Idea for hunter/crafter clans

[Jherlen]

This is sort of related to theebie's threads about "I'm a good hunter and my house is stocked full of materials, what do I do?" I wanted to make a new thread about it though because the idea is only tangentially related.

Anyway, while working in a merchant clan a while ago I had a half-baked idea about what to do about material surpluses and shortages, and how to keep hunters busy hunting a balanced selection of game and not just the toughest stuff that would up their skills. This also solves the problem of huge disorganized crafting halls where no one can ever find anything at the same time. Again I haven't thought this through all the way, but...

Suppose you added a 'shopkeeper' NPC to the merchant house clan compounds. This person could be an NPC in charge of inventory or something. He would buy and sell materials, but only to or from clanned PCs. He also would have no limits on how much inventory he could hold, and his stock would save across reboots and crashes.

This way, when a hunter PC returns from a hunt with a full load of hides and bones and chitin, he can take them to the inventory guy and sell it for however much the materials are worth to the House. (Probably for less money than you might get at a Bazaar merchant, to account for the fact the hunter is also being paid in food, water, lodging etc.) This would be how he makes his coins to go spend on booze.

Lets say that after Joe Hunter loads up the inventory with a bunch of crap, he dies to a bahamet. A while later Joe Crafter gets hired by the House. He can go into the materials storeroom and buy whatever materials he needs to craft with from the stock keeper at cheaper prices than if he had to buy them from a Bazaar merchant. Since all the materials are located on one shopkeeper the crafters don't need to go on scavenger hunts through 20 chests and trunks. (This also means clan leaders don't need to obsess about sorting crafting halls.)

If you wanted to get REALLY fancy, the npc stockkeeper's prices could be based on how much supply the House has of whatever item. If PC hunters have been bringing in a million duskhorn hides, the crafters can buy duskhorn hide for dirt cheap from their House since there's such a surplus. On the other hand, the hunters won't be paid as much for duskhorn hides, either.

If there are no PC hunters and the crafters have used up all the inventory PC hunters stored, the crafters could possibly still buy materials from the storage. The prices will just be higher than they would be if the hunters had kept adequate stock.

So what would this do? PC hunters are encouraged not to overhunt one type of beastie and ignore all the rest, because they'll be getting diminishing returns on their pay. PC crafters can still get materials to craft goods with even when there are no hunters in their clan. Both groups won't have to worry about overflowing, disorganized crafting halls. It also offers more incentive to the hunters to work and find rare materials the House will need, because they'll be paid for bringing them in. It might also make being a clanned hunter a little more attractive compared to being independent. And since this way there is always things for PC hunters to do (since crafting halls will never fill up), they may not run into theebie's problems. It also gives them a coded benefit they can see from their work.

Again, it's a half-baked idea, but I think it has potential to make things easier on everybody once set up, and reduce a lot of the overhead required to run merchant clans. Thoughts?

edited: for grammar/spelling

[ibusoe]

Love it.

[Morfeus]

Lets say that after Joe Hunter loads up the inventory with a bunch of crap, he dies to a bahamet. A while later Joe Crafter gets hired by the House. He can go into the materials storeroom and buy whatever materials he needs to craft with from the stock keeper at cheaper prices than if he had to buy them from a Bazaar merchant.

I see a problem with this. Joe Crafter is hired and paid to craft for the House. Why should he spend his payment for doing his work?

[Agent_137]

crafters probably would get the materials for free, and sell the end products to another house guy that manages the warehouse.

Then, the merchants would buy the end products from that guy for the "in house" price, and sell for profits.

Uurah!

[Jherlen]

Lets say that after Joe Hunter loads up the inventory with a bunch of crap, he dies to a bahamet. A while later Joe Crafter gets hired by the House. He can go into the materials storeroom and buy whatever materials he needs to craft with from the stock keeper at cheaper prices than if he had to buy them from a Bazaar merchant.

I see a problem with this. Joe Crafter is hired and paid to craft for the House. Why should he spend his payment for doing his work?

More accurately Joe Crafter is hired to produce finished products which the House can sell, not just perform the act of crafting. If he breaks the materials in an attempt to make stuff, at least the House has covered the cost of what it took to get them.

