~The Assassin's Book of Names~ (an assassin's quest item+pole)

~The Assassin's Book of Names~
or, "The Book of 1000 Deaths"
Full loot murder and bonus reward by purchased consent...



On the simple of it, it's a book that contains an amount of pages where a player character's name to assassinate, who is also an Assassin having opened the same book will appear each time it's opened.

(Please feel very free to express your own ideas into this venture of an Assassin's Quest Item)

Ideas;
The owner of the book is the only character that can open it.
When the book is opened it reveals only one page at a time, yet also enters the name of the owner/opener into a pool of names who have also opened their book.
If there are no other assassins that have opened their book, then the page is blank until another assassin or assassins opens their book. It is highly unlikely that there will be no other assassin who had opened theirs, so this shouldn't happen... hmm... yet it is also highly unlikely that any two assassins would ever be after each other.
The book page will remain blank if no target is available.
No one assassin player will ever have more than one assassin after them at any time.
If a book remains closed after a successful or unsuccessful assassination, the owner is not subject to being assassinated, until the book is reopened by it's owner.
Each book has a certain number of pages.
With each successful assassination a bonus of gold is given.
With each successful assassination there after, the bonus gold is increased until the book's pages have been filled.
A book would not reveal it's content until completed.
Once a book is filled, it becomes a regular book entitled, "Book of 1000 Deaths" (or however many successful assassinations have been successfully completed by the owner).
Once filled, then each page will have a player's name who was successfully assassinated (as trophy, rare and interesting. Such a book would attract any reader.
In the case of an unsuccessful assassination, where the assassin dies, they would then thus loose a page from their own book (thus a book of 1000 deaths becomes a book of 999 potential deaths).
Upon a successful assassination, the assassin can fully loot their victim of everything except reward items or blessed by any means items.
Upon an assassination failure, the targeted would be victim will have the ability to fully loot the dead assassin of all of their belongings that are not reward items or blessed by any means.
The guards will not interfere because both players are assassins by consent.
Other player can help the victim defend themselves, yet if the assassin dies with the help of their friends, then no full looting or assassination failure will result and the assassin's target remains the same without failure.

During early release of our game, the book will be a Stretch Goal item with 1000 pages, with no specified limit to how many of these books a player could own. ($10 or $20 a book? Portalarium needs to set a price).
There after early release, the book would be sold in the add-on store where each book contained only 100 pages.

Needed Computer Programing?
The books do not come with all the names in them, the names come from a main list of players who have opened their book and thus on the same quest but not the same target, thus the books are all connected to each other in some unknown magical computer wizardly internet way that the ~Time Lord~ hasn't the brain cells to figure it all out with....
So I truly don't have any idea of how easy of SotA Programing friendly any or all of this is, but this item seems to fill a want and desire of the masses that long for a taste of assassination, murder and full loot...
So I do hope you'll add your comments, because other shouts for murder and full loot seem to have not reach their target

These are just ideas,

This is by no means a complete idea, so please speak up whether you are a PvP player or regular peaceful player or anywhere in-between, as such a thing would effect your world as well.

This has been my presentation in idea of;
"The Book of 1000 Deaths" or "The Assassin's Book of Names"
I thank you all for your reading & considerations !
~Time Lord~

 

With the complexity of the modes of play and areas for PvP, the design could be a little complex as to who is actually able to be targeted....

Oops can't, he's in SPO!

Anyway, I knew you were a hardcore PvP'er at heart Time Lord!

 

Interesting idea, Time Lord Definitely needs more input and development, though, in order for it to work
I can't believe I am actually intrigued by this You're a bad influence on me, Time Lord

 

Actually I would have thought with a little tweaking of the FO mode you could use a special version for this (FO, locked in PVP, Only you 2 or always you 2)

 

Thanks for all the input !

This idea is a further development to an idea I had a few releases ago called a "Jack in a Box"
https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...-box-pvp-stretch-goal-discussions-more.11588/

