The MOUNTS command, and RECOVERing mounts at stables

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Rias
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The MOUNTS command, and RECOVERing mounts at stables

Post by Rias »

Per the most recent changelogs:

- The MOUNTS command can now be used to view a list of one's owned mounts and whether they're at a stables or not. In cases of a mount disappearing from the world (such as after a crash) this will also restore a mount to the last room it was known to be in.

- It is now possible to go to a stables and attempt to RECOVER an unstabled mount. This will cause the mount to despawn from wherever it is and eventually show up at the stables the request was sent from. There will be a fee and a wait time involved, along with additional fees if the mount was pulling a cart (which will be recovered along with the mount). Players will informed of this option if they have unstabled mounts when using the CHECK command in a stables or the MOUNTS command.

These should cut down on mount tracking/loss frustrations. When a mount is in the "wander back to a stables" process, the time remaining can be seen in the output of the MOUNTS command. As stated, the mount despawns and isn't actually pathing its way back to the stables, so don't bother going to look for it after the RECOVER command has been used to initiate its return to a stables.

As always, feedback is appreciated, and if bugs occur please report them with the BUG command.
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Rias
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Re: The MOUNTS command, and RECOVERing mounts at stables

Post by Rias »

I've gotten quite a few tips from concerned players about how the recovery option with the cart can be used as automated mass transport of goods which is, of course, beyond the intended scope of the recovery feature. I'd appreciate suggestions on how to discourage this and make it more of a last-ditch "shoot I lost my mount and can't find it anywhere" meta fix. Some things I'm already considering:

- Riln cost increases each time it's used. Not much of a deterrent since many people have more money than they know what to do with and wouldn't care, so this would only really punish the people who haven't built up their dragon hoard yet. Probably not going to do this one.
- Take significantly longer if a cart is attached
- Items in cart have a chance of being lost during transit (presumably fell out somehow, got stolen, etc. with nobody around to keep an eye on them)
- Chance the entire cart gets left behind (more likely the fuller/heavier it is)
- The mount suffers a morale penalty that increases the more they are recovered in this way and the heavier the cart is that they're pulling (if any)
- The mount owner suffers a morale penalty
- Mount may suffer injuries on the way back on its own. Will mean more once there's more of a process to mounts getting healed.

These penalties could be ignored for a certain period of time after a server startup to make it non-punishing in instances of maintenance server reboots or crashes that cause mounts to sometimes go missing.
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Lexx416
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Re: The MOUNTS command, and RECOVERing mounts at stables

Post by Lexx416 »

You could apply a debuff to a mount when this happens, so that they refuse to pull carts for X bells afterwards - each incident of retrieval like this increasing the debuff timer (so 1 bell, 2 bells, 3 bells, etc.), and the debuff doesn't tick down while the mount is stabled.
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