TLDR at the bottom (important information and ideas are in bold). Keep in mind that all ideas presented are up for debate.
Potterworld released towns over 2 years ago now and for the most part they have been utilised well with roleplay, quests, reputations, and lore taking place in each one. But how can Potterworld truly embrace the map expansion and ensure that all playstyles are able to approach it freely?
Well the answer to that is simple: Town Ownership.
Just by those 2 words you should be able to tell that this will be a longer and more ambitious suggestion than most.
So there are a few main questions that need to be answered when deciphering how town ownership would work and here, I think, are the most important:
- Who would own towns?
- How would town ownership be displayed?
- What motives are there to owning a town?
- How would towns transfer between owners?
- How would town ownership interact with reputations?
Let's go through each question one by one!
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First: Who would own towns?
This ones quite obvious: guilds.
Guilds are perfect as they span a large portion of the community and mean that players from all levels can work together to control parts of the map, hopefully making them more active. The user access levels already incorporated into guilds would make it easier to manage with the guild owner having complete control and those with lesser permissions being able to interact with the physical and beneficial attributes of owning a town. The guild chat would make it easy to communicate and the guild banner would supply a visually modifyable aspect to ownership. The player limit also makes it harder for one group of players to completely dominate the server and the guild bank acts as a great point to expand into the nitty gritty details of a town's economy. This is all a no-brainer.
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Second question: How would town ownership be displayed?
The simple answer to this would be through a map. However, unfortunately, Potterworld uses a very beautiful 3D map that would make it almost impossible to use the typical approach of borders and colours to differentiate between ownership (like most games do). Therefore Potterworld could either go about making a new, different map (possibly seperate from the current one), or simply go down a different route, however it is important to have a centralised place to see all town ownership. This could be in a GUI in game, a hologram or NPC near the Great Hall (and thus in every town) or perhaps some object or collectable that you can carry with you (maybe incorporated into the rememberall or warp key bag). As for the physical indications to mark a town, there are endless possibilites. The obvious one is having the guild's banners around the town with holograms indicating income, owners, and how long it has been in a certain guild's posessions. Another could be NPCs with people's skins on or even a town hall in some places which focusses on guild activity. There could also be a new department in the Ministry dedicated to all the different uses and displays of towns. Another way to make sure players know which area is owned by who is to have more sign posts, small border walls, and holograms in the outskirts of towns. Finally, housing (which I will explain in further depth later) would add to the feeling of having guilds and towns being two inseperable concepts.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Third question: What motives are there to owning a town?
Why have towns if they have no purpose? Well there are a great range of options to choose from when giving a motive for guilds to own towns: whether that be based on economics, roleplay, gameplay or something completely different.
The roleplay motives are fairly clear. Who wouldn't want to own a town? It would greatly strengthen the validity and fame of any guild and the competition spurred on by possible leaderboards would add to the fire. Another aspect that could be utilised is that of housing. In the good ol' days, you use to be able to buy houses and shops. This was sadly ended many years ago but it doesn't mean it can't be brought back. Now, I think there are 3 main ways that this could go:
- Members of the owning guilds are the only people who can buy houses
- Members of the owning guild can buy houses in full, while non-members must rent them for a certain price per month
- Both members of the owning guild and non-members pay for houses in the same way.
Buying a house in full could mean that said house remains in your possession until the town is taken over by another guild, OR it could mean that you have to renew it every month but without additional cost. Renting could work the same way as market NPCs. Obviously housing would mean that the houses would also need a purpose. I would love to list off loads of motives for buying a house but I am not aware enough of the current Potterworld tech to be able to do so, but here are a few options:
- An interaction inside can be clicked to teleport to your housing (/home)
- A market NPC outside the house
- Some sort of private storage
- A hologram or something of the sorts to identify a house as being yours
- Potentially some customisable options
- Maybe something like an oven where you can get certain buffed foods or collectable foods
- The ability to turn on and off fires
- An accessible way to open certain GUIs inside (reputations, vending machine, shady dealer, vendor e.g.)
- A direct teleport to the house
- A collectable or hat of some sorts maybe
- Interactable wardrobe that opens /hats
- Possibly a cooking / brewing station (with less particles and holograms)
- Jukebox!
