I think the point I was trying to make was that they were never intended to be equal.

The proposal was for the point of pragmatism here. They -aren't- going to un-type nexus power. It's bad business.

By making the key skills require drawing power from a specific nexus, it forces players to learn new sets of skills when/if they're driven out or choose to leave because of the OOC clique running the city. Cliques are a fact of life in any MUD. By typing power it means credit purchases (ultimately, whether you're buying from IRE or off the credit market, -someone- paid for them) need to be made each time you change cities because of said cliques.

You already do have to 'pay' to change the way you play. It's probably one of the more genius mechanics of Lusternia, from a business aspect. This just offers an alternate way to 'pay' to change the way you play that allows for higher player retention and potential profits without making it 'mandatory'.

The point of this is to allow IRE to still gain the money they gain from people being forced to leave orgs, while preventing the loss of profits from players who are suffering 'org burnout' and have become disillusioned with the various cliques that run them. It's good business sense.

As far as RL money goes? It's possible to earn the credits for said artifacts ICly. If you know how to make money IG very well, it's feasible to do, but requires a massive amount of effort (sort of like transing your skills out without paying cash to do so). It still maintains IRE's free-to-play, pay-for-perks business paradigm. Because of the greater difficulty for something you'd get for free otherwise, it still discourages rogues, maintaining Lusternia's overarching ethos. However it allows those who are dedicated to the game, but have managed to either gain the ire, or gotten sick of, the OOC cliques to continue their Lusternian experience.

If your character is so hated that you don't get into any organization, then it's time to re-evaluate yourself and why you play Lusternia. If you're simply choosing to play a rogue, you're choosing to live life with gimped skills and fewer social connections.

A rogue who is spurned and hated by Mother Moon, yet who has the Moon skillset should never be able to enjoy all the same skills and use them as effectively as Moondancers. Sorry, but rogues should pretty much have to be tracker warriors if only because it has to make sense in the context of the given world.

So conversely a rogue that is not spurned and hated by Mother Moon should be able to enjoy all the same skills and use them as effectively as Moondancers? Interesting point of view.

I still think it would be better if it required an artifact though.

It'd be a bit awkward and difficult to pull off without being a member of Serenwilde, and hardly believable. Putting that aside, I don't think it's worth getting any deeper into this discussion, particularly when the scenario I proposed is very likely to surface, very likely to be prevalent, and very likely to be a thorn in everyone's sides.

Especially when those in power decide who is "spurned by Mother Moon" out of whim.

QFT

Telling people who piss off their respective playerbase to buy an artifact to stick it to the man is not what Lusternia's made of. Radical beliefs about cliques aside (I have lots of opinions about the legitimacy of OOC clans running things and the inherent flaws in that logic), if you can't play nice with the organization you want to belong to, you need to figure out why you can't and, to keep/gain their skills, you need to figure out how to fix the problem.

Adding an artifact to the mix that bypasses the political ramifications of spitting on the Ravenwood is really not how these things should be done. It may or may not be good business for Lusternia, to offer wealthy rogues an opportunity to flip the bird at guildmasters, but it would really irritate a lot of people.

Edit: Not to mention how completely against the grain it would be to have to explain how and why the Fates are selling tomes that teach Night's sooper sekret spellz.

Every org needs a single individual to do the dirty work

The same for someone to shake up alliances

Transplanar Key (150cr) - allows you to use all the rifts in your organisation's Nexus.

If that means what I think it does, it wouldn't be balanced between city/commune.


Artifact Teeth (aka dentures) - allows you to bite people and has some minor effect like 20 bleeding or 2% chance of a poison or just a fun message. I don't know why, but at my age I just want arti-teeth.

I don't think the introduction of this would help Lusternia. When Achaea introduced autoclass - allowing anyone to have any skills - it is largely considered by the playerbase as one of the worst changes in the games history.

I don't think it's necessarily a bad idea, I just don't think it would make the game more interesting in the long run. Yeah, it'd be great for a few weeks afterward when everyone was able to try out new skills and skillsets with impunity but I think in the long run it would remove a lot of the things that make Lusternia interesting.

City distinction is one of the coolest things about Lusternia. When Achaea introduced autoclass and, all of a sudden, there were Occultists in Cyrene, rogue Infernals and cities/houses that accepted classes entirely anathema to their design... it didn't make the game more fun, it made it more homogeneous. It was no longer a sign of distinction, being an Occultist or a Paladin, it just meant you asked Certimene to become one and learned your skills from a denizen. Players were no longer encouraged to appreciate the rich back histories and belief systems of their respective class and, as a result, those classes lost a lot of their identity as RP entities.

This is probably not going to happen but one can wish:

The Fantabulous Gnomish Cooking Apparatus
Cost: 200cr

As a maestro cook, you can use this machine to bulk preserve and infuse.

Syntax:
- PUT # IN MACHINE
- PREPARE INFUSION (You must be holding the right amount of potion, ie if you are infusing 10 dishes for con, you need to be holding at least 50 sips of allheale)
- PREPARE PRESERVATION (Again you need to be holding the right amount of colewort)
- ACTIVATE MACHINE

You can only prepare for infusion or prepare for preservation. For each dish you are infusing/preserving will add to the time you need to wait. For example, it could be set to 2 seconds per dish. So if you are doing 50 dishes, it'll take 100 seconds. There might be some waiting ambience, like:

Whirr!
Zap!
Clink!

And at the end it might go, Ding! All done!

And then it's like the oven where you just GET 50 FROM MACHINE.

EDIT: Oh it's a Manse Artifact. And it stacks with your spatula as if you were doing it by hand.

Oh, also, the Font of the Gods should allow offering aethership esteem from any location if it doesn't already. Offering would go via the pilot's font.

That would be awesome.

Aether-ledger.

Lets you see the wares of the various ships, and possibly even the direction they're in. But the wares is the more important thing.

Should just make the real ledger do that when you're in aetherspace.

What about some sort of gnomish periscope that lets you squint in two non-straightline directions? Something like PERISCOPE N NE to squint a room to the north and then northeast from there. Like peeking around corners.

Slaughterhorn

Once per day, you may blow this horn. And a creature answers the summons.

In order from weakest to strongest:

10% of a squirrel (Weak)
80% chance of a middle strength mob
5% chance of a strong mob
5% chance of a white rabbit

For a fun little thing.



Fain's Slaughterhorn

50% chance of a Squirrel
50% chance of a white rabbit

Naturally, for your killing pleasure.

The rabbit is aggressive.