Suggestion: Haulers and Localized banks

fanglo

First let me say one of my favorite "professions" of any game is the Hauler from EvE. Not sure why but the fear factor of moving supplies from a safe zone to a .0 zone was amazing. Of course I did it becuase you could make tons of money. There were a few times where on my travels I was ambushed by 2-3 other players and they blew up my ship taking all the stuff I had on board setting me back weeks.

I would love to see this type of system in CU. People could buy high capacity mules to store all their harvested resources. Where as most players could store some stuff, a Mule would be able to carry way more than the average player and move it from the harvesting node back to the city to  store in the bank. If you needed to repair a huge keep, you'd need a few haulers with these mules filled with wood and stone to come to the keep to repair it. If a player was killed the mules could be stolen by the enemey realm and all the contents would go to the victor.

Now as to localized banking. I think it would be cool if a guild set up shop in a particular area and that was where you had to go to access your guild bank. Now you could set up other guild banks at any of the other cities but it wouldn't be linked to the main one, very similar to how EvE handles banks. Same thing for players. if you put an item in the main city bank, you MUST go back to the main city to access that bank. This also ties into the whole idea of players setting up item shops all over the place. Maybe the cheaper shops would be the safe city zones while the more exspensive shops would be in highly contested areas, but these shops would still be needed for players to buy siege or potions or whatever for players that didn't want to take the long trek back to the main city to do so.

Just some ideas I hope make it into the game.

redcapp

Agreed.  These are some solid ideas for any open world pvp oriented game.  Especially if crafting is going to be such a big focus.

 

Imagine storing some resources in an RvR keep, and then losing that keep and, consequently, its bank, to the enemy realm.

skyexile

I do like the use of supply!

fanglo

Some more ways to implament my Hauler Idea.

First off hauling would be it's own craft. Aside from moving things, what would you make? Well, how about chests. So, a harvesting group just takes over a castle giving them access to a huge nearby forest. There are about 100 trees there. Each player can carry 1 tree. A hauler on the other hand could come by and drop a chest that the harvestors could put the trees into. When the chest gets full the hauler could come by pick it up and drop off an empty one. Each chest could carry 25-1000 trees depending on the skill of the Hauler. Of course if the enemy comes and attacks you, maybe they steal your chest and get all the trees inside. For Ore, maybe you could craft Minecarts, moving ore from deep within a mine to the outside to be hauled off to the nearest castle.

Also the hauler could start out with low capacity animals like a donkey, After a while though maybe they upgrade to an Elephant, or some kind of animal drivent cart.

So finally lets say your guild just takes over a castle and is in the process of creating their own. The hauler would comeby and build the bank structure for the guild or other players to use to put stuff inside. I think it would be awesome if your guild had this huge castle which became an economic hub where players put all their supplies in, but if that castle ever got taken over, the enemy would get tons of loot from all the stuff people were storing in their banks there. Maybe as the enemy started invading deeper into your territory haulers rush to the various keeps and try to move all the supplies to a safer area before the keep gets ransacked by the other realms. This would be a huge motivation to defend every single castle in the game, because you knew that if you lost a castle a huge portion of your realms economy would suffer. It would also make the huge guild castles very valuable targets because you knew that if you took one of the huge castles there would probably be tons of supplies in there from the players.

Taldier

For some reason the first thing I thought of when considering the idea of localized banks was "could I commit bank robberies in contested areas?".  LOL

redcapp

Funny.  Read the thread title and came in to agree.  Saw I already did, two months ago.  Time goes by quickly.

Tuktz

I'm currently playing EVE, and i love this idea.

 

wagons/carts to transport mats around

need to defend them, and possibility of going pirate and taking other factions

fanglo

Woot, thanks for the bump! 

Some things that I have thought about since creating this thread. I no longer think Hauling should be it's own "class" but rather a subset of skills acquirable by the crafting class. Though, I would hope that it would take a very very long time to master this particular tree of skills. I would go even as far to say a master hauler would take just as long to achieve as a master siege-crafter or master armorsmith.

The reason for this change is because I think Hauling in and of itself is too niche to be it's own class. Added as a skill tree to crafting makes more sense though. That way a Hauler will still be able to do basic crafting, like building traps, basic weopons and build basic structures.

