I disagree about removing stone tools. I think they have a role, and remember, if we're implementing skill delays for breaking blocks, they will also be affected by the tier of tool. The difference in efficiency between stone tools and iron tools should be significant.
In general, as I said with TNT and underwater settlements, I think it's premature to start speculating about adjusting the balance of existing items and strategies. The introduction of labour and transport costs will itself shift things considerably, and we should wait to see how that pans out.
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I disagree about removing stone tools. I think they have a role, and remember, if we're implementing skill delays for breaking blocks, they will also be affected by the tier of tool. The difference in efficiency between stone tools and iron tools should be significant.
In general, as I said with TNT and underwater settlements, I think it's premature to start speculating about adjusting the balance of existing items and strategies. The introduction of labour and transport costs will itself shift things considerably, and we should wait to see how that pans out.
Stone tools are so unbelievably easy to create, and once you start mining you'll never run out, they're even easier to make than wood, I truly do think removing them is a good idea, because otherwise as soon as you get past wood there is no point because you never need to go back.
Stone tools are so unbelievably easy to create, and once you start mining you'll never run out, they're even easier to make than wood, I truly do think removing them is a good idea, because otherwise as soon as you get past wood there is no point because you never need to go back.
I disagree. I've been playing under a set of house rules that simulate labour costs, and I soon noticed just what a huge difference there was in the labour costs of stone over wood. To make a wooden pick (in bulk, anyway) takes the equivalent of chopping down ONE wood, from which you get the three planks and two sticks to make a pick. Of course, you only get that efficiency if you double the recipe. IN contrast, a stone pick requires extracting three cobble and a quarter of a wood. (You therefore need to quadruple the recipe to get that efficiency.) So making stone tools is considerably more expensive than making wooden ones, when labour becomes a factor.
But aside from all that, so what? If it turns out that stone tools are a more cost effective solution, then let them be the more cost effective solution. How will this upset the simulation? Iron has plenty of advantage over stone, and it's not like the market for iron will collapse. The tribe that has iron tools, to say nothing of iron weapons and armour, will enjoy a significant advantage.
Let the market decide, as they say.
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I disagree. I've been playing under a set of house rules that simulate labour costs, and I soon noticed just what a huge difference there was in the labour costs of stone over wood. To make a wooden pick (in bulk, anyway) takes the equivalent of chopping down ONE wood, from which you get the three planks and two sticks to make a pick. Of course, you only get that efficiency if you double the recipe. IN contrast, a stone pick requires extracting three cobble and a quarter of a wood. (You therefore need to quadruple the recipe to get that efficiency.) So making stone tools is considerably more expensive than making wooden ones, when labour becomes a factor.
But aside from all that, so what? If it turns out that stone tools are a more cost effective solution, then let them be the more cost effective solution. How will this upset the simulation? Iron has plenty of advantage over stone, and it's not like the market for iron will collapse. The tribe that has iron tools, to say nothing of iron weapons and armour, will enjoy a significant advantage.
Let the market decide, as they say.
Yes, but cobblestone is not a material that needs to be specifically mined or sought after, it is a by product of the hunt for greater ores and minerals. I mean, I know I don't purposefully amount huge coffers of cobblestone in my single player game. So, it will always be there to put wood to shame because there is no end to it, it's like if we could make nuclear reactors out of dirt.
Why waste iron tools when you can use a pick that is just one step down, but is always easily replenished? Sure, iron is more efficient, but a village would surely see that using stone tools would create more iron weapons and armour. If I lack diamonds, I only use iron picks to mine ores that stone cannot, it saves resources. If stone was removed the hierarchy changes, wood -> iron -> diamond. First of all, we would see more use of wood rather than the first and last pick, wood would now be a viable tool. Secondly, it would mean that miners have to be smarter, the efficiency of wood is a step down from stone, they have to maximise yield but be quick. It would provide an interesting new challenge villages agenda regarding tools, do we make the switch to iron now? Can we afford to in this political climate? Should we just continue to build up a reserve?
Do you feel the same way about stone tools in vanilla Minecraft, that they undermine the value of iron? It seems to me that this is mostly an aesthetic concern; stone tools just FEEL wrong, mostly because we so rarely use them today, and we tend to forget how important they were historically.
The purpose of this simulation, as I understood it, was to try to model political and economic behaviours, to see how players approach scarcity and competition over resources with conflict or cooperation. Worrying that stone tools are too cheap doesn't seem to be connected to that directly; rather, it's a sense that stone is too cheap for what it does. It may or may not be, but I don't think that's relevant to our project. Let players decide how they want to allocate their resources, and see how it goes. If they gravitate towards stone tools for basic excavation and save their iron tools for special ores, well, so be it. How does it harm the simulation?
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rather, it's a sense that stone is too cheap for what it does. It may or may not be,
And I believe that it is indeed too cheap for what it does, cobblestone is a resource you're not going to run out of EVER. Just mining normally you get tons of stacks of cobblestone, it's not even a separate resource, you don't go out of your way to get it because you just get it when you're mining, even if you're not mining for stone.
