Luir's Outpost and Crime

[LauraMars]

Saw this in RAT - thought I'd make it into its own thread for discussion.

Luir's super tough on crime stance coupled with having more "units" of soldier NPCs (and probably guard NPCs in general) around than either city state, it is certainly a rolling ball of butcher knives if you break a law.  I'm not even sure that a city elf should be able to pick Luir's as a starting location.  It just doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

Luir's Outpost is very tough on crime - yet they do have a jail.  Is there a reason it isn't utilized as the jails in the city states are utilized?  i.e. Is there a reason there's no crime code with a release for the PC after x amount of hours?

For that matter, why ARE there so many unit npcs standing around in Luir's?  That's never made a whole lot of sense to me from a game play perspective.  Allanak and Tuluk don't have unit npcs standing around in the bazaar, and they seem to handle crime just fine.  It's not as though you NEED multiple unit npc to take down that pickpocket elf - if you screw up in Luir's, nearly every npc in the outpost is going to be on your ass anyway, even the prostitutes in the tavern.  I can maybe see having a unit at the gates, but having units standing around in the bazaar seems a bit weird to me.

I agree with Patuk, Nyr, etc that Luir's should probably not be used as a starting location for new players unless there are a few changes made to the outpost where Crime is concerned.

What does everyone else think?

[Molten Heart]

I think the jails in Luir's are more of a resource for the Kuraci, used as a holding area when needed and not so much a place to take everyone that breaks the law.

If breaking the law in Luir's wasn't a capitol offense, I like the idea of having offenders expelled from the outpost rather than detained (similarly to the City States).  I like this idea for other outposts and villages too.   But then this would open up a lot of problems.   I suspect the way things are now is just intended to keep things simple.  Kuraci playing policemen seems to go counter to their style.

[jcortrig]

I'll go a step further and just say that I really dislike the "unit" NPCs (no matter where they are) as a concept.  Having a couple dozen of them around Luir's is just salt in the wound.   

[LauraMars]

Furthermore, there are other issues with Luir's as a starting location that were mentioned in RAT but I'll bring them up again anyway:

1. No Housing
2. No "jobs" aside from joining Clan Kurac
3. Lower population = less chance of meaningful interaction that would get new players hooked.

[Pale Horse]

I fail to see how the presence of so many armed units within Luirs does not play into their image, nor they "playing policemen," inside.

Luirs is situated, historically, between two city-states which were never fully friendly at the best of times, frequently erupt into outright warfare, and have seen the fortress as a wonderful staging point from which to attack their enemies.

At the same time, the fortress sits in the crossroads of the Known, and not just for the cities.  Tribes and wanderers and caravans..they all pass through.  It has the potential to be the richest sight in the Known.

Who else are they supposed to rely on?  They are the only known Merchant House that has a small-city sized area to call their own and which has a huge amount of influence in the Known, a target that anyone with sufficient strength or numbers would be more than willing to take over.

It's happened before.  And considering how Zalanthas works, it'll happen again.

[LauraMars]

It's not really about what forces House Kurac is able to muster if there is an invasion - if there's an invasion by any of the city states or other merchant houses, it will happen with staff guidance/supervision and the unit npcs can come out then if necessary (though I agree with jcortrig.  I prefer non-unit filled battles as in the last HRPT)

It's about the playability aspect of having unit npcs littered all over the outpost.

House Kurac can certainly have a standing army - but does it have to stand in the bazaar and chase pickpockets?

[Jherlen]

It's been years and years, but I ran the show back in Luir's as a -da once upon a time. Back then, at least, Kurac wasn't really interested in making Luir's a city/village, or hosting anyone non-Kurac from living there. So a lot of the misconceptions with Luir's Outpost, I think, come from people thinking it as a village instead of a fortress or trading post or an... Outpost. It isn't, in my opinion, a place where people are born, grow up, live and die -- unless they're somehow connected to House Kurac. And since Kurac isn't, or at least wasn't, interested in making Luir's a place for permanent people to live, I think that influences their stance on crime, i.e. "play by our rules Or Else".

So I agree with others who are saying Luir's (as well as Red Storm and the 'rinth) are not great places for newbies to start. It would probably take a policy change in Kurac to make that change.

As a more radical idea, I might propose that people starting in Luir's start with tribal, not northern accent, since many of the people passing through Luir's are tribals of one sort or another anyway. But that's straying a bit off topic.

[Pale Horse]

It's not really about what forces House Kurac is able to muster if there is an invasion - if there's an invasion by any of the city states or other merchant houses, it will happen with staff guidance/supervision and the unit npcs can come out then if necessary (though I agree with jcortrig.  I prefer non-unit filled battles as in the last HRPT)

It's about the playability aspect of having unit npcs littered all over the outpost.

