4Dimensions Forum
General Category => Suggestions & Ideas => Topic started by: Virisin on November 10, 2009, 03:46:57 am
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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...
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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.
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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
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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.
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I like the upkeep idea. for hired things, but there should be also buyable things for money in excess.
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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.
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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.
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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?)
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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. ;D
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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.
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I'm ready for clan upgrades to come in!
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got another clan idea, not really perfect or know what the use would be yet (so i was hesitating to post it), but it came up with Xeriuth talking about how with new smarter mobs, it would be weird with TR dealing with arthur in terms of fighting him, or what-have-you (you can clarify Xeriuth if you want)
Anyway, my idea is that maybe each clan could have a certain important mob associated with it (like a Mob Boss as Devram called it). I dont know, maybe it could have to do with the whole deed thing, maybe some other sort of competition (collect the most scalps, piece of equipment... clan crest related?)... ie: TR's mob would obviously be Arthur, DJ could be Emperor Palpatine, or something along those lines...
Again, not exactly sure where you could go with this, im sure theres numerous possibilities
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Could get messy though if Arthur was part of the clan, he can't be in the clanhall, unless it's a special part. Because he is an important mob in the game that everyone may need for at some point in time. Sooo not sure how to go about that. Could be awkward unless there are two Arthurs in the game...
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But clan bosses does have merit.
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I wasn't necessarily thinking the associated mob would have to be in the clan hall, just that they would have some significance to the clan in some way.
maybe you'd have to seek them out and give THEM the phrase for your clan recall (seems kind of silly for everyone to goto the same guy in recall area to get their clan item), also do a quest through them for the clan crest?
They could come in and help during clan raids too, so that way if you happened to have little money for upkeep, at least there would be SOME sort of defense?
They could react to members of other clans depending on how the clans are towards each other (if theres a clan war between Vamps and TR, and i walked in on arthur, he could call the guards to come attack me or something)... of course the problem with that is if that mob already has a quest associated with him, could cause some issues with completing that quest.
I still think it would be cool for an overall quest to collect an item from each clan boss (doesnt always have to be obvious who each clan's boss is) and turn them all in in for something (maybe each item from each boss is for a different class/advantage for the different skill trees, and you pick which one you want and get that item back with appropriate stats)
Speaking of which, how will clan wars fit into this new system with clan raids?
--just thinkin out loud here people!--
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clan wars, I take them as that it makes everyone in the opposing clan you are warring with pk'able whether they are or not.. just my take
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well yes, but how do they fit in with the new raid system? i mean, Vampires raiding TR's hall... wouldn't that automatically imply they are either currently at war, or just going to war? How could a raid happen without there being ill feelings and the thirst for revenge? Of course , if noone graffiti's your board, or leaves a trace of who was there, it could be a secret raid. But if a mob was left alive who witnessed it, or there was some other evidence, they should be able to say "It was so-and-so who raided" and that would lead to greater consequences.
do you guys/gals think a witnessed raid, or raid that leaves proof should lead to a clan war? (again, as xeriuth defined clan war, its anyone can be pkd, whether or not they're pk)
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i think it'll be two seperate things, clans can choose to war each other, lets say one clan is griefing another majorly, then the griefed clan will probably war the other, to get back at them.
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Even if Clan raids and Clan wars technically are different things, I'd be really surprised if the raided Clan didn't respond with a declaration of war, especially if something was stolen.
Clan wars traditionally mean that anyone in the two waring clans can be attacked and killed by anyone in the opposing clan anywhere (except for safe rooms). One Clan is declared the victor when either all members of the other Clan are killed at least once, or when one Clan surrenders. Another way to end a war is of course if both Clans decide to declare a truce.
But my suggestions would be that any Clan members who aren't PK registered, remain unlootable during a Clan War too. It would be too hard on lowbies otherwise, and the Clans would probably have difficulties recruiting new members.
And yes, it would be really cool if any Clan mob that survived the raid could tell who the intruder was, provided they saw them. That is easy to do with a global flag in a script.
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I agree, non pk's shouldnt be lootable, but at least be attackable with clan wars.
