Want to know community opinion on ME

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Alteor
Adept
Posts: 101
Joined: 23 Nov 2017 03:45

Want to know community opinion on ME

Post by Alteor » 02 Dec 2017 23:02

Hello!

Some people here might be aware that I've been grumbling a bit around about ME. I sent some mails to some wizards too.

I got some reasonable responses, and people said I should Wizup to do the changes I want...

So I am writing this topic to explain what I intend to do, becoming wizard is quite a commitment, specially new wizards have some rules that are bothersome from my perspective, and also I would have to meet expectations of lots of people.

Also Finwe, that is the Liege domain, so far is silent, I don't know his opinion on all this, maybe he will just say "no" and nothing will happen.

So I want to know people opinions before I push with this further.

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The main source of the problem is this: Minas Morgul existed, it was possible to be even King of Minas Morgul, so whoever was Wizard at the time, expanded Minas Tirith, and added Dunedain guild to the fifth circle, to people wanting to RP being Dunedain.

This had some effects:

1. To be Dunedain, you had to be good aligned. This was intended, still to this time when you join the guild, you must swear an oath of allegiance to Gondor, Valar, etc...

2. To be Dunedain you must have done some of Hunthor quests, to be able to reach the guild, this at time ensured there was no "clueless" people joining.

3. Minas Tirith had a place for good players to rest and whatnot.

Later, Dunedain guild was moved to Pelargir, the intention was allow Evil players to join too... Unfortunately the result was quite nasty:

1. Although the guild was intended to be good aligned, most Houses ended in the hands of evil characters, evne when it makes no sense at all lore-wise.

2. During the conflicts for control, some nasty behaviour happened, including people deleting each other book from library, and some game mechanics abuse.

3. Minas Tirith turned into a "NPC city", the city has no interesting services like Palanthas and Sybarus, no guilds, no clubs. There is no reason to visit Minas Tirith except to do quests, and to those that WANT to live in Minas Tirith, it is almost impossible, there is nowhere to store your stuff or hire horses nearby (and no decent docks either)

4. Dunedain guild was designed to be inside Minas Tirith, in room design and whatnot, this shows a bit: it relies heavily on stores that are in Minas Tirith, and room descriptions mention stuff that is non-existing or make no sense in Pelargir.


Dunedain guild has also some other problems due to its age and lack of updating.

----

So my proposal, that I would try to execute wizing up:

1. Create Black Numenorean guild.

2. Fix some Dunedain houses, Borlad for example is not Dunedain (he is easterling), that house need to be moved to Black Nuemoreans or a Haradrim guild.

3. Still on Houses subject, House Umarth and House Thalion refer to exact same char, that didn't even had descendants... completely unsure what to do about that. Maybe move the players of these houses to Black Numenorean guild and let them pick new name?

4. Move Dunedain Hall back to Minas Tirith

5. Because neutrals might want to be Dunedain, a change to Minas Tirith rules: allow non-evil chars to enter during peace-time, and during 'war time', where more goodness is required to enter, allow neutral dunedain to enter anyway.

6. Like Krynn, add some features to make Gondor (the realm) more interesting to those that join racial guilds there, like letting people mess with gates, NPCs that react to them (including the Dunedain NPCs should react to their own family, like the Belecthor NPCs being happy to see their kin)

7. Add some way to allow heirlooms easier... dunno how yet. Maybe tweak Pelargir jewelery shop a bit. Maybe add custom signet rings to it for dunedain and black numenoreans... Also lords-only clothes.

8. Maybe steal from Krynn too, allow mounts being dressed in house colours and crest.

9. add some way to dunedain/black numenoreans track their own progress inside the guild... right now it is kidna insane, you just "advance" from unknown to another unknown, and there is no way at all to know what is your current status, except sometimes be surprised by the trainer NPC refusing to teach stuff. (I mean thigns like titles or guild items that change, like other guilds have)

---

Features I intend to give to Dunedain and Black Numenorean guilds:

1. simple storage (example, a box, wardrobe, whatever) in their "home" rooms, mostly so people don't clutter the floor as it currently happens.

2. RP-related items on shops, for example for dunedain clothes with the house crests and/or gondor crest, thematic armour and weapons, etc... they don't have to be excellent, just to provide some stereotypical looks stuff. (like how rockfriends guild sell axes, or there is a bow shop near noldor guild, or knights of solamnia armours and clothes)

3. themed-mounts, Black Numenoreans already have some (in the evil guilds), Dunedain would use the Royal Stables in Minas Tirith.

