Roleplay Server Tentative Ruleset Announced

[EZ_Raxee]

I'll first say that I ripped this directly from Castersrealm, so yeah.

Appears that they've finally got something down for how they're going to work this. Here's what Brad has to say:

Quote: Hi all,
Well, you've probably heard that we're seriously considering an 'RP' server. In the past we've shy’d away from launching one for the following reasons:

1. It's very difficult to get a large group of people to agree on what 'role playing' really means, much less 'role playing rules' that would be applied to an EverQuest server.

2. Whatever ruleset we decided upon, who knows if people would like it and play there? It's risky to launch such an experimental server.

3. EverQuest IS an Role Playing Game anyway, so in that sense, ALL servers are RP servers.

Well, some things have changed. Let me address the three previous issues we've had with an RP server:

1. This certainly remains true, but, well, to be brutally honest: too bad We're going to choose some rules, listen to feedback, perhaps make some changes, and launch an RP server. Some players will object, and argue, and debate, and, well, we're going forward anyway. It's either a. we subjectively come up with some rules that some or many might disagree with or b. we don't do an RP server at all. I prefer ‘a’

2. You may have noticed Sullon Zek. It has some pretty experimental, wild and crazy rules and ideas as well. This is what's pretty cool: EQ is so big now (400,000+ active subscribers) with so many servers that we can launch some experimental ones. Back in the day when we had 7 or 10 or 15... well, it wouldn't have been prudent. But now, we're going for it

3. This remains true, and to be honest with you, I don't know if I personally like calling this server the 'RP' server. To me it's more like the Siege Perilous server that UO had. Maybe it's the 'hard core' server, or the 'extreme' server... *shrug* But anyway, regardless of what it's called, I'm very excited about the ideas and rules behind it.

Which brings us to this: I'm going to post our initial thoughts on what the rules will be. Now here's where the BIG disclaimer comes in: we are posting these for feedback and ideas from you, but they are NOT SET IN STONE. They are VERY subject to change. Heck, expect them to change.

Disclaimer #2: I do NOT have a date as to when we'll launch this server. It may be the next server we launch, or the one after that. We're not sure yet. Please don't bombard us with 'when' questions, because we won't be able to answer them.

Anyways, here are our fairly solid but not final ideas:

1) Each race/class combination will be assigned an alignment, either Good, Neutral or Evil. A high elven paladin of Tunare will be good (as will a dwarven paladin of Brell, probably), a dark elven warrior of Innoruuk will be evil. This will be a subjective list, so let's not debate yet whether a dark elven rogue of Bristlebane will be neutral or evil. The idea is that eventually each combo will have an alignment. Evils can't group with goods, nor can they heal or buff each other (specific details, such as summoning corpse to be determined). Neutrals will be able to work for either side, and can be healed and buffed by either (Maybe).

2) Common Tongue becomes Human Tongue. This in combination with #3

3) Use of languages will be made more difficult. This will include the removal of the Common Tongue. It will include some sort of restriction on the ability to increase language skills (on a per level or per day basis, most likely). The goal is that trolls will have to expend their time and efforts if they want to deal with humans (and vice versa). The removal of Dark Speech might be necessary here.

4) One character per account.

5) /ooc will be removed.

6) /auction will use languages and will be restricted to city zones.

7) /shout will have a reduced range.

8) /emote will be changed such that one has to understand the language of the emoter (lest the command simply be used to bypass language barriers).

9) Guild membership will be restricted so that goods and evils can't be members of the same guild.

10) /who list will show everyone as 'anonymous'.

11) 'Warrens' loot code turned on for ALL zones.

12) This is a PvE server, NOT a PvP server.

Let us know what you think (via the normal feedback, not Ask Brad).

thanks,

- BradWell, I have to say I'm pretty excited now. Like he said, there's some things everyone will disagree on, but I'm pretty satisfied. A few things I'd change, but not enough thus far to make me uninterested. Course, I haven't played it yet either.

I especially like how they're freeing up neutral to work with both good and evil. I was hoping they wouldn't just carry over how SZ's teams work directly, that they'd make a few changes in light of the RP server being non-PvP.

Language thing is nice... /auction already uses languages, don't know where he's getting that they don't, but that's just a detail. The city thing about it is a good change, I almost wish they'd implement that retroactively, excepting possibly EC because that would only piss people off and it's in such a convenient location.

One char per account... hardcore, but I never played more than one char anyway, so it doesn't matter much. Only thing it makes difficult is mules.

I hope they scrutinize Warrens loot code more before they go worldwide with it - especially in relation to quests, in particular to quest items that will not drop due to the code, ones that have the magic, lore, or no drop tags (which is a large chunk of them). Lots of quests require you to kill greenies and looking up all your high level quests in advance to see if there's items in them that you need to go off and loot 20 levels prior to completion, because otherwise the items would poof, doesn't seem too terribly RP to me. Then again, I guess the idea is to get people to hire lower level types or get lower level friends to help. Sounds fine that way, but I doubt it'll work out to be so easy... finding people will be downright hard when players can only have one char per account.

