What if clans didn't give unlimited free food?

[Desertman]

I'm pro food rot code.
I'm pro no NPC cooks.

That is all.

[Beethoven]

I can see I'm a minority here. I'm someone who would like to see this in some limited fashion. I think it would have to be implemented more carefully than just unloading the cook NPCs, but I want to see something like this.

My reason is that staff encourages clan play, and also encourages the 'harsh and hostile desert environment where people kill each other over resources like food and water' theme, but those things don't really mix. Some clans should get pretty much unlimited food and water, but having all of them get it leads to city play in which everyone seems too 'comfortable.' Indies are often too rich to ever have to worry about food or water, and clanned PCs have access to infinite food and water, so who is struggling, really?

[Barzalene]

Get rid of the cooks in hunting clans. If there isn't sufficient food let the agents/merchants buy more until stores are restocked.  (As wisely suggested above) But fresh clear water in all compounds

[Barzalene]

Also family members can give treats from the main kitchen

[HavokBlue]

Get rid of the cooks in hunting clans. If there isn't sufficient food let the agents/merchants buy more until stores are restocked.  (As wisely suggested above) But fresh clear water in all compounds

This creates all the new problems I mentioned on the first page.

Forcing merchants/agents/whoever to go food shopping on a regular basis does not, in my opinion, add to anyone's experience in a positive way. If the end result is that Amos and Malik always have food in the bin when they need it, why does it need to be a menial chore for someone to handle?

If the argument in favor of forcing GMH hunters or (for some reason?...) noble aides to get their own food is that they need something to do... Well, as I believe has been mentioned prior in the thread, if you need coded motivation to hunt for food to eliminate boredom, there are some other issues at hand.

[Delirium]

Change how clan cooks work. Instead of being cooks they are quartermasters and oversee the kitchen stock and supplies.

If you give them an item of food, it is now available via 'list'. There is NO LIMIT to how many of each item you can give them.

There is no cost involved in buying the food, you get no money for giving them the food. They simply store it and catalog it.

The food will be stored exactly as-is, raw or cooked.

The food list will be subject to vNPC purchases, so it will gradually deplete over time, even if no PCs are using it.

PC cooks are now a viable role as you will want someone who can cook up the raw food and make meals.

>give root quartermaster
A kitchen quartermaster accepts a roasted reddish root and adds it to the stores.

>list
A kitchen quartermaster has the following food available:
1) A few roasted reddish roots
2) Many grilled pink slabs of meat
3) Some raw hunks of white meat
4) Several thin green tubers

>buy #2 quartermaster
A kitchen quartermaster gives you a grilled pink slab of meat.



Trust me, there will be enough food. "Back in the day", clan cooks were valuable because you got way less from skinning an animal. Hunting was far more dangerous and difficult. Clan cooks as they currently work are now essentially obsolete.

As for noble houses and other areas where it makes sense, their kitchens can be set to re-populate automatically with a "delivery" of food, removing the necessity of PC hunters or Aide busy-work as they no doubt have deals worked out with various supply sources.

During times of famine, those deliveries can be made less frequently, or be of lower volume, to reflect the harder times.

There is a hide vendor in Blackwing that works exactly like I have in mind, except this would be a no-money exchange.

You could actually extend this to having quartermasters for the clan halls too. For animal parts, raw materials, cloth, etc. A basic amount of whatever makes sense would always be available, but anything extra would be supplied by the PCs and used by PCs and vNPCs alike, the frequency based on how much virtual demand there currently is.

To note the "plot" concerns:
Merchant House storage rooms don't get filled up because people are bored and searching for meaning in their life. They get filled up because their players naturally want to work on their character's skills, and the only way to do that outside sparring is to hunt stuff, and it would be ridiculous to leave all that food out to rot in the desert in a supposedly resource-scarce world.

You can do skill-gain and survival-related activities and have a perfectly healthy plot-life, the two are not mutually exclusive.

[RogueGunslinger]

None of this feels like it would actually change anything, and if it did it wouldn't change anything for the better, but instead just make things tedious without good reason.