4. give some rooms Dunedain hall is supposed to have (according to its own desc anyway), specially, a meeting room, with chairs and refreshments, like I saw in some other guilds and clubs. Same thing for black numenorean guild.

5. Some skill rework...

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About skill rework: the Duendain skills are mostly fine, in fact many people I talked about Dunedain guild made clear they want to join the guild just for the skills... not the RP... But there is one skill that is rather strange. Dunedain learn "life spells", but no spell. It is either redundant (if they DO learn a life spell, they are already in a guild that teaches it), or useless. (they have no life spell to cast). Also, life spells is useless to black numenoreans, thematically...

So unless community is strongly against it for balance reasons, I would give Dunedain one or two minor life spells, and Black Numenoreans would have the 'death spells' skill, and one or two death spells. Otherwise black numenorean skills would be identical to dunedain ones.

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Final houses distribution:

surely Dunedain: (houses that make no sense as black numorean)

Amandil, Aranarth, Beor, Belecthor, Hador, Hurin, Hallacar

possible Black numenorean: (maybe have those houses exist in both guilds?)

Agarwaen+Thalion+Umarth (these 3 houses refer all to same family unit... Dunno why the 3 exist, should be only one)

Haladin (lore has both dunedain and black numenorans in this house)

House that shouldn't exist as Dunedain or Black numenorean:

Borlad (they are easterlings, should go to a Haradrim guild at least)

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In my opinion black numenorean houses should use black speech as language for name, instead of Sindarin...

Also house Agarwaen+Thalion+Umarth should be renamed, or merged... And new houses created with other cahracter names, or reusing some existing houses of the lore that ended ignored.

I wonder who the original creator of the guild was, to know his reasoning for the choice of house names. some feel just 'tacked on', like Umarth+Thalion that refer to exact same person, or Borlad, that wasn't Dunedain (not Borlad himself, but other people from his race used to enslave Dunedains by force so... very opposite of dunedain instead).

Draugor
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Re: Want to know community opinion on ME

Post by Draugor » 02 Dec 2017 23:34

There are quite alot of things as a wizard that needs to be done before they will let you fiddle with guilds I believe, that rule is quite iron clad.

Alteor
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Re: Want to know community opinion on ME

Post by Alteor » 02 Dec 2017 23:43

Draugor wrote:There are quite alot of things as a wizard that needs to be done before they will let you fiddle with guilds I believe, that rule is quite iron clad.
Just lets say some wizards I talked to, said they might (it is not a surely) let me do this.

Part of the reason is that I am already a game programmer, with released games and whatnot.

To be honest I never coded anything in LPC though... I know MUSHCode (used by Mushes), C, C++, Lua and some other shit.

Gadez
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Re: Want to know community opinion on ME

Post by Gadez » 02 Dec 2017 23:48

Good ideas - back in the days, Recoba and I wrote up a lot of up ideas, emotes etc for a Black Num. guild.
A hard coded war system would be neat too.
In the meantime - tax Edoras and the Shire.

Alteor
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Re: Want to know community opinion on ME

Post by Alteor » 03 Dec 2017 00:27

I decided to post here the "steps" of implementation:

1. Refactor, and fix all Dunedain guild bugs.

Release step 1, work on step 2 while watching for bug reports of complaints of step 1. (players would probably see no changes here)

2. Update dunedain guild code, including adding new features that were invented after the guild was made. (stuff like thematic items), fix descriptions, fix some commands (like the command to see house members, I found about it by luck, the command makes almost no sense, and is very hard to figure by reading the in-game clues, I started to try random shit out of desperation and to my surprised it worked...)

Release step 2, work on step 3 while seeing effects of step 2 in-game.

3. Code black numenorean guild, including heavily re-using the code prepared on steps 1 and 2.

Release guild to the public, let the houses start to reorganize before step 4, give time to black numenoreans move out of the dunedain guild and join black numenorean guild on their terms (so they might change their houses and stuff, for example if they prefer to belogn to a house with black speech name and whatnot).

4. By now it should be proven the code works correctly for both guilds, having no serious bugs or imbalances found, then start teh real major change: moving the Dunedain guild back to MT, doing changes to MT, recoding existing houses, movign houses, etc...