Anyway, all I had to say. I'm copying most of those points and sending a feedback, myself. Anyone else have any thoughts on it? Raxee L'Noamuth, 52nd season Rakess of Fennin Ro

[EZ_Kaphka]

I already sent my feedback, but rather than copying it all here, let me just share one idea... Rather than reviewing all the various NO DROP quest items that might dissappear under Warrens-style loot code, why not just eliminate NO DROP on the RP server? It would enhance the player economy greatly, and the twinking potential would be negligible with only one character per account. Sure, there'd be some losers that would buy two accounts and powerlevel one just so that they can have a lvl 1 Rogue with a Ragebringer, but I can live with that.

[ShadowCross]

OMG.


Someone send some warm clothes to the devil... he'll need them, since Hell just froze solid.


If they really do this, then /salute Verant. ShadowCross Bladesong
-Teir'dal Blackguard of the 59th Shadow, Ayonae Ro
- Agnostic Teir'dal Rogue, Solusek Ro
- Teir'dal Rogue of Bristlebane, Sullon Zek
- Opifex Clan Agent Level 5, AO Beta 4

Safehouse Moderator

[Kelthana]

1) Each race/class combination will be assigned an alignment, either Good, Neutral or Evil. A high elven paladin of Tunare will be good (as will a dwarven paladin of Brell, probably), a dark elven warrior of Innoruuk will be evil. This will be a subjective list, so let's not debate yet whether a dark elven rogue of Bristlebane will be neutral or evil. The idea is that eventually each combo will have an alignment. Evils can't group with goods, nor can they heal or buff each other (specific details, such as summoning corpse to be determined). Neutrals will be able to work for either side, and can be healed and buffed by either.

Seems like this is more for a PvP server than a PvE. Why worry about balance of the sides if it's not PvP? Give the EQ players, who are obviousy more concerned with roleplay potential instead of game advantages if they're playing on a one-character server, and let some race/class combos choose a wider variety of deities for those who are interested in making a truly uniquely roleplayed character(barring any inherent class alignments like pallies and shadowknights). That ogre warrior who was rescued from a monster by a band of dwarves as a lost youth might have decided to worship Brell Serilis and devote his life to fighting for the small folk. The wood elf rogue who realized that she got off on terrorizing others may be a more devout worshipper of Cazic Thule than most trolls and iksar, saying her daily prayers in the form of a dagger from the shadows and the frightened screams of her chosen victims.

Another thing that could be done on a RP server that has grouping/guilding/communication restrictions based upon alignment is to make three choices of Agnostic for any race/class that can normally choose agnostic. If they can choose to worship no deity, then the character should also be able to have some control over defining their personal ethos, be it good or neutral or evil.

2) Common Tongue becomes Human Tongue.

3) Use of languages will be made more difficult. This will include the removal of the Common Tongue. It will include some sort of restriction on the ability to increase language skills (on a per level or per day basis, most likely). The goal is that trolls will have to expend their time and efforts if they want to deal with humans (and vice versa). The removal of Dark Speech might be necessary here.

Awesome, I love the idea of restricting communication a bit more(expanding the ignore list might be good for this server too, since you can't exactly play Thought Police and ban anyone who runs around shouting how much they love Goldberg). /snicker

4) One character per account

I always liked this idea, and I think that single thing will limit this server to hardcore roleplayers more than all the other steps combined.

5) /ooc will be removed

I like it, much less spammage. The only downside I could see that, in conjunction with the lowered shout range, there will be a hell of a lot more intentional training complaints due to the unannounced trains. /shrug

6) /auction will use languages and will be restricted to city zones.

I wouldn't mind seeing a little more alignment mixing in certain spots, since once again this isn't a PvP conflict-type server. A couple of "Mos Eisley Cantina" sort of places would be cool, where all races and professions mix in an uneasy truce, and all sorts of shady deals can be found. This might open up an opportunity for the people who are interested in becoming true traders - they could spend their time mastering the various language skills and then actually be a black-market middleman for the various races. That high elf paladin of Tunare might be forbidden to speak to that dark elf shadowknight, but oh does he want that Blackened Alloy Bastard Sword of his. Maybe he can make a discreet arrangement with that mercenary dwarf who is rumored to be able to get anything for the right price, and keep his own lily-white hands clean in the process.

7) /shout will have a reduced range.

8.) /emote will be changed such that one has to understand the language of the emoter (lest the command simply be used to bypass language barriers).

I hope this affects only the /emote command text and not the pre-made emotes like /rude.

9) Guild membership will be restricted so that goods and evils can't be members of the same guild.

10) /who list will show everyone as 'anonymous'.

11) 'Warrens' loot code turned on for ALL zones.

