1) It costs 5000 HPD and 1000 AP to create a group (Numbers made up). The person who does so becomes the leader
2) The leader can invite people to join the group OR the leader can accept applications to join the group
3) All members of the group are aware of the following things:
3.1) The names of the other players in the group
3.2) If a process is owned by another member of the group
4) Members of the group (perhaps only a subset chosen by the leader) can send messages to the entire group
5) The Leader may spend 500 AP to hand leadership to another player in the group
When I first read this, honestly I was in a bit of a hurry and my initial thought was - so what is being proposed here that is new?
I think that to make a valid proposal for groups you need to make a comparison to what can already be done today and then to be explicit as to how that would work in the same or in a different way for groups.
Of the above the only thing which cannot be done today is point 5 - insofar as handing over ownership of the group would in principle also hand over ownership of the group server (something implicit, not explicit) and it is to my knowledge impossible to hand over ownership of servers.
Point 1 - You can create a group by gathering people around - this is an administrative point have to look into the effects.
Point 2 - Again an administrative point - I don't need an in game mechanism for this if I want to have members working together.
Point 3.1 - Simple to do by telling members of the group who is in the group. On a related note I would say that I would NOT necessarily expect everyone to be aware of who is in the group. As group leader I prefer to decide who is a known member (known to other members of the group) and who is a member who is not known to the other members. There are a number of reasons for this but in a hacker world I don't see the imperative need for everyone within the group to know who is in the group.
Point 3.2 - I assume you actually refer to it being an in game message when similar to the [owned] tag which appears next to your own processes, something such as a [group] tag which appears instead when a process is owned by a different member of the group. Fair enough but a bit unclear - you can easily let others know (e.g. through an offgame forum) which processes you run where, though admittedly it would be a hassle.
Point 4 again - a question of organization. Any self respecting group would have out of game channels of communication which would allow all to be aware of the actions - though admittedly having an in game mechanism would be nice.
Basically - all I saw to your initial proposal was the drawbacks, not any advantages.
The basic question is how exactly a group server works. Today I can easily create a server, pay for it and give the IP to my friends, let them hack it and voila... group server.
The question is what can be done beyond that point in particular how does the server behave with regards to:
1) Expansion of the server (only the group leader? All group members? All group members but a different cost than normal expansion? How do you handle gold membership benefits on group server expansion?)
2) Research on the server - nothing was mentioned at all on this until the last post - Should everyone be able to research, only group leader etc. (If all can research you could say have 5 members do 5 research processes on the same program to end up with a bigger program)
3) Admin access to the server - All members automatically? Decided by Group leader? Members who hack get access?
4) Password reset on server - Do all members automatically retain admin access? Do they lose admin access? (related to the first question). Who can in fact reset the password on the server (aside from someone with a sniffer daemon
)
5) IP changes to group servers - is this even possible? Limitations on the IP changes? Who can start an IP change? How much would it cost? After an IP change are all members still automatically aware of the new IP or do they need to be notified by the Group leader (both have advantages)
6) Does a group server function as a normal server? (I would be tempted to say "yes" the only question is how much access to functions group members would have - for people outside the group it is simply "another server to hack" whilst for the actual owner of the server it is simply a server shared with friends, unless someone can see a reason why this should not be so).
Another question - is the group leader the only one who can create group servers? Can other members of the group create group servers too?
While I do have my own answers to most of the questions above, I simply want to put the questions on the table first - then to work through what is reasonable, what is needed and what is doable to see groups of some kind implemented. (hopefully
)
I find the idea of a group registry which can or cannot be hacked to be very interesting, but a bit premature as I am not at all sure what you (ZacQuicksilver) are suggesting for a group to be (I think you have a more clear idea, but it's not coming across quite yet)
