Zoric 8 thoughts/ideas

[zaroba]

don't worry, the island is still far from comeing.
i started work on the Zoric 8 buildings today (nothing better to do) and am just popping some ideas out for discussion/change.

main goal of the island is to make it last longer, as spider said, islands can easily be reset every month, players easily get bored, new players will easily find it hard to do stuff. am hop-eing to make zoric 8 last a bit longer by implimenting some of the stuff mit has in place on zion like the multiple employees per building for jobs and slow income rates, along with some of the stuff hedge had on reine to make it easier for young players like gov owned buildings that buy stuff at profitable rates.

money will use a 10d per sheckle scale, taxes are unknown still. buildings are unknown too, but am currently considering a 20/10/10 limit.

currently, thiers only plans to use 13 vehicles besides vehicle 1.
vehicle 2 will be a default inventory tractor, vehicles 3-5 will be cars, vehicles 6-8 will be trucks, vehicles 10-12 will be boats, vehicles 15-17 will be planes.
each type is made in its own fac, has its own matching parts fac, and its own matching showroom. the remaining unused vehicles will be givin out as prizes for contests. also planning to hide some on the island in various places on the island. planes will need the piolet skill, boats will need the sailor skill, cars and trucks (besides the default v2) will need the driver skill.

buildings will be realitivly cheap and require materials only to be made. they will each take a minimum of 3 employees. production, store, and some manafacturing buildings will have 2 copies of them in the buildings list. a normal building, and a Large version of it. the large version being a bit more then twice the price, producing twice as fast, having a bit more then twice the capacity of items, and taking upto 5 employees instead.

materials for buildings will be cheap, and will many items. money will probably be easy to make, but taxes will probably also be high taxes, high food/drink needs, and high fuel usage of many of the vehicles.

landscape will continue to be the size it has been on the past zorics, towns will be smaller, and thier will be streams that are dangerous to cars/trucks. water damage will be on and high. blowing up will send you to the center of the map and probably clear your inventory (can't exactly keep Tea thats spilled all over your dashboardfrom an accident )

might stick in weapons

[tipster]

I'm kinda worried about the skills part. Seeing is how you need so many skills, why not increase the skill limit as well? 10 might be a bit too low with all those skills like driver, pilot, sailor needed.

I really don't like the high tax idea though.

[puggy]

How many buildings max can you have and if it's low could mit easily increase the max no?

I do have an idea for a world based on an online game which i played until sega killed it (starpeace, renammed by sega to legacy online). It was basically a game where you made goods and sold them to either other players (raw materials) or to virtual people of the world. While tractor dose not have this ability you could simulate this (sort of) by having virtual credits (like bonds). So and iron ore mine might use 1 bronze bond to make 10 ore, a steel facorty might use 10 ore to make 5 steel, an car plant might use 10 steel to make 1 car, a car store use 1 car to make 1 silver bond. The silver bond could be used at a goverment bond place to change it into 500s, for example.

You could implement a max no of bonds a bond place could store with a decay rate simalar to that used on RB. Might sound a bit complex but if you started with initially simple buildings (like food) which are realitivly cheap and build up from there (could be done while the game is running) you could have thousands of buildings with top ones costing thousands of sheckles (like a micro proscessor factory). Not only would this provide a good long term game but could provide complex gameplay as well.

[Calren]

...slow income rates, along with some of the stuff hedge had on reine to make it easier for young players like gov owned buildings that buy stuff at profitable rates.

I'm not a big fan of the "low wages" or the "infinite piggy bank" methods, especially as a way to slow down game play. You go from simply hunting for a job and killing time till you can get into business to "may the person that never logs out and is always selling win." Hated that on RB because the entire economy for the early part of the game was geared towards throwing items into the void. I like the players having to, for the most part, actually trade and get money cirulating - with a stalled economy being the result of not doing business. Granted, Zoric 7's having a rough time right now (the only economic boom has been when the SomethingAwful crowd pretended to be stormtroopers) but I blame the "Zoric 2" feel, on Zoric 6 we had a nice trading business going due to building materials being needed for construction and upkeep.

.... but am currently considering a 20/10/10 limit.

.Currently, thiers only plans to use 13 vehicles besides vehicle 1.
vehicle 2 will be a default inventory tractor, vehicles 3-5 will be cars, vehicles 6-8 will be trucks, vehicles 10-12 will be boats, vehicles 15-17 will be planes.
each type is made in its own fac, has its own matching parts fac, and its own matching showroom.

