Goblin Squad Member
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I really hope we are given unparalleled freedom in designing/building structures. I understand from the blog we will be bound in area, but I hope we can actually design the layout and height of walls and other building types. This would allow guilds/towns to actually build intelligent defenses...and not so intelligent defenses.
I was really disappointed by DF and AoC where construction really means collect x number of y mat and click here.
I am not sure how this could work, especially when determining how much material and time is needed for construction...I assume it could be based on volume. There could be preset construction tools...with base shapes such as floors/mid and full walls/ceilings and additional stuff like windows, doors, and even statues and other decorations. These tools could be used for anything from designing an inn to a full castle.
A question which develops from this would be, who gets control...I suppose since the intent to limit construction to whomever "owns" a territory is already in place, the Leader of a Guild could specify who has access to the building tools.
OPTIONAL: This could also offer content for an architect and engineer profession. Architects could use the design tool to design structures and store the design on "blueprints" (which can be used to dictate construction). Engineers on the other hand are necessary for actually building structures. Architects level by selling their blueprints and engineers level by directing construction. The benefit of leveling these professions is either access to additional base forms for the architect, or more efficient construction for the engineer (decrease required mats by x%).
I think the idea behind this is really good. I like it.
I also think that the developers of PFO should take a look at the new Territory Control system that Starvault is making for Mortal Online.
It seems perfect, to me.
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Perhaps a bit of both - that is, established buildings of types with varying styles, and a more free-form building development style? I know my building feng shui is lacking, so I wouldn't mind some form of gridwork. At the same time, I know people who can do amazing things with Minecraft, for crying out loud, so what they might do with a toolkit in PFO might blow that out of the water.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I also think it would be cool, maybe if say the town leader can set zoneing, Via an overhead transparent overhead map with just color coded boxes etc... individual citizens of said town can then build their own buildings on the chosen zoned areas. Whether they are inns, or Smithery's (is that the right word for that), farmland, banks etc... The owner of each building may upgrade them to their hearts content etc... Most should be operatable via NPCs but require resources of some kind to keep running. (say the farm produces food/milk, which the inn needs etc... possibly revolving into a full ballanced set of needs/wants for the town, players can upgrade them to get a better ratio of items produced etc...
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Goblin Squad Member
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At the very least, there should be some way to make towns using building blueprints. I would like to see some customization as to how each building is made, so you don't have all 10 shops all look the same. And yeah, building customizable static defenses would be cool, but I'm worried about how easy it would be to abuse that kind of system. Maybe just placing sections of presized wall, or placing traps and the like would be enough.
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A couple of different structure models/styles would be nice. Like 2-3 types for each kind of building, and the ability to choose the house colors.
A PC with the architecture skill could be making the "structure plan" with all the specifikations, like "Wooden House, Green and Red Colors, 2 storis high", and then a pc with the engineering skill appropriate for the structure plan would be needed to place the building site.
My one thing from another thread was that I'd like to see ethnic options tied into population demographics; if you're trying to attract more elves, have elven architecture available and usable. Same thing for dwarves, halfling, Chelaxians, Irrisenians, etc, etc.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I would put in my 2 cents about the "predeterminated location".
I think there should be some limitation on what can be build where. If there is a street in a city it should not be possible to build a house on it and even building a gate should require some kind of authorization by the town ruler/owner.
Same thing for the main roads around the map: it should not be possible to build a castle blocking a road unless you have achieved control of the territory.
Another thing that should not be possible is to some kind of build structure on some kind of terrain (i.e. you can build a bridge on a river but not a castle).
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Goblin Squad Member
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I would put in my 2 cents about the "predeterminated location".
I think there should be some limitation on what can be build where. If there is a street in a city it should not be possible to build a house on it and even building a gate should require some kind of authorization by the town ruler/owner.
Same thing for the main roads around the map: it should not be possible to build a castle blocking a road unless you have achieved control of the territory.
Another thing that should not be possible is to some kind of build structure on some kind of terrain (i.e. you can build a bridge on a river but not a castle).
I still think zoning would be a nice solution for such. Individuals can build as they please, but plots etc... can be set by the city's leader, who distributes out land, divides them into plots etc... with permissions for categories of what can be built. Once the locations of the plots are set out, he can then give/sell/rent deeds out to whomever depending on how that town decides to do things.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I still think zoning would be a nice solution for such. Individuals can build as they please, but plots etc... can be set by the city's leader, who distributes out land, divides them into plots etc... with permissions for categories of what can be built. Once the locations of the plots are set out, he can then give/sell/rent deeds out to whomever depending on how that town decides to do things.
This scales perfectly, too. The ruler of a kingdom can divide his land into duchies, or whatever, and grant them to lesser lords, who can then divide their land as they see fit, down to where the mayor of a small town might choose to designate each house lot.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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I think anyone should be able to build anything anywhere. But I also believe that if you build somewhere that is already claimed or is near a city that may expand you risk forfeiting what you've built.
Just because a king claims everything within a mile of his castle doesn't mean he has the means to enforce it. But should he ever gain the means to do so, anyone who openly defied him in the past has to answer for having not obeying the rules in his kingdom (unless he grants amnesty).
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think anyone should be able to build anything anywhere. But I also believe that if you build somewhere that is already claimed or is near a city that may expand you risk forfeiting what you've built.
