House Servants

Jurixe

I am very excited by this new addition, especially because housing is something I have a significant interest in at the moment. Major kudos to the admin for adding this, you've made my day and my head is filled with all sorts of ideas. Housing has such great potential for roleplay and I'm really excited to see it being given some love. I hope the trend continues!

I know you said to IDEA it if we wanted to suggest any changes, but I was thinking that perhaps a thread would be useful too so you don't get a hundred of the same ideas - and perhaps some can be weeded out by the playerbase too.

So! In terms of the denizens offered, (please correct me if I'm wrong here) beyond the base name of the denizens, there actually isn't much separating them in terms of functionality, it's down to you to assign the 'correct' reactions, so to speak. I'd really love to see some reactions that are tied to that particular denizen type - for instance, (I don't know if this is possible at all) perhaps you could have the chef create a customisable selection of food, a bartender to do drinks, or if this isn't possible maybe you could just be able to 'stock' them with food and drink you make yourself and have them give them to people when they do a particular reaction. If they run out of 'stock', then the reaction wouldn't fire. So these reactions would be unique to those job types.

Some suggestions of mine:

- Give the option for maids/butlers/servants/cleaners to pick up anything off the ground that isn't immovable or flamed. Might be annoying, might not, just depends how you want to use it.
- This is somewhat of a pipe dream, but allow servants to interact with certain housing improvements - primarily thinking of the fireplace. Perhaps you could have a reaction to have the butler light the fireplace if you give him wood?
- Allow the creation of items, or failing that, allow the option to 'stock' denizens with items to give. So you could stock maids with towels, chefs with food and so on.
- I IDEA'd a suggestion for a guard option. Perhaps these guards could open doors if you gave the correct password or phrase, assuming you were on a particular approved list (like boarding perms for ships)?
- Allow servants to replace sigils. It's something that people have wanted for a while and I think would be quite happy to pay for, to be honest.

Suggested new denizen types:
- Musician/musicians (courtesy of @Xer), guard, stablehand, gardener, bartender, librarian.

I'm sure I'll think of more ideas later, but that's what I have.

Questions:

- I'm wondering how much freedom we'll have with these customisations. I mean, assuming we don't have to have the base name in the short/in-room desc, I can completely envision people customising a 'servant' to be a 'brown-haired dog' or something.
- Will these be available on ships?
- Is there a limit to how many servants you can have?
- The news post mentioned the possibility of denizens assisting with rituals. What I'd like to know is whether denizens would be allowed to have sequential timed reactions, so for instance if I had like...a servant in my demonic chamber of summoning or whatever, and I said:

"Begin the ritual."

Would it be possible for the servant to do:

A black-robed servant bows and hurries over to the altar, picking up a silver bowl and returning to your side. Drawing a knife from his robes, he slits his wrist over the bowl, filling it with blood.

Looking pale, a black-robed servant sets the bowl down on the floor in front of you and takes a piece of chalk from the satchel at his side, quickly sketching a pentagram around the bowl.

As the pentagram begins to glow red, a black-robed servant bows his head, clasps his fingers together and begins a low, incomprehensible chant.

Etc etc. Is that (1) possible, and (2) would it be one reaction or multiple? How would it be set up?

I can't think of any more right now, but everyone's welcome to add stuff!

Aerek

When I saw this announce, I knew immediately that Jurixe would be skipping down Mhaldor Road, hugging random strangers, and composing text walls in unadulterated joy.

Melodie

You submit the idea #856 'Some suggestions for servant types: Stable boy/girl, stablemaster/mistress, groomsman, handmaiden (for the fancy types), nanny (to watch over children! sort of), gardener, squire (to go with page). Also potentially messenger boys, which will allow the servant to have the same or similar functionality to the messenger boys located in a few of the cities (i.e. Cyrene - delivering messages by word of mouth or tells only, no mail/packages).' for review.

My contribution from earlier in the day! I'm all about expanding this system and having several types of servants that can have various duties. Also really love the idea of stocking/buying things for servants to use/have, like food, wine, etc.

Will add any ideas as they come to mind and I'm not working on 2-3 hours of sleep.

Achimrst

I have already foamed at the mouth from the thought of having fun denizens do my bidding. This is the best thing ever.

Jurixe

I see you reading this thread @Tecton! Maybe you can shed some light on these questions above?

Tecton

Jurixe said:

I see you reading this thread @Tecton! Maybe you can shed some light on these questions above?

<lorielan>No.</lorielan>

Sena

For expanded servant functionality, I'd like the option of having them refill mount feedbags.

Also, an idea I had for enabling servants to give/use items (putting down sigils, offering food, feeding mounts etc.) is to sell some special container (Servants' Chest?) for room credits, which servants can use items from, and which will prevent the contents from decaying but not allow you to take items out of it. That adds a credit cost for the expanded functionality, uses player-made items (as opposed to servants generating new sigils and such), and lets you stock decaying items without being usable as general non-decay storage (if items decayed, you would either have to buy new sigils or what just as often, defeating the purpose, or the servant would have to create sigils instead of using player-made sigils).

For the "so you don't get a hundred of the same ideas" part of the thread, the servant types I've suggested are groundskeeper, footman, knave, valet, governess, secretary, and porter. Now that I think about it though, they'd probably need to be gender-neutral to allow players to assign genders, so that excludes footman, knave, and governess.

Katzchen

Does anyone know what the max denizens you can have is?

ETA: Also do they return if they die?

