Crypto Kingdom - 1991 Retro Virtual World(City)

[rpietila]

To make the transition as smooth as possible, could you please stop viewing the Google Sheet in question

[rpietila]

Crypto Kingdom Vigil

Where I live, it is getting late...

... but the release is tomorrow, 24 calendar days since the start of the Ultima project. This has really felt the same as the original design of the game, from idea to acceptance of first characters and selling of gold to them, in 9 days. Incredible progress by the smallest possible team in the shortest possible time frame is the best thing in life. We already have the MG-2's and gifts and possessions so the joy of work well-done is the greatest reward.

It will be 3 more hours until it's again my turn to pick the baton and check the next iteration of the game. The database is currently ready for migration, but the platform needs a few more stuff put together. It is my intention that I could start sending the passwords by (in most cases) the Bitcointalk PM, in about 14 hours from now. Sending the temp passwords and making sure that the account gets activated by the right person, will take some manual work. The accounts will be activated in the order of precedence, which means that it may take quite a bit longer for the commoners. For security reasons I will ask for help if I need; do not offer it yourself as it will raise suspicion rather

The tomorrow's release is interactive, online version, named V.3.9U Reconstruction. It is a stopgap measure to get the data migrated to the Ultima platform as soon as possible. It will handle the data types Characters, Items, Lots and Buildings. It is not very much playable yet, meaning that there is not much to play - the life of commoners and new non-depositing entrants is quite boring. This is all intended, for now. The new releases V.4 (by end of Sept), V.5 (Oct) and V.6 (Dec) will make this a game. Currently it is a graphic interface for a growing database of objects, tradable between characters. The number of different tradable things is 2,000+, and the total number of instances is 300,000+, making some specialization needed for merchants, who cannot be knowledgeable about all things all the time.

While it is a fact that this is the most important milestone in the game so far, yet it is not yet a game that we are releasing (  ), perhaps there is something we could do to make the entry of the new players nice at this stage. We are not so many yet and we need everyone who are interested, to get hooked to the game, with nothing else to show except our glorious history and the items that testify to it. There will be the automated character promotion working from the get go, all the way from L1 to L14. The level promotion formula is top secret, nobody else except me and the Wizard Dev know it. It has 17 things that (might) affect the promotions. Promotions will be happening on the year change, which also bumps up the age of the character.

We will be having a Promotion Gift functionality, where existing players can semi-automatically list items to be gifted to each of the characters who reach a certain level. A few of these have already been conceived, including the 3 CKS silver ring by the Town Hall (THS1, to be gifted to chars reaching L3) and the 3 CKG gold coin by the Town (CT1600C, gifting condition undecided). Hopefully we will get an increasing list of quality items to be given to the new players now, to raise them to status nearer to the Ancients and the 1600s and give them a clear edge compared to the masses that will join us when the game not only exists, but is playable as well later this year and the years following.

The integrated items trading platform will be first viewable to me in a few hours, for which reason cannot say too much about it. I won't be expecting anything less than a full-blown exchange though, with all the 2,000 items categorized and ready to be traded. For the first time, micropayments will be feasible in the game, making it possible for the items to be traded at any price, even 1,000 m ($0.0005). To avoid clutter, in the future there will be an unique item creation fee of about 10,000 m (about 1/100 of the L3 PC game-annual salary).

I will leave for the thought process, what could be the best gift from the King and to which level!

[noms]

To make the transition as smooth as possible, could you please stop viewing the Google Sheet in question

I've closed all the google sheet tabs I can. My hands are starting to shake... I don't know if I can go another hour like this.

[generalizethis]

Hard to believe it's almost here. I only wish I had started playing earlier.

I would think sword when you reach knighthood would be a very powerful gesture. A gold or silver staff for when you reach wizard. Perhaps a street named after you when you reach one of landed positions. I'm working on symbolism theme--maybe time to go to bed and get some better inspiration.  

Thank you for building this Risto.

[rpietila]

How to increase your status among new players, make friends, and make the game succeed?