Just because a king claims everything within a mile of his castle doesn't mean he has the means to enforce it. But should he ever gain the means to do so, anyone who openly defied him in the past has to answer for having not obeying the rules in his kingdom (unless he grants amnesty).
Indeed, buildings should cost resources to build up, and say 50% of those resources should be on the ground if the building is destroyed. Building where you are not welcome, should be possible, but costly if you can't protect it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think anyone should be able to build anything anywhere. But I also believe that if you build somewhere that is already claimed or is near a city that may expand you risk forfeiting what you've built.
Just because a king claims everything within a mile of his castle doesn't mean he has the means to enforce it. But should he ever gain the means to do so, anyone who openly defied him in the past has to answer for having not obeying the rules in his kingdom (unless he grants amnesty).
Absolutely. The zoning is just there to indicate where the current rulers of the territory have granted their permission. It's not a guarantee :)
And you're 100% right that we should be able to start building something anywhere we want, and as long as no one is able to come and stop us, we should be able to continue.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think anyone should be able to build anything anywhere. But I also believe that if you build somewhere that is already claimed or is near a city that may expand you risk forfeiting what you've built.
Just because a king claims everything within a mile of his castle doesn't mean he has the means to enforce it. But should he ever gain the means to do so, anyone who openly defied him in the past has to answer for having not obeying the rules in his kingdom (unless he grants amnesty).
So you think that having people build a wall on the street while you are off line would be fun? Or wall up every exit of your house?
For me there should be a mechanic to avoid that kind of things. If someone want to change a street into a wall he should either:
- be the local ruler or owner of the land, tear down the existing structure and build the new structure;
- declare war to wrestle the control of the land;
- buy the land from the owner.
I can build anything anywhere unless someone is actively opposing me is a bad mechanic prone to shenanigans.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I can have reasons to want a wall linking one building of my structure to another building. For example I could want to enclose a courtyard with multiple buildings and a single gate. Or I can eve want to wall up one of the doors of my house because I have discovered it is a easy target for thieves.
As long as I am the owner and user I should have the possibility to do even unusual things like a tower that can be accessed only by flying or teleportation (if we can do them in game).
At the same time it should not be possible for a third person to block the access to my property unless he is willing to declare war to me.
In one of the first posts in this section of the forum Ryan specified that one of the goal is to avoid shenanigans that were done in past MMORPG, like unbroken walls of houses to block access to some region of the game.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Like I said, building without the permission of the local kingdom should have repercussions associated with it. If you start building in an area with NPCs patrolling, you should be warned to disperse by the npcs and take your building materials with you. If you choose not to then it is a hostile act against the kingdom. Have fun dealing with all the guards.
However, if you troll an area that doesn't have the means to stand against you then that area is out of luck. This gives reason to build near established and protected settlements.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Like I said, building without the permission of the local kingdom should have repercussions associated with it. If you start building in an area with NPCs patrolling, you should be warned to disperse by the npcs and take your building materials with you. If you choose not to then it is a hostile act against the kingdom. Have fun dealing with all the guards.
However, if you troll an area that doesn't have the means to stand against you then that area is out of luck. This gives reason to build near established and protected settlements.
The system is never going to have a sufficient understanding of what's happening to decide whether building this structure there is okay. Much better to let the powers-that-be in-game deal with rogue structures.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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I think anyone should be able to build anything anywhere. But I also believe that if you build somewhere that is already claimed or is near a city that may expand you risk forfeiting what you've built.
Just because a king claims everything within a mile of his castle doesn't mean he has the means to enforce it. But should he ever gain the means to do so, anyone who openly defied him in the past has to answer for having not obeying the rules in his kingdom (unless he grants amnesty).
So you think that having people build a wall on the street while you are off line would be fun? Or wall up every exit of your house?
Yes. Because in the first case, I knock the wall down and gather raw materials from the rubble, or pay the toll to the people who control the road. In the second case, since I already control the area my house is in, I deconstruct the wall for raw materials.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I am really torn on this. On one hand I like the order involved in can't without permission. On the other hand I like the "sandboxyness" of making the players police themselves. How power? Prove it.
I would like to be able to find some deserted mountain pass that no one passes and build my clan a small stronghold...no matter who actually "owns" the land. On the other hand, I think they should have some sort of notification system of when someone builds "out of bounds". In fact, I think that might be a solution, a hierarchical system in which players who own land can specify plots and award ownership/building rights. Those players can in turn sublet. Players are notified when someone "illegally" builds on their property and the issue can be escalated up the hierarchy if needed (so the lowest land owner is the one notified, they can escalate it if needed).
I think this same system should be used to notify of destruction/modification of structures as well. Persons with rights to build should get a bonus to build/destroy structures on their land (or vice versa, persons without rights have a penalty to time and resources).
It is then the land owners prerogative to allow this construction or not by using force to reverse it. If the land owner does not have the necessary force, then perhaps escalation up the hierarchy is necessary, if no one in the hierarchy has the force necessary, then...then that is a different matter entirely.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Or a reasonable distance requirement between buildings?
Even that shouldn't be necessary, buildings should be destroy-able, when a building is destroyed half of the resources should be collectible by whoever is near and destroying, the other half should be in unusable condition, aka garbage. If someone wants to keep building a brick wall in front of my front door, that should be giving me money essentially, as I'll just keep tearing it down and collecting the resources. It should take roughly half the time to tear down as it did to put up.
