Yeah, there has to be some balance, so that you dont lose your character because you were socializing for a month.  

The way I would do it, a month of just socializing or exploring would not count at all towards lowering.
But a month of just using a sword, and not using other skills would mean you havent used your other skills and some skill or skills would be lowered.  
Also I would say this is game time, and have nothing to do with realworld time.  It wouldnt be like you didnt log in and came back to lowered skills.

Heres some made up numbers:
If you have a 1% chance per skill of a skill decline whenever you gain a skill point.  If you have 10 skills you have a 10% chance of 1 skill going down every time you gain a skill point.  So every 10pts you go up you will lose 1 point, or have a net gain of 9.
Now if you have 100 skills, you have 100% chance of 1 skill going down if you gain 1 point, or basically a hard cap on average.

Another way is to base it off total skill points.  Something like .1% chance per skill point.  If you have 100 skill points assigned, you have a 1% chance per skill point gain of losing 1 skill point, or if you have 1000pts, you have a 10% chance to lose a skill point.

Even better than either would be some combination of total number of skills and total number of points.  That way you could weight the percent loss.  Maybe having more skills is relatively more important than the total number of points.  So 60% of skill loss comes from the number of skills and 40% from the total skill points.  Or have a sliding scale where the the more points you have shifts the percent associated between skill numbers or total points.

Theres alot of ways to calculate it, so you dont have too much decay or too little.  

Plenty of ways to balance things I think.

Mal

zanzibar,

I see what you mean about skill loss not being fun if it takes away from RPing.

Heres an addendum that might reduce your concerns.

Say that decay only is checked when a person gains a skill.  So that if a person is exploring or socializing they for weeks on end, they wont lose skills.
But if a person is fighting with his sword, and gaining skill it will check if a skill has been used for a while or not.  If it hasnt, then it has a chance of going down.

I wouldnt want a system where you end up spending all your time trying to keep up your skills.  But I think some moderate decay will prevent people from being Supermen.

I dont like hard caps in that it all characters basically figure out what the best skills to have are, and tend to keep those maxed.  Kinda like in DAOC, if youve ever played it, and you have templates develop.  \"I have a max of X points, so I can max out A, B, and C skill, and have this skill only decent.\"

I know that people will tend to find out what works \"best\" and put forth templates, but without a hard cap people have alot more flexibility.

Mal

To prevent everyone from knowing everything we need to put in methods of restriction.

I dont like hard caps on anything!

Put in a skill decay system where skills drop at a rate based on the number of skills you have (or possibly the total skill points your have, or some mathimatical combination).  
IE You cant be a Doctor, Lawyer, Engineer and Economist all at the same time and maintain your high skill in these areas.  Something has got to give.

Put in a skill advancement system so that the greater number of skills you have, the slower you advance in all your skills.
You cant improve skills quickly if you still have to focus on other skills.

We could put in some method of removing skills, or setting them at an increased decay rate, so that you can lower your skill numbers.
This will let you balance out decay rates and advancement rates so that people can play what they want and try out a variety of skills, but not permanently restrict them from developing their character in the long run.
And will also prevent people from quickly shifting to the template of the month.

Comments?

Mal

Can these be spent later?

Can stats or skills be raised, as I cant seem figure out how they can be raised?

Thanks,
Mal

I finished downloading the client last night, and hope to be in game tonight.

I have some questions:

I see that each of the six spheres has an opposing sphere.  Does this affect the game in any way?  Example - Does knowing Darkness to some level reduce my ability to learn Azure?

Does wearing armor or wielding weapons affect casting spells?

We can learn any skill in the game I believe, and I believe the only restrictions on based on race.  Are there any negative affects to learning greater numbers of skills?  In some games you learn skills more slowly, or skills decay faster the more skills you have.  Kind of a balancing aspect.

Comments appreciated.
Thanks,
Mal

Well, I read something about a migration from MB, and not being sure if I was or should be part of that, I created another account.

BUT, now I have a problem with that.
I set up the account.  Get my email.  Attempt to validate it.  Put in password, and submit.

I get :

Your Account Has NOT Been Validated!!

Return to Account Registration

Logging in I believe I am a registered user, but the password is not valid; which makes sense if I am not validated I guess.

So I still dont know what to do.

Mal

Well I was going to go with my typical Mage type, but seeing as we arent restricted in what we do, perhaps I will go with a dual wielding rogue with some magical ability.
 (Vlad Taltos series anyone???)

Mal

Androgos,
Could you explain that.  Do you mean that they wont be implementing Malus, or whatever we\'ve chosen now will probably be different?
Mal