Bleh. Blehblehbleh I don't like the idea. It was my impression that the main impetus behind the Warrens code was farmers, yes? If this server only allows one character per account then I don't see the need for Warrens loot code. With twinks removed from the economy added to the fact that this is going to be a brand new server, the only gear people will be buying would be for their mains, and the odds are that they will camp for what they want.

Hmm...actually, my paranoid brain is forming a picture of the logic behind this change(I also realized why Michael Jackson wears just one glove, help me). First off, on this server Verant is apparently unconcerned that items will rarely be entering the economy on anything other than an as-needed basis, since there won't be people going and farming a lower-level dungeon when not many people are camping it. Hey, in a fantasy novel you don't walk into a store and buy some rare magical weapon. Ok, fair enough. Add in the fact that Play Nice Policy and any sort of camp debates are going to be a pain in the ass to work out thanks to the communication barriers, and it's easier to just remove any reason for the farmers to come into a dungeon in the first place.

12) This is a PvE server, NOT a PvP server.

This point alone backs up my previous argument that the balance, and in some ways the definitions, of good/evil/neutral should be thrown out the window in favor of giving players more creative leeway, within reason. If they're finally adding a server with roleplay-specific rules, they might as well go gonzo.

[Fricka]

This sounds intriguing.

I like the removal of /ooc and the reduced /shout range.

Anarchy Online has a "say", a "shout" and a "whisper" range. Perhaps they could copy that? AO also have different channels of communication though (newbie ooc chat, 2 different auction channels, etc).

I too like the idea of one character per account for a roleplay server.

On a side note, I'm glad to see that Verant still considers the game to be an RP game. No matter what server I've played on (and I've been on blue and PvP servers) I have always roleplayed my characters to various extents. Fricka of the Vallon Zek Shanks
Safehouse Ring Warden
Rogue Class member of Midgard, Dark Age of Camelot Beta 3
Fricka curtsies elegantly...while picking your pocket.
Sig Gallery

[Kelthana]

I used to, but realized that the way I went about doing it was usually either too bizarre or just too creepy for the Renfest crowd. No one appreciated my inkie necromancer, he got warned several times for things like "graphic skinning emotes". Pfeh. :P

[Kambic]

This just in (he posted a reply):

Wow, we are getting a LOT of great feedback. A few have really got me thinking, so much so that I’m going to suggest something pretty crazy…
But first, there have also been some requests for more clarity on what I posted yesterday:

8) /emote will be changed such that one has to understand the language of the emoter (lest the command simply be used to bypass language barriers).

Some players are rightfully saying that this inhibits RP’ing a bit. I agree, but we don’t really have a better solution. If we let people use /emote, some will simply communicate with it, bypassing the intended language barriers (for example: “/emote is communicating with you anyway, even though you don’t understand my language”).

But the canned emotes (/wave, /gesture, etc.) will remain. And if we can, we’ll add even more canned emotes in the future.

10) /who list will show everyone as 'anonymous'.

I’m still iffy on this. Some players were concerned that it would too greatly inhibit people who want to find groups. They may be right. We’ll definitely leave the LFG functionality in though.

11) 'Warrens' loot code turned on for ALL zones.

I’ll get to this in a minute

12) This is a PvE server, NOT a PvP server.

I should have been more clear here (we received a bunch of email asking what ‘PvE’ means). PvE means Player vs. Environment (as opposed to Player vs. Player). What I really meant, though, is that it would work the same as our non-PvP servers, or ‘blue’ servers, work now. You can still duel, guildwar, turn your PK Switch on with the Priest of Discord, etc.

There were also, as expected, lots of messages asserting that the server can’t truly be ‘RP’ if it’s not PvP. Well, we’ll have to agree to disagree there.

Ok, now for Brad’s wacky idea for the day (I can’t wait until tomorrow when the team confronts me on this one )

First, what is the ‘Warrens’ loot code? It’s also called Trivial Combat code, or even ‘anti-bottom feeding code’, although some people get mad when I use those terms In a nutshell, it means if you kill a mob that wouldn’t give you experience, you won’t get loot from it either. It’s really more complicated than that, and we’re continuing to refine it. For example, you still get non-magical items, and it works a little differently when you’re grouped.

There were two major concerns about applying this code to all the zones. The first was that there are some quests that require you to kill a ‘green’ mob to get a quest component or some such. My response to this is we’ll address those as we come to them. Normally, this shouldn’t be the case, and so we’ll probably just clean up the quests over time. And for the few that are that way on purpose, we’ll specially flag them or something. Bottom line: I don’t want to wait until every single quest is addressed before launching the server.

The second concern was regarding no-drop items and how the Trivial Combat code interferes with obtaining them. And this is a good point – let’s say you missed getting an item and now you’re too high level. Well, trade for it or buy it – that’s what the player driven economy is all about, after all. But then what if the item is no-drop?

