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Idea for putting immersion for inn owners
BlackJack717
Member
Recently I've got an idea for adding some immersion and depth to accommodation business in AoC. The reason I was giving it a thought at all is because I've read about some people that are really looking forward for freeholds and what they can do with them, specifically be tavern/restaurant hosts. So I wanted to provide some depth to it other than just the ability to RP there.
There's an idea for a mini-game for the inn worker (owner).
So, you have an inn (presumably at your freehold). And there's an icon at the entrance that the other players can click to be added to the queue. There's a limit to this queue depending on the size (level) of the inn. Players that clicked the icon then can just go on with their business. What they've queued for is achieving some random buff, when the inn owner is done playing his minigame.
From the inn owner's perspective it looks like this: he gets notification as soon as the queue is full, he goes to the inn dining area, where there are several tables, depending, again, on the inn level. The seats beside the tables are occupied with the "dummies" of the queued players (this is optional, I'll come back to it later). Then he presses the icon to start a mini-game, where these dummies start placing orders for food and drinks and he has to serve them as quickly as possible. Actual cooking of foods may be involved, but the most important part is serving the food before the timer runs out. And the timer has 2 or 3 stages, ranging from "perfect timing" to "late is better than never, I guess". And every dummy places their order a couple of times and their timers lengths are different, so the owner has to micromanage during this time. In the end, owner's score is counted, depending on his performance, and as soon as he clicks "finish challenge", the players receive a buff based on the owner's score, even if they are offline.
I decided to use dummies of the players instead of actual players so that people don't have to wait for each other.
We've discussed this idea at Discord and here are few updates/ideas for more immersive activities:
There should be an option to switch between using dummies and real people interaction. In this case the participants may have a menu to place orders or something.
@Wolf: "how about have the inn keeper/Tavern able to act as a merchant for alcohols and foods?
And maybe he gets temporary access to things appearing on the map, WHEN a player directly asks and pays a tip to find out about them."
@C4ptainGrumpy#9353: "The "rumor mechanic" can serve as a marker towards random resource, dungeon or quest nearby with a cd"
@Wolf: "I think the Rumor mechanic is a good one.
I'd include that for sure.
with the duration/ CD"
And there were couple of goofy talks about flirting with barmaids and playing mini-games in taverns after that, which I think were already discussed on the forum.
So, first, the mini-game idea, if it is any good, most likely needs polishing, so please give your feedback. Second, feel free to contemplate on the other abovementioned ideas or new ones for the tavern-based activities.
There's an idea for a mini-game for the inn worker (owner).
So, you have an inn (presumably at your freehold). And there's an icon at the entrance that the other players can click to be added to the queue. There's a limit to this queue depending on the size (level) of the inn. Players that clicked the icon then can just go on with their business. What they've queued for is achieving some random buff, when the inn owner is done playing his minigame.
From the inn owner's perspective it looks like this: he gets notification as soon as the queue is full, he goes to the inn dining area, where there are several tables, depending, again, on the inn level. The seats beside the tables are occupied with the "dummies" of the queued players (this is optional, I'll come back to it later). Then he presses the icon to start a mini-game, where these dummies start placing orders for food and drinks and he has to serve them as quickly as possible. Actual cooking of foods may be involved, but the most important part is serving the food before the timer runs out. And the timer has 2 or 3 stages, ranging from "perfect timing" to "late is better than never, I guess". And every dummy places their order a couple of times and their timers lengths are different, so the owner has to micromanage during this time. In the end, owner's score is counted, depending on his performance, and as soon as he clicks "finish challenge", the players receive a buff based on the owner's score, even if they are offline.
I decided to use dummies of the players instead of actual players so that people don't have to wait for each other.
We've discussed this idea at Discord and here are few updates/ideas for more immersive activities:
There should be an option to switch between using dummies and real people interaction. In this case the participants may have a menu to place orders or something.
@Wolf: "how about have the inn keeper/Tavern able to act as a merchant for alcohols and foods?
And maybe he gets temporary access to things appearing on the map, WHEN a player directly asks and pays a tip to find out about them."
@C4ptainGrumpy#9353: "The "rumor mechanic" can serve as a marker towards random resource, dungeon or quest nearby with a cd"
@Wolf: "I think the Rumor mechanic is a good one.
I'd include that for sure.
with the duration/ CD"
And there were couple of goofy talks about flirting with barmaids and playing mini-games in taverns after that, which I think were already discussed on the forum.
So, first, the mini-game idea, if it is any good, most likely needs polishing, so please give your feedback. Second, feel free to contemplate on the other abovementioned ideas or new ones for the tavern-based activities.
1
Comments
1. It removes player-to-player interaction. One of the joys of going into a tavern is to talk and interact with other people. Imagine you walk into a tavern and all you see is a bunch of dummies and the tavern owner is so busy playing this minigame that they don't even say "hello" to you.
2. How many times do you think the tavern owner would play this game before getting bored of it and it becoming a chore? These sorts of mobile-style games (yes this is exactly where this food serving concept comes from) are designed to give a very short burst of enjoyment but nobody plays them long-term.
Something like gwent in witcher 3, a game inside the game
K.I.S.S
As I said before, a lot of players go to taverns to interact with other people in a relaxed environment, so as long as they can do that there's no need to overcomplicate things with fancy gimmicks. Have a couple of parlour games but aside from that just let people sit and chat.
Personally, I would like to see the following:
1. An inventory system where I could prepare food/drink items that patrons could simply pick from a menu. Maybe a list of the prepared items on a chalkboard “today’s specials” sort of interactive device. Once they’ve made a selection, they would get an icon over their head that would prompt me to go over to them. Anything not on the menu would require direct discussions with the owner... and that could lead to “off the menu” items that might be special for those in the know.
2. Different mini-games that are simple and could allow betting. Card games, board games, dice, etc. The tavern owner/host would be the supplier of the games, and would receive some cut of the betting that occurs. More elaborate setups might be allowed, and perhaps it could lead to underground gambling rings that somehow evade node taxation?
3. Hiring of an NPC cooks, servers, cleaners, host/bartender would be helpful for a few reasons: If the establishment gets big enough (i.e. popular) it would be nice to still be a solo player that can hire NPCs help to maintain running of the facility. Additionally, it would also serve as a method of running the place while the owner is offline.
4. Another thought about a busy establishment is that if it is busy enough, perhaps the owner would be rewarded with random items that the game would generate. The concept would be as if a patron had dropped it or left it, but it’s not actually from their inventory. It would be like a small bag of coins, or a map fragment, or something along those lines that is not terribly common and would hold some value. It could be in the “mess piles” that generate when there are patrons consuming meals/drink over X period of time. Like in the Sims if there would be dirty plates/cups to clean up regularly after meals. Something either the owner themselves or the hire NPC would address.
While Intrepid wanted to do betting on Parlor Games, given the changes in EU law regarding online gambling, I can imagine this idea will be either nixed (Like Trion ultimately did with the Casino in Archeage) or it will be modeled after FFXIV where the "casino" currency is character bound as are all items you get from it.
This makes sense, actually.
It would be kind of cool to own an Inn or bar. So long as you can hire NPC's to maintain it for you. For reasonable compensation of course.