Drinking & Monster Invasions! ~idea thread~

While sitting in one of our forum pubs, an interesting idea came up so I figured I'd post a new thread so we all could discuss it further...

OK, ya' know the Time lord is all about Time, but lets discuss another possible in~game counting system;

1) what good is it to have a special brew, when there's little to profit from drinking it?

2) we know from Darkstarr that the game will generate monster invasions all by it's self.

3) what could it hurt to have the in~game timer, be set to how many special brews a township drank?

I think this would make the brewing skill much more profitable an endeavor for us all...

Whtcha' Tink?
~Time Lord~

 

Sounds like drinking contests could come about

 

Haha, sounds like a funny concept.


If it were 1 town that was attacked the more people drink I think it would be hilarious. would love to see that in game.

 

So would the town raiders try to leave with all the town's drinks?

and personally i guess a special brew is nothing for me as i never in my live drinked alcohol

 

Sounds like a fun idea excepting of course for the fact that all the defenders would be drunk when the invasion happened.... That could be interesting though.

My question is this: Why would monsters want this brew? Can't they make their own? Seems like a fairly weak concept for an entire invasion... no gold, no food, no nothing of true value to a ravenous hoard.

Perhaps the brew could be brewed with specific (weird) ingredients that attract specific monsters for specific invasions:

Wolfsbane - Werewolf
Bonemeal - Undead
Bloodmoss - Vampires
Catnip - Lions/Tigers/Etc.

Stuff like that, although it gets much more complex from that point.

 

There are consequences
~Time Lord~

 

Sounds like a fun idea Time Lord. My only concern is how the mechanic would balance out when/if it became common knowledge. Would players feel punished or rewarded for seeing extra (or less) invasions as a result of their drinking (or lack thereof)? As far as RP is relevant, I think this would greatly benefit the Tavern environment by increasing traffic, though its worth asking why this phenomenon would occur as a roleplaying device.

As you mentioned privately, the link between invasions and drinking could be a result of monsters seeking the brew, or seeing opportunity in attacking a town of inebriated people. I like both of these RP explanations, as long as they only apply to mobs with leaders that would be intelligent enough to utilize such strategy.

 

I like unconventional ideas but I'm afraid I don't like this one. Better make a drinking competition or maybe special brews could be a merchandise for the domestic population. Also special brews could be condiment for certain cooking recipes.

I would agree if an Avatar's combat abilities would decrease the more he has drunk, and therefor it would take longer to fight all enemies, but just increase the lenght of an event - no.

 

I would say that we should be able to have drunken tavern brawls! all skills at 1/2 when drunk! The guards should come break us up and take us to jail for the night! OR Sell us as gladiators as punishment! lol that would be fun!

 

Much like a slot machine, one would never know when that counter was about to be tripped. Thus an entire town could drink all night and never see a monster. Yet a passer by the town may stop in for a drink, and thus trip an impending invasion. It thus would be almost a social gathering system, connecting those who wish to become more social and community inclined.

There is no reason to have such a special brew, yet just as provided above, it gives reason to stop by any town and interact with that community.

"Counters are clocks, clocks do tick, you always take your chances, with every little sip".

There are consequences for every action...
Please feel free and at home to voice your opinion, all welcome indeed!
Because that opinion, "your opinion" can lead the way to others deeper thoughts in inspiration
~Time Lord~

 

Regarding drinking in game and ancillary mechanics based on it:

https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/tavern-brawls-not-pvp.1170/
https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...res-against-item-inflation.42/page-2#post-606
https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...res-against-item-inflation.42/page-2#post-628
https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/arena-pvp-hex.29/page-2#post-29593
https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/daily-weekly-newspaper.104/#post-1474
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/u33sestask1talq/m1HYj3gA5s/sota-tavern-brawling-idea-vjek.pdf

It's been talked about in the past, some good ideas in those past threads.

With respect to invasions, I would say after upgrading every/many/some NPC structures, roads, equipment, guards, walls, PC-usable defenses, to a certain point, triggering an invasion to consume all those upgrades would be a great item/time/gold sink.

