The High Questor's Guild

Alright, so Raargant and Malchaeius are looking for ideas to promote RP flavor in game, so that got me to thinking. And so, here we go:

The High Questor's Guild

Requirements:

Race - Any

Class - Any

Align - Any

Level - 30

Cabal - May not be in a cabal

Now, what the High Questor guild will do is start with an Immortal Leader, possibly even two (perhaps new IMMS hired for this purpose, since it will be unlike any other cabal).

The mortal elder and leader of the cabal, along with any Immortal, but particularly the Immortal leader(s), will be able to grant characters Quest Points, which will be similar to Cabal Points. However, Quest Points, unlike CPs, will be harder to come by, so as there will not be as many on the market, there will also not be as high of a price to use them.

Quest Points will function to accomplish three goals: Purchase new RP-based items, Restring items and character titles, and Activate special abilities that will encourage and increase the functionability of character RP.

Now, the Questor's guild will automatically assign quests, at a much higher rate than clan quests, which will reward the completer with experience, gold, and 1-3 quest points depending on the difficulty. Quest points will be usable withing the guild at merchants (where basic items, flight potions, recall potions, food/drink, cabal-eq level weapons and armor, etc. will be sold), the Forge (where items will be restrung), the Costume Shop (where characters will be restrung), and the High Priest (where cabal-like abilities, IE - life insurance will be accessible).

The purpose of the Questor's guild is to function as a player-based RP enhancer, with minimal Immortal moderation, and to promote maximal interaction between all parties. As players grow within the guild, they will be able to access higher level RP-based abilities. Though I have very limited suggestions for these, as this is all coming off the top of my head, one such ability could be what Celerity suggested.

A holy symbol ability for communers, but also allow it to apply to melees and mages and rogues, in different symbolic venues (IE - A Shattered Skull, for Berserkers, a Shrunken Head for Shamans, etc). Also have it apply minimal stat bonuses, that increase slightly with proficiency and level. These stat bonuses, as with many things in the HQ Guild will allow players who are not in a normal cabal to be competitive with characters that are.

Characters would also gain access to a local echo ability, that would allow them to act outside of themselves in whatever room they're in, allowing for some suspension of disbelief. So, instead of seeing:

The world seems to come to a stop, the birds stop singing, the wind dies, and even Tom's parrot stops babbling.*

You would see:

The world seems to come to a stop; the birds stop singing and the wind dies down.

It just removes the obvious fact that Tom had to include his name in an smote, allowing the RP to seem more realistic.

Anyway, there will be more coming to this idea, but it just came to me, so I thought I would post it.

I like the general idea, but instead of just outright selling restrings etc sell tokens that arre valid for different things. One token for a title, one for a restrung weapon, and maybe a token can represent a weapon/armor special ability, but severely limit them. You also have to take into account imms will of course have to approve any name that is submitted for the restring

cause inevitably someone who is questing will get pissed and make some stupid name.

'Harry' Leader of the Hendersons

But other than that, I put my hands together as this is a very stellar idea IMHO.

We could also incorporate Master Questor into this. Whoever the MQ is gains Quest Points at a random rate of 1-5 every half hour or so that they hold the title.

And Emp, that's along the lines of what I was thinking, perhaps have a purchasable token that is usable at the Costume Shop or the Forge, and then it automatically restrings the character or an item through an mprog. But, it also sends a note to Immortal telling them what the restring is, so that they can approve it.

And obviously, it would be at the discretion of the IMMs whether it was acceptable - if it isn't, the item would just be eaten or returned to its original name. And also, if the person is doing something just to be an ***, they would receive a heftier punishment.

Obviously this relies a lot on the integrity of the players. But, if we're not going to give our players the benefit of the doubt, and assume that they want to RP as badly as we want them to, then why bother keeping the MUD running at all?

Additionally, perhaps members of the guild would be able to award quest points on a voted basis. So, for example, let's say Moquir decides to hold an Aabahran Carnival, and successfully pulls it off. The other members of the guild can use the vote system to award him points, and then based on the number of "Yes" votes received, he is awarded a certain number of points, such as:

1 vote - 1 point

2 votes - 2 points

3 votes - 5 points

4 votes - 10 points

5 votes - 15 points

6 votes - 20 points

7 votes - 25 points

8 votes - 35 points

9 votes - 40 points

10 votes - 50 points

The cutoff would have to be something reasonable, to prevent this from getting out of control.

And just to give an idea of the prices I was thinking:

100 Quest Points = Life Insurance

50 Quest Points = Temporarily Bind an Item

250 Quest Points = Character Restring

150 Quest Points = Weapon Restring

10 Quest Points = An HQ-only Bag containing 2 recall potions and 5 flight potions

So obviously less than the cost of cabal items, due to the lesser attainability of QP, but still reasonably high for higher level rewards.

I like the idea for rp purposes only. Id take out the life insurance and bound items etc...

I like the idea for rp purposes only. Id take out the life insurance and bound items etc...

Seconded.

Also, remove title and EQ restrings. Those are Imm rewards only. They should remain very rare as they signify a true accomplishment. If everyone has them, it's no longer special.

If the armor restring had to be in, which I hope it doesn't, then it should basically reduce the armor to nothing. This is for RP purposes, right? Otherwise it would shift the balance too much in PK.

The idea, from my point of view, is to give people the choice of leading an RP-laden character away from the world of cabals, while allowing them to remain competitive on the battlefield.

Otherwise, I would just suggest a revamp to Herald.

