The means by which your reputation is measured is now live. The individual levels of "punishment" have not been released at this time, but I expect they will be released next week. This means that, while you are out making a nuisance of yourself, you are already collecting your "bad" reputation in whichever Province it happens to be, so be prepared for the consequences when they are released.
To reiterate the finer points of this system...
1. Your reputation is specific to each Province.
2. Your "old" reputation just got erased, but may take a few hours to "correct" itself if you've been especially naughty. (This is in-game time.)
3. Your new reputation has nothing to do with your "bonus", so it's time to stop relating "reputation" and "bonus". They used to be related, but they no longer are.
4. Means of recovering your reputation will be available to you, though it is currently very limited. Expect to see additional means in the future, but not next week.
5. The backbone of Thief Confidence is currently live, but you will not notice the difference yet because none of the verbs relating to it have been released yet.
Friendly faces are going to be updated to reflect reputation, and as they are specific to each Province, expect to see two new friendly faces in the near future in Provinces that lack them currently. Where and who they are, I'll leave up to you to find out.
DR-VENDARIN
DR-NATALA
Reputation
01/08/2004 05:32 PM CST
Greetings,
I've been juggling my schedule of releases around quite a bit the past couple of days.
Switching various Thiefly things over to properly checking your reputation is, therefore, being moved from the "soon" column to the "brace for impact" column.
The general plan is to begin releasing the necessary updates in approximately a week. Right now, they're just being held back to give you a little bit of advance warning. If there's a particular guild leader you'd like to talk to about advancement or abilities, and you think (or know) your rep is bad in that area, I'd strongly recommend against putting the visit off any longer.
Reputation, for anyone who isn't familiar with it, represents whether the guild is currently happy with your performance or not. It can impact your ability to access abilities/areas that require the ongoing good will of the Thief guild (contacts, guild halls, that sort of thing). It doesn't affect abilities like khri where you learn it and then go off and use it forever without any further help needed.
Reputation is divided up by province in the current setup. Basically that means that the Guildleaders only take an interest in things that you've done in their own territory. Anywhere else and they just don't care.
Donating items to the guild through the bins DOES help.
Generally staying out of trouble also helps. They'll gradually forgive you any time the local guards aren't working on hunting you down.
You can hurt your rep by being caught committing crimes, or by doing just about anything that results in the guild's thugs coming after you.
-Natala
Skill is successfully walking a tightrope over Niagara Falls. Intelligence is not trying.
-- Anonymous
I've been juggling my schedule of releases around quite a bit the past couple of days.
Switching various Thiefly things over to properly checking your reputation is, therefore, being moved from the "soon" column to the "brace for impact" column.
The general plan is to begin releasing the necessary updates in approximately a week. Right now, they're just being held back to give you a little bit of advance warning. If there's a particular guild leader you'd like to talk to about advancement or abilities, and you think (or know) your rep is bad in that area, I'd strongly recommend against putting the visit off any longer.
Reputation, for anyone who isn't familiar with it, represents whether the guild is currently happy with your performance or not. It can impact your ability to access abilities/areas that require the ongoing good will of the Thief guild (contacts, guild halls, that sort of thing). It doesn't affect abilities like khri where you learn it and then go off and use it forever without any further help needed.
Reputation is divided up by province in the current setup. Basically that means that the Guildleaders only take an interest in things that you've done in their own territory. Anywhere else and they just don't care.
Donating items to the guild through the bins DOES help.
Generally staying out of trouble also helps. They'll gradually forgive you any time the local guards aren't working on hunting you down.
You can hurt your rep by being caught committing crimes, or by doing just about anything that results in the guild's thugs coming after you.
-Natala
Skill is successfully walking a tightrope over Niagara Falls. Intelligence is not trying.
-- Anonymous
DR-NATALA
Thief Reputation
01/15/2004 07:10 PM CST
As was announced IG (and put into the news) a bunch of reputation stuff has gone live. If you think the guildleaders are mad at you I really wouldn't advise trying to hang out in the guild's territory. They might get cranky.
They're not nice when they're cranky.
(Prime for right now. Plat and TF to follow if the game doesn't have a fit at me...)
-Natala
Skill is successfully walking a tightrope over Niagara Falls. Intelligence is not trying.
-- Anonymous
They're not nice when they're cranky.
(Prime for right now. Plat and TF to follow if the game doesn't have a fit at me...)
-Natala
Skill is successfully walking a tightrope over Niagara Falls. Intelligence is not trying.
