How I would do body part trophies

Yes I'm doing a small series of posts as you can probably tell..

Some may remember that I have in the past been very outspoken against body part trophies.. especially named body parts as I feel they serve very little actual purpose beyond humiliation after the fact and rational or not, however you may feel about it.. some players will take offense at having other players mutilate their characters and not being able to do anything about it.

On that point @DarkStarr I'm quite disappointed at the recent statement that you now current thinking doesn't allow you to even ransom your body parts.. as you specifically told me when I first brought it up that people could use ransom to opt out. Now.. I'm not trying to lawyer you.. but I still feel very strongly that a player shouldn't have to avoid PvP entirely to opt out of this situation.. which is currently the case.. and for so long as it is.. I will NOT PvP.. period.

Why some might ask? Let's put aside any moral argument to be made for a moment as we all know where that discussion will end and move on other reasons. As an RPer.. I simply could not accept seeing my own head on a spike in someone's front yard in Britanny Estates while it was still attached to my shoulders. Talk about breaking immersion!

But I see this is already becoming a wall of text so let me get to the point. Something like this is something players should be free to opt INTO.. rather than opting OUT of.

So.. how do we opt into it? Simple.. activate a skinning knife on an NPC corpse.. by harvesting a corpse you indicate you want to make use of that feature.. and in doing so you are willing to have it done to you.

If at some point you decide to opt out, there could be a quest or some condition to meet to remove the flag allowing people to harvest you.. but if you change back you have to wait to change again.

By the same token once your parts are out there you have no control over them.. so IF cannibalism ever went in.. you would have to opt into allowing yourself to become a victim of it.

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Being able to opt into being harvestable is the most important to me.. but I also think most NPC towns (with perhaps the exception of Exceter?) would outlaw the public display of remains (at least in most forms) on residential lots and town owners should also have that option.

Inside and basements are fine.. those are private areas.. but realistically speaking.. would town governments and guards really allow such things to be on public display?

 

~The Value of Viciousness~?'
This is very good reasoning for an opt in or out selection... "yet couldn't there be some PvP combat modifier then set into place because one opponent may be more vicious than the other"?
Even a extremely small percentage of advantage would be viable in my view, but not a great addition to combat damage values. "Risk equals rewards in combat damaging for our PvPers"?

~Time Lord~

 

I don't see a need for a combat modifier. Though you could argue that a high field dressing skill could give you a slight bonus to critical hits.. but the same could be said about a non-magical healing skill.

 

I hear ya...
I do think if our Portalarium is going to take some risk away by optioning body parts or no body parts, then there should be some reward for risking the player's body parts and not just the reward of the trophy, but an actual combat modifier somewhere.

Risk vs Reward seems the finest arguments for such things as you mention in the OP... so that's why I bring it up...
"but also to bump a good questioning post" because without good reason, I don't think it will change our direction.
~Time Lord~

 

Thing is.. something like body parts isn't part of PvP itself.. it's post-PvP.. and while many players enjoy PvP.. not all are so keen on the idea of having their body parts on public display.. and right now there's nothing you can do about that except accept it or refrain from PvP entirely.

 

The Hand of Glory .. is the hand of a man who has been hung, and it is prepared in the following manner: Wrap the hand in a piece of winding-sheet, drawing it tight, so as to squeeze out the little blood which may remain; then place it in an earthenware vessel with saltpeter, salt, and long pepper, all carefully and thoroughly powdered. Let it remain a fortnight in this pickle till it is well dried, then expose it to the sun in the dog-days, till it is completely parched, or, if the sun be not powerful enough, dry it in an oven heated with vervain and fern. Next make a candle with the fat of a hung man, virgin-wax, and Lapland sesame.

http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/hand.html

Blood Magic, if it could ever become a thing, could qualify a series of possibilities and uses in body parts for magic, combat, and crafting. Something like the Hand of Glory could also be used as a modifier specific to subterfuge skills.

 

That's a wee bit off topic..