 

I agree with the idea of triggered events and triggered chains or events.It allows a group of people to get together to try to push something.
In my mind, this includes a PvP win or loss of an objective, a significant PvE monster killed (in WoW turning in the head of a certain dragon would buff everyone in town), or pushing some crafting/RP level (many examples in Civilization from leveling up tech, to culture, to happiness, to the city) .

Some of these should feel zero sum (we're competing against two other towns) and some positive sum (we've trying to level up to the next tier).

As I've said many times, PvP, PvE, and crafting/RP should constantly reinforce each other. You can't read any PvP thread on these forums and not see UO as a game of PKs vs helpless crafters.

 

Once i get out of jail or escape gladiator slavery ill come get those pkrs!

 

You know, our brew dose not need to necessarily alcoholic. I know that many young people will be playing in our game. Further more, we are discussing a timer that is a special event timer. It will be somehow set with the game's mechanics without any need of any GM involvement. Darkstarr has said this.

These invasions therefore will not happen every day as things like this are "special events".

I do like the idea that has been presented here by "vjek" Maybe these events could be centered around how many player made embattlements a carpenters could craft and placed around the town. Carpentry always needs some boost after everyone has all their furniture.

But I also like the idea of the Brew having some sort of purpose in being here. but who's to say if it's alcoholic, or that there is any alcohol in our game.
"You can brew a cup of tea, you can brew a cup of coco, so why the need for ours to be alcoholic is purely with little reason".
Drinking anything is a social behavior when we are talking about a game, unless it's just to fill your gas tank with water before an adventure.

Our brew should have some special meaning... how many times did you get drunk in UO? most would say few and thus it is a game mechanic that serves no real purpose and no one (very few) ever do drink alcohol in UO or other games. It simply has no meaning for such $ to have been spent in it's development (the act of getting drunk).

Many things have been presented here thus far and I hope to have more chime in with support, dissention, and other trails of thought.
~Time Lord~

 

I think special brew would just be a good semi-rare. It'd look different than the common alcohol bottles and the player run market would put a high price on it.

 

I like this idea, where player actions trigger world events. The posts that vjek linked are similar ideas but more localized and between players. This one seems to trigger entire town sieges or just cause an influx of MOBs on the outskirts of town and in the surrounded hexes.

While I think using the crafting loop is great, I think there should still be some random factor to trigger these events. The slot machine analogy would be appropriate as anyone person could trip it while everyone else is pulling that handle so to speak. Plus, anything that involves drinking and also cause vjek's tavern brawls, I'm game.

 

Yep, and it goes well with the design goals of our actions having consequences and the world being affected by them (and reacting in kind).

 

Hey it gives Taverns like us loads of good business with a special brew

 

Part of the tavern brawl idea was that all aspects of crafting could contribute to an event trigger.

In this post, several different events that could be triggered were enumerated (from several other posts). The idea was that NPCs all over the world, probably in civ hexes, would handle and track these upgrades.

When the event is triggered is less important, from my perspective, than how it's triggered. If you take all the infrastructure, and permit it to be upgraded, then each NPC-owned business/structure, then the NPC's themselves, it creates multiple sinks for crafting output. Resource acquisition then always has a purpose, because everyone can contribute to the next event trigger. Given there's likely going to be ~20 civ locations (as per the current map) and each one of these could have a unique event scenario within or around them, considerable effort can go into these systems.

How various contributors are rewarded could be commensurate with their input to the trigger. These rewards could take various forms, including credit with NPC vendors, faction with the region, the ability to access new content, the ability to spawn smaller events on demand (with frequency limits), political access to rulers, and of course, the simplest of all, purchase of unique items.
The combination of upgrades may lead to different events. If resources, weapons and armor are produced and donated to upgrade defenses, perhaps this would trigger a siege, invasion, or skirmish event.
If resources, food, drink, furniture and decorations are produced, perhaps this would trigger a festival, circus, or traveling fair arrival.

Smaller events could be triggered based on outstanding individual contribution, such as wagon trains between towns, ambushes, or farmers markets. Perhaps after donating enough equipment to outfight a squad, you lead the squad to clear out an orc camp. If you outfit them with iron weapons and armor, maybe they're not so good, but if you outfit them with steel, provide food, drink, and potions, you have both a larger chance for success and a larger reward to offset your contribution.