- Mailbox
Obviously none of these are particularly great but they are just some ideas and I hope that the developers can think of some that they can realistically add that fits with the current tech and performance requirements.
Finally for roleplay, something could be done to ensure the preservation of the lore and historic ownership of a town.
Next up are the economic advantages (of which there are many). One could be the concept of having the gold equivalent of firedust used to warp someone to an area be directed to the local guild bank, or perhaps a share of it at least. Another would be the existance of trade routes which could probably use a whole new suggestion but would include the taxation and transportation of 'goods' (possibly just gold) around different towns which would feed passively into the banks of surrounding guilds. This could have a wide variety of settings, and geographical boosts, making the value of towns different from each other. A feature that would increase activity is the possibility of guilds owning certain areas getting certain quests with nearby mobs or landmarks that when completed either gives the gold to the guild member or into the guild bank. Guilds owning areas could also get a free warp to the town, meaning they would spend less money on firedust. Gold from hidden chests in the possessed area could come with a bonus too. There could also exist town upgrades to invest in your town to make it more prophitable - this could just all be in a GUI and increase passive gold income (with increasable attributes such as merchant ships, wagons, town walls, production etc.) or it could be something more physical. Another idea is that of being able to raid certain towns for gold and supplies. One of the greatest economic advantages would be the addition of an NPC that buys potions and food, that only the guild owning the town could sell too - this undoubtedly would increase interest in professions. Finally, something could be done with rent or market NPCs where some of the gold goes to the guild bank.
All these are simply ideas and all are expendable but they hopefully can give inspiration to the game design team.
Whatever guild has the most land at the end of a month / season would get special gifts such as collectables, gold, and possibly a leaderboard position.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fourth question: How would towns transfer between owners?
At first, no towns would be owned by anyone. However, guilds would be able to conquer these towns by approaching them, clicking on an object of some sorts (at which point hoverable item would show the town's defence stats) and declaring war. This could either be done by all members or only by owners / admins - doesn't matter either way. Now there are a few ways this could be made multiplayer. Either have it so all players who wish to join have to go to the town and click the item in a set amount of time to be added OR just simply put a message in guild chat stating a war is starting and allow someone to click on it to join. This would probably require a minimum playercount in order to make it fair for smaller guilds - something like 6 or 7 seems appropriate. Now the complex bit is figuring out what a war would actually consist of. Many PvPers would probably prefer a system where you can duel for towns but this would be very difficult due to people not being on the server at all times.
In my opinion, the best way to do it would be where the attacking guild has to fight some form of boss or army in a limited time. Alternatively, Wynncraft's system of attacking a central tower is very appealling but copying that may be a bit obvious. If it were to be a boss alone then it should be very powerful and should be able to spawn in mobs from time to time, similar to how Yassmir operated. If possible, it would be great to see it have the skin of the owner of the defending guild. There could also be certain objectives the attacking guild must do to make it more interesting such as destroying towers, soulshards, houses, gold stashes etc. - but ensure that it is based on skill rather than intellect as puzzles would get very repetitive very quickly.
As for dying, there are two systems: either where the players can revive their teammates or where they are permanently dead for the rest of the war. The one that is chosen will depend on how difficult the boss is but it should prioritise giving the possibility of loss on the attackers side. In my opinion, the better option would be where dying would be the end of whoever was killed to add a sense of danger and urgency, but either works.
Despite this way of waging war relying heavily on PvE, a PvP system COULD still be incorporated, possibly giving the defending guild members an opportunity to enter the battle arena when they are alerted that they have been attacked.
Whatever happens, the defending guild would still have a large amount of control over the battle as they would be able to use gold to upgrade their town defences and the bosses / objectives / mobs that are included in the battle. Stats that could be upgraded are:
- Health of Boss / Mobs
- Damage of Boss / Mobs
- Number of Objectives to destroy
- Health of Objectives (if they are destroyed by killing them)
- Number of Mobs
- Spells and abilities used by the Boss
In my opinion, gear should NOT be required in these battles as to allow lower levelled players to join
In the end, the attacking side will win by killing the boss and destroying any objectives (if there were to be any). This will transfer the town over to the winning guild, and possibly reset all the stats of the guild (although I'm not sure whether this would be the best way to go about a town transfer). If the guild fails to conquer the town, then the defending town will gain guild XP and gold but also have depleted bosses / mobs in need of upgrading or restoration.
