Society Missions and Society Revamp

I think it's widely accepted that the society functions in-game currently available are outdated, providing little incentive to manage a society or join one, and even becoming burdensome on those who do administer groups.

I believe True Juan a while ago managed a society wishlist. That list got me thinking: What would make a good society structure for EU?

Here it is:

The Current Structure

The current society structure consists of 6 ranks, for each society, each rank being progressively able to kick more people out, and manage a few updates. These updates are largely only noticed when a person is at the society terminal, and the ranks are basically meaningless titles players are forced to conform to if they want to join a social group or create one. They do not support a creative structure, instead they seem to enforce a type of game immersion. While this is good starting out, it's not so good overall.

Proposition

Create a society structure based on tiered advancement levels. These advancements grant new abilities within the society, and can be earned through either society longevity, or completion of related quests, or a combination of both.

Start with the basic society structure that exists now, in terms of ranks and titles, and add functionality to all societies for these items:

• Message of the Day
• Total Skill Count
• Last Date/Time Online
• Preferred Language
• Language Filter (for foul mouthed folks or socially conscious groups)
• Event Calendar
• Chat Channels Used (for societies that use multiple chat channels this can be helpful - discussed later)
• External Website
• External Voice Chat Service

Create an underlying system of rewards for societies that have been around a long time and/or have a high member base capable of completing ingame tasks. This system of rewards allows the society to grow.

Reward Tier 1: Customizable Ranks and Privileges

1,000 points, or 1 year ingame

The Rank Archetype option "Custom" is added to the society terminal. Up to 20 ranks may be defined by the user, each with their own name, and privileges. Rank Archetypes may only be selected by the society leader. Privileges may also only be assigned by the society leader.

Privileges added include:

• Recruit New Members
• Expel members of rank or below (define 1-20)
• Moderate/Open Society Chat
• Add/Deny voice (members with voice can talk during moderated chat)
• Mute/Unmute a Society Member (only applies to society chat)
• Start a Trial (in a democratic or monarchial style society, a trial may be used to expel a member)
• End a Trial (ends a trial before it is concluded by a jury)
• Create a Jury (in a democratic or monarchial style society, a jury is selected at random from 10 participants who are all online at the time)
• Update description page (updates all info for society)
• Allow/Disallow new member applications
• Access/Deny Society Storage
• Access/Deny Society Buildings
• Access/Deny Society Merchants
• Access/Deny Society Taxes
• Automatic Access to Channel (specified)

New items

Chat: Societies may specify in their description chat channels they use. Members will be automatically added to these channels. How they are automatically added depends on what is specified by their rank. This is useful for societies that may be large, like NBK, but may also wish to help new players. Instead of having multiple divisions they may now all consolidate under one flag. This will be useful for completing society quests.

Moderation: Chat channels can now be moderated by a member with sufficient privileges. This can be used to stop arguments, or for events, or other tasks.

Voice: Voiced members can talk during channel moderation

Mute/Unmute: Sometimes a person may be a problem. Or they might just be drunk. Folks may not want to, or have the authority to kick them. But they can still resolve the problem by muting them, so they do not disturb the rest of the society while people are figuring out what to do about them.

Trial: This option is automatically enabled by default. A person with sufficient privileges may put another person on trial, to remove them from the society. This circumvents needing a leader involved in every decision, and reinforces a sense of community.

Jury: Randomly selected. If there are not enough people online a jury cannot be formed.

Society Storage: If applicable, shared storage can be accessed by the rank specified.

Society Buildings: If applicable, private buildings shared with only society members can be accessed by the rank specified.

Society Merchants: If applicable, merchants managed by the society may be accessed by the rank specified.

Society Taxes: If a land area is managed by the society and taxes are split, this rank is entitled to a share of those taxes.

Reward Tier 2: Customizable Society Archetypes

5,000 points or 2 years in-game

The society may choose a government structure.

Society Government - Democracy

In a democratic society votes count for everything. The leader is selected by vote. People are expelled by trial, or by leadership decision/delegated responsibility only.

Society Government - Monarchy

In a monarchy, the leader cannot be removed, however trial functions are still open to expel members, including the leader, if the membership warrants it. In the event the leader is removed, the next leader is determined by highest rank + longest time in society combined.

Society Government - Dictatorship

In a dictatorship the leader may not be removed except in cases where the leader appoints a new leader, and trial functions are disabled.

Society Government - Achievement

In achievement oriented societies the person with the most skills is the leader. The system automatically uses skill counts to determine this once a month.

Society Government - Oligarchy

In oligarchial societies the leader is elected once a month based off total accumulated wealth, including assets managed. These assets are calculated at their current market value, including markup.