Do you feel the same way about stone tools in vanilla Minecraft, that they undermine the value of iron? It seems to me that this is mostly an aesthetic concern; stone tools just FEEL wrong, mostly because we so rarely use them today, and we tend to forget how important they were historically.
The purpose of this simulation, as I understood it, was to try to model political and economic behaviours, to see how players approach scarcity and competition over resources with conflict or cooperation. Worrying that stone tools are too cheap doesn't seem to be connected to that directly; rather, it's a sense that stone is too cheap for what it does. It may or may not be, but I don't think that's relevant to our project. Let players decide how they want to allocate their resources, and see how it goes. If they gravitate towards stone tools for basic excavation and save their iron tools for special ores, well, so be it. How does it harm the simulation?
I can definitely see where you are coming from. You have most certainly understood the purpose of the simulation however there is a link between the infinite stone tools and the political approaches towards resources. A lack of stone tools places more pressure on other resources such as wood and iron, effectively improving their value and scarcity, although wood tools can be argued to be also an infinite resource, it is far less durable and its labour costs can be evaluated since it is not a by-product of a desire for a richer resource. We have created a market for wood tools and improved it for iron tools, which I think is an acceptable gain for the loss of stone tools. It adds diversity and challenge, prior there would be no real need to import stone or wood tools, only iron and diamond. You are right in that it is not a direct magnificent change regarding the proposed purpose of the simulation but it mostly effects the mechanics of mining, which indirectly affects it, by making the tools of actual value, the miners need to be smarter and more resourceful, this depends on the players wits and rewards them for their smart thinking rather than their grinding. It is an interesting problem and could provide a platform for success or failure by nation states.
I understand. I just think it's getting ahead of ourselves. It may turn out (and I suspect it will) the labour model I've proposed will ameliorate the concerns you have.
I agree that it's an interesting problem, but tinkering with the tiers adds a complication for the player base; not only must they learn to work with the labour delay system (although that's fairly transparent), but they also need to learn a new tool tier progression. And we'll get as frequent queries and suggestions ("Why can't I make a stone pick?!") as we get requests for guns and horses and pumpkin pie in the suggestions forum. Don't underestimate that hassle. We have interesting problems enough already.
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I understand. I just think it's getting ahead of ourselves. It may turn out (and I suspect it will) the labour model I've proposed will ameliorate the concerns you have.
I agree that it's an interesting problem, but tinkering with the tiers adds a complication for the player base; not only must they learn to work with the labour delay system (although that's fairly transparent), but they also need to learn a new tool tier progression. And we'll get as frequent queries and suggestions ("Why can't I make a stone pick?!") as we get requests for guns and horses and pumpkin pie in the suggestions forum. Don't underestimate that hassle. We have interesting problems enough already.
Haha, I was hoping for maybe a slightly maturer userbase but beggars can't be choosers. Anyway, the removal of stone tools I do not think can be truly assessed until we've polished your skill system, I think we can agree it adds to our simulation however I do believe the skill system should be a priority. If we can add stone tools without hassle, in terms of code and balanced gameplay, then I think it should be done. I think there will always be hassle from players, but I don't know, we haven't organised the server to receive the complaints yet and we just have 3 people's opinion at this point in time.
Perhaps each tribe, nation, etc should be required to adopt some sort of general uniform, or at least a colour which can be worn by the players belonging to nation x or village y, especially for soldiers in combat, so you know who to kill. Apart from colours and uniforms, some basic, non-eccentric clothes for the general population (meaning espionage is possible) to wear should be made?
Just a thought. I personally think people runnning around in creeper skins or something would just ruin the mood of the simulation.
Yeah, you are absolutely right that creeper skins and rainbow men might ruin the immersion in the simulation. As for uniform, maybe people of a certain village or nation could wear similar clothing in a similar fashion, we could distinguish by culture, much like comparing eastern and western fashion 70 years ago (It's all western today!). It could prove a platform for good skin designers.
The problem with soldiers is that most will probably be wearing armour, so skins aren't visible.
Haha, I was hoping for maybe a slightly maturer userbase but beggars can't be choosers. Anyway, the removal of stone tools I do not think can be truly assessed until we've polished your skill system, I think we can agree it adds to our simulation however I do believe the skill system should be a priority. If we can add stone tools without hassle, in terms of code and balanced gameplay, then I think it should be done. I think there will always be hassle from players, but I don't know, we haven't organised the server to receive the complaints yet and we just have 3 people's opinion at this point in time.
In fact, I'm not even thinking of it being immature used whining for stone tools. I'm thinking of ordinary, experience MC players having to learn and keep straight in their heads a separate set of exceptions to rules they're already familiar with. I know I'LL be constantly forgetting that I can't use stone to make crude tools in a pinch. (Actually, I rarely use stone tools anyway, so for me it's kind of irrelevant.) My concern is that we should keep the changes from vanilla MC as few and as simple as possible, so that we can focus on the changes that really address the phenomena we wish to examine. Stone tools being too cheap and effective strikes me as a general complaint you have with vanilla Minecraft itself, not something connected to the simulation. (It's like if I were to argue that we should make boats have sails in our simulation; it may well be that this would be an improvement, but it's an aesthetic one unrelated to our simulation goals, and we can get bogged down with an awful lot of those if we're not careful.)
