Posted by Xavori (207.158.93.70) on January 19, 1998 at 4:36 pm:

Okay, since I've gotten some good feedback on the whole bounty thing (I'll repost the updated notes on it tomorrow when y'all have had a chance to digest it some more), I'm going to post the feudal system. I personally like this a lot since it is all about roleplaying…

(this is even more written in silly putty than the bounty thing...)

Okay, a simple overview. Every player can claim loyalty to a master and have people beneath them claim loyalty to them. A guild can all claim loyalty to their guild leader. These allegiances will let people have rank in the system based on how many people they have below them and the rank of those below them.

Now, this is why this is going to be fun…

Guilds can declare war on each other and the bounty system will not matter to anyone in the guild. Factions within guild can do the same. Factions within factions within guilds and so on into silliness. Now, both sides have to agree to this war, but it makes it possible to have great wars without penalizing the participants except in terms

Next, a guild can be a single person. This means that Xavori will be a guild and everyone can declare war on him and not worry about whether or not he'll report them for bounty loss. People can also swear loyalty to Xavori and then he won't kill them (actually, Xavori prolly won't do that, but I can think of people who will…)

Guilds don't even need to be guilds. Let's say some guy named…oh…Enshu wants to start a player run governent. He builds a large house and calls it city hall (property ownership is required to form a guild). He then promotes players to vote for him as mayor of Yew by having them swear allegiance to him (he can bribe them for all the feudal system cares). This government can the act against PK guilds by declaring war against them and such. Enshu can also gain the loyalty of the carpenters guild, lumberjack guild, and ranger guilds of Yew by having the guildmasters of each guild swear loyalty to him.

Then, if some other mayor decides Enshu's government is for the birds, he can try and recruit more citizens into his government. Then, the two governments can declare war on each other and so on…

Enshu can then claim loyalty to some king who is trying to unite the city governments. This king might get Skara Brae, Minoc, and Yew all under his banner. However, some other king gets the other cities to claim loyalty to him. They can then battle it out both fighting and political maneuvers to try and take the loyalty of the different cities.

Things would get interesting as the rangers of Yew start complaining that the rangers of Skara Brae aren't living up to ranger ideals, so they could be on the verge of warfare. The king and the mayors of both cities would have to deal with this inside problems, etc, all the while dealing with the other king who wants to take over all of Sosaria.

The politics of this whole thing will be a lot of fun. There are still details as far as interface, how a player claims loyalty, taxation possibilites, etc. that have to be worked out, but this one has a lot of potential to make the game very player oriented.

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