Step 4 would probably take a while to fully implement and let players get used to it. Also it is likely any unintended consequences, exploits, bugs, etc.. will be found during that phase.

Step 5. Add the horses things for both guilds, weapons, armours, etc... anything that heavily influences gameplay... the idea is that now people are "settled" on their correct place, and thus balance-risking stuff can be made, and watched in a stable environment.

----

By then if everythign works, I woudl either retire from Wizhood, or if there is itnerested and I have time, I would try to work on the fabled war system, or work in improving MT and Minas Morgul to be more interesting, like Palanthas and Sybarus is.

Also the steps I organized in a way that all of them are beneficial, and if the proejct ends aborted after completing some of them, it is already a win for the game. Also letting senior wizards inspect... for example fixing all Dunedain guild code without changing anything at all, is a good starting project to learn how the game source code works.

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Mersereau
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Re: Want to know community opinion on ME

Post by Mersereau » 03 Dec 2017 02:47

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"Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die."
-Mel Brooks

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Shanoga
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Re: Want to know community opinion on ME

Post by Shanoga » 03 Dec 2017 06:50

Your ambition is good. You'll need a hell of a lot to be able to implement even a fraction of the changes you are looking at. I just joined the wiz team about a month ago and I still don't have write access in the domain I was assigned to, although that is totally fine with me. I am working on my project(s) and, more importantly, learning LPC.

On a separate note, I don't think there is any way you would EVER get AoB approval to add life spells to a race guild unless they are 100% cosmetic. From what I remember, there is only one race guild with any combat-related skill, and that is Rockfriend dwarves with a very very weak belt slap or something like that. The only combat benefit that they all get is in skills.

In the end, if you want to commit time to be a wizard, I say got for it. I've been playing Genesis off and on for about 15 years and I've always wanted to contribute to the game. I finally acquired some skills and decided to pull the trigger on changing my time in Genesis. I have played on my mortal character a few times, mostly for the gobbles, but the whole time I wanted to get back into my project(s).

Draugor
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Re: Want to know community opinion on ME

Post by Draugor » 03 Dec 2017 10:24

Alteor wrote:
Draugor wrote:There are quite alot of things as a wizard that needs to be done before they will let you fiddle with guilds I believe, that rule is quite iron clad.
Just lets say some wizards I talked to, said they might (it is not a surely) let me do this.

Part of the reason is that I am already a game programmer, with released games and whatnot.

To be honest I never coded anything in LPC though... I know MUSHCode (used by Mushes), C, C++, Lua and some other shit.
If so, its needed, do something about the silly system when it comes to the questions too, a capital letter or unless you remember to do the weird markins above some letters and it fucks up.

ME could use alot of touching up tbh since the code is older than Gorboths jockstrap :o

Becka
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Joined: 21 Aug 2012 23:13

Re: Want to know community opinion on ME

Post by Becka » 03 Dec 2017 20:08

Gadez wrote:Good ideas - back in the days, Recoba and I wrote up a lot of up ideas, emotes etc for a Black Num. guild.
A hard coded war system would be neat too.
In the meantime - tax Edoras and the Shire.
Me and Cel talked about this as well, must have been 15 years ago.

Personally I think once you cross Anduin you are in His lands. This should be felt, rumours say that the Gardeners from up North have send a rabble of rabbit-hunters who have setup shop in Ithilien somewhere. This is of course a great offense and an incursion into His lands. Thus, I propose more Patrols from the fair city of Minas Morgul, they could be of various size so that daring and misguided adventurers running errands for the criminal Hunthor can find places to "exp". Open up more areas east of the Morannon, sharpen up Emyn Arnen and make it a viable place to visit, apart from just being a quest area.

Just an overall make-over for the Ithilien/Osgiliath/Emyn Arnen/Morannon area would be a good start, after that I have about 1 million ideas more for a rainy day.

I would not start with the Dunadan racial, I think that there are other areas that needs "fixing up" a bit more.

/Becka's player

Johnny
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Re: Want to know community opinion on ME

Post by Johnny » 04 Dec 2017 22:07

I like the idea and believe it should be implemented. ME needs quite a bit of work I feel and it would be great to have someone working on things in ME. But I do agree with Shanoga, life spells and death spells won't be feasible unless they are solely cosmetic.

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