Melloz

Some great ideas.  I like the idea of supply routes and being able to raid them.  Doubt we want to make it quite so hardcore that you could lose weeks worth of supplies, but I'm sure a good balance could be met.

binskki

Oooo, oooo...SMUGGLER.  That sounds fun!  But,  yes, I agree - anything relating to supply lines and strategy could be a ton of fun to play.

Lawtoween

Originally posted by Melloz
Some great ideas.  I like the idea of supply routes and being able to raid them.  Doubt we want to make it quite so hardcore that you could lose weeks worth of supplies, but I'm sure a good balance could be met.

Why not be able to be set back by weeks?  If choices matter and death is going to be painful, then you should be able to be set back by years!  Suppose you make the choice to haul that much stuff at one time, through an area that is vulnerable, and don't first assemble a proper escort.  Shouldn't you pay for that level of stupidity / brashness?  After all it is the choice of the player to haul whatever amount of stuff they are trying to move.

On the other hand, the stuff in the localized bank might not be 100% vulnerable.  If you've been collecting mats at a keep way in the back because you believed it would be safe there, and then both enemy sides decide to seige that keep at the same time, and one takes it despite being well behind the front, it isn't exactly your choice that caused the loss.  Perhaps there will be a system that sets a percentage of contents at risk based on how close a keep is to the front, or based on certain other keeps being held by the same realm.  They can't be totally safe though, you should have to make a decision on whether you want to risk hauling your mats out of a beseiged keep versus leaving it in place where it is only at risk if the keep is lost.  The percentage should also be halved (or reduced even more) if the account of the owner has not been logged in for some period of time (at least an hour) so that you don't go on vacation after spending a month collecting mats and then come back a week later to find it all gone.

Lawt

Edit:

After further thought, I think it would be better if the stuff in the bank lost only a small amount, 5% or so.  That could still add up to a significant amount of loot for the attackers.  But in addition to that, the stuff in the bank would not be accessible until the keep is retaken by the realm that lost it.  That would give them a reason to retake it above realm pride and some RvR reward.  The loss of access might be enough to convince some to risk moving it through enemy lines to another keep.  Adding another element to keep seiges. 

I really like the concept, however it gets implemented.

Tuktz

It's fun in a game like this (and EVE) to have the OPTION to take bigger risk, for greater reward.

 

That's partly why I'm so excited about CU, because I think they get this.

 

All these themepark other mmos out now, don't even give you the OPTION of greater risk for greater reward. It's all NO risk, best reward.

 

Nothing more exhilirating than taking crazy risks, and either getting a huge payday out of it, or getting called on your foolishness haha.

 

Both are pretty fun to be honest, because there's no excitement without the risk of failure.

Nanulak

We have to have incentives for players to create banks out in the wild.  Otherwise why would they spend the money?  I would like it set up where the bank could charge storage fees.  This would create bank incentive to build and bank competition.  Say bank A charges 10s amonth per item and bank B charges 8s.  But bank B is not as far into the RvR zone or less protected.

Lawtoween

Originally posted by grogstorm
We have to have incentives for players to create banks out in the wild.  Otherwise why would they spend the money?  I would like it set up where the bank could charge storage fees.  This would create bank incentive to build and bank competition.  Say bank A charges 10s amonth per item and bank B charges 8s.  But bank B is not as far into the RvR zone or less protected.

Love it! 

You could have different size "vaults" or "safe deposit boxes" each at a different fee.  The fee could be tied to the percentage lost determined by how far from the front that particular bank is.  The fee would be charged automatically, but would be waived for any time the vault was inaccessible due to enemy occupation.

Nanulak

Big Bank A Disclaimer “If the bank is robbed and some of the money is lost the remaining funds will be used to repair the bank and then anything left over will be fairly distributed to the depositors.”

Bank B Disclaimer “All funds in bank is the property of the depositors and the bank is responsible for our own repairs or maintenance.  If any funds are lost due to robbery the bank will insurer 50% of the losses to depositors.”

The Bank’s policies could be endless and all contributing to player competition.

Bahz

I love the smuggler/hauler/transporting idea. Would also go well with a (not overpowered) stealth class, that could take them out if not protected.