As for how this all would be timed, I think having a certain time per month (perhaps one day) where battles are active would be the best way to do it (although raids - if included - could be done at any time). After a town has defended a battle it would not be attackable for the next 9 or 12 hours. If a town had been conquered, it would not be attackable until the next month.
In this month, there could possibly be ways an attacking guild could weaken the defending town, maybe by destroying supplies, gaining reputation with the locals or blocking trade routes.
I'm sure there are other possibilites to declaring war and I'd love to see them but this is just the one I came up with by looking at other similar systems such as those in Conqeuror's Blade, Assassin's Creed, and Wynncraft.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fifth Question: How would town ownership interact with reputations?
This is probably the question I am least sure of. As I have already said, reputations could be used in cooperation with war: maybe a player or guild needs a certain reputation to be able to declare war on said town, maybe a high reputation could make it easier to conquer a town, maybe new reputation rewards could include certain buffs or items in war.
It's also possible that reputation could have an economic impact, maybe having a high reputation gives you more gold in local guild quests, or means goods have to pay less taxation if going through a town's trade routes. Perhaps towns could have levels related to the guild owning them and the guild's combined reputation could have a role in deciding this. Maybe more players with higher reputation simply increases the passive income or maybe certain upgrades require the owner or the entire guild to have a certain amount of reputation for the town.
As I said, I'm really not sure but I feel like there are some options. Some people could even say that reputations alone should decide who owns what town, but with the repetiveness of the quests, I don't think this is a good idea.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TLDR;
Towns have a lot of potential in being owned by specific guilds by reigniting the roleplay community and adding both new ways to gain and spend gold. It has the potential to fit nicely with both PvP and PvE in a constantly waring map where banners and holograms are used to display the ownership of land across the map. You would be able to conquer territories, raid towns, and fight bosses to expand your influence. Buying and renting houses could be brought back, as well as selling potions and food to NPCs. Reputation would also have greater purpose if incorporated and whichever guild reigned supreme at the end of a month/season would get rewards such as collectables and gold.
Potterworld released towns over 2 years ago now and for the most part they have been utilised well with roleplay, quests, reputations, and lore taking place in each one. But how can Potterworld truly embrace the map expansion and ensure that all playstyles are able to approach it freely?
Well the answer to that is simple: Town Ownership.
Just by those 2 words you should be able to tell that this will be a longer and more ambitious suggestion than most.
So there are a few main questions that need to be answered when deciphering how town ownership would work and here, I think, are the most important:
- Who would own towns?
- How would town ownership be displayed?
- What motives are there to owning a town?
- How would towns transfer between owners?
- How would town ownership interact with reputations?
Let's go through each question one by one!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
First: Who would own towns?
This ones quite obvious: guilds.
Guilds are perfect as they span a large portion of the community and mean that players from all levels can work together to control parts of the map, hopefully making them more active. The user access levels already incorporated into guilds would make it easier to manage with the guild owner having complete control and those with lesser permissions being able to interact with the physical and beneficial attributes of owning a town. The guild chat would make it easy to communicate and the guild banner would supply a visually modifyable aspect to ownership. The player limit also makes it harder for one group of players to completely dominate the server and the guild bank acts as a great point to expand into the nitty gritty details of a town's economy. This is all a no-brainer.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Second question: How would town ownership be displayed?
The simple answer to this would be through a map. However, unfortunately, Potterworld uses a very beautiful 3D map that would make it almost impossible to use the typical approach of borders and colours to differentiate between ownership (like most games do). Therefore Potterworld could either go about making a new, different map (possibly seperate from the current one), or simply go down a different route, however it is important to have a centralised place to see all town ownership. This could be in a GUI in game, a hologram or NPC near the Great Hall (and thus in every town) or perhaps some object or collectable that you can carry with you (maybe incorporated into the rememberall or warp key bag). As for the physical indications to mark a town, there are endless possibilites. The obvious one is having the guild's banners around the town with holograms indicating income, owners, and how long it has been in a certain guild's posessions. Another could be NPCs with people's skins on or even a town hall in some places which focusses on guild activity. There could also be a new department in the Ministry dedicated to all the different uses and displays of towns. Another way to make sure players know which area is owned by who is to have more sign posts, small border walls, and holograms in the outskirts of towns. Finally, housing (which I will explain in further depth later) would add to the feeling of having guilds and towns being two inseperable concepts.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Third question: What motives are there to owning a town?
