Suggestions:Implemented/4

Lint recently made a very salient point with respect to Class Balance. Namely, there are very few players (4% currently) choosing to be (Outsider) Settlers or (Native) Villagers. Realistically, these should be the most abundant classes, so clearly (aside from trival starting inventory) these classes clearly lack any definable appeal. I propose that these 2 classes (due to their years of plying and scavenging their surroundings) are more adept at searching then their peers. As such, they have a +20% bonus in base search percentage. There is precedent for this in UD, with the "consumer" class getting an immediate advantage in searching, and though the nature of that game (i.e. constant heavy barricading of Malls) makes it difficult for consumers to realize their advantage, this would not be the case in Shartak. This change will undoubtedly make these overlooked classes more attractive to new players.--Jackel 00:25, 4 March 2006 (GMT)

Comments

I wouldn't say that it's completely a bad thing that the Settler and Villager populations are low. (Wouldn't you say that the Consumer population is the lowest in "that other game"?) However, I do agree that this class doesn't appear to be getting the same respect as the others. The search bonus or perhaps the Agriculture suggestion might be justifiable. --Lint 08:40, 5 March 2006 (GMT)

I think your idea is good, Jackel. I'd make it a +50% base search percentage, and I'd also make the "Animal Husbandry" skill guarantee that no animals but sharks, alligators and tigers will attack without provocation. "Years of passive behavior around animals have taught you how to avoid their aggression." Furthermore, I recommend that the scream/shriek/wail skills become villager-only (with "Ghostly Whisper" available to everyone); non-villagers with those three skills could have their XP refunded, or perhaps just left alone. Villagers are underrepresented by far. — Elembis 18:09, 21 May 2006 (BST)

Moved to Implemented. Villagers/Settlers have "Animal Affinity" and "Scavenging" skills, and now account for 11% of active characters. --Frisco 19:28, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Animal Levelling

Author	Timestamp	Type	Scope
Frisco	20:26, 13 May 2006 (BST)	balance change	NPC Animals

Each time an animal kills a PC, the animal should have its stats increase: increased HP (possibly also reset to max), more damaging attacks, better chance of hitting, faster movements, possibly a more aggresive nature? There probably aren't that many animals out there that have actually killed more than one or two humans before being killed themselves, but this would increase that chance, leading to the natural formation of the mythical beasts that have been mentioned in other suggestions. And if it doesn't happen naturally, i'm sure it wouldn't be too long before animal cultists start sacrificing themselves to animals in order to create their gods.

Characters with the animal affinity skill should be able to identify stronger creatures:

"Also here is a man-eating tiger"

"Also here is an extremely large man-eating alligator"

"Also here is an extremely large man-eating elephant that is barreling towards you"

"Also here is an extremely large man-eating parrot that is barreling towards you with claws the size of cutlasses"

Comments
... That's a mite scary. I don't know how this would affect server load, but that would be my only complaint here.--Wifey 01:06, 14 May 2006 (BST)

