Dark Legacy MUD Forum

Since this has never really been spelled out to the higher ups before, I figure now is the time.

The reason why binding sucks is because of the constant morphing of the game. Patches completly change mechanics and the overall balance of things. Pendulum swings of power happen almost every patch. Heck, another one will happen again once this new patch comes, I'm sure. So what ends up happening is, people want to remake their characters. Theres no incentive to keep levelling and levelling, and stick with the same character. All the items you have worked for, you want them to move over into your /next/ character, because a patch made them to be not as good as they used to be, compared to other classes.

It took me a very long time to collect a Titan Tattoo, for instance. It is currently bound to Ridley. He had no part in collecting the pieces. All he did was the last rite, giving them to the Titan. You can be /DAMN/ sure that when I remake Ridley, I'll want that Titan Tattoo to carry over.

And no, saying that it will be acceptable once the new patch comes, because everything will be balanced and theres no further need to remake yadda yadda, is BS. Because frankly, I can tell you with 100% certainty that there WILL be some other patch even farther down the road that gives us all incentive to make new characters again. In which case, I'll want to again carry the godly items that I have collected over time, through countless hours.

I don't know what the ideas are for the new system fully, but this is how its at now, so I thought knowing this would give you guys a better idea of what we are all 'complaining' or 'whining' about. Our time, thats what.


~Ocardus/Ridley

yes, name changes mess up binding

but for switching equipment amonst all your alts, sure, it might be nice for you to do that, effectively only spending time with one character, and then using the quest items from 1 main character to boost up whichever character you feel like playing.

Or, we could have a game where there are no one of a kind items, and with some work, you can get the quest items for any character you wish to spend time with.

Yes, titan tattoos and certain 'specialty items' are not there for any character to get. However, our goal is to add detailed mud run quests, which will allow any player to complete at their leisure.

It won't happen right away, and all you old school folks will still have equipment called 'Billys questing token of might' or some such jazz But for the new players, they will (in theory) be all balanced among themselves.

Binding is important, without it, there is zero, absolute zero reason for any admin to spend 1 minute making a quest. Put yourself into the shoes of a builder, and spend an hour, or a week, or a month building a detailed quest, only to finally release it, and find out theres a player camped out selling all the quest items to the highest bidder. Yay, one person has done your quest, well, that was sure worth your effort.

I see the arguement for switching quest items around to your characters, but i'm part of that dying breed of people who think if a character wants a quest item, to show off to others, and say, look "what i did" they (the character) should do the quest themselves, not have an epic level 300 warrior tank alt that does all the quests and then hands em down to the level 50 permadeath mage.

I think rather than 'binding' to the specific PC, how about the account? Just keep the PC's name out of the desc and you're fine.

Account wide binding wont happen. It will keep ALL items one character collects in the game indefinitely while they migrate between your characters, and thats the situation I want to avoid.

That doesn't mean I wont allow transfering of valuable objects between account characters. My main concern with this patch is keeping the economy healthy.

It will probably be somewhere between 1 adamantium up to 1 emeralite coin to mail-and-rebind items to a character on your acount, price depending on its type. The minimum price of 1 adamantium will ensure only sufficiently valuable objects get transfered, thus allowing you to transfer your most priced posessions while keeping the economy healthy and preventing 'quest-tanking' like Isa described.

Wheee!

Sounds good to me.

Celeborn, instead of adding more red tape to the system, why not just classify items to different bind-states?

I know you CAN do account wide binding, I highly doubt its a code restriction.

I propose:

Crafted items with value x and less: Account bound on wear.
(Area) Quest items: Character bound when obtained.
(Imm run, like random quests that are sometimes sponsered) Quest items: Account bound when obtained.

Etc etc etc.

having imm run quests only adds to the problem of people thinking they will not be able to have their own quest items, and therefore must only use one character to quest, and the rest to sit around and look pretty.

Mud run quests will solve that problem.

the quest item will always either be X or be Y, obtainable by any character that meets the criteria of said quest.


and it wont be the current lame ass way, where quest item, only means you buy it at the nearest auction.

I personally, and i would bet any person who spends time building a detailed quest, would prefer on the "get the item yourself" policy.

But as Celeborn has already stated, he will allow quest item transfers, for a price.

That should be fair, for those people who only want to bother spending time with 1 character.

I don't understand what any of your examples had to do with my proposal

oh, i was trying to say i dont like quest tank chars.

and that once we have created the mud in the form we have already designed in our mind, you will not need to have quest tank chars.

I think the example of 'titan tattoos" and 'imm only rewards' keep coming up.. but what if those quests no longer exist, and instead are there, at anytime, available to anyone who fits the quests criteria?

Then the whole "well i cant get this item anymore, and i want sally to wear it, because i play sally now" no longer is a valid argument.

thats all i'm saying

Yes, quest items should bind. If you want a quest item, you should have to do the quest yourself. However, for things like the Titan Tattoo, you CANNOT do the quest. A player isn't buying a Tattoo from another player because he doesn't want to go get one for himself, it's because he can't. If it is possible for a player to do a quest to get an item, they should be required to do so to get the item. However, I think that items should be transferable between alts. If a player is forced to do a quest 8 times, he's not going to enjoy it or appreciate it; he's going to see it as an annoying, mundane task. Is that how you want your quests to be viewed?




Good idea.

I clearly explained why in my last note.

Your complaint, in essence, is 'binding prevents me from re-using my highly praised item on another char on my account'.

For earlyer stated reasons I wont code your proposal, but I suppied an alternative I found to be an acceptable alternative.

I have to agree with isabelle on this one. Valuable items should not be allowed to swap between characters. From game play perspective. It is character A that achieved such item not character B regardless of who is controlling both characters. However, items such as Titan Tattoos should be able to transfer from one character to another based on the discretion of the caretaker. Such permission should be rare and usually not granted. Perhaps, make the new character perform a difficult quest in order to have the tattoo rebind? after all, titan tattoo quest isnt really something that you can redo after you make a new character. Maybe 2 golden quest tokens per rebind an item of choice? that sounds fair.