Reward Tier 3: Increased Member Count

10,000 points or 3 years in-game

Available Member Count is increased by 50.

Reward Tier 4: Society Headquarters

20,000 points or 4 years in-game

A society may designate one building as for society use. This building is the society headquarters. This opens up functionality later on for storage, society specific quests, society merchants, etc.

Reward Tier 5: Society Daily Quest

30,000 points or 5 years in-game

One Society quest may be added to the society building. The society quest is an NPC that hands out a daily quest that can be completed in addition to daily quests for corporations, planetary entities, or other NPC affiliated groups. This allows for faster point accruals.

Reward Tier 6: Increased Member Count

60,000 points or 6 years in-game

Available member count is increased by 50.

Reward Tier 7: Society Shopkeeper/Shared Revenue

120,000 points or 7 years in-game

One shopkeeper may be designated as operated by the society. Representatives authorized to use this privilege may do so. The merchant may have a society tax rate added to it, with that tax being divided up amongst all eligible members. If the society building is a shop or stall, then the entire shop may be designated as for use by the society at this time.

Reward Tier 8: Society Daily Quest

240,000 points or 8 years in-game

Additional society quest NPC.

Reward Tier 9: Society Shared Storage

480,000 points or 9 years in-game

Society Storage is allowed on one container, located in the society building.

Reward Tier 10: Society Land Area/Shared Revenue

1,000,000 points or 10 years in game

A land area maintained by a participant may be declared for society use. A portion of its taxes, set by the society, is sent to society taxes, and divided up amongst all eligible members.

Reward Tier 11: Increased Member Count

1,250,000 points

50 more society members are allowed to join.

Reward Tier 12: Increased Member Count

1,500,000 points

50 more society members are allowed to join.

Reward Tier 13: Increased Member Count

2,000,000 points

The society may maintain another building.

Further Rewards

Every 250,000 points afterward + 10 society members.

Every 500,000 points afterward + 1 merchant

Every 750,000 points afterward + 1 storage container.

Every 1 million points afterward + 1 building.

Every 10 million points afterward + 1 land area.

Benefits

I believe this structure benefits societies that last a while in-game, as well as benefits societies with heavy member base. It not only gives management tools, but incentivizes participation up to the point of virtually unlimited revenue share for society members through taxes shared on land areas.

This I feel will drive the user base up, giving everyone potentially access to ownership share, and will give societies that work at it quite a bit of clout in the game. Long term or small societies are never marginalized, as even they can be part of the land area revenue share simply by sticking around and staying active.

It also benefits Planet Partners and MA, because with the quest system I have in mind, these society quests will be money sinks that the partners can derive income from separate from Iron Missions or other quests.

Drawbacks

Long initial post. I didn't explore the additions needed to the quest system for this. I'll do that another time. I'm tired of writing.

Gaining Points

Points are gained at a rate of 1 point per task completed. Each task is offered daily, by mission brokers in the towns on planet. For planet Calypso, the towns would be Port Atlantis, Cape Corinth, Fort Ithaca, Fort Fury, Atlas Haven, Minopolis, Fort Zeus, Nymphtown, Twin Peaks, Fort Isis...

Outposts are not included here deliberately. These are town exercises.

Each task may only be completed once per day.

Task Variety

Some NPC's may give general tasks, such as Kill x amount of creature, or deliver x amount of a (looted item). The creature selected may be random. The looted item will be a general loot item. Sometimes it will be easy and very economical. Sometimes it wont be so easy. If the task is too hard or too expensive, it may be abandoned and 24 hours after abandonment it may be attempted again.

Other NPC's will have tasks related to a specific industry or planetary cause. If you are on a task related to an industry 3 things happen:

1) Your faction standing with that particular industry goes up. This faction will begin to like you. Functionality can be added here based on ranking with a faction, however a society may declare allegiance to a group, if their members have a predominantly good standing. This may expose the society to additional quests and open world PvP opportunities. The fighting is deemed consentual based on society membership. Those who do not wish to engage should talk with their society leadership about allegiance and why they object.

2) Your faction standing with the industry in opposition to your task goes down. This faction begins to dislike you. If they dislike you too much, they will refuse to give future quests. Additional functionality can be added here based off the faction ranking as well.

3) You are PvP flagged against the industry you are going up against. This flag goes into effect in 90 seconds, allowing you to get out of the general area of the quest giver and not be camped.

Who are the factions?

The factions are:

Calypso Defense Forces (colonial)

Planetary Government

Wastelanders (chaos)

Mutants (native)

Omegaton (corporate)

Genesis (corporate)

Chikara (corporate)

Why do the factions matter?