And keep in mind, this is in response to Malchaeius and Raargant's request for ideas regarding hard-coded RP rewards. The whole point is that players would be more rewarded for their RP.

Agreed, I think custom titles and eq should be plentiful as long as they are IC. But this by no means should give ppl custom sets that they cant lose. Hence why there should be no LI at all IMO. The eq restrings would be a lot of fun (as long as they could be stolen, pried, or looted).

Why make the custom eq statless? All the person is doing is taking their current item (banner, ice armor, ring, etc) and giving it a name that more suits their race/class/align/cabal.

I think anyone should be able to join this affiliation to encourage rp, regardless of what cabal they are or arent in.

I think anyone should be able to join this affiliation to encourage rp' date=' regardless of what cabal they are or arent in.[/quote']

Or perhaps make it an afiliation that no one can actually "join" but everyone has access to. So, everyone always has a means to get these points and there's just like a shop in each city and/or a HQ type place to do this kind of business.

I especially like this because it does even the battlefield pk-wise ever so slightly by allowing people flight potions or other handy things via roleplay. Instead of raiding mahn-tor and selling the weapons 20 times, someone could have a good roleplay session with someone, maybe get some points and be able to afford a few extra flight/cureblind potions or what have you. Obviously the cabals offer skills and would be more viable for pure pk ability, but this place would offer a reward especially for rp.

I like the idea for rp purposes only. Id take out the life insurance and bound items etc...

Thirded.

I love this cabal, would it be a sub-herald?

Would it be sub-Herald?

No. The idea is to steer clear from interfering with cabal roleplay and responsibilities.

However, I could see it being a beginning for a Trader group, and actually a way to facilitate player-run clans without the idea of having to leave cabals to join them.

IE - A band of ogres in the HQ guild, forming a tribe that only other ogres may join, and then purchasing a bunch of banners to represent themselves.

So like, IMM requirements for a player run clan could be:

Join the HQ guild.

Get 9 other people to sign your charter (or whatever).

Purchase banners for your clan.

As far as the people who say that this shouldn't affect PK, I say to you, why not? This game is supposed to be RP and PK based. If RP rewards can enhance a non-caballed players PK experience, why is that a bad thing?

The bound items would be temporarily bound, just like cabal items. And I suspect that the people bemoaning the idea of life insurance are the same people who bemoan the idea of life insurance as it is. However, something to note is that unlike cabal points, quest points would be a lot more limited, so life insurance would be nowhere near as accessible as it is in a cabal.

I don't like life insurance at all, but I can understand the reasons why there is a point for it to exists in cabal life. With it, that lonely watcher dude can give a shot at not logging out, even though there are tree tribs, two vampires, a lich, a demon and an avatar logged in. Now what in the world is the reason for it to be accessible to anyone? None!

How is the lone watcher dude against all the enemies any different than the uncaballed good against the group of five evils that are on?

Or, for that matter, the lone evil that is known to be a member of Despair, being picked on by the two or three knights that are on?

The idea is to give people that choose the path less traveled (uncaballed life) a chance to survive against the people who take all the extra abilities they can get.

I love life-insurance, but I think that is a caballed only perk.

I love restrung titles. But that should be rare and Imm given.

I love restrung armors. Though they shouldn't have stats. Why? Part of PK is looking at your enemies armors/weapons and adjusting. If you can't tell what they're using, that is a big PK perk for them. This is for RP, isn't it?

Besides, if it didn't have stats it would limit the amount of restrung eq to a minimum. Which would avoid people looking retarted with their identical armors and badly worded restrings, which would be inevitable... This is not a Godwars mud. Token restrings? Ugh!

I don't really see this as benefitting RP. The people who want custom titles and try for them actively are the people that feel a need to satisfy their egos with 'goodies'. I don't think people should feel a need to have a custom title to feel good about their RP.

I apologize if I'm raining on your parade, but I also don't see how this differs from a cabal. Quest points are basically just cabal points (the quests already give these in the amounts you described). Then, you have LI and the other cabal abilities as well.

What purpose does this guild serve other than letting people get custom titles and renames that shouldn't really be necessary for RP? Item restrings would be cool but it doesn't make much sense to force you to join a guild just to further your RP and I bet most of the renames wouldn't -really- have much to do with original RP. (Note: I'm not saying this in a negative way, I want you to flesh it out more)

How is the lone watcher dude against all the enemies any different than the uncaballed good against the group of five evils that are on?

The uncaballed guy doesn't have to engage his enemies. Within a cabal you have a duty to protect your halls/retrieve your standard.

As for your idea in whole, I don't really care if it's perfect or not. As long as it gives something new to the mud. I believe that the big guys in the admin are a bit too afraid to try new things that are not perfectly thought out. Sure, when it comes to PK things need to be balanced etc. But when it comes to RP ideas it's just fun when something happens! If we realize that an RP addition to the game wasn't as good as some of us thought, the imms can remove it or make some changes. Sure, the amount of work would not be optimized, but why not let as many as possible who knows c++ and this mud work on their and other's ideas. Then have a couple of imms check and implement everything. Maybe it's all in my fantasy, but those are my thoughts.

As H&R said, the idea's not perfect.

But, it's an idea. And Calron, the idea is that Malchaeius and Raargant asked for ideas regarding HARD-CODED rewards for RP.

I'm sorry, but what do you suggest?

I've not been as active lately as usual.. When/where did they ask for this? I'd like to read the post and possibly brainstorm a little myself.