Crafters in general don't have ANY trouble making money, in my experience. A single finished product would probably cover the cost of three or four sets of raw materials right there. The amateur crafters would be doing a bit better than breaking even. The good ones would be making a fortune. And in this way, they're all accountable for what materials they take.

[Tamarin]

Crafters, generally speaking, are NOT the ones who sell the wares.  Therefore, it makes no sense that they spend their own coin to buy the materials from the house.  This would create a separation between the house and its employees, and that would fragment the operation.

The house would bring in enough supplies to account for crafters mucking things up.  And more often than not, the crafting attempt fails (at least RP-wise) because the material had some flaw in it.  Not because the crafted made a mistake.

[Delirium]

I love it.

Especially the part about not having to organize the clan halls as much or often.

And this seems like a great solution to the "why would we pay Joe hunter 500 obsidian a month if he only brings in 300 obsidian worth of things"?  It makes it far easier to track progress and reward.

[Dakurus]

I think Rindin's point in the other thread is something that should be included in any solution or suggestion of this regard.

To paraphrase, and probably poorly, since I don't have his/her comment up:
A system, which unfortunately includes today's system, shouldn't be created that will completely encourge someone who can put in a RL 12 hours as compared to someone who can put in a RL 2 hours.

Now, this probably should be a thread by itself, but it's effects are felt in many things. Sure, someone who spends 12 hours a day on the mud, will likely need more sid, to do a set of similar RP activities in a similar pattern as the individual who logs on 2 hours a day. Example: A person who logs in 2 hours a day and uses 40 sid to drink, once every two RL days, or 4 hours. Would the person who logged in 12 hours a day, need 120 sid for the extra time, since he drinks 3 times in that 12 hours?

Generally the principle applies to everything, from being able to bring in a shitload of skins/hides/craftables, to making sid, to getting your skills up, to being more likely to gain notice and possible prominence in employment, and of course being present as a leader. *wink* Of course in theory your chance of death is greater too.

Although there isn't a perfect solution, as you're not trying to really impair one player to balance the other, we are trying to create a similar environment for both players which may mean some equalizing, and at least some thought.

[LoD]

How about you create an NPC(s) that will take a fair variety of goods from PC hunters, gatherers and scroungers and return to them a token.  Multiple tokens could then be used for whatever reward system the Clan Imm or PC leader so desires.

Example:

Dusty Storeroom
A balding, hawk-eyed man stands near a large crate, handling inventory.

>talk balding topics
A balding, hawk-eyed man squints at you and says, in sirihish:
     "I take hides, horns, feathers, guts, claws and shells in quantities of five fer a token of commerce."

>inv
You are holding:
some soft golden pelts
some stringy guts
some black feathers

>give balding pelt
You hand over a stack of pelts to a balding, hawk-eyed man.

A balding, hawk-eyed man runs a hand over the pelts with a satisfied grunt before reaching into a worn leather pouch and handing you a bone carved token.

This would get rid of the items in an IC manner as well as provide some system of rewards that the Clan Imm and PC leader think is appropriate.  It could simply be better food, water, perks, gifts, etc...

-LoD

[moab]

This is an interesting idea, LoD.  I think I like it.  You could even allow the pc leaders of the clan decide on the current reward system per token - so the value might fluctuate for a variety of political / social reasons.

[Bestatte]

Ohhh LoD's idea seems interesting..and those tokens could also be traded for more materials..or sid bonuses by the PC boss.

So if the ranger/clothworker brings in a bunch of pelts, he'd give the pelts to the NPC, who would give him tokens, which he could turn in for raw cloth or stones to make buttons with. The pelts would then become available to armormaker types, stones would be acquired by foragers...the only problem would be with cloth, since there currently exists no way to MAKE cloth (unless that's changed since August, but I haven't seen any indication of that in the weekly updates).  Adding a cloth-making craft would probably really help with a more "equitable" and "useful" distribution of materials and goods, and give people something more interesting to do with all those tree barks and vines and stalks of stuff (since natural fiber often comes from those kinds of things in real life).

