War, Skills, 4.0 And The Future

[Danny 2232]

Hello folks and womanly folks,

 

Long post, but bear with us. There’s no TL;DR - read it, or don’t, essentially. I recommend the latter former.

 

Firstly, I want to give a bit of insight into the decisions about 4.0 that the GM team made the other night, and afterwards I want to detail the war system that is from this point on now in play. If you want to read the war rules, they’re in the spoiler at the end of the post.

 

But, that’s for later.

 

Remaining on the present however, I just want to add in a wee note here. There’s a lot of changes coming in the very near future. A lot of them are aimed to prepare us for 4.0 - so many of the things we say will come with 4.0 (including those in this post, e.g. skills) will actually come before, but right now we don’t know exactly when: so, these things aren’t to be released actually with 4.0, but rather, before and/or nearer to it.

 

There’s a lot of changes that we really are focusing our efforts on: streamlining new player experience, making everything more user friendly, removing restrictions and restrictions -- however, this does take time and discussion, which we’re hoping will be much quicker than the PVP-RP combat escapade we’ll all remember. Decision making has been going much quicker and more fluently recently, and hopefully that will continue, especially with the decision we’re about to make: whether to keep or kick Nexus Combat - but that’s something you’ll need to wait for another post to find out, if you can’t anticipate the answer.

 

But, now we’re looking to the future with 4.0. We know that there’s been quite some debate about the future of the server over the past few days, so, it’s really great that I’m able to announce numerous things right now, as well as actually emphasise some of the things we’ve already said. If you haven’t seen Aislin’s fantastic experiment about the current way new player’s see the server, check it out: http://www.lordofthecraft.net/topic/100077-through-the-eyes-of-a-virgin/. It’s very insightful, and it’s really going to actually allow us to understand even more of what we need to do to streamline player experience.

 

However, onto the actual ‘decisions’ that’ve been taken. These are things we know for definite, although the exact little details, etc haven’t been decided yet.

 

Firstly: skills plugin. What we’re doing is returning back to what we’ve termed a ‘Vaquxine-esque’ plugin with a /skills command, assignment of skills when you first start playing and levels that go up as you build, mine, craft, etc, etc. It’s unclear whether we’ll include combat skills in this or not just now, however, I can say that it won’t actually restrict you from doing anything. It’s a plugin that will give benefits for higher skill levels, not restrictions -- e.g. you will be able to mine anything, but with a level 100 in mining, you can get a chance at a double drop, and things such as that. Exactly the plugin that we’ll go for: whether it be custom or pre-made, e.g. McMMO hasn’t been fully decided either yet, but regardless, it’ll follow the kind of idea listed above.

 

And onto mining: we’ll be introducing vanilla style mining back into the game, but located on a separate ‘mining-only’ map so that we can reduce lag on the main one! This means that you’ll be able to simply go onto the mining world via multiverse teleports and you’ll have the freedom to mine to your heart’s content. Simple.

 

Faaaaaaaaaaaast travelsssssss: will either be gone or very few in number in 4.0. We want to encourage everybody to be centralised into the ‘middle sector’ of the map so RP is condensed, hence distances are very small, so fast travels is really defunct. Chances are we’ll have it only for travelling to event locations, etc *coughcough* the Gauntlet *coughcough*.

 

Mobs. We’re actually going for a bit more of a complex system that we’ve ever had, at least on the technical side: for you guys it’s fairly simple. In the middle of the map, mobs are few and far between and are pretty pathetic chaps. However, the further out you go, the more you enter into their territory. Again, aimed at keeping people in the central areas of the map, if you go too far out you’ll come across zombie pigmen laden with gold armour looking for some poor chap’s skull to pan in, but, if you’re sitting on the main roads you’ll probably just find a lonely zombie.

 

Horses. There’s neigh chance of any more of the current system - rather, you’ll actually be able to find yourself a wee steed galloping around in the vast land of 4.0 and just hop onto him and you’ll be pals for life. That does mean, however, there will be sooome form of restrictions on them, however, not to the extent where you need to wait a week to breed them and can only find them in certain stables.

 

The poll did have quite a few other things, but they still need more discussion because there was a pretty mixed vote, so I don’t want to say anything about them until we know more!

 

With 4.0 - we’re not returning to Aegis - what we’re doing is taking the brilliant aspects of Aegis (nostalgia aside) and morphing them into a map and server that’s also orientated around what we’ve learned.

 

Super-quick ‘mechanic change’ finally with regards to the War system. We’ve had a rather rubbish war system for a while now (if you could even call it a war system), so a group of Nation Leaders, players, GMs and Admins banded together and wrote up a new war system. 

 

I’ll throw in the new war rules below, and also upload them to somewhere on the site shortly.

 

The New War System

 

Types of War

 

These are the different types of war that can be ‘conducted’ on the server:

 

Invasion: One nation invades another. This proceeds according to the War Mechanics section. A nation can only invade adjacent territory or territory they have permission to pass through, and they cannot invade by sea unless agreed on. An invasion only takes place in the nation being invaded. The invader has initiative.

