Try something new in SA - Guild Towns

[Mijac_Chmon]

PREFACE: This idea came from Age of Conan. My mate just started playing it (he rebuffed my attempts to get him to come here because he is such a massive Conan fan from the old days). I just think that something like this is long overdue in UO.

There's another thread here in UHall that asks about Housing in Ter Mur. Well, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that there should be NO housing in Ter Mur.

Instead, it might be time to look at Player Run Towns.

In essence, it would work like this:

* Town Size: The size of your Guild would determine the maximum size of your Town. The more unique accounts that your Guild has, the larger your Town can be, the more buildings it could have etc. In addition, if it was an Alliance Town (as opposed to a Guild Town) you would have the ability to grow to a decent size.

The size would automatically be generated and a "fence" would be placed around the area.

* Buildings: Your Town would give you the opportunity to add specific buildings to it:
- Blacksmith
- Mage Shop
- Fighting Pit
- Tavern/Inn
- Bank
- Marketplace
- Stable
- etc

Each of these buildings would come with the related NPCs and would also come with certain bonuses ie the Blacksmith would come with a little bonus to crafting for everyone in the Guild/Alliance.

I got the idea from here

* Status: Your Town could also have a certain Status. This might be a little complicated or might require a little thought, but it could relate to the PvPness of your Town ie is it Friendly, Nuetral or Hostile? Is your Fighting Pit a full on PvP area?

Example: Your Town might be set to hostile, which would give you NPC guards to protect your Town but which would also leave your buildings open to attack.

* New Skills: Building in your Town would require a new Skill - Architecture. The level of this Skill would determine what size your Blacksmith could be and what bonus its forges would have, for example, as well as how many buildings you could have/maintain etc

Building would require a large amount of resources both to initiate as well as maintain.

* Housing: Housing would be limited. The size of your Town would determine how large your Housing was. You would have the choice of either set housing (new designs available only to Towns) or Customisable (with possible larger sizes available only to Towns.

Owning/Running a Town would mean the members of the Guild/Alliance would no longer be able to own Private homes. Alternatively, maybe individual members could only own small houses (7x7 or something). The point here is to make people/guilds/alliances have to make a choice - the prestige of a player run Town or your own private home?

When your Guild decided to make a Town, you would given a Prompt asking whether you wished to stay in the guild (forfeit private home) or leave the guild (keep private home). You would be unable to access the various elements of a Town until you had accepted the prompt and forfeited your private housing.

* Guild/Alliance PvPing: This could open up a Faction-like system where each Town had its own "Stone" or whatever that could be captured by enemy Guilds/Alliances and taken back to the enemies' own Town. Capturing this "Stone" might lead to a Town experiencing a greater rate of decay or maybe a loss of the Bonuses that a Town offers. The "Stone" would not be able to be stored away but would need to be placed within the enemy's own Town within an hour (thus enabling retrieval) or it would automatically return to its original location.

* Decorations: Towns would give crafters and botanists the opportunity to be artistic. Sections could be set aside for large gardens to be planted and cultivated. Statues could be erected. Idols constructed. Stonemasons could make beautiful arches or fountains. Crops could be planted etc

Anyways, it's just an idea that I had that I think would add a lot to UO and I think the introduction of SA gives UO the opportunity to do something bold and different from what the game has produced until now.

Comments, criticisms, praise and flames are more than welcome!

 

[Blesh]

This sounds like a really cool idea, but considering it took them like 3 years to put SA on the table, I really think that its out of out dev teams league

 

[Lord Patapon]

Indeed, it's a good idea !
I don't think they'll have any time for that until SA is released and the live events start again, but I'd like to see the Dev Team impressions on that idea; although, it seems a very big thing to produce and to code, so, imho it's more an expansion idea than a publication idea, but still... would be nice.

 

[Mijac_Chmon]

All they have to do is NOT release housing within the new lands.

That way, the space can sit there unused but ready for whenever they get the system up and running.

Whether that be next week, next month, next year (obviously it would be a year away, but I was just making a point) doesn't matter because the space would be sitting there still.

 

[Gandie]

Some really good ideas in there.