[Seeker]

Realistically, every "provider" PC for a clan should be turning in all that they gather to the House already. That is what they are paid, fed, watered and sheltered to do.  In short, it is -required-.  

It would be more proper for the House to beat the steaming crap out of a clannie and toss her out into the streets if she failed to come up with their seven tokens a month quota of material.

How much would that suck?  Knowing that you are going to have to spend fifteen hours a week of your on-line time risking your keister in the wilds just to meet such a burden?

As pointed out above, this idea runs headfirst into the problem of your character supposedly being just as productive when the player is off-line as when you are actively running her.

Having cleaned and arranged a LOT of warehouse and crafting halls, the idea of a NPC quartermaster to receive, organize and dispense raw materials sounds interesting.  Turning that quartermaster into a treat dispenser, effectively either side-stepping PC leadership or creating new management headaches for leader PCs and IMMs doesn't sound so very appealing to me yet.


Seeker

[Jarod550]

I totally love this idea, it would make my fellow want to join a clan or house again.

Hell it would make me as a player want to join a house, my whole issue with the houses, was say that my ranger, let's call him joe, goes out and brings back 20 some skinned items, pelts, claws whatever.  He still makes the same 300 or 200 or whatever sid that everyone else in the clan does a month...

You should be recognized and paid on your production, not just cause you're there.

Same should go to crafters, while you suck and break EVERYTHING, you would make your base pay, when you get better and start producing the "awe inspiring death blade" or whatever, you should be paid more.

That's the one thing I find unrealistic is that there really is no gauge on how well you're paid by what you bring in... That's stupid.

Peace,

Jarod

[Delirium]

stuff I totally agreed with

Yep.  Good points.  Yay, Seeker.

The main thing I like about this is an NPC that can handle all of the "junk".  Instead of having spams of chests, trunks, and crates full of humungous piles of objects that -should- be getting used, have an NPC that can handle it all.

Whether or not anything else related to it gets implimented, I would love to at least see that.

[Malifaxis]

How about:

NPC is in charge of the hides, as per the original idea.  Trades them out for either tokens or actual coinage.  Purchased by both as well.

Now, on top of the ability to purchase from the NPC goods pool, the merchants of the clan would also have the ability to (based upon their rank) just request things from the NPC.  This would require a script, I suppose, which I can not write *nudge*.  This would allow for a free gathering of goods from this NPC by anyone associated with crafting for the house, but only up to a specified amount.  Say a recruit merchant would have 500 pts (that translate directly to value, just to keep a complex thing slightly simpler) that they could use to request from the NPC, per IC week.  An advisor, or agent level would get something like 2000.  Family member would be about 5000 to 10000, as they could also be responsible then for delegating goods to PC merchants, in order to keep them busy *NUDGE*  If they wanted to craft more than that, they could supplement those lots of goods with personal income, which would perhaps be possibly be refunded by a kind hearted family member (or they could be told to go take a leap as well.)

Er, it seemed simpler to state when I first thought about it.

[Maybe42or54]

The token idea would be good, but I think it encourages solo hunting. Which I then believe any house would be against. As the hunter is more likely to die. And the hunter would probably agree, but some Pcs wont agree.

[Jherlen]

Okay. So rereading what I'd wrote, I never really intended this idea to enforce 'quotas' on PCs. The idea was more a way to implement a method where clanned hunters could be rewarded based on production, rather than a flat salary. There are pros and cons to either approach. Let me redo this and split it into the three sub-ideas that the original idea meshed together.

1) Have a "quartermaster" NPC in clan compounds who can handle inventory in some fashion. In other words instead of dumping your loads of hides and such into chests, PC gatherers can check in inventory with the quartermaster. PC crafters can later check out inventory to craft with.

As stated before this eliminates the mess and overhead related to having 20 chests, trunks, shelves, boxes, crates, etc filled with craftable materials. It also means that crafting halls won't "fill up" and discourage hunters from doing their jobs.

The only downside I see to this is that it may make it harder for PCs to burglarize clan compounds if they can't get materials off the quartermaster NPC. On the other hand, I think trying to burglarize a clan compound in general and a crafting hall in particular is pretty stupid anyway.

So that's idea 1 and probably the least controversial.


