Best Posts in Thread: Changes to Towns Gamma: Part One

• Background

As everyone knows, Towns Gamma was launched along with the 1.10 update, and custom features to it have been promised. If things in Gamma stay the same, and a new Wild+Shop is added back to A/B, then most people will return there before too long, because that's what they know, and there won't be too much difference. Before too long (not for a while, though), people will begin to get bored again as they build up new towns and bal's. Custom features have already been promised to Gamma that A/B will not have, so my idea is to reinforce that. If we're going to make Gamma different from A/B, why not make it completely different?

• Idea

At last, we have the means to work accept the long-desired suggestions by the majority of the community, as well as the kind of economy needed (no other worlds to hide stuff in or perk remnants), to implement: Towny Wars!!!

• Benefits

In my work with new players, I have encountered people who clearly know what the server is about, as they immediately begging asking questions about Towny. I have had people not even consider staying in the server at all, simply because we do not have Towny wars. The biggest advantage, by far, is the way this would blend with the economy. By being fights in which you take whatever you wish, people will naturally use up a lot of items, keeping diamond and iron in heavy demand, making it easy for others to make money, as well. The other advantage, is the way it would keep people occupied. If we are claiming to be the biggest Towny server ever, then shouldn't we offer several variations of Towny? A war economy server is something almost unheard of, because usually that refers to Factions. As a whole, Factions retains players because of its repeatability, in constant raids and wars that are always shifting the balance of power. In addition to this, EULA enforcement has sent many Faction servers down the drain, meaning there are lots of players searching for a server. If we can appeal to these kinds of players, as well as our current player base, it will surely send the player count up. If we therefore have a gamemode in which players have that repeatability factor, yet found in Towny, it will also increase our player retention, too.

• Possible Implementations

Make Gamma a war-based economy, since we can now edit the plugin more freely, without as many consequences as A/B.
Idea #1: "Cosmetic Wars"
Basically, this idea for this kind of war, is being able to attack with full force, but things will remain the same after said war. During a war's attack time, PvP is enabled in the town under attack. Now, before you all start complaining: "New towns will just get crushed by some big guy," let me clarify. In order to "attack" a town, both towns would have to set the other town as an opponent. This means, both towns must directly consent to a war. Once war has been declared, you have a 24 hour cooldown period in which you cannot "truce" (to prevent people from attacking, then setting as neutral). During the duration of this war, co-mayor+ may launch "raids." During raids, switch perms are enabled for the entire enemy team, letting them loot. The balancing to this would be there must be a certain number of residents in the defending town online. There is no official "winner" to this style, and is decided by who raided the most loot. The downfall to this idea is obviously the amount of code necessary to produce this. It would be balanced enough that is really is fair, and all land would remain the same afterwards, meaning the only cleanup would be replacing items. The prize would be whatever items you stole.

Idea #2: Point Wars
If this were implemented, it would take a lot less time to code, contrary to "Cosmetic Wars." The downfall is you never steal any items (unless the enemy is carrying them). Many things would be the same as Idea #1, which would be the manner in which wars are started: both towns must consent, with a cooldown on trucing. However, the raids for this would be very different. Rather than attacking the towns themselves, PvP is enabled in both towns, and players earn "points" for killing other players. After a certain amount of time, the war ends, and the town with the most points wins. The prize for this would be a Meeble payout from the defeated town's bank. Obviously the amount for this would need to be balanced. Two possible forms of this are a set amount based on the number of residents in the town(bigger towns are charged more for losing), or a percentage of the bank is taken off (to prevent the defeated town from falling).

• FAQ

-What about people who do not want to fight in wars?
Thanks to the separate economies, this is no longer an issue. All who do not want to participate in wars could simply play in A/B, where wars are not enabled. And besides this, both towns must consent to begin any wars.

-Wouldn't this be abused by some pro PvPer?
No, this would not, because the only abuse that could happen is if they find enough towns to fight them. If you know a town has lots of good PvPers, then you should consider that when you declare war!

-What about tech resources?
Fully, I admit this would take significant resources to make, but I feel the benefits far outweigh the downfalls. Gamma is still very new, and there are obviously things already planned for it. Therefore, this won't be needed right away, which would give techs plenty of time to write this, while people enjoy the things already completed. Other things, such as Skywars launch, should definately be put first, as well as bug fixes for the update. That kind of stuff, should always come before new things, is fixing what we have. In short, this would require work, depending on which version is used, should this be accepted, but will create an entirely different feel to Gamma that cannot be provided through A/B.

Thanks for reading, and please comment any further suggestions or concerns!