Solace MUD Official Forum

Imms, please please please look at adjusting the book system of Solace. If you play a type of character that truly needs books to come into your true power, then your just screwed unless you use OOC ways to get them, and I'm not quite to that point yet.

Books are just way too hard to get, you can pop books for 10 hours straight and not see one book for your class. Does that not seem abit excessive?

I have only one way to help, my own :) I can log into the mud every day and repop it. But sometimes I can forget to do it, have a lot of work these days, and will have :(
Will it help somehow?

Actually, I would like a messenger to bring me certain manuals for assassins... Nothing more... ::) Or make it balanced so  that manuals last as long as spellbooks and appear as often as spellbooks? After last crash I've found like 20 spellbooks and only 3 manuals: two of them being the same :unholy armor... *glare* ;)

Luni, that would help the current situation I'm having and dear gods (only alittle of this pun intended) I thank you.

But, I do think that the underlying system of manuals and spell books could use some attention. I don't have all the answers, and maybe the other players can chime in here and offer advice on a system change that could be fair, but still allow this crucial part of the game to be achievable.

- maybe instead of books just being on mobs in their inventory.  They appear like items on death of mob.  And for your class..after you kill their is a slight higher percentage for a book or manual you can use then a random one.

GIVE ME MY UNHOLY ARMOR *GLARE*

The whole set up for manuals. WAS GREAT a few years back, i remember
being borric in Guardians, and four of our knights had blessed weapon etc.


The current setup, is that there was a large player base, forced to rank all over
the place to get the best ranking. allowing for the discovery/oocing to have it find
those it needed.

Reality is we dont have that playerbase, we dont have as many veterens getting
together and looking all over the fricking land for these books. So for example
this isnt accurate but.
20 spots for spellbooks and manuals to spawn. 18 of them lie dormant in far
off place never to be found. gives room for 2 to spawn if found.

Dont increase the amount of spots, that would be even worse, but... i dont even
know...

Im not saying just make it so everyone can get the books they want by rank 20.
But i think a little change is in order.

I agree, since the last reboot Kungra has seen over 20 spellbooks 2 manuals of stamina, 3 books for outcasts, a manual of burning skin and a manual of life. But i have always found many more books for mages and outcasts than others.

PS. I have seen wyvern watch load a few times, and guardian angel once. But i have never seen the other manuals for clerics load ever in the whole time i have played solace. Also i have never seen Blessed weapon or any other knight manuals or any druid manuals. Its insane, might as well remove them from the game...

Saw blessed weapon in maus. And another book for knights also. The only other manual for priests is town portal and it loads also, i had it with two of my clerics. For me personally, raistlin's spell enhancer is the one book i have never seen.

I had made it my life quest to rank a knight and obtain all manuals. Who is placing bets on success/failure?

Depends on rules. Are you allowed to look for books with abjurer? Will your knight buy books from Shatienn? ;D And what currency do you want bets in!

in all my life of playing solace i never saw blessed weapon. Found enhanced wrath and divine intervention. In pbt regularly finding books for necromancers and outcasts. In mausoleum found 2 hold person, 2 manticore, 2 stag, 2 unicorn, 2 irongrips for example. efb in nightfall

i found raistlens on mermaids.

But i have to admit, i havent seen a knight manual in ages

I'll just say that I have never seen the mocking bird manual in all these years playing solace...

Har har hah! My lowbie assassin has mockingbird! Mermaids. I have a warrior who has all but fury stance, but ive kind of retired him. Fury is a book i have also never seen in my life playing solace.

Har har har! I have found manual of fury a year and a half ago!  ;)

Rodgar has fury... but nothing else.

P.S. He was earning all his hero pluses in Maus... But fury manual wasn't there, it was granted to him by some friendly fighter.

I think this pretty much proves my point. We have here story after story of players revealing how they've had huge problems with the book system. Not just for a short time, or for one character, but for years or the entire time they've played Solace. If that kind of evidence doesn't point to a need to revisit the book system, I don't know what can.

- kazo has wyvern watch, locate relics   no portals or guardian angel after 65 years               

  also kazo has found 4 spellbooks, unholy armor, deception, burning hands, health manual and the one that makes you crazy.  I wrote it down awhile back since someone asked something similiar.  Maybe could use a look at, though I dont think about it since most classes I play manuals arent so exciting. 

p.s. offtopic - maybe clerics need another manual?     
something that allows combat casting maybe? not sanctuary tho maybe overpower..turn undead etc. maybe?
    Or each cleric ethos gets their own specialized new one (I believe some magic classes have ethos specific manuals, manticore etc.)

