Join us for the next Hangout of the Avatar this Friday, July 18th at 3pm CDT. Starr and Richard will be having an in-depth discussion about Player Towns in Shroud of the Avatar, so you definitely don’t want to miss it! I’ll be taking your questions in the chat-room, and in advance right here in the comments.
What kind of flags will we have available to test during R8?
Will we be able to have trial runs in beta with our Player Owned Towns (the ones purchased from the add-on store).
Can we get your official clarification on the difference between the towns (Player Run Towns, ie: braemar; and, Player Owned Towns, ie: paxlair) and how you see both of those getting tied into a viable place in the single player online / offline game.
Will we have any control over naming the subset of towns within our towns (IE: if Vengeance has two towns that operate within it that are always at war with each other… would there be a way to name that on our explorable maps separate from the hex name of Vengeance)
Do you guys have an idea on how to control players who own a Player Owned Town and go MIA for 12+ months to the point of their account being “reverted” and their items being banked… what happens to all those lots and players that are within their town?
I’m sure I’ll have more but those are what I’ve collected while talking to people… look forward to it! Cheers!
QUESTION:
Richard, you’ve been outspoken against “endless neighborhoods” as they create “boring worlds”, so how will you mitigate these issues as the number of player towns grow but end up have no interesting content in them (i.e. not being run by active guilds) and/or only exist to serve as endless rows of housing and are constantly empty of activity or ultimately abandoned over time?
Your original assertion against them, here:
https://shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/my-main-concern-after-playing-release-1.5234/page-2#post-94166
I have questions below that relate what Smack posted.
Will player ran towns be on the printed cloth map?
Great question.
I hope the plan is not to have housing scenes all over the map, are your guys balancing the map so it won’t be cluttered with villages and towns.
Will there be a limit to the number of player towns in the world? Will there be a limit to each of the levels of player towns available?
Please tell us as much as you can about NPC’s in player owned towns. If I have an NPC, can I make it a guard that will defend my home? Will there be any limited scripting for NPCs? (for example: turning the lights on and off?)
Can a PC Owner instruct their NPC’s to kill other players on sight?
Will player owners be able to acquire additional NPC’s (or monsters) from the add-on or in the game that they can use to populate their HEX (town)?
This would be amazing if it did, being able to identify given users by name, faction, and other affiliations to define if you should be hostile to that user.
Since “most” players are not online 24 hours a day…how do you plan to help PC Towns not appear “dead” for the majority of the time? Are there any plans to support PC Towns with “attractions” that will give strangers a reason to stop by and hang out? For example, maybe the owner of a player owned town could pay in-game gold to have craftsmen or entertainers stop by. Or perhaps players could purchase special assets from the add-on store (or buy them in game for gold) that would allow them to do things like “Have a Circus” or a “Parade”, etc…
I remember in Fallout 3, there were roving merchants that went from town to town and were not stationary. This might give an incentive to visit the locations these merchants go to.
Will player owned towns have any resouces?
Will player owned towns have any monsters?
Will the player owner have any control of resources or monsters? (for example, could the player turn off resources or monsters in his/her town HEX)?
Will the game list all PC Towns literally as “towns” or might we have a little more flexibility? For example, I own a holdfast but it’s not going to be a “town” it’s just going to be a Tower. Much like the Tower of Isengard is not a town. So on the map it would be great if other players would know that it was a tower and not expect a fully functional town when they arrived.
Will players have the ability to control what kind of music is playing when people visit their town? Or might they have the option to block all music (for all players in the hex) in order to set the proper tone for the scene?
Will player towns have decay based on unique visits per month and/or require a certain % of the lots to be occupied, etc? Upon decay, the town disappears from the map.
Or, perhaps monsters take over the town and the players that owned it has to reclaim it?
Actually, as a follow-up to the second part of that question: will all player-towns (even if active / not yet decayed) be attacked / sieged just as NPC towns are?
How will player towns interact with the capability of monsters to invade towns, will it be the same as regular towns?
my question is similar, if people in player towns are in danger what will be at risk. eg, houses or property outside can be destroyed.
Great topic! Question: Thoughts on what will enable a player-run town to have a ‘brand’? What will enable a town to develop some renown for something – in game – when it is one of 50 player run towns, instead of having to learn that brand about them in forums? Cheers!
I purchased my player town to escape the hustle of the “land grab”. My question, which directly relates to the possibility of my account upgrade, is will there be water front lots available? I appreciate your response in advance and much love to this gaming community. ♥
Will player towns be able to have keep and/or castle lots? Under what circumstances might they be allowed if any?
In addition to Smack’s line of questions, what are your long term plans for Player Towns when the game map expands to a larger size? Will owners be able to transfer their ownership to a more favourable location? (with the original location perhaps being retained as an NPC town)
As originally described in the Megapost, the Open PvP flag meant that as long as you’re flagged Open PvP, you can PvP anywhere in the game. Does that apply to Player Towns (that don’t have any explicit PvP setting)?
Similarly, it has been said that Player Towns might be able to flag the entire town as a PvP zone so that anyone entering it will be flagged for PvP. Can a Player Town do the opposite and force players to turn off their PvP flag upon entry? If so how will that work with cool down timers, such that the PvP player will be barred from entry into the strictly non-PvP town?
As player towns gain prestige, wealth and gain longevity, will there be a way to provide capital improvements to the city in terms of monuments, or improvements to the decorum such as founder statues, magical city lights, or other aesthetic elements?
Are there community based goals, ie a player town must raise x gold, x wood, x stone = town wishing well?
Will the player owned hamlets, towns or cities currently available in the pledge store have an in-game taxation or other form of upkeep? I’m tempted to buy a hamlet to hopefully make an interesting place for people to live, but not so much if I need to pay rent on behalf of everyone else.