For instance....
Yeah, you are absolutely right that creeper skins and rainbow men might ruin the immersion in the simulation. As for uniform, maybe people of a certain village or nation could wear similar clothing in a similar fashion, we could distinguish by culture, much like comparing eastern and western fashion 70 years ago (It's all western today!). It could prove a platform for good skin designers.
The problem with soldiers is that most will probably be wearing armour, so skins aren't visible.
This is also a completely cosmetic thing which has little to do with simulation design. Players in a given political unit could choose to require custom skins as clan markers if they wanted to; other nations might be more liberal. I propose we simply leave that to be one of the things that may or may not emerge from the choices of the players. I'd actually be interested to see what happens.
However, it does tangentially relate to another suggestion that frequently comes up in the suggestion forum about wool clothes, and particularly dyed wool clothes so you could have different colours and hence uniforms. That part is primarily cosmetic, but there's also an economic aspect that could be of interest to the simulation, and that's the role of climate. If inhospitable biomes imposed greater resource costs for living in or travelling through them, that could have interesting implications in a more complete simulation. My own suggestion thread for such a system is here.
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In fact, I'm not even thinking of it being immature used whining for stone tools. I'm thinking of ordinary, experience MC players having to learn and keep straight in their heads a separate set of exceptions to rules they're already familiar with. I know I'LL be constantly forgetting that I can't use stone to make crude tools in a pinch. (Actually, I rarely use stone tools anyway, so for me it's kind of irrelevant.) My concern is that we should keep the changes from vanilla MC as few and as simple as possible, so that we can focus on the changes that really address the phenomena we wish to examine. Stone tools being too cheap and effective strikes me as a general complaint you have with vanilla Minecraft itself, not something connected to the simulation. (It's like if I were to argue that we should make boats have sails in our simulation; it may well be that this would be an improvement, but it's an aesthetic one unrelated to our simulation goals, and we can get bogged down with an awful lot of those if we're not careful.)
For instance....
This is also a completely cosmetic thing which has little to do with simulation design. Players in a given political unit could choose to require custom skins as clan markers if they wanted to; other nations might be more liberal. I propose we simply leave that to be one of the things that may or may not emerge from the choices of the players. I'd actually be interested to see what happens.
However, it does tangentially relate to another suggestion that frequently comes up in the suggestion forum about wool clothes, and particularly dyed wool clothes so you could have different colours and hence uniforms. That part is primarily cosmetic, but there's also an economic aspect that could be of interest to the simulation, and that's the role of climate. If inhospitable biomes imposed greater resource costs for living in or travelling through them, that could have interesting implications in a more complete simulation. My own suggestion thread for such a system is here.
There are several routes to achieving our goal and I agree, I think we should limit our selves in modifications to the vanilla play. I myself was mulling over the removal of the stone tools, however I remain adamant. You appear convinced that is largely irrelevant, however I will repeat:
A lack of stone tools places more pressure on other resources such as wood and iron, effectively improving their value and scarcity, although wood tools can be argued to be also an infinite resource, it is far less durable and its labour costs can be evaluated since it is not a by-product of a desire for a richer resource. We have created a market for wood tools and improved it for iron tools, which I think is an acceptable gain for the loss of stone tools. It adds diversity and challenge, prior there would be no real need to import stone or wood tools, only iron and diamond. You are right in that it is not a direct magnificent change regarding the proposed purpose of the simulation but it mostly effects the mechanics of mining, which indirectly affects it, by making the tools of actual value, the miners need to be smarter and more resourceful, this depends on the players wits and rewards them for their smart thinking rather than their grinding. It is an interesting problem and could provide a platform for success or failure by nation states.
The problem being addressed in regards to the simulation is the stone tools weighing wood and irons marketability down.The removal of stone tools would be creating scarcity. It would be creating demand, it would effect the simulation positively. It does deviate from the vanilla experience but in a good way. It is the same way that now that resources are less common in our proposed simulation. It creates demand and wears down any surplus (through the extended use of wood and iron now), you have to consider these points when addressing the suggestion of the removal of stone tools. The demand for wood and iron will improve whilst the demand for cobblestone would stay the same, none.
In regards to your attribution of 'cosmetic' to my addressing of the players skins and their relation to the simulation;
We need to understand how players would think to achieve solutions to problems to find problems in the simulation to solve. However, there is no plausible way to solve the fact that full armour covers majority of the players skin without removing armour, destroying its purpose. These are minor problems but they need to be addressed, a moshpit of supposedly aligned players killing each other is not what we wish to see in the millitary aspects of this simulation. We cannot solve problems if we just ignore them.
These are minor problems but they need to be addressed, a moshpit of supposedly aligned players killing each other is not what we wish to see in the millitary aspects of this simulation. We cannot solve problems if we just ignore them.
