You might want to add blacksmith to that list... or any of the other multitude of -smiths for that matter. One problem I see with this system, though, is enticing people into taking the more... mundane jobs. A huge portion of the players will probably be hack n slashers who see the game as nothing but an engine for increasing their levels, getting the biggest sword, and stroking their egos. Could you imagine a player like that being a farmer on the side? All things being equal, I envision a city of 1000 law enforcers/assassins, and maybe thirty of each other job; that is unless you either limit things (a rather heavy-handed option which could ruin the game atmosphere if you didn't come up with a very good in-game reason) or make farming enjoyable enough or profitable enough for people to actually want to do it.

As for politics, my first instinct says that one month sounds about right, but the length of a term in office would depend greatly on what powers, responsibilities, and/or perks the job would entail, aside from setting tax rates, etc. One way to tax people would be to take it directly from their income: whenever a bounty hunter turns in a criminal worth 100 gold, they would only receive, say, 95 instead, with the other 5 going to the government. It could also be reflected in adjusted prices from NPC merchants. If you plan on having PC merchants, you could charge them rent for booths within the city where they could sell their wares (this could also reduce the clutter of having ten million merchants everywhere... take a look at the cities on Ragnarok Online. You can hardly walk around with all the merchant bubbles everywhere) and charge them an extra fee from NPC wholesalers who could provide them with stock to sell, albeit they would be cheaper than buying from the normal NPC retailers. Perhaps you could force the PC merchants to buy these wholesale items in bulk so that they're encouraged to sell them for a profit instead of just farming items for personal use.

As with most skills based RPGs wouldn't the economy be flooded with firewood, clubs, and animal pelts because that is all the new tradesmen could make? You would have to almost add merchant to the list in order to move excess goods to towns that have a large demand to prevent players from only earning a penny an hour of game play.

You could implement the economy on a barter system. Goods (which you get from jobs) could be traded for other goods or services. Law enforcers could be used to track down a) people who trade and don't hold up their end of the bargain and b) people who don't pay their taxes.

Tax collectors could be PCs too: they decide if your giving them a fair amount of goods. Goods collected in taxes will be sent to the government to be used by the most trusted of PCs (sortof like moderators) for things like building new towns, hiring mercenaries to attack other nations, etc.

The barter system creates a realistic economy based on supply and demand. A farmer will get a lot of wheat from their harvest, but it will be worth almost nothing because only a little wheat is needed to feed players. On the other side of the spectrum, a weapon smith swaps weapons for high-end items (found on quests, etc) because creating weapons requires a certain amount of ore and theres a high-demand. Basically, if you don't do work, you'll starve to death.

Also, the system creates a whole new level of gameplay: politics. Politicians will tell tax collectors to favor weapons or food depending on their needs. The army (NPCs) needs weapons and food and officers (PCs) need pay to command the army. Politicians basically have a 'magaphone' which lets them give announcements to their underlings from anywhere (or, better yet, they hire mail carriers). If a politician doesnt do a very good job at managing the empire then they will be crushed by other politicians or a player will assassinate them (in which case a new politician will be elected).

The system is relatively easy to implement because the rules arent hard-coded into the game. They come from the interaction of players. If you want to go on a fun adventure, then you'll need to work up the resources first or you'll die.

Another thing, dying shouldn't be taken lightly. It should be very hard to come back from the dead. Since killing another person means being hunted down and killed by the police, not many players will kill for fun.

I've rambled on long enough, hope you like (some) of my suggestions!

Quote:Original post by Riviera Kid

Quote:Original post by jikbar
Another thing, dying shouldn't be taken lightly. It should be very hard to come back from the dead. Since killing another person means being hunted down and killed by the police, not many players will kill for fun.

i totally agree. If you think you might die on a quest find a wizard with the skills to raise you and bring him along. If you dont get raised you start the game from scratch. I would implement a "Humanity" stat so that if you did kill someone this would drop. This would effect many things, like your appearance, spell set (good -> evil), eventually you would be bannished from some towns.
However if you fought with a PC you would knock out the other PC and then you are given the choice to kill or leave. The idea being, if you die - you werent playing the game with much thought and you suck. If one person is doing very well and rises to the top way beyond the skillsof most (and is evil scum) then the PC's should flock to have him/her eliminated.

Honesty could be a another stat to deter thieves.

Its a matter of the designers closing off loopholes and providing enough repecussions for players actions. Ive seen a MMORPG (UO) ruined for tens of thousands of new players because the company was too lazy or too greedy to pay programmers to fix their game and provide balance/counter-measures to abusive players. (Ive calculated that similar issues cost them 50,000 players x 6 years x 12 months x $10 -- do the math -- you could have bought the programmer time needed with only a small part of that).

A system needs to be able to come down like a ton of bricks on players who
intentionally causes grief for another player (making the penalties severe enough to nullify those players ability to cause further disturbances). At the same time such a system needs to prevent the griefers from employing it to their own ends.