Player made relics

Got another one:

When a node gets destroyed, a unique item can be found by the attackers. Not sure what it could be, maybe a statue or a stone with the node's name, something like that. This item would be a decoration for either another node or a guild house/castle

And another one: When a castle is won over, the attackers can find teared flags of the former guild in the castle. Again to be used as decoration in personal or guild houses

I do think the weapon relics are a cool idea. It would go really well within the RP communities. The only issue with that is the only players who will benefit from being the one who made the relic are the ones who started playing the game. Im sure someone who started a few years later will be bummed that they could never be a part of the making of a relic.

However, I think a work around could be that there are hidden achievements in the game that can create a relic item but players will have to discover it. That way it gives players a chance no matter when you start playing. In Mortal Online for example, there are hidden secrets that players still haven’t discovered even though it’s been out for years.

I think you’re onto something regarding siege trophies. A broken banner of the guild you overthrew would make a great conversation starter in your guild trophy room. It could even have the date of when you won the siege.

Oh, everything should be hidden. Some are obvious and will be found almost immediately, some would be hidden for years.

Its up to the devs to NOT say what they are. Steven, if you ever read this, just do what George Lucas did with Empire Strikes back. Have it that 2-3 people know what they are

)

As other examples that come to mind: First pair of boots that walked 1000km. First Weapon that killed one type of every mod (during each expansion). However, i can imagine that most would deal with bosses, but there should be plenty that don't.

I said it discord as well, but imagine the feeling when you see one of your items becoming a relic this way. The insane amount of pride you will feel knowing "I was the first to do this"

And banners can come from guild wars as well. Imagine joining a guild that has 15 different banners in its guild hall. That is a badass guild with insane bragging rights. However, it need to be made in such a way that those banners cannot be stolen. They only go away if the guild disbands. Achievements should not be stolen. Which also makes long-lasting guilds have more prestige and have people actively work for the betterment of their guild

I actually love this idea hahaha. You can even tie it to the scribe profession (https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Scribes) which to me needs a lot more to do if it were to become a real thing. So if, as in your example, the first sword that killed 100 players has the potential to become named 'the bloody' and it needs a scribe to do the naming and similar to the weapon durability would need to be 'polished up' once in a while (again, by a scribe). Also if the weapon is destroyed ever (which will happen to item via durability, over enchanting etc) it should require the/a scribe to re-instate its status.
I do think as mentioned by @Kalv1441 that there needs to be a way to maintain this mechanic so new ones can be made over time. I think an easy solution to this is to have time in the game matter (e.g. calendar year). Since we have seasons, perhaps each year can have a new 'the bloody' sword which would retain the value o the original one while new collectors items can be created. This would also create unofficial competitions for players to be the one to create and name such items. The time window for new relics as you call them could also be made variable so some are super rare (once every several in-game years) while others may occur once a season or something. So in the description of the item it would have the year/season post return to Verra to identify when it was named. This would make people turn their taverns/homes into museums and just be flex collectors items for wealthy players.

+1 for sure.

tautau

I think that the crafter's name will be attached to weapons already. But I give these ideas an enthusiastic thumbs up!
The capture of guild flags for display in victorious wars is a particularly good idea.

Edit: If, in a subsequent war, the defeated guild wins - they should not only get a copy of the loser's flag but also their old flag back.

Another quick thought, building up the scribe profession a bit more and the 'polishing' mentioned in my previous comment: a polished item can have the relic title visible to all, but the less polished it becomes (again, like durability) the less players can see the item's title. This visibility should be dependent on the viewing individual's scribe skill, this would add/take away little to the game but would just give the scribe profession a bit more identity.
Another idea would be that high level scribes can view the progress a weapon has for such relic status. So a high level scribe can inspect a sword and see it is 99/100 players killed and also tell that 'the bloody' title has not yet been achieved this season/year/cycle w.e lol.
I personally never liked the idea of the scribe profession because I thought wtf would they even do, so I find it personally amusing that I'm thinking of ways to flesh it out when I was never a fan of the idea to begin with :P.

