Game Interest Requests

[Kiyaani]

I wasn't really sure what to title this as, so sorry in advance if the topic isn't great. As someone who has been a long-time player, but recently has been struggling with returning to the game, I felt it might be helpful to staff to know what aspects of the old game I liked the most and allow others to post similarly. This being in the hopes of giving some ideas of where to direct focus when inspiration is lacking. These will be things that I personally enjoyed about both Clok 1.0 and Cogg, and hope to see make it into Clok 2.0.

1) Bringing back the "guilds."
- I know this is already in the works, with Tse Gaiyan being the latest getting a revamp treatment, but I would love to see all of them back to their previous glory.
- This includes not only returning items, trainers, and locations, but also tasks that grant merit and/or riln.
- Any guild-specific perks should also return. This includes specialty items, merit-based services, and training areas.
- I'd love to see the wiki pages updated for each guild (and just in general) to include not only a blurb about their history, but also examples of typical roles members might fill in society, any guild-specific codes of conduct or requirements, an updated list of current and future abilities, and maybe even a short list of major events they participated in (along with what role they played) that are widely known. This level of transparency will help new and current players figure out their characters and hopefully help prevent GM frustration as people inevitably go "off-brand" with their playstyle.

2) Cogg-style crafting systems.
- The return of full-fleshed out crafting, skillgains, and future abilities will draw a lot of people who enjoy that playstyle.
- I want to see cooking, brewing, alchemy, and lapidary/jewelry-making (along with any others that weren't previously implemented) finally make their debut.
- I want animal-handling to make a difference with mount training and get that line of progression back.

3) Farms.
- I'll be honest, I really miss my farm. I realize that there was a lot of bru-hah-hah about players storing too many items or only being on their farms all day and it ruining the chance at RP, but I think there were enough changes going on to how long functions took to complete, ground-space, and storage limitations that should mitigate that in Clok 2.0.
- Perhaps farms can be RP-locked, guild locked, or reputation-earned to prevent everyone having one for no reason than storing items, and taken away if the town feels the land has been abused as a hoarding situation.

4) Skill/training limitations.
- People might hate me for this one. I actually kind of hate me for this one... but I actually think Cogg's limitation on what a character can learn was a good thing overall. It might not make sense that performing an action in-game wouldn't always yield skill, but neither does the fact that every character in Clok can currently go learn every skill just because their player is bored and doesn't mind the grind. I much prefer characters who are thoughtfully made with specific skills in mind and don't stray from that path without an RP reason to change direction.
- Perhaps combine some of the weapon types to a single skill (polearms and staffs seem very similar for example). I know characters can only have one weapon specialty while still skilling up all the types, but maybe during character creation players can choose a weapon preference and get a bonus to skillups in that weapon class to encourage them not to stray. Or maybe they can only pick up a second or third weapon if they get their primary to certain thresholds.
- It would be cool if some "universal" skills were exempt - such as climbing, swimming, perception, stealth etc.

5) Events.
- There seems to be a large staff pool currently and only one event going on at present with infrequent updates. It helps the world feel more alive when there's GM/NPC interaction, even if it's just small stuff like a comment from the room crowd, or a random ambush in the wilds. There doesn't have to be a giant story to every event. Spontaneous interaction without prep-work is sometimes the most fun. Don't be afraid to jump in and interact with players.
- Long-term, ongoing events are always welcome too. Things that involve multiple guild specialties all working together, or race-specific lore, or language requirements, or specific skills are amazing.
- I miss the us-vs-them Dominion RP. With Corvus being mostly non-supported at this point, we're going to need a GM-led big bad to come up against that isn't just the weather. Something we can all rally against or even work against each other on would be really great.

6) Mentoring/Training
- I don't know if this is in again or not, but the old system where players could train each other in skills or skill-down to still hunt together while not missing out on gains was always a nice feature in Clok.
- Adding back low-damage items so players can spar safely or a way to turn off fatal damage while in designated sparring areas. Similarly a duel command to allow players to sort out their differences without causing death.

There's probably more, but these are the things that really seem to be missing to me currently and which are keeping me somewhat turned off from full-time play. I know this is a fully volunteer gig and I appreciate all the staff are already doing to make things fun for the players and themselves. This is not at all meant to be a dig at the rate of progression so I hope it's not taken as such. <3

[Mirazia]

I'll jump on this, as both a player and as a GM as I have aspects I enjoy and would like to see return from both sides of the fence! I'm going to be lazy though and pull things from Kiyaani's post and expand as I go.

