New Britannia Postal Services

I play Diablo and every time I log on there is at least 1 request from a gold spammer, the chat channel was effectively shut down due to the spam. I see this as an open invitation to spam, and simply blocking doesn't seem to work to stop these spammers because they are back 2 seconds latter

 

It sounds like just having a chat channel is an open invitation. The problem here isn't just the system.. it's people. If necessary I'm all for imposing certain limitations. Such as not being able to send to people you've no association with. or strict default filter settings.. like the only defaults being on might be to receive mail from friends and guild mates.

It seems to me that spam can only get through if there's nothing to stop it from being delivered.

As for business partners you might not want on your friends list.. perhaps there can be an 'associates' list or a temporary list you can put people on. If you force players to make a connection before you can receive 'personal' mail from them.. wouldn't that go a long to deal with the problem while leaving the system functional?

As for the 'junk mail' mass mailings I think that it's simply a risk you take for accepting junk mail.

 

Yeah, I do think it would be fine to have to allow someone to mail you. I'd still like to see additional ways to deliver mail such as carrier birds, familiars, messengers & other magical means (at some point).

 

I could see trained animals and magic working as direct delivery of messages but I'm not sure how that would work. What function would it serve that the chat couldn't? (Apart from offline delivery outside of town)

 

You may be on to something here. I was pretty tri-faded at the time of my posting. To try and address your concerns about my concerns, I'd like to make sure that you understand my concerns (which are the shrinking world, and economic consequences).

This is different than what I had thought. This system with your changes as pointed out to me would have less of an impact of the shrinking world. However, this doesn't appear to change the economical consequences significantly. My concern is that, while the inability to trade safely through this system will stop most abuses, traders at the top of the industries will not need such security per trade. For example, if I am rich and send table legs to my carpenters frequently, whom build tables with them, I am going to have established carpenters who depend on me (or at least, benefit from me) for legs. As such, both parties will benefit by using the gift system for business. Because of the size of such an industry (we're the big guys at the top remember), even if a carpenter steals a shipment of legs, he'll be worse off, and further, excommunicated from my business, and I'll be screwed only slightly.

Sounds reasonable to me!

Nothing about this quote is wrong, however you're only examining the consumer end of things. On a production end, there is great motivation to develop steady business partners (which is a good thing for individuals), but the effects that this will have on business may not be as good communally.

Such is why we need to be concerned about preventing the world from shrinking further. If it were truly huge (compared to massive worlds like those in UO, Fallout, Slyrim, etc.) this would be less of a concern. The small nature of our world is precisely why we need to be cautious about adding things that shrink it.

On a side note: having shipping fees changes everything. You may as well start a new thread now that you've added shipping fees. Shipping fees make it so you can't just freely teleport your wares around the world (ofc, when I'm hunting, I may still teleport my loot if it is valuable enough to my friends house box for me to pick up, which is pretty abusive). I think the entire system deserves reconsideration (each element of it) now that we have the notion of shipping fees.

 

heh I meant to include shipping fees from the start.. but that last paragraph leads me to think there's one other thing you might be misunderstanding.. you shouldn't be able to ship anything from just anywhere. You'd have to go to the post office to mail anything. If you're out hunting you're going to have to carry everything back to town like normal. Maybe I just assumed people would assume that or just wasn't clear enough.. I don't remember now.

I'm not sure the 'shrinking world' is that big of a concern. It looks to me like it's going to be pretty big. UO wasn't all that big in my opinion.. but magic just made it ridiculous. I remember people standing around Vesper for 20 minutes begging for a gate to Minoc when they could've walked there in 5.. and that's when they knew the way. Insanity.

Anyway.. shipping could facilitate higher productively in crafting as shipping materials would make it easier when business partners have a hard time hooking up. It seems like a good thing. They're not going to want to ship and deal with fees when they're both online. Depending on how those are balanced.

 

If you could only ship items from a post office, then how would the system be any different than house crates (besides enabling houseless players a way to ship stuff)?

 

Apart from not having to travel far from your own home? What I'm proposing isn't specifically designed to facilitate business. It's largely meant for players to communicate and trade when meeting face to face isn't a realistic option ie one of them is offline or is too far away. Perhaps the crafter doesn't own a home with a drop box.. or perhaps the 'drop box' isn't big enough for supplies (assuming placed containers have limits) or for whatever reason the sender doesn't have access to the crate/drop box directly.