Why have towns if they have no purpose? Well there are a great range of options to choose from when giving a motive for guilds to own towns: whether that be based on economics, roleplay, gameplay or something completely different.
The roleplay motives are fairly clear. Who wouldn't want to own a town? It would greatly strengthen the validity and fame of any guild and the competition spurred on by possible leaderboards would add to the fire. Another aspect that could be utilised is that of housing. In the good ol' days, you use to be able to buy houses and shops. This was sadly ended many years ago but it doesn't mean it can't be brought back. Now, I think there are 3 main ways that this could go:
- Members of the owning guilds are the only people who can buy houses
- Members of the owning guild can buy houses in full, while non-members must rent them for a certain price per month
- Both members of the owning guild and non-members pay for houses in the same way.
Buying a house in full could mean that said house remains in your possession until the town is taken over by another guild, OR it could mean that you have to renew it every month but without additional cost. Renting could work the same way as market NPCs. Obviously housing would mean that the houses would also need a purpose. I would love to list off loads of motives for buying a house but I am not aware enough of the current Potterworld tech to be able to do so, but here are a few options:
- An interaction inside can be clicked to teleport to your housing (/home)
- A market NPC outside the house
- Some sort of private storage
- A hologram or something of the sorts to identify a house as being yours
- Potentially some customisable options
- Maybe something like an oven where you can get certain buffed foods or collectable foods
- The ability to turn on and off fires
- An accessible way to open certain GUIs inside (reputations, vending machine, shady dealer, vendor e.g.)
- A direct teleport to the house
- A collectable or hat of some sorts maybe
- Interactable wardrobe that opens /hats
- Possibly a cooking / brewing station (with less particles and holograms)
- Jukebox!
- Mailbox
Obviously none of these are particularly great but they are just some ideas and I hope that the developers can think of some that they can realistically add that fits with the current tech and performance requirements.
Finally for roleplay, something could be done to ensure the preservation of the lore and historic ownership of a town.
Next up are the economic advantages (of which there are many). One could be the concept of having the gold equivalent of firedust used to warp someone to an area be directed to the local guild bank, or perhaps a share of it at least. Another would be the existance of trade routes which could probably use a whole new suggestion but would include the taxation and transportation of 'goods' (possibly just gold) around different towns which would feed passively into the banks of surrounding guilds. This could have a wide variety of settings, and geographical boosts, making the value of towns different from each other. A feature that would increase activity is the possibility of guilds owning certain areas getting certain quests with nearby mobs or landmarks that when completed either gives the gold to the guild member or into the guild bank. Guilds owning areas could also get a free warp to the town, meaning they would spend less money on firedust. Gold from hidden chests in the possessed area could come with a bonus too. There could also exist town upgrades to invest in your town to make it more prophitable - this could just all be in a GUI and increase passive gold income (with increasable attributes such as merchant ships, wagons, town walls, production etc.) or it could be something more physical. Another idea is that of being able to raid certain towns for gold and supplies. One of the greatest economic advantages would be the addition of an NPC that buys potions and food, that only the guild owning the town could sell too - this undoubtedly would increase interest in professions. Finally, something could be done with rent or market NPCs where some of the gold goes to the guild bank.
All these are simply ideas and all are expendable but they hopefully can give inspiration to the game design team.
Whatever guild has the most land at the end of a month / season would get special gifts such as collectables, gold, and possibly a leaderboard position.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fourth question: How would towns transfer between owners?
At first, no towns would be owned by anyone. However, guilds would be able to conquer these towns by approaching them, clicking on an object of some sorts (at which point hoverable item would show the town's defence stats) and declaring war. This could either be done by all members or only by owners / admins - doesn't matter either way. Now there are a few ways this could be made multiplayer. Either have it so all players who wish to join have to go to the town and click the item in a set amount of time to be added OR just simply put a message in guild chat stating a war is starting and allow someone to click on it to join. This would probably require a minimum playercount in order to make it fair for smaller guilds - something like 6 or 7 seems appropriate. Now the complex bit is figuring out what a war would actually consist of. Many PvPers would probably prefer a system where you can duel for towns but this would be very difficult due to people not being on the server at all times.
