Kingdoms Brainstorming

[bsb23 303]

I love millenaire and minecolony and a couple other of the NPC adding mods however we are aiming at believability. And the problem with these mods are that they aren't believable sentients. With a simple wooden sword an entire millenaire village can be destroyed. Our spamming is no match for their AI. Minecolony is extremely annoyingly glitchy. The AI's are complicated but nowhere near ours. They just aren't believable humans.

I see one way to use NPCs and that is testificates. They aren't human but they are sentient, barely. A couple more functions and they could make decent guards but guard dogs and golems would probably make more sense.

[dunkleosteus 2,425]

The server should have manual settings. I agree with what has been said earlier, you can never make a system that works for everyone. I personally don't like thievery, but I'm well aware that there are those of you out there who do. I'm sure neither of us are alone, so I think it is important that these things are configurable in the server set up, so that I can join a server advertised as "No thievery" and you can join one advertised "Thievery and raiding".

[dunkleosteus 2,425]

I love millenaire and minecolony and a couple other of the NPC adding mods however we are aiming at believability. And the problem with these mods are that they aren't believable sentients. With a simple wooden sword an entire millenaire village can be destroyed. Our spamming is no match for their AI. Minecolony is extremely annoyingly glitchy. The AI's are complicated but nowhere near ours. They just aren't believable humans.

I see one way to use NPCs and that is testificates. They aren't human but they are sentient, barely. A couple more functions and they could make decent guards but guard dogs and golems would probably make more sense.

Oh ho, I have some plans for those, given my experience with the animals and their AI, I'm confident I could (given some time, however) come up with some suitable code. They won't like you messing with their stuff, although they can grow to like you.

[Firestorm13 14]

Oh ho, I have some plans for those, given my experience with the animals and their AI, I'm confident I could (given some time, however) come up with some suitable code. They won't like you messing with their stuff, although they can grow to like you.

What do you mean by "those" and "they?" Are you talking about NPCs or guard dogs/golems?

[bsb23 303]

Sweet! I'm excited! A couple questions though real quick. Is it testificates? If they aren't testificates will they have there own cities? If they don't how will we acquire them? If they aren't testificates please tell me they aren't human.

[dunkleosteus 2,425]

What do you mean by "those" and "they?" Are you talking about NPCs or guard dogs/golems?

NPCs

Sweet! I'm excited! A couple questions though real quick. Is it testificates? If they aren't testificates will they have there own cities? If they don't how will we acquire them? If they aren't testificates please tell me they aren't human.

Idk? probably testificate, no need to generate something else.

[EternalUndeath 1,208]

NPCs

Idk? probably testificate, no need to generate something else.

ick...

I really dislike their design...

personal taste, tho

[dunkleosteus 2,425]

ick...

I really dislike their design...

personal taste, tho

Not saying I like it either, but what can you do.

[StarDoor 1]

Well, we could always change them into normal pigmen. (Which is what Notch should've done in the first place, but oh well.)

[dunkleosteus 2,425]

Well, we could always change them into normal pigmen. (Which is what Notch should've done in the first place, but oh well.)

uhhh... no.

[Deathbytac0 46]

ick...

I really dislike their design...

personal taste, tho

But they are like my avatar, stuck on one emotion and have a weird shape. Whats not to love about that?

[Scooterdanny 285]

Bipedal pig people, that's what's wrong... please make them human/very humanoid, i had enough of that crap in evilminecraft.

[Deathbytac0 46]

I'll admit... Their noses piss me off.

_{brcause I don't have one...}

[Olaf_one_brow 0]

_{The political system should be based entirely on the type of rule the owner of the town chooses to enforce. When the player sets the home stone he/she can choose what system of government the town can be ( republic, dictatorship, etc). If a dictatorship is chosen then only the player that set the home stone has absolute rule but can be overthrone if most citizens of the town choose to. In a republic each person says what they think and the ruler decides the final verdict, this verdict can be overturned if most citizens dont like it. Pretty much like in real life when it comes to government.}

_{Concerning the economy each town should have its own currency and each town ( depending on its size and its power ) has a set amount of money. The money can be enterchanged between towns. When the money is transfered between towns it is converted to the others currency, in this system certain towns can get more money so the economy is much more realistic.}

_{This is my take on things though its just my opinion. Hope it helps .}

[Deathbytac0 46]

-snip-

WHY IS YOUR FONT SO BIG?

I'll be nice here too and say welcome.

#imnotatroll

Edited 11 Aug 2012 by Deathbytac0

[Scooterdanny 285]

Just saying, we should probably try to use a uniform font and size in forums like this, thanks for the input olaf, and welcome to the forums!

And death, he's brand new, cut him a bit of slack here.

Edited 11 Aug 2012 by Scooterdanny

[Deathbytac0 46]

Just saying, we should probably try to use a uniform font and size in forums like this, thanks for the input olaf, and welcome to the forums!