 

[CatLord]

Amazing! Great Post!

One detail:
- remember to give all houses the same storage or you will be discriminating the players that will own the smaller homes.

 

[Trebr Drab]

They should have gone this route a long time ago instead of going to item based game play.

Years ago I suggested the following idea, but I doubt it even made it's way up the ladder very far.
-Split the world (Fel at that time) at it's server seams and add in huge tracks of land in between, rebuilding the edges to fit this idea.
-Add in plenty of land for building cities, and also all sort of exploration with new crypts and minor dungeons and old ruins.
-Not only allow player cities, but also the politics through increased guild capabilities and powers.
-The player cities to build structures and art, allow players to buy land to build on from the city.
-Add maintenance to all structures, not heavy but enough to keep the social elements active. Allow for demolition rules in case a city starts to shrink.
-Add hireable city guards for the player cities, add rules to a justice system and penalties for killing NPCs of any sort. Add heavier rules for killing a player citizen, with teeth so it works, and add a military order to player cities for players to enforce the local laws.
-Add city wars, where only the military order players are involved, and only the city structures can be damaged (not regular citizens, not player houses).

And from there continue to build the social aspects of the game as well as the plot lines involving the FOA, Minax, etc. Such as adding farming, horse breeding, etc.

But NOooo. INstead we have to have this mish mash constant flux items deal that wears out like all other games and always has to be fixed.

 

[Mijac_Chmon]

Amazing! Great Post!

One detail:
- remember to give all houses the same storage or you will be discriminating the players that will own the smaller homes.

Yeah you would definitely need to consider storage when the housing option comes into play. However, as I've already said, the size of available housing within the Town would be determined by the number of accounts within the Guild so you'd be able to quite easily have a good approximation of how much storage to put into each housing template.

However, you'd have to understand that the actual size of the housing wouldn't match that of individual houses. If you gave a guild with 30 people in it the exact same housing space the Town would be too big.

Instead, I'd look to make "apartments" available as a template option. Several stories tall, made up of little rooms that you could assign to individual accounts. You'd then be able to put your own containers in there (even though the room would be small) to store your own stuff.

Still too small? Hard to fit all your stuff in a small apartment?

Make Warehouses one of the buildings you can erect. It would serve, in essence, as a bank-type structure where you could store excess items/goods etc.

Also note that the Smithy would allow you to store resources (maybe both individual stores as well as common stores) and so forth.

Sure, there would be issues once you started to delve into it but I doubt they'd be show stoppers.

 

[Stupid Miner]

It'd be a more interesting idea if UO was a fel-only rule set. But with a good warring system it could work in Trammel.

 

[Mijac_Chmon]

Well I've never done much Guild-based PvP. Is that system set up in such a way as to work with possible Towns?

 

[Stupid Miner]

Well I've never done much Guild-based PvP. Is that system set up in such a way as to work with possible Towns?

There's not much to it. If you're warred you can kill each other. That's about it.

 

[Mijac_Chmon]

There's not much to it. If you're warred you can kill each other. That's about it.

So what warring system would be needed?

Maybe you could have "wars" that Guilds could opt in to even if they didn't know the other Guilds?

Sure, you could still have specific wars with specific Guilds if you want, but maybe you could start an "open war" that anyone could join. If you were looking for such a war, maybe there would be a central registry where you could look up all available wars?

Maybe each village has a board that allows you to look at their war status and join if it is open or ask permission to join if it is by invitation only?

Maybe each Town has it's own billboard where you could access this shard-wide information from your own Town and/or check individual Town statistics when at that Town?

Maybe each Shard would also have a default "open war" that anyone could join, as well as the options involving starting your own.

Would it be possible, if this was to happen, that Towns could join multiple wars? I'm thinking not.

Maybe what you're fighting for is the Totem of the Town. This Totem would hold the "magic" of the Town and thus taking it would remove protection from the Town - leading to an increased decay rate and dropping of bonuses a Town receives from buildings.

Also, if a Totem system was to be used, this might also add the need for citizens of Towns to complete Quests in order to get - and keep - the "magic" that their Town has?

