Crypto Kingdom - 1991 Retro Virtual World(City)

[iluvbitcoins]

From today:

13:17 <sphericon> oh mr fluffypony! is there any CK news?
13:17 <•fluffypony> yes! I will post an update when I have reliable internet
13:24 <sphericon> oooh ooooh


*waits with baited breath*

here you go



I'm wondering what will the first day of CKG on Poloniex look like, it's definitely going to be some volatility

[rpietila]

<sXpher> Just waiting for HM to come online so I can go through some of his formulas for buildings, and we'll finish off that logic this week

The wish has been granted. I'm safely in the office

[saddambitcoin]

Can't wait to test!!

 

[iluvbitcoins]

Can't wait to test!!

 

Here's a test for you m8

http://vote.pollcode.com/35839456

[sphericon]

Can't wait to test!!

 

Same, bring it on!

[kazuki49]

do you smell what the fuffly is cookin'

[rpietila]

The year 1600 is flowing by in the spirit of eager anticipation

Any day from now, the selected betatesters get their hands on the player UI. The backend is also getting finished. But the intent of this post is not to go into details on these, nor guess the dates. The goal of the game is not to get one version released. It is rather the beginning.

However uninteresting the graphics and music, or even the theme, of the game were in the Ancient era, it still captivated several people by its intrinsic fundamental (and quite unforeseen) qualities of the 1) economic subgame model and 2) closed economy with no external stakeholders. This basis is very strong and allows everything to be plugged in as soon as there is the need and resources to do it.

Even before having any players but me and David, I laid out a future release scheme with lots of new features. After the current release is fully working, we get to concentrate on them. I have been thinking much about the playable scope lately. I have heard that some players are dreaming about becoming full-time in CK and making their living out of it, as I have also said that I can do with the architecture designs, or could do with the businesses (which are mismanaged because of "intentional neglect" to concentrate on the matters crucial for the success of the Game, and also to not compete too ferociously with the dear nobles, whose King I am).

It is good to expand the depth so that people can make the decision to be fulltimers, but at the same time the systems need to be easy enough to allow wealthy non-fulltimers to play when they have time and achieve their objectives. If we retain only the hobbyists but lose the other supporting pillars, it is a great loss to the Kingdom.

Then the entry needs to be compelling for several types of players as well. Everybody wants to have much more players. I have been thinking what are the things in the game that would be interesting and make us stand out from the competition, which is strong. In addition to the 2 points mentioned above, I believe our strengths are 3) sense of "uncompleteness" and 4) genuine interaction and community.

The world where our current players come, mainly USA and Europe (acknowledge some Chinese and Russians), is a built-up world. It is not a world of opportunity. Typically young people start their life in relative security and abundance, and when they reach the age of 30, the life is not really any better, and what's worse - often does not offer realistic chances to go forward (both because there are no promotions available, and because the starting level already was pretty high in world scale). In my thinking, these people are drawn to the game not despite of it being in construction, but even because of it. Although the early adopter financial mindset suits the game very well, and if the game goes big, every early adopter is compensated also in financial terms, I don't believe money is the primary motive for these people. Building something new is.

The other thing that I see is a genuine asset is the interactive play: the fact that most of the time spent in CK does not go to micromanaging NPCs or even to thinking of your next plan, it is actually spent in leisurely setting chatting with high quality people about the various game issues, forging plans, negotiating, storytelling, telling stories of events in ancient times to aspiring nobles - it is clearly evident that it's not possible to play this game without very deep interaction. And this is another thing that many 30-somethings in the western world lack. Even if they had a family and job. Which is totally sad, but I feel that offering this game for tapping to that need is a good thing to have. Changing the society outside of us is hard, creating a better one is perhaps not easy, but at least it can realistically be tried! Just that we make the rules which allow the player to vary the intensity of the experience.

