Recent changes and the direction of the mud

[Lathander]

First let me state that you are all welcome to continue this discussion and offer suggestions. That being said, it sounds to me that we are starting to spin our wheels and repeat what has already been stated. Imms will refer to this thread when considering the player base opinions regarding spell/skill points when we are ready to tackle that issue, which will occur after other business is done that is on our agenda.

The discourse as has been posted in this thread thus far is acceptable, even appreciated. We imms get to understand what players are thinking on the topic. What I am getting is a variety of thoughts here, as we have a variety of playing styles. We are grateful for this civilized, public debate. We can all grow and improve the mud through such public dialogue.

Now, I'd like to address something I find to be inappropriate: The private discussions on this topic. We cannot prevent such things and you have a right to do what you want outside of FK regarding our policies. However, if your intent is to make the mud a better place for EVERYONE and not just yourself or your personal group of friends who like to play a particular way then I suggest that you join this dialogue rather than do some of the things we have heard about. I do not know specifics, player names or anything more and frankly I don't want to know more because I like to be as objective in my imm duties as possible. We on the imm team try very hard to listen to the ideas and opinions of all who are willing to post them in a manner that is clear, CONSTRUCTIVE and public. I feel that I need to publicly speak out against anyone who speaks in threatening or blackmailing terms such as "If the imms don't change X and Y they will see that we'll all leave." That attitude is wrong on some many levels:

• The game is free, no one makes you play.
  The people who run the game really do their absolute best to accomodate a variety of playing styles.
  Your playing style is not representitive of everyone and it is arrogant at best for you to try to force the imms to do things your way when it might not be what other players want.
  Such threats have been made before and are always ignored.
  It creates terrible ill will between players if/when players with opposing views discover who you are and that you tried to change what they might not want changed.
  And on and on and on.

Thank you very very much to ALL of you who take the time to express your opinions, ideas and concerns in a constructive manner that adds to the improvement of FK for everyone.

So, back to the original topic. I think Dalvyn's posts have been extremely clear in outlining his proposed direction of the skills/spells/training system, yet I consistently read responses that seem to assume something other than what he stated. We are far from implementing this course of action because there are other things on the agenda first, although based on responses here we imms MAY need to discuss a change in our agenda priorities. I'd like to take this last part of this admittedly verbose post to TRY to bullet point Dal's ideas so that maybe there will be less confusion, or even disagreement:

• 1. Rp will be rewarded with experience points which will lead to leveling which will lead to gaining more skill points. The XP will be more consistently gained than before and those who choose to participate in observable rp will finally get somethng they've never had before. This is in keeping with our "rp enforced" label.
  2. Hacking and slashing will be rewarded with experience points which will lead to leveling which will lead to gaining more skill points. The ONLY change is that those experience points will be gained more slowly in this category than before.
  3. Mindlessly repetitive practicing of a skill will still contribute toward the betterment of that skill. The ONLY change is that the improvement will be slower.
  4. Hacking/slashing, or mindlessly practicing a reptitive skill can be combined with Rp to increase the amount of xp and skill points gained.
  5. Just as those who choose to slay giants during their online time and drink ale during their offline time, there are others who choose to be in alehouses online and say that they do their training offline. This means that everyone trains. You are all adventurers after all and training is a necessity. Some enjoy doing it themselves, others enjoy plotting with their allies and leaving the training off game. Some, like me, enjoy both.

Finally, and almost every imm who has ever run an rp can attest to this, a system like this helps include more people in imm-run rps and should help allieviate any misperception of favoritism in those rps. Many many MANY times in the years past, imms who run an rp get frustrated and turned off to future rps because, after taking hours to set one up, a lone PC who normally does nothing but hack at mobs joins the group intended for the rp (whether invited or not). Then, that lone PC easily cuts through all of the wonderfully renamed and redescripted mobs as if they were training dummies leaving the rp-heavy, fighting skill lacking, PCs standing around and the imm wondering why he/she wasted the time. Then, after several months of cooling off, followed by a decision to try to run another rp, the imm chooses to not invite or allow the uber-PC to participate - perpertuating a misconception of favoritism. I believe the above system would greatly reduce those types of occurances and provide for the inclusion of more PCs in more things and inspire imms to run more rps by lessening the chance of having hours of prep work ruined.

