Roleplay Motivation Components

Introduction
The ideal sandbox game expands on the roleplay power seeking motivations found in the Minecraft game. Such motivations are required to keep players in the game after they have created their landed estate. This mix of power motivations is similar to the mix of character motivations found in good novels. In a good novel, how these different characters interact within various situations keeps the reader engaged in the developing story. A good sandbox game design is like a good novel which character motivations replaced by player association power motivations. These power motivations are:
 * 1) Economic Power (wealth accumulation)
 * 2) Crafting Power
 * 3) Magical Power
 * 4) Military Power

The Economic Power Motivation
City States can become very wealthy if well led and so they are the core of the economic power game. They also have potentially large expenses. City-State wealth comes from its central market portal to the online store and its concentration of player run in-game markets. Without taxation this portal sells in-game resources at a 30% discount. Cities may tax these portal sales as well as local market sales. They may also impose property taxes. On the other hand, they can also pass out dividends to their members if they have profits in excess of expenses due to portal taxation.

The idea is that player produced items will sell more cheaply in-game than they will in the online item store yet the online store will always be there for convenience and as a backup in case the local markets fail.

Markets will cluster in cities because of this portal and because all in-game items have to be transported in carts pulled along roads with the transport efficiency determined by road and cart quality. This imposes a time cost so players will tend to cluster where transportation is easiest and the markets most active. Roads will decay over time so they must be maintained. River transport is another option. Tunnels may also be constructed to aid in transport.

A city’s daily income and current financial situation will be constantly available to all its members and records kept of all transactions. All spending and taxation must be approved by the city’s leader and its treasurer. City profits may be passed out as dividends to city members or they may be used to improve the city by buying resources, hiring talented builders, or fortifying trade routes to distant yet rich resources in dangerous lands. The city may also sponsor events which bring people into the city and make them want to settle nearby. The goal of city improvements is to encourage players to use their markets and hence increase the city’s overall income.

Besides offering incentives, cities may actively seek to degrade the commerce of competing cities. A city might hire military orders, magicians, or craft guilds to directly or indirectly attack  the trade routes of rival cities by using their respective special abilities. The diplomatic game of making friends and isolating rivals is expected to be a major part of city-state competition.

The richest and most productive resources will be out in the dangerous lands so every city state will seek to acquire those in the safest yet lowest cost way possible. They will have to fortify trade routes and make alliances with the settlements out in lawless lands.

The Crafting Power Motivation
Crafters make things and a group of crafters can make powerful game changing machines. These machines can create auras which affect player and non-player character statistics over some area. Powerful aura machines can even weaken fighters so that they are completely ineffective when near the machine allowing them to be killed by even unarmed player characters. Machines can be built to automate physical defenses or they be be built for attacking (catapults). These machines will be needed to help protect dangerous land trade routes, settlements, and mining areas. Machines can also be built for automating resource gathering.

Making these powerful items requires collecting rare resources and making them into high quality components. Then a group of crafters must gather together and craft with specialized machines in a coordinated way. These rare items would tend only to be found regularly in high volume city markets. While some of these rare items can be found in very dangerous areas,  magicians can create them by transmuting less rare resources. Some required items can only be provided by magicians.

Crafting guilds aiming for elite status will need to provide classes to their newer members in order to teach them how to craft as a group at an advanced level. If the developers add a bit of real chemistry and physics to advanced crafting then some real knowledge of these concepts would also need to be taught. Crafting as a profession will appeal those who like experimentation and creating complex items. Crafting guilds will provide a sense of progression to crafters by defining crafting skill levels for their members.

The Magical Power Motivation
Magicians transmute things and a group of magicians are able to transmute game level resources such as the land itself. Group ritual magic can curse or charm unclaimed or communal land. Such magic can affect the spawn of MoBs and animals, affect the weather, and at the highest levels, even change small areas of common or unclaimed biomes into something else. The distance of the land from the ritual circle affects the probability of success.

By changing the land magician also are able to indirectly change the spawn pattern of resources and non-player characters. So an elite magician group could bring some rare resources to their doorstep without them having to venture into dangerous lands. The ability to form land that spawns monsters gives magicians an indirect offensive capabilities. Changing an enemy’s common land so that is spawns poisonous snakes is an example. Likewise magicians can do spells which counter such curses.

The power of magical rituals depends upon items on the characters, items within the ritual circle, and upon doing the ritual correctly. These advanced items require some advanced components from crafters.

The role-play of temple associations centers around events which solve mysteries because magic is mysterious. Deities and spiritual forces allow wide latitude in coming up with story arcs. Perhaps some mysterious writing is starting to appear on land which has changed so players need to determine what that means. Temple associations should attract those players interested in creating roleplay story arcs for others. To do this effectively temples will need to give classes on mythology. Like crafting guilds, temple associations will provide a sense of progression to magician in training by defining magical skill levels for their members.

The Military Power Motivation
Fighters destroy things and a coordinated group of fighters can destroy the safety of trade routes if those routes are not well defended along their whole length with defensive fortifications and machinery. As mercenaries powerful groups of fighters will be in demand by competitive city-states.

The problem with player versus player is that battles are surge prone. Almost never are equal armies pitted against each other in battles because of time coordination problems. Instead a group gets together and goes raiding against soft targets. Wars consist mostly of raiding and counter raiding. The best solution is making desired targets available for battles only at certain short periods of time during a week in the hope that near equal armies will gather. This is very artificial. An alternative solution and one that is used in the game Eve is to require a siege to take at least a day giving the opposition time to rally their forces. This requires the attacking army to either be really large so its members can work in shifts or requires a long term time commitment on the part of the attackers. This sort of approach is just not practical for the casual player.

So the military power motivation in a sandbox game really boils down to Player versus Environment (PvE). Raiders will mostly be attacking player placed fortifications. This requires  balancing the defense and offense such that a perfectly designed defensive setup can never be defeated. Defensive fortifications can only be defeated if they are imperfect or too far apart. Those fighters who are killed lose their armor and weapons because they are damaged in the fighting. This balances out the destroyed or partly destroyed fortifications.

The roleplay of military orders will focus around training in the various combat arts and will provide ranks to their members.