Hunting clans are already going out and getting meats. How do we even know taking away cooks would make it a struggle? How do we know the amount of meats and foods hunters already bring in isn't enough for everyone to stay fed? What would be the point of doing this if everyone still had food, because hunters are already hunting. On the flip side, if there isn't enough food currently brought it and it did add struggle, what would the point of that struggle be? What would it add to the game? IF all it's adding is more hunters having to run out and kill scrabs to stuff into bins, that really not adding anythign meaningful or fun. It's just adding busywork.

If you want to see people in clans struggle, food really isn't the option that makes sense to facilitate that struggle. Taking food away from indies(making it more expensive or harder to find) or making them struggle to eat. That makes sense to me. But people in clans? I don't see how it's realistic that people in clans would suddenly have to skip meals or have a hard time feeding themselves. The whole purpose of clanned life is to get away from that sort of struggle. If you want clans to fight over resources give them resources that players actually feel the incentive to fight over, like metal. Making them fight or struggle for food just seems arbitrary.

TL;DR: Will getting rid of food vendors in hunting clans change anything? If it does change anything, will that change make sense and make the game more fun? Probably not, and no.

[HavokBlue]

Just going to point out again that there are already clans that require PCs to gather their own food and water as well as food and water to support clanmates.

A couple people have mentioned that the change would reinforce the idea of Zalanthas as a harsh world where food and water are hard to come by, but I can almost guarantee that is not how it will play out in game. You're either going to be fortunate and rolling in food because you managed to hire that pair of active dwarf rangers who lay waste to the wildlife every time they ride out, or someone is going to be stuck with the menial, mindnumbing chore of going to the store every few days, putting "BUY FRUIT" in their prompt, and holding it down for ten seconds.

I can say with 100% certainty that the hunting crew of Amos Salarr and the hunting crew of Malik Kadius will not end up coming to blows over who gets to skin that scrab and who gets to go hungry.

[Desertman]

Trust me, we aren't going in the direction of forcing clans to provide their own food/water any time soon.

If anything we are moving the exact opposite direction of that sort of system as fast as we possibly can.

[RogueGunslinger]

Because people bitched a moaned about things like the Byn not having replenishing water... Because it sucked, both for leaders and underlings. I agree if anything we're going in the other direction. Thank god for that.

[HavokBlue]

Just going to point out again that there are already clans that require PCs to gather their own food and water as well as food and water to support clanmates.

A couple people have mentioned that the change would reinforce the idea of Zalanthas as a harsh world where food and water are hard to come by, but I can almost guarantee that is not how it will play out in game. You're either going to be fortunate and rolling in food because you managed to hire that pair of active dwarf rangers who lay waste to the wildlife every time they ride out, or someone is going to be stuck with the menial, mindnumbing chore of going to the store every few days, putting "BUY FRUIT" in their prompt, and holding it down for ten seconds.

I can say with 100% certainty that the hunting crew of Amos Salarr and the hunting crew of Malik Kadius will not end up coming to blows over who gets to skin that scrab and who gets to go hungry.

If we were discussing this four months ago, I'd agree.

But I think we also all thought the "WHAT IF TULUK WAS CLOSED?" discussions were silly too. 

[Desertman]

Because people bitched a moaned about things like the Byn not having replenishing water... Because it sucked, both for leaders and underlings. I agree if anything we're going in the other direction. Thank god for that.

I always liked the fact the T'zai Byn made you get your own water and enjoyed doing that as a clan leader.

I was actually pretty disappointed when this change went in.

[Delirium]

Re: what would it change & busy work complaints:

Hunters could see their contribution and improve their corner of the gameworld,

Clans where it makes sense would always have a "delivery" or a basic collection of food items,

The main difference is that by giving the food to the cook it will be gradually depleted by the vNPCs and not rotting in a bin for 1000 years,

Another difference is you'd have more variety of food whenever the hunters are active (while your pc can survive on gruel every day a real person would get awfully bored with that)

Another benefit is that the food is stored all in one place rather than in 5 different chests and tables which removes some of the "organize the clan hall" busy-work.


edit:
You could extend this idea to the crafting hall and have a quartermaster NPC who handles all the hides and bones and etc as well - and would have those things be used up by vNPCs as well - the problem in clan halls is never the scarcity of items but the overabundance of them. And the hours wasted trying to keep them organized.

