Proposal:Item Shop Style Progression System

[njrk97]

Been a while since i created ones of these, but as part of my idea on a site update and attempted revitalization, I wanted to see what the Community’s thoughts and responses would be in regards to the idea of introducing what amounts to an item shop style progression system onto the site.

Now what do I mean by an item shop system. My Thoughts and idea would be that the current post power system would be converted into this system, now to be clear, this would not change anything about how the power system works currently, it will still be the advantage disadvantage system used to help member generally gauge whose OC would have advantages in fights against other members OCs, but the item shop would add the additional feature onto this system, users can spend their power (Or whatever I change the name to) gained from posts to obtain perks and items from this item shop.

The advantages of such a system would be that the items themselves could be reasonably more potent or powerful, (in comparison to some sort of passive reward system from reaching certain post counts). As Users will activity have to decide and spend their own Power on such items. Giving the clear tradeoff of whether you hold onto your power to remain stronger rank wise, or whether you spend it to obtain assorted perks or equipment.

Some Item ideas

Spaceships:Both User created and Show created
Small: Wandering Eyes, Aquamarine’s ship
Medium; Emerald’s Sun Incinerator
Large: Handships

Bismuths Forge: Perhaps Crystal Gems exclusive

Weapon Attachments: Like with the show you can get upgrades to your weapons

New Weapons: You can also have custom new weapons created, much like how Pearl has her swords.

Drones: Stuff we saw in the show (Peridots Robonoids, Attack Cones), plus other custom ones.

Light Prisms from Save the light

Secondary Characters/NPC System Unlock: As it says, the idea would be there is a small cost to ‘unlocking’ a NPC system for use.This would not stop you from using one off character but the idea of the Secondary Character system would be that if you have a NPC you want to show up more frequently you can create an application for them in a Secondary Character Index thread and then be able to use them a bit more freely.Examples of this, if you’re playing a Pearl you could create a NPC that is your Pearls Master, and vice versa (A Pearl for your Player character), or it could be a Player Sapphire’s Trusted Ruby Guard, or the Agate General who is second in command on your ship, or perhaps a Human a Crystal gem Befriended (Yes the NPC would allow Humans and perhaps other Aliens). Stuff like that, the notion would be that of course a majority of the NPCs RP should consist of your own player character being part of said Roleplay and post, but equally I would see no issue with having a thread were perhaps they are mostly by themselves if it only happened somewhat rarely. Point is your Player character is your main character, so most of your RP should be relevant or connected to them.

These of course are not finale and only a handful I have, I basically have a document im working on full of everything from the show that is somewhat object like, or could maybe be used, IE Replication Wand from Onion Trade,Fire Salt from Joking Victim, Shooting Star Fragments from Winter Forecast,Warp Whistle from House Guest. Wailing Stones, Destablizers,Limb Enchancers, Light Canons and so on.
At this point i still need to refine down and complete that list, then figure out what of it could be viable shop items.

Now this is all still tentative, thus why I wanted to get some feedback about whether the users here would be receptive to such a system in the first place. Now as is normal when I do these please only vote one time, regardless of how many alt accounts you have, and of course feel free to put your thoughts, grievances and ideas below, my point of putting this thread up is to gauge feedback, since i know a Item Shop is quite different from anything else the site has had mechanically.

[Melody]

I generally like the idea. It encourages  players to experiment with different items in their stories. How many players actually thought of using fire salt in a thread? Not to mention that getting a spaceship seems more fair than having it from the start.

However, I do think that it should be better implemented into the story itself. It seems weird that a certain gem would at one point just randomly have a roaming eye and a collection of swords. It could be easily fixed, with a "shop". Forge for the crystal gems, some sort of armory/storage + hangar for Homeworld gems.

It still raises additional questions, though. Gem with no pocket dimension might have no place to store their belongings. Another question is how more common gems (Pearls, some Rubies, Pebbles - do we even have pebble characters in here?) would get permission to own such items. I suppose it could be implied that for example Pearl would get some items for her "owner" and not for herself ("Euclase, I have been wondering - Why did you order so many Wailing Stones?")

