Hi,

This time I want to share our ideas on treasures.

We are trying to create a realistic game here. Right now, it is not exactly easy to earn gold, especially in the beggining. There are 2 main ways to earn mountains of gold:
A)Through plunder;either NPC or players(especially through ship plundering and sell)
B)Through trading

With vooodo implementation, ways to get gold was improved and game became much more balanced with the ship upgrade price that we issued some time ago; I think most will now see the price increase in ships as a right move.

Gold is also important to maintain what you already have. Gold protection is possible but limited. One good way so far was to keep a ship out of a fleet and cash it whenever you needed gold. With forthcoming updates ( viewtopic.php?f=2&t=177 ) in this week, this will no longer be a good idea.

Another existing way to protect your gold, is by keeping resources in your warehouses. This requires considerable preparation (have your ships store in warehouses), it also has increased costs (requires investment in warehouses) AND is also prone to the Official List of Demands voodoo card. Not to mention that if you have chosen the path of a powerful person or a merchant, this would fit as an action BUT in case you want to be a ruthless pirate, it would sound not alike your own personality; i cannot think a pirate that would have large warehouses filled with rum ready to sell them when thing go bad. In contrary, I could imagine him sneaking into his own warehouse to drink that rum.

Sure there might be more ways to protect your gold right now which may be unknown to me (feel free to enlight me, even in PMs as we need to know all possible ways as developers) but I cannot think of any way that would be safe.

I also want to add newcomers in the mix, as after all newcomers are our primary concern nowadays. A newcomer is unlikely to think the ship backup or warehouse solution and even if he does, it is difficult for him to do this. Even if you explain the way to him, he will find it troublesome and uninteresting.

Last but not least, I will again state that we need a realistic game. And having the option to bury a treasure can only sound realistic and it also adds to the game theme and dynamic.

So, for all these reasons, we believe that we should add a Treasure feature.

But how this treasure feature should be ?
Well, we got a few models in mind but I will only share 2.

Model A. Simple, straightforward and secure.
-Any player may bury his treasure anytime for 1 turn per 10 000 gold coins. He may unbury it for 1 turn per 50 000 gold coins. 1 turn will also be the minimum turn requirement (for smaller amounts).
-Every bury/unbury manages a total amount. Think of it as a balance.
-Buried treasure is always safe from anyone. We will not create voodoo cards affecting this.

Model B. More complex and dangerous
-We will create a treasure hunt map (let's say a 1000x1000 which will result in 1 000 000 available spots).
-Any player may bury his treasure in this map, anytime for 1 turn. Every sum he buries becomes a treasure chest that now exists on the map, at specific but unknown coordinates (randomly decided by the engine to prevent milking).
-He can unbury any of his chests, anytime for 2 turns.
-Other players may search the map anytime. 2 turns for each spot on the map. If the spot he entered contains a chest, he wins it and the player who had it, loses it.
-We will also place NPC chests on the map, so someone will also have a small chance to earn a NPC treasure every time he searches.
-Multiple spot location will be possible.


Now, looking at these models, I can say that we can implement both, separately. Especially model B may anyway be implemented as an NPC feature where you will get spot locations through various quests to find the treasure (ie search within 10,100 to 10, 200). It can also act as a turn burner for someone that is in a rush and wants to spend his turns in bulk, now.

More points to take in mind:
BANKS - There will be banks in the future. Banks will be a way to store money and also earn some interest. Banks however will be run by players and in the beggining there will be no way to rob them (this might be maintained forever). Players running the banks will decide the interest rates, minimum deposit, etc. Banks will have a reputation score which will be affected by the players and will also have a commentary box on how good a bank is, where players will praise or not the owner. This will be vital, as bankers will not be enforced by anyone to be fair; in contrary they will be free to do what they want with your money. So they will be be able to freeze your account for some time denying to give you your gold at any given time but when they want or to even take all your gold away!! In such cases, you will be able to run after them and such; they will have things to plunder anyway! (and also let the rest know of it).
*Banks could also play the middle man in player transactions. This would be the best way to keep track of all transactions and minimizing any milking attempts.
*Banks could play a role in wars (see viewtopic.php?t=209&p=1111#p1111 for wars idea).
*Big banks could also hold country treasuries. Country treasuries will be released alongside with the country control system and putting the treasure in player-run banks only sounds like a good and exciting idea (In such a case, some restrictions will apply here for bankers as country treasuries will generate tax income from port populations!).

Newcomers - The model A could be exceptional for newcomers to go on a flying start as they would be able to store their earnings and protect them this way from the various crows waiting to abuse them.

Unrestricted vacation mode - If someone wants to go away for some time, instead of making brute alterations to the code to facilitate a protection system for him (like full protection for the absent days etc), we will provide a way for him to design his absence by burying his gold. (Model A again applies here)

Ransom - The necessity to keep enough gold to pay the ransom, will ensure that there will always be loot for those that want it. Even for newcomers (at least once they get their second ship)

Turns cost - The turns costs will ensure that the feature will not be abused. If you are a big player, it is certain that you will use it, but only for the case something goes wrong and not for a way to hide your gold from other players as it will not be efficent.

Booty Master card and Pouch of Gold card - This might seem like a booty Master card nerf as there will be less available gold for the taking. However it is not entirely true as there will still be players that will want to use the Pouch of Gold card AND anyway, Booty Master card will soon get the Undercover ability which will hide the caster! Therefore, I think that it will still keep its current strength or more (I personally find it as one of the best cards)

Not many more in mind right now. Consider Treasure and Bank features among our priorities and before the pirate code war implementation. With current planning and workload, we might get them all done before June.

They are all huge features but the game is progressing good and we will work day and night to make it better.