Do owners have control of who is allowed to enter the town ?
Can players/guilds be banned from player owned towns ?
Will player towns have bank ?
Is it possible for a player to to upgrade a Player Owned Towns buy on add-on store once his/her town has been dsigned? What will happend if a player choose to upgrade his/her Player Owned Towns ?
Will player towns be removed from the store at the game’s release or stay ?
Will normal towns and player owned towns identicaly apear on the map?
Will towns be able to have a system like guilds to manage them properly?
1. We’ve heard that player towns will be based on a limited number of templates. What are the biomes/styles available to us? Is the “desert island” theme from Estercove one of them?
2. Darkstarr previously stated in the forums that the number of claimable lots will be limited in each town:
Lot Variance: There will be more lots than can be claimed in each town (limit set by town size), much like the player towns we have prototyped so far.
Does this mean our towns will be mostly “dead lots” unless we buy out and populate the majority of that space? That’s a fairly expensive and scary thought if all towns are sized like a Metropolis, but populated like a Holdfast (as an example). Will Portalarium size towns such that the number of “dead lots” is kept to a minimum at each tier?
3. Is there any chance Portalarium might expand the referral program to include town upgrades? Given my current pledge tier and the prices involved, it would be hard to jump from Lord Marshal to Baron 3 using $25 credits. However, those $25 credits could make a significant impact on a Holdfast-to-Hamlet upgrade. Would that be financially viable and beneficial for Portalarium?
Question:
Is there a limit to the number or time these will be available for purchase?
How do you prevent SotA from turning into a world of irrelevant and half empty look-alike ghost towns with inactive owners? How do you prevent the brand/attraction of player owned towns in general become ruined by oversupply and low quality/uniqueness of player owned towns? Will there be a limit for the number of player owned towns / town deeds available? Will there at least be a limit for tax free town deeds? What will that limit be?
Are all current player towns tax free? (I didn’t see anything that said otherwise when I purchased mine)
When will you stop selling town deeds (e.g. holdfast deed) that are cheaper than town lot deeds? Why should anyone bother to buy expensive deeds/pledges (higher cost per sqm!) for city/keep/castle lots if it costs just $750 to have your own scene on the map to combine as many cheap village lots as you want? What is the point of an expensive castle or pledge if everyone can have a holdfast cheap?
QUESTION: Can a player town owner hire NPC guards to enforce law and keep the peace?
QUESTION: Can a player town owner flag any player as an Outlaw or Criminal and be attacked by NPC guards?
If player towns can have PvP in them, how will you prevent entry point ganking?
Timers or safe zone entry point protection methods may be exploitable by those on the run!
This is a general problem (not only for towns) but a good question.
I really like the idea of these player towns will you be removing some of the npc towns to make room for these? As someone previously mentioned
Map crowding would be a bad thing.
WIll there be methods to upgrade towns later?
Will you be able to fish in a port/seaside/riverside town?
How much customization will we have over town design? Where do you see the line being drawn here?
Will our Town NPC’s be able to have dialogue or quests attached?
Will our NPC owned buildings have limitations? (Can it be a bank, a tavern/inn, crafting square, etc?)
Will we be able to have placables in our town – for example I want to build a port city, will i be able to have boats and docks as a part of the towns design?
Will our towns be able to have animals spawning?
Will we be able to spawn generic NPC Villagers or purchase other kinds of NPCs we can place in towns?
will Port Phoenix be able to have a giant statue of Lord British in it?
In general – how much power are you putting in the hands of the town owners here.
HOW MUCH will it cost the owner of a player run town per month/year rent wise. I am guessing we will be paying a rent on the towns
Even if not in release 1, could player towns have the possibility of having specific town improvements associated with them? Improvments could be built by the devs during the city building phase, and just have elements of the city turned off until the fees have been paid.
Referencing post:
https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/player-owned-cities-improvements.11902/
If I buy a town just for myself, can I just have my three plots and the rest open fields?
does the town owner get any of the taxes collected from the residents if we let people move in?
Q: Are the player town scenes all the same size, just the amount of space that can be used by lots being different?
Q: What level of customization will we be able to get to in the design of the land itself? Is the time alloted for our design session allowed to be used on things like sculpting out the land?
Q: Will we be able to do things like place log walls around the town? Have a graveyard? Gate entrances? Etc?
Will player towns or NPC towns as well have “jobs” to offer for players living near that town? like guarding etc.
How much input will we have on the placement? Can we request a coast biome, and be guaranteed it will be on the coast (and preferably in roughly the area indicated)?
I.e. if I were to ask for a coast biome town on the northern coast of the mainland, will it be certain it is going to be a coastal town, a bit like Kingsport, with water-lots (and piers) somewhere in the north?
Will it be possible to have separate permissions for a house versus the house basement? For example: If we wanted to use a row house as a shop, but use the basement underneath it as a storeroom / living quarters?
In player owned towns will the owner be able to see a time/date of when a house owner has last been online?
Also for metropolis it states 15 npc buildings in central square, what is the overall size of that square in the hex example (120×80).
Hopefully I’m not asking a question to which the answer has been given but here goes I would like to know if I was to purchase a town now and shortly afterward decide it’s too small and that I need a larger size is there an upgrade option available similar to the way you can upgrade pledge level? The FAQ section “Can a Town be upgraded? If so, how will that work?” talks only about the upgrading of a town after the release of episode 1 and doesn’t cover pre-release.
Can the NPC buildings be spread out or we stuck with them as a town “center”?
all this sounds awesome especially hidden towns, nothing better than finding something cool and unexpected or doing something in a process to acheive something of that caliber.
i want to be first in line to get my new britannia map bedspread.