 

[sayler04]

so, you have to be in a guild to engage in this system?

this is just too complicated

 

[RaDian FlGith]

Personally, I prefer how Star Wars Galaxies handled player-run towns (not sure how they work now, but back before the great revamp of the game, it was awesome). In short, basically, houses that were near each other could "ally" themselves to each other... I don't remember the exact system there, but basically, one person was elected mayor from the allied houses; once there were X number of houses in the area, a spaceport could be placed, or a repair shop for vehicles, et cetera.

It could be transfered to UO as well... say 5 houses in a vicinity allowed you to ally yourself as a town and place a town hall (1 design for each stone type to choose from); 10 houses, you can place a stables, 20 houses, a tailor/blacksmith/armory, 30 houses a whatever, 50 houses a bank. (These are just random numbers, the system would need to make sense, obviously).

One feature I loved from SWG was that you could, as an officer in that city, ban any non-desirables from it. I don't remember, but I don't think you could ban a house owner within the confines of that city whether they had allied themselves or not, but you could ban someone who was a pain (ie: you could ban someone from your Feluccan town who wouldn't obey your laws).

Anyway, long answer short, I'd love to see a way for player-run cities to happen, because it would allow people to bring community back to UO.

 

[Vyal]

Daoc pvp style wars would be a better idea, let reds go into tram under tram ruleset but add pvp areas where you can fight for special locations if a faction holds that location long enough the entire faction is granted a special ability max hci max dci more mana or something while they have the location they can place w/e inside or have like a special soulforge that only the faction holding the location can use to get a boost.

 

[Merik]

* Housing: Housing would be limited. The size of your Town would determine how large your Housing was. You would have the choice of either set housing (new designs available only to Towns) or Customisable (with possible larger sizes available only to Towns.

Owning/Running a Town would mean the members of the Guild/Alliance would no longer be able to own Private homes. Alternatively, maybe individual members could only own small houses (7x7 or something). The point here is to make people/guilds/alliances have to make a choice - the prestige of a player run Town or your own private home?

When your Guild decided to make a Town, you would given a Prompt asking whether you wished to stay in the guild (forfeit private home) or leave the guild (keep private home). You would be unable to access the various elements of a Town until you had accepted the prompt and forfeited your private housing.

Like the idea but have a question. Like our player run city of PaxOku every house is already public but, it does store some of our own personal belongings. When you say forfeit private home does that mean the home is destroyed? Or its becomes public?

Also classic player run cities that have in house blessings or blessings around them what do they do?

"The point here is to make people/guilds/alliances have to make a choice - the prestige of a player run Town or your own private home?"

Why do people have to be forced to make a choice? Or guilds or alliances. Because my guild all of a sudden wants to make a player city and I am not that interested in it I can no longer be apart of that guild unless I give up my home?

Other then that I LOVE the idea. I was always pushing for just a little city stone in the center of town with the city name and buildings that belong to it. I dont need outside decorations or anything. We in PaxOku city do fine with creativeness in our own buildings If you would like to take a look our city is the entire road of Homare-Jima, tokuno islands on Chesapeake.

As I said LOVE the idea and well thought out.

 

[Mijac_Chmon]

so, you have to be in a guild to engage in this system?

this is just too complicated

Well, you couldn't have a town run by one person, could you?

Towns are places that house collectives of people. In UO, the closest thing we have to this is a Guild. A Guild would make perfect sense as the UO entity that best fits "running" a Town.

Personally, I prefer how Star Wars Galaxies handled player-run towns (not sure how they work now, but back before the great revamp of the game, it was awesome). In short, basically, houses that were near each other could "ally" themselves to each other... I don't remember the exact system there, but basically, one person was elected mayor from the allied houses; once there were X number of houses in the area, a spaceport could be placed, or a repair shop for vehicles, et cetera.

It could be transfered to UO as well... say 5 houses in a vicinity allowed you to ally yourself as a town and place a town hall (1 design for each stone type to choose from); 10 houses, you can place a stables, 20 houses, a tailor/blacksmith/armory, 30 houses a whatever, 50 houses a bank. (These are just random numbers, the system would need to make sense, obviously).

