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Bioxx

Kingdoms Brainstorming

899 posts in this topic

Now that's just being stubborn lol, if they want a setting that allows no rogue block breaking, but allows seiges to break blocks, i like that. And nesissity is a funny thing, we don't NEED most any of these feautures, they are nice to have, and if you don't like them, don't use them. Have you never played a factions server before? and i realize it doesnt make them cooperate, but encourages it.

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Furthermore, in the second example, about faction relations, not having some hard-coded mechanic allows for more political intrigue. If two towns are in opposition to each other, you could have people from one town working behind the backs of their fellows as saboteurs, or engaging in clandestine trading with the enemy.

The fewer restrictions you put on players, the more emergent behaviour you get. You don't want to needlessly restrict the player's options of interaction.

The only thing absolutely needed is a form of block protection. A subset of block protection is protection of chests. I do not suggest making blocks completely invulnerable, nor making chests 100% secure forms of item storage. There needs to be a balance between security allowed and the freedom of other players to adopt other playstyles other than "I mine things and make things." You want players to have the options to be roving bandits. You want the option for players to raid others. This can be accomplished without needless mechanics and abstraction.

Instead of forcing some model of government upon players via an in-game mechanic related to a town, you let the players decide on the form of government. It's an absolute dictatorship by default, because one person and one person only is in charge of dictating who can build in the protected area, but that does not preclude other forms of government. If the creator of the town wants it to be a democracy, it can be a democracy. If they want a communism they can enforce a communism. And so on, and so on. These things should not be hard-coded mechanics, but emergent behaviour that occurs when players band together for a common cause.

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Now that's just being stubborn lol, if they want a setting that allows no rogue block breaking, but allows seiges to break blocks, i like that. And nesissity is a funny thing, we don't NEED most any of these feautures, they are nice to have, and if you don't like them, don't use them. Have you never played a factions server before? and i realize it doesnt make them cooperate, but encourages it.

Have you read anything I've written on the subject? It's entirely possible to create a mechanic that allows not only for block protection, but for bypassing of block protection by determined players without the need for some "war" mechanic. And if you can do it without the mechanic, you should do it without the mechanic.

There is a principle in engineering called "KISS" -- Keep It Simple, Stupid. The more complicated and complex you make something the more points there are for failure of the system and behavior you don't intend.

[edit] fixed spelling error

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I didn't suggest a hardcoded restriction? All i want is a little Gui, that shows relations, and allows for leaders to edit them, and others to see it. there need be no restriction of innovation, with what most of the suggestions here state.

Sigh, also just suggestions here cevkiv, no need to get worked up, some people like warring servers, some don't.

Edited by Scooterdanny
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I didn't suggest a hardcoded restriction? All i want is a little Gui, that shows relations, and allows for leaders to edit them, and others to see it. there need be no restriction of innovation, with what most of the suggestions here state.

Sigh, also just suggestions here cevkiv, no need to get worked up, some people like warring servers, some don't.

There are suggestions, and then there are suggestions. I could suggest that TFC make my coffee for me in the morning. Not all suggestions are equal in terms of feasibility, necessity, and/or suitability. As I understand it, this thread is a platform for debate about what should and should not be included in the upcoming version. If your idea is so flimsy that it cannot withstand reasonable discussion, it probably does not need to be used. That's how you identify bad suggestions -- you discuss them, their outcomes, their effects, and what those will be and whether or not they are wanted or needed.

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Furthermore, if you were paying attention, I'm not saying that there should be no way for people to go to war with each other. I'm simply suggesting that there does not need to be a specific war mechanic, nor a GUI for determining the relationships between settlements. Both of those things (the disposition of two settlements between each other, and war between two groups) can be achieved without specific game-enforced mechanics.

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I just need some sleep to be honest, i will have more legitimate opinions in the morning, but most likely they have been discussed before.

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Also, is it possible to redo the lighting system to allow light levels above 15? Is it possible to implement other light sources, such as, say, olive oil powered lamps, with a higher range than torches?

If protected town areas do not by default stop the spawning of hostile mobs within their area, a more powerful light source with a larger radius than a torch would be nice. Maybe a lamppost or something similar. Having torches scattered about every few meters is... aesthetically unpleasing. Also, they should burn out eventually.

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This^ i would love a more powerful light source, when one can get light as bright as the sun by putting a torch in a pumpkin, i cry.