Yes, actually. In the simulation that's EXACTLY how we solve problems. We ignore them, and let the players IN the simulation deal with them. The problems we need to deal with are large scale design issues: how to ensure a random initial distribution of resources, how to simulate costs of labour and transportation and training, what limits to put on the flow of information between players.
Problems like how to organize your troops for battle are not our problem. We're interested in the solutions the players come up with, but we don't want to presume they'll address it a certain way; they could surprise us. Likewise, decisions about resource allocation are things we should leave to the players. Inflation, unemployment, shortages and surpluses, these are precisely what we want to challenge the players with.
The conclusion you have already reached, that stone tools are too cheap and effective, is exactly the kind of thing I want to run the simulation to find out: ARE they to cheap and effective, or will players almost prefer to use iron? What effect will the use of rail transportation have on demand for iron? How about armour? Will players stockpile iron in ingot form as a strategic metal, so they can crank out weapons and armour quickly at need, or will they use it up quickly?
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I come from the hardcore realism game genre and I find that this idea is really interesting. If you ever do setup a server for this please let me know.
A simple work around for Stone Tools is to actually use Stone and not Cobblestone in the recipe. This would throw in an obstacle, however small, into the game making Wood Tools more valuable, especially at the start of the server.
I think the idea of wearable, interchangable, and alterable clothing is a good idea. Infilteration and spying would be necessary. When going into battle, maybe you can wear armor but have your chest or head piece be invisible to show who you are or perhaps, maybe a tag in front of your name.
Concerning skills, I think they should be grouped into two different skillsets.
Jumping, sprinting, swimming, melee, and archery should all be one skillset = 300 clicks. (Perhaps sneaking could be added later?)
Farming, timberweight, smelting, rancher, mining, excavator, engineer, crafter, and boatman in another skillset = 750 clicks
Also, boatman may be a bit more effective if the boats were bigger and could actually carry 2-4 other players.
There definetly needs to be a death ban and spawn altering. I think we need it only to ensure any raids and wars aren't met with more troops over and over again. I understand the skills will counter this to some degree, tho. So I'd suggest there needs to be a mandatory distance for spawning from enemy territory and at least a 2-5 minute ban.
Basic dummy recipe would use wood. More advanced (longer lasting) would use cobblestone and/or wool.
Yea, a boatman would essentially become a captain of a boat. This would make sea assaults more useful. Perhaps, there could be 2 additional boat designs. One with 2 passengers and another with 4.
If we changed boats, tho. Maybe we could make powered minecarts more powerful to push players further/harder. This would make them more viable to push groups of players in minecarts further. Perhaps theres a skill underlying here?
I have noticed quite a bit of talk about troubles with changing vanilla and the concern of changing it too much. Truthfully, I believe small changes really won't have much of an impact. If players were too lazy to read about the server before joining, then they shouldn't be playing anyways, do we want a bunch of indolent players during our simulation? I feel like wool clothes, the skills system, and removal of stone tools wouldn't be anything that would mess players up. A massive amount of servers on the market today use a large array of plugins, everything from small little changes to massive game changing plugins, yet people don't seem to get that confused on servers because they should expect it to be a little different then vanilla unless it says, "Vanilla". Plenty of servers use class systems that affect how players have to use their character and do lots of little changes, even on what they can craft, I've actually played servers such as these, and it really doesn't take that much getting used to. So I really don't think changing gameplay aspects is something we should fuss over too much, players just need to be capable of amending to a new environment.
I skimmed the thread again looking for someone who said that each Civ could have a starting building. I forget who said it and why but I was thinking you could have a starting building and call it a Hall. Each Hall would not allow chests or skill building or PvP. In general, it would only be a spawn location and theoretically a safe haven for war to not be slaughtered and surrender. This could be a building given to the player(s) or a building made by the Civ. This would then allow only instant respawns.
I liked the idea of handcuffs in an earlier post and think that such an item would be useful. However, working out the details of how they work would be difficult. How would you make them? If the recipe is too easy, anybody would be able to make them. How do you 'break' out of the handcuffs? How do you unlock them? If we instead do admin rights to rulers and enforcers, how do they then get these rights? When everyone is equal and just a band of players, can we set up some sort of vote and vote people into these positions? I'd rather not set designated people to certain status. Maybe a minimum vote of 10 for a ruler and then the ruler sets up enforcers? And if you ever want to leave you just /abandon civ?
I know the players are supposed to be mature but nobody ever is all the time. There definetly needs to be some enforcement of the governing body.
If you catch a spy you may not want to kill him but jail him.
So I've been following the progress of this thread, and find it very interesting, and I decided it's about time I make a post here describing and discussing my ideas.
Firstly, on the stone tools issue. Yes, I agree that stone should not be a tool tier, as relative scarcity is caused by the limited resources of a world vs. the unlimited wants of people. Cobblestone, in my opinion, is just too easy to get for the simulation of a realistic economy to work properly, as tools should become available through purpose and not just consequence. However, I don't think just removing the tier is good for the simulation. If the objective of the simulation is really about seeing what people do, there should be as many options as possible to create a wider array of choice which increases the realism of the simulation. I think something like flint tools should be considered. It's easy enough to get that it could be considered useful as a tool, but scarce enough so that you might think twice about making the upgrade from wood. It also adds a factor with the amounts of gravel that you have; is it worth grinding the gravel for flint, or should we stick with wood tools? Quite interesting.
