Ships and Walking The Plank!

[ActionReplay]

A'hoy!

I'm posting here to explain some changes that are to come for the Ship System on Arelith. We will gradually improve on this system but also change it to what we think are for the better for the whole server.

First, within next reset, we have a new addition: Naval Intelligence.
This is only limited to Cordor Navy at the moment but might expand to other Settlements later on once we see how it goes. Naval Intelligence is an NPC that can form hourly reports of all other Player Ships, such as their location and destination. There is a roll here to beat as some ships are more difficult to spot than others. Naval Intelligence will also be expanded upon more in the future to show recent attacks on NPC vessels (E.g Sea Leopard attacking Amnish or Cordorian NPC vessels).

The idea is to create more Ships vs Ship conflict between player owned vessels. Which brings me to our next point:
We're going to be looking at how some ships are bought/leased. Simply put, with the ownership thing we're not really see them being used as we envisioned, not a lot of conflict, and hard for new players wishing to make that their concept ever being able to get near a ship.

Currently the Penny Rose is "rentable" but it is quite broken as I am sure a lot of you guys already know. There is an update coming for this that will fix the renting issue. But we also want some ships to be specially dedicated to certain ideas. To spread the ships to be of use for all players on Arelith, not just a select clique with the most gold/power.

An idea we are toying with is to add a "Pirate" background. Everyone with a Pirate background would have access to a certain ship, much like how the Penny Rose is rentable, but instead Pirates can claim this ship whenever it is in port/available. A ship like that would not truly be "owned" by anyone.

Another interesting aspect to implement into the Ship system is settlement economy. How would we best incorporate something like that? Trade? Pillaging? Something that is useable in times of war and peace. To make ships something more than just a fancy Guildhouse floating around giving access to unique locations.

We can use this topic to come up with new ideas and thoughts and of course discussions for the future plans to come.

Also I leave you this (Because Toad pirates!):
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/167285

[Irongron]

Glad to see this posted.

The ship system was very much the brainchild of Action Replay and myself, and something I know we're still very proud of.

THe mechanics for the ships is far more complex than many realise, with each ship not only having unique abilities, but statistics that reflect its size, speed and ability to evade other craft. One reason the Sea Leopard has always been special, is that it is the hardest ship to find and intercept when sailing.

I wished the 'Naval Intelligence' added to Cordor because the Flagship has probably the most powerful ability of any ship; the ability to track and intercept a specified vessel. Sadly I've found this to be largely neglected and it hasn't become the champion of High Seas justice that I'd hoped for.

Regarding changing how ship ownership is handled, my current feelings are something like this...

Settlement ships (Warship, Timberfleet, Dreadnaught) will be open for use by any citizen of the controlling settlement/District.

Pirate Ships (Liberator, Sea Leopard) will (By some method) be available for use by characters whose role-play matches the theme of the ship.

While others (The Penny Rose, ~possibly~ the Troubadour) will be available for short term lease.

I've been concerned that people who create 'nautical' themed characters will often entirely run out of steam, or spend their entire life on Arelith without ever getting near a boat.


Finally, this isn't about anything players have done 'wrong', there have been considerable efforts by many ship owners to recruit crews/lease ships/offer passage, only to be met with a "No thanks, we'd rather buy it for ourselves" response. Owning ships shouldn't be matter of faction/player prestige, but a dynamic and enjoyable part of the game that anyone can experience.

[Cortex]

If the naval intelligence is added, it'd be nice to have the option to attack NPC ships from other settlements during war for treasury/resource damage. To avoid abuse of only attacking when the other players are offline, the damage shouldn't be large, and there should be a cap to the damage caused within a certain time period(after hitting the threshold, you can still attack them but you either pillage nothing or the gold pillaged isn't direct damage to the settlement).

For peace times, there could be escort missions, like a dungeon crawl except you're on the ship defending it from pirates and similar who want your cargo, with a boss and all, and once you complete it, you get an award depending on difficulty.

Bonus: Tie the two together.

[The GrumpyCat]

Maybe some extra fishing options on boats?

