So, should we really force roleplaying?

[Jouk]

I found this an interesting read. It is from "Mu's Unbelievably Long and Disjointed Ramblings About RPG Design" at http://mu.ranter.net/theory/index.html (in "General Topics")...

-(QUOTE)--------------------

"Beware the RP Police

A common trend on many small-scale games, and on private server games, is mandated roleplaying. This is a horrible horrible idea, especially in a wide area network environment. It's a direct backlash of the "serious roleplayer" community against "kewld00dz," a term that expands in meaning for every player to encompass "people who don't represent their characters the way I think they should." This arrogance is then handed down as law by the game administrator, who must then waste time monitoring the roleplaying or lack of same. Pretty soon, he manages to convince some like-minded RP nazis to do this for him, and before long the entire game is filled with people actively policing each others' roleplaying, judging everyone around them against a set of standards that none of them can actually agree on, and the game message board starts filling with lame accusations and arguments about "who's not roleplaying properly." To me, this is the first indicator that I should be looking for another game.

My girlfriend is currently fond of a Sphere shard with this sort of roleplaying-mandate attitude, and I can't stand it. Much of the apparent time spent on the shrd is dedicating to policing roleplaying, while there are some glaring flaws in their default Sphere .52/Linux scripts that have obviously never been addressed. There are a number of guidelines on their page describing how you must be in character all the time, which extends to such absurd lengths as to say that it's wrong to just log out in front of someone, or to go afk without first making your excuses and goodbyes, then finding a remote area, then logging. What the hell is that? If someone in a pen and paper game said, "Damn, hang on a sec, pizza guy's here," I wouldn't accuse him of being a bad roleplayer for it. Needless to say, this shard's message board (the OOC board, of course) is filled with ridiculous back and forth banter about whether person X is roleplaying, or whether he should be penalized, because he did something that offends the tender sensibilities of the posting RP cop. It's funny to note that the reaction of the "true roleplayer" in these situations is to immediately look at a non-roleplaying solution, i.e. GM intervention or banning.

I've already made this argument in a little-read old UO rant, which deals with a situation involving high-handed RP nazis on the Catskills shard. The gist of it is this: you cannot mandate how people choose to represent their characters, you can only encourage them to do it in a certain way. People do not subscribe so they can take acting classes from a bunch of geeks who suck at acting themselves, they do it to play the game. The perceived problem is that the "bad roleplayer" is ruining the flavor of the game. The real problem is that the whiner can't bear the thought that other people might not envision the play world in exactly the same way that they do, and they can't deal with it. From a player standpoint, it's really easy to deal with. Simply have your character accept that people are different sometimes, although this may be outside the scope of possibility for the player in real life. If someone is spamming net talk around, just treat them like anyone in the real world who mouths off uncontrollably and unintelligibly: as an insane person."

-(/QUOTE)--------------------


I don't agree, even nearly, with all what Mu has to say, but I found this may have some grain of truth in it...

[Kintoun]

Before I read the above quote I wanted to interject my own thoughts. Then I'll read it and give my input.

Lately I have been having some crazy discussions with many of the boards members on RP'ing specifically. What dictates a good Rp'er? What is bad RP'ing? How should a person RP? These were questions that ping-ponged around in my head for quite some time. Currently the best definition I can give for someone who RP's is a person who creates a character which can either reflect their own personality, or the ideals of this person. In other words the majority of us create an avatar which is a being which we wish we could aspire to, or wish we could become. But does this make for good RP'ing? Since most of us wish for the most powerful positions, where does humility come into play? Isn't someone who can control these obvious urges a better role player than a person who submerges themselves in it?

My final verdict is that role playing should come as natural as it is for us to walk. Noone can tell us how to role play (yet belittling and stepping on peoples toes can get annoying). We should be ourselves when we role play. Choose a style and adapt it to your own personality to form your avatar. Most role playing stems from simple word choice. People with "leet speek" use a different word choice which easily labels them as non-role players.

