Why should he bother doing that ? Newbie ruins will just have small amounts
of gold, and tiny if any magical treasures. But they will still take a lot
of time to explore. Exploring ruins a lot below your level just shouldn't
pay for high level people.
> newbies will discover ruins over their head, get fried,
> and it will be all over for them.
Well, make descriptions somewhat indicative of danger. Any newbie who runs
into the 'dragons cave' ruin deserves what he gets. In addition, make the
ruins close to the major population centers relatively easy, and the ones
at the edge of the explored world more dangerous. Finally, there _should_
be some danger. Ruins which will just give you money and can't kill you
really are pointless.
> > So how does this apply to the ruins ? My suggestion is that each
> > ruin should only have a limited capacity.
>
> So after you've exhausted the ruin's capacity, you can tell everyone
> else where the empty ruin is. I don't see what this solves.
Well, even empty ruins have some value methinks. They are the ideal
hideouts and caches if you ever should become a fugitive or just want
something hidden or just want to take advantage of the fact that if
somebody wants you dead he'll have to go in himself as his armies won't fit
into the ruins. Certainly an empty ruin is less valueable than a populated
one, but I for one would still be willing to pay 1000s of gold for the
location of an empty ruin as long as it is a secret.
> Ruins aren't supposed to be production capital. They're supposed to
> be exciting quest-like discovery places.
OK, think of ruin locations as a treasure map. Treasure maps don't tend to
become public domain as long as there is any treasure to be found, do they
?
> Everyone's quest should be
> personal.
Alone without cooperation or competition from other people ? That IMHO
defeats the purpose of Olympia. If I just want to play some quest alone, I
can fire up some infocom adventure on my workstation. All the excitment of
Olympia in the end stems from player interaction.
Carl Edman