Scale that up to regional events that guilds or other organized groups may participate in, and it sounds to me like a mechanic that many people would participate in. Especially if the more you contributed, the larger the potential reward.

The key would be making it frequent enough and with a low enough completion threshold that it wasn't onerous, but limited and rewarding in such a way that people would be continuously interested. Making this mechanic the sole source of faction, diplomatic, or reputation currency would ensure it was in demand over time.

Put simply, if it's a design goal to encourage this behavior, custom (private and public) guild event triggers could only be obtained by "spending" the currency that would be part of the reward for participating in these events. Even if the rewards were personal, you'd need a significant portion of your guild to participate to get enough "currency" to buy a guild-specific event trigger. Having the primary events tied to public events with regional notification would likely provide incentive for everyone to participate.
The trick would be to have a reasonable reward cap, and provide that feedback so players don't over-contribute in one particular area.

Contributions of either large amounts of common goods, or smaller amounts of rare goods would permit a player to make a choice regarding how valuable their time or resources is, individually. A simple example. If a player is a lower skilled carpenter, but they want to cap out on a particular/specific event trigger contribution, they may need to make 10 pine chairs to upgrade the local tavern or mayors office.
However, another more skilled player may donate the more costly/rare 5 mahogany chairs, and obtain the same contribution amount. Maybe a very specialized & skilled carpenter may only have to donate 2 ironwood gem-encrusted chairs to obtain the same contribution amount.

Anyway, a fair step up from just drinking to cause an event, but I hope Portalarium considers these deeper more involved mechanics for SotA.

 

At this point in our conversation I would like to point out, that such a "non-alcoholic Special Brew" (only teachable by our contributors) would spark more interaction among our community gatherings. This I believe is in the interest of our Honored PvP and PK players that are here in expression of their passion. Because if there is more social interaction, then there is less need for more punitive actions in the event of their deaths.

I'll explain in deeper point to this issue with an example pulled from UO history;

In UO history, there was one shard of the gem that shined it's light much brighter than most. I tell the tale of the beginnings, from the earliest days of the great shard of Siege Perilous. In those days, the first of days, there arose the guild of " The Fellowship " (Order Guild). This great guild had a conglomerate of artisans of all crafts and trades, yet could field at a moments notice, some 40 to 112+ well seasoned and well equipped warriors and mages. Their guild house still stands with the sign in acknowledgement that, that small house just outside of Moonglow was the first house of the shard. This was a full community within this guild and it took Chaos combining it's forces of many Chaos Guilds to press The Fellowship to their inevitable final doom. Yet it took them 6 full months to even reach that turning point within the battle for the shard. Characters packed thick and deep would fill 6 full scenes of ghosts and the thickest mayhem that UO had ever seen. I say all this, which may sound like an exaggerated dream. Yet true it was and it did have an end, but those many battles of that many Characters were never to ever be seen in such number ever again, on any shard.

Now to the sticking point;

Within and throughout this mayhem there was one lone PvP'r that constantly struck out and slippery as any had ever seen, that name was Castor Troy. The Fellowship would have to muster 20 just to chase him away from the guild house and 40 to catch him. Yet there he was, always coming back for more, a lone archer on horse back as the most shining pinnacle in the truest form creating Chaos!

The moral of this story, in honor of our PvPrs here on this thread, is that when a community can become much larger, with more personal connections, then there truly is little need, or at least, less need, for the PK or PvPer to have harsh punitive damage when killed, because he is facing so many. With larger and more social connections, such as the Special Brew would provide in it's exaggerated consumption, the PK and the PvP provide a great service in teaching others to be emotionally free.

A non-alcoholic Special Brew if encouraged to drink, such as been presented here, would create a market. a trigger counter for events and a more inviting fellowship through gatherings of us all.

I know this story true, because I was I say, "Hamlet"!
and some here maybe even one, may know what that name meant, in a land far far away, in the long forgotten guild, of "The Fellowship"...

For the many faces we once wore,
~Time Lord~