Lots of detailed information here, so if you don't want it, stop reading. This was all getting posted on Monday, but since some people keep wanting to stir things up no matter what was said, we'll just do it now and get it over with.
Totems
Fragments are returned to the sky by holding a totem and a glowing fragment in your hands and using the RAISE verb. This increments your totem's "fragment count" by 1.
The totem reaches its first bonus level at four fragments and becomes "active". After that point, the totem will then become "dirty" after one week of real time. Once it has been activated, the totem is capable of providing multiple types of bonuses that drain charges from it. These charges can only be restored by CLEANing a dirty totem and, as only dirty totems can be cleaned, the totems have an effective recharge rate of 10 charges each week.
By the way, to CLEAN the totems, you're going to need items for your totem that match what you sacrifice to the appropriate altars in the Alternate Favor System.
Here is a list of the abilities and associated costs:
|
Level 1 (Unlocked at 4 Frags) | Light | PUSHing the totem allows it to act as a light source. | Costs 1 charge |
|
Level 2 (Unlocked at 10 Frags) | Bless | This is activated by the WAVE verb and will add 10-30 blessed strikes to a weapon in the hand of the target (either another player or yourself). | Costs 2 charges |
|
Level 3 (Unlocked at 18 Frags) | Stat/Attribute Boost | This is activated by the POINT verb and will boost at single stat by 6-10 points for the target. The stat chosen will depend on the deity of the totem. Each has 3 possible. Not going to break down which each has at this time. | Costs 3 charges |
|
Level 4 (Unlocked at 28 Frags) | Skill Boost | This is activated by the SHAKE verb and will apply skill boosters to the totem-wielder. The stat boost is slanted based on the chosen deity's "flavor" being dark, light, or neutral; a bit toward the offensive for dark, defensive for light, and more balanced for neutral. | Costs 5 charges |
|
Level 5 (Unlocked at 40 Frags) | Favor | This is activated by the KISS verb and will bestow a favor upon the wielder. The ability will bring the favor count up to 15, but no higher. If the PC's count drops below 15, it will work again. | Costs 10 charges |
|
Jackpot (Capped Totem) | RPA | This is activated by the RAISE verb and has a 20% chance to bestow a Level 1 RPA on the wielder. | Takes all remaining charges |
So, as I said, once your totem is capped, you do not need to worry about more fragments. Any additional fragments you DO find have a chance to provide the jackpot bonus, but the basic functionality of the totems themselves is permanent and you cannot "break them" or "run them out", again, as I said.
There will be fragments in the treasure system to allow for the occasional jackpot or to allow those who need more to cap out their totems to cap them out. There's no deadline on capping them out.
So, aside from a very small number of typo issues, the totems were not "buggy", they were not working improperly, and they were working 100% as intended. Wythor and Lohkrian did an absolutely amazing job on them.
As we said, they're fairly complicated, but it was felt that they needed to be more than simple props, given their benefits.
If you have a billion fragments squirreled away, you might as well help someone cap out their totem, since most of them will die in a week or so. Any newly generated fragments currently have a lifespan of 1 week, but after the festival that will drop dramatically, so your best bet after the festival will be to use them, give them to someone, or sell them quickly. I'm going to ask Armifer to drop the lifespan on newly generated fragments
significantly over the weekend (down to maybe an hour or so) and we'll re-add ways for people who need them to get them in order cap out their totems more quickly, but again, if you're holding a bunch of them, they're not going to do you any good, so help out your friends.
For those of you who are wanting to exchange your totem because you messed up and got the wrong one and are holding fragments now, this shouldn't affect those fragments you already have.
Also, something that many people declined to investigate or participate in:
Fragments could be (can still be) given to certain NPCs and exchanged for "tricks" or "treats", which can be stored in special bags and can summarily be given to your friends or used yourself with various effects.
Which leads to the other announcement, which will be explained in more IC detail tomorrow:
For many years, a large number of players (and GMs) have wanted (or created) more recognition and/or celebration of Real World holidays. In addition, we've always had the ever-present question of "When's the next festival?".
My take on the holiday issue (which I've gone over before) is that this was not acceptable unless we could come up with a way to justify it and make it suitably fit into the culture and history of the game. Despite that feeling and despite my repeated "banning" of OOC invasions and Holiday Recognition in Prime, we'd still get rabid reindeer and mistletoads, rampaging turkeys, pumpkin carving systems that conveniently got released on Halloween, and other references that some people loved, some people hated, but only resulted in reports, complaints, and OOC comments on the gweth, which resulted in more reports and complaints.
Being a big fan of WoW's "in-genre-fication" of holidays, with good storylines and events that tied them in, I sat down last year with several staff members and we discussed ways to bring this to life in DR, starting with Chris' Mass, which will be a regularly occurring event with a theme of giving and sharing, tied to The Mass's appearance in the sky.
Following suit, the Events Team, Cleric Team, Moon Mage Team, and I, laid out the groundwork and storyline for what will become an annual, large-scale, themed festival designed around the Huldah's mischevious antics which caused turmoil in the heavens and resulted in the disappearance of the stars and totally empty skies, giving us our first ever Hollow Eve.
Many NPCs, Merchants, Alterers, and I believe even a few Greeters mentioned "Hollow Eve" to large numbers of players, but it was either overlooked or no one made the (obvious, we thought) connection.
This event and festival will occur every (RL) year, allowing you to plan your plat hoarding accordingly. The festival's theme will obviously lean toward the godly and generally contain inventory, games, and events that focus on darker aspects, deities, and playstyles. The idea is that most (if not all) shops at the fest each year will return, either with the same or refreshed/restyled inventory, along with new shops that will be added, which means it will continue to grow each year. I already have shops in mind that I'll be building and I know I've heard several other GMs say the same thing.
In addition to the auction, there are going to be a couple of other new system/feature releases, hopefully tomorrow.
Solomon
"The probability of someone making a mathematical formulation on a non-mathematical subject is inversely proportional to its usefulness."
- Brust's Law of Mathematical Formulations
http://www.myspace.com/simutronicsdragonrealms
This message was originally posted in Discussions with DragonRealms Staff and Players, General Discussions. To discuss the above follow the link below.
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