Trade caravans...?
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Like some other games before it (including my oft'-cited reference, Albion Online), Fractured advertises that its vast area, diverse environments, and local economies will likely require ambitious guilds to send trade caravans across the map.
Albion promised something similar and never really delivered. What are your thoughts about how Fractured's developers and players might succeed where other games failed and deliver on this particular promise?
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stuff is big and we can't carry everything. look at the carts in the house building video/gif.
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Thoughts?
I don't have much other than I hope that they follow through with their vision and grand ambitions for the game. Maybe they'll fall short but only time will tell.
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@Alexian said in Trade caravans...?:
(...)send trade caravans across the map(...)
Did they mention actual caravans? (If so would you happen to have a link)
Counter question, would some players driving a cart with goods be considered a 'caravan' by you?
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@Belligero said in Trade caravans...?:
Thoughts?
I don't have much other than I hope that they follow through with their vision and grand ambitions for the game. Maybe they'll fall short but only time will tell.
Same here. I hope the game forces players to do it if they want access to resources not available in their local biome.
If we’re being honest, most players (myself included), will go for the lazier, quicker option if given the choice.
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@Logain said in Trade caravans...?:
@Alexian said in Trade caravans...?:
(...)send trade caravans across the map(...)
Did they mention actual caravans? (If so would you happen to have a link)
Counter question, would some players driving a cart with goods be considered a 'caravan' by you?I believe they did and I will find you the link sometime today!
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One option is to left caravan activity just for players. At least guilds can easily arrange caravan with high carrying capacity mounts/carts and guards.
However somekind of transport/contract/insurance system would also be interesting where players could do caravan activities behalf others for money.
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you want contracts?
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@Tuoni said in Trade caravans...?:
One option is to left caravan activity just for players. At least guilds can easily arrange caravan with high carrying capacity mounts/carts and guards.
However somekind of transport/contract/insurance system would also be interesting where players could do caravan activities behalf others for money.
Both of these seem promising.
I’m fine with NPC guards being assigned to help guild caravans or whatnot. I’m not sure how the devs would pull it off, but they said Governors will be able to assign NPCs to patrol areas adjacent to their town, so presumably it’s feasible for them from a programming perspective.
I mean, if organizing viable caravans is seen as too difficult, players won’t do it. So there’s gotta be some sort of middle ground where caravans are necessary to transport goods from one biome to another and from town to town, but it shouldn’t require a weeks’ worth of prep to organize.
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Perhaps guard NPCs can be programmed to follow your caravan but only in the zone of influence they belong to (around the city your guild controls)... after they escort you to the edge of an area of their jurisdiction, they return to patrol or back to base.
This would make an incentive for guilds to fight for controls of multiple zones, and multiple cities, because of benefits of extended area where NPC guards could help them out.
If your guild also controls neighboring area, NPC guards there can be programmed to wait you at the edge of their zone and escort you to the next city in that zone.
This could also be arranged if neighboring city is controlled by friendly guild that wants to help you out, or you pay to that guild for this service. This gives guilds that put an effort in zone control the monetary benefits of selling their NPC services to other guilds.
This is why I would suggest that NPCs (guards and other) are allowed to function only inside the zone in which they belong to, and can't be sent to escort the caravan during entire trip to the end destination.
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entire trip would be mercenary npcs, but really we shouln't need that. either you risk going solo or you bring a group.
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@Alexian said in Trade caravans...?:
(...)I will find you the link sometime today!
Thanks for the effort! I appreciate that!
@Alexian said in Trade caravans...?:
(...)assign NPCs to patrol areas adjacent to their town, so presumably it’s feasible for them from a programming perspective(...)
That's one of the parts where I am less optimistic. Writing an AI that patrols an area is a piece of cake. Writing an AI that escorts a caravan is extremely tricky, since it has to avoid both being lured off easily and being a sitting target at the same time.
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@Logain said in Trade caravans...?:
@Alexian said in Trade caravans...?:
(...)send trade caravans across the map(...)
