On Capturing

[Wormtail_]

I think that it would be an interesting addition to the game if we were able to capture opponents, and perhaps be captured by them. This would have several
advantages. One would be the fact that you wouldn\'t have to kill to defeat an opponent, or damage him so badly as to send him/her/it to send him/her/it running. Instead, you can knock them to the ground (or any other method) and capture them. Here is my idea on how it could work. Note that it is unpolished and could use  comments and suggestions.

    In combat, you could have an option that says \'Capture.\' Capturing an opponent would mean that your character will try to take the opponent in alive. This would be a mins on your attack power, though, and  ome types of weapons are better than others at  capturing an opponent, or at least make the opponent lose consciousness. Then your character would have to drag back the captive somewhere.
 Now, when you have a captive in a certains rea (where, I\'m not sure), you may try to cultivate the aptive to join you, or at least help you. Your charm gainst the captive\'s will shall decide whether the  aptive \'surr nders\' or not. When you have a captive, you may recruit him to do several things. ne, you may have the former captive run a store, trade, cook, serve, and other things. But you must pay the captive a salry, as I am reluctnat to turn this into slavery. Anyway, the vaptive may also become your guide, allowing you to access areas and gain mroe knowledge. This may provide some interesting areas of gameplay.

What do you think?

Note: This is only on capturing NPCs, not players. Also, iif the captive doesn\'t decide to join you, then... Execute him! Or not.... I apologize for typoes and if this topic has been posted before. I\'m too lazy to look up the topics and check all of them...

[Saphire]

Hmm. Maybe the only way for a NPC to join you in combat is to \"capture\" them, especially if its for a quest of some kind.

Just imagine, you\'re the highest skilled warrior and you have 1000\'s of squirels captured by you.

[Wormtail_]

That\'s quite a bit of squirrels. Which means that a way to limit how many captives someone can have.

The amount of captives can be limited by either a numerical number of captives (such as 25 captives and you reach the limit) or you have to p\'pay\' the captives to stay. Such as some money vanishing from yyour coffers every x minutes, hours, days, etc. Game time, of course. Also, captives may run away from you while you\'re online. So be sure to make them loyal to you. And you must give them a job within a certain period of time, because it just doesn\'t make \'that\' much sense just keeping them, having them do nothing but live in terror. NPC cruelty, I tell you!

What do you think? Have your actually  read the enitre text, or is it too much for you? I can attempt to write a summary.

[Moogie]

I think this is an interesting, fresh idea. I havn\'t personally seen this option in any other game and I\'d like to see how it would turn out.

It definitely offers a new strategic element to combat and I think it\'s a great option for \'Good\' or \'Neutral\' aligned characters who do not want to kill/badly injure an opponent, but may have no other choice without  the ability to capture them.


Btw, in your first post, Wormtail_... were you having some kind of trouble with your keyboard? I see many first letters missing... mainly As and Cs.

[Chradraf]

maybe, since having captives would be so helpful, you have to buy expensive \"cages\" for them, and you can only have 1 captive per cage.  this would open up a whole market for captive trades!
i.e.
\"hey, i\'ll give you 1 diamond, 2 emeralds and a ruby for that captured diaboli!\"

that would be uber funtastic, not to mention 1337

[Monketh]

Interesting Wormtail.

Chradraf:Watch what you say, cuz ||\\| |\\/|Y 0P||\\||0|\\| 1337 5uX0R5!  (Said opinion is shared by many planeshift members.)

[paxx]

As far as captives go, we have thought about it for guild war things?and a few other PC things, I don?t think we want it for NPCs though it might be added at some point, I doubt it will.

Capturing is for a penalty of some type, and the time captured will depend on different things?but it has been mulled around a bit.

[Xandria]

Capturing PC\'s?  Perhaps for ransom, or just to limit the opposing guild\'s numbers?

Hmm, this could be interesting, and could possibly satisfy some of the PvP advocates out there.  It still seems a bit hard to implement, but if done correctly would add quite a bit of RPing to the game.

[Moogie]

We also should make sure it wouldn\'t break a few international slavery laws.

[Silvereign]

But the big question would be... Would you like to be captured? Only if I was roleplaying a slave I would allow it.

[leach117]

What happens to captured npc\'s when you are not logged on, do they just hang out or what? That is all i am wondering.

[Grakrim]

Originally posted by Silvereign
But the big question would be... Would you like to be captured? Only if I was roleplaying a slave I would allow it.

I wouldn\'t mind being captured only if there is some means of escape (other than paying ransom).  Perhaps if you keep a PC captive, you can be freely attacked for the ownership of the captive?  Of course, in this case, I wouldn\'t be surprised to see a lucrative \"Hero-For-Hire\" buisness.

[paxx]

This idea is very young yet, and only has been chatted about.

The basic concept is when you start a guild war, you set the parameters for it. In the case of capture or kill, and the different meanings of kill, it is pre decided on. And in the case of ?fair play being implemented, a larger more powerful guild would have longer captivities.

In most cases captivity will be doing remedial amount of work for the opposing guild, not so much ransom?but money could be exchanged for less or no work.

The main thing is so that guild wars have another facet then who?s side can stay on with the most people the longest. Death or capture have consequences that will require a victor to emerge eventually.  

The captors will not have total control of the ones captured, but the ones captured might have limited movement and in order to remove the ?captured status? may need to make it back to their guild house, thus making breakouts possible.

There are many ways to do this, but it will only be done if it can be fun, and enjoyable to some extent?.after all someone who seems captured, could actually be a spy for the other side waiting for a moment to sabotage something.

Slavery, and this are not the same. You will not be forced to do anything?though working will get you out sooner. Or dropping from your guild. Or bribes, or many other possibilities.

Slaves have no hope of release, here you are kept in penalty for an hour or 2 at the most, as long as you do the work?if not it would be longer, or in some cases, you become a none combatant afterwards?(can not be part of this guild war till it is over from this point on)

But many of these choices will be dependant on guild leader choices at setting the guildwar up.  

If you logg off and wait for an hour?well if the war is still on, then he is still sitting there, if it is over and your side lost?he is probably there, unless some deal was reached as a peace settlement.

These are all just ideas at this point, but I like this better then the concept of slaves, Slaves in this game will only be summoned creatures and or pets?None of the playable races will be a slave, except to an NPC, and even then it is questionable.

The player will always have choices to get out of a situation they do not like, but the choices will have consequences.

[Vengeance]

I\'m in favor of captivity for both PCs and NPCs, for the reasons stated and because it makes \"freeing captives\" into a whole category of quests that could feel very RPish.

[Wormtail_]

This is mainly about NPC captives, not PC capturing. However, I may write what I think about it later.

Perhaps if this is implemented, then the captured NPCs may be under the same system of capturing as captive palyers. Something like after a certain period of time, the captives are released. Unlesss they grow to like you, in which case they become you employee. I also think that there could be two types ofpeople with captives: Guild captives and player captives.

Guild captives are basically captives that work on the various aspects of the guild or organization. Captives may be shifted to various jobs for a certain period of time, and then they are freed if they so wish. There could be a prison for such captives as well, in case there are not any availble jobs.

As for privately owned captives, I don\'t think that players should be able to trade them. They end up being property, and therefore become slaves. Pretty much. So I think that unless yo\'re in a guild or organization, you keep your own captives. Until you make an organization of your own.

Captives of each have a chance to break out of prison, and may sabotage the production of things. Or they may be offered freedom by an undercover agent of an enemy guild and end up doing things for another organization. A good network of spies would be needed then. However, they will end up leaving you after a period of time unless they happen to like you very much.