Suggestion (Major): Incorporate a social sim

[neinwhal]

This is potentially a larger suggestion that might change gameplay. I attempted an earlier version of this over at gabosburg before it was down. Essentially this proposes an social sim into the game itself - which essentially involves and much larger and more complex expansion of the existing "ranks" mod.

On the most basic way of explaining, this deals with things like jobs, businesses, industries etc. Players could take on jobs and get better at it, which they get promoted and get prizes for it. On a larger perspective, it creates a series of industries - and the plan is that, this diverse interaction and ranking/award system hopefully keeps a player engaged.

On a more technical level, regarding the function of things;

JOBS There will be a few main jobs a starting player could start with

• Farmer (Earn points via planting)
• Builder (Earn points via building)
• Miner (Earn points via mining)
• Explorer (Earn points via distance travelled)
• Trader (Earn points via selling)

Benefit for having jobs means you get paid with bitcoins. Each job will be offered a unique shop which allow them to purchase things not normally easily obtainable, using their points.

Upon reaching certain level of points, players can afford to take a promotion. As they progress and get promoted, in the shop, different options are unlocked or costs are cheaper. This promotion doesn't necessarily have to be linear, for example, a builder could choose between laborer, designer or crafter, of which each will unlock different options in the shops - laborer dealing with roads and infrastructure, designer being a more mild form of an architect, crafter dealing with furniture and such.

BUSINESSES Businesses are two or more players or same or different jobs working together.

In businesses, players are given the opportunity to share their points, their individual shops and points still exist, but there's a new separate "points pool" that everyone could contribute towards. Those points could be either used to upgrade the ranking of the business or used in a special businesses shop. This new business shop offers a even larger range of goodies (goods depends on what the business is catered towards) - but only the business owner could purchase anything and only using the points pool.

INDUSTRIES Eventually as businesses get upgraded high enough, it becomes an industry. A unique feature as offered to industries is the ability to buy businesses. This means, industries are a combination of multiple businesses. What this really entails, I'm not fully sure yet. For now really, it's just larger version of businesses.

SUMMARY Specifics of items offered, ways to earn points, leaderboard systems, all this will still have to be carefully crafted, but above details a brief of what's necessarily to come. The change in terms of gameplay is major of course, and this is potentially a controversial change, pulling craig's away from its vanilla roots.

But imo, this change is potentially a good idea. What I feel craig's is lacking atm is really engagement and purpose. There's only so much resources you can get and so much buildings to build before it gets tiring. This new system doesn't necessarily take away any of the old fun, but it adds a new purpose, a much more complex system for the player to work towards - of course, in the end, this system is really still completely optional.

[neinwhal]

Slight update regarding some worries, as brought up from bobmacphee, another player of the server.

1. This removes the freedom and opportunities on the server. This does nothing to change the freedom, everyone is still free to do as they please. Basically, jobs and businesses does one thing and one thing only - reward players for their work - getting points from work and ability to use those to buy things they need. Businesses is also the same, but a more collaborative form of reward.

2. A competition system where it introduces intimidation to new players. This worry deals with the fact there will exists certain larger businesses that can scare players, which is a very good point - in that case - the solution is simple. Ranks and businesses and such, are only visible to the player themselves, there will be no outward indication. The competitive approach can be fully taken out and the system still does what it really wants to achieve, as noted in the first worry; reward players for their work. More large scale operations like industries - which for now seem to be fully competitive can be completely taken out without damaging the main idea of the system.

I'll be adding further comments to address further worries, because as previously stated, I am aware this change is huge and controversial.

[davisonio]

Interested in this. At the moment we use the rank builder for fly and noclip for experience players as "builders" but interested to expand.