Improving Imperian

Iziae

As my work hours begin to reduce once more after Christmas period, I'll again have time to start playing with Imperian's code.

Similar to other threads in the past, I'm looking for improvements to the player's general day-to-day life. This thread is not the means to propose skill revamps or classlead categorized changes, but simple ideas that will make Imperian more fun.

If you have any suggestions, want to see improved usage from a command or have a new idea, please reply in the thread and over the upcoming weeks I'll implement those I can.

Delrayne

When you use a targetted say, and the target isn't in the room can we please have a generic target inserted, because it really throws off the rp environment to see this:

You say, " to bob what makes you think that?"

As opposed to this:

You say to no one in particular, "What makes you think that?"

Just and idea.

Juran

The main problem there is one of parsing. If they used your suggestion exactly as written it would be impossible  to say 'to start with, we should do this', because the game couldn't be certain you weren't trying to talk to someone named start that just left the room.

Aulani

I wouldn't mind being able to filter my general inventory.

Being able to, for example

i vial

and see

You are holding:
125 golden rose vials, 2 yeti bone vials
You are wearing:
You have 57 types of items in the Rift.
You possess 271 items and are carrying no gold. <-- Perhaps changing this number to reflect how many items of the searched are in your inventory.

I know ii (thing) exists, but I've found myself trying to search by just i before.

Hopefully there are some better ideas for things to code, but I thought I'd put that one out there.

Draekor

Speaking of inventories... I'd like a command that shows a simple overview of my inventory and ignores the short descriptions and go for types instead so I might see the following:

You are holding:
99 vials, 2 keys, 5 glaives, 2 bows, 22 randomitem

You are wearing:

pants and stuff.

Call it INV SIMPLE or INV OVERVIEW or whatever.

Caelya

To fix that earlier 'say to' issue: Make it sayto (or something similar, assuming it's not someone's name or something). So like 'sayto Bob blah'. If there's no Bob, you can do that 'You say to no one in particular' thing.

I'm sure there's lots of separate things I can think of, I'll be back to this thread soon.

Delrayne

@Juran I can see where that would be a problem, but surely imperian has a master list of all the characters created. I'm not a master at coding, so I'm not sure how much lag that would bring to the server to loop through all the names on sentences that start with to. I just thought it'd be a cool feature since our current form really does break the rp environment...at least for me.

Sarrius

I believe SAYTO was written for that specific reason in other IRE games.

Not sure if this is within the breadth of the thread's limitations - I would like a 'step down' function that opens an election without the person themselves being in it.. you know, for stepping down from their position as GM or city leader. So many times have elections been thrown by idiots not reading news or thinking they are jokers for voting for the one dude who does not want the job or is running as a placeholder. To be honest, can we just loosen the election start criteria so we don't need to waste gold nudging people to run SIMPLY to start the process?

Caelya

I think elections in general could do with a bit of looking at, specifically the enormous week-long time limit. It's ridiculous and I don't get it. The election announcements seem to give people just enough time to resurrect inactive chars to regain activity and be able to vote before the end of the election. I really appreciate the work that's been done on them so far, and I'd like to see it continue to be less of a OHMYGODELECTIONSUGH thing.

Khizan

I messaged Garryn about this already, but I'll mention it here, too. Can the Druid's Earth and Air powers be given a custom prompt option like Fanatism, Kai, Devotion, and similar? It would make it SO much easier to track.

Lalitana

Elections that end in ties shouldn't roll over and erase the original election - let us see the votes (particularly if more than two people were running) and roll the tied folks into a new election. And I agree that elections are a bit too long - the voting period alone is 4 days and 4 hours; 72 hours would be plenty.

I'd like it if the II and IH commands searched the appearance/short description and not just by keyword - for example, so that I could type II sapphire and see "an elegant sapphire ring", "a daring sapphire gown", etc. This is a silly example but is useful in situations where the item type doesn't necessarily line up with the description. It would also be useful for WARES - I want to see all the red things! Or all the stews.

ITEMLIST - works along the lines of ELIXLIST. With this I can type ITEMLIST by itself or, say, ITEMLIST CLOTHES/JEWELRY or ITEMLIST <type> and get a list of all my stuff with months left. Put it low in Perception.

