Kingdoms Brainstorming

[barkingnoise 19]

Don't get me wrong, I think it's possible on a certain server(s), under the right conditions, indeed you may have done it on your server. But TFC isn't being designed for, or atleast my ideas aren't for, a single server with 1000's of players like you have. A system in TFC needs to be designed for multiple servers of varying sizes. A server with 50 members won't be able to mount as strong of a defense vs the griefers.

To add; there haven't been 1000 players online at the same time, the cap is (or at least used to be) at around 100 in peak hours. There are around 1000 subscribers to the subreddit, and that's where the number comes from mainly.

quick-edit:

which means that griefer-defence has been successfully done at numbers lower than 100.

[Buzhwaz 17]

building towns is a great way to include more macro-crafting...or enviro-crafting...or whatever. after you craft a home stone, you use it as a brick in building a great hall. the hall would be a place to buy land, pay debts, hold coffers, etc. however, you shouldn't be able to call yourself a 'town' with only a hall. in order to become a town, you should also have to build a couple of other things... a granary and an armory, for instance. then you're officially established as a town. perhaps the granary and the armory could be built and owned by different players, who will each wield control of their resource, thus making a little room for some politics to flare.

one possible function of an armory might be to craft friendly mob spawners, which a town could place at its gate and near its coffers to defend against any thieves or marauders. the wealthier a town, the more mob spawners it can get, thereby offering more protection for its citizens.

after your town is established, you can add more structures. like a market, where players could come and trade. citizens in your county would be able to build carts to sell their own goods. add a blacksmith where players can get their weapons and armor repaired or improved. arenas, where players could compete in archery or sword fighting for a purse. lots of things could be done.

money is a problem. if you have to have it, it should stay rather simple...allow towns to mint and set the value of their own money. see how it plays out. this would mean that they would also need to have some type of control over tariffs and taxes and stuff. however, unless there's a compelling logistical reason to use money at all, probably the best thing for tfc is a robust stock exchange mechanic.

[EternalUndeath 1,208]

Okay, so I see that locks are pretty popular as an idea... how about this then.

There's a craftable item called a 'padlock', wrought iron or better. It will have a plan pattern.

When you craft this in the anvil, it will come out with X amount of damage depending on how well you make it, same as a tool. The damage values could be, say, 1-50 or whatever. The lock never actually takes damage.

Lockpicks are also craftable, with a lockpick head (copper or better, made on the anvil with a plan) and a stick (or handle, if we add those from the other thread). They can have a durability of 1-30 or something, with an additional 5 points for every tier of metal above copper. These, like locks and tools, can be forged well or poorly.

Right-clicking on a chest with a padlock removes the lock from your hand and turns the chest into a locked chest, which is a separate block. A locked chest cannot be opened, even by the chest owner. If you right click on a locked chest with a lockpick, the lock's durability is removed from the durability of the pick. If the pick is still intact, it then makes a check with a 10% chance of opening the lock and making it pop off as an item, returning the chest to normal. This is improved by 3% for ever tier of metal above copper.

Keys are also craftable with a plan and an anvil. They are blank when crafted. crafting a blank key with a padlock yields a regular key with hidden metadata that links it to that particular padlock, and places the lock back in your inventory. This key will remove that lock and only that lock from a chest with 100% chance, losing no durability.

A keyring would also be craftable. A keyring would have in its code a list of all the values assigned to the keys on it, starting with a null set {} when freshly crafted. Crafting a key with a keyring will remove the key from your inventory and add its value to the keyring's list. So if you add 3 keys whose values are :3490 :1520 and :0012, then your keyring would have the set {3490, 1520, 0012}, and would function exactly the same as all those keys.

Now you could just say 'well what's stopping someone from breaking the chest?'

Absolutely nothing. Just like there's absolutely nothing stopping someone from breaking into your house, smashing open your cabinet, and taking all of your shit IRL. This is a very real possibility, and was even more likely back in the time period TFC supposedly takes place in. The solution is to live with other people who have a schedule such that someone is usually home at all times, and to have a very efficient legal system.