That's my two cents folks. Well, more like a buck fitty.

[Zach]

Thank you Lathander for clearing a few things up... I hope this does not stop people from having their views or their ideas for improvements

[Glim]

• 1. Rp will be rewarded with experience points which will lead to leveling which will lead to gaining more skill points. The XP will be more consistently gained than before and those who choose to participate in observable rp will finally get somethng they've never had before. This is in keeping with our "rp enforced" label.
  2. Hacking and slashing will be rewarded with experience points which will lead to leveling which will lead to gaining more skill points. The ONLY change is that those experience points will be gained more slowly in this category than before.
  3. Mindlessly repetitive practicing of a skill will still contribute toward the betterment of that skill. The ONLY change is that the improvement will be slower.
  4. Hacking/slashing, or mindlessly practicing a reptitive skill can be combined with Rp to increase the amount of xp and skill points gained.
  5. Just as those who choose to slay giants during their online time and drink ale during their offline time, there are others who choose to be in alehouses online and say that they do their training offline. This means that everyone trains. You are all adventurers after all and training is a necessity. Some enjoy doing it themselves, others enjoy plotting with their allies and leaving the training off game. Some, like me, enjoy both.

I am a bit confused and am not sure if we merely saw what Dalvyn said as something different or not. Please correct me if I am wrong, from what I thought Dalvyn said, he spoke of rp not giving xp, but after so long rping you would instead gain skill points. Skill points would also be gained every time you learn a level, as well as skills would improve while you repetatively use a skill. These skill points would be put forward to raising your skill levels. Experience on the other hand, which unless I interpreted what he or you said wrongly, would have to be gained the normal way (skill gain, fighting mobs, ect. and yes, using skill points to raise skills would give you xp).

I might have merely misinterpreted what you meant by xp, but that is what I understood from his post and it seems to me like what you said what something entirely different from what I read. Please correct me if I am wrong.

Thank you,

[Taerom]

Before I get into the meat of this post, I want everyone reading this to understand that when I get into a serious discussion I don't like to beat around the bush too much, and sometimes I've been known to go a bit too far to try to get my point across. I aim for constructive criticism, and I think I've hit the mark without treading on anyone with this post. If you feel you have been slighted, I am sorry. It was not my intent.

I can't agree more with what Athon said about how this system would ignore balance in the game. I want balance like there used to be. I think it's a good thing if we all have to work for our coded rewards. However, I understand that not everyone feels the same as I do, and I can deal with that.

I share the opinions voiced earlier on this thread about getting a real feeling of achievement from traning my skills by repetition. I would go so far as to say that I really enjoy that feeling about as much as I enjoy a good roleplay. Anyone who has ever trained a skill or spell to grandmaster by repetition (aside from languages and weapons) knows what I mean about the feeling of accomplishment you get from it. I will always want more of that feeling as long as I play this game. But I don't think I'll get it from this training by roleplay system. That is not to say that I'm opposed to this system going in. I don't mind it at all, so long as I can get things done how I prefer to do them.

Anyway, if this new system does go into the game, why can't the current (and proposed) blocks on skill training by repetition be removed, or at the very least relaxed? I mean, the problem created by twinking has been that people who like to roleplay and hate repetitive mkilling never get to have power characters like twinks do, and so they feel slighted, right? If the new system goes in, a balance of the two could make both sides happy.

I understand this is a roleplay MUD, but it also has a robust combat system that is fun to use, and shouldn't be ignored. If people who want to roleplay almost exclusively get to have their skills trained up doing so, that's great! But I for one really don't like to roleplay exclusively--I do about half roleplaying, and half mkilling, and I like it that way. Sometimes there is no one on that I really want to roleplay with, or I don't feel like roleplaying, and I go and kill some mobs. I really prefer skill training by repetition, and I don't think I'm entirely alone in that.

