Vampires Theoretical

Jaymi

Question. What happens when the sire moves up in rank? Do his childer get an automatic bump up?

Tiur

@Jaymi They would!

Erzsebet

Tiur said:

Embrace: I'd be pulling "Embracer" out of the system and making it a separate thing. Zenobia embraced you, and is forever your sire in that fashion. Your score will always remind you of this. But you can go move elsewhere for bloodline.

Now, here's the real rub: I know I'm really kicking sire/childe RP in the pants.... but what we have now isn't working. There's this massive difference in experience based on what sire you find.

With this being separate from the system of advancement, I don't feel like it's kicking the sire/childe RP in the pants, because the embracer is separate from the advancement system, so you don't have to choose between the Sire you've built up this awesome RP bond with, and wanting to be stronger/higher than a Duke or whatever.

As an aside, DON'T think Emperor/Empress should be tied to HL. Not to say that it CAN'T belong to a HL, just that it shouldn't be tied to it.

Satomi

I know it's a bit late (been away from forums for a while) but there used to be something like Bloodrank affecting your power.

I recall being second to highest rank, like.. years ago when I first poked at Aet, and even at omni-trans, I was only able to summon the Banshee pet in Sanguis (old Sanguis). I couldn't do the Wight because I wasn't at the highest blood rank, and Banshee was the next step down.

I'm a princess, so I'm always in favor of things that will get me more perks for the sake of perks, but this sort of system will cause bitter feelings for the people who are unable to progress to the rank of Princess. Especially if, say, I'm only able to have 3 Childer (so it is more pyramid-like)? I can easily name the three people I'd keep on my list (Rhyot being #1).

In response to the rest, I think it's a neat idea. Having Abhorash focus on the Dominion would narrow his focus and allow the admins the chance to focus him 100% on vamps. Considering Bloodloch is now open to any state of living, undeath, vamp, I can see in my minds eye that he would have little to no interest in it anymore. Living are cattle to vampires, after all.
(then I consider Warhammer: Total War and the Necromancers that served me, and realize that even vampire lords can find usefulness for living people.. mostly living people.)

tl;dr blood perks can be bad, Abhorash should focus dominion over BL

Rhoynn

So......


I'm glad it's done. And I'm looking forward to how it all settles. What's the role of Houses, now?

Also, Sanguis Skills- Siring, Embracing, etc, I feel should be able to be used when in another class if you're Consanguine.

Also, do the RITUALS still work, or how are we supposed to Resire now if we are supposed to do that more freely?

Also, Childer should be able to use some of the Sanguis Skills, like Vision, up the bloodline at their Sire, purely for RP purposes. This could be really fun.

Tiur

@Rhoynn

Maybe. That doesn't sound too bad. At that point vampire is kinda a race. I dunno. @keroc and @Razmael could chime in.

Rituals work fine. I think. I didn't _purposefully_ break any of them

Hm... maybe. I was thinking more things that call on them for support. Unsure.

Fezzix

The Dominion is a pyramid now.

/emote opens the door to the Citadel to find a pale-skinned, smiling vampire with an adorable handbag hanging from her shoulder. "Avon lady!" she cheerfully warbles. Barely a moment later, the last thing the unexpected guest sees before the gates are slammed shut in her face is the look of utter horror in the Idreth's eyes.

Tiur

It was the best shape I could think of. If generations are going to handle themselves, at least. Pillar seemed boring.

And yes, we cannot stop with the pyramid scheme jokes.

Aishia

It's not a pyramid scheme! It's multi-level marketing!! GOSH!!!!!!!!!

Vash

For what it's worth, as a brand new player I admit I looked into vampires briefly but then decided it was something that would take far too much effort to get into for a new player. If these changes had been in place when I started I would probably have given it a more serious look. So if one goal was to help new players who were interested in playing a vampire I think you succeeded.

Also based on my experience in other IRE games I strongly second the idea of having a way to work around absent players who have stopped playing. I am not sure an automatic clean up method is best though. If the affected players want to keep an absent player in a position of power why stop them? As long as they have a way to solve the problem I am sure they will be better at it than any automatic process.

Tiur

We'll see! No automatic processes have hit yet, and a number of very sleepy vampires have managed to log in to get back on the list.

Koda

Is there any sort of ETA on the mob sires, by chance? I rolled an alt to see what some of these changes look like, and it seems it's altogether paused siring for the moment as people try and make sure they use their available slots on the people they like the most. I've heard three separate times now "Siring is up in the air right now, so sit tight."

Potentially just growing pains there, but in the mean time you could be potentially missing out on purchases and the likes by people that are sitting and waiting to invest in their class, but can't because of the mechanical limitation on how much a nightstalker can learn - which is currently lower than the total number of lessons you receive just after finishing novicehood at level 31.

Intention here isn't to get a mob sire and stick with it, but more be able to actually use up the rest of my lessons (or a chunk anyway) until the dust has settled and I can switch to an actual sire.

