I do particularly like the idea of x amount of "tier wishes" per realtime day. 5 seems like a fair number, plus it's rounded out enough to equal 1 tier 5, or 5 tier 1s or any other combination in-between.

As for the cost per tier, perhaps starting it at 5 sounds fair to me.

So 25 MPPs will either get you:

+5 to an attribute (if you use all 5 on that one tier 1 option)
1 class skill a bit early (like portal for a level 30 mage)
An array of buffing spells and 10 game hours of "constitution insurance"
.. you get the point.

I like the proposed model:
Tier 1: 5 MPPs
Tier 2: 10 MPPs
Tier 3: 15 MPPs
Tier 4: 20 MPPs
Tier 5: 25 MPPs

That model keeps lots of options open to just about all players. I know when I had my cleric, I had somewhere around 50 extra practices at any given time, and that's with practicing every spell, skill and proficiency to "inexpert" at every level. If I only practiced the spells and such that I actually used often, I'd have a TON of practices left over to use on something like a bit of extra damage or protection to help with leveling, or maybe +1 con to replace the one I lost when I got eaten by the butcher. I could have even exchanged some of the practices for money to repair some of my gear when players who could repair weren't logged on.

Also, should you be able to give MPPs to different players? I think that you should be able to, seeing as how you can give them gold. If you give them 10K in gold, what's the difference between that and giving them 1 MPP? Or 10 practices? Perhaps the practices can be thought of as tickets or tokens of sorts. You give a ticket to your guildmaster and he teaches you a little bit about something. That's one way that it can be rationalized during roleplaying. On the same lines, perhaps MPPs could be some kind of super rare currency that's ridiculously valuable, like unobtainium or something.

Keep the ideas coming!

(and yes, I do agree that earthquake should knock people down!)

This is beginning to sound like an arcade shop. With my X tickets I could select [object] as a prize, or if I save up Y tickets, I can get something better.

Yeah, if you start charging a quarter a play, I want a cut!

As far as giving out MPPs, I could take it or leave it. Maybe set a cap on how many you can give them a day.

I'm also for renaming MPPs to MMPs, Magical Mystery Points!

Dref

*looks to the camera, points at Dref and says "I like this guy."*

Man, now I want to play some good ol' arcades. My friend Stephen found a Defender arcade cabinet, in pretty much mint condition, on the side of the road near his house (electronics need work, but the cabinet is near perfect). He won't let me have it, but he will let me visit it haha.

Well, perhaps since there's no cap on how much gold you can give someone per day, there shouldn't be a limit on how many MPPs (or MMPs) you can give someone per day... unless there's a limit on exchanging, but even still, people will find a way around it.

Well, I read through this thread and I guess I am not on the same page as everyone else..

This idea of being able to convert gold into mpps, which can then be redeemed for spells and character buffs, just seems like a complicated spell shop to make the game easier. I've never been a fan of these types of things in Muds.

Whats the point of spending the large amount of time to earn 31 mpps through role-playing if anyone can just visit the bank and buy them in 2 minutes? Talk about deflation...

I guess what I am looking for is a more confined system focused solely on role-playing. A system where points earned only through role-playing can be used to buy permanent rewards for your character. Something that really encourages role-playing and not gold loading.

Maybe two types of character points would make more sense? Multi purpose points and role-playing points?

Thanks,
Baernov

I wouldn't necessarily think that it would cause deflation because if you were to use in the model posted previously by Vulsin. I'll just use his tier system and choose option 1 (tier 1) for this example. So I want to give myself improved strength, then that's 5 MPPs. Either I could take the gold route and turn those into MPPs, which is 50,000 gold, or use practices which is 50 practices, or just the 5 MPPs. Now I know there are those who take large amounts of time to collect gold, but to use it in this tier system would mean astronomical amounts of gold in reserve and through constant acquiring. It would be quicker to toggle on the RP flag and earn those MPPs by developing your character and actually "being" that person you decided to give a name to.

Personally I'm whole-heartedly for the MPP/Practice/Gold exchange because I can see it opening up people who normally don't like to RP to at least give it a chance. If after some time it grows on them they'll lose the immediate desire the MPPs have and quite possibly, just maybe, even a little, actually like to toggle RP on because they enjoy it.

The Guildinator

I have to say i like most of the ideas that have been posted here. But i have to agree with Baernov i dont think you should be able to buy mpps with gold, As Baernov said mpps should be a reward for good roleplaying not hack and slash, Hack and slash has many rewards already Gear levels gold so why give more by also allowing hack and slash to get the only thing that Role players have. Also we have been trying to encourage rp on DL for a long time and we now have a very very big chance to do that lets not spoil it by allowing Hack and slash Gold loading to get in the way of this.
Eracules

I have to say generally, I disagree with your stance on the gold/MPP exchange. First, MPPs are already given for things other than roleplaying. Second, I want to use gold as the mechanism to effectively allow players to give each other MPPs. What would RP points do?

Best regards,

--Nezmar

Hmm, in that case, MPPs will be like a drug for new players. Give em a few, get em hooked, and then they might start RPing!

Or develop a serious slash/hack mentality and become goldfarmers... It could go either way

I'm not entirely sure where I was going with RP points... Besides trying to find a way to encourage role-playing. It seems to me that a majority of players view role-playing as a chore they have to do when they want to gain a level. And this new MPP systems seems to cater to them. Those who enjoy the hack and slash aspect of the game wont flip their RP switch if given the option to. And now they don't have to, because rewards previously only available through RP can be bought with gold. So be it, forcing people to RP isn't the way to go either.

