BACKGROUND

Marie Antoinette constructed the Queens Hamlet (le Hameau de la Reine) in 1783 as a rustic retreat. Though most of this private estate was built purely for pleasure, the Farm which was completed in 1785 was an early example of micro-farming and the Queen was very proud of the contributions it made to her table during the hard economic times. The little farming community was run as a model farm and the Queen, with the help of her estate manager, Valy Bussard, proved herself to be a competent and efficient ruler of her private kingdom.

QUEENS HAMLET CO-OP CHALLENGE

To establish a farming community complete with happy & healthy members and a thriving roleplay economy. While individual achievements are certainly encouraged, the co-op model places more emphasis on success as group.

The Hamlets status (economic & otherwise) will be measured & reported on a quarterly basis. Perhaps we could also have something like the farmer of the quarter or most improved farmer awards at the same time?

From peasant to bourgeois to noble, everyone is equal in the Hamlet. This provides some interesting ideas for roleplay as, for example, a duchess could devise an interesting back-story explaining her farming activities which are certainly not considered to be normal for her social status; Really, I was commanded by the Queen to raise these sheep!

STRATEGY

Here are some preliminary ideas. It is intended that game strategy will evolve along with the community. The idea is for us to interact and have fun so if we manage to do that weve succeeded!

This should be challenging. Were starting from scratch, no roleplay money, no food, no energy (no clue in some cases!). The Queen will provide some basics so that we dont starve to death in the first few weeks but her contributions will be limited. Likewise, the use of L$ to buy our way to prosperity is very much discouraged. There are some objects that must be purchase with L$ (theres just no way around it) but otherwise lets see if we can accomplish the rest through intelligence & effort J

Well be using the G&S System which includes a very simple & free HUD and encourages crafting. It tracks ENERGY which is expended during interactions with some (but not all) objects. You start with no energy and you have to eat to gain strength (did I mention theres almost no food to be found yet).

We should determine our own definition of Healthy. Right now Im pegging it as maintaining an Energy level of at least 50%. Perhaps as our community matures well be able to raise the bar on that.

The HUD also has a Coin control system (roleplay money). It looks like each player is given 15 coins to begin with.

Bringing money into our brand-new economy can theoretically be done in two ways. You can grow and then sell grain to a Grain Merchant or you can mine and then mint gold. Unfortunately a gold mine has yet to be discovered in our fair land.

There is a third option which involves attempting to sell our products to other G&S players. Perhaps we will explore this in the future but right now buying & selling locally through our own market seems like the best way for us to interact as a group.

Its anticipated that we will be bartering for the first little while as we work to acquire those roleplay coins. This is the reason that co-op fees are currently paid in product units instead of coins.

We currently have one source of water but we cannot raise livestock until we have enough grain to feed them. So it appears we should initially be concentrating on grain production (in the meantime Im buying myself a fishing rod so that I can raise my energy level).

After grain, Im thinking perhaps grapes & honey should be our next priorities. There are many different types of crops (the system was originally developed for Gorean players so some items are not applicable to a French farm) but limiting our options in the beginning may prove to be more efficient and cost effective. It would be interesting to have the community vote on agricultural expansion allowing everyone to have a say in the direction we take.

I look forward to discussing strategy with you!!

CO-OP ROLES

All Queens Hamlet Co-op Members will have access to community amenities including a kitchen, crafting stations, wells etc.

All members who pay regular Co-op Fees may sell their goods in the official Queens Hamlet Market. In addition to a market stall they will receive an allowance of LI=10 to allow them to setup a small shop.

Co-op Fees are currently paid in crop units. As the community matures fees will evolve to include livestock and/or coins.

Co-op Fees will not be charged on fishing or honey unless the units are to be sold in the market.

~ Regular Member ~

Co-op Fees: One unit from each crop tended due on the 5 ^th , 15 ^th , & 25 ^th of the month i.e. approximately one half of their total production.

~ Tenant ~

Co-op Fees: One unit from each crop tended due on the 5 ^th & 25 ^th of the month i.e. approximately one third of their total production.

Queens Hamlet Tenant: Residents of Provence Coeur Est or Provence Coeur Est2 (i.e. Tatiana is your landlady) the Duch de Coeur can request one community plot to be located near their home. Tenants may purchase additional plots and land rental fees will apply.

Duch de Coeur or Rocca Sorrentina Residents: These tenants may purchase their own crops. Land rental fees will apply according to the specific land owner.