Hmm...I like what neuroguy is saying but what about this:

I would say relics should be one of a kind item. But we can have ...am... artifacts? or some other name for seasonal achievements! So for a weapon to get the "bloody" achievement, it needs to be the weapon that killed most players in a season. The tally is only shown at the end of a season so its kinda like a blind auction. Maybe players can see their tally for the season, but not everyone else. So you enter this period as the season ends with everyone wanting to get their tally up.

Now, in this example, the "bloody" for player kills will make people more likely to PK (obviously). So how to counter a bunch of murder-hobos? Add the "justice" achievement. For most corrupt player kills. Hell, go even further, add the "unjust" achievement for most bounty hunter kills. You get the point.

And similar for PvE.

But relics, should be one of a kind. Not everyone will get a relic, hell not everyone will even see a relic, but their existence will make players want to be the first to explore/kill/craft aka play the game

I think it should just be one 'class' of items, having relics vs artifacts etc is confusing (also be aware that 'relics' are already a type of item in the game that are held in node reliquaries and give node-wide buffs to citizens: https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Relics). Depending on how long you set the cycle for these items to be achievable, they can still be extremely rare. I still imagine few people would ever see one.
Another note to keep in mind is that as far as I'm aware, you can't inspect people's gear so having the sword be named will never really be visible to other player's unless it is in a display case, trade window or up for sale at a stall. This means it has little impact on the game unless you are actively trying to flex, collect or profit. Unless they tie some in-game benefit from achieving these items that is.

I say relics because i dont know what to call them. And i dont think there should be a way to tell if someone is using one of those items. It would be for personal pride. At most, AT MOST, have like a small visual effect around them so that people might ask what achievement does it have. That sort of thing

Tyranthraxus

Yours truly enjoys the notion of an item being able to obtain a specialty "accomplishment" note upon it, by performing things like server-firsts and holding certain records (i.e. such as the suggestion about boots and how far they've travelled).

So long as what @Schmuky suggests herein doesn't involve extra bonuses to stats, this system seems like a neat one that could pair nicely with the Nodes' libraries' records-keeping systems.

This idea comes from the feeling I thing we all felt in MMOs. That the story starts when we start playing. We do the low level quests ("please gather 5 flowers, i want to give my wife a gift") and we slowly move up the story and power level until we fight to defend the realm.

But while we pick flowers, other players already fight for the realm. New player have no idea what else is happening in the world 15,20,50 level above them.

That being said, AoC with its node system is trying to fix that. With the map changing and so on. But having tokens of past event will be massive.

Imagine a lvl 1 player, just joined, has no idea about the node system (rare chance, but go with it). So they spawn in the city of Galad. All good. They run around and see a church bell with the mark with "City of Horomos". They look at the map, no such city on the map. So they ask around (or go online) and find out that Horomos was a node next to Galad and it was a metropolis. It was destroyed 6 months before by X Y and Z guild and the only remains in the world in the bell they saw.

Stuff like this makes the events in world feel impactful. When you take down a node, you know that its gonna be talked about for a long time and you made it happen.

Same with the items. I am starting to like the idea of having a notes mark on every item that tells you the previous owners. You get a sword and you see that it was made 2 days ago and the only other person to have it was the crafter. Then you find the same sword with 20 other owners, it was used to kill 5 world bosses and has killed 25 other players. Which one would you use?

Tyranthraxus

Kalv1441 wrote: »

....The only issue with that is the only players who will benefit from being the one who made the relic are the ones who started playing the game. Im sure someone who started a few years later will be bummed that they could never be a part of the making of a relic....

I don't really care if someone who starts playing the game 5 years after launch will be bummed that their weapon wouldn't be the first on the server to have attains so many kills, or that their boots weren't the first pair to walk so far. Can't they just get over it? Do we really want the type of players for whom this would be a game-playing deal-breaker?

