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Sep-4-2004 16:22

Ok this might sound like a wierd idea but hear me out.

Say your agency has 3 or 4 Shoemaker contacts. Now say somebody elses agency has like 3 or 4 Banker contacts. Say your agency only has 1 Banker contact, and you'd like to aquire another Banker contact. Well wouldn't it be a cool Idea if you could put in a feature where Agencies could make a trade with each other to help both agencies out with their needs?

I mean each agency only has a certain number of slots to hire people and once your full your full. A lot of the rookies you hire don't have contacts yet or if they do a lot have the second contact first. So how about being able to trade Detectives with each other. Just a thought.I personally think it would be a neat feature to add to the game how about some feed back.

Sep-5-2004 15:00

Yeah basically the point of this whole thread was to find a way to switch a contact it started out with the trade but then moved on to finding a way for the directors to switch someones contact who is already in their orginization.

Sep-5-2004 17:57

And maybe it's not the directors who do it, but it's the individual agents who have to accomplish this through play somehow...and possibly in challenging way...

Sep-8-2004 14:19

Maybe once you have a contact, if you fail to solve a favor they gave you there is a 1 in 4 or something chance you will loose your contact because they are disapointed in you/have lost faith in you.

There would be the risk you would have an unsolvable favor and lose you contact when you didn't want to, or you could quit favors if you were trying to lose your contact. Both would add a chalenge element to the game. It also shouldn't be too hard to program, Ben tell me if I am wrong, as I don't know the back end of this particular game.

I definitly would like to see a way to change contacts.

Sep-14-2004 10:57

The Agencies also involve loyalty issues, at least for me. I don't think I could trade off to another agency. Contacts are the same way. I think what is strange is if you get a contact for whom you have done 1 or less favors. I did 2 favors for Octavia, but ended up with the shoe maker. Mind you, the shoe maker is a better contact for my character, given her skills and lack there-of.

I kinda thought that the agencies watched the contact balance in their recruiting tactics?? Although, you cannot control later contacts gained, but I've seen on the boards where they ask for agents with specific contacts.

Sep-14-2004 12:26

i dont like the idea of directors being able to change contacts - the reason being that they could just change them to suit a particular hunt. This would be too easy.

The whole point of having a contact is having earned it. So I agree that if it is to be made possible, through gameplay is the best way to do it.

I really like Elven's suggestion of possibly losing the contact if you get a favour for them wrong, whether you do it on purpose or not. This means that a deliberate failure may lose the contact - but not definitely. That then gets the detective asking if it is worth the effort :)

Sep-14-2004 12:28

by suiting a particular hunt i mean they could change someones attributes so they didnt have to wait for a shoemaker/banker/barber/tailor to log on to analyse the evidence - meaning they could get to favours faster..

Sep-14-2004 15:26

not sure if i like it. if a contact will stop working for u then u can end up again later with more ppl who have the same cause they will need to do favors to earn a contact again right?
if u want to keep balance u just need to ask ur new agents to focus on a certain character and avoid favors to the ones u already have.
hmm have a problem with english right now (too late) hope i make sense.

Sep-14-2004 21:14

But you also occasionally have someone who inadvertantly gets a contact, doing a favor for a hunt etc, when they didn't mean to. Also, people can become friends and want to be in an agency together but it isn't feasable due to the contacts they have, you don't want too many of one in an agency or you don't have room for the contacts you need.

Sep-16-2004 03:38

I'm confused over the last two posts. Sorry. :-(

I think that if you have not done a favor for a townsperson, you should not be able to get them as a contact. If you mess-up a favor for them, you should lose them as a contact.

How do you avoid doing favors for someone? I thought that that favor was what was offered to you until you did it. If you do not do favors for towns people who are asking you to, why would other townspeople ask you for favors? It would show you are either unreliable or callous to the requests of those you use to gain information from.

I still contend that Ruby treats me harsher because I screwed-up her favor. It may or may not be true, but she does give Ceana a harder time than any other townsperson. Perhaps it is psychological. :-)

As to allowing directors to change anything on a character other than their standing in the agency, I can see no justifiable reason for this. Your character is what and who it is, presumably due to their experience. If you cannot hack the cold-shoulder from a townsperson and your agency lacks someone with that contact, go actively recruit people! My agency im'ed me and asked if I was maybe looking for an agency to join.

Just my two-bits worth, for what they might or might not be worth. ;-)

Sep-16-2004 12:04

If you are trying to get a specific contact you can offer to do the favor and quit the case if it is not for the person you want a contact from. The hard part is usually people have agencies before they get their contacts, and not everyone is willing to drop the favor cases, or does one for a hunt and ends up with a contact.