UO Blog - Player-Run Towns & Communities - October 3rd, 2009

One of the most basic and important life sources of Ultima Online are players who offer company, service, events and adventure to other players. They make us feel "at home" in Britannia and have been the foundation of our gaming fun. The past game expansions have brought more items, skills, landmasses, dungeons and monsters. While those are entertaining, they tend to move the players' interest away from the community and towards items. Now it is time to reclaim the very roots of UO and invent features that cultivate and encourage player-run towns and communities.
 

Content:

• Are You Worthy?
• What is a Player Town?
• Determining Quality and Activity
• Borderline of a Town
• Town Membership
• Town Rewards and Features
• Reward: Profession Bonuses
• Reward: Housing and Renting
• Reward: Special Town Decoration
• Feature: Politics
• Feature: War
• Feature: Trading Between Player Towns

Are You Worthy?

New features created especially for player-run towns should be available for everyone who has started such a township. These features should encourage players to group, to stick together, to actively contribute to community services, and reward those who successfully achieve that. We do not want the great number of single homes or inactive guilds to inflationary devalue those special features. This means, special features and rewards will have to be earned, and a community has to be active to sustain and keep them.

The most critical challenges will be:

• to define what a player-run town is (i.e. which players/houses are member of the township)
• to determine whether the township is active enough to receive/retain extra features and rewards
• to determine when a community will be stripped off its rewards due to inactivity.

There are two ways to solve this: Either have Game Masters individually evaluate player-run towns, or create some nifty game mechanics to determine the value of a player-run town automatically. I'd vote for the latter, as game mechanics are neutral and cannot be accused of favoritism.
 

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What is a Player Town?

A player town is like a guild with additional prerequisites and enhanced features. Creating a town will require two steps: Registering the town (similar to creating a guild) and making sure it is active. The following factors will determine whether you may establish a town and receive town rewards:

• Geography
  Houses of the town should stand close to one another and have to be accessible (public). The size of a town is limited, but depends on the number of members. The border of the town will actually be displayed (only on land tiles) by a dashed line on the ground (details about borders, see below).
• Houses and Players
  The town must consist of at least 5 public houses owned by different players. (Minimum requirement to register a town!)
• Characters
  To qualify as a town, at least 15 characters must be officially registered as townsmen. (Minimum requirement to register a town!)
  15 characters, who are member of the town, have to be online at least 3 hours a month each, to be counted as active. (Minimum requirement to receive town rewards!)
• Visitors
  A town must have at least 30 visitors a month (characters who are not member of the township), if it wants to qualify. (Minimum requirement to receive town rewards!)
   

If the minimum requirements to register a town are not met anymore, the town stone will vanish and the town will be converted back into a normal guild. All town features will expire.
 

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Determining Quality and Activity

It is important to distinguish active from inactive towns, as those towns who dedicate a lot of energy in events, features for entertainment and service should be enhanced in a way to support their endeavor. Without the help of official Game Masters, this kind of quality could also be measured by certain game mechanics. The evaluation should take player activity, character activity and the number of visitors into account. This way it will be difficult to "fake" an active town for personal benefit.
How to determine character activity: The online time of a character will be counted throughout a month. The time will only be counted, if the character is moving around (further than 10 tiles), and not standing in the same spot for a long time. At the end of the month, these times will be summed up. The sum will be used to determine a player's activity.
The status of a player (active/inactive) is refeshed at the end of the month. The number and names of active players can be reviewed on the town stone.
 

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Borderline of a Town

A town will have a natural boderline, in which town houses can be placed/registered and certain functions are available. The rules are as follows:

• The size of a town is determined by the number of accounts (players) who have one or more characters in this township.
• The size is calculated by the radius (number of tiles) around the location of the town stone.
• The minimum size is a radius of 50 tiles around the town stone.
• With each active account, the radius will increase by 20 tiles, up to a maximum size of 200 tiles.
• After a town is registered, the Mayor can place the townstone anywhere on the ground within a radius of 50 tiles around his house (to allow to adapt the town borders to geographical boundaries). This townstone relocation can happen one time only. After that, the townstone will remain in its location until the township is disbanded.
• The border of a town can overlap with the border of another town.
   

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Town Membership

Registering a Town
A player town is a guild with enhanced functions. If a new town is created, the founder has two choices: If he is in no guild, he can just found the "town guild". If he is in a guild, he either has to leave that guild or (if he is the guild master) convert that guild into a "town guild". If an existing guild is converted into a "town guild", all guild members will automatically become members of the township. Existing guild wars or alliances will remain untouched.
In order to register a town, your house has to be public and you have to pay a fee of 5 million gold pieces. After that, you will receive a townstone. This townstone has to be placed in your house. You may move the townstone one time, even outside your house (see chapter above).