The year change -script is a good way to give things every week and increase the playability in the only way we can for now


The following things can be used as triggers:

Reaching a certain level  (levels can be had on multiple ways, many times explained in the thread as well - also old chars will be recipients if they had not reached the level before)

Reaching a certain amount of EXP  (EXP is equal to active playing time in minutes, calculated in the same way as BCT, so is a good way to reward people who spend time in playing the game - EXP is also the only thing that is evaluated continuously - note that old characters also start accumulating EXP so will be recipients as well)

Reaching a certain amount of CUL  (CUL requires magnanimity and/or playing higher stakes, so is a good way to reward power players - old ones will only get gifted if they reach the limit anew, not if they have already reached it)

Reaching a certain Char Age  (in case you want to give a round years birthday gift - commoners may start at 15-50 years of age)

Housewarming gift  (if the character acquired his first house last year, new and old alike)


How to make a functioning gift

- Everyone is entitled to make 1 gift line, Earls and higher maximum 2 lines.

- Give something that is somehow related to you, or money, or something to drink (as you would IRL...)

- The least expensive item is a liter of MEAD at 1,000 m - while it will not be rejected by the system, I would consider it proper to give gifts at minimum in the 50,000 m range even for the starting players, and higher if you set the qualification higher.

- Note that gold and silver are not premium-only; they are valuable gifts.

- Make a giveaway that affects many enough people - if you target the lowest levels, it is good to allocate to give to 100 or more characters, for higher levels, perhaps 10 recipients minimum - depends..

[rpietila]

Help needed!

I am making the intro messages to the new players. They are pop-uped after certain EXP milestones, starting from the entry to the game, and continuing once every 10 minutes or so for quite some time.

Example:

Congratulations on promoting to Level 2: Stranger. You are now known in Town, but not a resident yet. We encourage to press on and achieve even higher levels in the coming years. Unlike some other games, in Crypto Kingdom we don't have 999 levels. We only have 15, of which reaching Master (L6) is a decent goal for a character's lifetime. So you will probably have only about 4 level promotions remaining, unless the fortunes lead you to nobility or even founding an Earldom with its countryside fiefdoms. Therefore, it is right to celebrate this achievement a little. His Majesty The King gifts 3 bottles of W1600M special wine, encouraging to seize the day, but reminding that this wine is graded to be very receptive to aging, which means that its best enjoyment and health benefits might be 25, even 50 years to the future! The wine was procured at a great cost for the Bicentenary Jubilee of His Majesty Reign, but deemed unsuitable for immediate consumption. The wine cannot be purchased anew, and therefore this tutorial item will have to be changed soon, since we don't want to empty the Royal Cellars of it. At least not before it reaches its peak, be it in the lifetime of the current King, or the next!

I need the Monero introduction, mainly the out-of game perspective (propaganda/marketing), somehow tied to the game context. The messager would be Monero House.

[noms]

Congrats everyone for getting to page 100 of the thread  

We are officially 3 digits!

[Syksy]

Crypto Kingdom Vigil

Where I live, it is getting late...

... but the release is tomorrow, 24 calendar days since the start of the Ultima project.  - -

Concordantly to how others have also reacted here, I also wish to applaud your excellent and essential contribution Risto. It's a huge accomplishment, all thanks to you and the ones helping you. So looking forward to this! I wish the best of luck that everything goes well in launch.

[rpietila]

Crypto Kingdom Vigil

Where I live, it is getting late...

... but the release is tomorrow, 24 calendar days since the start of the Ultima project.  - -

Concordantly to how others have also reacted here, I also wish to applaud your excellent and essential contribution Risto. It's a huge accomplishment, all thanks to you and the ones helping you. So looking forward to this! I wish the best of luck that everything goes well in launch.

The forum was down for some time so could not update you: We are fixing the always-occurring last minute issues. I have spent the afternoon by writing a 40-message tutorial that will be distributed to the players in the space of their first 10 hours of play It also includes an item gifting plan that was talked about yesterday, so playing the game really gets you the goods 

[NewLiberty]

Crypto Kingdom Vigil

Where I live, it is getting late...

... but the release is tomorrow, 24 calendar days since the start of the Ultima project.  - -

Concordantly to how others have also reacted here, I also wish to applaud your excellent and essential contribution Risto. It's a huge accomplishment, all thanks to you and the ones helping you. So looking forward to this! I wish the best of luck that everything goes well in launch.

The forum was down for some time so could not update you: We are fixing the always-occurring last minute issues. I have spent the afternoon by writing a 40-message tutorial that will be distributed to the players in the space of their first 10 hours of play It also includes an item gifting plan that was talked about yesterday, so playing the game really gets you the goods  

Another exciting development.
We look forward to being able to reward the people in an orderly fashion.

