Partially Used: Custom Items and reincarnation

As the system is right now, there are a handful of players who will not pursue reincarnation because they would lose their custom items *and* have to wait the full regular time to regain them all over again. The reason I feel this is sort of poopy is because it means that the reincarnate option is extremely painful for older, established PCs who have paid their dues already. Its much more attractive to a newer PC because they dont stand to lose so much.

With that in mind, I would like to propose that PCs who have accumulated 128 hours played or more should be given a bit of slack regarding their custom items when they reincarnate to reflect the time and dedication they have already invested. 64 hours is not that big a deal... but its a large jump to 128, and a HUGE jump to 256.

I see it like this:

PCs who have gained 256 hours before reincarnating should be allowed to retain their 20k and 40k reward items. Their Reward chest timer would reset to 0.

PCs who reincarnate after gaining 256 hours would gain their reward chests at a faster rate than previously.
Meaning, they would gain the 32 hour chest after playing their reincarnated character for 8 hours, the 64 hour chest after playing for 16 hours, the 128 hour chest after 32 hours, and the 256 hour chest after 64 hours.

PCs who have gained 128 hours before reincarnating would retain the 20k item only, and the reward chest timer would reset to 0.

PCs who gained 128 hours before reincarnation would gain their 16 hour chest at 8 hours, the 32 hour chest at 16 hours, the 64 hour chest at 32 hours, the 128 hour chest at 64 hours, and the 256 hour chest at 128 hours of playing the reincarnated PC.

PCs who are ascending from reincarnation should have the same process as they did for reincarnation. {edit: this means the ascension process would utilize the hours gained before reincarnation, rather than the hours gained after reincarnation, as the PC is likely to spend far less time levelling to 40 after reincarnation}

This would allows folks to gain benefit for having spent a long time on a PC before reincarnating, rather than all that time being "flushed".

Additionally, a way to store your custom items before reincarnating so that when you get your vouchers you can immediately get those items back without bothering would be an excellent feature as well, and would make 's life a little less hectic. (this would also alleviate the suck of losing any non-voucher upgrades the PC has worked to earn for those custom items).

That said...

There should be cost involved if one wishes to avail themself of an option that recognized their time invested.
A PC should have to spend the full, total GP value of the item he wishes to store. So if you have a 500k item that wou have upgraded with crystals and dwarf upgrades and whatnot... be prepared to spend a few million gold to have it stored, etc...

Also, there needs to be some way for folks who have gained
vouchers/items from non-reward chest sources to retain those items.
Some folks have recieved vouchers for winning contents, completing Dm
quests, etc. The reincarnation system should not strip them of such.
Perhaps those items could be stored in semi-similar manner
to the above idea... except that the PC would pay to store, and then pay the
same amount again to retrieve the item (no voucher involved).

If these ideas appeal to you, please speak up in support.

They appeal to me.

Well crap. Now we're screwed.

I'd like for this to be implemented, in a slightly different manner.
Certain items tied to a character should be kept on reincarnation, but primarily those based on usage and the amount of time the player has existed, as well as other features.

I'd like that event items be allowed to be kept, such a reward voucher items and such given during such times. But thats my two-cents. Pretty much the same as Dave said but with a pair of two more rules.

I think being allowed to keep one or two non-voucher items would be nice too. Not sure about other players, but all my characters have one or two keepsake items which are as important to them as a voucher item... not so much the value of the items properties or such, but rather just character value, such as Angelica and the shadowcloak Jay gave her way back when she first started out, or perhaps for some characters, it would be an item that's been enhanced via dwarf/maker work.

The 'storage rental' idea seems like a decent method. Even if it was paying 3 times the item's value to store it and get it back, some players may consider that worthwhile. Having to make the payment after reincarnation/ascension would help balance it out as well... a 40th level character is no doubt easily capable of raising millions of gold in a relatively short amount of time, if they don't already have that much saved up, but it would be a bit more effort for the reincarnated character... not impossible as said player would know all the good money spots and such, but it wouldn't be a case of a 4th level reincarnated/ascended character strolling out of the conjunction decked out in +5 everything, sup'ed up to the gills.

