Locks, Walls, Forced labour, Moving hearth fires, ranger ID

[provo]

Social Economic Problems: Personal security

After reading some people comments in the forum about frustrations about the game economy/society have decided to make some suggests and comments about large economic/social issues in the game.

The first is personal security. Whilst i like crime as a game concept. Griefing or mass low level crime has a negative effect society and the economy. Whilst players dislike greifing and low level crime on a personal level it has produced several economic and social problems.

Without personal security economic activity becomes less important.
1. Your economic effort is easily taken from you thus it is not worth producing.
2. Players stop engaging in economic activity when theft provides just as much
3. Player become paranoid about crime (perhaps justifiably), making player interaction hostile and limiting social interaction and economic interaction.

I want to suggest 5 ideas about personal security solutions for this game. And a 1 minor edit.

1. locks,
2. Walls and Gates
3. Moving criminal hearth fires
4. forced labour as punishment,
5. introduction of a seal/police badge item.

edits
1. Renaming crimes in the scent systems,


Locks, lock and locks.
I know this has been suggested before, but this is just another argument for it. But hopefully details why it needs to be of a high priority.

a. lock the cabin door,
b. locks for the chest/ containers.

This allows players to select what they want to secure because of how much they value it, leaving other less important items free to be left out. If they are prepared to risk vandalism and petty theft, they don’t need to pay/build locks. If they want to protect that steal they are saving for a sword, they can lock it in a chest in a cabin. Its all up to the player to decide how he uses the locks and what they protect.

The main security gap is metals in forges ect. which can also be locked when in use, or until it is emptied after use. However i don’t think this is an important issue as locks on cabins and containers.

Lock picking and smashing locks:
I would suggest two methods of breaking locks, stealthy picking (for the crims and rangers) and non stealth long term smashing them down (for everyone else). So locks on abandoned places can eventually be broken into (with a low skill), but also allows players to repair there damaged locks and spot potential thieves who are spending the 18 hours of smashing a lock open instead of picking it. ( this would also allow players to steal a locked chest, take it too a hide out, and try and smash it open before players arrive to take their chest back)


1. Effects of locks
Random crime will reduce if player are able to produce suitable security of items they decide need it. If treasured items are locked in a chest locked in a cabin. All that will be left behind are less valuable items. Significantly reducing the pay off from thievery and vandalism, forcing players adopt a more high level (and thus rarer) thievery skills.

I know many player will dislike having their 15 tanning buckets raided for leather. But realistically, if you want to run a mini factory on your own, you need to organise walls or a lockable cabin, (which makes having some helpers and starting a village seem like a better option).

Additionally some items shouldn’t be lockable, such as the drying rack, it just makes sense that they can’t be locked.

In case i wasn’t clear, locks on doors and containers would improve security more than anything else in this game.



2. Walls and Gates:
I dislike the idea of walls and gates because i don’t want to see every farm/claim fenced off. However most player are finding some innovative ways of making walls, so why not embarrass it.
On a most basic levels, gates and fences provide a psychological barrier. A simple wooden fence and gate that players can climb over without too much trouble. (much like fences that surround most houses). Wood fences could be easily produced and easily passable. If players spotted a person inside a fence line, it would be a lot hard to claim to be causally passing through ect.

On the higher level I would suggest adding stone walls and gates, but making them expensive, so only towns can afford them. But near on impossible to pass except for those with ropes and good exploration.
It seems an over the top defence, walling off crop to stop someone eating your carrots. But players will do it if they are so paranoid about crime.





3. Crime scents and offline perma-death:
I agree mostly with the system, but would rework finding a criminal in a hearth fire. Particularly with this perma-kill system, being killed off-line would really suck, it just dosn’t make for a fun game.

So i suggest:
If a ranger found a hearth fire of a criminal, the ranger should be able to move the hearth fire of the criminal. The ranger could place it where they like (as long as they physically take the hearth fire there). The ranger could take the heath fire into the outer rings. Banishing the criminal, who would be completely lost.

Or for a organised ranger force, you could pick up the hearth fire and take it too a prison (game design, or made of walls and gates). Placing the heath fire behind some walls and gates, until the player is back online, they can then be executed face to face, or try and fight their way out. Of with high enough lock picks or some friends you could smash your way out. If the criminal is online, and no one is there to fight/execute them, they can just wait for the ranger to come online as well.




4. Prison or forced Labour:
Players mentioned that prison is a poor game concept, its just not fun, and players will quit, so punishments for player become limited to execution or stealing back items. I would like to suggest forced labour.