After reading the quote above:
Wow this guys seems pretty pissed off. LOL and he contradicts himself. He speaks of mandated role playing but be attacks people trying to enforce role playing. Nobody can "enforce" role playing! Thats absurd, and was something that we here on the boards accept long ago! These "enforcers" of role playing that he speaks of are merely role playing ecouragers. So this guy is ok with encouragers, but not with enforcers? His argument is completely one sided. Who DOESN'T agree that role playing manadating is bad? It is bad for business of a company, and constricts players to rules which have no basis. Just like I tried above, you can't define role playing!

Maybe I should write an rant on how nuclear bombs are destructive, or isn't that obvious alrdy? Heh.

I do admit however that there are serious issues between role players and kewl doods. Cause, damn they are just annoying as hell and completely ruin any atmosphere that developers spent a lot of time setting up. But this is something which this guy never addressed. The fact that some people are ruining the environment in which we play. Role playing is a strong aspect of RPG (gee who would have guessed that role playing is a main element in ROLE PLAYING games). For someone to ruin the element of role playing is the same for a person to ruin the main element in any other game. Unreal Tourny for instance you can kill your own teammates thus detracting from your team score. Sometimes people join the game and teamkill the entire time, thus causing their team to always lose. This person is ruiing one of the main elements of the game, and for people to be outspoken about this is wrong?

[Jouk]

... that being a "hard core, no nonsense RPer" might be just as bad as being a KewlDood.

If you do not accept there are people who will not or cannot roleplay, you're just as inconsiderate as the kewldood who forces his way into your game and doesn't think about how his playing affects his surroundings.

Just as "kewldoodism" in extreme leads to grief-guilds, etc, people who strictly enforce staying IC all the time and RPing 100% of the time lead to closed "cliqués" that are difficult, if not impossible to get in to and only seem to in-breed (if you pardon my Texan).

And in closing, they're not promoting RPing anymore to the unwashed masses, but rather locking the door and barring the windows, thus doing quite the opposite.

I've personally seen kewldoods and your Average Joe, casual players, converted to roleplayers. But you can't do that if you close up and refuse to deal with them and step OOC once in a while.

And I've also seen games and groups of people in games that are so "serious" about roleplaying and hate kewldoods so vehemently that they give new and beginning players, who are sometimes budding RPers, no chance to exist in the small bubble they call their world, thus churning them back out among the masses who still most certanly *do not* roleplay in general...


P.S. I believe he said both mandated and enforced RPing is a "horrible idea"... ;)


P.P.S. Heavens no, I'm not saying the current Arcanity community is like that... ;P

[Morte]

While I agree that really defining good roleplaying is not easily done, I have some objections to the loose definition you gave. Although a character being roleplayed might reflect ideals or the personality of their creator, I know from experience that this often is not true. I have roleplayed a wide variety of characters, some so different from each other that by your definition I could bot have played them all. While I agree that there is probably an element of my personality in each one of them, putting in more would be too restrictive. While I currently play a secretive, power-hungry and thoroughly evil God with a very low opinion of everyone beside himself (I modelled him after Edqin from the BG series), in the past I have also played a Righteous Paladin, a morbidly obese gnome wizard, etc. etc. You can choose whichever role you wish to play, and it should not be restricted by your own personality, your own ideals. It is much more fun, and much more challanging to play a character that is totally different from the real you.

While I have some problems with kewld00ds, I do agree that the policing that is described is not the way to go either. Forcing people to roleplay in a certain way is not a good idea, as everyone has their own way to do so. If, for example, players would be forced to use thee's and thou's, and generally have to speak ye ol'e englsih all the time, I would reach for the delete key within five minutes. That said, I do think however that people should roleplay, and with that I mean more than saying 'I'm an evil psychopath, so I'm allowed to go on a killing spree, killing only those I deem too weak to defend themselves'. Although it is not good to enforce certain ways of roleplaying, it is a MMORPG after all, and people should roleplay to the best of their ability, and if they are totally unable to roleplay, they should play another game. Of course it shouldn't matter where you log off, or if you say you have to go pick up the phone and if someone can watch your back for a minute. Playing games should be fun, and having to follow strict rules and regulations is not the way to go.