Secondly, on the skill system - I love it. It's great how it allows people to 'train' and become better than others, but not in a very grindy sort of way. It's interesting how people have different skillsets, and you can't be good at everything, but only good in a specified skillset. This increases demand, which creates a better economy simulation in general. Just one thing though - I think it would be interesting to have some 'persistence' in a skill, so that people who have mined 10,000 blocks are better than someone who's just mined 1000 - and here is my suggestion; that players should gain 1 permanent level per every 100 action in a skillset. Say Bob goes on a mining spree and mines 2000 blocks - That means that he gains 20 persistent levels that last until death. So if he decides to do other things and then come back to mining later, he already starts at level 20 in mining when he comes back to it because he's experienced at it; he's done it before. I feel this would add more demand of people high in a certain skill, and make death more of an issue, as you'd lose all your persistent levels.
Finally, on the topic of crime - I think there should be a skill like 'detective', which would allow you to tell who broke/placed blocks. A higher level would allow you to find out with less error; say a griefer named Bluebird destroyed a house, then a low level detective would see that aBlagbpod destroyed it, a med level detective would see that Blupbiwd destroyed it, and a high level would see that Bluebird destroyed it. On the topic of punishment; I think that only people elected by the citizens should be able to jail, and any person is free to leave the country if they think the law system is abusive and they're getting jailed unfairly, which forces leaders to be firm but fair when handing out jail sentences.
Well, thanks for reading. I know some of my ideas won't be the best, and feel free to say why they aren't good, or even better, improve on my ideas. I will be watching this thread and posting again when I've got more ideas.
A small amount of persistence might be all right, especially if it's lost when a player dies. But too much would rather defeat the purpose; the whole point is to create differences in player abilities so that there's a reason for specialization. Look at what happens in most other games: you max out your skill at mining, then you max out your skill at hunting, at cooking, at crafting, and so on until you've got everything maxed out and you have no particular reason to get someone else to do something for you, other than the fact that you'd rather be doing something else at the moment.
That's why it's so important to have the skill based on just a sampling of the last 1000 or however many tasks you perform. Don't think of it necessarily as being a skill, at least not in the literal sense of acquired experience and expertise. The player in this model represents not necessarily an individual human being but rather an economic unit, a household perhaps, or even a corporation. Gaining skill represents tooling up for a particular kind of work, and shifting to a different kind of work means retooling as much as retraining. It should be possible to shift one's focus, but for the simulation to work, it should NOT be possible to retain all of one's advantage in the previous focus. Otherwise players will simply make a point of mastering each skill in order to become as economically independent as possible.
Concerning skills, I think they should be grouped into two different skillsets.
Jumping, sprinting, swimming, melee, and archery should all be one skillset = 300 clicks. (Perhaps sneaking could be added later?)
Farming, timberweight, smelting, rancher, mining, excavator, engineer, crafter, and boatman in another skillset = 750 clicks
Also, boatman may be a bit more effective if the boats were bigger and could actually carry 2-4 other players.
I'd love to see the possibility for passenger boats and cargo vessels, but those are major coding projects that go well beyond vanilla MC and the scope of this project.
Intuitively I like the idea of splitting up skills into separate skillsets, because it meshes so well with the other systems I've played. But it also undermines what the system is meant to do, which is to encourage division of labour and thus trade. Specializing in combat skills SHOULD come at the expense of specializing in mining.
Think of it this way. Someone who deliberately sets up a farm so that he can operate it with maximum efficiency, without having to do any jumping or indeed using ANY skills other than farming, OUGHT to be more efficient at farming than someone who focuses on farming and jumping. And someone who focuses completely on overland transport (jumping) OUGHT to be better at transporting goods overland than someone who dabbles in farming as well. The farmer should have a reason to hire the jumper to deliver his goods, and the jumper should have a reason to need the farmer to create food for him.
The same argument applies to all the other skills in separate skill sets.
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Agreed. To put it simply, a farmer is a farmer and not a soldier and a soldier is a soldier and not a farmer. My only thought was that one is a physical skill while another is an expertise.
I'd agree that too much skill persistence would ruin this idea. However, I'd tend to agree that it would be rewarding to be able to keep a level or two of different things, if not all of the skills. I think it would be a good idea to allow players to keep level 1 status (level 0 - level 10?) until death. Assuming there are decent upgrades per level, a level 3 or 4 would still outweigh any level 1 or level 0. The gain for keeping a certain level instead of dropping back to level 0 would be helpful to a single person but may also contribute to the society, especially if it is a smaller society while not hindering the balance of trade and specialization within larger societies.
At least that is what I think.
