Difference between revisions of "Suggestions:Game mechanics"

Revision as of 19:54, 26 August 2006

Suggestions

Items | Skills | Classes | Game mechanics | Miscellaneous

Game mechanics suggestions are made here. See Suggestions for a list of other suggestion categories.

Suggestions for Shartak are not often implemented but are always welcome. Comments on and improvements to existing suggestions are appreciated. Please don't remove suggestions you don't like.

Before adding a suggestion, please take the time to view the guidelines for advice on what suggestions are feasable, and please check existing suggestions to ensure that yours (or a very similar one) has not already been made. Please add new suggestions to the bottom of the page.

Implemented suggestions are moved to Suggestions:Implemented. Bug reports should be added to the Bugs page.

Example

To use the template, enter the following at the bottom of the page, but replace emboldened text with text appropriate to your suggestion:

===Suggestion Name===
{{suggestion|
suggest_type=Skill, balance change, improvement, etc|
suggest_scope=Who or what it applies to|
suggest_description=Full description. Check spelling and be descriptive.|
suggest_time=~~~~~|
suggest_author=~~~|
suggest_comments=
<!-- COMMENT **BELOW** THIS LINE - DO NOT DELETE THIS LINE -->
Comment here
<!-- COMMENT **ABOVE** THIS LINE - DO NOT DELETE THIS LINE -->
}}

Game Mechanics

Conversion

Author	Timestamp	Type	Scope
One of many doctors	23:22, 16 February 2006 (GMT)

When an Outsider/Native dies they are reborn as a Native (don't really understand the spirit thing too well). The Outsiders then get a new class/skill, "Religious Conversion" that requires a "Holy Scripture". This allows a "Priest" to convert one native into a Outsider". The converted native would most likely start off as a Settler.

Comments

I believe that Natives are reborn as Natives and Outsiders are reborn as Outsiders, but I could be wrong. From a game balance perspective, I am not in favor of type-swapping skills unless Natives are presented with an ability to counter or convert Outsiders as well. It does fit nicely with the theme though. --Lint 23:41, 16 February 2006 (GMT)

That would probably be the shamans job, however it may have worked for Urban Dead but I don't think it will work in this game as whichever group has the most players to begin with will, once conflicts begin to arise, dominate by switching people from the side they are on the side the priest/"whatever the natives use" side making you able to graph one groups population by looking at the graph pop=(1/2)^x. Also since there wouldn't seem to be a way, short of finding a converter player to switch you back, to go back to playing as you once did would make the amount of people on one side quickly die off (even though thats what would happen in real life, favouring the outsiders) it would be a very unfun aspect of the game. And really these are HOSTILE natives, or so it seems, why would they let some devilman outsider tell it how it is? They wouldn't, they would simply spear them and laugh! In short all the converting ideas suck, I know I wouldn't want to log on to find I'm playing for the wrong side. -- Daylan 10:55, 17 February 2006 (GMT)

So that means if my soldier dies, he's reborn as a native? Not only that, but to become an outsider again, first I would have to find a priest (which would be next to impossible with such a small number of players), and then he could convert me into a settler. That means I'll never be able to be a soldier again, which is a real punch in the throat for RPers. -- Grigoriy

All valid points. I guess this wouldn't really work we have the same number of players as Urban Dead. But this would be a great way to balance out the sides later on. Say there are too many natives, you just drop more "conversion items" and balance out the sides. Too many Outsiders? Just drop the number of conversion items. Doubt it would catch on though. --One of many doctors 02:44, 19 February 2006 (GMT)

Conversion doesn't have to be forced. It could require action on both sides, like a native doning a religious item and an outsider using the skill on that native. After all, conversion isn't real without true faith. The native counter to this could be similar, requiring an outsider to die holding a packet of that headshrinking powder while a shaman uses the Zombification (ala Haitian witchcraft) skill. -- frisco

You don't change class or anything when you die. --Murk 12:31, 4 March 2006 (GMT)

I gave a response to this idea under "Holy Scriptures," I think, offering another idea for it that may piss a lot less people off. *points over there*--Wifey 07:15, 29 March 2006 (BST)

Monsoon

Author	Timestamp	Type	Scope
Aco	17:28, 16 July 2006 (EST)	event	all

Add seasons to shartak, matching RL events. The sea level would rise by 1 square, the river would swell by 1 square, crocodiles would become plentiful, and the pirate ship would lift off of the rocks. The ship would then randomly drift around, 1 square per day, and would still be accessible but players would have to swim out to it. Deforested squares would also recover faster. The ship wouldn't be directable because 'The sail is too tattered to use.' or something. The monsoon would also match, more or less, RL duration.

Comments

All this would be do-able without too much extra coding except for moving the pirate ship. It would however take a while to work out which bits of beach, swamp and jungle would become submerged and to do it in such a way that it's easily reversible later. --Simon 22:39, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Capturing villages

Author	Timestamp	Type	Scope
One of many doctors	03:41, 1 March 2006 (GMT)

Since this is like some war between Outsiders and Natives I thought this appropriate. If all the (say) Outsiders are killed in York and there are none left, then it becomes a Native village and vice versa. Probably needs harder requirements to capture settlements though. Maybe each side could have one permanent place that can never change hands?

Comments

Not sure about this - what about all the idle players within the village? They might "wake up" after a couple of weeks to find they're in enemy territory. --Simon 11:00, 1 March 2006 (GMT)

You could have it so idle players goto the nearest friendly village-- Daylan 02:58, 3 March 2006 (GMT)

Turf control in a limited AP browser game like this just invites lame zerging behavior. I don't like it. --Jackel 00:00, 4 March 2006 (GMT)

Not villages, perhaps 3x3 square 'forts'? --Grigoriy 01:10, 4 March 2006 (GMT)

I do like the idea, but I think Jackel's observation hits a key point. --Lint 08:40, 5 March 2006 (GMT)

Agreed with Jackel and Lint and Simon. --Berry 13:32, 7 March 2006 (GMT) Additionally:
- Please don't impose your assumption that Shartak is at heart a "war between Outsiders and Natives" on the rest of us. That is not the only possible direction in which this game can go. For example, an Outsider village might turn out to be populated by a trading company that views the other Outsider villages as competitors whose extermination would be good for business, but it could just as easily develop into a peaceful scientific outpost, a pirate haven of drunken debauchery, or a missionary settlement devoted to finding the Natives and learning their language (gotta spread that old time religion). I believe it would be better to keep the objectives more freeform, and let the players create the course of history. --Berry 13:32, 7 March 2006 (GMT)
- On a hopefully more helpful and positive note, one could simulate/approximate capturing a village by amassing an army of suitable size, carving messages of ownership all over the territory of the village in question, killing all members of the village, and repeatedly killing the village shaman so they can't get back as easily. (Ouch. I hope no armchair megalomaniacs out there have been taking notes.) --Berry 13:32, 7 March 2006 (GMT)

Unique skills

Author	Timestamp	Type	Scope
One of many doctors	02:34, 5 March 2006 (GMT)	Skill, balance change, improvement, etc	Who or what it applies to

I think that each class should start off with one unique skill that the others may never aquire. That way it stops all the classes from becoming too generic. For example Settlers could have a "farming" skill, Soldiers could have a "bravery" skill, etc. Or mabey they could just have a attribute like Soldiers have an extra 10% chance of striking the target, Warriors have an extra 10% chance of finding animals, Settlers have an extra 10% chance of finding an item, Scouts have a 3% chance of recovering 1 HP per AP spent, etc.

Comments

I am in favor of this (if it is not in effect currently). We'd have to work out the details to make sure each class is getting their fair share, but something that encourages players to try other classes or team up with other players using different classes for a better playing experience sounds good to me. --Lint 08:40, 5 March 2006 (GMT)

I am in favor of each class being able to acquire (but not necessarily starting off with) a unique skill or attribute that the others may never acquire. Sounds to me like the kind of thing that would be unlocked as one's reward for a rite of passage, rather than granted as a right of birth. --Berry 12:53, 7 March 2006 (GMT)

Perhaps a Research skill of some kind for the Scientist, maybe allowing them an advantage when doing things with dead animals (would need something to do with dead animals, obviously!).MorkaisChosen 16:09, 16 March 2006 (GMT)

Pirates should have a skill to steal their fallen enemies' gold coins. Arr. Would probably result in a lot of outsider in-fighting, though, and outsiders are currently outnumbered.--Wifey 07:18, 29 March 2006 (BST)

I agree with this as well. It seems Shartak is on the way to giving each class their own benefits (Soldiers/Warriors with gun skills, Settlers/Villagers with animal affinity etc.), but so far only a few have been made unique. At present there is really no point to being a scientist. He starts with 10 gold coins... what the? So I'm pushing for each class to have at least one unique skill they can purchase with XP. --Rip Purr 11:50, 3 June 2006 (BST)

I feel the introduction of the unique skill system would make the game much more interesting. but i disagree with the idea that people should just start off with one, rather i feel it should be purchased like the other skills on offer. Additionally rather they have one skill strand/branch like that of the gun skill or animal affinity, it would be interesting and more fun to have a multiple skill branches in line with the specific character classes, like for instance giving the soldiers/warrior classes defensive skill strands in additional to their offensive ones. Furthermore there should be distinctions between the native & outsider classes so they’re similar yet different. Like for instance the firearm/blowpipe skill upgrades are currently identical, I hope in future they could be retooled to promote native/outsider gameplay differences. --A for anarchy 03:47, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Pet System

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

I will combine aspects of the Animal and Pirate suggestions and propose a pet system that allows you to tame one of the animals on the island. First, you have to weaken the animal. Then you throw a sphere device at it and shout "SHARTAK SPHERE! GO!" for 1 AP. There's a slight chance that you have captured and tamed the animal. The more powerful the animal, the less success chance. You earn no XP for taming an animal. Players can only have 1 pet at a time. They can release a pet whenever they want. If the owner dies, the pet runs away. Pets have fixed HP, attack, and accuracy based on the type of animal they are (ie. they do not level up or heal, just to keep it simple to design). They follow the player around and only attack when the player attacks. It would be nice if they attacked while you were not playing, but auto-defense mechanisms are unnecessary. Enemy animals randomly determine whether they are attacking the owner or the pet. Other players will have an option for targeting the owner or pet. There is no XP gained for attacking or killing a pet to deter any attempts at farming pet killing (I can't believe we even have to consider preventing such a thing). For added flavor, owners can name their pets.

