Sleuth Home - Message Boards - Sleuth Talk

Jun-28-2008 08:39

There have been some recent events on this game that warrant some concern. It’s no secret that there has been a lack of interest. Much of this may be attributed to the release of Shades of Mystery. If that is what people want to play, far be it from me to tell them not to play it.

That being said. I am still a paying customer of Sleuth Noir. As a paying customer there are some things that I expect. Ben has done a decent job at keeping the server up and running. We had a slight issue earlier in the week with not being able to travel and Ben did a great job of addressing the issue and getting it corrected. He always has done a great job of taking care of things. He has not however kept the game fresh and interesting. We recently had the expansion of the USS Sleuthetania. There was a buzz before the initial launch of it and we couldn’t wait to see what was in store for us.

Well what did we get? The opportunity to pay $20,000 to get on board of a ship and do nothing more than play cases. Sure there are some new characters and new items along with 2 new “coming soon” links. That’s it! I can’t help but to feel disappointed in the way this has played out. Two weeks later, the links are still coming soon and the interest of the boat has already gone away. I know I have no plans or reason to get on the boat and be cut off from my agency completely. I don’t know this for a fact, but I think a lot of people are disappointed with the boat as well and some may even be irritated and feel cheated by the whole development.

Maybe I’m being a bit harsh and we are missing some secret that still needs to be unlocked on the boat, but if people aren’t playing, the secret will not be unlocked. I know that Ben is just one person and can only do so much. He has a lot on his plate right now with running both SOM and Noir. I’m sorry, but SOM means absolutely nothing to me as I don’t play over there.

Jul-12-2008 08:06

LOL detectivehappy - who knows? could be ... :)

Wish list:

A trap detection tool, or map - perhaps acquired through a mission or series of missions? Or added as an AV hunt treasure reward?

Possibly expand AV hunt treasure items? (i.e., add more, maybe with slightly higher adjustment values). Could make them tiered - add'l items available every time you pass a certain level (completed number of AV hunts)

Perhaps add more "quest-type" missions - involving questioning of townies, tasks or cases to complete, acquiring and transporting items, etc. - with a worthwhile "reward" at the end. We have some missions already, but the idea could be expanded upon, with multiple objectives within one mission. (Downside: not sure how time-intensive this might be to implement)

SILLY STUFF:
- And ponies! We could have flying ponies to travel from city to city!
- I want a wizard staff, with a glowing orb on the end.
- Monsters should be added to the game - this would require new gear, of course, for the AM hunts, since they will be much more dangerous than AV's.
- You could actually be killed during an AM (Arch Monster) hunt. After being resurrected in a nearby drinking establishment, your questioning skills and cognitive abilities would be impaired for a prescribed period of time.
- Admin will host Sleuth festivals at various intervals throughout the year - involving festival hats, special clothing and accessories (limited time availability), and other enjoyable activities such as hide and seek, pin the tail on the villain, and the like.
Detective Agencies can have their own emblem or logo (for a price of course)- this will be displayed on the detective page, and any other places deemed appropriate by Admin.

:D :D

Jul-12-2008 08:30

This has been suggested before: a place for trading purposes. So that, a player does not have to resign to his/her agency and have to be invited in another agency to do the trade.

And it could also serve as a place for players who won in a contest to get their reward.

Jul-12-2008 09:18

BRILLIANT Hawk ;)

Jul-12-2008 11:23

Good ideas Hawkeye! Sounds like a lot of fun. Also, it would be nice if they can make it easier for retired detectives to re-subscribe. (not loosing as much experience, etc.)

Jul-12-2008 12:31

Ohhh hawk I like the idea of agencies having their own emblem/logo that would give them all a little bit of individuality.

Jul-12-2008 13:05

A trading area! That's so much easier than the parcel post idea that I never really worked out (you'd get a PM and then go somewhere, maybe the docks, where there'd be a mail box - like a pine box for your apartment but temporary - there would be fees somehow involved).

How about a small easter egg type bonus for sleuths that obtain a certain combination of contacts. Four barbers would net you a book related to barbershop quartets, for example. Having the banker and the fortune teller in NYC would let you consult the fates for free. Little things that take a lot of work, but encourage exploration and change.

Of course that's just a shameless attempt to create an environment where changing contacts is allowed (my personal pet project).

Jul-12-2008 16:40

How about trading contacts? Let's say that I have the waiter in New York but need the bartender in New York. If I find someone who needs the opposite, we could trade them.

Jul-12-2008 18:53

I've actually been thinking about the contact thing for a while. I think if we want new contacts it shouldn't be easy to do, just like getting specific contacts wasn't easy. Here's what I propose:

The only way to lose a contact is for that contact to be the co-conspirator on a Villian Hunt. Say you have The Barber in London and good ole Edmund ends up being the co-conspiritor,, well you can no longer trust him so he is no longer a contact of yours and you have to restablish a contact. It can also be done where if you don't want to lose the cntact the game asks you whether or not you want to continue trusting him. Say yes, he's still your contact, say no and he's gone.

I would prefer not having the option and if you lose the contact then you have to regain him if thats the one you want. It adds a little more risk to doing VH's, but also adds that possibility if you want a new contact. Of course you never know who the consipirator will be, but like I said, I think it should be difficult to lose a contact and not something we can just decide on.

Jul-13-2008 00:17

hannah blue? that's funny...I thought you sounded a lot like this guy who used to call himself Nephi. But that's totally not you, like not at all. I think I remember he said something profound, just like "risk is the essence of gaming" before he left, but -and I'm sorry for being a stickler for details here, please just bear with me- I believe his exact words at the time were "Old spice is the essence of a man". Then he just whistled a sea-farin' tune, ate a codcake and disappeared into the bowels of a super-secret government test for a miracle pill that cures social anxiety, superiority complexes and swollen acne in one fell swoop.

More on the phenomena known as Nephitism on my bio. Serges' too. But all that is a bit of an aside. What I really wanted to say was something along the lines of, "Yeah...I know. There's been more focus on the new game of late. True." I can understand being frustrated at the lack of new developments (or, the inadequacy of the ones that HAVE appeared) on Noir. About a year ago, my own agency was sitting pretty close to the top when we all discovered we were getting a little tired of grinding out cases, one after another. The ensuing feeling of frustration sucked, plain and simple. The thing was , we all sort of realized that what we hated about it was the fact that the game we had all signed on for wasn't as fun as it used to be, because the thing about games is that they have rules, and once you figure these out, the challenge is gone. We didn't demand that the community change the rules to make things more exciting, and we didn't feel that admin owed us upgrades to the service we understood we were paying for when we bought our subscriptions. We understood that we were participating in a fledgling effort to make a business out of one in a million random internet games and we just shut up and felt happy on those rare occasions that we would log on an find the server blessedly UNclogged by armies of tweenagers with Nancy Drew names.