level you gain would increase the experience you need to gain any other level. (For example a plus of 10% on the needed practical experience for each skill after you gained a level in one skill. Would mean that a 150 Brown way mage needs 1500% more experience to for each other skill level ;)). And like already suggested thousands of time...remove the PPs. Make skill training only based on practical experience and make training with a NPC trainer take away some percentage of the needed practical experience to level up. (For example 25% for each training lesson with a NPC with a maximum of 3 training lessons with a NPC: example (PPs = training points needed, lack of a better expression) 100 PPs needed -> one time training 75 PPs needed -> second training 56 PPs neede -> third training 42 PPs needed). This way players could train even if they doesn't have a trainer (or access to one, like thieves who can't get in town ;)). And with proper prices players had to spend much less time in the mines and could spend their money for more important things..like beer ;). And the prices NPCs pay for platinum and gold could be lowered drastically.
Last but not least I agree with all people who wished for more (RP) items and possibilities to earn money without mining or endless monster slaying. But the only addition I have there it that it would be nice if we could gain some items without questing for some days and then not finishing the quest just to get a skull or a whetstone.
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Any level reduction system would have to be gradual (like say over the course of a year), as people don't play all the time. Otherwise, it would be more trouble than help, but I still think it would be a better idea. There is no reason to make it drop whole levels at a time either. The great thing about the current PP system is that it already provides increments for skills to decrease. You could say lose X amount of PP from the total you have spent on a skill over y amount of time.
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An improved /ignore command that allows you to only blank out what a certain player says in the main chat. Just a tool to stop ongoing RPs from being disturbed but that allows to clear the situation and talk to the player afterwards when there is some more time for this Wink. Yes, I know...I should try to get along with all players and their way of playing...but sometimes it's really too annoying to deal with a player immediately and stop the RP for this. So I think a Mainchat-ignore with a short message to the player that he is ignored will be helpful in this cases. And I for myself think I will have much more patience with other players when I can choose the time when dealing with them and don't have to stop the RP for this. This is a bad idea imo
If people are complaining that not enough of the game is social the above only adds to the problems in my view.
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For me, what helps RP the most is to be able to see, to understand quickly what characters are doing.
The most important mechanics towards RP are therefore things such as movements, emotes, items uses, etc. (including art and sounds).
For example, if you're busy reading a book, you can type "/me is reading a book", yet you would have to stay aware of your surroundings and type it every time someone passes by. Obviously, we'd rather see your 3d model reading.
I have no idea how much is planned on that matter, but I believe there could never be too many emotes. There are dozens of obvious ones to start with. The day we can see a complex dance performed by a character, or guess what someone is cooking by simply observing what he is doing, is a rich RP day.
So that is for feeding the characters' senses and the players' immersion. Then there are all the mechanics that concern character to character interactions. Most of them are hard to design, for they shall allow actions upon others without trespassing on others' pleasure. You guys already work on combat, thieving, spells, etc., and each of these subjects is vast and controversial enough so that I won't add anything here.
Except for one thing: with a dueling system, you have plenty of fighters already; when you'll implement thieving skills, there will suddenly be plenty of rogues as well; and so on. No problem with that, yet it does promote strange demographics. So, maybe, it would be good to develop more innocent systems in parallel, some entirely devoted to RP; like the marriage mechanics PS has. Anything like hairdressing or handshaking or being able to carry people on one's shoulders or whatnot.
Finally, there are the mechanics that make the PS world alive. All those I can think of a priori are work in progress already: weather, moving NPCs, etc. I have no suggestions there... at the moment.
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I'm with Khoridor; the visual is important. I would love to see more animations and emote states (like sitting reading a book).
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you are describing things that require art, this thread is about mechanics, let's focus on what engine can do to make your rp richer.
All this about animations/costumes/emotes that are graphical is not useful in THIS discussion.
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Illysia, you have never trained people in the game. That is impossible. What you have done is to teach people to use the mechanics. A worthy cause, indeed, but not what I meant. It is silly for you to have skills in cooking (or any other skill), yet not be able to pass those skills on to anyone else. Instead, you have to send them off to an NPC to pay with money and PP.
Roleplaying is about people interacting with each other and basically creating a story. There are countless stories out there of a new person finding someone they can learn from who becomes their mentor, and zero that I can think of where the skilled person says "Yes, I know these skills, but sadly I can not teach you because I don't have the ability to take PP."
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I was talking about training people to RP UTM.
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Players use to train each other. The trainer would allow the trainee to attack him while in full defensive stance. But then the devs changed it so you can't level that way.
