Kingdoms Brainstorming

[EternalUndeath 1,208]

Thats called an ender chest they just added it into vanilla.

Ender chests don't have those properties, so...

I would say not; there's no way a thief is going to get caught in 30 seconds. make it something like 12 hours, then maybe.

The point isn't to make the thief easier to catch, the point is to make stealing stuff a pain in the ass

It takes less than an hour to rob an entire house, but it also takes equipment, a large truck, and some less than moral friends. The effort is more prohibitive than the risk of being caught.

[Gekkey Mathews 33]

The point isn't to make the thief easier to catch, the point is to make stealing stuff a pain in the ass

It takes less than an hour to rob an entire house, but it also takes equipment, a large truck, and some less than moral friends. The effort is more prohibitive than the risk of being caught.

even so, I still think 30 second is way to little to deter anyone. maybe 5 minutes. But then I think you would want to build the game to reward creativity, not tedium.

[Scooterdanny 285]

Well... how about needing to have something like a lockpick then? that doesn't always work, and will break fairly easily. to open doors and chests not your own. In my opinion, hiding your goodies is the best option.

[EternalUndeath 1,208]

even so, I still think 30 second is way to little to deter anyone. maybe 5 minutes. But then I think you would want to build the game to reward creativity, not tedium.

I'd say 45 seconds max. Have you ever sat there holding a mouse button for 5 minutes solid? Staring at the same unchanging screen? It's like a million years pass in your head. You've wondered if it's done yet 5 times in the last second alone.

Stealing should be a pain in the ass, but it shouldn't be mind-numbing

[sdbaynham 57]

Well... how about needing to have something like a lockpick then?

For what? The first thing someone who actually wants protection is going to do is, mod their server to have it. It's a protection system for people who don't want protection systems.

[HidingInTheLight 10]

Hiding doesn't beat x-ray tho. It's pretty simple to set up a texture pack that makes everything see thru except chests or other containers.

Making doors lockable is pointless if the walls of the house aren't protected. Why waste time try to pick the lock on a door, or spend 30 seconds or more, when you can use your pick-axe or axe, to go thru the wall 1 meter over.

[Scooterdanny 285]

What i mean is, if there is some form of protection already in the mod (which i am indifferent about) then people wouldn't need to get the overpowered lock plugins that are completely unbreachable. i honestly would like to see a plugin that allows for some theft, but making it very difficult, the only reason i don't like EternalUndeath's idea, is that most thieves don't saw into belongings...

[Scooterdanny 285]

hiding, there are plenty of anti xray plugins that work quite spendidly, and well, there would either have to be a no house griefing rule, or a protected land option, that would still allow for theft to occur.

[Gekkey Mathews 33]

I'd say 45 seconds max. Have you ever sat there holding a mouse button for 5 minutes solid? Staring at the same unchanging screen? It's like a million years pass in your head. You've wondered if it's done yet 5 times in the last second alone.

Stealing should be a pain in the ass, but it shouldn't be mind-numbing

That's the point I was trying to make. To deter someone with break time it would have to be tedious.

But then I think you would want to build the game to reward creativity, not tedium.

So it would be a puzzle. The defender builds it and the thief has to solve it.

[HidingInTheLight 10]

Yes, there are anti xray plugins for bukkit servers. But TFC don't run on bukkit servers. While it might be compatible with those plugins once we get to MC 1.4.x, that's yet to be seen. Chances are TFC is going to be well beyond the limits of the API, and we'll still need to mod the jar to get it to work and that could likely do away with compatibility with plugins or other mods. It'd be smarter to plan everything that is wanted for the mod, with in the mod itself, rather then relying on external plugins for protection.

[Firestorm13 14]

I think a big part of making something like this feel more real would be re-adding villagers. Villagers would look more human (No more giant noses or immobile arms) and would arrive in small groups when a player has built suitable housing for them.

Suitable housing would basically be a room at least 5x5 containing a bed, a door, and a light source. Building workshops, churches, armories, etc. would attract craftsmen, priests, guards, and other special villagers, who would add a nice touch of diversity to the growing town.