But anyway, if we can have the MUD support skill training both by roleplay and repetition, why can't it support both giving improvements at reasonable rates? I understand the obvious argument of encouraging roleplay, but I really think that taking things away will only alienate some people, even if you do replace it with similar functionality. I don't see how it would take anything at all away from the game to allow both ways to be reasonable options. With both methods being viable options to players, everyone can get their piece of the pie how they want to get it, and that will make sure that everyone stays happy.

[Dalvyn]

Re: imm-run roleplay and percieved favouritism

Thank you, Lathander. You perfectly nailed down in the last part of your post one of the biggest problems I (and I think other people trying to run roleplays too, but I don't want to speak for anyone else) have with the current system and how it favours twinks. There's nothing more disappointing and frustrating than seeing a carefully prepared scene with renamed mobs, rooms and objects, being ignored/destroyed by a lone power/glory-hungry twink doing everything on his/her own while a group is (slowly) being formed up with people who take their time and roleplay.

Re: skill points or experience or both

The whole skill-point and roleplay-reward system is just at the conception stage currently. While it's true that I have not spoken about experience being given explicitly, that's a possible option. Currently, "reward" already gives out experience, by the way. Whether you would get only skill points or both skill points and experience for the roleplay rewards does not matter that much.

I think that Lathander was right - or at least, it's an impression I share with him - when he writes that several of the responses I read seem to assume something other than what I stated in my posts. Common misconceptions seem to be:

- It cheapens the effort. That's not true. People had to spend 300 hours slashing mobs to become GM in longswords. Now, people would have to spend either 500 hours slashing mobs that are high level enough to achieve the same goal, or spend 300 hours roleplaying and being rewarded for it. Get realistic ... 300 hours of roleplaying IS a real effort, while 300 hours of bashing mobs does not require any brain, just time (wasted). So the new system does not offer a new way to become a GM that is "cheaper". If anything, it makes it actually harder to get there (= a bigger amount of time to waste slashing mobs, or the same amount of time but spent on some activity that requires creativity/social skills/thought/more brain than a bot).

- You have to practice to become GM; chatting is not enough. That sentence makes it looks like the new system offers a cheap, easy, and quick way to become GM by just chatting. Never did I write that you could become a GM by roleplaying for 4 hours! It would still take time and effort to get enough rewards to become a GM, and finally reaching that skill level would still feel like a real achievement. Plus, as several posters already pointed out, you can roleplay training during your offline hours. The main difference with the previous system is that before, you had to "waste" your online time on training; now, you get the option to use your online time to roleplay that other parts of your character's life. But it does not make it easier in any way, on the contrary... it actually requires more effort.

Also, note that the current system does not completely follow the "you have to practice to get better" motto either: it already uses some kind of "generic" currency for skill improvement, which is experience. You can gain experience by killing liches and use it to improve your knowledge of the elven language with a trainer; or you can gain experience by gathering clay and use it to learn how to use a polearm with a trainer. The new system can be seen as just an extension of that.

- You can't become a GM by just sitting in the market square and chatting. Once again, a misconception of what I call roleplaying. I do not agree with "Roleplaying = chatting and doing no mob killing; Non-roleplaying = anything else". When I write "roleplaying", I think "making the character behave ICly and socially interact with other creatures, preferably other PCs". That means that going on a quest with other PCs and talking/smoting along the way, discussing tactical options, discussing what is happening, and so on ... is roleplay to me. What is NOT roleplaying imo is going - on your own or with other PCs - in an area without talking/smoting, and just cast buffing spells and kill mobs with no interaction but a "nod" now and then. Roleplay is thus NOT limited to sitting in the market square and chatting. You can very well roleplay while killing mobs. Oh, and chatting on AIM while killing mobs but not making your characters interact is not roleplay either, by the way. Roleplay should happen in the game. And all kinds of roleplay would be rewarded in the system I posted about.

Re: Balance

Athon and Taerom, I do not get what "balance" you are talking about. Balance between players who want to hack and slash madly with no roleplay and players who want to roleplay? Can you please develop that point?

I think it's a good thing if we all have to work for our coded rewards.

