Shattered Kingdoms

I could get behind Finney's idea for the fountain RP incentive, but I worry about the potential for unintended consequences. Offline idling in an inn instead of an HQ, logging out just the same when someone comes on... etc etc.

If we combined Jerinx' and Finney's ideas, however, we might get exactly what a lot of people want without a lot of work for Dulrik. I really like the strategic implications of Jerinx' suggestion.

A magic user/hybrid will generally have more items than a tank, so unless the variable is going to take class into account, it's probably going to nerf prep classes. Should prep be rewarded? Yes.

What happens if you don't have many active players to brew/scribe and you want to get enough for you and your allies?

You would get punished for logging out during a raid. It would probably merit further investigation as to whether or not it was for the purpose of safeguarding loot. In which case they would probably be punished even more with loot being taken away.

I have logged out during 0 raids and put up a resistance every time, either alone or with one other person against 2 to 5+. A griffon weapon that was consequently removed due to how imbalanced it was after I junked it even though Imms determined it wasn't against the rules. Get your own orbs.

Finney's idea would certainly be to my benefit at this present time, but that doesn't mean I like it. It won't necessarily give players openings if the occupying force can just overwhelm the rest of the playerbase. Sure, you might get a quick bs;get corp;quaff word in. Then what? Hide somewhere and do the same thing you're trying to change? It buffs rogues and ranged and other classes that have higher survivability and lower recovery time after being victim PK.

More misunderstandings. The examples I gave are specifically NOT a system. They are relatively simple examples (that have no doubt actually happened many times) to help illustrate what is the same type of item versus what is an instance of an item.

What are people's opinions about what would be considered a fair number of hours to be located at an inn? Probably not as long as is currently required to be logged in from anywhere, but what does that number look like?

You can get away with that in a cabal HQ because of the outer guardian. There is no outer guardian at the entrance to an inn, so you will eventually have to deal with your enemies - or rather they will deal with you. It also has the added benefit of making the cities feel more populated, since you will be much more likely to find people at the local inn.

Personally, I am not a huge fan of "fountain" RP. However, I dislike how pretty much every city is a ghost town nowadays even more - the only thing missing is the tumbleweeds.

I'm of the opinion there should be a certain and harsh diminishing return on preparation. Should preparation be rewarded? Without a single doubt. Should someone who made 3 characters brew for him a functionally infinite amount of healing potions be rewarded more than someone who had one character brew a fistful of potions for him? In my opinion - absolutely #&*$ing not. I don't think 15 hours of preparation should be rewarded much harder than 1.5 hours of preparation, though 1.5 hours should be rewarded significantly more than 15 minutes. That is an arbitrary timeline and number, but you get my idea. PK is as much about strategy as it is about preparation, and I just don't think one should be allowed to bypass large sections of strategy because they have a limitless set of hours to burn on prep. This is what I think, so read what I'm writing with that context: if you disagree, then you will fundamentally disagree with the proposition. It's just one of those things. It's cool.

I understand, with limited players around, it poses a problem for matching up hours between support classes and others. It reinforces contact between people as a positive, but I don't want to gloss over how that is a problem. I just don't care that it's a problem - there's a certain chunk of the game that should be coded around a limited playerbase, and there's a certain chunk that the playerbase size just can't be considered. This is one of the latter: it is zero-sum, because both you and your enemy will be faced with the same problem. It makes support classes both more desirable and yet limits the burden put on them (no more 15 hours of brewing for an entire cabal because you picked class A). I like that the enchant changes because they headed in this direction, and I think hoarding/prep work needs to head that way too. There's a lot - a LOT - of consequences other than this. How will containers on the ground work, what about containers on charms - will it unveil a fistful of balance issues that were covered up by consumables that will cause extreme pain/maybe exodus from a class until resolved? Possibly. I'm okay with that, but I can understand people not.

I like people getting punished for logging out during a raid. I've never done it, and I've held some mighty fancy lewt before (and lost it). This idea drastically increases the value of your preparation choices, but also similarly decreases the cost of replenishment. Chew on it a bit and it might not seem so bad. Then again, it probably still will.



I like a solid 33% of required hours, but I could be argued down to as low as 25%. Perhaps have there be tiered echoes when a person logs in regarding how closely the thieves have been eyeing their sweet lewt, based on how close they are to reaching said goal.

Re: dulrik's last

I think that 10 hours per month in an inn is a reasonable expectation for anyone playing the game regularly, so I think that's a good baseline. That's just 3 days a week chilling in an inn for an hour.

A percent chance for item rot for each item, evaluated from a logarithmic equation including factors of item level, number of item in inventory, whether item is usable by character, total item-levels carried, total hours in an inn, and other statistics such as number of characters associated with account, number of characters greeted, and other factors. Evaluated and enforced with the monthly reboot.

With chance comes a loss of gaming the system entirely:

I was thinking more along the lines of a wand/stave/scroll user having more defensive buffs available to them than someone who can only quaff/eat, and the difference in how many items are being carried. Like, typical MR barb inventory VS necromancer inventory, and so forth. Not to mention a dex build for necro isn't going to be so great, but you will need it to carry enchanted weapons for your undead on top of your own pile.


A lot of players run in cliques or organize through a messenger service of some sort. These players also generally have better loot due to that fact. So I do not think your situation will happen very often.


1/3 of required or total hours(capped?). Total hours would be more ideal if you want to go with this. There should be an echo as jerinx suggested in such a case, IMO. I suggest capped because you might upset the ratio and get stripped after you spent time doing anything other than sitting at the inn at the end of the month. That might lead to players not logging in after a certain point to maintain the ratio if not capped.

Even 3 hours a week is a quota that I'm sure some players have trouble meeting for a class, much less a game. Hard requirements can be leaked and exploited. I'm all for soft-coded approaches that cannot be exploited as easily and are in fact more agile in rewarding appropriate gameplay behavior. Main characters could be determined based on most-played character on the account, and things like that. Score high enough on the "playing appropriately" scale, and you could even earn loyalty tokens instead of risk losing items. How's that for incentive?