[Xarge VI]

Yarrr!

I'd say that a good way to implement this would be by adding a number of settlement merchant ships. (Cordor Merchant Ship, Wharftown Merchant Ship, etc.) each of them carries some resource. I don't know how you'd make it vanish from settlement storage though.

Alternatively I'm thinking about something that would require changing how settlements deal with resources. Basically giving each settlement one resource they can increase traditionally. Other resources would either need to be bought manually or raided.

[Cortex]

Maybe some extra fishing options on boats?

Fishing would first need to be reworked

[Anime Sword Fighter]

I think a one-time rentable war-sloop that can hold a max of two people would be neat.
But there isn't a limit on how many can be out at one time. It could be a dialogue with an NPC:
"Would you like to rent a sloop? For x amount of gold, you can hold up to two people."

Then it sends you and a party member off in a war sloop. Upon returning to one of the ports with that NPC it will remove it.
Perhaps instead of having the usual skiff fixture for it, it can come with an NPC that is named "Person's Sloop Mate" that you can have another dialogue to go somewhere else. This mate goes home after a reset, or after so many hours of not talking to him.

[Full Moon]

My only concern with this is it might encourage yet more humans to be citizens in the Table/Sharps just so they can use the ship. Might be an idea to tweak the NPC's to be hostile to not UD races and slaves so as to avoid abuse of this , the reverse can also be said of surface ships.

[ActionReplay]

My only concern with this is it might encourage yet more humans to be citizens in the Table/Sharps just so they can use the ship. Might be an idea to tweak the NPC's to be hostile to not UD races and slaves so as to avoid abuse of this , the reverse can also be said of surface ships.

The Dreadnought would still most likely be as it is now, owned by whomever is in charge of the land through the landbroker. What we suggest is opening up certain ships (One or two) for easy access to characters with the Pirate background if that is to be decided.

The main goal is to open up ships for easier use for all players and have them be more active out at sea.

[Recite the Sins]

So will Sencliff be separated from the Liberator?

Also, I've always taken issue with the idea that there's a plethora of naval characters that are just waiting to get on ships and never have the chance to join their crews since it's demonstrably untrue. There's just straight up not that many naval characters.

[viper92225]

Regarding changing how ship ownership is handled, my current feelings are something like this...

Settlement ships (Warship, Timberfleet, Dreadnaught) will be open for use by any citizen of the controlling settlement/District.

I think that this would be an especially bad idea for the Dreadnaught in particular. The Dreadnaught is, to my knowledge, the only ship that requires coal to run. There is a chest accessible to everyone able to access the ship that is currently storing coal(this being the choice of the owners). If it was made so that any citizen of the controlling district could access the ship that chest would be emptied of coal within a day or two tops. Once that is the case any trips on the ship would both require that it be in port AND that you brought your own coal to fuel it. Don't have coal? Better hope no one takes it sailing while you go get some.

[Irongron]

Definitely some good points made about the Underdark Ship.

As for Sencliff and the Liberator, well whatever we do the ship belongs there. Sencliff (The isle, not the guildhouse - they are different things) will always be crucial to evil-doer/pirate RP. The only possible change is that others, in addition to the guildhouse owners would be able to use the ship. Not sure what form that would take yet though, or even if it will happen. It certainly wouldn't be there for anyone to make use of.

[Recite the Sins]

Definitely some good points made about the Underdark Ship.

As for Sencliff and the Liberator, well whatever we do the ship belongs there. Sencliff (The isle, not the guildhouse - they are different things) will always be crucial to evil-doer/pirate RP. The only possible change is that others, in addition to the guildhouse owners would be able to use the ship. Not sure what form that would take yet though, or even if it will happen. It certainly wouldn't be there for anyone to make use of.

What I mean is that the guildhouse and the ship are the same thing, so they need to be split up in this consideration.

[Irongron]

Sure, but it could be we put both the Sea Leopard and Liberator at the docks there, meaning the guildhouse owners would pretty much always have access to a ship in either case, not least because it is hard for others to reach the isle at all.

