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City building

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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.

 

Haven't read everything yet, but this was mostly what I had in mind too. You can take the principle for the guild npc, in that there will be an auction time for a designated piece of land, with a minimum value and guilds can compete to contribute untill auction ends. To prevent abuse, bids will be actual payments. If you bid 1M, you pay 1M, if you then have to outbid 1.2M, you pay 200k. At the end of the auction, the rank 20 of the guilds that didn't win, can get his bid (partially?) refunded.

 

The only bad part I see, is that unguilded people or small guilds will have no place to live, unless you implement rent and all the joys of managing that :)

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There will be some form of storage in the houses, via permanent bags or containers (to be determined).

Will items considered "hazardous" be storable there?

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The only bad part I see, is that unguilded people or small guilds will have no place to live, unless you implement rent and all the joys of managing that :wub:

 

I do not belong to a guild, and do not plan to. I would, however, want these things to be allowed to people in my position. I realize that not everything I ask for can be fufilled. I am just stating what I hope will be possible.

 

1. Being allowed to visit other people's maps. I understand if they will be like guild maps and are reserved for guildies only. I only ask this because I would like to see what kinds of maps others make.

 

2. Being able to edit my own maps. At the moment, the map editor is not available for Macs, and I am hopeful that this new attention toward city-building will put this closer to the top of the programmers' to-do lists.

 

3. Be able to own, not rent, a small map of my own, designed by me, for GC. Whether this will be allowed, I do not yet know.

 

4. Being able to edit the map (I'm not asking for harvables and spawns in my backyard) just changing the landscape and things like that.

 

Whatever is possible, I won't complain. I will understand if none of these things is possible!

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Hm.. building off Draegox's idea to be able to go to other peoples' maps...

 

what if the entrance to the maps were via boats? then when you click on the banner to go, a window pops up asking what map you wish to go to. If you don't want other people to visit your map, (if you're the mayor) you could set a password that is then transferred to all residents of the maps and mods. I don't quite know how hard that would be to code though :hug:

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Both opinions have their pros and cons, like you said about #1, people can come in there and create a bunch unwanted actions.

 

I must say #2 seems way more user friendly, BUT as previously stated, it sounds more for a guild.

 

My suggestion would be;

have a certain amount of people (100 or more) pay a set amount (maybe 250k) EACH, make sure they AGREE to join the city before paying (set a command like you would to join a guild), once everyone pays, the city can then be constructed.

 

I LOVE the senater idea, this way there is more than 1 person to run a city, and the few senaters and vote and dicuss big changes to be done.

 

Suggestions for later, when the city is available for purchasing-

 

Hold donations for fundraisers to improve the city, ect.

Hold City Meetings, so people can suggest better ways to improve the city

 

City bank, where people can just donate GC and have only a VOTED IN treasurer handle the banking, (another needed trustworthy person).

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Well the first option it the best, and before you jump to conclusions let me explain:

 

1. Temp mayor:

Player X that has donated the most money is a temp mayor. Then after the city prospers about 20 residents there will be an election

2. Penal system

Before starting the building of the city, all players that want to live there agree that they will not make any trouble in the city, and if they do they will be brought to the court of law, and they will be judged for their actions, by the judge and the jury (judge chosen by election and jury are the most influential people in the city) this idea opens up jobs like, lawyers. There will be witnesses to confirm that the case was like the judge/jury/third party says. If the defendant is declared guilty he is either fined (and if he can't afford to pay, the court gives him 2 days to get the money or he goes to jail for X days. (so stealing, breaking windows, and other stuff will be fined :)) There is always a risk of getting caught by the police. (im not sure how will this work)

3. Joining the city:

Once chosen, the mayor will make interviews with people that want to join the city, and he will/ or will not give them permission to build in the city, and people that are already can vote if the man/woman that wants to join can/or not, accept the player in the city, and the vote of the majority will determine if the player can live there, so renoun outlaws bagjumpers, big ass (sorry for this) people with big mouths or some ebul PKer

4. Donations and upgrades:

People can donate money to the city, and the mayor will have a squire (npc) that will inform him of the total amount of money donated, and the upgrades he can build with the money, (every upgrade, has different lenght of building 1 day, 5 hours etc.) The city gains money from the penal system, (number 2) donations, taxes (every one will pay taxes). The upgrades can go like... the town square, then upgrade the square to a plaza etc etc.

