Overview

Current

Clans consist of a sash and chat line, which for 500,000 coins is pretty much pointless. Clans should be given reason, there should be rewards for joining a clan, rewards for creating a clan, and rewards for participating as part of your clan, not just using it for a free chat line.

With that said, I believe there should be an emphasis on the role of each clan, this role being outlined in the proposal. Currently each clan must be proposed and accepted by a wizard, and while this has it's downsides, I'm in favour of this for reasons such as authenticity.

Goals

Okay, clans - A large group of relatives, friends, or associates. So a sensible place to start: What good/meaning will a single player clan have? What I would essentially like to do is give a clan better use by having more members, as apposed to just shunning a clan which somebody chooses not to share. Also for the meantime (and possibly all time) players should be limited to a single clan - their interclan business is of their own accord.

The first step in gaining a globally branded clan is to propose it. Why is this important?

The document used shall include detailed directions in which the clan would like to move. Relevant acceptance stipulations, income ideas. The proposal should be clear, with the purpose of the clan and the future being important.
This document will be stored for the purpose of maintaining realistic clans (i.e.. A hidden clan will not build a clan hall in the middle of a busy market). Greater chances of acceptance will come from the finer detailed proposals. Naming of clans should restrict the ridiculous, but hold less importance over the general mission of said clan.
A hierarchy may be proposed at this stage, all clans, whether street gang, multi national organised crime, or even religious have a hierarchy - this doesn't restrict clans to lord / prince / standard member, and may also allow for building onto the access a member gets within the clan.
Clan proposals should be changeable by the proposer - a wizard should be able to advise on a proposal before declining. I think there should be a good amount of detail in this, and it's fair for a wizard to request more.

Once a clan is accepted, the next step is to begin to recruit members. What advantages may a player have to joining a clan?

Auto party
- I'm against this. Clans and Party is two quite different things. Even if enemies might have to form partys for some reason or another, there could be disputes inside the clan that keeps people from wanting to party togeather. Other options? -- FreD - 15 Nov 2004
- Auto partying doesn't necessarily preclude leaving the party and joining another one. I'm still not sure I'm in favour.. I see partying as a short-term thing, "5 of us in a room decide to go prod buttock", it's not a clanish thing. -- FantoM - 15 Nov 2004
Bank/deposit experience/money/armour - lower interest rates?
Nominations for new members
Access to clan privileges (to be outlined).

What else? Currently each clan is given a marvellous clan sash.

Clan sashes should remain, although colours may be determined by the leader of the clan (automated, let's not custom every sash, k?), and perhaps future upgrades for prices or other drawbacks. The sash itself shouldn't be held to such, and there should perhaps be a variety of objects which can be used to identify clans.
Sashes (clan object) should be the focus of attention for a rival clan - clanobjects may be stolen in order to gain easier access to a clan hall, they may break, in which case a member may be without access to privileges until a lord can rectify, loss in combat could also be possible, as well as magical cursing ect.
Standard clan objects must be lightweight and not hold any permanent special features. A clan should choose whether it wants to take an armour placement spot to identify itself (clan shield), although any protection will come from magical or alchemical forces applied to the object and will not remain on the object for it's entire life.

Death or resulting leave of an active clan to be passed on to highest ranked (active?) member. This will not include a clan closing of bankruptcy or abuse, if it were to exist, and I'm sure many more reasons.

Clan halls

A very well known idea for clans is clan halls/houses. This is a good idea but should come with certain regulations also. For example, a forest clan will not build on a beach (only can foresee this as wizard interaction - the "planning permission" office).

Clan halls may possibly be bought, although it's likely they'll be charged rent for such a thing. A clan hall may not be limited to a single enclosed room, and if such a clan chooses to do so, it's acceptable that they have their belongings hidden in some sewers. This could incorporate the law and all sorts of things, but let's not get caught up there.

A problem in building clan halls arises when rooms in the surrounding area need to be altered to show this, and has the possibility of upsetting an area.