Becoming a Member of the Town
To become a member of the township, the founder (Mayor) of the town has to invite you to his "town guild". The same rules apply as if you'd join a regular guild. To avoid exploiting the bonus system, a character who leaves a township can only be re-added to the town after a waiting period of 3 months after leaving.
Similar to guild membership, the members of a township can have the status Mayor, Liege, Warlord and Citizen. The Mayor and Lieges are allowed to add additional members to the town. Only the Mayor and the Warlord are allowed to initiate war proposals (details about wars, see below). Members can also commit themselves to a certain profession (details see next topic).

Adding Houses to the Town
After a day of membership, you can register your house to your town through the house sign, if it is a public house and if it is within the town's borders (i.e. the foundation is located inside or upon the border). This is done via the house sign. Once at least 5 houses and 15 characters have been registered to the town, the townstone will start to glow. The town is now officially established. This status will be prerequisite for any of the features listed below.
 

If the size of the town decreases (maybe because players leave), the houses that are now outside the town's border will be un-registered from the township.

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Town Rewards and Features

The features described in the following chapters are only a few examples. They should be available to active towns, i.e. towns who meet the following minimum requirements:

• 15 town members (i.e. 15 characters) have to be online at least 3 hours a month each.
• A town must have at least 30 visitors a month (characters who are not member of the township). Visitors are counted when they cross the town's borderline (similar to house visitors).

This status will be updated once a month. If those requirements are not met anymore, all town rewards will be revoked.
 

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Reward: Profession Bonuses

If a character joins a player town, he can commit himself to one profession (skill). This commitment has to be accepted by the Mayor through the town stone before it becomes active. The character will be bound to that commitment for 12 months, before it can be changed again. By doing that, a character will not only devote himself to a special skill and thus be able to make a name for himself in this profession. He also has the chance to benefit from interesting bonuses, if he is active. His paperdoll will also show the respective skill title.

The philosophy behind that is, that characters contributing a lot to a town's prosperity will be rewarded. This way, active communities are encouraged. If a character is member of the town, has committed himself to a certain profession, and is active for more than 20 hours a month, he can receive certain bonuses. These bonuses will expire when the character leaves the township, changes his profession or decreases his activity below the required level.

• Craftsman Profession
  A 10% increased success chance in the respective crafting skill. 1 additional random property of medium intensity on each crafted item (can be toggled off). 50% chance to increase maximum durability of an item by 10 points upon repairing (only if it is worn out below 10 durability when being repaired). All of these bonuses only work while the character is inside the borders of the town.
• Warrior Profession
  10% damage increase in the respective fighting skill. 10% defense chance increase while inside the borders of his town. The opportunity to resurrect by the town stone at any time (30% stat penalty for the duration of 10 minutes when using the town stone for resurrection).
• Tamer Profession
  10 points bonus on Veterinary skill. The ability to spawn 10 rats/chicken/cows/sheep or snakes a day inside the borders of the town. The ability to serve as a stable master inside the borders of the town (people can access their personal stable while standing next to that character).
• Fisherman Profession
  10 points bonus on Fishing skill. A fisherman will also receive a special fishing boat, which is a very small vessel that cannot be dry-docked and will never decay when anchored inside the borders of the town (unless the fisherman loses his profession). The boat can carry up to 3 people. When fishing from this boat in deep water, you have a 10% increased chance to fish up special items, and a small chance to fish up a new dangerous sea creature with special loot.
• Architect Profession (bound to Carpentry)
  While inside the borders of his town, an architect gets a 10% increased success chance for crafting carpentry/masonry items. He also can craft and place special town decoration (as listed below). Once a week he can summon a special anvil that he can place inside his house. The anvil will decay after 4 hours. Anybody standing next to this anvil will get 10 points of skill bonus in smithing
• Innkeeper Profession (bound to no particular skill)
  Ability to open a hostel (see Housing and Renting below). Once a day, the innkeeper can grant a special Gem of Spiritual Home to his customers (those who have rented storage or a room in his hostel), by selecting an option from the customer's character menu. While the gem is in the backpack, the owner has his luck increased by 200 points. On double-clicking the gem, it will transport the owner from anywhere back to the hostel and then expire. A character can only hold one gem at a time. The gem will expire after 12 hours.
• Gardener Profession (bound to no particular skill)
  Can permanently place up to 50 plants (those which do not block movement) inside the borders of the city. Once placed, this decoration can only be removed by a town gardener, or by the Mayor.
• Fighting Trainer Profession (bound to no particular skill)
  His house will turn into a dueling pit. Any player inside the house can challenge any other player in this house for a duel. If the opponent accepts, they can fight and kill each other, independent of their guild war (highlighting) status. They will not be able to give murder counts or loot their opponent.
• Guard Profession (bound to no particular skill)
  Ability to put any character who is highlighted green or orange into prison (a predetermined room inside the guard's house). The guard can set the duration of imprisonment (5-60 minutes). The prisoner cannot be killed while in jail. He can leave jail if 1) the time is up; 2) the guard is killed; 3) the guard logs out; 4) the guard releases him. While the prisoner is in jail, the guard cannot hide. A guard can only put 1 character into prison at a time (except during a war, where he can arrest 2 people).