If both players are online and nearby then obviously they would prefer to meet. This just gives players options. You could also (in theory) use it as a safe shipping method if say.. you're PvP enabled and don't want to risk losing an item in a fight when you have a long distance to travel or you know you'll have to travel through dangerous areas.

Which reminds me.. heh a scenario where you CAN'T ship something.. the 'contraband' scenario example RG has used to explain the story-driven PvP concept. No shipping of 'illegal' goods.

 

I would not mind something like a pony express but would depend on how hard it is to cross over the top map.
If you get over the top map in a short time then what is the point but if the top map is more like the oregon trail game where something goes wrong every minute then yea I might want to ship something.
And in a open pvp, open loot mode I would even let players see if they could make the shipments, no point in the other modes.

 

I think it'll come down to just how big the overland map really is. I suspect that it will be quite large but we've yet to see any long distance travel.. like how far it is from Britanny to the nearest town. So far we haven't seen any travel on the current map beyond what? 1 hex? Owl's Head to the woods and back?

 

Well it would look and feel cool. Mostly just adding multiple options for character expression. Also, if for instance mailing a package with the official postal service takes a day, then maybe these other means could benefit by shorter delivery time. It's one more non-combat use for tamers or mages with familiars, or summoners, or whatever.

If official shipping was limited in what can be sent and received, these could offer alternatives.

Finally, if the pricing for NPC messengers was set properly, and a system implemented for Avatars to offer this service, it might be a good way for some players to make some cash, or gain allegiance with a guild. Package delivery is a simple and easy to implement player created quest. A good place to start, I think!

 

We've seen in enough games message spam. I think there absolutely must be a nominal fee to use a postal service to prevent spam. If players don't want to use the postal service because of a nominal fee, that is their prerogative.

 

that wont stop it, in fact the opposite, it would stop regular people leaving it more open to the spammers

 

@Owain: Ornery and cheap! I cannot believe I am reading your posts. I really didn't think there were people out there that found the in game mailing fees unreasonable! Most of the time it's so cheap to mail in games that you shouldn't give a crap what the fee is, or shouldn't even bother to look. I would imagine that mailing fees would be extremely affordable in SotA as well.

 

I had originally come up with the idea of Carrier Pidgeons or hawks or any ilk bird type that could send and receive messages for the individual. However there is always the case of sending a massive item through the mail, that's not something a Carrier Crow would be able to, well... carry. Remember folks, Immersion..

 

Ah it's one of the king's carrier pigeons!

No it isn't! That pigeon couldn't carry the king!

 

Nothing larger than a coconut.

 

We would definitely have to figure out the average airspeed velocity of a swallow, whether they are large enough to carry coconuts, and then choose between African or European swallows.

 

LOL That's be a great Easter egg type thing.. trainable swallows capable of delivering coconuts. Of course they'd have to be New Britannian swallows but I can live with that.

 

*didn't read every post - eyes are straining*

Now, a shipping service for crafters/merchants would be a good thing I think.
A sort of UPS or DHL or trucking service for huge amounts of resources & such - could be part of a barter/bargaining system for merchants.

Example:
Merchant 1 needs leather to fill an order for a Duke who wants to armor his personal body guard squad with this merchant's wares. Merchant 1 is not much of a hunter, but has the gold to buy bulk leather from Hunter Guild.
Several members of Hunter Guild gather the required amount of leather, but it is 1 - too heavy to carry so much leather and 2 - not all members of Hunter Guild can be on at the same time to deliver the goods all at once.
Step in Ye Ol' Deliveries (YOD) which will charge x amount of gold to the Hunter Guild to deliver the items to Merchant 1. Hunter Guild could also up-charge for the leather to cover delivery fees, or ask if Merchant 1 has a YOD account.

This would be an awesome system - or rather than a system, allow a group of Players to form their own delivery service! oooooo! There's an idea for a guild! Would definitely generate some interesting play.

After all, if the players can implement a "system" on their own, why take time from the devs when they can concentrate on more important things, like... maybe... a really decent and not too smexy female warrior avatar!

sorry.. a bit narrow minded of me. hehe