And death, he's brand new, cut him a bit of slack here.

I know just playin... Welcome Olaf.

/

quote name='EternalUndeath - fucked up by tac0

I DIDN'T SEE THIS SIZE!

[EternalUndeath 1,208]

WHY IS YOUR FONT SO BIG?

AND BOLD. LIKE DORITOS JACKED.

Seriously tho, this topic is ridiculous. 9 pages? This is the single largest thread on the forum, and got that way in less than half a week. Damn people

[Scooterdanny 285]

Because it is an open topic that was started by bioxx, and encouraged to give feedback.

[Deathbytac0 46]

Seriously tho, this topic is ridiculous. 9 pages? This is the single largest thread on the forum, and got that way in less than half a week. Damn people

Because people are giving feedback, unlike me who seems to keep posting random shit then feeling like a troll a few seconds after.

[trepnick 5]

It's very hard to strike a balance between forced gameplay and emergent gameplay in the case of kingdoms, politics, and such, in my experience. I've run towns on servers, and it takes some work on the part of players to keep them going, keep them fair, etc. I think the first thing that should be considered is how to make government of towns easier for players to do, but still allow people to do it in their own way.

For example, in TFC, one of the great possibilities is for roleplay in towns. One person is the blacksmith, some will mine, some will farm, etc. The thing that throws a wrench into it is that anyone can actually do anything if they want. TFC already balances this out some by making it much much harder for anyone to do everything. It's very hard to search for ores, keep your food stocked, and still have time for smithing all the ores you bring up from the depths of the earth already. I think with time, this will become even more true as more things are introduced that will be necessary for continued survival, and vanilla mechanics are rewritten to be TFC appropriate (i.e. 10 times as hard).

So I suppose I don't really have much of a proposal per se, simply the suggestion that new mechanics be added to TFC with the idea of encouraging cooperation and making it so that each mechanic requires somewhat of a skill. For example one person spends the time to make a steel anvil and learns to smith perfect armor every time (meaning the patterns required for a particular seed) and thus they become the community blacksmith. I think encouraging this type of gameplay is important, although not something that should necessarily be implemented as its own separate mechanic, simply incorporated into other mechanics wherever possible.

Make construction require not just a single chisel, but 2 or 3, and more knowledge of how to use them. Make farming require lots of knowledge of animal grazing patterns and crop growth patterns. Making the "barrier to entry" of a specific skill set higher will make that skill more valuable to others on a server, and thus they'll be willing to pay or trade for items, and an in-game economy will form, encouraging more gameplay options. Politics will originate from money, war and other social constructs will originate from politics through emergent gameplay. You'll know it's done right when people have banks and other constructs that don't rely at all on blocks or items or the way things are programmed, simply on social interaction with other players.

It's late, and I've rambled enough for tonight.

[HidingInTheLight 10]

How Villages/Towns/Cities should work, my take on it.

First off I'm going to rename the Home Stone to Founding Stone. A founding stone would require (x) {(x) will represent a configurable option that can be set by the admin, I'll most likely use that again as I go} amount of people to provide some item (perhaps a petition or ballot) that would get used in building the founding stone along with other TFC materials. The person who builds it would be the mayor/leader, etc of the village. { Requiring ballots, or petitions from other players would limit 1 person towns, 5-10 would make a good default I think}

Founding Stones would only allow for a very small village (x)chunks by (x)chunks. {I'm thinking 5 chunks by 5 chunks as a default} with the Stone being in the center chunk.

Founding Stones could be upgraded, upgrades should be easy at first, 128 charcoal as an example for the first upgrade. Starting upgrades might increase the village size by 2 chunks in all direction, later upgrades that are more expensive could increase the town by 5 chunks in all directions.

Max city size would be a configurable option, the distance between Founding stones would also be a configurable option. Some servers could allow overlap of cities at there maximum size, causing tensions between the cities, or allowing them to build the 2 cities together. {Not sure how the overlap area would work with the rest of my ideas coding wise, but that's no so much my problem}

The Founding Stone, would have an interface, that the mayor could open up and drop the required upgrade items in, and a button to commit the changes. A text field to name the city.

Anyone could click on the stone, and it would show them the name, and how much area the city occupies currently, what the next upgrade will cost, and how much of that has been supplied already, who the mayor is, I'm sure more info could go in it as well.

Zoning.

Once a town has been founded, the mayor would need to zone out the available chunks within the town's boundaries. This doesn't need to be over complicated, perhaps 2 zones, City and Private. Chunks zoned as private would be sold/given/rented {Mayors choice} to people that want to live in the city. City zoned chunks would be for roads, common ares, markets, etc.

I'm thinking of modified signs as the zoning markers, can be placed on the ground or hung on a wall.

City Zones.

Again something that could be configurable. Either anyone could build in City Zones, or perhaps the mayor could set builders for that city in the Founding stones interface.

Private Zones.