You think that an IRL thief has a problem opening a hole in your wall or basement and knicking your shit? You're dead wrong, friend. The only thing deterring them is the thought of the effort involved, and the risk of getting caught.

[Enzer 60]

Honestly I think we should stop focusing on griefers all together for now. No option is perfect and nothing will deter people who want to be assholes. This thread is beginning to lose its purpose because of the direction the conversation has gone. Discussing how land ownership and protection is great, but not when it is completely about griefing..

[Toboo 15]

So with all the talk of NPC's , I thought I would bring up an Idea I've suggested, make NPC like Dwarf Fortress were sometimes you wonder if you would be better off without them, you would have to keep citizens happy by giving them proper housing, good food, and generally good living conditions, unhappy NPC's may refuse to work, break buildings, or start massacring other citizens. Since Bioxx said he took inspiration from Dwarf Fortress on this I can't think of a better way to do it, add some other players to the mix and the amount of Fun to be had would be limitless. Also Nobles should be as "helpful" as they are in Dwarf Fortress.

[dat594 11]

Current NPCs "breed" in housings overnight. The ability to create life by using an item seems out of place!

Agreed, this is a subject that spawns varied discussions.

I ment that the item would designate the house a a npc house so they would not take ove player houses

[dat594 11]

the problem about griefers difers greatly than with real life theaves

1. security systems, we have no cops, we do not sleep in these houses and cant

so no cops to catch the bad guy and no angry sleepwalker with a shotgun to make them think twice

2. most people have neighbors

in game you may not have someone on at all times, really a town usually has people on at almost the same time, its what makes smp fun, playing with friends not tag teaming with them.

3. dogs...

4. those who don't have neighbors live in the midle of nowhere and thieves arn't going to take the time to search all of western kansas,I live in kansas so I can say this, for some unprotected house.

5. most peopl have morals and think thieving and simply causing mayhem is wrong

in minecraft their are tons of people who get their kicks from ruining someones day just cause( even if it takes hours to break a block they have no life and so will watch tv while holding the mouse button)

you can't seriously talk about towns, houses, everyday server life without talking about griefers and comming up with a plan to make the game chalanging yet not depresing when you log back in from and emergancy break right after crearing you first mine and find all your stuf gone and your swimming in lava, hyperbobly most likely they just fill in your house with dirt to sufocate you

[HidingInTheLight 10]

To add; there haven't been 1000 players online at the same time, the cap is (or at least used to be) at around 100 in peak hours. There are around 1000 subscribers to the subreddit, and that's where the number comes from mainly.

quick-edit:

which means that griefer-defence has been successfully done at numbers lower than 100.

Obviously there aren't 1000 on at a time, but you have a player base of that many. With that large of a player base, it's likely that at least 10-20 are on at any given time. Enough to notice a griefer, and stop it.

If a server only has a total of 50 players total, it's likely there will be times that only 1 or 2 people are on, there maybe even be times when a griefer would have the server to themselves.

[Crysyn 179]

If/How npcs enter the equation at all remains to be seen. This will not make starting the game any different unless you're starting on a server that has been around for a while. There will be some trading mechanics to facilitate an economy.

This may be answered some where in the 4 pages of stuff I have not read as of yet.. But does this mean this is rather useless on any server that does not have multiple groups of players?

[EternalUndeath 1,208]

the problem about griefers difers greatly than with real life theaves

1. security systems, we have no cops, we do not sleep in these houses and cant

so no cops to catch the bad guy and no angry sleepwalker with a shotgun to make them think twice

2. most people have neighbors

in game you may not have someone on at all times, really a town usually has people on at almost the same time, its what makes smp fun, playing with friends not tag teaming with them.

3. dogs...

4. those who don't have neighbors live in the midle of nowhere and thieves arn't going to take the time to search all of western kansas,I live in kansas so I can say this, for some unprotected house.

