Before I start, my thoughts could've gone haywire at any point while typing this text, so I apologize for any inconvenience my lack of coherency may cause.
I was playing a certain MUD again after quite some time and it occured to me. You know how people tend to get bored after hitting 220, some after years of PvPing and twinking their alts and so on, some just because they don't get to grind with their mains anymore and aliens just ain't the same and henceforth? -- As I stated in the post, I was tired. I really meant people who had no desire to continue playing their 220ers anymore. Most people who would probably use a rebirth system would not be the types who consider their characters to be worth something, but the ones who have come to the conclusion that their current character isn't up to the tasks at hand.
This idea (and if it has been suggested already, I apologize, I'm just too darn tired to start checkin') is...
Rebirth!
Your character would be reset back to level 1, but with all the credits and gear you have gathered. Of course you wouldn't be able to do this rebirth with any of your gear on, kind of like with reset points. You'd get to choose your breed, prof and the likes like first time 'round. -- See Basics for a more verbose entry about this.
But why would anyone want to reset their precious main back to the newbie days, other than out of pure boredom? The Light Bar isn't that sought after an item, either.
-- Added edits have the part about rewards that used to be here handled much better. Read Rewards down below. Breed/prof change and rewards have been turned into two separate things, because breed/prof change isn't as much a reward as an important part of the entire concept.
But what this would do is give people something else to do than just make new alts ad nauseaum until they get bored and leave the game. They could play with their mains instead. At least I feel a lot more "at home" when playing with my main, as opposed to playing with my alts. And you could even explain this whole thing as a sort of "donation" into the "research pool" in Lost Eden. No new grind - just a new take on the original one.
Well, thassit. I'll edit if I find any glaring mistakes later on.
EDIT:
As the idea evolved during the course of the thread and there might be some confusion (as people might not read the entire thread) about what it ended up looking like, I thought it would be a good idea to post the newer ideas here.
Basics
- The character would not be able to wear ANY items when rebirthing.
- The character would get to keep all of his items (nodrops, including garden keys and NT decks, everything), all of his credits and so forth (being able to keep whatever towers which were up would be excellent!).
- The character would be dropped to level 1 and join the faction
- he was in when he rebirthed,
- of neutrals. No exceptions (players that are presidents of Clan/Omni orgs can't rebirth),
- of his choosing (exception: Presidents could not choose their faction),
- he was on if Omni/Clan, or the neutral faction based on the player's choosing. Neutrals could only pick neutral as their side. Presidents can't choose a different faction.
* Presidents could override the B, C and D choices' president locks by relinquishing leadership. Options are there to give ideas for possible implementation - if this ever makes it ingame, only one (unless FC makes one of its own) would be present.
- All skills are reset, just like with the one time full IP reset.
- Nanos should stay if old profession is retained, but if profession is changed, they are deleted, or at the very least hidden in such a manner that they can't be unhidden by the player.
* Reasoning: You couldn't use them anyway until you level up, and losing those possibly very expensive improved nanos would be a big problem for certain professions. No reason not to have them stay if no profession change takes place.
- Shadowbreed should be wiped. No exceptions.
- The character would be able to wear all the items he should be able to wear, like +10 Pure novic ring and such, which should give a big enough advantage to anyone over regular players already on its own in the lower levels.
- The character would have all his AXP at his disposal - as he levels up, he would gain AI levels accordingly if he had them before, and the AI level gain would end at the level he was at.
* Caveat: If this is impossible, then AXP would have to be ground up from down up. The EXP bonus items working on AXP change would have to be enough, as the rebirther only exp bonus items would add a massive bonus to AXP gains.
- Research should be handled the same way - unless a profession switch take place, of course. This could be the "profession loyalty bonus" one gets which has been discussed in the thread as well. Same caveat as with AXP.
- Faster regular leveling. Example method of doing this:
- A player rebirths, and, just like with key quests, an invisible tag is attached to his character.
- The player then goes to a vendor, who now allows him to use his services.
- This vendor has two different lines of self only experience buffing nanos to sell:
- A generic line which works everywhere.
- A Rubi-Ka only line which is two, three or even four times better than the generic line.
- The two lines have, for instance, 3 different nanos in each line:
- First pair is relatively weak, and is cheap.