So here’s what I’m seriously considering: disabling the no-drop flag on the RP server. Lore items would still exist, but ANY item would be tradable.

Let us know what you think.

Thanks,

-Brad


Did I just read that last one right ?? /auc WTS jboots, epics, etc. geez hehe.

Good luck guys, I think it's a great endeavor, but from what it looks to me, they just barely pulled off SZ and I don't see how this server could be any easier.



Wang, Anonymous Gnome of Sullon Zek, Anarchia
Canbik Virulentus, 40th Halfling Rogue of Rallos Zek, Order of the Black Rose (Retired)
Joyous Mackdaddy, 23rd Human Enchanter of Sullon Zek [Test], Anarchy (Player Wiped)

"Just gimme my gun."
"Sorry, the law requires a five day waiting period... we've got to run a background check."
"Aww, but I'm mad now." - Homer Simpson, buying a gun

[EZ_Xepante]

Another curious point of interest. Playing a rogue which gets the make poison skill well into the "everything is green" stage... Already the skill is an expensive one to maintain, does this in fact mean that killing a spider will not give me venom? Hopefully I am taking this the wrong way. I really would hate to have to pay those outragous vender prices for spider venom, or spend a day in EC hoping someone that speaks my language happens to have some for sell. Aside from that (and I am sure that tailors and others will have the same thoughts) I do have to admit I like the idea. After all, having all of the different races and languages didn't really mean much when everyone just stuck to using common anyway. This could prove to be..."interesting." Xepante Whisperblade
Level 30 Rogue Wood Elf
Zebuxoruk Server

[Fricka]

On PvP servers everyone voluntarily goes "anonymous" it really isn't too much of a hindrance in finding a group.

However, if they decided not to implement it I don't think it would be too damaging to RP play.

[ShadowCross]

Xepante, read what he said: "For example, you still get non-magical items..".

There are no poison components I could name out of my head which are tagged "magic".

[EZ_Xepante]

Doah, totally overlooked that. Xepante Whisperblade
Level 30 Rogue Wood Elf
Zebuxoruk Server

[EZ_tajebmxa]

My feedback was this... Take out /who completely. This is a no brainer for roleplay. 2nd Make a language gain cap per day, make a faction gain cap per day and tougher to get, *note* I can make any race/class combo in game walk and bank in most cities with no trouble. 3rd balance neutral by making them group half there time with evil and half with good(or something like this, some kind of system I dont care) and if they really wanna seperate meaningless Wangs from people who wanna roleplay and have a decent challenge give everyone a 10 or 15 percent exp penalty. Another thing i didnt add but i think would be really logical is to make every Magical item but those that are player made all NODROP. I would love to see this, but it will never happen. The "warrens" loot system will have to do. *** Here is a new feedback, it goes somethin like this...all the changes being said by verant does'nt make this server any harder then any blue server out there. Its easy to get around Language, warren loot, no /ooc, teams etc etc what would really want is a challange us and to seperate the people who wanna treat this a roleplay/hard shard and the people who wanna treat this as a "im first to 60 and i got all the LEET gear first" server. Adding a experence penalty would make it a challange and seperate. Taje B'mxa Edited by: tajebmxa at: 7/9/01 3:12:55 am

[EZ_Vaslin]

> So here’s what I’m seriously considering: disabling the no-drop flag on the RP server. Lore items would still exist, but ANY item would be tradable.

GAAHAHHH!! Why don't they just quit destroying no-drop items? I'm already screwed with any Warrens quests and lore. If they want it destroyed, just flag it magical.

And the idiotic concept of going back and updating 700+ quests??

They don't give a crap about lore collectors.

[EZ_Flapjax]

1) Each race/class combination will be assigned an alignment, either Good, Neutral or Evil.
- NO COMMENT.

2) Common Tongue becomes Human Tongue.
- NO COMMENT.

3) The removal of the Common Tongue
- LONG OVERDUE.

4) One character per account.
- A MUST CHANGE. Works on Sullon Zek. Will work here.

5) /ooc will be removed.
- LONG OVERDUE.

6) /auction will use languages and will be restricted to city zones.
- LONG OVERDUE.

7) /shout will have a reduced range.
- A MUCH NEEDED CHANGE. The following statements pertain to global chat/ commands and the death of roleplay. My beliefs are based on one facet of EQ which has shown an absolutely terrible track record, GM event. I would estimate that greater than 50% of all GM events fail in EQ due solely to global chat/ commands (i.e., /ooc, /auc, /shout, /group, /tell, and /guildsay). If Verant would remove those for commands from the game I guarantee that GM-NPCS would be able to follow through on scripts and event campaigns. Furthermore, those people present in the zone with the GM at the time of the event would actually get to interact in the event instead of being overrun.

