Sshamath , a few thoughts

[Gruk]

Hello, it's come to my attention that a few things have been tweaked on merchants up and down but mostly up.

First are scrolls , both at High edge estate and magical sundries , first they have more selection and cover all we got except dark energy ray , a small time spell that can only be used in RP as a scroll .

Second their selection is endless , unlike our own if you buy protection from spell or G isaac missile storm there's only one copy per reset unlike high edge estate that has an unlimited supply. theres little variances like they have G. heroism scroll at 635 , we have it in potion a 1k. But otherwise it's the same, Sshamath has no edge. I dont mind our supply not be unlimited , but it should definitively be wider and include some unique potent scroll that would only be found in Sshamath's bazaar.

Now about the wand recharger , the gem merchant in Sshamath ;

''The Jacinth Rose
can be found right in the middle of the Dark Weavings bazaar. Here, you can buy gemstones from all over Faerûn and some parts of Kara-Tur. Magical gems are also sometimes available but non-drow will have a hard time buying them.''

I always assumed those two were linked , in any case , that Sshamath could recharge wands without braking them seemed fair and RP. Isn't Sshamath supposed to be way above all others concerning magical crafts ? ... It seems logical they provide a better service then a crazy old coot in a cemetery no ? if not put back as it was i would strongly suggest the % be tweaked way , way , way under the 20 % ...

Here is a second quote i'd like to share :

''At the bottom of the great cave lies the Dark Weaving Bazar, the marketplace of Sshamath. In hundreds of tents and small shops in stalagmites the visitor can buy almost everything. If he/she does not find what he is looking for, he can hire someone to find it for him, and even humans will go for the item in the World Above. In the center of the bazaar lies the slave market. In most places such a market would consist of many tents and cages but in a city full of wizards it is housed in one building. Magical glyphs an each side try to encourage passants to buy one or more slaves. The slaves are held in magical clearstones, where they are magically shrunk to get into the fist sized cubes and can be easily stored in the shelves.''


There are two major points from this i think we could work on : more trade in Sshamath and slaves.

More trade in Sshamath : in my mind this is easily achievable by providing more consumables at better prices and undo the nerf on the wand charger and let it be known far and wide the place to recharge wands is Sshamath. AND at the same time allow for teleportation to and from Sshamath's market from anywhere, specially from and back to surface , at lower DC and perhaps even cost ? It's be fair to assume the conclave put up some kind pattern enhancers like in star trek to facilitate transportation ! It is supposed to be their core economics. Any surfacer should be warned they are only safe in the city and let it roll see how it goes ?

Slaves : this could be more tricky but i feel slavery is not enough reflected in the city of darkweaving. Pc slaves are not the answer , buyable ones maybe ! Couldn't it be possible to have items like the brazier that allows 3 fire elemental summons per day tweaked to instead summon once a day slaves at the flavor of Sshamath ; orcs , svirfneblin & tannaruks with looks and description of Sshamathian slaves , summonable 1/day lasting 24 hours ? they don't have to be OP .. they could all range from level 1-5 for all i care but they could bring a lot of RP flavor , imagine drows being followed by their slaves when they shop or eat or walk around the city , they could be used in RP a lot.


I hope this is constructive criticism, the setting as so much evolved since i first stated playing in Ud all that hard work has to be recognized first and i am , as many others , very grateful for all that fun. Still i beleive a few tweaks would help making Ud more popular place. If we are not going to have faction wars between UD and surface , then open the gates of commerce , otherwise there is no interactions at all. As if it is a micro server in the big one, i think it could be more.

any comments or feed back welcomed , you agree , disagree ? post it !

[Rasael]

There should definietely be more scrolls in S'shamath, it should plausibly suprass High Hedge and any other surface trinket gathering.

It'd probably help if we listed which scrolls and items in a clear format.

[illithid]

''At the bottom of the great cave lies the Dark Weaving Bazar, the marketplace of Sshamath. In hundreds of tents and small shops in stalagmites the visitor can buy almost everything. If he/she does not find what he is looking for, he can hire someone to find it for him, and even humans will go for the item in the World Above."


There are two major points from this i think we could work on : more trade in Sshamath and slaves.

More trade in Sshamath : in my mind this is easily achievable by providing more consumables at better prices and undo the nerf on the wand charger and let it be known far and wide the place to recharge wands is Sshamath. AND at the same time allow for teleportation to and from Sshamath's market from anywhere, specially from and back to surface , at lower DC and perhaps even cost ? It's be fair to assume the conclave put up some kind pattern enhancers like in star trek to facilitate transportation ! It is supposed to be their core economics. Any surfacer should be warned they are only safe in the city and let it roll see how it goes ?