House Kurac can certainly have a standing army - but does it have to stand in the bazaar and chase pickpockets?

I suppose I am viewing this from the perspective of "how would the world act" instead of "how is this fun for a player with X desire."

I too agree, though, that Luirs should probably not be a starting position for new characters/players.  Maybe make it a karma-level specific starting spot.

[Withered Ocotillo]

The unit NPCs all over the streets were created back when Luirs was actually attacked and conquered in an HRPT, and then taken back again in another big HRPT a long time later.

They were kept there after the HRPT ended, but never removed. They're kind of dangerous as they are far more powerful than your average NPC. I agree it would probably be a good idea to remove them - not that you have much chance in general at surviving as a criminal in Luirs to begin with, but it would help a little.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

There should be shitty Housing in the Bailey.  There should be no unit NPCs. The jail should be used, and Sergeants on up given the authority to deal with violators in any manner they see fit.

[Delirium]

The amount of unit NPCs standing around in Luir's is, IMO, flat-out ridiculous.

One unit at each 'gate' I could see, maximum, but as it is now, it's like they have their entire standing army at high alert at all times. I'm imagining some poor trader walking through an aisle of 36 soldiers just to get through the inner gate. It is probably a holdover from the days of actual fighting at Luir's - if real conflict breaks out, staff would be overseeing that anyway, so it would be a simple matter to get rid of them and then load them up as needed. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if some of those extra units were due to some accidental NPC-duplication.

I miss the days when Luir's felt like a dusty old wild-west town where you get cut if you get sassy, instead of a locked-down fortress of unit doom.

[HavokBlue]

The problem with this is that Luir's is not a dusty wild west town. It is a hub of commerce with an entire military division devoted to protecting Kurac's trade, and by extension, any trade occuring in Kurac's territory. The jail is only there for the convenience of Fist players so that they can use their judgment ICly to handle crimes that would otherwise result in a red stain on the tavern floor.

I don't want to go into force sizes and virtual numbers here since that's all stuff you should find out in-game, but particularly when you consider Kurac no longer has Ten Sarak to worry about or station virtual soldiers at, the "standing army" in the Outpost makes sense.

[Lizzie]

Once upon a time:

http://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,19586.0.html

ever since then, I've complied to report duplicates.

I've typoed/bugged those NPCs several times in the past few years - they're often removed, but game resets always return them. There's one guy in Luir's who's always carrying a bench - I've seen three of him at the same time, once. Each in a different part of the outpost.

I have no idea how the code for setting up rooms works, but I think the entire zone needs to be copied to a testing port, with no NPCs at all - then have brand newly-spawned shopkeepers, individual guards, individual wandering whatevers, and sure - even maybe a half dozen units total added to that test port zone. And then - the whole shebang ported back to the game, and the game reset so that it saves that way as a total and complete "do-over."

It'd be one of those kinds of things that might've been done back when the game shut down on Saturdays.

[26 dollars]

I believe part of the problem is that some of the spawns are messed up.  This at least reminds me to bug it.

Concerning the prevalence of visible force in the Outpost compared to larger city-states, that's a little easier to explain away.  In Tuluk, for example, there's something like a half of a million people?  In Allanak, almost a million?  Their respective militia's account for less than 5% of their populations.  Their claimed or contested provinces expand to multitudes of lands beyond their actual centers of power.

In Luir's, on the other hand, you have a population that is 90%+ Kuraci employed.  It is in a much smaller, more tightly controlled space.  It seems to fit with the mentality of the area, that if you're a PC in Luir's and you're not affiliated with Kurac, you're an outsider, a guest.  As to the units, I do dislike how they're always "standing in rows" and it has less of the feel I imagine of cartel street soldiers lazing about the market and commons shade.  That's how it's presented, though, so I suppose we all have our opinions.

In Red Storm, you can find a similar ideal, only the law is the lawless.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Nah. Either place the real military presence in every location, or remove them from Luir's.

[HavokBlue]

"Nah, your reasonable post is irrelevant because I said so."

[Jherlen]

I'm sure Kurac has a sizable standing army in Luir's, I just think the question is whether that army needs to be displayed as NPC units stationed everywhere, or if it could be made virtual.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

"Nah, your reasonable post is irrelevant because I said so."

I'm not saying it's irrelevant. I'm saying that the standing army should either be shown everywhere, or taken out of Luir's. I would go for shown everywhere, personally, but I'd also remove unit NPCs from the crime code. Really, shit, the crime code just needs a very serious revamping.

You should have a number of options that can be set individually per center of civilization. Maybe a script attached to the 'commander' NPC that defines this. I could go into much further detail, I guess, but not here.

