How did I not know this?

Axios2

Iocun said:

Because I believe that assigning a clear function to npcs harms RP/immersion. It encourages treating them as parts of a certain mechanic, rather than people. The choice whether to kill an npc or to help him shouldn't be made by the game, but by the player, based on the character he's playing. 

I already don't like things like the quest rankings, as this too leads to quests mainly being seen as a mechanic to excel at, rather than as a way to interact with the world. For hunting, this has already been the case for much longer than for quests, of course, but at least "excelling at hunting" is something that can be understood much more IC than "excelling at questing" ("hey, I'm playing a character who's really good at doing what denizens tell him to do").

I'd love to see people being much more selective about which quests they complete, which creatures they hunt. I'd love to see player conflicts based on one person wanting to help a denizen, another wanting to kill him. Sure, it's often inconvenient, and sure it often won't work out beautifully, but I'll gladly take that inconvenience for the couple of times it does lead to interesting RP interactions.

The whole idea that npcs aren't divided into quest mobs and bashing mobs has, to me, always been a very fundamental aspect of the playing experience that you get introduced to right at the start. Do you kill pixies and give them to the imp lord, or do you do the opposite? Either way, you will be completing a quest and hindering another quest by hunting at the same time. It's exactly conflicting things like this that do make Achaea great for me and its things like this that make the difference between a multiplayer game, where different interests clash, and a singleplayer game.

I think there's a middle ground here, which is making some key quest denizens for things like the quest line in question still killable but significantly stronger. The design team could literally swap the mechanics for Colbey, Serentesh, and Korlosh in Delos with a few of the key characters for that quest and solve the issue for 99% of cases. For instance one of them does double restoration leg breaks on every attack - good luck killing that. It would be justified RP-wise because those characters have descriptions and backgrounds that suggest they are extremely strong. It is justified design-wise because that quest line is very difficult and frustrating to do with hunted-out denizens, because it requires a lot of time-consuming setup and non-obvious discovery.

That said, I don't think anything is actually happening in terms of a design change, they all went invincible right after I completed a key part of that quest line that probably gets rarely completed, and they're also not responding to greetings or taking any items anymore. I think something was supposed to happen but didn't, and now it's just broken and I am awaiting a bug resolution.

Iocun

Sure, I don't mind them just being made stronger, as long as they're not outright immortal. I also quite like certain other more IC forms of protection, like Caer Witrin's defences.

Perhaps my favourite variants however would be things that involve player decisionmaking in a broader sense. What if, for instance, personal "FEELINGS VILLAGES" had in some cases an effect on city relations? Cyrenians hunting Delos guards might thus decrease their attitude towards Cyrenians in general until Colbey & Co. would refuse to teach proficiencies to any Cyrenian. This would lead to discussion and decision-making within the player-run cities themselves, lead to more interesting relations between cities and villages and encourage clear diplomatic stances, rather than a general laissez-faire attitude.

Minifie

As long as I can hunt the ele planes enough to disable ele lords game-wide.

Paux

Minifie said:

As long as I can hunt the ele planes enough to disable ele lords game-wide.

I was about to say I would be really interested to see penalties and bonuses on elemental lords (and ladies) based on what faction is dominant at the time, and quest lines and hunting to right the balance.. but then I realized people become involved at that point and it'd become "Everybody go X-lord and let's turn this thing up to 11!". People normally want to flock to the most powerful class/race/dragon/elementallord already, incentivizing it might lead to some very broken situations.

Perhaps the opposite? The more X-Lords there are in that element, the less mastery each of them holds over it? I don't know. Just thought-vomitting at this point. 

Iaxus

Or just leave the precarious balance alone and don't try to force feed bullshit extra quests into an already quest heavy element for the sake of some half assed attempt at elemental RP that will be dropped as soon as the next shiny comes along. 

Numira

This suddenly explains how I was actually able to make progress on certain quests compared to a month ago. Not having important people be dead is handy.

Armali

Minifie said:

some npcs I will leave unnamed are now unkillable! Another solid change, since they are important for things .

These guys are still bugged. Please fix

Tesha

Message #49149      Sent by Achaea

2020/6/10/20:59 Your bug report (detail: Hi! The SING emote is currently prioritized over the SING.. singing ... command. This means if you try to sing Bear the burden or sing A tale of time or sing Sothantos you are mighty, it will do the sing emote to a bear cub if it's in the room or your inventory, the sing emote to anyone whose name starts with A who is in the room, or the sing emote to Sothantos if he is in the room. It's awfully embarrassing when it happens! Please help!) - has been fixed. The following notes were included: You can simply SINGN!

