Overhaul (teleport removal and other things)

[JeffGV]

Let's start saying that Boston or the other towns aren't to be removed according to my idea. They are still the starting place, and the harbour where you shall travel to other servers; The NPCs will stay there as well. Basically, it will be something akin to a starting area.
The overhaul first need some necessary steps before being introduced. Being able to produce flour at home is one of these. So, a millstone could be introduced that would permit to mill flour at home (probably with a large phlegm cost and a lesser output than a windmill).
In addition to that, personal and village stalls would also be introduced. Personal stalls can be placed on the edge of a personal claim (so that someone from the outside can interact) and offer a small inventory, while village stalls are placed by the mayor, that can also place a rent on them and a tax on the income (that would go fueling the village authority). They would also offer a bigger inventory than the personal ones.
Also, a postbox should be buildable on your own claim. More on this later.
Also, a new building would be introduced: the Hudson Bay Company offices. They would be placed semi-randomly on the world map (let's say, one every X maps, a relatively large area anyway, and not in the darkness).These would work as the npc stalls on town and here there would also be a banker and a postmaster, basically as in Boston and with the same functions.
And these were the preliminary steps. With these introduced, the teleport option would be replaced by a Hudson Bay Company menù, usable only from the homestead. Here you can access the npc stall options and suchs; you can buy from there and choose if you want the items/money delivered (for a fee, eventually deducted if you're getting money - and then you would find them in the postbox after some time) or if you want to get them yourself (and then you should travel to the nearest office, that could prove quite risky).
So, in short, this is what i propose. Having no more a central hub would place an incentive to make villages, especially if the village stalls are introduced as above - so making commerce a successful way to sustain a village. People that can't afford to go to the offices would have the item delivered and that would create a small silver sink. Offices would be a favored place for raiders, and so people would also need to patrol them for safety (and they could be paid for doing so). Basically, it would favor player interaction and the development of communities.

[EnderWiggin]

Nice idea, but I think it would be better if Hudson Bay Company offices were buildable by players on village claims, instead of randomly generated.
And some item/skill to show direction to nearest office. And way to get pointer to your homestead - because you will be unable to jump home even with empty inventory. Home guidance should be available right from the start - after learning survival skills. Office guidance a bit later, but not much later.
Main problem I see is random spawns - you can't remove them completely, but what will newbie do if he is spawned on top of mountain he can't climboff andcan't jump to Boston for another try?

[JeffGV]

Nice idea, but I think it would be better if Hudson Bay Company offices were buildable by players on village claims, instead of randomly generated.
And some item/skill to show direction to nearest office. And way to get pointer to your homestead - because you will be unable to jump home even with empty inventory. Home guidance should be available right from the start - after learning survival skills. Office guidance a bit later, but not much later.

Mh, right. Also, some kind of cartography could be useful, for maps. I thought about putting the offices beforehand because they would actually be a neutral building. Due to their utility, people would be incouraged to stay relatively near one of those (but then they would also be an easy target for raiders and suchs) or stay away and either spend time or money to fetch the items. Making them buildable would devalue that purpose.

Main problem I see is random spawns - you can't remove them completely, but what will newbie do if he is spawned on top of mountain he can't climboff andcan't jump to Boston for another try?

Well, i didn't think about removing them, actually. But sure, there's the problem of similar unlucky spawns. Maybe you could be asked to accept the spawn, or either retry (up to two or three times, i suppose...in two or three tries one should find a viable spawn, even if not ideal).

[anfros]

I have thought about this many times and I've come to the conclusion that although this would make the game more sandboxy it would also set the game back quite a bit. I think for this to become viable we first of need to have a much larger playerbase, which would probably have to be larger than the combined current populations of all 3 servers. Also I think we would need a lot of additional infrastructure, including but not limited to, roads, horses, wagons, donkeys/mules/whatever. This is because as things stand now, without boston, everyone who has not managed to find a mine sitting directly on a huge lime pit would essensially be screwed. The same goes for finding granite for walls etc, without the ablitity to port stuff through boston game would be dead.