In general, as I said with TNT and underwater settlements, I think it's premature to start speculating about adjusting the balance of existing items and strategies. The introduction of labour and transport costs will itself shift things considerably, and we should wait to see how that pans out.
Stone tools are so unbelievably easy to create, and once you start mining you'll never run out, they're even easier to make than wood, I truly do think removing them is a good idea, because otherwise as soon as you get past wood there is no point because you never need to go back.
I disagree. I've been playing under a set of house rules that simulate labour costs, and I soon noticed just what a huge difference there was in the labour costs of stone over wood. To make a wooden pick (in bulk, anyway) takes the equivalent of chopping down ONE wood, from which you get the three planks and two sticks to make a pick. Of course, you only get that efficiency if you double the recipe. IN contrast, a stone pick requires extracting three cobble and a quarter of a wood. (You therefore need to quadruple the recipe to get that efficiency.) So making stone tools is considerably more expensive than making wooden ones, when labour becomes a factor.
But aside from all that, so what? If it turns out that stone tools are a more cost effective solution, then let them be the more cost effective solution. How will this upset the simulation? Iron has plenty of advantage over stone, and it's not like the market for iron will collapse. The tribe that has iron tools, to say nothing of iron weapons and armour, will enjoy a significant advantage.
Let the market decide, as they say.
Yes, but cobblestone is not a material that needs to be specifically mined or sought after, it is a by product of the hunt for greater ores and minerals. I mean, I know I don't purposefully amount huge coffers of cobblestone in my single player game. So, it will always be there to put wood to shame because there is no end to it, it's like if we could make nuclear reactors out of dirt.
Why waste iron tools when you can use a pick that is just one step down, but is always easily replenished? Sure, iron is more efficient, but a village would surely see that using stone tools would create more iron weapons and armour. If I lack diamonds, I only use iron picks to mine ores that stone cannot, it saves resources. If stone was removed the hierarchy changes, wood -> iron -> diamond. First of all, we would see more use of wood rather than the first and last pick, wood would now be a viable tool. Secondly, it would mean that miners have to be smarter, the efficiency of wood is a step down from stone, they have to maximise yield but be quick. It would provide an interesting new challenge villages agenda regarding tools, do we make the switch to iron now? Can we afford to in this political climate? Should we just continue to build up a reserve?
The purpose of this simulation, as I understood it, was to try to model political and economic behaviours, to see how players approach scarcity and competition over resources with conflict or cooperation. Worrying that stone tools are too cheap doesn't seem to be connected to that directly; rather, it's a sense that stone is too cheap for what it does. It may or may not be, but I don't think that's relevant to our project. Let players decide how they want to allocate their resources, and see how it goes. If they gravitate towards stone tools for basic excavation and save their iron tools for special ores, well, so be it. How does it harm the simulation?
And I believe that it is indeed too cheap for what it does, cobblestone is a resource you're not going to run out of EVER. Just mining normally you get tons of stacks of cobblestone, it's not even a separate resource, you don't go out of your way to get it because you just get it when you're mining, even if you're not mining for stone.
I can definitely see where you are coming from. You have most certainly understood the purpose of the simulation however there is a link between the infinite stone tools and the political approaches towards resources. A lack of stone tools places more pressure on other resources such as wood and iron, effectively improving their value and scarcity, although wood tools can be argued to be also an infinite resource, it is far less durable and its labour costs can be evaluated since it is not a by-product of a desire for a richer resource. We have created a market for wood tools and improved it for iron tools, which I think is an acceptable gain for the loss of stone tools. It adds diversity and challenge, prior there would be no real need to import stone or wood tools, only iron and diamond. You are right in that it is not a direct magnificent change regarding the proposed purpose of the simulation but it mostly effects the mechanics of mining, which indirectly affects it, by making the tools of actual value, the miners need to be smarter and more resourceful, this depends on the players wits and rewards them for their smart thinking rather than their grinding. It is an interesting problem and could provide a platform for success or failure by nation states.
I agree that it's an interesting problem, but tinkering with the tiers adds a complication for the player base; not only must they learn to work with the labour delay system (although that's fairly transparent), but they also need to learn a new tool tier progression. And we'll get as frequent queries and suggestions ("Why can't I make a stone pick?!") as we get requests for guns and horses and pumpkin pie in the suggestions forum. Don't underestimate that hassle. We have interesting problems enough already.
Haha, I was hoping for maybe a slightly maturer userbase but beggars can't be choosers. Anyway, the removal of stone tools I do not think can be truly assessed until we've polished your skill system, I think we can agree it adds to our simulation however I do believe the skill system should be a priority. If we can add stone tools without hassle, in terms of code and balanced gameplay, then I think it should be done. I think there will always be hassle from players, but I don't know, we haven't organised the server to receive the complaints yet and we just have 3 people's opinion at this point in time.
Yeah, you are absolutely right that creeper skins and rainbow men might ruin the immersion in the simulation. As for uniform, maybe people of a certain village or nation could wear similar clothing in a similar fashion, we could distinguish by culture, much like comparing eastern and western fashion 70 years ago (It's all western today!). It could prove a platform for good skin designers.