A clan hall will never be unbreakable - any player should be able to find exploit weak points in security to access the hall (if skilled/experienced/determined enough). The clan hall itself may be hidden, but must be findable by anybody, without cheeky abstract syntaxes. If guard's are hired, they will do so until killed or payment stops. Once dead, a guard must be replaced.
A clan hall may be the placement for clan only privileges, these should be accessible to any entree into the clan hall, welcome or not. This may include a clan bank, hired help, furniture arrangement, clan boards.
Clan members which hunt together should automatically share the EXP gained, without the requirement of entering a party, the problem may come if partying with an external player also, although this could then require a party as it's not "official clan business"

Clans may have their own stores, and it's possible that, if the required help is available, a courier acts within the clan - which could deliver goods from the clan store/box. I don't believe these should hold items over a reboot.

A clan hall will not be held to a maximum size, although the outside of this must allow for building.

Building

Land must be approved, rent charged from the lord or clan's bank account - if money runs dry, the clan hall becomes accessible only by stealth for a period before it's sold to a new clan or knocked down. This has the added benefit of giving clans more meaning than an undisturbed stash, since payments must be made to upkeep it, and the added cost of security.

A clan hall may be furnished by the clan lord (and possibly other ranks). This will be done by purchasing goods from a store or many stores, which will then deliver the 'object', and the buyer will be responsible for arrangement in a room. This 'object', once delivered, will be used to generate the room, with a placement and appropriate items. Other data such as inside outside will be true regardless, and there may be objects which can't be placed inside. A room may have a maximum limit of 9 pieces of furniture (N, E, S, W, NE, SE, SW, NW, center), although a size variable may be given. Items cannot be placed over a direction which contains an exit. This limits wizard interaction and also the QC period, as it will generate automatically from already QC'ed objects.

Goods creation then becomes an ongoing (and simple) project.
Explore hidden exits and moving furniture to expose.
An empty room may not be useable, or could generate a generic empty room description.

Clan War

Temp PK while inside a clan hall is a cheap way of fighting your friends without turning PK.

Altough this is an interesting part of clans, I don't like the idea of a clanhall being a PK testing zone - why bother being PK otherwise? This may not be a problem in gameplay, but it would make PK rather redundant.

I wonder if an appropriate fix may be to have clanPK deaths as stat loss, and thus whether PK or not, you risk the loss of your life if caught inside an enemies hall.

There may be a detaining room for these keeping a prisoner, in which case they would obviously be stripped of armour/sash/money, and this being another loss possible.

Clans may also hire mercenaries to fight for them.

Clans flanked as being "under attack" (This could be defined by a hostile attack on a clan hall or perhaps PK members from 2 clans initiating combat) are then free to combat each other with all members from both clans PK until hostility is over (all combat is halted in one way or another)
- Note Combat halted isn't the same as running away and being in a position to be hunted. Perhaps through combat halting commands (calm/aislin) or death, of course. Also, non attack rooms halt combat.
- Clan halls may be given a safe room - probably as a feature to the room used for clan boards. This could be used by members which wish to not participate in the fighting, as well as protecting a member which is making a post at the time.

Benefits

A clan may hire help in the form or, but not limited to:

Help	Use
Security/guards	Protect clan hall, protect items or rooms. Obviously increasting in levels and price, only a single (not 100% reliable) form of defense. Weaknesses such as bribeable, obviously killable.
Trainers	Teach new commands to members, find new commands. Commands are stealable and never will be only accessible by one clan. Other clans may gain access to trainers after invading clan hall, and learn commands or buy trainer's services for a higher fee. Experienced and good trainers will go almost by reputation, and would be worth trying to get on your side.
Combt aid	What is says on the box - similar to druid pets. May have lower wimpies as level increases, must be a capped level to this and perhaps even a limit to the amount used.
Traders/vendors	In the form of stalls and stores, to sell items of which profit minus fee will go to the clan. May also buy goods, can be run by clan members, lootable.
Hit men	Again straight forward, will attempt to kill another player for a price (possibly NPC's, too?). Variety of attacks, ranged and sneaking included.
Spies/scouts	Inspect/report on rival clan hall, find hidden exits and weak security points or clan known learnt commands. Spies may discover if a hitman has been hired on a clan member, although a spy would only report things.
Weapon smith	For all your weapon fixing needs. Especially useful for low level clans. Creating new weapons also possible, and perhaps finding special properties of existing weapons.
Farmer	Supplies your lovely clan members with food and drink for a fee.
Sash forger	If he's good then it may be an easy way to breach rival clan defense. Can replace lost sashes and fix broken ones, as well as changing the colours of the clan (maybe).