The future versions will offer the following new features (exact placement across versions is not locked in, also there will be lots of minor stuff that makes it more playable, and also old features will be streamlined or scrapped if necessary):

Version 5: Economy


New resources
8 types of food, perishable
Wool, customizable clothes

* Sustenance
Characters must eat and drink, and can select where they do it (totally revamped Resta game)
Health is dependent on living conditions, sickness reduces health

Stuff in GoogleDB integrated to gaming software (Bank, Stocks, Renting, Dividends, Donations, all Items)

Quarry comes back, perhaps applicable to a lot of any size
Terraforming, concept of elevation for land
Building company, to make NPC's produce BLD points that replace "labor" in building
Building editor, to automate making buildings


Version 6: Skills and Businesses

Commoner PC and NPC integrated skill management with ~15 skills and at least 6 levels on each, combinable for killer combos
     - enhance skills by online activity, by attending education, and by doing work
 
Functional Items
Creation of "artesan" Items by forging (skill, tools, time => new items)
Industrial production of "resource" Items (ordinary windows etc.)

* Businesses/proprietorships
      - Shipping
      - Tailor
      - Goldsmith
      - Doctor
      - Distillery
      - Stables
& more, for skill-based economic subgames

* Countryside
      - Farm management subgame
      - Administrative division in Earldoms, Marquessates and Dukedoms run by nobles
      - Nobles get about 15% tax of the farm produce and divide it among themselves
      - Countryside travel delays
      - Armies are located in the countryside, keeping order in small numbers and combining to larger forces to combat insurrection (teamwork)

* "Sandbox" for implementing player-defined functionalities in city plots

Random events


...and more to come.

What I see clearly is that we need to keep the fundamentals and our competitive advantages. The path in front of us is not paved, and already things have taken much different turns than first envisioned. Whatever we now do, let's keep true to the principles so if we meet success, we have made a difference. If failure, at least we offered to make a difference. 

[sphericon]

it is clearly evident that it's not possible to play this game without very deep interaction. And this is another thing that many 30-somethings in the western world lack. Even if they had a family and job. Which is totally sad, but I feel that offering this game for tapping to that need is a good thing to have. Changing the society outside of us is hard, creating a better one is perhaps not easy, but at least it can realistically be tried!

Hear, hear!

[Roopatra]

Developed Land for Sale in SE Village Square in Borough 1

6 Quadrats of developed land situated right between Villa Rotonda and The Hungus Towers. Includes 676sqm of buildings: A restaurant and a shop with entrance directly to the SE Village Square, and the rest is apartments. The direct building costs were 216mil, not including architect or BI fees.

Lot codes: 1-SE-V43, 1-SE-V44, 1-SE-V45, 1-SE-V67. Blueprint can be viewed on the detailed map of borough 1.

Price 650 mil (75mil per quadrat of land and 200 mil for buildings)

PM me for details.

[sphericon]

The year 1600 is flowing by in the spirit of eager anticipation

Any day from now, the selected betatesters get their hands on the player UI.

Any idea when this will be? Also, is there any kind of signup for beta testing?

[rpietila]

Childhood copper tokens inventory is completed!


While the eager anticipation of the new Era continues, the citizens have turned once again to the bygone era, never to return. But first some news:

The deterioration of health and living conditions has been proceeding alarmingly. It is now accepted knowledge that the Very Ancient Two Springs that once provided the water supply to the Town and beyond, have lost their blessing, if not outright incurred a curse. The waters taste bitter and wrinkles have started to appear to people whose physical age is no more than 25! The scientists are theoretizing that the water might become less hazardous if mixed with a moderate amount of alcohol. In theory, the more, the better, but since too high alcohol content causes dehydration (which in turn can only be alleviated with water), they are now debating whether a 4-5% mixture would be optimal. They are not unanimous on the reason what might be the cause of the problem with the water. Scientific advances need to be taken on that, and also on experimenting whether rainwater or water from wells could be better. We also don't have the wells in the area, because of the "paekivi" type soil which is very laborious to dig, although the stone lends itself well on massive construction.

The new drink, water mixed with alcohol distilled from whatever is available, has been named "Mead" after the ancient drink that according to the legends gave the Vikings their strength.

The other drinks that are commonly available are Beer, whose production monopoly is now officially chartered to the Church, because of all the organizations in the Kingdom, only they have the required expertise, manpower and capability to ramp up the production in quantities required, while keeping the quality high. While Mead trumps water in healthiness, Beer is considered a much better choice for those who can afford it.

