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Contract / Agreement Function


Underhand Aerial

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I think it is up to you. You need to find a nation organization that will give you exactly that protection. It is like in the real world. You cannot have security on every thing. Some things are up to the players. So yeah if you need protection....... Is it always doors open, just close the door after you. Some who shouldnt could step in.

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I think it is up to you. You need to find a nation organization that will give you exactly that protection. It is like in the real world. You cannot have security on every thing. Some things are up to the players. So yeah if you need protection....... Is it always doors open, just close the door after you. Some who shouldnt could step in.

 

On behalf of the Federation

 

Darion

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b ) (stoopid emotes...) So, essentially, the contract system is really a quest system...

 

I do think (and hope) the Quest system NQ is going to implement will be contract-like as in :

1) A party issue a quest, where he stipulates what the rewards are and what the proof(s) of completion should be for him to trust completion of the quest (nothing, items, money, information, screenshots and, why not videos).

2) The quest is shared to second parties (individuals, organisations or publicly)

3) The second parties take the quest and such action is registered (there can be multiple second parties in case of bounty hunter for example or if you need the quest to be fulfilled more than once)

4) The second parties complete the quest and brings proof of it or the second parties cancel the quest (registered).

5) The first party upon presentation of proof(s) rewards the second (registered upon approval of receipt by the second parties) or refuse to pay (registered) according to his trust towards the proof(s).

 

-> At the end of the day, each party make the other's party reputation and trust is the key essence and every party involved have some log of the quest status to  use as proof of completion for their boss, claim of breach of contract to judges or for statistics purposes.

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I do think (and hope) the Quest system NQ is going to implement will be contract-like as in :

1) A party issue a quest, where he stipulates what the rewards are and what the proof(s) of completion should be for him to trust completion of the quest (nothing, items, money, information, screenshots and, why not videos).

2) The quest is shared to second parties (individuals, organisations or publicly)

3) The second parties take the quest and such action is registered (there can be multiple second parties in case of bounty hunter for example or if you need the quest to be fulfilled more than once)

4) The second parties complete the quest and brings proof of it or the second parties cancel the quest (registered).

5) The first party upon presentation of proof(s) rewards the second (registered upon approval of receipt by the second parties) or refuse to pay (registered) according to his trust towards the proof(s).

 

-> At the end of the day, each party make the other's party reputation and trust is the key essence and every party involved have some log of the quest status to use as proof of completion for their boss, claim of breach of contract to judges or for statistics purposes.

This seems like too many actions for unrelated parties to be responsible for. If you have a quest system that relies on many other people to take actions to ensure that you got paid, who is going to want to be responsible for all of that? What happens when those people suddenly stop caring?

 

Great job! You spent a month building the space lazer for the death star! Too bad Janet in Accounting has to sign off on your check, because she doesn't play anymore! Oh and the player you listed as a witness got the request added to his action list, but he doesn't check his email, you you aren't getting paid!

 

That would happen ALL THE TIME, often enough for players to abandon that kind of contract system. How many people started avoiding Preston in Fallout 4?

 

Just let the game handle the contract system, and work within it to improve it. If in its fully developed state there are jobs that simply don't fit in the scope of the contract system, you can always do handshake deals (about as emmersive as it gets).

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This seems like too many actions for unrelated parties to be responsible for. If you have a quest system that relies on many other people to take actions to ensure that you got paid, who is going to want to be responsible for all of that? What happens when those people suddenly stop caring?

 

Great job! You spent a month building the space lazer for the death star! Too bad Janet in Accounting has to sign off on your check, because she doesn't play anymore! Oh and the player you listed as a witness got the request added to his action list, but he doesn't check his email, you you aren't getting paid!

 

That would happen ALL THE TIME, often enough for players to abandon that kind of contract system. How many people started avoiding Preston in Fallout 4?

 

Just let the game handle the contract system, and work within it to improve it. If in its fully developed state there are jobs that simply don't fit in the scope of the contract system, you can always do handshake deals (about as emmersive as it gets).

 

No one has to be responsible of anything it is just a matter of trust between the parties.

 

The responsibility part will only take place if one of the party is part of an organizations that thrives to regulate the quest system.