Rijetta

@Koda I'm sorry you've run into that problem! If you catch me in-game, I'll happily find you a Sire within the House, as I personally don't believe in pausing recruitment just because of all this chaos. Though, I think folks are going the same route as my House, which is that new people probably won't have much if any chance to be sired by a particularly high bloodrank person before proving themselves... but a problem is that the folks that were already active in the house are all shuffling up to higher ranks, if they weren't already. Thus, they might be caught in an indecision, not wanting to make a Grand Duke or Grand Duchess who hasn't proven themselves worthy of the rank, but with no lower-ranking Sires available to vet the new member. Something like that. It should work itself out very soon, I think, as people settle, but nonetheless, please don't let this experience push you away from vampire RP! I'll happily find you a place, like I said.

And @Tiur I noticed that something you said in response to my questions earlier in the thread seems to have changed: namely, Houses still have ranks, 5 of them (like Guilds, I think?). Does this mean the Dominion will not have its own ranks? Will we be seeing changes to the structure of the Dominion soon, or will it simply be Primus (guildmaster), House Leaders (council members), and then ranks within the Houses?
EDIT: My mentioning that change is not meant to be "Ah, you changed something! You're a big fat LIAR!", as I recognize that things change all the time. Sorry if it came across the wrong way!

Sorry for the deluge of questions, but I'm very much looking forward to the continued changes. This might not be the thread for mechanics, either, but I'd love to see Praenomen's bashing looked at, so I stop feeling like I'm 'stuck' in Praenomen for 12 hours whenever I have to switch away from Carnifex. I'd like to be able to use my Sire abilities without feeling overall less effective for the class I'm in, although I admit I'm very new and am operating mostly on what others have said to me, and my own (limited) experiences.

Tiur

@Koda NPC sires should be today or tomorrow. It's not that difficult to implement, but if I mess it up, a lot of newbies will be confused. And they are the worst people to confuse.

@Rijetta Houses have 5 ranks, yes. It was logic creep. First, I wanted them to have none, but it occurred to me that you might want newbies put in the house to not read news... and that's acceptable! So, 3. Then I thought, dangit, if I let you keep your libraries, you'll need gold. So bankaccounts has to be a power. And you don't want =everyone= to have bankaccounts.. so 4 ranks! And then I rounded up because I forgot that HL was its own rank, so it would be 4+1, not just 4.

Dominion will get things! I'm working on it now, actually. I'm going to make rank based on generation, but also give it some investible ranks like Librarian.

Now, back to you guys! Bloodloch... keep Primus as leader, or should I let you have elections?

Rhoynn

RPlY Primus should be leader of city- we are the city of vampires

pure logistics dictate no. We need a primus who can focus solely on getting the Dominion out of this mess right now. Maybe make the Regent the leader again and Primus can have power to choose Regent from Overlords? Otherwise, no need for that

Alathesia

I am not just saying this because I am Regent. But I do not think Primus being city leader is a good idea. And I disagree with @Rhyot on giving the Primus power to choose the Regent. Here is why, Bloodloch is more than just the Dominion. It is home to the Carnifex, Indorani and Teradrim that -must- live in Bloodloch to be guilded. The Dominion does not force players to live in Bloodloch. Allowing the Dominion that much power to pick the leader of the city is not fair for those who are not Vampires. I honestly think the Primus should be like the 'Guild Leader' of the Dominion and nothing more, unless you plan to give other Guild Leaders in the city more power. (Forget the fact we are all Overlords at the moment.)

Rijetta

@Tiur I think perhaps the Primus should have the Dominion Overlord spot in Bloodloch's leadership, since the Dominion is still an important part of Bloodloch, but I don't think he should reign over the city, above the Regent.

Tiur

Current plan, provided y'all here don't have better ideas: Primus has Perm Overlord spot. Other 4 Overlords are elected. Primus removed from Bloodloch helpfile.

Aecian

@Tiur,

What would you think of the Primus being able to appoint someone to the Dominion Overlord spot rather than sitting in it themselves?

Given that a number of the Overlords on the Bloodloch council will be Consanguine, it might be nice to know that all power can't congeal around one individual just because they get elected to Primus.

Daishin

@Aecian There's already an Overlord spot which represents all the Houses and Dominion(which you hold currently) which will pretty much be the Primus' "Job". To elect another to just speak for the Primus rather then the Primus holding that position himself makes things unnecessarily complicated and adds in another round of elections or what not for the House Leaders.

@Tiur I agree with your idea in your last post, it's the one which makes the most sense and also the one which adds the least complications. It also fits in with the current events of Abhorash handing Bloodloch and the Consanguine their freedom but still gives the Primus a voice in Bloodloch.

Zhukov

Personally I think this was a long overdue change, but I'm not sure that the cap at 3 childer max is a good idea as long as you still need trans skills to embrace. That might be a bit of a bottleneck depending on how many active members there are.

I do love the idea of finally being able to move up the food chain as it were though. One of the main reasons I cured Zhuk was that I always hated having a lower bloodrank and never being able to really raise it no matter what I did. Being the first azudim vamp and being still being called a lowly Duke was never a good time.

