Topic: Crypto Kingdom - 1991 Retro Virtual World(City) - page 136. (Read 632699 times)

I get what you're saying. I was thinking of my friends who want to play the game, but know nothing of crypto, nor do any banking outside of their debit card.  

(As a summary of the IRC discussion)

- The year 1991 is quite important. Next year Wolfenstein 3D was launched, and PC games started their slow march to 3D.
- 3D was not in our specification (see OP for details). Even if we do it, it will resemble Wolfenstein 3D, not modern games (unless we want to switch a competitive advantage in niche market to competitive disadvantage in capital intensive mass market  ).

=> I urge everyone who want to see nice graphics and no economic model to switch to Second Life now. It is a great game and in all likelihood will stay larger than us.

Our resources scale with the number of players but devcosts are perhaps players^0.3. Therefore it may be that once we gain players, it is an insignificant cost to develop some viewing tools that allow a better rendition of the world. But we only spend money that we have earned for doing it - it is not an attempt of investment to gain more money.

A carriage should not compete with automobile in speed but in nobility.

If the tools are developed, I would happily work for in-game assets to implement those buildings, as long as I had designs for them.  I see "having to enter them into the db" as a speedbump, not a roadblock.

I do not know a developer who is good with 3d stuff. If the wizard is good at that, perhaps he should be the one to do it. This suggestion was simply a way to get more features into the game sooner. Regardless, it is low on the priority list right now as far as I'm concerned.

Also-I put the API up high on the list so we can tap into people who can interface with the game and provide additional functionality. You'd be surprised how many cool things might be developed if people are just given the key.

These are not so much about the developer but about the data.

Chapelry view new layer "bird's eye" <-- less than 1 day of work to add a new layer where 3 exist already; but someone needs to know the location of all buildings (this is like the /DET view)

Chapelry view new layer "dissect" <-- again the viewing tool is not many hours, creating the 3D database for urban voxels (chapelry being 150x100x100 instead of 150x100 in 2D) and implementing the existing buildings there is the chore

3D first-person street view
3D bird's eye view
<-- same applies

I see that these could be given to another guy because they are viewing tools and not interrelated to core mechanics. But I also know they are Wizard's strong point, so we would be giving some of that away. The main issue is definitely that 10-100 x more time is needed for the generation of the data to a format which did not exist, by people who alone possess the data, sometimes in their minds. If entering coordinates for all lots (4 "new" values generated per lot) seemed like a big effort, how about building all the voxels existing in the buildings (~1000 per building)?  

Anyway - Do you have the developer in mind already?


This is a thing that will not be done by the Wizard, so delaying it is only a question of having the project management ready. Possibly the OtherTeam has some code that could be redeemed (this is the area where I trust their superiority the most).

Although, your reasoning fails:
- Bank people are used to delays in deposits/withdrawals/trust, so cannot expect instant action.
- Crypto people should know how the thing work, they are also in BCT and have seen the flawless history over the year
- Only new generation crypto people who have learnt to never trust in anything ... such people do not exist.

I see this about solely as a status tool "look how nice backend we have" for the game in the cryptosphere, a little about convenience for the players "I want to buy that but shit I have no money at hand" but almost not at all for the trust (psychologically it feels more trustworthy to have human processing  ).

Also the money is not "deposited with the game" it is "held in trust" by the treasurer and if SHTF, only that treasurer's money is gone. MtGox not happening again here, please. This adds to the complexity of developing an automated deposit/withdraw model, and gives the players a misleading impression that their money is deposited to the game, which it expressly is not.

This is an interesting conversation topic, a bit slow to understand but (imo) one area where we need to make things right if we want to present a better alternative to the banking system. If we cut the same corners as they do, we also become fraudulent as they are.