5. most peopl have morals and think thieving and simply causing mayhem is wrong

in minecraft their are tons of people who get their kicks from ruining someones day just cause( even if it takes hours to break a block they have no life and so will watch tv while holding the mouse button)

you can't seriously talk about towns, houses, everyday server life without talking about griefers and comming up with a plan to make the game chalanging yet not depresing when you log back in from and emergancy break right after crearing you first mine and find all your stuf gone and your swimming in lava, hyperbobly most likely they just fill in your house with dirt to sufocate you

1) Who's to say that guards can't be appointed in cities/castles, who get paid TFC currency to walk around town looking for greifers in shifts?

2) As Hiding said above me, there will usually be people on if enough are on the server. And in a castle/town, you WILL have neighbors chilling around.

3) Domesticated wolves can be recoded to become hostile to PCs not on the 'guest list' for your house that enter your property bounds

4) Isn't that a good thing?

5) In RL there's tons of people who get their kicks doing the same shit. If there weren't, crime rates would be less than a tenth of what they are now because all crimes would likely be done out of desperation - stealing food cuz you're starving, hot blooded murder, etc... MC players have morals too, you know. I've never griefed a single person except for my friend Fearick, whom I was in a prank war with. And to be fair, blocking his nether portal with obsidian was payback for him filling an entire floor of my wizard's tower with water

[Ryuugumo 88]

Honestly I think we should stop focusing on griefers all together for now. No option is perfect and nothing will deter people who want to be assholes. This thread is beginning to lose its purpose because of the direction the conversation has gone. Discussing how land ownership and protection is great, but not when it is completely about griefing..

^ This. Let's get back to productive work instead of focusing on what we either cann't agree on or cann't stop.

[Joey 59]

The problem with complete protection for anything privately owned is that it just isn't realistic. What you need is a way to reinforce blocks/chests so they take a lot more effort for possible thieves to destroy, but still allows them to do that if you do not adequately protect your property.

Also, there must be a way to imprison individuals. "Killing" someone and having them teleport to a preset "saferoom" would be one way to solve that problem. Basically what you want for something like this is to allow players to moderate, without actual Mod interference.

What I'm saying is, CHECK OUT CIVCRAFT. It's already got all this worked out, seriously.

But I don't think we should focus on the multiplayer aspect of TFCraft until the core game has reached a reasonable level of stability (much less frequent updates, need for map resets hopefully becoming a "once every few months" sort of deal, instead of every week). The more a server has to be reset, the less established cities and communities become, the less "realistic" the game becomes.

Is civcraft still active?

Where can I play?

[Firestorm13 14]

I think one small thing that could encourage naturally-evolving player factions would be multiple spawn points. As in, when you first join the game you randomly spawn at one of two or more spawn points. Spawning there "locks" you to that faction. This would be a configurable option for server owners to determine when they create the world.

Spawn points would have to be at least three to five kilometers away from each other for it to be effective- armies would have to march through rough, uneven terrain to get to enemy cities, and trading caravans would be forced to create trails and roads to make travel between friendly nations easy.

Oh, and another thing: For kingdoms to work well, transportation and combat both need to be overhauled. I'm going to plug this and these three threads here. They have great ideas and could work extremely well with the kingdoms update.

[HidingInTheLight 10]

^ This. Let's get back to productive work instead of focusing on what we either cann't agree on or cann't stop.

The parts that can't be agreed upon are the parts that need to be discussed. Honestly, I don't care that everyone doesn't agree with my ideas, I like that everyone is weighing in on it. The more ideas we spit out, the more possibilities Bioxx and the rest of the devs have to consider when they ultimately make their design choice.

[Lumireaver 101]

Pardon me, I skipped over a lot to chime in on something after I read about Homestones. (I'll read more in a bit, but alas, the days efforts have made me grow weary. :U) Instead of any sort of protection, couldn't it be made so that tool durability was multiplied, and effectiveness was cut to an eighth, or something, except by players whose names are engraved on the stone? So raiding is still viable and stuff. Homestones could also be destroyed and would have to be safeguarded and/or hidden somehow.

Also

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.

It's a TFC!Vanilla protection system that could potentially be circumvented with skill but should serve to deter theft.

