If you’re not following his blog (like I wasn’t until today) I highly recommend it. He put together a great series on the design process for the Lone lands and Garth Agarwen revamps and today he posted on the reputation system. Not only is it nice to get such an open perspective on how they not only approach problems but take into account player feedback. Lots of good nuggets for how they plan to expand on the reputation system which sound pretty darn nice. Rep always felt to me as lacking something, and I usually only worried about one or 2 factions if that.
So the first part is how the rewards will work for the various rep levels (starting with Eglain, but then expanding to others)
- Acquaintance- title and some items are available
- Friend – title, more items, and 10% reduction for appropriate stable routes (which stacks)
- Ally – title, further rewards, and 5% discount on vendors including repairs.
- Kindred – title, more items, and a port!
He then tosses out some teasers:
- Deeds for completing multiple reputations – with titles and possibly specialized rewards.
- Kindred cosmetic rewards to display individual factions as cloaks.
- Kindred mount rewards
- Ally and Kindred recipes
- cosmetic items
- food recipes serving multiple people at once
- class specific gear (rep clothes for your banner-bearers, unique looks for your summoned pets, special instruments, etc…)
- housing items (functional and non-functional)
- Swift travel routes to areas of importance to the group or relevant relation.
If the Eglain concept and half of the teasers get applied to other factions, this would be VERY cool. It will really make the reputation system much more involved and worthwhile! Plus I just can’t get enough cosmetic items, and custom banners-bearers might actually make me use my herald again 🙂
His article is a good read, check it out over here.