Sounds neat. Will there be a leveling cap? --Lint 01:45, 15 May 2006 (BST)
- Probably should be a cap, though a rather high one. Time limitations would prevent animals from growing too powerful before someone takes them out, but a dedicated group of cultists could go crazy creating an invicible creature. Or perhaps once an animal reaches a certain level, it gets named (a monkey might be "King Kong" at high enough stats), and this one creature per animal type can continue advancing while all others are capped at that level (can't have more than one King Kong running around). —unsigned by Frisco 02:38, May 15, 2006 (BST)
Awesome. --Tycho44, Cultist of the Man-Eating Parrot 22:57, 15 May 2006 (BST)
So let me get this straight - if an animal kills a PC, they gain hp, and accuracy of their attack, and possibly damage as well. say hp + 2, accuracy + 10%, damage + 1, up to a certain level (accuracy can only go up to 100% of course). Easy enough so far. If they get killed, they reset to the normal hp/accuracy/damage and start afresh as a normal level animal? I must say, I quite like this idea. If this is correct, then there's no server load issue. --Simon 09:33, 28 May 2006 (BST)
- This sounds very good. I recommend that you let each animal reach 100% accuracy and cap damage at base damage + 5 (a 9x100% elephant would be plenty lethal enough, I think). PC deaths to animals are probably rare enough that you could be more generous with HP bonuses: increase an animal's current HP and max HP by base health / 3 + 1 for each of its kills. You could cap max HP (after five increases?), but I wouldn't. An animal should be restored to base health if its HP bonus wouldn't get it there (so an elephant, with a 20+1 HP bonus, would go from 32 HP to 60 and have 81 max HP, or go from 42 to 63 and still have 81 max HP). In theory, after five kills you could see an elephant with 165 HP that dealt 9 damage at 100% accuracy, but only if it got those kills without being harmed at all. Such a beast would be incredibly intimidating, but also incredibly rare. — Elembis (talk) 22:25, 28 May 2006 (BST)

What about new players? They go into the forest for the first time, log out, log in only to discover that "an extremely large man-eating parrot that is barreling towards you with claws the size of cutlasses" has killed them in two moves. Nobody naturally gets stronger by dying and this would only prevent low level characters from leveling up.--One of many doctors 03:13, 29 May 2006 (BST)

The idea is that there wouldn't be that many of these, because they'd be rather difficult to make even a little better, anyways.--Wifey 15:49, 29 May 2006 (BST)

Simon has it right. hp + 5 (or +10%), accuracy + 10%, damage + 1, with only a few upgrades possible. Or, for example, promote to level 1 after 1 kill, level 2 after 2 more kills (3 total), level 3 after 3 (6) kills, and so on. If a max-upgraded parrot is only as strong as a level 0 tiger, this is nowhere near "kill-in-two-moves" monstrosity. This would add excitement and flavor to the game without any downside. I doubt any animal in Shartak has more than two kills. As the 300-hp Squid shows, any attention-getting animal will get torn to bits by PCs. --Tycho44 23:14, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Implemented, but with slightly less elaborate titles (and the maths isn't quite the same either)! --Simon 12:48, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Moved to Implemented. Some animals grow after player kills (though i haven't seen any in a while). --Frisco 19:35, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Haggle

Author	Timestamp	Type	Scope
Aco	20:20 EST 28/07/2006	Skill	Everyone

You can haggle with the traders and get stuff cheaper. When they are pissed off at you (for being there too long) the prices would become normal.

Comments

Implemented. --Simon 17:40, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Moved to Impemented. There is now a Haggling skill. --Frisco 14:08, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Shovel

Author	Timestamp	Type	Scope
Darkferret	05:14, 20 January 2007 (UTC)	Tool	Wealthy individuals and fortune seekers interested in treasure hunts.

Pirates are notorious for burying their treasure. With the shovel a player can dig a hole, deposit gold coins (and other items possibly)and fill it in. Anyone who digs in a square containing treasure will find it.

Comments
Implemented. --Simon 23:29, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Any chance we could have a shovel that could be used as a melee weapon as well? Perhaps only doing a base 1 damage to reflect that it's a better tool than weapon? Johan Crichton 05:49, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Postal 2, nice.

maybe shovels should break too. hehe cause, when everyone has shovels, then no one needs shovels and they'll just pile up at the traders. i dunno, its just a thought -Elegost 13:22, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Possession

