Hi guys,

I had an idea. I was thinking of the Minor character ideas the other day, how I built Tully, and the fact that I was thinking of having one-shot minor characters to help with RPing. But I also thought of something.

The Gods are very busy and also programmers, and there are too few of them. What if there was a new class of assistant GMs, kind of like guides, but instead of them being around to help newbies, they are there to help add a sense of magic to the basin. Here's how it could come about. (I'm calling them Vitalizers for lack of a better term).

* They would have to have more or less the same qualifications as guides, more or less. They would also have strict guidelines of what could be done.
* The would not appear in a form, rather, they would be intangible and undetectable. They could teleport and follow a player if needed, but could never interact with the players except for the following:
* They would be able to take control of non-named "mobiles". They could move them, have them say and emote, and thus engage the players in conversation. They would be limited in combat--they would not be allowed to combat unless certain conditions were met.
* They could do "room emotes" to enhance the story.
* Based on Roleplaying, they could award small karma bonuses (1-5% tops), xp, rolepoints, or gold (limited amount).

They would not be able to do major plot things, but rather minor things for everyday moments. This would be designed to enhance the day to day moments while the gods work on the MUD and the big stuff.

Think of the possibilities.

* A furrikin from Estebar comes to Celest and asks for directions home. A small band of Celestian citizens walk him home and save him from a few mean wolves.
* One of the widowriders says to another "why are there some many of us posted at this damn tree!". Frustrated, a few of the crew go down to relax and goof off.
* One of the Leprechauns in Faethorn, when given a honeycake, says "I don't want Honeycakes! Give me some beer!"
* A centaur guard flirts with one of the players.
* Three orcs come to Magnagora, looking for work.
* An elf maiden is possesed by an archdemon. The moondancers take her to their tower and perform a ritual of cleansing. The room becomes dark and menacing, akin to "The Exorcist".
* Some special mobiles could be used for things like weddings, funerals, and other things.

I don't know how possible this would be to implement, but it's a good idea. The gods are few and have a lot to do. I had said that I thought if 5% of the active players were playing minor classless alts, it might enhance the RP, but this is probably a better way to handle it. If the players actually participated in helping the world, it might enhance the RP some feel is lacking.

Well, that Idea sounds really neat! That would really add to the atmosphere and all. And maybe the dryads would once flirt back when Ash talks to them.
Although I don't think it will be implemented.

This would be amazing if people never acted like idiots.

But man, I'd love to do that.

It has been suggested before - Ephermals who's sole purpouse is to enhance "random" roleplay. Ephermals who learn the different mobs in the game, control them. Start basin-wide or just private conflict. Ephermals who would be available for private role-play, like for families or marriages or things like that.

Of course, they'd also help with the admin duties. Nothing was said divine-side.

I think people have suggested it before... I bet the main reason against it is that that's a really huge role to entrust people with - not like building or even coding, as those allow the Divine to approve your work before using it, but RPing has an immediate and very obvious effect, and someone doing a stupid thing with privileges can reflect very badly on the game.

That said, it would be really awesome if it was done and the people doing it were good.

This has been suggested often in the course of IRE (and it was even tried a couple times) but I'm afraid the simple fact is that it doesn't work, and when it screws up it does so rather spectacularly.

Sorry.

I think the only thing I wonder about though is that don't the guides actually have limited god powers? This proposal would be even more limited than guides, at least I'd think.

Are there guides in IRE who've abused privilages? I'm just wondering since I think most seem to be well-behaved.

But I do understand the concerns. I just thought it would help with the disparate players/GM ratio, which is huge compared to a smaller game.

But that makes it all the more fun, really. It's like eating a ton of cookies and vomiting them up, before realizing it tastes just as good coming back up as it did going down the first time!

All we need are more regular gods. More gods means each has a lighter workload and they have more time to screw around with players.

It...does? o_O

And no, Phred, guides don't have the ability to mess with the RP of the entire world by making mobs do idiotic stuff...

If you put many limitations on it, and the consequence for breaking the rules was the shrubbing of your charachter forever, and ran it similar to the guide system, instead of the emphyrial system... Would it not be possible?

Can we just hire more ephemerals?

Even with that punishment, it could still be abused.

Remember that shout that got me banned? If I could do that without caring about the punishment then one of these RP People could do a lot worse.

Which, in my opinion, is good. That way you all get to do your own RP rather than being pushed/led all the time.

Can't we just get more Ephemerals? You guys complain enough about the immortals we do get and you want us to just pick up random people who we don't even think are suitable?

I was under the impression that the epmemerals You all picked weren't random or unsuitable.

That's the point, we picked the ones that were suitable, if we got MORE Ephemerals, they'd be unsuitable.

My argument was there is enough complaining about the suitable candidates without bringing in unsuitable ones.

Oh, well, You all always say "there were plenty of good candidates, but we didn't have enough spots".

>.>
<.<

That's also true, unless you want us to just take a bunch and only be able to train and keep an eye on a handful. Or more likely we'd try to do it for all of them, they'd all come out screwed up, and again you'd have things to complain about!

You can see how any method other than our current one quickly leads to you complaining.

I thought you'ld have realized it by now. I never thought you were this slow.





Players bitch, scream, cry and whine over anything. No matter what. And, if they themselves are at fault, the blame is quickly shifted to the administration.

So, while I discuss this fact, I must counter balance it by publically displaying my affection for the admins:

heheheh, i once told a pilgrim "i wanta wack you on the head with a lead pipe on avencha's peak" to get it to follow me, and it questioned me, and i'm pretty shure it was spindle that had inhabited the pilgrim.