Title Deeds and Ownership flags, allaryin, 2006-09-27 03:46:06

Vopisk and I had a discussion tonight about how to make notions of property ownership work happily. I'm closing all other related threads in favor of this one. Behold the chat log.

Vopisk: furniture should be pretty easy
Allaryin: yes
Allaryin: there are two problems with furniture
Allaryin: first, it needs to be difficult to just haul around willy nilly, but
still needs to be portable
Allaryin: second, it needs to be possible to attach furni to a room in such a
way that people can't just walk off with it
Vopisk: that's easy enough, allow it to be "locked" to the room
Vopisk: then just write an on_get() to check if it is locked or not
Allaryin: nod
Allaryin: but we need an elegant way for people to nail their furni down, and
then to retrieve it if necessary, etc...
Allaryin: is not a codewise issue, that's easy
Allaryin: i'm thinking from a ui perspective
Allaryin: also, along those lines...
Allaryin: 4 - ability for people to transfer building/furni ownership
Vopisk: well, there we have it, we just need to make items have "owners" which I
believe the code is already there for
Vopisk: a piece of furniture should become the property of the building that it
is in and thereby owned by the player that owns the building
Allaryin: that's ... not a bad idea
Allaryin: hmm
Vopisk: so the owner can move their furniture willy nilly without hassle, people
aren't allowed to steal furniture and if you transfer a "Deed" for the
property, all the furniture still in the building is transferred as well
Allaryin: cascading furni ownership to the building is a good idea
Allaryin: and yes, deeds for building transfer are generally what i'm thinking
Allaryin: so... if you remove furni from a building, it then just becomes
unowned until placed in a new building
Allaryin: only problem then is outdoor furniture
Vopisk: deeds are easy enough to do, I'm thinking you'd create a blank scroll
(or buy one) then go to the building (probably inside) and deed cottage
scroll or some such
Allaryin: i've written stuff on deeds
Vopisk: true, patio furniture would be a slight problem
Allaryin: it's bigger than patio furni, but yeah, that's a good example
Vopisk: what are you thinking for outdoor furniture?
Allaryin: any sufficiently large object that is movable but mostly stationary is
furniture
Allaryin: statues
Allaryin: water barrels
Allaryin: etc...
Vopisk: right
Vopisk: hrm
Allaryin: outdoor crafting areas
Allaryin: archery targets
Vopisk: we could do last-touched ownership...
Allaryin: hmm?
Vopisk: the last person to possess the object is flagged as its owner
Allaryin: nod
Allaryin: so only owner can pick it up
Vopisk: that person can then GIVE the object to someone else who can say "load
target on cart"
Allaryin: but if you _give_ it to somebody else, they can use it
Allaryin: nod
Allaryin: only problem there is the whole ... BIG furni thing
Allaryin: i really don't want people to be able to pick up and carry bookshelves
around
Vopisk: right, so we overwrite give, not to check inventory of the player (on
these large objects) but to check room inventory, then it's a matter of
transferring ownership and not actually handing someone the gigantic
statue
Vopisk: this lets them, as I said, load the object onto a cart or something for
transport
Allaryin: nod
Allaryin: vehicles probably can't go through doors very well
Allaryin: we need drag command
Vopisk: hirelings would probably work well for "extra muscle" in lifting and
moving these large objects
Allaryin: don't think hirelings are necessary
Vopisk: drag could work
Allaryin: go ahead and allow people to move furni themselves
Vopisk: drag statue to cart; load statue on cart; mount cart; drive west
Allaryin: 'drag', 'load', 'turn/push'
Vopisk: it works
Allaryin: the only thing is ownership
Vopisk: well, we don't have a transfer command yet :p
Allaryin: 'grant' ?
Vopisk: grant works
Allaryin: grant barrel to frank
Allaryin: ... ooo
Allaryin: you know.
Allaryin: hrm.
Allaryin: for furni/vehicles, that works flawlessly
Vopisk: yes it does
Allaryin: only problem then is buildings
Vopisk: which deeds cover flawlessly
Allaryin: i really like the idea of paper deeds
Allaryin: it'd be nice to be able to just grant a building to somebody as well
though
Allaryin: perhaps we write deeds as a secondary/optional method of transferral?
Vopisk: true, but especially within the boundries of a city, it's probably best
to have some form of title of ownership
Vopisk: plus, deeds work if you can't be in the same room as the building and
the other player
Allaryin: yes
Allaryin: and we could allow for deeds to large vehicles and such as well
Vopisk: so if I want to sell a lakefront cottage, I can just give the deed to
the local real estate agent and wait for someone to buy it
Allaryin: easily extended
Allaryin: yes
