Candy Coated Chaos

Korr · Thu Feb 01, 2007 5:04 pm Sage Monarch's Conference (Feb 2007)

Initial description on the Main Sage Parley forum here

I've asked Looseweed and/or Leif to represent our flag. The conference is now three weeks away, so let's start discussing issues to...um...well, discuss.

leif · Thu Feb 01, 2007 5:28 pm

Just wanted to chime in quickly since I attended the last one.

The format was very open. From what I've heard across different oceans, topics covered ranged from OM interventionism to better governor controls to wedding cake. So yeah, pretty much anything people want to see different in the game can be brought up.

For reference:
http://forums.puzzlepirates.com/community/mvnforum/viewthread?p=930613#930613

That's the list of changes Hypnos says were enacted that were suggested from the last conference. As a starting point, is there anything there that might could be fixed better? Are the things you'd like to see changed?

Personally, one of my big wishes has always been finer governor controls. Right now the gov can pretty well raise or lower taxes. I'd like to see options to tax by industry, possibly tax by commodity. This would open up a lot more room to run undesirable shoppes and stalls off an island.

I'd like to see more bakeoffs.

I think more obvious rewards for PvP would be neat.

I'm sure there's a lot more stuff out there...

Prakamos · Thu Feb 01, 2007 6:32 pm

Don't know it you can actually suggest development ideas but meh... Think they should come up with some other flag-oriented mechanic. The goal of a flag is, pretty much, to blockade someone and take an island (generalizing here). I'd just like to see if they could revamp flags in someway =p

More bakeoffs = Yes please.
And we need more trophies! =)

That's all I've got for now...

looseweed · Fri Feb 02, 2007 6:09 am

It's important that CCC members voice any concerns they have about the game here, in this thread, so our representative can establish a talking agenda and get them all out. I speculate that most of the other flag's reps there are likely just going to be using the format to push their own pet peeve. CCC can definitely hold itself to a higher standard than that, so each of our members have a voice.

Pauling · Fri Feb 02, 2007 10:16 am

Blockades:
- Tabs on notice board. Oy.
- Show blockade jobbing offer at all islands; blockades are usually oceanwide fun
- Ability to fetch event blockade scores by ship, not just flag. Might be a bit unwieldy sometimes, but it would be fun if coupled to the ability to offer prizes directly: just send them tourney-style to the navver on the ship that does best.
- Again: I really dislike the use of shell flags holding islands. If you take an island under flag A, then everyone moves to flag B, you shouldn't be able to do things like make the blockade sinking without consequence to the flag that really controls the island. It's a bit like might ring evasion writ large. A possible fix would be a policy of transferring ownership to the new flag if it became clear this was happening.

Materialism:
- I rather like the shift in recent releases away from just items; having reasons to pillage other than "I want to buy an elephant" is a good thing. Continue!
- Trustworthy event planners could benefit from more help with setting up volunteers- things like temporary officer badges. (I would have suggested giving badge powers to white names, but Despair ruined that)

Politics:
- Crack down on some of the dumber loopholes and rules lawyering. Antix posting screenshots and being ignored for a while, or people publicly posting "I can't out who __'s alt is in crew ___ is because of the TOS, but just PM me for details". Sometimes this is done with alt accounts of people who should really, really know better- hold the main account liable if they violate a rule on an alt.
- Communicate better if a controversy erupts. This can be something as simple as stating "we'll review the chatlogs at our weekly meeting- we need a few days to make sure everyone involved will be present, but we're not ignoring the question", etc. People seem to have touchy sense of privilege if their complaints aren't immediately answered by the time they hit refresh.

Economy/islands:
- Fix the loophole that lets shop owners evade 100% taxes by going dark every few weeks, because that makes dusting much harder. One possibility is that every time you go dark, you're liable for back taxes to keep the shop. (possibly after a single warning grace period)
- Per industry tax sliders would also still be very nice. Right now there's a lot of barriers to restoring an island that's been trashed- making it harder to trash and easier to fix would be nice.

ara · Fri Feb 02, 2007 11:39 am

though it's very minor, i'd like to see officers be able to make crew members pirates.

as it is now, only FO and above can make cabbies become pirates.

i would also like to see tournament controls so that you can choose to make it able only if you wanted to. though i don't know if that would lead to an increase of alting in tournaments.

leif · Fri Feb 02, 2007 12:29 pm

ara wrote: i would also like to see tournament controls so that you can choose to make it able only if you wanted to. though i don't know if that would lead to an increase of alting in tournaments.

