Lawless areas – This is NOT a Fix for the Alignment system. It is STILL broken, and one of the major hurdles to overcome before DFO become the MMORPG it was intended, instead of the MMOFPS with a Grind it is right now.

As Lawless areas are merely a mitigation of the harshness of the Alignment system, it needs to be severely curtailed. NO WHERE on the central continent of Agon should be Lawless. If you wish to be here and be a killer, you’re Red. Deep ocean areas to be lawless could be good, as the Ship Area Damage device use would give Alignment penalties is a mistake that would be mitigated enough by this, as well as that the Sea Towers could very well be Lawless. Possibly the Subcontinents as well, but this is quite a big deal. Letting Player Cities be Lawless depending on choice, is NOT a good option, in the same way I wouldn’t want the Chaos City area in the central Agon to be Lawless.

Making Towers deadlier in NPC Cities – They are already deadly enough… unless you got loads of Arcane Resistance from Jewelry. What is needed to be done is simply to remove the Arcane Damage type from the game, give Jewelry Mental Resistance instead of Arcane, give all spells doing Arcane damage to do Blast, Piercing or Mental damage instead, and then have Mage Towers do
1) First shot: Debuff all resistance of a random damage type.
2) Second and following shots: Heavy damage ray of the damage type you are now debuffed from resisting.

This is a bit more complex programming solution than just up the damage, but will counter most counterstrategies as well as make the game less complex by removing a totally reduntant damage type.

Clan Vendors: Having Vendors in Clan cities/Hamlets is a great lubricant for Alliance trade, and as such is very good to have. Letting these be “Hiring slots” in the “Market place” only hirable by Holding owner clan members, would be even better and more “sand box”.

We do however also need hirable Vendor spots in NPC Markets for Blue trade hubs, as well as make every NPC Merchant into a “Local Auction House” where everyone can sell things on commission, so even Newbs and non-merchants/crafters have a sale outlet for minor amounts of resources. This would make other roles than just fighting roles have a viable place in the character cast of Agon.

Recycling items to gain resources from them would be good. Have posted about that in the Suggestions forum as well (in Power to the Crafters!) where I suggest a total change of the resource system by including Firewood as a resource for melting Ore, smithing Weapons and metal Armor, as well as cooking food. Recycled items with wood components would then give Firewood and not Wood, which would be more realistic as carving something already carved into something else, is quite difficult. Of course, cutting up Timber into Firewood as well as making Wood into Firewood, and having Firewood be a byproduct of making Wood out of Timber, are also good addtions to the system, as well as having Ashes be a possible byproduct of any Firewood use, so there will be a “natural source” of that spell component as well.

A multiple Ingot quality system would also be interesting, especially if you remove the “Random Rare drops” from regular Metal Mine nodes, and make Metal Mine nodes of different ratings to drop different quality Ore, would also be interesting. Especially if the nodes were clustered together in remote areas, so one need to go and put together a mining party and travel a bit to get good Ore, not able to mine mindlessly in NPC city viscinities.

Redefining the Enchantment quality system is however a bit risky. It is already decently functioning, (don’t fix what isn’t broken,) and those parameters you talk about could befuddle the clearness of what one need to get where. That there is already several types of the same qualitytype of ingredient is good, but have the same monster type grant different quality types? That would mess up “Farming” of monsters.

Raising Damage Caps is good, as I find them somewhat ridiculus in themselves. A limit to how much damage a hit can make? That should be inherent in the variables of the system itself.

Improving and redesigning specializations/extensions is good, as this is a newly implemented system that needs to be constantly redesigned to be maintained. Adding, changing, improving, nerfing, is all part of making the system better. You need to do this with the Title system as well, which would do well with some “Racial Titles” only holdable by Blue people and such, and could be used as a small tool in a campaign to restart the Race Wars.

Prestige Classes is of course part of this system as well, and is to be integrated in the “customization web”, as all parts need to be considered and adjusted to make the final results be what one want. The Armor systems locking out skills is however something I wonder about a bit… hard limits are harsh in a Sand Box system, as positive and negative modifications should be enough. But, who knows, it might work well enough anyway. Just saying it is risky.

Hope these comments will be read and appreciated… have a lot more where that came from in my treads on the DF Suggestion forum, where I discuss a LOT of detail, which are important as it is there that the Devil lies in wait to mess things up.

/Lord Zeb