Cows

Llama · Post by **Llama** » Sun Jun 15, 2008 12:17 am

There are two things tied to cows which were either bugs or exploits. This suggestion is to not-fix them, and instead integrate them. I shall discuss the reasoning for them.

I) If I have a cow, return it and get it back again; I get the stuff which was in the depot.

Nitram said this is a bug.

Now I ask, why on earth remove it? Its not hurting anyone, its not hurting the server, and its not giving an unfair advantage to anyone. In fact, removing this bug would make cow-stealing horrible griefing. Its unrealistic perhaps, but seriously, we can close an eye for that can't we?

Also loading/unloading a cow is one of THE most horribly boring things you can do.

Open Depot > Drag Item (correct weight) into hand > Open Cow Depot > Drag Item (correct weight) onto Cow Depot. Repeat

or

Open Depot > Drag the lot to the ground > Open Cow Depot > Drag item (correct weight) onto Cow depot.

So making it NEEDED (otherwise you lose your stuff) is horrible in my opinion. Let it be.

--

II) Cows for mining

This is an exploit, which lennier solved by making it impossible.

Why don't you leave it as it is? Pack animals (llamas ^_^) were used to carry mining stuff historically. Sure they weren't taken IN the mine, but they didn't disappear if you leave them alone for 5 minutes; and you had mine carts and the like so you didn't have to walk on super-slow ground, being full-laiden.

Also smithing requires a LOT of material to work with. And those have to come out of the ground through mining. You CAN use a cow to collect other resources, so why not as an aid to mining as well?

Again, its not breaking the server and it can hardly be used for cheating. Most can afford 2.5 silvers (2 of which they get back) and go off mining.

----

In conclusion. I suggest that these 'bugs' are integrated instead of fixed. They make the game less tedious for everyone.

Discuss.

Post by **Nitram** » Sun Jun 15, 2008 12:28 am

The main point of cows is (since you appeared to forgot it), to transport a big amount of wares from one point to the other. The sense of disabling the global depots was that you have to walk over the map to transport stuff from one place to the other.

Now you can stuck items to the cows, and have global items again. That was never intended and is abuse. Tolerated for now, but sooner or later disabled.

For the mines. Cows are for transporting. Not for powergaming.
And cows really really dislike caves

)

So also the second one of both bugs, will be solved.

Nitram

Olive · Post by **Olive** » Sun Jun 15, 2008 12:38 am

i would point outthat using cows to mine has NOT been disabled, you just need one extra person now to tend the cow while everybody else mines.

the only people who get hurt are the poorer miners and smither

Miklorius · Post by **Miklorius** » Sun Jun 15, 2008 1:16 am

I guess it was also thought in the first place, that it could be possible to raid caravans which is not possible resp. you can access other's depot (IMO).

To the depot handling: Yes, it really sucks that you can't open every depot together anymore, but AFAIK it is a technical flaw.

Llama · Post by **Llama** » Sun Jun 15, 2008 9:37 am

Nitram wrote:The main point of cows is (since you appeared to forgot it), to transport a big amount of wares from one point to the other. The sense of disabling the global depots was that you have to walk over the map to transport stuff from one place to the other.

Now you can stuck items to the cows, and have global items again. That was never intended and is abuse. Tolerated for now, but sooner or later disabled.

Oh, I hadn't thought about that exploit, since I never buy cows from anywhere else. Could it be possible to keep trollsbanecow stuff to trollsbane cows, varshikar cow depot to cows bought from there ect...? That would keep everyone happy.

For the mines. Cows are for transporting. Not for powergaming.
And cows really really dislike caves )

I doubt you ever went mining IG, but my character can carry at most 25 iron or 50 coal or so. For a higher ranked smith, 25 ingots are half an armor. So the alternative is either going in pairs (which means you need to get someone to stay there bored out of his mind), or to pray the cow doesn't disappear.

I don't see what's the problem with leaving it like that.

Post by **Nitram** » Sun Jun 15, 2008 10:30 am

Hadrian you maybe should know one thing.

Illarion is a Multiplayer game. So different players play together to reach goals. So do it as Olive pointed it out. Thats the way of "abusing" the original ideas of the cows I'm perfectly fine with.

Nitram

Lennier · Post by **Lennier** » Sun Jun 15, 2008 8:02 pm

To the mines you have to notice following:

Every area to where you can go with your cow without to use exploits is legal as long as we (the developer) don't change it.

We still have mining areas on the surface, where your cow can come inside... We watchs it how it works. If the balance is not right, we will change it some times more.

Now I only made impossible to use the exploit in mining areas, which can not be reached with a cow in normal kind (corridores with narrows and caves in the underground).

Aegohl · Post by **Aegohl** » Mon Jun 16, 2008 3:21 pm

Nitram wrote:The main point of cows is (since you appeared to forgot it), to transport a big amount of wares from one point to the other. The sense of disabling the global depots was that you have to walk over the map to transport stuff from one place to the other.

