Cursed Items

[Harthus]

Everything you hear that is added to a UO server is always to help players or expand on a once useless skill.  How about this for a change? Add a new type of magic item system.  First create a hidden enchantment possibility for items that are magical.  They only appear if the item is more closely identified by wand or item id otherwise they appear when the item is worn.  If a item is equipped with the hidden enchantment 2 things will happen to the wearer. 
1. The item will be stuck to the owner.  It cant be removed from their person or from their backpack depending on the item.
2. A debuff which was previously hidden appears on the item and is applied to the wearer. This also reverses all positive enchantments the armor would normally give.

Types of Curses
remove max health
remove max mana
remove max stamina
damages the wearer until only 5 hitpoints remain.
removes a large portion of health which shows as damaged health that does not heal
weakens attack damage
weakens spell damage
slowly damages other items equiped
Annoyingly talks to you revealing you when hidden and perhaps if scriptable makes them more easily noticed by monsters. Think singing sword

The list goes on and on but ill stop there for now.

Now there is only 2 ways to remove these cursed items after they have been bound. 
1. Pay a npc mage/healer or perhaps donating at a shrine which causes the item to be dropped into the backpack or be reset to default if its a useable magic item (ex magic harp)
2. A powerful (120 skill) player mage who uses specific reagents including components that are not typical such as a apple or raw ore.  I had ideas for this system as well but i wont post it all here unless someone shows intrest.

I know kind of long winded and maybe missing a few basic english grammar and punctuation but i get overly excited when I have a good idea at least in my eyes.

[Foray]

Wouldn't this just lead to people only trying on items when they are in an quick and easy position to remove the curse, and thus destroy the danger of the curse to begin with. Also as it is a dud property and potentially on any and all equip-able items it would just mean that non-cursed items now go for a lot more (some gear is very time consuming to get already, I can already hear the rage from here from a player who spent weeks getting furs for the quest helms, only to get a quest helm that was cursed or the person hunting for Imp Gloves who after months of trying gets them and they're cursed).

Another issue, is the one of how is it to be implemented? would it be retroactive or not. If Retroactive then potentially every wearable item that exists on shard could end up spontaneously becoming cursed this would effect most players and there would be a lot of grief should a coveted item of someone become a dud due to the curse. Alternatively if the system was not retroactive and allowed for existing items to be grandfathered and thus safe from the change just leads to adding to the gap between older and newer players. That said if this change was retroactive I can see it cutting down the item count on shard as crafters just up and trash mediocre and poor tier runic items just to save the resources for de-cursing themselves after checking up on their good and great tier stock which would in turn make it harder for poorer and newer players  to be able to actually find items worth trading for as the remaining ones will bring them into competition with older players building suites for friends or alts.

Then there is the ever present issue with unforeseen consequences created by any and all changes, these can be anything from trivial to major problems. I remember when a simple emote being spammed back to back allowed the do-er to go anywhere they wanted, including Green Acres, void space and private buildings. A large system change such as what you have proposed would come with quirks and unforeseen consequences just because of the span of the content its would be linked with.

Lastly, how would this fit in with the already existing and shunned "cursed item" (drops on death, no bless, no insure for the cursed piece) property?

[Harthus]

Those are great questions to ask and I will admit that I do not have the answer to all that this may impact in the future. Lets see if i can answer some of these questions.

First off the removing of a cursed item should not be quick and easy to be honest. The option to pay to have it removed is one that I tossed back and forth mostly in the sense that not everyone wants to rely on another person to fix their problems.  Some may choose the quick route of dropping some cash but others may take the route of maybe hunting down a mage or possibly scribe which ever would work best that could remove this cursed item.  Think of the story you could tell others of your trip through destard to gather a tear from the ancient dragon to be free of a singing sword that has kept you up at night for a week.  Silly but fun.

As for the items it effects I did not mean just any items I was suggesting magical items as in ones you would find on monsters or in chests.  Crafted items would not apply for different reasons one being that if they are created of basic materials without any attempt at enchantment then why would it be cursed unless the craftsman is so horrible that he put peg a into slot q by accident. Now for runic crafted items that may get interesting because it can be looked at in different ways.  The item is crafted by a master blacksmith and though game mechanics wise the enchantment is a bit random I doubt the crafter would have such ill will to his creation to want it cursed. Ultimately I only ment to suggest items found in the wilds not crafted by players and only those who are magical.  You could say that maybe an item that has been locked away from the light or carried by a despicable lich might over time pickup this curse because of the evil or loneliness.

As for quest items I do not think these should be included in the cursed mechanic at all.  This would also be only a small chance that an item would be cursed not something that would be guaranteed for every drop.  Now lets use your example of the imp gloves for a second.  Lets say that you do get these imp gloves and they are cursed.  They would still be magical and once the curse is removed they would be free to wear and trade. Its a extra step sure but maybe it will be worth it.

Now for the implementation question you had.  Every item already in the game would grandfathered in to the program.  Think about it like this for a moment if you had a item youve been wearing for years why would it all the sudden be cursed? Does that make sense? So it would only apply to items generated in the world after.