[TeckXKnight]

I have thought about this many times and I've come to the conclusion that although this would make the game more sandboxy it would also set the game back quite a bit. I think for this to become viable we first of need to have a much larger playerbase, which would probably have to be larger than the combined current populations of all 3 servers. Also I think we would need a lot of additional infrastructure, including but not limited to, roads, horses, wagons, donkeys/mules/whatever. This is because as things stand now, without boston, everyone who has not managed to find a mine sitting directly on a huge lime pit would essensially be screwed. The same goes for finding granite for walls etc, without the ablitity to port stuff through boston game would be dead.

So that's a yes for removing teleporting and adding huge ships and wagons then?

[Procne]

Even if the Hudson building is buildable by players - how will they do that if they need to buy claim tokens and nails from NPC?

Also, how will player/village stalls be protected if they are on the edge of a claim?

[JeffGV]

Even if the Hudson building is buildable by players - how will they do that if they need to buy claim tokens and nails from NPC?

Well, the items we've got in the npc stalls would be still sold in Boston and from the Hudson Bay Company menù from the homestead* (with an additional fee for delivery - or a smaller price, if you're selling something).

*basically, i think of that as a window that would pop-up when you click the option in the menù, with the means to buy/sell items for silvers (as in the npc stalls); you buy, and the order is there; then there is an option for it to be delivered, else you have to go in one of the HBC offices); as above, you would be able to get silvers (as from the bank npc, guess the delivery would be free, since they're paid with cash) and mail (for cash items, the delivery would be free).

Also, how will player/village stalls be protected if they are on the edge of a claim?

Putting aside village stalls (since everyone can walk on the village claim, there wouldn't be need to put them on edges of claims; those would be placed only by the mayor, anyway) the answer is quite simple: they wouldn't be protected. I don't think people should expect to find an hermit with a stall in the middle of nowhere. Instead, either near or inside a village, it makes sense there would be more advanced forms of trade (like stalls). As long as there are people going around in the village (or there is no one else beside the villagers and the gates are closed) they'll have their security.

And that would also avoid stalls used as a form of storage, like they're used as now.

[dageir]

The stalls are worthless. All there is some random stuff for sale and stuff that is being stored. We have come to the point where there is no point in them at all. I have nothing to spend my silver on, maybe except trying to make more silver from trade.

[JeffGV]

The stalls are worthless. All there is some random stuff for sale and stuff that is being stored. We have come to the point where there is no point in them at all. I have nothing to spend my silver on, maybe except trying to make more silver from trade.

Stalls are worthless cause there is no real economy in the game, everyone can place an alt and port stuff and raw materials via Boston, the crops grow everywhere and everyone can take them to the max purity/max tier and, well, there isn't much to craft for now anyway.
Another thing i would gladly see is some sort of climate needed for crops to grow, so that you're limited in what you can get in a local area. And maybe something similar for livestock, when it is introduced. So that you actually need to trade with other people (and not simply murder everyone in the map). And something like that for trees as well, maybe making so that there are different types of logs/board according to the tree used, with different properties also (oak could have more soak and hp,maple could be better for smoking food and maple tree could give maple syrup, if they would be ever implemented, and so on).
In short, if you make all the items available to every player, in every place, don't expect people to trade; if you want them to trade, force it.

[Procne]

I totally disagree with it. Even if everything is available to every player there is still a lot of trade possibilities. It's trade from convenience - I need lime, hay and some foods and I have some extra silver, so I prefer to buy those instead of farming them myself. Let people trade because they want to, not because they are forced to. Forcing trade your way means removing certain features from game for people. People in area A don't have industry B because of no resources/whatever in their area and people in place X have no industry Y because of no resources/whatever in their area. And they have to get items from missing industries through trade. I would agree to that if remaining industries sufficiently complex / deep. They aren't yet.

Stalls are currently worthless to people who don't own one - nothing interesting to buy. But that's partially because they are so cheap to maintain and mostly because there is no way for other people to buy some. You can sell a lot of stuff through stalls, but there's no incentive for stall owners to do so. If the stall costs were increased significantly then some owners might decide it's not profitable to hold stalls they don't use, and they either abandon them, or start actually selling stuff to pay for increased upkeep. Right now it costs nothing to hold a stall, and even if someone doesn't use it for selling he won't abandon it because why would he? It would be impossible for him to get new one.

So yeah, stalls are currently tools for vaulting / storage / maintaining monopoly mostly but that's because they were implemented in bad way.