[Jouk]

... they're not MMORPGs anymore. Everyone is calling their games MMOGs or MMOPWs. "Persistent World" seems to be the "in" word these days, since majority of the current, or would-be, customers are not, and probably will never be, RPers.

We're a breed that's getting quickly stomped on by the rushing barbarian hordes they call "newbies"... :eek:

[Kintoun]

AH I also said that both mandated and enforced RP'ing is wrong, but I said that encouraged RP'ing is not wrong. If I said otherwise I didn't mean to as it was late and I was typing fast =).

[Talka]

Perhaps there should be a role-playing police thing.

Law #1: If you fail to capitilaze a letter that should be, we slap you.
Law #2: If you say the word "kewl" we slap you.
Law #3: If you speak in "l33t" language, we slap you.
Law #4: If you abbrievate things, we slap you.
Law #5: If you PK for fun and no RP reasons, we beat you.

Instead of arresting you, we will beat/slap you!

Just kidding...

Its my personal belief that arcanity will be a game that attracts Role-Players. Of course, there will always be "kewl do0ds" who ruin the atmoshpere from time to time, but there are ways to ignore them.

However, I have mentioned, in a different post, the game that I originate from, Nexus. In Nexus there were "Sub-paths" which were basically, for role-players. Warriors could be Barbarians, Chonguns, and Dos. Mages could be Diviners, Shaman, and . Poets could be muses, . And rouges could be Spys, Shawdows, and Merchants. To get into one of the sub-paths you had to be lvl 50+, and basically you had to be pretty good at role-playing the role. The Spy Sub-path has 16 members (in comparison to the 2,000 people that play the game). However, the barbarian guild had around 100.

The above is just an EXAMPLE (it wouldn't work in Arcanity for many reasons) of role-playing REWARDS. The best way to encourage rle-playing is to give awards. This makes the kewl doods roleplay even though they don't want to. The "iffy" role-players role-play too, so its almost like a training course for them.

Of course, if that doesn't work, we can always resort to slapping people.

--Talka

[BelDragos]

In simplicity create a character.

Choose how the character reacts with the world.

Do what he would do in that particular situation.

Have fun



Also there is nothing wrong with excusing yourself to get a pizza of to use the bathroom. Just make the OOC talk minimal so it doesn't interfere with the others.

[Kymeri mac An Iolar]

I agree that enforced, mandated or policed roleplaying is BAD!.

What we have always talked about here is the ways to ENCOURGE players to roleplay. How our charactors would respond to l33t talk etc. Rolepalying rewards such as the point system with quests and gods and reward points from the CM's that would allow people to garner cool items and such.

I would NEVER agree to a system of automatic penalties or punishments for not roleplaying. Kewl doodz may somewhat dampen my roleplay expierence, but that would dampen their playing expierence.

Encourgement, positive re-enforcements, leading by example is what will bring in the boarderline players into the roleplaying fold.

With all the people that we have seen here on the boards roleplay is a major reason they have stuck around to see how Arcanity developes. If the first major influx into the game are roleplayers, the as new players join they are going to see mostly roleplayer and hopefully join us.

[z_man93]

I don't think that roleplaying can be dictated by RP police, and it should not have to be. If a game is designed for roleplaying it should come naturally and not be forced upon the participants. That's why I think all of us have become so interested in Arcanity, because it will provide an environment friendly to roleplayers.

If the developers wanted to do something to encourage roleplaying, rather than forcing people to RP they can encourage interaction among characters which will breed roleplaying. And we must set a good example for others. If I join a couple of strangers to go hunt and they don't stay IC all the time, I don't really care. But if I meet with a few of my good friends and we are discussing a specific quest or politics we will most likely stay very IC and people that witness it will appreciate and learn from it.

I think that it is important to be IC during social events and interactions but there are times that it's not so bad if someone drifts OOC. What I really hate is the idiots that use global chat to spew their ramblings. Unless you are close to me or need to speak with me for a specific reason, I really don't want to hear your voice.