EDIT
The Duke of New Liberty would be pleased to grant a share of the Noble Palace to each new noble upon obtaining their landed title of nobility from His Majesty within the age, along with some basic instruction on the proper conduct of nobility within the kingdom, and decorum within the palace.  May the Noble Palace (upon its imminent reconstruction) serve as a proving ground for the loving subjects seeking to hold court thereafter in the good company of the Ladies and Gentlemen of court and those seeking audience with the great personages of the Kingdom without embarrassing themselves overmuch.

(HH can craft some text for this if it pleases Your Majesty's Wizardly attendants.)

[rpietila]

We kindly ask the Noble Palace to provide a storytelling message such as the following:

"Howdy!" A jolly monk in brown clothes approaches you when you walk the unpaved streets in Borough 4. The whole place is technically brand new, but looks funnily run down due to the quick methods of construction and the unfinished appearance. "You are new in town - please have some beer, the recent brew!" You had already heard that the Church has a monopoly on beer, so gladly accept. The monk who initially seemed talkative, was now seen as conducting his business and almost turned away after giving you the full case. "Take it, it is a gift from the above" he exclaims. You stop his departure: - Hey, I mean, your ... "Ah, no need. The Bishop is addressed as Your Grace but he is seldom in town anyway. What" - The King sent me this W1600M wine, is it good? The answer was not short: "Mead is better than nothing, but we sell Beer at only 5,000 per bottle so we hope that everyone would drink it for their health. They (mead and beer) are only one kind each. Where it goes difficult is with wine and spirits. Each year there will be about 2 new types of wine, and the good vintages can age for 50 years. This W1600M is an expensive wine acquired for the King's party a few years ago, but it is not at all ready yet. When I am with my Lord, and you are an old fellow, the townspeople will know if it is a perfect 20/20 or a decent 15/20. I don't know about your means, son, but if you intend to drink wine for your health now, the best option in the market is W1600. Close second is the domestic barley wine W1601B, made over there!" A hand waved towards a large building, but speech was not interrupted. "The spirits are medicine for diseases and prevent them in old people. Nothing can be had too cheaply, though. The Town is taxing 100,000 m/bottle, so the price of VODka is almost all tax. CLXII on the other hand... They say it tastes heavenly. It is also rumored that more than 1,000 mil was spent in an auction over a few bottles and that you can get a house cheaper than a bottle of that precious cognac." - Why... you start, but the monk finds a new client, leaving you wondering.

We also ask what immediate gift the recipients of the message (all characters new and old, reaching the certain EXP that starts at 0 for all) will get.

The clearing works of the collapsed section revealed 1,230*AMBNP (1 kg of amber). It is way less than needed to reconstruct the famed Amber Room, but could be a nice and unique gift for the new ones.

[Ombc]

When can i play the game?

[rpietila]

The V3.9U is now estimated to be released in 6-8 hours.

I am sorry for the delay of 1 day compared to the original estimated release date of yesterday (/NewSchedule tab).

The delay was caused by agile last minute changes to the specification, namely: I wanted that the EXP calculation would start from the migration of the database and not some time later. This was accompanied with the Tutorial with a lot of messages and gifts to the new players. And also the new player registration itself was not part of the original spex.

I am still interested if all admins would report to me if they have any time for database cleaning-up in the following 4 hours. This work will be done sooner or later (such as removing of the doublespends of land in lots...) but it causes less trouble if sooner.  

[arnuschky]

The V3.9U is now estimated to be released in 6-8 hours.

...and there goes my weekend. 

[Digit-0]

When can i play the game?

good question, the OP seems a littel bit confused for me i dont know when can i play this game or where i have to register.

Maybe im a little awkward, i will try to continue reading to see if i realize how to do it.

[noms]

When can i play the game?

good question, the OP seems a littel bit confused for me i dont know when can i play this game or where i have to register.

Maybe im a little awkward, i will try to continue reading to see if i realize how to do it.

There will be a tutorial posted by rpietila soon that will help all the new players. The new web-based interface, Ultima, is coming online today, so all the documentation out there will need to be updated. Watch this space for more info.

[rpietila]

Release schedule update


Yesterday, when I had explained the trading system details to the Wizard, there had been a small misunderstanding. He had thought of a single item bulletin board type system (similar to what has been used in /LOT and /F_OWN), while my understanding was a complete order-matching real-time virtual exchange, perhaps similar to Mt.Gox when it was still trading MtG cards.

