Kingdoms Brainstorming

[cevkiv 156]

And that's why they will have the whole server on their ass. I won't steal objects, I'm gonna steal a house. I will dig a hole in the floor and hide there.

Unless you have a system in place to where I can examine my chest and it will tell me who took what from it, then how will we know whose ass to get on?

[Deathbytac0 46]

Unless you have a system in place to where I can examine my chest and it will tell me who took what from it, then how will we know whose ass to get on?

That's the fun part and usually where war comes into place if the server can't hold itself together.

[cevkiv 156]

That's the fun part and usually where war comes into place if the server can't hold itself together.

You're failing to understand this: This is not what I consider fun. This is not what a lot of people consider fun. I dare say that the majority of people, if asked, would not say they consider their things being stolen to be fun.

[Enzer 60]

And that is why you make it difficult to open chests that are not yours and you do not allow fellow citizens of your city or kingdom steal from you. An out of towner will stick out and if stuff starts going missing when someone is visiting, then the guards will be on their ass.

Someone who isn't marked as part of your town is sneaking about, trying to find a street no one is on, hes crouched in front of a door, trying desperately to get a door to open, then he is inside the house, snooping about. People are going to notice eventually and then he will have to deal with the guards. Want better protection? Pay for more guards or fire those who fail to do their jobs, invest in better locks for you house.

Here is an idea, trained attack dogs. Make it so you can train a wolf into a dog and a dog into an attack dog, the dog will be "tethered" to your property and when you leave, set him to guard your place. Someone from outside of town decides to snoop about? Guess what, hes got a dog attacking him now, make that make noise, it will attract people to see what the hell is up.

Thievery just doesn't have a place for personal profit though, I think it would be neat for nation leaders to send hired cat burglars after each other to steal important documents, maps, claims to land, etc. It could provide a whole other tier of game play.

Ultimately, the way to completely solve this is to give sever admins the ability to just outright disable people from lock picking, but to out right have it disabled or not even an option I think would be a worse option and would stifle a lot of creativity and game play options.

[cevkiv 156]

Ultimately, the way to completely solve this is to give sever admins the ability to just outright disable people from lock picking, but to out right have it disabled or not even an option I think would be a worse option and would stifle a lot of creativity and game play options.

Read: It will make assholes have a harder time being assholes, and I, being an asshole, don't find that fun.

[Enzer 60]

Then tell your Admin to set lock picking to off, people will be assholes one way or another, there is no changing that and as it currently stands, there is NO protection provided by TFC right now. Do you have a horrible griefing issue with lots of people stealing from you right now? On the server I play on we don't, but if it becomes an option for gameplay and is used in a creative way as such, then why the hell not?

Again, make it something that can be outright turned off if the server owner feels he does not want that to be part of his server, I do not see why an interesting system has to be outright cut when you can simply just have it disabled if it doesn't jive with you.

[Mileaos2 15]

for the griefer problem: add milizia, when griefers start destroying blocks, stealing stuff, the milizia attacks them. when the village/town has walls (walls shouldnt be destroyable, at least not very easy) the greifers are dead. milizia could have special spawn points in special buildings like miliziahut for meeles and watchtower for archers...

anyway, to the rest of my idea:

the player, who found a village, is the mayor of an city, but not everything belongs to him.

taxes from villagers get into the village cash register, where this money is used to build village owned buildings. (the mayor decides, where to build them with foundation stones)

there are 3 types of buildings:

required (from npc, they take over the building and pay everything, but the village get only taxes)

village property (those buildings produce direktly for the village storage, but the workers get paid from the village too)

player property (the player have to pay anything, but the produced goods are his own)

towns should start as villages, they grow and grow until they become towns, citys and with each new step, they get more space and more available buildings.

the village start as a main building, where npc are moving in, than you can start placing foundation stones for buildings, this stones are the middle point of the building and the same time below the floor, so be carefully, where you place them. villagers will come with recources out of the main building (later the storehouse) to build the building.

those buildings are upgradeable, to become more efficient and to produce other/ more stuff.

for example: grinding hut is the first building to produce flour. you can upgrade this building up to an watermill (near rivers) or windmills

ofc npc´s need food/water to survive, the villages can produce them on there own and can sell the overflow to towns.

