Forbidden Donut

we will need ALOT of people to get this off the ground in a hurry...whether that be finding another guild in game to combine forces with. we will need a group of people gathering resources as fast as we can, and a group to help protect us while be gather, and build.

day to day operation will establish as we get a city setup. once we get a city established we can start accepting people to help guard, and live in our compound....warrirors and crafters alike. we need to diversify the people we have in the city and that will lead to a prosperous guild.

as far as our focus, i think we need to strongly focus on gathering resources as fast as we can for as long as it takes us to establish a stable city and community....after that we can worry about conquering other areas. as far as our city location i think we should head for the hills so to speak. everyone is going to be fighting for the valley areas near the water and resource areas, i think we need to take the highground as it will pay off later. Then we can focus on taking over/forming an alliance with the guilds in the valley so we have access to a port and establish a navy

I think the decision on if we should try to get something on the water depends on how many people actually want to be sailors. I think Cartoon has the right idea, as far as going out away from other people. I still think that it will be possible to get a good site if we go out, off the beaten path far enough. Obviously, getting someone in the beta will help a lot, as it allows us to scout ahead. It may also allow us to grab some other people to join us. I think we're going to be at a disadvantage, because I'd imagine there will a number of much larger guilds with a lot more resources, which is part of the reason I'm all for taking less of an aggressive stance.

I'd be all for having the area be hidden if possible. I don't know if we can do it, but if we can build a city in the trees, elf style, I think that would be sweet. I know a lot of people are looking to be elves. It seems like that would give it a really unique defensible quality. The only other real option would be a wall, which is probably pretty expensive, time consuming, and can really restrict expansion later on.

I like the idea of building a castle(or walled-in fortified thingy) around our guildhall in the center of our town, and letting the town expand around the castle area, if we aren't gonna try and find an island. Honestly, islands and piracy sound much better to me, but raiding from a secluded town/fort up in the hills would work too.

I think getting a large number of people early on would be vital to securing ourselves a position of power, and it could be the difference between being a clan of raiders or a small empire. That being said, I think we should start recruiting actively now, and maybe even try to sway some people who are already in beta to join the Donut Guild. Already having an organized structure in place before release would give us an immense advantage over other guilds who have not done the same thing.

Also, once we get ourselves established we need some factors (organizational or otherwise) to attract players to us. If guilds can tax, we could use lower taxation as a perk, or maybe we could communize to provide high-level guild soldiers with the best weapons and armor we can make(or money can buy). I think getting basic governmental strategies laid down now will save us some time and conflicts later.

If the game does live up to its reputation for being completely 'free', then I can't imagine pirating being a viable option at all. The fact is, organized settlement and peaceful commerce leads to stability and riches. Pirating will definitely lead to bitterness, instability, and a tiny purse as a result. Pirating will also probably not be viable for a long time, since an economy needs to expand fairly dramatically before trying to steal some of its riches is beneficial. To top it off, you will probably be competing against a ton of other pirates at game release (since everyone and their mother wants to be a pirate), so you don't stand to gain much in the beginning anyway.

I agree that piracy would be awesome, but if you are honestly seeking to develop an infrastructure that will be long-lasting and ensure near immediate advantage in the game, you must look towards networking and settlement growth.

Everyone and their brother is going to want an island, or a large port. I think we should cut our losses and not even worry about trying. We can take one from someone else later on. Let them soak up the pains of controlling such a desirable target, losing resources from being raided and fighting wars, all the while we just build up our own resources and advancments. Plus, islands present a huge tactical problem early on. We'd have to have ships just to get to the mainland. Later on, think of the siege implications of being entirely surrounded by boats. I think assuming we can a field a Navy large enough and soon enough to defend ourselves is overstepping our abilities until we get a lot more people.


Edit: I agree with everything that Court just said. He's exactly right.

I agree with Cartoon. Sounds reasonable.



Then we just take it off their hands when possible (=


And like gov said, everyone is going to be a pirate. Hell I WANT to be a pirate, but I think to help out the guild I could sway away from it and help out as much as possible with gathering resources ASAP. As everyone should be doing to get the city up asap, then worry about getting access to a port, etc etc.

first you get the money, then you get the power, then you get the women....


al pacino is the man.

Phase 1: Collect Underpants
Phase 2: ?
Phase 3: Profits

No, I believe gnomes are "the man."

Good point. I guess we'll have to forgo piracy, at least in the short run. I think how NPC's are used(as in, can we hire NPC guards and soldiers) will have a huge impact on how this game works. If we can indeed hire NPC's for our military(I'm assuming Guilds can become like countries), merchants and crafters become a lot more viable as an economic base, but if we can't, the fighting classes will be dominate if we are to maintain any semblance of order or security.