Not targeting you specifically, @Kalv1441. It just perplexes yours truly that there seems to be the occasional concern expressed for server-first accomplishments and server-records, in regards to people who start light years after players who start at launch.

Isn't it better to have some nearly-meaningless rewards for long-time players, as opposed to purposefully *NOT* having them, for fear that someone who starts far later might resent not being able to become a record-holder or attain a server-first?

RocketFarmer

Actually I would agree with player made relics, perhaps more appropriately called heirlooms if the game had aging in it.

Given the game will have seasons - aging, aging effects and death from aging are things that are kind of cool for a long term campaign. However, for an MMORPG aging isn’t part of the game because it’s a 24-hour, accelerated time environment that some players would not enjoy losing large chunks of time of viable character play when they are not in game. For a tabletop RPG, time pauses in between sessions or jumps in the fashion a GM desires it.

But should time pass and be more than just an aesthetic, having items that recall previous characters would be interesting and rather unique to the genre. Would make Bards more meaningful and the in game books, stories and songs more interesting.

How about "Legacy items". This sort of server records would be the Legacy of the player making them. Even if the player stops playing, the items and their achievements will still be in the game. I kinda like that.

Now for seasonal achievements... Something like Triumph items, as this is more of a regular competition rather than a one time epic achievement.

One thing though, the implementation needs to keep in mind "cheating". For the walking one, it needs to count distance traveled rather than just distance walked. The difference actually matters, for distance walked, you can just get a macro and run head first into a wall . Or hell,even just put a weight on the W and run head first into a wall for 30 days. it need to measure how much of the map was traversed.

I agree that the Legacy Items should not really care about people that might join years after a server started, but if they are hidden, you never know when one might put up. This depends on how many they would put in. Again, the obvious ones will most likely be done quick, but the not-so-obviuos ones..might be years until someone does that exact thing, as it could be as detailed as the devs want: "Spend 24 continuous in-game hours without being on land" -> so either in water or on a ship or something. The only way something like this gets done is by accident.

About aging, no, just no. There is no fun element in seeing your character age and die due to natural causes. I know that there was a game that did it (Life is Feudal?), but what it ensures is that players only play for a very limited time, and they are aware that their in-game time limited. Due to how the seasons work in game (1 season per week) each character would age 13 years each IRL year. Orcs are considered old at 23 (in DnD) so 2 years after launch, anyone that did orc can say bye bye. Elves life for hundreds of years. See the problem?

And tbh, I am not sure it was fun even in Life is Feudal, as that game never got to be that popular. Haven't played so don't know for sure.

About bards... I am unsure if the bards can create songs in-game. I mean, the players can, but i doubt bards themself can do it. I see this being tied in with the Scribe profession more than anything,

@Tyranthraxus You’re right in that players from day one should be rewarded. What I was trying to bring attention to is that if this system were to be in place there should also be a system in place to make sure newer players can get the chance at “relic” items.

Someone brought up seasons. I think that could be the answer. It lets the players from day one get a title like Season 1 attached to the relic. It gives the older players a sense of legacy while still giving new players a sense of accomplishment

Kalv1441 wrote: »

@Tyranthraxus You’re right in that players from day one should be rewarded. What I was trying to bring attention to is that if this system were to be in place there should also be a system in place to make sure newer players can get the chance at “relic” items.

Someone brought up seasons. I think that could be the answer. It lets the players from day one get a title like Season 1 attached to the relic. It gives the older players a sense of legacy while still giving new players a sense of accomplishment

What i said about season weapons... that's extra to the first time/server and server records. The weapon that got 100 kills 2 weeks after launch is way more impressive that the weapon that got 100 kills 5 years 3 months and 1 week after launch. Seasonal achievements should not overshadow the record of being the first.

@Schmuky I agree. The seasonal stuff would let players years down the road have goals to strive for.

@Kalv1441 you know the weird thing? This is one of the few posts on the forum where, while there are a few details to hash out, everyone agrees that it would be cool. Now lets hope that the devs think so too

@Schmuky from your mouth to @StevenSharif ears lol