when a village become a town, you have a new problem. the town is very big and no good place for animals/ farms, so sorround the town, a few hamlets starting to spawn. those hamlets will take over the food production. (meat, wheat, fruit) and some of the building material (like wood, stone)

mines will still exist and producing buildings like windmill, sawmill ect

with towns you get new special foundation stones like the fortress foundation stone.

the fortress is a player owned building, which get build far away from the towns, to control a area. (pvp take place there mostly)

a forstress acts like a town, it has special buildings (military and civil) and hamlets starts to appear too. you can buy food, building materials and weapon materials from those hamlets or from towns.

a fortress has a huge influential area, where no player can attack any towns with an npc army. (they can pillage hamlets ofc)

[enenra 5]

Ok, so I'm going to expand on my point earlier a bit.

I think there are several problems that need to be solved in order for a system like this to work and for players to be encouraged to actually use it:

Problem: Benefits of a city

Why would you want to live in a city?

Proposals:

• Safety from mobs
• Safety from griefing (by players)
• Trading possibilities
• Cooperation with other players
• Economic benefits

Solutions:

• Safety from mobs: Mobs don't spawn within a certain radius around the town
• Safety from griefing (by players): There would have to be a way to prevent griefing, at the same time this could be seen as attacks and thus should not be prevented entirely
• Trading possibilities: This is automatically the case with multiple players at one location but I think the possibilities have to be improved - one way would be player-owned shops where they don't have to be present to buy and sell.
• Cooperation with other players: The way to facilitate or even reliably encourage this, a group-system would be needed.
• Economic benefits: Economic benefits are created in a way with the cooperation of players already. However, I think it would be good (maybe in a later iteration) to include an influence from NPCs in a way.

Workings:

• Safety from mobs: Mobs don't spawn within a certain area around claimed plots. They are, however, not automatically removed. Thus, to prevent them from wandering into towns the town would have to have walls and the like to be safe.
• Safety from griefing: I suggest adapting the system that was introduced by CivCraft for TFC: Certain blocks can be reinforced. Reinforced blocks gain additional "breaks", thus even if you break it, it won't disappear until it has been broken a certain amount of time. The effect would be that it would be far harder to grief and generally bust through battlements and walls. A second mechanic (which I'm not entirely sure about yet) would be the suggested "war / raid events" where usually, it would not be possible for players that are no members of a city to place or destroy blocks but during these events it is possible. The way this is set up could be inspired by EVE online SOV Timers: In order for these events to happen, both parties would have to agree on a certain timeframe so that a proper attack / defense could actually happen.
• Trading possibilities: Player-owned shops would be important for this. Additionally a player-to-player trading GUI would be great but this is optional, really. To go back on the NPC idea I posted before: NPCs that settle in player cities and then can also be assigned to run shops would be great. Either for players or independently - but please with a proper trading GUI where the player can select what he wants to buy and not get some random item.
• Cooperation with other players: A group system would allow for three types of groups: Alliances, Guilds/Factions/Nations and temporary groups. Alliances would be the alliances of multiple guilds/factions/nations and every guild etc. member could also be temporarily part of smaller groups (from which he is removed upon log out). Only guilds etc. would be able to claim land and thus build cities. Every member that is part of a guild would also have a colored prefix in front of their name. If two players are in the same group (no matter what level a group is), pvp is disabled for them. Lastly, this is a long shot but it would be great to have the health bars of the members of your temporary group on screen in a GUI and maybe allow for setting waypoints or the like to encourage forming groups to do tasks together.
• Economic benefits: NPCs that have settled in player cities could at a point (and with the facilities) take over the more menial tasks for players like woodcutting, farming and mining the trivial stuff like sand / gravel / stone. Maybe they could also be set to take over certain artisan jobs when supplied with the necessary resources, like crafting wood into planks, support beams, chests, workbenches, etc. or tending to charcoal pits and then selling that charcoal.

There are several more problems I'd like to address but I'm going to do that later. I've got the itch to play again.

