The long delayed improvements to the website are finally here which means we can start turning on all the other automated and expanded systems we’ve been working on for the community. This will enable us to do way more to support our presence in competitive MMOs and focus on building a larger community. Our vision has always been to recreate an actual government and this requires administration that has never been worth it. With the new bots and website we can automate a whole lot of that effort streamlining the process of registration and all the other aspects of a feudal government.
Registration
Currently, users can use !register to have the SSR Bot message them privately. Soon enough we’ll be changing that over to a message that is sent on joining the server to explain the process. Additionally, the bot will also automate the !immigrate command to assign you to the correct rank, households, and SSR membership roles. MilitaryGamers.com will be treated as its own household in the future. Allies from Hyperion will also get a set of features to ease the burden on approving memberships for special circumstances.
As of right now the system allows us to automate and integrate a large part of the process, but there are still more efficiencies coming.
Website Profiles
Now members can log into the website and manage their own profile to tweak a few features. Soon we’ll be adding an awards section that will also be automated. Nominations and approvals will be integrated in with the bot(s) that we put out. You’ll be able to view an awards “shadow box” that you can link for public viewing. The plan is to also create a paper doll to show off your military uniform which will include your rank, any specializations, and a ribbon/medal rack.
Various forms and feeds will also be available on Discord and on the website to include resource prices, contracts, and other features we’ve used in the past.
Banking System
We’ve teased it a few times in the past, but we’re also working on the banking system that will come with three different currencies. The first will be a premium currency that can be redeemed for use in our online store to get discounts on stuff like Dungeons and Dragons books, dice, dice towers, miniatures and a whole lot more. The second currency will be for our flagship game at the time. This currency will reset with each game allowing us to create our own economy to either supplement or replace the game’s system depending on how good or terrible it is. There have been several times we’ve used this including Darkfall Online, but the good news is that we’ve created a system that will require much less administration. The third currency will be a persistent coinage that can be used in any game and traded between members freely.
The 2nd and 3rd tier currency can be traded up, meaning, that the lowest tier can buy into the middle tier and the 2nd tier can purchase premium currency. They can also be traded down in the same manner.
Other Integrations
On top of using Discord we can also pull in information from Steam to use for whitelisting servers. This will automate the headache generally associated with manually looking up and entering SteamIDs when you can just link it in Discord and connect it to your SSR web account. From here we can dump all of our member IDs into a file on the server or just let the game search our database for users to allow into the server. This is something we can also automate to completely remove the need for manual labor.
Future Game Development
Using this same set of systems we’re starting to test out features for our own game development efforts. The expanded economic, contracting, banking, social features, and other concepts are being tested for implementation in the MMO project we’re always working on in the background. The full on integration of Discord into an MMO as the social platform is something we’re exploring and the use of bots/automation is also a part of that.
Some games like ECO and Life is Feudal have integrated chat channels that share between in-game and Discord chat instantly. Using Discord in place of IRC or other chat systems just makes sense since we can offload those computing requirements and also allow people out of game to contribute to help channels or participate socially while not being able to log in to the game itself.
Planned Feature List
- Banking System
- Deposit
- Redemption for Gifts, Discounts, Exclusive Items
- Transfer
- Withdrawals (Fines, Fees, Contracts, etc.)
- Exchange (up or down tiers of currency)
- Steam Connect (Link your SteamID to your web account)
- Automated Registration/Immigration
- Automated Herald (hold court to announce awards, promotions, etc.)
- Awards System
- Profile Awards Display
- Paper Doll Uniform
- Nomination System
- Approval System
- Profile Awards Display
- Full Promotion/Demotion System
- Wiki Integration (Q and A bot that searches the Wiki for answers)
- Jukebox Bot (to play Spotify music)
- Contracting System
- Create
- Modify
- Bid
- Award
- Close
- Stock Market
- Generate resource prices
- Buy/Sell bulk resources
- Buy/Sell futures
- Allow Households and Companies to buy/sell stock
- Branch Creation/Deletion (automated role and channel creation for game branches)
