04-06-2012, 06:03 PM
I mentioned this previously in the general area but I thought it deserved a dedicated thread.
Based on what I am reading, everyone seems to more or less agree that currently there is a lack of order players/guilds on our shard, and that a better balance between chaos and order would make things more interesting. Some have pointed out that the reason for this is twofold: 1) chaos is more rewarding in terms of wealth accumulation and 2) chaos is more fun because you get to "create the action" instead of waiting to respond to an offense. While I don't think much can be done with respect to point 2 (after all, that is what distinguishes order from chaos), I believe increasing the potential rewards to order players could incentivize players to join order, thus creating a better balance between the two forces. My idea is to give order guilds the option to pledge to protect a given area (for instance a town or mine) and to be paid a periodic allowance in exchange for their service. The allowance should be big enough to partially compensate for the forgone revenue from PKing and looting. The order players receiving the allowance should not be allowed to collect bounties (just like cops IRL), because after all they are just carrying out their duty. The periodic allowance could be set periodically by the GMs to respond to changes in demand and offer of protection (higher if there is a strong demand, lower if there is too much offer). I am no UO expert, but this system should be fairly easy to implement. The next step of sophistication would be to finance the allowance with taxes raised from players utilizing/living in the protected area. This would be cool but probably difficult to implement and not necessary IMO to make the incentive system work.
My only concern is that neutral players may take advantage of this system by joining/forming an order guild just to be paid the monthly allowance and then not render any service. I am not sure there is an easy fix to this issue, the only thing that I can think of is that members of order guilds should be carefully selected and there should be severe sanctions for those who misbehave.
I am curious to see what people think.
Based on what I am reading, everyone seems to more or less agree that currently there is a lack of order players/guilds on our shard, and that a better balance between chaos and order would make things more interesting. Some have pointed out that the reason for this is twofold: 1) chaos is more rewarding in terms of wealth accumulation and 2) chaos is more fun because you get to "create the action" instead of waiting to respond to an offense. While I don't think much can be done with respect to point 2 (after all, that is what distinguishes order from chaos), I believe increasing the potential rewards to order players could incentivize players to join order, thus creating a better balance between the two forces. My idea is to give order guilds the option to pledge to protect a given area (for instance a town or mine) and to be paid a periodic allowance in exchange for their service. The allowance should be big enough to partially compensate for the forgone revenue from PKing and looting. The order players receiving the allowance should not be allowed to collect bounties (just like cops IRL), because after all they are just carrying out their duty. The periodic allowance could be set periodically by the GMs to respond to changes in demand and offer of protection (higher if there is a strong demand, lower if there is too much offer). I am no UO expert, but this system should be fairly easy to implement. The next step of sophistication would be to finance the allowance with taxes raised from players utilizing/living in the protected area. This would be cool but probably difficult to implement and not necessary IMO to make the incentive system work.
My only concern is that neutral players may take advantage of this system by joining/forming an order guild just to be paid the monthly allowance and then not render any service. I am not sure there is an easy fix to this issue, the only thing that I can think of is that members of order guilds should be carefully selected and there should be severe sanctions for those who misbehave.
I am curious to see what people think.