Clan members (certain ranks) may be able to set up polls for their clan members. These may be for online members only, or duration polls which can be used over time within the hall. Of course, an intruding player could sign this and the results aren't guaranteed accurate.
Somebody beraking into the clan hall should have access to all features and npc's, (perhaps) bank accounts, objects, ect. They should also be able to listen into the clan chat line, with the possible inclusion of talking on it, read and post on the clan's board if present, and include their vote in clan polls.
Notoriety around the world should be achievable, although it's safe to say that some clans won't want to be recognised for fear of some prosecution or something. This could be done via allowing builders to add talks of clans in NPC's, or via tracking data and effectiveness of clans, with some generation into NPC's. The latter would of course be better.

Conclusion

Clans should be emphasises toward their original goal from a given mission statement such as the proposal.
Creating a clan, joining a clan, invading a clan, partying with your clan should have benefits. It's silly to expect people to want to pay for a chat line and sash.
Less wizard interaction is better: if a clan can build their own hall without the blob or any special tools, or taking up a wizard's time, that will be for the better.
Clan warfare should be encouraged, but maintained to avoid abuse.
The more fun things that a clan can have the better.
Fantom has terribly bad armpit hair.

Design

How...

A clan should not be the best simply because it has the richest members.

Clan points could be introduced – These would be attainable via clan quests, or by performing the clan’s duties derived from the proposal of the clan. This may be the amount of fishing a clan does, or the amount of money/experience/quest points to pass through the clan each check.

Clans must meet regular checks or lose clan points; a warfare clan may have to make a certain number of kills or experience per MUDmonth.

The requirements for how much needs to be done to attain points should raise as the clan grows – this emphasises the use of having active members. If many members of a large clan are inactive, then the remaining are left with more work than they would like.

A clan starts with 20 Clan points; 50 are required to build a clan hall. 5 to hire a guard, 1 per piece of furniture inside a clan hal. These points are required by many clan depending features, including things which still require cash payments, but won't be possible without the requisite number of clan points.

What now...

Daemon:
- Track proposals, ranks, clans and members. Track variable relations such as access grants into the clan hall and intruders.
Module:
- Clan office - Standardising clan offices for players to propose and gain building permission. Other such commands as gaining new clanobjects.
- Clan commands - Extending from players to support combat and partying members, standard commands such as using the chat line.
- Clan hall - A base room for generating descriptions and items from purchased object furniture without stacking up physical objects. Moving and placing furniture will be available within the room.
- Furnishing - Base object used to gather data for clan halls. The type of furniture is irrelevant.
- Aid - Standard trading NPC's which may provide a service for a fee.
- Clan stores/boxes/banks - Seperate accounts and places which members may share their money/experience/armour.
- Voting tables/clan tables/clan boards - Misc coding which is likely to be used within a clan, leaving allowance for new additions.
Objects:
- Furnishings - Objects for furniture which players may browse within a store.
- Clanobjects - Identifying objects which a clan may use.
- NPC's - NPC's which can be hired for help by a clan member/leader(/possibly anybody).
- Items - Traps and other such items for all that fun clan defense(/atacking).
- Tools - Tools for wizards to track use of clans and perhaps building relevant objects.

Discussion

HOLY SHIT, THIS KICKS ASS! Haha. This section got a major face-lift with loads of additional ideas. I haven't read it all yet, but all of the things mentioned in the chart made the clans sound amazing. And i liked the idea about choosing a clan shield (Wearing: a Pictish Shield). So perhaps you can choose that your clan would be best suited with having the inate abilities of having an AC item. Or perhaps some would choose to have a light source (Wearing: a Pictish sash (glowing)) *Note, that in this case, the sash can be WORN. In the current game, we are only able to carry it. Which is bizarre.* -- LuCid - 15 Nov 2004

Clans should, and will be, able to change and add to a progressive TG (hi)story.

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