>2) Make sphere more important - really just feels useless
>besides empowerment. Never seen it have any use unless it's
>the famous luck stat or a similiar affect that we don't know
>about. Make effects more effective with certain spheres or
>less effective or more effective against, etc. That or just
>toss it - it only really deals with empowerment/tattoes from
>what we all see and that could just be handled in your role. A
>neat idea would let people pick their sphere by a quest, not
>just by the 11 warning. Another idea would let people NOT pick
>a sphere if they don't want to - if I pick Fire, I'd rather
>not be stuck with it forever if I wanted to talk to another
>Immortal and have to explain "why you don't fit what you
>picked 40 ranks ago".

I've often thought about this - especially in the cases of shamans who could definately use some lovin'. Long ago I think I may have proposed the idea of a "base" class package (of supps and skills) that every shaman gets, with a more advanced set of skills and supps specific to either sphere (or god) tossed on with empowerment. Yes, the biggest problem is lack of coding time, as this would be a fairly big project, but with the right support (from imms and players) I could see this being a significant boost to a sometimes stale class.

>
>3) Full looting - yes, it blows. Yes, it's fair and everyone
>can do it, etc. Getting full looted is becoming a popular
>thing and is very rare to get anything back these days -
>especially when it involves multiple people. Why not put lag
>on it, or they have to grab items individiually, or put a bad
>effect to some stat while looting, or require you to have your
>hands empty (how people full loot with 2 swords equipped is
>beyond me), or make a looting skill which different classes do
>better than others and have it effected by spells (a hasted
>thief is going to loot better than a slowed healer). If you're
>going to make it painful, make it painful by the correct
>classes and not by others. Also, looting while fighting? Come
>on, you should get an ANNIHILATE for turning around and
>grabbing stuff on the ground. This seriously should be looked
>into.

Your arguement makes alot of sense, but unfortunately, the biggest factor that the imms take into account when looking over things is the almighty FunStick. Thinking, though, on realistic ways to slow/hinder full looting and lowbie looters, while also not preventing it completely, is by maybe adding a loot command:

In combat:
You're fighting someone and you think they're about to die, so you hit the loot command.

Y is convulsing on the ground.
loot Y (or loot A, B, etc., if it isn't the person you are fighting)

You see: You take your focus off the battle and prepare to gather the spoils of combat!
Others see: X's focus appears to no longer be on the battle, as he eyes Y's items with interest.

(ie. -20 hit/-20 dam affect that lasts until the end of combat, gives a 2 round lag, and subtracts all skill %s by 20, barring 100%s - This command sits there until opponent dies, where the command immediately goes through.)

You see: As Y's body collapses, you immediately free your hands, intent on ransacking his body. (weapons removed, auto-g all corpse)
Others see: With the final blow struck, X removes his weapons and begins stripping items from Y's lifeless body. (Items masked to all but X) This would essentially reduce the problem of lowbie looters, make it really a "hmm.. should I do this." command while still in combat, while also adding some mystery to what was actually looted (less of a target when logs are posted)

Out of Combat:
You are in a room with fighting and see:
X's focus appears to no longer be on the battle, as he eyes Y's items with hunger.

So logically, you also hit the loot command as soon as he dies.
You see: Rushing towards the recently fallen, you make a grab at his things!
Others see: Z rushes towards the bloodied corpse, seizing a few possessions for himself!
(Items grabbed random and masked to others in the room - allowing for up to half of your free slots in your inventory (So if it's 15/29, you'd grab 7 things) - 1 round lag - Random because unless you type 'g xyz corpse' you aren't being specific and obviously don't care what you get, only that you get something)

If the corpse happens to be yours, you grab your things with no problem.

If you hit the loot command before someone dies (and aren't in combat with them) it simply says there is nothing here to loot.

Now, this will give priority to the person who actually killed the guy (if they want it), not as useful to people who spam macros like 'g all corpse;put all bag', while not completely screwing over others who want a piece of the pie.

Hope you like,
Spifficator