Hello there, IndieDB community!
Please take a look at what we have been working on: some concepts and idea discussions about how player settlements/cities might look in Profane!
This is an excellent opportunity for us to delve into how these player-built spaces will work and how we imagine our players shaping the history of each region through them.
First of all, let's talk about the Altar. The Altar is the monument-like structure you see at the center of these settlements.
Building one of these will be a vital milestone for a guild since it will give access to two fundamental mechanics: Protection Zone and Domination Zone.
The Protection Zone will grant protection to any building (and only buildings!) inside of it, meaning they won't need individual protection (such as flags/banners that would otherwise add shields and offline protection to a player-built structure). Its size is not yet precisely defined, but you can expect a reasonable big circle around it.
Walls will only be buildable once a Protection Zone is available and can only be built within this area. However, walls will not be protected by the Altar's Protection Zone. Instead, they will have a similar system to houses with individual protection, and an X% amount of HP will be depletable before it's protected from further attacks. After a Y amount of time, players will be able to attack it again. This process will repeat a few times before a wall is destroyed, granting access to the inside of a settlement and exposing the Altar to attacks, so the Protection and Domination Zones can be weakened and eventually extinguished. The size of these zones might expand or shrink in case of battles or invasions, but we will get more into these details in the future.
Back to our walls: as you can see in the concepts we shared, the wall might adjust to the geography of where it's built, giving room for a river to pass through it or maybe even a gate. The players can also configure this, so you can choose where you want your gate to be positioned, for instance. Another wall customization option we want the player to have access to is the Trade Post. This will build a structure (seen in the first image) that allows players inside the wall to trade with players outside by posting items that they wish to sell. The items will remain there for a certain period of time, and players will be able to purchase them.
The Domination Zone will determine a guild's grasp over the land, and its size will be twice that of the Protection Zone. The controlling guild will be able to access a menu through the Altar that will let them configure some rules for this zone, such as gathering and housing taxes. If a guild has this enabled, other players will be charged a certain amount (determined by the guild - more details in the future) when gathering resources within this zone or building their houses here. The guild might also build unique structures in the Domination Zone, such as lumber mills (that will add a bonus to wood collection in the area), guard towers (to attack PKs, for instance), mines (bonus for mineral gathering), or even dummies that will allow for faster proficiency training. All this is to encourage some kind of symbiosis between the guild and other players: one providing protection and bonuses, the other paying for these benefits to have a steadier journey in the region.
We are super excited about these systems, and we can't wait to see them in action! What did you think? Let us know your opinion on this 😄
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