Secret Subraces

[Ralkain]

Hi,

I had an idea for secret subraces which at first glance may not seem/feel all that good, but I think it can be a real benefit for all by adding to the subrace intent.

Secret subraces are to reward and enhance the experience for those explorers out there who search far and wide for new things and how to get the items necessary to use them. This is great.

However I play every day, and except for Sunday can only scrape together a few hours a day. This isn't usually enough to get a big party together to do this kind of work because one of three things is usually true:

• On login, what you want to do has already been done this reset.
  
• On login, a party is mostly done with what you wanted to do and/or is full.
  
• You work up a party, but not until half your time is gone and you can no longer go or have to leave before its complete.
  

Subraces are great and have caused me and I'm sure others to want to re-start some of their 40's using a different race. However, sometimes the perfect race for a build is a secret race and even though you'd really like to get to re-doing one of your favorite characters, you can't for a long time or maybe never and are forced to use the character you know you'll replace during some events (which isn't any fun to play under those circumstances).

So I'd like to make the radical suggestion to allow the purchase a specific Subrace Tag for your acct for a $10.00 server donation. As metagaming as this seems, I think its a win for everyone.

Those who have many large blocks of contiguous time can still search for them for free. And those of us who don't can still re-work our favorite builds and play our build that a group or event needs with enjoyment and not feel like its a waste of time because that character will be replaced as soon as you find a needed subrace. We would also be funding the server for all those explorers out there and thus be helping to create more explorable areas.

I think a $10.00 per Subrace Tag donation is reasonable and I don't think anyone can say its a donation gimmick given all the free subraces out there and the fact that even the secret ones can be free.

Funky?

Dave/Ralkain

[Bakchuda]

I definately feel your pain in the time online department. I always seem to log on just as someone starts or finishes an Immortal run, but I don't know where i have to "sign up" to be the next in line for it.

I think the donation for subrace code is a great idea, short of putting subrace codes in places mere mortals could find them.

[hiryuu]

As part of the night crew, I deal with much the same thing. It's hard to scrape together an immo run with only 8 to 10 people logged on.

The NWN license does specifically prohibit purchasing in-game access/advantages. I think the 'pets' are already questionable, but purchasing subraces or other tags would definitely be out there. Some servers allow an xp transfer, which would address some of the issue here, but it has the same problems as the releveling debate from earlier.

I would, however, like to see shared (among one player's characters) bank accounts and vaults. It really just formalizes what's already routine on the server.

[FunkySwerve]

Yup, hiryuu is dead on there. Pets are, from a legal perspective, in the clear (I'm positive on that point), but only because of the way we've structured them - we have, for instance, rejected donations where the 'donor' thought it was a this-for-that transaction. I already rejected doing secret subraces this way, it's not gonna happen. Even though I could finesse it so that it was within the technical bounds of the license (law school has its uses) , it doesn't seem right (and having typed the above pretty much kills that avenue anyway LOL). What I AM open to suggestions regarding, is buying subraces codes with in-game money - another signal of time spent / dedication. Please feel free to suggest what you think is an appropriate gp value (though there are at least 3 different 'levels' of subrace).
Funky

[FunkySwerve]

Oh, and on the shared vaults - they are coming, but not until I figure out why peoples vaults suddenly appear empty from time to time.
Funky

[TheS0S]

funkyswerve said:

Yup, hiryuu is dead on there. Pets are, from a legal perspective, in the clear (I'm positive on that point), but only because of the way we've structured them - we have, for instance, rejected donations where the 'donor' thought it was a this-for-that transaction. I already rejected doing secret subraces this way, it's not gonna happen. Even though I could finesse it so that it was within the technical bounds of the license (law school has its uses) , it doesn't seem right (and having typed the above pretty much kills that avenue anyway LOL). What I AM open to suggestions regarding, is buying subraces codes with in-game money - another signal of time spent / dedication. Please feel free to suggest what you think is an appropriate gp value (though there are at least 3 different 'levels' of subrace).
Funky

In my opinion, the cost for a secret subrace shouldn't be unbelievably high. . . say, after 100 mil, that's just ridiculous. You'd have to play a good while to get that much gold, and it just seems like you're saying seniority is indeed superiority. But, you could charge 50 mil, then 75 mil, and 100. I'd like to see them even lower, myself, but that's because I'm a greedy bastard and REALLY want to float around as an illithid.

