In-Game Editing and Prestige Land Use:

[The Crazy Animal]

Basically what I?d like to see out of this is a way for players build their own prestige buildings and give the building functions.  The way I can see this work is that a sub-area of a baseline content area could be marked off in the game data for the buildings rooms and supporting items like keys. These buildings would then function similar to the gang-houses in mmud but would be extremely customizable. I mean customizable to the point you could turn them into houses to inns, bars, or shops.

The way I'm thinking it could work is by having the game engine read from XML documents that contain both default settings and customizable fields. These XML documents would then be editable from with in the game.

Buying and using Land
Each of the sub-areas open to player development would be divided into plots; these plots would vary in size and price and would be labeled in the room titles as ?Area Name?, plot number. The first room of the plot would have a sign with the price listed and who holds the deed. To purchase a plot of land you simply go find the deed holder and inquire about purchasing the land. Most land located in non-wilderness areas is property of the nearest city or highest ranking authority in the immediate area.

Plot Deeds:
The plot number itself would match-up to a deed for that plot of land. When reading the deed it will give you a list of options for that plot such as building costs and such.

Example Deed:

Deed to Plot #:
Max Allotted Rooms: <Value>
Building Costs:
Room Cost: <Amount>
Door Cost: <Amount>
Conceal exit Cost: <Amount>
Gate Cost: <amount>
Local Tax info:
Property Tax: <amount>

Note on property tax:
I?m not sure if this will be needed but since these buildings are owned rather then rented like in mmud I thought there might be a nice way to tie the taxes into the areas economy.

Developing the land:
When a deed holding player stands on their owned plot it will let them use the build command set.

Note on minimizing map overlaps:
I have to say I really hate map overlaps and would love to have a way of not having them happen with this idea but I can?t figure out a good way of doing it with out effecting how people can build in a bad non-intuitive way.

Plot room commands:
Start building - This command makes a new blank room opposite to the entrance of the plot room you?re standing it.
Check Available Rooms: this will report how many more rooms you have available on this plot.
Destroy building ? This command removes the building from the plot basically resetting it back to it default.

Edit exterior building description ? this command takes you out of the realm briefly to a text editor.
Set Funding Bank: - This will let you switch which funds the building uses for everything from taxes to building costs.

Building room commands:
Check Available Exits: this will report to you what directions you can build in
Build Room <direction> - This makes a room and standard exit in the direction given.
Destroy Room <direction> - This removes a room and standard exit in the direction given.
Conceal Exit <direction> - This command, hides a standard exit in a direction.
Reveal Exit <direction> - This command reveals a concealed exit.
Build Door <exit direction>: - Builds a door on an exit direction.
Destroy Door <direction>: - Removes a door on an exit direction.
Build gate <direction>: - removes a gate on an exit direction.
Edit Room Description ? takes you out of the realm briefly to a text editor.

Set Building Use:
As this gets more thought out I?d like to have shops and stuff in this list also.
Syntax Set building <Type>
Building types:
Private ? this is the default setting for a new building.
Shared ? This opens a few extra controls up and makes the building useable by a group of players.
Gang-house ? This automatically sets the house up for gang use based on your gang.

Shared & Gang-house Commands:
Edit Key List ? This takes you out of the realm briefly and will let you make a list of players that make keys to the building.
- Note for Shared: (The owner will automatically be on the list)
- Note for Gang-house: (the owner, gang leader, and the lieutenants will automatically be on the list)
Edit Allowed list ? This takes you out of the realm briefly and will let you make a list of players you want to have access into the house: (I?m playing with the idea that players not on list would get EP for breaking into the house.)
- Note for Shared: (The owner will automatically be on the list)
- Note for Gang-house: (The owner and gang will automatically be on the list)


Supporting Content for buildings:

Locksmiths Shop ? the locksmith sells locks for your buildings doors, each type of lock has a different difficulty to pick or bash open if not using the key. The better the lock the higher the price is though.

Setting locks: after you buy your lock you simply need to go to the room in your building with the door you want to lock and use one of these commands:
Install Lock <direction>
Set lock auto ? makes the lock relock it self after a few minutes
Set lock manual ? makes the lock require manual locking.
Destroy Lock <direction> removes the lock from the door. (The lock poofs)

You have two types of keys available to you door keys and gate keys. It?s up to the player on how they want to use them in their buildings.

Building Contractor?s shop:
The building contractor sells pre-built scripts for buildings these will be complete with basic interior descriptions. The different building plans will require different room amounts you can use any building plan on any plot so long as you have the minimum number of rooms available to do so. (Thought this might be a nice idea for people that don?t feel up to making their own buildings.)

If you have any ideas for prestige building related stuff post them so we can see if we can get some sort of nice system going that can be implemented.

[Mukami]

You should check out DnD it seems way more your style. i like the idea alot (ive done a very similar thing in a dnd campain) but i just think its a little over-involved for mud.

[The Crazy Animal]

You should check out DnD it seems way more your style. I like the idea alot (ive done a very similar thing in a dnd campain) but i just think its a little over-involved for mud.

Don't take this the wrong way but It's beginning to seem to me that anything for you other then checking your script once a week is too over-involved for you. I'm not sure if you realize why things like this are needed in the game so I'll tell you a few of the major under-laying reasons:

1. It is good to have things that are seemingly over-involved in the game it gets people come to the keys when they have time to do so for reasons other then just checking out their script for a few seconds.
2. MMUD had a broken economy and these prestige spending concepts are a way to help fix parts of it. The more options we have representing things that rich players can spend money on is good for the overall economy of the game because it will keep money valuable.
3. It is inevitable that we will be competing with other games for players and therefore we need ways to offer these players things that MMUD and or other games do not offer. Due to this we can't simply rely on age old gaming concepts handed down from MMUD we need to make them better. However in doing so we need to also provide secondary options for implementing these improvements that are simple enough to execute to those players that have limited amounts of time to spend in game.

