IDEAS FOR RYZOM

Just some ideas I would like to explore:

- The option to buy GHs and/or Homin Apartments in towns other than the capitals. I can understand logic behind arguments requiring GHs to remain in the Capitals, but Apartments should be available in any town. Do the homin who work in those towns return to the capital cities to sleep?

- The option to buy expansions to the GH (and possibly apartments) in storage space if not storage space and actual internal design. I would agree that if allowed, the expansions should get exponentially more expensive to keep guilds from essentially unlimited space.

Variant:

One way of implementing these would be to require us to collect the mats to build the new buildings and expansions. Only allowing access to them once necessary mats are completed. This would give us some simple long awaited non-conflict based things to do in game (and as described below, something for the governments to actually...govern). The idea could even be expanded to other additional structures...

- Defensive ramparts in towns
- Player accessible watchtowers in towns or around capitals
- Gardens
- Racial specific buildings such as (mines for Fyros, meditation temples for Zorai, etc.)

All these buildings of course would have preplanned position and would work like the old temples did. But, if there was a time limit to the building, each nations respective government would have to decide upon the most important structures and convince their constituents to work to gather resources...and donate them to the correct building. Otherwise, without coordinating an effort, none will get completed before the time limit.

Yes, adding appartments to towns should be as easy as putting a portal to the "appartment zone" in one of the town buildings. Would give the towns some more use.

And been waiting for a long time for something to build :)
However, I'd argue the time limit is exactly what we don't need. We've had several events like that already (temples, guard camps) and the problem is once the event is over... well, it's over. I'd like something that we can chose to build on whenever we want, also when there's not an event going on.

Ofcourse, this would bring problems with overcrowding and the entire world becoming full with buildings, so will require some mechanism that destroys the buildings again too. Perhaps they could be reconsumed by Atys if no regular upkeep is done, at least for the peacefull buildings. Watchtowers would go down in Kitin Invasions :D

Wonder how "player accessible watchtowers" would work gamemechanically.... players inside can shoot or cast out and have like X% damage protection from the tower?

Player climbs the tower, and launches burning bodoc droppings toward invaders from the watchtower catapult? I think that could work rather well =)

I rather like the idea regardles, just for the feeling it'd give when your party, plowing through a sea of invading kitin, reaches a watchtower. Or when your party, running from a sea of invading kitin, reaches a watchtower.

Though I do have trouble rationalising how a guard tower is going to protect anyone from kitin that are generally bigger than the tower XD

Well, I was specifically thinking of launchers and guns and how those would mix with kitin during invasions. The popularity of launchers for PvP could be extended to masses of kitin. Many kitin are smaller and would not be able to reach you on the upper platform of a tower, yet you could still "shoot" off. Perhaps a single ramp to the top keeps kitin "able" to attack you...but the ramp is inside the defenses and could be defended by meleers. Same thing with defensive ramparts (between towers?). I know this is starting to sound castle like, but castle-like structures were built in many different parts of the world without influence on each other because the need was the same, defensible positions. Pyr has a large wall around it. It blows my mind that with the threat if kitin invasion always only a rumor away, and the memory of what happened in the old lands that there are not more castle-like structures.

I also agree Marelli, I would prefer not having a time limit...perhaps these player made buildings "decay" and require an upkeep of mats. I suggested the time limit as a way to give the player governments something domestic to do.

Alternately, if we are just looking for something to build (which I think would be fun), and using the logic above (and the OOC knowledge fo impending kitin activity) give us each a fortress to build in each region. These fortresses could be placed on one of the outpost ruins and give some sort of tactical advantage in the upcoming struggles...no time limit to finish them, but if you are not done by the time the struggles come, that region does not get the advantage.

Oh, and alternately...as Eri suggested, why not a large auto-launcher build into the tower?

Hmmmyes, good point there also, launchers are very popular in PvP but hardly used in invasion events, though they'd be so cool there :D

There are several reasons why this is so ofcourse, from invasions being usually battles of attrition rather than quick and decisive battles, and guns being devastating against casters but mediocre against mobs, to players not wanting to spend so much ammo on a battle where they personally have nothing to lose.

Would take quite some restructuring to make guns useful in invasions. But an easy fix I've seen suggested before was to make free ammo available at invasions that disappears from your bag again once the invasion is over.

As for the towers... your vision of them as actual buildings that you just walk into and climb up the ramp, as in the Thesos bar, would be the best but would probably require a whole re-doing of the collision engine.

(Ever fled into a little tunnel and seen how dozens of kitin can just follow you in despite not possibly fitting in? Yeah, so this would probably happen with the towers to; in the middle of a kitin invasion the players on the top floor of the tower would soon find themselves swarmed by dozens of kitin who somehow all raced up the ramp and somehow manage to fit on the top of the tower :P)

Hence why I was thinking a mechanism more like riding your mount would probably be easier to implement. You 'enter' the tower, like you 'mount' a mektoub, and then your character just appears on top of the tower, can't move but can still cast spells and shoot guns, and can't be hit by melee attacks and possibly have some extra protection from ranged attacks.

