static vs dynamic towns

[Mephistopheles]

Hello, I 'd like to try and brainstorm how we can make towns more dynamic in a way that will fit changes, the change I mean is the drastic town changing rp that is extremely difficult for the staff mostly due to so much work put into the NPCs which are all over and are rather specific about the towns. So say leader gets thrown out of power, or the town becomes uninhabitable for even a short time, or the enemy of the realm is finally defeated (such as schnellbeil or that Hastings guy or hammerfall dwarves) or town officials want to change their policy on their patron gods.

Perhaps information on the towns could be more or less historical in nature and very vague, I remember when pretty much all info on a town was learned from the players and not the NPCs.

[Estralis Seborian]

I fully support this brainstorming. I also look for ways to make Illarion more dynamic and have some promising ideas. But I don't want you to review my ideas but to come up with your own ones!

One thing should be clear: If you say "dynamic", you need to mean dynamic. Illarion shall be an everchanging word and dynamic should not be misinterpreted as "from one static situation to another without improvement". For me, dynamic does not mean to throw over the Don of Galmair and replace him with... nothing. A dynamic world means to me that things change on a monthly, weekly and maybe even daily base. Politics but also small things like wandering caravans or just seasons. For this, we need a certain baseline, a scenario, a stage. This stage shall not be misunderstood as static limits but as enabling support.

So, it is not a dynamic situation if you e.g. add a coal mine to Runewick homeland. The process to add the mine is a dynamic step, but you end, again, in a static situation. Dynamic does not mean to change the world to another state but to have ongoing changes, frequently and with notable impact. Just don't do the Gobaith mistakes again and don't be tempted to consider removing a certain baseline will increase the dynamics.

[Po Will]

So, like random acts that are programmed in to happen randomly when you're walking would count as a dynamic world an the likes aye? Can remember reading that being of the desires for a milestone.

Until we reach that point, for the towns at the moment, we could expand them, like you said with a mine or the likes, but to justify that and to keep it dynamic, there would have to be certain situations that come from that, so it doesn't go A + b = C. So, continuing with your example. Say Runewick gets a mine, alas, whilst digging it out, a chamber has been unlocked, revealing some undead buggers, a mini quest could then spawn from that and countless other quests could come from it. It all depends on the imagination of those involved, whether or not there's enough staff for this to happen and the likes. Am I right, or off by a bit?

[Mephistopheles]

I really like the idea of programmed dynamic events like the Galmair bridge for example however, when I say Dynamic I would like to see Runewick get a mine then have some jerk group be able to come up and collapse it. Illarion is a place where you should be able to do anything at all, and so it shouldn't take massive rework for a change to happen however temporary or permanent. My main concern here is the npcs, devs would have to slave day and night to re-script them for a change to happen to the structure of any of the towns.

[Po Will]

Well, it would depend on what kind of change town wise you have in mind, at the very most, I would think the only change needed for the NPC's of the chances would be dialogue differences, unless we're talking about blowing up a house or the likes, and an NPC being caught in the blast.

[Mephistopheles]

What I mean by the npcs needing a massive rework is say for example, I had once a small group willing to start a plot against Cadomyr by trying to reason with the Dwarven king of Hammerfall. I struggled very hard to get players interested in the plot and it was planned fairly well, however when the proposal was presented, the response was that though the plot and plan was sound and would provide great un, it wasn't possible. Why? Well there's probably 15-30 or more npcs hailing the Queen or cursing that albarian woman. Npcs have a wealth of information about all the towns, about their gods, their customs. Its leaves little room for even a slight change in any of that. Granted it might be some time before there is a change in leader or customs, but... change eventually happens. An empire may last a hundred years but it'll fall eventually. What I hope is tha it won't cause problems for staff and the game in order for that to even happen.

[Kugar]

Some good ideas here. I think to be truly dynamic we would need to get to the stage were players can both build a wall and destroy a wall (or any static object, but wall seems the most obvious thing) with the right materials, or items like battering ram that take atleast four players to hold (so that it has to be a guild thing and not any one player alone can destroy/build something big. Cooperative rp ftw). In terms of overthrowing a kingdom or vice versa, building a kingdom or settlement, this seems like the obvious route for a dynamic world. But yeah, building seems to be on the list in the dev plans so maybe something like this can be considered.

Ofcourse, all of this is an aside, I'm not trying to hijack the thread.

[Uhuru]

I see where you are headed and like it, but how do we change the NPCs in such a way that they are still somewhat informative to newer players too? This question must be answered.

[Kugar]

I see where you are headed and like it, but how do we change the NPCs in such a way that they are still somewhat informative to newer players too? This question must be answered.

Devs would have to keep a close eye on the happenings in game (which I'm sure is part of the job description) and change the script accordingly? Or maybe I am overlooking something. Pretty easy to change an npc text, right?

[Uhuru]

I believe that is where this whole thread began...

Hello, I 'd like to try and brainstorm how we can make towns more dynamic in a way that will fit changes, the change I mean is the drastic town changing rp that is extremely difficult for the staff mostly due to so much work put into the NPCs which are all over and are rather specific about the towns. So say leader gets thrown out of power, or the town becomes uninhabitable for even a short time, or the enemy of the realm is finally defeated (such as schnellbeil or that Hastings guy or hammerfall dwarves) or town officials want to change their policy on their patron gods.

Perhaps information on the towns could be more or less historical in nature and very vague, I remember when pretty much all info on a town was learned from the players and not the NPCs.

it wasn't possible. Why? Well there's probably 15-30 or more npcs hailing the Queen or cursing that albarian woman. Npcs have a wealth of information about all the towns, about their gods, their customs. Its leaves little room for even a slight change in any of that.

The staff has much work to do. Just updating existing NPCs for every slight game change is going to be a huge waste of their time, which is why Mephy's request was probably denied. You will have to come up with some better NPC foundation, which won't require constant upkeep and maintenance if you wish to pursue this course. This is all I am saying.

[Djironnyma]

Btw not only NPCs but also questlogs, triggerfields, mapdatas, books, hompage references....

[Estralis Seborian]

To fuel this brainstorming: killing a faction leader was already brought up. Aren't there other ideas? Let's consider for example faction relationships. Resources and goods could result in interesting scenarios. What about conquer the flag games? Religion? Magic? Let the ideas flow!

[Po Will]

Faction relations, depending on the on goings between them lets use Runewick and Galmair for example, the prices at the shops or the likes goes up, drastically charging them, which could cumulate in a battle or the like, akin to what Vron said in his thread. For the resources, set a number of resources that can be gathered or the likes in a IG or real life month, take fishing for example. Say we set the cap to five thousand per the entire area, so Runewick/Yewdale's fishing area, if you go beyond that, the pools could yield less, forcing would-be fishers out onto boats in the sea. One way I could see that working, is if we had boat portal thingy, much like the boats we have now, but it would change area, again depending on how many fish you've caught and the likes.

For flag games, I think that could be ran mostly by the players themselves, somewhat like the games that Galmair seems to have. In regards to religion, the more people dedicated to a shrine of one of the gods, the more power/abilities that become open to that particular priest and the likes. Driving people roleplaying priests to have a reason to try and convert people to their particular god. These are just going off your points, likely could think up some more later

[GolfLima]

* as i know Runewick & Cadomyr were "allied" all the time and enemies to Galmair so Cadomyr / Runewick <- -> Galmair is the basic setting (not sure if this was intended from the beginning)
* only in some situations the all work together but never were allied (( they need to work together otherwise they couldnt win against ... ))