Approved 6692: Erecting statues and monuments

[Duvaille]

Title:

Statues and monuments

Summary:

With a great expense, players can choose to erect statues and monuments to honor another character on the continent. Having a monument built for your increases your prestige (or fame in the future). Monuments can also be torn down.

Details:

If you have enough gold at hand, you could build a monument to your estate, provided there is room there (if there will be a limit one day in how much stuff you can have at your estate). If these conditions are met, you are given a drop down menu with all the existing characters on the continent. You pick one and write a description. The end result would look a little like the guild interface, where you would first have in big letters "A statue of Sir/Count/King/General Kepler" and then under it a brief statement, and still under it a longer description of the actual statue. Once completed, a message is sent to the realm stating that "Sir Random has erected a statue in the honor of Sir Kepler at Random Estate, Keplerville." Sir Kepler then gains a prestige/fame +1 until the statue is destroyed. You could only erect monuments for the honor of other characters and never of one of your own.

When visiting a region, a new item would be added under the actions menu. You could spend some time to "visit monuments" if some are built. You would then be able to choose between the various monuments there (if any are built).

If a monument is torn down, a realm wide message is sent to inform who did and what.

Also, for the future, erecting a statue would gain you largesse (if it is implemented).

Benefits:

The monuments would store bits and pieces of history of the regions, realms and most importantly, that of player characters. You would only erect a monument when something truly spectacular has taken place, or to look at it another way, you would only let a monument remain if it is of some importance. As time passes, monuments are torn down and new ones erected, but some central ones will likely remain, giving the new players and visitors from other realms a chance to enjoy the history of a region, which in turn may provoke further interest and questions and give each region a sense of unique culture.

Also, once a character is deleted, there is no chance to build a monument for him/her any more. Thus those that are built and remain become rare and valuable, and if the passed on character is still viewed with importance and reverence by some others, tearing a monument down "just so I can have my new stables there" just will not cut it, and there is much potential for conflict there. Just like with most everything else in the game, that which is important enough for the players to keep around will be kept around - the rest of it will vanish. All forms of conflict between the players is ultimately a discussion about that.

Possible Exploits:

No way to game the system. If you get people to waste their gold, time and "estate space" for your honor, you probably deserve it anyway. There is a possibility of bad writing and childishness in the descriptions, but then the same is true with actual regional descriptions. The lords are in charge of regional descriptions, so with the same responsibility they could order their knights to destroy monuments if bad taste has been applied.

[Tom]

I like the concept. Would want to simplify it a little. No extra action, simply list the statues in existence somewhere in the region details.

[vonGenf]

With a great expense, (...)

If you have enough gold at hand, (...)

Did you have a number in mind?

[Duvaille]

I like the concept. Would want to simplify it a little. No extra action, simply list the statues in existence somewhere in the region details.

Would it work if there were a tab named "monuments" after "religion" that would show up only when there is at least one monument present? Clicking it would then list the monuments, the oldest one at the top. Alternatively you could list the monuments right under the region description, but that would perhaps force them too much on the players. It would give you at least some sense of visiting it if you had to click it to "go there".

Did you have a number in mind?

Actually, I did not. Some number like 500 gold might cut it, if they are to be seen as exceptional craftsmanship with rare and valuable materials spent. It has to be a high enough number to prevent them popping up left and right, and to also give the target character a feeling that someone has made a real sacrifice for his benefit, which is likely way out of proportion of the actual gain. It creates a nice bind there. The poorer you are the more so.

It should perhaps be seen as a vanity item more than a stat booster. A high price would also ensure that the realm would not look kindly if statues are erected here and there for silly reasons. It's gold away from the troops.

[vonGenf]

It should perhaps be seen as a vanity item more than a stat booster. A high price would also ensure that the realm would not look kindly if statues are erected here and there for silly reasons. It's gold away from the troops.

That seems about right. My feeling is that this would be balanced if there were no more than 1 or 2 monuments per realm.

I'm not certain how costly you would have to make them to achieve that though.

[Indirik]

Also, once a character is deleted, there is no chance to build a monument for him/her any more.

One possible modification to this: Characters are often deleted pretty quickly after they are killed in battle. It would be nice if there was some to allow a time limit, say two weeks after the death, to allow monuments to be built. We need to be able to give people time to react to the death, and travel home, cash bonds, other funds, etc.