Any level reduction system would have to be gradual (like say over the course of a year), as people don't play all the time. Otherwise, it would be more trouble than help, but I still think it would be a better idea. There is no reason to make it drop whole levels at a time either. The great thing about the current PP system is that it already provides increments for skills to decrease. You could say lose X amount of PP from the total you have spent on a skill over y amount of time.
Here's the thing: Skills you use won't decay. That means that if you use an armor skill and a couple fighting skills, and you mine on the side, those skills are safe. Also, someone might be able to be competent at mining, metallurgy, and crafting. But people who specialize in two of those skills or even just one will have an easier time getting to a super super high degree of competency where you're making gold and platinum ingots right and left or making 250-300 quality weapons.
Basically, people won't be able to max out every skill, and it won't be possible to grind so much that you "beat the game" by having every fighting skill maxed, every magic skill maxed, and every trade skill maxed all at the same time. If you're going to be a weapons master with amazing skill in every weapon class, you won't be using magic or crafting weapons. If you're a Merlin type figure who has mastery over every way, you'll be a rare breed and you won't also be using weapons.
Basically, being a jack of all trades should mean being master of none.
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Ok, I take it that the mechanics are already there and that only art needs to be added then.
Well, for something that does concern perceptions without involving any art, here is something I've had in mind for a while (and still is at an early stage of processing): a hearing system would be 8) .
It would include, in no particular order:
- a voice volume, based on the /say - /shout mechanism, to reduce or increase the range of the chat.
- a hearing process. What is said by others would become more and more cryptic with distance (or their whispering). Hearing could even be a skill and/or a racial trait.
- a voice strain mechanism. Speak loud for too long and you lose your range, and even break your voice.
- of course, related spells (deafening, range increase, etc.)
- some acoustic rules: basically, local variations of sound range, from dampening rooms to audible theater stages.
- what else ?
It's roughly presented and needs a lot of input, but still easier to achieve than a smell engine. :D
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I say you already have mechanics in PS that just need to be improved to improve Roleplaying, Factions. I got hooked on these things early on, thinking that if I was nice to everyone and the most helpful dwarf, my factions would really show off the character I was trying to be. I thought the consequences of my actions would improve my character more than just killing Ulbernauts and paying someone to increase my stats and skills. If actions are computed and adjust factions, then that may support roleplay on a more consistent level. I think I read what UTM said correctly, but I agree that the current PPs system isn't the greatest and could be done away with. Maybe factions as a substitute could be something to look into. Consequences for your actions I think are very important when it comes to roleplaying, so having some way to support that would be pretty fun. Some examples of what I mean would be:
1) Should it be possible to be maxed in Dark Way and Crystal Way, or if you train Crystal Way should your faction for Dark Way go down or vice versa?
2) If I kill someone in PvP, should my Good, Guard and Law Faction go down if the person I killed had a Good and Lawful Faction alignment?
3) If I trade and constantly sell and buy for decent prices that makes my customers happy, shouldn't my Merchant Way faction increase?
This of course is probably more complicated than these simple points, but roleplaying can always be done in a chat room, making roleplaying more popular and fun in a game is always going to be more difficult, but when accomplished will have a very nice niche in the gaming world.
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Things that encourage players to interact and that lead to more community and cooperation will help roleplaying.
To that end, I'd like to see helpful spells that you can cast on others but not yourself.
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I'd like to see helpful spells that you can cast on others but not yourself.
Ya they would help the whole atmosphere and would definitly help bring a new level of teamwork to the game.
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Multi-player quests, and high-level quests which have level increases as rewards so that grinding is not as necessary.
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Multi-player quests, and high-level quests which have level increases as rewards so that grinding is not as necessary.
For mulitplayer quests, I suppose you could have the NPC give the quest to a group and everyone in that group gets the quest and then you would be able to work it out together. In order to make sure that one person doesn't do everything you can make parts of the quest mutually exclusive so that way at least one other person is involved. I don't know if this can be supported by the game though.
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of what was mentioned so far
-skill decay
-group quests
-doing away with pp
are and have been on the plan.
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of what was mentioned so far
-skill decay
-group quests
-doing away with pp
are and have been on the plan.
Cool.
Is there a wiki document somewhere of the plan that the devs edit as it evolves and that players can have read-only access to?
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First of all I am completely against limits. But from what I have seen that was argued enough about.
I think there should be more player interaction mechanics. Why can't a master mage teach a new person what they know? I think for that there should be a system where you can teach people skills like npcs can train. Perhaps (to take away the advantage it gives players) the teacher has to give as many progression points as the student who is giving the normal amount. Since the teacher is losing pp for nothing, they can insist on a charge which can very. You might wonder what the point is to have players cost more than npcs, but there are obvious advantages such as: A player can charge for private tutoring so that they follow the student as they train so they don't have to run back all the time; Players can give free lessons as gifts, or decide to cut prices for friends; Players would be able to have a source of income by teaching others opening new economic opportunities; Perhaps the biggest thing of all is that Teacher and Student can rp together.
