Kingdoms Brainstorming

[Pakislav 120]

Players can place blocks, therefore, no NPC could beat them. just make a tower and snipe them. even if they got bows, just make it taller. or, build a 'fort' ahead of time and start your assault.

NPC are never (Not in a few years ) going to be the same as players. But who said that they can't place blocks or break them? They most certainly can. They can also be made to take cover, or have ranged attack in case they can't get to their target. If you can shoot them they can shoot you.

And here's my idea.

NPC 'leader' or a 'sherif'. Just an NPC that protects the 'law' 24/7, so that there is always someone... well, something to take care of lawbreakers in case of no MODS being around.

Say, the NPC either sits in his building, or can be summoned, and complaints can be made to him: "Player [name] killed me." The NPC then checks the log and if it did happen, he punishes the murderer by either teleporting him to a prison cell from which he can not escape/banning him, killing him or sending spawned NPCs to kill him, which would give him a chance to fight back and avoid incarceration/death.

So you can accuse someone of stealing from your locked chest, but this someone who you accused didn't picklock the chest and isn't in the log, so the NPC responds: "Our investigation have cleared [name] of all charges." and because you have placed a false complaint, you can't do it again for, for example, 15 minutes, to avoid spamming everybodys name until you get the right guy.

It would be plenty of fun!

[killster550 401]

NPC are never (Not in a few years ) going to be the same as players. But who said that they can't place blocks or break them? They most certainly can. They can also be made to take cover, or have ranged attack in case they can't get to their target. If you can shoot them they can shoot you.

the point is that an NPC would, besides countering the attack, somehow alert the players nearby of an attack on said town (like the equivalent of walking into a dragon attack on Skyrim, you can see it from some distance) which would (hopefully) make players come fight of the rivalling/enemy/hostile/asshole players trying to attack their town

[Pakislav 120]

Yeah. I would LOVE to see NPC serving such roles. On a SMP server, you are not always around, so leaving an NPC trader in your house to trade limited amount of goods you have gathered, or an NPC guard to protect your assets would be awesome. You could also just programm your own NPC to sit in your house and have dialog options, for example explaining who this house belongs to etc. It would be incredibly great! There already is an NPC mod that does pretty much just that. I don't remmember exactly how it's called, but I think it was just something plain like MC Custom NPC.

Also, to go outside of NPCs.

Game enforced towns and land ownership is the main concept of the OP.

So how about making cities and towns have their own Protection Meter of higher range outside of which, players are subject to Zombie Invasions that can break doors and possibly blocks as well? Basically that outside of the City Protection Meter Equivalent range, it's too dangerous to stay for a prolonged amount of time or settle? It would be cool if roads in between cities required save-zone posts with towers or other fortifications to make traveling safe.

Let's say, that every 1 day lenght worth of travel there should be a guard post next to a road, so that travelers can rest at night, which is extremly dangerous time of day outside of city border.

[killster550 401]

Yeah. I would LOVE to see NPC serving such roles. On a SMP server, you are not always around, so leaving an NPC trader in your house to trade limited amount of goods you have gathered, or an NPC guard to protect your assets would be awesome. You could also just programm your own NPC to sit in your house and have dialog options, for example explaining who this house belongs to etc. It would be incredibly great! There already is an NPC mod that does pretty much just that. I don't remmember exactly how it's called, but I think it was just something plain like MC Custom NPC.

Also, to go outside of NPCs.

Game enforced towns and land ownership is the main concept of the OP.

So how about making cities and towns have their own Protection Meter of higher range outside of which, players are subject to Zombie Invasions that can break doors and possibly blocks as well? Basically that outside of the City Protection Meter Equivalent range, it's too dangerous to stay for a prolonged amount of time or settle? It would be cool if roads in between cities required save-zone posts with towers or other fortifications to make traveling safe.