5. Random events:

Once in a while cities will get on fire, bandits will try to raid the city, monster invasion or something like that.

and for example, the city gets on fire, and those that applied for city jobs, fireman after 20secs are beamed to the city. and they get a job to defeat the fire as fast as possible, and the houses that are damaged, are repaired by the city and you pay the city the amount the damage was calculated, but if you have insurance you don't pay, the insurance company (created by players) will pay for the damage

6: City jobs:

Fireman, policeman, defenders etc etc and you will get payed on a week by the taxes that are collected weekly from the residents in the city.

7: Shops

You can open up shops for , armors weapons anything , you can you can have a Shop-house or a shop and a house ( for the richer ppl )

 

The point is to make a community that will be player oriented, players will determine every thing, if it is building to tax collecting, protecting the witness ( a lil joke :omg:) or anything, the best way is to make the players in charge of everything, every1 has a job, economic failure, homeless ppl if you know what i want to say, if this gets in the game, this will be the best game ever, and i mean ever.

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I think there would be advantages/disadvantages in both options. I guess my opinion/input would depend on what is done with the money to found a town. For instance

 

1: money poofs, and town is implemented

2: money goes into a "town fund" that allows the citizens to build the options into their town they wish, depending on what options are available for town and what people want

3: (endless variations on #2)

 

If the money just goes "poof" and a "standard town" gets built( at least at first) then I prefer the first option of giving to an NPC. It allows more interaction with people you may not yet know....more like a real town.

 

If #2 or some variation of this is intended, then there will need to be more discussion and agreement about what people want in their town to start off with. In this case, I think that it would be better to have a trusted person(s) hold the money until it is all collected. To use this option through an NPC would imho create too many disagreements and problems, as the people contributing to the town would not know who else was joining the town or what the plan for the town was. Hence many people would want vastly different things for "their" town, and nothing would ever get done and/or noone would ever be happy about their town.

 

Just my 2 cents.

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I totally love the idea of a mmorpg actually built up by its players. (And not them being just a money/items vector from one point to the other and from one NPC to the other.)

 

Obviously if you want someone that's in charge of strategic positions inside a city you need to have a ranking system like that in guilds, just to say who can or cant do what. But this mean in no way that cities will be guilds' cities... Yet you need someone to start the city,

 

Given the lack of information on how these cities would work, I could fancy something like this:

- You have a pristine map with space to build a city. (Or many cities, like with a few 'city slots' in a huge map)

- Whoever wants to found a city goes to one of these slot and pay (whatever the payment method) a good wealth of a fee to start the city; he/she becomes automatically the Mayor of the city (that with higher rank) and can set rank/citizenship status of other players

- To maintain the city you (well those with the right rank) have to pay a periodic fee based upon which facilities you have developed in the city and/or the 'tech level' gained (continuing the civ parallel, which is sort of what these city are going to look like, as I can understand). Bigger cities will require a lot of money so they'll need to have a lot of citizens being able to contribute. If the fee isn't paid the mayor lose ownership of the city and this can be overtaken by anybody. (This point need a little more reflection though, i think, like deciding if the new occupants can reuse the facilities already established or have to start everything anew, or any other form of bonus/handicap.)

- The political system. The way citizens contribute to the city. These are all and entirely left to the players. We could well have a tyrant that does everything by himself but which get paid by citizens all the same because he is able to, say, give protection to them citizens. We can have a democratic organization. We could even have one player that owns (for some obscure reason) a gazillion of gc and can maintain a whole city all by himself :hug: (could even be a mod holding a city set up for noobs) uh... for the elections matter... the mayor (and only the mayor) can nominate his successor... well if he/she refuses to do so, let civil war begin :w00t: (like the players stop paying the taxes, there are no more money to run the city so everything goes poof. However more fanciful ways to take down a government are well accepted. See also next about warfare.)

- Those in charge can indicate the enemies of the city. Those people are pkable inside the city's boundaries (or they can take the initiative of an attack). (This point also need expansion.)

 

Some PS about the warfare part: single players, whole guilds or whole cities can be declared as enemy. The war declaration between city is unilateral: if one declares war the other get in automatically. So the enemy, unwanted or not, can come and siege your town. A mayor that get killed inside his city lose the ownership so the enemy can take his place (if he has the resources to do so, populating the city with new inhabitants—given the old ones don't want the invader—and such, otherwise it will just resolve in an incursion). Citizens can resign their status and become enemies (if declared as such by the city's institutions or by teaming with an enemy faction) of the city and try to take down the government... W la revolución! :)

Edited by coch

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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.

 

This just seems so much more realistic and challenging. Like democracy, like my area where zoning laws bounce back and forth betwixt Hasidic Jews, Haitian politicians, 5% of all Central Americans, local mixed-race rednecks and Native Americans, money grubbing developers, and rich white twits of no human value. I love it!