So someone trying to destroy a legitimate approved structure, should still take a long time to do so, a town of people and the NPC guards should be more than aware of it before he completes his goal, and will likely kill the person the first time, by the second he should become Kill on sight if he walks back into that town.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Oh, so it's okay to be able to wall in someones house because they can spend 8 RL hours knocking it down with their fists (so they don't wear out their weapon, or 7 hours after they've worn out their weapons)? And then when they get 3 guys on the other side repairing it you are just stuck.
Or a reasonable distance requirement between buildings?
Even that shouldn't be necessary, buildings should be destroy-able, when a building is destroyed half of the resources should be collectible by whoever is near and destroying, the other half should be in unusable condition, aka garbage. If someone wants to keep building a brick wall in front of my front door, that should be giving me money essentially, as I'll just keep tearing it down and collecting the resources. It should take roughly half the time to tear down as it did to put up.
So someone trying to destroy a legitimate approved structure, should still take a long time to do so, a town of people and the NPC guards should be more than aware of it before he completes his goal, and will likely kill the person the first time, by the second he should become Kill on sight if he walks back into that town.
Of course, what's to keep these of bad guys, with infinite resources and infinite time who are intent on griefing you from buying the properties on all four sides of you and building this wall?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Oh, so it's okay to be able to wall in someones house because they can spend 8 RL hours knocking it down with their fists (so they don't wear out their weapon, or 7 hours after they've worn out their weapons)? And then when they get 3 guys on the other side repairing it you are just stuck.
Or a reasonable distance requirement between buildings?
Even that shouldn't be necessary, buildings should be destroy-able, when a building is destroyed half of the resources should be collectible by whoever is near and destroying, the other half should be in unusable condition, aka garbage. If someone wants to keep building a brick wall in front of my front door, that should be giving me money essentially, as I'll just keep tearing it down and collecting the resources. It should take roughly half the time to tear down as it did to put up.
So someone trying to destroy a legitimate approved structure, should still take a long time to do so, a town of people and the NPC guards should be more than aware of it before he completes his goal, and will likely kill the person the first time, by the second he should become Kill on sight if he walks back into that town.
Assuming your town is mindless enough to allow him to be standing there constructing for 16 hours without noticing... You aren't building your house in the middle of nowhere, you are building your town in an area of security where all of your ally's are. If your town has far more foes than friends, you have bigger problems to worry about. Also I don't think it should be possible to be locked in a small area, you should full and well have the ability to teleport yourself to a shrine or some other area within the same town. But I am saying if someone clutters up the path with houses, that should be a huge expense on them, and a nice profit for whoever solves the problem by blowing up said buildings.
And actually as you describe it yeah actually the ratio should be far stronger than that on time to destroy vs time to build, destroying in general should probably take under 5 minutes. Some rate that is possible for a team assaulting a city to break in, have a group covering the people destroying the structure, and actually tear it down, while the defenders are giving everything they got to try and stop this from happening and losing their town. Needs to take long enough to prevent a solo guy from just sneaking in and yanking the town out from under someone, but short enough that taking a town is actually possible for an army with the right tricks/numbers etc... up their sleeves.
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Goblin Squad Member
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5 minutes to tear down a defensive structure?
Then what is the purpose of that wall? Window dressing?
A wall is meant to be a permanent structure with serious in game effects. In a game where people can be off-line, busy at the telephone or doing thousands of other RL stuff that will keep them AFK for hours. Or tehy can be logged in and in a distant location.
To be useful a wall should last enough that there is the time to gather a defence force. If it last 5 minutes it has the same function of a paper armor.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Of course, what's to keep these of bad guys, with infinite resources and infinite time who are intent on griefing you from buying the properties on all four sides of you and building this wall?Oh, so it's okay to be able to wall in someones house because they can spend 8 RL hours knocking it down with their fists (so they don't wear out their weapon, or 7 hours after they've worn out their weapons)? And then when they get 3 guys on the other side repairing it you are just stuck.
Or a reasonable distance requirement between buildings?
Even that shouldn't be necessary, buildings should be destroy-able, when a building is destroyed half of the resources should be collectible by whoever is near and destroying, the other half should be in unusable condition, aka garbage. If someone wants to keep building a brick wall in front of my front door, that should be giving me money essentially, as I'll just keep tearing it down and collecting the resources. It should take roughly half the time to tear down as it did to put up.
So someone trying to destroy a legitimate approved structure, should still take a long time to do so, a town of people and the NPC guards should be more than aware of it before he completes his goal, and will likely kill the person the first time, by the second he should become Kill on sight if he walks back into that town.
a) to have some game function a wall should require way less player time to build it than to tear it down. You could need any number of NPC helping you, but that is another thing.
b) generally your land lot should have a road access and there should be limitations on road constructions. If there aren't it would be a big flaw in the game.
So, if the city is planned decently it would not be possible to buy the land around your hose and block you in.
c) I doubt that "building a wall" will ever be classified as a "aggression flag" action, so if there aren't other limitations to it I would be capable to brick you in your house and you will have no recourse to stop me without getting a aggression flag.
It is even possible that you will get an aggression flag for tearing down my wall.
If there aren't limitations on what can be build where there is the risk of creating a griefer paradise.
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Goblin Squad Member
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You are mad Onishi?
5 minutes to tear down a defensive?
Then what is the purpose of that wall? Window dressing?A wall is meant to be a permanent structure with serious in game effects. In a game where people can be off-line, busy at the telephone or doing thousands of other RL stuff that will keep them AFK for hours. Or tehy can be logged in and in a distant location.