This actually got mentioned at the Midnight conference back in October or whatever. Basically they can't figure out a way to do it to keep people from alting. I can understand the sentiment, but I think if there were anything approaching a decent prize, people would alt over for it.

I never noticed the officer thing. Wonder why that is? Weird.

ara · Fri Feb 02, 2007 1:43 pm

i would also like to see a way to choose a barp or brig pillage

Prakamos · Fri Feb 02, 2007 2:47 pm

In the spirit of XOing...

Make it so people can't shout on ships unless they're officers.
And a few mutes, like mute all non-officers, or mute vessel chat could do wonders for blockade navvers.

Lomky · Fri Feb 02, 2007 11:19 pm

Another note on XOing, some way to have the duty reports appear even though XOs aren't at a station.

And another for XOing, and in general, the ability to look at a single skill across the ship, as in, see everyone on the ship's score in gunning, or carp, etc without having to go check every profile. Perhaps at the nav table, a button to check all pirates scores at a specific duty puzzle. This would be great when looking for replacement gunners, or when a bad fight leads to a large amount of carp that needs to be repaired quickly.

How about a mass mute in inns....

Spacehog · Sat Feb 03, 2007 4:39 am

Lomky wrote: Another note on XOing, some way to have the duty reports appear even though XOs aren't at a station.

All you need to do is press the escape button and you'll get the last duty report regardless of being on a station or not.

Lomky · Sat Feb 03, 2007 10:40 am

I know, space, and that's great, but sometimes when it's really busy I won't even notice when we Hit a new LP. Just having it pop up automatically to check over them for bad or really good scores would be nice.

Sindaia · Sat Feb 03, 2007 9:59 pm

Just a couple things from my "wish list":

1.) Boarding Lock -
Some way to lock a ship to prevent other people from boarding it while it's at sea (Configure Voyage option?). Good for mem trips or sloop pillys with only 6 on board. Would auto-unlock at port, or if all officers left the ship.

2.) Quick Stats -
If the hiring officer on board a ship is in a duty puzzle when someone applies to a notice board job, the applicant's scores cannot be seen unless the officer leaves the station and then checks the info. I'd like to see an option similar to what you get when you examine navy bnav mission bots, but slightly simpler (and not just for while on a duty puzzle). Perhaps:

Job Applicant:
Greenie
Sails: Able
Carp: Able
Bilge: Able
Guns: Able

3.) Island Zoning?
Prevent idiot governors from building over commods and island topography by having set areas that can be built over. (/em misses the lovely raised area on Admiral that no longer looks raised.)

I had some more ideas, but can't think of them right now. I'll post when I remember!

Carrol · Sun Feb 04, 2007 9:36 am

Wanted to throw in my two cents. Many of the above ideas sound pretty good to me, so I'll echo those:

I've never governed an island, but it seems to me that better tax control would be good, expecially in reguard to industry or commidities.

As Prak mentioned, the current "goal" of a flag is to control an island (or maybe more than 1 in some cases...). I would also like to see some sort of additional flag-oriented mechanic, although I'm unsure what that would be.

To expand on that idea, I would like to see some sort of benefit to members of a flag that controls an island. Right now, if a flag takes an island, they can use it to generate some poe for the flag and such, and that's wonderful. But that's all basically transparent to cabbies, pirates, etc in that flag. Perhaps a discount on taxes or something? Or some other sort of "visible" thing that the members of a flag can see or take advantage of when they're flag owns an island?

<rant> Let me put my portrait in the hold of my sloop, darnit!!! </rant>

Paulings suggestion of showing blockade jobbing at all islands is a good idea. If we can whisk to skellies anywhere is the Ocean, we should certainly be able to whisk to blockades anywhere in the Ocean as well.

Ara's suggestion of giving Officers the ability to make Cabbies into Pirates is a great suggestion.

Sind's suggestion of an enhanced lock feature would be nice. Would certainly help with memming and commodity trading runs.

Her suggestion about "Quick Stats" is good as well. Being able to see people's stats on your ship similar to how navy bot stats show up would be extremely useful.

ara · Sun Feb 04, 2007 9:53 am

/me edits carrol's rant about portraits in ship holds

i'm sure he ment hanging a picture belowdecks or in any larger ship's room.