Wine

[Laremere]

An idea for how wine and beer could work: When you drink alcohol, a new bar appears in the hp bar. As alcohol is consumed, the bar goes up. When the bar is less than 1/8 of the soft hp, there are no negative effects. As the alcohol bar takes up more of the shp bar, you work slower (basically anything with a hourglass wait takes more time the drunker you are.) Also after about 1/8, you can't sprint, after about 1/4, you can't run, and after 1/2, you can't sprint. The bar goes down very slowly.

As for the benefits, for every point of the alcohol bar when drinking beer, you get a 3% increase to learning ability. As for wine, when first bottled, it does 1% increase. As wine ages, it slowly gets better. After say half a ingame week, it increases a percent. For every time it ages, it takes a third longer for each age increase.

This way beer would be a nice commodity for newer players. As players are in higher levels they can be more "refined" and drink aged wine that is more intensive to make and store, but you can have more of a learning ability bonus at one time without having a negative effect on your working ability.

[kimya]

If you could make excessive wine impede motor function (characters walk at an angle to where they aim) that would be hillarious.

I've also seen some funny stuff done with text filters in chat, I think space station 13 was where I saw it... Have it randomly slur some words, start throwing in hiccup's etc.

thatd be awesome!!!

[theTrav]

for every point of the alcohol bar when drinking beer, you get a 3% increase to learning ability.

I can see what you're trying to do there, but something doesn't sit right with me when you have consuming alcohol make you learn things faster...

[niltrias]

Well then, what would be a good set of effects for wine? When I think of wine, there's two things that come to mind. The first is a such-and-such of excellent vintage and aged perfectly, something that even a novice wine drinker can enjoy. The second is Night Bear Fruit Wine and Engine Cleaner.
I think it's plain that the level of skill needs to come into play here- perhaps when adding wine to the barrel or some other critical task is undertaken, the player rolls against some skill level- possibly intelligence or charisma.
The result of this roll allows the game to determine if the result is fine wine or boxed wine.
The effects of these beverages would reflect the fact that one is enjoyable and, in fact, enriching, and the other is an excellent way to clear one's mind. Here's what I'd say:

Fine Wine:
Up to +20% Happy
Up to +5 CHA, STR
Up to -2 INT, DEX
Up to +20% Energy
Up to +5% learning ability

Poor Wine:
Up to +10% Happy
Up to +2 CHA, STR
UP to -5 INT, DEX
Up to +10% Energy
Up to -5% learning ability

These "advantages" fade over a 45 rMinute period.

I'm not in love with these, mind you. In fact maybe have both of them give a learning penalty but restore stamina/energy- making it useful for when you aren't getting much out of an activity anyway, like digging for clay or mining.

I like this idea, but instead of making it skill based, how about making it time based? Drinking wine straight from the cask would be the poor quality, but allow it to age for a while in bottles, and it gradually becomes finer and finer wine.

[theTrav]

I like this idea, but instead of making it skill based, how about making it time based? Drinking wine straight from the cask would be the poor quality, but allow it to age for a while in bottles, and it gradually becomes finer and finer wine.

According to the wine maker who talked a lot while I did a tour of his winery, the main thing that ageing wine does is allow the tannin to break down. This can give wines a better (softer?) flavor, but does almost nothing to how good it is for you or how alcoholic it is.

[StarChaser]

for every point of the alcohol bar when drinking beer, you get a 3% increase to learning ability.

I can see what you're trying to do there, but something doesn't sit right with me when you have consuming alcohol make you learn things faster...

Maybe if you do stupid things drunk and then afterwards think "I won't do that again", then you have learnt something.

[Potjeh]

And if you drink too much you don't remember what you did, so you learn nothing

[StarChaser]

And if you drink too much you don't remember what you did, so you learn nothing

Then how about it increases until your bar is full and then you lose all your skills.
But seriously, it could have a drastic negative learning ability effect that lasts something like, 24 ingame hours, but increase some other stat by a nice amount depending on age.