Old and new players lets see about this question.  You know im not sure I can help you with this one because im not suggesting this to increase, decrease, or eliminate the gap. That isnt what this idea was suggested for but maybe with some time to think about it something can be worked into the deal.  Maybe a extra enchant? like a blessing instead of a curse? Give the older players reason to go back to the dungeons and hunt for that special armor that may be better then what they have? Might even give the new players a chance to catch up.

Im not sure what unforeseen consequences may come from this because well they are unforeseen.  This is only a toss up of an idea that may never see the light of day but it is fun to me to think about. Maybe that could be a curse though? "cape of displacement" Teleports you to green acres or void space for a minute at a time only to return you to your exact same location.  That would be one heck of a curse.

Im not sure what you mean by the shunned cursed item system your describing.  Im guessing you mean the item insurance and blessed/newbie gear game mechanics.  It would be similar to blessed but the item wouldnt appear in your bag it would appear on your person when you reappear from death and unlike a item you would WANT to have this one would give you negative effects until the curse is removed.

With all that I have only a small snippet to end with.  Personally I would love for the curse to only be removed by other players requiring materials they have to travel to get almost like a personal quest.  The curse could be detected before wearing it and wasting money by using item id of over 80 or a ID wand maybe not even with the wand. Also this is supposed to be a hindrance not a bonus to the player.  There are many ways to make a players life better and easy but very few ways to make them take a step back even if it is temporary.  That is all im suggesting is a idea that may take that older player with billions of gold and a top tier equipment and knock him down a peg for a short time because there really is no other risk to be had Also think of the rp you could enjoy by giving one of your enemies a cursed gorget of hiccups or a pair of boots that causes them to trip as they walk down the road. 

All in fun

[Foray]

I am competent enough to know that your suggestion is meant as an hindrance rather than a boon, but the point is if people have ways to determine what is cursed and what isn't and even a way to remove the curse should a mistake get made as well as a way to cleanse the item.. then what is the point? you say that it wouldn't be easy to remove the curse item as it would require services of an high level mage (most players have at least one character that is level 120 mage, some players a 2 - 5 and possible special random ingredients but you would be surprised at the types of items people have hoarded and the speed of which some can kill most mobs in the game. If the decision was made to put the ingredients on very hard mobs then you end up possibly locking out less able/ social players from using some of their characters which means they'd just set up shop on a different shard. Because of this many players could just use a "curse eater" character, one meant to test items cheaply and if an item is cursed who cares the character isn't important and can wait till it is bogged down with cursed items and then if the owner had no way to removed the curses or didn't care, after 7 days of existence you can just delete them and remake a new character with 100 Item ID and repeat the process.

From your clarification as to what would be potentially cursed, that leaves only one issue, if we ignore artifact pieces (while not all "drop" from monster themselves, some do) the only items potentially cursed would be Piwafi and earrings, rings and bracelets as the majority of most peoples armour and weapons falls outside of the "monster drop".

With it being possible to remove the curse from the item, the gap between older and newer players isn't as significant as it would've been otherwise (had the curse been non-removable) but all it means is that the owner of the cursed item either spends about an hour getting what they need to cleanse the item or (if curse is not removable) mean they either shove it up on a lockdown display or throw it in the bin and are back to square 1. Regarding the question about retroactive or not, it was meant not for the sakes of historical logic or RP but of balance.

As for shunned cursed items, there is already an property ingame called "Cursed". What it means is that the cursed item can not be blessed, can not be insured, can not be newbified or any of that. If you have it on you and die it is still on your corpse when you die. Infact the best base armour in the game ("Of the dead" armour) as this property on the few pieces of it I have seen and it is because of this no one will want to actually use it for anything other than for display purposes or rare collecting. What I was getting at, if your version of "cursed" items can't be cleansed then they will only ever see accidental use, if the curse can be cleansed then it is a very short setback that will be easily overcome (given how rare the curse stat actually is in your post).

About your last sentence, this really wouldn't be as big of an hindrance to older and connected players than it would be to newer, less social players and giving an enemy a jynxed item will go pear shaped fast if it wasn't part of some consensual arrangement (hidden within the RP event itself that only the actors in the event are aware of in advanced).

Don't take my responses as a reason to stop suggesting things, continue to suggest things eventually something will get added or acted upon. Also you seem to have an history around RP stuff, have you considered attempting to set up your own RP event, I just make an advanced suggestion that if you do attempt to make an RP event that you just don't reincarnate or revive the old Abraxious Liche event in any way, instead make something totally new from your own mind, try to make it so that weak and powerful players can realistically participate should they want to spontaneous elements are good as well so someone like me doesn't farm all the mobs because they end up being static spawns lol.

[Harthus]

Again you make some very valid points and have convinced me that though the idea of cursed items could be fun or useful it may just be to difficult to implement on a existing server.  Maybe if I spend more time on the idea I can work out more of the details. 

Ive always enjoyed the rp aspect of UO and looked for ways to enhance it. Ive been apart of many rp guilds over the years across many servers and look forward to what I can accomplish here.

I am FULL of ideas but they only seem to come forth when im near sleep or just waking up.  I wonder if that is a trend.. hmm.. but im sure I will suggest many more in time.