After batch after batch of mermaids with nothing in a matter of two hours I managed to get a library of 3 spellbooks, 1 man of wild and 1 man of learning.

I'm not trying to say look at all the manuals out there. I am pointing out they all came within 2 hours. Pretty much, it seems if you hit gold ... keep digging.

Meh and kungra did 10-15 rounds in a row and ...nothing. Not a single book! So the book system operates fully random except for the fact that they incorporated Murphy's laws into it so that you never get the books you need... Snork found nearly all books for the necros and many invoker books but still is missing 2 books...

Strange to hear that you never saw some books... Seems looking in wrong places... Though i must agree that is hard to obtain all needed books.

BUT books make the character more powerful - so it's fair that books are hard to find.

Better make something like book shop. The place where players can sell (exchange) the books. Anyway here is some farmers (invokers mostly) which trading books.

P.S. Sometimes i found books like weaponmastery on mobs like dwarven runner. Luck perhaps. But most useful places (as for me): legion finests, saltcove and beholders.

Ezus has named the three zones we have spent much time in lately finding only spellbooks!

perhaps the best way to get book is to be logged short after reboot and walk all around krynn.
I did that and found 5 pieces. By the way my cleric has guardian spirit. What is that? I know for guardian angel, but it is not the same thing.
I agree with Ezus idea but books price should be 20000 for golden, because of same reason he told, books make you powerful.
Speaking of power, some books are useless and there is chance there to induct new spellbooks, delete some old useless. I think there is a lot of place for creative new spells and abilities.

20K gold? That's freakin' too much. IMHO the system should let chars setting the price themselves. Perhaps with a lower border like 1000 gold, to avoid selling manuals for 1 gold etc.

The shop idea though will raise a problem of transferring manuals. For instance let's imagine that I have an abjurer and seek books and then sell them into shop and then relogin with my other chars and buy them...

Well, about the hardness to get books - it's good, but it shouldn't turn into an ENDLESS jacking off in farming areas.

As far as I know, it's kinda easy to track down and punish ch34t0rz, cheating this way :)

Do not discuss the power of some books here, like blah tried :)

Manuals should just load on death of the mob, with chances and type depending on rank and class of the character that kills it, and also increased by the rank of the mob... Eg. If you go kill naked yellow king, you should have atleast a 30% chance to get a manual. If hes not naked, lucky you!

huh, Matthew, stop it... Or next your words will be something like... if you go kill not naked Lyeine - you should have at least 100% chance to get 4-5 manuals... ;D
And about prices... 20000 gold... Gera are you joking? Give me an invoker (hero one, no matter of clothes) and i'll get around 10k gold per 1-1,5 hours;) Perhaps faster.

Whats wrong with chance to load on death? It means you must kill the creatures, you can't run around after reboot and look at them till you find one and slay just that one... The way it is now you spend 200 hours slaying the same boring lowbie mobs over and over again... even if your hero +20, its so exciting! As it is now, if your not around when it reboots, too bad.

Tell me more about it, cunningtail!

Yeah in an hour an a half you could easy make 20k i you were an invoker. Less if not though... I still think a deathload is the way to go, preloaded means books load in the deep recesses of edges and other places most people can never go alone, or rarely even have time for with friends... Theres heaps of reasons deathloading books is a better way... How about trying to tell me some ways preloading is better?

Around 10k per 1-1,5 hour;) So 20k around 3 hours.  ::)

Matthew, in that case people will go slaying bigger mobs. Same as farming. But with better chance to gain books. Not fair... Here is a difference between chars with books and w/o. If we follow the way that you offer... I think newbies will be without books (surely you can give it to em)... But now they can farm mausoleum at least. And some not dangerous places.

Though i choosed the mob, that will be f*cked in all poses in case of preload you describe. ;D He big by rank... but by abilities... i think i will gain all books for any class at least at 20-22 rank if he give me at least 5% chance to get a book:)

Obviously 30% is just a number i threw out there for examples sake... i would honestly have a 1% chance to load a book on mermaids/mausoleum/pbt/sla mori. Moving up to say 10% for the biggest mobs.

I would rather see people have to put in effort and risk dying to obtain manuals, loading them mainly on unique mobs, and having that effort resulting in obtaining manuals and not endless mindless farming of mermaids or zombies.

PS. Farming goes on already so come up with a real reason....