Zombie Thread: Street Upgrade Project Rehabilitation
so I went fishing deep in the old Ideas forum looking for a thread of mine .... Didn't find it but I did find this, and I thought maybe it merited discussion again given that @"Liza Throttlebottom" suggested something very similar recently.
Liberally quoted from the original, which you can find here, but I have updated it.
Some of the contributing thoughts:
"- Rook attacks don't have enough consequences.
- I'd sure like to have more more of a contribution toward actually imagining what exists in Ur.
- I miss street projects - and I'm intrigued by the old Street Upgrade projects from original beta. And man, I'd sure like to get the last few trophy pieces I need!
- I'm really going to regret the visual loss of street spirits from my activities out and about in Ur when vendors are made obsolete one day. [Today I think Street Spirits will probably always be around to offer some of the quests like Autumn Day.]
What if randomly, on a single street each day somewhere in Ur, a street spirit [or the Smuggler, I think] beckons you over to consider a little proposition he's offering. They would offer you the opportunity to contribute toward one of two choices of street improvement. The improvements you were offered might include things like:
- add a few more quoins to the street
- change a particular quoin's variety from one to another
- increase the value of an existing quoin
- increase the spawn frequency for a particular quoin
- create a random item spawn somewhere on the street
- [possibly] create a new resource node on the street - a tree patch or barnacle or new rock outcrop.
The contributions you'd make might be in terms of resources, or currants, or [probably iMG as a possible sink for iMG for end game players] or maybe you'd get an iMG reward for participating instead. [As people made contributions toward one or the other of the choices, eventually the goal for one is reached and the project is completed.] One great thing about this approach is that even though we're getting to vote-via-contribution for our choice of upgrade, unlike those old groddle street upgrade projects in beta, the devs don't have to draw art for those choices or even much new art for the upgrades themselves. If you limited the upgrades to quoin-related things then no new art would be required. "
One of the problems with the old Projects was that they were mobbed and were unscaleable. But there are a lot of ways I think you could avoid that if you cared to, and the most elegant way probably hasn't occurred to me. But one way would be to limit the number of donations to a given project to one. People can still determine the size of their donation, and so all the achievements can still be awarded. I think it's best if people don't know the amounts of others donations until the end.
And I think that if you could make donations at a Bureaucratic Hall once the currently active project was located. Or maybe even via Your butler, or an interface on the web app; any way to avoid people mobbing the street. Plus it still encourages people roaming Ur each day to find the project and make the donation.
I think it is interesting to limit the time on the projects to four hours (midnight to midnight.). It ensures that there is a constant flow of projects. Also, if one isn't completed before deadline, I think it would be proper if the contributions are lost but no awards or badges are given or counted towards.
Also, you wouldn't need to have competing projects, but I think it adds a nice sense of uncertainty to the process, and doesn't leave the choice as to what project to work on to the person who found it. Although, that would be a nice compensation for finding the project in the first place. But I think a better way to reward that is with achievements.
Ultimately I think it would stimulate a lot of emergent community activity around finding and ensuring the completion of the day's project. It would be a great iMG drain for end game players if that is what is spent on projects (I think it should be, stoot was never for encouraging the hoarding of huge amounts of a thing, and that is what the resource based donation system encouraged, along with sharing.)
Finally, " "But ... wouldn't we get to a point where all the quoins were upgraded, and every street would be packed full of resources and and and ...?!?!!"
>_> This, my friends, is where the rooks come in.
You see, streets that have been upgraded would be even more susceptible to Rook attack. Not only would rooks attack those streets more often, but the upgraded street stuff would get degraded first, and degraded fast, during rook attacks. And after the attack is over, the destroyed upgrades couldn't be restored - they might only be re-imagined the next time the opportunity came to that street. Not only that, but rook rolls might have a chance of destroying one upgraded quoin/resource on a street. So Ur would be in even more of a constant state of flux, and glitchen seek out these opportunities and choose upgrades of some kinds over others, while old upgrades are washed away during rook attacks that now have real consequences and a sense of urgency to them.
Liberally quoted from the original, which you can find here, but I have updated it.
Some of the contributing thoughts:
"- Rook attacks don't have enough consequences.
- I'd sure like to have more more of a contribution toward actually imagining what exists in Ur.
