4 replies to this topic

[Crane]

This is mainly for 1-alt, although would work fine in multi-alt too, and builds on the Couple Suggestions topic.

Players know that a few areas have Mana Ponds located in them. While you can forage around some of them, most of them only work if you have Empty Flasks on you, and as these are shop-bought, there is little point in carrying one over, say, an Advanced Mana Crystal. So, I would like to propose the following...

For mountainous areas away from town, namely Bluefrost Mountain, parts of Mount Melior, and the ridge area in the Sentant Range, a few random squares have day-spawn examines where you can acquire empty flasks from the corpses of less fortunate adventurers. For flasks that have already been taken, display the normal "You examine the room and find nothing." so no clue is given! Not too frequent, maybe about 20 or 30 on the Sentant Range and a similar number on Bluefrost Mountain. Have fewer on Mount Melior, although have one with the Drow Corpse, why not!

Also, for Orcs, since they appear around the Sentant Range, allow them to have a low chance of dropping Empty Flasks (scavenged from victims or the leftovers of Orcish drafts).

To accommodate for the increase in Empty Flasks, let them be accepted in the Alchemy Shop in Arilin for 5 gold apiece. I'm not sure if Mana Water is accepted there, but if not, I would suggest 75 gold for that (not Unknown Brew #124470 though, as it is technically unknown!). It gives the option of extra gold on a trip, although slightly less than if you were collecting, say, Short Swords.

Edited by Crane, 19 September 2010 - 02:39 PM.

[Yggdrasill]

Sounds great to me. Only problem I see is orcs EVERYWHERE dropping the flasks. I'd then fill up a vault or two with flasks and then fill up a vault or two with mana water (make a clan trip to fill my vault). Now on my paladin I've made a ton of extra gold not having to pay for mana and still being able to stay out for hours per trip.

So supported if whoever is doing this is going to add flasks to only specific specific orcs as opposed to all orcs everywhere.

[Crane]

Could be hard as Orcs drop Short Swords too, and due to the way the engine works, one of the drops will have to be 100% if not removed completely. I'm guessing even a low drop rate like 0.5% still won't help.

[Yggdrasill]

Yea that's a toughy. I'm still not 100% clear on engine limitations though. It's possible to have individual orcs drop them 100% of the time, but is it possible to make those specific orcs only spawn once a day or whichever interval is best? If so, I think this is a very viable solution to the mana pond uselessness.

[Crane]

I suggested Orcs because they're one of the few common monsters that could conceivably carry them for a reason, although to stop a flood the drop rate should be very low, even if Empty Flasks can be traded in at Arilin or transmuted into Mana Water. If I've learnt anything, players often leave behind things like Short Swords even though they can net 80 gold apiece.

Of course, the other factor is that Mana Ponds are very uncommon and not easy to find unless you already know where they are. A future development could be different kinds of pond or cauldron where you can fill up empty flasks like, say, a cauldron guarded by a witch that demands a payment of 5,000 gold before you can start filling your flasks for a healing potion that gives 200 HP, say. Mind you, such a development can't really occur unless Empty Flasks can be obtained more readily and there's a legitimate reason to carry them in place of something more immediately useful.