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Furthermore, if you were paying attention, I'm not saying that there should be no way for people to go to war with each other. I'm simply suggesting that there does not need to be a specific war mechanic, nor a GUI for determining the relationships between settlements. Both of those things (the disposition of two settlements between each other, and war between two groups) can be achieved without specific game-enforced mechanics.

Sure, there is really no need for a GUI if it is just two communities going through day to day politics of trading and bartering land rights until someone pisses off the other and they go to war to settle a dispute (just as an example), but on larger servers, where you have many many different communities all with different levels of political standing (allied, neutral, trading partner, bad standing, war, etc) it would be nice to have all this information stored and visible at the cities homestone rather than on a massive wall of signs that would require (depending on the size of the server and instability of the leaders) a lot of rearrangement. That is sloppy, it is also, more importantly, slow. Having it as a viewable GUI of "Political Standings and Relations" would be a nice addition that doesn't force restrictions on the playerbase and will allow new users to figure out the information on their own as well as allow city leaders to easily keep up on news in the world and think accordingly on what they should do next. Doing this would also help take a step of having all the towns information stored within the homestone.

Thinking over this I really can't find a con to just having the information stored in a clean format that everyone would know how to find and the less players rely on giant walls of signs to convey information the better (or at least until Jeb decides to redo how signs and lettering work so that each letter isn't an individually rendered entity and not just, you know, a texture). It isn't forcing players into a system, if they don't want to fill in their cities standings with others, it will just now show up. I would think of this as adding tools for servers to develop how they want their kingdoms to work, not strict systems they are forced to comply by.

As for an actual "war" mechanic, I think this could be worked around. Again, make it a tool for people to use if they so wish, not a strict system. A "war" mechanic can be taken a bunch of different ways.

-You could go with a "capture" system where two towns going to war with each other can claim land as they conquer areas of land, by this I mean not land that is given by the default townstone, but any land that is acquired through upgrades could have their own stone that extends your bubble of influence, a few conditional rules such as the land being conquered must have at least one side designated as neutral or owned by another nation can only be conquered (so as to prevent people storming deep into enemy territory and claiming land there, doesn't make sense, you'd have to eat at them from the outside borders, this also allows for land disputes). You conquer land by damaging the enemies territory stone to a certain point and then placing your stone on top of theirs, after a certain amount of time, the land becomes yours. This would provide servers that want a high stakes political game play aspect tools to do so, if you don't want to use this system, you could simply ignore it.

-You could make it so that two towns that are flagged as warring with each other have different death penalties. By this I mean you have two warring nations, if Soldier from Nation A kills Soldier from Nation B, Soldier B has a timer before he can enter the fray again. This prevents people from just respawning instantly at their beds and doing combat, creating a never ending wall of bodies to battle. It would also means that the winning combatant just got rewarded with some new gear. This would only apply with players at war attacking each other, that way if civilian from Nation A falls off his roof and dies, he doesn't have to wait because his town is under siege.

I mean, there is a lot you can do with this system and still present it as tools for players to use and not just strict modes of play you MUST comply by.

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Sure, there is really no need for a GUI if it is just two communities going through day to day politics of trading and bartering land rights until someone pisses off the other and they go to war to settle a dispute (just as an example), but on larger servers, where you have many many different communities all with different levels of political standing (allied, neutral, trading partner, bad standing, war, etc) it would be nice to have all this information stored and visible at the cities homestone rather than on a massive wall of signs that would require (depending on the size of the server and instability of the leaders) a lot of rearrangement. That is sloppy, it is also, more importantly, slow. Having it as a viewable GUI of "Political Standings and Relations" would be a nice addition that doesn't force restrictions on the playerbase and will allow new users to figure out the information on their own as well as allow city leaders to easily keep up on news in the world and think accordingly on what they should do next. Doing this would also help take a step of having all the towns information stored within the homestone.

Thinking over this I really can't find a con to just having the information stored in a clean format that everyone would know how to find and the less players rely on giant walls of signs to convey information the better (or at least until Jeb decides to redo how signs and lettering work so that each letter isn't an individually rendered entity and not just, you know, a texture). It isn't forcing players into a system, if they don't want to fill in their cities standings with others, it will just now show up. I would think of this as adding tools for servers to develop how they want their kingdoms to work, not strict systems they are forced to comply by.

The point still stands that it's entirely unnecessary. Your argument for this feature is that people are lazy and/or stupid. While this is true, I see no need to cater to it.

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The point still stands that it's entirely unnecessary. Your argument for this feature is that people are lazy and/or stupid. While this is true, I see no need to cater to it.