~ Estate Manager ~

MikhaelDokuchic will act as the Estate Manager. All co-op fees and donations will be payed to him and he will be the only co-op member allowed to sell co-op goods for L$. Any L$ received will be used to purchased items to benefit the community such as crafting stations. If a miracle happens and there are excess L$ it will go towards funding the Historical Communities and Royal Courts NING site.

He will not participate in farm labour but will basically function as the community bank. The intention is that the bank will circulate funds via grants, loans, purchases etc.

~ Duchesse de Provence Coeur ~

Tatiana will be digging in the dirt along with everyone else. She will also be responsible for producing the Quarterly Reports and looking after day-to-day considerations.

~ The Queen ~

Essentially the deus ex machina Is looking forward to the first tapestry produced from her farm. We all hope that she understands that first we have to grow some grain, raise some sheep, shear the sheep, spin the wool and then weave the wool. Goodness knows how long that will all take especially if were committed to staying healthy the whole time AND not spending unnecessary L$.

MECHANICS

A Queens Hamlet group has been established. If youre interested in playing, please contact Tatiana to be invited to the group.

Tatiana will also help you find a plot to farm. Most crops require two buckets of water a day. They take an average of five days to produce one unit but may grow faster if you expend energy on them.

Crops can be tended by anyone in the group. They can also be harvested by anyone in the group. Your plot will be clearly identified and well use the honour system (hoping that nefarious thieves wont steal your just ripe units). You may make your own arrangements to have more than one person in the group help out with your crop(s).

Members can pay their regular Co-op fees to MikhailDokuchic by dropping the units into his inventory on the specified date. Again this is mostly on the honour system.

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Whew, thats a first rough draft. I hope some of it makes sense and please excuse me for referring to myself in the third person

Looking forward to your thoughts! Please dont leave me digging in the dirt all by myself.

Tat

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Proprietress of Tatiana's Tea Room ~ Owner of the Provence Coeur Estate ~ Webmistress of this site

updated by @tatiana-dokuchic: 24 Oct 2016 08:16:13AM

Congratulation Tatiana this is a well planned and organized project. It sound fantastic and I can tell it will be for anyone who will join, this concept (not related to Queen's hamlet or as organized as this) was used in Antiquity for the time I lived there and was lot of fun. The G&S system is awesome but if you are interested you should contact Jacon Cortes as I know Antiquity got their very own system now and it could allow to support Antiquity community and prevent you from spending lot of L$ in G&S system. (Not sure what cost would came out of Antiquity system tough)Keep on this amazing work!

Thank you, Louis-Francis! So glad to hear that you enjoyed using the G&S system. I think this has loads of potential and should be a lot of fun.

Thank you also for the tip about Antiquity. I'll contact Jacon for more information.

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Proprietress of Tatiana's Tea Room ~ Owner of the Provence Coeur Estate ~ Webmistress of this site

Many thanks to everyone that has given me feedback so far especially since this Intro turned out to be rather large. I wanted to get my thoughts down and apparently there were a lot of them

A new group has been created here on this site and I'll start breaking up the information into more biteable chunks.

((meanwhile I've learned how to fish, cooked & ate until I was healthy and started growing some grain - it's been a busy few days))

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Proprietress of Tatiana's Tea Room ~ Owner of the Provence Coeur Estate ~ Webmistress of this site

I love the idea of a busy and interactive village, but unfortunately I'm one of those people who dislikes replicating too many necessities of RL in SL...The health meter does not appeal although the production and marketing side can be fun and certainly provide some reason for RP interaction. Limited SL hours get eaten up too quickly, even without having to stop and farm in order to eat. I can see it being a lot of fun, though, for those who aren't farming and cooking in RL! And I am certainly willing to buy, in the context of an RP market event.

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Antiquity Hedgewitch

Speaking as a long-time player of TheSims2 I have to say that thisG&S meter is a piece of cake in comparison. You only have Energy, not Bladder or Hygiene or Mood to look after- whew. Sometimes I use the TS2 cheat codes because all of that personal maintenance can be really frustrating.

I think it's a good thing that the G&S meter is flexible enough that you don't absolutely, positively need Energy to participate.

On the other hand, in this context I'm really going to be encouraging people to eat because the production & sale of food is a huge driver for this communityactivity. If you're"willing to buy, in the context of a RP market event"especially if you're willing to buy reasonable quantities of food, that accomplishes the same thing

On a related note ...

I believe that one of the reasons community activities like this tend to stagnate is that it's human nature to want to "sell & profit" (even when dealing with rp coins).Unfortunately, if everyone is trying to sell and no one is willing to buy frustration occurs.

This is one of the main reasons for the introduction of Co-op Fees as those fees will be used to "buy" therefore rewarding people for their efforts and hopefully keeping them interested.

