Slavery derail from Capture thread

[Yolan]

SPLIT FROM THE CAPTURE THREAD viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1215


Back before spawning at RoB was implemented, i realised that slavery was in fact possible. (Erm... not that I considered starting up an evil empire based on slavery or anything *cough* *cough*) Here is how it would have worked.

-Step One-

Surround a mine with a kiln wall, and within that space set out a whole bunch of containers. Add an apple tree. Also, a chest with some candles, a mining hat, and a pick axe. Connect this enclosure with another, with a cart gate blocking entrance _into_ this enclosure from the new one (the original enclosure would have another cart gate blocking the way _out_, but can be entered into, then ported out.)
All this would be inside your base.


-Step Two- Go out into the world on a 'slave raid'.

What you need is to find a player who has invested some time and effort into their character, and doesn't want to lose it. You also need to make sure they are not near a mine/cabin that would break aggro, and that you are strong enough to take them down if you want. Aggro them. Explain that they will come to no harm if they do as you say. Take them to the enclosure (prison) connected to the mine enclosure. Notice that they would not be able to flee down the mine and exit the game with aggro broken, as for now access to the mine is blocked by a cart gate. Explain that they must make a hearth fire inside this enclosure, or be killed.

-Step Three-

After the slave-to-be has made a hearthfire, they are now effectively trapped, as long as they cant get outside the prison. You can get outside simply by quitting/porting to your hearthfire inside your regular complex, and dragging away/back the required cart doors in an airlock fashion, so that access to the min is provided.

Explain that they will be granted their freedom after they have filled x number of containers with ore. (You could always have them farm instead, I suppose. Any mindless bulk sized task.) It is important that they understand that they can earn their own freedom. Otherwise they might just quit the character. Also, if you intend to slave raid for the long term, you would need the word to get out that being captured is not an effective death-sentence, otherwise people would rather run from you, no matter what.

-Step Four- PROFIT!!!!

Now you have a slave, you can sit back and watch them mine all the ore you need. This could be scaled up to a pretty large size. The trick would be to protect your base from people coming to free their friends. Back in the days of impenetrable kiln walls, this wouldn't have been so hard.

-Why it won't work now-

Two reasons. Firstly, any player can quit out and log in at the RoB, or their village totem. The only way to keep them locked up would be a perma-aggro device (like suggested in this thread). Secondly, any player could post on the forums "halp, halp, I've been enslaved!", and in no time somebody would punch through the brick walls and get them out.

In the long term, I would like to see the possibility of imprisonment. We need it for law and order/evil shicannery.I think we will need to see three new developments to make this possible. 1) Seriously uber stone walls, which require siege weapons to knock down. Prisons/fortresses/evil citadels could be made of this. 2) Manacles of some kind that you can use to stop people from simply running inside a shack/mine and escaping. They would also need to remove the option of logging in from anywhere but their previous location. So, once you have them locked up, they stay locked up.

That is all.

[jorb]

Slave branding other player characters and them having them run on AI as servants -- that could then be set free, etc. -- is something I have considered several times.

[Erik_the_Blue]

What incentive would the player have for playing a slave? I understand having the AI so the character does the menial labor (since the player probably won't), but if the player has no guarantees that the slave will be treated well or even set free, the player may as well write off the character as dead and either start a new character or go do something else that holds their interest.

On the other hand, if there are too many incentives to the player, many will probably want to be a slave just for the perks. This would undoubtedly result in a distorted world.

Also, what's to keep people with multiple accounts from exploiting this (as in making their alt-account's characters into slaves)?

(On topic): Having short-term imprisonment would probably let proper criminal justice systems start to form, but it needs to be kept interesting for the imprisoned player otherwise they'll just commit "suicide" by quitting the character. Disfigurement would probably be a better option since it doesn't deprive the player of their character for any amount of time while providing something new that may be of interest to the player, but it isn't a seed for criminal justice systems by itself.

[jorb]

There are lots of problems -- writing AI being the biggest. It'd be cool if it could be done in a reasonable way, though.

[Delamore]

There are lots of problems -- writing AI being the biggest. It'd be cool if it could be done in a reasonable way, though.

*every goon makes an alt that I enslave to use for mining*
Broken.

[Erik_the_Blue]

It'd be cool if it could be done at all *and* have players willingly participate in it. Imprisonment in games is fundamentally problematic since nothing can force the player to continue playing in what appears to them to be an adverse situation (LAN parties and Matrix-esque scenarios aside). AI probably isn't adequate for either imprisonment or slavery since it wouldn't be able to provide proper player-to-player interaction, and the illusion would become all the more obvious once the term is over and the player isn't around to start playing again.

As interesting as the subject is, and as necessary as it is for improving the fidelity of the social simulation, I think this problem is unsolvable since the real-world inputs and game-world inputs are too different to have the same outcome with the same system.

Anyhow, if slaves are going to run on an AI, you may as well make them NPCs rather than requiring players to "sacrifice" their characters at the whim of another player.

[SeanPan]

I think this would be an excellent idea, in keeping with the thralldom of Norse societies.

I think it will be reasonable to simply have surrendered players automatically lose their Will to Power and must remain within a certain Area of Influence of their capturers. As with Claims, their capturers would be able to deny the thralls the ability to pick up items, destroy, or even move at more than a crawl; presumably, to keep them useful, their capturers would remove one or more restrictions. Their capturers would also have the option of freeing them.

Thralls can always opt to leave their designated area to regain their abilities, but would immediately become wanted and would have a scent that could be tracked.

Why would players agree? I know that I would certainly prefer thralldom to death for my character; I might not like being a slave, or playing one, but its still preferable to permadeath in many ways. And it might not be entirely unpleasant.

And if the player doesn't log in for enough hours or days, the capturers should have the option to just automatically kill them from remote, so as long as the thrall logged off within the "captives" zone.

[LimaZulu]

Grrrrrrrrrrreat, we could look forward to hermit bondage now.

[TheYatesMachine]

.

[Kaldo]

What's to prevent you from keeping that character locked up indefinitely if he doesn't have help or the means to escape? Especially since larger villages can just start abducting hermits for slave labor, or just for fun and show-off. I think in most cases people would rather take the LP hit, respawn and continue playing then being unable to play or control their character at all. It's a mechanic that would only encourage griefing and ganking new characters (even more) and I'm against it.