A fantastic example would be likened to a vision... for example, a monk is sitting by the lake fishing. Suddenly magic fills the air and the monk sees a great spirit on the water. Unsure the monk looks around for others but realizes he is alone. Suddenly the spirit motions him and moves toward him. Fear stricken the monk uses /tell and /guildsay to invite buddies to help is scared person. STOP! Rewind... what does this monk own... a cell phone? Remove /guildsay and /tell completely (OR restrict it to the immediate zone and each adjacent zone). Ok... restart. The monk in panic lowers his head to the spirit. The spirit talks to the monk and to the monk ONLY. The GM-event is running smoothly and as planned. That is role-play. Face-to-face. Here and now. Working to resolve a issue or conflict with the tools immediately available and not just using global chat to bring in your clique of buddies... if thats what you want to play EQ for then stay on the non-roleplay servers but for roleplay there is no other choice. Remove all global chat. Real roleplayers can adapt to non-global chat. The want-to-be roleplayers will always want global chat because of inherent roleplay weakness. Sorry to be so brutal people but it’s the honest truth. Roleplay is a face-to-face concept.

Anyway it takes just one person to /gsay "hey doods there is a named GM in butcher.. lets kill it see what it drops!" and you can kiss the GM-event good-bye. All the GM will do is die or go *poof* if no one can get the interactive part out of him before the hording druids arrive with their clique. This same concept applies to all named spawns too. For example, /tell “Hey Jimmy-bob Trak is up come join me and my closed circle of friends to kill him again like we did last week!” That is not roleplay. It is for these reasons I am against global chat/ commands, everything should be done face-to-face. We only need four commands, 1- /say; 2- /shout (has radius ~4 times /say); 3- whisper (radius ~one-quarter of /say); and lastly /yell (the help call). Then give bards and rogues a new skill called 'eavesdrop' that allows them to pick up conversations from farther distances.

8) /emote will be changed such that one has to understand the language of the emoter.
- LOGIC IS SOUND. Yes I agree people will do whatever it takes to break the roleplay shell. So forcing emotes under languages solves this to an extent. Problem is many emotes which add flavor to the game will be dysfunctional as such. Perhaps all the documented emotes could relay in a “common” language. Any PC-derived emotes would be language-based.

9) Guild membership will be restricted so that goods and evils can't be members of the same guild.
- NO CROSS-GUILDING, GROUPING, OR BUFFING would be best like on Sullon Zek (see 12, PvP).

10) /who list will show everyone as 'anonymous'.
- REMOVE /WHO. It is anti-roleplay. Period end of story (same reasoning as my notes in 7).

11) 'Warrens' loot code turned on for ALL zones.
- TOUGH CALL ON THIS ONE. Seeing as the server will only allow one character there will not be much room for people to amass items like the classic eight-character servers do (i.e., hand items down to alts for storage). Hence the only flag raised would be those folks who have access to two accounts and can download items to a second account for “storage” (a.k.a., farming). The trade industry of Sullon Zek is much tighter because of the one person account system with the most noticeable effect being farmed items reach a saturation point much sooner than a eight character server. For example, if there are only X number of rogues on Sullon Zek and X+Y ravenscale breastplates have dropped since server inception then that leaves Y breastplates that do not have a chest to adorn. At this point those items are only taking up space in the owners vault and the chance of them being sold or traded is very low. This trade dynamic is new to EQ because the one-character server is new.

So what I’m trying to say is that the combination of 1) one-character only, 2) supply and demand economics of a one-character server, and 3) Warren style rules may yield a very restrictive loot game. As a roleplayer I would enjoy this but after playing the classic eight-slot server for two years would be hesitant of a server where its very high probability that you could be wearing banded armor well into to upper game (heh). Verant did very well getting 40,000 people spoiled on loot with the classic servers... that is having let a economy evolve where twinking, farming, and camping were acceptable behaviors in an otherwise roleplay game. I can adapt to a restricted server, many will not be able too. So its crucial that the economy AND dungeon/ loot drop designers sit down and run some black-box models and make some predictions as to what this “roleplay” might yield for the upper level player.

12) This is a PvE server, NOT a PvP server.
- ROLEPLAY MUST INCLUDE PvP. Being a care bear myself, many would tell me I’m not entitled to speak for the PvP community. I have played on Sullon Zek and admire how far ths server went to add “realism”. But I must liken Sullon Zek to a marathon. Verant went so far and fought a hard race but fell short of the finish line with Sullon Zek. What I believe is needed is a marriage of some of Sullon Zek’s rules with this new “roleplay” server. I seriously believe that you can not have roleplay with out PvP. However I don’t believe in Sullon Zek’s ruthless rule set where play nice is thrown by the wayside. The exp-loss penalty on Sullon Zek is ludicrous. In no way, shape, or form should people lose experience from PvP death. Try to play a good alignment on Sullon and I think you will agree with me. I don’t mind people beating my head in, I can deal, but having your head beat in multiple times while regressing in levels in abuse, plain and simple.