Plugging my alphanumeric pin and tumbler lock/key suggestion. ...Which is...somewhere. I'll find it tomorrow. :U

edit: ...There...now sleep.

edit2: Ohoho, plugging a plug. :U

[redundantusage 330]

A simple fix would seem to be to provide configurable menus or files for towns and claims. If options are provided that allow the servers to choose when or if protection comes into play, then the people who want protection will be happier, and the people who want realistic consequences will be happier. A wider range of TFC server types will derive from this, thus fulfilling Bioxx's goal of providing a gameplay experience that is unique per playthrough.

Potential Configurable Options:

Invulnerability to all blocks in a town or claim to all but those who live there.

Only chests of a town or claim are protected.

When all players of a town or claim log off, protection is either enacted then, or after an interval of time.

This is an easily expanded list, and with the coming of LAN games with 1.31, it would mean a variety of different game styles on smaller scales as well.

[antimattergizmo 41]

I'm partial to the idea of influence in terms of people in a settlement, the advancement (how far in a technical line) of the settlement, et cetera growing your borders. Growth would be based on need for specific items (as configurable within the Homestone) such and extra growth on hilly areas if you are very low on metals/ores or extra growth within plains if you are low on food stuffs.

This leads to passive debuffs/buffs depending on how complex the terrain is (large growth in y coord/ large amount of water in a non ocean/lake/river) so that you don't gain a plains hill as quick as a flat plains when still in need of food, but quicker than a flat forest when not in need of logs.

The base generated ownership is that of wilderness, that has a base influencing value that rises on a small settlement over time, or a rise in population in too quick a time (something like overcrowding leading to lowered population health). When the Wild takes over outer parts of towns, the buildings (player placed blocks) are open to destruction, looting, and degrading. Once the Homestone is taken over (such as in a ghost town) the degrading of the town is sped up dramatically to the point that in a week or so MC time the town is all but ruins of a lost tribe/civilization of which minor loot can be found by the wondering adventurer.

This creates a system of only needing a few people that work hard to keep a small village running, while mass expansion and sprawling cities will be there for towns that stand the test of time.

In the last of my dronings on I think that growth could potentially be factored with the amount of time people are on (in a vague way like a solar panel) the time and effort directly relates to large percentages of town growth (as opposed to the single digit percentile buffs of the land as stated above). This can prevent (but also aide) cities that need a second village by not letting a small group of visionaries go out of town aways with complex technology and machines with the expectation that they will get an instant -suburbs if you will- to clod the land with very small factions that pretty much mooched off the trials of working you settlement through the ranks. There will, however, be a certain advantage to doing this with the permission of governor-monarch-dictator-pope-mayor-presidents as a specified joint of the parent city (such as increased city to suburb trading)

[Remedi 0]

I'm normally more of a lurker, but I had a couple ideas I hadn't seen in the thread already, and ways to combine a couple that have...

Going from the idea of the homestones, we have the "mayor", or whatever you want to call him, who places the stone and founds the town. His job in the town is then to organize the citizens toward a goal.

To enable this, all who wish to live in the town must pay a tax, the timer for payments would be tracked individually and not time down while the player is offline. Paying taxes keeps you listed as a member of the town, and allows the use of communal lots and items, perhaps even the aforementioned immunity to griefing while you're offline.

A certain percentage of these taxes must be spent on something that benefits the town in some way. Some examples: expanding borders, upgrading city-wide defenses, paying guards, or supplying guards with weapons. You could even add communal benefits like an orchard that is free for any citizen to harvest from, with city workers replenishing saplings; or a bank that uses one of the many ideas for personalized locking chests, all stored in a place where they can be watched, for a reasonable enough sum to prevent the guards themselves from taking advantage of their position, of course.

The mayor can try and take more money than he is alloted. So, towns have to enact safeguards to prevent abuses of the tax controls. Auditors, careful attention to how quickly and how lavishly the mayor's house grows, etc. If the people catch their mayor dipping into city coffers, they can install a new mayor. Naturally, this means that some system must be in place to prove the claim, and prevent false accusations and abuse of the power.

All of the additions to a town that the mayor pays for come from members of the town who provide the services rendered, which ensures that the money stays in circulation and citizens can pay future taxes.