I would suggest a 20/5/10 limit instead. It would encourage diversity, and keep one player from having too much control over a single type. With vehicles I would suggest enabling inventory limits, perhaps have vehicle 7 or 8 a delivery truck or 18 wheeler, something suitable.

About the vehicle buildings, I was thinking about this. I like the idea of different parts for diff vehicles, but not keen on each having its on building (same with vehicles). What do you think of Car, Truck, Boat, and Plane Parts factories, with matching vehicle factories similar to the current layout. The change, however, would be that there would also be a paint factory. Using Zoric 6's settings as an example, a car factory would use 40 metal and 40 car parts to make an unfinished trike. Then the same factory (or maybe the showroom just for chuckles) would use red paint and the unfinished trike to make a complete, working Trike, to be loaded at (or already there if painted there) a Car & Truck showroom. This way you get your added buildings (multiple parts factories, Car & Truck showroom, Marina(sp?), and airport(?), plus a paint factory) and it doesn't get too nutty.

the remaining unused vehicles will be givin out as prizes for contests. also planning to hide some on the island in various places on the island. planes will need the piolet skill, boats will need the sailor skill, cars and trucks (besides the default v2) will need the driver skill.

Contests.. maybe. Hiding them on the island absolutely not. You're just going back to handing out free candy with that. If people want vehicles, let em earn them either by buildings or winning a whacked out contest. as far as skills, sure, but I would suggest maybe 12 skills then.

buildings will be realitivly cheap and require materials only to be made. they will each take a minimum of 3 employees. production, store, and some manafacturing buildings will have 2 copies of them in the buildings list. a normal building, and a Large version of it. the large version being a bit more then twice the price, producing twice as fast, having a bit more then twice the capacity of items, and taking upto 5 employees instead.

I like using materials to build buildings, but I also like building decay when set reasonable (like the same as the inactive timer). It not only helps clean up unused buildings, rather than you destroying jehovah sites, but also would fuel the materials industries.

materials for buildings will be cheap, and will many items. money will probably be easy to make, but taxes will probably also be high taxes, high food/drink needs, and high fuel usage of many of the vehicles.

I assume you meant "take many items." That part I'm fine with. The easy money, as I said eariler, comes form trading to the infinite piggy bank(s) instead of keeping everything between players. taxes don't need to be absurd (well in the starting town sure, forces us to leave), but federal construction/sales tax getting out of hand is nuts. INcome I can se as being a little high, can at least have it easier when starting out.

I really don't care for "dumbing down" Zoric, someone can make a learning world (or make Biplane World betterto serve that purpose) for the newbies, and when they're ready they can come on over.

And now I sleep.

[zaroba]

ok then, the infinate investment 'junkyard' buildings which buy stuff and make it into other stuff that is sold will be removed.

i still want the hiddin vehicles thingy though.
keep in mind, they wont exactly be easy to find.
its not very easy to find an invisable building with no name at all
might even make them look like trees and plant forests all over the island like zoric 6 had.

[tipster]

How hard could it be to find a tree? there's no trees, lol... just go into the crow game and fly around until you find it, then go by foot.

but if you are doing an invisible building without a name, and you have to have the building information screen open, then yeah, it'll be hard.

But I too agree there shouldn't be hidden vehicles. They should earn it properly, because it's too easy for a treasure hunt. Like for example, a guy goes around looking for an hour and doesn't find it, a new gu ycomes along, randomly goes to some spot, and goes hey whast this do.. and gets the vehicle. Now he doesn't know what to do, he wastes all his fuel, spends all his money on fuel. Then he just quits the game because he doesn't like it, and now it's gone.

So just make it available through factories and stuff.

[zaroba]

"How hard could it be to find a tree? there's no trees, lol... just go into the crow game and fly around until you find it, then go by foot. "

lol, i said and if i planted trees everywhere like zoric 6 had

[tipster]

doesn't the server say when you join "Zoric 6"?

Unless you happen to count Zoric as zoric 1, and Zoric 1 as Zoric 2, etc.

[Tom]

thats due to the registration.

this is zoric '7'

[Mit]

Jus curious, but if you're looking to make sure theres plenty of stuff to do, and make life enjoyable for newbies, whats the reasoning behind giving the tractor as a default vehicle?
If it were not free, but instead made easy and cheap to produce, would that not give the new players an obvious task early on (i.e. to find a place to buy a cheap tractor) and give everyone with a low wealth a low-gain but low-risk option to get into business?