Made two vote changes to noms' list. Automated deposit/withdrawals first and building designer fifth (though I want to make this first, because i can't wait to build this way! But I know there are more important core features.   )

•    Automated deposits/withdrawals (new players unfamiliar with BCT or trusted admin might be leery of depositing money into the game if there are delays in deposits and withdrawals reported via social media)   
•    New Player Registration + Tutorial (else there is none, meaning no new players!)   
•    API (includes all tools for programmers to make stuff that interacts with the game)   
•    Agora Marketplace - Matching Exchange System for Items & Lots (if we assume that otherwise the full-fledged matching is not active, and trades can be done directly via commands)   
•    Graphical Building Designer - Build with Voxels, costs and data are entered automatically (depending on admins and architects for design is a poor substitute for the minecraftlike-fun of build-pay-yours design
•    Game Event History / Transaction History - Handy view to see what has happened in your account (compared to no such possibility)   
•    Logistics script to calculate traffic and desirability of lots (a great addition to value the rentals based on "actual" traffic flows determined by where people live and walk and desire to eat)   
•    More Realistic Building Payout Script w/choices (otherwise the scripts stays exploitable, and you have no choices over the use of your buildings)   
•    Business - Building - NPC interaction (this needs to be enabled to get back the economic subgames that were in use in 1550-1599 <- note in our history of almost a year, they were in use for 1.5 months only   )   
•    Building View - View and Edit Building Data (otherwise the /BLDG tab will stay in GoogleDB even if the rest migrates, because of usability)   
•    Duty Paid - Shop for every possible item to be created from IC (otherwise the creation will happen via admin commands upon char request, with most items just not being created except by admins themselves)   
•    Other "core" economic subgames   
• These should happen in concurrent development by a second developer perhaps
  
  •    Chapelry view new layer "bird's eye" shows the "satellite" image of the area (else only the 3 different block image layers are available)   
  •    Chapelry view new layer "dissect" shows the view at the chosen elevation (3D building db is needed here)   
  •    3D first-person street view   
  •    3D bird's eye view   

•    Health Challenge - To make individual drinking/health choices possible (otherwise drinking will be some script with very little control by the char, as it has been now)   
•    Halls of Fame - See the Best Performers in Multiple Challenges (otherwise such listings are not visible, cf. /CHAR tab)   

Here is the order that I think things should be done in.

•    New Player Registration + Tutorial (else there is none, meaning no new players!)   
•    API (includes all tools for programmers to make stuff that interacts with the game)   
•    Agora Marketplace - Matching Exchange System for Items & Lots (if we assume that otherwise the full-fledged matching is not active, and trades can be done directly via commands)   
•    Game Event History / Transaction History - Handy view to see what has happened in your account (compared to no such possibility)   
•    Graphical Building Designer - Build with Voxels, costs and data are entered automatically (otherwise the building will be designed in spreadsheet and translated to a DB entry and imported with a command)   
•    Automated deposits/withdrawals (if not, current system will continue with manual communication and entries)   
•    Logistics script to calculate traffic and desirability of lots (a great addition to value the rentals based on "actual" traffic flows determined by where people live and walk and desire to eat)   
•    More Realistic Building Payout Script w/choices (otherwise the scripts stays exploitable, and you have no choices over the use of your buildings)   
•    Business - Building - NPC interaction (this needs to be enabled to get back the economic subgames that were in use in 1550-1599 <- note in our history of almost a year, they were in use for 1.5 months only   )   
•    Building View - View and Edit Building Data (otherwise the /BLDG tab will stay in GoogleDB even if the rest migrates, because of usability)   
•    Duty Paid - Shop for every possible item to be created from IC (otherwise the creation will happen via admin commands upon char request, with most items just not being created except by admins themselves)   
•    Other "core" economic subgames   
• These should happen in concurrent development by a second developer perhaps
  
  •    Chapelry view new layer "bird's eye" shows the "satellite" image of the area (else only the 3 different block image layers are available)   
  •    Chapelry view new layer "dissect" shows the view at the chosen elevation (3D building db is needed here)   
  •    3D first-person street view   
  •    3D bird's eye view   

•    Health Challenge - To make individual drinking/health choices possible (otherwise drinking will be some script with very little control by the char, as it has been now)   
•    Halls of Fame - See the Best Performers in Multiple Challenges (otherwise such listings are not visible, cf. /CHAR tab)   

Vote on the prioritisation of modules

Progress is happening in many fronts. After we migrate, progress will happen in 1 front at a time however. We decided with the Wizard that the ultra-small 2-man design&development team can most efficiently work by modularising the developments, and then concentrating on one at a time, subcontracting some, and making others subgame-like joint projects (everyone already knows that most subgames are 3rd party developments that access the game via API and other methods).

