If you could add (add, not change) one thing about Helovia, what would it be?
PLEASE only one "add" per player.

Brainstorming things, and these kickstart some creativity.

This can be plot related, god related, herd related, economy related, companion or magic related, etc, etc

What if each real life season we had a special companion drop? Something way outside of the box different from all of our other species? For example: Winter would be crumple horned snorkack drops, Spring = Flying dogs, Summer = Flying cats, Fall = Flying gun bearing pigs. It would happen every season, unless the gods are really ticked because of a plot, then they could punish the people by not holding it. These drops would be the only way to receive on of those "special" companions? Maybe how many are given away could be based on how many people enter? Or small markings/items, or seasonal passive magic could be given away to second and third place winners? Something to keep people trying, so it really could be anything. To figure out what kind of creatures we could hold voting, like we do for COTM. Everyone write down what they would like, vote and the top four are randomized to find out what season they belong with?

I want more forced plotting where everyone has to participate :)
Otherwise it's just not as fun

I would like to add weather phenomenons and/or illnesses that crop up to affect the whole site as a random event every once in a while, things that actually causes lasting damage on landscapes (and characters if they so wish), perhaps even to the point of regions becoming uninhabitable for a while - it would make life more unpredictable and interesting for outcasts and potentially give the herdlands more status as a 'safe zone' if they're protected from that kind of thing.

Lmfao 'flying gun bearing pigs' totally needs to be a companion option

There are so many things I love about Helovia, and so many things that are being added into the new site, that I just really can't think of much. However, one thing that I've not really understood (maybe I just don't know the reasoning behind it), but for stats, why is the max on the companions a 2, whether you have just one or two? I think it would make sense to raise it for characters that have two companions; but like I said there may be a reason I don't know about.

<333

@[Destrier]
That is the same reason why having a third magic slot doesn't increase your stats! We decided that since these slots are so rare, we don't want any additional points for special prizes, especially since you cannot quest for them.

That is something that will not change in order to be fair. Also, having two companions or a third magic is not always a powerful addition since you have two competing voices in your head and now a third magic to try to control! (This is the IC justification).

If I could think of one thing I'd LOVE to see added to Helovia, it would be a 'shop' of sorts (economy related was an option, right?!). Not for OOC currency obviously, but for a type of Helovia-only currency, with a horse-ish name. Leaves? Bones? I'll go with leaves for the purpose of this explanation xD I've seen a lot of sites with this sort of idea and I really like it. I missed the SWP on the cloud with the points earnt via SWP deeds like discovering it etc, which could then be swapped for prizes, and I'm gutted about that because it looked awesome! This would be like a permanent version of that.

This currency would be earnt via IC and OOC deeds. You'd get, say, three leaves for interacting with a new character, or five for bringing someone home from the Threshold, or maybe two for making somebody a table or a piece of art. With these leaves, you could buy prizes - such as magic and items.

Now I know the main negative levelled against this idea will be that special stuff is meant to be just that - special. However, imo, drops are extremely hard, and it's next to impossible to win the 'major' ones such as the drops for royal companions, unless you have a ridiculous number of VOTG rolls or just sheer immense luck. At the moment, the only real way to get something is the birthday giveaway or to get extremely lucky with drops. With this 'shop', this stuff would still be extremely rare, but it could be a way of getting things for people who have awful bad luck in drops. And I'm thinking this stuff wouldn't be cheap, either - it'd be ridiculously expensive, so a lot of work would go into earning them.

Some ways to earn leaves:
- 1 leaf for completing a thread
- 2 leaves for making somebody some art/a table
- 3 leaves for interacting with a new character
- 5 leaves for recruiting someone from the Threshold
- 5 leaves for participating in (but not winning) a drop
- 8 leaves for participating in a SWP
- 10 leaves for meeting a god

There'd be no events that would give more than, say, 15 leaves, so they're really tough to get. In contrast, things you could buy would be mega expensive, so that as I say it's not an easy way to earn these things. Little IC deeds could earn leaves too, like meeting your first hybrid, or helping somebody out with a problem, to really encourage threading and IC interaction.

Some things that could cost:
- 200 leaves: Small marking, small item, amulet, VOTG roll, twin foal stats
- 500 leaves: Medium marking, medium item, VOTG pass, magic/hybrid foal stats
- 800 leaves: Large item, regular companion, hybrid pass
- 1000 leaves: Common NSS or SS companion, magic
- 1200 leaves: Plain NSS or SS companion, genetic mutation
- 2000 leaves: Royal NSS or SS companion

Maybe it could cost like 100 leaves just to join a new character? To discourage people making hundreds of characters.