And there is one more thing... older players. Light for example might be affected by this change.  First of all, he lives in the Forge. Does he need to "pay" for it now? He sort of inherited it after Para's disappearance. Not only that, Para upgraded his gem weapon - and now Light's continues her duty by making weapons for the rebellion. I suppose Light should have enough posts to "buy" Forge, weapon upgrade, etc. But would it be enough to pay for all the other weapons he created? And the things he invented on his own? Or do they not count since most of those happened off screen and were never used in combat? Light might just as well be committing tax fraud on the server since 2017

I suppose that I am fine with the change, I just wish for it to be connected to the story. On the Moon base we have got hangar which is were gems that contributed in a meaningful way to the Empire can get a ship to perhaps be able to travel to new locations. The medical centre could be where players can get drones from Euclase. Some sort of museum could be where more outdated technology like wailing stones and some other artifacts from season one could be located. Light (and Bismuth?) could continue to make stuff for the rebellion, perhaps each with different products (it still raises a question how crystal gems would get a ship, perhaps smugglers who steal ships from Homeworld colonies)

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[Csarite]

I agree a lot with Melody here, and perhaps take a stronger stand on their point than themselves in regards to it being connected to the story. This site has been alive for 6 years now and we've had a lot of users come and go. During that time there have been users who have acquired ships, weapons, and the like without the need of a shop system. Instead it's been a story-heavy process that takes time to accomplish rather than some currency.

This site is not a game. It's a roleplaying forum. We're here to write to our hearts' content, not gather artificial points. I think the dangerous part about this is that it can have a direct impact on the RP world in the sense that it can limit certain characters from doing what they otherwise would be capable of doing, only because the points are lacking. If my character was a spaceship engineer, who's to say they couldn't build a spaceship with the right equipment? The lack of points? The balancing act here is that said spaceship engineer still would need to require all the parts, a process which will give way for a story to take place where they gather said parts. Equally would it be absurd that, just because someone has the points, that they suddenly can acquire a specific hardware that they no way realistically could get ahold of.

I can see the appeal of "doing something new", but I wouldn't want that new to be something that directly impacts our roleplay in a way of hindrance. In my opinion, this change would not really add anything as much as it would organize and restrict something that players themselves have been managing since the dawn of SURP.

[njrk97]

Dec 7, 2020 14:08:31 GMT Csarite said:

I agree a lot with Melody here, and perhaps take a stronger stand on their point than themselves in regards to it being connected to the story. This site has been alive for 6 years now and we've had a lot of users come and go. During that time there have been users who have acquired ships, weapons, and the like without the need of a shop system. Instead it's been a story-heavy process that takes time to accomplish rather than some currency.

This site is not a game. It's a roleplaying forum. We're here to write to our hearts' content, not gather artificial points. I think the dangerous part about this is that it can have a direct impact on the RP world in the sense that it can limit certain characters from doing what they otherwise would be capable of doing, only because the points are lacking. If my character was a spaceship engineer, who's to say they couldn't build a spaceship with the right equipment? The lack of points? The balancing act here is that said spaceship engineer still would need to require all the parts, a process which will give way for a story to take place where they gather said parts. Equally would it be absurd that, just because someone has the points, that they suddenly can acquire a specific hardware that they no way realistically could get ahold of.

I can see the appeal of "doing something new", but I wouldn't want that new to be something that directly impacts our roleplay in a way of hindrance. In my opinion, this change would not really add anything as much as it would organize and restrict something that players themselves have been managing since the dawn of SURP.

To Answer both your own and Melodys questions. The notion and idea would be that use the Shop itself is somewhat more OOC, while yes in universe the methods to obtain stuff would slot more around what works in Character, be that the idea a gem was given a item by a higher up, or ordered/rented it of their own accord, or it was constructed for them.

Preface: Now to begin with, this entire ship system idea is still only in the...well idea stage, the exact details of how stuff works mechanically i have not figured out, with that in mind though, in all likelihood, the ship system wont outright stop users from using ships. you could still reasonably have a ship for transportation to justify movement, again functioning how it mostly is now where ships are usually a background details, however buying a ship may allow it to become more present in your Roleplays, turning it into almost a dedicated backdrop and section for your gem, and perhaps allowing it to also be more present in Roleplay (Ie having your ship swoop in during a combat encounter, or perhaps your ship having dedicated functionality of its own, containment cells, research areas, ect), basically the idea being that buying a ship turns it from a IC justification for moving around all the sections, to what amounts to your own personal base/section, and like i said allowing access to the larger style Warships that are so heavily restricted on site currently.

Shoot, as i said, tentative, ships may not even be one of the items for sale, as i said its all subject to change. With that in mind what i was originally going to say.