Private Zone Markers would have an interface allowing the current owner to give ownership to someone else. It's be nice if they could be picked up and moved around within the chunk with out causing problems with the ownership, if that's able to be coded..

More to come. This got long and I'm getting tired

[ThinkTank 77]

Usual apologies if this has already been covered. While Bioxx has mentioned his views on NPCs, for security which falls somewhere between total block protection and full player controled I'd recommend using NPCs as enforcers. (although I am of the mind that all other professions should be handled by players.)

NPCs dont need to go offline.

So I'd suggest the following method to police both the town itself, and private property within the town:

Watchmen & Guardmen NPCs

Blocks:

• Watchman Spawner
• Guardsman Spawner
• Watch Post
• Guard Post
• Prison Bed

Items:

• Guard Captains Badge
• Watch Captains Badge
• Travel Papers
• Ownership Papers

Use:

First of all, the use and sale of areas from a mayor GUI of some sort is still in place, however instead of full block protection, the areas encompassed by 1) the entire town, and 2) the sectioned areas within it, are linked into the AI of the Guardsman and Watchman NPCs.

Watchmen Spawners need to be supplyed with both money (or whatever is used for a trade medium) and NPC villagers (whom you can recruit in the rightclick GUI manner that has been mentioned). If NPCs are killed they vanish from the number recorded in the block and new villiagers must be recruited, the same happens if the money level is exhausted. It will spawn in watchmen where it is placed. ONLY A PLAYER WITH THE WATCH CAPTAINS BADGE CAN INTERACT WITH THIS BLOCK.

Watch Posts are similar to 3 fenceposts stacked verticaly (or 3 supports) and have a torch or lamp set atop them (crafting with posts, redstone lamps, ect.). When clicked with the watch captains badge, they can be set in numbered sequence.

Watchmen NPCs will move from the Watchman spawner, to follow the path from Watch Post 1 to the last number set, then return to the spawner and reset. (This can later be complicated by adding day and night shifts and so on)

When a player attempts to destroy a block within a protection zone without the right Ownership Papers in their inventory, any Watchman NPC who can see this happening will become hostile to the player, after which so will any Watchman within an area around the event, much like the zombie pigman AI.

If killed by damage from a Watchman, the players previous spawn is replaced with the nearest free Prison Bed block. Insuring that said bed is placed in an area it will be impossible for a player to escape from is the players responsibility of course.

Guardsmen and their blocks work in a near identical fashion save for the following. They do much more damage than Watchmen, and can use Bows, they have a diffrent style of Guard Post (lamp colour possibly), and they react to players entering the towns area of influence without Travel Papers in their inventory. The AI for the Travel Players is similar to the delayed aggression of wolves except with a far larger radius. If killed by damage from a Guardsman, players previous spawn will revert to the world spawn point.

Both NPC types react to hostile mobs by attacking. Both NPCs react like an Iron Golem AI to players attacking villagers, guardsmen or watchmen.

Some Thoughts:

As an added complexity you could make Travel Papers spesific to each Home stone for the town. You could also add bribery, in that throwing money at an aggressive NPC might reset the aggression and cause them to ignore you for a period.

While the aggression system might get your head caved in for accidentaly punching somone elses wall, or wandering to close to an angry guard, a little kneejerkery is probably worth it in the end if your looking to discourage the usual petty theft that SMP is rife with.

This system would benefit from tieing in with a lock system, where locks can be created and added to doors and chests (new texture when applyed) and only opened with the corrisponding key (hey if you really wanted to you could use the knapping GUI to cut out the keys shape). That way trying to bash in the locked door or chest would likly be the first thing that sets of the long arm of the law.

In this manner people who want to thieve can still get away with it if they are clever, blocks can still get blown up or destroyed, and even with only 10-20 players, playing maybe only a few hours a day, you can ensure that players are under the beady eye of the law in your town.

As mentioned before, a lot of this stuff has been covered by millenaire, so there might be no point in reinventing the wheel here if the systems can work side by side.

(side note: no this system will not eliminate griefing and theft, if you have one or a number of players joining your server that are 100% focused on ruining everyone elses stuff there is no way short of banning and whitelisting that is going to stop them.)

[Too-DAMN-Much 8]

i'd like to add a request for bioxx with this whole kingdoms thing, personally i don't always play smp over ssp and yes i know lan ssp is coming and i'll probably use it, but even still and for the record i very seriously doubt i'm in the minority here, i really only play smp on servers with the same consistent group of friends i've known for years and years now so i can't really say i'd necessarily see the use of a town area being designated with the people i typically play with, so my request is that the kingdoms stuff be at least to some extent optional or even possibly it's own module entirely from the rest of TFcraft, that way we can all have the best of both worlds, might not be as easy to install though i guess..

thanks!

[dat594 11]

I like the founding stone idea but I think there should be single person homestead type thing as well, with less protection.

this for those who want to live by themselves or haven't found any ingame friends yet