By Pelle Svanslos

For those of you who don�t know about Adam Ant let me bring you up to speed. As the self-appointed protector for the liches in the dungeon Wind Adam has crossed swords with many other players as chronicled in his cartoon adventures.

These cartoons are not like ImaNewbie, however, they are all real. Adam has created his own screen shot program (called Grabby) and the story is usually an account of how he spots someone in Wind, sneaks up on them, and engages them in combat. Much of the time he�s victorious, sometimes he loses and occasionally they get away. It�s always interesting...especially from a PvP perspective. I know I read those accounts trying to capture nuggets of info to help me become a better PvPer.

He goes into much more detail about his exploits on his web site http://www.game-master.net, but we�re going to concentrate today on his proposal for Angel Island. I came across it some time ago and thought it very detailed and interesting. Being somewhat skeptical, I figured it wouldn�t go anywhere under OSI, but he�s been getting a lot of support from the players and well...check out this Q & A session, go to the web site and see for yourself. Can one man change the world? Probably not, but with a legion of support behind him perhaps OSI will perk their little ears up and consider the possibility.

Pelle: So Adam, what is it you are trying to accomplish with the Angel Island Proposal?

Adam Ant: Well, it's easy really. Provide role-played deterrent to Player Killing.

Pelle: How would Angel Island help? I mean we already have stat-loss, which seems to work just fine.

Adam Ant: I am of the belief that healthy, role-played evil is a necessary ingredient in any online game. Without it, you take away much of the risk and consequently much of the excitement. Stat-loss is forcing Evil players to try to work around the system. A good example of working around the system is the notoriety PK. You know someone that plays any one of a dozen tricks to get you to turn gray just so that they can fight and kill you.

Pelle: And Angel Island would help how?

Adam Ant: By creating a punishment that gets you off the streets so you cannot hurt anyone while at the same time providing an environment that is interesting enough so that you don't quite the game over it.

Pelle: Sort of like a Club Dread? :)

Adam Ant: Yea, sort of.

Pelle: Well then you want to reward criminals? I'm confused?

Adam Ant: No. What I want to do is get them off the streets. I mean with Mr. Evil locked-up at Angel Island, he's no longer staking out the crossroads and demanding your money or you life now is he?

Pelle: Ah, I think I see your point. It's like banishment to another part of the game where they cannot hurt any one.

Adam Ant: Exactly! Well, not exactly. On Angel Island, these criminals can still attack one another.

Pelle: Okay, so lets talk about Angel Island. Where is it and how do players get there?

Adam Ant: It could be many places, any island would do. Perhaps Buc's Den comes to mind. But there could be a problem with player owned houses. Another island that cannot have any houses would be ideal. Actually, there is no reason it could not be on a Trammel island now is there? With the current hold on housing, we could use Buc's Den on Trammel for Angel Island.

Pelle: Great idea, but how would players get there.

Adam Ant: I think there are lots of ways to do this but one obvious approach would be to provide permanent gates (perhaps red) that would accept anyone with a murder count > 4.

Pelle: You said anyone. Don't you mean only a ghost?

Adam Ant: Well we could restrict it to only a ghost, but why? Maybe we should allow a criminal to surrender and voluntarily enter the gate.

Pelle: Hmm, not sure I like murderers just walking back and forth at will.

Adam Ant: No, no, no. This is prison, baby. The gate requires you have a murder count> 4 to get in and a murder count < 4 to get out. Those are the rules.

Pelle: Okay, I enter that gate, now what.

Adam Ant: Well, you are now naked, all you were carrying *poofed* at the gate. You'll be arriving at the Angel Island infirmary in your diaper. If you entered while a ghost, you will be resurrected without stat-loss. A fun thought I had here would be to get a backpack with a striped prison uniform and maybe a few other essentials. (Forget it merchant folks, these won't leave the island.)

Pelle: And?

Adam Ant: Well, for phase one of my proposal you only need to limit access to the island like is being done now for Haven. (Recall, Gate and boat access.) I believe this is sufficient to get Angel Island off the ground.

Pelle: Heh heh, I thought you said this would be fun or at least bearable for the inmate. This sounds like a fate worse than death!

Adam Ant: Oh, I don't know about that. There is all the mining, lumberjacking, tailoring etc... Plus there would be some NPCs with limited amounts of supplies, which are otherwise contraband.

Pelle: Like?

Adam Ant: Well, potions, bandages, reagents, weapons etc...There will likely be skirmishes and will be highly prized.

Pelle: What phase II and phase III, what happens here?

Adam Ant: Phase II and Phase II start to build on the basic island concept. One of the very exciting aspects of Phase II is that escape is not impossible. I think this will create cooperation among the inmates as they will certainly need each other it they plan to escape.

