DoxieDoc
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Posts posted by DoxieDoc
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9 minutes ago, Warden said:
Does not have to be 8 hours, but generally yes, it can be expected. Maybe you would not do it, maybe - subjectively seen - many others would not like this.
But for some it's fun. For some it's RP. For some it's thrill or just what they want to do, or at least do for a bit as they play and do other things. If you can't imagine this, there are easy examples that highlight that people exist that want to do this - at least a bit.
Roleplaying games (online), such as MMORPGs. Or, more actively, games like ARMA III (and any version before) where people play online in some sort of "cops vs robbers" mode where civilians can do certain jobs, become criminals or where emergency services exist including police that drive around and patrol, respond to incidents, etc. Then there is private security, mercenaries, etc.
It's all players doing this. So with those good examples, I think it can be said that it can generally be expected that people contribute to major projects once they come home, in whatever capacity that may be. And if that may be "menial" guard duty or similar, then so be it. Some people will sign up for it and at least do it partially, and with more people you can have shorter "shifts".
Some games will simply be relentless. If no one watches your hide-outs, caches, etc, then someone might steal from them or someone might damage them. To prevent or lower this, you need to deal with better or more coverage.
In an RP game (G-Mod, Half-Life 2 RP) I once stood at a subway checkpoint for what felt like 8 actual hours (or must've been between 6-8 hours). It's menial, it's repetitive at times or for many, but so is life. You would not believe how many citizens I kept away from the restricted area just by being there and showing presence, and I could do it all from a comfy control room that would control the doors if need be. For some it is boring, but it still served a vital job in the bigger picture.
And if players can understand that those jobs can be very vital, their acceptance may rise notably.
Even in your own example you "once" stood at a subway checkpoint and it was already terrible enough to cause an impression. I think you overestimate people's willingness to do menial labor in a game.
The best example is Grand theft auto. Every person has at some point said "I'm going to obey all the traffic laws and play like an upstanding citizen." Flash forward 10 minutes and you have a rocket launcher and 100s of cops after you.
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2 hours ago, ShioriStein said:
People cant hide in safe zone forever, the need for rare material will rise and so there will be out post city, and in the end grow into a big city because it stay on big vein of ore, intersection of many router, ...
Also how cities are formed is that people live in them, and pay taxes so that militaries and police forces can be formed, and then those forces are active 24 hours a day. Do you really expect someone to work a job, come home, and log in to a second job where they watch a border or walk around on patrol for another 8 hours? It isn't real life it's a game and it needs systems to compensate.
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16 hours ago, AzureSkye said:
What is the purpose of this suggestion, though? NQ has already stated that they are planning on (though not certain of) using TCU 'Shields' with Seige Timers.
Since TCU shielded areas have already been determined to be unassailable for at least 24 hours, what additional benefit does your system provide?
Are your proposing that these shields are stacked? That would require incredible long seiges as you'd have to peel a base or city like layers of an onion. This would easily run into weeks and months required to complete a seige. While realistic when compared to medieval warfare, this wouldn't be fun.
This appears to give entirely too large a defensive advantage.
However, if I have not understood what you have proposed, please enlighten me. :-)
Yes I'm suggesting that the center zones would have layers of defense. If there are no automated defenses, NPC guards, or shields which last for multiple days then the game will likely devolve into a wasteland outside of safe zones.
The scenario I'm more worried about is that we go out and build anything impressive which gets destroyed overnight by organized troll raids which launch surprise attacks. This doesn't happen in real life because people sleeping in the city would wake up and fight, but I'm not waking up at 3 AM on a worknight to fight (and I'm sure many others wont as well). Maybe in frontier zones an NPC guard is spawned for every 5 logged out players, but a metropolis zone gets one for every individual player. Maybe we get scripts which function offline for automated weapons. I'm not exactly sure what protections each layer should add. That can be decided by NQ, I just hope they do add buildable defenses for non-safe areas.
PS - Yes, it should take weeks to destroy something that took weeks to build.
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18 hours ago, Haunty said:
I like the idea of inner territories being protected by outer territories, but only for non-secure areas.