------------------------
So in closing, this would be my rule set (a marriage of some of Sullon Zek and the aforementioned roleplay rules)...

1) Each race/class combination will be assigned an alignment, either Good, Neutral or Evil.
2) Common Tongue becomes Human Tongue.
3) The removal of the Common Tongue
4) One character per account.
5) /ooc will be removed.
6) /shout will have a reduced range (but larger than /say)
7) Add new chat /whisper (smaller range than /say)
8) Give rogues and bards ‘evesdrop’ skill for listening in on conversations
9) /tell will be removed
10) /guildsay will be removed (one leniency to this rule might be allowing /guildsay only in cities, i.e., you must be in a city to send or receive guild chat from members in other cities... very anti-roleplay though)
11) /group will be removed (or if it is not removed you can only receive group chat if you are in the same zone as person using /group)
12) /auction will use languages and will be restricted to city zones.
13) /em will be changed such that one has to understand the language of the emoter (except for command emotes, e.g., /smile, /wave, etc.)
14) No cross-guilding, grouping, or buffing
15) /who will be removed
16) 'Warrens' loot code turned on for ALL zones
17) make it a PvP server with rules like Sullon Zek but i) no experience loss for death, ii) no “points system”, and iii) incorporate some degree of play nice (but not losing experience should balance off any suffering more so than adopting play nice policies)
18) removal of /friends list. Sorry but you should not be able to know if your friends OR enemies are on... if you want to find them go to their favorite hang outs
19) Make the bulletin boards found in towns functional (forums style or server-chat style or both?) for guilds or the general public to use
20) Remove the ATM style-banks. Accounts should be restricted to individual towns (i.e., each town has a vault for a character). This would prevent a person from running naked across Norrath after dumping all items in bank. It would give the game a more refined sense of geography which is part of the culture of roleplay. EQ is almost like a Seven-11 on every city corner nowadays - very bad anti-roleplay.
21) Assuming PvP, make the teams balanced. Sullon Zek again is a great concept but it fell short of the finish line; Sixty plus percent evil ~30% neutral, and the rest good. There is no balance and hence no enjoyment for the minority team(s), especially when you are constantly being deleveled by the majority.

Thank you. Have a nice day.

- Quip, Dwarf Deviant, Master of the PBJ

[Kambic]

Hehe I think they should open up every single class/race/diety combo =) Yes, I'm a high elf monk who worships Bertoxxulous, and this is my halfling enemy, a bard who worships quellios.

EDIT: I had originally used the word "friend" rather then "enemy" and then it dawned on me those combos would be at each other's throats hehehe



Wang, Anonymous Gnome of Sullon Zek, Anarchia
Canbik Virulentus, 40th Halfling Rogue of Rallos Zek, Order of the Black Rose (Retired)
Joyous Mackdaddy, 23rd Human Enchanter of Sullon Zek [Test], Anarchy (Player Wiped)

"Just gimme my gun."
"Sorry, the law requires a five day waiting period... we've got to run a background check."
"Aww, but I'm mad now." - Homer Simpson, buying a gunEdited by: Kambic at: 7/9/01 11:28:30 am

[EZ_Raxee]

Wow, he's seriously considering that? Excellent. I didn't honestly think they would consider a change of that magnitude even for this, but hey, I'm willing to go with it. I like, even prefer, no drop items on Fennin, but from the other changes happening here I'd think this could work out well.

EDIT: (Umm... ignore that paragraph... I didn't complete the thought. Dumb, now that I think about it. And we continue...)

I hope that the roleplay crowd in general will be pro-NBG, though, as it seems this server will have a very strong economy and without no drop, the temptation may be to go trophy loot on anything and everything. If and when I go to make a guild there, I'll make sure it's a NBG one.

I can see this now...
/auc WTS WS BP (5K), arms (500), boots (2K)
/auc WTB Burning Rapier (1K)
/auc Taking plat offers on Spear of Fate and Celestial Fists, or will trade for Ragebringer, Willsapper, or Renard's Belt of Quickness

They should add more class/race combos, yes, but be careful with them. Very unusual ones should have a hard time of it, so we don't end up with a situation where over half the world's trolls follow Mithaniel Marr or something. Half the inkee rogues follow Bristlebane, which isn't really in keeping with Neriak in general. Iksars followed Innoruuk at one time; maybe they could add Iksar rogues and other classes for Inny, living in the sewers beneath Cabalis?

