War

Best suggestion so far from game-play point of view. Allows a player to be knocked out of a strategic spot or out of the area they were annoying to the attacker or attacker's friends.

Devastating to the loser but still plenty advantage over a brand new starting place to make it worth staying on for.

So, the capital/last city is not conquerable?

KillerPoodle wrote: Zangi wrote: So, the capital/last city is not conquerable? Current functionality is that the player is relocated to another spot with a zero score city but all their research.

Yea, well aware of that.  Just in context of the idea.

Just wanted to say that we're all reading this thread with *a lot* of interest.

There are two different and concurrent/related goals here.

1. We don't want much smaller players to be completely wiped off the map/demoralised/dispirited/emoragequitting because they simply fell foul of the neighbourhood bully

2. We think it's wrong that a player who has invested [insert number of months here] into the game can lose pretty much *everything* in a few short days.

It's tempting to respond that "Well, they could always seek a diplomatic solution" etc, and we broadly agree with this sentiment.  The thing is, though, that we currently have many powerful alliances in the game who largely have the game's best interests in mind; and that's not always going to be the case, or the case for future servers. 

We do get Petitions from players who are quitting the game, and eloquently describe why.  The most saddening one I've had was from a < 2 weeks old Orc RP'er who was sieged simply because some siege-capable "big player" took umbrage at his use of "Orc-speak" in global chat.

There is a need for some game-rule-based soution that tries to preserve these things.

The first thing to say is that - whatever the solution is - it will *only* effect Siege Encampments. 

We're not looking at limiting spells, diplomatic attacks, regular attacks or even Limited (Direct) Siege attacks.  It's only Siege Encampments that are under discussion here.

We initially thought we had a solution, which we mentioned briefly in The Newness thread as follows:

"STANDINGS AND KING's FAVOUR
 - A system for protecting new players, limiting siege attacks."

I know we gave no real info on this concept, so.. the idea here was a system whereby players (and alliances) would have a 'relationship score' with each other and that score was influenced by attacks (or lack of attacks).  You'd earn (eg) -1 point for theft, and -2 points for sabotage (although the points would be nuanced by size differential between players, and a whole lot of other variables)

The idea was that when the relationship score reached a certain point, then the wounded party would have "Siege" enabled, and once a "pound of flesh" had been extracted, then Siege would be disabled.

We liked the idea for a while, but then realised that - actually - this forces the game design team to proscribe a "moral equivalency" to player actions (ie Player 1's sabotage of A building is worth 27 of Player 2's thefts which is worth 146 of Player 3's Caravan Kickings etc).

As an idea, this is seriously wrong and flawed, and - after suitable reflection - we've squashed it.  Players should be able to ascribe their own levels of outrage to the events that happen to them.

But we do still have to consider what is "suitable retribution" against another player; and where the game rules should step in to prevent, or help prevent, a player's utter destruction.

The fact is, as game players ourselces, we know the most compelling content that any game can produce is the content the players produce themselves. 

Every time a forum thread opens with "Player 1 did X bad things to me" followed by "Yeah, well, Player 2 did Y bad things first", the game design team gets moist.  I kid you not.

Player emotions are far more compelling than any game designers' artificial constructs, and what we want to concentrate on are the things that enable (or highlight) more player involvement in the *human* realm.

So.

We're going to move slowly towards a solution, in some baby steps.

Our first will probably consist of a (prominent, Herald-based) overview of all the current Sieges, as well as a player-profile "Sieges This Player Is Currently Attending" kind of link.  We know there are enmities between players, and sometimes simply the knowledge that player X is sieging someone would be enough to get another player/alliance involved because of their history.

Our second is that we're looking at some "Help Me, I'm under Siege!" button with some text fields for freetext "Help me, Obi Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope"-style messages -  and these 'pleas for help' would be visible to the entire world somewhere.  Sure, they're potentially manipulative - but isn't that the whole point here?

Our third (and one that's been mentioned before quite often) is that we will put together some kind of Mercenaries For Hire interface, so players can bring other players or alliances in to help defend / counter-attack.

We'll see how these changes go first, before introducing any more radical ones.  But we do think there's things that need changing for sure.

Anyway, please continue on with this thread, it's very informative to us!

Best,

SC

GM Stormcrow wrote: So. We're going to move slowly towards a solution, in some baby steps. Our first will probably consist of a (prominent, Herald-based) overview of all the current Sieges, as well as a player-profile "Sieges This Player Is Currently Attending" kind of link.  We know there are enmities between players, and sometimes simply the knowledge that player X is sieging someone would be enough to get another player/alliance involved because of their history. Our second is that we're looking at some "Help Me, I'm under Siege!" button with some text fields for freetext "Help me, Obi Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope"-style messages -  and these 'pleas for help' would be visible to the entire world somewhere.  Sure, they're potentially manipulative - but isn't that the whole point here? Anyway, please continue on with this thread, it's very informative to us! Best, SC