One feature I loved from SWG was that you could, as an officer in that city, ban any non-desirables from it. I don't remember, but I don't think you could ban a house owner within the confines of that city whether they had allied themselves or not, but you could ban someone who was a pain (ie: you could ban someone from your Feluccan town who wouldn't obey your laws).

Anyway, long answer short, I'd love to see a way for player-run cities to happen, because it would allow people to bring community back to UO.

Aye, I dig it.

Thing is, once houses have been placed, what if there isn't room for these extra buildings? What I mean is that you couldn't take our existing house system and convert it because we have houses that are already packed next to each other and most of the time there isn't room there now to add new buildings.

So you'd need to start with a fresh slate (facet). If you didn't start this facet with the specific idea of buildings Towns, you'd end up with the same problem we have now where houses would be placed together and the potential for addition/expansion would decrease or not exist.

Also, what happens if one house decides to pull out? Does the Town then automatically fall apart? This isn't fair on everyone else, is it?

With a Guild, the Town lives on if one player withdraws.

Like the idea but have a question. Like our player run city of PaxOku every house is already public but, it does store some of our own personal belongings. When you say forfeit private home does that mean the home is destroyed? Or its becomes public?

Destroyed.

Also classic player run cities that have in house blessings or blessings around them what do they do?

I dunno. Can you answer that for me?

"The point here is to make people/guilds/alliances have to make a choice - the prestige of a player run Town or your own private home?"

Why do people have to be forced to make a choice? Or guilds or alliances. Because my guild all of a sudden wants to make a player city and I am not that interested in it I can no longer be apart of that guild unless I give up my home?

I dig it. I also dig that it sucks.

However, I just get the feeling that we shouldn't be allowing people to stack up.

If we had houses and Towns, we'd probably not have the room. Everyone would have both and I'm not sure if there'd be room for that.

Plus, and this is only my personal opinion, I think the fact that you have to sacrifice one thing to get something grander is fair. Do we want a game where everyone has everything? We want people to have to make choices about what they want, right? Realising that having one thing often comes at the expense of having something else.

Note, I've also left the option open for smaller private houses to remain for citizens of Towns.

Now, having said this, I reiterate that it's only my opinion. If you'd like to place an argument for the other side, I'd love to hear it.

Other then that I LOVE the idea. I was always pushing for just a little city stone in the center of town with the city name and buildings that belong to it. I dont need outside decorations or anything. We in PaxOku city do fine with creativeness in our own buildings If you would like to take a look our city is the entire road of Homare-Jima, tokuno islands on Chesapeake.

Aye, but imagine if you had your own stable there, a fighting pit, a smithy, a bank etc.

This would be much, much cooler.

As I said LOVE the idea and well thought out.

Cheers but there's obviously still holes in it. I'd love for them to be filled

 

[Stupid Miner]

So what warring system would be needed?

Maybe you could have "wars" that Guilds could opt in to even if they didn't know the other Guilds?

Sure, you could still have specific wars with specific Guilds if you want, but maybe you could start an "open war" that anyone could join. If you were looking for such a war, maybe there would be a central registry where you could look up all available wars?

Maybe each village has a board that allows you to look at their war status and join if it is open or ask permission to join if it is by invitation only?

Maybe each Town has it's own billboard where you could access this shard-wide information from your own Town and/or check individual Town statistics when at that Town?

Maybe each Shard would also have a default "open war" that anyone could join, as well as the options involving starting your own.

Would it be possible, if this was to happen, that Towns could join multiple wars? I'm thinking not.

Maybe what you're fighting for is the Totem of the Town. This Totem would hold the "magic" of the Town and thus taking it would remove protection from the Town - leading to an increased decay rate and dropping of bonuses a Town receives from buildings.

Also, if a Totem system was to be used, this might also add the need for citizens of Towns to complete Quests in order to get - and keep - the "magic" that their Town has?

To put it simply, the point of making a town would be to protect the people within the town or for a central location of commerce, but since we have instant travel in UO, the latter reason is all but defunct.