 

After the first battle, if at any time the defender owns all of their territories, they win. This means that if the invader loses the first battle, they immediately lose the invasion. The invader cannot attack that nation for three Elven months unless that nation attacks them. They can still attack other nations, however.

 

Pillage: One nation attacks another settlement in order to sack it. This is a single battle. If won, that nation gets temporary region access to pillage the settlement. If they lose, they cannot attack that nation for one Elven month unless that nation attacks them first. They can still attack other nations, however.

 

War of Secession: One town declares itself independent or allied to another nation. The nation that owned it can immediately declare a warclaim to retake it. This is a single battle, resulting in either the recapture of a settlement or the settlement joining another nation or becoming independent.

 

Civil War: Any number of settlements within a nation can declare Civil War, splitting the nation into Rebel and Loyalist factions. All territories are Neutral save the rebel territories and the capital until they declare themselves Rebel or Loyalist, but they can turn their coats at any time without triggered a War of Secession. However, not siding with the winner may have consequences. This then proceeds according to the War Mechanics section until one faction is destroyed or peace is agreed (which may result in a nation split in two.) Initiative is determined by an open field battle.

 

This means rebel groups cannot actually do anything without controlling at least one territory.

 

Freeform War: The two factions agree on a freeform war and set the terms themselves.

 

 

 

Mechanics of War

 

The mechanics of war are how war works, and what rules must be observed during war time.

 

When two factions are at war, they take turns to ‘warclaim’ adjacent territories (forts, outposts, towns and cities). One faction has initiative, meaning they do the attacking, and they lose initiative by losing.

 

Warclaims are NOT done via a specific format, and nor are they required to be posted on the forums (although, it’s best if the later is done for organisation's sake). They are an agreement between the leaders involved in the war.

 

Prior to the war, battle terms are agreed. These determine what can be used in battles. By default, everything that is mechanically possible is allowed and everything that requires GMs or ModReqs is disallowed. All allies are allowed. This default applies to anything not specified in the terms, so be clear to specify very clearly what is allowed and what is not! Naturally, if the war involves attacking settlements, then some sort of siege weapon has to be agreed. Knowingly breaching the war terms, if proven, results in a server ban.

 

“Surprise attacks”, that is to say, attacks where one faction has allies and the other does not, are disallowed by default.

 

After the first battle has resolved, new territories cannot be built in the war area until the war is over.

 

When a Conquest Battle is won, the winner gets to appoint a new leader of that territory. This leader cannot lead any other territories in the warzone.

 

A war can be ended at any time by a peace agreement between the two factions. Otherwise, it proceeds until one faction is completely under the rule of the other.

 

If a war degenerates into OOC, then the Admin Team have the authority to stop it by majority vote, albeit in a manner incredibly unpleasant for both nation. N.B. It is extremely unlikely that this will ever occur.

 

 

 

Raids

 

Raiding parties have a four man size cap for unaffiliated raids and an eight man size cap for raids from a nation (although this counts as an attack). All raiders require 1a2a, no form of siege weapon (including ladders or grappling hooks) or ModReq access may be used.

 

This system is being put into place, and we’ll see how it goes. If it goes badly, or is detrimental to the server or to roleplay, we’ll remove it. Keep in mind however, it’s not actually us that designed this ourselves, this was designed largely (and I believe mainly) by nation leaders themselves.

 

Cheers to all the guys who worked on the system, and let’s see how well it works!

 

And with that, that’s this post over. Have a great day, and please, if you have any feedback for the current state of affairs or any ideas or proposals for 4.0 throw them up on the forums: 4.0 is largely designed around what you guys think, so don’t think you’re wasting your time. Thanks for reading.

 

#Out.

[IrishPerson 693]

Finally!

 

-EDIT-

First~

Edited by Haelphon

[Yoff 328]

Please make the skills plugin a little in-depth, not how shallow mcMMO feels.

[Lefty 1696]

Can people still deny warclaims?

[Treshure 5817]

Beautiful.

[Haelphon 407]

"Horses. There’s neigh a chance"

 

 

But seriously, thanks for the update! :D

[VonAulus 2082]

Too bad you are not as cool as gronk. 

[Danny 2232]

Too bad you are not as cool as gronk. 

 

I know. :|

[Cyndikate 2303]

Four man?

[iris1612 1780]

Yaaaay! *goes back and actually reads the post*

[shiftnative 3103]

Awesome post.

 

Someone make these war rules accessible in-game through a command like /war and in the "MoTD" or links on signs somewhere were people will see 'em

[argonian 14254]

Awesome post.

 

Someone make these war rules accessible in-game through a command like /war and in the "MoTD" or links on signs somewhere were people will see 'em

Yes please.

[IrishPerson 693]

Can people still deny warclaims?

No.

[VonEbs 1224]

I believe the time still needs to be negotiated though!

[IrishPerson 693]

I believe the time still needs to be negotiated though!

Yeah, of course, time/date and that shiz is to remain as was.