- Second pair is better, and more expensive.
- Third pair is the best and very expensive.
* Reasoning: This example allows for a system which drains credits from the economy without forcing rebirthers to use a lot of credits if they don't want to (they don't have to buy the exp buff nanos if they don't want to in the first place). The better RK line would let people grind their experience on Rubi-Ka and still get relatively similar EXP they would get from SL, answering the call for extra experience on RK in its own way.
Breed/profession change
The real main course of this rebirth idea was changing of breed and/or profession. There was a minor debate on whether one should be allowed to change both profession and breed in one go (a) or just one at a time (b). Obvious differences:
- People would use less time if they want to change both their breed and prof,
- people would have to rebirth twice, making it a twice as long a grind.
Other way would be to simply allow breed change without the chance for a profession change, or the other way around. Still, for the rebirth to cater to as many people who are fed up with their character's situation, both breed and profession change would be pretty much required.
Rewards
This issue was debated at several points of the existence of this thread.
- It should, at most, be a low impact reward that does not require people to rebirth. Different choices:
- Perkline (AI/SL) reward: Should be closer to Second Genome perklines in effectiveness (or Gadgeteer of the Engineers as it is now and is not very useful). They would eat regular perks.
- Low impact global research: It could have multiple research levels like the earlier global researches. You could use the higher research levels only if you have rebirthed more often. The effects would be much lesser than actual research lines. Would require a HUD item to make people think even more whether they want to use them or not.
- Name color change.
- Other reward discussed was "profession loyalty reward". Choices:
- None. Retaining all research is reward enough,
- a low impact profession-based perkline,
- a low impact profession-based (global) research line.
* I personally don't think that any other rewards than breed/prof change, side change and having your old items would be necessary.
Updates/disclaimers/whatever
4/10th Nov) Issues with player's side. Would everyone be turned back to neutral, or stay on their own side? I think sided people (Omni or Clan) in orgs should not be reset into neutrals unless the player specifically thus chooses - however, if a person is not in an org, he should be. Automatically. This is because it doesn't really matter if an orgless person switches sides for the orgs at large, or if some random member does and comes back a bit later, but if, say, the org president goes off rebirthing and would end up neutral (having been Omni or Clan before), the organization would be broken. One other option for this would be to just simply stop org presidents from rebirthing wholesale, while everyone else could do it whenever they want and they would always be automatically changed into neutrals in the process. In the second option, if an org president relinquishes his/her position, s/he would be able to rebirth just as everyone else. -- Added to Basics above.
Another edit:
AND THIS IDEA HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH RAGNAROK, which apparently has a similar thing in it. WHICH I wouldn't KNOW OF because I never played Ragnarok now did I? They just stole the old MUD idea to their MMO first. If you're going to just whine about it sorta being in Ragnarok, dine in Hell! Maybe we should drop all weapons, vehicles (steeds), hell, even the very MMO itself, because it was done first elsewhere. OMG ULTIMA ONLINE ... OMG ASHERON'S CALL. OMG OMG OMG. U JUST COPYIGN OTHER GAEMS ROFL.
Seriously. If you have no constructive criticism or anything else... Just. Don't. Post. Simple as that. And from looking at the Wiki entry of RO, it's not quite the same as this idea. You are only nominally reborn there as you get into a completely NEW CLASS which seems to make it MANDATORY to be reborn, or you'll be left behind. See the difference? This idea is about only at best giving a nominal bonus for being rebirthed, aiming it at people who aren't satisfied with their current toon rather than forcing people to be reborn because you'll be 10 times better if you do it...
STOP TALKING ABOUT RAGNAROK. STOP IT! STOOOP IIIIIT!
Yet another edit:
... And if you have a problem with some other game's rebirthing system, DON'T BRING IT UP HERE. You aren't even criticizing this idea when you do that, you're criticizing SOME OTHER GAME. Is this thread in that game's forum? No? Then, just maybe, it's NOT about that game's rebirthing mechanism! Their rebirthing systems are likely to only share the NAME with this idea (as has been with the ones brought up earlier), but not what it actually DOES.
Sheesh. I wonder if I have to add even more edits stating the obvious. :P