General Discussion

Thank you Mike for writing this journal entry. I plan on being a Rogue and was hoping that HJ would have a nice system for me to inform other players of the service I would perform and also away for me to see what services they are offering. It can get cummbersome looking in a chat window for someone offering a service I am looking for. The system you descibed sounds great and I cant wait to see it in action along with the rest of the game.

More innovation from HJ. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but it seems like they are picking up the slack for the dev teams that do nothing innovative. Awesome.

I have had nothing but unqualifiedly good things to say about HJ, but this will be my first departure from that.

The philosophy of this game is "more fun, less tedium." I see nothing fun about running all over the place fixing broken this and broken that and depleted some other thing. That sounds like tedium to me. I understand why they are doing it, because there are other games that do it, but I had hoped HJ would stick to its primary vision for the game.

The part about benefits players can bestow on one another, such as rangers increasing speed, is fine. That is an example of a benefit that might be nice, but isn't essential. But I can't be running around with broken or ineffective equipment, so now I am forced to go find someone to remedy that. Which leads to the next issue ...

In EQ 1 I was a ranger and I probably SoW'd about 1,765,987.465 people. The amount of money I was paid for that? Zero. By contrast, druids and wizards who ported people around were paid lots of money for that service. In the examples given in the article, obviously some classes will be cash cows because their services are essential whereas others will get bupkis for their efforts. I realize that the intent of the system isn't to make people rich (I'm getting to that), but it will not be lost on the players that they can make gobs of money with one kind of character and not another. So we start off with a class balance issue before the first sword stroke is even made.

I don't believe you promote community by forcing people to do things that aren't fun. If that were possible, people standing in line at a bus station would be a community. People stuck in traffic on a highway would be a community. People tend to socialize and form bonds when they are having fun together. I thought that was what HJ was about. What the heck is fun about me having to run all the way across some zone to find some guy that I can pay to fix my sword. I buy gas from a gas station near my house. I have been going to that same gas station for 10 years. I don't know the name of the person behind the counter, and I never will. I'm not there to make friends. I'm there because I need gas. She's not there to make friends. She's there to sell gas. But I guess according to HJ theory we are a community.

Please rethink this.

Well, they're not going to force you to use the services. Empaths in DR would get plenty of gems for their services, but not many of them demanded it (and I never saw those that did get treated all that well by the others). You won't have to bug a Warrior to repair your stuff, as there will probably be blacksmiths and the like to do it for you and if it's something they don't waste materials on doing, they shouldn't be charging anyway. Now if it costs materials to do it, then you should expect that they'll want a little something to cover expenses.

I think it's all good stuff. If you don't want to pay, join a guild that has the community that you desire, where they're all friendly and won't go charging you for something like that.

Also, you obviously haven't played any Simu games, as that's what it's all about -- sitting around chatting while an empath drops unconscious at your feet from trying to heal your critical wounds or hanging around the Ranger Guild and chatting while people spam foraging and train other skills. If that's how the services will work, then I'm all for it. Like one of the GMs said. The most fun they had was sitting in the Town Green and popping boxes for people while chatting.

They are not forcing me to use all of the services. I could play this game from stop to start and never need my speed enhanced. Sure that would be nice, but I don't need it. They are going to have an in game teleportation system so that I only have to travel a long distance to that place once anyway. Running faster is just a benny.

But if a substantial amount of my offense and defense comes from the wyr on my weapons and armor, and those crap out on me, you bet I have to fix that. That's a must do if I am going to be effective. And for that I have to trapse off, find some guy and do one of two things - pester him for a freebie (which is annoying to him and annoying to me) or pay him (which is annoying to me). Either way, we sure as hell aren't bonding.

Compounding this is the fact that some classes will clearly be able to print money off this system whereas those of us with fluff or unnecessary abilities will not.

Worse is the fact that in a game that promotes customization I can't choose my service skill - I am stuck with whatever the character class I am gets.