I can understand a disproportionate number of oddities among the PC crowd - after all, we are the ones that choose a life of adventure and meeting people in the outside world, instead of selling baked goods in the Freeport market or something - so it stands to reason that there would be a significant proportion of unusual people among us, such as gnomes of Cazic-Thule, Erudites of Veeshan, Paladins of Sol Ro, and so on. But they still shouldn't be common as dirt. They should take a hit, either by having really bad starting faction in their starting town *and* their racial town home, or being KOS with their otherwise-normal class guilds nigh-worldwide (like a monk of Rallos Zek would be tolerated in Qeynos, Freeport, or Cabalis... haha), or some other sizable disadvantage, enough of one that would it would whittle the players of that class down to those who, for the most part, fully intended to roleplay it. Raxee L'Noamuth, 52nd season Rakess of Fennin RoEdited by: Raxee at: 7/9/01 3:12:08 pm

[EZ_Tranthas]

Make five alignments, not three. For (a very quick and loose) example:

Good (exclusive) -- Paladin, Light-race Cleric
Good (inclusive) -- by race
Neutral -- by race/class (Human Cleric of Bristlebane?)
Evil (inclusive) -- by race
Evil (exclusive) Shadowknight, Necromancer, Dark-race Cleric

Each alignment can only group with itself and the one directly above or below it.

Thoughts?

[EZ_CrenAO]

Instead of making everything droppable, maybe consider making every magic item NO DROP and not even using warrens loot rules at all, also make it so corpses never go globally lootable. I realize this would kill the server's economy but at the same time you might not notice because you are too busy getting all your nice loot for yourself, something i've always thought was a billion times more fun then just sitting in EC/fay mart.

I've spent a good bit of time now on PVP servers including playing Sullon up to about level 20(on the good team). And i'd have to say that the ONLY time i've ever had a PVP encounter that was also a RP encounter was when dueling. There simply isn't enough time to roleplay when your loot/exp is on the line. And on sullon, when people zone/bind/corpse camping to make you lose exp, they don't wanna RP. I duel a lot on blue servers and always try to get the other person to RP with me, and they usually will start after i do. The RP server would have to be Non-PVP for me and my friends to play on it.

One thing i'd hate to see happen is there to be no downside to playing neutral, since good and evil have grouping restrictions. The most in character solution i have thought of is to make them maintain a balance of who they group with, yes this would be more character data to cart around but without it we will see an incredible majority.

/who must be removed, i can tell brad has thought about it and i hope he decides to.

/group should be limited to the zone you are in. What about /tell only working for Intelligence casters(you know the ones people don't want to group with) and only with people they have added to their friends list by targeting them and typing /friend with the other person having a confimation box. Like a magic psychic link. Obviously this would mean more code, and the server would take longer to get off the ground, so it's just a suggestion.

Finally, i would like to have something in place to prevent non-RP'ers from coming and playing on the server with no intent at all to RP. A small exp penalty applied to everyone would work, or maybe even a daily exp cap. Perhaps a bonus to grouping that would cancel out the original exp penalty. A daily exp cap that went up reasonably when you leveled and would put everyone on pace to hit 50 in about 4 months of playing or something. I suggest this because when you are typing out your 'in charater' text, you are not increasing your exp gain. I played a little paladin for a about an hour and a half last night totally in character 100% of the time, interacting with others i can only assume were testing out thier RP ability. In that 90 minutes i gained 3 bubs of exp, at level 2! a daily exp cap would make even those that wanted to level very quickly stop and think, hey, i'm close to my daily cap already, i guess i'll stop and type this in character thing that just came to me. Not to mention, any kewl dewd would be seriously diverted by the daily exp cap.

[EZ_Bronus Blackblade]

Quote: The wood elf rogue who realized that she got off on terrorizing others may be a more devout worshipper of Cazic Thule than most trolls and iksar, saying her daily prayers in the form of a dagger from the shadows and the frightened screams of her chosen victims.

And suddenly the server is teeming with dark elven rangers after the famous Drizzt Do'Urden. Why draw the line with deity? If you worhip the deity, no reason an ogre of brell can't be a paladin.

Regarding Warren Loot Codes, I think this is simply the worst idea ever implemented on ANY server. This fact alone would deter me from ever playing on such a server. Bronus Blackblade
59th Blackguard of the Tribunal
"Level edge...backs against the ledge...no knives, the stone hard eyes..."

[EZ_Raxee]

Removing /tell, /who, guildsay, inter-zone groupsay... have any of you thought of the gameplay consequences of that?

I mean, sure, it sounds really roleplayish. But at one point or another - even on a roleplay server - you have to just draw the line and say something is in it for the sake of convenience or the like. OK, so if I can't communicate cross-zone to people... how does a cleric tell if someone's ready for a rez? How do wizards and druids know when to come pick up their friends at the rings or spires, when there's only a half hour till event time? I'm thinking any guild with plans involving more than 6 people getting together at a specified time and place are going to be using Battlecom or RW, or be people that know each other IRL. Half (prolly more) the fun of EQ is the other people, and this only cuts you off from them. Given, it's more realistic and makes running into a friend that much more special, but I don't think it would be worth it.

