Shattered Kingdoms

The problem with that system would be characters who might be 250 years old, but has spent 97% of that time span completely idle.

I think that is actually a terrible idea, because we don't want someone to get the flag and then have it forever, because that's just silly.

If anything, it should be by class, and get rid of the PAR system and bring back heroes. The past few hero tournaments were actually amazing melds of RP ability and mechanic ability, IMO.

As for long-lived characters, it doesn't help that casters are rewarded, and melee-types are penalized for being long lived. It's actually completely counter productive.

The penalties to stats are so slight it doesn't even matter. Meanwhile you're probably going to get a ton more stats while mentoring, so you end up coming out on top with aging.

In a MUD that claims, "Roleplay Required. Roleplay Rewarded." The roleplay cannot be the reward in itself.

Like it or not, Dulrik actually intends to both have and incentivize the arpees.

So, here we are, offering suggestions. If your contribution is that there needn't be any reward, perhaps you should not prattle on about how others do not properly play the game.

Yes, it's both roleplay and tactics. Both are integral to SK, and BOTH should be rewarded.

How do you accrue so many rewards idling?


How do they have it forever, exactly? Textbook straw man.


Can you give me a good reason for why it's better to do it by class instead of by race? I think it's worse because the long-lived races will have an advantage. An elf paladin will have more time to accrue rewards than a human paladin. Whether you want to call them heroes or paragons is immaterial; you can have an elf hero just as easily as a paladin hero.


Never mind that the mechanical side of your argument is bunk (the penalties are minor, the HP hit from losing CON hurts casters more than melee types, etc.), but why is this counterproductive? What is counterproductive about encouraging longer lived characters?

I really like this idea.

A suggestion that I have been asked to present on behalf of a friend (I'll post one of my own next):

I thought about the idea of hidden paragons, which your friend's idea addresses by way of eliminating paragons and making the people with rewards to give unknown. There are some positives and negatives to that. I think that, overall, I like the idea of public recognition for good RP. It lets people know there is something they can aspire to through good RP, and the slight status is carries has the potential to encourage good RP through example. I don't know if those are reasons enough to preserve the tradition of public recognition, but that's why I ultimately decided not to include hiding paragon status/reward ability in my list of ideas for changes. It seems to have some value.

I think the suggestion was that everyone gets enlights to give out.

+1

Every good RPer eventually does with a paragon system if he or she plays enough. But, part of your friend's suggestion did involve the anonymous aspect: you never know who could enlighten you. There are advantages and disadvantages to that. When you strip the status away from accruing RP enlightenments it is not without the costs I mentioned. I think that your friend's idea has merits. Clearly we are on the same page when it comes to the mentor point angle, and if that is combined with a no-status 2 for 1 enlightenment system, maybe it could work.

There is the issue of the mathematics of the 2 for 1 system. In order for rewards to keep getting passed around, the immortals will need to be handing out a large portion of the rewards. Consider the case where you start with four people each with one reward to give. When their rewards are spent there will be at most two people with one reward to give, and when those are spent, there will be at most one person with one reward to give. Then there will be nobody else with rewards to give, without immortal rewards restocking the enlightenment pool. I don't have a good handle on how active the staff is right now on handing out rewards (it would be interesting to know what percentage of rewards came from immortals in 2012), but this may not be sustainable with current levels of immortal reward distribution. That's something someone with access to the data would need to determine.