If you want to bring people together in towns, how about making towns fun? Put in some mini games. Make some bars where you can drink and toast. Let people dance or play musical instruments. Give people entertaining skills like juggling or sword swallowing or tightrope walking or you name it - something fun and imaginative. Have events there. There are lots of ways.

Or you could just put in some underinvented, unbalanced, mutual dependancy for unfun things system like this.

If you want to make crafters happy (the obvious driving force behind this move to check the obligatory box in the features list), then give them abilities where people will want to go to them, not have to. Of course that takes a lot more effort and is a lot harder to implement. But I would rather have no system than a half baked system that imposes nothing more than a tedious hardship on me and nothing to show for it other than back to the status quo of my stuff working again, a few gold pieces lighter and my time wasted.

I think if you had played either Dragonrealms or Gemstone then you would have a better understanding of the system that Simu is going to use for this game. These services were never tedious at all in DR or GS. First, it was very easy to find whatever service you needed. Healers(empaths) usually camped out in the center of town so if you needed healing then you knew to always go there. If you needed a box disarmed and unlocked then it was easy to find a locksmith. I never found searching for these services to be tedious and usually had a good time chatting with the other characters.

As for your concern about money. Money has never been an issue in Gemstone. People are tipped for their services but it is an unwritten rule that you never demand money for your service. Healers, for example are tipped very little for their services. A few hundred silvers, maybe 1000, depending on the wounds. Or you could chose to tip gems instead of silver. Locksmiths are tipped a percentage of what's inside of the chest that they have opened. Regardless of the service you offer, it's not much of a way to earn a living, at least not in Gemstone. Hunting is the best way to build up your bank account. Treasure chests contain plenty of silver, gems and artifacts that you can sell for good silver. A lot more silver than you could make by repairing weapons, healing or lockpicking. The serivices that Simu are granting each class are to help add a bit of roleplaying to HJ, not to create an economic imbalance. And if that does manage to happen then Simu has always been good about adjusting the economy and taking money out of the game. So I wouldn't worry about that at all.

Personally, I think what Simu is doing is a great idea. Breakage is a much needed aspect in roleplaying games if you ask me. Some people may not like their weapons and equipment degrading but I think it adds another element to the game. I don't like that weapons in certain games are indestructable. I also like the idea of needing true healing. I don't like RPG's where you get in a fight, take damage, lose hit points but still end up without a scratch. If you get hit hard then you should suffer an injury. A punctured abdomen, a broken leg, whatever. And you should require healing from an empath in order to fix your wounds. I like having that system in Gemstone because it always made me more careful when I hunted. I couldn't be wreckless when I was in battle, even if was just one on one, because I knew that if I got hit too hard then I could suffer a major wound and start bleeding and possibly bleed to death if I didn't find a healer. Those are elements in Gemstone that I wish were in other games. You may find them tedious, but I find them an important part of a good mmorpg.

I guess my concern would be if I had to give my weapon or staff to the warrior or wizard to fix / recharge then they could just scamper with my stuff leaving me high and dry. But I am assuming it opens some trade like window where you can tip if you want, and dont actually pass your gear over.

Well I think its good for promoting balanced parties on quests. Warriors can now fix gear as well as do the grunt work, wizards can recharge their own staffs, rogues can open chests you find, healers and clerics - well that goes without saying, and if you decide to flee an encounter a ranger will be handy.

But maybe Simu could go a bit further with the services. How about everyone thinks up some new ones.

- Rangers could make arrows
- Rogues could act as fences - value gems, items, make poisons.
- Healers could make potions
- Wizards could scribe scrolls, make staves and wands
- Necromancers could make poisons that could be applied to weapons, poison enemy water and food, make staves and wands
- gearknights could fix your clock :), make weapons.
- Clerics could banish spirits. So remove that nasty ghost in the ruin you want to search.
- warriors could beat up things.

So I assuming things like scrolls and potions are in the game.