2) Introduce some system where gatherer PCs are rewarded for materials they bring in to the House. This could probably most easily be coupled with a quartermaster NPC, but might not have to be. Rewards could be tokens as LoD suggested, though I think money would be simpler. This is the one making debate over the productivity issue.

My thoughts: a reward system wouldn't necessarily mean the salary your clanned PC makes is taken away entirely. It could be implemented on top of this. ALSO, many people are all too quick to discount the 'intangible' benefits that steady clan work provides: namely in most cases never needing to worry about food, water, or a place to keep your stuff. You could consider that what a PC is doing in offline time is what is earning him the right to his free lunches.

While I do understand that a reward system like this would be to the advantage of PCs who can play more, the game is already set up that way. More active PCs will gain skills faster relative to less active ones, they will establish more contacts in game, they will be more involved in plots, etc. Whether with the current system or this one, online pcs will always be actually more productive than offline ones, whether they supposedly should be or not. Either way you set things up that won't change. Rewarding somebody based on their production at least gives the hunters who play a lot an incentive to do their jobs and might make things more interesting for them.

IMO an operational change like that would make the clanned hunter role feel a little more fun. But obviously its debatable.


3) Mini issue regarding whether PC crafters would pay for materials off a quartermaster or not. Again, I just figured this would make sense given the crafters are the ones who are responsible for making and breaking materials. (And though how you can RP the material being flawed instead of your technique sucking, truth is that better crafters codedly botch stuff less. Thus the arguement of a crafter breaking materials and losing the House money makes sense to me.)  

When merchants take stock out of inventory, the merchant usually has to pay coin in deposit for the item in case it gets lost, stolen, etc. They make the money back when they sell it. Whether or not crafters are selling items directly to buyers or just turning them over to the House, most Houses give crafters a cut of profits for their finished goods. Either way charging them for their materials doesn't mean they won't make money easily.

I threw this in just to package it along with the rest of the stuff, though. Again it's mostly an operational issue.



If nothing else, I hope everyone who has ever been in charge of a clan and organising a crafting hall sees the merits of having an NPC quartermaster who could take care of that. That alone would make crafting clans much much cleaner and nicer in terms of overhead. Hopefully nobody has much objection to that. Anyway I figured I might try and break the original idea up into some sub-points to help the debate steer itself along more easily.

[Anonymous]

Should not we expand OP's idea further? Yes, we should.
We set up another clan shop for PC crafters to sell their wares to. Clanned PC merchants will buy there with clan discounts and sell with profit it to NPC shops in town. Everyone is happy so far? Why, newly hired merchant Joe has all rights to gain access to wares crafted by Crafter Joe ages before, so it would not hurt to create stock of goods for him as well.

Furthermore and following that line of thoughts, let's think about independent Hunter Joe and independent Crafter Joe. Why independent Crafter Joe can't have access to loads of materials that was gathered by generations of independent Joe Hunters? Let's remove all limits on amount of goods NPCs can buy and provide them with never-ending funds and inventory. I know that it will encourage independent spam-hunters to do their evil deeds, but why is that worse than spam hunting by clannies?

Besides, when everything is automated and NPC-handled, what do we need merchant houses for? Clans are supposed to consolidate player-base and make groups of PCs to work together on common goals. Unlike some people think, purpose of mercantile organization is not in gathering stocks of useless raw materials, but in making profit. Now tell me, what kind of common goals have a Great Merchant House Joe where hunter Joe hunts all that he wants, crafter Joe crafts all he wants and merchant Joe sells all he wants? And all they want they do without any other PCs help.

I admit, due to restrictions of game world not all economy can be player driven. That is why we have NPC shops where most of House-made goods go. That is why almost everything that is purchased by PCs from PCs is loaded by immortals. But there are rare cases when a whole chain from vicious alive tembo to new piece of mesh armor goes through PC-hunter, PC-crafter, PC-merchant and PC-customer; it's when they depend on each other for the meaningful purpose, it's where reason for PC-interaction and low scale conflict and competition appears, it's where raider Joe, spy Joe and assassin Joe find enough room for themselves too. These rare events create mini-quests that make everyday life between HRPTs purposeful.