I highly doubt GM events would improve seriously if worldwide communication was removed. After many, many, attended GM events, I have to say my impression of them is extremely poor, and not just because of a bunch of non-RPers showing up. I've found them to be, without exception, poorly designed, written, and executed. GMs usually do things from a script, and player involvement, except for the uberguild that shows up to kill the mob at the end, is restricted to observation only, unless it involves spawning high level mobs on the low level player and slaughtering them. The script isn't dynamic, and the whole time I get the feeling that I could be roleplaying, being a d00d, being the annoying newbie who insistently asked what's going on and never actually listening to learn for himself, or even AFK, and it wouldn't make a damn bit of difference in the outcome of the event. I'm a mite hard-bitten about it, maybe other servers have had better ones, but I've attended almost every GM event I've been able to on Fennin and that's been my impression.

(There have been times where I seriously wished shout was shorter-ranged on raids, though - especially when the raid didn't comprise most of the people in the zone, such as the new SG, OS, sometimes in Hate, DN, the list goes on. This will be a Good Thing[TM], I can agree on that.) Raxee L'Noamuth, 52nd season Rakess of Fennin Ro

[EZ_nekoken]

Raxee:
Total agreement on my part. Just think how much fun it would be to log in and spend hours searching every bar in each city looking for friends because /who all friends or /who all [guildname] has been removed. If your friends are ingame friends then there's a high degree of probability that the only way you have to contact them is via ingame mechanisms.

It's similar to the amazing forethought that went into /roleplay. It makes you anon which forces people to ask you what level you are since /con is not accurate enough for determining grouping potential. The very mechanism which says you are a roleplayer forces you to break fiction.

Narsse/Narise of Karana: back after over a year of absence since I heard rogues don't suck anymore.

[EZ_CrenAO]

Well if we are gonna leave everything as is why not just bring up another blue server so all the people who just wanna powergame to 60 can do so. Ever play UO? Now i know everyone used ICQ and essentially had global communication, but i got sick of it and ended up uninstalling it. I had a guild, did things with them all time, never really had a problem without it. If you want to get exp and group with people your level, you can go to an good area for your level, they might not be exactly who you grouped with yesterday, but maybe they are cool people too.

If you just wanna find your adventure the same old way you always did why do you need a server with different rules?

What are people's thoughts on every magic item being no-drop? Other then it killing the economy(which a lot of people could live well without).

[EZ_Flapjax]

Exactly CrenAO. Its being touted as a roleplay server. What I proposed follows that suit. Simply making another blue server where everyone breaks off into premeditated cliques is in no way a progression towards roleplay. Like I said, a "true" roleplay rule set would force face-to-face interaction and dependancy in the "here and now". As such, it would separate the "deep" roleplayers from "shallow" ones. If only 500 people play on the server bacause they can't hack tighter global chat restrictions well then "Hallelujah I have found the promised land!" Perhaps Verant needs to state whether they want a realistic roleplay server OR some rehash of the blue servers with more robust, albeit still unrealistic, roleplay capacitance.

- Quip

[EZ_Raxee]

If you're going the realism route, then we also should have at least some sort of delay when you die, so there is some semblance of permanent (or at least temporary) death. We also should have a delay when switching out gear, because changing breastplates isn't something you can do instantaneously.

You see my point? You, too, have drawn the line somewhere between realism and gameplay convenience. I believe that adding in extreme chat restrictions would make the game so incredibly inconvenient that anything more than solo play or maybe a small group would become unusable, even for a hardcore player.

The world in EQ is persistent, but the players in it aren't. They camp, and not all are around at the same time. They come and go. If everyone was in the game 24/7, then yeah, friends would travel in groups and stick together. But that's not how it is, and to bridge the problem there's worldwide instantaneous communication.

And I honestly dislike the idea that PvP is an absolute must for roleplay. I've run into this idea so many times talking about this server, and it, I think, deals with differing ideas of what roleplay is. I've also found several times that the ones who want PvP are the same people who kill other party members in tabletop games, because they think their character would. There's a fine line between playing your character, and ruining a game because you're being too hard-line about what your character would do. EQ's PvP mechanics aren't set up to be beneficial to roleplay, except maybe on SZ, but there we have our xp loss on death. Even still, though, I doubt it would help. Too many people would just use roleplay as an excuse for a modified form of griefing, and the place would become Sullon, except it would be harder to twink and everyone would have only one char. Whoopee. That's not what I'm looking for.

When I think of roleplay, I always think of combat as secondary. Turning off the pvp switch makes it such that the world isn't basically a continous battle, with little time in between for talking and long plots. I dunno, maybe it's the games we learned to RP under, but I've never liked the idea that playing an inkee means killing everyone that's not an inkee, and not much else, and so on for Iksar and every other race on the planet. There's far too much temptation, with a PvP switch on, for people to act like that. I think it being non-PvP will make it even *more* roleplay, in the sense of people who have a thought for roleplay outside of killing racial and alignmental enemies. Raxee L'Noamuth, 52nd season Rakess of Fennin Ro