Comments

ROTFL. Sounds a bit like Pokemon or Yu-Gi-Oh (don't worry, I'm not a fan, I have kids that were!). Perhaps instead of spheres, you could keep the monkeys on a leash, heal a tiger or elephant to make it less likely to attack you, tame deer by feeding them, etc. Some animals like the wild boar would have to be pretty difficult to tame. --Simon 15:14, 5 March 2006 (GMT)
I was with you right up until you got to the "sphere device" bit, and I rejoined you afterwards. ;) The rest of your suggestion otherwise seems to be pretty well thought out. Personally, I'd prefer to attempt to tame the animal into becoming a pet purely by offering it food, rather than "weakening" it by other means. Especially since food is scarce enough that offering it to an animal would be a real sacrifice and therefore an interesting decision for the player to make. --Berry 14:49, 7 March 2006 (GMT)
I will confess that I had a lot of fun with the references. The problem I have with using an existing item to tame a pet is how to implement it. The player can't click on the fruit, because that will just heal themselves. And I think it is unecessary to redesign fruits like First Aid Kits and Medical Herbs, just so they can feed it to an animal. And a database check to see if the player possesses a fruit before providing a "tame" command seems awkward. Perhaps there is just one item called "animal bait" (from the Trade Hut most likely). It works much like a FAK or Herb, but can only be applied to animals (though there will be a "Yourself" option by default for those players that decide they enjoy the taste). Animals will then have a value called "tame count" in the database. For each successful feeding, this number is incremented. When a specific number is reached, the monster is successfully tamed. If a monster is killed, the number is reset to 0. Acquiring a pet should not reduce the population of animals on the island (ie. one should respawn to take its place). Furthermore, those with Animal Affinity should have a better taming success rate. (This is another attempt to give Villagers and Settlers a little boost.) --Lint 17:32, 7 March 2006 (GMT)
This idea, while somewhat interesting, is not very realitic. The animals of the island are wild. In reality, tigers, elephants, deer, "WILD boars" etc can only be made LESS WILD by extensive and careful training and handling when they are young, not be tamable by any means, certainly not enough to follow a person around and fight on their behalf. Maybe it would be possible with parrots and monkeys, but if Simon is going to implement changes, I'd rather see some of the more believable ones first. I do agree with Lint that it would give more value to Animal Affinity. Animal attacks, even from a tiger or elephant (which would realistically be very dangerous) are hardly to be feared, making this skill currently seem pretty useless.

The following is a Pet suggestion made by Richard Rose on 21:47, 24 March 2006:

as the name reades, simply have "pets" as a survivor living in the jungle, my first instinct would be to find support, in this case we could add a "tame animal" button, which would be clicked to tame an animal, the starting catching % would be something like 10% and could be improved the more the animal is damaged, like at 1hp, if full health was 10hp then you'd have 55% of catching it, (i added 5% for every 10% missing from the creature's health) this could also be improved with new skills such as

Amateur Catching Skills (adds 10%)
- Catching Skills (adds 15%, doesnt stack)
  - Taming Skills (adds 30%)
Net (adds 10%, does stack)

certain animals could be ridden, other would do funny things or find objects for you, ex: Mr. Bobo the monkey finds a bottle of rum in your pocket "gee i didnt know i had that"

elephants, large stags, and tigers could be ridden, small stags would haveto grow up before being ridden, after like, 10 days, or 20 kills they would mature, its all just theory...

parrots could become like flares, ex: Mr. TweetTweet flies towards you and drops a message "help, im at X, Y and there's a native village!"

the parrot could also say messages randomly, players (upon catching a parrot) would be given 10 slots and would type things into them, the parrots would randomly say one, ex: you attack elephant, Mr. TweetTweet says "polly want a cracker"

animals could also act like extra space, like a backpack, if you will. animals are named upon capture.

Profile Effect Items

Author	Timestamp	Type	Scope
Lint	08:40, 5 March 2006 (GMT)	Game mechanics	Inventory and profiles

These are useless baubles that take up 1 unit of a player's inventory space, but if anyone views their profile they will see that the players possesses the item. Using the item won't accomplish anything and merely produce flavor text. However, if a player is in the presence of another player, using the item would show it off. As with all items, there's no way to trade them with other players. We can have eyepatches and peglegs. We can have tribal masks and warpaint. Maybe some clans would require a certain dress code. Maybe they need 30 pieces of flair. I think it provides an outlet for the less serious gamers. Problems: Serious gamers might be plagued with finding such items and dropping them, wasting (in their opinion) AP and Page Hits. Also, arguing over what items fit with the theme of Shartak will be a headache-inducing process.

Comments

I like this suggestion. How about finding the pieces of the masks and making your own - combine the baubles with mini-quests? --Simon 11:18, 8 March 2006 (GMT)
For example, to make the sacred warrior mask of Raktam, you must find 5 parrot feathers, a tiger tooth, some berries and a piece of driftwood that can be carved into the appropriate shape with a knife or dagger. Once you have all those items, you get a "create mask" option which then removes the required items and the mask appears in your inventory (and profile).
- Having the database check to see if they have all the ingredients seems a bit unwieldly. After every action or inventory use it might have to run the check to verify that they are alive, still have the items, etc. I'd just settle for having them take the items to a specific NPC. But yes, a mixing quest would be fun. --Lint 18:02, 8 March 2006 (GMT)
  - No, you could easily set it up so that no demands were placed on the server. For example, a recipe that required 5 parrot feathers, berries, driftwood, knife/dagger, and a tiger tooth might only activate upon clicking a tiger tooth amulet: "You try to assemble your Tiger Fetish, but you are missing 3 parrot feathers." In my opinion, there should be hidden flags for characters as well, "visited cave-in", "visited oasis", and so on, so that players would have to discover the Tiger Fetish recipe / assembly process first: by visiting some secret tunnel network, "Engraved on the stone walls is an elaborate recipe for assembling a Tiger Fetish, requiring ..." (if you are fluent at reading Native). --Tycho44 13:59, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

I just hope that this idea motivates players to try new things ("I'm going to join a clan that wears such-and-such a mask and attack the others! Yarr!") and not feel that the game is just about collecting items ("Well, I got all the masks. I guess I'm done with the game."). --Lint 18:02, 8 March 2006 (GMT)

Maybe the different masks have different effects, from some simple ones (attracting/scaring animals, making them less likely to attack or easier to hit) to the downright blatavt video game reference that turns you into a huge brown rocky guy who can punch boulders apart. OK, maybe not the second one. MorkaisChosen 20:53, 9 March 2006 (GMT)
I think that's something to be worked on in a separate suggestion. The point of this suggestion is to make useless "fancy hats" that neither add or take away from the established gameplay. However, in the eyes of certain players, they may be invaluable because of how they can incorperate such items into their goals and roleplaying. --Lint 23:52, 9 March 2006 (GMT)
- Bumping this good suggestion. Let's have some cowrie shells! (And The_Conch(tm), see next suggestion.) The barren ruins and huts seem so sad and pathetic right now, they need some wacky useless trinkets to tide us over... Maybe we need shovels to dig for treasure, too. Yarr! --Tycho44 06:06, 10 May 2006 (BST)

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)

Know your foes

Author	Timestamp	Type	Scope
Leaf	15:08, March 16, 2006 (UTC)

As a native, I get killed a lot by outsiders, but I just can't strike back when I come back to life, as nothing allows me to identify my agressors amongst the outsiders I meet. I expected some basic language skill to give me access to clickable outsiders profiles, but it doesn't. So. I don't like much the fact that, in this game, the only alternative you have is "attack random outsiders" or "attack none". I'd like to be able to protect myself without being too unfair to peaceful outsiders (and being part of some snowball effect).

This would be partly solved by some profile access (allowing to check people's amount of human kills), or some limited displayed info on the present players (it would make -almost- sense for natives to automatically carry visible scalps or shrunken head of their victims, but I'm not sure how to justify the kills display in the case of outsiders, despite of the fact white men were actually quite fond of indian scalps at some time). Another useful tool would be some urban-dead-like contact list.

Of course, ideally (but absurdly) the most useful stat to be able to see would be the number of kills of people without human kills at the moment of their death, but...

Comments

Perhaps seeing the profile of someone on the opposite side if you or they have the advanced language skill would be good, it would be cool to hang around with some natives without worrying about aggressors. --Grigoriy 21:30, 18 March 2006 (GMT)

If you had a contact list and some way to target individuals on your list ala Urban Dead, I'm guessing that would probably help. Not so sure about the scalp display approach. --Simon 23:36, 18 March 2006 (GMT)

A contact list would be quite useful in Shartak. But also being able to read profiles, maybe through an "observe" button and scroll-down menu. For the moment, people just hit each other once, hoping to miss, in order to get a link to the other guy's profile. There must be a more rationnal way to quench this curiosity. -- Gone 13:36, 10 May 2006 (GMT+1)

Basic contact list functionality added. --Simon 15:08, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
- Can now edit the comments and change the type of the contact from friend to enemy or neutral. --Simon 11:17, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Forest Fire

Author	Timestamp	Type	Scope
Lint	03:58, 17 March 2006 (GMT)	Game mechanics, natural disasters	Terrain

This is a potential temporary minigame that will either lead to players to band together and save the island or perhaps just lead to all-out chaos. A fire script is created which designates one block as fire (it is identified by a little fire.gif in the background). Every 20 minutes the fire script will check if there is ~~Grassland or~~ Jungle nearby with density from 1-10. If there is, it spreads to the next block. It will not spread to any other terrain (including villages and ruins). Thus, the best way to prevent the spread of the fire is by chopping vegetation down to 0. The initial fires will be placed randomly around the island. Actions performed in a fire occupied space deal 2 damage. For this event to be more devious, there should be a means to quickly restore vegetation (dropping driftwood, planting fruit, watering with gourds).