The guildhouse itself I think could do with some improvement. I feel it could be more than just a collection of quarters, and I've been considering ideas for some unique and enjoyable features. Some decent hechmen is one option, as are some espionage themed functions to reflect the role-play which has evolved around it.

[Irongron]

If you're interested in a spot of history of the developement of Sencliff, which remains one of my favourite locations in the game...

I originally made the area as an explicitly evil and chaotic settlement, and somewhere that could provide a sustained refuge for characters so often abruptly moved on after prolonged role-play elsewhere.

There were quarters throughout the docks, and I imagined it having 'anti-settlement' functions, and not being the democracy found elsewhere. In the end my somewhat...ambitious plans were curtailed, and a lot of the content was removed before addition to the module.

I've long wanted to revisit it, but without impeding or dictating the role-play of those who currently make the fortress island their home.

But right now this is all just long-term planning, nothing is going to change overnight.

[Maphias]

The guildhouse itself I think could do with some improvement.

Could the 'kill-zone' at the entrance be fixed some time? Neither the front or second door lock from within anymore and haven't done so since a few months after the place was added.

[Hunter548]

I'm gonna be honest, I think making all of the ships non-quarter based is a poor decision. The current problems are, as I understand it from the posts in this thread A) Access and B) A lack of ship-centric RP.

A) is one I've always had a lot of trouble with, truth be told; I don't think I've seen a single pirate or sailor character since the ships got added who failed to actually get access to a ship; The Liberator and Sencliff have, basically since they started getting used (Read, since the Covenant lost it six months after it went in) been relatively good about allowing anyone who showed up on the doorstep wanting to do stuff with their ship do stuff with their ship, across a number of different groups of players. The Cordor Flagship's been treated the same way.


B) is going to be exacerbated by making the ships rentable/accessable by anyone, by way of removing any permanence around them. Presently, if you (for instance) want to do piracy with the Wharftown Warship or the Liberator, or the Flagship you can get in touch with the people who own them. That might be a bit difficult depending on who owns them, but you can do it, try to convince them to let you sail on it (And most people over the years have been really good about this). If you roll up a pirate character where anyone with X background can use the ship, you're going to be scrambling against every other character with that background to try and use the ship, and therefore do whatever pirate RP you're trying to do that's apparently being stifled under the present system. Given the way artifacts were treated when they went in (You literally had people camping or sprinting for artifact chests each reset), I highly doubt that's going to do anything to improve access.

tl;dr: I'm with Kuma in that I'm confused where this giant horde of people looking to play pirate or sailor characters are that are being stopped from getting access to a ship, and I think changing the ships to be semi-public is a spectacularly bad move that'll remove any ability to have lasting 'focus' on ship RP by virtue of suddenly everyone who wants to touch a ship having to compete with Jimbob the silent grinder who logs out on the ship and lives at Kohlingen to hit level 30, or Jeff the silent grinder who camps on the ship's renting sign every reset.


Improving Ships

One of the biggest reasons there isn't a lot of ship conflict presently, to my mind, is a lack of reason to Want to do it, or much with ships in general.

1) Ships take ages to find anything via scouring the seas. On the Sea Leopard, I usually average somewhere around twelve to twenty four minutes between finding anything at all. This doesn't exactly lend itself to pirate RP, since there's only so much emoting you can do about the physical activities of sailing the ship. Ships, in essence, best serve as mobile meeting-rooms. You don't say to a group of people "Hey, let's go plunder the seas!" because you'll sit there for half an hour and find a sandbar with a single diamond deposit on it, and that's it. You say "Hey, let's go talk about X, while the ship sails around a little bit and maybe we'll find something neat while we have our meeting about whatever." Obviously "Let's go plunder the seas" would be the ideal usage of ships, but few people use them for that because it requires an extreme amount of patience to not be tedious for everyone involved. This leads into:

2) It's very, very difficult to actually run into other player ships. This ties into the above: Most people don't use ships for scouring the seas because there's limits to how far the newness of the experience will go, lots of areas in the Ship system not being worth it, and the absurd amount of time it takes to Do anything in it. If no one's scouring the seas, it's going to be a lot less common for ship to ship conflict to occur.