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The plan is and will remain private amongst the devs.
Seriously, you pick apart what's already out there enough to know that from our perspective there is zero win in sharing the plan.
I can say also that might modify that view, the plan is not etched in stone.
There are a couple reasons the plan must remain fluid:
1) We want to leave some room for players to help us help them.
2) Volunteers tend to only work on what they want.
Regardless of the fluidity, there is a base plan out there, and I personally can see no benefit to sharing it before we're much closer to done with our goals. If you've seen the countless (and there ARE many) posts about "why don't you do this NOW" or even earlier today Kaerli arguing in #planeshift that it was absurd that some stupid bug was still open after "A YEAR!!!" (OMFG YOU MEAN A WHOLE YEAR!!!!!? WTF (subtext is mine)). I would never want to subject other devs to players making a ruckus about getting x y or z element of the plan into the game before element a b or c.
The above notwithstanding, we, by which I mean mostly I, are (am?) listening to you.
Please don't make the thread about revealing the plan.
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Please don't make the thread about revealing the plan.
I know I speak for myself, but I like that the plan is hidden. When it gets introduced it will be so much more interesting.
Just trying to be the supportive weirdo you don't need or care about to show a minority of the players views.
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of what was mentioned so far
-skill decay
-group quests
-doing away with pp
are and have been on the plan.
So does that mean my jobs system idea is unique :D or there are no plans to do anything like that. :(
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of what was mentioned so far
-skill decay
-group quests
-doing away with pp
are and have been on the plan.
So does that mean my jobs system idea is unique :D or there are no plans to do anything like that. :(
There's already a job system in place. You do apprenticeships with Trasok or Harnquist or the Baker or various other NPCs. As you do jobs for them and help them out, you learn more about their craft. Jobs = having a trade = doing quest lines...
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of what was mentioned so far
-skill decay
-group quests
-doing away with pp
are and have been on the plan.
So does that mean my jobs system idea is unique :D or there are no plans to do anything like that. :(
There's already a job system in place. You do apprenticeships with Trasok or Harnquist or the Baker or various other NPCs. As you do jobs for them and help them out, you learn more about their craft. Jobs = having a trade = doing quest lines...
Yeah but from an RP standpoint it's not so good for RP as many quests require you to solve one shot problems *cough*that keep popping up so that everyone can do it*cough*
A job system would have trasok give a quest where he says" "I have an order for 5 short swords toady. Can you help?" Then the player makes some swords and Trasok gives them money and compensation. This would make an excellent group quest by the way as someone could mine and another could smelt.
It would also be nice, if even possible, if the NPC could only accept crafted items to prevent someone from just buying the item. It would also be nice if the NPC could distinguish between items made by the player with the quest, items made by others, and could respond in some fashion to someone presenting another's work. It would be funny if in some cases it was allowed and in some cases the NPC would become offended because they expected the player with the quest to have crafted the item. Maybe that could lead to some faction changes...
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What does it mean to have a job in PlaneShift though? It means you're producing something that other players want (or that you can sell to an NPC) or you're performing a service that other players need (or that has a reward through the mechanics).
Trasok and Harnquist can already buy the weapons you craft.
All weapons are "crafted". It's just that some weapons are crafted by players, and other weapons are crafted by NPC shopkeepers.
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We created some wonderful bugs trying to make npcs tell crafted items, I'll tell ya! (not that we couldn't work it out eventually)
When we get the group quests going settings will do what it can to expand employment quests with groups performing tasks, some of which will be largely social.
We are working on making things a bit more rewarding in and of themselves atm.
For mentoring, it's been discussed internally quite often we'll bring it up again and see if we can't get a design document out of it.
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Personally, I'd like to see some random things happen to players that they can use to further their RP in a non-epic way, like getting hungry or sleepy, mildly sick, contagious (and a throw up animation would be nice while we're at it), drunk, a backache, cramps from swinging a pick or sword all day, be clumsy and trip while running (especially if they have their swords out), etc.
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Wurm online has a great hunger system. You can still play when hungry, but your movement slows down and you have to rest more often. I think something like that would work well in PS.
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Personally, I'd like to see some random things happen to players that they can use to further their RP in a non-epic way, like getting hungry or sleepy, mildly sick, contagious (and a throw up animation would be nice while we're at it), drunk, a backache, cramps from swinging a pick or sword all day, be clumsy and trip while running (especially if they have their swords out), etc.
