Clans

[Virisin]

Clans have needed upgrading for a long time and it's finally going to be done soon(ish). I want to try and detail roughly what is currently intended to be changed, so everyone else can add input on stuff as well as coming up with suggestions on ideas that need to be fully hashed out.

Changes:

• Clans are being opened to the mud, any player will now be able to enter any clan
• Clan boards will become unreadable to any player not in that clan, however non-clan members will still be able to graffiti other clan boards
• Clans will essentially become arena's, however players in their own clan will not leave corpses exactly like in a normal arena, whereas players not in their own clan will leave corpses - this creates a risk in 'raiding' clans
• Clans will have banners or flags added to their headquarters which will be available to be stolen and then displayed in the headquarters of the clan who stole them.
• Deeds will be added to the mud. Every zone in the mud will have a deed, much like a zoneflag only the deed will load randomly on a mob in the zone every single repop unless it is already loaded in the zone, in which case it will remain loaded, any player can find the deed in the corpse of the mob or steal it or whatever, and 'claim' it for their own clan by putting it in some deed box which will be located somewhere in all clanhalls. Clan info <clan> will then show all the zones that are claimed by that clan, and I think there should be some command to list all zones and whether they are currently claimed or not, and if so, which clan has claimed them. As soon as the zone repops and a new deed loads, any player can again find the deed and then 'claim' the zone for their own clan, in which case their clan would then 'own' the zone. This would mean that a percentage of all shop transactions inside the zone would be sent to the clan)
• Clan treasuries will now earn interest, something small but reasonable
• Clan treasuries will be able to be stolen, not all at once, a certain amount per day - something along the lines of 100 million gold coins per day perhaps, however gold needs to be balanced properly so this is highly likely to change and it could go either way
• Clans will be able to purchase upgrades at set costs

Clan upgrades have not been discussed in depth at all, and this is what I'd like a lot of suggestions on, however these are the ideas I have and other people have mentioned over the last few days:

• Clans can purchase mob 'guards' to defend the entrance of their clanhall, the treasury, and possibly any other important rooms. Probably just clans can purchase guards for any room in their clanhall, or even wandering guards perhaps for a higher cost, with a maximum amount of guards that can be bought in total
• Clans can purchase something which increases the rate at which their treasury earns interest

Let's hear your ideas.

[Virisin]

Hayato had some brilliant idea's on deeds, he's just too lazy to post them:

Deeds don't have to load every repop, they could in fact become more like zone artifacts which load fairly rarely and the bonuses for owning a zone are greater - ie. larger additions to clan treasury. Once a clan owns a zone, some basic clan 'mobs' roam the zone as well as the shopkeeper transactions going partially to the clan treasury. This opens the way for some new clan upgrades: increasing the strength of clan mobs roaming zones the clan owns, buying the capability for clan mobs in a zone owned by the clan to be aggro against non-clan members.

[Virisin]

Once and Hayato also recommended bonus experience for killing mobs in a zone owned by your own clan. Or perhaps certain clan upgrades only being available after a clan owns a certain number of zones. Or a small bonus to experience for all clannies in all zones if they control the most zones or something.

[Hayato]

Just be sure to make all the extras purchasable clan options, so that you're actually risking something by having the deed taken away by someone else (which obviously loses all your options on the clan deed).  This could be balanced by tweaking the rarity of the clan deed actually loading.

[Britnoth]

Two obvious issues:

1. You're in effect having joining a clan be the same as a safe-PK flag. If you want to PK fully you can have the flag set, if you want to duel with someone you can use the arena. Forcing people to either stay a loner or be attacked while in the 'safety' of their clan hall is not something everyone will like.

2. The raiding/deeds are good ideas... for a mud which regularly has 25-50 people on at a time. I dont think 4d has enough of a playerbase to really have people contesting these things. Deeds will stay with whomever is online and levelling at that time, and during the day its quite common to have noone from one clan or another online, so stealing from their treasury will be unopposed apart from dumb mobs to defend (hah).

Good ideas, but I dont think they suit how 4D is, or our current player size. Oh, and if anything I'd have clans lose money from their vault to pay for their upkeep rather than have them producing money just for having money...

[Virisin]

In response to 1. that is completely simplistic, clans give a bundle of advantages and one small potential disadvantage of being able to semi-die in your clan hall (an arena death does not lose you anything and I don't even think it shows up on the deaths tally in score is not really even a death) does not turn clans into a safe-PK flag. It just adds some competition between clans which I think is a good thing. If you really would rather be a loner then I'm just baffled really.

Regarding 2. I'm aiming at hopefully revitalizing the mud to at least a 10 person playerbase. And if deeds do stay with one clan, then that is an indication to newbies which clan is active. If it really doesn't work I don't think it'd be hard to remove, but I think it would be worth a try. It gives oldbies with nothing else to do something to do when they come on, 'hey, maybe i'll go try get a couple deed arti's for my clan.. it's the least i could do'.. Something like that. Rather than just coming on and saying hi to their clan, reading the recall board and leaving. I definitely see your point about the clan raiding, in which case mob guards should be even more valuable, and I question your acknowledgement of them as just being 'dumb mobs'. Strong mobs that are good at protecting clans might cost more than weaker mobs but to immediately look at this idea and just assume the mob guards will be of no use is an extremely cynical way of looking at things and I think speaks more about the current attitude of players towards the 4d code and it's balance of things than it does about the suggestion. We don't even bother hoping some new feature will be balanced when they come in anymore.