3) A lack of uniqueness to the ship system, and ability to affect things by doing so. The Navel Intelligence system in the original post ties into this, and I love the idea. Adding the ability to affect settlement economics (Maybe with an overhaul of settlement economies at some point) via either specifically raiding trading ships heading for a certain settlement, or even to attack or raid them directly (Every settlement except Myon has some sort of coast within relative easy reach.

So, my suggestions.

1) Adjust how long it takes for ships to find islets, other ships, etc. Perhaps give some of the more aggressive ships (Dreadnought, Sea Leopard, Liberator) who don't already have it some unique ability to help them be Pirates, the same way the Flagship can hunt for specific ships. Maybe split off searching for ships from searching for islets, instead of having them both be under "Scour the Seas."

2) Add the ability to raid a specific settlement, targeting merchant ships and even maybe raiding the crops/whatever of the settlement. More importantly, add some sort of alarm system in the settlement in question, allowing people who are near enough to try and repel the raiders. Perhaps do some area-locking work to prevent people from just camping in the read areas, or only having a small window where you can actually take up arms to defend Wharftown/Guldorand/Whatever.

3) More control over what you find while scouring the Seas. Perhaps add rudimentary Sea Charts purchasable by an NPC at the Crow's Nest, or otherwise findable in chest loot, that'll explain some of the navigation mysteries of the scouring system.

4) More uniqueness in the Seas. Add resources that are usually hard to get (Mithral, Adamantine, Rubies, Emeralds, Fire Opals, etc) to various places. Expand the buried treasure chests that can be found. Maybe add some unique gems/resources for new crafting recipes, with an NPC at the Crow's Nest to show them off and get players' proverbial mouths watering.

5) Seriously, make finding things by scouring the seas not require 15-30 minutes per location. That alone would help make ship-ship interaction a lot more common, since it'd encourage people to actually go Hunting for things with them.

[Durvayas]

Being part of the faction that holds the shipyard in the underdark. I am all for seperating the guildhouse from the ship. It'd be nice to be able to use the building without having to give everyone who wants access to the boat the ability to be able to enter the building as well, and the security risks therein.

[msterswrdsmn]

My thoughts? Ships could use some lovin', but theres one area that I feel needs to be nitpicked.

I'd be very, VERY cautious about tying an entire player concept to a single mechanical tool. Not just a concept, but a pirate background would more or less marry you to a dependancy on whether or not a ship is avaliable at the time. I can see this going badly at times, and not even for horrible reasons like ship-hogging. Best worst-case scenario? A good, solid group of players actively using the ships as intended at the expense of a larger number of other players waiting their turn. Which, depending on how active they are, could be RL days.

Neither side is doing anything wrong; Party A is having a blast using the system exactly as its intended, but the 20 level 3-6 players sitting on the docks are pretty much stuck trying to figure out what to do when they're not actually pirating anything.

For this reason, I've only seen like, one "serious" pirate character that lasted more than several months. And i'm using "serious" loosely here, as "Disur Dentin the duegar pirate king" really wasn't very piratey. Or serious. And was around like 6 years before ships were put in. Point being, concepts that are heavily dependant on something suddenly become very hard to play when that something isn't around.

Examples: Master/slave roleplay where the master disappears. Marriage roleplay where your spouse appears once in a blue moon. Teacher/student roleplay with one of the parties being absentee. And these are all player-on-player examples that can be fixed by commiting generous amounts of adultry and/or slave trading. Tying yourself to something that is very finite in quantity mechanically would be harder to deal with.

Now that that's out of the way...

Love the idea for the naval intel system. Maybe find a way to tie it into the resource system, to tie it into the economy? More effective systems needing more resources for scouting skiffs/lighthouse maintenance/crew rations/etc? Give an additional purpose to the resource system while you're at it!

