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1

Suggestions & Ideas / Concept for Enhancing Clans

« on: May 06, 2008, 05:32:12 am »

This is just a preliminary brain dump of this idea.

A few changes I think would work for clans:
Adding physical entrance, so that it is possible to walk in to a clan.
Removing all commodities from a clan.
Enabling a clan points system (these are similar to tokens for players, to buy commodities with).
Allowing clans to influence certain mobs and shops to join their faction or cause.
Having a morale system, that encourages more NPC clan members to join the clan.
Enabling an inter-clan war system.

Currently clans get certain commodities:
- Healer
- Recall Item
- Crest
- Board
- Potion Shop (Healing potion, remove curse wand, strength potion)
- Utility Shop (Container, food, drink)
- Alignment room good
- Alignment room evil
- Clan House
- Clan Prison
- Clan Meeting Room
- Fountain
- Uniform / Rp Eq
- Exit to a distant zone
- NPC Clan members

I suggest these as additional commodities, which all need code support, and will explain why after:
- Remove recall item, and add a coded recall room in each clan.
- Clan Entry Guards
- Clan Gate
- Trophy Room
- Weapon Racks
- Armor Shelving
- Remove Alignment room that does not fit with clans alignment.
- Shop to sell goods collected by the clan members

Shops + Factions
A code change to shops so that keep track of how much they sell.
For a percentage of this amount, and if the shop is sympathetic with the clan alignment, the shop can have its loyalties bought by a clan.
This purchase is for one month at a time, and at the end of that month can't be bribed by any clan for a random period of up to one week.
A percent of all purchases made at the shop while it has been 'bribed' or 'influenced' or 'seduced' at this time go towards the clan funds.
The shop while bribed will not sell items to any clan that is of opposite align (or possibly just when at war) to its current clan.
The shop mob adds to the population of the clan.

Mobs + Factions
A mob flag to allow certain Feature* mobs to join a clan faction.
This mob adds to the clan population, and if the clan is at war, will attack the opposing clan on sight.

Clan points
Points can be earned when maintaining Clan Morale, Returning a profit on shops, Recruiting members, recruiting NPC's, Token Donations, Inter-clan events / competitions / wars, Collecting trophies.
Points are used for adding new commodities to your clan.

Clan Morale
Clan NPC's will be influenced by clan loyalty, wearing clan items, clan donations, membership size, and percentage of members on in a week, bringing back and mounting trophies.
As clan morale gets higher, more NPC clan members will move in to the clan area and will actively defend it, and will pay tax/donations towards the upkeep.
Higher clan morale makes it easier to influence Feature Mobs and Shops to join your cause.

Trophy's
Certain items and Mobs can be flagged as trophys, and when found or recovered, can be taken to the clan and given to an NPC to mount in the Trophy room.
- Certain mob's scalps and heads
- Artifacts
- Items obtained at the end of a quest
- Awards like KOTM, Blue band of victory, and Horse racing

Entrance Guard
After opening the clan up so that it has an entrance you can walk in through from a zone, it will need some basic protection, such as a gate guard, or two, or three. For a small fee of course. The guards won't allow people past unless they have been killed first.

A Gate
Well, you don't have to pay for a gate and a lock, but it may help keep people who can't pick a door from getting past.

Weapon Rack
You always find good weapons you can't use on your travels, why not put them in the weapon rack, and if your clan is attacked, your NPC members will take them up to fight with.

Armor shelving
Same goes with the armor shelving, put the armor items you find on your travels in this shelving unit, and when attacked, your NPC's will wear it to defend your clan.

Cycle the clan's gains
Done on a set time cycle such as monthly at which time:
- Trophies, Armor, and Weapons are cleared.
- Rent is charged on the commodities.
- The Mob's as staff take their fees.


Things that 4d needs checked for balance before this will work:
- Levels of all aligned mobs in the game
- Check clan exits
- Check shop alignments

I need to bring up a few more points, such as how the point system works, recall points, and how clan wars happen.
But for now, I will leave it at that.

2

Suggestions & Ideas / Skill Knowledge - Degrade over time if not in use

« on: May 05, 2008, 06:35:02 pm »

Can I have some feedback on this idea:
Issue:

• There are a lot of skills people don't use regularly, if at all.
• WIS as a stat is under utilised.
• Many old players have an unbalanced advantage because of their skills, namely GM's.
• People don't know how to use all the skills they have anyway.

Concept example:
a timestamp can be added to skills to record the last time they were used in the code.

If a skill goes unused for a week (or alternatively, a certain number of hours online), you loose between 1 and 7% learned in that skill.
The amount that you lose would be dependant on your WISDOM.
Where: 22 WIS = 1% loss and 15 WIS or less = 7% loss.

Non action skills (eg: hand-to-hand), and skills that are pre-req's would get updated as their child skills get used.
Every 5% of a skill you 'forgot' you could gain 1 practice point in return.

Additionally, this would also allow skills and spells in the practice list to be highlighted if they get used regularly, and made darker if they haven't been used in a while.
A sort of 'heatmap' as to your skill usage.

The goal of this idea being that:

• Unused skills on people would fade out, and allow for the skills they do use to become better.
• So that people wouldn't maintain skills they didn't use.
• So that skills were more of a commodity, by reducing the frequency of their occurrence in the 4d population.
• So that it provides scope for the coders to make skills comparatively better then they are now, because not all players will have all skills.