Tiffy

Currently the moment you equip a piece of Vanity equipment it becomes valueless to the economy and bound to that specific character. This system devalues Eldevin Points that you spend on BoE Vanity equipment to only hold personal value.

It reduces the likelihood that a user will spend Eldevin Points on more than one set of Vanity equipment for the same character. I believe that this is an extremely flawed way to go about handling vanity equipment. One of the only benefits that it has is that it increases the likelihood of a user spending Eldevin Points on a Vanity set for their additional characters, but users that frequently play multiple characters are equally likely to buy multiple sets with one of the plans I am proposing below. If cost analysis dictates that the game is still too fresh to adopt system one, system two is a supplemental system that also helps to alleviate the strain.

It essentially ensures that the Eldevin Points you have just spent will have absolutely no further contribution to the games economy once you equip them. Eldevin Points spent on items that do not bind on use, such as sacks, are a prime example that unbound Vanity items remain desirable and valuable far after they have been purchased.

One of two changes needs to be made in order to remedy this situation:

System One:

Make all Vanity Items (with the exception of some; such as storage bags) not bind on equip or use, similar to sacks. This enables users to sell their Vanity equipment once they have grown tired of them, or found a new set they like better. This also enables users to share their vanity gear with their other characters; but the transfer process for people that play multiple characters frequently can become quite tedious, leading them to eventually buy the set for their other character. Players will be more likely to want to purchase an additional set for changing outfits on the same character, or having all of their characters dressed in Vanity gear.

The positives are is that this keeps free flowing goods in the economy that have value based upon rarity and desirability, that don't disappear from the economy the moment someone equips them. I personally am much more likely to keep changing my outfit if I know that I don't have character-bound real life money tied to the current outfit I am wearing. Sacks already follow this system. Yes, players need more sacks than they do Vanity gear but in other games that use this system fashion items become a thriving and active part of the economy. I highly doubt with our current system that you will see Gifthelper or Giftbringer sets or even pieces being sold more than once in a blue moon (or worn) due to owner quittage and most of the existing pieces being equipped already.

System Two:

If your system analysis projects that System One would be too detrimental to the sale of Vanity equipment, you can adopt System Two. System Two operates on the principle that once you own the complete set (or you can use the same system piece by piece) of a specific Vanity set, you can unlock the ability to make infinite Bind on Pickup (Non Tradeable) copies of the set through a small amount of Eldevin Points.

For example the entire Red Star Warrior Vanity Set costs 900 Eldevin Points. Once you own all 5 Pieces on a character, you could go to the Vanity Shop and go to the new Vanity Unlocks Tab, which will display "Account Unlock: Red Star Warrior Vanity Set" listed at, for arguments sake lets just say 15% of the total price, so 135 Eldevin Points. Click the unlock button and bam, you now have the ability to make copies of this set that are bound to your account only. At this point the "Unlock" button turns into a "Copy" button.

This would allow me to go onto another one of my characters, click the "Copy" button, and receive a bound copy of the Red Star Warrior set. It encourages users to collect multiple sets for maximum fashion customization, by placing a greater value on their investment of Eldevin Points or time in the initial set. It also means that they don't have to hold onto their bound sets that they aren't using, as long as they spend additional Eldevin Points to unlock the copy feature for that set.

In this system, initial sets remain Bind on Equip. Copied sets are always bound. It does not solve the issue of the item disappearing from the economy, but it does place a greater value on the sets, and encourage the user to purchase many sets for greater customization ability.

Hopefully you will consider one of these systems, or a combination of the two!

I'd like to use this thread to discuss some things that I personally would want to find in a Guild system, including activities to do with your guild, guild interactivity, and guild features; as well as guild interface expectations that you have.

Interface:

• General Information: The Guild Interface should definitely contain a member roster, guild name, "Leave Guild" button, a small area where a tiny message can be posted (many guilds will use this to post a message of the day, or their voip/forum information). If we end up doing a Guild System with a Guild Level system it should display the Guild Level and an XP bar for the guild.
• Management Tools: It should be easy for the Guild Leader and respective authority positions in the guild to manage the guild. This means that first and foremost, the Guild Leader needs to be able to set rankings and permissions. This includes things like guild bank access (deposit/withdraw), and kick/invite access, and access to change other (lower ranking) permissions. Obviously it should be easy for the people with the proper authority to kick people from the guild, meaning a right click over someones name in the Member Roster would pull up the option to "Whisper/Kick/Invite to Party". The Guild Leader or qualifying ranked members should be able to edit the area for the tiny message. Additionally, if we have things like Guild Battles and such, there needs to be sufficient management tools to initiate and disengage them.
  • Something that many games tend to forget when they create a Guild System that utilizes Guild Banks is a proper documentation system for withdraws/deposits; and the ability to set different levels of permissions for withdraws/deposits. This would be important to have in my opinion, should we utilize a Guild Bank system.
• Member Roster: I would love to see a member roster that is both intuitive and tidy. It should list several bits of information about each member, and you should be able to sort the list in descending or ascending order for each of these criteria. It would perhaps also be useful to have either scroll-over text for additional details about each member that is useful, but would clutter up the interface too much (an alternative to this is the check-box system for what you want displayed in the interface, with a scrolling sidebar).
  • Some of the important criteria include: Online/Offline, Character Name, Nickname*, Guild Ranking**, Character Level, Talent***.
    • *Nickname: This is a special assignable name that the guild leader may give to each member, almost like a notepad. For instance if the user CowMagel33t has 40 tailoring and is willing to make tailored items for the guild, the guild leader might tag him with the nickname "Guild Tailor".
    • **Guild Ranking: These can be present universal rankings decided by Hunted Cow, or for extra customization ability, you can allow the Guild Leader to create a set number of rankings themselves. Essentially this is your stereotypical "Guild Leader", "Captain", "Lieutenant", "Recruit", etc. The ability to customize your guild ranking names could even be sold via the Cash Shop, or be unlocked at a certain guild level.
    • ***Talent: It can list the talent of the person by using a small icon that corresponds to the 6 talent trees available - the shield, the axe, the mask, the paw, the fire, and the sun - If talent privacy is a concern it could just display the icon for the tree you have the most points invested into, otherwise I think it would be very neat to display an icon for each of the trees that a user has invested into, starting with the one that you have the most points in and descending from there; and if you scroll over each individual icon it tells you how many points are invested in that tree.
  • Some of the more debatable information that might be found on the scroll over menu could include: Date Last Active*, Date Joined**, Guild Experience Earned***, Money Donated****, Location*****. I'm sure there are many more!
    • *Date Last Active: When did the user last log in on this character?
    • **Date Joined: When did the user join the guild?
    • ***Guild Experience Earned: If we utilize a Guild Level system that has members contribute something that earns exp in one way shape or form, it'd be fun to see who contributes the most/least. Some guilds might even impose monthly experience contribution requirements. It could be all time or time-based (this week/month/year).
    • ****Money Donated: In the same realm as Guild Experience Earned, this would show the total amount of money donated by the user. It could be all time or time-based (this week/month/year).
    • *****Location: I have played a few games that will list the current region or map that the guild member is on. This can be highly useful, but not necessary.

Guild Levels:

• Games that utilize a Guild Level system give guilds a common goal to work towards that improves the guild. Sometimes the Guild Level will provide increased member capacity, or unlock various features such as Guild Banks, Guild Housing, Guild Logos, and Guild Apparel, such as capes.
  • There are quite a few different takes on Guild Level Systems. The most basic system normally just involves unlocking guild levels through purchase (X Gold for Level 1, X Gold for Level 2, etc). I don't like these systems as they don't really add anything to the concept of being a Guild at all; they just add an additional monetary goal for you to reach.
    • My personal favorite type of guild level system normally involves an activity that can be done specifically only for the purpose of guild leveling, such as a battle arena where you fight players or monsters as a guild, or add points to your guild experience by giving some sort of item to the Guild Experience NPC.
  • Personally I'd like to see a system that incorporates and appeals to all of the major activities you can do in Eldevin. My concept for a Guild Leveling system would be an NPC that accepts special items that can only be found once you have joined a guild. These items will be found while gathering via your gathering professions, crafting via your crafting professions, killing monsters, and via some form of PvP/GvG mini-game; there could also be an item for dungeons. I'd prefer to have the items be incorporated into the lore, and for it to make sense that you'd get the items from each specific activity. Unfortunately I don't know enough about the lore of Eldevin yet! So for the sake of the suggestion, we'll call them Guild Tokens for now.
    • For example, when you are Prospecting and gathering coal, you will have a random chance as you partake in this activity to receive a "Guild Token - Gathering". This would be worth X experience points, or you would need X of them to level up the Guild. The item might really be called like... "Raw Orb Shard" to tie into the whole Orb theme in the lore. PvP might result in "Bloodied Orb Shard", crafting might result in "Splintered Orb Shard", killing monsters might result in "Pillaged Orb Shard", and dungeons might result in "Cryptic Orb Shard".
    • One of the reasons that I like this system is that even after a guild has reached maximum level, we could create a mini-game that expands upon the Guild System that requires these items for control of realms or some other "contest" system. Essentially there would be an NPC that collects these items and doing so adds points to your guild total for the contest. At the end of each cycle of the contest, the guild with the most points wins. This could mean control of a territory, or something similar. If we wanted to make the system truly fun, you could allow guilds to place these items into other guilds "chests", resulting in REMOVING points instead of adding them.

I hope to continue adding to this, and hopefully we'll have some constructive conversation on what your ideas for the Guild features are! Please pardon the dust as I expand upon it ^^

Reserved for future use

It would be very useful if the item sets in the game told you what the bonus for getting 5/5 pieces is before you have all 5/5 pieces. Currently the only way to know what the set effect will be that I know of is to get all 5/5 pieces, or search on a fansite/forum what the effect is from people that have gotten all 5/5 pieces.

This allows the user to decide if they want to invest the time in obtaining the entire set or not.

If certain users somehow get enjoyment out of not knowing what their set bonus will be (they like surprises?) it would be easily solved by making a "Toggle Set Bonus Display On/Off" in the user settings tab.

This would be just a simple quality of life change that I think would add a certain level of comfort to the game, and remove some of the burden of knowledge from the user end.