 

I always like the way you think Duke Avery !'
~Time Lord~

 

The intent wasn't to roll off-topic. I did contribute that bit about the Hand of Glory thinking that it was something that could help qualify with lore why body parts can be harvested. Those bits and pieces are already in the game - and they could create some pretty serious game opportunities in PVP if something more came of it. Think of something like this...

PVP ensues... body parts are harvested.

The players that win the parts can ransom them back, use them as trophies, or... sell them to magic types and crafting types for use in spells. The spells could be specific to the owner of the harvested part. Using the Hand of Glory... if someone takes my hand - if they posses the skills to create a Hand of Glory with it, they get a buff to their skills to break into my house... maybe, or maybe a buff that makes it easier for them to rob me... or any number of wicked things that could be done.

Body parts - if required for skill buffs, (or for a blood magic skill tree) could become a significant gold sink for the game.... everybody wins.

 

We are talking body parts and gains from the risks taken I see Duke Avery's point as valid...
Harvesting is such an issue and such a gain from the risks involved
Risk vs Reward, thus wanting it bloody then getting in bloody
~Time Lord~

 

According to a recent statement by Starr as I pointed out in the OP, body parts can't be ransomed.

We're talking a system by which players obtain them.. not what players can craft out of them once they have them. That's more of a crafting subject than PvP.

 

But this type of crafting would specifically rely on PVP to obtain key ingredients. Could be just what the game needs to bring PVP and PVE together.

 

It still has nothing to do with how you get the parts. I'd like to stay on topic.

 

i think that if your talking about the ability to take body parts then part of the convo has to be why. but honeslty as long as it dosnt effect my stats or gameplay after being harvest i dont care. if i have to buy my leg back or i am stuck hopping around i wont be happy

 

I think the team has a quandary: How can they ask players to add a 'legal' statement about 'graphic content' in books but give out another character's body parts in PVP without such notice? Sexual innuendo is worse than collecting chopped up body parts? I don't say that as a matter of delicacy. Just a logical fact. Perhaps this is a factor behind the scenes relating to ransoms.

 

~We're All Here to Help the OP~

You're talking about personally restricting crafting here?

We're talking about reward here for having taken the risk.

How else are you to get the body part?

The way I see this subject is that Bowen wants to get rid of having body parts taken in the game, taking away the risk, without any reward for the risk another may take?

It's difficult to know what the subject is unless we consider this a protest thread of how to get rid of body parts... or finding some solution to replacing the less risk of opting out of body parts, by replacing it with some further reward for those that remain opted in.

So... In a search for finding some reward for the added risks others may take, then we must find some sort of things we can further do with body parts.
Otherwise the topic should have been in a PM to whatever developer, rather than a discussion thread.

We're all here to support the OP, by possibly finding a better reward for those that risk more.
~Time Lord~

 

Because they think piles of skulls look really cool, just like players do.

JK~! One would think if we're talking about not just bones and skulls, but cannibalism down the line, then guards would also have a problem with vendors selling human body parts for food.

But yea, it is a bit weird that if you do PvP, you automatically get people's bones for ransom. I'm wondering about whether the virtue system will ever enter PvP, or whether it will just be a PvE thing, and whether the Oracle would consider taking people's body parts after killing them morally neutral. Or crafting cursed items with people's body parts.

There's a lot of enthusiasm here for including darker content in the game, which is understandable for people who want to be necromancers, though I think that's overshadowing how that fits in with all the other aspects of the game, or whether in context its just overly gratuitous.

 

I too think there should be an option. Not everyone wants to be known for there body part trophy. Then too, we will be have children playing, so perhaps these could be displayed as private trophies displayed in home collections, instead of public. A conundrum for sure.

 

I'm not talking about crafting at all.. that is the point.

Which is off the intended topic.

Did you read the OP??? The very statement you're making here is contrary to the existence of this thread in the first place.

 

They're not even part of the ransom system anymore. Not that I ever liked the ransom idea to begin with but at least it gave you an out.