[Lord FlashHeart]

It really isnt that difficult to raise huge amounts of money if you set your mind to it and have a few competent lev 40s at your disposal. On 2 occasions I have needed to raise over 100 mill gold, once for helping to start a guild up and once to pay for a clue to the ranger secret. On both occasions, using parked characters in high loot areas it took me about 3 hours to raise 100 mill. I think if you are going to introduce in game paying for subraces then the price should reflect how difficult the subrace is to obtain by exploring. Certainly the newest ones will take an awful long ime to get, anyone whos had a look at the new drowned city will testify to that - the time it takes to make a full run to obtain the highest tag, should reflect the same time (or more) it takes to raise the appropriate amount of money to pay for such a tag.

[TheS0S]

flashheart2 said:

It really isnt that difficult to raise huge amounts of money if you set your mind to it and have a few competent lev 40s at your disposal. On 2 occasions I have needed to raise over 100 mill gold, once for helping to start a guild up and once to pay for a clue to the ranger secret. On both occasions, using parked characters in high loot areas it took me about 3 hours to raise 100 mill. I think if you are going to introduce in game paying for subraces then the price should reflect how difficult the subrace is to obtain by exploring. Certainly the newest ones will take an awful long ime to get, anyone whos had a look at the new drowned city will testify to that - the time it takes to make a full run to obtain the highest tag, should reflect the same time (or more) it takes to raise the appropriate amount of money to pay for such a tag.

The point of the secret subraces, supposedly, is to reward dedicated play and time spent on the server. It's entirely possible to spend hours upon hours upon HOURS of time and never get the hundred thousand million gold pieces some players have because of the way they farm some areas, perhaps sitting a character by a certain chest, waiting for them to respawn to grab high selling items.

I think you'd find the majority of players probably don't have gold coming out of their ears, the average players who come back every chance they can to spend their free time, to build their new characters, still find wonder in exploring the new areas. I think they deserve a shot at something fun, too, because that's just as much dedicated play as it is to have ten immortal characters with enough glowing items to light up the way from the Voyage to the Docks.

[Ralkain]

funkyswerve said:

What I AM open to suggestions regarding, is buying subraces codes with in-game money - another signal of time spent / dedication. Please feel free to suggest what you think is an appropriate gp value (though there are at least 3 different 'levels' of subrace).
Funky

I like this idea too funky, and would suggest the following values for the 3 levels of Subraces.

• Level 1 (25 Mil)
  
• Level 2 (50 Mil)
  
• Level 3 (100 Mil)
  

Dave.

[Balduvard]

I know of one source of money (though not easily reached and unrepeatable) that would pose a problem to a format of tiering with less cost, and if it were to stay that way I would rather see a system set up more like this:

Level 1: 100 mil
Level 2: 250 mil
Level 3: 500 mil

The only problem I have with this system is that anyone can camp loot and gather gold if in the right places, and it requires minimal effort (maybe a few heal potions) to do so (granted finding the spot would require some effort). However the secret subraces are supposed to be a reward for really going out of your way for something. So if such a system were implemented I would suggest the following to counter the massive wave of people whoring kills just to gain a few extra bucks towards that lofty goal of attaining a subrace:

-Subraces can only be bought once per month per account to keep down accumulation of subraces by the particularly wealthy--besides, you should be taking that time to level up your new subrace anyways.
-Players must first find the NPC that will give them this knowledge. The trick however is this NPC will not stay in the same spot all the time, so in replacing the searching necessary for the previous requirements to attain a subrace, they must now focus their efforts in tracking down (keyword: tracking) this NPC.

[Ralkain]

balduvard said:

I know of one source of money (though not easily reached and unrepeatable) that would pose a problem to a format of tiering with less cost

You can't tier it towards what the maximum folks will do, those folks are the ones who will get it for free anyway. When the recent races came out I know folks who went twice that night to try to get a particular race (it wasn't there). I know what's needed and how hard it is to do, the fact that they could go twice in one night right after the update still amazes me.

The values I set above are a *huge* sum of money for many regulars. I have had over 25 mil saved before, but never 50 or 100, it would take me a few weeks at 2-3 hours a night to accumulate that much money and I know where some nice loot is too (not like some folks though).

-Subraces can only be bought once per month per account to keep down accumulation of subraces by the particularly wealthy--

I'm ok with this too, but I'm not sure how easy it would be to pull off on the back end database.

Dave.