[EternalUndeath 1,208]

Honestly, I like the mail system in forestry.

I think the mailboxes and trade boxes or whatever are a bit off-message and not quite with the feel of TFC, but I believe wax-sealed parchment that can be hand delivered could be totally viable

[GCountach 39]

Introduction:

Well, here's my current thought on kingdoms. A kingdom would have a king/queen who then has a handful of helpers (we'll call them Nobles, since I don't know the exact terminology for them). You can have as many nobles as you want, but you'd be a fool to have too many, as they are given a lot of power over the kingdom.... there's also a cost as I'll get into. Allegiances can me made, as well as war. Trade is possible, pillaging is possible. Belonging to a town would net you both benefits and costs, but would improve your overall security.

Disclaimers:

Number one, I am only throwing out a concept. How it would be implemented or if it could even BE implemented isn't considered much, as I'm not a developer so I don't know what can/can't be done. Number two, this is a helluva long post. If you plan on reading through this (and thank you, btw!), go grab a cup of your favorite beverage and a snack. It's a long read.

Basic Concept:

My ideas attempt to recreate feudal-age politics (poorly, as I'm sure you'll come to think) and the reason for kingdoms (in my head): security. As such, all my ideas attempt to improve security with cost, as safety isn't free. Kingdoms should be more secure than roughing it on your own, but living on your own should not cause you any financial overheard that living in a kingdom would. This is my basic premise.

Meet the Hierarchy:

In my current revision of kingdoms, there's four ranks: King/Queen, Noble, Guard/Knight, and Peasant. The king/queen is similar to nobles in power with one special gift: (s)he can dictate foreign policy. As of right now, that means (s)he can declare truce/war/alliance with other kingdoms. Otherwise, (s)he's similar to the nobles. The nobles are able to "land grab" (name pending), which is establish what land is under the kingdom's rule as well as set up collection boxes for taxes. There's no population minimum to how much land they can claim, but there is a set rate of "tax" on the kingdom which is based off the size of the land they are claiming ownership of. Debt will want to be avoid for reasons explained later.

Why I'm Forcing Taxes:

As much as people may hate this idea, forcing a tax on a kingdom is required for gameplay balancing reasons. First off, it artificially limits the size of any kingdom. This will also allow for other kingdoms to pop up in other lands as one kingdom won't be able to take over the 10k^2 area around spawn without a massive player base. Second, if you can't claim all the land you want at once, two kingdoms could end up having neighboring borders which could cause conflicts. Third, it allows other kingdoms to thrive as the tax will be levied on the entire population of the kingdom (save the king, nobles, and guards). If you are living under a heavy tax burden and a new kingdom is sprawling up and growing with a lesser tax burden, it would be an incentive to switch sides. This will help keep a server from growing stale.

The Peasants & Tax Collection:

If you're not a noble, you're a peasant. Keep in mind that butcher, farmer, lumberjack, miner, gatherer, etc. are all "peasants" which just means they're not nobles, kings, or guards. They are the lifeblood of any kingdom, as they are the ones that the taxes fall on. No one to collect taxes from = no taxes earned. Notice I mentioned a few actual roles, because taxing will be based off your role in the kingdom. While it will have to be balanced out of course, the basic concept is a percentage of your work done is "taxed" or just thrown away. By thrown away, I mean there is a collection box(s), placeable only by kings/queens and nobles, in the kingdom you must bring your items to in order to pay your tax. For example, if you were a lumberjack, you would have to take so many stacks of logs to this box after a certain time interval in order to pay your tax. Farmers would be wheat/meat, miners would be ore or stone if they've hit a rough patch, etc. It's worth mentioning that items are weighed, so if you throw in a couple of gold ore into the claim box, you could pay off your taxes for a long time. One log, however, would make you come back in 5min. Like I said, a balance would have to made here. Job boards could be used here to pick your occupation/see openings.