Let's say, that every 1 day lenght worth of travel there should be a guard post next to a road, so that travelers can rest at night, which is extremly dangerous time of day outside of city border.

eeehm, firstly, mobs will get confined to dungeons (so i've heard a lot), secondly, in your zombies case, zeds are attracted to cities, to lots of humans, not to the solo human out in the wilds, those usually live the longest in every zed apocalypse series (zed = zombies for the brainfarters out there) thirdly, not game enforced towns, the option for towns would be up to the players, including land ownership

there has already been a huge snipedown thread on city protection and stuff like that, although i wonder what this will look like eventually, i think its safe to say the above-ground will be safe from MOST hostile mobs we know (dunk, help me on that one please?) and the entire guard posting is up to players

also, NPC's are an IMMENSE effort to program compared to what Bioxx and Dunk are doing with gameplay (slap me with a cookiehammer if im wrong dunk) so anything beyond combat, which they could be able to get from combining several mob behaviors, NPC's shouldnt have a big role, TFC is more of a player based mod than a non-player based one, the way you place it, players would become obsolete, and then we can all start computing pi all day long

[Pakislav 120]

Not really obsolete. Just serving very minor roles while players are not online, just to add to the 'population' feeling. Having a hundred empty houses and just two people online gives a sad feeling. Having a few npcs here and there trading or having a few dialog options set by the player that "owns" them adds to the game, not subtracts from it. And even if they were to be added, then completly optionally.

[killster550 401]

what could be done as a replacement, which is done though mods on vanilla servers (dont ask me which) is use the player skin as an npc that walks around within some kind of border you'd need to be able to mark (town gates anyone?) just dont make em all collision into each other and freeze there

[Pakislav 120]

I imagine that the NPC shouldn't be a part of TFC really, instead using an outside NPC mod on certain servers xd

The Custom NPCs mod seems to do everything and more already.

[ultraboomer 6]

there are 43 pages and I'm kinda lazy so if I missed something, sorry.

has anyone suggested something like a block that takes the stone or wooden structure it is placed in and makes it be recognised as a bank and each chest recognised as an account? you could set an interest rate and value for things like gems or coins, and have interest paid based on what's in the chest at the end of the month and what's in the chest next to the bank block.

is something like that possible through forge? cause I think bukkit can do it and am unsure about forge's current ability to do that sort of thing.

[1SDAN 38]

@ above: You could do all that using math and signs already. I did it in my vanilla server.

[ECC 508]

'But who said that they can't place blocks or break them?'

I did, as boss battle breaking is the hacky and stupid way and zombies use an alt method then the player. oh and explosion mechanics cant eexactly count as that is indirect.

Never seen any vanilla mob place a block, so if your refering to a mod then gtfo, tfc is not 'another mod' (not meant as an insult, just trying to be blunt)

anyhow, can we get a topic lock and a subforum for this topic in its place? Looking over this, we've discussed it before.

[ultraboomer 6]

'But who said that they can't place blocks or break them?'

I did, as boss battle breaking is the hacky and stupid way and zombies use an alt method then the player. oh and explosion mechanics cant eexactly count as that is indirect.

Never seen any vanilla mob place a block, so if your refering to a mod then gtfo, tfc is not 'another mod' (not meant as an insult, just trying to be blunt)

anyhow, can we get a topic lock and a subforum for this topic in its place? Looking over this, we've discussed it before.

I should point out the invasion mod does have mobs which place and break blocks, showing that it is possible.

I also agree that we should get a subforum for the kingdoms discussion instead of a single thread.

[renadi 258]

I think a game like this NOT having enemies that can destroy and/or place blocks is sort of ridiculous.

The huge advantage to Minecraft over most games is the fully destructible terrain but none of the enemies really have that down, besides to a limited degree creepers, but they'll still by stymied by a 3 deep trench. Though, if I remember right the ai cannot jump over gaps, that alone would make them about 15(totally scientific and well thought out number I didn't just pull out of my ass) times as threatening.