Comments

I like some things about this suggestion, I think it could work really nicely if there was also a rain algorithingamajig, so that maybe, if some part of the island dried out, wildfires could break out, or if it rained too much villages could flood and get swamped. Its a neat idea. -BananaBear 04:55, 17 March 2006 (GMT)
I like the idea of rain and fire, however there's no telling if the server would handle the database access/calculations required when the number of players gets into the range that Urban Dead has. --Simon 11:17, 17 March 2006 (GMT)
- I thought it might be a bit much. Ah well. --Lint 19:32, 17 March 2006 (GMT)
- Not the idea of fire itself, that may well be quite feasible. I meant having rain causing flooding, or not enough rain leading to fires might be a bit awkward.. unless I can think of some way to reduce the work that needs to be done regularly. --Simon 23:38, 18 March 2006 (GMT)
Maybe fires could also destroy huts, and then there could be a skill to rebuild them. Maybe even give people the ability to start their own fires. It might make for interesting tribal wars. -BananaBear 18:22, 20 March 2006 (GMT)
- Imagine what would happen if an ammo hut caught on fire!--Darkferret 04:32, 1 April 2006 (BST)
- I kind of wanted to restrict fires to the Jungle (removed my Grasslands comment from the original suggestion) since a lot of Huts provide resources for starting players and players that have just been revived. I think it would be unfair to prevent them with the opportunity to gather supplies. As a tactic, it may also be unfair. Native villages appear to be completely surrounded by burnable Jungle, while Outsider villages are bordered by the Beach. --Lint 19:46, 20 March 2006 (GMT)
- Good point. The pirates would be completely free of burning too. I still think a way to temporarily damage structures could be fun -BananaBear 19:59, 20 March 2006 (GMT)
- As a general rule, real world jungles don't burn terribly well, although there are a few notable exceptions (such as the Indonesian forest fires in 1997-98). Grasslands, however, burn quite regularly, and in fact such fires are necessary for the good health of the grass. Fire kills off sapling trees in the area which would otherwise grow to the point that they overshadowed and killed the grass. I don't know whether the game has any grasslands large enough to make this kind of thing interesting, though. --Jackdaw 15:55, 25 March 2006 (GMT)

The Ghost Elephant

Author	Timestamp	Type	Scope
Lint	03:58, 17 March 2006 (GMT)	Game mechanics, miniboss	Event

Somewhere on the island is an animal that exists purely as a temporary event. The Legendary Ghost Elephant - in reality, an aggressive albino pachyderm of incredible size - is said to roam the island of Shartak. Some Natives revere it, others desire to be recorded as the one who slayed it. Some Outsiders wish to study it, others desire to have it as a trophy. It behaves much like any other elephant on Shartak. However, it has a different label, an unfathomable amount of HP, and deals horrific damage. If you heal the Ghost Elephant with a FAK or Herbs, you receive double XP. And to further serve a challenge, don't place an HP cap on the Ghost Elephant, just give it a starting amount. If possible, a log of all actions performed on the Ghost Elephant should be kept by the server and revealed in the event that it dies.

Comments

Ha! I like this one, Lint, and simple to implement. It should really have a boatload of HP, as I think few will consider expending valuable healing items on it, when its far easier (and more rewarding) to hack away at it for 40 AP then make a run for it! --Jackel 16:42, 17 March 2006 (GMT)

Arr! I would ride that ghost beast like a horse jus' fer fun, then slay 't t' sell its tusks t' them outsiders an' th' meat t' them natives. --El Pirata Cofresi 17:46, 17 March 2006 (GMT)

In the Congo they refer to it as Mokele Mbembe - he who stops the flow of rivers - and it is rumoured to be a lost dinosaur. The island could do with some cryptozoology. Would this creature be able to disappear or hide or move incredibly fast? If not, then once one person finds it, they can just call everyone over to the same square. This kind of defeats the mythical aspect as well as adding potential server problems. --Frisco 18:24, 17 March 2006 (GMT)

I should make the animals attack back in near-realtime first (as in you attack them and they may or may not get an attack in).. just to add a bit of interest to it and stop people running up to the creature and hacking and then running away. Making an animal with an almost unlimited number of HP would be possible.. I guess probably start it with at least double a normal elephant and max of about a thousand HP to prevent people healing it to the point where it'd be impossible to kill. --Simon 18:37, 17 March 2006 (GMT)

It could be cool, especially if it moved around in a way that made tracking it possible, maybe by destroying the foliage, or moving in a pattern. Also having it move might help keep people from all winding up in one square beating it up. -BananaBear 18:41, 17 March 2006 (GMT)
- I've tried to offset the game's focus on combat by encouraging healing (double XP may be too much of a reward, so I'm willing to remove that), but that alone will most likely be not enough to counter the horde of blood-thirsty savages!
  Healing with the Herbs and FAKs may actually be seen as healing the Ghost Elephant spiritually rather than merely physically, which is why it's health can grow high. I don't see a problem if it became near-unkillable. I like keeping some myths and legends around.
  I thought that it would be best if it traveled like an elephant, but it is true that it limits the people that are able to participate in the event. Perhaps it should "teleport", after a certain amount of time in an area - "A wall of fog sweeps in through jungle. When it fades, you see that the Ghost Elephant has vanished as well."
  I requested for a log of actions to determine who killed it, who attacked it the most, who healed it the most, and who got hurt the most. Also, rather than a recurring animal, I thought it would be best to release it as an event that occurs every now and then. Or maybe only once! --Lint 19:32, 17 March 2006 (GMT)
  - Hmm, when the elephant reappears, it should give a loud trumpet which can be heard over a certain radius to increase the chance of players coming across it. Unless of course players would prefer that it were more stealthy. --Lint 23:25, 4 April 2006 (BST)

I like it. And of course, you needn't stick to land animals; a mysterious sea creature that patrols the island waters and is reported to be 30ft long could prompt more people to vernture into the waters for a glimpse/trophy etc. Sharks will also be a problem for those searching! --Malphas 15:52, 19 March 2006 (GMT)

I love this idea.--Wifey 07:08, 28 March 2006 (BST)

Great idea!--Paradox244 21:04, 24 May 2006 (BST)

Ah, yes! I was wanting to suggest 'rare' animals as a possible addition, to give variety to the fauna and to provide something for my clan to pursue.--John Sevier 19:17, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Auto Attack

Author	Timestamp	Type	Scope
Qberry	02:34, 20 March 2006 (GMT)

I've never liked the fact that while I am away from the game, things can happen to my character, like being chewed on by a tiger or slashed with a machette. How about a setting where you can turn your character on to auto attack anything that hits you. It should, of course, be user selected. This would change the game mechanics a bit, as you could no longer move in on a target and attack it withough fear of a counter-strike. To me this is far more realistic, in that even if you are sleeping, when somebody hits you, you're going to wake up and do something about it with whatever engery you have left.

An alternative selectable action might be an auto-run. You can pre-specify the direction you want to run and how many squares upon being hit. A character with trekking could stay alive just by running a few square whenever they are hit.

Comments

The main problem with this is that players will be discouraged from attacking other players, as this will become extremely dangerous, and the native warrior who wants the outsiderts out will effectively be penalised.MorkaisChosen 15:47, 20 March 2006 (GMT)
Sorry, but I don't like this. I feel that that this will lead to interactions with players that are no different than interacting with an NPC. Could someone theoretically max themselves out by just leaving this option on and checking in every now and then to make sure they haven't become a spirit? --Lint 17:28, 20 March 2006 (GMT)
Yeah, I'm not a fan of being able to do something by not doing something, such as fighting or running without being there to fight or run. Also, would it be free of AP and IP hits, or would it be possible to come back and have no AP or hits left? It seems like these problems would wreck any sort of auto action. I can understand not enjoying being macheted while away, but I don't see any way around this. -BananaBear 18:20, 20 March 2006 (GMT)
I must admit that I don't like the idea all that much, but if it was implemented it would probably be something that was user configurable. I don't think running away would make sense, but fighting back does. For example, no more than X AP to be used fighting back until you next log back in, and they wouldn't be used unless you had more than Y AP left. This way you could set X to 10 and Y to 6 and if you ran out of AP, set those values, it would be 2 hours (6 x 20m) before you were likely to attack, and it would use no more than 10 AP fighting back. Because the values are configurable, it would be hard to know who would fight back and who wouldn't. Setting X to 0 would disable the feature. I think probably the attacks would gain XP if successful, same as normal, but because you wouldn't be able to set the number of AP to use to more than your max AP value, it would be impossible to level up a character by simply leaving them alone (not to mention you would disappear from the map after being idle for a bit). --Simon 21:01, 20 March 2006 (GMT)
i like the idea of counterattack , but with some limits. You have only a % of counterattacking someone (25%?) , you don't consume AP , you don't get XP. But , whit wich weapon do you attack?--JonesDye 10:05, 27 March 2006 (BST)
The impetus behind auto-attack is to lessen the chance and impact of Badness happening to your character while you're away, but auto-attack isn't the proper solution to this. Shartak's appropriate skill would be jungle hiding, though a construction skill would work too, if we want to be more like that other game. --Frisco 13:51, 4 April 2006 (BST)
What the animals are doing now is basically what I was saying should be an option for players. In fact, now that the animals counter-attack, it's become far more safe to attack a high-level soldier than it is to attack a parrot. All the more reason to implement this feature. It will also introduce more strategy into gameplay, such as how many AP to reserve for counter attacks, etc. It could be as simple as: enable auto-attack (toggle), if enabled, select weapon (pull-down menu), select AP to stop self-defense (pull-down?). If you select 0, you'd attack until exhausted or they left. If you select some non-zero, you'd attack until you were down to that amount. I kill a lot of other players, but I still say this would be very good for game mechanics, especially considering the new animal behavior. --Qberry 06:00, 1 June 2006 (GMT)
- I would only agree with that one if it was only against animals. I don't think auto-defense was a good idea at all, but now that it's in, I think that ours should only work against NPCs.--Wifey 20:11, 1 June 2006 (BST)
  - Unfortunately this could only exacerbate the Banshee Wailing Spam problems. An auto-defense option is worthless against spirits, and Banshee Wails could easily be the leading cause of damage and death in Shartak (during May 2006). Implement Exorcism before worrying about AP-costs and pull-down-menus for melee parry defense systems. --20:48, 1 June 2006 (BST)
    - Exactly. Actually, I've been thinking more on this. It's really a good thing that the animals are so dangerous now. The focus should be more on the struggle between natives and outsiders. Plus, it makes Animal Affinity that much better, which gives a good reason to play a villager or a settler.--Wifey 23:48, 1 June 2006 (BST)
I support this idea in theory, but of course it must be approached carefully. I like JonesDye's idea of not gaining XP for counter-attacks, and there are so many other factors to consider. QBerry-- you should start a thread about this in the forums to get all sides of the debate and get discussion going. This could be a great feature if implemented correctly. Arminius 00:47, 4 June 2006 (BST)

