Hi gang! There are some impressive structures and hidden secrets on the Empire. Things which I think deserve more attention but by doing so you also risk spoiling the surprise. This is one of the reasons why you won't be seeing them explicitly mentioned on a wiki page. <whiney voice>But some of that stuff is sooo good not to share, sob!</voice> I'm trying to find a middle ground here and I'd like to ask for your honest opinion. Please also tell me if you think the idea sucks! Guide to the Empire An in-game written book by yours truly which lists some interesting, sometimes hidden, features of the Empire. Examples could be getting "into" an outpost, the old tutorial, and the staff party lounge (I made up that name ). But also player made projects which have been around for quite some time and are not likely to go any time soon. I'm thinking about a small zombie XP farm in the SMP4 frontier, the notorious ( ) public services of SMP8 (just so we're clear: I'm just messing a little bit, nothing negative of course. But I do still remember you guys having to temporarily shut down pigasaurus because it was lagging out the whole server ) and maybe also some public XP farms which, although public, the owner would like to keep semi-hidden. Disclaimer: No player structures will be added to this book without explicit permission from the owner(s). Also: owners will always have the right to request a removal (see next section). Keeping the secret A good way to keep things semi-secretive is to make it harder to get this book. And the best way I can come up with is to put a hefty price tag on it. I'm thinking about the 10 - 20k regions. A hefty price, but you'll get an interesting book which will show you some pretty exclusive places on the Empire. I may also add an extra rule (still thinking about this): only players who have been on the Empire for at least one or two month(s) can buy this. Updates: I will continue working on this book and when there are updates you can trade in your old book for a new version, no extra charge. The swap would be mandatory to make sure that there will be no spare books flying around. I think this could work because not everyone would be willing to pay a hefty price for a tour guide. And I'm also not planning on advertising this too heavy either. What about the money? 5 - 10% would go into my account for my efforts (approx. 750 - 1k per book) the rest goes into GRIP so that in the end it'll be a true community effort: the community helping the community. Note: It's not that GRIP needs any money, we don't; quite the contrary even, but I don't feel comfortable with trying to make money from something which isn't mine to begin with. For me this is not about the money, it's about sharing while keeping things secretive. What do you think? Please be honest, even if you hate the idea You can either vote and remain anonymous, or you can elaborate in this thread. Poll runs for 2 months, but I'll probably make my decision sooner (depending on the input I get).
This sounds so awesome! It'd be very helpful to players. Edit: The mandatory exchange could be a little difficult to do, just because of timing or some people might not want to fork theirs over. So, maybe add dates to the copies and have a public list of editions available? Sort of like an encyclopedia.
The poll so far seems pretty one sided XD. I say go for it. However, since it wont be heavily advertised, where will it be sold? Just so I know for the future
By ordering directly from me. I'll probably open a business / service thread for it and add any mention of future updates there as well. This is the only way how I can apply my restrictions; players need to have been online for 2 - 3 months before they can buy it, and I'm also considering to limit it to one copy per player. Thing is: this isn't only about sharing (sometimes semi-secret) info: it's also about trying to keep things balanced out. As mentioned above, there is a reason why this info won't find it's way to the Empire wiki but there is no problem with sharing it on the forums; on the wiki it would spoil the surprise and secrecy because of the (too) easily found spoilers, but on the forum it'd be a thread which eventually gets buried with other threads anyway. So I'm really determined to keep that balance intact.