And since it's really hard to organize a group of RPers to attack/defend the towns, it'd be hard to give them and actual purpose other than a cool hangout location.

And we already have guardzones, so even in a pvp environment such as Siege, it still wouldn't work fluidly. It would have to be RPed.

 

[Trebr Drab]

NOTE, I've left this undone, and gave up because it's long and would never be added to UO all at once. However, stages could be done over years to build up a good city system. Many years, heh. I'm only posting this, unfinished as it is, to show how complicated this would be to do in a good and complete way. I'll post a starter idea later.


You guys can see that there are a lot of problems with the idea of player run cities in an MMORPG. The rest of the game needs to fit into the idea as well. I think UO could develop a city system, complete with all the social aspects involved. But it would be like adding another entire game onto the existing game, and would also require a huge (and I mean HUGE) land mass to be added to do it right and accommodate all the cities, small and large, that would likely spring up. So I don't see my idea happening. Maybe a smaller idea like what's been mentioned, but those leave a lot of questions because they just don't encompass the needed things that a workable and exciting city system requires.

Following are a few thoughts along the massive scale I'm talking about, and as I go through this think of games like Ages Of Empires and how cities are built in those games, and remember that I'm adjusting it to fit an MMORPG of individual players, and getting into the social aspects that cities would bring along with them:

General---------------
-Require a guild to build a city
-Lays down a stone as a central marker, which places a zone of control at a limited size.
-City can build structures that give the city additional abilities, such as clearing more land to expand, hiring NPC troops and laborers, building bigger and better city structures, city storage (important to give cities assets that are separate from player's assets, which is important for everything city from building to wars), and advancing the city's zone of control to larger areas. These structures can be enhanced and added onto, after learning the tech required.
---Examples:
1) City owned Apartment houses that players can *lease* rooms in, that also serve to draw a limited number of NPCs to hire, required for city guards, general laborers, construction and maintenance.
2) City warehouse(s) that allow for storage of player owned assets, as well as storage of city assets (gained through a tax system on materials gained from city owned work zones), more in next...
3) City Mining company, required to build city owned mines, where players can go to harvest ores in an unlimited fashion (advantage plus safety), and pay a small percentage in ore when they leave which goes to the city for storage and later use in construction of the city, or for city trade. Allow scripts for all using these mines (citizens only allowed to use), build them into the game, and adjust rewards vs. time.
4) City library, where players can place their works, cities can place theirs, and also functions to add to the cities abilities in construction and advancement. Library itself can be advanced upon gaining new knowledge.

City and player politics---------------
-Guild controls city as rulers.
-Any player can build near the city, and can opt in to being a citizen or not, gaining usage rights of city assets if they opt in, and gaining voting rights.
-A players house is NOT subject to outside play, such as destruction in wars, except as noted. But the city's properties are.
-A player owned house can only be affected if the city rulers call for a vote and a very larger percentage of the citizens vote yes. In that case the city can force the player to sell the city their house for the construction cost. The city must also *give* that player a property within the city's zone of control, of equal size. This allows a city to expand it's central area for construction and enlargement, even if a single player refuses to move.
In such a case
-The ruling guild can be replaced by a vote, following a challenge by another guild. Again, a very large majority must vote yes.
-Citizens can use city structures, gaining benefits, but must also pay a tax in kind as mentioned above out of their efforts.
-Ruling guild can make political positions that control aspects of the city, from warlords to running each of the areas of control of the structures. Little design code here, leave it entirely up to the players to run their own politics, this is roleplay and social gaming.
------For example-------lets say that the Head Librarian knows that his city need to build onto the library so that new construction abilities are gained for the city, but the powers that be decided to build other things instead, and that the city's assets are stretched to the end. So if this Head Librarian wants to get his library enhanced through an addition, he needs to seek out contributions from private citizens and also make a deal with the city rulers, "I can get these donations if you will add this job to the list." Now, maybe the city doesn't have the NPC work force to all this at once, so in this case, the Librarian must also seek donations for construction of another Apartment House, to draw in more NPCs to hire. -----------------

Voting--------------------
Two kinds of votes.
1) Few ruling votes that allows them to override and control citizens, such as the forced house purchase above. Requires agreement from an very large percentage of the citizens. Also allows another guild to rest control of the city from previous guild, if an overwhelming majority of citizens wants it so.
2) Votes that act only as a poll. And ruler or citizen can make one of these, functions only to poll the citizens.
-Other than that, the ruling guild does all the actions based on politics.