Flavor Text

this section is where "users" add "flavor" to the game, im just suggesting that every few steps the computer say a message depending on location, here ill give a few examples:

grasslands
- the grassy field sways under the wind's rush as you take a step.|
- something far off squaks and makes a strange throaty bellow.|

water
- a wave crashes calmly in the distance|
- a spalsh can be heard from far off|

jungle
- a parrot's call can be heard distantly|
- the bushes nearby are rustling from the small wildlife in them|

village (outsider)
- the smell of gunpowder wafts into your lungs|
- the smoke comming from a nearby hut smells of fresh turkey|

village (native)
- the shaman's voice can be heard traveling through the village|
- you step on the bones of what appears to be a rattlesnake|

beach
- the hot sand burns your feet, yet feels wonderfully different|
- several sea shells catch your eye from far off|

please feel free to update these with more, as they are just a list (if simon decides to) that will be used for flavor. i want to do this because the game gets kinda boring simply traversing through square after square

Comments

One of the noticeable, distinct aspects of that other game are the different messages for each building; i really like this idea. A criticism, though - i'd refrain from mentioning living animals/people or useful items in the descriptions, they could be confusing to newbies. In other words, "a parrot's call can be heard distantly" isn't appropriate, and "the shaman's voice can be heard traveling through the village" might not be appropriate if the shaman is currently dead. The following could substitute: "You see a large ant colony busily rebuilding their hive" (an animal that has no game impact) and "The spirit of Shubar is felt all around you" (doesn't matter if Shubar is alive or dead). --Frisco 14:05, 4 April 2006 (BST)
I sort of feel like this is something that could easily be put together with a Greasemonkey script. It would be nice, but it isn't really necessary. --Lint 05:35, 5 April 2006 (BST)

See the end of the list at The Shartak Wiki:Community Portal#Greasemonkey scripts. — Elembis (talk) 23:31, 11 June 2006 (BST)

slots/ new inventory

slots and inventory could be implemented where, a picture of a silhouette was shown, with names of equiped items in slotted areas, ex: you skin a goat, find some sharp rocks and fashion yourself some claws, you then put them on, giving you +1 damage to all melee attacks animal wearings

"Comments below"

Making Claws? and not "all melee attacks" but only punch attacks --Slith 06:45, 29 March 2006 (BST)

I don't see why you need item slots for this. Having a pair of claws in the inventory would just improve punch damage by 1. That said, I don't like the idea of making oneself claws. Seems a little silly, when you have actual weapons around. Seems a little silly, either way, really. Perhaps that's just my sense of aesthetics, though, and not that of the majority of the players.--Wifey 06:37, 4 April 2006 (BST)

Boat Construction

Author	Timestamp	Type	Scope
Slith	06:42, 29 March 2006 (BST)

Boats wouldn't be able to go into The very deep water people can't go into because the tides would rip them apart but could go move in all water for only 1 AP and it also prevents sharks from biting you. Multipule people could get into a boat based on how much wood is used, like n*.001 x 1 = People Where n = The amount of wood used.

Edit:

When Boats are being boarded each player may vote on who they decide should be the captain. The captian may move boat, call the boat any non vulgar name and anyone may jump off the boat at any time except the captain. Boats could only be built on a beach and automaticly once built move the person who constructed it into the nearest water square. Players may board the baot at any time by moving into the same square as it and selecting enter. When the captain moves the boat onto a land square the boat is destroyed and all people who boarded are thrown onto the beach. Players may change the captain at any time by changing there vote. Natives can not board Outsider boats and outsiders can not board native boats. What the boat looks like and is called depends on the size of it.

1 person: Raft

2 people: Large raft

3-4: Small boat

5-6: Boat

7-9: Large Boat

10-24: Huge Boat

25 and up: Gigantic Boat

Comments

check out the skills section, i already suggested something like that.... anyway, check it out --Richard Rose
While the huts are handled in Richard's suggestion, I am interested in the boat aspect. I think that placing multiple players on a boat will be troublesome. Who decides where the boat goes - the server? the first player on the boat?
It's also important to keep in mind that we already are offered a skill to help with moving in water - Swimming. If we are to introduce rafts, there should be some mechanics set in place to minimize their usefulness.
Perhaps carrying a raft through non-water terrain doubles movement cost to discourage players from carrying one everywhere. Perhaps the raft only has a limited amount of moves in deep water before breaking up. --Lint 22:44, 29 March 2006 (BST)
- Yeah I changed the suggestion based on your suggestion's :) --Slith 04:40, 30 March 2006 (BST)
"Welcome to the Shartak ferry sevice. Please pay the captain your fee of 3 coins. We will be departing for the pirate ship in 3 hours. The captain has locked the destination coordinates and will not change directions unless the boat's integrity is threatend. We will arive in 50 AP + 10 AP per passenger + 5 per day due to drift. You are encouraged to help paddle the boat as this will help us arive sooner. If you decide to leave the boat at any time we will not refund you or allow you to reboard. Please do not pull out any corks or kick any boards as the boat is fragile and will sink if badly damaged."--Darkferret 05:06, 1 April 2006 (BST)
- Yeah ^^ That too --Slith 00:48, 3 April 2006 (BST)
Boats sound cool. There are a lot of different ways to implement boats that aren't that complicated. Here's one example: suppose that a boat can hold 4 people. Anyone who wants to control the boat spends 4 AP to move the boat one square (larger boats move more slowly). Thus the boat could wander back and forth depending on who currently has the helm, but is unlikely to travel faster than a swimmer. Anyone (native or outsider) can dive overboard or climb onboard at any time, and the boat can be chopped up and destroyed by enough effort. ... The way I envision it, a boat never leaves the water -- the boat gets constructed on a beach square and then can only be moved onto water. It is never an inventory item. --Tycho44 09:31, 2 June 2006 (BST)
- That's a good idea. I would go so far, though, as to say that it has to be constructed in shallow water.It would just make it easier. I would propose that the boat require four pieces of driftwood, plus two for every extra person. Thus a 1-man raft would be 4 pieces, a 2-man raft would be 6, a 3-man would be 8, and so on.--Wifey 18:26, 2 June 2006 (BST)
  - Although there's no reason not to require, umm, a boatload of wood for construction, rather than just 2 + 2 per person. If the boat has any advantages at all over swimming, you could easily require huge quantities of wood without game imbalance. The original suggester had 1000 pieces per person, that's over the top, but why not 18 wood per person or something. That means N sailors could build an N-person boat in a single day searching at Shartak's Boatyard. Although construction might require another day of additional AP, and a hammer... --Tycho44 23:07, 2 June 2006 (BST)
    - I'd be in favor of boat construction, but it should be significantly harder and MUCH more time consuming to work, really only the most hardcore players should try it. Realistically, a person should need about 20 pieces of wood to displace their own body weight, so 20 wood per person is about right. It should take at least a week of devoted searching to come up with this amount for one person, and would require a fair amount of organization to build a large craft, but come on, its a BOAT! Virtually no attacks from anyone ever! Easy access to hard-to-reach islands! It should be extremely rare and time-consuming to do this IMO.--Jackel 05:18, 3 June 2006 (BST)
i reckon the boat idea would be great especially for the CP so we are land police of york and water police of york!,hopefully this does work out!. riddick 21:17 10 June,2006 (GMT).
If boats are implemented, wouldn't it make sense to allow pirates a special skill regarding them? After all, the pirates on Shartak were all sailors before wrecking their ship. It would only make sense if they (for instance) used fewer AP to sail or something similar. Black Joe 8:53, 11 July 2006 (GMT)
I think that boats could add a valuable dimension to the game once more pressing issues (such as spirit exorcism/warding) are dealt with and the active population of the island grows by a few hundred (because boats would spread players out over an even larger area and make people even harder to find outside of camps). Anyway, here are my ideas.
- Regarding boat speed, realism would demand that boat travel be faster than swimming in at least some cases. At best, a boat should be able to travel from York to Derby (for example) faster than anyone could make the trip on foot (~160 AP with trailblazing; see my sandbox). Furthermore, a four-person crew should be able to outrun or at least keep up with a boat with just one person onboard. I think a boat should move for 1.5 AP regardless of how many people (up to 4) are in it. With cooperation, a full crew could make the York-Derby trip (~276 squares east to west) in 276 × 1.5 / 4 = 103.5 AP per person, or a little under a day and a half. A 1.5 AP move cost for boats would make swimming faster for a single player in shallow water but not in deep water, and a crew of two or more people would be able to outdistance any swimmer.
- The boat would have a virtual helm, and only players at the helm (captains) would be able to set the boat's course (one of the eight compass directions) and sail off-course if they desired. Non-captains would only be able to move the boat in the direction of the course or the two adjacent directions (so a NW course would only allow them to move N, NW and W). The helm could be shared, but only an empty helm could be taken (i.e., you have to kill the captain(s) first). This would keep players from climbing aboard and sailing far off-course (or perhaps to shore in hostile territory). A captain who left the boat would return as crew and would need to be promoted again by whoever had the helm.
- Boats could be entered, exited, or boarded from another boat for 1 AP. Players would leave boats (1) voluntarily, (2) by being killed, or (3) if they were not a captain and a captain forced them off for 1 AP.
- Construction would occur on the beach, as Tycho suggested. (A one-time script would flag beach squares next to water, and construction of boats would only be possible on those squares.) It would progress one piece at a time to (1) avoid unrealistic near-instant boat construction and (2) to allow multiple people to contribute driftwood to the effort. There would be a 1 AP "Build" button and a dropdown box for all boats on the square. ("[Build] <nothing / Ye Olde Boat> with a piece of driftwood.") After contributing a piece of driftwood a player would see how many more pieces the boat needed. There would also be a form for starting a new boat with one piece of driftwood. ("[Start building] a new boat named [text input].")
- Boats would be attackable with melee weapons and could disintegrate slowly (1) when they are unoccupied, (2) when they have been under construction for more than a week, and (2) as they travel. A boat would only disappear from the game if it had 0 HP and had been that way for an entire week. (A script could run every x hours to check for unoccupied boats and damage them, and a nightly script could check for destroyed and abandoned boats and delete them.) For realism and gameplay, it should be easier to kill all four passengers on a boat than to destroy the boat itself as well as more rewarding (i.e., hurting a boat would yield few XP, if any). Attacks that targeted the boat would be visible to everyone onboard just as if they themselves were being attacked. Players onboard would be attackable by anyone on the square, whether the attacker is riding in another boat or swimming. (If sailors were not attackable, natives raiding outsider camps would be able to take sanctuary in boats just offshore.) Giant squids would attack boats about as often as they attacked the people onboard (unless a passenger had attacked the squid, in which case the squid would focus on that player until they were dead). Sharks, however, would leave boats and their occupants alone.
- Most important, in my opinion, is that the best boat builders and/or repairers would be settlers, villagers and pirates. While boat construction would be too fun to not share, those three classes need unique skills. An exclusive repair skill might be appropriate; unskilled captains would push a boat until it couldn't go anywhere (or hire someone to repair it), but settlers/villagers/pirates would be able to repair boats (including any abandoned ones they found). Fully repairing a nearly destroyed boat should probably be about half as expensive, in terms of both AP and driftwood, as building a new one. Needless to say, boats could be a real chore to implement, but they would surely make the game even more distinctive and rich. — Elembis (talk) 20:48, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Poisoning

Author	Timestamp	Type	Scope
Lint	18:38, 6 April 2006 (BST)	Game mechanics, status effect, balance	All classes, primarily Warriors

Currently, the blowpipe can only carry 1 dart, yet weighs the same amount of inventory space as a rifle with 2 bullets. If you were to pit a fully leveled Soldier armed with loaded rifles against a fully leveled Warrior armed with loaded blowpipes, the battle is in favor of the Soldier who requires less time to reload while inbattle and dealing superior damage. (rifle's 5 to blowpipe's 4).