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Proprietress of Tatiana's Tea Room ~ Owner of the Provence Coeur Estate ~ Webmistress of this site

I agree with you Tatiana, from previous experience if you don't "force" people to eat you will either have people focusing on mass production for profit or people will purchase stuff to encourage at first then lose interest in the game. And as a big player of the sims game it is true it is a bit complexes to keep high but I do prefer the SpellFire meter for his complexity and the RP opportunity it gives compared to G&S, but in your concept of harvest G&S is the best choice.

I can definitely appreciate what Tiamat is saying. She knows what she wants out of SL and meters aren't it.

I'm glad you brought up the idea of profit.

Forothers new to crafting systems & meters I think it's a good idea to try and manage expectations. One very important point is that youcannot make a RL profit doing something like this. This is the reason that I've disallowed sales in L$ so that newbies with $$ signs in their eyes aren't disappointed.

I guess people can get caught up in the idea of a RP Coin profit but even that ishard to achieve. As I understand it, in the large G&S markets merchants are undercutting each other driving prices to the bottom. Typical SL behaviour that extends to the SLM.

So why would you do this?

If you love the challenge of crafting this activity will probably bevery appealing. I like catching fish for dinner - go figure There are only so many tea parties I can attend (and I run a tea room!) and I absolutely suck at devising/participating inroleplay. As I see it, craftinggives me & others that are like minded something to do inworldthat we really enjoy.

It also gives usthe opportunity to startfrom scratch and devise a strategy to prosper; in this situation, prospering includes all of those willing to play along which is why I'll keep encouraging people to consume the products produced ie. eat.

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Proprietress of Tatiana's Tea Room ~ Owner of the Provence Coeur Estate ~ Webmistress of this site

This sounds fascinating! I know zip, zero, nada about meters and such, so will go read up on it. Bravo, Tat ....this really does have a lot of appeal.

Thanks, Lorsagne!

This meter is an excellent one to start with If you have any questions just give me a shout.

There's lots of information provided by G&S and I'll also try to do a "For Dummies" series (with a lot of pictures) as I figure out what's going on. The first one Crop Growing ~ For Dummies has just been released.

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Proprietress of Tatiana's Tea Room ~ Owner of the Provence Coeur Estate ~ Webmistress of this site

I think the possible educational benefits are important. Those of us with historical interest want to know how life worked in the 1700's or whatever other centuries we play in. An examination of an historical economy can be made far more meaningful through a tool such as this that gives people reason to become actors within the economy. It can also shed light on current socioeconomic challenges in less-affluent corners of the modern world. (The participants I would most like to see are social studies teachers-in-training!)

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Antiquity Hedgewitch

I agree, Tiamat.

Look at the challenge of creating a tapestry. First you grow the grain, then you raise the sheep, then you shear the sheep, then you spin the wool, then you weave the wool. You need a source of clean water and you have to find a way to acquire the grain, sheep, spinning wheel and loom. You also need to keep yourself healthy and find the time to do all of these activities. No wonder working in a community was a life saver.

This example can be repeated for carpentry, blacksmithing and culinary adventures including vinting/brewing.

In today's "available on demand" world we often ignore all the steps that go into the production of items. No wonder Minecraft is so fascinating to kids

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Proprietress of Tatiana's Tea Room ~ Owner of the Provence Coeur Estate ~ Webmistress of this site

Greetings Tatiana

I am so happy to hear you will be starting this project. As has been mentioned, Antiquity does use the G&S system. It is a great system and does add i think to the rp. We also have a home grown system we use side by side with the G&S. The ACS System was created by Beatrix and has some wonderful additions. I will get some up to date information on the ACS and post for you to have a look.

I have not tired the HUD from G&S, but I will give it a try. We have our own Coin HUD that we had made for us a few years back. We also have some vendors that work with the HUD, but have not used them much at all. WE hold a weekly market night on tuesdays where we sell stuff.

Anyway i can be of help, please let me know. I hope more will use the system. I think it will give us all another way to interact with each other.

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His Royal Highness Jacon Cortes de Bexar Prince of Antiquity, Duke of Cumberland, Duque de Bexar, Duc de la Valliere, Marchese di MSB

Bonjour Jacon

I think it's wonderful that Antiquity has experience with G&S. We'll have to brainstorm ways of working together. Right now the QH has a few fish and some grain growing (and no money) so it will be nice when we are able to buy/trade for exotic stuff from our historical neighbours )

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Proprietress of Tatiana's Tea Room ~ Owner of the Provence Coeur Estate ~ Webmistress of this site