The skill-point/roleplay-reward system does not give you anything for free either. You would still have to work to get the reward. The kind of "work" is just different, or - more precisely - you can now choose between two kinds of "efforts" to reap the reward.

about getting a real feeling of achievement from traning my skills by repetition

I think the new system would still allow you to get this feeling of achievement. I believe that this kind of feeling comes from three reasons: (a) you see yourself progressing/getting better, from journeyman to expert to master to grandmaster; (b) the progression is long and slow and not immediate; (c) the progression depends on your effort, you are rewarded for your work. The three points are still true in the new system: you don't become GM immediately but slowly increase your skill level, it won't happen with just 3 hours of sitting on the square, and the primary source for skill points would be rewards for your roleplay efforts.

Anyway, if this new system does go into the game, why can't the current (and proposed) blocks on skill training by repetition be removed, or at the very least relaxed? I mean, the problem created by twinking has been that people who like to roleplay and hate repetitive mkilling never get to have power characters like twinks do, and so they feel slighted, right? If the new system goes in, a balance of the two could make both sides happy.

Actually, slashing mobs/repetitive usage of a skill being the only way to improve skills is one of the problems, but not the only one in my opinion. Adding another way to get that kind of "reward" is a step in the good direction - I think most agree with that.

That now leaves us with 2 ways to improve skills: roleplaying and solitary mob bashing/repetitive tasking. To be precise, I put "training/killing mobs in a group, at a leisure, while taking the time to actually interact" in the "roleplaying" category. What I single out in the second category is, for example, going on a killing rampage in Hartsvale, or going to a cave on your own and typing "mine" again and again. That second category is what I do not call roleplay.

The activity of the second category has (and currently) is the most efficient way to increase your skill levels, since you are alone (or with people with who you do not interact), you do not "lose time" and can concentrate on training. That's the quickest way to become a GM in a weapon skill, a spell, or a trade.

Back to what I was writing: it's good to offer up another option than this to increase skill levels, but I think that, for a "roleplay enforced" mud, this other option (roleplaying) should actually be favoured. That is: you should gain more by roleplaying than by doing your little dirty training on your own. Or, in other words: you should gain more by interacting with people and making the game better not only for you but also for others, than by playing a multi-player game as a single-player game.

Yet in other words: if you want to go and do your training on your own, it's fine... but that should not be the most efficient method to increase your skills; you can still do that, but the game should inspire you to rather roleplay instead.

[Taerom]

I understand what you mean completely, Dalvyn. I never meant to imply that a player could grab skill points fast enough by roleplay that they could have three skills grandmastered a week--I don't think anyone wants that. And it really isn't as fast with mkilling, either, as you say. Actually I have been worried about quite the opposite, that it would be exceedingly slow going, since all skill points would have to be awarded by immortals, unless the coders can come up with a good way to have code do it instead.

Athon and Taerom, I do not get what "balance" you are talking about. Balance between players who want to hack and slash madly with no roleplay and players who want to roleplay? Can you please develop that point?

That is in fact the exact balance I spoke of in my last post.

The new system, while good, still ignores those of us who don't mind (or perhaps prefer) killing mobs alone for skill increases. It will of course still yield very sparse gains to train a character like this unless changes are made. I don't see how it would cause a problem of any kind to allow both to be reasonably expedient. It creates a happy medium, where people who want to play either way can enjoy themselves, and those who roleplay a lot will no longer have to worry about being struck down by twinks if they are willing to go out and roleplay for some skill points.

[Glim]

Just to clarify, Taerom, you are asking that the skill progression be as it was before it was slowed down and for it to be like it used to be, where it is not anymore IMO, virtually impossible to receive any type of gain for a higher level character in a skill anymore?

[Taerom]

That's exactly what I'm asking, Glim. With the new skill points for roleplay system in I think it wouldn't be a problem to change skill increasing by repetition back to how it was before it was slowed down so much. It would still take large amounts of time to get skills to maximum either way.

[Dalvyn]

The new system, while good, still ignores those of us who don't mind (or perhaps prefer) killing mobs alone for skill increases. It will of course still yield very sparse gains to train a character like this unless changes are made. I don't see how it would cause a problem of any kind to allow both to be reasonably expedient. It creates a happy medium, where people who want to play either way can enjoy themselves, and those who roleplay a lot will no longer have to worry about being struck down by twinks if they are willing to go out and roleplay for some skill points.

