Jump to content
Eternal Lands Official Forums
Entropy

City building

Recommended Posts

For a while now, Learner is working at a dynamic map format, where stuff can be added and removed.

Once he finishes, I will start working at the player city building. It's unlikely that we'll have something working sooner than next year, but in order to plan better, I need some of your opinions on this subject.

 

How it will work:

There will be some new, empty maps, where people can build structures (houses, factories, etc.).

Each city will have a few players that will be voted in different positions. For example, one player will be the Mayor, and he or she will accept new players in the city for example.

Then there will be a 'zoning advisor', who will approve buildings in the city (so you won't be able to build wherever you want, and ruin the city look).

 

Now, the problem is, how do you see the very beginning of the city, when there is no city/mayor there yet?

I have a few ideas, but I am looking for some constructive criticism here.

 

One idea is that each land (map) will have an NPC, where you can collectively contribute money to buy the land. Once all the money has been paid, those who paid will become citizens and will be able to elect a mayor and zoning advisor. There will be some lower limit on how much money you can pay, for example you won't be able to pay less than 50K (that's just an example). And you will only be able to buy land from one city, so you will have to chose carefully which city you want to belong to.

 

The only problem I see with this method is that enemy players might buy land in the same city, and then cause trouble, like having stupid fights, steal from the city, etc.

 

Another idea is to allow only one person to buy the city, so the players would give him the money and he buys it, then he allows them in the city one by one.

The advantage is that no undesirable people can get in, and the dissadvantage is that the to-be mayor can run with the money instead of buying the city :/ So you will need a really respectable player.

 

On the other hand, the mayor of the city will be able to do all kind of really bad things if he wants to, so chosing the right mayor will be VERY important regardless of the method used to purchase the city.

 

 

So which method do you like more? Have other ideas?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Ugh Tyrants.. you're joking... but yeah i like the second idea where 1 person is in charge and its important picking the right person :(

 

Keep up the good work Devs

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Yay, can't wait :(

 

A guild is a community in this game, led by one person and managed by high ranking officials. The second idea (one player owner) is a logical extension of this idea and would be the one I would opt for.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I think I prefer the first option (multiple people buying). However, I'm not familiar enough with all the features that the cities will have (for example, what types of things will people be able to steal from a city?) to make a really informed decision.

 

This will be exciting :(

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I think I prefer the first option (multiple people buying). However, I'm not familiar enough with all the features that the cities will have (for example, what types of things will people be able to steal from a city?) to make a really informed decision.

 

This will be exciting :(

 

Stuff like the city money, lumber, all kind of things. And only a few players from a city will be able to steal (those in high positions), so it will be sort of like in the real life.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Second option, all the way.

I'd really like a city to belong to our guild only :(

 

Question (maybe it's too early for them, but anyway): will the number of cities be limited or everyone who has enough cash will be able to buy one?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Well, i think the 'boss' of a land should be able to accept or refuse players, and having borders between the neighbours etc.

And they should be like Guild Masters, but than City Masters :(

I dont think criminals will be a problem to handle if u got a command like #kick <player>

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

It depends on how you want the cities to be constructed. The second option seems like it would provide for many more cities due to the small groups that create them, whereas the first sounds like the cities would be more like real cities than exclusive guilds.

 

However the guild system has certainly worked well, so I might have to side with the second. In my understanding, it seems like a space and memory issue...then again, I'm no programmer.

 

Are you still planning on making these cities on another "sci-fi-ish planet" or will they be in conjunction with the two continents? Also, how accesible will they be to non-residents?

 

 

My two cents...hope it helps. :(

 

-LK

Edited by LightKeeper

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Why not just do the first option, but rather than making everyone a citizen, just let the person with the highest amount donated as a temporary mayor. When X amount of players are accepted into the city, then the election begins for the mayor and zoning advisers.

 

If this is the case, you won't need to set the minimum donation to such a high amount.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Second option, all the way.

I'd really like a city to belong to our guild only :(

 

Question (maybe it's too early for them, but anyway): will the number of cities be limited or everyone who has enough cash will be able to buy one?

 

The cost of buying a city will be very high (to be determined) but something like 30M GCs, so no player alone will have that money (maybe only the very very very very rich and evil IRL).

So you will need something like 100 people to buy a city, and there will be a limited number of cities, something like 10-20.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I like the first idea, but I don't know what you mean by "enemy players".

I would imagine that in a number of cases, some people may wish to banish a citizen though. The citizen could be reimbursed their portion, have their goods moved to storage and then be voted out of town in a 2/3 vote. That would get rid of trouble makers.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I like the first idea, but I don't know what you mean by "enemy players".

I would imagine that in a number of cases, some people may wish to banish a citizen though. The citizen could be reimbursed their portion, have their goods moved to storage and then be voted out of town in a 2/3 vote. That would get rid of trouble makers.

 

Yes, there will be a process to ban players, which is why people should make sure that they share a city with players they are friends with, or else there will be a lot of ganging against other players and banning them, which will lead to all kind of shit, abuse reports, and so on.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Really cool!

I do prefer the multyplayer city, I think is a great idea and something different.

The second idea is too close to a guild map

IMHO

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I would rather go with the old (Roman, actually) method of establishing colonies: initially, an appointed person runs the city (it would be appointed "from above", e.g. one of the mods) for a fixed period; as soon as the city reaches a certain critical mass, or after a given period of time, the appointed commissioner steps down and elections are held among the residents.