However, special villagers would be useful in another way as well- players would be able to hire them to do work for them. For example, one could supply a blacksmith with metal and a forge, then pay him some money to create 4 pickaxe heads. To make sure it didn't get too overpowered, however, villager-forged tools would be pretty shoddy. A beginner blacksmith's pickaxe heads would only be at 1/2 durability, for example. Fortunately, the special villagers would "level up" and slowly increase the quality of their work.

One thing that's been popping up on this thread fairly often is the issue of griefers and thieves. People have suggested plugin-based protection, but I have a more organic solution- hire guards to protect your property. Guards could be assigned posts and given weapons to use, along with orders such as "Don't attack [username]." or "Allow everyone through but [username]." Guards could also be equipped with better armor. Like other special villagers, guards would deal little damage when first hired, but veterans would be able to dish out massive beatings.

Now, you may be asking yourself "How do I give these villagers orders?" Well, that's simple. A player would first right-click on a villager while holding money. A GUI would pop up showing a fee, the villager's profession, and a "Hire" button. Clicking the button would automatically subtract the fee from the player's inventory. Then, the player would use markings and a piece of paper to craft Orders, then right-click on the hired villager. Another GUI would pop up, this time showing a menu of different actions. For a farmer, for example, a potential order might look like "Go to (orchard) > Harvest (peaches) > Put (peaches) in (chest)."

If there's sufficient interest in my post I might write more about the different types of villager and their potential orders tomorrow. Also, more village dynamics.

[Scooterdanny 285]

Snip

I like this idea, the first part smells of terraria but the rest is quite interesting, however, there is no way i want to get half durability from my hard earned metal XD in the end, i say dont let the villagers make the game too easy, it also bores me when mod options make the game easier

[Bioxx 796]

Here's a rough theory on how I see the town system working.

<I'm not sure how to start the process>

Player A purchases/creates a Home Stone. The Home Stone is a special engraved stone encrusted with jewels and metal which acts as the founding stone for a town. Depending on the resources used, the radius is larger or smaller. Once a player places a Home Stone, they become the mayor of the town, able to sell or rent out land to other players. Players can register themselves as citizens of a town as well as pay taxes or w/e we add. A neighboring town can declare war on another town which would remove the special protections that are in place to prevent griefing for those that are citizens of each town. Towns should have a minimum number of citizens in order to prevent abuse of this system.

Ideas:

• Players can buy land which extends from 128 to 256 where no-one may build.
• Players can buy mineral rights which extend from 0-128 wherein no-one may mine.
• Players can build outside the city limits freely but will be subject to the anarchy of the wild.
• Monsters will not spawn within city limits.
• Rarely NPC raiders may attack towns.

The more things that are handled by the server and not by OPs or Admins the better as far as I'm concerned. Nothing is more lame than playing on your favorite server and no-one is online to accept you into the town or w/e.

Edit: This is purely SMP. At this point, SSP is becoming more and more irrelevant in my design decisions. I understand that folks like NPCs, but everything about them helps ruin balance.

[dabman10 34]

Interesting discussions so far, especially on security/protection. I'll offer my own ideas.

Crime is a rich gameplay feature that can be unreliably handled when the reins are given to actual players. It's not realism that matters here, it is the idea that what has been gained needs to be protected. This adds value and excitement to the game. One way to implement crime reliably would be to simulate it. This makes crime more specific, predictable, and preventable. Ideas would include:

• Thieving.

  Specific rules could ensure that x number of items are stolen based on x conditions. This gives players knowledge about how to prevent this or expect what could happen. A physical mob that tries to break in a house to steal an item would be an example. You learn what methods and rules it follows, and then you find highly-effective ways that stop it from happening.

• Vandalism.

  Simulating this means there is no unnecessary grief caused by cruel players seeking entertainment. A door could be broken, a window could be shattered, a building could be lit on fire. All of these would be conditions a player would could control, and would feel responsibility for if not controlled properly.