Where does my taxes go?:

This taxing doesn't disappear into thin air. It's converted into money that is deposited into a bank account for the nobles and king to use to buy up supplies from the server (at significant markup). It can also be withdrawn for real coin if you wish to trade with other kingdoms (no wire transfers here!). Only raw goods can be purchased from the shop (no tools/weapons/armor/charcoal). This way, a smith or 10 is still required to suit and weaponize an army as well as an army of lumberjacks to make the charcoal. Think carefully about your infrastructure and coffers before you decide to wage war! NOTE: This section is still in need of rethinking. Not in love with the idea of a "server shop", but neither am I liking the idea of taxes disappearing into the ether.

What about the Guards?:

Guards would have to be assigned or "promoted" by the nobles and kings, as their job requires a lot of trust. They do not pay taxes per se, but they do have to do their job patrolling, arresting those who don't pay their taxes, killing those who don't belong in their kingdom, even going off to fight if a war is on. If this isn't done, their rank will be in jeopardy (if this will be automated or not remains to be seen). Guards shouldn't be allowed to do any other job if they've been promoted to such position, to prevent an entire town of guards. There is nothing to prevent you from giving non-guards armor and weapons though, if you wish to have a standing militia, but loyalty can be a fickle thing. Now would be a good time to mention that no one is required to join a kingdom. You can live away from civilization as long as you want, but you'll miss out on the perks of joining a town...

Kingdom Perks:

Kingdoms have perks to provide incentive in joining one. First, blocks under the kingdom's rule are stronger than non-kingdom blocks. For example, a house made of planks would require 2x (example amount) as much chopping to break in a town compared to a house outside of a kingdom. This extended length only affects people outside of the town, i.e. those who aren't part of a town or are part of a different town. This would also affect chest blocks, making them harder to steal from. Doors would not open to anyone outside of a town, but could be broken down as 2x the cost of time. Attempting to break them when they are part of a town will cause a loud cracking sound just like if a zombie were to do it. This would alert nearby townies and possibly bring down the wrath of the town guards on the thief.

The Problem with Debt:

As I said before, in order for this all to work, a tax must be enforced so that a kingdom must be sized properly and that the perks of being in a kingdom are weighed by the costs, but what if you decide you want to claim half the entire server world with only 10 people playing? Well, you citizens would not be able to handle the taxes you would be able to place on them and your kingdom would go into debt. Once you reach a certain threshold of debt, the perks disappear. Basically, you still claim land, but everything mentioned above has reverted back to normal. Your kingdom is in trouble. You now have no benefits and are open to attack with only the resources you have to defend it. If you go in debt past another threshold, the kingdom is disband entirely. you can "release" areas of land to help lower the tax burden, which will be required over the course of a kingdom's rule as it naturally expands and contracts.

The Problem with Death:

The current problem I find with death is it has been cheapen. If you die now, you respawn at spawn or your bed and proceed to run to your items before they despawn (if no one is in the area, they can last indefinitely). This would cause robberies and fights to turn into a "throw an endless wave of cloned bodies at the fight til the attacker dies" strategy. Some people may say "hardcore servers will fix this", but it won't. Instead, it'll leave servers empty since, once you are banned, there's no going back in. My solution to this problem is to have a time limit before you can respawn. For simplicity sake, you could just implement a 1-hour death ban if possible, but my idea has you being throw into "the end" area for X-amount of time (1 hour seems to come up here again) at which point you are teleported back to your bed or spawn. This will make fights decisive. Once you lose, you're out. When one entire side of the skirmish is killed, fights over. It gives attackers a chance to rummage through the spoils, lay waste to a kingdom/house, whatever they wish to do. It will also make death costly since if you die, you can't protect your land and items. Armor will have value. Weapons will have value.

Looting and Greifing:

Totally possible without exceptions, though it will be limited in towns because of perks (and the fact that the town guards tend to be paid to prevent just this thing). After all, if you don't have to worry about defending your homestead, why would you ever consider paying for a kingdom's protection?

