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Heya guys,
Sometime over the next few months or so I am going to be adding a fairly large new feature for churches called church shrines.
The basic idea is this. Each church (probably won't allow this for lesser groups like orders/cults/bands, you need to be an established religion) picks an area in which to build a shrine. The shrine can be publicly accessed by others who are not in the church, but only church members may use it.
The shrine is an extension of the church's influence. It attracts followers (NPCs) from within the area to the church. I'm not sure how this will work yet; for now I am going to do it just as a cosmetic thing in which mobs worship church members and leaders as they walk by, and soon after I figure out how to balance it properly NPCs within the area will offer assistance in battle, wares at a discount price, healing for free, etc. This will only affect sentient(intelligent) NPCs, and of course some will be able to resist the influence of the church, e.g. the really powerful ones.
To establish the shrine, a fairly big initial payment has to be made. To keep up the shrine's physical looks, a monthly-or-so payment has to be made. If the payment isn't made, the shrine begins looking crappy and the influence fades. Eventually if payment isn't made for long enough it just falls apart and has to be rebuilt from scratch.
To keep up the spiritual link to the gods, a monthly tribute of karma (deity points will soon be renamed karma because I think it sounds too technical and reminds me of another game I don't like) must be paid. If the payment is not made the gods will ignore you and not give you anything for worshipping there.
Now for probably my favourite and the most fun part... each shrine will have a dedicated power it can bestow upon a member of the church who prays there. For example, one shrine might completely heal a church member who worships there. Another might instantly restore a church member if they die in an area. Another might heal mana; another might repair your equipment. I haven't made a complete list; obviously we will have to well balance this.
These benefits will be available, at a weaker strength, to non-members of the church who share their views on alignment, for a price. So for example, a person of good align who makes a sacrifice and prays to the deity of a pious church will be able to gain back, say half their HP instantly.
Obviously members of opposite aligns and opposite aligned churches will not be able to do this. As for churches of the same align... I haven't thought about it yet. I think the fundamental idea of religions is that they are incompatible, but I still have to give it some more thought.
A monthly investment of pneuma (spiritual power) will have to be made to keep up these magical powers of the shrines on the mortal side of things. If the payment is not made they might look good, but won't do anything for you.
If any member of the church sacrifices at the shrine, the karma will go directly to the church's funds. I think I'll allow people to deposit pneuma there as well. Gold isn't really spiritual, so I'll leave that at the church administration office. Additionally I am very much considering the idea of letting people transfer their karma or pneuma into other things at the shrines if they are a member of the church. This is still up in the air, though.
For PK churches, they may defile one another's shrines :twisted: . This won't be easy to do so it doesn't happen to often, as it's something that is essentially a declaration of war and a very bad act. A shrine which is defined is powerless, and a new investment of cash, etc must be made in order to bring it up to working condition again. It won't be anonymous, like stealing relics, so you will know who hath acted against you.
My main ideas behind this are to (a) give maxed-out-churches a reason to keep building up their funds and (b) give each church an area of influence in which they are powerful. It wouldn't be unbalanced at all since each church would be limited to an area... although I am open to the idea of putting *lesser* shrines in seperate areas, perhaps to attract more followers. Also since the shrines can be visited by non-members (unlike temples, which are sealed off and secret to outsiders), they can be used to attract new possible members. Perhaps not too applicable yet, but when we get a bigger playerbase (once we start advertising after I fix the mud up some more) I think it would be really kick ass.
It would also pave the way for the introduction of deities for the church to worship, which represent different values. God of chaos(evil), god of peace/order(pious), god of vengeance and anger; etc.; there would also be fairly neutral deities for neutrals to worship, e.g. god of wine, god of mirth, etc. - emotions not strictly limited to one side. In this I hope to move away from the very strict align casting we are currently doing. Of course there would be restrictions: a vampire is always evil, no matter what. But it could be less evil than other vampires, if not good.