• Piracy/Brigandism.

  Again, rules and conditions would allow players to know and feel more comfortable in dealing with chaos around them.

It is absolutely critical that there are reasons for players to cooperate and build a society. Much has already been mentioned about resource distribution that would help require cooperation. It's also important to give beneficial advantages of cooperating on the local scale. I'll give a couple examples currently in the game that demonstrate the idea of collective benefits, then discuss new possibilities:

• Minecart systems.

  I think most people know how useless it is to build minecart rail for your individual mining operation. Why? Well, it's quite unbalanced for one reason, since a minecart should be able to transport far more goods than you can actually carry yourself. But it's also unpractical because you are the only one using it. When several people cooperate, the cost of a rail system is much lower per person, so it incentivizes one to cooperate.

• Highly technical skills.

  I think everyone agrees that some of the gameplay features are incredibly complicated and difficult to master. I've played numerous team vs team games where one had to ensure there was a good blacksmith and competent fighter on the same team. There is a dilemma with TFC however, and that is, how technical should the game be? I am aware of the rejection of level-based skills, and so I believe this means the most efficient methods to make food, craft items, gather resources, and fight should all be difficult skills to learn. The more things one has to do, and the larger the learning curve each special type of task becomes, the more it necessitates cooperation with other players.

• New items that provide a collective benefit.

  Going along the similar vein as transit systems, there should be other craft-able items that are very difficult and/or expensive to make, and provides an advantage that does not lose much value if it is shared with others.

  • Bell Tower: The bell tower would function as a warning system. I have several ideas about its potential uses. If any blocks (ie. buildings) within proximity of the bell are damaged or altered based on conditions (player name, player owner, town resident, etc.), it would produce an alarm. This alarm could create a number of effects. Another idea is that the bell would alarm for other conditions (monster within proximity, number of fire blocks in vicinity is increasing, etc.)
  • Minions: These could serve a variety of roles, from guarding a certain area, repairing damage to altered blocks, putting out fires, etc. These roles are not needed on a constant basis, so sharing them is highly advantageous if it's expensive or difficult to acquire them.
  • Machines and other infrastructure. It may be enormously time-consuming to build a millstone and set-up a mill for it to actually function, but once done an entire town could benefit. This is true for anvils as well. Items that are rarely used, hard to acquire, but essential will help make sure players will cooperate and build societies.

• Disasters that require cooperation.

  Invasions, drought, storms, you name it. Disasters are good reasons for players to work together.

[enenra 5]

Reagarding the topic of protecting chests, how about this:

Chests stay as they are. But, a new object is added: A safe. A safe has to be built similarly to a forge or bloomery, out of blocks (which are very expensive). A safe is, once built, indestructible by normal means - the only way to break into it is by placing a special block near it, possibly supplying it with fuel, and waiting until a considerably long timer runs out - I'm talking about half a real life day or even more.

What this results in is that banks become viable to store items as not everyone will have a safe - will be too costly. Additionally, while stuff still can be stolen, there is a high probability that the owner will be able to intervene before that happens.

[Scooterdanny 285]

As nice as that sounds enera, i think the majority of protection will fall under rules in the server, or protected land purchased from a mayor.

[DoodTheDud 29]

Anything that prevents people from freely altering blocks destroys all hope of PvP in SMP. It makes it impossibly boring. Make destruction something harder and more dangerous to do, and fighting cities is more than just stabbing at their inhabitants (which is very, very boring).

Perhaps protect chests to some degree, for some sense of security, but making a huge square of a town into "protected land" that can only be altered by the tenants just kills any PvP aspect of the mod. Unless you were to add in siege equipment usable from afar to strike fear and damage structures from afar.

I love this mod because it makes SMP more interesting. Tasks are difficult enough that people are motivated to band together. But once you get a little stick fence and some torches up, all danger is over. Forever.