HH Sir Riccardo has been producing wine for the nobles to enjoy in his private vineyards in 1-S for more than 100 years. This year the harvest season is at hand, but it seems that the yield is very bad. While nothing concerning the future is certain, it is believed that the climate change will make commercial wine production impossible in the Kingdom for the years to come. The Town is organizing ways how to procure wine from the foreign lands in increasing quantities, because it is perceived as even more healthy, especially for the middle-aged (which, sorry to say, our doctors have determined to begin from the age 35, from which point the Health of a character goes to terminal decline - if Sicknesses, Unhealthy Conditions, Malnutrition, Mead, and Accidents don't finish him even sooner).

The ultimate health drink, Cognac, will be imported from where it grows, as before, and promoted, especially because of the hefty duties it brings to the Town coffers. With a reasonable amount of luck concerning sicknesses, and careful staying away from hazardous living conditions, we believe the life expectancy for a 30-year old nobleman is about 70 years total.

Future information concerning Drinks and Health will have the ingame effect starting from Version 5: Economy.


With all this hardly inspiring information on the future life surfacing from the scientists' chambers and proclaimed by the heralds (to weed out the rumors), the citizens have had time to browse through their homes to find any memorabilia of their childhood and happy times. A special attention has been turned to the toyboxes, whose contents have mostly been eaten by moth and mold. Copper has survived intact, so the inventory of the tokens from the most, even very ancient times has been made and results are now publicly known.

As the most ancient ones remember, the monereto was selected to be the currency of the town from the outset, but because of the old custom, copper tokens were still minted for a few years after the Kingdom (1400) and the Town (1430) were established. The database soon proved its superiority to the tokens, and after 1450, only very few were minted and survive.

In total, the Townspeople have 484 copper tokens, which are minted in 57 different years, between and including 1360-1478. Of the years, 7 are unique, including both the oldest and the youngest coin. 10 years have only 2 surviving examples, and in all cases they both belong to the same character. 100 coins are minted in the 1300s, being thus Very Ancient, the rest 384 coins being Most Ancient.

The Copper Tokens are now included with other Fungible Items in the googleDB /F_OWN tab. Trading in the coins is allowed as per standard rules, but please close the DB after viewing as the developers still need it for their work which otherwise might suffer.

HM The King is quite eager in expanding his collection of the coins. Especially rare coins (3-5 minted, or 1-2 if reasonably priced), coins from the 1300s, and the coins from important years of the Kingdom (1400, 1418, 1430) are in demand. We are not selling the oldest nor the newest unique coin, as the Die has impartially put them in our hands and they are priceless.

We believe the 3rd oldest coin from 1368 has a potential to become quite valuable as there are only 10 Items in the Kingdom older than that (Zenon's Medicine of Life, Collection of Scientific Instruments, and Library of Papyri reportedly from the 1000s, HH The Duke's Family Creche Set from 1321, King's toybox from 1366, and 5 copper tokens from 1360-1362). The COT1368 (11 existing) can be obtained in fair trade in exchange for other coins or value.


Only the Silver might still yield some coins that match the age of the earliest copper coins. But where is our silver? Everyone has found only silver receipts - no one seems to possess any monetary silver. Not even a single coin! Only the silver objects are intact, as shiny (or patinated) as ever...

The cry reached the King himself who went to the CFTC to inquire about the silver: how is it possible that silver is reportedly imported every decade in increasing quantities, exchange rates are calculated 240 years to the past, aftermarket trades are made and market is open even as we speak, yet the metal is nowhere to be seen or handled?

[rpietila]

WE WANT TO TAKE DELIVERY OF OUR SILVER

[celestio]

rptiella, have you ever heard of a game called Torn/Torncity? It used to be and is a relatively popular online, text-based rpg game. At its peak it had around 50k players daily, now it's around 20k, but still a decent amount of people play. My idea would be to make Crypto Kingdom text-based with the use of Moneroj and maybe Bitcoins as the currency. It would actually be pretty exciting as I loved playing Torn(It was text based but had visuals for the various armours and weapons in the game, also it was social and has a popular sidebar-chat/forum).