Question: If one can use gold to buy mpps, and mpps can buy con points, will anyone ever perma die again? Will there even be the slightest risk of perma death? Since most of us don't want our friends to die; will the first perma death happen only after every single player's bank account is emptied? Which totally makes realistic sense, because they do sell immortality potions at Walmart for $29.95..... At least now, there is a danger of getting into a weird situation in RP that might result in death.

So you want to use gold as the mechanism to allow players to trade mpps. Why should players be allowed to give mpps to other players? I just don't get it. I fail to see any realism in this.

Its starting to seem like the only thing RP is on this mud is something you have to do to level. There is no other advancement in it and if you just want to do it for fun, well, you are just going to end up talking to yourself for a half hour because encountering another player RP'ing just for fun is almost as rare as loading a sword of rulership. I honestly feel that if the mpp system was geared toward role-playing it would have a good chance of giving players that normally don't role-play the motivation to, and, who knows, they just might grow into actually enjoying it. Thereby opening up a whole new aspect of gaming that other games can't provide, like say, the goldfarming infested world of warcrap.

Thanks,
Baernov

Your points are well taken. I had some of those same thoughts as I was tossing this around in my head. Essentially, I ultimately felt the good out weighed the bad. MPPs are by design "multi-purpose" points. Maybe you shouldn't be able to buy attributes with them. Maybe they shouldn't be able to be traded, but I can think of situations where it does make sense (for example if MPPs are given out as rewards to building an area, doing work on the web site, or perhaps even administrating the game). The other side is at 150,000 gold coins per constitution point, can you really raise that kind of cash in the game to sustain your character if you aren't careful?

We've tried to do a lot of things to encourage roleplaying. I've come to the conclusion that people won't really roleplay on DL until we reach a critical mass (of players) that supports it (I believe macros will eventually help with this). Roleplayers get more experience, can earn MPPs and can participate in tasks as some of the examples of things we've done.

I do really appreciate you sharing these thoughts, as I've said, much of what is posted here I've already thought of to some degree... adding the detail helps to ensure we end up with a good system.

Best regards,

--Nezmar

Not to sure about your ratio.
For five hundred thousand coins, which does take a while to build up. People can switch
to ambidexterous without ease now in latter levels. More importantly for one-hundred-fifty-thousand
coins someone can purchase them a constitutional point.
Suppose that's a good thing to encourge prolonged character usage.
But I'm not quite sure how buying MPP's like this is going to affect things.
Probably couldn't hurt to give it a whirl, would make barbarians happier about their situations

Some people sit up with hundreds of practices too, guess this makes purchasing your
own home a little bit easier as well. The only renewable pieces here would be the gold.
Although Mpp's are rewarded themsleves ocassionaly.

Be interesting to add additional options for multi-purpose-point redemption.
Maybe a specialized item attainable through a roleplay session for twenty points
and the avaliability to tack on additional spells or attributes clan symbols or
aquired items post the initial purchase.
I wouldn't allow just any casual item to be enhanced although with
the brilliance behind the curtain it'd a possible thing.

Just wanted to make a few observations if such a change were to drastically be initialized.
Probably be a good way to balance out some of the drop-off's in playing and create a
revenue of people playing for gold, whom are still valuable things to have online at any given time.

One problem with some of your calculations. One of you quoted a character of making 2000 g a day......


Heh um....well all things considered on a reboot a person who knows where the gold spawns can make around 100-150k in a few minutes with if perchance they are systematic and know every spawn. Plus I know for sure that even with the current economy in the game my character can make around 5000-10000 gold an hour, just loading randoms and selling them to vendors and putting them up on the consignment. So perhaps:

1 MPP = 10 practice points = 10000 gold

Would be an appropriate ratio if one consideres 1 MPP to 1-2 hours of gameplay.

Just wanted to toss my numbers up for those who havn't had higher level characters.

But yeah love the idea, I RP when I have to or when I have the time. Which isn't very often. So this allows me to spend some of my hard earned gold towards improving my character. Especially considering the fact he has likely the lowest natural stats of any character in the game, and I havn't the MPP's at this time to freely raise those other stats. As of now 5 con is -_-, but with new implementation I could get that up to a nice 19 or so, plus raise some of my other stats to a point that I could live with. (currently I think sylvar has 8 int, wis, and cha)

Anyways, hope to see all of you mudding.
Sylvar, Sylvius, Sol

Ack! Another brain fart.

With the ideas of redeeming MPP's, perhaps at a point we could just redeem them for potions and/or scrolls that do the same spells that people have been thinking of. Unless you give the spells that are from redeeming an extended lifetime, many times if I run from say turien to rocksport there could have went 1/3 of my spell just from transit, but consider say a few potions same lifespan, could be used anywhere/anywhen. Poof, there balances out that ever going issue that people have hoarded away rechargeable items, yes I understand that the hoarders will hoard the potions/scrolls too, but heck cant win them all.

And yet, could do a 1 charge wand of say portal or minor portal, would have to make it more expensive for mpps, but again you could save up a few.

Else toss on the idea of restricting to a number of held by character. Say 1 to 1 ratio of all possible spells attained through scrolls/potions/wands from the MPP vendor.

Another 2 cents from Syl.

I have implemented MPP redeeming from within the game for players. Currently the things available are exactly the same as they were before, just that Staff doesn't need to be involved. Type mpp or help mpp in the game to learn more.

Best regards,

--Nezmar

Just thought i'd add a little feedback

LOVE the new automatic MPP redemption system, excellent work, and just nicely done Nezmar

Keep the new stuff coming! We appreciate it!