Allowing players to add to this danger adds fun. If everyone can close a door and ensure 100% safety for their equipment, why bother PvPing? There is no gain. Everyone just stashes their valuables the second a PvPer shows up, and then no-one loses anything. Sure, they lose their life, but people suicide just to get out of eating on Easy difficulty all the time. People don't value their life, they only fear dying because of losing their items and/or position.

If you want to focus on SMP and communities, please try to avoid large swathes of protected land. Perhaps a town hall can be constructed around your "Home Stone" that is protected, and any structures beyond that are left open?

Players should be building defenses (militias, arms and armor, etc) on their own.

The most boring thing in any game is absolute safety and security.

[RogueHydra 32]

Half asleep since I need to be going to bed anyway just having back issues... so after skimming the thread I thought I'd put in my two cents on a system of sorts:

People can (maybe via asking an admin) appoint a 'mayor' of sorts, who gets the ability to lock/protect/etc. certain plots of land within the area that has been annexed to where the town/city/etc. has been built. The mayor also can declare war (which might require a mutual agreement aka: a command sent to the server as a reply saying: ok). Now, for this next step I'm about to go into to work, people playing on the server can request to be added to a faction, giving them certain permissions within the city/town. Now, when the war declaration has been made between factions A and B, only members of those factions are granted destructive permissions on blocks for a duration agreed upon by both mayors and this war declaration will only last so long after which the permissions are disabled.

Ok that probably sounded like a bunch of crap with no real substance so anyone is free to try and make sense of that idea. I was trying to briefly summarize (and probably did horribly) how the game Eve Online handles war declarations between players' corporations and alliances.

I may elaborate later today when I get some sleep before work... in 5 hours..... :

[Enzer 60]

Anything that prevents people from freely altering blocks destroys all hope of PvP in SMP. It makes it impossibly boring. Make destruction something harder and more dangerous to do, and fighting cities is more than just stabbing at their inhabitants (which is very, very boring).

Perhaps protect chests to some degree, for some sense of security, but making a huge square of a town into "protected land" that can only be altered by the tenants just kills any PvP aspect of the mod. Unless you were to add in siege equipment usable from afar to strike fear and damage structures from afar.

I love this mod because it makes SMP more interesting. Tasks are difficult enough that people are motivated to band together. But once you get a little stick fence and some torches up, all danger is over. Forever.

Allowing players to add to this danger adds fun. If everyone can close a door and ensure 100% safety for their equipment, why bother PvPing? There is no gain. Everyone just stashes their valuables the second a PvPer shows up, and then no-one loses anything. Sure, they lose their life, but people suicide just to get out of eating on Easy difficulty all the time. People don't value their life, they only fear dying because of losing their items and/or position.

If you want to focus on SMP and communities, please try to avoid large swathes of protected land. Perhaps a town hall can be constructed around your "Home Stone" that is protected, and any structures beyond that are left open?

Players should be building defenses (militias, arms and armor, etc) on their own.

The most boring thing in any game is absolute safety and security.

True, however not all SMP servers are PVP based. The server that I play on is Cooperative Survival, meaning that everyone works as a team to overcome the dangers of the wilderness. While vanilla MC and TFC do not currently add much in ways of real challenge to players thus far, we have gotten around this in the past by holding randomly scheduled events such as town invasions or player attacks (where the players are the ones that invade an area set up in advanced by the operators or they must hold the fort in a newly created area in order to win the rights to explore there).

http-~~-//www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKmdxo4oqJc&feature=relmfu

http-~~-//www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgaIxx43H_8

http-~~-//www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-28YD9enlw

While I like the idea of cities being able to declare war on each other, MC's combat is so bad that straight up PVP is boring as hell.

Invasion events, if done right, provide a lot more entertainment, and I can see TFC being able to pull off a few neat things that would make having a strongly united city something that you really want to get set up.

Sure preventing mobs spawning within town limits is fine, eventually all towns will be lit up enough that the only mobs that will make it in are the ones that wander from the deep dark woods beyond your border. This is boring and stagnates gameplay, if towns are to provide the protection of secure lighting automatically, then there needs to be events that trigger that challenge the fortifications of your town.