[Indigo]

I think that given a chance and exposure that anyone can learn to rp decently. I would like to see a world where there are no roleplaying police. However that said I would also like to just once play a game where some guy isnt announcing which football team won that specific sunday. There has to be a balance. I do not think it is bad for people to meet and talk as they want to .. I joe and jory want to talk football then they should do it among themselves not in across the world chat. But if some fool comes in spouting crap then there should be support to get him to shut up so that the needs of the one dont outweigh the needs of the many ..so to speak.

I have played in gastapo rp land and I have played in the non rp eq.. frankly I didnt like either. Balance is the issue just like with anything else. I had to laugh about the reference to rp clicks inbreeding cause that is so true...as players if we imbrace and not judge those who want to play .. and teach them then our world could be really good. Allenation is never a good tool.. example is as long as there is no snobbery involved. BUT when all else fails we will need the backing of the gaming staff because players should not have to deal with crappy people whose sole purpose is to ruin everyone elses fun. Roleplaying should be mandatory.. Ie this is a roleplaying game.. we expect you to at least try..but ooc among friends should not be considered a crime. And the players themselves should never be set up to judge each others skills for that is the role of the gods.

I also hope that there is no such thing as world wide broadcasts of any type. If you wanna talk .. by god go find someone to talk to, just dont spout to the heavens:)

[Dyson]

I think one of the simplest and most effective ways to control roleplaying is giving dedicated groups of players a lot of power within their own organizations and structures.

UO had a good system where player-run buildings could create a "ban list;" when someone came in who had the intent of simply ruining things for people, the owner of the building could add their name to the list, and they simply wouldn't be able to enter the building again.

I'd like to see this sort of option in Arcanity (maybe guilds can hire NPC guards who have a list of people not to let in). In my opinion, it differs from RP cliques because it doesn't necessarily advocate exclusion or being pompous, it simply allows someone to maintain the atmosphere they'd like within their structure.

[z_man93]

OK, this brings-up something that I was thinking of and has a little to do with what Dyson just mentioned.

First will we have the ability to build our own towns? It seems like we will. And if we pick a good location and build good roads then our towns should flourish. Now, relating to what Dyson just said, maybe the town mayor or the lord of the castle can put a persons name on a list and then if that person tryies to enter the town the guards will stop them. What is really important to me is having real town guards and not NPC guards. But what can a town guard do in order to keep peace if they fear bad karma by killing someone. Obviously we don't want the town guards running around killing everyone but they should be able to slap around someone that isn't behaving. And do this without fear of negative karma.

And what if someone wants to be a tyrant, so you go kill a few innocent people, all of a sudden you can't buy goods even in your own town. We should have a system where the town mayor and maybe cheif of police can have a list of people that have no rights as far as reporting. But this power would be limited to the particular lords sphere of influence. This does two things, 1. it gives you more control over the areas that you occupy, and 2. it makes imperialism work.

1. How does it give you more control? Say that you are a lord of a town. And you are not the most righteous person in the world. You have dealings with some underworld figures and you owe them a favor. One of their assassins has just killed someone in a nearby village and there are bounty hunters on his tail. You can let the assassin into your village but let your guards know that if the bounty hunters give them trouble, they can kill the bounty hunters without fear of negative karma. When the bounty hunters arive they are met by the guards who refuse them entry. They will most likely leave or they can try to fight their way into the village but they know that they can be killed without the guards suffering repercusions. This will make the occupation of being a guard quite interesting. Of course there can still be NPC guards but just like NPC smiths, they are not as good as the real thing.

2. How does it help imperialsim? It really gives you realistic conrol over the lands that you occupy. If you take over a country the locals are probably not going to be too happy with you. So how can you inforce your laws if your guards are scared of getting negative reports filed against them. So you can put all the village leaders on a list of people that can be killed in case of a revolt. And if your guards notice people of an enemy army entering a village of yours the enemy can be killed on sight without fear of repercussions.

How does this relate to roleplaying and what Dyson mentioned. Well if there are people in your town that cause a comotion because of their OOC rantings you can sick your guards on them if they do not cease. This does one other great thing. It does not completely deny access to certain people it just allows the town official to take action. Because realisically if you want to ban someone from your town and they happen to be stronger than all of your guards put together, then good luck. Access cannot realistically be completelt denied. This will make strong guards a highly sought after commodity.

