Changes to Heroes and Grunts

[Azheron]

Well that system would be awesome.
But, as a grunt, do you still have to write a character to get gruntship?
And, I had played for about three months, but then I quitted for 'bout 3 months.
Would I still gain gruntship from that?

[Kaghuros]

You will need an approved profile, and most likely have to have been active in RP for the time needed to be a Grunt barring some exception.

[Anski]

The only downside I can honestly see to this is judging how long a person has been RPing actively in the first place. Some may be on sparsely and demand their leveling and money after the predetermined time, despite being on for an hour once a week for a month/two months. I'm not feeling too strongly about this on either side of the fence, whether it is JUST FAAAAANTASTIC or OMGWTFBBQ WHY DO YOU DO THIS, and it's taken me a long time to actually -think- of what my stance is, and it's honestly very vicarious. I feel that it's only shifting the pros and cons of the Vouch System to something else, a little less weighted on the con side but still apparent. How will we know if a player has been on for the predetermined time and RPing? How do we know who's character is connected to who's account without the GM's looking up each individual person? I forget most of the time, and end up having to search the wiki or the forums over it. Sure, there are the characters who's names are after their accounts, such as Lethys, Kretol, Maulbane and the such, and other's who are or are in the process of becoming instantly tied to their forum account to most people, such as Draknir, Alistus, Angus and i'd like to think myself on Vakari, as vain as it is.

Of course, I consider myself a neutral party on most things, and I have to say i'm still largely indifferent over this. I'm not in the mindset of 'People who aren't as brilliantly literate as I? On my server?!' nor 'Good, this will help everyone else get to the grunt status!' Sure, some people AREN'T as literate as others, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be shunned, discouraged or forsaken from RP as the rest of us. We're all here to accomplish one thing, and one thing only. To RP. The levels are a bonus to wear what we need and go get money for new things so we aren't stuck in the same, ratty tabards and torn up armor the whole time. The gold is to help us onto our feet, so we can get big sticks to beat big monsters. Having that 80 doesn't mean we're war hardened veterans who's 'seen some stuff, man,' it means that we've RP'd long enough and shown a little elbow grease to get a good word from someone who had already been there and done that. This concept has already been revealed before, and subsequently welcomed with open arms. Largely, this was to say that people who aren't grunts are exactly the same as the rest of us. We are all people here, not one higher than the other, this would be why I am assuming the Hero system was removed. Primarily, this means everyone and anyone must buckle down and continue to help anyone and everyone who you feel is slinking past playing with. If an orc walks up to another and says verbatim 'hi im [Name] how ar u,' does this mean make your character get out of there ASAP? No. Sure, you may feel like a major douchebag, because I sure do whenever I remind someone that we keep a level of grammatical and linguistic correctness, but if you do, hopefully it will spike their will to become better. This was, primarily, to get this off of my chest and on internet paper, without much forethought and just a continuous stream of 'We're all equal here, peon or grunt. The moment you forget this is the moment you become greedy over your position.'

To misquote one of my favorite quotes by one of my favorite philosophers, "I may not feel you're playing with your best, but i'll defend to the death your right to play regardless."

[Hawk]

other's who are or are in the process of becoming instantly tied to their forum account to most people, such as Draknir, Alistus, Angus and i'd like to think myself on Vakari, as vain as it is.

S'true. I'm on the forums virtually everyday.

I don't actually have anything constructive to say, I just wanted to reply to that... =|

As you were.

[rentreality]

To misquote one of my favorite quotes by one of my favorite philosophers, "I may not feel you're playing with your best, but i'll defend to the death your right to play regardless."

Not to derail, but... I just have to say this.

[Anski]

To misquote one of my favorite quotes by one of my favorite philosophers, "I may not feel you're playing with your best, but i'll defend to the death your right to play regardless."

Not to derail, but... I just have to say this.

Hence why I said misquote.

[Zason]

I believe I understand what has been presented and appears to be a move in a more positive direction.

I think 2 months is an okay time to be observed. I like that forum and ingame activity is considered. I try to log in and join in, but when I do I find myself standing around. Granted I chose to create my character the way I did, however I also act through him and if he would not have an IC reason to going to where everyone else is, then I do not take him there.

I also like the idea of removing the vouches, in so much as in the way it was currently. I RPed and asked for a vouch and never saw it posted. They said they would but I never saw it. I also like the idea of a questionnaire to evaluate the player to see if they are ready to become a Grunt.

Here is my proposal: Use the questionnaire and voting system if possible. Have the questionnaire posted as a poll.

