Game design issues

[rigeborod]

Ok, jorb. I'm not sure these ideas are somewhat you're interested in. But feel free to use if so.

1) Cartography. Ingame mechanics to draw maps. It should be more engaging: you may mark resources, villages, claims; you need to point at cliffs so they are stored to the map, being able to combine maps in larger ones not only if all small maps are available and not automatically as you should find right place for the piece. These maps should be exportable outside the game to be able to use with map services. These maps will be needed later.

2) Countries. Any village may additionally claim some land not as a village claim, but as a country claim. It is done using village totem and created maps to select exact territory and lead this village to become a capital. Larger territories drain authority points faster (though this speed is much less comparing for village claim). Using such interface will display nearby countries (if they fit the map stored in totem). If some countries want to claim the same territory, contested territory. Authority points for this territory are drained faster each day until either one will almost deplete its points or force other country to stop the contest (by diplomacy or war).

Any village which is on the territory of the country could provide it's authority points to maintain country. It's share in total amount could not be larger than capital's one. Capital may either use diplomacy to get AP (and other goods) from villages around or force them to pay with force (capital villagers with proper rights should be able to change the AP share for any village in the area and lock it for one week using that's village totem).

3) Sieges. Any village should spread some time over week. At this time their walls becomes vulnerable. Amount of time to spread depends on village claim size + country claim size for capital. Anyone nearby the village may find out exact periods by right-clicking the wall (for ex.). Village walls are indestructible by default. To start the siege you should build The Siege Banner, so area it is covering intersects with village claim. You can build this banner only if siege is available at this time. Than you need to build battering ram (it soaks only 1 hour). Battering rams could be built only near the Siege Banner by others (also hammer is dealing the same damage as ram if is used by village dvellers to destroy their own things in order to replace this peaceful ram functionality). Ram is destroyed after an hour being outside the Siege Area. Siege banner disappears if for 30 minutes there were no criminal acts except for trespassing - it doesn't count at all.

4) Thiefs. Players may activate stealth mode and become invisible by others (outside the group). You're able to see such a player if your perception * exploration is greater then hidden players 0.05 * stealth * agility * distance between you. If someone not in the party with the hidden player see him, he will decloack. Hidden players cannot attack. Also after decloacking they cannot attack and cloak again for a minute or so.

Players may build a hidden path under the walls. They are build in three steps with one day between each step This path's visibility is based on the same formula (using the characteristics from the weakest builder) modified by the stage: first step gives 20x multiplier, second one gives 5x multiplier, third one gives 1x multiplier so it's much harder to find hidden path while it is not ready. Traveling through the secret path will let you in the village and give you a "Thief" buff. Which will let you steal things if you're cloacked but not attack or destroy things even if you're not cloacked. Village dwellers may send you to your hearthfire if manage to see.

5) Laws. Default laws for territories outside any country (and in countries which did not change default settings) are much the same as today. The only exception is: person who murdered other person will not save that base 30% of SP if killed in a month. Still you can use a murder scent on knocked out murderer to kill him without being punished for that (scents are left anyway). Any country may increase or decrease strictness of any scent (duration and nidbanes strength, their attack stile (together or one by one, max amount)), turn on or off extra punishment for murders, may enable prisons (no need for extra buildings, easy to implement using special buff), where knocked out outlaws will spend some (limited by game rules) time before able to teleport back to hearth fire. Also there's option to turn off public scent access so only your citizens (or even only ones with special right). More strict law will cost more AP for the same area. The last thing is international law. You may switch it on or off for your country. Switching it off will get you with 5x multiplier for AP drain but will keep nidbanes crafted by other countries or free villages at the border.

Default law is applied for contested areas.

6) While killed player is not buried, successor may acquire (via hearth fire) special scents leading to his dead body or skeleton. Nidbanes should dramatically increase their power if they feel victim's dead body near by (based on distance).

7) Big world is good, teleports are bad. The problem with big world is that it's hard to interact. But also the problem is there's no need to interact. Ok, sometimes super resources may be interesting to trade... but generally, you have everything you need. There are several ways to address that. Ok, big world. Current one's size is ok. Firstly some resources should be unique for the regions. Unique stone types, unique metals, unique trees, and so on. These unique resources and crafted stuff will be very viable for trade. Second is complicated personalised craft instead of one-button-click craft (!): good crafters will be in need and so trade will rise. These two things work tightly together so you need to fight for the territory but cannot get benefits without people spending their time developing crafting mastery. Third is that regions should vary by how deadly they are and is it easy to pass through them. Biomes should be larger and differ more.

7.1) Travel. You may look at Arc Pond and roads we've built. It makes travel much easier and faster. But It would be great if you may not teleport via roads carrying something and add an ability to follow road while in wagon or with barrow. Allow to switch off travel for foreigners. Building an infrastructure is a great thing and long-lasting goal. Good roads, unique resources and unique crafters will lead to trade boost. That is much better than making world small by size, as lots of people want to live alone or in small group. It is much better than virtually small worlds cause of teleports: if you may access almost instantly any desired location, there's much less need in cooperation.

8) "level" cap. Is generally good, but should be applied in formulas not in pure progression limit: though I should be able to have 10000 Str, but it should work like current 220 Str for ex. That preserves this feel of constant character development.

9) Seasons. Great idea with huge potential. If they last for real month than you really should change way you play, clothes you wear and so on. Central grid where newcomers spawn should has fixed season with normal temperature and so on. Other "grids" will have their seasons and weather constantly changing, and there should not be for ex. summer all over the world. Generally surviving is some additional fun.

10) Long term goals. As I've said in previous post I'm not as creative as you, guys. But still. Take a blank page and start writing out long term goals like Castles and level-cap in Lineage II, null-sec holding and 100500 billions ISK in EVE online. Actually (IMHO) introducing some kind of high level m
ap with countries marked there and some country based statistics will add some interest even for those not directly involved in conflicts.

Oh man. 10 is good number to stop with. If you're interested, please let me know (actually also if not, if it is possible ^_^).

[InGodWeTrust]

Really nice ideas, so I hope J&L will use at least some of them in there developing H&H

[dvsmasta]

I find it funny that the about page states nothing of permadeath or death in general. The dev's expanded thoughts on PVP also never really delve into death but just talk about how important free and open PVP combat is. I still think one of the biggest hindrances to this game retaining players is the permadeath or the current variation thereof.

With permadeath gone you could remove nidbanes for murder scents and change the effects they have when defeated by nidbanes to stat loss instead (perhaps a times stat loss you have to burn through). Nidbanes would then only be usable for vandalism scents to provide a mechanism for vengeance on raiders destroying industry/etc.

[Atron]

I like all ten propositions from Rigeborod. And first one looks like a relatively simple one to implement. Ingame Cartography is a beautiful mechanic, it makes no sense to compare it with automatic saving map tiles by client. Oh, this worm-like map data and infinite switching between windows. Farewell, game atmosphere. No, I would practice cartography specificly ingame through comprehended exploring of the land and making neсessary materials for this. I would like sharing maps ingame with friends, hanging maps on a wall in a house, trading them. And if the maps were a part of other mechanics, as Rigeborod proposed, I’d be happy.