The problem with soldiers is that most will probably be wearing armour, so skins aren't visible.
In fact, I'm not even thinking of it being immature used whining for stone tools. I'm thinking of ordinary, experience MC players having to learn and keep straight in their heads a separate set of exceptions to rules they're already familiar with. I know I'LL be constantly forgetting that I can't use stone to make crude tools in a pinch. (Actually, I rarely use stone tools anyway, so for me it's kind of irrelevant.) My concern is that we should keep the changes from vanilla MC as few and as simple as possible, so that we can focus on the changes that really address the phenomena we wish to examine. Stone tools being too cheap and effective strikes me as a general complaint you have with vanilla Minecraft itself, not something connected to the simulation. (It's like if I were to argue that we should make boats have sails in our simulation; it may well be that this would be an improvement, but it's an aesthetic one unrelated to our simulation goals, and we can get bogged down with an awful lot of those if we're not careful.)
For instance....
This is also a completely cosmetic thing which has little to do with simulation design. Players in a given political unit could choose to require custom skins as clan markers if they wanted to; other nations might be more liberal. I propose we simply leave that to be one of the things that may or may not emerge from the choices of the players. I'd actually be interested to see what happens.
However, it does tangentially relate to another suggestion that frequently comes up in the suggestion forum about wool clothes, and particularly dyed wool clothes so you could have different colours and hence uniforms. That part is primarily cosmetic, but there's also an economic aspect that could be of interest to the simulation, and that's the role of climate. If inhospitable biomes imposed greater resource costs for living in or travelling through them, that could have interesting implications in a more complete simulation. My own suggestion thread for such a system is here.
There are several routes to achieving our goal and I agree, I think we should limit our selves in modifications to the vanilla play. I myself was mulling over the removal of the stone tools, however I remain adamant. You appear convinced that is largely irrelevant, however I will repeat:
The problem being addressed in regards to the simulation is the stone tools weighing wood and irons marketability down.The removal of stone tools would be creating scarcity. It would be creating demand, it would effect the simulation positively. It does deviate from the vanilla experience but in a good way. It is the same way that now that resources are less common in our proposed simulation. It creates demand and wears down any surplus (through the extended use of wood and iron now), you have to consider these points when addressing the suggestion of the removal of stone tools. The demand for wood and iron will improve whilst the demand for cobblestone would stay the same, none.
In regards to your attribution of 'cosmetic' to my addressing of the players skins and their relation to the simulation;
We need to understand how players would think to achieve solutions to problems to find problems in the simulation to solve. However, there is no plausible way to solve the fact that full armour covers majority of the players skin without removing armour, destroying its purpose. These are minor problems but they need to be addressed, a moshpit of supposedly aligned players killing each other is not what we wish to see in the millitary aspects of this simulation. We cannot solve problems if we just ignore them.
Yes, actually. In the simulation that's EXACTLY how we solve problems. We ignore them, and let the players IN the simulation deal with them. The problems we need to deal with are large scale design issues: how to ensure a random initial distribution of resources, how to simulate costs of labour and transportation and training, what limits to put on the flow of information between players.
Problems like how to organize your troops for battle are not our problem. We're interested in the solutions the players come up with, but we don't want to presume they'll address it a certain way; they could surprise us. Likewise, decisions about resource allocation are things we should leave to the players. Inflation, unemployment, shortages and surpluses, these are precisely what we want to challenge the players with.
The conclusion you have already reached, that stone tools are too cheap and effective, is exactly the kind of thing I want to run the simulation to find out: ARE they to cheap and effective, or will players almost prefer to use iron? What effect will the use of rail transportation have on demand for iron? How about armour? Will players stockpile iron in ingot form as a strategic metal, so they can crank out weapons and armour quickly at need, or will they use it up quickly?
I think the idea of wearable, interchangable, and alterable clothing is a good idea. Infilteration and spying would be necessary. When going into battle, maybe you can wear armor but have your chest or head piece be invisible to show who you are or perhaps, maybe a tag in front of your name.
Concerning skills, I think they should be grouped into two different skillsets.
Jumping, sprinting, swimming, melee, and archery should all be one skillset = 300 clicks. (Perhaps sneaking could be added later?)
Farming, timberweight, smelting, rancher, mining, excavator, engineer, crafter, and boatman in another skillset = 750 clicks
Also, boatman may be a bit more effective if the boats were bigger and could actually carry 2-4 other players.
There definetly needs to be a death ban and spawn altering. I think we need it only to ensure any raids and wars aren't met with more troops over and over again. I understand the skills will counter this to some degree, tho. So I'd suggest there needs to be a mandatory distance for spawning from enemy territory and at least a 2-5 minute ban.
Yea, a boatman would essentially become a captain of a boat. This would make sea assaults more useful. Perhaps, there could be 2 additional boat designs. One with 2 passengers and another with 4.
If we changed boats, tho. Maybe we could make powered minecarts more powerful to push players further/harder. This would make them more viable to push groups of players in minecarts further. Perhaps theres a skill underlying here?