I like this idea. Random events would be cool, especially once the calendar has been fully worked into the game. Certain days might have certain events connected with them. Maybe certain days people will have a chance of feeling healthier which translates to a slight increase in stats for that for that in game day. Or people born in certain months will have a chance of funny things happening to them under the effects of other months. It would even be nice to have witty system messages that don't actually do anything but make you laugh potentially occur while doing things like crafting.
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* Several things have already been thrown out there so I'm going to fishbone off of some of those.
Decreasing skill levels - Though I understand the reasoning behind it. I feel this is a really bad idea. In an environment where much skill training (and mining). This will only increase the need for training and mining.
Training of other players- That could be done and adjusted to the existing mechanics. By requiring a player to seek out a player of a higher level to introduce them to a NPC trainer after reaching a certain level.
- If a new player was allowed to level to the first 10 levels of each skill, This allows them to learn of the game mechanics and familiar them selves with the community. After they reach that level they can no longer train with an NPC until they are introduced to another trainer by a player that is skilled in that level of skill.
- a two player quest could be added to enhance to need to cooperate for the player to receive the next 10 levels of training
- added at certain level of skill. Say level 50, a player is required to take on an apprentice in order to train their next 10 levels of that skill. Also a quest related requirement could be added
- in such scenario's as all starting out new. The same formula is used but the requirements are to train with a player of equal skill levels until there are higher skilled players available
Skill choices- limiting other skills by the characters skill choices. As the saying goes "A jack of all trades, but master of none." Cross referencing skill choices to affect the other.
The same can be applied to stats as well.
- leaving a grace period again for a new player for the first 10 levels or so. After which the skills they choose will effect the levels in which they can train in other skills and/or the other skills they can choose.
- An example; if one chooses to be an expert in daggers. This will effect their ability to do or learn other skills based on the requirements. Agility would be the main stat for it for it requires a slight of hand technique. So the expertise of blunt weapons of even heavy swords, such as claymores would be an impossibility which are weapons of strength. Trade mastery like mining and sword making would be limited based on the need to keep that slight of hand ability. The choice of armor training would effect the characters stats as well. Training Heavy Armor as a dagger expert reduces agility.
- if a character chooses a trade instead of being a warrior the ability to level weapon skills or other trades are limited. An expert of sword making is highly unlikely to have the time to train mastery in weapons, even they ones they make. The sword making skill would require certain stats and effect others. Being at the anvil all the time would effect the characters agility as well as the ability to use some weapons. Blunt weapons would most likely be a more suited skill to this crafter then daggers.
-Magic user/warriors should be a thing of the past. magic using would require a lot of the individuals time to learn in one way let alone the others, so a character choosing to learn both magic and weapons would be limited in each. So A choice of one or the other should be clearly drawn.
-character choice could tie into the stat levels. A kran would not be able to reach the agility of a Enkidukai and vise versa
-Character stat and skill limitations would force interaction between players based on occupation and training. A character would have to seek out a higher skilled character for apprenticeship in order to learn of the required skills they desire to reach
- Character stat and skill limitations would also reduce the need for gaining ungodly amounts of PP, because they no longer can max all skills
- This would also help to get players to work together more to combat some of the NPC's
- If cross referencing the stats and skills are an impossibility. Then maybe an easier way would be a max stat or skill in each catagory
- If a player chooses to max strength the others are limited. Maybe one to 90, one to 80, and the rest at 75
- The limitations could greatly tie into the choice of weapons or magic (Mages and warriors would have to choose their mastery in a certain Way or weapon carefully)
dagger mastery would require a high agility as BW (I believe) requires a high intelligence.
Changing skills or stats - If a craftperson decides that they wish to be a warrior or a mage. An NPC could be set up to reduce skill levels.(At a cost) This would allow a character to begin training in another field of interest without having to produce a new character, or to correct a poor choice of skills for their character.
Reduction of stamina- This is always a complaint for new players. Up the regeneration with the use of food. It brings in a practice that characters will get use to and can be reset when crafted food is edible. Which in turn provides a market for our chefs who are slaving in the kitchens. Rest, alone should not regenerate all stamina and/or health for that matter.
- Mining alone would open a large market for food in order to regain full stamina. Not having an NPC with food nearby leaves cooks, or food stands to provide. Which opens interaction between more players.
-requiring food to replenish stamina and health to full even without cooking would push players towards the few NPC's in numbers, causing them to at least meet each other regularly. Filling an opportunity to socialize.
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Where are we going with this?
I'd like to see more effort placed in this brainstorm than in arguing about rp theory in a wonderfully circular fashion elsewhere.