[zaroba]

hmm, thats true
shall have to d othat.

[zaroba]

hmm, thats true
shall have to d othat.

[Mattizme]

The dancing monkeys, they hurt my eyes!

[next_gener]

i like most of these ideas but i think Tipster could be right about the hidden vehicles thing!

another idea is to MAKE ppl sell things and have none of this "380 in stock, not selling" going on as its not fair for the newbs and others who want to make money!

im getting bored when im on the island as i cant find things to do unless i PM someone to let me buy something off them and even then they dont want to sell sometimes! i do understand the "family" thing but dont quite understand how it works! if a family member wants to trade with another member do they have seperate selling prices from non-family members? also some players selling goods for extortionately high prices (like fuel for 22s10d) just so that noboby will buy from them!

i think this is a great game but lacks the interaction needed from all players in these aspects! people should be encouraged to keep the economy going and maybe there wont be so many people leaving or island resets!

just my 2 cents!

[zaroba]

forced selling would need to be programmed in.
bit of a way to avoid the family issue would be to remove families from the island.
still wont stop people from making trade deals though.

[Tom]

i think hiden vehicles could be fun.

on my world i'm going to have little goals to get vehicles.
personal goals not family goals

[tipster]

btw, seriously, DON'T put a lot of trees, I don't want my average fps to be 2, it's low enough already...

[Spider]

Its hard to see how hidden vehicles can help the longetivity of the islands. Also, its not that practical. Either its easy to see where they are (is that an island over there?) or its not, in which case the rich guys get the booty anyway.

The "380 in stock not selling" thing isn't usually due to families. Its due to people not realising that they need to actually sell the stock to make money. If nobody wants to sell their stuff (possibly because they want to keep it for themselves), then let them.

Vehicles could be made a lot cheaper too. Making vehicle production cheaper would mean that new players would not lose all their money because they have suddenly spent half of it on vehicles. Also, I think that expensive car showrooms are a bad idea. As they cost so much, one or two people can have a monopoly on all cars. Separate showrooms are also quite a bad idea. This means that you need a whole extra building just to make one car. Perhaps making the car factory sell their stuff is an alternative to this.

In my opinion, fewer cars should be available. Maybe 1) a cheap and reasonable vehicle 2) a medium speed vehicle and 3) a fast vehicle. Then a truck could be added, with a huge capacity, and a plane , and also a boat. This will also stop those who buy a car at the top of the range, then go and buy the one above it for an extra xxx sheckles, using up xxx sheckles to get a whole extra 5 mph top speed.

Calren's going to hate me for this, but a government building buying stuff is a good idea for an economy. Although in the early stages it would be buying stuff, by a week's time, it would be setting a limit on how much players can buy their stuff, causing a common minimum price which would cause profits. Obviously the buy price would be 1d above the cost of the product (although employees might make this difficult). This idea has been put up before, in the guise of a sea port. Also, it would be nice if that building could sell stuff, too, so not all the stock goes to waste.

I like Mit's idea. Its true that low cost, low profit buildings should be made. One of the problems with new players is that they seem too uncertain about what buildings to make. It seems that only a small percentage are willing to go and start a building (100 people in a-tractor remember).

It would be nice to have a 'bottom heavy' economy. This would be where you would need huge amounts of production stock for manufacturing, and also large amounts of manufacturing stock for the shops. This also ties in with Mit's idea, so that the low cost, low risk, low profit buildings would be oil drills, chem stores, some of the farms (maybe all), metal mines and stone blocks. This would also add a hierachy, and when a new player moves on from this stuff to manufacturing items, they would find plenty of support for his new business.

Of course, encouraging people to transfer would be a big help too. Don't know how to do that, except for a minor piece of lobotomy...

[Destroyer]

Imho tax kills the whole transferring idea.

At the end of the day tax is just making you lose more money for helping the economy, what the point of having to transfer 1000 fert at 1d profit per wen the tax absulotely kills all your profits (and dont you dare tell me your gonna do it one at a frickin time).

A new tax system needs to be worked out where it benifits the guy buying to elp the economy,(maybe only tax on certain buildings,retail etc. or only tax products over a certain price range or once the player has aquired x amount of wealth)

[scrag]

i agree the tax does suck it needs to be re thinked