Welcome to the QDP!Society and House Structure
Bellicose will be a society based game. There will be structure to the government, and structure to the Houses. Through playing UO and AC, I've noticed that although guilds are highly supported in these games, they aren't fully utilized. Ultima Online supports guilds better, I feel, since in Asheron's call there's a definite pyramid scheme, but no sense of a home base since there's no housing. In Ultima Online, you've got a guild leader who has access to the guildstone. From there he can make changes to the guild, such as admitting new members, changing the guild's name and abbreviation, changing guild member's titles, etc. With the exceptions of admitting and expelling members, and changing the guild to Order or Chaos, the guild master really only controls the cosmetics of the guild. Below the guildmaster are the guild members, each are 100% identical to each other in what their abilities and functions.
In UO, there is the role of guild leader, and the role of guild member. The guild leader can change aspects of the guild, while the guild members can spar with each other and support each other in battle. In AC there is the role of Patron and Vassal, both of which are really identical in their abilities and functions.
In Bellicose, guilds will be considerably more complex and customizable. Guild members will be members of customizable ranks, defined by the House Leader, and each rank will have defined privileges. For example, when a House is first created, the Guild Leader rank will be defined and one person will be assigned that rank. The Guild Leader, of course, has full access to all privileges, and numerically, would be "Rank 1". It is then up to the House Leader to change the name of his own rank to whatever suits his House. For example, if the players who founded this House want to roleplay a merchant house, they would change the name of "Guild Leader" to "President", or "CEO".
Next the Guild Leader would begin creating new ranks, naming them, determining their numerical rank (for example, second in command would probably be "Rank 2") and then assigning their privileges. The Guild Leader can assign up to, say, sixteen unique ranks. As new members of the guild are accepted, they are given a rank, and receive their privileges via that rank. This sort of structure allows a guild to be composed of a King, Prince, multiple Dukes, and an army of Knights.
privileges allow this system to make a working society in each House. As I said, the Guild Master has access to all privileges, always. At the moment, I don't know what all the privileges will be, but a few example would be the ability to change rank titles; access to the research computer; access and control of the manufacturing facilities; access to the Guild funds.
The idea of houses, or "clans" has been lost in
many a game. I wish you luck in successfully
creating a game where the memberships of multiple
players are a bonus instead of a negative....
I advise that you make any and all changes to
said house or guild cost money or in some other
way charge the proposing group. Otherwise, there
will be many mind-changes, and therefore more
strain on whatever server is running it.
Changing uniforms to follow rank would also be nice,
thus ::showing:: the differences in rank and power.
One question: Will this be an off-line feature,
or will a "president" have to be dodging bullets
while he is renaming or qualifying new members?
Actually, I'd planned on making this a feature accessible through the web, and possibly via an in-game browser. Creating a House will take quite some time, defining all of the ranks, privilidges, names, etc. These things, as well as house maintenance, would be better done outside of the game engine, both freeing up bandwidth, and allowing the House Ruler to make important changes from anywhere he has net access. As an employee with net access, I've often had people ICQ me wanting me to make certain changes to their UO Guild rank, or create an alliance with another guild, but being locked here at work I'm unable to do them. Mostly, however, is the fact that we'd be able to create updates, new privilidges, new formats, and such without having to create new graphics and in-game menus.
Perhaps, if the House Ruler (or a member of his House) is skilled in HTML, they'd be able to create their own "skin" for their House Management page...
The suggestion of being able to wear your rank is fantastic. I'm sure it wouldn't be difficult at all for House members to be issued a piece of rank designating clothing/armor. Perhaps a shoulder flap, beret, cowl, mini-cape, bracers, etc. The type of clothing would be decided by the House Ruler. This item would then take on the color of the wearer's rank.
The question comes with whether or not the House Ruler would decide which color goes with which rank, or if it would be distinctly related to the rank number. This way, even if you weren't familiar with the House or it's rank titles, you'd be able to tell by the color how high up in the chain they are.
Actually, there would be two options here. The first would be for the House Ruler to decide: Force house members to show rank {yes/no}. If it's not forced, then the house member can choose for themselves whether or not to show their rank.
It would be good if the different rank "locations"
or additional pieces of clothing were different
for each house, so that you couldn't tell that
you were going hand-to-hand with the top-seated
killer in the house.
Plus, if someone were to code an "Invisible"
marking, that would be good for people wanting
be a spy in another house. >;) muhuhahahaha.