All these bonuses encourage public town events, like market days, wars, trading events or other roleplaying events. Features like these will make players visit such towns and get together for special events. Towns with such features will become a favorite home base for players.
 

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Reward: Housing and Renting

All houses in a town will have a minimum base storage limit of 1500 items, no matter how small they are. People should be encouraged to build small houses. Small houses can contribute a lot to the character of a town. Of course, all houses in this town have to be public.

To allow the building of hostels and inns, all house owners actually can rent rooms or safe strongboxes to other players. This works as follows: A house can have several closed rooms. The house owner can use the context menu of the door to allow only certain characters to open that door and enter the room. The same can be done with containers. From the context menu, the house owner can also define a certain rental fee, which will be deducted every month from the tenant's bank box automatically. When the tenant runs out of money, he will lose his access permission. House owners may open doors to rooms he rented to other people. However, he cannot open strongoxes he rented to other people, unless the tenant has run out of money; he can only destroy them.
Of course, every player can rent room and storage to others. However, if you officially choose the Inkeeper profession (see chapter above), your house will automatically register as a hostel, your house sign will be set to that of an inn, and you will receive 2000 items additional storage. This additional storage is reserved for strongboxes only, and strongboxes cannot be rented to characters of the owner's account to prevent abuse.
 

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Reward: Special Town Decoration

Characters who have chosen the Architect profession (see chapter above) can craft up to 50 special add-ons for towns. These add-ons can be placed within the borders of the town with a spacing of 1 tile (to avoid extensive blocking of path). Those add-ons could be:

• Different gravestones that can be engraved with a customizable text.
• A new variety of statues, which also can be engraved.
• Fountains.
• Draw wells, which can be used to pull up water.
• Arches, pillars, pedestals, ruins and other stone decoration.
• A wide variety of decoration items to support the character of a town.
• One-way teleporter leading to a specific Britannian city of choice.

Once placed, these decorations can only be removed by a town stonemason, or by the Mayor.
 

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Feature: Politics

A town will get a special messaging feature, the Town News. The Mayor and Lieges can write town news, which are short messages limited to 250 characters. These messages will be displayed immediately to every town member who is online, and will be displayed to offline town members as soon as they log in. Such messages will expire after 5 days (so people who were offline for a longer time don't get flooded with messages). This Town News system is an excellent way to announce events and spread news to the townsmen.

A special voting system will be available, the Town Ballot. A mayor cannot decide everything by himself. Instead, certain decisions have to be confirmed by the townsmen through a ballot. A decision is confirmed when more than 50% of the active town members have voted for it. This only concerns town members who have been online during the past 2 weeks. The votes of those who have a house in the town count double. Ballots will be required for the following decisions:

• Declaring war on another town
• Determining a new Mayor
• Establishing or cancelling a trade relation with another town
   

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Feature: War

With sufficient "yes"-votes, a town can declare war on another town. The other town has to accept (through a ballot as well) before the war is officially established. This town war has nothing to do with highlighting (that's what guild wars are for). Town wars are temporary events that can be "won" or "lost". It works like this:

• The aggressor determines the conditions. He can demand any number of gold or ressources from another town. Usually, these conditions are negotiated between the Mayors beforehand until both sides come to an agreement. These values are called "reparations", and they are entered into the war contract. The aggressor has to add said items (in form of commodity deeds) to the contract (similar to quest items).
• The aggressor also determines the conditions under which a war is won. Usually it will be a number of kills within a limited number of days. A kill counts twice if it was made on enemy territory (i.e. within the borders of the enemy's town). Only those who have the Warrior Profession count towards the kill points. Killing crafters, for example, will not yield any points.
• The other town can decline or accept the war. If they decline, no war will be established, the aggressor gets back his reparations. If they accept, they have to add the same amount of reparations to the war contract, as the aggressor.
• During a war situation, every town member may apply poison or explosion traps to the doors in their houses, that only are triggered by members of the enemy guild. Enemies can use the Disarm Trap skill to temporarily disable such traps.
• During the time of war, players with the Guard Profession may imprison 2 characters at a time, instead of 1.
• When the deadline of the war is up, the town with the most killing points can claim all reparations from the war contract.

This way, guilds who are at war can have a goal they're fighting for, and they can use tactics to win a war. Also, the town war does not affect guild highlighting.
 

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Feature: Trading Between Player Towns

There are many possible ways to establish trade relations between towns. These should be rewarding for both sides (rewards for successfully finishing a deal), should contain some risk as well (wares have to be transported, caravans can be ambushed), and should be challenging (deal must be finished during a limited amount of time). These relations should encourage the trading of wares between towns, instead of just putting things into a vendor.

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