[Mileaos2 15]

villages, towns and citys could produce special goods/ items/ tools, a player cant craft

for example:

villages could produce cloth and clothing from it (trading good, npc need clothing)

villages could produce leather out of furs in tanning huts (for clothing, leather armor)

villages could produce fish traps, for easier fishing

villages could build smoking huts (more durable food)

towns could produce composid bows and wooden crossbows (and bolts for them)

towns produce special founding stones, you cant craft on your own (like fortress stones and for projekts like ships) for the fortress idea look at my suggestion 2 posts before

citys could produce iron/steel crossbows with bolts

citys could produce super projekt founding stones like for cathedrals. you need a capital city to build a palace to found a monarchy (your own^^)

villages/towns/citys near rivers/oceans/seas can build fishing huts to produce a good amount of food

[bsb23 303]

That doesn't quite make sense to me. Why would a city be able to build anything I couldn't they could build it faster but I could still build for exaple a salmon smoker (and have with a little help).

Tiered cities are the same deal. Why would a city be allowed to build more than a town. With the same resources and probably more time I don't see why they couldn't build it.

Also building specific buildings to do specific things. The example was the palace for a monarchy if there is going to be a monarch then that person should say "i am solely in charge" and whoever follows is their subjects. No building is needed for that, someone may say lets build a palace for our monarch but no one will say lets get a monarch from our palace.

[Mileaos2 15]

when you buy a foundation stone of a cathedral in the next city and buy the whole materials you need too and transport them to your village, you can start your building, no problem =)

well, you need a bit system in it.

i suggested a palace, to become a king, because you have to build up your city quite a while until you can start a monarchy, unless you want a monarch in every small village on mp server...

(well, you could chrush them with force ^^)

and why citys have more buildings available than towns and towns more than villages?

i throw some numbers in here, i know you cant have citys with 10000npc in it and keep the server stable

well, you need ALOT ppl for building more complex and big buildings, when you have a village with 50npc, you cannot build a cathedral, i would consume more material, than the whole village needet twice...

and you need someone who calculate the whole thing, you cant just start to build something big like a cathedral, it would collapse...

i thougt about something like that: higher upgrades for buildings need more complex materials and tools to build.

big citys with around 20000ppl attrackt more npc, because they ged work there, they can trade materials and tools from the whole country and ingeneurs want to work for the lord in charge (or the king).

lets say, a town can build a scool, where you get new founding stones for alot money. (bigger towns produce more money, so you can build more stuff and keep a bigger milizia)

with a scool, you can build special things like sewerage (bigger population), ship builder (river trade or at a sea) ect.

why only a town get a scool? because you dont get someone to teach there, when you have a small, dirty village (its expensive)

a city could affort a univerity, there you can buy foundation stones for a cathedral and your workshops can create hoist, to increase the building speed and they would make bigger buildings possible

[Deathbytac0 46]

You're failing to understand this: This is not what I consider fun. This is not what a lot of people consider fun. I dare say that the majority of people, if asked, would not say they consider their things being stolen to be fun.

So... Maybe not to some people, my idea of fun in this situation is sneaking around, finding them, and slaughtering them multiple times. That can be hard, frustrating, and you may lose your stuff forever, but if they are ever let back in you can spawn camp them. Hopefully that wont get you banned.

Make your house an underground entrance, one they cannot simply mine to, 3 blocks higher that the start, with a maze with pitfalls. Also build your house on a mountain, not at the top, but close. Mine the inside out and expand along the sides, and have a stairwell all the way through the mountain to the entrance. Nobody will bother to infiltrate your labyrinth.

[EternalUndeath 1,208]

Read: It will make assholes have a harder time being assholes, and I, being an asshole, don't find that fun.

I think the point is that people who act like assholes on a server shouldn't be allowed to have fun, specifically because they're assholes. I'm missing the part of this that's a problem

[Deathbytac0 46]

I think the point is that people who act like assholes on a server shouldn't be allowed to have fun, specifically because they're assholes. I'm missing the part of this that's a problem

But what if we are assholes to assholes and rig their spawn so they are pushed into a penalty pit.