I like these ideas... the loss of custom items is the top reason I'm with holding Jay from re-incarnation... the way I see it I've already invested 300+ hrs in Aenea with him to earn those items, added and upgraded them using BoMs/Crystals/Dwarf/Maker/Crafting/Enchanting...

Setting the counter back to 0 (okay 8hrs played) just doesn't compare with the time already invested (both in-game to rack up those hrs and out-of-game waiting for them appear)...

Also some of Jay's custom item's were created when "full free reign" of the items was allowed (before many of the recent rules).. .. whilst I've been told we can get the "exact" same items back at the same token prices, the amount of "extra" work put into further in-game upgrades is not worth the reincarnate bonuses, in my opinion... ....

Also he has some items which have "cherished memories" attached, and some that were given after major DM event's (such as Talon's Trophy).... ...

Now I can see why a fresh lv1 PC shouldn't be decked in all +5 gear (it would become too easy), but I also see no point in stripping a PC of all his prized possessions (that he has already earned)...

So how do I think we should combat this?... well lets say we have a "holder of prized possessions"... this would be done through a merchant.. set with a limited amount of "buy" gold... once you have "given" him the amount in items he will no longer buy anything from you... the catch is, after reincarnation he "sells" these items back to you either for free, or for a reduced amount... on a one PC/one store basis this should be simple enough to script in, but for a multi-user PW I'm not so sure, there would need to be a check vs PC name for "resetting" the Merchant Gold Store for each new PC, as well as some way to split who has/had what... maybe a new store created for each individual(based on a templated store), that only that pc could access that destroy's itself when empty(to save clutter).. the problem here is that without some Arkon-style storage set up(to recall the exact item's) they would get lost on server-crash/reset... not a real problem if the items were free to return to the PC, but if he had to buy them back then it could be whilst they gather the required funds.... ....

... the only other problem then would be deciding the merchants gold reserve, we know the highest voucher total is 820k (all the tokens added together).. and they will want some often unique item (around 100k).. and some items will have been upgraded (around 200-500k)... so a solid 15 000k seems good to me... the PC will then be able to keep what they want to.. .. ((the next problems comes with a looping script marking all the PC's items as non-cursed/stolen/plot/drop able)).....

Okay that's my thoughts on it, I've been thinking about this for a while now, but until I had a solid workaround/proposal I kept it to myself, since this thread was started anyway, I'd figured I may as well post my current thoughts... ... .. .... .... ..

Also he has some items which have "cherished memories" attached, and
some that were given after major DM event's (such as Talon's
Trophy).... ...

Yeah, I regret that I had to relinquish this item as well.

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PCs who reincarnate after gaining 256 hours would gain their reward chests at a faster rate than previously...

I'm going to kick myself if I Reincarnated Phyllick too early as he had less than 4 hours before reaching his 256 hr mark.

I'm going to kick myself if I Reincarnated Phyllick too early as he had less than 4 hours before reaching his 256 hr mark.

... with the current system this doesn't really matter... the token/item you would have recieved will have been lost anyway after reincarnation... it's the thing that we want to see changed... and the timeplayed counter currently gets reset to 8hrs... ...

RustyDios wrote:

I'm going to kick myself if I Reincarnated Phyllick too early as he had less than 4 hours before reaching his 256 hr mark.

... with the current system this doesn't really matter... the token/item you would have recieved will have been lost anyway after reincarnation... it's the thing that we want to see changed... and the timeplayed counter currently gets reset to 8hrs... ...

That's the reason why I went ahead and Reincarnated him when I did. Those -4 hours I could have played to receive that last Player Reward item weren't going to matter.

If a change is made, the DMs staff can certainly accomodate you regarding those 4 hours.