[Pakislav 120]

'But who said that they can't place blocks or break them?'

I did, as boss battle breaking is the hacky and stupid way and zombies use an alt method then the player. oh and explosion mechanics cant eexactly count as that is indirect.

Never seen any vanilla mob place a block, so if your refering to a mod then gtfo, tfc is not 'another mod' (not meant as an insult, just trying to be blunt)

anyhow, can we get a topic lock and a subforum for this topic in its place? Looking over this, we've discussed it before.

Endermen pick up and place blocks. It's in the vanilla mechanic. Your attitude is annoying to say the least.

[ultraboomer 6]

the enderman mechanic wouldn't work for something like npc guards. it works a little different. it's a random event and they can only pick up a small selection of vanilla blocks.

[ECC 508]

'invasion mod'

thats another mod... TFC is Not that mod. you would not believe how many arguments I have seen involving a developer who has been told 'its in this mod, why cant you do it?'

'Endermen'

I actually forgot about that mechanic and its by far the best implementation in VMC. Point stands however that a proper set of mechanics such as what I have been told exists in milonaire does not exist in vanilla.

my attitude is justly based in experience. Deal with it yo! ;P

or dont. dont give any crap either way. hate me if you will, love me if you wont.

[ultraboomer 6]

Ok, i did not say anything of the sort of "if it's in this mod, why can't you do it?" My statement was that it is possible to do, nothing more, nothing less.

[junweizhu 12]

I think the real question that many might have, how will server activity be when there are unlimited slots and several of the kingdom update is added? Lots of people are saying we need guard npc, seller npc and whatnot, but do we truly need them?

I was quitr serious when I said we should make a test server with as many of tfc players as possible so we could see how the town will develop in the current state. It would be good analysis for both us and Bioxx and dunk.

If we do add them though, here's an idea to limit too much relying on npc. Npc's will only spawn when 1/6th of the town's population(with an absolute max of..5 people) is online at the time and will instantly despawn when that limit is reached. Amounts of npc that can be spawned should also be 1/6th of the population with also an absolute max. Players who play on irregular times will still be able to do things in town while players playing on busy times won't rely on npc to do their work. I said 1/6th sounded fair enough, but if you have a different opinion about that, do tell me.

Although I said all that, I'm still against npc's, because I think the players can handle without them.

[bsb23 303]

Woah back up here. What about unlimited slots, where did that come from? What did I miss? Also Bioxx has said no NPCs quite a while ago, so this topic is basically dead.

[junweizhu 12]

Okay, maybe saying unlimited slots would be exaggerating, but we never really tried creating a large kingdom or anything did we? Maybe I should check that raisercraft server to see how towns would look like in a 100 slot server.

Also I only talked about NPC because everyone else thinks is a necessity because they think it's impossible for players to guard everyone's things, which is debatable.

And then I got ideas so I figured why not post that as well?

[SpeedDaemon 24]

So I haven't read the WHOLE thread, but enough that it seems griefing/town protection is a problem.

Anyway, here's my idea for dealing with it: the Garrison block.

This is basically an inventory that accepts sets of armor and weapons, plus consumables like arrows and ender pearls.

Putting in a full set of matching armor and a weapon (plus an optional bow) would spawn an NPC guard of a level determined by the material (bronze, iron, steel, black steel, and red/blue steel levels). The equipment would take normal durability damage, and when any piece of the set breaks, that guard will no longer show up for work. If a guard is unable to path to a target or get a clear bow shot, it will use an ender pearl, if available, to teleport to them (somewhat fails for believability, but should handle people abusing the AI/pathing).

The guards should be able to dispatch players pretty easily, but it would be possible for a group to wear down their equipment with a determined assault. I think the extreme expense involved in equipping the guards would balance them well (you can't just blanket vast areas of the map, since you'd quickly bankrupt even large kingdoms). If you have it set so that placing or breaking blocks in the protected area triggers the guards, then even a normal thick town wall will be useful.