War--------------
-Any city should be able to declair war on any other city, no acceptance required.
-War should be expensive to wage, in the costs and requirements of moving siege equipment and hiring NPC assets. Example: Moving large and effective canon across wild terrain.
-Wars should only affect the city and it's assets (but not all it's assets), never affect players or their housing and assets.
-Wars should be fought to take control of another city, take it's city assets (ores, lumber, gold, etc.). This would affect players in that their city growth can be affected, a new ruling guild (from another city) takes over. This gives them a reason to help their city. They can also move, if they decide to.
-Battles fought only by the city military. Citizens cannot be attacked, and must join the military to participate.
-Rebellion from another city can be started by a vote with a very large majority, basically replacing the new rulers as in replacing founding rulers. Requires a victory condition as a conquest would. Replacing city stone.
-Alliances. Double war fronts. All allowed.

Eh, too long, I'll end it there. Lots more to consider for a proper city system that enhances politics, war, construction, advancement, et. al.

 

[Stupid Miner]

Something like this wouldn't work well in UO for the sole reason that: we cant chop down trees. They're tied in with the world map, and I'm pretty sure the base world has to be the same for every shard. If they were items or lockdowns, that'd be different. (they'd also cause a lot of lag)

 

[Trebr Drab]

Something like this wouldn't work well in UO for the sole reason that: we cant chop down trees. They're tied in with the world map, and I'm pretty sure the base world has to be the same for every shard. If they were items or lockdowns, that'd be different. (they'd also cause a lot of lag)

What I'd do there is make trees into items, but clump a group into one item. So when looking at a clump of trees in a 8x8 area, you'd actually be looking at one item. For clearing, you'd be clearing the entire area.

Also, remember that such cities would require a new map area, so it could be custom built for this. I mentioned earlier that what I'd do is break Britannia up at it's seams, add in a huge new lands in between, rebuild the edges to fit like what's currently there, and make it look like a massive earth eruption happened and rose new land in the middle of the continent.

 

[Mijac_Chmon]

To put it simply, the point of making a town would be to protect the people within the town or for a central location of commerce, but since we have instant travel in UO, the latter reason is all but defunct.

And since it's really hard to organize a group of RPers to attack/defend the towns, it'd be hard to give them and actual purpose other than a cool hangout location.

And we already have guardzones, so even in a pvp environment such as Siege, it still wouldn't work fluidly. It would have to be RPed.

A lot of it would be RP.

However, I don't think it would necessarily be too hard to organise a group of RPers to "play Factions" with a Town. We simply need a system that is entertaining and engaging.

Towns could help to bring greater organisation to some of the events that already occur within UO. It could help to establish "circuits" for player run events such as auctions, friendly competitions, PvP etc.

It could help groups organise inter-Guild events that might require competitors/entrants to travel the land (say, from Town to Town) looking for people/items/clues etc

It could add to PvP (or increase incentives for people who don't normally engage in PvP to do so in a friendly, communal manner. It could help with Shard-wide organisation.

And, yes, very importantly, it could add to the RP element of UO. I don't see the fact that this would be a central point (some might argue the only point) as a negative but instead as a strong positive.

Lots of stuff

Trebr, while I really like your idea I also see it as something that is possibly too big for UO. It seems to be the basis for a game within itself and not something that would be introduced to simply add another facet to a game or some more depth or colour to a game.

Your idea actually isn't too bad but I just see it as being a little beyond the scope of what UO could possibly integrate without fundamentally changing the nature of the game.

 

[hawkeye_pike]

Good ideas!
I always wished that the developers would put in more features for player communities. After years of putting in new landmasses, dungeons and items, it might be time to work on the DEPTH of the game.

 

[Mijac_Chmon]

Yeah, that's what it's about.