To address this, I would propose that poison darts actually cause poisoning. Poisoning would behave much like a shark bite - causing 1 HP damage per action performed until they are administered a FAK or medical herbs. A character can die if poison is left untreated. The attacker receives no additional XP for this kill or the damage dealt from poison. Poisoning would not stack, but it would be possible for a character to suffer from both poison and shark bites. The introduction of poison may require the dart's damage to be reduced to something substantially lower. Perhaps a default of 2 HP inflicted.

Up for discussion - does poisoning have a percent chance of occurring, an AP lifespan (only lasts 10 moves), and perhaps only works on non-npc characters?

Comments

Sounds great! I've heard that some of the toxicins used to poison darts can induce illutions. It would be interesting if poisoning increases AP usage for certain actions or even better imagined enemies (that Sixth Sence could pick out).--Darkferret 08:24, 7 April 2006 (BST)
Have you seen the size of the some of the blowpipes that certain tribes carry? They're anything from 6 to 10 foot long! It's hardly surprising that they occupy the same inventory space as a rifle :) On the other hand, poisoning from darts sounds like a good idea.. I don't know that they should poison forever though, maybe for a limited number of AP, but perhaps have the effect be cumulative up to a certain point? Get shot 5 times and you lose 1 HP for every AP used for 5 x whatever the limit is. Does that make sense? --Simon 21:16, 7 April 2006 (BST)
- - Exactly - e.g., each poison dart that hits adds 2 AP to the poison duration, and while poisoned, you lose 1HP per AP used. The Poison Dart would eventually inflict 6 hp of damage, offsetting the extra damage and double barrel of the rifle. --Tycho44 07:22, 12 April 2006 (BST)
- That might work, that way the Warrior has incentive to continue using the blowpipe multiple times on a target rather than just switch to their machete after the poison takes effect. Add to the character table a boolean flag (Poison = True) and give it a Poison Timer int. When the timer reaches 0, the Poison gets flipped to False. When the character dies or a FAK or Herb is applied, the Poison gets flipped to False and the timer gets set to 0. If the flag is True and they're poisoned again, stack the timer. I'm going to put forth this suggestion to the Forum. I don't have a lot of experience with using the blowpipe (I'm a machete guy) so they should weigh in on this. --Lint 22:17, 7 April 2006 (BST)
Or how about you can find frogs and use them to put differnt posion effects on your darts? --Slith 04:57, 11 April 2006 (BST)

If we're adding poison dart frogs, I demand that they be lickable. It wouldn't be right, if you couldn't lick the poison dart frogs.--Wifey 20:14, 11 April 2006 (BST)

Ok... then some benifical frogs too! And people can't tell the diffrence between them unless they get some skill? --Slith 06:27, 17 April 2006 (BST)

Bump! Awaiting a short lifespan (eg 4hp) additional poison effect for poison darts. And/or Native-only Poisoning skill so that Snake + Dart = uberdart that causes permanent poisoning (aka shark wound). --Tycho44 20:51, 1 June 2006 (BST)
Short lifespan poison effect added a little while ago. --Simon 22:43, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

PvP Protection

Author	Timestamp	Type	Scope
Iamtas	10:00, 13 April 2006 (BST)	Game mechanics, pvp, nopvp, vs, player versus player	All Classes

A full implementation of player versus player protection. This would be a nice feature for newbies allowing them time to adjust to the game without getting slaughtered. I envisage something allowing you to enable nopvp without the ability to disable for at least 100AP. Also when you hit a player who is flagged nopvp then you would get a message along the lines of "As your blade bounces off an invisible shield you suddenly notice a shamanic medicine pouch around the neck of target, they are protected, it would be pointless to continue to attack target." where target will be replaced by the players name.

Comments

This is a good, well-thought suggestion. But while I don't generally like PKing, I think it is important to keep it available to those that do enjoy it. With XP penalties and easy resurrection, PKing not ruining the game from my perspective and it shouldn't be restricted further. I would not mind a method of informing players that view my character profile to see that I am flagged for pvp or not, but I am against preventing PVP without purchasing such an ability. --Lint 21:16, 13 April 2006 (BST)
New players already get an AP bonus and need less XP to level; I don't see the need for a newbie specific ability. I'd rather see a safe area over a moveable system - something like a sacred hut in native villages and a guard hut in outsider villages which anyone who hasn't attacked another player in 100 AP can enter and within which all PvP activity is prohibited, wastes AP, or perhaps results in HP loss only to the attacker ("Your attack has angered the mighty (spirits or guards) in the area; they smite you").--Frisco 04:12, 14 April 2006 (BST)
Having both a PvP pirate and a pacifist shaman, and having been PKed on both... I don't like this idea. I like the 100AP newbie status. I don't like the "enabling" nopvp. Sorry. Death is a part of the game. If you walk into a tribe of hostile headhunters, they aren't going to just stand by and let you through--no matter how peaceful your business.--Wifey 04:27, 14 April 2006 (BST)
I'm aware that new players get extra AP and newbie protection isn't what this is about. It is more useful for being protected from the players that sit in their home town bashing away at their own folk. Even with that said my main reason for nopvp was for another idea I have for a skill track that at the time of thinking about it I thought would require a nopvp implementation. I may post the skill track idea sometime when I have finished thinking about all the details.--Iamtas 12:07, 14 April 2006 (BST)
How about you can't be attacked in your village/settlement by people that come from your village/settlement? --Slith 06:30, 17 April 2006 (BST)
As much as I don't care for PK-ing (especially against newbies like me!), it is something many people enjoy (and I am in full agreement with Wifey about how newbies could visit enemy territory and be invincible) and is an excellent way of gaining XP if you choose to do so. I second the notion of having a PvP free hut in each settlement/village; perhaps disable the attack command entirely while in there? As a penalty for using such a hut, there should be no resource items there, so that players will still need to 'risk' being in resource huts to restock. Or, at least charge 5AP to enter (you have to talk your way in or at least convince the guards to allow you entrance; thus people who 'play it safe' will need to conserve their AP as they are not taking risks). One of the hallmarks of games like this is AP managment, and most of us learned that the hard way...--John Sevier 19:28, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

New strategic location on island

Author	Timestamp	Type	Scope
Arminius	21:02, 22 April 2006 (BST)	New location, Game mechanics,	N/A

I think the addition of one or more major new "strategic" locations on the island would greatly improve the game. What exactly it would be can be worked out, all it really has to be is very valuable to occupy and far away from any village or town (i.e. far away from any shaman). Both sides would rush to occupy this location and would fight each other for control of it.

This would have 3 major benefits for the game that I can see: 1) It would get the action away from towns/villages/shamans, 2) It would make death more meaningful and make killing an enemy meaningful (all death means in towns/villages now is having to float five spaces or so to the shaman and then you get a free revive. There are no easy/free revives out in the center of the island, you would lose both location and the 50 AP to contact, unless you decide to stick around and play as a spirit), 3) It would give people a goal in the game, a major location to fight over and defend, a location that isn't pointless to fight over, as towns/villages are because they cannot be taken. All in all it would have the benefit of making the game more fun.

As far as what the new location would be exactly, one idea could be gold mine(s). They would be valuable because standing on a gold mine square would give you 1 gold coin/hr and require no AP expenditure. The specifics of this are wide open and dont even much matter, as long as the location is far from settlements and very valuable to occupy so players will flock out there and fight for control, making for an exciting time and making killing enemies non-pointless.

If implemented, it should only be one new location at first, with maybe a couple more introduced later once things get going. The location should have a name, and it should be relayed to players in the form of Game News so that everyone knows of its existance and where it is in general terms, e.g. "A gold mine was discovered just south of the mountain, Natives and Outsiders are both rushing out there for control".