- I miss street projects - and I'm intrigued by the old Street Upgrade projects from original beta. And man, I'd sure like to get the last few trophy pieces I need!
- I'm really going to regret the visual loss of street spirits from my activities out and about in Ur when vendors are made obsolete one day. [Today I think Street Spirits will probably always be around to offer some of the quests like Autumn Day.]
What if randomly, on a single street each day somewhere in Ur, a street spirit [or the Smuggler, I think] beckons you over to consider a little proposition he's offering. They would offer you the opportunity to contribute toward one of two choices of street improvement. The improvements you were offered might include things like:
- add a few more quoins to the street
- change a particular quoin's variety from one to another
- increase the value of an existing quoin
- increase the spawn frequency for a particular quoin
- create a random item spawn somewhere on the street
- [possibly] create a new resource node on the street - a tree patch or barnacle or new rock outcrop.
The contributions you'd make might be in terms of resources, or currants, or [probably iMG as a possible sink for iMG for end game players] or maybe you'd get an iMG reward for participating instead. [As people made contributions toward one or the other of the choices, eventually the goal for one is reached and the project is completed.] One great thing about this approach is that even though we're getting to vote-via-contribution for our choice of upgrade, unlike those old groddle street upgrade projects in beta, the devs don't have to draw art for those choices or even much new art for the upgrades themselves. If you limited the upgrades to quoin-related things then no new art would be required. "
One of the problems with the old Projects was that they were mobbed and were unscaleable. But there are a lot of ways I think you could avoid that if you cared to, and the most elegant way probably hasn't occurred to me. But one way would be to limit the number of donations to a given project to one. People can still determine the size of their donation, and so all the achievements can still be awarded. I think it's best if people don't know the amounts of others donations until the end.
And I think that if you could make donations at a Bureaucratic Hall once the currently active project was located. Or maybe even via Your butler, or an interface on the web app; any way to avoid people mobbing the street. Plus it still encourages people roaming Ur each day to find the project and make the donation.
I think it is interesting to limit the time on the projects to four hours (midnight to midnight.). It ensures that there is a constant flow of projects. Also, if one isn't completed before deadline, I think it would be proper if the contributions are lost but no awards or badges are given or counted towards.
Also, you wouldn't need to have competing projects, but I think it adds a nice sense of uncertainty to the process, and doesn't leave the choice as to what project to work on to the person who found it. Although, that would be a nice compensation for finding the project in the first place. But I think a better way to reward that is with achievements.
Ultimately I think it would stimulate a lot of emergent community activity around finding and ensuring the completion of the day's project. It would be a great iMG drain for end game players if that is what is spent on projects (I think it should be, stoot was never for encouraging the hoarding of huge amounts of a thing, and that is what the resource based donation system encouraged, along with sharing.)
Finally, " "But ... wouldn't we get to a point where all the quoins were upgraded, and every street would be packed full of resources and and and ...?!?!!"
>_> This, my friends, is where the rooks come in.
You see, streets that have been upgraded would be even more susceptible to Rook attack. Not only would rooks attack those streets more often, but the upgraded street stuff would get degraded first, and degraded fast, during rook attacks. And after the attack is over, the destroyed upgrades couldn't be restored - they might only be re-imagined the next time the opportunity came to that street. Not only that, but rook rolls might have a chance of destroying one upgraded quoin/resource on a street. So Ur would be in even more of a constant state of flux, and glitchen seek out these opportunities and choose upgrades of some kinds over others, while old upgrades are washed away during rook attacks that now have real consequences and a sense of urgency to them.
Comments
This is my idea of how this might work, not sure how similar it is to what you're describing exactly. I'm imagining a couple of different kinds of rook attacks. One that is preventable and can be fought, very similar to what we had before, that would be more intense than the other sort. This kind I imagine would be undetectable as it is happening with the damage, more minor than the combat-able ones, reported to any glitch entering the street for the next game day or so.
Streets would have a base state, a certain number of quoins/resources/item spawns, whatever we decide is customizable and from there we'd perform the upgrades as described. Then the rooks would be more likely to attack streets that were more built up IE had more upgrades performed on them. Some attacks would be fightable as mentioned while smaller attacks would simply downgrade the street without triggering anything to be done on the glitchen's part.
