Map Size Fixes

[agentlemanloser]

John Carver, let me offer one more suggestion to address your skepticism that players might not travel to the huge landmarks. First, you are, of course, correct in principle; the only way that players would travel is if the landmarks offer more than, say, some minor industrial incentive. A giant smelter isn't much of a draw, since it is just a larger incarnation of what an individual can produce. So, consider this. You will ultimately implement witchcraft, and if you are thinking as I think you are, you will probably implement a similar priestly profession with similar mystical powers. I would also assume that both professions would have many tiers and many rare spells and/or rituals, rites, and whatever else priests do (I've never set foot in a church, so I'm a bit foggy on the subject). In order to acquire the rare and higher-tier recipes, you simply make it so that pilgrimages are a requirement. This could be done in several interesting ways, all operating in conjunction to make the world more mobile and dynamic. Seed the world with landmarks that you create with symbolic significance to the profession in question. So, for priestly advancement, there would be ten or twenty locations with biblical significance (a spring referencing the "He who drinks the water I give him" line, an American Golgotha with three curious cross-shaped trees, etc.). These would be the natural shrines requiring prayer and offering. Next would be the man-made shrines, another ten or twenty go big or go home monuments that contain single or multiple relics such as saints' bones, shrouds of Turin, veils of Veronika, etc. Finally, for the highest tiers of ability, would be the random locations/events that spawn once per day for only a brief period of time. Such random events could be anything from an angelic visitation to a burning creosote bush. Obviously, the witchcraft line would have a similar number of shrines, monuments, and events - all of which would be far more fun, I'm sure. By doing monuments in this style and context, you would absolutely guarantee travel, since players who want to be witches or priests would have no choice but to experience the game world in full. I realize we have also moved slightly away from the original issue in this thread, but even so, monuments operating in this manner would clearly "shrink" the world, since travel would be encouraged and stable shrines and monuments would give actual destinations. Thoughts?

[pistolshrimp]

Thoughts?

Everything you have described is the anit-thesis to colonial New England.

Forcing players to travel just gets them killed. The problem is not with making people travel, its with bringing them together for meaningful interactions.

[ImpalerWrG]

When it comes to any kind of 'big building' or 'go big or go home' mechanics I think the emphasis need to be on sustaining a continuous stream of 'inputs' (be that items, worshipers, silver etc etc) vs build it once monuments.

The current church is build once and get bennies-4-evar. What ever you end up doing with Devotionals, or future BIG structures and end-game big-group content make keeping the bennies dependent on paying ongoing maintenance, ideally some kind of INTERESTING maintenance (not silver).

A simple mechanism for your devotional/church thingy. Every time a character within the church radius gets a humor, proficiency or skill gain, crafts something, gets a random drop (basically playing the game) they accumulate some kind of 'devotion' points and the church (if they are registered as a church member which is not the same as a town member) simultaneously gets corresponding 'holy points'. Both points can accrue for a a long time before capping out, (at least a weeks worth), character cap maybe equal to scalp score, changing churches wipes your points and you can only devotion at a church your a member of.

Neither points do anything until the character goes to the devotional event at the church and 'cashes them in' for some kind of buff. But the size of the buff everyone receives is proportional to how much total devotion that can be brought into the church at once, in other words everyone living locally should attend to maximize the impact of the buffs, the attendees have their devotion points wiped and the church has it's holy points wiped. For example if 5 players have 1000 devotion points and the church has 5000 holy points, if 3 people attend the that's 3000/5000 a 66% attendance, each attendee then gets 66% of their individual devotion points converted to bonus. No one gets to actually give or take these points but everyone benefits from better attendance.

With perhaps the priests/owners of said church getting to decide what kind of buff or in some way being in charge of the process and they need to feed some additional resources/incantations etc into the church to get these buffs dispensed to the congregation. And naturally they will expect tithes.

[Potjeh]

I can't really see industrail buildings really working as gathering points. Who is going to want to put in that intial investment even if it's spread out the potential for loss is too great that it wouldn't be woth it. For instance lets say it was off claim, someone could come by and claim it and you'd have to fight or loss your investment. Say it can't be claimed then whats to keep a faction from camping it? You lose your investment and maybe your toon. What's to keep someong from stealing your stuff? With machinery on your own claim you can log out/leave your stuff, with these industrail buildings you'd have to wait until it finished or lose your stuff.

All you would see from this is large towns building them on their claim. That would be the end of that.

It should be claimed, of course, how else do you determine the owner? And since you'd have it claimed you'd be able to plop down braziers around it, which coupled with massive HP that these buildings would obviously have should be protection enough. Town claims would work best, ofc, since you can trespass on them, and I guess these buildings would need special permissions setting so non-town members can actually use them.

As for people taking your production, I reckon most of these buildings should be nearly instant.For example the sawmill should just play like a 5 second animation of you pushing the log in, and you get 24 boards in your inventory (the remaining 6 being the fee). Though I guess instant smelters would look kinda silly

Anyway, even if these buildings do wind up being used just within a town, I still think it wouldn't be a waste of effort, as you could have your town members contribute without telling them what to do. Personally, I've considered joining a town many times, but every time I realized that as soon as the mayor told me to go get him an inventory of chestnuts I'd tell him to go ***** himself. Being micromanaged is the worst experience you can have in a RL job, so I definitely don't want it in a game. With these buildings I could be useful to a town without having to drop everything and jump whenever the mayor says hop.

As for that nice building JC posted, I guess it looks like a library. Obviously the patrons should get something related to learning (perhaps you can study a proficiency and get a multiplier to all points you gain in that proficiency for the next 24h), but I'm not sure what the owner would get. Something related to learning sounds altsploitable. Silver would work, but it's boring.

[JohnCarver]

As for that nice building JC posted, I guess it looks like a library.

Hmm we do have the Scribe system on the horizon. So... perhaps there could be this 'library' to further advance skills of those willing to travel to the veterans and gain their knowledge. Although what benefit would a veteran get for a new player reading his books?

[Potjeh]

Yeah, I'm drawing a blank right now, anything learning related seems altsploitable. Give me a day or two, I'm sure something will pop in my head

[JohnCarver]

Yeah, I'm drawing a blank right now, anything learning related seems altsploitable. Give me a day or two, I'm sure something will pop in my head

Let me know,

Just to 'help' the design discussion and provide a bit of a spoiler.

Much of our 'scribe' system is involved into giving players the ability to 'bank' skills into 'books' at the cost of huge inspiration.

[kai]

If i had to choose of the 3 set options the one that has best impact to game should be, disable churches and shrink darkness to make that a more competitive environment for the better rewards and access to higher creatures to fight.

If the intent is to track criminals down who hide far away, then a bonus while on the trail to speed would work nicely. as long as you are following the scent you gain greatly increased speed. to stop abuse a debuff also in effect that you can commit no criminal acts yourself while this is active or for a period of time after, could also be only people who not commited crime recently can use this also. Whoever or wherever the criminal is being harbored would be made red as when a waste claim is set and that would allow for any criminal acts despite the debuff. then we can have true bounty hunters. a toggle button like other skills may not be so hard to add to game that gives the speed boost and debuff.

[Procne]

Although what benefit would a veteran get for a new player reading his books?

Payment? Education wasn't free

[JohnCarver]

Payment? Education wasn't free

Sure but that sounds like it just makes the library a specialized stall. And if the books don't consume upon reading then it goes back to altsploit.