Thieving and Merchants: Overhaul proposal
CC @Ledmitz
Evilness part 1. Currently both are boring and non-functional. Things to be done:
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Easy: Clone the vaults used in LoF and make them chests for use in regular houses. -
Have a proper thieves guild, place the NPC somewhere else. Also needs a proper introduction for the player so they can decide what side to pick. -
New thieving minigame: - When you fail, guard monsters will spawn, only being aggressive at you.
- When you get killed by them, you land in a special jail, not the punitive jail we have currently.
- You may encounter guards. They have attacks slowing you down so they can hit/capture you better.
- You can sit down to surrender, giving up all your loot in the progress but getting a milder sentence.
- When you escape, depending on what you stole and where, you will still be pursued. Teleport stuff (except
@event
and@welcome
) may drop your wanted level instantly by some amount, depending on the destination. Stealing in tulimshar and then teleporting there wont help for example. - Being pursued by guards will impose a watched debuff on you, so it is more likely to be noticed while stealing.
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New jail for gameplay purposes. -
@jail
ing the player is boring and literally punishing. Instead, there should be a jail for gameplay mechanics like these. - These jails are not secure (depends, of course) and can be broken out of, for example:
- A crumbly wall. Takes some time to bash in. May make noise if you are too clumsy (Dex) and attract guards.
- A loose bar in the drain, enabling you to enter some potentially hazardous sewers.
- You being able to slip a lockpick into the cell, enabling you to break out (Skyrim style).
- Digging a tunnel without the guards noticing.
- A cellmate helps you somehow, but wants their share.
- If a guard notices your attempt to escape, you have, depending on if you finished your e.g tunnel or not (so you can still make a run for it), a last chance to escape or you will be put in an inescapable cell.
- May also need confiscating all their items, putting them in a special storage, because who imprisons a thief with lots of knives?. Breaking out of jail will also mean you need to get to the chest where your stuff is kept.
- Just waiting out the sentence gives you all your stuff back normally.
- We need something else to keep players busy if they decide to just wait it out. Something like a thief carved tips into the bench. Or flyers on the wall. Or NPCs in cells babbling something.
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Both thieves and merchants can be good or evil (Needs a less crude alignment system). - Thieves can do their research and only rob the wealthy tycoons and help out others.
- Merchants can scam people or make them pay a higher price. Or accuse them of thievery and get them captured.
- Thieves can rob needy people and get an alignment penalty.
- Merchants can help needy people by donating goods or having a cheaper price.
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Merchants are not implemented at all currently, minus the buy/sell price thing. - They start as minor guards and should stop thieves somehow.
- They could guard shipments against pirates or other bandits.
- The above could be an amazing instance, optionally with pvp, bandits against caravan guards.
- Eventually as their rank increases, they can do merchant stuff on their own.