Board Thread:Suggestions forum/@comment-31507215-20170426190036

As always, I apologize if someone has mentioned this before.

The idea for this suggestion came when I was riding my horse through Dale, trying to complete the five miniquests I had, all of which were in different places throughout Dale.

I am proposing that Heralds (or Messengers) be added.

Overview
Heralds would be hireable units. They would be relatively expensive, but would be able to complete miniquests and send ultimatums to other players.

The NPC
Almost every faction would have Heralds. (The factions that would not have them would be less civilized ones, or ones that wouldn't use them, such as the Tauredain, or Half-trolls, or Gundabad, etc.) These heralds would look like the standard soldiers, but would be wearing the lowest level armor, (such as Gambesons) or would not be wearing a helmet. They would wield no weapon, as they are messengers. Most of them would be riding their faction's mount.

Very few NPCs would attack Heralds, following the "don't shoot the messenger" concept. Some NPCs would still attack them, like Half-trolls, Gundabad Orcs, or Aragorn. (That last one was a joke, but that was one of the things that really bugged me in the movies.) If a player killed a herald, they would lose alignment with almost all factions, as that would be dishonorable.

Functions
Heralds would have two main functions: Message and Claim.

When right clicked on, Heralds would have the three basic options to choose from: Talk, Dismiss, and Command. Talk and Dismiss would function the way they do on most hired units, but Command would be very different. Instead of the "Replace Equipment" button, they would have an "Items to Deliver" button. When clicked on, it would show their inventories. They would have item inventories, of probably about five or so slots, into which you would put items for them to deliver. Back in the main part of the "Command" GUI, they would have Guard mode, (as usual) albeit having no weapons, but they would also have the buttons "Message" and "Claim".

Message
When you click on the message button in the Herald’s GUI, it would bring up a text box. You could then type in a message. After you click “OK”, or something like that, it would open up a small variant of the map, with a small text box. In the text box, you could type in the name of a player. Then, you could click on a player icon, or on a waypoint, (custom or no) and click a “GO” button.

Once you click “Go”, the herald will depart to send the message. I am sure there would be many ways to do it, but here is how I think it could/should work. The herald would disappear, and, after a reasonable time (preferably depending on how far away the location is), it would reappear at that location, or near it. If that chunk is unloaded, the game will remember that the herald is supposed to be there, and the herald would show up next time it is loaded. When the herald appears, it would act very similar to a travelling merchant. It would appear, and there would be a text notification to all players in the area that; , the herald of, comes with a message for . If possible, it would also send a notification to the targeted player saying something like; To, from ; 

Once it has traveled, and reappeared, the herald will stick around as long as the merchants do, and then travel (in the same way) back to the player that sent it, or, if it was on guard mode when it was sent, back to the place where it was stationed.

If the player that was targeted finds the Herald, and right clicks on it, they will be given three options: Message, Gifts, and Return. If they click on “Message”, the herald will say the message again. If they click on “Gifts”, it will open the herald’s inventory, and the receiving player can take the items, and replace them with others, if they wish. If they click “Return”, they are given a text box, in which they can type a new message, and then, if they click “Done”, it will send the herald back immediately.

Claim
The “Claim” function is much simpler (I think). It would allow you to use a herald to redeem miniquests, at the cost of a quarter of the profits.

When you click on the “Claim” button, it will open a version of the map which just has the miniquest markers on it. You can then click on one, and click “Go”, and the herald will disappear. After a certain amount of time (like with the “Message” button) it will “get to where it is going”. It will not appear like with the “Message” function. In the case of “Kill” quests, if you have killed whatever the quest-giver wanted you to kill, the reward coins will go into the herald’s inventory. In the case of “Collect” quests, if the herald has all the items required, the items will be removed from its inventory, and replaced with the reward coins. After it has completed the quest, it will (after the same amount of time it took to get there) return to the player.

If you use this method, you will only get one-third of the reward coins and alignment, as you were not there yourself.

There! That’s my suggestion! It is very open to improvements if the Mod team decides to implement it, but I wanted to get the general idea out there.

Suggestions and Criticism welcome!

 