To be useful a wall should last enough that there is the time to gather a defence force. If it last 5 minutes it has the same function of a paper armor.
Perhaps somewhere inbetween. It does not take hours to gather defenses, and it depends what sort of wall we are talking about, how many attacking etc... 2 hours is rediculously long, 5 minutes is a bit short. In general in a war scenerio, you should see it coming a mile off, in a city a guard or someone else in town should see you doing it within a few seconds. Gathering a handful of people to attack a handful of people taking down a wall in the middle of a inhabited down should not take very long, and that is before adding in things like roaming guards etc... If we are dealing with an army etc... well that should be seen coming a mile off, and the defenses should be being prepared long before they reach town.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I have to disagree on the road functionality...sort of. I agree that roads are useful and a well laid out city will have provisions for roads...but I hope it is up to the players to lay out their cities and to dictate where construction can occur...and even to police this. What if my city was going to be under attack and I wanted to place temporary defensive/defensible positions in what is normally the road? I do not want a "can't build in the road" mechanic to keep me from doing so. If someone were to build in the road, it would obstruct traffic and those who ran the city would quickly learn of it.
I suppose this is another point that should be, anyone can destroy a structure that is not "authorized to be built" without being flagged. All members of a community could then help in the policing within that communities city.
I could see a city pop up with very poor roads...or roads on the roof of buildings...whatever.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@ Onishi
You see, what you want was done in EVE with the conquerable stations. The results was station pin-pong, with the station being conquered by the corporations with a strong component of US players, then being lost 8th ours later to the corporations with a strong Est Asian demography and then lost to the Russian/EU corporations, do do it again full cycle the next day.
If the defensive structures can be breached in minutes the result is that you need to always have local superiority to keep them up. That mean that only al reading existing large groups of players (like the subscriber to the Something Awful forum, i.e. Goonswarm) will be really capable to own and control real estate in the game. At that point you can give them the keys of the server and give it to them.
You get the current landscape of EVE, with a few very strong Alliances controlling wast stretches of 0.0 with a small fraction of the characters while most of the players huddled up in high security space and no possibility for the smaller corporations to set up in 0.0 unless they accept to be "pets" of the larger alliances.
At least EVE has require years to get there. It is not a good idea to set up a structure that will implement that kind of landscape from the start.
Then there is the problem that guard duty is one of the most boring activities you can do in a game. You need to be at your post, ready to sound the alarm (on vent or in game chat, depending of what the game support) to call all the others player to arm.
You should be fully alert all of the time so you will not be allowed to actually play the game.
You can ameliorate your warning time putting guards on picket duty further away from your city, but then you will have even more players doing nothing in game beside being the guard at the crossroad. Plenty of fun in that.
Your assumption that it will be a "handful of people" attacking is one of the worst assumption I have seen.
When I am attacking I am the guy that decide the time and has all the leisure he want in gathering my forces, so I will come with the strongest contingent I can muster, not a "handful" (unless I am a moron, but then I am not a problem for my target).
So our sentinel on the wall will give a 1 minute (maybe, if he can see so far) warning about a hundred character strong army attacking the city. Enough time to close the city doors, not enough to gather any seizable defence force.
If the wall can be breached in minutes to gather enough defenders (even assuming they are on line) you will have to force your guild members to always stay within a few minutes of march from your city or to always have a alt ready to log in for city defence.
The whole idea seem awfully restrictive. I have been in corporations that live under that kind of rules and I have disliked the play stile.
"You are a cog in our army first, all the other thing, included the game you are paying for or your sleep cycles, are secondary."
sorry, I have put my alarm clock to 3.00 AM for a corp op a couple of times in my life and don't want to do it again.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@ Onishi
You see, what you want was done in EVE with the conquerable stations. The results was station pin-pong, with the station being conquered by the corporations with a strong component of US players, then being lost 8th ours later to the corporations with a strong Est Asian demography and then lost to the Russian/EU corporations, do do it again full cycle the next day.
If the defensive structures can be breached in minutes the result is that you need to always have local superiority to keep them up. That mean that only al reading existing large groups of players (like the subscriber to the something Awful forum, i.e. Goonswarm) will be really capable to own and control real estate in the game. At that point you can give them the keys of the server and give it to them.
You get the current landscape of EVE, with a few very strong Alliances controlling wast stretches of 0.0 with a small fraction of the characters while most of the players huddled up in high security space and no possibility for the smaller corporations to set up in 0.0 unless they accept to be "pets" of the larger alliances.
At least EVE has require years to get there. It is not a good idea to set up a structure that will implement that kind of landscape from the start.
Well explain the structure that wouldn't result in that... so we make it take 2 hours to take a structure... now you pretty much can't take it unless your enemies are AFK for the full 2 hours... not exactly a good middle ground. So where is the balance point between, quickly torn down when a huge mob of people come at it, and pretty much guaranteed to stay up indefinently unless attacks are completely unnoticed for 2 hours.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Rl, besieging a city in medieval or renaissance times had a loss ratio between defenders and attachers of 1:10 and most city where captured after a long siege.
We don't want something that long but the attackers should have a overwhelming force to capture a city.
Your idea seem to be "a few high level characters with their adamantine swords come and hack the wall apart, the city is captured".