I'd support any idea that helps to avoid aforementioned restrictions, but I don't like any idea that brings economy further to VNPC level.
Your hunters bring too much of useless goods? Why do you hire and pay someone for doing something you have no use for? Why do you think that VNPC Agents are smarter than you and they don't hire useless men for useless purposes? Why do you want to move these hundred canine bones to virtual storeroom, if it virtually holds thousands of that type already, gathered by virtual fuck ups?
You don't have a crafter to put your stock into use? It sucks to be you then. There are times when you can't hire assassin, when you can't hire guide or explorer, when you can't bribe templar. Once in a year you can't hire a hunter or find any f-me to mudsex with. Live with it.

Now, let me troll...ahem...talk about rewards to hunters a little. To start with, five carru hides shouldn't be rewarded equally to five vestric feathers. Furthermore, curru hide should not be equal to that of tandu. Under close examination of the tokens idea we will eventually come to conclusion that there is a need for so-so precise mechanism that will reward differently depending on the type and quality of materials gathered. Guess what, that mechanism exist both on Earth and Zalanthas and is called 'money'. So eventually LoD's tokens will bring us back to original poster's idea thus I am not going to discuss it separately anymore.

What I do agree with, is that fixed equal wages spoil people and create disturbance among the populace like "why me and Joe hunter receive equal pay if he can't kill shit and does not even tries to". The guaranteed money system makes some people to come back after long hiatus from the game and ask 'where is me money? I've been virtually hunting all these years' and answer of them being virtually paid and virtually spending their money never gets across.

What I don't understand is why that system should be anyways automatic, fair and non-arbitrary? Keep in mind, that I still don't like idea of hunter Joe being paid for something that none has ever asked him to bring. But anyways, I'd suggest that all wages and other expenses are to be handled by ranking PC in charge on their whim. The way they do it and how employers try to impress them is not important. What I think is important, is that those funds along with Leader's personal pay is limited and further determined by Seniors, depending on how well their group do (That's going to be arbitrary as well, Seniors are human too. Though I pray it would never be dependant on how fast you fill your storeroom with gortok's skulls). Let's say fresh Junior starts with ability to spend 2000 per month. If he thinks he will do fine with a single hunter he is free to pay him 2000, he can even add his own wages to the pile. Maybe he is kind enough to purchase free kanks for five new hunters and pay nothing in coin. Going to invest everything to purchase free arrows and other equipment? Go ahead. Hire ninja-mindbender for two large and expect everyone else working for food and water? Excellent. It's up to employers to decide if they want to work for this leader and it's up to them to find ways to impress him with their abilities. Someone might want to decide to work hard, while another will do nothing but kiss up. One can try and do both, but will be overlooked and underpaid still. It's life, are not we all getting underpaid and overlooked in real life, from our point of view. Zalanthans are better off because, according to unverified rumor, everyone can go independent and become rich beyond their wildest dreams.

[Yokunama]

The token idea would be good, but I think it encourages solo hunting. Which I then believe any house would be against. As the hunter is more likely to die. And the hunter would probably agree, but some Pcs wont agree.

Yea, and I personally think that the tokens should be given away by the PC superiors in charge, because this could easily become abused. Also, it wouldn't hurt anyone to simply report to their superior PC and give a detailed description of what they brought in.

[Rindan]

While perhaps a little tongue in cheek, I agree with the anonymous kank.  We are trying automate rewards and make the game fair.  That really is not what it is supposed to be about.  I don't think that hunters should receive extra 'sid, tokens, or whatever from an NPC because he drags in a dozen hides that he spam hunted for.  Having such a system would make everything code enforced fair and egalitarian... exactly what should NOT happened on Zalanthas.