When you talk to a faction NPC, they will send you on a raid of an opposing factions headquarters, or send you to defend their headquarters against raiders. You will not be lootable, however from this point forward you are PvP flagged to the group that you are sent to fight against, until your task is either complete, or you are killed by somebody flagged to fight your faction.

Each faction has a home town. In that home town you may find apartments (currently owned by Marcus) which are set up as suites for key members of the corporation, from the CEO to researchers to maybe a guard or a military personality. The point is there are multiple apartments set aside in these areas for these NPC's. They're decorated, etc, and inside is an item that you may be quested to obtain.

Once you get to the apartment, only you may go in. No other player may follow you. This is so apartments cannot be camped. However different floors can be. So can the cities themselves. Alternate means of entry besides the teleporter is advised... It may also be wise to employ scouts who are currently neutral...

Your job is to retrieve the assigned item. Once you retrieve it your task is complete. You do not have to return it to the NPC. Simply picking the item up resolves the quest. However, your journey there may not be easy, as people will be tasked with defending their faction vs your raid. They may not know where you are going, but they are tasked with killing a member of your faction, and they will want to do it.

Example Scenario

Scenario A

Omegaton Representative Beatrix Kiddo has asked you to retrieve a document from the suite of a chief researcher for Chikara. Chikara's hometown is Sakura city. You fly your Sleipnir into Sakura, being careful to avoid watchful eyes, and begin exploring the apartments. You've asked a friend to help you look. Eventually you find this researchers suite, its 12F of building Ai.

You head into the building. Oh man, there's somebody with a purple name! You quickly take aim before they see you, and send them back to the revive. Now you know you've been spotted though, so you better act quickly.

You step up to the teleporter and teleport just as somebody else comes into your field of vision. You disappear just as the sound of a gun fires. You're on floor 12. It's clear. You step into suite F, and go up to the desk. There's a disk there. You grab it, and quickly upload the data to representative Beatrix. It's done. You have gained 1 point for your society.

Scenario B

At Port Atlantis there's a known member of the Planetary Government who works with colonists to keep the area safe. They say there's a problem with Boorum showing up uninvited into places they are not wanted. They ask you to bring back tropies collected from 10 Boorum, to send them a message.

Your best weapon is Bukins Blade.

As much as you'd like to take a slice at the Boorum, you think you'll lose your head before they lose theirs.

You try again tomorrow, and find that Berycled are attacking the walls of Port Atlantis. Your Bukins Blade is perfect against them. You accept the mission and quickly earn 1 point for your society.

What's this about headquarters?

Each faction has a home base. That home base is dedicated to that factions interests. However initially there will not be quest related NPC's there to hand out quests. Instead these areas will be gradually decorated as the quest system grows to show off more about the faction in question, and provide more advanced daily or weekly missions for a variety of different rewards.

For now, the home bases should be considered extra PvP zones that are only enabled for as long as you are flagged with the appropriate quest. You may enter them as usual as long as you are not flagged.

What about the Wastelanders? They have no home base! Or the Calypso Defense Forces? Where do they live?

Oh yeah they do. Ever been to Chug's Hideout? How about the far off outposts of Nymphtown and Ashi? Those regions seem pretty lawless... You might find some Wastelander items in those places.

As for CDF, well, a while back Bilton Towers was known to house some CDF folks. Also corporations might offer discounts to employ CDF guards to look after their cities. You might find some folks mixed in there.

Planetary Goverment has no home. So... what's up with that?

It's designed to be a very easy quest to complete. Yes you will get a PvP flag from folks who have to raid the planetary government. They will either be allied with the Wastelanders, or the Mutants. Corporate interests have no interest attacking government facilities. However, there are government offices in every town, and at every outpost. It's pretty easy to complete this quest compared to others. They usually just want you to deliver some mail or kill 10 mobs.

This seems pretty hard! If you cant succeed at every mission every day, how do you expect players to get 2 million points?!?!?! Thats stupid.

I dont expect people to solo them. This is for societies. Get more active members. Active societies will excel here. Inactive societies may find this difficult. Small societies with skilled users will be able to complete all missions. Large societies full of newbies will miss quite a few, but by roll of the dice their members will still get a few points every day from low end missions.

The more members you have, the more missions they can try per day.

I agree 100% with your observation / complaint about where societies are today.

I have recently become the leader of the long time society, "Skillin Villains", and as I work to rebuild our numbers I am faced with the question of, "Why should I join a society?"

The answer used to be for a higher social aspect of the game, but with the addition of all the chat channels this has been negated to a large extent. So I agree... MA needs to do something with societies to bring back their advantage to an individual player.