My idea is "if you want to capture a city with 20 defenders you need to gather at least 40 attackers and be ready to spend a couple of hours to breach its defences".
Make it different and there is no reason at all to build something that can be conquered.
If my Guild and I have spent hundreds of hours to build something that can be conquered in minutes there is no reason to build it from the start.
You will get people that will build their sandcastles a few times at the start of the game, but after their structures have been kicked down a few times they will disappear.
TL, DR: I don't want a second work in a video game that I pay for.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Star Wars Galaxies had some interesting ideas to deal with the changing time zone problem. Basically, they would make the objective only attackable during a certain 2-3 hour window on a given day in the coming week.
For my part, I think it would be interesting for it to take several days to take control of a reasonably large settlement, with some kind of milestone that has to be achieved each day.
It's an interesting problem. I'm curious to hear how PFO will deal with this.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I am torn on this too...on one hand I love the idea of no limits. Why not spy on your opponent and figure out when they will be away from their defenses. This is only smart tactics. On the other hand, I agree it would be frustrating to loose your holdings every time you try to take a nap IRL.
I think a solution would be that sieges must take awhile. IRL attacking a castle took a long time and the guards inside still had to sleep in shifts while it is going on. Likewise, in game, players would need to decide when their characters should "sleep". I realize this is a pain, but it goes both ways, attackers had to rest too. IRL they sometimes took so long both sides recognized holidays. So, tearing down a wooden palisade might take a few hours, but a stone wall might take days of constant work to destroy (and should, in my opinion, take weeks to build). Remember, these walls were often so difficult to breach that digging tunnels underneath them because a realistic option...and how long should it take to dig a human sized tunnel a few hundred meters.
I also think owning a fortress/castle should allow you to attract NPCs to your holdings...if run profitably. So, build certain buildings and you get NPCs to go with it (for instance a blacksmith comes with the forge). As these NPCs make a preset amount of money through player transactions, more NPCs come to the town (and require housing to be built for them). A set percentage of NPCs volunteer to be guards which you then have to equip, schedule, and feed. So, the smarter you run your city, the more automated defenses you get.
I would also be all for NPCs leveling over time. A Blacksmith that has been in town for 5 months will craft and sell higher level gear than a new one. Kill the old one and the town no longer has access to this more experienced blacksmith. Likewise, a 6 month old NPC guard will have much better stats and more abilities than a new one. So, the more established a city is, the larger and more effective a defense it will have. However, constant attacks (slowly killing off the experienced guards and other NPCs) will reduce the effectiveness of the defenses.
This also gives real reasons to build such things as barracks (necessary to house fulltime guard NPCs) and training yards (increases leveling rate of guards by some amount).
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Oh, so it's okay to be able to wall in someones house because they can spend 8 RL hours knocking it down with their fists (so they don't wear out their weapon, or 7 hours after they've worn out their weapons)? And then when they get 3 guys on the other side repairing it you are just stuck.
Or a reasonable distance requirement between buildings?
Even that shouldn't be necessary, buildings should be destroy-able, when a building is destroyed half of the resources should be collectible by whoever is near and destroying, the other half should be in unusable condition, aka garbage. If someone wants to keep building a brick wall in front of my front door, that should be giving me money essentially, as I'll just keep tearing it down and collecting the resources. It should take roughly half the time to tear down as it did to put up.
So someone trying to destroy a legitimate approved structure, should still take a long time to do so, a town of people and the NPC guards should be more than aware of it before he completes his goal, and will likely kill the person the first time, by the second he should become Kill on sight if he walks back into that town.
Assuming that you let someone bring several cartloads of bricks and mortar to the front door of your house, then spend a week building a thin wall? You built the house, but possession is nine-tenths of the law- you no longer own it.
Granted, I'd like to see a good system for determining an "owner", rather than let property deeds become purely a roleplaying element with no rules within the software to handle it. In that case, owning the right to build in an area could be held by one person, with the option for that person to delegate rights within that area, and the option for other people to forcibly remove those rights for themselves. Wan to build there? Stake a claim and keep anyone from pulling your stakes for a predetermined amount of time.
Otherwise, we'd see people respond to major wall construction projects object by building invulnerable country houses in the path of the wall being constructed. A peasant with a tent should not be allowed to stop the Great Wall from being built, nor can anybody just walk up to parliament and start laying bricks over the front door.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I would love to have as much flexibility with the housing system as possible. I spent so much time in SWG and EQ2 playing with the housing options, and to have more control over the actual room layouts would be ideal. However, I imagine this sort of system may be pretty intense to design. I could also settle for having a wide amount of pre-fab options, with varying layers of customization (i.e. building materials, number of rooms, room layouts, types of rooms, etc.).
I have mixed feelings about housing that you can attack. I love the idea of complete freedom and real risk, but the prospect for trolling gives me pauses.
One idea I've sort of pieced together is a separation of PVP and PVE housing. Make PVE towns relatively safe areas that give folks a place to RP. These may need to be kept to certain areas of the map, since they'll be relatively static.
PVP 'housing', on the other hand, would be more strategic. Guilds could build forts, castles, or resource gathering structures in certain areas that must be defended. The risk/benefit for maintaining and defending these structures would, of course, have to be tweaked to ensure it's worth the hassle.