Two elements to answer this:

- PC resurrect and mob raise dead

First, a comparison with another system that is somehow similar. If you die and want to get raised, you have two options (ignoring imm intervention): get a priest PC to raise you or have someone bring your corpse to a priest mob. I'm not entering into the small details that were discussed in the other thread before it got sidetracked, just saying that there are 2 options.

Most players agree that, if both options are available (i.e., if there is a PC priest online that you know and who could raise you), people should favour using the PC method over the mob method. The mob method is there "just in case", for those times (unfortunately too common) where there is no PC priest online. How does that translate into game terms? The "favoured" option is easier and more powerful (PCs can use resurrect instead of raise dead while mobs can only raise dead, the spell component is cheaper than the cost for the priest mob).

I guess you see where I am going: between roleplaying (in the broad, general sense that I described above) and training-with-no-interaction, the first activity should be "favoured" on a mud that wants to be tagged as "roleplay enforced". It is thus natural that this "favoured" option be more efficient. The second option is still there for those moments when the first option is not available (or when you don't feel like roleplaying). It's available, but it does not have the same benefits as the "favoured" option.

- Timing

There's also another problem with going back to the previous, fast-increasing skill system. With the roleplay-reward system, you have to be rewarded by others. That means that your characters are somehow limited in their progression rate. Characters will most likely be rewarded perhaps once or twice, very rarely three times per real-life day. That makes for a realistic progression, where a character does not become a GM in two (real-time) weeks.

There is no such thing in the training system: if you can spend 16 hours online each day and you use them to train (and that's not an example out of the blue, some are/have been very close to those figures), then you can become GM in two weeks! And if you are a fighter and can auto-train first, second, third, fourth, fifth attacks as well as dodge, parry, shieldwork/dual wield, and a weapon skill all at the same time and automatically (as opposed to having to memorize/rest from time to time), then you can even become a GM in no less than 9 skills in a real-time month! And, once again, I'm not just imagining it...

So, where I am going is: the roleplay-reward system has an inherent limitation on the progression rate (because you won't get rewarded constantly, even if you play 16 hours a day), while the training-to-improve system has no such limitation. Now, I can hear the counter-argument "If people spend more time online (16 hours a day), it's normal if they progress more quickly" and I agree with it, to some extent. They should progress more quickly than people who only log in 6 hours a week BUT the progression should not be as quick as it used to be if we want to keep a somehow consistent world. We can't have characters becoming multi-GM in 1 month of time just because they can spend 16 hours a day training.

And finally a short note The rate of skill increase by practice was not brought down (except perhaps for some spells - with the introduction of new spells, all were set to the same "learning rate" value). But combat things were not made harder to increase if I remember well. What might have changed - and that's a positive change I think - is that they do not increase anymore if you train them on mobs that are way below your level. That means that a level 10 character fighting goblins will see his/her skills increase, but a level 50 character killing the same goblins won't see any increase. That might explain why some have the impression that skill level progression rate was slowed down. Face higher level mobs (yes, you might have to group up to do that) and the skills might increase as they did before.

[Athon]

Sorry Dalvyn, I completely misread how you explained your idea. For some reason, I believed you only wanted increases to be based solely on time spent RPing. After your follow-up posts and rereading the prior ones (I'm an idiot), I was completely inaccurate and see that my posts are basically repeats of what you said. I'm definately all of favour of your method now that I unstanding it the correct way.

I greatly appreciate the work you are all putting forth towards the game and I am very thrilled that we are able to have long discussions publically as to better improve the game. It's similar to the socratic method that my english teachers like to us and I absolutely love it. Thank you.

[Glim]

Now, just to put up some ideas as to how skill points could be distributed:

1.a timer (based on hours)
or
1.b timer that shuts off if no smote is done in certain time

2.a as a reward from players
and/or
2.b as a reward from imms

3. as a reward for quests
4. when levelling

5.a based on number of smotes (etc. after 200 smotes/socials/says you gain a skill point)
or
5.b based on number of characters in smotes (harder to explain, longer smotes/says give better benefits, as such, socials would give least).