The Filling Unfulfilled Player's Desires;
Yet I gave the idea a bit more thought after hearing Lord British speaking about "regicide", which caused me to re-think the needs or desires of our game to have an Assassin or PK styled character to portray. So the words of Lord British about one of his friends who's family had practiced regicide until not so distant times got me thinking about, "how would I knock off dear old dad?"... how would I wish to be knocked off if that were my family heritage?... Yet thoughts of this style of play also have reflections in history where, within the Roman Army, knocking off your boss could get you promoted to their position in life. So this lead me to all of the possibilities of how such a Assassin Character would choose to go about their business. Some could be so bold as to send an invitation for the duel to insure a more upright and strait forward approach to a clean kill with no interference, thus satisfying the desires of a random opponent Duelist. Most all of us can remember the PK standing outside a UO dungeon waiting to clean the place out of all that were hunting there, thus the PK style in this case, would be waiting around a dungeon area for their target to show up and have something of real value to full loot from them, which is what the PK mostly desired. Then there is the player that comes to our SotA and is surprised to see that we do not have Assassin Characters here to play. Thus, what is it to be a true assassin within our game? A player could advertize on the forums "Assassin for Hire", yet this is a bleak future as there would not be an ongoing list of potential targets, thus leaving the Assassin lonely and feeling useless. A true assassin would never telegraph their intent to their target, yet would wait for the victim to be alone, secure and as unguarded and unarmed as possible, thus a game of stalking the target to learn more about them as any best advantage assassination would be.
Thus this idea seeks to fulfill those player's desires for fun gaming...

It would be highly unlikely that only 2 people would play such a game as the Assassin's Book because the names are chosen at random from a list of other assassins who have opened their book. So, you would never know who would be after you, you would only know your targeted assassin's name given by the book.

Anyone that opens the book has a requirement to be PvP. They could even be one of your friends or someone you know, but I know we all hope that there will be more players playing our game than only the few "we" that are here now
As for being a PvP advocate ... There are those of PvP who wish the Duel and there are those who strive for the Skirmish, as for me, I am an advocate of very large and dreadful War Thus anything like this suggestion could provoke such things, 2 being a duel, 50 a skirmish and 200 meeting together a war The Guild of UO's SP shard known as "The Fellowship" (TFS) when that shard opened fielded 190+ TFS Order players and the battles we had with our opponents generally ranged from 60 to 400 in single battles between us... and oh what battles those were

"And the crowd cried out for more"... It's really just attempting to give the people what they want and filling in all the blanks that Portalarium leaves behind in a safe fashion keeping everyone consenting to what they wished for our game to be... which we all and always want everything to be here for everyone

Portalarium, it's Players and this Pandora's Box;
One of the things that Portalarium should enjoy about this Assassin's Quest Book, is that if it ever outlives it's usefulness, it's a add-on store item (or in-game gold) that can always be discontinued causing the books to become a rare collectable.
One of the things that could draw our players to it, other than the fun, could be that once a book is completed it could grant the fulfill'er a title to be displayed of their assassination's ranking...
Assassin of the 9th level... or some sort like that

We are in need of filling in the blanks around here. We've seen that our Dueling Contests have been very crowd pleasing and this is just another way of such contest yet styled in quest...

I have never been one to wish to play dress up and call myself something or RP it as if a Stage Play or Comicon Style Show. Evil should be evil and Good should be good, yet without the one, the other has no contrast and thus pales by it's comparison. This is a dark book for dark people because dark is as close to evil as we can have with our current supporting audience. Yet this safety of play style is needed so that all can come here and have it their way, so sayith the Burger King which is justly so. More players, more money, more game is our game's greatest challenge and the players here along with Portalarium are shaping our world with as less flaws than that which has strike in our past as Ultima's and every other game, so I am very pleased with our progress.

This book may be just a band-aid that could fill an open space where the PK and Assassin's which seem as useless old terms here could be reborn in a different style. I'm sure that there will be other things that come into our game that will be similar in nature to what the PK once was, yet it would seem that if it's not full loot or unexpected danger as it was before, then we will need many such bandages that seem similar to the old ways, to fully accommodate the new and safer ways that we wish for by consent.

This idea seems to be simple and strait forward to fill it's intent, yet does need more player input to better fashion it's workings, yet it's a very simple player perpetuated and generated, and Portalarium game quest idea...

Comments, Suggestions and Arguments Very Welcomed
~Time Lord~

 

I love the idea! Now, Time Lord, you know me, I am not a PvPer, and will probably not partake in such activities unless they are large scale battles. BUT if would be assassins are in for this, by all means, let them have it! As we have long discussed, for there to be truly good characters, there needs to be evil. That is truly evil characters, not just some random PKers, but assassin, cannibal, nasty types. With SotA we have the opportunity to help input way to change the cookie cutter MMO character roles. Real thieves with real interesting thieving abilities and something for assassins to do other than earn a cool title. (Now don't get me wrong, I want equally cool things for other play styles too. Why not "The Book of a 1000 Prospects" or "The Book of 1000 Liches"? Heck even "The Book of 1000 Handshakes" were a player simply tries to meet others who also have the Handshake book! There is potential here.)

Ultimately, doesn't this come down to choice. Isn't that what we want in this game? Choices. I am all for it. Great idea TL!

 

May be interesting as an add-one, to real Full Loot ffa pvp, but not as only way for it...

 

Cool idea, I like it, wouldn't mind seeing it implemented in the future.