The point system you describe above sounds WAY too complicated. The idea is to make societies more attractive to players not to make them harder to manage.

I like the idea of society limited missions that have decent rewards.

I have also though about the possibility of society specific buffs that can be achieved by certain levels or certain tasks completed by the society. Maybe even as rewards to the missions you describe.

With the exception of land grab, which is really only for a few select societies, there is nothing left in the Universe to make societies a unique and advantageous part of the game.

JEHU

The reason for the point system is to give societies an incentive to grow.

It is a passive way that the game encourages players to promote it by rewarding the social aspect.

I'm open to other suggestions on how to accomplish this particular goal. I modeled this particular concept off games where you can level up your guild. All the best guilds wanted all the best toys. In this particular design the toys are expanded to allow a guild to be multi-planetary, with enough support, by having an official guild office on each planet should enough players band together with daily quests to support the endeavor.


I also came to the same conclusion about societies after Rookie chat was implemented. After almost a year of evaluation I decided to disband my society based on the level of time I had to commit, as well as the level of benefit I felt folks were actually getting from the society and the community. Ultimately I came to the conclusion that even carrying the name on was an exercise in vanity, and that it would be a nicer thing for me to do to disband and thus encourage everyone to find new connections in the new system.

Thus after 7 years of operation, where we as a group played 5 flagship games and quite a few others, and where I put countless hours and dollars into web design, resource management, teamspeak servers, and guild events, I opted to delete the site and not renew the domain name.

Entropia is great, and that's my main game. However the society system is not rewarding.

Overall good suggestions, agree that societies may need something more than just a chat channel now that we have custom chat channels being used more and more. As long as it's balanced correctly of course... high tier rewards should take a really, really long time even for active societies while not feeling punishing for smaller societies.

Nighthawk said:

Overall good suggestions, agree that societies may need something more than just a chat channel now that we have custom chat channels being used more and more. As long as it's balanced correctly of course... high tier rewards should take a really, really long time even for active societies while not feeling punishing for smaller societies.

Click to expand...

That's the point in making rewards available for societies with longevity, as well as for those with high numbers. Given enough time and/or effort (or a combination of both), all societies can reach the same levels of opportunity.

Missions are intended to start at the different reward tiers, so a society with 5 members, but that had been around for 10 years would have the same baseline points as a society that had earned 1 million points but had only been around a year.

Now, I stopped after 10 years for a reason, too. At 10 years all rewards have been obtained. Now the rewards are stacking. This should be worked for, no matter what. It makes no sense for a teeny tiny society of 5 people to have galactic influence. They may have ability to travel, but outside their homeworld what exactly are they doing operating offices? Recruiting? No, they arent. Taking care of additional members who need support? No, they're a tight group of friends. They have 5 people. To them stacking rewards is sheer vanity, nothing more. While its not unavailable to them, it will be very difficult to obtain. Further rewards serve limited purpose, and that purpose has greater benefit to larger societies than it does to smaller groups.

Also, building points with specific factions makes things available to you as well. Say you took Genesis missions, exclusively, for 3 years. You did this every day. That would give you 1000 points. Now say at 1000 points a new mission became available. That mission gave you a 1 time use untradeable guaranteed success BP as a reward for completion, which allowed you to create an Unlimited Genesis sword, of at least level 50 SIB. Maybe you even got to select the blade you would get from a list of available rewards. Imagine if this was the way to obtain UL versions of all the newly introduced weapons. If you're a sword user you'd be pretty stoked! You get a sword for little markup other than quest cost and materials cost. If you're a non sword user you'd be stoked too. You can sell the final product for a bit of Markup too. Its rare, because it takes 3 years of daily quests on the same NPC to achieve. That's worth something!

But in doing 3 years of these quests on one NPC, the Omegaton NPC, who allows you to build a really cool UL amp for your gun, actually dislikes you due to faction points. They view you as a Genesis sympathizer. You cant get a BP from them without doing 6 years of work, 1000 points to get to 0, and 1000 points to get to favored.

Other companies view you the same way, you are a Genesis supporter only, and have been for quite some time, knowing that every point you gave to Omegaton took away points from Genesis, you focused on obtaining your desired reward. Yes this slowed down your society progression, but you wanted the reward for yourself. Your society may see you as contributing less daily points, and that may have held you back in rank. But that's the price of selfishness. You got a cool reward.

Hey, I can just agree with this, as Society aspect is what I always enjoyed and what I see could get people to continue to play for many years. What you propose is a good general concept, ofcourse adjustments could be done here and there, but overall a good amount of ideas MA could work with.

I cant see why this could not be in game (it would make much more sense to be in a society and try to achieve something).