You Keep Mentioning War?:

War isn't just possible, it's built in! Each kingdom will have a.. can't think of the word... "status" we'll say toward every other kingdom. Alliance, Neutral, At War. Names aren't in stone here, but you get the idea I'm going for here. Neutral is going to be the one most common one and is the one each kingdom will be set to by default. War is an interesting one. When you're at war, the blocks for each waring kingdom are set to normal values, but only for those kingdoms. Example: Kingdom A and B go to war with C staying neutral. A and B can attack each other and their blocks break at normal rate. Kingdom C still takes the extra amount of time to break them since they aren't in declared conflict. In an alliance, some of the kingdom perks are ignored for the two kingdoms, namely if doors open (more here would be handy, but I haven't really fleshed out kingdom perks). If possible, names above aligned kingdom players would be green/blue instead of default white to signify they aren't a threat, but it would have to be only between those aligned together...

Conclusion:

This is the basic groundwork I've been able to come up with thus far that gives incentives to kingdoms why still keeping them balanced. It's very rough, I know, and tweaking is absolutely needed, but I think it's a decent foundation to build off of and alter. I also know that some ideas were more fleshed out than others (I wish I had a way to explain imprisonment, but I don't right now). Then again, if it's just ignored, I guess that's okay too. I just wanted to throw my 2 cents into the mix. Even if most of it is ignored, maybe one or two ideas from it sprout what ends up being the best idea, and I'll be happy with that.

[Scooterdanny 285]

Honestly, I like the mail system in forestry.

I think the mailboxes and trade boxes or whatever are a bit off-message and not quite with the feel of TFC, but I believe wax-sealed parchment that can be hand delivered could be totally viable

Only as long as we limit what exactly fits in an envelope, i mean, i don't want to open a little envelope to get 10 tonnes of stone XD, perhaps different package sizes IE: Envelope - monetary items, gems, and other small goodies like flowers.

Packages, for medium amounts of material, or a tool,

and a crate for absolutely ridiculous amount of resources (comparably anyways)

[ancientpower 32]

No offense, Bioxx, but this is a terrible idea. Forcing economy and politics on multiplayer is a bad decision, because players can easily set both up themselves if they so wish.

Adding a few cool SMP-only features would be neat, but focusing development on SMP player interaction is a bad idea and nearly makes me want to not play TFC. Currency is worthless in a game like Minecraft as only useful items have real value, and would certainly not work as intended and rarely be used if added. Politics should be strictly player-enforced(if even existent at all), and I personally hate things like the Factions Bukkit plugin that force players to assume negative feelings towards each other.

At the very least, please focus development on actual features and content before branching off to things like this that hold no real bearing to the core gameplay.

[HidingInTheLight 10]

I don't really believe he is trying to force anything on the players, just to provide the tools to them to help facilitate those functions.

An economy is easier to setup if there is a currency already there. Yet if a server choose to use a bartering system instead of the in mod currency, nothing would stop that from happening.

I do agree about factions, I'm more of a co-op player myself.

Providing the tools to establish towns, doesn't necessarily pit one town vs. the other. They can still live in peaceful co-existence.

[hindmost 15]

King, kingdoms... I agree with the man from Civcraft - we have no rights to enforce relations between gamers to be like we want. We don't ever have the right to enforce them to be.

Imagine the trade republic. Imagine the guilds, controlled by guildmasters or guildboards. They will raise the tax collector on the spears. if a guild want something, it must do it by its own force - or spare funds by contract with other guild - say, masons.

Imagine the democratic society - every citizen could make a proposal on teh meeting and others will vote for it.

Imagine the socializm - the society with INVERSED TAXES - if one says "I'd like to mine" he will aquire pickaxe; if one asks for food, he will be supplied. This society need people to be internally strong with themselves - the austerity will be in favor here.

Imagine the eudamony - if one needs something, he will go, ask if one need it - if costly resource - and take. This requires not only the inner strength, but good supply of resources.

I propose:

1) Sealed agreement/contract/pact/order - the effect depends on personality of seal-holder. Just like IRL it could work or could be poked into the ass of bearer. I mean, NO IN-GAME INFLUENCE, only on the personality of the player, Player should roleplay - not the game itself.

2) %Metalname% enforced stone - requires >= (>?) tier metal to break... slowly. What? You have no metal? It is bad to be you. Let do it by IC 2 reinforced stone recipe.