Just the things that are in my head, most were prob suggested by another player (thats how they got in my head, heh). Some are better or worse than others. Just throwing them into one post.

Thanks,

[Tavik]

Ideally I think the option for players to reward each other is best, though if you make one character give up some of their own skill point you aren't going to see much of an increase (if you make them lose more than they give, you'll see an overall decrease) in the average amount of skill points players acquire.

My thoughts is that that these rewards should be free of charge to those doing the rewarding (two fighters RP sparring and sharring tecniques reward each other and gain nothing because they both lose teh same amount that are rewarded). Now I know this really only works in theory and that it is obviously wide open for abuse, but my point is that that looks to me like the BEST (were it used correctly and honestly) method of giving out skill points.

Perhaps each reward could be logged so as to see when it is abused? Down side to that though is the spam, not to mention the dull task of looking through all these logs...

I honestly don't know what could be done. Just thought I would throw that out there and see if anyone else agreed/disagreed or had ideas.

[Glim]

1.b timer that shuts off if no smote is done in certain time

...

2.b as a reward from imms

...

3. as a reward for quests
4. when levelling

5.a based on number of smotes (etc. after 200 smotes/socials/says you gain a skill point)
or
5.b based on number of characters in smotes (harder to explain, longer smotes/says give better benefits, as such, socials would give least).

A combination of these honestly would be my choice, as I do not agree with players giving out stat points merely because of so much room for abuse. I also do not agree with it being based upon hours, as this is also open for abuse, as well defeats the purpose of rp giving rewards, as you could be mindlessly slashing mobs and still gaining the hours needed for the skill point.

As for the last two in the 5 catagory, I prefer the second one, but that is merely because I hold the view that longer, more descriptive smotes make for better rp and what people should strive for and what the mud should strive for in its quality of rp. I believe that it improves the overall quality of any rp. But this is merely my view and I understand that many do not hold this view as the same, perhaps I am even the only one. That is merely my style of RP and what I prefer.

Thank you,

[Kirkus]

Hey Dal, I got a quick question that I think might answer a lot of peoples concern for why skills don't appear to be increasing. Lets say a level 50 character buys a new weapon they have never before trained before. They train it by useing a trainer to the novice level. Then they proceed to go out in to the world to advance their skills in their new found weapon. Now if they were to go off to say Hartsvale and fight whatever is up there, amazing enough I have never been there with any of my characters. Now if the mob is a high enough level the pc won't be able to hit the mob with their poorly trained weapon right? So they go to an area with lower level mobs where they can train their skills with a new weapon. Will they gain experiece since they are useing a low trained weapon or will they never recieve experiece due to the fact that they are higher level then the mob?

[Taerom]

I completely agree, Dalvyn, that it's a problem if people can get so many skills to GM in such a short time. I had no idea that people had begun to advance so very quickly, so I guess I can understand where you're coming from now. Your proposition does have my support, if it matters--I'm not sure if I really made that clear in my other posts.

[Dalvyn]

Re: Kirkus

The combat/AC system is another one that is scheduled for review. D&D does not have any kind of weapon skill: either you are not proficient with the weapon (and you have -4 to your hit rolls), or you are. Then there are some feats like weapon focus, greater weapon focus, weapon specialization, and greater weapon specialization that, once taken, grant a +1/+2 bonus to hit rolls / damage rolls. So... the effect of weapon skills might change.

But... in any case, the level of the mob should not influence how easy it is to hit. A level 1 sprite with a high dexterity would be harder to hit than a slow-moving, huge, level 50 giant. So, people shouldn't have any trouble finding high level mobs that they can practice on.

Re: Glim

Smotes. I'm not too fond of rewarding for the number or lengths or smote (or every say/sayto, for that matter). That's extremely simple to abuse: just spam smote/say/sayto in a room by yourself, or with another character who does not mind.