[Dyson]

Z_man93, I really like the direction you're going; giving town rulers (and other officials) lots of options in dealing with troublemakers is the right way to go.

On the subject of PC vs. NPC guards, I'd like to see both. Facing facts, most people are not going to want to spend their online game time standing outside the city gates to watch everyone who goes in or out. To this, I propose this solution:

Every town has a military. Standard guard posistions are filled by NPCs of varying levels of skill. Players can also "sign up" for the military; starting posistion is town guard. At any point while in town, a Military PC can go to the local barracks and "clock in," officially becoming an "on-duty" guard, and gaining all the requisite abilities that come with it (calling for other guards, attacking criminals, etc- which they CANNOT do while "off duty"). While a PC is on duty, a matching NPC guard goes off-duty (disappears into the barracks). When the player has had enough of being a guard, they go back to the barracks and "clock out," which returns them to their normal abilities (and summons an NPC guard to fill out the ranks). Some cities will be big enough that the standing town guard will be mostly PCs, but probably no city will have 24-hour PC protection. As benefit for being a Guard, players may recieve some small amount of money (maybe a few coins for every hour, or a VERY small amount of XP for every five minutes, or so), and of course, gets substantial bonuses for collaring criminals (as well as a share of any confinscated loot).

Since people are paying for Arcanity, it wouldn't be a great idea to make the job of Guard "binding" (ie, you HAVE to stand around for at least 3 hours a day, etc). Rather, players clock in and out pretty much when they feel like it. Promotion is handled by several factors- After logging in a certain number of hours "on the clock," (ie, 20), a player guard becomes eligible for a promotion (to Captain of the Guard, etc). Obviously, a dedicated player who spends an hour every day on the watch tower is going to be eligible much faster than someone who only occasionally assumes guard duty. Additional restrictions or benefits could help narrow the "promotion pool," ie, if there's one hyper-dedicated guard who's been spending more than 3 continuous hours at his duties each day and is catching a lot of criminals, she / he might be eligible to "skip" certain promotion levels (going directly to High Captain or Supervising Captain rather than Captain, etc).

Higher-up Guards gain additional priviledges and abilities; for instance, they may be given authority over a Guard Unit, either one that exists as a fixture in the town infrastructure or a free-roaming one (for instance, Captain A may be the Captian of the East Watch Tower Unit, whereas Captain B may be Captain of Roving Unit 2, which can be sent out of town to attack nearby structures like Goblin Forts or Bandit Camps). In huge kingdoms, the potential for promotion becomes extreme, and benefits for everyone increases as simple town militias give way to full-fledged armies.

Some players may repeatedly pass up promotions, preferring to remain the "local Gate guard," who knows everyone and frequently adventures off-duty with people he meets in the course of his day. Other players may really enjoy the dynamic logistics of commanding a small guard squad (which, remember, always has the same number of guards, as NPC guards fill in for absent PCs), which other players will prefer the time-consuming politics and world-affecting power that comes with being High City Captains or even Kingdom Generals.

[z_man93]

Yeah, I like those ideas Dyson!!! And giving someone an opportunity to advance as a guard would make the occupation of guard more desirable. Afterall, how would you like to be an Elite Royal Guard? or something like that, it sounds cool!

OK, heres some more ideas, mainly on town development and government. Again, I'm looking to have a character that will be a strong warrior and lead a great army. So I'm interested in exactly how a new town can be established and how an existing town can be overthrown. So here goes.

Everyone knows that there is more opportunity for an individual and business in a large town as opposed to a small one. This can be argued, in some cases a small town does offer great opportunity. But in general a large town offers more. And a town with a good infrastructure is usually more desirable due to its easier access for trade and commerce. So I think that the ideal town in Arcanity will be large and offer many products and services and be easily accessible to traders.