The project to get the game core in order started 2 months ago and 3 months are ahead. I want to emphasize that the team is me who is not coding, and one committed part-time Wizard. And the productivity is so high that there are no plans to add more people to either design or development core team, rather define the interfaces how others can make content in the game. Also marketing and administration side require manpower soon.

But as for the vote, the following modules have been proposed and they are largely independent of each other, so that they can be implemented in any order. The modules are only for the game features, they are not the larger project goals (marketing etc).

We are talking about the situation after migration, so the starting point is that the game status is in Ultima DB, the access is via authentication, and Ultima is used for initialising the transactions. List them in order with the first being most urgent, and feel free to leave out stuff that is not in the top of the stack. If you add new modules, don't list very small things, they will be developed/fixed in parallel anyway:

Agora Marketplace - Matching Exchange System for Items & Lots  (if we assume that otherwise the full-fledged matching is not active, and trades can be done directly via commands)

Duty Paid - Shop for every possible item to be created from IC  (otherwise the creation will happen via admin commands upon char request, with most items just not being created except by admins themselves)

Graphical Building Designer - Build with Voxels, costs and data are entered automatically (otherwise the building will be designed in spreadsheet and translated to a DB entry and imported with a command)

Building View - View and Edit Building Data (otherwise the /BLDG tab will stay in GoogleDB even if the rest migrates, because of usability)

Halls of Fame - See the Best Performers in Multiple Challenges (otherwise such listings are not visible, cf. /CHAR tab)

Health Challenge - To make individual drinking/health choices possible  (otherwise drinking will be some script with very little control by the char, as it has been now)

Game Event History / Transaction History - Handy view to see what has happened in your account  (compared to no such possibility)

More Realistic Building Payout Script w/choices (otherwise the scripts stays exploitable, and you have no choices over the use of your buildings)

Business - Building - NPC interaction (this needs to be enabled to get back the economic subgames that were in use in 1550-1599 <- note in our history of almost a year, they were in use for 1.5 months only  )

API (includes all tools for programmers to make stuff that interacts with the game)

New Player Registration + Tutorial (else there is none, meaning no new players!)

Automated deposits/withdrawals  (if not, current system will continue with manual communication and entries)

Logistics script to calculate traffic and desirability of lots (a great addition to value the rentals based on "actual" traffic flows determined by where people live and walk and desire to eat)

RESTA subgame and making eating and drinking happen in there (a business with actual perishable foods, location and marketing matters)

Countryside with Counties, Duchies, new Towns, Roads

Foreign trade and inter-town trade subgame (getting rid of IC happens here probably and m will reign)

Other "core" economic subgames

Chapelry view new layer "bird's eye" shows the "satellite" image of the area (else only the 3 different block image layers are available)

Chapelry view new layer "dissect" shows the view at the chosen elevation (3D building db is needed here)
 
3D first-person street view

3D bird's eye view

IC rehaul

One of the most makeshift concepts ever in the history of the game, AIC, was originally created to allow the addition of ancient items. There needed to be a way to backdate stuff realistically and equitably, so the promotions, buildings and culture created allowed the item generation for the year when they were received, built or acquired.

It served nicely for that single purpose, but the concept was not very smartly transformed to the current extended google version and the reconstruction era.

We go back to the simplicity with the original idea, but scrap backdating which honestly does not serve a purpose any more.

So, from now on:

1. IC can still be used as a "foreign exchange currency", while more and more stuff is produced domestically as well (part of their production may require IC).

2. All IC is normalized to the current year, so unused IC has an implicit carry cost (cf. stone) - each year passing makes the opportunity cost lost, while the long-term value of 1 IC is not likely to appreciate.

3. IC shop will be opened for easy conversion of IC to the most needed imported items buyable - silver, wine, etc. Buying from this shop creates these new items and consumes the IC. (In Ultima, this will be called "Duty Paid" referring to the fact that prices of silver and wine include the Town import duties.)

4. IC will be generated as a spinoff of CUL (CUL will be received for some NPC's, your own residence and having buildings designated as CUL), as a spinoff of installing (not demolishing) luxury, and for reaching certain levels. The exact formulas will be fixed soon.