In my opinion, the best way to do it would be where the attacking guild has to fight some form of boss or army in a limited time. Alternatively, Wynncraft's system of attacking a central tower is very appealling but copying that may be a bit obvious. If it were to be a boss alone then it should be very powerful and should be able to spawn in mobs from time to time, similar to how Yassmir operated. If possible, it would be great to see it have the skin of the owner of the defending guild. There could also be certain objectives the attacking guild must do to make it more interesting such as destroying towers, soulshards, houses, gold stashes etc. - but ensure that it is based on skill rather than intellect as puzzles would get very repetitive very quickly.
As for dying, there are two systems: either where the players can revive their teammates or where they are permanently dead for the rest of the war. The one that is chosen will depend on how difficult the boss is but it should prioritise giving the possibility of loss on the attackers side. In my opinion, the better option would be where dying would be the end of whoever was killed to add a sense of danger and urgency, but either works.
Despite this way of waging war relying heavily on PvE, a PvP system COULD still be incorporated, possibly giving the defending guild members an opportunity to enter the battle arena when they are alerted that they have been attacked.
Whatever happens, the defending guild would still have a large amount of control over the battle as they would be able to use gold to upgrade their town defences and the bosses / objectives / mobs that are included in the battle. Stats that could be upgraded are:
- Health of Boss / Mobs
- Damage of Boss / Mobs
- Number of Objectives to destroy
- Health of Objectives (if they are destroyed by killing them)
- Number of Mobs
- Spells and abilities used by the Boss
In my opinion, gear should NOT be required in these battles as to allow lower levelled players to join
In the end, the attacking side will win by killing the boss and destroying any objectives (if there were to be any). This will transfer the town over to the winning guild, and possibly reset all the stats of the guild (although I'm not sure whether this would be the best way to go about a town transfer). If the guild fails to conquer the town, then the defending town will gain guild XP and gold but also have depleted bosses / mobs in need of upgrading or restoration.
As for how this all would be timed, I think having a certain time per month (perhaps one day) where battles are active would be the best way to do it (although raids - if included - could be done at any time). After a town has defended a battle it would not be attackable for the next 9 or 12 hours. If a town had been conquered, it would not be attackable until the next month.
In this month, there could possibly be ways an attacking guild could weaken the defending town, maybe by destroying supplies, gaining reputation with the locals or blocking trade routes.
I'm sure there are other possibilites to declaring war and I'd love to see them but this is just the one I came up with by looking at other similar systems such as those in Conqeuror's Blade, Assassin's Creed, and Wynncraft.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fifth Question: How would town ownership interact with reputations?
This is probably the question I am least sure of. As I have already said, reputations could be used in cooperation with war: maybe a player or guild needs a certain reputation to be able to declare war on said town, maybe a high reputation could make it easier to conquer a town, maybe new reputation rewards could include certain buffs or items in war.
It's also possible that reputation could have an economic impact, maybe having a high reputation gives you more gold in local guild quests, or means goods have to pay less taxation if going through a town's trade routes. Perhaps towns could have levels related to the guild owning them and the guild's combined reputation could have a role in deciding this. Maybe more players with higher reputation simply increases the passive income or maybe certain upgrades require the owner or the entire guild to have a certain amount of reputation for the town.
As I said, I'm really not sure but I feel like there are some options. Some people could even say that reputations alone should decide who owns what town, but with the repetiveness of the quests, I don't think this is a good idea.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TLDR;
Towns have a lot of potential in being owned by specific guilds by reigniting the roleplay community and adding both new ways to gain and spend gold. It has the potential to fit nicely with both PvP and PvE in a constantly waring map where banners and holograms are used to display the ownership of land across the map. You would be able to conquer territories, raid towns, and fight bosses to expand your influence. Buying and renting houses could be brought back, as well as selling potions and food to NPCs. Reputation would also have greater purpose if incorporated and whichever guild reigned supreme at the end of a month/season would get rewards such as collectables and gold.
