This thread is about revealing some testing results derived from a project ran by wasteland wildlife protectors faction and its allies.
Basically our goal was always to hold Redding, allow players to come in and do their bussiness while making our own playing experience interesting and fun aswell. This was something not many has tried in our server succesfully. Actual cool stories and pictures will be presented later, unless individual players decide to do it.
The following mechanics or their lacking didn't support the project:
Lack of ingame information and communication devices. Seriously when we wanted to inform our people about something, it would take days to reach everyone. A town-based ingame information system is needed where controlling faction can write down recent news.
Another issue is ofcourse hostiles and friendlies. We had our list of names who were enemies, but only like few guys knew it by heart. In this project it was even more imporant not to shoot the wrong guy since the plan was to uphold a relatively nice community. But as everyone knows, when you meet armed guy at unguarded grounds you never know whether to receive plasma-eyeshot or "hello there" comment. Combat mechanics could be blamed for this.
Lack of activities in towns. There's no reason to stay inside towns, but just to visit them briefly. When you're inside you're like a dinner on table, vulnerable to scouting, harassment and assault. We wanted to risk it because we needed to greet people and generally know what's going on in town. But by game's rules it would have been much more profitable to leave the town empty and go pickpocket BoS or something. Towns need activities that keep people in. Only thing that can be built is militia and it can be destroyed very easily. Instead of ingame elements, we built lists or names on forum and gathered information in our minds and stuff in our tents.
TC. In 15-10 minutes a group smaller than our potential military strength can hinder our project for several hours because our actual fighters were not online. A small group or even single person can kill the whole militia over night. Defensive warfare is also pretty stressing because attackers get to choose the time they arrive and it takes like 30 seconds to kill militia. When the warhorn sounds, the defenders have to stop doing whatever they wanted to do and come to defend the town. If the town had some profitable activities, the defenders would always be there already.
These features supported our project:
Militia. Despite all its bugs and errors, militia gave us a safe haven in downtown, where we didn't constantly have to worry about getting one hex bursted or eyeshot by a newcomer. It allowed us to chill out and treat newcomers nicely without great suspicion and alertness. It also allowed to fend off smaller groups of troubblemakers without having to bother our friends to come in and help. I think this is justified because we captured the town with considerable military strength, a ragged group of random criminals shouldn't be allowed to waltz in downtown and cause a carnage just like that. It was possible in the mines however and that was fine.
Freedom. The fact that faction controlling the town can do whatever they wanted proved extremely helpful. We could simply get rid of all sorts of troubblemakers in downtown and during our watch the downtown was actually safer than ncr. We could shoot suicide attackers and thieves without some idiot and blind npc script shooting us afterwards.
TC locker. It was good to have a shared locker for members only, helped in transferring items. Too bad it was usually full of worthless gold that kept respawning faster and faster.
Riches. The fact that bank interest made everyone incredibly rich allowed us to do whatever we wanted - mainly uphold this project. Because most of us weren't in dire need of stuff all the time or afraid to lose it, we could just hang out in Redding. Upholding the project wasn't profitable, as was mentioned.