I think the anonymous kank brings to the table an excellent solution; arbitrary pay.  Merchant Amos who has two hunters and a crafter under him gets a certain amount of 'sid each month.  The amount of 'sid Merchant Amos gets is based purely on how well he has been doing.  If Merchant Amos has been kicking ass and raking in the 'sid, he gets a big pile of 'sid to his name.  If he has failed to bring much of anything to the House, he gets a paltry sum and told to do better.  With the money he is paid, he can do whatever he damn well pleases in terms of paying his workers.  If he really values his crafter but considers hunters to be a dime a dozen, he might give his crafter a 1000 'sid and his hunters a 100 each on top of the food and discounts they receive.  He might pay his hunters in nothing but equipment.  He might pay one hunter 600 'sid because he is productive, and pay the other a 100 'sid because he thinks he is worthless.  He might pay one hunter more then the other because one hunter is a better ass kisser.

I think this would encourage a little more Zalanthian behavior.  People would suck up to the boss more often.  Merchants would be greedier as their success determines their funds.  Hunters would make a better effort to satisfy their merchants.  People under a merchant would make far more of an effort to send business to their merchant because it very directly helps them.  You build an entire chain of people devoted to really pleasing the person above them.  This is the way Zalathian organizational structures should be built.

As the anonymous kank pointed out, you join a clan to be apart of an organization and interact with its politics.  The NPC middlemen you throw in the way of interaction, the more you dilute that purpose of the clan.  Throw in enough NPC middlemen and you might as well just be another independent who has access to the clan uber store of infinite buying and selling.  That is the last thing in the world I would want to see clans become.

[Anonymous]

2) Introduce some system where gatherer PCs are rewarded for materials they bring in to the House. This could probably most easily be coupled with a quartermaster NPC, but might not have to be. Rewards could be tokens as LoD suggested, though I think money would be simpler. This is the one making debate over the productivity issue.

There is a system currently in use, but PCs shouldn't expect to get rewarded each time they bring in a load of supplies. If a PC is making "real progress" within the house, I'm sure it is going to get noticed eventually, and someone in charge will thank the PC, offer a reward, and give a suggestion to not let up on the good work.

If the house offers any type of rewards, they would have mentioned before they hired your character. It is not about rewards; It is about doing your job. Some houses offer you free food, water and housing and that is good enough.

[Jherlen]

Remove the entire buy/sell concept and you still have a handy way to keep warehouses in order.

I agree that the game should not be fair, however I also know from observation and experience that in the long term, clanned hunters get steamrolled by monotony. At some point things stop becoming as much of a challenge. The rewards system was proposed as an idea to change that up.

Arbitrary pay might be a good compromise, though you may run back into the problem of Guy A who plays 12 hours a day doing more, getting noticed more by his leader, and thus getting paid more, while Guy B in the same job may not get noticed as much since he only plays 2 hours a day. This could mean he may get paid less, or not at all if he can't even find his leader PC in game. It sounds like more work for leaders to determine who gets paid how much and when, but then being a clan leader isn't easy anyway.

[Jarod550]

Arbitrary pay might be a good compromise, though you may run back into the problem of Guy A who plays 12 hours a day doing more, getting noticed more by his leader, and thus getting paid more, while Guy B in the same job may not get noticed as much since he only plays 2 hours a day. This could mean he may get paid less, or not at all if he can't even find his leader PC in game. It sounds like more work for leaders to determine who gets paid how much and when, but then being a clan leader isn't easy anyway.

Sounds like tough cookies to the two hour player

Jarod

[Yokunama]

2) Introduce some system where gatherer PCs are rewarded for materials they bring in to the House. This could probably most easily be coupled with a quartermaster NPC, but might not have to be. Rewards could be tokens as LoD suggested, though I think money would be simpler. This is the one making debate over the productivity issue.

There is a system currently in use, but PCs shouldn't expect to get rewarded each time they bring in a load of supplies. If a PC is making "real progress" within the house, I'm sure it is going to get noticed eventually, and someone in charge will thank the PC, offer a reward, and give a suggestion to not let up on the good work.

If the house offers any type of rewards, they would have mentioned before they hired your character. It is not about rewards; It is about doing your job. Some houses offer you free food, water and housing and that is good enough.

I forgot to log in when I posted that.

[Tamarin]

Not sure if it's been said, but...

Code Select Expand

>offer pack quartermaster

The burly, scarred quartermaster takes your backpack and hands you a red-cross vellum ticket.

>offer ticket quartermaster
The burly, scarred quartermaster takes your ticket and hands you a backpack.

This as what I want.