I don't think the point of a castle-city would be to defend just itself properly, necessarily; castles were largely used to flux around large amounts of power away from itself. Naturally, this implies the use of a central base to fan out and defend the holdings that are actually producing. The crux of this problem is thinking in a linear fashion; before anything can be done at all, the resources to throw at it must be acquired first. As such, we'll need to quickly identify the quickest way to get cash, faster than everyone else.

How would this be done? Someone discussed beta scouting already. Things will certainly be changed between the beta and the release, so scouting in the strict sense of landforms won't be especially useful. Identify the most valuable resources, and then track how much attention others give these locations. We don't want to be in competition at first, because war isn't lucrative when neither side has anything yet.

An island castle would be a good idea, only if it has plenty of resources available as well to sustain itself. Otherwise, somewhere on the coast would probably be better for the option of faster travel to other locations, and therefore access to more land. Mountains could also be viable depending on the topography.

Cartoon largely has the right of it already. We need to focus on avoiding conflict, but still turn a profit.

I disagree with an island castle, because I really don't know how big the islands will be, but from the sound of it, not very big or full of resources. Other reason would be, it would take a large amount of time to find an island to suit all the needs.

As for things changing after BETA to release I would doubt also (as in the landform sense). They won't change it since it isn't computer generated, but artist rendered, handmade, and the map is HUGE (think size of Germany huge).

I think the main defenses around the clan stone, the stone you need to capture to make the civilization/city, that way if we are raided or attacked it would be easily defended if it came down to it obviously.



this would be a good starting point, and work the defenses out as it expands I guess

I'm opposed the idea of an island castle as well. The islands would have to be fairly large, and have some of the resources on them necessary to make money. Like I said earlier, despite all that, I'd imagine they are going to be very heavily competed for because lets face it, the concept of owning a whole island with a giant fortress on it sounds sexy.

Aside from the base, what plans do we have in regards to some of the other operations? How are we planning to the guild in regards to racial or alignment restrictions? So far everyone looks to have said they want to be a human, elf or dwarf, so do we want to restrict the other races, seeing as how they wouldn't get along with us very well anyway? Do we allow evil characters? Is anyone planning on being evil? What does the leadership structure look like? Do we want everyone to make it mandatory everyone have at least two characters they play? A crafter and a combat oriented, just so we have more options for things like sieges and what not? Do we actively go out and seek alliances with many other guilds, or do we only go for powerful ones? Maybe only weak ones? Ones equivalent to our own size? Just throwing some things out there.

I think it said on the Guild FAQ that only single-race guilds can build cities, but I'm not sure if other races can join "single race" guilds, since elves, dwarves, and humans are in alliance. We'll definitely need to decide which race we want to play as collectively(assuming other races can't join single-race guilds).

I think a multi-race clan would be fine, but am NOT opposed to a single-race clan really. I say we start out with a good alignment, that way not to draw unneccesary attention, and see how it goes from there, but I would suggest staying good. When we declare war, we will be able to fight a certain clan without hurting our alignment. I also think if we do multi-race clan, we need to stay human/dwarf/elves. I say we don't allow evil characters, but once again NOT opposed to the latter...

Having two characters does sound like a very good idea, one a gatherer and the other a combat. Unless of course you make one character that can focus on both combat and crafting/gathering, which looks like yes. Still I think if people want to split that role up into two different characters, that sounds like a good idea. I saw we form alliances with guilds near us whether they be big or small. We don't want to have alliances with the most powerful guilds if they are scattered all over the place. So if we get attacked/under siege and need them, it may take awhile. Unless ofcourse they implement teleportation into the game which looks like a possibility and how that plays out, as in where the teleports are, and where they go.




I'm pretty sure multi-race clans can make cities. The problem with multi-race clans is that if you have some Alfar's they would not be able to be in the clan's city if you had Human hirelings, because they NPC's would kill the Alfar character on site. I think as long as everyone stayed Human/Dwarf/Elves it would work. They do however say that sing;e-race guilds prosper the best, but I don't think it would be very easy to get everyone on the same page, because everyone will want to be a different race.

I don't think we should have entangling alliances with other guilds, unless we decide to merge with them or federalize to form a larger guild. Short-term alliances, playing one team off against another, would be all right, but nothing long-term, so we don't get dragged into unnecessary wars.

I said it from the beginning... Mountain pass.

We're not going to have a huge number of people, so we need a town easily defensed by a handful of people. That's it We'll work out way up to a terror from there. That's all we need... Well covered mountain town with a handful of people ready to fight off everyone else.