-- Anonymous
DR-TIESSE
Thief Reputation Updates
12/28/2009 03:53 AM CST
Greetings!
Now that I've had a chance to talk to some of you at the meetings I've held over the past week, I'm officially announcing the updates made to the Thief reputation system.
First, reputation drift is now slower in both directions. This means you'll be able to stay at higher levels for longer, though it also means you'll linger at the bottom longer if you don't do anything to help yourself out. Yes, I know there are likely some Thieves grumbling out there who have reputations trashed in certain provinces and are unable to bin anything because they can't access the guildhalls. However, this leads me to my next point.
A few months ago, you might remember that I made an announcement about how I included a whole batch of new NPCs into the task system. The reason for doing so was in anticipation of this project: Thieves now have a new way of earning reputation points in the various provinces, and that is by completing tasks for the certain "thiefly" NPCs around the realms. While there are some limitations, I believe it suits our needs well for the time being, and I look forward to further utilizing the system in the future.
The best way to explain how it works is to provide an example. Say you ask the old blind beggar for a task. He tells you he lost a trinket that's very special to him, and he would like you to go find it for him in Barana's shipyard. You accept the task, go crawl around on your knees for a bit while avoiding the rats, and lo and behold -- you find the trinket. You go back to the beggar and give him the item. In return, you'll not only receive cash payment for completing the task, but you'll now receive a chunk of reputation points in Zoluren, since that's where the beggar lives.
However, the delivery tasks are slightly different than the other kill a creature, forage items, etc. tasks where you have to return to the same NPC for completion. Say the beggar asks you to deliver an item to Ioun, the pawnmonger up in Riverhaven. You accept the task, travel up to the city, and give Ioun the item, for which he'd pay you. The difference here is that you will get reputation points in Therengia, where you completed the task, rather than in Zoluren, where the originated. This is simply a quirk of how the task system works and not something that can be easily adjusted right now, so you'll just have to keep it in mind when you're doing tasks. Another thing to note is that if you are asked to deliver an item to one of the NPCs not included in the "thiefly" category, you won't receive reputation points at all for completing the task, unfortunately, so it's up to you if you want to accept it in the first place or just complete it for the cash.
A few additional notes:
- Remember that you will earn points based on the NPC you complete the task with in the end. If the task requires you to return to the original NPC, then you will earn rep points in that province. If the task requires you to deliver an item to an NPC in a different province, you will earn reputation points in the province where the accepting NPC lives. However, if the recipient is not a "thiefly" NPC, you won't receive points.
- You always have the option to decline a task or cancel one after you've accepted it. If you want to focus on doing tasks that earn you points in a specific province, it'll probably be best to strategically accept and decline certain tasks unless you don't mind adventuring and doing something different once in a while. Sometimes you might be forced to decline a task if the NPC is asking you to deliver an item to a recipient in an area you cannot access due to poor reputation (which is all the more reason to get started on improvement!)
- Because of the way they're set up, there are certain NPCs that will award you reputation points in a random province upon completion rather than for the province where they live. These NPCs are the barkeeps, tavern owners, etc. that are included in the rumor system. I figured awarding random rep points was better than nothing at all, so hopefully it won't be too inconvenient for you.
- I'm sure you're wondering by now just who these "thiefly" NPCs are. If you haven't fooled around with the task system when I made the updates a few months ago, don't worry. I'll be posting a list in a little bit so you'll have an easier time testing and what not.
- In the future, the scale on which reputation is measured will be changing a bit as well, mainly since the drift is now slower. The point at which you have autothuggings upon entering the guild, guildleaders ignoring you, losing other privileges, etc. will likely be adjusted to be more lenient. Nothing on this front has been done yet, but I wanted to give you a heads up.
- I have not changed anything to do with binning at this time, so it will still work as it always has.
The bottom line is that binning was never supposed to be an end-all-be-all for fixing/improving one's reputation. I am always looking for new ways to help Thieves improve their reps, so if you have any suggestions, I'm all ears. My goal is to move toward a feasible way for Thieves to use their reputation as a sort of "currency" that will allow them more benefits for having above average standings in the various provinces.
Please feel free to post any questions, comments, or suggestions that you may have. If you have an issue with the task system itself, such as the types of creatures you're asked to kill or where you're being sent to do deliver an item, please post those in the Task System folder in Abilities, Skills, and Magic so GM Obseden can see them.
Enjoy!
-- GM Tiesse
P.S. -- These updates are live in Prime and Plat and will be rolled into TF next week if everything goes smoothly.
