Town Owners: monsters, resources, and decorations?!

Right there with you

 

Brainstorming:

One of the concepts I'm proposing is a town jail (add-on) and the jail includes a sewer structure so players can attempt to escape. If the player is caught escaping, their fine increases. This generates revenue for the town. Players can leave to the overland map at any time, or after a certain amount of time they're released from the jail. Players can also pay the fines of other players or be pardoned by town officials.

My thinking was POT's could have the town jail/sewer connect to a 'town dungeon' add-on in the future? This concept was mainly intended for PvP enabled POT's so players could have a town with laws, and the players could work with NPC guards to enforce the laws within town limits. It would create a buffer against too many 'criminals' in the town at once, because you can't ban players in PvP POT's. This concept should work with standard PvE POT's as well.

Another idea for guild warfare and town dynamics is raidable buildings including a guild treasury, guild hall, warehouse, etc. The POT owner would only be able to allocate so many guards in the town, so it becomes a strategic element of town defense. Do you have guards protecting your guild's warehouse? Or do you put more guards in the jail or near sewer exits? Maybe you put guards in other strategic areas such as near monster/resource node areas to help prevent enemy guilds from capturing your town's resources?

If you're a POT owner with a smaller guild, the demands of the townsfolk may supersede the defense requirements for your guild structures (they want more guards in the jail, or other areas) thus leaving your guild buildings more susceptible to attack, causing you to recruit more guild members, etc.

Some POT owners may find themselves conflicted by trying to appease their town members vs a high paying lucrative guild.

And another idea is that possibly 'Mine basements' could open random shafts that allow players to excavate resources, which leads to one-way exits to a town dungeon, sewers, or other areas in the POT.

I also thought of a disease debuff for criminals trying to navigate the jail sewers and you'd have to go to the Oracle or somewhere to cure it.

But yeah, I basically support resource nodes in POT's and having them defended by monsters is fine by me. It would be really cool to have a champ spawn (UO) or control point in your town.

 

@Ancev,

Back when the topic of POT banning came up, I also suggested a change to how banning would work in the game that would involve town walls. It was modded at the time, I guess because the debate over that issue was really raw... but maybe now is a good time to broach the subject again.

Basically, the idea was that for both towns and lots, there would be no hard bans -- meaning no invisible walls keeping you out. But if you banned an individual from a town or a lot, it would make him a trespasser/criminal for entering. The game would trigger any guards or pets to attack the trespasser. It would also be permissible for any player to attack the trespasser, regardless of PvP rules. In a non-PvP town, that might even mean the trespasser couldn't attack those people back; his only option would be to flee or hide.

To prevent this from even being a situation at all, for lots, your door or your fence gate would be locked to those who are banned. For POT's, your town wall's gate would be locked to those who are banned. But if someone had super rogue skills (maybe E2), they'd be able to scale walls and sneak in, which would trigger the second part of the ban, making him a trespasser, open to being attacked. If you didn't have any town walls, this would trigger right away within proximity of the town.

I don't know if anybody likes that. I thought it would be a fun idea that would also bring some immersion into the game and some notion of criminals and a justice system.

 

@Ancev,

Sewer / jail / catacombs.

 

@redfish

Interesting stuff. The way it worked in Shadowbane (I hate to keep referencing it...but it was very dynamic for it's time and I've only spent my time playing a few games over the years) - you'd add someone to the Kill on Sight list of your town and all guards would respond. This also blocked them any NPC vendor interaction/purchasing goods. If you had high level guards they would aggressively pursue the criminals and kill them fairly quickly. Except for a few very durable classes. I think Undead guards were able to see through stealth.. can't remember. Guards in SB had bows, magic and melee attacks depending on the type. High level guards had a pretty high maintenance cost from what I recall. However, guards didn't fare too well vs an entire guild that would camp your town.

I'd mainly be a proponent of these changes being in PvP POT's. Players that are more pvp oriented will appreciate more intrusive dynamics in player interactivity. I can speak for a few of my current guild members who are new to online gaming and non-PvPers - they would absolutely hate any kind of unexpected PvP-ish encounter in a non-PvP environment. It would be nice to have some kind of indicator on the overland map so that if there are PvP rules engaged in a town, you know what you're getting into.

Also as a POT owner I'd also like to have 'contestable' lots. Guilds would war over them.

 

@Ancev,

Yea, except I think that with the kind of ruleset we have in SotA it could make it work fairly nice in non-PvP and better than hard banning. If you've been marked an outlaw in a town, you'd get a notice on entering the town that you'd be open to attack -- and you wouldn't be able to attack back to defend yourself against people not marked for PvP. Because you wouldn't be able to defend yourself, that would pose no threat to the non-PvP residents of the town.

So, all in all, I think it would work better than a hard ban, while adding more role-playing to the game.

 

I'd like POT owners to have a lot of control over the granularity of their laws, and player interactions if possible. Maybe allow the POT owners options to scale from ... there's no way around it, from soft to hard ban.

If an 'outlaw' is caught in town perhaps a POT owner can configure if the guards escort the player out of town entirely, or if they're thrown in jail. Or the guards could be configured to simply kill the players. Basically allowing POT owners to configure guard intensity. It should take awhile for major changes to the town laws to go into effect, and important laws should be displayed on the overland map? If POT owners want to be the guards themselves in an unrestricted pvp environment, then don't hire any. You'll save money that way.

In the Town Jail scenario if players escape without paying the fines they might go on a bounty board. Perhaps if guards see them in town again they're immediately sent to jail? But in order for this to work, a guard might require the ability to KO a player to send them to jail...how would players feel about that in a PvP environment?

Perhaps confrontation dialogues could be used to give players the opportunity bribe the guards, pay their fines, run for it, etc as players continue to break the laws, the confrontation dialogues would no longer apply because the guards understand the player is a known criminal. just some ideas.

But basically it's the POT owner's $900-6000+ if you don't like the laws, you can leave the town, or conduct yourself within the laws. Just my opinion on it.

if anything like this could be put in the game that would be awesome imo.