Shattered Kingdoms

There is a problem with the practice swords in the Taslamaran training academy for low level characters, as outlined below.



The first problem is that it doesn't seem to be classified as a weapon.



Before being worn, the practice sword had no quality indicator.



I do not play a character who can wield more than one weapon, and yet I was clearly able to wear the sword. It also didn't act in any way like a weapon, appearing to be instead some sort of treasure or wand item - there was no indicator to tell how good I was with the weapon upon wielding it, and it didn't deal any damage to enemies; in fact it seemed to have no discernable use at all.

The practice sword you picked up was from a NPC in the training area. You can easily see that by the short description that is not colored.
That is not a bug but was intended by the builder of this area.

-S

Moreover, it will have shattered/disintergrated before you could seriously have used it, and thus been put at any sort of disadvantage from mistaking it for the real thing.

I'm not sure you'd actually want the training NPCs armed with "real" weapons

Then perhaps you should exchange them with something that does not look like a weapon (like frying pans if it were bakemonos ). I can see a newbie player wearing one of those and expecting to do anything with it. If a player would make a sword that is... well not a sword, we would call it lame. Just as if he would concentrate on a spell that is not a spell. Why consider it vallid in an imm-built area? Change it please.

It's very confusing to see NPCs seemingly armed with weapons that can't be used as weapons. I understand that it might add a little color to a NPC, but such a minor thing doesn't really seem to be worth the unreality.

How long has the place been open? How many people have gone through it? How many have been inconvenienced or confused by what is, in effect, a mere cosmetic designed to add to the atmosphere and mood?

It isn't my call, and wouldn't exactly be heart-broken if those now responsible for the area decided otherwise, but personally, I'd leave the swords as are.

When I designed and built the area, I had any number of considerations in mind. However, a major part of the concept was to create something credible and in-keeping with the theme of the kingdom. So I settled on a military acadamy as being an extention of the original concept of the Collegium and a suitable reflection of the besieged, militarised nature of the State and the heavy role the Peacekeepers played in Taslamaran society.

The next issue was how to give worthwhile combat experience to the students in a way that wouldn't conflict with the ethics of a white aura society.

Illusions seemed a cheap trick. And they'd already been done in the Ayamao. Animates were a possibility. There was precident for them in the original practice dummies. But again, it felt like an opportunity missed for the atmosphere that I was trying to create. And it had been done before.

Penned up monsters, animals or other sundry bad-guys struck me as totally inappropriate. The idea of penning up a sentient creature for use as target practice is gratuitous and cruel; the moral equivilent of using slaves for spear practice. We're talking Taslamar here, not Krychire or the Empire.

Complete aside, I'm terribly unfond of the Ayamoan newbie school and the Ayamoan Outpost for exactly the same reason. In my humble and independent opinion, anybody levelling a white aura in either of those places is trangressing the ethical boundaries of their alignment.

Anyway. Back to subject.

Anybody that's ever practiced combat has sparred. In my somewhat amateur opinion, sparring is the key towards training all the instincts and reactions you need to fight effectively. It's also a real blast.

So there you had the obvious answer. Cadets in the Collegium could spar against other (npc) cadets in the training halls. Of course, normally when we spar in real-life, we do it semi-contact with pads, or no contact, or even if you go in for full contact, you generally don't aim to kill. The equivilent of fighting to stun.

But for technical and practical reasons, having newbies fighting NPCs to the stun to avoid killing them really wasn't going to float as a concept for very long. Enter the Invigilators, problem solved. I originally set the NPCs' race to School Monster to avoid littering the place with limbs, but somebody has since given them limbs anyway. I'm guessing baby Taslamarans were complaining about getting hungry whilst training those first five levels. Though in that case it would have been a better idea to have just swapped the NPCs' race back to something credible; human, elf, half-elf, etc.

"The arm of a school monster is here" somewhat breaks the mood for me!

And, just to prove I am, in a habitually roundabout way, still on-topic, the final consideration was the ethics of beating up on an unarmed opponent.

The original solution was to arm the NPCs with real practice swords. Then Dulrik changed the weapons-code and sent MrM scurrying through the realms editing all the weapon objects to bring them into line. It very rapidly became obvious that a school monster NPC holding a real live practice sword was going to make the career of the average Taslamaran newbie very short.

So I created a cosmetic "trash object" sword for the NPCs to wield and look pretty with, and set their damage type to something fitting.

The next problem was the probability of a player getting hold of one and wasting their time with it because through inexperience and general newness they failed to realise it wasn't really a weapon.

I tried cursing the weapons so the NPCs wouldn't drop them. Unfortuately, severing a limb is as effective as a remove curse spell and a damn sight more common in the training halls. End result, newbies with trash objects glued to their hands.

The alternative was to script them to crumble very quickly if they were picked up and used so you didn't end up with a newbie inadvertantly wasting his time and effort failing away at a NPC with his fists because he was under the impression he was holding a sword.

Bottom line, the practice swords in the Collegium are a cosmetic and are designed so that you can't hold onto them long enough for them to be a problem.

Better still, if you're really new, have just wielded it and are now wondering why you're not doing any damage with it, you just have to look at yourself to see that the sword is actually (broken), which of course explains why it shortly crumbles thereafter.

Personally, I think this is fine and should stay as is. There are things, with hindsight and now having levelled two characters through the Collegium, that I would have done different if I had my chance again. Hell, having now returned happily to treading the mortal boards with the rest of you, I think there's lots I would have done different in all sorts of places looking back. But this isn't one of them.

Bottom line is if the Pantheon are getting bothered by confused newbies praying about their broken swords every two minutes, or the bug logs are getting swamped by a plethora of people thinking they've found a genuine fault and are being helpful by pointing it out, then the practice swords are probably best off going.

If this isn't the case, however, then I say they are serving as originally designed, and should stay.

-T

Tat's response covered me completetly. If these cosmetic swords get totally destroyed in, like fighting one or two NPCs with them, I am covered.

Dammit, Tat. Can't you paraphrase that in like 1 paragraph?

Sorry. Alshain goaded me. Had to set an example

Look! A chicken!