 

In your example, whether there is a contract/quest system or not the guy is screwed because no one knows that he did do his job (apart from his unreachable friend). With the contract/quest system he has at least a beginning of proof even if it might be judged inappropriate by the one judging his case : with handshake deals you have no way of enforcing or proving anything happened which make it too risky especially for big transactions (think billions of in game currency for contracts between the biggest organizations).

 

Plus in this particular case it suffice that the contract was done with the HR department, and not with a particular individual, to handle the problem.

And if no one is in the HR department it means you're company is pretty much dead and you should leave it. But you'll be happy when after a while the company runs again and you can ask for your due thanks to the contract you signed.

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I think some kind of passive verification system (not necessarily like the one I described) be used. It doesn't need enforcement of deals to use, but it can garner trust between two parties. It's always there if you need it, not bothering you if you don't. Additionally, risk is part of the game. No pain, no gain.

 

Besides, doesn't this only need to cover trading services? I should hope there's a player-player trading system if you were just buying goods.

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I don't think the problem lay with trades. They are the things I'm most confident in since it will be goods and/or money against goods and/or money so no way to cheat your way out of those. Tracking these could be cool but will only be useful for the trade department of a company to show their results or be investigated upon (and maybe as personal historic for individuals).

 

Contracts are much more interesting because it could provide a mean for entrepreneur to exchange much more than just goods and money : services.

 

And as the game will be emergent, services are the thing we want to be supported by some helping features.

 

Thus being able to track at least what the service is, what are the parties involved and what the reward will be is primordial.

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I don't think the problem lay with trades. They are the things I'm most confident in since it will be goods and/or money against goods and/or money so no way to cheat your way out of those. Tracking these could be cool but will only be useful for the trade department of a company to show their results or be investigated upon (and maybe as personal historic for individuals).

 

Contracts are much more interesting because it could provide a mean for entrepreneur to exchange much more than just goods and money : services.

 

And as the game will be emergent, services are the thing we want to be supported by some helping features.

 

Thus being able to track at least what the service is, what are the parties involved and what the reward will be is primordial.

An extremely robust contract mechanic would be ideal here, as you could post an order to....

-Deliver mined or refined material

-provide rights to mine in a specific area for the duration of a contract

-put up collateral for something like a transport mission, that is surrenderd if failed

-contract hits on specific players, bases, or ships

-cobtract unfinished parts of a ship or station to be built, delivered, and possibly even installed to the starion (and provide a tag dir rights to install the components dor the duration).

-prevent a list of tagged ships, players, ans structures from being destroyed for a set duration.

 

And ideally all enforced by ingame mechanics without player verification. A robust mechanic would also allow contracts to be dormed by scripts, for example a trade script that sets up a contract for deliverinf TU's from a depot to a trade module if a buy order is placed over a certain value dor example, or a script that puts a bounty on players or ships that are attackifg your structures or citizens in your territory.

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I'm sure there are some unscrupulous characters in our organization that would happily enforce under the table deals or even over the table if they are in our interests to do so and for the right price and a nice bottle of rum.

 

 

Back to topic.

 

Love the idea that a contract can be logged as a trade packet.

- This will allow players and organizations to enforce there own jobs.

- It could be used for bounties, bail, wanted posters and much much more

 

As currency is digital i have a few points on this

- Trade packets should have an option for part payments on acceptance

- Trade packets should have an option for full payment on completion

- Trade packets should have an option for payment by negotiation (no payment at all and payment is by transfer from player to player)

 

This would allow for a few systems but also have it's limitations

- Where a trade packet can be automatically verified e.g. Kill this player, Gather this many resources. Payment can be fully automatic with or without part payment on acceptance

- Where a trade packet cannot be automatically verified payment must be either by negotiation or part payment on acceptance and full payment by negotiation.

 

The limitations.

- Part payment on acceptance is open to abuse on automated jobs.(if these will be possible i don't know)

- The system needs to balanced and fair for both the trade packet and the trade packetee

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Just like on the market where the item is taken so it does exist and the money is taken at purchase brokered by the game, contracts could be done the same way.

 

Both are created by players with options the player selects, but reneging is impossible.

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