Am a bit concerned how rogue vampires might fit in now as well, I think they've always added flavour to the game and a bit of a tension. If this causes mechanical disadvantages to anyone outside the Dominion I'm not sure how I like that. Especially when there's a limit to how many players can be in a bloodline before generation 13 hits. With only 3 per that's not as many as you might think considering the number of alts and asleep players. This does weed out the tendency to create a char and never play but that also means they never build them up at all in the first place which might be a bad thing.

Rhoynn

@Zhukov I think that's part of the point. It's meant to encourage people who vamp to be in the Dominion, just like it encourages people who wanna play a class to the fullest to be part of a guild.

Also, 5 houses, 3 childer each, 13 generations, I can't math but that's definitely more spots than we have consistently active players so filling up the dominion will not be all that easy, all things considered. I feel like people shouldn't reward plethoras of alts and sleeping, inactive players. But I'm not saying I favor mechanical restrictions on that. 3 spots is more than enough restrictions tyvm

Tiur

1, 5, 10, 30, 90, 270, 810, 2430, 7290 Primus, Emperor, Princess, Grand Duchess, Arch Duchess, Duchess, Countess, Marquess, Earless

And that's only down to Gen 9.

Kelliara

Not going to lie. When I first read that my initial question was why does gen 9 have no ears

Sarita

For years I thought Earless was the worst bloodrank title ever (it doesn't exist IRL, guys. An earl's wife is generally called a countess.) Then I recently noticed a slew of baronettes (female equivalent IRL to baronet is baronetess) running around. On the one hand, it does sound like the first people are running around with random ear mutilation. On the other hand, baronette sounds like something a little girl might have been called in the 80's.

Pypo

One thing I'd love to ask is what are the horrible ramifications of choosing not to find a sire? I am currently suffering from the changes of the 'geas of the progenetor' sapping away at my blood. I assume this means I've hit the bottom of the totem pole in terms of generations, but so far I've not truly seen much terrible or frightening reasons to really find someone. I get constantly sapped for blood, but due to blood regeneration thanks to Idreth, I never drop below 97% in a day. Thankfully due to the amulet of the moon, fighting in day doesn't randomly give solar afflictions. An finally the damage given compared to the last bunch of changes is 60/tick even during mid-day. (( I am quite aware the damage spikes the more blood is lost ))

All of these things really aren't that serious of a reason to care for a rogue like myself to really consider getting a sire except to stop the annoying spammy geas message warning me about finding a mentor, and sapping my blood. I am more curious will there be actual ramifications should I choose to stick it out! I'm a bit excited if there might come a time I might wake up a flesh-pile of goo, meat, and bones because of my decision, or maybe Ati might eat away at my mind as a source to link to should I continue to go this route.

Kyna

At the moment, there is that as well as the fact you don't get any of the blood boons bestowed by the Primus and HLs. You're also, in Imperial Titles, a pleb and you cannot Sire.

Pypo

Kyna said:

At the moment, there is that as well as the fact you don't get any of the blood boons bestowed by the Primus and HLs. You're also, in Imperial Titles, a pleb and you cannot Sire.

Thanks Kyna! I'm not plotting to sire anyone and I know nothing about what blood boons are, regeneration works nicely for me right now without repercussions. I just enjoy being a rebel without a pulse (( kinda my rp theme of being a bit of a fool of greed kind of soul. )) My only wish is the geas doesn't inform me 'quite' so much how badly I need to find a sire, it feels a teensy bit spammy. Otherwise I will hope for something crazy to happen one day!

Haven

What is the current interval between messages for geas? Does it also show up via diagnose? Because if it does, I see no reason not to shorten the symptom messages down to once per RL day. Alternatively, @Pypo, depending on the client you use - you might be able to create a trigger/event that will gag the line at whatever interval you desire for the mean time.

I'd also imagine that some if not most of the ramifications for being a rogue would come in the form of roleplay. Unless the Admin do not want the possibility to exist, I cannot imagine the mechanical consequences being too severe because what'd be the point in devoting resources to creating something you don't want utilized to some extent, ya know?

That said, it'd probably first, hopefully, come from your peers and Bloodloch/Dominion leadership. If the leadership turns out to not really care about rogues for whatever reason then through mechanics and story from the administration. Maybe the influx of rogues causes the feral/rabid Vampires of the Vashnar's (I think it's the Vashnar's) to grow embolden and organize the attack on the city. Worse - maybe a rumor/legend emerges that rogue's are a liability to the pure bloodline because due to their "lesser" link to the blood "lighter organization X" now could potentially experiment and find flaws in the blood that could affect ALL vampires. Or maybe after X years of being unlinked you turn back into regular undead. Maybe not so much the last one considering the nightmares and headaches it'd cause. Anyway - possibilities are nearly endless here.

Pypo

I personally haven't timed it, it feels like every 1-3 minutes, its just irksome to me a bit when I'm in middle of woodworking a design pattern for someone when the messages start pile up. An yea....I am using mudlet so i'll come up with something. I am just glad for now these are the 'current' stages of such fun.