Now to keep things simple for people that feel this would be to overcomplicated or require to much effort there is the Building Contractor?s shop. To use it you would just go buy a plan and use the plan while standing in the plot you bought and presto chango there would be the building. Secondly this is not counting any pre-build properties that could be bought or rented by a player.

Since you do like the idea though, what are the types of prestige things that you would like to be able to buy for a house? Maybe a portal to teleport you back and forth from each of your houses. Maybe a NPC butler that can keep a supply-room stocked with non-limited item replacement gear. "Dream a little and pretend for a second or two about what you would want in a house or other building if you had the time to spend on it and or the cash to buy it in game."

[Mukami]

what i really like is to be able to check my script once or a few times a day kinda watch it a bit then do something else. When i have time or need a extra little gammers crack fix i'll want to be able to go kill some bosses or people. or fight if nothing else. i wish there was a little more todo than just go boss hunting. i like the concept of having more quests (which can be as indepth as needed) to do when live. i think you should focus more of your creative energy to that and to rebalanceing the game than to zany or off the wall ideas like buying/building your own land.

and btw if you keep it close enough to major then you wouldnt really be competeing against other games you would just be competeing against major (ooooo). if you think that this game is going to be one to compete with WoW or guild wars or any mmorpg.....good luck

[The Crazy Animal]

what i really like is to be able to check my script once or a few times a day kinda watch it a bit then do something else. When i have time or need a extra little gammers crack fix i'll want to be able to go kill some bosses or people. or fight if nothing else. i wish there was a little more todo than just go boss hunting.

I kinda already figured out that is the extent of your playing the game. Prestige buildings are raid-able areas so this does generate stuff to do when there isn't bosses around or people to fight.

I like the concept of having more quests (which can be as indepth as needed) to do when live. i think you should focus more of your creative energy to that and to rebalanceing the game than to zany or off the wall ideas like buying/building your own land.

That's a nice thought but its not going to happen yet because what you don't seem to get that we need to fix the games economy before we start adding things like lots of quests. This is because quests tend to reward players by means of two key things exp or some type of (liquid or material) capital such as items or cash. The more we add to the game that drops in more capital related rewards the quicker the effects of the broken economy will be felt and if we don't fix it high and low level game-play will both suffer for it. That makes fixing the economy a higher priority then adding things that generate more capital. Prestige spending methods are integral to fixing the existing problem.

and btw if you keep it close enough to major then you wouldnt really be competeing against other games you would just be competeing against major (ooooo). if you think that this game is going to be one to compete with WoW or guild wars or any mmorpg.....good luck

This isn't the way the entertainment market works MMUD competes with everything else on the market as will greatermud. All MMUD has left is a dwindling supply of loyal players because of this and if we only stick to just the market of mmud all we will ever have is a dwindling supply of loyal players. We need to be able to at least recapture some of the player base that have left MMUD for games like WoW. Not doing so would hurt us more so then help us in the long run because if you want to survive in the entertainment marketplace for long you need to be able to both keep and or otherwise increase and replace your player base.

Enough of this though as its getting to be quite off topic and this is supposed to be about prestige building related ideas. If you don't understand what this will add to the game that's fine just ask but I would really like to keep this on topic at least.

[The Crazy Animal]

Prestige Shops:

I?m thinking for player/gang owned shops that they need to be controlled a little better then in mmud. The gang shops always ended up being loaded up with limited items set at super high prices and this basically functioned like an un-touchable safe deposit box for items players didn?t want to risk losing.

There are a few ways we can fix this:

1. We can simply make it so the items that can be listed in player owned shops are only special non-limited items. So how a player could supply their shop is by making deals with NPC?s. The player would then do something like go to the blacksmith and put in an order for 15 swords and then put a special note given by the NPC into their shop and this would cause the swords to spawn in the shop list. The player could then alter the cost of the goods based on an item mark up value.

2. Only let items have a markup of a certain percentage. But other wise have items listed as they were. This might be something like you can only set the mark up to say 500% max.

3. Let the players list anything for any value but make it so that the items remain in a storeroom connected to the shop. This would ensure some chance of getting the item back into the game even if it needs to be taken by force.

4. Some combination of 1, 2, and 3

Secondly I?d also like to have player shops be able to buy a type of item. So a player that owns a shop might be able to set the amount and price they are willing to pay for an item in their shop.

Second making money need to also cost money so I?d like to suggest the following.

Getting a shop:

The way I was thinking that you would get a shop is by going and joining a merchant?s guild. Each area would have a merchant?s guild or representative of one and you would basically pay for a shop license using a system of cash dues charged to you bank account. After you have your license you could then either go to a property you own or and design your own custom shop or buy or rent one of the vacant shops that exist in locations around the realm. This would work fundamentally the same way for gangs but you would be getting a different license type from the merchant?s guild.

Related ideas:
Cash profits bought items and the funds for a shop would be kept in the store room (vault type room with other goods for sale). This would enable player shops to be robed. The difficulty to get in to this room would be based on the type of lock the shop owner buys for their shop and how frequently they clear out the cash from the room.

 
Prestige NPC servants:
I would think the first type of NPC servants that we would have related to prestige buildings are guards.

Guards: Basically what I?d like to do with this is have a system where you buy a NPC or human or trained monster and have them guard your property. The cost of the guard would roughly equate to its power. The simplest might be something like a guard dog this would be a rather large list of humanoid and non-humanoid mobs that would re-spawn at a given rate inside your property and function along side the buildings allow list.

As the AI gets better though I would like to go as far as having NPCs that could make bank runs for you from say your shop to your bank or similar types of helpful functions.