My wish prevailed, motivated by the simple reasoning that there is no point in releasing Ultima, if its only real supported feature - trading in lots and items - works worse than in the googleDB. So we have now agreed on the specification that it will be an order matching exchange with a CLI, as follows:

prompt> BUY HM02B100 2 70500000 <ret>

Buy order for 2*HM02B100 "100 CKG trade gold bar" added for 70.5 mil/unit, total 141 mil
You have bought 1*HM02B100 "100 CKG trade gold bar" for 69.8 mil/unit, total 69.8 mil, from King's Coinshop
Remaining: BUY 1*HM02B100 "100 CKG trade gold bar" for 70.5 mil/unit, total 70.5 mil

The items will be browsable by type (70 types exist) and the bid/ask situation is shown in the list view.

Obviously this takes extra time to code compared to previous schedule.

The remaining feature of the release is the NewPlayerLogin-EXP-Tutorial-Gifting-GoldCreation set.

[kazuki49]

I don't mind waiting a little more now

Congratulations in getting the game launched, it feels that it has a lot of soul (mental efforts) poured in.

[rpietila]

Announcement.

The Royal CryptoArmy is not sitting still despite the shortage of live targets. We have explored the lands in the periphery of HM rule, and found that in many of them, a legacy currency of Bit Coins is still going strong. Many of the inhabitants of these lands have expressed interest in becoming subjects of His Royal Majesty, but they only have their Bit Coins, and the long-planned deal to exchange them for current currency in the land of Polonia has delayed.

The Army is stronger than it seems. Upon inspection, it was revealed that they had collected loot in the days of yore, when Bit Coins were regarded as nothing by the peoples of the Earth, and they were purchasable in thousands in the tall and dreadful mountain of Gox, which many knew but few dared to approach - and for a good reason, because the eventual explosion of the volcano destroyed many a good soul, and a few bad ones as well. (All this happened in the prehistorical times.

It was not difficult for the Army to present a stash of 100 Bit Coins, and divide them into a million pieces each, which were listed as tradable items under the item code UB1, which belong to the item type Depository Shares, the same type as the item M, our currency moneretos.

The way how this might be helping the people in our borders is; it might be difficult for many of them to exchange their currency to the Kingdom currency in their lands. This way they can bring their currency to the Kingdom as such, and the UB1 tokens will be given in return. Since the Royal CryptoArmy is - for a good and obvious reason - in high regard in the Kingdom, and the address where the deposit amount reside is publicly known (as is the feature of Bit Coins, in good as well and mainly as bad), the UB1 tokens might be accepted as if they were 1/1,000,000th parts of Bit Coins themselves. The Royal CryptoArmy does not want to tinker with withdrawals, but will conduct them for any amount of UB1, against the fixed fee of 100,000 UB1. The deposit incurs no fee but must be minimum 1 Bit Coin, which yields 1,000,000 UB1. For the practicalities, you will need to find the contact persons in the game.

Considering the clear and concise rules how the Royal CryptoArmy operates its old and mighty deposit, it will be regarded as evident that the UB1 will trade against M closely in the same ratio as BTC trades against XMR. The Army stands ready to enforce this if need be and buy and sell the currencies to keep the values in close contact. Finally we want to remind that the secure storage of BTC is not free despite their ephemeral appearance. Solid procedures are in place to guard the Secret Codes, and for this service a maximum of 0.02% APR (1% real-year) fee is levied on all the UB1, system-enforced.

TL;DR: PM me if you want to join the game with a BTC deposit of minimum BTC1.

[rpietila]

The Prince of OZ is granted a new address; from now on he shall be called His Serene Highness (HSH) The Prince of OZ.

Serenity is granted to this most senior of all princes based on merit. It ranks higher than Excellency and lower than Highness (without Serene). The higher address than Highness is Royal Highness, which might be granted to L14 characters but not necessarily. (It makes them part of the Royal House.)

* * - * *

The Prince of Forte Spagnolo is not demoted, but reminded that due to his previous address His Highness (HH) was based on his previous function as CEO, he is correctly addressed His Excellency (HE), as well as his junior peers, the Princes of Soul and Ramsey.

* * - * *

The rumors that Tavastia would be granted the use of His Excellency have proven to be as false as the rumors that d'Armagnac would never be promoted Marquess. The reason why his (Tavastia's) junior HE The Marquess Cryptoluna is granted their use, is his honorary position as the Chancellor of the University. The other Marquesses have shown no merits to warrant the granting of Excellency to them.

* * - * *

We remind that Magnificence is not restricted and can be used at will, within reason. It must not be shortened to "HM" for reasons clear. In our cultivated opinion, at least Tavastia and White Cross may assume Magnificence properly.

Royal Seal