One of my major gripes is when I see UD characters muling to sell at the FAI. Yes more people will see your auction, and yes there are possibly plausible times when this could be happening, but for 99% of the time UD characters should be trying to ply their wares in the underdark's largest market, a place which is regularly visited by surface wizards to gather magical compenents and items. A quick look through the auction house forum will show that about 2% of posts are actually from Sshamath, whereas the player base may be more like 20%?

I would love to see this

even humans will go for the item in the World Above

implemented somehow, maybe DM facilitated for Sshamath residents only but not the reverse?

[TalonofWindspeak]

One of my major gripes is when I see UD characters muling to sell at the FAI. Yes more people will see your auction, and yes there are possibly plausible times when this could be happening, but for 99% of the time UD characters should be trying to ply their wares in the underdark's largest market, a place which is regularly visited by surface wizards to gather magical compenents and items. A quick look through the auction house forum will show that about 2% of posts are actually from Sshamath, whereas the player base may be more like 20%?

In both the FR Lore and in the Lore created on this server Sshamath is not a-typical. Believe I tried my best to get people interested in real in-game trading with real items, setting up and getting people to donate or sell through our Seventh Circle Warehouse and really the response is pathetic....

Hard to figure this server out sometimes, played on other servers and you always had people setting up shop selling items, peddling goods and wares, making for a huge amount of RP and great interactions, much more like a real persistent world.

A bunch of us in the UD tried to set up real trading interactions with the surface in Roaring Shore and it really couldn't materialize like we wished for. Mainly because most people said it was just too easy to mule stuff in Nexus, therefore us buying and trying to put a profit on the merchant item just didn't work.

Is it time we had one time Nexus stop? You only see Nexus at character creation, after that, at login, you go straight to your old location? But then you need RCR for UD and surface. Played on servers like that and quite frankly I thought it was the only way to do things.

I mean lets get real here , you have the Netherese Maze or Nexus ... ahhh I think gonna go Nexus... dude..

My two bits and I have a few more bits.

[Kenshin]

((Realistically, if muling is allowed on the server and there is no persistent storage, then there has to be a place where transfer of items can take place.

I have no desire to be a naysayer and I would like to see more and better role-play in general on this server. But certain things cannot, or to be more precise should not, be mandated.

If you want to talk about immersion breaking practices, the biggest one is repeatable quests and I am willing to wager that quest resets will not be done away with for role-play considerations.

I am all for spurring trade in Sshamath, and for making it a true trade hub. Kudos to Illithid in this regard as he conducts all of his auctions in the Dark Weavings Bazaar. But let's not lose sight of the fact that most of the action on this server takes place primarily on the surface.

Want to convince the staff to improve the selection and production of magical goods in Sshamath? I am with you. Want to make major changes in how the server operates as a role-play initiative? Count me out.

Changes affecting the entire server need to have the impact upon the entire player population taken into account.

As a footnote, in terms of role-play, I think that setting a good example by coming up with good personal story lines that give others a chance for involvement and then making a pronounced effort to interact with other players' characters will result in a role-play environment that's more conducive to immersive interaction than the most breathtaking but static content.))

[c2k]

I think the UD needs 1 or 2 more trading grounds. Much like the Surface has Beregost, Nashkel, FAI, and Ulgoth's Beard, there needs to be satellite sites in the UD to reflect some sort of "life in the UD" other than "hack n slash through caves".

[Hoihe]

I like the idea on summon-able slaves. Currently if anyone wants to have a slave, they need 4 levels of ranger for Monstrous humanoid.

[Rainbow Prism]

No.

First of all, Sshamath has strict rules on slavery. Slaves are allowed only for visitors and certain Noble Houses (probably out of pity than any respect). Adventurer should not have slave unless he is ready to play all consequences of owning one ( paying taxes, going through thorough checks and getting many papers)

On regard of wand charger. True, it is city of magic, but it belongs to rulers of city, not every dirtcrawling adventurer that gets it's hands on wand recharger. So, it is in their interest to keep the wand charger having such limitations to increase the offer on sales of their wands.More money to Sshamath.

As alternative, you could use what Sigil did. They have contracts that act as summoning item for mercenaries of certain kinds. But not slaves, okay?