The blocks would have to have some method for defining a whitelist/blacklist and which activities will annoy the guards. Placing one inside the radius of another would link them and cause them to pool their guards and share settings.

Different levels of the garrison block would have different radii and numbers of guard slots. There could also be a "house" version limited to one guard that only responds to infractions on the owning player's land (although the "town" guards would also come).

This also opens up the possibility for protecting roads from hostile mobs or random ganking, by spacing low level garrisons along their length.

Anyone killed by a guard would leave their inventory in a chest at their point of death, so that stolen items could be recovered.

This should keep things reasonably safe while people are logged out, without needing overpowered uber-locks, and also make x-ray irrelevant. As a bonus, it makes great use of the in-depth metallurgy system, and provides a reason to have (and method of protecting!) big mining operations and blacksmiths.

[killster550 401]

[Bioxx 796]

44 pages? Seriously? I'm not reading through this. When we switched away from the Beta 2 naming convention the idea of this coming along in 'Beta 3' went with it. That said, the ideas here may still find there way into TFC in the future, but for now I'm focusing on more core stuff. The big poll a few months back about weather people play ssp or smp and in what quantities had a lot to do with coming to this decision. I do still plan to give players a way to control territory but it will come later.

[killster550 401]

bioxx, short summarization: 30 pages of npc suggestions, some valid ideas which should spawn their own threads, most ideas already had their own thread

[Winkerson 1]

Lol, 44 pages of arguing and then he's like, "uh, hey guys, this debate is kinda... irrelevant." Glad I didn't read it all (just dunk and cev and a couple of others' comments who mostly responded to everyone else anyway).

Still, though, would be nice to see some sort of ability to have aboveground functioning towns, which is more or less an impossibility in vanilla mc. If you just got rid of those damned nametags (hate those suckers, never understood why there wasn't a common mod for getting rid of them in pvp servers; I mean, I know it has to do w/ how it's handled, the only way the client displays a player is if the server sends a a package identifying that player which contains the name, but its hardly rocket science to figure out how to get around this and I've seen a couple of small mods that did it then just kinda faded away) then you could AT LEAST have viable underground settlements, which is currently made useless by nametag hunters on any good sized pvp server, but it'd be lovely to see some of those fantastic structures and towns constructed somewhere other than a creative server and, you know, fought over.

Personally I always thought that a mod that added real difficulty to mining and construction would fix a lot of it - mining a cubic meter of stone or dirt takes at least minutes, you can't load your inventory up with it but have to (slowly) carry one at a time from place to place (they don't turn into items in other words) or load them in minecarts (would actually give minecarts a function, in construction projects), and ofc it would then take forever to get through a good wall. Perhaps even make it harder to mine blocks back out again after placement with the addition of some substance such as mortar which doubles their difficulty or somesuch. You could even Throw in lighter materials for unfortified buildings like real wooden planks that could be laid from support post to support post creating an enclosure out of two dimensional thin walls that were as easy to break thru as current mc materials but could be stacked to some degree in inventory.

Ofc such a taste of realism (well, realism lite, because carrying a single cubic meter of stone over your head is still pretty fantastic) would be sacrilege to most MC players. What might actually work is something like the system originally suggested with the home stones or w/e, and the addition of -limited- siege equipment. So you can protect just like you can in factions and other plugins (though a larger area would be nice to encourage big farms and plantations) but they can get through without the whole water cannon thing (which would necessarily be removed). Basically you would create a catapault, ballista, or battering ram using assorted materials (wood, metal, and most importantly glues). These engines would have two very important characteristics - they would degrade QUICKLY when moving over unpaved terrain (dirt, natural stone, etcetera), breaking down in as little as a hundred blocks (something which could be adjusted for balance), and they would have a cooldown time between construction and first use. This would be explained by the drying time of the glue (this idea wholly nicked from a little mmo I used to play and love called haven and hearth, but it worked damn well there) or whatever else you wish. Drying time could be anything really, but twelve hours would work best. Once the thing dries you can fire on the wall, and the missile's hit would have the effect of a chisel, chopping off one or more layers of block (depends on the material of the missile and of the block being hit ofc) at a time whilst making a terrible racket that travels long distances and with considerable inaccuracy so that it takes a while to batter through any two block segment that you can fit your raiders in.

