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#### Group lodges

I could swear I saw this mentioned in a previous thread, but can't find it right now... Apparently the devs were considering awhile ago giving groups a "physical presence" in the world by allowing them to have group lodges: homes that are owned by an entire group and accessible by all of its members (I presume). While running the group that I started, I was thinking that this would be an awesome idea, and I would like to present some ideas and arguments in favor of it:
1) A lodge should probably cost a fair chunk of money (more than a single person's home), and thus would pull a group together in obtaining donations to buy one. This would also allow only the more well established groups to be able to own one (that, and/or there should be a minimum number of members in the group for it to be possible to buy one).
2) The lodge could be decorated according to the theme of the group on some level (perhaps giving the group leader who bought the lodge the option to decorate it with existing art).
3) The lodge could contain useful items that can be used by any member, with some special privileges given to the leader and/or higher level members. For instance, this is what I was envisioning for the Animal Kinship Group:
A donation bin with a large amount of space, where people could donate meat and other useful items that any other member could take (perhaps with a sign attached suggesting that donations be paid back in the future)
Another donation bin where people can place items in, but not take them out unless they are the group leader. I can foresee this being useful in the case of contests like I am currently holding, where I am asking for prize donations that will be given to the winners.
People could also, of course, drop stuff on the floor for anyone to take or use (especially, in our case, live animals that can be interacted with by anyone).
4) The lodge would also be a perfect place for parties.
Not related to group lodges, but still useful: A personal mail box in front of people's houses where items (as well as notes) can be left would be helpful in general (and especially when trying to transfer items between people that may or may not be online at the exact same time you are...)