Pelle: Escape? I thought this was a place to get them off the streets? I thought they would be out of circulation for an extended amount of time?

Adam Ant: Don't confuse the prospect of escape with a sure thing. I've tried to engineer the escape scenarios such that by simply tweaking the items available on NPCs, the UO development team can adjust the likelihood of escape. I assume it will be very difficult to escape and most will not be able to escape at all. (And will probably die a lot trying.)

Pelle: What are these escape scenarios you mention? Is this the cave and rescue by boat?

Adam Ant: Yes. The cave is not unlike many of the dungeons already in existence. This cave would be one way to prevent outside help. The cave is also designed to be far more difficult for the individual than the group effort. Drake fodder and body shields if you will :) Basically the cave will be filled with monsters and you will need lanterns, torches, potions, bandages, heal regs and weapons. Also stealth walkers would be prevented from having an advantage by placing reveal tiles all about, preferably near the nastiest monsters.

Pelle: This could be a problem if the chosen island doesn't already have a dungeon or cave.

Adam Ant: True. I don't know how difficult a dungeon is to add to an island that doesn't already have one. However if you did have one and it didn't exit at the mainland, you could simply stick a permanent gate somewhere to act as the exit.

Pelle: Okay, so what is the boat rescue and how will it that achieved? Adam Ant: Well there's the low tide / high tide idea from the proposal, but I came up with a new idea which I think is really cool. Basically you use the Treasure Hunting machinery that is already in place within the game. Level 5 maps that resolve to the island would generate a special Gate instead of (or in addition to) the normal treasure chest. This gate would serve as the exit portal for the inmate.

Pelle: Oh I see! The rescuers would need a GM Cartographer to decode the 'escape route' and to 'locate and dig the tunnel' off the island! Sweet!

Adam Ant: Yes, and the rescuers would need to contend with the extremely nasty that comes with a spawn as well as round-up their buddy they are trying to spring. This won't be an easy task. Maybe these maps should be a different color so they can be identified without being decoded?

Pelle: As difficult as a level 5 spawn is, players are still pretty good at defeating them. How could the developers tweak the difficulty?

Adam Ant: Hmm, well possibly impose a character weight limit that is half or a third of what it is on the main land. This would restrict the amount of reagents and weaponry they could carry. Another thought would be to simply increase the spawn or impose a time limit when the gate goes *poof*.

Pelle: Tell me about this high tide idea for rescues by sea.

Adam Ant: You would restrict access to the island by boat, probably using the same code the developers are currently doing with Haven. You would then enable some set of skills to determine when the 'high tide' would be and where the boat could safely dock. Once docked you would likely have to contend with a nasty spawn, get your comrade and get back on the boat before the tide went out.

Pelle: It's probably not terribly important, but what skills do you expect would be used to land the boat safely?

Adam Ant: Well the obvious choice would be cartography. Other tools to use may be the telescope, compass or possibly a crystal ball!

Pelle: Heh heh, you mean give the crystal ball some actual value? :)

Pelle: Anything else you would like our readers to know about the proposal?

Adam Ant: Two things really. Firstly, I love the idea of a new class of NPC on the island. Some of these NPC's are prison guards. Now these aren't the invulnerable guards that we have today, but simply well equipped guards that can kick the crap outa most inmates. Remember, you won't have your favorite katana to force here on Angel Island! To successfully 'take out' a guard you're likely going to need to team up with other inmates and you better not loose the fight either! If you should loose the battle and that NPC guard hooks up with other guards, that guard will both report you (increasing your sentence) and call on more guards to attack you. But sometimes using your head is better because some of the NPCs will be dirty and give information and may even take bribes.

Adam Ant: The other interesting aspect is blues on the island. As designed so far, they can only get to the island using the 'rescue by sea' method. But there is nothing stopping them from attacking and killing reds once they get there. What I'm proposing is that any blue characters coming to the island be flagged as gray to all reds (not other blues.)

Pelle: Why is this interesting and why is it even an issue?

Adam Ant: Well I think if you go out with the intent to kill a red, or for that matter to break a red out of prison, you are not innocent. Not in the real world and not in Sosaria. Therefore if you are blue and come to the island to seek revenge on a red and possible collect a bounty, you had better be prepared for the consequences. While you may be better armed, there are likely more reds here than your group and the inmates probably won't take too kindly to outsiders coming to Angel Island to pick fights.

Pelle: What's to stop a large group of blues from going there and just camping and continually harassing the reds, not that that's all bad :)

Adam Ant: Well if Angel Island is implemented with the 'high tide' mechanism for getting on the island, then the blues that are over staying their welcome may find their boat was destroyed on the rocks when the tide went out. Doh!

Pelle: Well that's all I have Mr. Ant. I would like to thank you for taking the time to talk with us here at stratics...

Adam Ant: Thank you Pelle for having me.