Pros:
- Encourage people to do things like go to the Threshold and recruit new people. If you actually had a reason to do it, these threads wouldn't die as much.
- Encourage OOC niceness like making people tables (and rewarding people who already do that stuff).
- Place focus on using your characters and developing them.
- Give people who have bad luck in drops another avenue for earning cool stuff.

Cons:
- Could possibly foster a 'moneygrabbing' culture where everyone only cares about earning this currency.

I don't expect to see this implemented but I thought I'd suggest it anyway since I've seen it be mega popular on other sites, and it would definitely give newbies a sense of 'wow I can earn awesome stuff too' <3

I really like most of your ideas Snow! I do feel that making art/tables might not come off as a 'fair' way to earn leaves since not all of us are artists or coders. That might make those of us that can't art feel left out :/ Other wise I love this idea, I think it would be really fun, but I also feel it would need a test run. That way we could make sure that your con doesn't come true :)

Maybe every so often things could be rolled for in the shop to see what would be available that season or something? Just to spice it up a bit?

I can tell you right now, that I am really, really anti-shop :(
Every site I've ever been on and participated on that had a shop ended up being a miserable experience. It became less about the writing and more about the stuff, and I really, really want to get Helovia far away from that. I want an environment where the writing and character development overpowers and "stuff" you might get. And I want the stuff to have a story behind it, not just a prize that appears and you can use.

For example, I would much rather earn a sword that has Helovian history from the sun god's forges than just spam-post around to get a prize.

Also, I've seen it turn really bad where people trade and give away stuff, and people with characters who don't do anything have all this stuff when characters who work in the back get almost nothing.

I am okay with a purely IC economy, but I can tell you right now, that I can't implement a store on this site. It just goes against so much of what I love about Helovia, which is community, character development, and most importantly, story.

If I hadn't seen it turn so many sites into such a terrible situation, I would be more inclined to agree with you :(

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But I want to thank you, Snow, for your effort put into this idea. I really, really want to use what you came up with on a plot by plot basis! Creating mini-stores and mini-plot points to earn stuff that can still have a story seems like a way I can combine your thoughtfulness into something very "Helovia."

I'm not making my suggestion cause I'm not decided yet, but I wanted to chime in.

I really really love Chan's idea, I think this would add an interesting dynamic. As is a lot of people write in extreme weather into posts, but even something as simple as a little line at the end of seasonal descriptions that shows the status of natural disasters, diseases, etc, would be really cool. IE, a flood in a particularly rainy birdsong that blankets a lot of helovia in water, etc.


As for a shop, I'm inclined to agree with and back up Tamme--I've never seen it go well. That said, Snow, I know the Aurora Basin holds an achievement based contest every season that has a similar point based system for some small seasonal and crowd sourced rewards (small items, art, etc.) They are fun and have some of the qualities you are talking about but are herd specific, and I don't know if other herds do it but I'm sure they could if they don't already.

I agree that drops can be tricky and they require a lot of patience to get what you want, though, I'm not sure they couldn't be improved upon as they currently stand.

But yeah, I'm on Tamme's side anti-shop (At least site wide, I agree that a plot by plot basis would be cool,) I've always seen it as distracting and taking away from the writing and turning things into more like a systemized "game" rather than a collaborative creative experience.

Now... -returns to thinking of own idea-

ECONOMY

I'd really love if each herd had two valuable resources to craft with, and that they got a set amount of those resources each month/season with which to make items for themselves and/or trade resources/crafted materials with other herds. I feel this would give more purpose to alliances and invasions both - think about why most countries work together or fight, it is usually due to natural resources specific to those areas.

Idea:
AB: cloth & leather
DT: metal & rubber
HF: stone & wood
WE: glass & plastic

This would also enhance realism and give crafters a lot more purpose and direction when making items. Now if a herd/crafter wants to make metal armor, they'll need x amount of ores and x amount of cloth/leather. This means it will take some time to gather the needed materials (exact values we'd need to determine obviously), either from their own herd and another herd, or two herds total, for which they could barter.

This could help make mercenaries more playable because there'd be actual things to trade ICly.


To help balance this system I'd like to see less items handed out, again giving more focus to playing the origin and acquirement of your item, and giving more value to crafters.


On a related note, the ability then for a crafter to enchant an item once a season (maybe only 1 item enchanted a season per herd, rather than per crafter?), which would again be a way to balance and focus the idea of cool items being made by characters and herds, rather than Random Events.

rubber....
we will know what will be made with those

^^

;)))))))))))))))))))))

*clings to the economy ideas*

ITS ALL SO BEAUTIFUL!