 

Number Two seems awfully feudalistic, maybe some city areas can be reserved for guilds or players of certain types, manu, fight, alch, magic, etc. Variety is always the best.

 

Howabout renting out or selling some of the buildings in WSC where players can renovate, open shops and use up resources?

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<snip>

 

Howabout renting out or selling some of the buildings in WSC where players can renovate, open shops and use up resources?

 

I was thinking of something similar on the rental. There are a lot of "locked" buildings already in the maps. You could have an NPC offer about 5-10 different floorplans for rent, at varying rates. The low end rental would just have simple access to storage. The high end rentals could have a in-home gym (PvP arena) and a large area for entertaining.

 

When a player gets a rental, they select which map it is on, the NPC tells them what building they are in. When you "enter" the building you live in, you have the choice to go "home" or "visit playerx".

 

Rental system would be a modest means to pull gc back out of game. Storage access in your own home would be the perk for getting them.

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I'm liking every suggestion more and more!

 

One serious point, can we make all Real Estate Agents (players) PK'able? Please?? That is the one most important thing wrong with the U.S.! :)

 

(tongue in cheek smilie)

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It would rock if you could only make certain types of structures in each different map/area.

 

Like a tent town in DP or wood houses in VoTD or something.

Edited by Nintenduh

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Interesting idea for EL, there's another game called Wurm Online I have played in the past where all towns are player owned and has citizens. There are several different deed sizes avaliable and a monthly upkeep and guard fee (if guards are hired). Typically each citizen performs their civic duties be it mining, fishing, cooking, tailoring, farming, tree proccesing and so forth. Citizens also typically make donations to town upkeep.

 

Wurm has had limited success so far and is certainly not perfect, but is quite unique. I think a little time spent researching Wurm would be well worth the time.

 

 

I play wurm for almost 2 years now. First of all, Wurm ain't a game, it's a simulation (MMOFS - mmo fantasy simulation, at least thats what dev consider it to be :D). In Wurm not only the towns are player made. 95% of the game is player made. Each building, wall, fence, road is built by players. Also all the tools and items you use in the game are created by players. There are only few items that are purchased from NPCs (for example village deeds, that way you can claim some land, depending on size of the deed, as your own and set your own rules). You can also build towns without deed thing but then you have no guards to protect you from wild life and any1 could come and mess around.

 

There are no levels at all in Wurm. There are lots of skills and you can practise any of them without any limitation. Your skills and atritbutes rise as you perform them.

 

There are 2 servers: PVP and Non-PVP. On pvp server there are no safe zones at all. You have to build your own safe zone :) Tall walls, guard towers, all sort of fortifications, secret underground entrance, it's only limited by your imagination :D You can travel between those 2 servers as many times as you want, but it takes time. There are no ships or teleports like in EL. You have to cover all the distacne on foot. both servers are 10 square KM maps, so there is a lot of walking.

 

2 problems I can see in Wurm are: little player base: there are about 100 players online at a time on non pvp server and 50 on pvp server.

Other thing is that this game is improving too slow. There is only 1 guy working on server code, and 8 or 10 ppl working on client. Besides these, Wurm is a perfect game to play. It's one of a kind.

 

Ooops, I get a feeling this post is a bad off top :P

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wow didnt think this thread was so old... that year flew by :)

 

i always wonder how people come across such old threads then talk about such off topic things.

 

on a side note it would be nice to know how this is going... i got all excited when i saw this thread come up then i see it was just a necro ;/

Edited by LeoI

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I see where this does actually have some bearing. Of course, you have to read the EL Blog to see it.

 

Entropy said that he would be working with the new map editor which would allow for some dynamic content and real terrain.

 

Now, as for the actual connection....how can you make a city if you can't modify the maps?

 

This new map format that the new game engine will support will most likely be a key part in making it so that we can actually apply the city building notion. I don't think city building would be possible without it. Heh. I just pity the people with the cards that don't support vector programming. :)

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I like this idea. It will bring about a whole new system, involving corruption and greed, favoritism and politics. Not like the old sit down and mindlessly stare at a screen.

 

Question, if a person does buy a city alone, will they indefinitely be the mayor/zoning/commissioner?(judge/jury/executioner) I only ask this because it doesn't seem that there is a benefit to contributing more than others.

 

Maybe I missed it but would there be taxation and upkeep? Like say signs/roads/bridges/buildings/ect need to be payed for on a monthly basis in labor/materials/gold to stay in working order. If a cold map maybe snow removal :P.

Edited by Hermit

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Will we get bailouts if our city gets in trouble.

 

 

Sounds like alotta work,so lets go w/what the pros think

Edited by tradon

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