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Clan will be becoming much more involved it seems, which will mean clan leaders will really need to step it up. We were discussing it the other night and it was brought up as to the fact of immortals having their mortals as clan leaders. Maybe this should be a different thread with a poll. But does it divide an imms duties, having to do their work as an imm, and at the same time have to juggle a mortal to run a clan. Is that fair the members? Also would that atypically be an imm interfering with clans? I think the plan is to get completely rid of need imm interference in clans, excluding of course building tasks.. So that's a question, figured I'd bring it.. Of course imms having mortals isn't an issue, but to have an important leadership role that requires a lot of time to do it right while having an immortal.. so they could easily be clan members.
Just want to hear what ya'll think. Be honest.
I'm not trying to stir anything up, just want to hear a general concensus. Thanks!
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Agreed. Immortals shouldn't have mortals that are clan leaders.
Also really like this clan war idea stuff that Molly just talked about.
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Clan war , yeah its nice , also at this point its useless i mean , for example Chaos is in war with DJ's ok you have to kill us all , or viceversa , none really plays none really quests none really moves out his clan/recall so this war can take forever ..
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So you support a pwipe then? Cool.
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i've brought this up, but still haven't seen any thoughts on it.
What do you think about having a mob in the game relating to your clan load the clan recalls as opposed to the bartender in recall area? Along with the idea of each clan being linked to the 4d world at some place, maybe a mob in the zone its linked to. This could even prove to be a good final entry quest of becoming a member of that clan. Not to mention more IC than walking 2 south of recall and saying a secret phrase. Plus it forces exploration, especially of the zone your clan is directly related to.
Also, i was wondering about the same thing with RP groups. I havn't had a recall item for my rp group for about a year... i am not sure where it keeps disappearing to, but im not hitting DTs or getting looted... Could we get a script put on a mob relating to our rp group that could load these (same idea as the clan recall question)? It would remove imm involvement once they were all in, and RP group matters could be left completely up to the players, as are clan matters.
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I can't decide if I like this or not.
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Ok, couple of things on clans. First, yes, I like the idea of not everyone going to the same place to get your recall item that you lost - however you lost it. Second (and I know a lot of people will hurt me on this one), but why do we have so many clans with so few players? Lately it's not been so bad, but it was to the point that you hardly had more than one person on at a time from the same clan. And most of the people that were ON in a clan were the clan leaders (no pilgrams? - what's up with that?)
Current clans are (from help file): Chaos, Dark-Jedi, Dragons, Qualinesti (weren't they renamed Mordonosse?), Saints, Sicilians, Table Round, Vampires, Vikings.
Chaos seems to be a popular clan, but all they seem to have are leaders (heh, just pointing out the 3CL thing which boggles me, but to each their own, I guess. Lots of cheifs, I've been lookin' for the indians - other than Kito).
Dark-Jedi: I know Asmoday pops on once in a while - more often recently than used to it seems to me. I seem to remember there's a few pilgrims and indians in this group. Off the top of my head can't come up with names.
Dragons: Only Dragon I know that's even active is Loran - and that's "active" as in s/he's on once in a while. (I don't know of Loran is currently male or female - s/he changes too much.) Cati became Dragon to give the clan a memeber. *heh* Also, just saying "I am a Dragon" is cool.
Qualinesti/Mordenosse: ERm.. I see one once in a blue moon but they don't seem to roleplay any. What's up with that? The group is an RP group.
Saints: Maybe the only other clan that's as active as Chaos - and without the 3 CL's may I add.
Sicilians: Jason is one daily, Toch is on daily, pilgrims/injuns are on. Not a dead clan yet.
Table Round: I'm sure there's more than Xeri, but I can't come up with names. It may just be that - when I type who - I don't look at the clans often enough.
Vampires: They're around, but not sure how many of them they are. Maybe it's just cause they come out at night and I don't see them.
Vikings: ERm.. Thotter...Hayato... Hesara... I'm sure there are others, but not very active.
Just wondering if these should be pared down some - at least the ones that really don't seem to have much of a clan. (Dragons, Qual/Mordonesse for 2)
The same could almost be said of RP groups, but I"m not even sure what RP groups are out there. TEll me, do the RP groups actually RP or is it just to have another channel to gossip on?
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I don't know about others, but I'm planning a riddler scavenger hunt, hopefully for sometime soon.
Rp groups have their own gossip-like chan??