Note: One of the raisons d'etre for this suggestion has been eliminated with the shaman changes, so this suggestion is less relevant than it was and in some ways outdated. It might still be workable, though it will have to be approached differently. Arminius 00:27, 4 June 2006 (BST)

Comments

I realise it was just an example, but 1 gold per hour without any AP requirement is probably a bit much. Definitely something to expand on though. I like it. --Simon 21:46, 22 April 2006 (BST)
- For example, award 1 gold coin to any one player at random who is on the mine for at least the full hour. Or only award 1 gold coin at random to any one player if only one side occupies the mine -- if both outsiders and nativers are present, they are fighting for control and no one is mining. Generally speaking, 24 gold coins per ~~hour~~day fed into the entire game will not mess up the economy -- that's probably less than 75-150 AP of searching (and a trip to the trading hut). Alternatively, allow players to search the area with a ~~15%~~ 40% find rate for one gold coin, as long as none of the opposing faction are present in the square. Drawbacks: (1) This sort of high-impact location could also increase zerging/cheating, which wouldn't be fun for anyone. (2) A gold mine could rapidly devalue gold coins until they're effectively worthless, ending the "value" of the mine. --Tycho44 02:22, 23 April 2006 (BST)
  - Giving out small numbers of coins to only a certain percentage of the people on the mine square seems too low a reward, while the original 1 gold coin per hour is definitely too high. But unless people get something tangible every hour that they stand there, people may not bother to fight for control of the mine, which is the whole point. Here is an idea: Make a new item called "gold nugget". Every hour that you are standing on the gold mine square and your faction controls it, you get one gold nugget. Then create a hut 1 square adjacent to the mine and inside have an NPC called "gold prospector Jim" (for example), who will "cash in" your nuggets, 10 nuggets (or 5, or whatever is deemed the best number) for one coin. Gold nuggets on their own would have no value. Arminius 14:57, 29 April 2006 (BST)
    - You could achieve the same effect without creating a prospector hut just by giving a straight 10% (or 20%) chance of 1 gold coin each hour. (To me a single "prospector Jim" gets a bit sketchy if a thousand people are rushing the mine...). In my opinion, you get better scalability and realism if the gold-per-person decreases as people increase. If there are a thousand people on the mine, then each person gets only 5% chance per hour (=50gc/hour production). If there are 10 people on the mine, then each one gets a 100% chance per hour (=10gc/hour production). Gold can't be earned from the mine when competing factions are on the location, creating a contested site is the purpose of implementing this suggestion. --Tycho44 09:41, 2 June 2006 (BST)

If there is a 10% chance to get one gold coin per hour, and if during a large portion of the day both natives and outsiders are on the gold mine square so no mining is going on, then the odds would be that the lots of people would get 0 gold coins (or very few) before being killed, a total waste of time for them, and they might not bother going back after they're killed, which defeats the gold mine's purpose as a strategic location that people will fight over. This is why I say people need something tangible every hour. In fact, that should be revised to "something tangible every AP turnover", i.e. every 20 minutes. Even if someone is there for only a short time, they should have something to show for it, which they almost certainly wouldnt with a low % chance per hour of getting one gold coin. Your idea of scaling the gold that the mine produces could be implemented by making Gold Prospector Jim give fewer gold coins the more nuggets he receives. In other words, a gold mining version of the current trading system. Since he will have received 0 gold nuggets as the mine is first discovered, one gold nugget could trade for one gold coin, and as more people start cashing in, the value of a gold nuggest would go down, to where he wants 20 or so nuggets for one gold coin. The value would fluctuate throughout the day and week as people cash in more gold nuggets. This way, scalability is achieved while continuing to be able to reward something tangible every AP turnover. Also, I would say gold nuggets should take 0 inventory space just like gold coins, since in theory 72 could be given out per day to one person, and that would fill up anyone's inventory, allowing them to not receive any more. Arminius 00:27, 4 June 2006 (BST)

An alternative to the gold mine would be some kind of ancient treasure hoard, so not just gold coins but also statues, ancient armour and maybe some pretty nasty weapons. However, to get the good stuff you'd have to go into the trap-filled maze and actually make it into the chamber where the treasure is. With spirit-proof doors so people don't just die, go in, find the correct route, revive and go in...MorkaisChosen 17:33, 24 April 2006 (BST)
- This is interesting but seems overly complicated, and seems like more of a one-shot kind of thing, but most significantly there is no real value in holding such a location. A gold mine would be a simple, straightforward, and constantly of high value to occupy. Also, once one person finds the way through the maze, soon everyone would know. Arminius 14:57, 29 April 2006 (BST)
  - Good point... Ignore my suggestion, it's not very good... MorkaisChosen 12:27, 2 June 2006 (BST)

Life cycle

Author	Timestamp	Type	Scope
One of many doctors	03:22, 29 May 2006 (BST)	balance change	NPC animals

Currently the main way of leveling up is by killing things (i.e. NPCs & characters) I suggest there be some sort of life cycle for animals. For example, when there are massive amounts of tigers being killed less spawn. But if everybody leaves tigers alone, more spawn. If would look something like this:

0-5% of animal type killed, x5 spawn rate

6-15% of animal type killed, x2 spawn rate

16-45% of animal type killed x1 spawn rate

46-75% of animal type killed x0.5 spawn rate

76-99% of animal type killed x0.1 spawn rate

100% of animal type killed, animal is extinct

This forces people to find alternative ways to gain Xp (possibly more lucrative ones?)

Comments
I have the funny feeling that animals would start going extinct, which would just be a pain. I'd rather not see this one implemented.--Wifey 15:50, 29 May 2006 (BST)

Would work if there was a total animal population that was always kept, so if tigers start to become extinct more deer appear, but this would lead to an island of only elephants. Would also work if the animals that were extinct reemerged later on, then it would just be annoying. But the goal of "find alt ways to gain Xp" won't be realised via this manner - it would instead lead to more player vs player action. Instead of taking away our current methods, perhaps other methods of xp gaining could be added, like the agriculture skill, or some current activities could have an xp bonus (we get xp for uncovering trees, why not for finding fruits? Could trading become xp-worthy?).--Frisco 16:47, 29 May 2006 (BST)

I don't know why we should force people to find the lucrative alternative ways to gain XP. Animals are extremely rare in some areas of Shartak, and PKing and PvP is common. Banshee wailing spam, punch-heal farming, and gratuitous healer orgies are annoying enough already. Basically, the non-healing/non-harming XP paths need to be more viable: XP for exploring, chopping, discovery, contacting foreign villages, and so on. --Tycho44 10:01, 2 June 2006 (BST)

Message in a bottle

Author	Timestamp	Type	Scope
Lint	05:33, 6 June 2006 (BST)	New item, message system	All characters in Beach terrain

Much like the "make signpost" action, creating a message in a bottle will only be available to players standing in Beach terrain. Unless the "Refillable containers" suggestion is implemented, to create a message in a bottle will require a bottle of beer, bottle of rum, or bottle of water and some newer items - parchment and charred driftwood or berry paint. There would be a textarea and a button, much like the existing message actions. Upon clicking the "make message" button, the items required are removed from the player's inventory and their text message is added to the database.

Although it would be neat to actually see the bottles floating in the water and following unique movement patterns, that would lead to some very cluttered areas. So instead the message in a bottle becomes a rare search result in Beach terrain.

When a player finds a message in a bottle the system generates a random number and selects the associated message to that number from the database. After reading the message, the player has the option to destroy or return the bottle. Destroying the message in a bottle removes it from the database. Returning it throws the bottle back into the sea to be found again. There should probably be a default message in the event that all the unique messages are destroyed or the search odds could be modified to reflect that there are no more messages in a bottle to be found.

Each message could also have a stat to display how many times the message was read before.

Comments
Nice idea. I'd rather have the message bottle also be rare-findable in water. I think it'd be kind of neat to have some items found in water, even if only text messages generated by other players. The suggestion does await parchment, although I think that berries alone would be sufficient for ink ("you write in berry juice") rather than requiring a separate ink item. Implementing parchment might get a bit complicated - I'd prefer a very streamlined approach so that players aren't carrying around six (or 71) different message'd parchments at once. --Tycho44 21:23, 16 June 2006 (BST)

Map quest

Author	Timestamp	Type	Scope
Lint	19:53, 6 June 2006 (BST)	Quest	All characters, new NPCs

There is a limited usefulness for the map for those without access to the mapping scripts. There is also a limited incentive for players to explore foreign camps. This suggestion provides a simple quest for players to hopefully address both issues.

Each town will possess a new NPC (or possibly a retooled home shaman or trader) that has a fragment of a map. The fragment will display the general vicinity around the camp. After a player interacts with the NPC and acquires a map fragment, they can view map.html and see two new buttons: "view torn map" and "compare maps". "View torn map" will display the collection of map fragments acquired by the player. "Compare maps" will overlay the player's personal map on top of the torn map.

I imagine the map fragments to resemble the parchment look featured in the game logo, but each camp might use a different medium or writing implement which will give the torn map a patchwork appearance.

The map fragments will not take up any inventory space and not even be listed in the inventory. On a character's profile page it may be possible to display their progress with the quest: (1/7 map fragments).

Obviously, having just the area of the camps mapped out will leave some large missing chunks in the torn map. There could be a hermit NPC that will complete the torn map once each fragment is obtained. The complete map can also have the feature of unlocking new territory. Talking to special elder NPCs will mark the map with locations that are viewable and enterable only by those with complete, marked maps.

Comments
Sure, this makes sense to me. Ideally, the special code (possibly including search outcomes, NPC interactions, non-item flags in character data, and so forth) would be generic enough so that it could also be borrowed to implement treasure hunts, scavenger hunts, secret locations, and other future plot-lines in Shartak. A Shartak map itself, even complete, would just show the same info that can be found via web or wiki, so it is not going to harm game balance. --Tycho44 21:27, 16 June 2006 (BST)

Living countermeasures against spirits

Author	Timestamp	Type	Scope
Tenebrys	19:54, 1 July 2006 (UTC)	Skill, balance change	Everyone who's sick of the gathering of banshees in their medical supply houses

As spirits become more angry and desire ever-more the blood of the mortals around them, the shamans of the island have begun to develop ways to put them to flight or at least guard their fellow islanders against the terror that these ghosts inspire. In the course of circulating this information between the villages of Raktam, Dalpok, and Wiksik, however, it has been intercepted by outsider spies and delivered to the developing scientific communities that exist in the outsiders' camps.

To be concise, we've got a ghost problem in Shartak. I'm not sure how many villages this goes on in, but it seems that the spirits of the dead have taken up residence in the healers' hut of my beloved village of Wiksik. There are many living men and women also inside of this little abode, and all of us suffer from the shrieks and howls of the angry spectres, day after day. Some of our most skilled medicine-men have even lost their lives, struck dead from horror while they slept.

So, my suggestion?

I'm thinking about something around the lines of "spirit exorcism" skill that can be learned and used by shamans/scientist to banish spirits from whatever urban areas they inhabit. In order for this to be used, the individual must be in the same square as the spirit, in the village or camp that he/she originated from, and sense the spirit's presence. When used, the spirit will be flung out of the village/camp a long ways, perhaps 10 or 20 squares. This, I think, would be a reasonable answer to ghosts that find no better purpose in the afterlife than to haunt important huts in villages and try to scare the inhabitants to death...

(FYI, the Wiksik healing hut has 2 such spectres, and they're getting to be kinda irritating.)

Another such idea would be a "spirit ward" skill, also only usable by shamans and scientists, that would slow a spirit's movement and reduce the effectiveness of its attacks in the presence of a the shaman who holds the skill.

Another idea is that such a skill would allow the user to create wards out of certain types of items, that would be placed like a signpost in a square and produce a similar effect as above. This would last a finite amount of time before falling apart, and could be destroyed by mortals.

