Post Box 7 Post Office

[nonsonogiucas]

I would put on the same shelf as "same-sex marriage" game feature. Brings absolutely nothing to the gameplay, almost nobody would use it but it's a thing that "would be nice imo".

Seen this?

Or I could put a 1 hour timer on port to Providence. Problem solved.

Mass transit through town is ugly. The solution is to give players better options. Mail could work, if it takes several days IRL for items to go from point A to point B. Unfortunately, we would also need some random spawns in the wilderness that are carrying your mail so that it could then be stolen as well or you would just use mailing things back and forth for alt-vaulting.

We are exploring the possibility of making item porting not an option any more, hence the ideas about item delivery system.

[Feone]

It can't involve playermade items though, too easy to scent and track.

I was thinking about this... if item porting was no more though, would it make sense to be able to track an item from the other side of the world?

Tracking exists to catch criminals as well as those who receive the stolen goods. It's not related to item transfering via boston.

[nonsonogiucas]

Tracking exists to catch criminals as well as those who receive the stolen goods. It's not related to item transfering via boston.

I know.
My reasoning is this:
cause - You cannot port item through Boston any more.
consequence - You have to set up elaborate transportation means to pillage a claim and somehow benefit from the goods you stole.

If you went through all the trouble involved in that, is it still fair for me to be able to track the items exact location? I think it isn't.

If the game was made in a way that requires villains to actually walk (or ride) all the way to their victims and then back to base I think we can safely assume that the "classic" notion of tracking, where you actually look for signs of people of horses traversing the land, will be sufficient to exact revenge.


Of course this could only make sense if item porting is removed from the game.

[Feone]

Tracking exists to catch criminals as well as those who receive the stolen goods. It's not related to item transfering via boston.

I know.
My reasoning is this:
cause - You cannot port item through Boston any more.
consequence - You have to set up elaborate transportation means to pillage a claim and somehow benefit from the goods you stole.

If you went through all the trouble involved in that, is it still fair for me to be able to track the items exact location? I think it isn't.

If the game was made in a way that requires villains to actually walk (or ride) all the way to their victims and then back to base I think we can safely assume that the "classic" notion of tracking, where you actually look for signs of people of horses traversing the land, will be sufficient to exact revenge.


Of course this could only make sense if item porting is removed from the game.

I disagree.

It's easy enough to park the character(s) in a vault untill the scents expire. Not being able to trace items would allow immediate benefit of the stolen goods in a main town while the characters just wait for the scents to go away elsewhere.

[DarkNacht]

You have to set up elaborate transportation means to pillage a claim and somehow benefit from the goods you stole.

Wandering/riding for a few hours is not elaborate just time consuming.

[Feone]

You have to set up elaborate transportation means to pillage a claim and somehow benefit from the goods you stole.

Wandering/riding for a few hours is not elaborate just time consuming.

Not to mention less availability of easy transfer will not change the dynamic much. I've never done much raiding but I have emptied a fair share of (intact) camps that went inactive.
The loot is almost always a very small amount of really good stuff, worth taking time to get. Followed by a large amount of stuff that's kind of nice, worth taking if taking it is easy and finally a whole lot of crap that's not worth taking regardless.
No more boston transfer just means that only the best stuff get's looted rapidly and the rest will just be ignored. Tracking these high value stolen goods is even more important in this case.

[nonsonogiucas]

It's easy enough to park the character(s) in a vault untill the scents expire. Not being able to trace items would allow immediate benefit of the stolen goods in a main town

If you walked all the way to the main town, or a vault, what's preventing the previous owners from walking all the way to that town or vault too?


I mentioned an example where the items themselves triggered the generation of scents... but that's not exactly what I pictured in my mind.
What I wanted to change is not what you track but how.
Right now you can use items and scents like magical charms.
What I would like is being able to follow the tracks of characters, horses, sleds, wagons and such after they (or their riders) have committed a crime. Following the item when it changed hands ten times doesn't make any sense (given the abolition of alt-vaulting and porting) and have the side effect of generating "magic tricks" like selling scented items to people in order to pinpoint their base...

Wandering/riding for a few hours is not elaborate just time consuming.

You missed the point...
if it's simple for you, it's the same for anyone that can track you.
So if you wanted to raid a town that is a 2 hours walk from yours it would be a 2 hours walk for them to try and exact vengeance too.
I was implying you would want to set up an elaborate transport system in order to lose anyone chasing.

[nonsonogiucas]

The loot is almost always a very small amount of really good stuff, worth taking time to get. Followed by a large amount of stuff that's kind of nice, worth taking if taking it is easy and finally a whole lot of crap that's not worth taking regardless.

first result of a search in HoB

No more boston transfer just means that only the best stuff get's looted rapidly and the rest will just be ignored. Tracking these high value stolen goods is even more important in this case.

I agree with this. But if you track character's movement instead of every single grass whistle it is just the same right for vengeance purpose isn't it?

[Feone]

It's easy enough to park the character(s) in a vault untill the scents expire. Not being able to trace items would allow immediate benefit of the stolen goods in a main town

If you walked all the way to the main town, or a vault, what's preventing the previous owners from walking all the way to that town or vault too?


I mentioned an example where the items themselves triggered the generation of scents... but that's not exactly what I pictured in my mind.
What I wanted to change is not what you track but how.
Right now you can use items and scents like magical charms.
What I would like is being able to follow the tracks of characters, horses, sleds, wagons and such after they (or their riders) have committed a crime. Following the item when it changed hands ten times doesn't make any sense (given the abolition of alt-vaulting and porting) and have the side effect of generating "magic tricks" like selling scented items to people in order to pinpoint their base...

Wandering/riding for a few hours is not elaborate just time consuming.

You missed the point...
if it's simple for you, it's the same for anyone that can track you.
So if you wanted to raid a town that is a 2 hours walk from yours it would be a 2 hours walk for them to try and exact vengeance too.
I was implying you would want to set up an elaborate transport system in order to lose anyone chasing.

Either you have no clue how the current system works or you're simultaneously proposing a complete overhaul of the entire scent system.
I'll assume the second option. Doing what you propose would be problematic. Players would have to leave tracks all over the place, this means a lot of data to store for the server, new things the client has to respond to etc. It would probably be possible but implementing a system like it is a lot of work, with little change in the final result. Doing it at some point may be a good idea since it would allow for some nice mechanics (harder to track terrain for example) but this would take significant time investment by the devs.

A simple mailing service would be far easier to implement and in the current system I don't think your reasoning makes much sense.

The loot is almost always a very small amount of really good stuff, worth taking time to get. Followed by a large amount of stuff that's kind of nice, worth taking if taking it is easy and finally a whole lot of crap that's not worth taking regardless.

first result of a search in HoB

I agree with this. But if you track character's movement instead of every single grass whistle it is just the same right for vengeance purpose isn't it?

Obviously a town filled with resources will have more than a random hermit. Complete towns going down is a LOT rarer than individual camps being raided too. Also, no doubt this town had a lot of crap they didn't bother taking.

[nonsonogiucas]

This is I&I, so I'll just concern myself with ideas and try to reason on those.
I don't make games but I am a developer myself and I have a decent enough idea of what client-server means, ways of making things like that possible exist.

Anyway, the thread was about mailing letters and items and we are derailing it.

We have established long ago that it wouldn't be practical with the current implementation of:
1 - boston porting
2 - item scents

I think we can leave it at that.