I've added this to the original post.

Forgive typos; typing on phone.

[valeria]

I like Delerium's idea for GMH-like clans, but not for noble houses.  It seems like a good compromise.  But no one has yet convinced me that food resources should be scarcer in noble house clans for any reason (or that noble houses sold be forced to hire hunters or buy their own food).

[Desertman]

Re: what would it change & busy work complaints:

Hunters could see their contribution and improve their corner of the gameworld,

Clans where it makes sense would always have a "delivery" or a basic collection of food items,

The main difference is that by giving the food to the cook it will be gradually depleted by the vNPCs and not rotting in a bin for 1000 years,

Another difference is you'd have more variety of food whenever the hunters are active (while your pc can survive on gruel every day a real person would get awfully bored with that)

Another benefit is that the food is stored all in one place rather than in 5 different chests and tables which removes some of the "organize the clan hall" busy-work.

Forgive typos; typing on phone.

First, I want to say I agree with you.

However, I want to point out that not only are we not about to make Houses provide their own food....no matter how useful it would make hunters and cooks/crafters feel.....we are about to put in NPC's that let Houses bypass hunters and crafters entirely to fill entire orders for goods.

The focus isn't shifting towards making House employees feel useful in a realistic sense. If anything the focus is shifting towards making those roles even more of a flavor role than they are now.

Is that a good thing or bad thing for the game? I don't know. We will have to wait and see how it works out.

[RogueGunslinger]

Okay, so I like Delirium's idea quite a bit. But only if it's added in addition to a water source and food NPC, in order to avoid the problem of clannies going hungry/thirsty if no hunters are around.

[Delirium]

Valeria: my idea covers your concerns. Noble Houses would always have a basic list of food available. So would GMH to am extent just lower quality for peons and better for Family members. My idea is more about organizing and using up the contributions the hunters make. Because that is the root of the problem the stuff just sits there. That is what causes the disconnect.

Desertman: see above. The idea is to let hunters contribute to the stuff available for crafters and feel their contributions are being used (even if only virtually by the vnpc purchases) so it mixes fine with the all-item vendors. The diconnect is when the stuff brought in just rots on a wooden worktable for uncounted Ages because there is more than the non-virtual population can handle.


Essentially my idea us not about removing food options but limiting them and adding quartermaster npcs who have a basic stock of items but who also accept what's given to them by house hunters as extra stock. Their extra stock is then depleted on a regular basis by vNPCs who are using it for the vNPCs needs. whether that is food or hides or stones.

Wouldn't you love to never have to organize the clan hall or junk 19383838 rocks again?

[Desertman]

So the idea here is just to have an NPC there to auto-junk the excess food hunters are bringing in (which is really all of it because no food they bring in now is even needed) but we will roleplay it is being eaten by the VNPC/NPC population? The real gain here being someone doesn't have to junk the excess food regularly and it doesn't pile up on shelves.

Sure, I'm fine with that. I can't see that it would hurt anything.

I would prefer a universal food rot code myself as I feel that adds more to the game, but I am very pro-realism and in the minority.

[Delirium]

Yes and no. Options for peons would be limited but enough to prevent starvation due to lack of support PCS because starving in the middle of a crowded clan hall is just as dumb as having 283 slabs of stringy meat in a chest.

[Desertman]

Yes and no. Options for peons would be limited but enough to prevent starvation due to lack of support PCS because starving in the middle of a crowded clan hall is just as dumb as having 283 slabs of stringy meat in a chest.

Don't most clans already have limited options for peons and separate cooks entirely for higher ranked officers/family members?

[Delirium]

More limited for peons. but you're focusing on essentially irelevant details now and missing the larger focus of the idea.

Again the root of the problem is the way things are now there is a logical disconnect with supply+use, due to non-virtual items not being used by virtual people and vice versa.

The problem is not limited to food, it is a larger problem caused by the idea of being part of a massive organization.

My idea solves that problem by providing a base amount of supplies for clanned people while using up excess that would not realistically lay around unused.

Another benefit to that idea is that it would be easier to reflect supply + demand on a virtual level; make the vNPC sales much higher during times of tribulation and famine and make them lower during times of plenty. But there would always be "many roasted tubers" available. Or "many chunks of grey rock". Or "many tan leather hides". Etc, etc. Use NPCs to be the gateway between the virtual/non-virtual worlds.