This way there'd be a constant flux in how built up various areas are. It'd keep Ur compelling as if streets weren't trafficked fairly constantly by imaginative Glitchen who keep them upgraded, whole regions would become collections of 'base state' streets.
Not sure how clear that actually is, but I hope my thoughts come through.
This would act different than donating items at a Rook attack though. I do like the idea of having it be a set street, per 4 hour day, and can donate to it at a bureacratic hall or shrine or something simmilar just dont donate all on the same street. Could have it scale with population on at the time somehow as to how much is needed to add something(if this is possible, no idea) When a street reached its goal and has the item added, it then has a higher likelyhood to be attacked by the Rook, and have certain items destroyed. We would get the trophys and acheivements for street projects for successfully adding an upgrade to a street, course not all from the first street we add to. The Rook is against imagination, and attacks streets so it makes sense the more we imagine the more likely the Rook is to atttack. Also (side note) im not sure but i think the amount of attacks used to scale with the amount of ppl on at the time, there alwasy seemed to be more the more active the game was holidays / feats etc etc
Other than that I think we are on basically the same page. What do you think of the suggested model for how the upgrades get accomplished?
Another thought: to prevent people from hogging, place limit on max size of iMG contribution - 1/5 of total iMG needed (to allow always for top 5 contributors.) So this amount should be somewhat staggering for the average glitch to do more than once a (RL) week or so, unless they are power gamers.
This idea is also sort of in keeping with the idea of making rook attacks a bit more difficult to combat. I've always imagined them as more of a big deal than they were, so they wouldn't be something we'd want to have happening all the time.
(Also as a side note to the first point, I think it would be interesting if the full-fledged rook attacks attacked streets at random, while the Rook Attack Lite (tm) mostly affect streets that are fully upgraded or close to it. They'd be a sort of force for balance, never attacking a street with less than five upgrades or something like that.)
In either case, we get the same result!
Aspects would be things like: quoin-related, resource-related, spawning related, vendor related.
So you'd visit the street of the day, and the Smuggler would popup and offer the deal to you, or the bureaucracy, or whoever.
Actually this may be a way to manage mobbing? Maybe you have to find an empty street and see if you can summon the smuggler. You'd have to say a certain phrase, and maybe use an item/munch an herb? Anyway, he'd offer you the choice of contribution. And to contribute again you'd have to go to a new street and summon him again. And your chance of summoning him would decrease the more times you summon him. That would encourage fewer, but bigger, donations.
The order of events would look something like this:
a) new day brings a new opportunity.
b) glitchen search throughout the land, looking for that one special street whose chance it is to day to get a little bit more awesome. They do this by visiting streets and attempting to summon the smuggler by saying the phrase.
c) someone finds the street. After this it will take munching an herb to be able to summon the smuggler, and only on streets no one else is occupying. The lucky glitch who found the street gets to choose which two of three types of improvements will be on offer this game day.
d) glitchen head to empty streets and make their contributions to the improvement type of their choice - (quoins or street decorations.) During the rest of the day glitchen contribute materials or imagination to the cause of their choice. The smuggler will inform you of the days running totals and which upgrades have already been unlocked.
e) at day's end, if the minimum amount needed was unlocked, then the street gets improvements to whatever degree of rewards were unlocked. Contributers get notified and the top 5 contributers get their trophy piec
OR a simpler version, where the finder has more power:
a) new day brings a new opportunity.
b) glitchen search throughout the land, looking for that one special street whose chance it is to day to get a little bit more awesome. They do this by visiting streets and attempting to summon the smuggler by saying the phrase.
c) someone finds the street. After this it will take munching an herb to be able to summon the smuggler, and only on streets no one else is occupying. The lucky glitch who found the street gets to choose which of TWO types of improvements will be on offer this game day.
d) glitchen head to empty streets and make their contributions to the improvement type that was chosen. During the rest of the day glitchen contribute materials or imagination. The smuggler will inform you of the days running totals and which upgrades have already been unlocked.
e) at day's end, if the minimum amount needed was unlocked, then the street gets improvements to whatever degree of rewards were unlocked. Contributers get notified and the top 5 contributers get their trophy piece.
During the game day, at least one rook attack will occur, and that attack will degrade the improvements fast and first, and after the rook attack, the street can only be repaired back to base state.