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Until Thotter codes in the anarchist stuff for clans, Chaos will continue to have more leaders than members. :P
I agree that Qualinesti should be removed.. I'd agree with Dragons too, but it's at least got a little more history than Qualinesti which makes me a little more cautious. Specially since part of that history includes me taking over the clan once and Jaros taking over the clan once.. I think we did it together at one point too. :-\
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Slightly revised OP after discussion thus far:
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.
Clan mobs that survive a raid on a clan will be able to tell the clan members which clan raided them.
It will be possible for one clan to actually declare war on another clan and will show up in clan info. Members of clans at war can be attacked and killed anywhere (except for safe rooms) whether they are PK flagged or not. One clan is declared the victor when either all of the members of the opposing clan are killed once or when one clan surrenders, or both agree to a truce. Corpses remain the same so that non-PK players still cannot be looted.
Clans will have banners or flags added to their headquarters that will be stealable and displayable 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. Deeds will be like zone artifacts that load fairly rarely and give bonuses to the clan that finds the deed and ‘claims’ the zone. Deeds will generate money for clan treasuries of the clan that owns them as well as giving a percentage of the shopkeeper transaction profit to the clan treasury. Clans that own a deed to a zone will entitle their members to double the experience they would usually get in that zone from levelling.
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 have to pay weekly or monthly upkeep on their clanhalls.
Clans will be able to purchase upgrades at set costs.
Clans can purchase mob 'guards' to defend the entrance of their clanhall, the treasury, and any other important rooms or other rooms in their clanhall. Guards can be wandering or stationary, with wandering guards costing more and a maximum amount of guards that can be bought in total. Guards will require weekly payments automatically deducted from the treasury as well as their initial cost. If there is no money in the treasury to pay the guards, they will no longer be loyal to the clan and may even help raiders until they are killed.
Clans can purchase a treasury upgrade to increase the rate at which their treasury earns interest
Clans can hire clan mobs to roam zones they own, and can purchase strength upgrades for these mobs as well as buying the capability for their mobs to be aggro.
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why would clan treasuries earn interest?
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Because otherwise there is no incentive to try and keep money in the treasury, if it's only going to be raided or pay for upkeep to protect from raids.
If there is no money in a treasury, people won't raid as often even though there would be no mobs to guard.. There would be nothing but bragging rights to gain. If treasuries earn a reasonable amount of interest then it should entice people to spend at least some of it in order to protect the wealth, as well as encouraging other clans to try and steal it.
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then if you're going to say that, shouldn't clan withdraw just be given to anyone in the clan as opposed to the way it is now, where mostly just the top two or so levels of the clan get it? Cant there be other reasons to have a clan raid (other than gold) that encourage keeping money in the treasury for upkeep and protection? you would think interest would be in the bank, not in the clan treasury
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Clan withdraw could be given to all ranks depending on what the leader sets it to. Otherwise a clan member without withdraw would have to steal from their own treasury and if there were mobs alive and none of them saw a raid, it would be fairly obvious. Something like that anyway. Well, there are other reasons for a raid but they mostly revolve around bragging rights, and I can't think of any other reason for people to keep money in the treasury if all they're using it for is to pay for protection of their clans dignity. If you can come up with another incentive to keep money in the treasury, I'm all ears.
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Pay for protection for those deeds...Those could be hot items.
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ideas for clan raids
clans have eq right
make some of the eq deceint and given when killed mob like normal, quest for it, or bought it...
this way when you raid a clan you can get some special eq thats not junk...
also i like the idea about buying upgrades for clan i would sugest making traps to protect? locked doors and such?
maybe a capture the flag type game with the clans on or such?
or even clan wars for bragging rights? say like for the next 30 min clan wars every one is pk for that breif time make some areas "safe" in clan (maybe for a price?)
maybe make the chest rooms in clans raidable? once again i got alot of ideas on this dont want to be a virs...
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Here's another idea: instead of deeds just being worth x amount of cash per week for the clan or whatever, deeds could be earn 0.1% interest for the treasury or something, and have it stack. Might be too much, 0.01% maybe. If a clan owned every single deed with each being worth 0.01% interest they'd end up with their treasury earning about 1% interest per week/month or whatever. They could even have a base value of something like 50,000 coins (thinking after we get rid of inflation here) upon capturing them, as well as the interest.
Just an idea for an actual reason for clans to earn interest.