5. Backdating of items will be possible at a higher IC cost (tentatively price doubles for each 25 years of backdating), although nothing prior to 1600 may be created.

6. These changes can effortlessly converted to Ultima version, but take effect already as soon as I can make the changes.

Hope you like it!

Hmm... I have learnt to trust my expert butler serje, with 157 years of being the manager of the Royal household.

He has more experience of drinking vodka than anyone in the game (both IRL and ingame). I don't know of the "die instantly" part - it seems that his health as recorded has degraded during the experiments, but that might be also bad luck, or a consequence of him being more than 200 years old, or not having access to wine.

Nevertheless, let this advise be recorded and duly taken heed to. There might be mystical effects when consuming VOH "in moderation" such as 20 or 50 bottles at a time - an amount that nobody else has ever tried, perhaps due to the already rather high price of VOH - or because W1603A is better distributed among characters than VOH (that is concentrated to people that in general have plenty of other stuff to drink as well).

Tavastia went to his shop to adjust the prices and found it was cleared once again, perhaps due to the problems with import. He scoured the remaining bottles for sale and true to serje's word, adjusted the VOH sell price a notch upwards, and buy price 2 notches. If all wine gets sold at these prices, it can be substituted with spirits, he thinks.

By mistake or not I just woke up after drinking all that bottles of vodka.
VOD and VOH!!!!


And something amazing happened!!!! I just realized that VOH the vodka made from life-giving water from pre-earthquake times made me 100 years (game years) younger and healthier!!!!

All I know is that I drank 20 bottles and I'm 100 years younger!

But this will only happen again if you drink 20,50,100 bottles and it will make you a little younger, and it only happens once in a life-time because if you drink more than 100 bottles of VOH at the same time you die instantly!!!! So be very careful and wise when you choose to use VOH.

So I would recommend to you Sir to increase drastically the price for VOH!!!


thank you very much Sir!

Yes, it is my main project, anything between 50-100 hours a week. It becomes a lot because I seldom take days off.

I am not counting my hours, and only occasionally I am the bottleneck in development so there is not that much stress. I also like the style to be constantly online if I have a project going on, (and then take large breaks between projects).

I am not taking salary (even ingame) for the town admin stuff that I do. I seek to do only the things that are better for me to do. If someone else is capable, they get the job (and ingame payment) instead. Also designing and coordinating the devteam are non-payable currently. I got the initial gold as part of the deal, and if I want to get paid of the full-time work, I can sell gold. King is making money as a character, and this I have tried to invest wisely.

Point is that construction happens in voxels and pixels (1x1 m surface of a voxel).

Voxel types:

A voxel where you have stone, costs 300 stone + 18,000 m.
A voxel full of dirt "pedestal" is 3,000 m.

Stone voxels can be covered by:
- very, most and elaborate facades (outside)
- luxuries (inside - though for ease, they are counted based on sqm)

Dirt voxels can be covered by:
- paving (100 stone + 2,400 m)
- gardens (5,000 m).

When the building editor allows automatic calculation, every voxel can be of one of the several types of materials, and every visible surface inside and outside wildly customizable with for instance:
- mirrors
- paneled inside and outside walls
- paintings in floors and ceilings
- doors in varying majesties
- windows likewise
- different facade materials
- gilded and silvered panels, amber etc
- expensive colors (purple, blue, red)
- roof types (tiled, base metal).

The customization of the surfaces of the voxels (aka pixels) has not been started in a real way yet because:
- Players are so rich they don't have time to customize every pixel.
- Calculating and recording them automatically is not yet there.
- Showing them for the owners and others to see is a pain.

Ah, there is so much to do

The tab /BUILDCALC shows all the current cost formulas.

Luxury currently influences dividends as is shown in the formula in /BLDG "BF". The formula has been changed 4 major times in history, with smaller revisions. It is never advised to build structures that are too much off-the-reality to harvest the formula, they may fall severely in disfavor when a new grading comes. Advisable is to build things that you would actually believe can fetch well in the rent or land market given the state of the town's economy and the location of the unit.