Apologies for the long message but I get the feeling that there are many out there that enjoy reading all the details we have in mind for future game development.

LIKE!!!

there are a great ideas

Heck yeah!

Great reading and awesome ideas . Why not have A and B methods of hiding gold. I would even hide some for the fun of having it be found by another player so that I can congratulate them and even recruit students since I want to create more great players.

I would also be glad to become a banker. I can offer good return on investments and benefit myself in the process. I am getting excited just thinking about all of these great ideas becoming a reality.

You guys are amazing!

Exciting ideas, definitely!

Creating a 250 x 250 (=62,500) grid of buried treasure spots per island (=1.3m) would allow these to be tied in with wars, port ownership etc. My guild or nation rule a particular port as a stronghold; we all bury treasure there; we lose the port to a hostile power; it becomes difficult to recover our hoards without a naval expedition, military action, voodoo, making peace with that power etc.

Why would I bury gold under Model B (at some risk) when I have Model A (no risk)? Maybe there should be a limit on the total under A, enough to work for new players but not for the more powerful (say 50,000 gold)?

John rackham wrote:Why would I bury gold under Model B (at some risk) when I have Model A (no risk)? Maybe there should be a limit on the total under A, enough to work for new players but not for the more powerful (say 50,000 gold)?

Why would I bury gold under Model B (at some risk) when I have Model A (no risk)?
Because you may not want to incur the cost (in turns) of burying small amounts each time and because there is no limit to the amount you can bury in model B.

Maybe there should be a limit on the total under A,
There is an inherent limit under method A due to the cost (in turns) of depositing and withdrawing your gold. Could you imagine the difficulty in dealing with the deposit and withdrawal of the gold you get from selling just one Ship of the Line. It would take 352.5 turns to withdraw the gold and 1762.5 to bury it. Talk about limits. They are there.


I disagree with cost (in turns) for method A. It makes the decision to bury gold a no-brainer (if you are dealing with smaller amounts). I believe there should be strategic consequences from burying your gold. It would cause players to have to think more. If it cost more turns to get your gold out then you might be less likely to bury so much of it. I'm thinking 1 turn per 25,000 gold to bury and 1 turn per 10,000 gold to un-bury or something along those lines but with larger gold amounts.

Talk about limits. They are there.

Point taken, I haven't even begun to think in terms of such large amounts of gold

I like the idea to add a grid ties to each port, with stronghold etc.
The limit is something that has been a puzzling case for us too. Exact turn consumption too.

Some more points to consider for Model A:
-We can always enforce a minimum amount of turns to be used when burying or unburying to balance the odds for small players/small amounts. (ie 5)
-We can target a specific amount and then set the rules. I think that unburying should cost less because someone will unbury because he is in need and we need to facilitate this easier. If we target a ship of the line for example, then let's say a hefty 20millions. Shouldn't one be able to unbury this in 1 day ? (180 turns) ? I am just saying. In this case it is 1 turn per 110k. To bury it, lets say he should need 3-5 days; this would be 1 turn per 22k~33k.

So perhaps a less turn-draining model would be 1 turn to bury 25k (with minimum cost of 5 turns) and 1 turn to unbury 100k (with minimum cost of 5 turns). If we use a less turn-draining model perhaps we should also set a maximum storage amount which can be 20 millions. This way we will make sure that players will have to use banks or the risky treasure method.

The above suggestion is open to discussion; let's find the best starting point and we can always tweak to the best value later.

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A bit off-topic:

I also find it relative to mention that with current system we can facilitate Hideouts. Hideouts will be unlocked for each guild after a guild-quest. Then they will be available to buy and they will come with certain upgrades (no idea which these will be). We can add John Rackhams idea for the treasure lot and more. Hideouts will have their own spot in the map, chosen by the guild and ships will be able to move from and towards it. Current system allows such so they can be added anytime.

For countries, the idea would be something like Stronghold which however will be managed by each king/council. We are thinking to tie the best ships, like Ship of the Line only to countries (and also add a Man o War with 80 cannons; 1 per country will be allowed only OR 1 per player once they finish the country quests - they can then swithc to piracy ). These details need to be discussed separately of course and I will bring them up when the time is right with full details. The country system is big and still in design phase.

Both stronghold and hideouts will be able to facilitate some sort of foot battle. But this will not be something added in the near future. More like in the real long future, if the game continues its good progress. So for a start, Stronghold will provide some certain upgrades, like Ships of the Line (or their discount upgrades as mentioned in titles helpfile). No stronghold will mean that you won't get the upgrade discount (or the ability to build the ship).

Especially for ships, we need ideas to make their use more diversive; we need more ship types sailing our map! Even another price tweak may do although it would be better to acheive this through country system, as this would be more realistic too. Small countries will offer weak ships. Strong countries, strong ships. Other citizens will be able to build ship in foreign ports if port allows it ( most probably only a war or a blockade will disallow this) and of course on a higher price than the native citizens get them (country will earn the difference .

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Captain Jack,

Thanks for addressing my concerns. I think your notions regarding minimum cost for burying small amounts of gold in Model A and the proposed allowance for amounts up to 20 million are an adequate compromise to any concern I had. Your desire to facilitate the needs of players in a financial crunch so that they can get their gold is reasonable but could be handled by the banking system just as easily. Either way your team has good judgement and treats players as fairly as is possible. I await any change with the same fear and excitement because they always seem to add depth and challenge to gameplay.

I agree with the prices you mentioned of 3-5 days to bury 20 million and 1 day to unbury it. I think anything smaller and it wouldn't be very useful for players with expensive fleets.

I don't think there should be a minimum of 5 turns for unburying though. If I've only spent 12 turns burying 300k gold I wouldn't be able to unbury any of it if there was a minimum unbury of 5 turns (500k gold).