Part III of our releases this month is a complete surface rewrite of the devotion system. At the meeting I briefly outlined all five "Phases" of the new devotion system, and I will do so here as well. The five phases we have planned now are as follows:

I) Restructuring of Current Rituals and "Uncleanliness"
II) Restructuring of Favors
III) Choosing Alignment
IV) Choosing a Deity / Holy Symbols
V) More Rituals and Communes

Phase I is what is now live. Phases II through V are still under development. Phase I is essentially the groundwork for the remaining phases, and has in essence been the "rewrite" stage. The remaining phases will be "addition" stages.

So what was changed?

Before now, nearly all rituals capped out at the "cloudy visage" level and then would no longer give any devotion. This seemed counter-productive, as many folks just wouldn't do rituals once they hit this stage.

What we have done is gone through every ritual in the game (there are roughly 20 of them out there) and given each one unique devotion-award numbers. The awards start out big, and lessens as you ascend the devotion scale. So let's say that washing an altar gave you 50 devotion points at "cloudy". If you ascend to "Pleased with Thee" it might now give 20 instead of 50, although it will still give -some- devotion where before it would have simply stopped completely. [Note that the numbers here are completely fictitious, and used as an example only.]

This diminishing returns philosophy has allowed us to cap all rituals much higher than "cloudy", and nearly all of them will get you to at least twice that now. They will take more dedication however, but at least you will be more in control of how your commune status sits. Having a hefty bank account to tithe all the time shouldn't be a prerequisite for devotion, and so we felt this was a necessary change that all will find to their benefit.

Also, the "commune" verb that gave you a vague idea of how much devotion you have has been revamped. Various messages have been switched around, and several new messages have been added in to make the gague more precise, rendering it easier to know whereabouts you are on the devotion scale.

Further, it was discovered that pilgrim's badges were giving far too much devotion for the ease of the ritual. If you had enough shrines on your badge, it was giving you more devotion than if you had tithed 7 silver! This is obviously very imbalancing (and the sole reason pilgrim's badges haven't been sold since their initial release), and so it has been corrected. This may allow us to sell them in the future again, so keep on the look out!

Another thing that some folks may find displeasing is that we have corrected a bug regarding ritual timers. Before now the code was not properly checking the "timer" that was put on your player after doing a ritual, and so it allowed you to do rituals again for devotion when you shouldn't have been able to. There was something else that acted as a timer and prevented you from doing the same ritual several times in a row for a devotion award. This, unfortunately, still allowed people to alternate two rituals in rapid succession for ASTOUNDING devotion gains in mere minutes. People were raising from Unclean to near the top of the scale in minutes with kissing altars and praying to badges. And so, this was a necessary fix. Each ritual has its own unique timer, and so I would encourage you to do many types of rituals if you would like to gain that devotion in a hurry.

Also, we have cut the devotion hit of perceiving weapons to 1/3 what it originally was. It's still there, but it's so miniscule that it is almost unnoticeable.

The final thing that was changed with Phase I was how "uncleanliness" is handled by our offensive spells that work on other players: Hand of Tenemlor and Soul Attrition.

Phase I set the groundwork for alignment, and in so it was appropriate to now count all clerics in the game as "grey" or neutral clerics. Given so, all clerics will now only receive a "chunk" hit to their devotion when they cast offensive spells on another player, rather than becoming immediately Unclean. Alignment (Phase III), once it comes out, will offer other options depending upon which path you choose.

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As I mentioned, all that was listed above is now live in game. Now, what follows is our plans for the future -- the final four phases of the devotion rewrite:

Phase II: Restructuring of Favors -- This phase will eliminate those favor altars out on the islands, and replace them with a new favor system that is partially like the one in Province I. This favor system will be a bit more in depth however, and will allow you to gain favors with aspects as well as the Thirteen prime deities.

Phase III: Choosing Alignment -- This will allow you to choose a neutral, dark, or light alignment through some type of quest that is yet to be determined. Our goal here is to create an enriching experience for those who would like to align themselves with either the Light or Dark fringe, while allowing those who do not wish such a path to continue down the "neutral" path, which will be the easiest and have the most freedom overall. A neutral cleric is what all clerics essentially are (mechanically) right now.

Phase IV: Choosing a Deity / Holy Symbols -- Holy Symbols are something that were brought up a long, long time ago as many of the elders in the guild will recall. We have not forgotten about them, and we still plan to bring them forward. Our plans for these will include what is known as "turning" or "repelling" undead, as well as "holding" undead. They may also have other effects, but that is left to be seen.

Phase V: More Rituals and Communes -- The final phase will be to introduce more rituals with which to gain devotion, and more communes with which to spend it. This phase will never be truly over as we can always come up with new rituals, and will be an ongoing focus of the guild for years to come.

We truly hope that everyone enjoys the three changes that have gone out this month. As usual, please post in the BUG folder of the Cleric board if you find anything bizarre with them. We value your comments, suggestions, and critique of these changes here on the boards, so feel free to get chatty. Hopefully this will also give you folks something to look forward to, now that our skeletal master plan for devotion has been revealed. :)

-GM Skralthaen