I had a very elaborate set of pool formulas made for the previous development project, and that aimed to imitate the real rental market with having a set of pools with their different grading formula. The player would need to find a pool where a certain building gets the best payout.
- rental/commercial: payouts much better on shopfronts and areas with good centrality
- rental/office: important things are status eg. windows, room height, lux
- rental/apartment: small apartments get better value, park ratio.

This way some bldgs are clearly of one type, which is good because it gives high payout but if there is overproduction of that type, it cannot be flipped to another type easily. Others are versatile, meaning they can easily flip pools and earn the steady income especially if checked occasionally that the pool is the best.

A new formula is coming quite soon so instead of trying to optimize based on the current, estimating based on how it changes is more profitable.

Buildings need to have a roof and an area covered by the roof and walls. Exterior features not fulfilling these are NOT to be added to /BLDG and they will benefit the lot in other ways. They can be had as Items in Building Features.

How many hours are you spending per week on this project? It appears as if it is almost full time job based on your activity level! Thank you for helping to build the Monero ecosystem. I think the fruits of your labor are becoming more visible all the time

Do basements have any special costs? ATM I have voxels + door area + sqm floor area + luxury + labor costs = total costs

Do stairs go into voxel total (it only states "voxels in walls and ceilings")?

Does anyone have an average for luxury influencing dividends?

About BI costs


There have been questions regarding what is public service and what is not, regarding lands/buildings database. Public service is something that the admins do upon request and the town pays them. Private BI is something the same guys do so that the requester pays them.


Public service:

Creation of new boroughs so that each chapelry is zoned to be 1 lot.

Changing the owner of a lot if nothing else changes.

Recording Quarry subgame.

Everything that the character Public Works does as a character.

"Pre-1600" buildings were created so that 2 mil fee was levied and paid to the admins from Town but not yet charged from the owners. The rationale was similar as why the gold reshaping fee was not charged when all the gold was reshaped - it would not have added game value, nor changed the relative situation, so (in absence of both fun and fairness) the real-time required to calculate it would have been waste. (Also there was no incentive effect, because the transition just "needed to happen" with the cost having no change on the actions of the people since no action was requested.)



Private BI:

Rezoning ie. making one lot to become several, or the other way round.

Changes to lot (/LOT)

New Building Projects, Repair Projects etc. (/BLDG).


We hope that everyone understands that tax money is not collected so that it could subsidize this or that group, in this case people with much needs to beautify their land (especially as without exception such people have the rights or could get the rights to do it themselves, so there is nothing resembling a few-admin cartel here!). The principle has been in force since the beginning, and will be in Ultima as well, with only the core being a "taxpayer-funded" development, and everything else starting from King's Coinshop is paid by the operator.


The list is not conclusive, and we welcome the discussion whether this is "too strict" or "too lenient". Until now the principle has served us well. Admins work does not become obsolete when Ultima launches, so we need to take care that we have enough motivated admins. I apologize for complaining about the work, which I admittedly sometimes do.

Carriages have been delivered for 1606!

Phaeton Carriage Works has finished work on the carriages that were ordered and they have been delivered for the following users in 1606:

The_Bishop   - Blue 6 horse, Most Elaborate with 100 CKG
Cryptodaknight - Blue 4 horse, Most Elaborate
HM_The_King - Blue 2 horse, Most Elaborate with 10 CKS

There are a number of carriages that were created for the Phaeton stocks. Stop on by and take a look to see if anything tickles your fancy. Here are the items for sale now:

15m - 2-horse, Wooden Elaborate
15m - 2-horse, Wooden Elaborate
15m - 2-horse, Green Elaborate
29m - 4-horse, Green Elaborate
58m - 4-horse, Red Most Elaborate
58m - 4-horse, Blue Most Elaborate

-Phaeton Carriage Works

Would like to list these properties for sale* (admin please update):

1-SE-V67 @ 400

1-SE-E1 through E7  @ 45 each (7 total)

3-S-G1 @ 140

4-S-A1 (LOT) @ 35

4-S-S7 @ 150

4-N-N10 @ 210

4-N-12 @ 100



*ADD 20% OFF FOR THEM ALL

Transaction completed - Congrats on your land purchase!

Crichton would like to buy 2 NE-N5 and 2 NE-N6 from the town.