"Governments and corporations need people like you and me. We are samurai. The keyboard cowboys." -- The Plague
Now that I've had a chance to talk to some of you at the meetings I've held over the past week, I'm officially announcing the updates made to the Thief reputation system.
First, reputation drift is now slower in both directions. This means you'll be able to stay at higher levels for longer, though it also means you'll linger at the bottom longer if you don't do anything to help yourself out. Yes, I know there are likely some Thieves grumbling out there who have reputations trashed in certain provinces and are unable to bin anything because they can't access the guildhalls. However, this leads me to my next point.
A few months ago, you might remember that I made an announcement about how I included a whole batch of new NPCs into the task system. The reason for doing so was in anticipation of this project: Thieves now have a new way of earning reputation points in the various provinces, and that is by completing tasks for the certain "thiefly" NPCs around the realms. While there are some limitations, I believe it suits our needs well for the time being, and I look forward to further utilizing the system in the future.
The best way to explain how it works is to provide an example. Say you ask the old blind beggar for a task. He tells you he lost a trinket that's very special to him, and he would like you to go find it for him in Barana's shipyard. You accept the task, go crawl around on your knees for a bit while avoiding the rats, and lo and behold -- you find the trinket. You go back to the beggar and give him the item. In return, you'll not only receive cash payment for completing the task, but you'll now receive a chunk of reputation points in Zoluren, since that's where the beggar lives.
However, the delivery tasks are slightly different than the other kill a creature, forage items, etc. tasks where you have to return to the same NPC for completion. Say the beggar asks you to deliver an item to Ioun, the pawnmonger up in Riverhaven. You accept the task, travel up to the city, and give Ioun the item, for which he'd pay you. The difference here is that you will get reputation points in Therengia, where you completed the task, rather than in Zoluren, where the originated. This is simply a quirk of how the task system works and not something that can be easily adjusted right now, so you'll just have to keep it in mind when you're doing tasks. Another thing to note is that if you are asked to deliver an item to one of the NPCs not included in the "thiefly" category, you won't receive reputation points at all for completing the task, unfortunately, so it's up to you if you want to accept it in the first place or just complete it for the cash.
A few additional notes:
- Remember that you will earn points based on the NPC you complete the task with in the end. If the task requires you to return to the original NPC, then you will earn rep points in that province. If the task requires you to deliver an item to an NPC in a different province, you will earn reputation points in the province where the accepting NPC lives. However, if the recipient is not a "thiefly" NPC, you won't receive points.
- You always have the option to decline a task or cancel one after you've accepted it. If you want to focus on doing tasks that earn you points in a specific province, it'll probably be best to strategically accept and decline certain tasks unless you don't mind adventuring and doing something different once in a while. Sometimes you might be forced to decline a task if the NPC is asking you to deliver an item to a recipient in an area you cannot access due to poor reputation (which is all the more reason to get started on improvement!)
- Because of the way they're set up, there are certain NPCs that will award you reputation points in a random province upon completion rather than for the province where they live. These NPCs are the barkeeps, tavern owners, etc. that are included in the rumor system. I figured awarding random rep points was better than nothing at all, so hopefully it won't be too inconvenient for you.
- I'm sure you're wondering by now just who these "thiefly" NPCs are. If you haven't fooled around with the task system when I made the updates a few months ago, don't worry. I'll be posting a list in a little bit so you'll have an easier time testing and what not.
- In the future, the scale on which reputation is measured will be changing a bit as well, mainly since the drift is now slower. The point at which you have autothuggings upon entering the guild, guildleaders ignoring you, losing other privileges, etc. will likely be adjusted to be more lenient. Nothing on this front has been done yet, but I wanted to give you a heads up.
- I have not changed anything to do with binning at this time, so it will still work as it always has.
The bottom line is that binning was never supposed to be an end-all-be-all for fixing/improving one's reputation. I am always looking for new ways to help Thieves improve their reps, so if you have any suggestions, I'm all ears. My goal is to move toward a feasible way for Thieves to use their reputation as a sort of "currency" that will allow them more benefits for having above average standings in the various provinces.
Please feel free to post any questions, comments, or suggestions that you may have. If you have an issue with the task system itself, such as the types of creatures you're asked to kill or where you're being sent to do deliver an item, please post those in the Task System folder in Abilities, Skills, and Magic so GM Obseden can see them.
Enjoy!
-- GM Tiesse
P.S. -- These updates are live in Prime and Plat and will be rolled into TF next week if everything goes smoothly.
"Governments and corporations need people like you and me. We are samurai. The keyboard cowboys." -- The Plague