Perhaps the best option would be to allow you to build a statue of anything at all, and enter a description.

But then again, statues dedicated to specific characters which can never be replaced if destroyed...  The idea of that is very tempting.

[Duvaille]

Perhaps the best option would be to allow you to build a statue of anything at all, and enter a description.

Well, there's a possibility there. What if you could build either "statues" or "monuments", where statues have the bonus prestige/fame effect for the duration of the target character's life, and then when they die, they revert to "monuments" that are just expensive gold sinks wasting space, so to speak. If you could also build "monuments" that could be about anything (religions especially might find this useful), you could build a tomb for an admired hero after his death or any other structures you would see fitting for it. Then there would be no need for timers and such.

Though still I like the feeling of uniqueness of the "statues only for the living" concept. Then it would always be about the player characters, even if other themes are involved in the statue. It's neat and simple, and less likely to go off the tangent to something ridiculous.

[Indirik]

I don't care for the prestige/honor bonus part. I don't see any particular need for it. (Especially not honor. Prestige, I could see, but don't really care about.) I would just love to be able to build monuments/statues/whatever to honor the notable characters that took a big part in our realm's histories. I'd love to be able to build a monument to Deverka Cryfdwr, first Grandmaster of Morek and originator of Sanguis Astroism. Rowan Geronus, Vasilif of Astrum who was killed in the opening stages of the war with Averoth. Boreal Arrakis, founder of Niselur, who was struck mad and drifted out to sea in a small boat to get closer to the Stars, to disappear into the ocean and was presumed to have died at sea. There are all kinds of historical things like this that get lost, and never remembered. New players will never know that kind of stuff. But it's that kind of stuff that makes the game a living thing, full of history. We have what, 11 years of history on EC? And how much of it is lost, and can never be recovered? But how would you like to travel the EC and read the monuments built by all the people who had played the game over those past 11 years? Can you imagine how awesome that would be?

[Tom]

Well, for the history part, we do have the Wiki, region descriptions, etc.

[Bael]

If the statues were to have an upkeep cost, they would also be rarer.

[Foundation]

I think just a high initial cost would be fine.  They should be designed to add to the game's RP significance, not as a burden on the current players.

[Penchant]

+1 to Foundation's post

[Tom]

No upkeep. Too complicated to keep track of who should pay it.

[pcw27]

I don't care for the prestige/honor bonus part. I don't see any particular need for it. (Especially not honor. Prestige, I could see, but don't really care about.) I would just love to be able to build monuments/statues/whatever to honor the notable characters that took a big part in our realm's histories. I'd love to be able to build a monument to Deverka Cryfdwr, first Grandmaster of Morek and originator of Sanguis Astroism. Rowan Geronus, Vasilif of Astrum who was killed in the opening stages of the war with Averoth. Boreal Arrakis, founder of Niselur, who was struck mad and drifted out to sea in a small boat to get closer to the Stars, to disappear into the ocean and was presumed to have died at sea. There are all kinds of historical things like this that get lost, and never remembered. New players will never know that kind of stuff. But it's that kind of stuff that makes the game a living thing, full of history. We have what, 11 years of history on EC? And how much of it is lost, and can never be recovered? But how would you like to travel the EC and read the monuments built by all the people who had played the game over those past 11 years? Can you imagine how awesome that would be?

I actually named one of the estates in Darfix "Boreal Arrakis Memorial Harbor" and listed it on the region's description.

[Duvaille]

I agree that the statues would be mostly there for RP flavor, but anything that has some mechanical difference, even if it something as small as a small stat bonus, will make it feel more real. The stats are there to help us to see what should be seen as important in some way, especially when we do not know about something from other sources.

An ability to build monuments that are about anything and everything is perhaps not the wisest of ideas. I would personally want to ensure that the statues are always about the characters, which would be a pity if you wanted to honor the past characters. There is, however, a way around that within the proposed system. A statue can essentially be about anything, just as long it has a current character as its main feature. You could erect a statue that had the present king conversing with the great kings of the past. Or you could have the current arch-bozo of a religion holding hands with the founder and singing kumbayah etc. In the description you would insert what the statue is about, and there you have your lasting impact from the past.

While you can freely write all this history to the wiki, a statue would still be a way for really underlining it and making a point. It costs you nothing to write to the wiki, but erecting a statue to the capital costs you both gold and valuable "estate space" (if implemented) which is your upkeep cost.