So what might be a good system for establishing a new town. First and foremost there needs to be a building that repesents the government. I think that the first step in establishing a new town is to build a townhall. The townhalls should be quite expensive, and can be built by the same people that build roads.(I'm not sure how road building works but BHT said it will exist and be done by NPC's) Since townhalls are expensive it will ensure that not every yahoo will be able to found a town. Once a townhall is built it will be controlled by a single person that will be the town mayor. And being the mayor will allow you to go to the townhall and make decisions for the town. Some of those decisions will be about new buildings, taxes, and other political appointments.

So what new buildings can be built? These can range from black smith shops, item shops, hotels, guild halls, and barracks. Like Dyson mentioned, by establishing a barracks you have basically created a police force. You can establish these buildings as either PC or NPC run. If they are PC owned then the owner can pay for them. If they are NPC run then the mayor will have to pay for them. But since the town will recieve taxes on the goods and servics provided it might be a good investment for the mayor. Now, the types of buildings and services can be extremely diverse and really provide a unique feel for each town.

TAXES: The mayor will be able to establish taxes for the town. These can be property, sales taxes, or other. In return the resident will expect protection and continuous improvement to the town.

Political Appointment: this can include Captain of the Guards, and maybe even local lords.

****Just had another idea!!! When a character dies, rather that respawning at a central location or maybe the nearest town - what if you were able to build a house in a town and then you could always respawn to that location. This would also allow you a place to keep any excess equipment or money. Rather than throwing everytihng into a bank. Also this would allow taxes to be charged on homeowners which will help to grow the town. So larger towns will attract more people, and you see how this is self-perpetuating. The other thing that this will do is make sacking a town very interesting if you were able to get all the goods from a house when you destroy it. Which again will make people want to live in secure towns. Which brings us back to what we were originally discussing.

OK so what does everyone think? Should BHT do something like this?

[Dyson]

I really like the direction your ideas are going in, especially about the houses.

One thing I think is pretty essential, though-
Delegation of Power. The Mayor (or Lord, when the town gets big enough to be a City, or King when enough cities declare allegiance to one ruler) should pretty much just control taxes and appoint the Officials directly under him/her.
IE, the Mayor of a Small town would appoint the Captain of the Guard, but would have no "official" authority in appointing minor Captains (captain of the Watch, etc)- these duties would fall to the Captain of the Guard (though the Mayor can probably influence these decisions if he/she wishes, simply by appointing a Captain of the Guard who will appoint as instructed).

Ways for the Mayor to Leave Office:
Step Down, Appoint a New Mayor- (obvious)

Popular Vote- People can declare (perhaps at the town hall) on who they Support as Mayor. When the current Mayor has lost the majority of the town's support, his/her powers are taken away the next time she/he dies. The Rights of Mayor are then bestowed on whoever has the majority of Support.

Note: This "voting" should be abstract (ie, a pop-up menu, not a physcial "ballot box,") to reflect a Peasant Uprising scenerio, rather than a Democracy one.

Also Note: Only "Citizens" of the town may declare support; however, CMs should keep a close watch on Towns so they can arbitrate situations in favor of reality and not Game Mechanics. IE, if one town is Invaded by a rival Army, all the Guards are killed, all the residents are driven out or killed, and for all intents and purposes the town is "occupied," it doesn't make much sense for the peasants to respawn and resume as normal the next day when the bulk of attackers have Logged Off. Therefor, in situations where a Town is considered "Conquered" (to be judged by the CMs), the posistion of Mayor is bestowed on the leader of the conquering army, and all other posistions are filled as she/he dictates. All current "citizens" are considered ejected, though in fairness to paying customers, any possessions "banked" in their homes do not suddenly become lootable, but are simply inaccessible until the player establishes a new place of residence (ie, once you get a new house in a new town, any possessions stored in your old house are available again). This applies only to items "stored," not things like Furniture or special things applied to the old house, like a Rune on your door or magic shutters or the like.

Any city assets (ie, Taxed Money in the Treasury) remain with the city, becoming the property of the conquerers. This likewise applies to equipment used by the Town Guard, and any "stock" in NPC-owned stores (PC stock is counted as House Property and goes with the owner).

An official computerized system for "town conquering" can be implemented later, once the job becomes too big for the CMs to manage (ie, when enough big warring kingdoms get established that towns are constantly "changing hands"), and after the existing town system has been analyzed and tweaked for potential flaws. All in all, this system is a good start, and is easy to modify.