Tecton

Jurixe said:

Questions:

- I'm wondering how much freedom we'll have with these customisations. I mean, assuming we don't have to have the base name in the short/in-room desc, I can completely envision people customising a 'servant' to be a 'brown-haired dog' or something.
- Will these be available on ships?
- Is there a limit to how many servants you can have?
- The news post mentioned the possibility of denizens assisting with rituals. What I'd like to know is whether denizens would be allowed to have sequential timed reactions, so for instance if I had like...a servant in my demonic chamber of summoning or whatever, and I said:

"Begin the ritual."

Would it be possible for the servant to do:

A black-robed servant bows and hurries over to the altar, picking up a silver bowl and returning to your side. Drawing a knife from his robes, he slits his wrist over the bowl, filling it with blood.

Looking pale, a black-robed servant sets the bowl down on the floor in front of you and takes a piece of chalk from the satchel at his side, quickly sketching a pentagram around the bowl.

As the pentagram begins to glow red, a black-robed servant bows his head, clasps his fingers together and begins a low, incomprehensible chant.

Etc etc. Is that (1) possible, and (2) would it be one reaction or multiple? How would it be set up?

I can't think of any more right now, but everyone's welcome to add stuff!

- They'll still need to retain their "name", much like normal customisations.
- They should work for ship cabin expansions, yes.
- No limits at this time.
- The system doesn't support multiple actions for a single action at the moment, no. You'd have to set them up as individual reactions TELL SERVANT DO 1, DO 2 etc.

Sena

Katzchen said:

ETA: Also do they return if they die?

Yes. Says so in HELP HOUSING SERVANTS.

Melodie

Katzchen said:

Does anyone know what the max denizens you can have is?

ETA: Also do they return if they die?

They do return when they die, yes.

Tecton

Katzchen said:

Does anyone know what the max denizens you can have is?

ETA: Also do they return if they die?

They do reset, yes.

Melodie

Ninja'd! 

Jurixe

I'm not constantly refreshing this thread to see responses at all, nope.

Thank you @Tecton.

I really like @Sena's idea, but my concern is how such a chest would handle different item types and how different servants would use it. For example, if I wanted the maid to hold towels and the cook to serve pies and stew. But maybe that could be something set in the reaction, I guess?

Tecton

We probably wouldn't do things that take away from human interaction and personal upkeep, so having them put down sigils and the like isn't on the cards.

Jurixe

Aww. Is that just in relation to the sigil upkeep, or is that also in response to the being able to give people items in response to words/actions? I wouldn't mind if it decayed at all, I just want to be able to have like...a servant that people can request drinks from at a party, or a chef that can actually serve up food on request if someone goes to the kitchen and says 'Can I have a bite to eat?' or something. I don't think that would take away from human interaction at all, it would just be a nice touch.

Tecton

We'd like to add that sort of functionality in the future.

Jurixe

I'm seeing the wander option as a one-time set, so that it's either static or wandering, but not both. Would it be possible to toggle it on/off? Might be nice to have them wandering generally, but not so much during events with a lot of people and a butler constantly going in and out.

Bluef

Jurixe said:

Aww. Is that just in relation to the sigil upkeep, or is that also in response to the being able to give people items in response to words/actions? I wouldn't mind if it decayed at all, I just want to be able to have like...a servant that people can request drinks from at a party, or a chef that can actually serve up food on request if someone goes to the kitchen and says 'Can I have a bite to eat?' or something. I don't think that would take away from human interaction at all, it would just be a nice touch.

Until the functionality is there for it, you can set up a couple reactions to have the denizen DROP whatever they are holding. For example - give them a handful of tequila shots to hold onto. Then...

You say, "I need a drink."
A portly servant says, "Flair was here recently. He left behind a lot of tequila."

You perk your ears up as an errant topic catches your interest.
You say, "Tequila?"
A portly servant drops a tequila slammer.

Obviously, I'm having fun imagining these. I think we need a new thread to share our denizen servants though too. Who's going to start that up? 

Jurixe

Taken from the denizen reaction scroll:

    - Drop an item that has been given to the denizen (this action can only be used in response to the "give" trigger) (DROP)

I was under the impression that this meant the denizen would only drop the item given to them, much like when you give them a quest item meant for another denizen. Do feel free to correct me if I'm wrong on this.

Bluef

Oh, drat. You're quite right. Do they have to drop what's given though?

Taraus

Wtb XO for QD.

Jurixe

I don't think they have to, I imagine you can give them things without them dropping it if you don't get the reaction. But conversely, I don't think they can drop things under any other circumstances (at least the way it's set up now).

Bluef

Then maybe it would be more like...

You say, "I need a drink."
A portly servant says, "Flair was here recently. He left behind a lot of tequila."

You perk your ears up as an errant topic catches your interest.
You say, "Tequila?"
A portly servant says, "That'll cost you 1 gold."

You give 1 gold sovereign to a portly servant.
A portly servant drops a tequila slammer.

Jurixe

No, I'm pretty sure (again, I'd be happy to be wrong) that they just drop the item given to them if you choose that reaction.

So it would be more like:

You give an elegant white letter to a portly servant.
A portly servant turns the letter over, peers at it, and shrugs before dropping it on the ground.
A portly servant drops an elegant white letter.

Eld

Taraus said:

Wtb XO for QD.

All I could think in response to this:

Harmonia

Does this mean I will finally get my own dwarf slave...er..servant that I can dress, chain to my gown, and kick when I have a fit of rage? <swoons>

Jurixe

Also something I'd like to suggest - maybe we could have a reaction to summon the denizen from anywhere in the house, much like a pet 'Come here' kind of thing.

Shirszae

Not sure if this has been mentioned, but people allow people to be conditions in themselves? So for example, a servant can have different reactions to an emote depending on who exactly does it.