So as the playerbase declines we have seen the emergence of more(admittedly still not tons) characters that achieve a high concentration of unique/really sweet gear. Recent examples would be Voralia and Hughli.

I think it would be cool to institute a cap on how many pieces of ultra-snazzy gear a character can have (inventory + worn) to spread out the really juicy things. I would also suggest making that cap move with character age. Doing this would prevent the rank 25 paladin from rolling with Defiance and give added perks to being old age to counter the stat loss.

Something along the lines of
young = 0 super items
mature = 2 super item
middle-age = 3 super items
old age = 5 super items

As for what constitutes a super item I think it is pretty clear. It isn't just unique stuff. A quick list off the top of my head.
Humansunder
Bal'Talon
Defiance
Etched Pendent
Unicorn Pendent
Troll Amulet
Stoneform Amulet
Mel Kartha
Scarlet Silk
Glass Eye bracelet
Shawtabby Mask
Mark of the Dwarven Crusader
A lot of the gear from Silent/Hell
Strange Bracers
Ragged Cloak


Basically anything that progs really snazzy or something that confers a non class ability.


Thoughts?

I'm generally against anything that incentivizes starting your character by bot-idling them for a few hundred hours. (Given that you are a player that knows you will never age die your character or even get close, as is the case for 95%+ of our players.)

There is a flaw to stick you at middle age. If you want to bot into old age and eat the downsides of that to only play 100 hours and still plan on assembling a mega set... well thats a corner case that I think would be acceptable.

I would hope this change would address 2 use cases.

1.) Gear is dumped on a low level character (they can't even pick up the stuff to locker it until they age)
2.) critical mass characters that end up keeping the stuff out of circulation for months

And it would also address the complaint about herald gear lockers, not that I think it is a real issue in the first place though.

It would also make group exploring of places like silet tower and hell more broadly rewarding instead of bringing in 8 people to mega gear 2 of them. (again noting nobody is ever going to do that in silent and that hell is closed)

The way you talk about this kind of thing makes it seem like the MUD is besieged by bots.

Are things really that bad? :(

It's never been a very reasonable argument, but it is one that he likes.

It (or things like it) happen, but they don't happen a lot.

Just actively play and actively go to the mobs to check for items/pk the people with them.

Limits are stupid and won't help you get the gear you want any quicker.

It's a lot easier to get top end gear with pallies as allies than without. If you play without allies as a result of playing hours and cabal, say, you may not be able to kill mobs for gear. Particularly depending on class.

However, the main reason I would support a cap (despite it disadvantaging me personally) is that fights would be more even. Also I like the idea of people having to tailor their choices more rather than be able to optimise is all respects.

When these items accumulate on an ultra-conservative good-aligned character and you're also a good-aligned character.

The thing I have against the way the goodie items are laid out is - to me - it is an incentive to play like a total coward. There's only so many brave paladins who flee at disgusting cuts that I can mentally justify before I get a strong 'meh' feeling about their RP.

I'd probably up the numbers though.