Shattered Kingdoms

I do not see how this could contribute to a "feed the meter" mentality. In fact, I think it reduces that aspect of the game. That was one of my intentions with the idea.

It is not meant to affect the economy in any way. As Dulrik pointed out, the tribunal guard coffer is different from the economy.

Sure, someone could go around a capitol city and look specifically for named NPCs of that tribunal. The difference, though, is that there are less named guard NPCs than there are bounty NPCs. Currently, it is possible to spawn an entire crap ton of bounty NPCs and it only ends when the coffers run out. There is a finite amount of named guards whose death would charge the tribunal's account in this idea. Also, roaming through the city looking for those specific NPCs is more in the spirit of attacking the city. It puts more risk on the attacker who is trying to go to specific places to find these named NPCs.

I just wanted to clarify the idea in case there was some confusion.

The cabals/tribunals are a beautiful feature of the game. Unfortunately it's unfair that there is not a pbase large enough to support them. For that reason, I strongly suggest that more cabunals are established as quickly as possible. The combinations are obvious. For the Harlequins, I suggest that certain NPCs be placed around Teron that act the same as tribunal guards, though are non-aggro for congruence. Something that resembles:

Harlequins are hypothetically at War with the Hammer. When a Hammer walks by one of these NPCs:


NPCs like this should be the replacement of bounty NPCs for every tribunal, soon to be cabunals. That is the main purpose bounty NPCs serve, telling the tribunal where their enemies are. These NPCs do not stop attacks, die easily, and are hardly an inconvenience. Farming them to deplete a tribunal account is inevitable as the game is full of a-Holes and have made this change necessary.

The roleplay of the tribunal/cabal combos are pretty identical already. Hammer fights for the Queen. Druids protect the woods. Zhenshi is oriental, so are monks. I am making generalizations, clearly, though my vague portrayals are accurate.

There are plans in the works to address this issue.

I think this idea seems pretty solid. I like it. Bounty NPC farming to run coffers dry tends to get out of hand real quick, and this at least will make it a riskier and less profitable proposition. If nothing else, it would slow the bleeding.



Don

People farming your bounty NPCs is not nearly as annoying as being the person who spawns 3 bounty NPCs a city step.

Teron is a free-for-all and Jarney the scrawny would probably be less concerned with the Hammer attacking than seeing if he could sell out local members of the Harlequins to the Hammer for some coin or something. I agree with the rest, though as someone who rolled a greybie member of the Peacekeepers, I'm not sure how it would work out. Callie had her own RP as a Keeper but would have made a terrible Hammer.

I think the idea has merit.

Please please please whatever you do, delay the "take away casting from tribunal NPCs" thing as long as possible. Maybe you could put it on the "bard" timeline? That'd be great.

I actually don't have a problem with tribunals losing NPC castings.

The fixes people are imagining aren't likely the ones Dulrik is setting out to do. I do support the removed spells by tribunal NPCs, but only because the fix is so cool. I won't spoil the surprise. It does address many of the issues people see with tribunals in general. I only posted to agree that making bounty NPC coffer drainage obsolete was a good idea. Fighting named NPCs in capital cities is a much better trade.