If housing can be attacked, I'd love to see some sort of system in place where you can either repair or rebuild your house in such a way, that it automatically restores the interior layout. I spent a lot of time building things in EQ2 out of furniture 'building blocks' (i.e. Used short legged tables and shelves to create a loft in my 'one-room' apartment), and I would hate to see that time destroyed along with the building. I could definitely support repair costs, time, etc. - just not a loss of the work that goes into decorating. Though maybe I have strange priorities for an MMOer...
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Goblin Squad Member
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While I agree about housing, I am more interested and concerned about larger projects. I want players to be able place their own defensive structures: walls, castles, and other fortifications.
Oh, and I hope conquering a structure does not automatically destroy it. Owners can destroy or repair and build on...and this choice should be at as small a scale as possible.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I saw a *lot* of really creative stacking of furniture in Vanguard.
I think one thing that could be done to address the issue Caladyn raised would be to allow you to combine existing game resources in creative ways, and then freeze them together and effectively create a new item from that, that you could then place and move around as a single unit, or recreate if necessary.
In fact, it seems like it should be possible to give players the raw materials directly (planks of wood, poles, sheets of glass, fabric, etc.) and let us go wild building stuff that is simply those raw materials combined in creative ways. Of course, the polygons would wreak havoc if there were a lot of these visible at one time, but limiting them to the insides of player housing should be sufficient to keep that from being a problem. It'd be great to be able to build unique pieces for display outside your home too, but I'm not sure if it's technically feasible yet to allow players to place decidedly un-optimized objects out in the wild...
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Goblin Squad Member
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I saw a *lot* of really creative stacking of furniture in Vanguard.
I think one thing that could be done to address the issue Caladyn raised would be to allow you to combine existing game resources in creative ways, and then freeze them together and effectively create a new item from that, that you could then place and move around as a single unit, or recreate if necessary.
In fact, it seems like it should be possible to give players the raw materials directly (planks of wood, poles, sheets of glass, fabric, etc.) and let us go wild building stuff that is simply those raw materials combined in creative ways. Of course, the polygons would wreak havoc if there were a lot of these visible at one time, but limiting them to the insides of player housing should be sufficient to keep that from being a problem. It'd be great to be able to build unique pieces for display outside your home too, but I'm not sure if it's technically feasible yet to allow players to place decidedly un-optimized objects out in the wild...
100% agree...maybe "plastering" a wall or house (which will make all the individual units behave and appear as whole) could greatly decrease or stop "weathering" (which would be an automatic decay on "unplastered" aka unfinished constructions).
We could even have different plasters, some give hardened bonuses. And even an anti-plaster that allows you to break down constructions (with some loss of materials). And...of course, these plasters would be made by alchemists...giving them another staple consumable to craft.
I also support an idea mentioned previously that architects get access to a "building utility" that allows them to virtually construct structures with all the individual parts...and create a single "blueprint". Engineers then take raw mats from inventory and build them. This gives us the same power without actually having to have the items displayed for all players to see.
(This brings up another Wish List item, make structures require x time resources to build, dedicating NPCs or PCs to the task (point and click, assist construction) consumes these units and progresses the construction). This makes people actually find the support necessary for building things and allows PCs to make money while logged out (as a laborer)).
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Goblin Squad Member
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(This brings up another Wish List item, make structures require x time resources to build, dedicating NPCs or PCs to the task (point and click, assist construction) consumes these units and progresses the construction). This makes people actually find the support necessary for building things and allows PCs to make money while logged out (as a laborer)).
I love this idea so much, I want to have like 10,000 of its babies.
Having PCs basically behave as in-game NPCs while the player is offline, and doing productive things, whether it's stocking a workshop up to the preferred level of each good that can be made, or assisting in construction, or anything else.
I really think there's a market for an MMO that combines a lot of the build-up that RTS games have, although with a timeframe that's more appropriate for a 2-3 year game rather than a 20-30 minute game.
(This brings up another Wish List item, make structures require x time resources to build, dedicating NPCs or PCs to the task (point and click, assist construction) consumes these units and progresses the construction). This makes people actually find the support necessary for building things and allows PCs to make money while logged out (as a laborer)).I love this idea so much, I want to have like 10,000 of its babies.
Having PCs basically behave as in-game NPCs while the player is offline, and doing productive things, whether it's stocking a workshop up to the preferred level of each good that can be made, or assisting in construction, or anything else.
I really think there's a market for an MMO that combines a lot of the build-up that RTS games have, although with a timeframe that's more appropriate for a 2-3 year game rather than a 20-30 minute game.
I too am enamored of this notion and wish to subscribe to its newsletter.
As it stands, I see an advantage in having offline PCs able to serve as part of a construction crew...IF they make themselves available. Obviously, if they're busy blacksmithing/achemisting/basketweaving they're busy, but for those without crafting skills, it would provide a very useful source of supplementary income when not actively adventuring. Plus, done properly, it would help with the consumption of NPC unit resources, pulling from (offline) PC pools before the townspeople if the right incentive/prioritization is set in the terms of the project in question.
It shouldn't be an outright either-or, though; if NPCs are treated both as, well, NPCs as well as a finite depletable/accessible/implementable resource, then people will plan carefully and offer more personal financial incentive to gain the best available people for the job at any given time, especially since PCs will have higher stats than many NPCs. And possibly relevant skills to speed up construction more. Just because one doesn't see the skill rolls in the background doesn't mean they aren't there.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I too am enamored of this notion and wish to subscribe to its newsletter.
