The S.S. MMO System: Ghouls (Tentative Design Notes)

What follows is a fictional bit of correspondence among the game designers, company execs, and admin which was 'leaked' by an intern who accidentally got it in their e-mail and copied it onto a flash drive, which they edited and published anonymously in the dark web from which it eventually found it's way onto the more public forums of the game: the email consists of preliminary design notes for the 'Bust 100' race expansions for Ghouls, one thing that has been promised in the 'Bust 100' expansion when it finally happens being that every class, race, and creature in the game will get a 100th level set of expansion options. (The Level cap is currently set to 85 according to the 'cannon' I have established for this version of the story.)

From: [email protected]
To: <WAY to many names to list here!>

One thing I have noticed about the work on the eventually forthcoming 100th level expansions is that the diversity of paths we are getting into is slowing things to a crawl, With that in mind I think the level 100 expansions should start to 're-tighten' the options down towards a goal with the 999th level 'Hard Cap', of having all races and classes be condensed back down to no more than 5 options.

Swift Sea Ghast:

I suggest this option point the Characters to 'Swift Shark Ghast' and 'Swift Battle Hardened Sea Ghast'(Needs a better name) with the goal of merging it with the Hell Eyes Shark Ghast or Grizzled Veteran Sea Ghast (See Below) at the next stage.

Battle Hardened Sea Ghast:

I see a clear evolution here, joining together Battle Hardened Sea Ghast with Grizzled Veteran Ghast to get Grizzled Veteran Sea Ghast. As for other evolution options I think 'Battle Hardened Laceodon' and 'Battle Hardened Draguar' spring immediately to mind.

Laceodon:

In addition to the 'Battle Hardened' option above I think now is a good time to look into starting to re merge the 'Dark Mage' tree, going with something like 'Laceodon Magus' which brings in the first of the two 'Dark Mage' expansions.

Draguar:

My comments above under Laceodon go double here: 'Battle Hardened' 'Magus' Draguar options.

Ghastlier Dark Mage:

While some have suggested a 'Ghastliest Dark Mage' option I think this would be a mistake, especially but not only if, as some of them have suggested, we give them another doubling of the Mana granted. We would have an avalanche of full casters cannibalizing NPCs just to get that mana boost, and we are in enough hot water already, over the 'attractiveness' of cannibalism in this game. Instead I suggest we go with a 'Darker Deathlock' recombining the 'Dark Mage' path, and things that point in the direction of merging with the Draguar Laceodon 'Magus' paths.

Deathlock:

While we could perhaps be content with the 'Darker Deathlock' option if we had to, I see another option here which should be easy to port code for: “Hell Eyes Deathlock” aiming for an eventual reconciliation with the 'Hell Eyes Shark Ghast'.

Grizzled Veteran Ghast:

The obvious move here of course is the one mentioned above 'Grizzled Veteran Sea Ghast' But there need to be other options that never the less tie things together...

Black Chase Ghast:

This one's a tough nut to crack, It gains a pair of really specialized and powerful abilities, allowing ghouls to spawn in a specific zone, and drastically decreasing the timer on their ability but not enough that it's useful in a zone where it's hard to get other players turned around and bamboozled. We DON'T want to roll back the 1 hour timer any further, we SAW what happened with that when we first boosted level cap to 50 and it was a nightmare, but I don’t see any logical evolutions for this race option...

Sunken Legionary:

This evolution I think we can possibly point towards a merge with 'Gormigand' and possibly tack on a 'battle hardened' and 'Magus' option, but it too is a tough one due to the associated quest and affiliation string baggage.

Merfolk Slayer Ghoul:

As with all of the 'Ghoul' options now remaining I suggest we make the next step of their evolution point to adding the 'Ghast' code to their systems, which by level 100 will be near mandatory just so they have a chance to actually USE their “Ghoul's Touch” power again. I am not even sure at this point IF they should have other options, that power becomes so weak at high levels without the 'Ghast' upgrade.

Gormigand:

This is another hard one, other than the one 'Sunken Legionary' angle for a merger I don't see much we could do with it other than the fairly standard 'Battle Hardened' and 'Magus' eventual mergers.

Hell Eyes Shark Ghoul:

Again, from here I suggest we point them to “Hell Eyes Shark Ghast”, aiming for an eventual fusion with the 'Deathlock' tree.

If you have other suggestions on how to more effectively blend some options that don't blend very well I welcome them, but please, no bemoaning that gawd awful 'Ghastliest Dark Mage' idea, that is deader than disco.