Before we went into the Guildhall, I grabbed all the gear Jeremy had purchased for me on the Auction House. It was decidedly ugly, mismatched, and barely qualified as an upgrade from being naked.
And it was perfect.
I couldn’t resist whipping out [Hope’s Edge] and twirling it around for a minute while the guys waited impatiently for me to get over myself.
When it was clear I wouldn’t even get a pity applause, I reluctantly sheathed my glaive.
“Oh, look,” Kink said. “He’s done playing with his weener.”
“It’s not polite to jerk off in public, Ray,” T added. “Jeremy has a note from his doctor, but for the rest of us, it is heavily frowned upon.”
Jeremy looked like he was going to argue, but then shrugged like he actually didn’t mind the idea.
“Sorry, guys,” I said with a wry smile. “I’m just imagining what I’ll be capable of when I actually get Raid gear. I should be able to steamroll through level 60s like nothing!”
I pulled up my Character sheet and spun my avatar around for a moment. The long, blond hair of my Damsel avatar was covered now by my helmet. It actually did wonders for disguising my look, and in full kit, I was hardly noticeable as a Damsel.
This was what I had been needing all along!
I quickly flipped to my stat sheet to see the increases to my stats and defenses.
General
Stats Misc Name RayGun47
Strength
100 (+27) (+) Health Points
2070/2070 [Skills] Level 100 Dexterity 100 (+17) (+) Class Damsel Intellect 100 (+12) (+) Mana Points
210/210 [Inventory] Specialization N/A Mind 100 (+5) (+) Gender Female Vitality 200 (+7) (+) Stamina
1085/1085 Free Stat Points
300 Faction Consortium Endurance 200 (+17) (+) Guild
Damsels Gone Wild Physical Defense
600 (+581) Magical Defense
400 (+334)
I was really pleased with the boosts in my defensive stats. I had almost doubled my physical and magical defense and had received a whopping 27 additional strength! And I still had 300 stat points to distribute. It really made me wonder just how many additional stat points I would receive from top-tier Raid gear.
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It also made me wonder just how close in stats I was to a geared-out player like Osgoth or Ysillith. I had received almost an additional 100 stat points from a bunch of [Uncommon] and two [Rare] items. Would players in [Legendary] gear have double that? Triple that? I could easily imagine a high-level tank having at least equal Vitality and Endurance, if not more. Putting on this gear just reinforced how important it was to get max-level items. They seemed to be a significant part of the power progression in S&S.
The guys had been idly chatting while I had been examining my stats, but Jeremy eventually succumbed to impatience and pulled me out of my menus with a tug.
“Can we go tour this piece of shit already?” he asked. “I’m getting depressed just looking at it.”
Kink broke off from his conversation with T to say, “And going inside is gonna make it better somehow?”
Jeremy shrugged. “Probably not, but let’s rip off the fuckin’ bandaid, y’know?”
“Yeah, yeah,” I said. “Sorry, I was checking out my upgraded stats. Let’s head in.” I led the way to the front door.
I wasn’t sure how the entrance mechanics worked exactly. I knew the Hall was keyed to certain individuals, and that even Guild members had to be whitelisted to enter. So I waved Kink forward to test it.
“Try the door. I want to see if Officers are automatically added to the permissions.”
He shrugged and tried the knob. It was locked.
“What the hell,” Jeremy said. “We can’t even get in the piece of shit?”
He pushed Kink to the side and tried it himself. When it didn’t open, he jingled the knob back and forth as if that would make a difference.
“Jer, this is a video game, not the shitty basement door in your mom’s place,” T said.
He shot T a scowl, gave the knob one more shake out of spite, then backed up. “You never know, T. Maybe it just didn’t recognize Kink’s limp grip. It needed a real man to give it a try!”
“Ahh, yes,” Kink said, slapping his forehead in revelation. “That’s what we needed! A real man! Too bad all we had was a cave-dwelling troglodyte masquerading in a digital female avatar…” He turned to me. “I guess we better call the locksmith.”
I interrupted before Jeremy could fire back. “Will you guys quite bickering for two minutes?” I asked. “You’re like an old married couple. Let’s just check this place out, okay?”
I put my hand on the knob and opened it before they could respond. It looked very much like the show Guildhall Harold had taken me to, but the rooms to either side were bare. The four of us walked in, dispersing in different directions off the foyer.
