A Call for Open Discussion

I think we need to give a good, fair review about some of our systems, policies and procedures.

Tell me what really bugs you about LotJ, and make suggestions on how to go about fixing it. While I won’t promise to take your suggestions as is and implement them into the game, I will say that I think it’ll do us all some good to brainstorm some new ideas and see if we can come up with some better ways of doing things.

Please DO think out of the box, and post your ideas. Please DO NOT flame others for posting an idea that you don’t like, or you think is stupid. I will delete your posts if they are unnecessarily rude or if you scream at someone for expressing an original idea. And please do not let another person’s doom-and-gloom attitude about change sway you from posting your off-the-wall suggestion.

You can email your issues and solution suggestions to me at <!– e –><a href="mailto:[email protected]">[email protected]</a><!– e –> if you want me to review the idea or just post it in your stead.

A few things that come to mind for me: Perming/Cloning/Restore cycle: Is it time to give this a good look? Multi clan with allies: Why again aren’t we allowing this? Force purchase: Is it way, way, way too expensive?

ANYTHING that you view as stupid, broken or ass-backwards, lets spend the next few weeks discussing.

We need a PK imm.

I don’t like the racial &quot;app only&quot; restrictions, with a few exceptions. Timeline specific races makes sense, like Mandalorians/Dathomiri and a few others, but for the most part, rare races should either cost more or simply be put to a higher standard of RP requirements. For whatever reason, we are forced to ‘help race_contract’ when we pick a race. Why don’t we use those contracts?

Feeorin suck. Nobody should ever play them except me and a certain other player.

I’d like to see non-combat races with features worth wasting points on. But on to the main stuff.

First of all, death system. I’m actually pretty content with the way things are except in one very important regard: the loss of leadership. It is VERY easy to die on LotJ and, as we’ve seen time and again, the loss of a competent clan leader can cripple a clan for a long time and sometimes even bring the whole era to a grinding halt.

I honestly don’t have any great solutions to this problem but it’s something that NEEDS to be addressed to keep player numbers high and people interested in the mud.

Next up, planetary ai, blockades and the whole element of planetary games. We’ve made a lot of progress here but blockade is still the be-all end-all for this. We need viable alternatives. Ground CAN be done but it’s a long process and it can be undone quickly, especially if you consider how easily blockade can trump ground movements.

Also, Andvari, my Feeorin was awesome. <!– s:( –><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_sad.gif" alt="" title="Sad" /><!– s:( –>

I’ll hit on the force purchase thing first:

In my opinion, it should only cost 10,000 points, seeing as how you have such a big chance of either not rolling anything at all, and then, if you get lucky enough to get it, you become a big fat red target for pkers. The 20,000 point price seems a bit steep with the risks that come along with being a forcer, maybe with a lower price tag, people who buy force will be more willing to risk their character. Getting that many points is kinda hard to get (even with all the chances to make points in game), even if you get a decent level of force, say 80, you’re still considered a shitty forcer. And people who buy it should be held to the higher standard thing, something like people who are apped, if they roleplay like a moron, they should lose it.

Another thing I think would be nice is where you would have to have had a certain number of characters before you can even roll it naturally. It’s kind of overwhelming starting here and if you get force with your first character, it’s even worse, and when that character dies, all you want is another forcer because that’s all you’ve known and are spoiled on it. You should have to learn the LotJ system before you get to play something like that.

Multiclanning with allied clans:

I want it back. But, you should only be allowed to be in one major clan and one minor clan.

I’ll try to think of other stuff that I don’t like, but right now that’s all I can think of.

Systems/items that need to be looked at:

1. PK balance. this needs to be done from an overview perspective, hence the pk balance imm. I could go into depth but this is the gist of it.

2. Apartment/house system – This has been discussed a lot over the past week or so, but there needs to be a way to cycle through phomes, because there is a severe perceived lack. People really do buy these homes and sit on ’em a whole era. Solutions are easy: raising cost for permanent homes, having a rent system, etc.

3. Cortosis – It is impossible to obtain. This really should be considered as something perhaps only a 130+ level bounty hunter can get once per player. I don’t think it should be easy to get, but it really shouldn’t be impossible to get. Perhaps enforce a rule whereby each character could only carry 1 cortosis item at any time to prevent hoarding.

4. Jetpacks – Make them useful and reimplement them. It would be fucking fantastic if these could explode when hit rather than costing you such a severe damage penalty in combat. These could be made really interesting.

5. Emoting – This is a roleplay enforced mud. Please allow me to emote at ANY time, including while asleep, resting, handcuffed, stunned, in a ship (shipmote) etc.

A rent system for housing like Hiro suggested. You shouldn’t be able to purchase a house for 50k, there’s characters you can make that start with that amount. You get people buying houses and then all of the housing is filled up the entire era and it becomes pointless especially if it’s bought by people who never play.

Rent should be something like 50k a week, if not higher, and if you’re one week past due you get evicted.