Basic thrust of this idea is obvious ofc. If you want to raid a town (that didn't screw up and leave a route for you to parkour over their walls, such as nearby trees or something) you've gotta place your siege engine more or less WITHIN SIGHT, or at least within easy patrolling distance of them, which is realistic enough considering that until the construction of metal cannonry which made it impossible to assemble onsite this was how siege equipment was used, to keep it from slowing the army and arriving useless from the wear and tear of the march. Then you've got to wait half a day, giving them plenty of time, if they're active and alert, to find your ram or catapault and destroy it - or better yet break it down for materials and set it up nice and pretty on their wall as a sort of roundabout 'fu' to the raiders when they log on the next day. If they somehow miss it and they're online when the raid commences they're sure as hell gonna hear it, and be able to at least attempt a sortie. On top of all of that a wall chewed and chipped to bits by a catapault is going to look pretty friggin' awesome, which is a fringe benefit, but the whole town isn't gonna be wrecked and griefed because they're only going to be able to move the sucker around and do so much damage before it breaks down and requires glue and drying time to fix up again.

I think it'd work pretty well. The siege engines would probably be a pain to program, but then what good mechanic isn't? It'd allow raiding, though, whilst still allowing even relatively small teams to protect their home if they bother to ass themselves just enough to look around the walls for bits of siege machinery hanging out and trying to look innocent every so often, and it'd make griefing (tearing down people's bases or burying them in cobble or w/e just to be an ass, without benefit to oneself) too much trouble to be worth it to the sorts that do it. The siege engines would also make MUCH better defensive weapons than offensive if you allowed them also to be loaded with stacks or rocks, which ofc would do no damage to blocks but would act like a flight of super high-damage arrows against players and siege equipment outside the walls, and ofc they wouldn't break down if they were just sitting on your walls and not being moved.

[fliffy101 12]

I've taken a quick look alot of what's here, and i decided to make my own idea for a criminal/justice system based on what other people have said.

Blocks should not be able to be protected just by a block that says you can't: if you wanted to keep your items you would have to protect them. by applying reinforcements on a block would force you/criminals to destroy that reinforcement first, with mining speed and explosion/fire resistance based on the teir of metal used as a reinforcement. this would/could mean that higher teir metal reinforcements couldn't be destroyed by lower teir tools. If a criminal didn't have sufficent tools they would either have to resort to days of searching for higher tier metals, paying money to a blacksmith to get better tools, or resorting to lockpicking.

This brings me to another idea. instead of there being "lock boxes" and "tiers of locks", there would be a new mechanic: Locksmithing: locks and keys would be created together. how this would work is (insert however locksmithing actually works here) while you're doing that you would have a gui for shaping the locks and keys.

this would work similarly to knapping, but the way you would shape them would be completely customizable. just shape the key exactly to the hole of the lock and label the key (using the lore/naming mechanic in 1.4).

when the criminal would use the lockpick on the lock, it would bring up an advanced gui showing the lock and giving options to (put pressure here, twist, push, ect). this would mean the success rate of the lock pick would be based on the skill of the criminal, which could require actual knowledge of how to lockpick in real life.

getting into possible criminal activity here, instead of picking the lock, the criminal could make a deal with the locksmith who made the lock, asking for a copy of the key, and stolen goods in return. this would be a risk though, as the locksmith might not be willing to betray their customer, and report would the criminal to the authorities. this could bring trust into gameplay, so you'd have to decide, do you trust your locksmith?