Posted 20 months ago by Shepherdmoon | Permalink

### Replies

- Or, when in a group, everyone can just buy houses in the same block......... Works in the case of my block, every house there that is already sold is owned by an FSR.
  Posted 20 months ago by KitkatCat | Permalink
- Instead of buying a lodge, what if you buy a plot for a lodge and then build it with group members? It might be nice to have some building projects that aren't open to everyone, and constructing a building instead of a street would add a new element to the game. It'd also give people a chance to donate more materials (like those dang ignots) and maybe there could be a special lodge building trophy. I also think it'd be neat for the lodge to reflect the stage of construction as people donate materials.
  Posted 20 months ago by leah | Permalink
- @leah: I love the idea of building the lodge! There could be a specific block set up for this, called "group lodge row", or some such thing.
  @KitkatCat: everyone owning houses on the same block isn't really the same thing as having one structure that everyone in a group has access to (without having to knock and hoping the owner will let you in).
  The lodge could also be a good place for posting bulletins about events/etc, or messages that are relavent to the group, and could be a physical place where people could sign up for membership without having to access the forums (there are actually alot of people that hate reading forums, and just won't do it). It would also be a good meeting place for a variety of possible reasons, which would be exclusive only to its members. Each group could determine for itself what it wants to do with the lodge, and I'm sure there are an infinite set of creative possibilities.
  I also think this would make groups a lot more fun, and more desirable to join.
  Posted 20 months ago by Shepherdmoon | Permalink
- Ooooh, I utterly love all these ideas. I think my very favorite is leah's about building a lodge with your group. Definitely hope some of this is in the works!
  Posted 20 months ago by RM | Permalink
- Put me down in favor of this as well. Back in the day (he said in his best Grumpy Old Man voice) when I played in some text-only MUDs the ones I was active in let us "create" our rooms and items. The more knowledgeable among us created whole apartment complexes people could link their rooms to. The lodge idea reminds me a lot of that, only cooler.
  Perhaps there could be a special door you could buy or quest for that would allow you to link to your lodge from your house, though the lodge could maybe have a public area on a street as well. That way, members could have easy access but the general public can check things out too and perhaps apply for membership or something.
  Posted 20 months ago by Hank Tudor | Permalink
- AAAAH I love it! This would be especially useful for my Easter Egg group, where eggs could be collected. This would be AWESOME. I think, to add on to the collaborative purchase idea, that there should be a "donation" option so you could donate whatever amount of money you felt comfortable with, to contribute to the purchase. It would all be pooled together and eventually would buy the lodge.
  Posted 20 months ago by Cupcake | Permalink
- Funny, I had the exact same thought last night and was going to post the idea here - glad others like it, now just need to form a group
  Posted 20 months ago by riscy | Permalink
- I am not sure about this. If I understand the idea (and there is no saying I do) not least since I currently go in and out of groups to see what they are like. However, my "not sure" is based on:
  1) thinking down the line: closed groups, us/them, could bigger/richer groups get grander lodges (i.e., more street presence and hence more perceived power in-game)?
  2) is this a way to introduce the guild-idea?
  3) what happens when I group "die"/inactive (not sure how to define this last .. do the lodge remain in the world?
  On the whole I am an easy dog to walk, but as a player that will most likely, and the in main, be playing when the vast majority of other players are asleep (due to time zone differences) and having encountered games with guilds, I find that I am hardly ever able to participate in anything a guild/group arranges and thus not in the "after talk" about how much fun it was (heck, I can not even get a foot in edgewise in a street project in here, something that to my knowledge do not require membership of anything), in the end is easy (though not your intention) to become "a lesser member". I would much prefer to promote "people skills", i.e. talking to other ppl in the game (difficult right now as no one seem to react to even a polite "hello"), get to know them better, make friends, do something spontaneous (be it: conga time (spinach optional), form a hug line, sow an entire communal garden, etc).
  I will, and often have, promote(d) the idea of mail boxes, be they attached to your house or as a mail box (p.o. box) in a post office in a given world.
  By posting this, I am not trying to put the kaibosh on the idea at all, just trying to explain why I personally am not sure about it right now.
  Posted 20 months ago by Lellie | Permalink
- @Lellie: Don't feel bad about what you posted: this is exactly the sort of discussion we should be having. The idea is rather half-baked right now, and we should think about working out any possible kinks.
  First, a preface: this is a feature that the devs said a long time ago they were planning on implementing. I don't know the status of those plans now: it certainly could have changed since the last time they mentioned it. I also know nothing about the details of how they were thinking of managing the lodges (or even if they got so far as considering the details). So, there could already be things in the works that we are not aware of. The ideas presented here might be useful suggestions for the devs, however, so it's good to discuss it.
  1) I could see the size of the lodge going both ways, and I'm not sure what would be best. There could just be a standard layout that everyone gets, or there could be a variety of increasingly bigger and more expensive lodges... maybe that would be good considering that a group of 300 people would need more space than a group of 10. I think that there should be a group member count requirement for owning a lodge in the first place (otherwise, a single person could set up their own group and buy one for themselves), and maybe even an age limit, where the group would have to have been around and active for a certain amount of time. Otherwise, we could end up being barraged with a bunch of lodges from unsuccessful groups that never gain any momentum.
  2) I'm not sure what the requirements would be to be a "guild" instead of a "group", but I see no reason to change the way groups are right now.
  3) I would say that if a group gets deleted, falls below the member requirement for a lodge, or shows no activity for a certain period of time, then the lodge should either disappear, or be boarded up with a "for sale" sign for another group to move into.
  As for your concerns on the timing of events: this would be up to each individual group (like it already is). I presume that as the number of players increases, there will be a large number of people from all time zones playing, and groups could accommodate this by holding multiple events throughout a day, all-day-long events, or events that aren't tied to a specific time (like contests that have a due date, but can be worked on at any time before that). As a member of a group, you would have a voice and be able to discuss your concerns about the way the group is doing things with the entire group. Also, groups are highly individual: each one can be anything that it wants. If you don't like the way one group is doing things, it's easy to leave it and check out a different one (or even start your own!).
  I love the idea of mailboxes too! I read that they will definitely implement those at some point (and even saw a picture of one somewhere...)
  Posted 20 months ago by Shepherdmoon | Permalink
- I'd like to see the group lodge be linkable from the group home page and vice versa.
  Conversations in the lodge would be real-time. Conversations in the group are asynchronous. Both communication styles help build group cohesion, and the asynchronous record is important for decision making in group whose members are in different time zones.
  I'd also like the group to be able to enforce a certain style of game play within their lodge. So that group admins and assistant admins could block and/or ban members. This might help with the request here
  beta.glitch.com/forum/ideas...
  It would be an excellent idea for the devs to develop a skill path beyond penpersonship that leads to police or some sort of in game official that can issue "citations" for "violations". The obvious path of this is to potentially create a Glitchovermet (not sure if that's the best combo of Glitch and government)
  I think it would be extremely important to allow more than one playing style within the game, and not have the "tyranny of the majority" control all game play. Allowing a group to have its own lodge, which you can be banned from if you don't play according to their unwritten rules, would give each group control over their own members without imposing those rules on all other members.
  I'm also really in favor of allowing a group to construct its own lodge, if they want to. What a great way for old-timers with higher level skills and newcomers with basic skills to feel like equal contributors to a group project.
  Posted 20 months ago by WindBorn | Permalink
- Sooo.... I would like to renew my plea to the devs that this remain on the list of things to do for the future, with further evidence of why group lodges would be useful:
  During tests (particularly this long one), most groups seem to be completely and utterly deserted in the forums, including ones that have time-crucial events happening (like the Easter egg hunt group, which seems to have fallen off the edge of the flat world map--I can only guess where it ended up...) It seems to me that they are usually only important to people when the game is down, and they have nothing better to do but haunt the forums. There are only a couple rare exceptions to this, where the groups are ways for old friends to keep in touch, like the FS refugees. I propose that group lodges ("a physical presence" of groups in the game) will keep people interested and thus keep the groups alive. Otherwise, I'm not sure that most groups will be able to survive the switch to 24/7 access.
  Posted 20 months ago by Shepherdmoon | Permalink
- I have an idea that came to me last night that goes along with this one a bit but might also be considered a new idea so please post your thoughts.
  How about a college/university? An actual building (maybe near Gregarious Grange similar to Bureaucratic Hall) with the skill of Advanced learning being accomplished after spending a given time period there. Or a place where you could hang out for a given time with consequences:
  1) If you just stand for a certain time patiently-you get a degree.
  2) If you drink hooch you get sent back home thus making it take longer to get degree
  3) additional degrees would be available after the original
  I don't know. Just thought it would be fun after a certain amount of skills or to learn others and such.
  Posted 20 months ago by Holly Waterfall | Permalink
- Another direction these group halls could go in could be game rooms. Like pool halls in a way. I can imagine it might be difficult to get the avatars to play a mini game of pool but maybe something easier to code like checkers or tic-tac-toe or something would work. It would be fun to go find a few friends slug back some beer and play a mini-game.
  Posted 20 months ago by Holly Waterfall | Permalink