Skill points given each hour online (or offline). That would, at best, be a very very slow income, which would represent the constant experience gain of characters. That's also a safeguard in case rewards are too slow to come or if you play when there are few players online and nearly no one who would reward you. It can also be used to help reduce the difference between people who can log in 3 hours a week and those who can log in 12 hours a day if given while offline (indicating the experience gained by aging). Perhaps offline skill points could be evenly distributed amongst all the characters of an account (so that those with 50 characters in their account don't get 50 times more skill points than those with only 1 character). But, as best, it would be a very small amount of skill points. Still, I like the idea that you can improve while offline, for those who can't spend that much time online.

Player-given rewards. I agree that the idea of a cost is not good. I do not really like it for current kismet/exp rewards either because, as someone pointed out above, if two fighters reward each other after a well roleplayed sparring session, the net result is a loss in total kismet. There are other options that could be examined to prevent people from abusing it.

An example. Let's say an imm-given skill-point reward would grant 10 skill points. Each mortal-given skill-point reward could count as half a reward. Now, half a reward would not give any skill point, but, once combined with another "half a reward", it would grant the same amount of skill points as an imm-given reward. And "half rewards" could only be combined if they are given by two different accounts. What does that mean? It means that you would need to be rewarded by two different (mortal) accounts before you would effectively get skill points. We could use "thirds of a reward" too and require three rewards, from three different accounts, before you would get skill points.

That, combined with a limitation on how many rewards each account could give each real-life day, could perhaps work, and be enough to allow rewards to be free.

Additional "security" could be achieved by registering, for each character (or account), the names of the last 5 accounts that rewarded them, and dismiss any new reward coming from one of those 5 accounts. That means that, if account A rewards account B on Monday, A cannot reward B again before four other accounts have rewarded B. Obviously, I picked up "5" randomly... a lower number, perhaps 3, might be better.

[Dugald]

I'm just kicking around ideas in my head - what if skill points were mostly given through level advancement (like in tt)...but there is also potential to gain 5-15 rp (depending on how many you guys plan on giving a level) skill points per 5 levels.

So if people advance too quickly, level wise, they'll pay a hefty price in the long run....being that those potential skill points are no longer viable through RP.

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

And then maybe have a certain RP reward level that allows a character to become epic. Or RP reward levels for prestige class entrance, or for powerful spells, or for quests, or for anything anyone could possibly want. I realize it wouldn't be the hottest situation for third shifters or over sea players - I'm just thinking out loud.

You wanna see twinks RP, suggest to them that if they get enough rp rewards they'll get to cast maximized meteor swarms

[Glim]

Oh, I have just realised another benefit of this system. It would allow the advancement of skills that could not be trained actively before. So there is another great perk.

*cough*hinthint http://www.forgottenkingdoms.com/board/ ... php?t=3750 *cough*)

[Caelnai]

Yet in other words: if you want to go and do your training on your own, it's fine... but that should not be the most efficient method to increase your skills; you can still do that, but the game should inspire you to rather roleplay instead.

A very long thread , but the question that began it still remains unaddressed in my mind. Dalvyn's above point is great, but have the skill improvements through training been tweaked TOO low? Personally, I haven't earned a single skill better since the change, even with many hours of practice...well-RP'ed practice, for what it was worth.

RP opportunities for me a rare and wonderful things, usually requiring me to set an alarm clock. (Not that I'm complaining; a recent wedding I attended was well worth it, though I apologize for my grogginess. ) I wish I could log on in peak time more often, but I can't. So I RP with mobs, which means none of the player or imm-granted rewards that have been discussed.

[Amalia]

I have to admit, even as things are, I kind of like the slow skill progression. I've had a number of skills get better, the ones I use constantly, and had one even go from journeyman to adept-- though it's been prabably an out of game month since that skill last improved. But I do think that the slowed progression, even now without the ability to put in skill points, makes it a lot more rewarding when a skill finally does improve (and they do).

I don't know how much potential for abuse this suggestion has, but here is one: when the number of players is below a certain threshold and no IMMs are logged in, make skill progression by practice a notch or two faster, so people likeCaelnai who aren't able to RP with others nearly as often as they like aren't left behind with the new system.