Instead of just territory mechanics, I think economies of scale, travel time, travel cost, and scarcity would be a better way to incentivize building outside of sec. I certainly wouldn't want to fly across the star system, or multiple star systems, every time I need to unload my container of ore. If refining the ore reduces the mass/volume of the product, that will be an incentive in building refineries remotely, and in turn markets and factories etc.
I think you are absolutely right for incentive, and glad we agree on protection. Mainly it's things like organized overnight raids which can cause problems. Nothing sends a chill up my spine more than imagining some summer vacationers staying up late to destroy something when nobody is around to defend it.
Hopefully build-able automated defenses become a thing as well!
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The safe areas that are being generated by Novaquark are a great idea, but I feel they may lead to some problematic game elements.
- Players will likely build in safe areas and only journey outside of them to mine.
- Players in safe areas will likely be neighbors with bitter enemies.
- Trolls could interrupt multi-hex building projects by claiming hexes in the path of development.
- There is less of a reason for people to band together to form protection if it is inherent to the game.
I am a huge believer in emergent gameplay, and this game relies almost entirely on it. Emergent gameplay is the idea that rules and systems are established which sort of "Make sense," and then players find ways to extract value, power, and fun from them in ways that the devs may not have initially intended. An example is movement patterns in Starcraft 1, Wormhole pirate guilds in EVE online, and metagame strategies in almost every game.
I propose a system which in a simple manner mimics the way real cities were formed. When a new hex territory is claimed grant it "Frontier" status which offers little or no protection. Once it is surrounded by other claimed hex tiles grant the center tile an upgraded protection status and a new name like Rural area. When all the frontier hexes bordering this rural area are surrounded by frontier hexes, they become rural and the center hex becomes suburban. Continue in this pattern for a number of layers, a progression such as:
- Frontier
- Rural
- Suburban
- Urban
- Metropolis
Adding and removing layers, changing costs of territories, and modifying levels of protection at each status would give devs control over game balance while still feeling fair for pvp. In addition, this gives groups an incentive to build together as a troll or bad neighbor building near the city would only have frontier status and likely be soon destroyed.
There may also need to be other controls like a minimum of a couple of days at each status level (so that a level 5 protected zone cant be sprung up instantly)
This would be a simple system which mimics the way cities start small and grow.
I also don't think this should replace safe zones, but be in addition to safe zones.
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Novaquark has mentioned before that they would like to encourage cities. Why not solve two problems with one system.
An example system
- Safe zone territory markers take a large amount of resources (medium to large organization), and are not impervious to damage but very VERY hard to kill (weeks of sustained successful attacking)
- Once constructed, a safe zone territory marker would be surrounded by 6 frontier hex tiles. Frontier hex tiles have some protection (one day of sustained attacking) and are automatically reconstructed by the safe zone territory marker after a week of being destroyed.
- Frontier markers can be purchased by individual players as a large expense, or several per week by a medium organization.
- Once a frontier marker is surrounded by other frontier markers(or above) it becomes a suburban marker with more protection than a frontier marker.
- Once a suburban marker is surrounded by suburban (or above) it becomes an urban marker with nearly as much protection as the safe zone marker.
- Once an urban marker is surrounded by urban markers (or above) it becomes a metropolis marker with the same protection as a safe zone marker.
- Once a safe zone marker is fully surrounded by metropolis markers, it is truly invincible.
In such a system you could add, remove, and adjust levels of zones to fit balance. It would also make incentives for city building, and giving organizations control over ordinances etc (pay your taxes) would add some depth to organizations. It also makes sense thematically (frontier more dangerous than interior). It's also (vaguely) similar to how cities actually get built.
The Imgur Link https://imgur.com/a/WfhX5 is an example of a city built using such principles.
Dark blue is city safe zone
Light blue is metropolis
Dark Green is urban
Light Green is suburban
Light Orange is frontier
Another possibility is that zones must get downgraded and the only outright destroyable zones are "Frontier" zones, so that attackers can either choose to pick at the fringes of a city (small pirates, thieves etc) or strike towards the heart of the city on longer campaigns (war, inter corporation fighting etc)
Incentive and ability to build cities in non-protected areas
in Idea Box
Posted
I sincerely hope you are all right, but I don't think you are. I also don't think I can convince you otherwise, so I will simply disagree and move on!
I wish we could all go to lunch and talk about stuff like this. It'd be an interesting discussion.