Comments
YES. I like this one. Spirits are annoying. MorkaisChosen 17:27, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, 100%. To clarify: (1) Banshee wailers are unlikely to earn even 90 xp per day since the xp nerf, so spirit abuse isn't the problem. (2) Mortals who spend an AP or two each day to STEP OUTSIDE THE HUT take no damage from wailing (shaman chanting protects them), so "suffering" by mortals too lazy to spend 2 in each 72 AP protecting themselves is not the problem. (3) Living characters who spend their entire lives in the Medical Hut searching for FAKs (Healing Herbs) and healing each other easily earn 150 xp per day with no risk and no interaction. (Even death is nothing but a 30 AP inconvenience.) My adventuring character has visited Dalpok with GPS units but gained no XP, while my Medical Hut XP Farmer has gone nowhere, done nothing, and gained 5 experience levels in 2 weeks. Solution 1: Scientists/Shamans get an Exorcism skill to blast spirits 20 away in a random direction. Solution 2: Advanced spirits get an AP-intensive skill that allows them to prohibit use of healing items in their current location. --Tycho44 18:24, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Banshee wailers don't really contribute anything to the game, as most of the ones I have seen simply spam the wail. I'm honestly not sure what purpose they serve beyond providing a lot of spam and some opertunity for an alternate way to gain XP besides combat. I would also disagree that healers do not interact, as there is often times conversation being held as well as healing other characters. Many times there remains no one to be healed in herbal/medical huts, so healers with take a trip outside to heal anyone they can find injured in the village. Honestly, I see it as a lot more interactive than simply running around and killing animals. So the question is, what role are spirits supposed to have in the game? Are they supposed to be a substainable pseudo-class or are they supposed to be a diversion from the living side of the game? I'm fine with either one, but if they are supposed to be a pseudo-class then I think they need something more than just a skill-branch which allows you to annoy people, as well as there would need to be a means by which living characters can forcibly deal with them. --Shosuro 3 July 2006

Ok, so does exorcism:

banish just one spirit from the location?
have a fairly high chance of banishing each spirit?
have a fairly high change of banishing one spirit?

Whilst I can see shamans having this skill, and scientists having a similar skill with the same effect, would characters need to find an item such as a bible or a charm as well as having the skill in order to perform the ritual?

I think we're now at the point where this is likely to be the next thing added so get the ideas in! Wasn't there another section with a similar theme somewhere? Perhaps they should be merged. --Simon 12:25, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Items necessary to perform an exorcismal ritual? Yes, I think so. At least -something- should have to be scrounged up or traded for, if shamans/scientists are to have such powers over the supernatural world...

Looking around, I hadn't seen any articles that had similar such intentions, though. At any rate...

As long as the items are available, exorcism should have a pretty high chance of getting rid of a spirit that is haunting an area. The odds should be such that a single spirit usually won't require more than two attempts at being cast out. If there is more than one spirit in the area, it might take multiple attempts before they're all gone; otherwise, as long as the exorcist is in the vicinity of ghosts and has the correct exorcismal supplies, he/she won't have all that much trouble getting rid of them.

I can see this skill taking a good deal more than just one AP, though. Maybe three or five...

As for the specific items? A bible and a candle or two would be sufficient for men versed in the religions of western civilization to carry out their duties when it comes to driving away supernatural beings. Natives, however, have different methods of dealing with ghosts and spectres they find -- their ceremonies may well make use of healing herbs burnt as offerings, driftwood used for talismans to ward off the dead, and even maybe a poisonous snake to help adorn a witch-doctor during ritual dances.

Not sure if I'm going too far here, though... I haven't thought TOO deeply into the specifics of this skill. Others, especially shamans and scientists, feel free to add on... but stay rational. Not sure if I did the same... --Tenebrys 22:22, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

My preference would be to let a scientist or shaman exorcise one random spirit from their location for 1 AP and with a chance of reduced effectiveness (displacement of the spirit). The exorcism could be more effective if it took place near the exorciser's home camp and less effective if it took place near the spirit's home camp. (E.g., if (rand() > distToExorciserCampShaman/(distToExorciserCampShaman+distToSpiritCampShaman)) success=true. This plays into myths of ghosts having homes/haunts that they prefer. I suppose displacement could be non-random and based simply upon the ratio just mentioned in italics, but the mysterious nature of an exorcism would practically demand unpredictability.) I wouldn't require any items and would certainly not cause items to be used up by exorcisms, because I think it makes less sense for spirit-world interaction to be a matter of potions and incense than for it to occur in a certain mental state (reached through intense concentration by scientists and chanting by shamans; the skill would be the same, but the flavor text would differ).

I suppose I should mention that I'm trying to imagine spirits as existing in an alternate, simultaneous realm, not as misty apparitions capable of bumping things in the night and creating sound waves. (I guess that means screams, shrieks and wails damage a player's health by damaging their psyche and thus weakening their spirit-body connection, or something.) If anyone can provide a consistent (if fantastic) explanation of spirits in classical and/or Caribbean mythology, this might be a good place to do so. — Elembis (talk) 04:40, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

The previous discussion was tucked away on the Suggestion Talk page where it wasn't very visible. Exorcism. I'm not sure if merging is necessary, but some of the discussion there can carry over here. --Lint 00:02, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

The AP cost of Exorcism can be compared to Success-Likelihood * Number-Affected * Distance-Displaced. Sending a spirit 15-40 squares away in a random direction seems like a good idea (imho they should land out of sight of the camp). This will cost the spirit 15-40 AP to recoup. To charge the same amount to the scientist/shaman, we could use an AP cost of (e.g.) 4 per Exorcism combined with a 25%-10% chance of Exorcism success. Unless Exorcism gives an XP reward, tho, there isn't much incentive to use it ... So with no XP reward, I'd be happier with a cheaper and more effective Exorcism skill. For example, cost could be 3-5 AP, and effectiveness could be 40%-50% (for example, 40% chance on one spirit, then if successful 40% chance on another spirit, and so on, if you want a very slight chance to banish multiple spirits). Certain charms (such as the Silver Cross for Outsiders/Outsider Knowledge) could either be necessary pre-requisites, or perhaps greatly increase the ritual's effectiveness. Perhaps the charm or cross is used to bless fresh water, which in turn becomes able to be consumed in Exorcism. I support more complex item interaction -- Shartak would benefit from item-dependent skills. --Tycho44 05:09, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

It'd be least jarring for players if successes seemed related to the odds of utter failure (i.e., no "failure, big success, big success, failure" stuff); for example, the odds might be 20% for a complete miss, 20% for a displacement of 1 to 3 squares, 20% for a displacement of 4 to 8 squares, 20% for a displacement of 9 to 15 squares, and 20% for a displacement of 16 to 25 squares. To get such an exponential distribution, get a random number from 0 to 5, square it, round it down, and displace the spirit by that number. In practice, this would mean a displacement of 20 or more squares would occur just 10% of the time, and the (mean) average displacement (if I did the integration properly) would be about 8 squares. Since exorcism will be the only way for a living player to harm a spirit, and assuming there will be no XP gain for using the skill, I think a cost of 1 AP per exorcism will be fine. — Elembis (talk) 03:18, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Elembis gives another good method of implementing exorcism (Equivalently, you can generate a random number 0 to 1, then multiply by 25, then round down). From my perspective: In fine literary (movie?) tradition, I was envisioning an exorcism as an event that either works spectacularly or fails utterly (on any particular spirit). I can't think of many exorcism examples where the spirit is driven out of the bedroom into the stairway or the breakfast nook. So I'd be happier with an exorcism that kicked 15+ squares (or none at all). --Tycho44 05:59, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I personally like the idea of ghosts and what not, but I hate the fact that as the living we have no effect on them. So I propose in the interest of gameplay distinction we only give the exorcism skill (the ability to banish spirits to a random location) to only the outsider scientist class and for the shaman class (given their nature) create a new “revive/raise” skill which like the NPC shaman’s in the game “return spirits to a body”, the percentage chance of success should be low (5%), with an XP reward of 5 or 10 (anymore would encourage farming) while everything else remains the same as a normal revive, this means shamans can force revive annoying spirits and/or promote party/group explorations as they don’t have to start over since it reduces the need to contact shamans (as long as the shaman is alive that is). To maintain fairness additional gameplay distinction may include the newly revived having only a half life (30HP instead of max HP) and/or more AP cost to stand up. Furthermore this new skill maybe tweaked to allow shamans to have a new avenue in necromancy powers over dead bodies like perhaps zombies.--A for anarchy 02:52, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Scientists are men of reason and thus I do not believe they are the type who would use exorcism to banish spirits. I think they should use cameras (a suggested item) to capture the spirits and carry them away from the camp to a shaman.--Darkferret 04:41, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Moved from Suggestions:Skills: I feel that powerful native Shamans should have a greater degree of power over spirits. The skill would be in the same branch as the Sixth Sense and Seance abilities and would give Shamans the ability to exorcise a single identified spirit from the area for 5 AP. It would work by automatically moving the spirit a number of sqaures in a random direction (east, west, northwest etc). The power of the skill would be dependant on the level of the Shaman using it - the number of sqaures the spirit is moved will be equal to the level of the Shaman. For example, a level 15 Shaman with this skill would be able to use the skill on a spirit in the same area and send it 15 squares in a random direction. I feel this skill would do a great deal to make things more interesting for spirit players. I think generally that the natives should have a greater degree of power over spiritual things than the outsiders (although they would have different advantages) --Zeff 18:01, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Indeed mystery commenter, I must admit though that I like the idea of using the Shaman's level to determine how many squares to send the spirit. --Simon 20:26, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Very good. Displacement depends on the shaman's level while the chance of success (assuming success isn't guaranteed) is static (around 40%, perhaps, with a 2 AP use cost) or dependent on the distances to the two parties' home camps (see my comment above) if that's feasable. — Elembis (talk) 22:44, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Isn't the repulsion of spirits against the Free Lunch principle? If a spirit player donated to be exempt from the action limit(though this can be done with an action limit), they could have a team of shamen pursue their spirit character to move them without using any of the spirit's AP. Even if movement is random they would find opportunities to scare frequently enough.--Darkferret 23:03, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Wouldn't that evoke the "curse" upon them for working together? At any rate I like the idea of being able to stick it to the spirits. Try one night in the York medical hut and you'll see what I mean. --One of many doctors 00:42, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I've been tormented by ghosts and I think that we need to capture them with cameras, forcing them to revive instead of letting them wander back into town.--Darkferret 02:33, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Identification of strangers

Author	Timestamp	Type	Scope
Elembis	06:18, 28 July 2006 (UTC)	Ability	Identification of strangers

As a native, I would like an "Identify an outsider" button when standing on the same square as one or more outsiders I can't recognize. (Outsiders would have the same thing for natives, naturally.) It's unrealistic that the best ways to identify people are to attack them or give them gold. It's also bothersome; gold coins are hard to find in the wilderness, and a cheapskate may attack a stranger only to regret the attack upon discovering that their target was a peaceful person. If you're the sort of player who likes to attack every stranger you meet, that's fine. However, many people do discriminate between strangers, and it shouldn't be unduly hard for them to simply figure out who someone is.

