Feature Cut: Buying Regions

[Geronus]

To say that the war happened because of Skalk is not true. Skalk was bought because of the war, not the other way around. The war would have happened even if Skalk had not been bought. It definitely would have played out differently, though.

Skalk isn't what he was talking about. A noble from MI (Mart's character) bought a region that was Hammarsett's out from under Coria right after Coria TOed it, then refused to return it. It absolutely made for one of the more interesting pieces of politics on AT lately and had the potential to blow up the entire northern alliance. Most interesting thing that's happened there in ages if you ask me (and yes, I am biased by where I play).

Working for a software company, I can understand the urge to simplify things. This is one of those edge things that not many people will ever get the chance to use, but that doesn't make it any less interesting when it does happen... Just saying.

[Chenier]

Yea. While I can't bring myself to petition for any feature to be removed, I'll trust the devs' judgement. I know they wouldn't be doing it without serious motive.

[STiAle]

If I had known that the feature existed, I would probably play the game in different manner.
Is everybody sure that players are under-utilizing this feature instead of simply not knowing that it exists?

[Sacha]

The main issue, I think, is that people don't respond to it as Tom intended. 'Buying' the region is a mostly OOC term. IC, the idea was that your character had bribed his way to an irrefutable claim on the region, stronger than anyone else's, which was then enforced by local officials. The reality is that characters treat it the OOC way just the same, as characters buying up regions simply because they have the money.

[von_neumann]

The dirty bankers ruin BM as well?  I have only seen a single region bought, the Steepglades by a player named "Sin".  He roleplayed it describing how he had gone about handing out bags of gold all over town until he was simply everyone's best friend.  He left the realm shortly after this when he did not win the election for the region.  I say yay for roleplays and interesting unintended consequences IMHO.

[egamma]

The dirty bankers ruin BM as well?  I have only seen a single region bought, the Steepglades by a player named "Sin".  He roleplayed it describing how he had gone about handing out bags of gold all over town until he was simply everyone's best friend.  He left the realm shortly after this when he did not win the election for the region.  I say yay for roleplays and interesting unintended consequences IMHO.

Outer Tilog City was bought by Angus, too.

[Solari]

Anyone who knows me also knows that I absolutely LOVE buying regions.  It's the greatest use of time and gold ever conceived of.  Until recently, I had never actually been appointed Duke or Lord—I just bought my way into every position.  So what I'm about to say is a big change for me:

I unambiguously support the removal of the feature.  It doesn't add any significant value to the game and it probably has kept a good chunk of gold from being recirculated within the world as players race to 10,000 family wealth or store it up for an eventual attempt at buying a city.  Everyone will have some complaint when we start removing features.  Buying regions is small potatoes.  People should pick their battles more carefully because a feature you really care about might be proposed for removal, and nobody is going to take your complaint seriously if you hyperventilate over the small stuff.

[Tom]

Here's my final take on it:


Buying regions as we know it today is going to be stripped out today.

However, I still like corruption as a game concept and it is very likely that something similar will make a return. However, we won't try to second-guess players again - replacements will be either blatantly obvious with no attempts to hide something that every player knows anyways, or they will be actually hidden so that neither characters nor players know what's going on.

No more "pretend to not know something you do know". I think that was the part that made this a failure.

[egamma]

Here's my final take on it:


Buying regions as we know it today is going to be stripped out today.

However, I still like corruption as a game concept and it is very likely that something similar will make a return. However, we won't try to second-guess players again - replacements will be either blatantly obvious with no attempts to hide something that every player knows anyways, or they will be actually hidden so that neither characters nor players know what's going on.

No more "pretend to not know something you do know". I think that was the part that made this a failure.

Simply changing it to use the same flavor text as the current peasant revolts would work--"The peasants, upset with their current lord Nimrod, have thrown him out and declared Moneybags to be their lord." So you wouldn't know if it's random chance or bribery.

[Tom]

Simply changing it to use the same flavor text as the current peasant revolts would work--"The peasants, upset with their current lord Nimrod, have thrown him out and declared Moneybags to be their lord." So you wouldn't know if it's random chance or bribery.

We've done that. It is horribly complicated code-wise. And people still get suspicious. My decision stands.