[Ouroboros]

...So a lot of the misconceptions with Luir's Outpost, I think, come from people thinking it as a village instead of a fortress or trading post or an... Outpost. It isn't, in my opinion, a place where people are born, grow up, live and die -- unless they're somehow connected to House Kurac.

There are indeed a lot of misconceptions about the Outpost, and the most prominent one is exactly that: That it has no citizens outside of Kuraci employees. In the interest of not posting the same content over and over, you'll find my fact-backed response to that here.

As a more radical idea, I might propose that people starting in Luir's start with tribal, not northern accent, since many of the people passing through Luir's are tribals of one sort or another anyway. But that's straying a bit off topic.

Not that radical, that was the actual topic of the thread I linked, which 7DV started. On the GDB there's rarely such a thing as a new idea.

[Jherlen]

The Bailey notwithstanding (and that's where I assumed the few independent shopkeepers always stayed myself), much of Luir's is a Kuraci facility one way or another. And Luir's isn't all that big, and Kurac has a lot of operations there. I remember a staff post from a long time back saying the entire population of the Outpost was around 5000 people. I'll see if I can find it. The majority of those are probably soldiers in the Kuraci Fist or House workers, not unaffiliated. So while I'll grant you that the Bailey is home to some indies, derelicts, and transients, some of which who may stay there more or less permanently, I'm going to stand by my assertion that thinking of Luir's as a village a la Red Storm or even Cenyr is the wrong way to go about it. I'd like to see staff's opinion, though.

[Ouroboros]

Players who've played in Kurac to some extent tend to feel the Outpost is comprised entirely of Kuraci family and employees. It's not their fault, that's the feeling one gets. This is compounded by conflicting, or more pointedly absent, clarification from staff over the years. This feeling is then taken as fact and shared with other players, who might or might not have played in Kurac. Those players in turn, seeing mostly Kuraci in the Outpost and hearing opinions as facts, take them to heart. And thus, misconceptions are propagated.

In the post I linked, I've shared valid fact as to why it is Luir's Outpost has a significant enough population of residents and citizens outside of Kuraci family and employees. I've also mentioned that any evidence to the contrary is actually entirely hearsay and fact-less, based only on individual player's feelings, hunches, and personal but not defining experiences. Staff's opinion is welcome and has actually been asked for many times on this topic, but the facts I've presented stand regardless. If staff's view differs, a whole lotta retconning will be needed to bring that in line with their view.

Starting locations as a whole represent your character's background, they aren't just jump spots into wherever you'd like to start playing your character. If that were the case, accents and tattoo's would be offered separately from starting locations. If no other fact of those I presented sits well with you, the fact staff added the Outpost as a starting location available to any player (and not just Kuraci family and employees), should tell you they feel it's a valid place for a character to have been born and raised in. If it weren't the case, it wouldn't be a starting option and staff would simply transport Kuraci family and sponsored employee roles when they came out of chargen. Much as is the case with Cenyr, which isn't a valid place for a PC to have been born and raised in as per documentation and thus isn't available as a starting location.

[Italis]

Jherlen is correct.

Luir's Outpost is not just another village - it's a fortified structure held by House Kurac, and peopled almost entirely by their family and employees. It does support a small, mostly transient population, but they're only permitted to live in the relatively lawless shanty town between the walls.

Yes, all the real-estate inside is being used by Kurac.

You can start in Luirs, and have Luirs in your background. You can be born there or raised there. But unless you're a Kuraci, you're not a 'citizen.' Citizenship is basically a meaningless concept in Luir's Outpost.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

I'd certainly have living quarters in the bailey. Give the Bailey a wild west feel. Keep only the guards at the gates, and at the gates of the outpost, and have no Kuraci NPCs patrolling the Bailey. Throw in more structures in the bailey to reflect the enviroment. Throw in NPCs to do the same. Basically, Rinth it up.

I'm good with this picture of the Outpost.

[RogueGunslinger]

I'd certainly have living quarters in the bailey. Give the Bailey a wild west feel. Keep only the guards at the gates, and at the gates of the outpost, and have no Kuraci NPCs patrolling the Bailey. Throw in more structures in the bailey to reflect the enviroment. Throw in NPCs to do the same. Basically, Rinth it up.

I'm good with this picture of the Outpost.

Fuck yes.

[Italis]

I'd certainly have living quarters in the bailey. Give the Bailey a wild west feel. Keep only the guards at the gates, and at the gates of the outpost, and have no Kuraci NPCs patrolling the Bailey. Throw in more structures in the bailey to reflect the enviroment. Throw in NPCs to do the same. Basically, Rinth it up.

I'm good with this picture of the Outpost.

Currently this is the case, it's just virtual.

However, a bailey upgrade project is already in the works - although rentable apartments is not going to happen. At least not in the existing form.