Picture this, every night at the witching hour, there is a small chance for a variety of effects to happen: a zombie hoard can come to bang on your town's walls, slowly breaking in. Skeletal archers of expectational skill could appear on the out skirting hills, launching volleys of arrows deep into your town. Hell, even an event that kills the light source (not breaks, but disables) of every torch and bit of glowstone in town, sweeping everything into darkness so that the creatures of the night can manifest would be really neat. Ultimately though, it becomes an issue of the vanilla mobs just not being enough to argue the need of nullifying mob spawning, maybe if new mobs were added.

I do however like the ideas of npc bandits besieging your town during the day, that seems really neat. I'll be back with more organized thoughts on creating a better PVE environment in MC that would balance with the need for towns, a little tired right now.

----

For protecting your stuff, I think that being able to craft locks out of an ingot would be a simple solution. The lock's "quality" would be based upon its material and how well you made it (similar to durability ratings for all metal tools), with a lock being produced rated as: Shoddy, Simple, Normal and Complicated. Or something along those lines. Combining a lock with a door or chest in a crafting table produces a [Quality] [Metal] Locked Door that designates to the person who places it, not makes it (so that these items can be sold). Crafting a Key item will allow you to interact with a GUI on a door or chest to change it to being permanently locked or unlocked or assigning "spare keys" (not a physical item players have to carry, maybe make it a consumable to add new players to the list though. 1 ingot = 10 keys?) to other players so that they may access a locked item. Locked chest would only be single chest, but you would be able to place them side by side to compensate, this will allow would be thieves to be able to figure out which chests to go after.

For thieves, I would suggest a set of lock pick tools. Lock pick tools would have durability like all other tools and would have to be made of a material equal to or greater than the strength of the materials used to make the lock. Picking a lock would be similar to how the anvil works with an array of buttons that moves two lines near each other. The thief would have to obey certain instructions of various complications (as dictated by the quality of the lock) with the final instruction being the one that also aligns the two lines. So far very similar to the anvil process, however, as you input instructions trying to get the lock picked, you are adding tension to your tools and the lock, this is represented by a meter that fills at a rate proportional to the lock you are picking (and how much better quality your tools are). If this meter fills all the way, the lock jams and NO ONE is able to pick it again until the owner of the chest opens it again. This meter resets if you exit the lock picking screen, however you have to wait 5-10 min before anyone is able to attempt again.

This gives players a pretty reasonable amount of protections from thieves and also makes being a thief an actual skill one has to develop with practice, same as being able to effectively make high quality tools.

If that isn't enough protection, you could make it so that at certain points as the tension meter builds local players will get a percentage chance of receiving a whispered message of hearing metal click with a guarantee message to everyone in the area if the lock jams. You could also make it an option in the config menu to disable lock picking all together.

---

Bioxx, since you want to lead players in the development of cities that they will live in and fight for, may I suggest maybe implementing a few new structures to help with the defense of a town?

I am thinking of things along the lines of functioning portcullis or maybe some death from above type items like cauldrons full of boiling oil you can tip over an edge? Would you also be interested in ideas like that?

[tsnm 29]

Create a NPC system of cities (including INN, Shops of weapons, tools, raw ores, Restaurants), and this cities can be bought by a player to own this city (only accept one buy), or include his as citizen.

This system create life in SSP and SMP (and can be choose into world creation options).

Some cities can be underground with a entrance in upper ground. This feature add underground forest and animal to ecosystem.

Into the cities, the citizen can register into NPC guild (SSP), or NPC/players guild(SMP). Into the guild, the player can level up skills and learn other guild only skills. Each guild has unique skills, then the player must travel around the world to learn new skills. For example: Only in the Fish City, you can learn Fisher skill to improve this ability. If the player do not learn this skill, only can fish a bottle or sticks. But each player can only learn a limited number of skills, if the player want to learn a new skill, he has to forget other skill.

