Castles and houses, was Re: [CF List] The 'dis'economy of crossfire

[Mark Wedel]

Steven Lembark wrote:
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      One way to handle people building things where maps to
     
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      is to invoke eminent domain: community projects displace
     
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      deeded ones. This could be nothing more than a sweep
     
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      that pre-checks the map files for deeded structures as
     
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      part of the installation. Anything deeded that sits
     
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      under a permenant object is shifted randomly via Object
     
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      Displacement spell.
     
     
  Perhaps.  But I think the biggest issue is player makes house, and then new 
maps are added to CVS that are on the place the house is.

  Certainly code could be done I suppose to move things around as part of 
installation (or just sanity checking).  and that probably is a better way to 
go.  Some appeal to being able to build a house would be to build it anywhere.

  Taking that altar example, someone could in theory set up a house far from any 
town but which is near to some dungeons, and try to make money selling needed 
supplies for adventurers.

  Perhaps even allow something like special shops - players could bring in 
items, put them in a shop area for free, at which point they are unpaid like 
normal shops, but if someone else comes in and buys it, the money goes to the 
player (best approach would probably be some lockbox area that only the owner 
can get to, so they can then check to see how much money is there when they log 
in or whatever).  Ideally, the playes should be able to set value somehow, but 
I'm not sure of a reasonable way to do that - being able to change the value for 
the actual object sort of screws things up.

  Perhaps the idea of being able to just make everything in the store more 
costly (eg, a price multiplier).  I've often thought that this could even be 
useful for normal stores - eg, this store has higher markup.  In that way, just 
the query cost and substracting money when player leaves is all that needs to 
get done.

  It'd probably be easiest to make this a global map variable that only effects 
unpaid items.  That would make a lot of the code a bit easier to deal with, as 
well as make it easier for the owner to set it.


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      There should also be some provision for thieves being
     
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      able to break into the places.
     
     
  This of course makes sense, but I'm a little concerned that high level thief 
characters may decide to really mess up other peoples houses.  At which time 
players say 'screw this', and go back to using the apartments.

  OTOH, maybe this house idea, if done, should just totally replace the 
apartment scheme, so players don't have a choice.  But then again, they might 
start doing things like using 'storage' characters again to store their good 
stuff so they can make sure it doesn't get stolen.

The other problem with thiefs is 'law enforcement'.  If I'm a thief and go to 
someones house, why shouldn't I try to steal everything?  If I fail, what 
happens to me?

  Only thought I perhaps have is that if a thief fails on such an action, he 
automatically goes to jail.  And what a thief can try to do is limited (eg, get 
items out of the shop for less value, or not need to put full value on the 
altars).  Thus, the player owning the house may have to acknowledge some risks.

  Also, better houses could be harder for thiefs to cheat on.  Eg, if you live 
in a hut, things can be scammed easier than if you live in a castle.  Thus, 
there is some reason to live in nicer places.


  The idea in another message of using tunnels/stairs to get to protected areas 
makes sense, and is easier to do.  Could certainly make doors or something that 
only the person with the deed can get past - this would be the private area of 
his house where he can store his extra items.  But in this private area, there 
could also be a teleporter/staircase/tunnel/whatever to get to the fenced 
display area.