Did they mention actual caravans? (If so would you happen to have a link)
Counter question, would some players driving a cart with goods be considered a 'caravan' by you?So I might have heard the term "caravan" in one of the YouTube Q&A sessions. But one of their spotlight articles implied that caravans will be a feature as well:
If you engage in the merchant profession, things get even more complex, of course. In Fractured, there is no magical “stash” or “bank” that makes your items easily available everywhere you go. You can earn some warehouse space to store your items in a village, but such space is not free – and even if you unlock it, what you deposit in the village stays in the village. As your character inventory on Fractured is quite limited, you’ll need wagons to move resources – which means animals to drag them, and a proper escort to see that your bounty doesn’t fall to unwanted hands. This is once more a wide topic though, which will be given further elaboration in future feature spotlights.
@Gothix said in Trade caravans...?:
Perhaps guard NPCs can be programmed to follow your caravan but only in the zone of influence they belong to (around the city your guild controls)... after they escort you to the edge of an area of their jurisdiction, they return to patrol or back to base.
This would make an incentive for guilds to fight for controls of multiple zones, and multiple cities, because of benefits of extended area where NPC guards could help them out.
If your guild also controls neighboring area, NPC guards there can be programmed to wait you at the edge of their zone and escort you to the next city in that zone.
This could also be arranged if neighboring city is controlled by friendly guild that wants to help you out, or you pay to that guild for this service. This gives guilds that put an effort in zone control the monetary benefits of selling their NPC services to other guilds.
This is why I would suggest that NPCs (guards and other) are allowed to function only inside the zone in which they belong to, and can't be sent to escort the caravan during entire trip to the end destination.
Great suggestions all around, @Gothix.
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Is housing going to have storage? If so has it been said how much can be stored there? I guess others can turn to a system I have seen in other games...using vendors to store items by placing extremely high prices that only if they sold wouldn't be a bad thing anyway.
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@Farlander There were 3 kinds of chests in alpha which you could place in your house and 1 outside as well, largest one was 54 slots.
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@Alexian said in Trade caravans...?:
(...) implied that caravans(...)need wagons to move resources – which means animals to drag them, and a proper escort to see that your bounty doesn’t fall to unwanted hands(...)
Hence why I inquired what would be considered a 'caravan' (it's a lax term, like 'hill' without a concrete definition, but plenty a different vision by different people). If 'caravan' is a wagon or three moving from A to B, then, certainly, I see that going to happen. That's not tricky to implement at all, once you have wagons. Your question on 'how' the developers would deliver on that implies that you'd want more than just wagons moving through terrain though, right?
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I know Ashes of Creation has the same idea they plan to implement. On their game one group would be escorting 1 wagon I believe. I also think there as well it is resources and crafted goods that would be moved from one area to another.
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@Farlander said in Trade caravans...?:
(...)one group would be escorting 1 wagon(...)
Players or NPCs? It's easy enough with players, there are no additional requirements. But with NPCs, how do you handle the AI? Should the caravan stop or continue during a raid? Do the guards keep locked to the caravan or do they pursue the bandits?
Because if they stay around the caravan, it's easy enough to pick them out from a distance, one by one. If they follow the bandits, you send in one bait, lure them off and then raid the helpless wagons.
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@Logain said in Trade caravans...?:
@Farlander said in Trade caravans...?:
(...)one group would be escorting 1 wagon(...)
Players or NPCs? It's easy enough with players, there are no additional requirements. But with NPCs, how do you handle the AI? Should the caravan stop or continue during a raid? Do the guards keep locked to the caravan or do they pursue the bandits?
Because if they stay around the caravan, it's easy enough to pick them out from a distance, one by one. If they follow the bandits, you send in one bait, lure them off and then raid the helpless wagons.the AI depends on how much you spend
if you buy the best geared (call them veterans or something) then they'll stay withing 10m of the caravan. maybe these come standard with better gear but still worse than player crafted.
if you buy the second best they may wonder a little further, say 15-20m away.
the new mercs are easily baited so they'll go even further!maybe you could buy.. er rent some new mercs and they gain exp if they dont die!
another option could be you outfit them with gear or they use their own (which is worst to equal to bad player created gear). IE if a player has white tier gear as a base then they'll have a mix of gray and white. I only offer this because it's a player economy and crafters need all the means necessary to sell/trade gear.I'll note that these AI mercs shouldn't drop gear as it could be easily exploited/farmed (if it's their base gear, player crafted gear can be acquisition!)
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@Jetah said in Trade caravans...?:
(...)if you buy the best geared (call them veterans or something) then they'll stay withing 10m of the caravan(...)
What would prevent me from taking two friends and killing your dozen veterans from a distance, one by one, retreating when in danger?
