This is a rather jumbled, spontaneous idea.

We have rangers who are caverndwellers now and rangers as well as druids greatly depend on wilderness time. For the newbie ranks, killing in the caverns is a good way to get money, and fast exp, but as a ranger I always just run as fast as I can to the forest of nowhere and painfully kill bloodbeasts to rank 3 when it starts getting easy. I also understand newbie thieves might like the civilized caverns to practice hide or something.

My idea: Divide the newbie caverns in half(I'm talking about the main center portion) Have the east half my more cavey-wilderness and have the west half be more manmade-dug out civilized. For the second layer, make the north side more of a dug out man made civilized tunnel, and the west side a natural fissure wilderness area. This would give the rangers a way not to screw their early wild time by spending half an hour in the newbie caverns to rank

Thoughts and opinions welcome.

How would exposing a ranger's wilderness time to the player sound? Something like a command, or perhaps something in your score that tells the player how he's doing, in terms of his wilderness time.

command: "wildernesstime"
"You are barely able to discern a tree from a building"
"You feel at home in the wilds"
"You are the Ranger's Ranger, the animals are your kin, and the trees part ways in your presence."

I've played quite a few rangers, and personally no longer have a problem with keeping my wilderness time up, but I played probably my first four rangers without even knowing there was such a notion of wilderness time affecting foresty skills. I think it'd be a good thing for newer players to see. And- just thinking of the imm coders here ;-) - I'm a big fan of bang for your buck type features which I'm guessing this could one of them? (meaning, the logic's all in there, I'm assuming it's just a matter of exposing the field to the player?)

Though, I'd understand if wilderness time was just one of those things we players need to figure out for itself.

Or we could just go with the other idea(posted in rangers board) that time in newbie cavern would have no effect to wilderness time. I think it would be a good thing that spending time in the newbie area isn't punished afterwards.

>Or we could just go with the other idea(posted in rangers
>board) that time in newbie cavern would have no effect to
>wilderness time. I think it would be a good thing that
>spending time in the newbie area isn't punished afterwards.

I think it's already acting like this (more or less).

If you spent 2 hours in the newbie caverns reading everything and ranking up to level 5, you've spent a small percentage of your character's life out of the wilderness. I've played with rangers, never to hero, but would those 2 hours make that much of a difference?

I can honestly tell you, that starting off on the wrong foot ranger wise has seriously screwed me over a few times. With a recent ranger I played I stayed in the caverns not even to read, just to get fine leather and to rank 4. By the time I was rank 7 ranking from 4-7 in forest of nowhere I still did not have fast camo.

but I thought you had to have atleast 5 hours before you can get fast camo.

If there is minimum number of hour for fast camo then it is much less the 5. I am reasonably sure it is triggered by percent of life in the wilds not minimum number of hours. I play rangers a lot, gernerally I sit in the wilderness squares in the caverns, there are a couple, to write a desc and role, then grab fine leather and head to forest to rank at level 2, by level 4 (roughly 2 hours if I'm solo and took awhile to write a role/desc) I'll have fast camo.

2 hours in the newbie academy can cause a few problem early on that can take awhile to over come. If my assumption is correct and it is % of time in the wild that is important to things like fast camo then anytime out of the wilds can have bad effects. For sake of this example lets assume you roll a new ranger and play the first 2 hours exclusively in civ terrain and the 95% of all remaining time in the wilds. Further if we assume the wilderness% for fast camo to be 85% (not sure of exact number but I know it is greater then 50%) It would take this character until he is 19 RL hours old to reach fast camo. If the wilderness% was reduced to 75% it would still take 10 RL hours before fast camo. Any prolonged time out of the wild will hurt rangers a lot and take awhile to overcome.

This example assumes a few things but I think my assumptions are reasonable and were deterimed from my own experiences.

With my most recent ranger, I spent the first 20 minutes or so in the newbie caverns doing the newbie thing, then went straight to the forests. As soon as I got my camo skill I had fast camo. First time this has ever happened to me, but I did consciously avoid civilized terrain like the plague.

I think Shamanman has a good idea- although newer players will still need to actively be aware of the notion of wilderness time to utilize the terrain thing (I know I wasn't as a newb). At which point, he'd probably want to just go to the forests anyways- so maybe it's a wash.

Though I'm thinking fast-camo and such is supposed to be a perk, and not an inherent thing for ~all~ rangers.

Not really sure what my point is here, thank you, drive through :).

*Edited for retarded spelling