When a player is caught the authority catching them, could suggest a production required from the player before being set free( eg. chop 15 trees, make 100 planks and 200 wood blocks and make 2 cabins). So essentially you do all the fun building and growing and hunting you normally do, (which is fun) but for someone else and for their needs. The player could be chained to walk slow, and given a boundary to work in. Limited actions, (like moving hearth fire not possible,). And allowed some actions, (chop down trees, build cabins). Once the player has completed his task he is kicked out of the town and sent free, restoring their ability to make a hearth fire and fight ect.

5. Police badges.
If players are going to not be able to tell the difference between a criminal and a ranger/police in the current crime scent system a method of distinguishing between vigilantes, criminals and rangers will be needed.

If town have the ability to wield some specialised police/rangers , as opposed to lone rangers or mercenaries, we need to be able to prove they are in fact police, (so they don’t get killed for murdering someone). A unique seal would be suitable as a form of identification. Made by the village chief, or police chief, or individual player, and passed out to those they feel are worthy of being police.
Maybe a item of clothing that changes player names, to Jim “the ranger of claytown”. ect.

However they should not be limited to towns, anyone should be able to produce these seals “authorising”, there policing/ranger actions. Towns may create police, lone agents may want to be police, a general police forces might be created. But It will be up to the players to decide if the seals presented by their players are worthy of making that person part of law enforcement.

(it would also make for interesting playing have a seal/police badge stolen....)

Im sure what will result is a flood of “seals/badges” that claim to authorise players to be police. But then this is game is near on anarchy so it is to be expect. Im sure players would recognize the ones for big towns or big ranger groups and realise which are worthless.

Minor edit
1. Justice is a crime? Renaming “Crimes”:

Players complained about the notion that a ranger killing a criminal is also a murder. And the comment “justice is crime” for the current scent model... stuck in my mind. Perhaps making these actions value neutral, murder renamed to kills, trespassing to entering, stealing to taking objects.

That way its up to the players to decide if a killing was murder or taking an object was stealing or taking back property. The reality is that sometimes police/ranger commit crimes themselves, murder a trespasser ect. It will be up to player to decide what is a crime and what is not.


These are some basic ideas about things to consider for game security and crime. And as i mentioned this problem deeply effects social and economic interaction within the game.

[JTG]

Problem with the hearthfire movement is they can seal it or make a jail, not to mention you can't really banish a person like me because I memorized most of the map.

[provo]

Ideally players would create jails, to place hearth fires in.... Either as part of ingame system to get access to forced labour or so they can kill a player face to face.


I admit they could place a character in a ring of drying racks and force a player to reset their character, which isn't very different to killing them off line. but you can currently incircle hearth fires in objects already.


As for banishing it would have mixed results, but if a player is good enough to get back to saftey good for them.... plenty of players would be fucked.

the main point of moving hearth fires was to lessen the blow of being killed off line. . . an provide some alternative punishments, an the chance to break free from the prison

[JTG]

Well if you created a jail i'd play along simply because it would be amusing as long as you fed me and gave me some manual labor to do.

[Crow]

I agree with a lot of this post, but disagree with a lot too.

Mainly I just want to express my support for the general idea of improving security and the idea that low security stunts economic growth and community interdependence. Buildings, chests, and walls should have locks, but nothing else. Also these items should not require an inventory Key item, but rather you have a "keyring" which is a UI screen that shows all the buildings/items you're allowed into. The owner(creator) of the building/wall/chest would be able to add people to the list of people with "keys" and thus they could open the doors for others. This eliminates the annoyance of a tiny key taking up a valuable inventory slot that also holds bulky items like helms, meat, etc.

If lockpicking exists it needs to have serious drawbacks so that theft is discouraged. If lockpicking easily bypasses locks, then there will be no point in having anything locked anyway. I suggest making lockpicking an extremely high level skill AND making the failure rate high and/or having a long cooldown (1+ hours?). Cause if you can't pick a lock on the first try, likely it will take a new approach or new tools and that takes awhile to get so 1 hour is relatively realistic. This also means if you have to defeat multiple levels of security (a chest in a house in a wall) it cannot be accomplished in a matter of minutes, but rather hours. Locking picking tools could also be required and they require steel to make to make it more difficult.

In the end, for someone with the time and foresight theivery can be lucrative, but this way you can't just hit every joe schmoe farmer. You have to pick you targets carefully in order to pull off a worthwhile heist. This also gives people confidence that their stuff is not likely to be stolen and so they are more willing to create valuable items and meet with visitors who visit their towns.