Similarly, raiding a settlement could potentially damage a towns resource supply. Plundering, or expending materials to repair damages? Downside is I see absolutely no reason not to wait until everyone involved in XXX town is offline and bomb it to kingdom come at 4 am EST. Raiding, I can get behind, but making it interactive on both ends would be tricky without starting a massive resource war between pirate ship A and settlement coastal defense system B.

Too much player input into passive defensive/attacks would just turn into quarter locks 101 all over again with millions of gold being dropped for nigh-unbeatable dcs.

[Archon]

I'm not certain if it's a right solution to open up all ships to be leased for short periods of time. When I played a long term pirate character, solid crew and RP evolving around it was the biggest reward with the ship system. On the other hand, combined key of Sencliff and Liberator the most obvious problem.

The most efficient fix would be to separate ships (Liberator, Dreadnought) from guildhouses (current arrangement is awkward), so that they'd still have a factor in Sencliff and Andunor RP respectively without keys granting extra and sometimes unwanted access to private locations.

Add perks to raiding other settlements' ships for resources, or forcing loss of wealth when merchant ships/warships go down, enhance and add locations that can be found from sea. Ships bound to settlements should imo stay as they are. Mayors/Chancellors/Officials can be reached fairly easily, and access granted to invested players.

Naval Intelligence on the other hand sounds brilliant. You can threaten your enemies with how many ships you have sank and promise future mayhem, but as it stands now, there's no mechanics to back you up. Either your foes will play along, or simply shrug their shoulders as sinking said ships carry no actual mechanical drawbacks or proof of the deed, no matter how many go down.

I also entertained a thought about adding a totally new ship for lease, one that can cross longer distances etc, but would not be bound by settlements or factions. It gives a taste for everyone how the system works without being a Penny Rose, and opens up opportunities for solitary journeys at sea without necessarily getting entangled with solid pirate/sailor RP of other vessels. For some extra money or high persuade etc, Navigator could tell whom they have seen last using the ship. I can imagine more ambiguous groups (good and evil) using a lease ship option for missions, sabotage, and spying operations at sea, mages leasing for research purposes and so on, as a balance to obvious grinding trips to locations X and Y.

(Ps. I'm still dreaming about Plane Crossing ships, Lantanese airships and Spelljammers. sigh)

[Seekeepeek]

Could be cool if you could get the background on already made characters like you can get outcast at the moment. for a price of course. Made a character recently were i didn't pick a background at all cause none of it fitted my build.

i kinda like how backgrounds are starting to mean more. like outcast and now pirate perhaps. cause right now i think background is kinda.. well useless roleplay wise. given the only place you see it is when you kill someone. iam not sure if i should roleplay if a corpse looks noble or fearless... makes little sense.

[ActionReplay]

So many great suggestions here so many cool ideas! I'll post update here as we go.

Update:
Added proper rental system for the ships. Penny Rose should, once its live, be rentable and expire correctly to be open for renting again. After each reset the ship will also abandon any previous owner it had even if the renting period was not expired.

The Navigator on rented vessels will also display the time remaining on the expiration timer and once expired will return to its home port, with our without the players who rented the ship present. So please be careful so you do not get stranded and plan accordingly!

There's been very little testing of this update so we'll see how it goes once its live!

Also fixed so Dreadnought can properly dock at Rayne's Landing now.

[Broken Hopes Shattered Dreams]

Are all ships rentable? Echoing Vipers point about the Dreadnaught it runs on coal gathered through IC work. Generating slave and recruit RP. It'd be a real bummer to allow anyone that access to that large an amount of coal for a one time fee.

[ActionReplay]

Are all ships rentable? Echoing Vipers point about the Dreadnaught it runs on coal gathered through IC work. Generating slave and recruit RP. It'd be a real bummer to allow anyone that access to that large an amount of coal for a one time fee.

Only the Penny Rose is rentable at the moment.

[DStoneyD]

Yea i think the dreadnought should be left as it is as well for reasons listed above. The surface has what 4 or 5 ships? A better idea might be to make a second ship that is rentable like the penny rose?