As to ammo...give homin access to community storage on these defensive buildings...with forewarning we could load them up with ammo.

I agree with the towers and ramps vs. portals. Those were the two options I considered, but I do not think it right if the people on the tower cannot be attacked at all. Maybe a compromise would be to make the tower attackable...if the tower is destroyed the homin in the tower appear on the ground around the ruins with half life...which also probably happens to be in the middle of the kitin swarm...lol. There could also be a cool tower collapse animation (and, once these towers were implemented...they might be available to build in OPs...but this is a seperate debate).

Oh yes, portal to the top of the tower would work too...

Attackable and destroyable towers would actually fit perfect in existing mount mechanics, now that I think about it. A mount already has it's own health and is attackable and if it 'dies' the player just falls off - they could probably just copy-paste that whole bit of code to the tower, it just needs a lot more health.

All that needs tweaking is that, unlike with mounts, players on a tower couldn't move but could still cast. And just think, if they implement that, it'll also be just a small step to finally allowing us to attack from mount-back ;)

Combat from mounts? Giving  us even more strategies to explore in PvP and PvE?....*gasp*


Anyways, you just mentioned to me in-game that campfires could be viewed as a first step toward this...I agree but I want to clarify my original intent and this new possibility, just for the benefit of whomever might be reading.

Initially I meant for everything to be built in predetermined places...you would donate the mats to a "local architect" NPC (maybe a menu pops up allowing you to choose which structure to donate to if there are several locally) and the building would go up...but I also think they should require a HUGE number of mats. This way it becomes something we all actually have to work toward.

Alternately, if we look at it from the perspective of campfires, it becomes an architect profession...which allows you to place a building foundation and add mats to it until the building is complete. This is a different idea, but just as valid in my mind. This would work as long as partially built buildings decay (and disappear eventually if left to do so), and the number of mats required to make any building are such a large amount that it would be implausable for all but the largest or most dedicated guilds or a faction/civ as a whole. Once completed, I agree that the buildings should not decay unless damaged. Once damaged, it decays and must be completed as if incompletely built.

I would love to see buildings that actually do something, and that the community could donate towards building. All I seem to run into are half built temples and vacant workshops (the non OP lots) that should either be reopened for construction or just removed from the game. As someone who started playing long after the event ended, running into unbuilt temples and not being able to contribute to finishing their construction is annoying as hell.

But then again, so are Goo missions without Goo mobs to hunt down.


On the Guild Hall front, I would love to see some sort of way for people with a lower rank than HO to remove certain items from the hall. Some MMOs use a Karma system, where you get points for placing things into the hall's storage and can only remove items once you have enough points to do so, but it could be as simple as having a private stash that works exactly how the current storage system works, and a public one that any guild member can access and use. That way, a guild can decide to leave low level equipment and q50 - q100 cats in the public storage without fear that new members would take the high end mats, and not have to worry about their members that play opposite hours from the High Officers feeling isolated and ignored by guild management.

I was recently invited into a Homin apartment in Zora, it was lovely, spacious, airy. I looked at the pictures of apartments online. Then I plunked down a million dappers for a claustrophobic nightmare in Pyr. The room is better suited to a short race like the Trykers. The 2 storied design might be nice but the space is so cramped you feel like you have to step outside to change your mind. You have the constant feeling that you are going to bump your head. It is not open, it is not airy, it is more like a cave or a dungeon. Since there are no refunds, and small hope that the design will change, just be aware people. A Pyr apartment is closer to a 2 storied closet than a home. I would like a nice apartment in Pyr, I can live without the private teleporter and two Mektoub garage. I just want a home that is as nice as the other races homes for my million dappers.

I like my apartment in Pyr - it's really nice and cozy!

I'd like access to the roof though... but for that the developers would have to do a lot of changes to the Pyr map :-(

And regarding the older posts:
The tower ideas sound nice - but how about a step in between? (for ease of development)
Deliver "packages" with gear to the towers and once one is fully stocked it's manned by 2-3 guards for a predefined time.
Next steps could be (in no special order):

• it's possible to make the time where the tower is manned longer by resupplying in between
• guards are from the tribe for which the last package was delivered (they know that the stock of the tower is full)
• packages are split into food, weapons, ...
• make the resupply and initial manning of the tower depend on "real" usage (food is time, ammunition is number of killed mobs, ...)
• make it possible to have towers without food supplies which could be manned by players
• make availability of packages depend on players doing missions for the respective tribes (if no missions are done there would only be one package available every Atys month or something like that)

This way it could be implemented very fast and be made more complex over time.