[dunkleosteus 2,425]

Guys, from what I can understand, some people don't want raiding. Some people (myself included :/) find no pleasure in the experience, and the only way it becomes remotely tolerable is if the perpetrator is caught and the items are returned immediately. I don't want any man hunts or wanted criminals. I just want my shit to stay where I left it.

[Mileaos2 15]

you have that problem on all servers...

okay, solution:

pve server: griefing offline, you can protect everything vio commands

pvp server: griefing online, you can protect your stuff with npc´s

[dunkleosteus 2,425]

you have that problem on all servers...

okay, solution:

pve server: griefing offline, you can protect everything vio commands

pvp server: griefing online, you can protect your stuff with npc´s

Then why are we having these arguments? I was under the impression we weren't doing that.

and i still don't know if npcs will protect your junk.

[Mileaos2 15]

well, then you make everything more complicatet...

in that way you CANT be 100% safe, you have to lock your valuable stuff avay or hide it (behind walls, the ground ect)

buildings shouldnt be easy destroyable, when they are build, you need some heavy force to destroy them. (siege weapons?)

to prevent a fire:

the village/city ect get "fireprotection points" for diffirent buildings. like wells, water pipes, firestation...

when those points are high enough, the possibility is very low, someone is able to start a fire at your house. (cityguards, who catch someone, who tries to set a fire insite a town, gets arrestet/attacked)

the same goes for picking the logs of doors, where the difficulty of lockpicking increases with more guards and the illumination of the village. (not to mention the difficulty of the lock itself)

but when you WANT the game mechanik of griefing, you should stop arguing about the existence of it ^^

[ak_snowfiend 8]

I don't think NPCs are a good idea. They often are very unbalanced, and in worse cases, laggy and broken. Not to mention, that would be a HUGE project to write that code...

I'm going back to my original idea that a bounty system be considered. Something akin to Skyrim? You do something bad, and now there's a bounty out on your head.

It won't stop people from comitting crimes, but it will give players incentive to seek justice! I know I'd love to RP a bounty hunter type character that wanders the land, hunting down brigands and collecting fame and fortune...

Some people might choose to start a band of highwaymen, and pillage the countryside, as well.

Others might join forces and dedicate their lives to scattering them and reclaiming their ill-gotten wealth.

[Enzer 60]

Then why are we having these arguments? I was under the impression we weren't doing that.

and i still don't know if npcs will protect your junk.

I don't know why the argument is even happening. I don't think NPCs are the solution to this issue, being able to secure your shit via locks is a viable solution that wouldn't be to hard to implement (see the bukkit mod LCW), but having an in game way of locking stuff would be one the best options. To settle both sides what you do is give the admins the right to set if or if not locks can be bypassed, end of story. Some servers will prefer complete security, others will find ways of using this to facilitate game play. Check my previous posts in this thread, I've gone into detail on how this could easily be handled, just a few users are flipping out about even have the potential for such a system to be included in the mod, even if there is a way to disable it. :/

[DoodTheDud 29]

You're failing to understand this: This is not what I consider fun. This is not what a lot of people consider fun. I dare say that the majority of people, if asked, would not say they consider their things being stolen to be fun.

Of course not. They consider building adequate defenses to stop their stuff getting stolen as fun. Losing a game isn't fun, but playing is.

[cevkiv 156]

Of course not. They consider building adequate defenses to stop their stuff getting stolen as fun. Losing a game isn't fun, but playing is.

It is impossible to build adequate defenses.

Someone can simply build a dirt column and hop over your wall.

Someone with a high enough tier pick can just go through your wall.

The only way I could see this being remotely, remotely tolerable, is if when an item is taken from a protected chest by a user who is not on the protected listen, the item becomes flagged as stolen by the thief from the owner of the chest (that is, if JoeGriefer steals a diamond from cevkiv, the item's tooltip will now display, below "Diamond," "Stolen by JoeGriefer from cevkiv"). Furthermore, in addition to that, there would have to be some message that could be read by the person being stolen from identifying who did the thieving. A server-wide message would be the bare minimum, but that won't help much if no one else is on. Having the owned container be able to spit out the last X items that were removed from it and who removed them would be nice, except that a griefer could easily just fill the chest with dirt and remove the dirt until what items have been taken from it are out of the last X items taken.