My argument is not that people are lazy and/or stupid. My argument is that an ingame system to check political alignments would allow new players to get themselves up to date easier, would allow other nations to keep tabs, and would prevent the use of signs which have a physical impact on the server and look ugly (not to mention are limited in space to provide information).

By the same token I could say that having a stronger light source that covers a wider area is because players are too lazy to make a bunch of torches or are too stupid and/or lazy to aesthetically place torches.

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My argument is not that people are lazy and/or stupid. My argument is that an ingame system to check political alignments would allow new players to get themselves up to date easier, would allow other nations to keep tabs, and would prevent the use of signs which have a physical impact on the server.

I don't think we want to make this so mechanical. We want it to be more natural. I personally kinda like the idea of a player being thrust into an alien new world full of politics and social conflict. I'd prefer if it wasn't dumbed down.
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Then I guess I am still misunderstanding what Bioxx means when he says he wants the Home Stone to be "a way for players to easily learn what they need to about a town such as laws or w/e else." For me, knowing a towns political standing with other towns is a very important thing to know, it would also allow players who haven't been on the server in a while figure out what has been going on recently if they get on and no one from their town is currently on. I, for one, would hate to log on and find out that my town might be at war with someone, but I don't know who because the enemy town isn't replying to me, what if I'm doing trades with that town? I walk over there hoping to drop off some charcoal or what have you and they gut me in the streets, or I do successfully trade with them and then my cities leader finds out and has me killed for being a traitor?

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Then I guess I am still misunderstanding what Bioxx means when he says he wants the Home Stone to be "a way for players to easily learn what they need to about a town such as laws or w/e else." For me, knowing a towns political standing with other towns is a very important thing to know, it would also allow players who haven't been on the server in a while figure out what has been going on recently if they get on and no one from their town is currently on. I, for one, would hate to log on and find out that my town might be at war with someone, but I don't know who because the enemy town isn't replying to me, what if I'm doing trades with that town? I walk over there hoping to drop off some charcoal or what have you and they gut me in the streets, or I do successfully trade with them and then my cities leader finds out and has me killed for being a traitor?

please read my signature. I may say "we" but I mean "me" (or "I", as the case may be). This is my opinion, I didn't consult Bioxx.

Besides, laws and rules are something that you WOULD find on a stone. The ancient Babylonians had a huge stone in the centre of their city which had all of their laws and the punishments written on it. Social structure and relationships like that fluxuated so much that it was never "written in stone".

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Snip

I guess i can get on board with that methodology, Feel free to implement it as you wish, but i have a question could you make a system that could alert all players of a faction to an update? Ie "A new law has been handed down, report to the town square to be educated"

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Sorry if I came off the wrong way with that post, that isn't what I meant. :(

What I meant is that my support for storing a towns vital information and why I feel that political standings of a town are vital for the survival of a town and its citizens are based on Bioxx clarifying that he feels that Home Stones should contain such information. I agree with him and I agree with the guy who says that political standings are vital. I am also just debating that I cannot find a bad reason not to have this information stored this way, having the information stored outside of one centralized point makes information scattered and thus harder for players to keep up which may eventually drive them away from even caring, I don't feel that making the information non centralized adds any game play benefit, it doesn't increase difficulty of the game outside of making it tedious, and to keep information centralized without using the Home Stone would require things such as giant billboards (which I have already given my opinion on how this is a poor way to handle it in game as well as impacts the server negatively). I've yet to hear a good reason to exclude that bit of information from the rest of the information stored within the home stone outside of personal preference or saying that it would be benefit to the "lazy and/or stupid", is all.

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Sorry if I came off the wrong way with that post, that isn't what I meant. :(

What I meant is that my support for storing a towns vital information and why I feel that political standings of a town are vital for the survival of a town and its citizens are based on Bioxx clarifying that he feels that Home Stones should contain such information. I agree with him and I agree with the guy who says that political standings are vital. I am also just debating that I cannot find a bad reason not to have this information stored this way, having the information stored outside of one centralized point makes information scattered and thus harder for players to keep up which may eventually drive them away from even caring, I don't feel that making the information non centralized adds any game play benefit, it doesn't increase difficulty of the game outside of making it tedious, and to keep information centralized without using the Home Stone would require things such as giant billboards (which I have already given my opinion on how this is a poor way to handle it in game as well as impacts the server negatively). I've yet to hear a good reason to exclude that bit of information from the rest of the information stored within the home stone outside of personal preference or saying that it would be benefit to the "lazy and/or stupid", is all.