As it stands, I see an advantage in having offline PCs able to serve as part of a construction crew...IF they make themselves available. Obviously, if they're busy blacksmithing/achemisting/basketweaving they're busy, but for those without crafting skills, it would provide a very useful source of supplementary income when not actively adventuring. Plus, done properly, it would help with the consumption of NPC unit resources, pulling from (offline) PC pools before the townspeople if the right incentive/prioritization is set in the terms of the project in question.
It shouldn't be an outright either-or, though; if NPCs are treated both as, well, NPCs as well as a finite depletable/accessible/implementable resource, then people will plan carefully and offer more personal financial incentive to gain the best available people for the job at any given time, especially since PCs will have higher stats than many NPCs. And possibly relevant skills to speed up construction more. Just because one doesn't see the skill rolls in...
You know what actually could be interesting... what if offline players could pick a role in the town for their characters to be fulfilling whenever they are offline. Say they could become anything from an NPC guard, to vending/crafting to building etc...
The only major issue I see with it is how to handle gear damage etc... as an NPC guard, because no matter how you slice it, an AI will never match a human, and one would regret it's death, but perhaps in most cases then it would be plausible to set yourself up with crap gear that you can afford to break/lose. (an NPC guard with your skills crap gear and poor inteligence, is still better than no guard at all). Perhaps the town itself can set prices for any of these tasks. IE if you are AFK/Offline on guard or construction duty the town will pay you X gold an hour, and the town can set the prices of each task based on the current needs, a town doing heavy construction on many things while at peace with all neighbors, will likely pay people more to be on construction duty, a town with most all the buildings it needs but in high tension with it's neighbors may set the wages for patrolling very high.
This also can help reduce the weaknesses a town may face if attacked at a time when the majority of it's star players are offline (admitted it won't eliminate them, but it may help).
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Goblin Squad Member
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In fact, it seems like it should be possible to give players the raw materials directly (planks of wood, poles, sheets of glass, fabric, etc.) and let us go wild building stuff that is simply those raw materials combined in creative ways. Of course, the polygons would wreak havoc if there were a lot of these visible at one time, but limiting them to the insides of player housing should be sufficient to keep that from being a problem. It'd be great to be able to build unique pieces for display outside your home too, but I'm not sure if it's technically feasible yet to allow players to place decidedly un-optimized objects out in the wild...
That's a really cool idea. It's basically what folks tried to do in EQ2 and SWG...find plain looking objects that will serve as building blocks, and stack them into ways to create new forms of furniture...but this would allow for a much cleaner design (i.e. no table legs sticking out of the ceiling of the 'loft' I created).
It also reminds me a lot of how technical CAD programs work. Generally, you model a lot of individual components, and 'assemble' them into a fixed structure that can be saved and used again later. Whether it's on a house-wide, or individual 'assembly'-wide scale, I certainly hope they implement a way for us to save our creations, in the event our homes are destroyed. If that's, for whatever reason, too technically challenging to implement, than I would hope that some folks can choose to 'play it safe', and build in areas that are equivalent to high-sec security space in EVE.
If world space is a concern with PVP-immune homes, these homes could be restricted to instanced areas - ala EQ2. It's not exactly what I would hope for, but then the uninstanced game world could be reserved for the folks who want to create larger structures (i.e. forts, walls, etc.), or be forced to defend their smaller homes. I bet there's a better solution than instancing though, and perhaps I'm overestimating the potential problem of aggravated PVP.
I like the offline roles idea a lot too! I hope that non-combative roles like this would also be extended to online gameplay!
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Goblin Squad Member
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I too am enamored of this notion and wish to subscribe to its newsletter.
As it stands, I see an advantage in having offline PCs able to serve as part of a construction crew...IF they make themselves available. Obviously, if they're busy blacksmithing/achemisting/basketweaving they're busy, but for those without crafting skills, it would provide a very useful source of supplementary income when not actively adventuring. Plus, done properly, it would help with the consumption of NPC unit resources, pulling from (offline) PC pools before the townspeople if the right incentive/prioritization is set in the terms of the project in question.
It shouldn't be an outright either-or, though; if NPCs are treated both as, well, NPCs as well as a finite depletable/accessible/implementable resource, then people will plan carefully and offer more personal financial incentive to gain the best available people for the job at any given time, especially since PCs will have higher stats than many NPCs. And possibly relevant skills to speed up construction more. Just because one doesn't see the skill rolls in...
You know what actually could be interesting... what if offline players could pick a role in the town for their characters to be fulfilling whenever they are offline. Say they could become anything from an NPC guard, to vending/crafting to building etc...
The only major issue I see with it is how to handle gear damage etc... as an NPC guard, because no matter how you slice it, an AI will never match a human, and one would regret it's death, but perhaps in most cases then it would be plausible to set yourself up with crap gear that you can afford to break/lose. (an NPC guard with your skills crap gear and poor inteligence, is still better than no guard at all). Perhaps the town itself can set prices for any of these tasks. IE if you are AFK/Offline on guard or construction duty the town will pay you X gold an hour, and the town can set the prices of each task based on the...
Well, in real life, I do not use my toys for work. When I had one, my play car was not optimized for utility..rather for fun. For work I had an old truck with a rack and no radio.
City guards usually wear uniforms too...and standard armor (cheaper to manufacture) underneath. Allow us to buy and place (or build) mannequins for our houses/apartment/guild halls on which I can place my "work clothes" and "fun clothes" to switch out. Technically I suppose you could play NPC in your nice armor...would probably give you better stats, but especially if there is full loot, it would not be recommended.