[rpietila]

rptiella, have you ever heard of a game called Torn/Torncity? It used to be and is a relatively popular online, text-based rpg game. At its peak it had around 50k players daily, now it's around 20k, but still a decent amount of people play. My idea would be to make Crypto Kingdom text-based with the use of Moneroj and maybe Bitcoins as the currency. It would actually be pretty exciting as I loved playing Torn(It was text based but had visuals for the various armours and weapons in the game, also it was social and has a popular sidebar-chat/forum).

We are releasing our gaming software any day from now. It is graphical, 320x200/256. We have no intention to go to text-only, progress is progress 

You are very welcome to play the game if you are not yet registered!

[iluvbitcoins]

rptiella, have you ever heard of a game called Torn/Torncity? It used to be and is a relatively popular online, text-based rpg game. At its peak it had around 50k players daily, now it's around 20k, but still a decent amount of people play. My idea would be to make Crypto Kingdom text-based with the use of Moneroj and maybe Bitcoins as the currency. It would actually be pretty exciting as I loved playing Torn(It was text based but had visuals for the various armours and weapons in the game, also it was social and has a popular sidebar-chat/forum).

a copy is not usually better then the original

we're making something new here

[sphericon]

The deterioration of health and living conditions has been proceeding alarmingly. It is now accepted knowledge that the Very Ancient Two Springs that once provided the water supply to the Town and beyond, have lost their blessing, if not outright incurred a curse. The waters taste bitter and wrinkles have started to appear to people whose physical age is no more than 25! The scientists are theoretizing that the water might become less hazardous if mixed with a moderate amount of alcohol. In theory, the more, the better, but since too high alcohol content causes dehydration (which in turn can only be alleviated with water), they are now debating whether a 4-5% mixture would be optimal. They are not unanimous on the reason what might be the cause of the problem with the water. Scientific advances need to be taken on that, and also on experimenting whether rainwater or water from wells could be better. We also don't have the wells in the area, because of the "paekivi" type soil which is very laborious to dig, although the stone lends itself well on massive construction.

The new drink, water mixed with alcohol distilled from whatever is available, has been named "Mead" after the ancient drink that according to the legends gave the Vikings their strength.

This is quite worrisome indeed. If the water we are drinking is causing people to have wrinkles and tastes very bitter, I am concerned about the health of our population.  While the water may be less hazardous if mixed with alcohol, that doesn't necessarily mean it is safe. The Cold Spring Harbour Laboratory in 4-SE is located in a swampy unhealthy area, and it seems prudent that it should be researching the water issue (given its name). Lord noms has decided that the laboratory shall commence a full-out investigation of the water, sampled from various boroughs of CK, to attempt to determine the cause of any contaminates that may be present.

[rpietila]

Monetary conditions in the Realm after the launch of V.4: Reconstruction

The monetary architects are busy keeping the jurisdiction of external influence in the Kingdom at minimum. For this reason the Game does not accept anything except XMR in return for the ingame moneretos (1 XMR = 1,000,000 moneretos). The XMR is stored in 100% hard reserve, although at present we are not accepting redemptions. The future plan is to integrate XMR to be used in the game directly (perhaps via a game-wallet construction) and get rid of moneretos ie. redeem them from the reserve XMR.

CKG will start trading in Poloniex, with a 2-way port between the exchange and the game. This makes it likely that most of the value to the game arrives via that gateway. The Game is not part of the transactions, the gold holders need to be vigilant to supply enough to be sold there, so that the new players can take it to the game and exchange for items of need (land, buildings, items, moneretos). If the players feel they are under external jurisdiction concerning these trades and incur tax liability, they are instructed to follow their conscience.

The ingame King's Coinshop will continue operating, because in this arrangement there is still obviously a need for a swift ingame CKG/XMR conversion. Because the volumes are growing, and arbitrage opportunities emerge, more ingame institutional players are welcome to the arena. The King's Coinshop will retain a high-ish spread of 13% and be the last-resort option. (The King's Coinshop also "emits" more CKG to free circulation from HM holdings when prices rise, and "sweeps" it back when they slump, acting as an automated balance.)

