UPDATE: Random Events

[Mooncalf]

Apologies, because it's been quite a while since I've made a big update like this. I have been working on fixing bugs and getting chapter details ironed out and ready for the big chapter system reveal in a couple of weeks. Tying in with these chapter updates is this system, random events. It doesn't affect the chapter yet, but it will.

Random events are for 4 types of people:
1 - Those who want to earn tons of experience points, and have money to burn.
2 - Those who want to affect the city alert levels, either positively or negatively.
3 - Those who want to affect the outcome of one or more chapter issues (forthcoming).
4 - Characters who are being played as charismatic or speech-craft centric, or who aren't into breaking the law.

Essentially, it's a simple system for now, but a system which will grow and expand when flash becomes the standard on Path, later this year. Simply, it just gives you a random event message, shows you 4 choices, and then gives you an outcome based on the choice you made, which can do anything from lowering the city alert to giving you cash.

When you stumble on a random event, it will say "You notice something strange going on nearby. Investigate?" at the top of your screen. These events always start outside, on the world map, but cannot be seen by any thralls. There are some designated for humans, some for vampires, and some events can be undertaken by either.

Once you click "investigate" you will be given the simple events page. It's all quite straightforward, and it only takes a few seconds to complete an event (for now, they will get much more involved later on). Some choices will lead to a battle, other choices will simply tell you if you were successful in persuading a person or avoiding then, etc. Be aware, however, that certain choices have a danger of increasing your bounties by $100-$300, so keep an eye on that.

Each of your choices are keyed off a stat. By this I mean each choice requires that you have a high number in a certain stat or skill. For example, if you chose to pick a guard's pocket, it'd check your stealing. If you chose to talk a mugger out of mugging somebody, it'd check your speechcraft. These are just examples, as it could be absolutely anything.

If your event results in a battle (either by choice, or by failing certain choices), you will be given a short message to sum up the battle. These battles run on the same NPC fighting code as normal, but do not show the full transcript, just a summary. You will not get exp for these battles (you will get exp for the events as standard), and you will not gain items from these battles.

If you succeed in a random event (what ever that might be) you will gain 100 experience points. If you fail, you will gain only 25. Either way, you lose 2 energy.

There are two ways of finding random events. The first is randomly, as the name suggests. The second way is by paying an oracle $1000. Oracles move around very rarely, and will tell paying customers where something important is about to happen (the location of an event). You will, however, have to find her yourself the first time, sorry.

In roleplay terms, the oracles can be viewed as mysterious women, who have neither a vampiric aura nor an entirely human feel to them. They will not tell you the future regarding anything personal to you or your friends, they will only foretell events that are about to transpire in the city.

People are submitting events as we speak, and I am working on approving as many as I can. There have been over 60 events submitted for my approval so far, at least half of which should be added by the weekend.