With no disrespect to anyone who works on the game, it's pretty much same old-same old. Just another dungeon with new monsters and some new items.

Adding new race will be good but it doesn't add true depth. Essentially it's just a different set of numbers for a character. If there were some real RP opportunities then it might be ok, but there's not. Imbuing would be ok but that will just be something that a crafter does by themselves before sticking items on a vendor (if they don't wear them themselves).

We need additions that engage the community, give them new ways to interact with each and give real meaning to their play. Towns or an equivalent would do that and would add a lot of depth to the game.

Is it too much to hope that we might get something like this instead of just new items and new dungeons?

 

[Gandie]

Yeah, that's what it's about.



We need additions that engage the community, give them new ways to interact with each and give real meaning to their play. Towns or an equivalent would do that and would add a lot of depth to the game.

This!

 

[Trebr Drab]

A lot of it would be RP.


Trebr, while I really like your idea I also see it as something that is possibly too big for UO. It seems to be the basis for a game within itself and not something that would be introduced to simply add another facet to a game or some more depth or colour to a game.

Your idea actually isn't too bad but I just see it as being a little beyond the scope of what UO could possibly integrate without fundamentally changing the nature of the game.

Oh, I agree, on a short term basis. I think I even said this up above. But I don't think it always has to be so. As to a fundamental change, wouldn't this be for the better? Think about it, adding social play, adding actual caravans and city trade, allowing world changing building, etc.

By the way, what I posted above is only a part of the scope. Imagine AI for bands of wondering creatures who would even search out "homes", and AI to build onto their homes. These creatures might even inhabit old, defunct player cities. If construction slowly degrades, there might be some structures there. Replaced with "ruins". And now it might become an Orc fort.

Anyways, start small. But wouldn't it be good to have a plan for the ultimate ideal to build towards?

Start with:

-A city stone with a range for the zone of control. Range dependent on numbers of guild members. City stone can access web site. Also acts as a message board. Cost:high, going to the Britannian coffers (or other, Zento, Garg). Material costs too.

-Once established, a city can build:
--a depot. Smallish structure, maybe 4x4. Can't enter. Use it like a container where citizens only can drop resources for city storage. Access to remove by guild leaders only. High costs and materials.
--city markers/posts, place anywhere inside of zone, each one with high cost and materials. Looks like a stone or wood 1x1 post with a plaque on each side. City name on the plaque (mouse over or click). Must be open on all sides like a house (just 1 square in front), so it can't be used to block terrain off.
--city bank. Small 3x3 structure. Can't enter, functions to access a player's bank account. Citizens only.

Improve guild and citizenship functions as needed.

If the guild size drops, the zone of control should too. This can be in blocks, i.e. 10 members required, allows a zone of something akin to a 4 screen x 4 screen area. At 20 members, increases zone to 6x6, etc. Any structures outside this area after a guild size reduces starts to decay similar to housing.

That should start it off and give player cities something to work with. Later, more can be added. A second stage might include:
-harvesting stuctures, depot required to build, mines-lumber yards-fishing areas-farms. Advantageous. Cities could be limited to one kind, adding to trade.
-war mode rules

None of this requires a land addition yet.
Related thing that UO could grow into:
-Animal husbandry and breeding, farming
-wagons that "follow" a draft horse for large moving of resources, trade, caravans.
-Docks and shipping of large quantities
-Piracy
-Kingdoms of multiple cities, conquest

 

[BajaElladan]

Players already have the ability to do much of this in UO. You do not need to alter the virtual game world.

Why don't Guilds simply choose or "adopt" a Town. Choose to frequent that Town for as many in game functions as is possible in their adopted Town. Only use Inns in their adopted Town, or Stables, Provisioners, etc.

Hold your Guild Meetings in your Towns Guild Hall or largest Town building, or even a large outdoor space if necessary. Buy and Sell only in your adopted Town. Folks will learn soon enuff who is where and what they have. Use your adopted Towns crafting tools such as forges/anvils, looms/spinning wheels, tinker shops, etc. Send your crafters with giant beetles to your adopted Town to craft and repair items for folks.

Create your own character interaction.

We Do NOT need to mess with our virtual world.