Identification would cost 1 AP. Flavor text could be something like

You examine an outsider until you're able to tell them apart from all the others. They are Leaky Bocks.

I estimate that this change will have the following effects:

Identification before an attack will be easier and thus more attractive to moderately peaceful players, resulting in less "gratuitous cross-class violence" (as Tycho44 put it) at the hands of players who wish to avoid it.
Identify Friend or Foe supporters will no longer be subject to the current "peace tax".
Non-participants in the IFF initiative will neither receive gold from curious players nor see who has identified them. However, after they are identified they may still be given gold or even spoken to (which I prefer from a roleplaying perspective) if cheaper identification makes people more willing to interact with those they identify. I know I'd rather spend 1.5 AP to identify someone and speak to them than 1 AP and a coin to merely identify them.

Since it's already possible to identify a stranger in ways that help them (by giving gold) or hurt them (by attacking), why shouldn't there be a more direct middle path?

Comments
I'm looking for a flaw in the reasoning here, but I can't find one. I support this. 18:40, 31 July 2006. Black Joe

The only flaw I can see is already in the game. How do you figure out who someone is, just by giving them a gold coin or attacking them. *slash* Oh, scuse me a second while I check the back of your jacket for a name tag. Same sort of thing applies to staring at someone and figuring out what their name is. --Simon 00:40, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
- "I'd like to stare at someone long enough to figure out what they look like and what they're wearing and carrying." I support this. For convenience, the game has already conflated face-recognition with user-profile. There doesn't exist an in-between level: either you know all their skills and their profile description, or you aren't able to target them at all. We could eventually migrate toward a solution (and perhaps introduce new skills and actions, such as Disguise that would conceal your skillset and kill stats). But in the meantime it would be nice to have the suggested convenience. --Tycho44 21:05, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Drowning

Author	Timestamp	Type	Scope
Zeff	22:10, 1 August 2006 (UTC)	Game mechanics	Environment

Perhaps there should be some rules for drowning? Many players in Shartak (including my character, Zeff) like to camp/sleep in the water. I feel there should be a risk of drowning when a player spends a long period of time in deep water - shallow water would not apply. Perhaps something like this - If a player spends over 2 hours in the water "drowning damage" comes into effect (regardless of whether or not the player has the swimming skill) and every futher hour 10 damage is dealt to the player - either "drowning damage" or instant drowning after 3 hours - with a message "you have drowned". Another additional possibility is have the character drift in the water - especially if they go into deep water - I like the idea of leaving a character in the water when you log out, and when you log back in they are washed up on another part of the island with most of their hit points missing. Although that might be a bit complicated to do...

Comments

Nice. Drifting could be done, although it may make things complicated if you drift too quickly. I certainly don't think you'd move very far in a few hours otherwise it would be far too easy to lose sight of the giant squid you were attacking (for example). There would probably have to be some kind of data in the map that says where you drift to from that square, even if the drifting changes slightly. --Simon 22:39, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
Sounds like a good idea. Also, driftwood could possibly be incorporated into this, perhaps giving a lower chance of drowning, lower drowning damage, or maybe making the player drift further. -Peg-Hand Grimm

Pigeon postal service

Author	Timestamp	Type	Scope
One of many doctors	17:06, 18 August 2006 (UTC)	improvement	Outsiders (I imagine a different version for Natives

Right now I have encountered difficulties whenever I try to contact someone in game. There is (currently) no way right now of contacting people in game without finding them. To improve on that, I thought there should be a sort of postal service. The idea is simple. You go to a post office to do one of three things 1) buy a pigeon so you can write a letter from anywhere and send it to the post office (at a cost of 2 GC) 2) write a letter at the post office for posting (at a cost of 1 GC) 3) receive mail (at a cost of 0 GC). To prevent harassment of players you can even instruct the postal staff to burn any letters from ignoramus people (you must tell them before hand otherwise they will burn everything).

The postal staff has burned 3 letters from unwanted peoples since your last visit.
You buy a pigeon at the cost of 2 GC. It looks anxious to be on its way home again.
The post woman takes your letter and smiles knowingly.

The idea may need some tweaking but this is just a suggestion on how to create in game messages.

Comments
Sounds like an interesting idea. The only real problem that might happen is that if you've off on long journeys, you may not have the time to stop into a town and check your mail. Perhaps the pigeons could also fly to you, where ever you may be, and give you the letter? --Che 22:24, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Could you buy local pigeons and deliver them to another town for sale at a higher price?--Darkferret 02:25, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Since pigeons can only return to one place I imagine that foreign post offices would pay a premium for pigeons that can go to other cities. For example, a pigeon bought at York and will return to York is only 2 GC, but a pigeon bought at York that will return to Derby will cost 10 GC or more because you can't raise pigeons to fly to Derby in York.

Climbable Trees and high areas

Author	Timestamp	Type	Scope
Zeff	11:49, 21 August 2006 (UTC)	Game mechanics and Skill	Environment

This is more like two suggestions bundled into one, but they are closely related. I think climbable trees (areas of jungle) would be a great addition to the game. With the use of a climbing skill (perhaps easier to learn for natives) players can "climb" into the jungle canopy (for 5AP) providing the jungle is heavy (dark green and above). This would provide an excellent way to "hide" from other players and give another bonus which I will get back to. If a player chops jungle where a player is hiding above them, that player falls to the ground for a medium amount of damage. Other players would have a chance of spotting people hiding above them, each time they move to a different jungle area (50% and 100% if you use search in the area - a message "you spot *name* hiding in the canopy above you"). Also players will be able to jump from tree to tree for 2AP. Now, onto the "other bonus" mentioned earlier - this bonus also effects areas such as the mountain and the crows nest at the shipwreck giving "high areas" more of a tactical use. These areas should allow you to spot people (outsiders, pirates and natives) in the distance. When you are in one of these areas you would be able to "see" the number of people to the north, east, south and west - this will include areas such as north-east and south-west as "north" will mean a general cone shape north of the player. For example in the crows nest at the shipwreck, there will be a button "lookout" which would display the following text- "You scan the horizons - North - You see 1 native nearby. East - You see 6 pirates nearby. You see 3 pirates in the distance. South - You see 12 pirates nearby. You see 4 pirates and 2 outsiders in the distance. West - You see 7 pirates nearby. You see 2 pirates and 4 natives in the distance." Of course if you did this on the mountain, you wouldn't be able to see through solid rock. The sight range would be perhaps 20 squares, anything over 10 squares is defined as distance. If this suggestion is implemented it will I feel it would add a whole new level to gameplay (literally!) as well as possibilities for watch-towers, and long-range rifle/blowpipe sniping!

Comments
I had thought of climbable trees, but hadn't planned on people being able to move around whilst in the tree. The biggest problem with letting you see further is that (a) it'd require more processing to handle the extra 24+ map areas, (b) Displaying the map would be quite tricky due to the sizes of squares required to be able to hold text and icons. I had envisaged something like "You climb a tree. [down]" as the stuff on the right, no other actions except down. The left hand side would be a map area about the same size as currently, but where each block was replaced with a 3x3 area. This would give you the ability to see terrain from 7 blocks all around (15x15 grid). --Simon 00:52, 23 August 2006 (UTC) To be honest, I wasn't thinking of actually showing the areas you can see, I was thinking along the lines a purely text feature, that would operate in a similar way to "search". There would be a button that would "list" each direction (N,E,S,W) and the players you could see in those areas. Actually displaying more sqaures on screen sounds pretty complicated... --Zeff

Importance of the Islands of Shartak

Author	Timestamp	Type	Scope
Gandhi	16:00, 23 August 2006 (UTC)	Improvement	Environment

The many Islands of Shartak have been the source of some of the most heated conflicts seen to date; however, such islands truly offer nothing more then a secluded patch of beach and jungle. To make these Island more desirable, I think new or stronger animals should be confined to these Islands, or possibly an implementation of the "New Strategic Location on Island" suggestion. When Darwin visited the Galapagos Islands, he noticed that the species he found evolved separately from creatures on the mainland. The same should be true with Shartak.

Comments
Possible animals:

Gorillas - stronger than a monkey, hit harder
Rhinos - less HP than elephants, but more aggressive and hit harder

Or Mythical/Exotic Creatures:

Ogopogo - like the Squid, but confined specifically to the waters around the Island; could possibly give special power/stat increase when successfully killed
Dragon - Travels between all Islands; hits extremely hard, but flies to adjacent squares after hits; impossible to heal.
Big foot - from adjacent squares, it is seen as "An Outsider" but once on the same square, he appears as Big Foot. Same stats as outsider, with more HP. Gandhi 16:00, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

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 I had thought of climbable trees, but hadn't planned on people being able to move around whilst in the tree. The biggest problem with letting you see further is that (a) it'd require more processing to handle the extra 24+ map areas, (b) Displaying the map would be quite tricky due to the sizes of squares required to be able to hold text and icons. I had envisaged something like "You climb a tree. [down]" as the stuff on the right, no other actions except down. The left hand side would be a map area about the same size as currently, but where each block was replaced with a 3x3  area. This would give you the ability to see terrain from 7 blocks all around (15x15 grid). --[[User:Simon|Simon]] 00:52, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
+To be honest, I wasn't thinking of actually showing the areas you can see, I was thinking along the lines a purely text feature, that would operate in a similar way to "search". There would be a button that would "list" each direction (N,E,S,W) and the players you could see in those areas. Actually displaying more sqaures on screen sounds pretty complicated... --[[User:Zeff|Zeff]]|
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Difference between revisions of "Suggestions:Game mechanics"

Revision as of 19:54, 26 August 2006

Example

Contents

Game Mechanics

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Pet System

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slots/ new inventory

Boat Construction

Poisoning

PvP Protection

New strategic location on island

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Message in a bottle

Map quest

Living countermeasures against spirits

Identification of strangers

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Pigeon postal service

Climbable Trees and high areas

Importance of the Islands of Shartak

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