Just playing around with the Urchin command in test and it struck me that it would be pretty nice for new characters to leave the CM with a 10 use urchin guide contract with automated quests for them to find various places around town or Zoluren via the DIR command or just plain old stumbling around and using epedia maps. Upon success of each quest they'd get another X number of uses to their urchin guide to encourage new players to learn how to navigate but also give them a fast travel option to discourage early frustration and quitting. Of course the noob urchin guide would cap out at a low number of uses and/or circle and then you'd have to purchase them from the simucoin store.

Documentation is a love letter you write to your future self.

Ok.. my initial gut response was... oh boy.. here we go watering down more moon mage abilities and giving them out to people as rewards or paid items / abilities.

After looking in test so far I am unsure where I stand on that feeling still. I just feel like more and more things are making me feel less great about being a Moon Mage these days. I'll continue testing it out more.

Hey, this is a neat system! Going to make for some happy folks I imagine, especially over on the islands. Delayed boats are a menace to sanity...hehe. Heck, I can see myself using that Muspar'i URCHIN quite a bit, actually spend some time with those constructs. Very neat system, and after a number of "jumps", I didn't see anything buggy or unexpected.

A couple of things. Qi'Reshalia PLACES, you've got "Ratha - Tier 2 Truffenyi's Green". Is that "Tier 2" referring to some sort of points or cost that'll be associated with moving to that room? If not, the green is actually on the 3rd Tier of Ratha, not 2nd. Same comment with the "Guardhouse"

Since you have the Clans on the Zoluren list, maybe add the Silverclaw and Sunfall Hubs as well? And Acenamacra Village? And I know it's right there by Stone Clan, but if you're being a complete-ist, Kaerna Village should prob. have it's own destination too...:P

In Ilithi, not sure if you want to negate the poem recite adventure, but Chyolvea Tayeu'a might be added. And Blackthorn Canyon or Shadow's Reach (down by Corik's Wall) both have shops, there's a Trader Outpost at the Canyon, etc.

In Therengia, I'd suggest adding a destination for Siksraja, Haizen Cugis (shops & housing out in the Velaka Desert), El'Bain's Stop and possibly Fornsted Village, although that last one just has the tanner so it's barely a pit-stop.

And I'd put up for consideration including the Crafting Society Halls as well.

~*~ Kythryn ~*~
"Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut." - Ernest Hemingway

I have a request for this feature. It may be too late to change, but I feel like I would be remiss not to mention it.

It feels... for lack of a better word, silly, that street urchins are just plain better at safe and fast travel than any number of actual guilded experts. I understand the idea of a streetwise local being pretty good at getting around their home town, but it just feels a bit backwards to insinuate that a 150th Moon Mage using all of their power and most efficient teleportation tricks would lose when compared to a random homeless commoner just using their own two feet in this situation.

My suggestion, if you'd like to maintain the urchin contracts for consistency or any other reason, really, is to have the player contact the urchin initially, who goes on to contact an expert Ranger/Moon Mage NPC, and then that NPC performs the task of guiding the player to their destination. It's just a little bit of additional flavor, but I feel like it would go a long way toward making this system just a little more setting-friendly. It feels more believable to me that urchins would just so happen to have a network of contacts, rather than be able to somehow expertly navigate rivers, monster-and-highwayman-infested roadways, and other dangerous obstacles on a daily basis.

Which would make sense if the urchin guide system showed you a hidden shortcut from the market square down back alleys to a city gate. Not so much traveling outside the city hundreds of miles across the province. The messaging distinction for urchins putting out the word for a skilled guide would be far preferable to just homeless kids guiding professional adventurers.

Documentation is a love letter you write to your future self.

>Is the roundtime to curb misuse of the verb?

The guides are intended to be a limited-use/charge thing -- we don't currently plan for there to be an unlimited time-based option. The RT confirmation is meant to avoid situations where "the cat" (dog, ferret, kid, ghost, whatever) hits the keyboard and consumes charges that would quickly burn through them. Primarily, this is the reason for the RT.

Abuse concerns are lesser for that particular aspect. However, based on feedback from testing, I've added (as of a few minutes ago) a 5 minute timer between uses. This is primarily geared towards abuse concerns. Messaging (if you try to use early or the STATUS option) will tell you how long until you can use again.

RE: urchins vs guilded messaging...The goal is consistency between runners and guides -- the Traders' Guild has reached out to them and offered them 'honest' work in an effort to clean up the local streets. The Guild is (obviously) taking a cut from this, and the urchins are as well. Some day, they may grow up to be the very mages and rangers you're looking for. I'm also aiming for consistency on an OOC level as a system: the "urchins" are there to provide conveniences for players as we continue adding to / expanding them in the future. Until it's actually released, anything can change. I don't know that I have the bandwidth for a messaging overhaul at the moment, but it's not entirely off the table.

Thanks for the testing and feedback so far, folks.

Zadraes

>While I could usually walk faster...

I agree that a lot of the inner-city destinations aren't going to be that useful for experienced players, although likely super nice for folks new to the game.

That being said, I suspect all of us are going to get addicted to being able to by-pass some of the major time-sink travel options. Going from Haven to Muspar'i in 5 seconds, and esp. ones like Ratha to Mer'Kresh...jumps like that are where I think the system will stay useful long-term.

~*~ Kythryn ~*~
"Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut." - Ernest Hemingway

If these bedraggled young children are guiding the most powerful adventurers across the land I doubt they're going to be turning into mages and rangers when they grow up. Gods maybe. Will they grant us favors? They don't appear to be mortals.

In a text game messaging is paramount. The consistency should be established sooner rather than later that both runners and guides (and future expansions to the 'urchin' system) reflect the well documented dangers to anyone outside the adventurer class traveling cross country beyond any city's walls.

Documentation is a love letter you write to your future self.