[TheS0S]

balduvard said:

I know of one source of money (though not easily reached and unrepeatable) that would pose a problem to a format of tiering with less cost, and if it were to stay that way I would rather see a system set up more like this:

Level 1: 100 mil
Level 2: 250 mil
Level 3: 500 mil

The only problem I have with this system is that anyone can camp loot and gather gold if in the right places, and it requires minimal effort (maybe a few heal potions) to do so (granted finding the spot would require some effort). However the secret subraces are supposed to be a reward for really going out of your way for something. So if such a system were implemented I would suggest the following to counter the massive wave of people whoring kills just to gain a few extra bucks towards that lofty goal of attaining a subrace:

-Subraces can only be bought once per month per account to keep down accumulation of subraces by the particularly wealthy--besides, you should be taking that time to level up your new subrace anyways.
-Players must first find the NPC that will give them this knowledge. The trick however is this NPC will not stay in the same spot all the time, so in replacing the searching necessary for the previous requirements to attain a subrace, they must now focus their efforts in tracking down (keyword: tracking) this NPC.

I actually agree with your thing about subraces only being bought once per month, but, like Dave said, that's an unbelievably huge sum of money for the average player. I ask what the point is of allowing the subraces to be bought if the only people who CAN buy them happens to be the same people who could just as easily find them with their endless stream of elite items and gold. There's no sense in that.

Also, going really out of your way? To go really out of your way, to places like the Maze, or the new areas, you need some ungodly equipment. People with that stuff probably don't need to be able to buy the subraces.

But, I do like your idea about the timer. I think with the lower cost, but with a timer, both parties would win. You could buy a subrace for a decent price, but it wouldn't be spammable. The gold may be nothing to higher level players, but the time CERTAINLY is, while the gold itself would be more of a problem for average players. It seems to even out.

Of course, that's in theory that such a system could actually be worked out.

[Argon]

Just the mere fact that it's me posting pretty much tells you what I'm gonna say. I think every time I've ever put in my two cents, it's always been in favor of making things harder, and this time's no exception. My vote (even though we're not voting, I'm voting anyway) would be at least the 100-250-500 mil, if not tougher. Point being that they SHOULD be inaccessable to most everyone. Otherwise, town will be populated by half-ogres and wraiths, illithids and pixies, and nary a regular character to be found. Even though I do not have even one secret subrace to my name (Yet!), I'd rather have them harder to come by than easier.

The only way to improve things I can think of, and it's more a pipe dream than anything I can imagine to be practical, would be to have the location of the secrets change all the time, so that you don't ALWAYS need to go deep into the hardest areas to get it (maybe just usually). Having it show up in the zhent outpost 1 in 50 reboots, or a weak secret in the beholder caves 1 in 100 reboots, or in the shadow elf village 1 in 75 reboots, or something like that. That'd really get folks out and about, not just massing a big party to assault the known location of a particular secret. Like I said, probably too hard to do, but a guy's allowed to dream.....

[Balduvard]

I have to echo Argon on this one--there are plenty of subraces provided for players to use, but if we make the secret subraces more available to everyone, then they won't be much of a secret anymore, will they? Argon's pipe dream idea sounds a lot like what I mentioned earlier:

Players must first find the NPC that will give them this knowledge. The trick however is this NPC will not stay in the same spot all the time, so in replacing the searching necessary for the previous requirements to attain a subrace, they must now focus their efforts in tracking down (keyword: tracking) this NPC.

However the main problem with this is that having something/someone randomly switch locations is a major resource hog/lag generator. Having all secrets do this would definitely be a bad idea--but having one spawn randomly somewhere on the server when it boots up just for dealing with subraces shouldn't be as burdensome. Still, it would be less hard on the server not to do it at all--but it's an idea.

The benefit to this system would be that you can make it such that you can only converse with the NPC once per reset, and after the reset he would change locations. This would relieve some weight on the server by not having to track how much time is left out of the month since they last attained a subrace.

[hiryuu]

argon said:

The only way to improve things I can think of, and it's more a pipe dream than anything I can imagine to be practical, would be to have the location of the secrets change all the time, so that you don't ALWAYS need to go deep into the hardest areas to get it (maybe just usually).

My knowledge of Neverwinter scripting is limited, but this should be doable. There are probably several hundred non-random chests, bones, and corpses across the land. You could select about 50 of them and add a script trigger (similar to the random loot generators). At launch, take a list of loot (subraces, nice equipment, and lots of worthless crap) and assign each item to one of the scripted lootables. When the lootable is opened, it can fire a script to look up what item was assigned to it.

The problem is once you find one of the more accessible triggers, you can just check it each time you're on to eventually get everything you want.