Re: CF: Relations, races and gods

[David Sundqvist <>]

On Tue, 1 Jun 1999, Mark Wedel wrote:
>  Unfortunately, a lot of maps requiring killing large numbers of certain
> creatures.

Well, that might be solved in the balancing and eventual map remake.
Another thing is that different group members would affect rating
differently. Killing a random orc would hardly affect group relations,
while killing a special, like a leader, an orc king, or named npc would
affect relations a whole lot more. 
 
>  To have a gods/race relations be adjustable, a set number of gods/races
> probably needs to be set.  One of the causes of imbalance on maps is not having
> fixed values for this, so if a new god/race is added, then all the old artifacts
> don't have that information.  And ideally, the items themselves should contain
> relationship adjustments, and not have the cod try and guess.  Something like
> the +2 goblinslayer should have a negative penalty against goblins.

Well, IMO, ideally actual groups or 'factions' should be separated from
gods and race and be more flexible. The way I'd suggest it would work
would be that each faction has an initializer value against stereotypes,
which can be in a range from attack on sight (<50) through neutral (128)
to good friend (>200). Stereotypes would be religion, race and perhaps
class. The first time a player meets a member of a certain faction, an
invisible inventory item with the initializer value is set. For example, a
human priest of Gaea meets with an orc of The Orcs of Scorn. The Orcs of
Scorn faction has initializer relations with hatred for humans and Gaea,
and will attack on sight. If the same orc meets with an halforc warrior of
Gnarg, where they have only a dislike for halforcs and a liking for Gnarg,
then the orc might not attack unless attacked first. There could be a
forest orc faction that actually like Gaea, and if the same priest met one
of those, the liking for Gaea would balance out the hatred for humans and
they might just dislike the priest, but not attack. 
 
The granularity could be very fine, but should probably be kept to a
reasonable level until there is enough story and quests to support each
faction. Still, it could a pretty initially and be extended as the world
grows.

This could also go cross-race and cross-gods. If we take Scorn as
an example, most of the monsters in the town and surroundings could be of
the same faction since they (in theory) 'originate' in Old City, while the
population in the city would be largely of the same faction (with the
possible exception of travellers in the tavern and priests).

>  The tricky part is to have enough ways to get in good standing with the
> different races.  Right now, there are lots of places to kill large numbers of
> creatures and hence get penalties - ways to get back in good standing would be
> needed.
>
>  This soulc be done with better maps.  Perhaps a quest takes you to a goblin
> camp where you need to rescue some prisoners.  You could wander in and start
> killing every goblin, or perhaps you can talk the the goblin guards, volunteer
> to be captured, and upon talking to the goblin leader, learn that he is willing
> to release the prisoners by doing something (perhaps another side quest, or
> perhaps something simple like just bringing them some weapons).

Yes, again we come down to the maps and storyline development. A lot of
quests need to be added to support factioning, but they would not have to
be terribly difficult. Simple things like donating a potion of healing to
the temple of Valriel might improve your standing (but not above a
certain level) with the priests of Valriel. Once you have a certain
standing they would offer you some quests, and you might get other
advantages.

>  But there definately has to be some tie between your god and your race
> relations.  If your god happens to be the patron saint of goblins, and you go
> around killing goblins all the time, your god probably is not going to be happy
> about that.
> 
>  This can probably fixed somewhat by checking when award exp if the creature
> killed was either an enemy or ally of the god - if the enemy, perhaps give some
> wisdom exp for killing that enemy, even if you used another skill.  If an ally
> of the god, perhaps lose some wisdom experience.

Or you could simply let the factioning take care of the problem; killing a
goblin would decrease your standing with both the clerics of your god (and
your god in itself), as well as other goblin factions (while it may
increase your standing with some groups). The next time you go to pray in
the temple you're in for a nasty surprise. And even if you consecrate an
altar somewhere else, you'll hardly get good rewards from your god.
 
>  But to do that, many of the maps need to be cleaned up - if would not be all
> the nice to try and doing one of the few quests out there and end up losing a
> bunch of exp because the creatures on the map was your gods ally.

Yep, again the suggestion is based on changing the direction of the game,
and it would mostly be dependent on serious map development. It could be
implemented in a simple way through just having two groups in the game,
peaceful and not peaceful, like it is now.

/David

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