Author	Timestamp	Type	Scope
Zeff	10:50, 1 September 2006 (UTC)	Skill	Everyone

Yet another spirit suggestion. As far as I can see, this hasn't been suggested yet - but I apologise if it has been suggested under a different guise. With the recent addition of the Exorcism skill, I feel that there is less and less appeal to play as a ghost character, aside from an alternative method of farming xp. The only current features of the ghost "class" is wailing and spamming. The addition of a possession skill might give people more of a reason to play as a ghost and perhaps make gameplay more interesting. A possession skill would be bought after the banshee wail skill. It would allow the user to temporalily take control of another player for the cost of 40AP, allowing the spirit to effectively "act" as this player for their (the spirits, not the victim) remaining AP. When they use up their AP they will return to their spirit form and control will return to the original player. If the possession skill is used on an active player, it will work until this player moves or makes an action of their own, which would return the spirit to their ghost form (and effectively waste the AP spent on using the possession skill). I think this would be a fun addition to the game, and give players a bigger motivation to rp as a spirit, although I'm not sure if this kind of skill would be possible to implement (taking temporary control of other players etc).

Comments
Doesn't sound too appealing to me - would be a real bummer to login and see that one character had taken possession of me, given all my gold to a friend, dropped my other items, and used the remaining AP to punch an elephant or move me to an enemy city. Maybe if possession was restricted to animals? --Frisco 18:57, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

There would be restrictions on the skill such as the spirit not being able to possess someone of a higher level and only be able to possess someone for an amount of AP equal to their level (a level 17 spirit would be able to possess someone of a lower level for 17 turns). As well as this, actions that possessed players take dont get deducted from the possessed players AP, they get deducted from the ghosts AP. Also other players would be able to distinguish a possessed players actions by the text describing the action, so instead of "Bob gives Sam 10 gold" it would be something like "Bob with a strange glow in his eyes gives Sam 10 gold" or something similar. I think spirits need some kind of extra skill to make RPing as a spirit as worthwhile as RPing as a native or outsider. Zeff 19:19, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Moved to Implemented. There are now Possession and Forceful Possession skills. --Frisco 16:26, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Advanced language skills

Author	Timestamp	Type	Scope
Htkl	21:14, 23 April 2007 (UTC)	Skill addition	All Classes

Advanced language skills

Given many of us now have full understanding of both languages, surely it'd make sense for us to be able to learn how to Speak and Write in both languages

I think it could be done in a few ways

The writing/speech appears in both languages
The writer/speaker chooses what language to write/speak in through drop-down box(probably the ideal way)
The text appears in plain english to both races (not desirable, imo)

Comments
Okay, that was weird. --Htkl 23:06, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Now that's fast service.--Black Joe 23:50, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Moved to Implemented. We have Foreign Writing/Foreign Speech skills. --Frisco 16:26, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Conch Shell Hunt

Author	Timestamp	Type	Scope
Lint	08:40, 5 March 2006 (GMT)	Game mechanics, minigame	Event

Capture the Flag-ish minigame. Somewhere on the island is a single conch shell item. It can be found by searching anywhere. It takes 1 inventory space and appears when anyone views their profile. When the conch holder is in the presence of other players, flavor text is added to the area description to inform the others that the conch holder is in the area. If the person in possession of the conch drops it, dies, or is idle for more than 5 days, the conch returns to the system. The person who holds the conch the longest gets recognized in the statistics. Killing the conch holder earns special bonus XP. Adept conch holder killers may also be recognized in the statistics. Problems: Someone with multiple characters could take advantage of having the conch on one character and reap the XP and fame with another. There will be a point where a race condition will occur and might result in multiple conches and a broken game.

Comments

This kind of thing has been on my ideas list, although this is much more detailed version than the one-liner I had. --Simon 15:05, 5 March 2006 (GMT)
I have the conch! I'm allowed to speak! *ahem* I mean, um... >.>--Wifey 07:21, 29 March 2006 (BST)
- Suggestions: (1) Skip bonus for the conch-killer and you remove incentive to zerg. (2) Have the conch break when the conch-bearer dies (respawns on a random beach) and you remove the race condition. (3) Give the conch-bearer an action to blow into the Conch. (You hear the booming echo of a conch being sounded to the south-east.) Maybe 50% chance of 1xp each time you blow the conch, just to give you incentive to attract attention to yourself. --Tycho44 02:31, 23 April 2006 (BST)
- 1XP isn't much of an incentive to do anything, except spam everyone (depending on the radius of the sound of course). Maybe it should be 10XP or more but a low (<5-10%) chance of making a decent sound that everyone hears. Another possibility, either in addition to or instead of the blowing action, is that you can take the conch back to a trader or shaman for some kind of bonus item or amount of gold, thus encouraging the conch holder to take it back to civilisation. Ignore the race condition, I have this part dealt with such that it won't happen. --Simon 10:43, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
- Implemented. I'll leave you to figure out just how it works. --Simon 22:06, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Trading XP

