Real World Rituals to port in game

I'd like to see things localized. Cultural influence by city and / or factions.

I agree on the virtues. But I don't know how they'll be packaged. I suspect some areas could easily celebrate a virtue as a weekly thing (e.g. Sunday) or over a period (Lent, Ramadan). In other areas they may be less important or even banned.

Some areas would consider the time of month (lunar phase) much more important than the time of year and vice verse.

 

True, religions do have interesting ceremonies. In my opinion the Jews have some great times of celebration through out the year like Rosh Chodesh, Sukkot, and Passover etc. Those are very uplifting times of hanging out and feasting.

I'm definitly not promoting their religion here but I'm stating that the Jews do have some very celebratory feasts and they also go back thousands of years that aren't only self introspection and miserable sacrifices. We should look into those since they have actually made it through history UNCHANGED for all that time. There are no other religious cerimonies that are so largly practiced after such time.

**Well the way they are practiced might have some differences, but the stories have not.

 

In regard to the ancient Jewish traditions (and perhaps other faiths), I might be OK with drawing *some* inspiration from some of them, but none of them should serve as a specific model, nor should any "real" holidays or days of observance be specifically observed. The implementation of such shouldn't hit you over the head with any one particular "real life" observance or "real life" faith.

I don't want to see it derive directly from any specific "real life" holiday or religious observance, but as it develops in the SotA world (different from the real world), somehow it could easily tie into the Spirituality virtue and perhaps touch on some others as well. There are many possibilities, such as according to the cycles of the moons or in-game solstices (not necessarily the same as the actual solstices on Earth). These would certainly be natural excuses for the in-game festival periods, for example.

If you think about it, many different real faiths have their own ways of practicing that lead to periods that emphasize particular virtues. THAT is an idea which is worth borrowing from, IMO, as long as it doesn't bear too much resemblance to any real religion or particular spiritual observance.

 

i care about 2 rituals, as stated in the devchat from 2 weeks ago:

1: carving corpses, cooking body parts, eating body parts. just like UO. this is for role playing purposes.

2: drugs. we need hashish. im starting a guild called hashishian inspired by real history (hashish is where the word assassin comes from... look up hassan i sabbah, or go to my guild website hashishian.com)

my idea is that hashish gives a temporary boost in combat followed by a stat loss for the same duration or something to that effect.

i would also like to have competition for control of drug trade on the black market via some kind of game mechanic that supports it, or perhaps through control of spawn and transportation.

 

I think that if their are holidays to virtues their should also be anti-virtues celebrated in different corners of the world where anti-virtues is more prevalent.

I also think that maybe we should have a day if LB in game was first killed by a player, morn the day he was killed, if we ever find a way to kill him.

Player created circus or theater groups, bards traveling around in large groups could be a small festival

Other things that could be done maybe a tournament or a holiday on a huge event from the past history of the world, maybe small celebration after a town or city defeating an attack on the city. If their is warring to towns against one another you could have a celebration where the two towns come together for the truce they made so many years ago, could also give players the ability to do this between warring guilds also.

@lordrex: if they have a drug trade or other black market commodities I think it would be best for the game if it was handled by guilds. If a guild did such activities their could be consequences for the guild maybe like town guard raiding the place, and looting gold out of the vault if you could not stop them? Could expand the black market to include human skin or blood for some potions or evil smithing recipes

 

I feel like there's probably some good stuff to use for 'rituals/traditions' to be taken from the hobo code: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobo#Hobo_.28sign.29_code

 

Lordrex is a broken record when it comes to "carving corpses, cooking body parts, eating body parts".

LOL

Please DEVS give in and do us all a favor and make it possible to carve up corpses, cooking body parts, eating body parts. LOL

 

Personally, I find that quite disgusting, in poor taste (no pun intended) and will be quite happy to not have such a thing in-game. Not to mention that it's entirely off-topic.

 

it isn't off topic since he said it as a ritual he would like to practice.

I don't like his rituals either and I doubt they will be in the game (except for cutting apart bodies and taking heads or ears or something). Other than that I doubt we will have to worry about cannibalism. They can use their imaginations to have that happen.

 

I don't think that's the kind of 'ritual' RG had in mind when he asked us to come up with ideas. We suddenly went from cultural holidays and celebrations to a post PK feature. Thus to me.. off-topic.

 

You got to cater to many different play style some may want to live in a happy holiday world some may want some creepy town, and want to have their own holidays that reflect that. It may also be that they want to reflect different cultures around the world like the Mayans. The Mayans took practice in cutting up bodies for religious reasons and occasionally eating the heart and the flesh.