I started up the stairs, while Jeremy went right, Kink went left, and T headed down to the basement.
The second story had four doors off the landing. I poked my head into each, but they were unadorned rooms. I already knew I would make at least one of them a private room so I could sleep somewhere without having my guard up. There wasn’t much else to see here, so I went back downstairs to look for the Control Module.
From the foyer, I went straight back, passing the stairway to the basement as I did. To the back of the house, there was a door that led out to a small backyard. That would be a good place to host a larger group - as the actual house itself could really only accommodate 10 or so people comfortably.
Near the backdoor, built into the wall, was the Control Module. It was a simple quartz-looking panel embedded directly into the wall, with a tooltip notification that appeared when I focused on it.
Place your hand on the Control Module to make modifications to your Guildhall.
I did so, and a series of intricate menus appeared in my vision.
One of the menus was a top-down view of the Hall that would let me choose each room’s purpose, move furniture (when we had any), and generally just configure the Hall to suit our needs.
Another menu was actually a store, and contained all the possible level 1 decorations, room types, and add ons for the Hall. I browsed through the available room configurations and felt my heart drop.
They were fucking exorbitant!
Kitchen (Cook not included): 25,000 gold
Training Room (Trainer not included): 45,000 gold
Private Room: 20,000 gold
Library: 15,000 gold
Dining Hall: 40,000 gold
Contribution Shop: 75,000 gold
Exterior Courtyard: Included
My God, I had felt so flush just hours ago. But looking at these costs, I could only imagine what a level 2 or level 3 Guildhall cost to upgrade.
Gritting my teeth, I purchased the Training Room, one Private Room, and the Contribution Shop. Goodbye 140,000 gold…
Once I purchased the new rooms, the option to place them appeared in the top-down view. I focused on them each and got a descriptor of their capabilities.
Training Room: This room enables training in weapon skills, magical skills, and melee combat. Those that properly engage the training room can spar without risk of death. The combatant’s HP will go down in combat as expected, but will never drop below 1. Furthermore, HP will regenerate rapidly outside of combat.
This room has a trainer option that is not included. (Click here for more information)
I clicked on the trainer option to see what that was about.
Trainer: Trainers can be rented monthly to help Guild members improve their combat capabilities. They will spar, or watch sparring sessions, and give their expert advice. They can also provide performance improvement plans (PIP) tailored to the individual’s desires and skill gaps. Trainers are generally specialized in specific forms of combat, such as melee, spellcasters, or hybrids.
This NPC must be inhabited by an actor. As such, actor fees apply. For extra cost, the same actors can be utilized to maintain continuity in a member’s PIP. In such circumstances, a retainer is required, along with oncall fees. In return, the trainer-actor will be available 24/7, but cannot be activated for more than 12 hours at a time within a sliding 24-hour window.
See oncall disclaimer for more information.
Wow…that had some interesting ramifications. So we could basically employ a professional trainer to coach up our members, and it would always be the same actor. I could imagine that paying massive dividends down the line - if the coaching was actually worthwhile. I didn’t know exactly what that would entail. Did S&S just have a bunch of sword and spear experts lying around for exactly this purpose?
I made a note to look into that further down the line. Maybe I could even employ Denise and her husband as spellcasting trainers?
Next, I clicked on the Private Room. That was the one I was most interested in, for selfish reasons. I had only managed to get some sleep twice, and for only a few hours at a time. Being able to completely relax in a locked room, on an actual bed…I was itching to get in there and try it out.
Private Rooms: A private room can be configured in multiple ways:
1. Keyed to a single or multiple individuals. These individuals will be the only people able to open the door or pass the threshold. Additional individuals can be whitelisted at any time through the Control Module.
2. A room can be configured as ‘Available’. These types of rooms will be free for any individual to open and enter, but will then be keyed to that individual for a time period determined at the Control Module. Once the time limit ends, the individual will be teleported from the room, and be required to key back in for additional hours.
3. The final configuration is ‘Open’. The room will be open to all Guild members. Max capacity can be configured at the Control Module.
I resisted the urge to set up the room right now and go crash. The Contribution Shop would be vitally important moving forward, and I needed to get a feel for it.
I opened the Contribution Shop information panel, and was immediately inundated with pages of information.
On second thought…maybe this would be better handled by a professional Guild Manager.