That would be an excellent idea if walking over the map in Illarion wasn't the slowest and most unbearable process ever in the history of gaming and if there were things to see and interact with along the way. This seems to be an apparent design flaw of Illarion: force tedious movement between meaningless goals while making sure that transportation is as limited and encumbered as is possible.

I, for one, would play Illarion if walking from rp opportunity to the next rp opportunity wasn't such an incredible act of patience, but god forbid were I to want to hunt or craft, which might as well be made a bannable offense had it not been programmed into something only the most elite few can do who have some combination of all the time in the world and all the patience as well to click click click click click....

Nitram wrote:Illarion is a Multiplayer game.

Between the hours of x and y Illarion is a multiplayer game in theory. Yes. That doesn't answer questions of wether it is economically viable or fun to cowsit. I'd also like to mention that when cowsitting, Illarion is no longer a multiplayer game. It's a human-on-NPC-cow experience. =)

Miklorius · Post by **Miklorius** » Mon Jun 16, 2008 4:16 pm

Aegohl wrote:That would be an excellent idea if walking over the map in Illarion wasn't the slowest and most unbearable process ever in the history of gaming and if there were things to see and interact with along the way.

Okay, I really had to laugh when reading your posting - very funny and of course not untrue.

Although balacing a game is unbearable hard, I would be happy, if at least the walking speed on grounds like wood or rock (and roofs) would be increased.
In the past, there were not much obstacles, but now there are huge moutains and forests full if trees, so there is IMO no longer a reason to be that damn slow on these grounds.

PS: Sorry for the bit OT.

AlexRose · Post by **AlexRose** » Mon Jun 16, 2008 5:04 pm

I hate how my cow can't even keep up with me, so I have to stop.

It's like, I walk a few squares and my cow doesn't move so then I have to stand still and wait for it to come. Like every 5 seconds for a whole journey, otherwise it moos and stays static.

Lennier · Post by **Lennier** » Mon Jun 16, 2008 5:34 pm

The cow has an own speed. It only is compatible with a (normal) char at street (also a hint at the original function of the cow - transport of goods between towns).

Every char in depance of the race and attributes has an own speed. Fairies as playable race would win every race-competition against all other.

But to lower the differences of tiles for chars, which are not overloaded is a thing, that we should think about once more.

Olive · Post by **Olive** » Mon Jun 16, 2008 6:06 pm

if youa re worried about cows being used as fast storage between towns, instead of crippling people who have a full depot, wouldn't it be in fact easier to just make cows form stables assigned to a town? so a cow rented from bane is a trollsbane cow and its depot is TB-Cow, a greenbriar cow would have a GB-cow depot and so forth. so people can keep 'saddlebags' of goods packed neatly packed away but not be able to hire the cow withthe goods on it unless its at the correct stable

Post by **Nitram** » Mon Jun 16, 2008 6:21 pm

technically thats close to impossible. Due the point that the depots should be emptied every time a cow is rented, that wouldn't be neccessary anyway.

Nitram

Gro'bul · Post by **Gro'bul** » Mon Jun 16, 2008 8:02 pm

The only thing nice about the bug is I've had a number of times where the server froze and my cow was lost. I totally freaked the first time this happened but was relieved when I re-rented a cow and saw my items still there.

Fianna Heneghan · Post by **Fianna Heneghan** » Tue Jun 17, 2008 1:24 am

Gro'bul wrote:The only thing nice about the bug is I've had a number of times where the server froze and my cow was lost. I totally freaked the first time this happened but was relieved when I re-rented a cow and saw my items still there.

Yeah... would hurt my feelings to get kicked and lose the stuff in my cow.

Juniper Onyx · Post by **Juniper Onyx** » Tue Jun 17, 2008 4:33 am

Another experience,

This weekend, Me and my cow were on the bridge tiles at the TB Theater, about to host the auction. I lost connection.

When I logged back, the cow failed to load.

"Server error loading carrier" was the message recieved.

So...I had to re-rent the cow, and luckily the items for the auction were still there.

I understand Nitram's reasoning, and logic to rent and sell 'empty' cows. I agree with it. Currently, it is possible to load a cow in Varshikar, sell it, then teleport to Greenbriar, then rent a cow to sell the goods. Yeah, doesn't make sense to me either and is really an abuse of their intent.

However, some 'procedure' should be in place in case of 'accidental loss' like described above.

Thanks.

HeXiS · Post by **HeXiS** » Wed Jun 18, 2008 12:57 am

there's this thing that some one said to me ..((hi olive :) )) and i took it to heart.. bad rp to do the above.. so i went to varshikar rented my cow dug my sand and hauled it by foot with pokey lil cow ((wich i think is cute i pretend its eating grass cows are pokey.)) i usualy dont turn my cow back in..by reason i sell things out of it i travel "with cow" from town to town.. is there a way to have a cow atribbut attachec to a character? like say a bag you couold perhaps name the cow as you would any other character. for a price ofcourse like buying a sheep or something... this way naturaly it would stay safe in the stable when you werent using it.. you know a perk for the far more forftunate.. like owning a home..