[...] There was an interesting topic doing the rounds earlier this week, related to a post on TerraNova about the concepts of soul-binding, “trophy equipment”, and how different designs impact the general ability to gauge a player’s level of experience, at least, via a review of their equipment.  Raph also commented on the topic, and there was some significant follow-up commentary.  The impact and ramifications of RMT on this kind of situation were touched on as well. [...]

Some details are here … http://mmo.relicsofcorbantis.com/civ.shtml

But basically the idea is to take cities from SWG and turn them into the Coronet/Theed/Ironforge/Ogrimmar for your guild. Tons of functional buildings, NPCs, quest givers and also the added capability of defense structures to defend your city against other guilds who might attack.

A big part of a trophy system designed for player cities (also for guilds which could be like villages, or even individuals with a “manor”) can be bringing back discoveries. We’re used to looted “recipes”, and this same idea can be expanded to this kind of design. Moreover, players could learn a great deal from the world around them.
Wouldn’t players want to learn to build taller, multifloored structures? How about being able to study ruins to learn to construct arches?

There are so many ways to go here, to use a trophy system well beyond personal gear or collectables.

[...] Comments [...]

in SWG, player-cities and houses had little to no function.
i’m talking REAL function. serving an integral role in the game-World.

player cities amounted to little more than customized places to hang out.
they did facilitate Roleplay, but only to an extent. and not much moreso than the 3D graphics facilitated Roleplay.

there were no cities controlling/defending important locations like harbors or mountains rich in resources (in fact, there was no need to defend a city at all, as buildings were unattackable).
their locations, and therefore much of their function was arbitrary.

player houses amounted to little more than extra storage and a decorating mini-game.

characters didn’t need to seek shelter from harsh weather or extreme temperatures. they didn’t need to rest their weary legs, nor their weary heads in a safe and comfortable place.

guild-halls were amounted to little more than player houses with the functionality of forming a guild (which also had little to no TRUE-function in the overall scheme of things).

i realize player-cities and houses in SWG were a popular idea, and that similar mechanics are requested in many other games.
but unless they’re implemented in ways that allow for TRUE functionality, the majority of players will tend to care little about them.

for proof of this, see the many ghost towns littering the landscape of SWG.
(i realize that other factors, like the CU, NGE, ect. contributed to a drop in subscriptions which led to many ghost towns. but ghost towns existed LONG before any of the player exoduses. i was part of a Roleplaying town or two. spending a majority of my time in those towns, i would often only see two or three other characters in town at a time.

in a town of 50 individual houses…

that’s a ghost town.)

Even if it’s not at the top of their agenda, all those little things add up to a more immersive experience, and they miss them when they’re gone. Utility will always be top of mind for most players though, so, in terms of civic structures, the majority of civic structures in a city-building metagame should definitely have utility. The same as if you allow guilds to build guild halls or fortresses or whatever, the things they do should have a benefit for individual players and reason to exist.

In SWG, player cities served several important roles. First, as a mark of achievement. People were proud of their cities. Second, as an economic limiter. By spreading the population out, and with a very limited ability to shop galaxy-wide, local markets were encouraged, and the game economy (which was crafting-based) could support more crafters. And finally, as an enabler to roleplaying and general wordly-ness of the game.

There was a lot more that could have been done with them for sure, that would have made them even more central in the life of the every day player, but to say that most players didn’t care is a severe and inaccurate generalization to make.

Imagine status symbols in the way of golden statues and marble reliefs, magical wells and gryphon flight towers. Can we imagine this as another aspect of “end game”?

Not really. See also SWG where all of this stuff was available and roughly 150 players per server gave a damn about it. Those were the and wannabe mayors. Nobody else cared – all they cared about was the utility. “Does it have a shuttleport, does it have cloning?”

Seriously. Players do not care, or at least not a significant enough proportion that it is therefore a viable financial decision to waste resources on that stuff.

Also, please bear in mind that city-building scatters populations and impacts on other resource-types (whether mobspawns, mineralspawns or anything else). Players like accomodation so it needs to be provided, but for the love of all that’s holy, unless you’re also providing strict per capita limits on number of cities, just provide it inside the static NPC cities instead.

Oh, i wandered off-topic again…

Badges should probably take one of two forms. Either a custom title “Slayer of XXXXX, Defender of XXXXX”, or custom artwork that can be applied by the character.

The way I foresee custom artwork happening would be that every character has certain types of visible items they can wear – like cloaks, tabards, shields, etc. These items carry stats of course, and have their own artwork (so if I pick up an elven cloak, the initial artwork might be a simple green cloak). However, based on my achievements (badges), I might be able to choose a different cloak design to display. So if I’d rescued the Imperial Princess and saved the land from the Demon Lord, I could choose to display that special cloak design instead – purple/gold with the crest of the Empire emblazoned on it perhaps. My cloak would still have its old elven cloak stats, but because of my achievement, I have the option of having a more unique cloak design. You could do it with shields or tabards as well in a fantasy game. In a sci-fi game it would depend on the flavor but I’m pretty sure that there would be two or three pieces where this would work.

As a side note this is also a great way to allow people to show guild affiliation – in fact I believe it’s how EQ2 is handling guild cloaks in the new expansion. Basically it would be like giving all tabards in WoW stats, and then allowing the player the option to display the base item graphic or their guild tabard graphic instead.

Housing is a niche channel with a high bandwidth. Equipment is a mainstream channel with low bandwidth. They both have a place.

I agree. But lets go farther. Guild housing, holds and keeps, has an even bigger place if the game is tailored to social organizations, expanding even as far as city building. Imagine status symbols in the way of golden statues and marble reliefs, magical wells and gryphon flight towers. Can we imagine this as another aspect of “end game”?

It may not be ideal but I think it sort of works. The problem with housing is that most people don’t go visiting other people’s houses. They do notice your equipment when they run by you.

Housing is a niche channel with a high bandwidth. Equipment is a mainstream channel with low bandwidth. They both have a place.