Or just put it on the forum post and alt-tab to browser. Maybe home stones can be craftable so you can have your own copy. I haven't been reading since my last post here, it sounds angry though, so I don't know if that has been suggested. I have no desire in reading long, angry posts though, unless I'm in the middle of it.
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Or just put it on the forum post and alt-tab to browser. Maybe home stones can be craftable so you can have your own copy. I haven't been reading since my last post here, it sounds angry though, so I don't know if that has been suggested. I have no desire in reading long, angry posts though, unless I'm in the middle of it.

My first post talking about a political GUI? Wasn't angry at all, second half was talking about tools servers could use to facilitate wars.

I also think that keeping that information out of game in a forums is also a bit of a bad solution, you're taking game play out of the game and sticking it someplace else, meaning people have to stop playing to look up information that should be readily available in game.

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I think they mean for it to be word of mouth sort of thing. not on a website.

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My first post talking about a political GUI? Wasn't angry at all, second half was talking about tools servers could use to facilitate wars.

I also think that keeping that information out of game in a forums is also a bit of a bad solution, you're taking game play out of the game and sticking it someplace else, meaning people have to stop playing to look up information that should be readily available in game.

on the other hand, certain things like rules and regulations don't enhance game play. Some things take away from the game, such as too much config embedded in the game. I (personally) prefer many of these things to be external but I can understand this particular feature being included in some way, if not in the chat whenever you look at a town stone
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My first post talking about a political GUI? Wasn't angry at all, second half was talking about tools servers could use to facilitate wars.

I also think that keeping that information out of game in a forums is also a bit of a bad solution, you're taking game play out of the game and sticking it someplace else, meaning people have to stop playing to look up information that should be readily available in game.

I'm talking the copy on the forums is for your disposal, you have the stone at spawn. And was anything said about personal stones to keep at home? Also you can ask something like "Does anybody know line 4 of the stone".
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on the other hand, certain things like rules and regulations don't enhance game play. Some things take away from the game, such as too much config embedded in the game. I (personally) prefer many of these things to be external but I can understand this particular feature being included in some way, if not in the chat whenever you look at a town stone

Yeah, I'm just talking about having the information in a centralized location, that is all. While having the "political" tab be a means to activate certain in game protocols for a "war" mode might have its merits, it would require a lot of balancing and may not be worth the trouble for something that would be purely optional. I do think that certain things like soldiers not instantly respawning when two nations are fighting with each other or ways for nations to physical fight over territories, should be a possibility but those can be done in other ways. :)

I'm talking the copy on the forums is for your disposal, you have the stone at spawn. And was anything said about personal stones to keep at home? Also you can ask something like "Does anybody know line 4 of the stone".

Personally, forums are not really the best solution for the server I moderate on since we run two forums for the same server (it is a long story). And while players can of course ask for information over chat, it still has to be stored someplace.

You do bring up an interesting idea though, it would be neat if players could carry some kind of Town Tome on their person that keeps a short list of information (list of citizens, laws, borders (maybe need a map for this) and a simplified "relations" list), but you have to manually update it by revisiting the town stone and right click the Tome against it.

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Yeah, I'm just talking about having the information in a centralized location, that is all. While having the "political" tab be a means to activate certain in game protocols for a "war" mode might have its merits, it would require a lot of balancing and may not be worth the trouble for something that would be purely optional. I do think that certain things like soldiers not instantly respawning when two nations are fighting with each other or ways for nations to physical fight over territories, should be a possibility but those can be done in other ways. :)

Personally, forums are not really the best solution for the server I moderate on since we run two forums for the same server (it is a long story). And while players can of course ask for information over chat, it still has to be stored someplace.

You do bring up an interesting idea though, it would be neat if players could carry some kind of Town Tome on their person that keeps a short list of information (list of citizens, laws, borders (maybe need a map for this) and a simplified "relations" list) that you can carry around with you, but you have to manually update it by revisiting the town stone and right click the Tome against it.

A tome sounds nice. Better that having a giant honking stone in your living room.

It's like sitting watching the game, at home, with all your buds, except you have a huge monolith in the middle of your floor in place of a coffee table. Yes, a tome would be much nicer to reduce awkward moments.

Bob: "Will you get rid of this stone?" Steve: "No, that violates rule 6." and so you are stuck with a stone blocking Halo forever.

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I would say, "No" to the idea of an in-game readable list of how cities relate to each other because it removes the possibility of deception on the part of players. If the server is PvP, being able to lie to someone without them knowing it's a lie until it's too late is something you would want.

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