Players want more tools for rp, what else is missing for you?
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I think we're forgetting something important. What is wrong with text based RP? If you have text based, you can do anything. Tangible objects are much less important. Sure, there's nothing wrong with some items or methods or programs, but text based RP is going to be the most used.
For example: A blind orphan was crying for help in the streets. I approached her, led her to the plaza, and told her I would make her a new walking stick. (Her stick was taken.) I decided that, with my characters smithing experience, my character could smelt one. Then I faced a dilemma: Should I actually find a way to 'use' some metal? I had some on me, which I was planning to make swords with. Should I give her the stock and call it a stick? Should I just get rid of it, consider it the materials spent for the staff? I decided not to. I just RPed taking out some stock, and going through the process of making a metal rod.
I made my decision, others my do it differently. I don't think that items should have to be used for something that can only be used in RP.
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Nice idea but if we were to go with that we wouldn't have a client at all, we'd just be using the forums to RP. :D Besides, items and such help ease the transition into RP for noobs. I know, I was one. ;)
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Props will drive more roleplay. More costumes, accessories, et cetera. It would be nice to have cloth armor available in various colors. Hats as well. More locations in game... the old fire at Kada's seemed to have a lot of roleplay around it back in the day. I rarely see anyone down in the new "cafeteria", whereas the old spot always seemed to have players interacting in various ways. More skeletal animations of course, filling out the text-based emotes with animated actions will reinforce roleplay. I made a couple of suggestions regarding roleplay functions in the tracker to start discussions on this, of course roundly rejected because ultimately mechanics does not create roleplay. Only players can do that.
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Here are a few more ideas: I think I could use some mechanics to "enforce" RP that are clearly different from and less aggressive than the police commands we currently use to enforce proper player behavior. Things like temporarily removing weapons from a player's hands (by somehow making them unequipable but without removing them from their inventory) or adding something to their character description that they might not notice (realistic details that can serve as clues of what they've done or where they've been like blood stains, visible injuries, hair transfers, foreign substances or unusual odors, etc.) and being able to change their PvP status for the duration of the event. Also being able to reassign spawn points for a limited amount of minutes (or the duration of the event) so players don't do certain OOC things like exploiting the DR to get to places quickly or leave a certain map, etc. Of course all of these ideas are commands for GMs only and more thought should be put into them but since we're talking about mechs I thought I'd throw them out there for discussion.
I also think that descriptions should pop up on mouseover (without having to right-click and as loon as the mouse is on the character). I'm talking about very brief descriptions here, so players are actually exposed to them in a more realistic "first glance" way. Also, maybe the labels or the target cursor should change depending on whether this info has been updated or not, maybe with read/unread icons or using different colors.
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a thought inspired by the pvp vs rp thread. Just as I suggested in the bug tracker the magic power slider could be adapted to adjust crafting speed it could also be used to adjust attack capability. Say for example a mighty warrior is tricked into consuming an enfeebling potion (that doesn't actually exist), he could then set the slider bar way to the right and his attack power could be set to 20%. He would still have his stances but his 100 sword ability would effectively be 20. This could also be used to toy with annoying people of much smaller ability. The slider bar could be controlled by a radio button to determine which system it would affect.
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a thought inspired by the pvp vs rp thread. Just as I suggested in the bug tracker the magic power slider could be adapted to adjust crafting speed it could also be used to adjust attack capability. Say for example a mighty warrior is tricked into consuming an enfeebling potion (that doesn't actually exist), he could then set the slider bar way to the right and his attack power could be set to 20%. He would still have his stances but his 100 sword ability would effectively be 20. This could also be used to toy with annoying people of much smaller ability. The slider bar could be controlled by a radio button to determine which system it would affect.
So what would the difference be between that and existing stances? It seems you could get the same effect by keeping a set of dull blades around for such occasions.
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Dull blades would do nothing to make you easier to hit, also you wouldn't need the excess clutter in your inventory and you would have better control over how much weakness you would exhibit. Walking around at a low rating might affect the relative strength message in the character description when viewed by a less than keen observer. Existing stances are rated on your actual abilities: full defensive never attacks, bloody defends ineffectively. These things would remain.
anyway it was just a thought. The point is it would be a mechanism that supports role play.
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In RP, we should interact differently with charismatic and uncharismatic characters The first ones should also attract more people than others.
Therefore an obvious way to identify Charisma would be useful. Maybe a brighter label for the character's name? (not very useful when labels are turned off). I don't know if the clue should be on the general appearance, or when the character is talking...
Also, I would expect different answers from NPCs to more charismatic characters (I didn't notice any difference so far).