OR

Use this for PHPBB3. It nice once you work out all of the kinks. I am not sure if you can have it post as a poll but what you CAN do is tell which forum you wish the application/form to be posted in. The forum can be set to only be seen by certain groups, just like any other forum. So I could fill it out (Peon) and it could be set to where only Grunts and GMs see it. You can also set it to where no users can create new threads, however this mod will still be able to post a new thread via the application mod.

PM me, Grakor, if you would like to see the site I set mine up on. >:+) I could then PM you the results when it gets posted.

I have not tried to see if it could post it as a poll instead of a normal thread but I am sure it is possible. I am still a novice at PHP. >:+P

"Z"

[Grakor456]

As for there being too many "bad" grunts, yes, this is a problem that needs to be addressed. I just disagree with pretty much everybody here in that getting rid of the vouch system will help any. I hope I'm wrong and you're all right.

Who ever said that the new system is designed to keep out "bad" grunts to begin with?

The vouch system couldn't do that. I think that any system designed to filter "good" players from "bad" players is pretty much doomed to fail, to the point where we shouldn't even bother trying. Not as far as Peon to Grunt filtering, anyway.

Right now, we're just concentrating on removing systems that offered little to no benefit with obvious drawbacks. Both vouches and Heroes fit into that description.

[Amore]

bravo

[TheImpossibleDream]

As a new player, I really think it would be beneficial to give a slight starting amount of gold to players and start them off at a higher level (Not 80 with 12031283098 gold, but maybe like 40 with 200g) . For instance, I wanted to jump in and RP, but I enjoy having a good rp gear set. It was hard for me to get something that looked good, however, so instead of Rping I was running around mining like crazy and questing like a madman. I also notice that a lot of people just rp in their starting gear and are restrained to either starting areas or ratchet/bb/city becuase they would get owned if they went anywhere else. Also not to mention that a lot of good rpable gear isn't unlocked until at least level 10 (the good stuff starts at 40, which is why I recommended 40, but it doesn't have to be that high).
Anyways, this is my stance. It would encourage RP further if people didn't either have to
a) Wait a few days for an application to get approved to become 80
b) Run around doing quests and a profession to level up and get gold to get some good rp gear
c) Just rp in their starting gear. In starting zones, with starting spells.

Yeah. Um. This probably won't be taken into consideration all to much, but that's just my thoughts on the issue.
Heh.
/flee

[shademourne]

Alot of the fun of RP on characters you cannot get to 80, because you cannot post a profile or you are not a grunt, is farming the RP set, it just makes you feel that much better when it is all said and done, and as for the level and money, it takes only a few hours to get to level forty and get a fair amount of gold and the like because of the way Kretol has changed the rates for the server, and it has never been a major problem before, just ask around and possibly get a bunch of lower level characters to raid something, maybe an 80 will help you out too, never hurts to ask, unless you ask Mikain, he bites. Joking I love you Mikain.

[TheImpossibleDream]

I must be dumb then :|
Three days and still on level 30. I've been questing hard too. And I've only had about 50g farmed all together. That's from mining, mining, turning silver into rings, selling, turning silver into rings, selling. Repeat. Repeat..

Then again, yeah. I'm probably just slow.

((ittookmeabout3yearstogetto80onretail)) and it was at a constant speed. The xpacs didn't change anything... (aka, i was at like 40 when BC came out, started a new toon, and it took me till about a month ago to get to 80 on it)

[Grakor456]

I'm going to be doing some tests on newbie characters and such, seeing how easy it is to get gear and the like from the get-go.

Though keeping in mind, I don't think it's hard to get a "decent-looking" set. There are some at least half-way decent looking sets sold from vendors or from the early parts of the crafting skills, not to mention bits from the newbie quests.

Of course, I primarily play Orcs, with the occasional Tauren or Troll, so I may be biased and used to rough or revealing pieces of gear that's pretty common in the early levels.

[TheImpossibleDream]

I suppose starting/starting quest gear is good for people who like looking brutish and warlike. But for the more 'elegant' races such as blood elves (And possibly caster classes that wear robes, or night elves, or draenei), for some reason it's just hard to rp in tattered robes and dirt covered belts. I don't know, I'm not saying they should be wearing op-looking gear. But it's gear like the Gossamer set that I think looks great on a paladin or priest, instead of a tattered cloth gown. And a lot of the low level stuff is horrifically green. I don't know why, but they all have very earthy tones (Aside from BE starting gear). I like the more white and clean looking items to rp as my Paladin (or a priest, if I were to play one).

[Cressy]

>> That isn't very true...

I have found a lot of nice looking robes and dresses for my characters accessible by levels below twenty-five tops. Most of it, isn't hard to grind either.

Believe me...I am the wardrobe queen, I spend more of my free time finding outfits that chit-chatting in Shatterspear. Mhm. I mean...If you need help, ask me. /sagenod