/agreed with all points here. most of the 'political' side of the guild will most likely take its own shape once the game is running and people are playing day to day... but it sounds like we need to get clarification on the whole same race/same alliance issue? and we should try to discuss distribution of roles at some point so we dont have a terrible imbal of melee/casters/smiths/etc...

also... is anyone already doing so, or interested in trying to recruit on the DF general forums? that would be a good place to start if we dont have anyone in the beta yet...

Then you pick up all the fucking kiddies... We're better off starting small, being good, and going invite only.

good point. i'm down with that.

Good man.


Edit: Quality over quantity.

I agree on that. Let's keep it small, and keep the lil 10-12 year olds out (Sorry Bill).

How does everyone feel on Clan Race?

Clan alignment?

I'd like to go Human myself, but that brings up some questions.

1. I read that only single-race clans can build cities. If so, can allied races join "single race" clans?

2. Which race would suit our strategy best?

3. Which race would afford us the best starting position vis a vis resources and areas of high population?

I'd like to start out as a good clan, basically trading with people and raiding enemy race cities. As in, stay away from the borders, but send raiding parties into, say, orkish territory to get loot.

I think, from what I've read, that the same race only building cities is false, but I can't point to where I saw it. Polls on the forums show the humans being the most populace race, followed by Mahrim, Alfar, Mirdain, Dwarves, and Orks, in that order.

If its true that we everyone has to be the same race, I'd vote against humans. Humans and Marrim together account for over 50% of all the votes. Mirdain would be my first choice. The bottom three races only account for about 10% each for all the votes.

As for everything else, we can't really say without more information about the game. Our decisions would only be a guess, at best. It might be safe to say that each race will be better at doing some type of crafting or resource gathering then other races. I do know that each race has its own type of weapon building material that only they can use to build with. Whether they can be traded and used by other races I don't know. That might make for an interesting specialization, trying to get the ability to make the race specific stuff as quickly as possible. It's likely to be highly sought after.

Personally I would like to roll dwarf. But I'm flexible. I'd prefer 'good' alignment over bad in general. I would be very surprised if they restricted city building to single race. I would expect they limit it to alliances... but i'm not claiming to be an expert here! with the popularity of humans as previously stated, assuming races start in allocated spaces for each race, rolling humans will probally be against our interests from what i gather so far. I'm going by the strategy of 'heading to the hills' here, but we'd want to roll something that would have the best chances of starting in lower populated areas. With that said, elf or dwarf would best suit that strategy. *cough* roll dwarf *cough* /wink.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="wink.gif" />

So far I have only read that "single race" guilds can make cities... but this sounds not right to me from other things I have read so I am still looking for anything else on it.

But if we had to choose a single race I'd choose Dwarf for reasons of less popularity.

As for alignment: good.

Hopefully this explains things. So it is possible to have a guild with all ALLIED races. What me and WCH read was that ARAC cannot build cities.

This is what WCH was refering too.



Which is if we were a guild with ALL races, which we are not.





A all allied guild is possible, but would make things harder, so I think we still need to discuss which we will be. I suggest if anything, especially if we can have a couple of characters, is to all make a dwarf to start out (because Dwarf aren't as popular) and find a city location. Then we all can go make whatever characters we want and migrate our way to the city and work from there.

Then I say good alignment still (=

very helpful, thank you. as far as the start out, that seems like a viable strategy to me. good plan imo

i have been trolling the DF forums for awhile now, and it seems everyone wants human, as they will be the most well rounded. but i agree with most when i say we go dwarf. from screenshots ive seen, videos, and general talk in general it seems this class will be uncommon, and a tough class to get going. i think it we start off as dwarf though, and with all hands on deck we can succeed with dwarf as later on they are rumored to be one of the best warriors and crafters in the game. teh dwarfs are designed to be the "architects" of the DF world and i think this will play into our guild strategy very well as we need to establish ourselves quickly with a city/base.

as far as finding our spot, like i said...i say we head for the highground to build. at game launch everyone is going to be panicing looking for citystones but if we just take off into the highlands in search i think it will suit us better. later on when the game release date is announced and as more information surfaces we will get a better idea of how the lay of the land is and where we should indeed be looking for things. if we can organize people who will DEFINETLY be there in the beginning, set up "teams" and head off into the wilderness in search of the best area to build i think we will cover more ground and gain more options on where to build.

the two character idea i think is a great one. but only later on in the game. i think at the beginning we need to establish who will do what right off the bat. nothing is permanent but we need to have a LARGE group of gatherers and builders, with a handful of guards to go out gathering with them for protection. once we get things established we can play around with the idea of creating a warrior or vice versa.