I know it won't help for items of random sentimental value (Vizzini still carries around his first set of Adventurer's Robes too ); but as far as player reward items go, what if just added a new requirement for them stating that the item's ResRef has to begin with a particular prefix, something like pri_*? That at least would allow for a script to pluck out any player reward items, and could also potentially be applied to racial abilities like winged's flight and drow's darkness that seem to be getting swept out and not replaced by the reincarnation system.

Hehe, for the subrace tokens, the flight one I think would be the most useful to have. Vamp domination and drow/halfdrow darkness... the caster levels for the spells themselves are so low that I've never bothered withthem once I got past the first few very low levels. Darkness was useful for my drow as far as using as a quick fix to 'talk' to an outside NPC/Placeable during the day (sun damage prevents convos).

Also important to be able to preserve ones permanent house key....

Another suggestion for Ascension options - though unrelated - is the ability to change their base race/subrace. If they are getting a new body, they would be able to choose any form they want, right? Unless that's too much for scripting it would be pretty cool to do.

Also, if you could change your base race/subrace, we might want to consider changing their diety. As it stands, I chose quite possibly the most useless deity I've seen. I can't even USE the token I got for being a follower of Ralth

The hammer I beleive is outdated. The favor of Ralth can now (or should be at least) activated with the bless me vc command.

The diety change would be cool I suppose, although I'd like to see that as an option in gameplay as well (beyond the BG forced diety change)... Perhaps with some extreme consequences so there's not a case of a PC changing gods like they change socks.

That could also make reincarnation a viable option for a character who took a level in BG and lost their initial diety.... I've only seen 1 character in Aenea who this'd be an issue for (a paladin/bg), but this could also be an issue for druids/bg's, Champions of Dalix/BG mixes, or BG/Warblades..... Not common, but you never know who'll decide to go that route, and the BG diety change pidgeonholes them into a given build after reincarnation/ascension.

Subrace/base race... Base race *could* be done with Leto I *think*, but that would be a complicated system with redistributing 30pts according to the new base race.... and with subraces, we'd have to be able to edit out the old subrace so there aren't instances of ascended PCs running around with vampire/beastial orc/bright gnome bonuses all rolled onto a single character.

The reincarnation/ascension bonuses are very powerful as is... and anyway, with how it's setup now, that's just the more reason to have many different characters trying out all sorts of different things

daveyeisley wrote:As the system is right now, there are a handful of players who will not pursue reincarnation because they would lose their custom items *and* have to wait the full regular time to regain them all over again. . ..

Sorry, guys--being an alte kaker I THINK I have a "handle" on where things are with custom items, but I thought I'd check. Last night I reached level 40 (with the aid of a two-level player reward). The description in the main thread regarding reincarnation/ascension that started is quite clear. No items survive reincarnation. However, I see a glimmer of hope is this thread that this might be altered.

I have an 80K player reward voucher that I never redeemed due to time constraints and other issues. I had hoped to make something like the "Greatsword of Surcease" I got in one of Kevin's great mods on the Vault.

So my question for : is there currently any chance I might get to keep the voucher for use after reincarnation? If the answer is a definite "no" I'll have to decide whether to keep playing for some time at level 40 so I can enjoy the player item, or bid it farewell and reincarnate.

If the answer is "yes, but it may be a while," I'll consider staying at 40 until the change is made.

Thank you!

Caldor

Losing all my items has been the primary reason i have never reincarnated any of my characters...mainly Iggy. His items make his look...and losing them would be like cuttin his nads off...and thats not gonna happen.

So i never bother with it...plus...im iffy on the minor bugs it has so id prefer not having my character screwed up and what not(thats personal experience there...not bias to ad)

Another reason is i build characters for rp purposes...not mini/maxing my characters for maximum pwnage....sure i build them to be the best i can be...but i dont rebuild them for the sake of one more point of str and what not Iggy would also never try to become a quasi-diety or however ya call ascension, its just not in his character to do something like that...hes more involved in watching over the multiverse and helping others.

