Melthien's page

Jail and force Labor won't work, and would basically be a moot punishment.. i get jailed, i log off Bob1, and log on bob2 and do the same thing until I'm jailed on bob2... and hope bob1 is out of jail.. or have to log on bob3.

forced labor won't work for simmilar reasons.
De-buffs, Aggression counters and Banishments work more so.

I like everything else that you said, but I have a question about Alts. Why not disallow them? If the penalties for Griefing specifically happen to be balanced, then why not limit Alts? I believe that any player that would leave because their one character is in jail, or hard labor, or pays an in-game penalty, then good bye and glad to see you go. And not allowing Alts, or only having one or two, would help to deter such behavior in the first place and may even deter Griefers from joining in the first place.

TheAntiElite wrote:

I know I keep coming back to this idea, but with the idea of buildings being influenced by NPCs, I really, REALLY hope the idea of commoners, experts, and similar NPC sorts as a semi-finite limited resource that increases over time but more typically requires recruiting/enticing immigration from other regions becomes more important, as much for helping decide one's choice in locations for building as giving incentive to increase building types (Why, yes, there's a need for more taverns, we're trying to increase our stonemason quotas and we need more dwarves!). While I admit that the idea puts forth the potential for griefers indulging in peon-slaughter to keep people from being able to build, develop, and the like, it would give greater investiture for the players to work together, since without those lowly workers they have to do the work themselves, which takes time from adventuring after all!

I'm actually thinking that the majority of NPCs, be more or less invisible extras, with the exception of the guards. I mean face it for a large scale town you are looking at technically having a population ratio of 30 NPCs per 1 PC. When you get 100 players into a town, you are looking at a plausible 3k NPCs, and well no server can handle that many actual characters, and they will most likely just be listed down as numbers. I could see actual effects of buildings involving attracting or possibly even removing NPCs if planned poorly, (say you put a metal processing plant next door to a residence, noise complaints etc... will cause mass exedous). I still like the idea of possibly a slave camp type building, that both veers the alignment of those who use it, and create an extra dynamic in things, (workers that work regardless of moral with 1/8th the cost (well the cost goes to the actual city treasury rather then vanishing), but at consequences of eliminating the option to build good aligned shrines.

But yeah as you were also saying Specific attractions for specific NPCs would also be...

Somehow this printing twice? Anyway, almost all of this would be handled within the program and be invisible to a player. In fact most would happen without a majority of the players knowing why or how, apply "fog of war" to economics or civics. But I do believe that the elders, council members, advisors, etc... would be privy to such mechanics and make the decisions effecting city development, so that a majority of players who would not be interested in such activity would not be bothered with even the interface.

As a player I would want to experience a dynamic environment where cities, towns change in size and style (older buildings stay the same unless upgraded), where I am free to decide how I would like to make a living be it in politician, merchant, soldier, mercenary, highwayman, etc... and see my effect on my environment. If I attack a competitive town and attack the granary in the hopes of slowing down the growth, then I would like to see a burned out husk of a granary until the town rebuilds it. If I buy a plot within the city walls there will probably already be a building there that I can change the sign to "Melthein's Tavern" and then rent rooms and sell info. And then later I could upgrade said building to include a third floor with more room for rent, etc...

Everything else is interesting to me as a designer, but as a player I don't want to worry about too much logistics not associated with my profession.

Melthien wrote:

I like the ideas I've read here, and I would like to add the possibility of race centric towns that would neutral or tied to the generic alignment of the particular race. Birds of a feather and all that... It would be nice if a town would take on the characteristics of its majority race (this would probably happen naturally within the course of the development). I am thinking of NPC towns.

It would be interesting, In the event that player towns were stocked with NPCs (grunts, builders, guards etc...), the location of the towns could also effect the races and design of the area. Say if you built in a rocky mountain area near mines, You'd wind up with a dwarven town with stone buildings, if you tried to build in the middle of a forest, you'd get a treetop village with mostly elven NPCs.

Exactly! Perhaps the design could change within a majority NPC race and location... Humans would adapt their designs based on location as well, as would any other race. I realize that would be an interesting algorithm but it would be a much more "alive" environment to play in than any non-sandbox game.

I like the ideas I've read here, and I would like to add the possibility of race centric towns that would neutral or tied to the generic alignment of the particular race. Birds of a feather and all that... It would be nice if a town would take on the characteristics of its majority race (this would probably happen naturally within the course of the development). I am thinking of NPC towns.