as single race clans can only build cities, i think this is false. from what i understand single race clans will fair better that mixed race clans, but mixed race clans can build cities also. when i say mixed race clans i mean just that, you can have ANY race be apart of your clan, BUT if the majority of your clan is say, dwarf, and you hire NPC guards to protect your city, and you have a few Alfar members....those guards will attack and kill those members for the simple fact of race. we all know certain races will get along with each other and some wont. all "good" races can enter any "good" races city without worry. if a "good" race attempts to enter an "evil" races' city...they will be killed, and vice versa.....no matter if the races are part of the same guild/alliance. Also of note though are race only cities. there will be cities for race specific people as well. each race will have their own "home city" as where no other race will be allowed to enter.

but my take on things is this, and im open for comments, suggestions.

i say we all start dwarf, for teams, go out and scout for out spot to claim as our own. once we get that spot all people head there, and start gathering feverishly. once we start gathering we can start branching off into our 3 groups, gatherers, builders, and guards. maybe even appoint a few people as scouts to take trips out and around in search of more resources, building areas, surrounding guilds, etc.... we need to be aware whats around us at all times as this will be crucial in our survival. again why i like the highground route, there is only really one way to get us....up. and all we need to do is look down.

im just excited in general about this game....i think it will bring new life to this community and a great "team" feeling to all who are apart of it.

I came across the map, feel free to highlight areas where you think we should venture off to at game launch.....and future areas we would like to aquire.




I think our best bet would be to find a way to "Niflheim" in search or our mountain pass

The NPC guards attacking clan members that are enemy races in a clan city is the opposite of what I've heard. From dev journal 10:

Quote:
As things stand right now, your AI guard race depends on the territory you build on so if you build a clan city in ork territory, the guards will be orks. The orkish guards will not attack the human clan members, but they currently attack all human visitors to the town based on racial enmity.

Looking over the 'What will you be' thread, it looks like there were 3 elves and 2 dwarves. There were also a lot of humans, and a lot of undecided. Gov was listed as undecided, but between the two choices, I'll assume he'll want to be the taller of the two, just for a change of pace from real life. But just to make sure, I'll put up a poll to see which of the two people were more interested in. The difference between how many people on the Darkfall forums are playing elf or dwarf is only a difference of .43%, not even enough to consider one better then other for popularity reasons. At the very least, its nice to see that no one wants to be Alfar or Mahrim. That simplifies our choices quite a bit.

Also, its interesting that if you look at the map, no race is next to one of its allies. Their portion of the map is always separated by an enemy races' section of the pie.

one thought on the concept of finding a spot to the high ground that JAmmy and I discussed, was going dwarf apparently allows the building of cities in underground caverns. If this is fact, then that seems like the perfect strategy for what we're going after. it A) puts us out of the way in a descrete spot... /cool.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="B)" border="0" alt="cool.gif" /> great defensive strategy for a capital city... and C) just sounds plain sexy.



agreed




seems like a great plan to me!



Also thanks for that... those to points would make it completely feesable for us to have a 2 or 3 race clan without any worries about being attacked, however for the sake of starting close to one another... still best to be the same. With that said, I still think strategically it'd be best to all start dwarf. But at the same time, if someone is 100% opposed to that, it is after all just a game, and you should do what you will have the most fun with...

Taking a look at that map, how feasible do you think it would be to set up shop dead smack in the middle of the main continent? It looks like there will be many starting cities around the shores of the continent and as was mentioned before, we believe that there will be much fighting for shore-front property. However, if I wanted to travel from one side of the continent to the other, I'd have two options: 1) take the shoreline so I can stop at cities if necessary or 2) take the quicker route through center of the continent but risk being fairly far from civilization if needed. I guess this would ultimately depend on how much cross-continent traveling is done, how readily accessible ocean travel will be around the continent.

Yeah...the type of land that you build on is important, but it is also really important to determine where your general location is in the world. The type of land will help you defend, and where you build in relation to the rest of the world will determine whether you will be successful.

Another thing to consider: I know we're expecting a lot of PvP in this game, but there will be quests. If there are quests, there will probably be dungeons. Perhaps setting up near a very active quest zone would be a good idea. Unlike PvP, the location of quests will never change, so a permanent settlement near them is basically guaranteed traffic.

And one more thing to consider is not investing all of your energies in one place. I mean...you're putting all of your eggs in one basket on a huge gamble that has a ton of things that can blow up in your face. What happens if an area is immensely popular at the very start of the game but becomes less popular as time goes on? A good example of this would be Stormwind in WoW. I started playing that on day 1, and Stormwind was a pretty hoppin' place since everyone just started. Three months later, it was a ghost town. If Darkfall offers as much freedom as they claim, there is so much potential for the game to change dramatically over the first couple of months, and some areas that seem really beneficial at first could be relatively worthless in the near future. So, a final route that you should consider is the idea of managing a loose network of trading posts instead of a single city that you hope to grow into a stronghold.