 

Depending on how large and how many player-run cities are, we might even consider establishing "guild colonies", e.g. having as appointed commissioner the guildmaster of a (large) guild. Again as a historical parallel, this is what happened with colonies established in eastern Europe by anseatic states in late middle age.

 

Last, there is the third way of establishing colonies, the one used by the Greeks while colonizing Southern Italy, Phoenicians in Africa and Spain, and several European countries while populating N&S America and Australia: here a group of citizens that already belonged to the same city (/state) were sent or moved of their own accord elsewhere to establish a colony. The key point is that the colonist already formed a social group on their own, they were not just collected at random.

 

I would go with the first option initially (appointed leaders), and later experiment with #2 (guilds) and #3 (split). Both collecting people at random (NPC) and having a single "owner" which has to collect the money beforehand are kind of risky (and not totally realistic).

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Will the mayor be able to revoke citizenship? That is, if someone starts causing major problems, can they be removed from the city?

 

Edit: Ahh...sorry, my question was answered while I was writing my post.

Edited by Tanyia

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

maybe have like a tribuneral or some other form of law. for if the mayor or other high ranking offical steals from the city the tribuneral can vote to kick them out and hold elections for a new mayor/high official.

 

also there could be a jury of maybe 12 people for every city and if there are trouble makers they could be brought to the jury and the jury could decide what thier punishment should be... I.E. permanent banishment, lose of personal buildings ect. and have it where everyone on the tribuneral/jury would have to be voted in or something along those lines or since most of them won't be on 24/7 have the jury that is online meet to decide punishment on certain days/times or even radomly pull people from the city for jury duty.

 

 

sorry if some of this don't make sense. i just got out of paramedic class and we were talking about the endocrine system today so my brain ain't 100%

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I like it radu, and i see what you mean, maybe you can elect the mayor out of a group of people, or you can approve the mayor, when the votes are all submitted.

 

McLaren

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

So which method do you like more? Have other ideas?

 

As a third suggestion: could the city purchase be guild related (only those belonging to the same guild can buy-in to that city). Option 1 above is like a guild, but is not actually restricted in any way. The first person to "claim" that NPC/City could be restricted to a high ranking guild member (say >=18) and would require a "significant" down-payment (non refundable) so that the guild demonstrates it's commitment to develop that city. There could be a time-limit on competing the purchase so that the potential property is not tied-up for months waiting on a guild that's to slow.

 

The residents of the city could either be anyone from the guild, or only those members of the guild that contributed money (after the initial down-payment).

 

The problem I see with this is that the high cost of a city (as listed above, 30M for example) could well be out of the reach of most guilds, so a city may well need multiple guilds to support. This could go 2 ways:

 

1. The initial guild specifies allied guilds who can also buy land.

 

2. It makes use of the total-war/ally feature in the game such that only designated guild allies of the initial guild may buy into the city. This way is nice because it puts an existing feature to use in a way that makes logical sense.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Guest Moltar

I basically like the first idea. But I have some additional thoughts about it:

Everybody pays to a NPC for buying the land.

 

How about not electing a mayor but something like a senat (for example one senator for every 25 citizens, at least 3 senators). If someone then wants to join the city the senat and / or the citizens vote if they want the applying person. The senat is in charge of the decisions the mayor would usually make.

 

Or if you like the idea with the mayor, there should be the possibility to elect a new one, if the current does bad things.

 

 

Cool idea :-)

 

Greets Moltar (ingame Ustorm)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Usl, that's some very interesting history.

 

The problem with the "appointment from above" thing is that the idea is to have the people in a city actually cooperate, rather than just fight eachother.

 

For example, if the zoning advisor hates you, he won't allow you to build your home anywhere, so you will go to bitch to the mayor who maybe is your friend, and then he will bitch to the zoning advisor, and then the trade advisor will take sides, and so on. Even though this is what usually happens IRL, I would like to avoid that if possible.

So I think the guild thing would be better (like, give the money to the guild leader so he buys it).

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

<CLIP>

I would go with the first option initially (appointed leaders), and later experiment with #2 (guilds) and #3 (split). Both collecting people at random (NPC) and having a single "owner" which has to collect the money beforehand are kind of risky (and not totally realistic).

Interesting. It might be nice to have multiple options on how to do things.

Building on the idea of guilds (but different), you could have the group set up and vote for a leader and let anyone let new people in. You could then have each person put money into the pool and they would have a refund if they are voted out. This way, you have the leader chosen and the money kept safe before the city is created and before the site for the city is found. After the city is created, you would still be using the same group setup, the leader is already chosen and such.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

For example, if the zoning advisor hates you, he won't allow you to build your home anywhere, so you will go to bitch to the mayor who maybe is your friend, and then he will bitch to the zoning advisor, and then the trade advisor will take sides, and so on. Even though this is what usually happens IRL, I would like to avoid that if possible.

 

I agree; in fact the idea with the "commisioner" was that for the initial period, before reaching the steady state, a single person has all authority, hence there are no conflicts(1). This period between establishment of the city and beginning of regular "government" is meant to mold the community into a single social body (which is the same goal as with the other two analogies).

 

In any case, whatever the mechanism, I like the idea a lot, and would be happy to contribute as I can.

 

-------

(1) there are no conflicts between different authorities. There may still be conflicts between a single player and the commissioner, but that would be the same also with the guild or "delegate" system.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

And what will be the advantage of a city? You can say that cities are cool, but when they have no real advantage no one will care about them.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    No registered users viewing this page.

×