How's this sound to people?

[Dyson]

Another Word on Town Guards:
To clarify how I suggested heirarchy be handled: potentially, I see the same system in use for Mayor functions to be used by Guard Captains; ie, groups of soldiers fall under the authority of their Lietenent, the Lietenents fall under the Captain of the Guard, who is commanded by the Mayor (who is commanded by his Lord or King, if applicable). Mayors have tax (and in turn, are subject to the favor of the Voting Public), but otherwise have the same functions as any other member of the Hierarchy.

Diagram:

Unit Guard- appointed/commanded by Unit Lietenent
Unit Lietenent- appointed/commanded by Captain of the Guard
Captain of the Guard- appointed/commanded by Mayor

etc.

-GGGG------GGGG-----GGGG---
-----------------------------
---L--------L---------L-----
---------------------------
----------CptG--------------
---------------------------
------------M---------------

ignore the horizontal lines ("-"); they're just for spacing.

I apologize for the very long posts. :)


[Edited by Dyson on 05-29-2001 at 09:52 PM]

[z_man93]

Yeah thats along the same lines as what I was thinking of. Like when the mayor uses a town hall to setup some of his tasks, ie. taxes, appointments, etc - a guard captain can use the barracks to setup appointments in his group, and maybe set the number of NPC guards and the pay rate for PC guards. I guess that what I was trying to say is that we can use buildings as a general management tool.

As far as conquering towns. You brought up a good point about all the towns people coming back after the attackers have logged off, thats something that concerned me as well. Thats why I think this is such a good idea. Because who ever has control of the townhall can appoint a guard captain who can put security measures in place. That way even if every single one of your men is logged off, you can still have a bunch of NPC guards protecting the city. And like I mentioned earlier about having a list of people that are banned from your territory, maybe after a new aquisition you would put the town under martial law for a few days and have all security persons and infantry from the previous government be killed on sight.

As far as if you had a house in a town that has been sacked, I do disagree with you on a couple points here. If your town is sacked I believe that the attacking forces should be able to loot whatever you have in your home. This is why you would want to establish your home in a strong city and might be sceptical of building a home in a frontier area. Also this will encourage towns people to want to protect their city. If they have nothing to lose then why should they care if their town is sacked?

[Indigo]

it was my understanding that once killed npc would not automatically respawn. I remember a discussion on an orc town that bht responded to saying that if you went and killed all the orc it might take several years for them to rebuild if they ever decided to come back to that location at all... if that is the case it might not be in your best interests to kill off all the towns people:) .. Once a town is taken, perhaps with a symbol like a flag or crown then the peasants might conform to the new hierachy or just migrate to somewhere else.

I really have no opinion on the military plan of involvement. It is not something I would consider much fun so I have no opinion either way. As far as building towns and such I would have to know what bht plans for 'ease of building' to even give an opinion. Personally though I hope that there are common towns and that if you want to build your own place you have to do it elsewhere.. build a keep in the mtns ect.. a guild hall.. a house next to a running brook with a great view. When you are talking about building up an entire town is the one player in charge going to go into civ mode and make sure commerice, industry, housing and food needs are all met? And if you screw up will all your npc leave? If you do manage to build a great keep that will attract npc to come live there will you be able to offer them the protection they need when the maurading orc come to visit? Its a very complex social system.. and possibly a 24x7 job..anyone who has ever played civilization, or pharoh knows how hard it is to keep going. Thats alot of mob programming:) .. my two cents.

[z_man93]

It is a lot of work, but thats exactly what some people are interested in. I know of quite a few people that are interested in trade, commerce, and politics, among other things. And I would like to give them a system that they can work with. Nothings free, and they want a prosperous career then they should have to work for it.

As far as killing people in towns...NPC or PC, an invading army probably wouldn't want to kill everyone, unless you have no need for their services. You are right, I to remember BHT saying something to the effect of what you mentioned. I think its a great concept and I can't wait to see it in action. As far as this other stuff maybe they can test some of it in Beta and see peoples reaction.