Shattered Kingdoms

Can someone logically explain to me why player priests are the only way I can get a symbol for my religion now?

Remember when symbols were on NPCs? That was cool.

I find it curious that I can't at least request a symbol from my friendly scripted NPC priest, particuarly when you have such a small, diluted player base.

Can we change this please?

Thanks.

Concur.

I find this to be a doubled edged knife. On one hand, when your faith suffers from lack of numbers getting a symbol is hard but on the other hand gives you a chance to sparkle some RP with your HP. (and/or try harder to become a HP yourself OR start a campaign for new priests)

Also, Holy Symbols are now highly prized to my understanding and have created many kinds of conflicts.

Just make it so people who are flagged with a certain religion can go to that temple and ask a npc priest for a symbol. This way people can't abuse it to collect all the symbols.

I don't see it being a requirement for anything except more gear. I'll not make it possible to request from NPC's, but I've never denied an appropriately made IC request by a player through prayer to gain a holy symbol.

A

So what if it's gear? Player priests can create them, why can't NPC priests create them? There is a failure of logic here. With circumstance on my side and a little luck I could ask a player priest for a symbol. But when you have no active priest in your religion it is physically impossible to get a symbol.

Part of the mystique behind joining a religion is the cool symbol you get to wear for being a member of it. If this is taken away it sort of removes some of that mystique behind joining a religion in the first place.

In my opinion, this is almost as bad as when Dulrik made it so only clergy could join religions. What's the point? I thought the objective behind a game was to provide escapism and entertainment value. Are we here to have fun or here to detract from fun? If fun for some people is having that equipment slot full then the game should be suited to fulfill that desire in them.

I see three available solutions to this problem, of these solutions - I see negative consequences to numbers of people who join religions:

1.) Remove all symbol powers.
2.) Remove all symbols.
3.) Just put symbols back in the game.

For the record I will say I prayed last night - but didn't get a reply, so this just adds on to the problem, what happens when your patron immortal isn't online or active either?

Yes, what if you arent a priest - what good does pursuing a high follower flag do you? Sure, you could go and try to recruit a priest to join your faith - but this requires two things: A player who hasn't already planned what religion they're going to join and you getting to a priest before level (11?) that hasn't already been scooped up by another faith.

I can see this system working with a player base to support it - but I just don't think this is the case right now.

I think that's the point. Priests are MEANT to be the HF's but there's nothing really stopping laypersons from holding those positions, it just doesn't give them nearly as much incentive.

A

Then we both agree that Morovik's point is moot

RP-wise, I always found it great to have a lay person get the position of HF because to me it always add extra flavor to the RP. From my experience most lay people who got into a religion simply did it because they wanted either the cool powers that came with the symbol, or they wanted a group of people who had their back should they run into trouble with people from another religion, group, or just groups of people in general. So to see a lay person obtain the HF spot was always fun because you had a person who was not always focused on religion leading a group of people dedicated to a particular god/goddess, and a lot of priests/priestesses/paladins/hellions didn't like this at all. So it added in-faith conflict at times and it made religions enjoyable to play in.