So, this suggestion is about mobs who wear ethereal (or however you wish to call them) items. Such item will basicly be "rotdeath" items and the item will go poof from the mob's corpse once the mob is dead.
Reason for this is newbies to gain some knowledge when they go on exploration trips. The fact that some items are never in is a huge CON and removes any desire to go on exploration trips.
If there are already enough rares/uniques of certain kind in the lands, NPCs will wear their ethereal versions.
We can even go so far and perhaps make the item last like 1 hour and then disappear from your inventory.
I don't see any downside. Positive is that newbies can check first hand which NPC holds which rares, even though the NPC doesn't actually hold it at the moment.
This would effectively nullify the utility of the locate object spell. Do you really want to organize a party for Gear, only to have the Arctron, Powerfists and Fleshworks all poof the moment the mob dies? I'd much rather know that they aren't there and not waste the time/effort.
Ethereal (or Illusion) items should not be locate-able, IMHO. They should however always be on the MOB that has the item, but already maxed out. So if you happen to walk across that goblin guard with the goblin sword, and its actually not in, but notice he's wielding the goblin sword (and its ethereal) you know where to look later.
+1 on the idea.
Make them nolocate and obviously ethereal when someone looks at the mob wearing it, sure, no problems then. Else it'd just inspire a lot of mobkilling that would end up just frustrating people.
This is an absolutely awesome idea.
Pretty good idea. Only potential downside I see is new players (the people this would help in the first place) getting frustrated and not understanding why the items are disappearing. Thoughts on working through that?
"Help ethereal" with some RP explanation should do I believe.
I though F0xx was sugesting making alll god items rotdeath, which would be a kick *** idea.
Pretty good idea. Only potential downside I see is new players (the people this would help in the first place) getting frustrated and not understanding why the items are disappearing. Thoughts on working through that?
While putting a help file in there would be good, and a given, I'd have thought (as foxx suggested); making it a part of the newbie guild quests would be a much better idea. More direct, at any rate.
Perhaps instead of the 'buy weapon' quest from Tamara, do it as a 'find xxx mob, look to see if he has xxx weapon/armor and kill it.' Oh, it had the Ethereal aura? Sorry. At least you know where to look for xxx weapon/armor now! Take this money and buy a xxx, then.
The only downside I see are thieves/disarm. Unless the items are noremove/drop/4000 lbs/etc. Or was it the loading I think would be harder unless hardcoded in.
There are also a number of mobs that are far stronger either before or after disarming them... I wonder how such a change would handle that. Would they just always have the ethereal weapon, even after it is disarmed, and strike as if armed always? Or if they've got the ethereal weapon, would they fight as if always unarmed? Or would the ethereal weapon just poof if disarmed?
I really like this idea, however wonder how it would be accomplished. Would it just require some nifty coding, or would each item need a duplicate for its ethereal version? I personally think that the Ethereal version should not be on said mob. If it were a weapon or shield, it should evaporate when it lands on the ground so disarming it is pointless.
Big proponent of the idea with no-locate ethereal items and items "poofing" upon hitting the ground with disarms/etc. We also have to make them non-requestable for goodies.
Great idea, f0xx!
would this prevent the real item from filling that slot on the mob once its available? may be something else to consider, otherwise i like it. would answer a lot of questions i had.
Pretty good idea. Only potential downside I see is new players (the people this would help in the first place) getting frustrated and not understanding why the items are disappearing. Thoughts on working through that?
I personaly do not like the idea, because it may create EQ trips that end with no reward.
But a good way to bypass newbie frustration is to room emote a message when the item decays. Perhaps give it 2-5 tics before decay occurs, like meat bat wings/body parts/meat weapons.
Sugested message: Xyz having lost the powerful magical link to it's master is unable to support so many copies and decays into dust.