There is no automated mechanism that would keep the CKG/XMR rate in Poloniex the same as CKG/m rate is ingame. Theoretically the utility of XMR outside the game is higher than the inconvertible m utility ingame, and m price should therefore experience a discount. This will be balanced by the expected much larger inflow of value to the game, compared to the outflow, as it is more likely that the release of V.4 will lead to increase of player activity than the contrary. (It is not likely that m will go to a sustained premium relative to XMR, for the simple reason that deposit of XMR yields a fixed quantity of m.)

When (not if), however, in the future, the game economy experiences a boom-bust cycle, it is likely that short-term the cash wants to flow out of the game. This period will be marked by declining asset values probably affecting all assets, and also a possible disconnect of m price from XMR price.

There is no other method to prevent this than by keeping the markets open for arbitraging speculators who gladly offset the exiting capital (by buying m at a discount to XMR) and spend this discounted m by acquiring assets at an additional discount. This is the standard way of market cycles, which allocates capital from weak, frothy hands, to the strong and stable ones.

We have already experienced business cycles in the game, one of them cost me the CEOship and ownership in the Grand Hotel Next time I promise to act more shrewdly 

[sphericon]

The ingame King's Coinshop will continue operating, because in this arrangement there is still obviously a need for a swift ingame CKG/XMR conversion. Because the volumes are growing, and arbitrage opportunities emerge, more ingame institutional players are welcome to the arena. The King's Coinshop will retain a high-ish spread of 13% and be the last-resort option. (The King's Coinshop also "emits" more CKG to free circulation from HM holdings when prices rise, and "sweeps" it back when they slump, acting as an automated balance.)

I was intending to offer a lower-cost CKG/monerito conversion than the 13%. I hope to have this available in the coinshop shortly after the game launches. I was thinking something closer to 2-3%. The only thing is that for liquidity purposes, I may need some larger gold holders to invest in the shop, or at least offer their gold to be lent if a big buyer comes in the game and I don't have enough gold to cover it.

[McHaggis]

Does this mean our CK accounts will be tallied up to Poloniex accounts or does each holder have to create a new Poloniex account for selling CKG?

[equipoise]

The deterioration of health and living conditions has been proceeding alarmingly. It is now accepted knowledge that the Very Ancient Two Springs that once provided the water supply to the Town and beyond, have lost their blessing, if not outright incurred a curse. The waters taste bitter and wrinkles have started to appear to people whose physical age is no more than 25! The scientists are theoretizing that the water might become less hazardous if mixed with a moderate amount of alcohol. In theory, the more, the better, but since too high alcohol content causes dehydration (which in turn can only be alleviated with water), they are now debating whether a 4-5% mixture would be optimal. They are not unanimous on the reason what might be the cause of the problem with the water. Scientific advances need to be taken on that, and also on experimenting whether rainwater or water from wells could be better. We also don't have the wells in the area, because of the "paekivi" type soil which is very laborious to dig, although the stone lends itself well on massive construction.

The new drink, water mixed with alcohol distilled from whatever is available, has been named "Mead" after the ancient drink that according to the legends gave the Vikings their strength.

This is quite worrisome indeed. If the water we are drinking is causing people to have wrinkles and tastes very bitter, I am concerned about the health of our population.  While the water may be less hazardous if mixed with alcohol, that doesn't necessarily mean it is safe. The Cold Spring Harbour Laboratory in 4-SE is located in a swampy unhealthy area, and it seems prudent that it should be researching the water issue (given its name). Lord noms has decided that the laboratory shall commence a full-out investigation of the water, sampled from various boroughs of CK, to attempt to determine the cause of any contaminates that may be present.

I'm also doing some research on water filtering in Kneja Science at 4-SW-A1. It seems your lab have some more resources, so I collected probes from water supplies around my house/lab and sent them to you. I also sent all my science teem to visit your lab for some experience exchange if you are interested.