Please remember this is an example not an idea I've actually had time to sit down and officially write up.

phone keyboards suck.

[Talia]

I think the quartermaster idea is interesting, especially for clans that do gather their own foodstuffs. But there are some coded issues with quartermasters as they stand:

-- Currently, quartermasters are not subject to VNPC sales. So they never deplete things.
-- Maintaining more than a few items on a quartermaster becomes nightmarish. But the list of food items that could potentially be offered to a quartermaster is ginormous. That's not really sustainable.
-- It would be cool if PCs could give lesser-value things to the quartermaster and get tokens to buy higher-value things in return. E.g. Malik brings in 10 crappy hides, he can get 1 better hide to work with (which was put there by another PC). But that's not the way the quartermasters work right now.

So yeah, it's a really neat idea, but it's not currently very do-able. The quartermaster script that we use would have to be substantially rewritten, with an emphasis on ease of maintaining it staff-side. In comparison, the cook script we use right now is very simple, thus it's easy to set up and maintain.

[Delirium]

Talia: take a look at the Blackwing Outpost NPC hide vendor/seller. The long-legged one at the stall. That's the one I based my idea off of.

If the code there is limited to obsidian transactions, you could have the quartermaster PC give out a very small amount of obsidian per item and charge an equally small but slightly higher amount to purchase. 1 sid per food item, 2-5 sid to buy, etc. "maintenance fee" or whatever IC reason you want to come up with, if any at all. That'd also mean hunters get a tiny bonus for being active and contributing.

Crafters could turn in their crafted items to the right quartermaster for a tiny bonus as well, offsetting the purchase cost.

I like the idea of tokens instead of obsidian coins, but that might get a little too complicated. Mt goal was to find a relatively simple solution that fixes the current problem to reasonable satisfaction without adding in an insane amount of legwork to implement.

[Asmoth]

I think the quartermaster idea is interesting, especially for clans that do gather their own foodstuffs. But there are some coded issues with quartermasters as they stand:

-- Currently, quartermasters are not subject to VNPC sales. So they never deplete things.
-- Maintaining more than a few items on a quartermaster becomes nightmarish. But the list of food items that could potentially be offered to a quartermaster is ginormous. That's not really sustainable.
-- It would be cool if PCs could give lesser-value things to the quartermaster and get tokens to buy higher-value things in return. E.g. Malik brings in 10 crappy hides, he can get 1 better hide to work with (which was put there by another PC). But that's not the way the quartermasters work right now.

So yeah, it's a really neat idea, but it's not currently very do-able. The quartermaster script that we use would have to be substantially rewritten, with an emphasis on ease of maintaining it staff-side. In comparison, the cook script we use right now is very simple, thus it's easy to set up and maintain.

Why not just make a system where it takes the quality of the food submitted (how full it makes you, ie well cooked or raw,burnt). Because the code already has some value assigned to those differences and make it keep track of that value and have the npc offer more depending on how high that value is?

So if I'm joe hunter and I can also cook and enter in five grilled scrab steaks that equal five food points a piece, I could then buy in the list feature a delicately roasted kank bottom that costs 20 food points with 5 left.?

[Talia]

Talia: take a look at the Blackwing Outpost NPC hide vendor/seller. The long-legged one at the stall. That's the one I based my idea off of.

I can't look at him right now and may forget when I'm in game again, but if he's doing what you've described, then he's probably using some old, Blackwing-specific script that is not the current generic quartermaster script. (That is a very common thing, for stuff in the older corners of the world to not be up-to-date on their scripting.) (For example, the AoD has quartermasters that are all on very old scripts and should be switched over, but it takes a ton of staff time to fix this kind of thing, and when it's not exactly broke we don't prioritize fixing it.) You're just going to have to trust me on this--quartermasters are a bitch to maintain. Personally, if I was running a GMH, I wouldn't want to commit to using quartermasters to receive and dole out food items. Setting them up, maintaining them, and debugging them is crazy difficult as it stands. So, like I said--interesting idea, but we really don't have the coded resources to do this right now.