I lean strongly to that final option, and I think it is really the best way for you to go. Makeshift trading camps in key areas give you flexibility. They'd be more prone to attack, but they'd be much cheaper than a huge settlement, and they'd give you the ability to set up new trading posts elsewhere as the nature of the game changes. They will allow you trade with a large number of people across the entire continent instead of one centralized location that perhaps only a small handful will frequent. And best of all...a city falls the second you fall below a certain level of support. If your guild's activity crumbles around finals or holidays, you run the risk of losing your entire city -- you'd lose perhaps thousands of combined hours of investment. With trading posts...if your guild's activity goes to shit, they can sacrifice less important posts to give what little attention they can muster to the most important ones and just expand out later. Even if you lost all of your trading posts, they would theoretically be cheap enough to start from scratch again.

I know you guys want to make a huge impact on this game and would love to be a centerpiece of the world, but it's just not entirely practical. Let's face it, you're all grown adults with career-paths and family to consider. Almost none of you can afford to invest more than a few hours a day, and trying to finance, construct, and manage a large-scale city would surely require the support of a guild that commands a huge population of individuals that dedicate a large portion of their lives to this game. When FD started raiding heavily in WoW, the majority of its active members would spend 10-12 hours a day ingame. This was especially true for the leaders and officers. Even if you guys could muster that type of time at first, I know most of you well enough to know that you will not be able to maintain that investment in the long-term.

Plan within your current means...not how you would like to be two years into launch.

you make some good points gov.

maybe i was misunderstood though....i dont want to become the centerpiece of the game.....largely due to the fact that once your the top dog....EVERYONE is gunning for you, and partially because of how you mentioned alot of us have busy lives and dont have the time to devote to a video game we maybe once had. there is a happy medium though between just surviving in a game, and totally dominating it. I think we can be one of those forces, one that everyone knows, noone really has a huge problem with, and one that commands respect, and puts fear into those who oppose us. Maybe you are right though, maybe we dont need a huge compound, but we need a common place for all of us to call home. whether that is a small supply house in the middle of the woods, or a castle in the mountains.....we will need something.

I kind of like the concept that Gov brought up about being near popular spots for quests and what not. We might be able to make a fair amount of money if we had a town where people could buy basic supplies, sell loot, and rent an room at an inn, or something similar. Make it a kind of safe haven. Maybe in a way that doesn't require the guild to protect it, but people in the area help contribute to protecting it because they want it there.

And we do need a solid permanent place, because we need to place where we will be resurrected when we die. Because we will die. I don't really relish resurrecting at capital cities if we can do it elsewhere, closer to where we operate. You have to choose one res point, and that's where you res until you choose another. It has to be done in friendly cities and I think clan nodes.

I personally would not want to make the trek to Niflheim for our city. I would rather stay relitivaly close to civilization so to speak. With it being closer we would be able to trade and sell our wares. We will also be able to make allies in the area (whether they be loose alliances, or ones set in stone) and with that comes more trading opportunities. We are a small group so we won't be able to go off on our own and expect to survive/manage without the aid of other clans. We can still maintain our "highground" approach and go off towards the mountains (or other easily defendable locations).

I also say we all make dwarf characters right away in the begining. This will allow us to start in a lesser populated area, and go out and search for our suitable homeland. Then after the city is established, depending on how the game is developed, create a new character of the race you want (within the Human/Dwarf/Elves Alliance of course), and if they don't allow alt characters in the game, delete your dwarf and create a new character with the desired race. The splitting up in groups and search parties idea sounds good. Then after the location is found, split up into gatherers/guards/scouts. Gatherers will gather resources, guards could do both guard the area and scout really but only within a close proxiity of he clan stone, and we could send out people scouting. Another reasonable alternative to this idea would be splitting time. Like First you gather, then you go out and scout, then come back and gather, and have everyone doing different things and not the same thing at once. This way everyone gets to do a lil of everything because I am sure not everyone wants to gather for 8 hours while other people get to have fun and go frolicing around the area on adventures!

As for Phey referencing the Dev journal 10. That could be old news or read wrong, I don't know. As far as I know, if you have Human hirelings, and you are an Alfar and you come near the Human hirelings that YOUR clan hired, they will attack you. They may have changed things around. This feature in the game adds balance I feel, that way clans can't have all races.