okay, i admit the guild power downgrape was a bit too much, the system is too well started to be changed, drop that idea. but i wish to elaborate a bit on the second part of that: a stable, developer created system of \"uber-guilds\" should be put in place to avoid confusion for new players as of where to belong. these \"uber-guilds\" (stressing the quotes, i can\'t come up with a better name\" should be either preset trader associations, where for example anyone who would want to blacksmith wouls have to join to learn the craft and peruse the smithies (at least in one city, although some contact could be established between the blacksmiths of each community to make blacklisting possible). anyone on a blacklist would have little to no way of getting any weapons or armor, or repairing those he already has (item deterioration should be a must to drain money from the system, and would suit this well; once again, i doubt the developers are planning to make everything of hyperindentable steel, so i\'m prolly reiterating). that, and of course geographical communities (cities, and nearby villages). these associations should be rather easy to join, the acceptation being more-or-less a formality, although charge should be given to players and they should be encouraged to come up with whatever fancy rituals, oaths, or (simple!) tests to let new people in. of course the downside could be the above-average hand-to-hand combat system (nice touch with the three schools and all, my respect to the developers), but then again, i could very well imagine let\'s say monastic orders of Argan, Esteria, and wosshisnameagain, who would keep their arts a secret form non-members (each teaching melee and their appropriate school). also the whole point of the system would be that the players could take absolutely nothing for granted (skill advancement, shopping or anything); a lot of things would be sort of privileges, although easy to gain, when lost, very tough to regain. i imagine blacklisting/banishing being a more usual, easy to administer (without intervention of the game administrators), and far more annoying punishment than the traditional banning.
the system that was described from everquest might be annoying, but it is (to the matter this can be said about fantasy themed games) realistic. no matter how hard you train or how well-made (i want to point back to the idea of not particularly strong enchantments on most - 95% or more - items) your armor is, a dragon\'s flame breath that could crisp-fry an elephant WILL hurt you without magical assistance. and as for spell casters, they will be a little frailer, and the dragon has several centuries of life experience, tons of muscle weight, and severals tens of kilograms of brain matter, hrak innate magical power to be defeated by spells one humanoid can muster alone. the eventual scaling of monster power should be based on the average level or power rating in the group attacking him, or should rise with each additional member (not the full amount as if a single enemy of the power of the group together of course), so a monster will still be a challenge, even should a LOT of people group to defeat him.
also, i\'ve come up with an ingenious (and prolly revolutionary, i never seen it anywhere before, excuse and correct me if i\'m wrong) idea: let\'s divide skill advancement in two independent parts - theory and practice. theory would be gained by being mentored (the usual skill point payment at a mentor, or (gads!) at level advancement), but would per se be useless, and then the traditional clickalot-to-advance (although of course, only those uses of the skill that would make actual sense - that deal/heal damage, or have any tangible effect would count) would increase the practice component, which would actually make the skill better, give access to new abilities and the usual. the theory component would determine the cap to which the skill can be practiced. of course, the practicing should be sensibly faster than in the system i described before, of course.
Irago, god how i hate people using numbers, weird characters, or only sensible dangerously sounding english words in their in-game names, not to mention multiple capitals in one...
