Shattered Kingdoms

The inn solution is pretty much the only idea posted in this thread that is going to work.

I am not making that claim because it was my idea - the rest of the ideas posted are going to be bypassed for exactly the reasons Pat just stated. I am not even going to post one of the most glaring weaknesses of the item limit, since I don't want to encourage anyone to use it.

Here is my question to you spidermonkey - does it really "only" help the PKers? Or does it require more people to congregate in the inns and meet other folk? It is pretty easy to avoid PK in an inn. Requiring people who want to hold onto rare items (presumably, those who know how to get them) should force them to interact more, which should improve both knowledge flow and overall group activity.

I don't think spending 10 more hours in an inn is that crazy. I also don't think that most players are any harder to PK in an inn versus elsewhere. Perhaps a little more convenient to find, but PK in inns comes with all sorts of law-code related baggage.

Finally I really wonder at the whole "PKer" classification. Almost everyone gets involved in PK from time to time. As with people who generally play pacifist characters, there are wide ranges of RP ability and cheater/noncheater activity within the aggressive character ranks. I would be truly surprised if this change made the mud any more dangerous for any but the most hardcore of hoarders.

If it is so easy to avoid pk at an inn, then why bother forcing them there. There are a number of combinations that can easily descend in and kill quite a few people. Law code really doesn't mean much considering the huge outlaw lists that can be incurred. Inns see in no way safe, unless the law code is beefed. The pk crowd are those who rely heavily on pk as part of their experience despite what others care to play. There are casual pkers, then there are those people who just actively hunt other people for whatever reason. Forcing more people into one spot will leave then vulnerable to those who rely heavily on pk for their experience. Those who are calling for the inn timer tend to be in my view the more pk oriented.

Now as you said cheaters are going to cheat, by applying only an inn timer there is going to be an easier way to avoid dehoarding by just watching when you are logged in.

It seems a better approach would be an inventory cap coupled with extended play timers. This would be more effective in limiting the number of items a person can hold, thus requiring more alts. Adding a longer pay timer forces prior to log more hours per alt to keep loot.

You can combine tree system in place with an inventory limit and gain more benefit over one or the other. I am firmly against forcing people into groups where they can easily be picked off.

I'd prefer to simply leave it as it is.


Don

No, this won't stop hoarding at all. Unfortunately, you don't seem to understand how the real hoarders actually play the game or you wouldn't keep touting this particular idea. Pat already explained, in part, how it will be bypassed.

This particular idea will only prove to be a PITA for people that play the game legitimately.

We've had various incentives for going to the inn for a long time now. Why? Because having places in the game where you can reasonably expect other people to show up improves opportunities for socialization and interaction in general. MUDs are not a compelling experience in the 21st century if you treat it as a single-player game.

And maybe you will say: 'I can find people to socialize with anytime I want.' Well, you are probably a veteran. But drawing people to inns is just as much or more about new players as it is about veterans. And the new players need veterans to show up.

That said, a fixed number of hours in the inn does not seem realistic to me. Perhaps a proportion of total time would be better. Combined with the current system of requiring fixed hours per month, it still would implicitly have a fixed requirement, but it would scale with how much more you play.

The key to your statement d is "draw". By all means find ways to draw me to an inn, I don't want forced there.

That being said, drawing people to the inn is a different thread.

When you say proportional time, do you mean scaling tune requirements vs items held?

As an example, let's say that currently you must play the game 100 hours a month (not true) in order to avoid being de-hoarded during the monthly update. If there was a proportional requirement of 5% play time in an inn, then you'd de-facto need to spend 5 hours per month in the inn. But if you actually played the game for 300 hours a month, then you'd actually have to spend 15 hours in the inn.

Even if Dulrik implements this change, there is nothing that will force you to spend time at an inn. Yeah, the code would strip your character of any unique/limited items, if you didn't have the requisite hours. However, you still have a choice.

The SK cycle seems to run like this.

Let's start at a neutral point where light/dark/grey are all balanced. Either light/dark usually takes the lead, and they obtain the greater portion of commonly known "good" loot.

It gets so one sided that eventually a few of them make alts. So the few players who made alts finish leveling and get geared. Their previous main characters become alts, but their gear doesn't seem to reflect that.

At some point the players who stayed behind on the winning team make their own alts. Rinse and repeat. This time there is loot being exchanged through several methods.

1) Let monthly take it's course by going inactive and know what's going to reset.
2) Give item directly.
3) Junk for someone else to reacquire item.
4) Kamikaze
5) Vendor/Re-Request item.

This is generally done by cliques, and a majority of vets and successful PKers will belong to one. The mechanics/in-game info they can share is better than players who don't play the expansion pack. They plan builds/end kits/political combos and some probably trade loot across characters on the regular.

The inn idea would probably give them the advantage and force casual players into store-bought kits to avoid dying for loot. There wouldn't be a "distribution" of loot, it would be a killing pen for these players. What's the point of getting loot if the losing side isn't meant to have any? Why do any exploring/adventure, or even play, if you're just going to lose the trophies to someones alt that they power-leveled to GM under 30 hours.


Would this time be capped? It seems to me like it would promote more alts and characters only showing up one week out of a month to maintain the correct proportion.