I don't think any changes to the mud should be aimed at what our current player size is, these changes are all aimed at making sure we don't stay with out current player size in the future. I know clans losing money from their vault to pay for upkeep would be more realistic but, we don't have global warming from all our spaceships and nuclear warfare and stuff.. I don't think.. I don't think realism is really a mud goal. I think treasuries producing money is a good way of enticing players to store money in their treasury, and treasuries being raidable is a good way of balancing that.

[Xeriuth]

I support these changes. Perhaps even buy scripts, to make it almost questish to get in like, to open the gate you have to find a feather to tickle the guard, the guard drops a key and you get in. Just an example, but may have merit.
Also need either a wealth replacement for these in the meantime for gold, or it'd have to wait for new system, but I don't think we should wait that long. Enjoy it in the meantime as opposed to get everything at once. People can't wait forever

[Asmodeus]

I don't think any changes to the mud should be aimed at what our current player size is, these changes are all aimed at making sure we don't stay with out current player size in the future. I know clans losing money from their vault to pay for upkeep would be more realistic but, we don't have global warming from all our spaceships and nuclear warfare and stuff.. I don't think.. I don't think realism is really a mud goal. I think treasuries producing money is a good way of enticing players to store money in their treasury, and treasuries being raidable is a good way of balancing that.

I like the idea of paying for upkeep, especially if you're going to be having these new smarter mobs who you have to buy to help protect your hall.  If i were that mob, id want some sort of compensation for my work, and a one time hire wouldnt keep me around that long.  So that requires a new source of money.  Well, what about membership fees/monthly dues?  They're in the game, but hardly ever used.  People lower the application fee half the time anyway to get their friends in the clan.  What if there was an automatic monthly deduction from the clan treasury for upkeep, but ALSO a deduction from each member's bank of the monthly clan fee.  That would also balance out.

[Xeriuth]

I like the upkeep idea. for hired things, but there should be also buyable things for money in excess.

[Kvetch]

I'd prefer the "having to pay for upkeep" thing as well - there's one more way to keep the economy in check.  Instead of giving you free money for hording, how about making you pay to hire someone to keep that horde safe?  This could come out to having different levels of guards (based on how much you're willing to fork out) on the clan house as well as perhaps building some one-time traps to help keep people out that aren't supposed to be there.  If you want to make money on your money - use a bank, not the hold of a clan.

[Virisin]

Buying someone to guard the hoard is definitely a good idea and will certainly be available however, if clan treasuries earn nothing and they are raidable then people simply won't use them. They'll use banks in stead. The reason I thought treasuries could earn interest was simply to entice people to actually USE their treasury AND buy protection for it, rather than not using their treasury and not bothering to buy protection for it.

However, the upkeep idea certainly has merits and I would be happy for both, some small upkeep per day as well as some small interest earned per day or week or something, with permanent upgrades to clanhalls that could be bought in order to reduce upkeep as well as increase interest. I'd like to see as many possible additions to clans as we could have, and then allow for pretty much every one of them to be upgraded in some way.

[Asmodeus]

So, now that we're talking upkeep, what happens when theres not enough gold in the clan treasury?  Yes, it should be refilled monthly by clan dues, and just by player donations,but say it gets raided one too many times along with all the things you bought with it?  Any ideas?  Obviously the protection starts failing, the hired mobs leave for somewhere else they'll be paid, but is that it?

(oo, maybe there could be certain mobs that you can find throughout 4d that are for hire for clan protection (part of upkeep), but if you go on a raid and see one of these rare mobs, you can bribe them with higher wages to work for your clan instead of someone elses?)

[Virisin]

I very much like the idea of bribing mobs. Not entirely sure how it'd work at this stage, but it is definitely worth looking into. And yeah, there'd obviously be upgrades that are permanent around the clanhall, but for all the non-permanent ones, if you can't pay your mobs they're going to leave, or maybe even assist non-clannies raiding the clanhall. 

[Kvetch]

Nice idea there asmo - I suppose the clan that has the mob (clan a) would be offering them (x) amount (set somewhere in the mob so as it can check against that amount).  Clan B comes along and begins to offer amounts to said mob and when it got above x it would go and guard Clan B's clanhall/horde.

As for the "not enough gold in the clan treasury" I'd say that the clan would probably want to pay their highest paid mobs/guard/traps first (as they should be the best) and then work down... whatever you don't have money for goes *poof* - basically just leaves or if it's a trap, it disappears.  Now, if the treasury has no gold (due to a recent raid) well... someone better be comin' up with some cash quick.

Or maybe not just poof, maybe the mobs levels get reduced to a level that can be afforded...

*shrug*  Just tossin' out some ideas.

[Xeriuth]

I'm ready for clan upgrades to come in!