While yes there is somewhat of the issue of restricting certain things at the start, it also then allows me to present and allow accessibility to more potent items and perks for those who do stick around, progress and be active, how it is now, i tend to disallow users from having Warships, Larger ships and what not, and if they do its usually restricted, because fundamentally its not fair for say, a Emerald, to rock up to the site, mention in passing in their history they have 3 warships, and then suddenly just be able to have and use those all in threads, simply because they as a gem are expected to have those things, equally is it fair for a Crystal gem to dedicate one thread towards building a ship, to then themselves have a warship they can use mechanically? This was the current issue, while yes a user can work hard, dedicate themselves and manually build a ship over 20 threads, another user could equally say 'as a Nephrite i just have a ship' and be on the same baseline without any work, and because of stuff like that, the idea some gems IC would justifiably have ships for no work, was then the reason why i somewhat outright just restricted use of any larger scale ships and downplayed ships as simply transportation.

The Shop system is meant to help with that, because it becomes less 'i am a gem who has a ship for free' and more 'as a Emerald who has been active, consistent and worked up enough power through posting, i am now able to purchase a proper gem warship and get this mechanically within Roleplay'

Plus the idea of the shop system is to then be able to present users with short term goals to work towards, with far more tangible gratification then what happens currently. Allowing new users who maybe are a little bit more lost to have something they can work towards as they Roleplay, while also then allowing me to create perks and items that are far more powerful and potent then a system where gems just state what stuff they get due to roles and what not.

[White Beryl]

Maybe I've skipped something, but from what I know power is just a scale to very generally indicate advantage and disatvantage between gems should they decide to fight. So trading power for items at the shop would be a good opportunity for people who don't really want to fight. But it was also written that "the advantages of such a system would be that the items themselves could be reasonably more potent or powerful". Does the "potent" and "powerful" refer to more general use or to the same power used to indicate advantage in fights? Because if it's the latter, my question would be that if the shop would be implemented, would the power of those items be measured some other way or with the same power system?

The question basically hinges on whether the items will generally be more aesthetic/utility-based or if they will be actively relevant in fights. I agree with Csarite that this should primarily help with roleplaying instead of collecting vague point values. Which is why I'd want the items in the shop system to be more aesthetic/utility-based. It would allow players who aren't really interested in fights to use something they normally would not use instead of leaving kind of just leave it there.

[njrk97]

Dec 9, 2020 13:06:20 GMT White Beryl said:

Does the "potent" and "powerful" refer to more general use or to the same power used to indicate advantage in fights? Because if it's the latter, my question would be that if the shop would be implemented, would the power of those items be measured some other way or with the same power system?

When i say potent i mean more as in being able to have items that can have a greater influence on Roleplay and even Combat, for example, in the current system i tend to discourage users from having ships really function as anything but transport and minor backdrops, as having a user rock up in a thread with a armed ship, simply because in their history they say they own a ship, is not really fair. However with this system i can start to allow ships to perhaps influence and be more part of RP and combat encounter, since it then requires a degree of tangible work for the user to gain the posts require to purchase the ship in the first place. It becomes more of a reward for posting and being active, and less of a freebie because one person says they have a ship in their history, while the others did not.

As i said in Csarites post this more then likely wont outright restrict ships, its just about the difference of having a ship act as a IC justification for movement(A ship you say you have IC, but have not purchased) vs having a ship become more relevant to your own RP and combat (A ship you have brought in the shop).

As i said though tentative, the ship system is one of the trickier aspects of the item shop to figure out and i fully admit i don't have the system locked down yet for how exactly i want ships to function as a store brought thing, provided i even have them as a shop item, since of course allowing ships in combat may bring up questions of balance, especially against users who don't have a ship of their own.

Regardless basically my thoughts was to have some items (IE drones, Light prisms) acting like the equivalent of a another unique ability for the user, while other items may act as augments (Ie Fire salt augments a gems unique ability with fire) and yes perhaps some items could act as more traditional power boosts (One avenue of ship mechanics im looking into is, like with combat fusion on the site, having it that a ship during combat may augment your Power (Ie with a medium ship your are now considered 1 rank higher then your current rank).

Dec 9, 2020 13:06:20 GMT White Beryl said:

would the power of those items be measured some other way or with the same power system?

I have been wanting to keep the scaling systems are the site straightforward, as such i have been trying to avoid placing in alternate power systems instead of keeping everything around a single root Power scale Mechanic.