Likewise, if you are doing construction, you probably do not want to be wearing your full plate nor battle axe.
And, it decreases the need for NPCs...if offline players fulfill the roles. And another reason to get fame and avoid criminal/killer status...must have x rep to find work. Some jobs, like merchant, are steady (log out at the shop everyday and you "go to work") other jobs such as laborer would be gained each day as needed and only be available when...well, when something is being built.
I also agree with something someone said, high charisma attribute makes you a better merchant (earn more money), high strength makes you a better laborer etc...specialized skills such as engineering could give you a bonus to wages when working on construction or even at a mine. High combat skills insure you high wages as a guard (of course, this money is not magically awarded, it needs to come from the treasury of the city/clan/guild.)
Let me ask then, what happens when you do die due to a raid or war on your place of employment?
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Goblin Squad Member
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This actually makes me wonder about traditional resource harvesting...do any individuals really mine metal? It kinda takes machinery (even ancient Romans used machines for mining) and a group of people to dig it out of the ground. Maybe some harvesting such as mining should require groups and NPC laborers of the type described above (logged out PCs...or even logged in PCs who want to automated grind gold...they are then only semi-AFK, just in case there is trouble).
So, solo harvesters could be lumberjacks (unless you consider wood planking is really heavy and unwieldy), hunters and harvest leather, bone, meat, and sinew. Herbalists could harvest plants...and similar harvesting types. Other types of harvesting such as mining (stone and metal) would require large operations. Solo crafters then, would be able to purchase their needs from harvesters.
This also adds a huge sector of the economy that will essentially be "service" instead of commodities. This would be an addition I have never really seen in an MMO, but is a huge part of many RL economies.
The idea gets dangerously close to the dreaded "realism" realm, but what it adds would be awesome and I thin in line with the stated goals of the game.
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Goblin Squad Member
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This actually makes me wonder about traditional resource harvesting...do any individuals really mine metal? It kinda takes machinery (even ancient Romans used machines for mining) and a group of people to dig it out of the ground. Maybe some harvesting such as mining should require groups and NPC laborers of the type described above (logged out PCs...or even logged in PCs who want to automated grind gold...they are then only semi-AFK, just in case there is trouble).
So, solo harvesters could be lumberjacks (unless you consider wood planking is really heavy and unwieldy), hunters and harvest leather, bone, meat, and sinew. Herbalists could harvest plants...and similar harvesting types. Other types of harvesting such as mining (stone and metal) would require large operations. Solo crafters then, would be able to purchase their needs from harvesters.
This also adds a huge sector of the economy that will essentially be "service" instead of commodities. This would be an addition I have never really seen in an MMO, but is a huge part of many RL economies.
The idea gets dangerously close to the dreaded "realism" realm, but what it adds would be awesome and I thin in line with the stated goals of the game.
IMO if done afk the realism is far less dreaded, and less horrible than the alternative. Being AFK or even offline in a group of miners running an excavation is far less tedious than being in front of the keyboard hitting clicking on a rock for 3 hours straight with a pickaxe.
As far as the gear selection that also can add layers of strategy to it. You do want your NPC to be good at guarding, and the fact that you don't want your guards to be just a speedbump, you need them to truely stall a threat long enough for the non-afk people to strike out and defend your resources/town etc... Now the mine itself you are going to want patroling guards, whether PC or NPC, as the people doing the mining work will almost definently not be equiped with spectacular defenses.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Does it make sense for characters to *always* be in-game, even when the player is logged off?
You can either choose to while away your offline hours sitting in a tavern, or doing something productive, or just camping out in the woods...
Only idea I worry about is the camping part, how does one fairly effect what happens when you are found camping in the woods. but on the other hand it may make sense to try and find somewhere far enough out of the way, and hope nobody notices it when you are after something that is waay out in the middle of nowhere.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Interesting.
What if there was a system in place such as the following:
A local guild controls an ore mine. They then create a "quest" where so many people - while logged off - could have their characters serve as a guard of the site.
Now, people would not necc want their characters to be in combat while they are offline. Suppose for every character signing up for the guard duty, the server generates a NPC guard as a representation? The guild, when creating the quest, would have to put a max number of guards in the details. And have enough gold in its coffers to cover all the guards.
This could be interesting. People could have their characters serve a purpose while offline as well as earn some gold.
What say y'all?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Interesting.
What if there was a system in place such as the following:
A local guild controls an ore mine. They then create a "quest" where so many people - while logged off - could have their characters serve as a guard of the site.
Now, people would not necc want their characters to be in combat while they are offline. Suppose for every character signing up for the guard duty, the server generates a NPC guard as a representation? The guild, when creating the quest, would have to put a max number of guards in the details. And have enough gold in its coffers to cover all the guards.
This could be interesting. People could have their characters serve a purpose while offline as well as earn some gold.
What say y'all?
100% in favor, I personally like the idea of having the option for your character to serve as a guard, miner, harvester, builder etc... and for a guild to be able to budget and set wages for people who serve in any of these roles. It also goes a great distance towards balancing out making everything vulnerable to attack when key members of the guild are offline, while at the same time not allowing a guild with 500 members to have 10,000 guards to make them invincible, and godlike when their members are online (considering that PC's as guards, also means that when everyone is online, you have the players instead of the guards rather than in addition to the guards).