If any player has a house in a city, he has to pay monthly the tax, but instead he receives goods. In NPC city the player can not change the list of goods but if the player buy a city, he can change these monthly goods.

This system can be used into SSP and SMP.

[psychotimo 5]

Create a NPC system of cities (including INN, Shops of weapons, tools, raw ores, Restaurants), and this cities can be bought by a player to own this city (only accept one buy), or include his as citizen.

This system create life in SSP and SMP (and can be choose into world creation options).

Some cities can be underground with a entrance in upper ground. This feature add underground forest and animal to ecosystem.

Into the cities, the citizen can register into NPC guild (SSP), or NPC/players guild(SMP). Into the guild, the player can level up skills and learn other guild only skills. Each guild has unique skills, then the player must travel around the world to learn new skills. For example: Only in the Fish City, you can learn Fisher skill to improve this ability. If the player do not learn this skill, only can fish a bottle or sticks. But each player can only learn a limited number of skills, if the player want to learn a new skill, he has to forget other skill.

If any player has a house in a city, he has to pay monthly the tax, but instead he receives goods. In NPC city the player can not change the list of goods but if the player buy a city, he can change these monthly goods.

This system can be used into SSP and SMP.

i like the idea, but i'm not that fond of 'forgetting another skill' a better solution could be that every city can give you the basic skills, for example any random city can learn you how to fish properly, but only in a port city/fishing based city can you 'upgrade' the fishing skill/ learn more fishing related skills.

since those things are like riding a bike, IMO you shouldn't be able to 'forget' the skills, a better idea could be to just give players a cap, for example: only 3 skills can be maxed, the rest are all at their most basic level. (or make it more of a 'jack of all trades'-type of system in which anyone can learn everything, but after the third or so mastered skill you'll need a lot more training before you can learn something new. )

for servers maybe add a config file in which you can choose how many skills everyone can master, that way everyone can fish, but it's much easier for a well-trained fisherman to get juicy fishies ^^ (making everyone able to live on their own, while being a lot more profitable to live and work together with other peeps.)

[tsnm 29]

@psychotimo: Maybe not forgot another skill (when you skill list is full), but improve only X levels of skills can be a solution. For example: You could levelup 10 levels of Mining or 5 levels of Mining and 5 levels of Speed or 2+2+2+2+2……

And is interesting add infinite RPG levels to levelup more skills and add a system of animal/monster level by biome/layer, first layers increase the level of mobs and the biome could multiply this levels. And Nether/End, multiply to much these levels.

[LtChae 13]

I have to say, I like Bioxx's "Homestone" idea. It provides protection and control to players, while still allowing for warfare to take place.

I think that all high-level politics should be purely player-based. However, game mechanics could be added to help it along like in-game bulletin boards, and other ways of disseminating news. Also useful would be a means of accessing a screen that summarized who is in charge of your town, along with voting options (if enabled by the government of your town. If not, Viva la revolution!)

Also, a way for towns to band together (voluntarily, or forcibly ) into factions that would act like nations, with their own rulers and government over the towns that make them up.

I would love to see large conglomerations of towns band together and wage bloody war against each other, with smaller factions forced to take sides (or sell steel swords to both sides for a tidy profit)

[Ryuugumo 88]

All this talk and nobody says what the currency would be made of or what it would be. We could use the emeralds they just added in since Beta3 is far off in the future. Or ... , maybe we could have a system added to work those useless gems into money at a ratio that agrees with their quality. This would open the possibility of different currencies if you wanted to have one for each gem type or they could all cut into the same currency. One way or the other jewelers should have more uses than they do now.

[enenra 5]

Gems as a currency is quite a cool idea IMO. I guess the problem is that unless it is somehow integrated into the game, there is little incentive to use them as such, plus at the moment it's still rather easy to get to own a lot of gems so their value would decrease overall with the influx of more gems.

I don't really see much of another way of really binding a currency to a value except with NPC traders though. Mind you, the way it is done in vanilla is stupid and it shouldn't work that way.