I like the idea of being able to claim an area for a person or group of people, and excluding others from being able to build inside that area.

I like the idea of being able to "Reinforce" blocks within that area to make them more difficult for an individual to break.

I like the idea of having tiers of lockboxes, either with keys, and locks that need to be picked (with various tiers of lockboxes and various tiers of picks, so that the highest tier of lockbox will always be the hardest to pick, while the lowest tier of lockboxes could be opened quickly with the highest tier of pick), or combination locks where a 3 to 5 or 7 digit combination must be entered, but there is a device (stethoscope or similar) that allows you to determine the first X digits of the combination). Lockboxes with keys and locks that must be picked require an expenditure of time in the form of gathering the resources necessary to pick the lock, and combination locks where parts of the combination can be guessed require an expenditure of time in the form of gathering the resources necessary to make the item that tells you what some of the digits of the combination are, and a further expenditure of time in the form of actually having to guess the rest of the combination.

Griefing, if allowed, should not be something that can easily or quickly be accomplished against a settlement, no matter how small or crude.

Also, to prevent people from just tunneling under walls, and to prevent the people of the town from having to reinforce every god damn block of dirt, if there is a placeable "Hearth Stone," or similar, then all dirt/gravel blocks below its level within its effective range should be automatically highly reinforced. Because if they're not someone can just go under the wall to get inside. And there needs to be a "no build zone" around the claimed area, or people need to leave a buffer between the end of the claimed area and their walls, to avoid people just pilling up dirt and getting over the wall.

As far as trading goes, some sort of craftable block, similar to one in Industrialcraft2, whose name I can't remember, I think it's Trade-o-mat, would be nice. The way the block works is you place the block, and then you place a chest (lockable, or not) next to it. The GUI for the trade-o-mat would have two slots: One for the item you're willing to sell, and another for the item you will accept in exchange (if you want to enforce a currency, this slot could be restricted to using coins only). A player other than the player who placed the Trade-o-mat, when accessing it, would be presented with a GUI that would tell them what is being exchanged for what, and would have an input slot where they could deposit the item that the owner wants, and an output slot that would spit out the item that the buyer wants. The trade-o-mat could either have an internal storage capacity, or could place/retrieve items to be sold/items that have been bought into an adjacent chest. This would allow people to be able to buy and sell goods even when offline, and could be used to enforce a specific currency by accepting only coins as payment.

[bsb23 303]

I'm questioning the need for a foundation stone what real purpose do they serve besides stopping the chance for towns to get the buildings they need.

It is a lot easier and it is more believable. If i were to build a cathedral right now why would i need a special stone? Also I'm not sure why a city that religon doesn't exist in should need a cathedral.

Schools would make a good spot for tutorials not further requirements. If someone wants to build something then build it. As long as you have the resources, know-how, and the time it takes to build it i don't see why you can't build it.

Edit: this was suppose to send a while ago it was in response to mileaos' post directly after my last post.

[sf17k 4]

I'm happy I won't be forced to play with these rules. In Dwarf Fortress I always have a happy little community until nobles and coins and justice start showing up.

Mostly I think currency oversimplifies things. You can make money off anything? Better hoard it all! I'd love a currency-free economy where people advertise what they need and what they have a surplus of, and arrange trades on that basis.

[Scooterdanny 285]

Urk... nobles, don't even get me started on them...

And guys, i think we should move past all Griefing and Stealing, we've hit just about all the bases, and if you look back a few pages, it was already stated. so can we get on to more of suggestions for kingdoms? thanks

Anyways, i think it would be neat for there to be recognized systems by the game, that would enhance ceratin government types or all.

Ie, -Caesar Bsb23 mandates that all gathering of wood in his forest is hereby prohibited, (this is broadcast to all in the empire)

Cevkiv, being a rebel (just playing here) decides to go chop down some wood, he gains a bounty in said empire.

Or a system that allows for confidential voting ( i realize one could publish books in 1.3 but that would be cumbersome) so if you were in a council, you could see voting and vote on a decision, that the mayor would implement.

So even a basic minecraft text and command system would make me happy