We are only limited by our own imaginations and creativity.

Elladan of Baja

 

[riohnyx]

Players already have the ability to do much of this in UO. You do not need to alter the virtual game world.

Why don't Guilds simply choose or "adopt" a Town. Choose to frequent that Town for as many in game functions as is possible in their adopted Town. Only use Inns in their adopted Town, or Stables, Provisioners, etc.

Hold your Guild Meetings in your Towns Guild Hall or largest Town building, or even a large outdoor space if necessary. Buy and Sell only in your adopted Town. Folks will learn soon enuff who is where and what they have. Use your adopted Towns crafting tools such as forges/anvils, looms/spinning wheels, tinker shops, etc. Send your crafters with giant beetles to your adopted Town to craft and repair items for folks.

Create your own character interaction.

We Do NOT need to mess with our virtual world.

We are only limited by our own imaginations and creativity.

Elladan of Baja

You know, if people actually did this then there might actually be a reason for the devs to create systems to more fully support guild towns. Personally, I would love to see guilds take over towns and bring them to life.

 

[Trebr Drab]

You know, if people actually did this then there might actually be a reason for the devs to create systems to more fully support guild towns. Personally, I would love to see guilds take over towns and bring them to life.

I would too. But the funny thing is, players play the game that's presented to them. Anything more gets that dirty-word-tag "roleplayer" on it. A game can be a MMORPG or not or to a degree, but the scope depends on what's presented to the players.

 

[Mijac_Chmon]

Players already have the ability to do much of this in UO. You do not need to alter the virtual game world.

Why don't Guilds simply choose or "adopt" a Town. Choose to frequent that Town for as many in game functions as is possible in their adopted Town. Only use Inns in their adopted Town, or Stables, Provisioners, etc.

Hold your Guild Meetings in your Towns Guild Hall or largest Town building, or even a large outdoor space if necessary. Buy and Sell only in your adopted Town. Folks will learn soon enuff who is where and what they have. Use your adopted Towns crafting tools such as forges/anvils, looms/spinning wheels, tinker shops, etc. Send your crafters with giant beetles to your adopted Town to craft and repair items for folks.

Create your own character interaction.

We Do NOT need to mess with our virtual world.

We are only limited by our own imaginations and creativity.

Elladan of Baja

Why have customisable housing then?

Because players want to add their own personal touches, is why. Players want to design their own structures, their own abodes and their own Towns.

This would also increase the RPing options that simple adopting cities would not.

A very small guild might like to have their own little village out in the middle of nowhere. Maybe they RP a bunch of frontiersmen?

Others who may RP elves might like to design a Town that is heavy in gardens and trees.

Another guild might like to set up a military-themed camp to serve as their barracks.

Other guilds might get lucky and set up Towns in strategic locations - near dungeons or other hotspots. They might allow other guilds to use their Towns as starting points for ventures into these hotspots and also allow these guilds to return to the Town for restocking or rendevous.

A group who would love to RP in a naval style could set up their own port, complete with docks etc. This opens up another group to then RP pirates, raiders etc

None of these options would really exist by simply moving into cities. Not to the massive extent that they would with Towns, anyways.

*****

The reason you want to do it is because the greatest versatility comes when you give players control. You don't give them a static world but instead give them the tools to shape a fluid world and imprint their own visions upon it.

Yes, I would love to see guilds move into cities. I would love to see these cities come to life and breathe something back into UO. Bu that can only add so much to UO, whereas allowing players to shape their own Villages and Towns based upon their own visions would add immense depth to UO and bring life to places that currently rarely see players or only have players pop in and pop out.

As I've already said, it could also add greatly to PvP - to the non-grieving type of PvP that might encourage more players to participate in that particular element of UO. Seige warfare could be introduced, a Factions-style system could add depth to the current guild wars system that kind of exists...

There are plenty of reasons to implement such a system as opposed to simply encouraging guilds to move into cities (which we should also do).

 

[Mijac_Chmon]

Let me ask a question to those who might be reading this thread:

If given the opportunity to do this, what you you do with a small sized Town if you were given the opportunity to do it?