3) Hireable guards - they are placeholders for players. Regenerating placeholders. They should not only be hired, they should be also armed. By you. Can your funds deal with that? No? IRL none would stand for you.

4) Named posts - maybe, with a rome-style standarts; supply depots (the spears tend to be run out); the food depot; designated repair teams who will restore damaged walls (rf-stone must already be in depot); designated routes. Lets imagine guards order "let no one in except those: %s or bearer of the letter signed by guild `The Anvil`". If someone will deal with guards in wrought iron, he is worthy to enter your stronghold.

5.1) Kill the courier,

5.2) take his letter,

5.3) enter the sity,

5.4) hide in the sewers.

5.5) ???

5.6) ROLEPLAY!!!11one

6) One could also have personal guards in BLACK STEEL - just in case of.

7) This makes wars between cities possible (but, as IRL, costly) - the attackers build a mortar and bombardize the target city. I propose making an cannonball entity, wich is made from metal and filled with explosives.

8) The "dirt/cobble pillar" strategy tends to be pain in the ass... but of course, the dirt pillar itself must be unable to make - lets say, the dirt will fall of the side if there are > 2 meter of air on this side - the pyramid is more expensive and guards should keep secure the territory at outer side of the wall. "Go away!", "Go away, or we will shoot!", "Prepare to die!"

9) Just run the damn guards on top of the wall! They will deal with attackers. If they not - you will not, too.

10) Guard uses bow/spear unless close, randomly strafing left-right on flat surface, and charges when close, hitting in jump.

11) If shit happened, guard could have instructions to alarm none-2-3-15%-10-all other guards.

Edited 10 Aug 2012 by hindmost

[Too-DAMN-Much 8]

how about this for something to chew on:

when a chest or other storage item is created it's stamped with the creator's name, if someone removes something from that chest it could have a little red flag pop up for the owner to see that someone's taken something and have a log of the last people (say about... max 5-10, at most?) to open the chest that actually changed it's inventory in some way, i have to say full stop right now i am definitely against automatically enforced laws or bots with town guard tags doing all the policing.

ok, so how does it get policed then toodamnmuch, i hear you saying, well that's a good question and the answer is by the community that plays on it, if someone changed the inventory of a chest and it's not theirs when the owner gets back to check on it and sees that the non-creator access trigger has been sprung it would allow the chest creator to optionally set a bounty in emeralds on the head of that person, any player who is able to dispatch that person without destroying other people's things (pretty obvious, just stated, in case i guess) or stealing from someone else can then collect the bounty at any town hall thing or whatever it winds up being called, i think also it's good to note here that money should have it's own inventory space, a coin pouch if you will that is protected (or maybe not, configurable by server admin) from dropping on death.

now of course, people are still going to want to fight and engage in fisticuffs and all that good nonsense, i propose Colosseums, yeah, roman ones right next to the town hall so that everyone can peer down into the pit and watch the mongrels fight to the death, basically i'm saying disputes over ore and resources are probably going to happen, probably inevitably if the server is large enough, i'm not saying the colosseum should be part of any justice system rather that it would probably be a good idea to let people have a place to fight it out all legal like if that's what's desired.

in closing and this is the best part of the idea as far as i'm concerned, but there would be no need for automated guard NPCs that try to and (yes probably) fail to determine who is a criminal or not and then GM bolt them into obliteration (or maybe you'll stand a chance, who knows) but at the same time it makes being unscrupulous not entirely impossible, it makes it very risky however and also gives an incentive for people who wish to act as police to do so, look at the bounty's list, find one you like, collect the head, it also importantly so in fact gives a very large incentive to the person the crime was committed against to go and fix it themselves, i'm sure it won't cause problems but how much overhead do we really want to dedicate to full time and active NPCs and portions of code that pour over interactions trying to perceive a crime or a not crime, if someone steals from you you could actually stand to turn a profit with a system like this so long as you're willing to fight for what's yours.

i think lastly, if any sort of automated policing type thing is implemented, it should not be a babysitter, it should take revenge on those who are wronged unprovoked, not float around your head like a mosquito you just can't seem to swat because it's always scrutinizing what you're doing to see if it could be a crime.