All of point 1. I love the guilds, and I am excited to see for the majority of them, they're not just going to be cookie-cutter characters in each guild. Having Dwaedn Wyr Nightblades, Rogue Mummers, Marauders squeezing into various guilds is neat to see. I have recently had a discussion with the rest of the GMs about merit as both how to gain it and how to spend it, including a possible system to having to use both merit and riln for certain guild items (think wands for elemancers). I also have a sheet of various tasks I keep thinking of to generate said merit/riln that also fit with the guild's theme, such as a Dwaedn hunting a particularly powerful animal, a Udemi assessing the current resen spores in an area and perhaps needing to cleanse it or a monk being sent to assist someone that has been injured (these are ideas, these are not guaranteed). All to say I very much support guilds and their flavour being brought back.

We have been introducing the crafting systems back steadily. They just need a little more work. I really enjoyed Bushcrafting in COGG and really want to see it brought back with a few updates, such as adding using bone to make buttons and rivets.

Farms will always be a touchy topic. They were so enjoyable from a player side (I miss my alpaca) but an absolute *nightmare* GM side. I'd like to see community farms, with limited, instanced space a character can use to plant their crops and tend, though I do also like the idea of allowing RP or Reputation to allow the owning of a more private farmland, keeping it being very much subject to how it's used.

I very much disliked the overall "You can only have 10,000 skill points" of COGG. I prefer the ability system we have now in relation to skills. That being said, I do agree with characters being limited with weapon styles. Allow one specialization (which we have) and allow two more that can be skilled up to the 2500 cap so you have 3 total types of weapon you are skilled with, brawling included. Survival skills should certainly be exempt (All the skills under General Skills) from any ability or skill locks aside War Riding.

I miss the tutoring system so much, and bring it up regularly since I was GMing in COGG!

Regarding events, I'm currently running a slow-burn one at the moment. It has likely seemed like I haven't, because people have been finding things I've been leaving and stowing them in the lockers, or burying them (that's why certain things cannot be buried right now!) or just throwing them away, so much of my time has been trying to get the right people, the right location or figuring out different ways to do what I've been attempting. Life, sadly, has got in the way for Velrath and I for a moment. As many of you know, we have a disabled child (the smol banshee) and we've had a couple of health scares with her, but I have been aiming to put more into the game (as some of you have noticed recently :D)

I have mentioned somewhere in a previous post somewhere that I am apprehensive of spontaneous ambushes, as I was frequently met from some of the playerbase with "Well that was dumb and wouldn't happen so I'm just pretending that didn't happen at all." It's discouraging as a GM and does make me, personally, feel like everything I do has to be some Grand Scheme or have some Huge Story Reason behind it, when a lot of the time all the energy I have for the day is to drop a hungry werewolf on someone. This is a me thing I need to get over. That being said, I have recently been trying to spot gatherings that I can drop in on as 'Generic Man-In-Crowd 1' to make some sort of comment or action with.

Very good points, some very good reminders of what made me stick around for so many years, both as a player and a GM, and why it didn't take much convincing for me to come back. I don't take it as a dig at slow progression, but more of the reasons of why we still play this game in all three versions. <3

[artus]

Seconded my dislike of the 10k skill points system. It's good when you have nothing much you can do yet but then when you max it or run out, you're left with basically nothing else to do, no character progression to make because it's limited, so please no.

Farms: I think I suggested an idea a while back to have a community farm on a grid by grid bases, and instead of having physical space, you use the farm command as a farming system to work on the tile you reserve, with people able to type farm assist to help out if you want to. Stuff will probably be less physical, but if it means less clutter, perhaps it can be a thing somehow. Just an idea though. Not sure how it even works.

You know what I miss dearly from old Clok? Food, sooooo many of them lol.

And I miss all the trees and fish and all the fun stuff! We got animals back. I wonder when we'll get trees back. The forest feels lonely. I'd love to see some plants expanded upon, like those wild flowers and such. Also, what's a wildflower meadow when there's no surveyable flowers?:p jk

PS. Oh hey, and hugs to Mirazia and Velrath both!<3