Now now, Aseph reincartnated because he was tired of being called "old man" ... for some reason everyone seems to think that potent arcane caster = old... which isn't always the case with sorcerers... That, and he always was obsessed with obtaining more power to help defend those in need... A younger body helps him do that for longer after all... Plus nearly stopping time would help him in a pinch...

and who ever said they were "minor bugs?" The feats don't even WORK! That's about 1/3 of the reason I reincarnated... the nice free teleportation, as well as being able to fly, was something I was looking forward to. The other 2/3 of the reason was the reasons stated above.... oh how he hates being called "old" when he's not even 45 yet.... Well... he wasn't then even (though close to it), now his body is more like 22ish...

The idea I had with allowing for different subraces was not necessarily changing all of the subraces from the baser character as much as just making a new character outright. Thus the next character that logs in under that username with 0XP or some other variable that cannot be replicated under normal cicrumstances, would be teleported to the Character Creation section and then made as normal, then adding the new subrace effects/reincarnation bonuses etc. Now a number of other issues come up with that method as well (Deities come to mind at the moment), but the scripting should be a little less involved and a little less prone to "bustification." This sort of method would automatically remove any and all variables on its own as well (since it's a new character at that point) including bank balance, number of times visited, etc. Names become a slight issue, but there might be a small work around with that. Maybe add a small symbol at the end of chraracter names to symbol that they have reincarnated/ascended.

But I digress...

Custom items, as the discussion was here orignially, wasn't so much of an issue for me. I more or less rushed to get to a higher level, never taking the time to really explore or anything... so it's not like I had that much to lose. However, after seeing some of the rather potent custom items out there for many of the veterans of Aenea (who made their items before the current restrictions, apparantly) I can see this becoming a problem. Though it is my understanding that the "grandfather clause" is in effect for said items, and that with the proper vouchers, they can be reobtained without penalty, getting that much value in vouchers would take rather long... By that point, they'd probably be at level 40 again once they get those items back. While I definitely understand that reasons behind not reincarnating, whatever those might be, the penalites seem to be more harsh the more time a player has put into a character.
Perhaps there could be a way to scale the amount of time put into a character into the refunded amount of time given in the player reward chests when you reincarnate instead of just giving everyone everything through the 8 hour chest to anyone, no matter what kind of time was put into the character previously. Maybe 1/4 or 1/8 of the time played before reincarnation OR 8 hours, whichever comes out to be higher. That way a player with the 256 hr chest wouldn't be out the entire 248 hrs, but only a portion of it, while a person who didnt even get the 64 hr chest gets a far lesser portion

I also am in favor of paying for the storage of custom items, at an extremely high cost as opposed to the complete destruction of the items. With an item that costs even 120k+, you aren't getting that money until at least level 10ish, probably later than that with the cost of supplies etc. If you multiply the cost of that perhaps by 8 or 16, 32 at the absolute most, that makes an item with a base value of total combined coupons of 250k be something around a couple million gold to store/retrieve. I don't think I ever spent that much, even at level 40, though the money is definitely obtainable. Heck, at those prices, you could get away with storing any items with a base value over a certain amount (I'm thinking around 125k or so base value minimum) thus not restricting it to just custom items but still putting such a hefty price on it as to not deck out low level characters. (Though ILR takes care of most normal items for that purpose)
Now, I'd like to see some more uses for such astronomical amounts of gold, but that's for another thread

i've come across a possible semi-fair compromise for this.

My only real issue now is the items that were given through various events. Those can never be reobtained no matter the time put back in. My proposal is to at least transfer those, even if it waits until level 25+ to get them back, at least they're not gone forever. I know there's not much of a way to check every item, so it should be up to the player to note what items were gotten via special events/circumstances and notifying a DM.

Lock and move? Time-played counters don't reset anymore, and there's the item-saving VC command as well too...