Khizan

It would also be handy for the "bowl of lycaean stew" which can't be found with "ii bowl", "ii stew", or "ii lycaean", and instead goes by the keyword of "soup".

Vashir: I've added "bowl" as a target alias to all soup items.

Sigrain

Could we get a milestone function for new players that gives hints and suggestions about where they could go next for new quests? I've been relying on multiple guild scrolls to figure out where to go for hunting or making gold but they all tend to be generic and the quest consist of kill x give x to y. I guess that could be a mentor's job but honestly only a few of the mentors I've had actually take the time to show their protege around like that. Most want you to be 'independant and a go getter.' which is fine for an experienced player but just leaves a new player lost.

Juran

Lalitana said:

Elections that end in ties shouldn't roll over and erase the original election - let us see the votes (particularly if more than two people were running) and roll the tied folks into a new election. And I agree that elections are a bit too long - the voting period alone is 4 days and 4 hours; 72 hours would be plenty.

 

Votes should be included in the results post, and there should be a post in the event of ties that explains what happened and what the votes were.

Lionas

For elections that involve a person stepping down, it is currently possible to quit an election after it has started to remove themselves from the list.

For II, you can use "ii titled <thing>" to do a string search, the old ii functionality.

Iluv

There's some strange things going on with undead pets. Ahkan has his horse and hound undead and has had no problem with it. Sarciossis claims that undead status made his horse 'decay'. When I tried to make my cobra undead, it disappeared a day later and when I tried it again, the undead status reset over time making it become normal again. Also, it is impossible to collar an undead pet. Can undead state on pets be looked at and the various problems they have been creating be looked at and resolved? I'd like to be able to animate my cobra and not worry about it disappearing and having to train a new one and I'd like to be able to put a collar on a pet that is undead to keep it in that state.

Bathan

I'd like to be able to target shadowy demons via QJAB SHADOW or something, rather than have to have a mob number.

Vashir: I've added "shadow" as a target alias.

Sarciossis

Well, they just pushed my undead bug to be looked at, Iluv, so I hope it'll get fixed.

Here's a few ideas I had:

Allow the Artifact Search to be done by credits. This would allow someone with say 200 crs to simply use artifact list 200 and it would list all artifacts available under that amount.

Allow a secret bookshelf, or multiple bookshelves, for librarians, secretaries, and guildmasters to have access too. Bookshelves can be purchased by the GM. It would eliminate clutter by being able to remove certain books from the general public view, as well as allowing roleplay value to be added to the library. If you have 3 bookshelves, one can be accessed by everyone who visits the library, the other for guildmembers only, and then the final is set as secret and is only able to be viewed by guild leadership. This would also prevent theft and copying of books from libraries where it is not wanted. You could set permissions to each bookshelf, similar to the settings for arena and enemy status.

This one has already been assigned:

Let us have a SENTMSGS folder. 

And: CARAVAN LEAD (towne).

Delrayne

How about a way to search through the posts of a given newsboard....something along the the lines of searchnews annouce <phrase>.

Lalitana

I'm throwing this in hoping it will finally get changed.

Can the dwarven ironworkers in Antioch (example: dwarf30234) be "de-programmed" so that they stop ogling female characters, please? They do so whenever a female character enters a room. It's annoying and pointless.

Sigrain

Lalitana said:

I'm throwing this in hoping it will finally get changed.

Can the dwarven ironworkers in Antioch (example: dwarf30234) be "de-programmed" so that they stop ogling female characters, please? They do so whenever a female character enters a room. It's annoying and pointless.

It's not pointless at all. In fact I wish more npc's would interact with us in small ways. I find it encourages roleplay and makes you feel more in depth with this fantasy world. If your defense is, "it's degrading to women" well that's how men are. Its why kitchen jokes were invented. There will always, always be men out there that ogle women. I'd love to see a woman out there that ogles men. That'd be hilarious. There's an idea. A bar wench in every tavern that ogles men! Make it a female dwarf!