If the ability to enchant an item is added, I would amend that it be once a year, not once a season. I rather like the rarity/awesomeness of enchanted items and I think it would be a shame to lessen their value by increasing the number of them floating around so vastly.

Snow, suggest a point system for your herd lands/outcast bands! I know that the AB one greatly increased the number of people welcoming and working the threshold when I was last here (which I saw a comment thread for), and I think most everyone who participated (because I won't say everyone did, lol - it does require manually logging things on a player's behalf) has a good time and thinks its fair. We usually only had the seasonal event items and, like Jen said, the occasional player donated item, and of course art, but who doesn't like a items, foal stats, or pretty pictures? :D

Also, I would love to see an NPC "grab bin" - somewhere the NPC writers hop on to record their NPC for generic use by others on the game. I know I've seen quite a few of these characters that I really enjoyed but that have never come back, and I think it would be neat to sort of have a resource drop area for the NPC's that people don't mind other people enjoying. I see it being very similar to applying for a new character, except these applications go to a "review team" who select the best and brightest characters for public use.

It would also be a good way to have "side characters" in herd lands that are not necessarily very active socially, but do occasionally make appearances, and have roles within the herd, as we've discussed on site before. I also see this as being an alternative for adoptable characters, where popular or well known characters who are no longer being played can be put for other people to enjoy, or for characters who aren't quite interesting enough to make full time characters or adoptables.

Of course, they would require about the same as a regular character, in so far as a profile, perhaps a little more in depth - detailed physical and personality descriptors, ect., but they would also have to include their favorite locations, and I think that they should also include a personal posting code, just to ensure the proper amount of consideration and care is put into designing and posting these characters (otherwise there is the possibility to have like... 498738947387 NPCs. o_o). Character design would have to conform to overall game rules.

I'm not sure how you would want to go about the creative rights, though I think they should remain with the original creator of the character, who has the right to remove them from the list of public NPCs but is also ultimately responsible for insuring that their NPC is being properly portrayed.

It may also lessen the number of characters being created and deleted.

Over all I think it has a lot of benefits and would be fun.

@[Rikyn] Also, I would love to see an NPC "grab bin" - somewhere the NPC writers hop on to record their NPC for generic use by others on the game. I know I've seen quite a few of these characters that I really enjoyed but that have never come back, and I think it would be neat to sort of have a resource drop area for the NPC's that people don't mind other people enjoying. I see it being very similar to applying for a new character, except these applications go to a "review team" who select the best and brightest characters for public use.


Unfortunately the point of NPC's is that they aren't re-occuring characters.

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Also in terms of Snowwys idea - There are always SWP points! That's sort of like a temporary economy that works out well :D

Okay so I don't know if this would fit in with Helovia at all but I was wondering if we could have a board that's specifically for dreams/non-canon things to happen? Where we can be silly and have fun (or scary or traumatic, etc) things that happen to our characters in a dream land that don't actually affect them IC.

Everyone seemed to really enjoy passive mode where we could stretch out our creativity a bit so I thought it might be fun to have somewhere where we could occasionally do the same thing.

Companion items?

I read somewhere that companions can't have items, or something along those lines. Would it be possible for a companion to be able to have one item designated for them? They wouldn't be stats altering items, like armor or weapons, but they could be things like accessories or playthings that could have IC impact on them (keepsakes, steal plots, etc.). It would be limited to one item per companion and could be included in the main character's item limits?

I don't really have any other ideas for adding things, but I LOVE Chan's idea about weather disasters/illnesses!

On the note of companion items I think that would be really neat.
Another idea to add onto that would maybe have a drop every other season for something like companion magic.

There are a lot of characters that do not have any sort of ability and I feel like the basis of the magic drops (being so hard to acquire anything) are more focused on our main characters as there is such a competition for it. Maybe if there was a strictly companion based magic/ability drop we could find a way to improve companions as well.
It would be neat to have some sort of way to earn abilities for our companions as well. If not from drops maybe some sort of system where say a companion participating with their bonded in a spar can work towards developing one of their natural abilities based on their species. It just seems that once you acquire a companion you have to either win the magic/ability with the companion or there is no chance to get something for them.

Hopefully this makes sense as I am writing this on less than 3 hours sleep in 48hrs XD I will reiterate anything needing clarification or re-wording to make sense once I sleep for a couple hours

You can quest for companion magic ^^