Re: T map change is it possible?
MY suggestions would be the following:
1. GET RID OF THE MINING REQUIREMENT. Replace it with a Cartography based system, where the distance you can dig from is 10-(map level) steps. To me, the randomization combined with the mining was a 1-2 "Go **** yourself" sucker punch from the devs, to those of us who were refusing to use soulstones to swap out skills. Hell, when I mentioned that back on 8/28/10 at the Fairfax HS announcement, it appeared the devs and programmers I talked to DID NOT KNOW that people were using the swap method at all (much like how Cal didn't know what a "Sampire" was, and how so many of the changes being made to combat to try to improve PvP were marginalizing non-sampire PvM templates, especially human ones)
2. Make finding the general location easier. Reverse engineer the turkey map code, and apply it to T-maps, especially lower level ones. Even with 100 mining, it often takes me 10 minutes, or more, to find a place to dig, and the spots on MY CC map don't look anywhere near the pin (either end, or the center), often as much as a screen width off in one of the cardinal directions (and never the same direction 2 maps in a row, when I do 2 level 6s in a row).
3. Get rid of the Soulstone method (but only if you get rid of the mining crap first). For the first 8 years or so of UO, it was in the bylaws of the Treasure Hunters of Britannia that you HAD to have Cart & LP on the same character to be a member of the guild. Soulstones and template-gimping made it to where anyone with room for 100 free points could be a fake T-hunter, but it wasn't really practical until the 24-hour cooldown was removed off the stone.
The addition of Mining was done with the MISTAKEN IMPRESSION that people were still running around with both Cart & LP, and that the Risk vs. Reward needed upped on both sides, with skill investment being part of the "Risk" side (As it was intended to lower the combat strength of the T-Hunter).
In reality, it had NO EFFECT on the soulstoners - who now had to swap between 3 skills, leaving the other 620+equipment bonuses skill points UNCHANGED. All it did was further cripple those who didn't use the stones, forcing them out, or making the soulstone gimp method Mandatory if you're going to do more than the lowest maps, and be the one actually fighting the spawn (which SUCKS the life out of the RP aspect, not to mention the social aspects).
The net effect is that if someone asks you to decode some maps for them, you have to GO GET YOUR SOULSTONES to do it
A. Take LP off, get Cart back on (HOPING you don't hit the wrong button and WIPE or overwrite a skill),
B. Decode,
C. Put one of the other skills back on for the dig - by which time most people will say - "forget it, this is taking too long"
D. Depending on whether you keep 2 skills or just one on your character (the changes forced me to swap Cart & LP, keeping mining on full time, so this step doesn't apply to me), there might be ANOTHER break between the guardians and the chest opening so that the poser-TH (that only invests 100 points at a time) can stone off mining, and put on LP - repeated EVERY new dig! (even more opportunity for game-session-ending soulstone mishaps)
E. THEN, if you get more maps in the course of the dig (almost certain at level 5-6), you no longer can decode them in the field, because your Cart is sitting at home or in your bank soulstoned. This causes even MORE disruption of the social and RP aspects. Before, when most T-hunters had both Cart & LP on full time, we could decode on the fly, and just head off to the newly acquired map(s) location(s) to dig - now that's almost impossible with the templates forced by the mining addition.
Note that the addition of mining screwed over SP/Mugen T-hunters several magnitudes more severely than those on other shards, because of the templates there being unable to use Telekinesis, and many of them up to that point still ran DH/Remove Trap based templates as a result. Now, the result is either just be an enabler for others, just trigger the trap and hope you don't die (not as easy a proposition where there's no insurance, and therefore likelihood that a suit will be deficient for surviving the explosion - let alone having an opportunist dropping you while you're at a tiny fraction of your HP), or be like a guy trying to date two girls in different parts of the same restaurant at the same time, switching clothes between tables (what was that show I saw that in?). You know it will end poorly (and skills will be lost) eventually.