 

You don't HAVE to cater to anyone. You want what you want.. I want what I want. We give the devs our opinions and they decide what THEY want which doesn't necessarily involve anything either of us wants and in many cases it shouldn't. That's all this is. If RG wants to make what WE want.. well someone wants to cut people up and eat them.. and I think that's pretty disgusting and don't want that and think that discussion belongs in a different thread.

 

As far as rituals go, I to am in favor of avoiding real-life stuff. I'd like to see some story-based rituals where both PCs and NPCs are involved. For example:

1. Celebrating the Departure of the Avatar(s): For communities that view the Avatar(s) with trepidation, suspicion, and possibly open hostility, there could be a celebration based on the day the Avatar(s) finally left Britannia. Current Avatars could observe or participate in this ritual "incognito" in order to learn more about themselves and where they are. Interactions with NPCs could be challenging in not revealing one's origins, and a "pvp" element could even exist where players would convince NPCs that other players are dangerous avatars.

2. Celebrating the Return of the Avatar(s): For communities that welcome the Avatar(s) into New Britannia, there could be a celebration welcoming Players into the world, returning from a hiatus, etc. Players could participate with other players as well as NPCs. One's role in this festival would depend on how much time he/she has spent in New Britannia.

3. The Rise of New Britannia: No matter how folks feel about the Avatar(s), they will want to celebrate surviving whatever cataclysm occurred to the world, and the rise of New Britannia from the ashes. This could be a historically themed ritual where players participate and teach/learn lore to/from other players/NPCs at the same time. NPCs could give lore challenges for prizes, etc.

 

Here is a link to some festivals and celebrations in Asia. One might get ideas from some of them.

http://www.purpledrag.com/festivals.htm

 

One can also check out some UK festivals celebrations for ideas.

http://www.allaboutyou.com/country/day-out/unusual-UK-festivals?page=1

http://resources.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/customs/curious/calendar.htm

 

I think its a great idea! Have a few dates spread around the year the release date could be "Maker's Day"(tie it into the fiction, could be something to do with the religion). It would also be interesting if there were different cultures within the game if say one kingdom celebrated a day and was festive but the other part's of the realm didn't. Or if some town had a famous harvest festival, whatever. You could advertise for it a week or two in advance on a notice board. Then again depending on how the metagame unfolds perhaps large guilds could fill the same in game role but I think to do that adequately you will need to have a system for guilds to get the message out to a large group of people.

 

To make each city, village, and town unique, maybe leave it up to the players to form their festivals, etc for their town. The town can name their festival and run their events. In UO the players became very innovative in their ideas for different events.

 

There is the restriction on the numbers of players attending, unless they had some type of festival vendor where players maybe could purchase festivals for their town, name the festival, and pick the events that would happen. I could see players wanting to buy such festivals for their town, especially players who had vendors in that town.

 

I love @Bowen Bloodgood's suggestion to have holidays related to the virtues. Here are my suggestions.

Valor ? Agreed on the tournament

Courage ? The mayor of the town dresses up in a monster costume and the townsfolk chase away the monster

Honor ? Recommitment ceremonies. Knights recommit their oaths to their lords, and spouses recommit their vows to each other

Justice ? Love the mock trial, but let us play up the term MOCK trial. Jester as the judge while the mayor is on trial for a made-up silly offense. Citizens in the trial and encouraged to prosecute, defend and testify.

Humility ? Everyone wears simple, tattered clothing and the most humble of foods is served. Cabbage soup for all!

Spirituality ? What would be fascinating would be if this holiday weren't merely ritualistic, but truly supernatural. What if on this day, the shroud between the land of the living and dead was weakened, and more spirits crossed over? People could ACTUALLY talk to the spirits of the deceased.

Compassion ? Charity drive

Honesty - One day of the year where criminals can repent and have any/all bounties/fines erased.

Truth - Anonymous confession day. People drop anonymous confessions in a box, and then once a year they are posted publicly. The town can gather at the message board and read all the confessions.

Sacrifice ? The residents of a given city prepare their dinners and then bring them to their local guards/soldiers/knights. They sacrifice one night of dinner to remember those who sacrifice every day in service.

Love ? SotA will have theaters, so let us use them! For this holiday, people attend a performance of New Britannia's favorite love story. We could have a fan/community contest to write the play.

 

Your day of Honesty is making me think of the new movie Purge where one day a year all crime is legal.