Enough of you have asked about this that it is time for a post about it.

Our really big development that we are working on right now is the installation of our new roleplay system. Powered by the Honour Roleplay System, Carriage Trade will soon have its own special horse-centric roleplay system.  Some of you may have seen a series of display boards in the Tack Room. These display boards are the initial visible cusp of a a project that we anticipate will be fun and exciting for everyone: namely, the installation of a new roleplay system for Carriage Trade.

Let us quickly reassure everyone that it is not a mandatory system by any means, and no one will be required to be ‘in character’ unless they want to be.  This system is immensely flexible and can provide a good RP skeleton for those who want to use that way. For others, it can be used as a s single-player game. And still others can simply ignore the whole thing, and go on about their business.

Non-residents can use the system, as well. However, they will be not be able to use components of the system, such as the Livery, Prestige Royal Foalery or the Royal Mews, which may require land group rights.

Why are we adding this system: 

Many reasons, not least of which is that it adds a fun layer of interactivity to the region and provides a nice way for newcomers to interact with our existing community.  We have been looking for a commendation system to allow humans to effectively compliment a horse if that horse gave them a nice ride.  The Honour Roleplay System that we obtained at the Relay For Life auction does all this and much, much more.  However, it is complicated enough that we will be rolling out the system in layers.

Here are some of the things we can do with it:

1. Collect things that can be used to trade for other things, including RP services (farrier, vet, etc), rent or payment for things like the Livery service or the Royal Mews or the Foalery,  AND actual in-world goods (such as special tack and carriages ONLY available in the system).
2. Create quests and games within games.
3. Offer a commendation system for riders to reward their horses; or horses to reward their riders.
4. Create chores that provide the laborer  with tokens and resources to use in other parts of the system.
5. Create classes & subclasses of roleplay characters to enable richer interaction.
6. Add damage ability, so that different subclasses of characters can be damaged differently by other subclasses. This means that horses can inflict damage by biting, striking and kicking; owls, dogs, foxes and cats can all hunt, wound and kill or be hunted, wounded and killed, and so on.
7. Add healing and curative abilities to the appropriate subclasses so that wounded foxes can be cured; lame horses can be healed, and so on.
8. Add competition capabilities: We obviously don’t need sword play, but we can hunt for foxes, compete in shows, and so on. A big part of our competition will include training!

And remember: NONE of this is mandatory. If you hate games or roleplay, just ignore it all and go on about your business just as you do now. We won’t be insisting on anyone living in emote-land, by any means!

For those of you who want to play, we’ll be calling for testers as we roll out levels. At the moment, we’re testing collectibles in the Royal region (only).  Feel free to hunt the region in search of Salt, Apples, Herbs, Ore, and Coal; all of which you may collect as many of as you wish. You don’t even need a HUD, pouch or meter!

How can you help?

TEST!  hunt down those pesky collectibles over in Royal. Let us know if they don’t chat a message to you when you click it.

FEEDBACK! Go look at the classes and subclasses of characters listed.  Think we should add something? Please keep in mind there is an ecosystem so that every sort of subclass interacts in different ways with other subclasses, so we won’t be interested in adding, say, a Pirate subclass to our roleplay ecosystem.

Then, feed it back: note cards in world work best; comments are fine,  and even an IM if you will.