EDIT: In their defense, they work hard keeping your city's walls intact (whether they actually do or not is irrelevant). Most of their day consists of seeing other sweaty smelly dwarves. Can you really blame them when a pretty lady finally walks by?

Selthis

Ignoring the creepy what I hope is passing for trolling thing about the sexist npcs and moving on. (You should probably remove the creeper dwarves stuff and just make 'em generic and grumbly)

Trade

Caravans:  A way to do a quick summary of all the townes available to those outside of trade.  I pestered Lio for a script that did it but it requires me to be a trade aid.  Its so convenient for planning caravan routes for multiple stops though.  This is the output as it exists for me with the script.  Something like this would be awesome.

Kragge: Ore:4 Lumber:2  Total: 6
Trevka: Crop:4 Livestock:3  Total: 7
Blackthorne: Rock:4 Lumber:16  Total: 20
Cetara: Crop:1 Ore:2  Total: 3
Annona: Crop:2 Livestock:3 Ore:4  Total: 9


An overall look at trade in general would be awesome, but that is a huge deal in and of itself and would require a long term plan, so I imagine it is outside the scope of this.

Bashing

Been shot down in the past, butI'll bring it up again.  Unified targeting terms inside of individual areas.

First Wold Problems

Cluttered inventory - Over the years due to promotions and whatnot, i've accumulated a fair amount of stuff that needs to be in my inventory to function.  Could these be made to function as long as they're on my person but in my pack.  I'm thinking stuff like the inkpots, rolled scrolls, anchor, paw-print badge etc.  If not that, could you  make something I can attach them to like a keyring that i can buy

Artifact list owned - I have some artifacts I redescribed ages ago.  I uh, sometimes forget which is which.  Would it be possible to add another line to artifact list owned (between the # and name) that shows the relevant base artifact number that you use to purchase them.

Drains - a skill that shows you what defenses you have up that are draining mana, alternatively highlight them a different colour in defs.

Tarot decks - Make them hold more or just make them larger in general. Less stocking of decks, more stocking of individual cards.  Me carrying 22 decks is annoying.

Lionas

On the subject of owned artifacts - let me combine effects from multiple artifacts onto one item.

Luthyr

Lionas said:

On the subject of owned artifacts - let me combine effects from multiple artifacts onto one item.

Harker was doing this back in the first year of Imperian...

Selthis

Luthyr said:

Lionas said:

On the subject of owned artifacts - let me combine effects from multiple artifacts onto one item.

Harker was doing this back in the first year of Imperian...

Its doable but was at a slightly increased cost because it required administrative work.  But I think what Lio is looking for is an automated system akin to what Aetolia has. 

Delrayne

Selthis said:

Drains - a skill that shows you what defenses you have up that are draining mana, alternatively highlight them a different colour in defs.

This

Selthis

Allow me to run caravans for the other city in my circle.  But make the caravans summoned only deliverable to the org they were request from or something.  I must feed my addiction.

Sarrius

Seconding for Selthis' idea for a 'drains' skill. I have these odd times when my willpower or endurance or mana is draining and I am absolutely at a loss to explain it - so I go through literally every skill and shut them all off manually until I trip the drain. I know he isn't alone, plenty of people have asked for this in IDEAS for what is probably a few years now.

We could just set it as a 'REGENERATION' read out, similar to resists or resists reports - it shows you what precisely is affecting all of your regeneration in positive or negative ways, including room effects, blessings, defenses, artifacts, runes, skills, etc. Keeping with the general theme of transparency in the past few years, we should even be leaning towards you giving us precise numbers for the purpose of more data for balance discussions.

Juran

Sarrius said:

Keeping with the general theme of transparency in the past few years, we should even be leaning towards you giving us precise numbers for the purpose of more data for balance discussions.

The endurance/willpower regeneration formula is kind of a trainwreck, precise numbers might not be terribly helpful.

Cadeyrn

Might not be within the scope of this thread but the novice introduction could do with an upgrade to include some of our newer themes - path finding, a little about shardfalls, a little about the fourth age, autocuring.. etc

Iluv

Can we make it so that we can put our Clans in whichever order we like? It's quite annoying when you drop a clan and keep mistelling to the wrong one.