Design ideas for a smaller scalable world.

[Dresan]

In hope of a successful launch of seasons I just want to plot down a few examples of where the game might need to take a hard look on how its historically handled things. To clarify, these are intended as more long-term talking points and not ones that should keep us from continuing to play the game at some point.  These design examples have less to do with code and more to do with policies and game theory.


1. Clan compounds are equivalent to the old isolated Tan Muark lands.

In many clan compounds you can get food, water, training and spend your entire day there in safety. While this would make no sense to think someone would stay in the clan compound a few years ago, times have changed and so have playstyle where some people prefer to chat over way then play sometimes.

Imagine if instead of getting food in the compound you would need go to a tavern, where clans would contract them to ensure their members had access to certain food and waterskin refills for free. This would force people to visit and spend time in one location, providing changes to RP and interaction. Again, it might sound weird to have  to 'force' people to congregate and interact but times have changes and incentives like this are needed.

2. Training is needlessly segregated between clans.

There is nothing worse than joining a combat clan that has no member, or basically being a veteran in a clan full of newbies. Again one of those design decisions that might have made sense in the past, certainly the staff closed the arena in tuluk because it was fulfilling this exact function of letting everyone train together which was not part of the vision of the game back then. Times have changed and it detrimental to have all these clans where people are prevented from training together.

Once again imagine if all clans outsourced their training to Byn version 2.0. Where they would have a facility that opened in the morning and kicked everyone out at dusk, with multiple room to allow people to spread out, either watch or participate. Some clans would have different attendance requirements for their members, some more strict other more lax. But once again everyone would congregate, either to watch the sparring or participate. Suddenly joining a half dead clan wouldn't be so bad.

On a side note, no more elf clans, we need integration not segregation.

3. The lack of coded protection and support for non-combat PCs(eg. aides, crafters and merchants).

I feel the mere existence of these characters was thought to be enough at some point. However, while the ability to play non-combat social PC do differentiate us from other muds, the lack of coded support make the game a poor substitute for other RP platforms. I strongly believe that improving the coded support of these character will over time pay more dividends to the game than just another any other aspect of the game, because its these character, not the lone rangers passing through town that bring city centers to life. 

That said, within cities these character should be the hardest to kill using code due to their to their connections, money and influence, but they are still the most vulnerable. There have been so many ideas to help make the spaces and areas these character would inhabit more safe for them, from being able to hire npcs guards for follow you for a day, to having nohide apartments, etc but nothing has been implement. The fact that its a bit harder for a naked 0 day dwarf to kill these character is just a happy bonus due to changes implemented for other reasons. These things should be look at more carefully. 

4. Improving safety of certain areas of city, but continue to increase density and develop lawless areas of the city (eg, outskirts, sewers, rooftops, rinth)

You need to be able to fail a crime, make a mistake or piss off someone and still be able to live a decent a life in a city. By continuing too grow and developing lawless areas you entice more betrayal, corruption and murder in the rest of the game. More importantly it isn't always a flip coin of succeed or die when you attempt anything. But because many of these places or non-existent in some locations or just underdeveloped its hard to sometimes justify risk taking.  The idea of leaving these places un-develop to softly dissuade people from spending too much time there, has probably cost the game more than helped.

I want to also try to offer a different perspective as well. I think shrinking cities was a bad idea. You get to places faster but it doesn't really improve interaction unless there are people in the place you are going. The focus should have been on making cities with areas where people want to gather for periods of time, not just stop by briefly.  As an example, the bazaar could have been made more compact and randomly located stores in the city brought into the fold of the bazaar. This would make people bump shoulders more as they were looking around for goods, but shrinking the entire city was unnecessary. It also makes it harder for the game to strengthen militia presence in areas(like taverns) where it makes sense to have stronger crimcode response while making other parts of the city in the outskirts just a been more lax in security, allowing the change for more danger to lurk there if you decide to stray from main parts of the city.

[Brytta Léofa]

These are some really solid ideas IMO.

[Bast]

I would think the places you want PC's to hang out and gather /should/ be pretty safe for everyone. People hang out on compounds and Estates because you feel safe. Completely agree popular taverns should have high security. I don't know the maths behind the curtain but it has always felt like your just opening yourself up to get murdered or robbed if you are playing a mover/shaker and you are in public. With my last noble unless I was literally sitting with a Blue Robe every single time I went to a populace Inn something happened and some times I want to interact with pcs without someone attempting to steal my things or throw a dagger at my head.

I feel like in a game like this anything you can do to get people in the same room is good for the game and if rules or customs in game prevent this they need to be changed. The best way to build conflict is putting people together...they will find things to argue about all on their own. All the racism/classism/Tribalism in Arm has always caused way too much isolation. If you are elf thats people hates citys and also whos tribe also hates tribes x,y, and z..and also hates mages..and also has a long standing issue with x merchant house who do you have left to RP with? You can be that guy in the tribe that breaks the rules and makes friends but eventually youll get a staffer that has issues with that..or you can embrace your isolation and spend hours alone hoping you get more clannies. The Ism's make the game richer but they make it harder to play and stay engaged.

I would love for the BIG cities to be like real ancient cities they should be necessary trade hubs and people no matter what they are playing (within reason obviously) Should feel like at least once common area in the city is safe for everyone. Maybe thats a tavern traders use that people of all social status need to visit once in a while to do business, or a Market with various places to interact and run into other people is located in a condensed space. We want PC's to mingle and if its impossible to play and see other PC's then who cares about how 'real' or 'hard' the culture is. Its not fun to play in a sandbox by yourself. You are more likely to end up in conflicts with your clan mates than outsiders if you never meet non-clannies plain and simple.

[Athapaxis]

Love the idea of common areas for things.  Its way too easy to stay in your clan compound when you can craft, eat, drink and train there.   In addition to the excellent ideas about having to go to a tavern even for "clan" food/water and having a central training area - some sort of central crafting area would be fantastic too.  Maybe even one where you can trade simple crafting bits for other simple crafting bits so that you would have folks working in a group.   

[Agent_137]

Bump all this is really good