Allaryin: so the shipwright has a few boat deeds for sale, etc...
Vopisk: then of course, just as easily take it off the market if I decided I
want to keep it
Allaryin: nod
Vopisk: yep
Vopisk: you buy the deed to the "Queen of the Oceans" and set sail
Allaryin: the big thing with deeds is that i don't want ownership of the deed to
equate ownership of the property described
Allaryin: a deed is a way of transferring ownership
Allaryin: it's sort of a one-use item
Vopisk: right, the deed disappears once it is used to transfer ownership
Allaryin: so, you can't steal the deed to the farm
Allaryin: so just 'use' deed to claim ownership, you think?
Allaryin: oh. here we go.
Vopisk: Hrm well, in the case of estate agents, we really don't even need that,
they can eat the deed and transfer ownership
Allaryin: no. i want agent to be no different than any other merchant
Vopisk: a player would probably have to turn a deed in to an estate agent
(notary) to make it binding
Allaryin: hmm
Allaryin: here was my thought:
Vopisk: k
Allaryin: craft deed (mid-level writing recipe)
Allaryin: use deed on property to associate it
Allaryin: give deed to person
Allaryin: they then use the associated deed to claim it
Vopisk: works great
Allaryin: the deed object is then 'filed away' by the ownership goblins or
something
Vopisk: so you just need really, two variables to be stored on the deed,
building/vehicle in question and then new owner
Allaryin: not even
Allaryin: just the item it points to
Vopisk: just building and whoever uses it after it's associated wins
Allaryin: the old owner's name should appear in the description
Vopisk: *nod*
Allaryin: but that's aboot it
Allaryin: hrm...
Allaryin: mutex
Vopisk: yeah if you read it it should be something like, I, <name>, hereby
transfer ownership of <distant name> to the undersigned below.
Allaryin: i create a pair of deeds to my house
Allaryin: sell one
Allaryin: wait...
Allaryin: use the other to reclaim it
Allaryin: how do we handle mutex issues?
Vopisk: make the building know about the deed...
Vopisk: like they do with cars, you can have ten titles, but only the most
recent counts
Allaryin: ok... to associate a deed with an object, we search for existing deeds
on the same object
Vopisk: yep
Allaryin: i don't think we should allow you to invalidate a remote deed
Allaryin: just be VERY careful with the things when you make them
Vopisk: this is why I think that ownership should transfer instantly
Allaryin: so if a deed already exists, we just disallow you from creating a new
one
Allaryin: likewise, the 'grant' command checks if a deed exists for the property
in question, and denies teh transfer until the deed is destroyed or
used
Vopisk: right
Allaryin: i like it
Vopisk: but how does a player validate a deed before they buy it to be certain
it's good?
Allaryin: it's simple. it's elegant. it's probably 200 lines of code
Allaryin: any deed is guaranteed valid
Vopisk: so deeds cannot be invalidated then
Allaryin: if the deed exists, it is the only way of transferring the property in
question
Allaryin: only way to invalidate a deed is to destroy it
Vopisk: and if it's not a deed, it's just a blank scroll
Allaryin: no...
Allaryin: it'd be a 'blank deed'
Allaryin: you'd 'craft deed'
Vopisk: that's what I meant, it has no writing on it though
Allaryin: but it'll be obviously not associated with something, nod
Vopisk: so there can be no confusion
Allaryin: right
Vopisk: I like it

craft deed, allaryin, 2006-09-27 04:05:42

Recipe for title deed:

Ingredients
1x piece of paper
1x bottle of ink (+)
Tools
1x quill (+)

(+) These ingredients won't be required at the outset, but are the expected way the recipe will evolve when the time comes

Skills
** Writing

Deeds won't thus be immediately craftable by players, but we should allow for some mechanism for players to acquire blank deeds for cheap. Either make it a government function (buy blank deed from the CH bank or something), or we let Nestha handle it.

deed invalidation, gpfault, 2006-11-15 19:10:04

IRL, a duplicate deed that is out of date is invalid.

Make it so that only the most recently crafted deed has any effect on ownership.

I still like the idea of stealing a deed and signing it...would give an incentive to keep it under lock and key...and would make nice loot for rogues.

give vs grant, allaryin, 2006-09-27 14:41:24

After some convincing by Acius, I've decided that the property ownership transfer functionality should just be rolled into the give command.

Reasons:
1 - It makes sense in English (give house to bob)
2 - There's already a wiz 'grant' command
3 - It covers the case where there is an ownership flag on a held item as well (thus making the ownership flag and transfer options truly universal)

So let it be written. So let it be done.

So say we all., garvin, 2006-11-20 23:31:47

Faram.