Author	Timestamp	Type	Scope
Black Joe	19:34, 4 December 2006 (UTC)	XP alteration	All traders' huts

Some people enjoy playing as traders. I know I do. However, there's a problem. Traders have to engage in other activities besides trading if they want to level up. Soldiers don't have to engage in healing, and healers don't have to kill if they don't want to. So why don't traders level up when they do their thing? My suggestion is this:

Every time you use an AP to make a trade in the trader's hut, you stand a chance to gain 1 XP. This is similar to standing a chance of gaining XP every time you chop jungle. Also, it actually makes sense. When you trade, you're learning how to haggle, to read the trader, and the real value of an item. That counts as legitimate and valuable experience.

Perhaps the chance of gaining XP would alter with the prices. For instance, if the trader is "glad to see a new face", you have a higher chance to earn XP because you're getting a better deal. If the trader's tired of you, there's less of a chance to earn XP.

Comments
I Think this is a brilliant idea, and something i was toying with the idea of myself, as a fledgeling trader. I find it incredibly difficult to level up as it is (I think i need 450 now) and now i've moved into a career of little violence with a little healing so i'm realy strapped for EXP. There's a president for this concept on at least two RPGs that i'm familiar with, the Elder Scrolls series (Mercantile skills) and Fable (Skill experience). Would it be too much to hope that we could push for a definate 1 exp and get a bonus for more costly items like Heavy Swords and unstocked/low stocked items? Rozen

Another idea suggested by Foo Fighter is that an item's rarity (as determined by the number in stock with that trader) should determine or play a role in determining the amount of XP gained. I agree that this makes sense, and I'd like it to be added to the original suggestion.

A variant of this has been implemented. --Simon 17:10, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Native Medical Hut Find Rates

Author	Timestamp	Type	Scope
Black Joe	12:02pm, 16 Jan. 2007	Alteration	Find rates in native medical huts

Native medical huts produce blowpipes and poison darts. These items should no longer be found in native medical huts. After all, they're only useful to warriors, and they should only be found in ammo huts. Outsider medical huts don't turn up rifles or bullets, so it's rather unfair that natives looking for healing herbs have to use IP hits to drop or trade away the surfeit of darts and blowpipes. It's another disadvantage to playing a native, the most underutilized faction. This could even be announced in a news item, something like "Native leaders have organized their medical huts better, removing all blowpipes and poison darts to the ammunition huts."

Comments
Good idea. Implemented. --Simon 13:33, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Carving edits

Author	Timestamp	Type	Scope
Black Joe	22:36, 23 January 2007 (UTC)	Game Mechanic	All carvings

Whenever someone alters a carving, anyone present in that square should be able to "see" them do it. For example, if someone alters a carving from saying "George's Place" to "House of Lame-o", and another player is in the same square, that player should be able to see who made the carving. This will lessen the graffiti taking place now.

Comments
Great idea, if I'm thinking what you're thinking. So it should say something like this: Since your last move: Che wrote: 0mg d00d teh Cp r s0000 st00pid! ? -Che 20:09, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Implemented a quick version where it tells you who carved something, but not what they carved. --Simon 23:54, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Suggestions:Implemented/4

Contents

Villager/Settler

Animal Levelling

Haggle

Shovel

Possession

Advanced language skills

Conch Shell Hunt

Trading XP

Native Medical Hut Find Rates

Carving edits

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