What! I had no idea this was a thing. Sharing it for everyone else.

Astarod

Tesha said:

Message #49149      Sent by Achaea

2020/6/10/20:59 Your bug report (detail: Hi! The SING emote is currently prioritized over the SING.. singing ... command. This means if you try to sing Bear the burden or sing A tale of time or sing Sothantos you are mighty, it will do the sing emote to a bear cub if it's in the room or your inventory, the sing emote to anyone whose name starts with A who is in the room, or the sing emote to Sothantos if he is in the room. It's awfully embarrassing when it happens! Please help!) - has been fixed. The following notes were included: You can simply SINGN!

What! I had no idea this was a thing. Sharing it for everyone else.

Can you make it an alias? We need to weaponise that song. 

Paine

TIL that you can read logs back 10 months. All this time I thought it was 6 months!

Peak

Things I've learned since I came back from roughly 5ish years gone (with occasional check-ins):
Server side curing is now a thing
COOLDOWNS is a thing
CREDITHISTORY pretty neat
ASSIST is a thing for group hunting
You can store water in your rift
ARTSEARCH is a thing
PACKLIST is a thing
ARTEFACT RECALL (ALL|<artefact>) is a thing
ARTEFACT POWERS LIST OWNED
ARTEFACT LIST
CONSOLIDATE VIALS - hell yeah
SCORE FULL - never checked before December 2020 (2080 RPS wins - come at me)
WALKTO became a thing and then subsequently not a thing
Setting a diving bell as a landmark is a thing
CONFIG SEEASSISTS ON lets me see the fun gank squads on deathsight


Finally decided to learn what forays and legenddecks were - pretty neat


I've also been trying to remember the command FALCON OBSERVE since I got back and just got it today.

Greys

@Peak is our time capsule.

Paine

Server side ECHO lets me practice my triggers before I need them? How did I not know this?!? Has this always existed?

Kog

Paine said:

Server side ECHO lets me practice my triggers before I need them? How did I not know this?!? Has this always existed?

I've always used the Mudlet `echo alias someone wrote forever ago and now comes with blank profiles- cool that Achaea has one too!

Saonji

TIL 'swap hands' is a thing.

Shecks

Saonji said:

TIL 'swap hands' is a thing.

I had no idea, and fairly sure I've never seen anyone use it.

Outside of RP / flavor, I guess it's mildly useful if you're expecting an arm break.  I assume it doesn't work if your arm is already broken but definitely worth checking and using it if not.

Shecks

Paine said:

Server side ECHO lets me practice my triggers before I need them? How did I not know this?!? Has this always existed?

No definitely not, but agree it's super awesome.  Wish there was a way to do it with a prompt but hey, can't have everything.

Kresslack

If you do TRANSFER 1 CREDITS TO KRESSLACK FOR 0 GOLD, you get a random gift and thank you letter in return.

Greys

Glide (Dragoncraft)                           Known: Yes

----------------------------------------------------------------

Syntax:            GLIDE <direction> [distance]

Details:

When flying, you may glide on the air currents in a given direction,

moving many rooms at a time. You may additionally specify a number of

rooms to move(*).

* between 1 and 11. If on the wilderness map, the max is 5.

----------------------------------------------------------------
This so was not a thing when I became dragon.

Shecks

Greys said:

Glide (Dragoncraft)                           Known: Yes

----------------------------------------------------------------

Syntax:            GLIDE <direction> [distance]

Details:

When flying, you may glide on the air currents in a given direction,

moving many rooms at a time. You may additionally specify a number of

rooms to move(*).

* between 1 and 11. If on the wilderness map, the max is 5.

----------------------------------------------------------------
This so was not a thing when I became dragon.

Bruh.   This changes everything.

Greys

@Shecks I know! The funny thing is you go to page 1 of the thread, I even commented regarding gallop how I wish there was an equivalent thing for dragons!

Peak

TIL...

TRADE <thing> to person for # gold

Caelan

Wait, what?

Peak

Kinda upset that no one told me that Chitin Greaves were a thing.

Trey

I don't know why anyone would have thought of talking about them specifically, they've been in the game forever

Peak

@Trey I have grumbled about wanting leap or evade quite a bit, honestly, but also I'm just a noob.

Sobriquet

TIL that Reminders are a thing, thanks to @Minkai

Argwin

Repeating reminders are amazing for recurring Ministry stuff.

Accipiter

I just learnt you can WIELD <weapon> <weapon>.

Iaxus

I knew RIVALS was a thing. But I learned yesterday that RIVALRIES <person> shows you anyone's rivals.