Obviously we would have to regulate this pretty well. There wouldn't be any reason for a good aligned church to have its shrine in Mystica, for example, and an evil church wouldn't want to place its shrine in the Monastery of the Faeries. I know our areas aren't the greatest right now, but we're working on it. A neutral church is ambivalent and thus could place a shrine anywhere except in the heart of Hell or in the palace of Eden. Obviously some areas would be wanted by all (Olaria, Plith etc.). It would probably be decided on either a lottery system or on biggest-church-gets-it system. The idea would be to reward the people who have put lots of work into their church and attracting followers.
Before anyone suggests it, no, there will not be insta-recall to the shrines :P. However, I am very open to the idea of allowing a shrine limited transportation power, or maybe random teleportation, to other areas.
Anyway, sorry this turned out so long, and I'm sure my thoughts aren't as organized as they could be, sorry for that. Like the remort race thing(I will be posting the topics for that shortly after the new year), it's not full-hammered-out yet by any means. I do have a fairly good idea of where I'm going though, and I'm open to suggestion or criticism, that's why I've put it here. Feel free to reply or not reply with the above, just remember to keep to the topic and not start bickering 8)
Happy new years all, sentience kicks ass! :lol:
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I really like this idea :D
Thinking it would be a bit odd though to have a shrine from another church in town with your hall, unless multiple shrines could be in one town which would be kinda dumb.
Ever been to a job fair? If not, they have booths from various companies/schools etc all in one big building. Just thinking for recruiting purposes, it might be nice to have something like that in Plith near recall, especially if our player base has significant growth. Thinking it would have a board advertising different churches or mobs which give out flyers to advertise for different churches with information like align, how to access current member list/publicly available info, what town hall is in, where shrine is so they can go visit, what is offered at shrine etc. Would also be nice to have a general church info board or monument with sign for newbies with things like what the ranks mean, what it means to be in a church and so on.
For shrines, I think it would be interesting to offer sanctuary or something like that, not necessarily the spell but the concept - a safe place among friends for similarly alined characters but rejection for delcared enemies, or be able to choose who can gain sanctuary there… thinking for real application, something like a back room with deluxe accomodations - a comfy bed, food and drink and perhaps a free healer different from the one at main shrine room - like main shrine would have a sac/pay for heal for the public and the elite would get special attention. If the pope goes to a church, he doesn't have to try to find a seat and salvation among the masses, does he? Nope, he gets carried in and treated like a king with the best of everything they have to offer. Just food for thought :wink:
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I like the idea. Not much to contribute other than that. But I like.
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> Thinking it would be a bit odd though to have a shrine from another church in town with your hall, unless multiple shrines could be in one town which would be kinda dumb.
Wow that's a good point, hadn't thought about that. We could move the temples to Eden, or Abyss, but the neutral aligned churches don't have a plane of their own, and I wouldn't want to take people's temple recall ability away from them, despite the fact that I hate insta-travel.
> Ever been to a job fair? If not, they have booths from various companies/schools etc all in one big building…
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> For shrines, I think it would be interesting to offer sanctuary or something like that, not necessarily the spell but the concept - a safe place among friends for similarly alined characters but rejection for delcared enemies, or be able to choose who can gain sanctuary there... thinking for real application, something like a back room with deluxe accomodations - a comfy bed, food and drink and perhaps a free healer different from the one at main shrine room - like main shrine would have a sac/pay for heal for the public and the elite would get special attention. If the pope goes to a church, he doesn't have to try to find a seat and salvation among the masses, does he? Nope, he gets carried in and treated like a king with the best of everything they have to offer. Just food for thought :wink:
Yup, this sort of sanctuary is exactly what I'm going for… both to extend the depth of the game and for practical purposes for players to use. :)
The recruiting idea is an interesting one. I'd have to think about this though to see if it's something religions would really do. Cheers!
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As far as which church gets it, why not let a church who's hall is in that city have first choice? That way Church A's hall is in Plith, stopping Church B from influencing Plith and the denizens of Plith ousting Church A from their city.