I liked the idea of handcuffs in an earlier post and think that such an item would be useful. However, working out the details of how they work would be difficult. How would you make them? If the recipe is too easy, anybody would be able to make them. How do you 'break' out of the handcuffs? How do you unlock them? If we instead do admin rights to rulers and enforcers, how do they then get these rights? When everyone is equal and just a band of players, can we set up some sort of vote and vote people into these positions? I'd rather not set designated people to certain status. Maybe a minimum vote of 10 for a ruler and then the ruler sets up enforcers? And if you ever want to leave you just /abandon civ?
I know the players are supposed to be mature but nobody ever is all the time. There definetly needs to be some enforcement of the governing body.
If you catch a spy you may not want to kill him but jail him.
Firstly, on the stone tools issue. Yes, I agree that stone should not be a tool tier, as relative scarcity is caused by the limited resources of a world vs. the unlimited wants of people. Cobblestone, in my opinion, is just too easy to get for the simulation of a realistic economy to work properly, as tools should become available through purpose and not just consequence. However, I don't think just removing the tier is good for the simulation. If the objective of the simulation is really about seeing what people do, there should be as many options as possible to create a wider array of choice which increases the realism of the simulation. I think something like flint tools should be considered. It's easy enough to get that it could be considered useful as a tool, but scarce enough so that you might think twice about making the upgrade from wood. It also adds a factor with the amounts of gravel that you have; is it worth grinding the gravel for flint, or should we stick with wood tools? Quite interesting.
Secondly, on the skill system - I love it. It's great how it allows people to 'train' and become better than others, but not in a very grindy sort of way. It's interesting how people have different skillsets, and you can't be good at everything, but only good in a specified skillset. This increases demand, which creates a better economy simulation in general. Just one thing though - I think it would be interesting to have some 'persistence' in a skill, so that people who have mined 10,000 blocks are better than someone who's just mined 1000 - and here is my suggestion; that players should gain 1 permanent level per every 100 action in a skillset. Say Bob goes on a mining spree and mines 2000 blocks - That means that he gains 20 persistent levels that last until death. So if he decides to do other things and then come back to mining later, he already starts at level 20 in mining when he comes back to it because he's experienced at it; he's done it before. I feel this would add more demand of people high in a certain skill, and make death more of an issue, as you'd lose all your persistent levels.
Finally, on the topic of crime - I think there should be a skill like 'detective', which would allow you to tell who broke/placed blocks. A higher level would allow you to find out with less error; say a griefer named Bluebird destroyed a house, then a low level detective would see that aBlagbpod destroyed it, a med level detective would see that Blupbiwd destroyed it, and a high level would see that Bluebird destroyed it. On the topic of punishment; I think that only people elected by the citizens should be able to jail, and any person is free to leave the country if they think the law system is abusive and they're getting jailed unfairly, which forces leaders to be firm but fair when handing out jail sentences.
Well, thanks for reading. I know some of my ideas won't be the best, and feel free to say why they aren't good, or even better, improve on my ideas. I will be watching this thread and posting again when I've got more ideas.
That's why it's so important to have the skill based on just a sampling of the last 1000 or however many tasks you perform. Don't think of it necessarily as being a skill, at least not in the literal sense of acquired experience and expertise. The player in this model represents not necessarily an individual human being but rather an economic unit, a household perhaps, or even a corporation. Gaining skill represents tooling up for a particular kind of work, and shifting to a different kind of work means retooling as much as retraining. It should be possible to shift one's focus, but for the simulation to work, it should NOT be possible to retain all of one's advantage in the previous focus. Otherwise players will simply make a point of mastering each skill in order to become as economically independent as possible.
I'd love to see the possibility for passenger boats and cargo vessels, but those are major coding projects that go well beyond vanilla MC and the scope of this project.
Intuitively I like the idea of splitting up skills into separate skillsets, because it meshes so well with the other systems I've played. But it also undermines what the system is meant to do, which is to encourage division of labour and thus trade. Specializing in combat skills SHOULD come at the expense of specializing in mining.
Think of it this way. Someone who deliberately sets up a farm so that he can operate it with maximum efficiency, without having to do any jumping or indeed using ANY skills other than farming, OUGHT to be more efficient at farming than someone who focuses on farming and jumping. And someone who focuses completely on overland transport (jumping) OUGHT to be better at transporting goods overland than someone who dabbles in farming as well. The farmer should have a reason to hire the jumper to deliver his goods, and the jumper should have a reason to need the farmer to create food for him.
The same argument applies to all the other skills in separate skill sets.
I'd agree that too much skill persistence would ruin this idea. However, I'd tend to agree that it would be rewarding to be able to keep a level or two of different things, if not all of the skills. I think it would be a good idea to allow players to keep level 1 status (level 0 - level 10?) until death. Assuming there are decent upgrades per level, a level 3 or 4 would still outweigh any level 1 or level 0. The gain for keeping a certain level instead of dropping back to level 0 would be helpful to a single person but may also contribute to the society, especially if it is a smaller society while not hindering the balance of trade and specialization within larger societies.
At least that is what I think.