Shattered Kingdoms

Well you are right, I'd rather have the cloak thing be a feature anyone can potentially use, not just cabals. I'm honestly not sure how many concepts it would enable, but I wouldn't rule it out as a feature that could potentially interest a new player.

A tool should only be used when appropriate. If after implementing this, the Hammer started running around like the Ku Klux Klan, then I think the imms would have to have a few harsh words with the Hammer leader.

Then have it work as a script attached to an item or items.

I would be very...hesitant to even allow this as an ability to anyone.

And thanks for that image, I laughed pretty hard.

I don't like this idea. I've played other games that had stuff like this and it just turns into everyone wearing a cloak so nobody can see who they are.

Perhaps put a timer on it so that it can only be used so many times an hour or day. "You have worn the robe/hood too often and people are starting to get suspicious." Make it so that there is some strategy to using it rather than having it always at one's disposal.

I do think hooded cloaks have some advantage. They'd make it possible for a cabal to interview a prospective member without revealing their own membership. Encouraging interviews is good. Also, cloaks would discourage judging players by their posessions, which doesn't help roleplay much, IMO.

I'd like to see even stronger restrictions, though:

* No use of items in cloaks, period. It's ICly sensible that if you can't draw a weapon or wand, then you can't quaff a potion of recall either.
* No items in hand while using cloaks. So no shield either.
* No defense skills trigger while hooded. If people can't see your face, you can't see them well enough to manuever.
* Hooded characters must remove their hood before removing their cloak. Not only reasonable, but a lag doubler.
* No natural flight in cloaks for griffons or sprites. Just because it's silly.

I think that's quite enough to keep people from living in cloaks and hoods. Indeed, you could probably get rid of some of the minor penalties that'd just add to the coding time.

* Remove dodge penalty for cloak alone.
* Use same movement penalty for cloaks and hoods.

I've played games with the ability to cloak as well and it did not hurt the game. Cloaked figures on there were usually thieves or assassins. While cloaked your endurance, pe on here, was constantly draining because it took some energy to keep it in the right position so no one could see your face. With the new system that works more on combat rounds than ticks, this could work well.

Different size cloaks can Cloak differing amount of items. Peeks and detect hidden to see past them.
Worn on body (cloaked).
With peek or detect hidden Worn on body (cloaked) a mithril breastplate.

Three sizes of cloak. Shroud, covers what is worn on body. Robe, covers chest and legs. Cloak covers chest, legs, arms, and helm.

Auto maintain cloak yes/no With auto maintain cloak you will try to maintain a cloak in combat.
While maintaining a closed cloak in combat all lag time is 1.2, 1.5 or 2 times original. Due to your efforts to keep the cloak closed depending on the size of the cloak.

The idea of a hood I am not so keen on because it greatly undermines disguise class skill.

If we wish to have a cabal cloaking ability my thoughts are make it auto with cabal gate. Make it lasts for one tick after you leave the cabal area, this lets you leave the HQ and invite people in. Also give leaders the ability to open a "cabal gate" any time not just in combat. This is so they are able to turn on robes for inductions and meetings. The extra cabal gate could cost them extra ME PE even HP to open it outside of combat to limit its over use.

Think of newbies too... "WTF, everyone looks the same?"

I think this whole concept is rather lame--look at it in contrast to say reality; a robe keeps you only so secret, a little gust of wind, a trip over a rock, someone nabbing your tie cord, etc etc. I think it would take away from the diversity we have and just create a lot more confusion.

Also, as far as annonimity from other members goes to protect against ooc abuse, I think it would be more negative then positive. Think about it, what is the point of having a group that is so super secret that even they don't know who is in?

I would like the focus to be more on trib wars than these silly robes and auto toggles of sekresy.

[edit] Oh ya, if this does get put in, should get rid of disguise and 'copycat' as well.

Cloak and hood as proposed isn't nearly as versatile as disguise and doesn't hold a candle to the mentioned cabal ability.

I think the hood/cloak sounds like a lot of fun, so long as it's for everybody and not just for cabals, as was mentioned.

My couple of coppers' worth of suggestions:

- Add a mood 'passive', which would only allow dodge- and parry-like abilities, nothing offensive. If mood is anything else, when someone attacks, you fling back your cloak and fight un-hindered. If passive, you struggle to defend yourself in your cloak until you leave.

- Strong winds have an excellent chance of knocking back hoods and a lesser chance of blowing open cloaks.

- If your dex is pathetic, as someone said, you trip on a rock and knock aside your hood. A random chance on movement for your hood/cloak to be knocked askew, depending on dex, would make sense in that light.

- Don't have the hood auto-change descs. Just like poly and disguise, if players are too lazy to change their descriptions (and I think most clients have trigger capabilities to make this easy) then they lose out on benefits for people who actually read descs. There are many individual features that could still be discerned in a cloaked figure.

- While you're at it, could add a 'face' eq slot for masks and visors (that don't so easily fall off), and could still make an identity hard to discern. (Although with visors and cloaks, I could see a "raise/lower hood/visor" for that command. I think if someone's stunned, their hood is likely going to fall back when they hit the ground.)

I don't feel strongly about the last idea, but it might be fun. The others I just think make sense. Anyhow, those were my first impressions upon excitedly plowing through 5 pages of posts. I think this would add a unique flavor to the game. Hoods/cloaks now please?

As for the others, I don't have a lot of basis for opinion about cabal secrecy. It would make sense for some cabals, not for others, and I don't feel strongly either way. I do think leadership crossing borders would be spiffy though, with various soldier NPCs to go a-warring.