PETITION/POLL: Please Portalarium put a hard cap on sales of Player Owned Towns

Discussion in 'Player Owned Towns' started by Spoon, Jul 15, 2015.

?

What do you think?

  1. Yes put in a hard cap @250

    88 vote(s)
    65.2%
  2. Yes put in a hard cap @275

    2 vote(s)
    1.5%
  3. Yes put in a hard cap @300

    3 vote(s)
    2.2%
  4. No cap is necessary, the more the merrier.

    26 vote(s)
    19.3%
  5. Who cares?

    16 vote(s)
    11.9%
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  1. Spoon

    Spoon Avatar

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    "Disclosure: I own a POT myself."

    From the wording of this update:
    https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/?p=51875
    We are now at 230+ player owned towns sold. So many that there isn't any room on the overland map and so many that the devs are uncertain whether they will have time to put them all in before E1 launch.

    From my own humble opinion we have already reached and passed the limit where Player Owned Towns by their sheer numbers alone has gone from being a great asset to the game, to something that might end up hurting it in the long run.

    Especially if we now let new Player Owned Towns get access points from the NPC/Story towns.

    (Arguments to follow below I am sure, I could make a very long list with reasons and probably will below depending on feedback/result.)

    So please Portalarium consider putting in a hard cap on further sales of Player Owned Towns, when that cap is reached sell no more Player Owned Towns until after launch of E1.
    If you find out at a later point that more towns are needed add those as acquirable through game play / community quest lines so that base pledgers feel thery are also catered to.

    Also please set a hard cut-off date when one can no longer upgrade a POT and announce when that date is soon or it might wreak havoc with your placement plans.

    Thank you

    Spoon
     
    Last edited: Jul 15, 2015
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  2. Spoon

    Spoon Avatar

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    reserved
     
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  3. Asclepius

    Asclepius Avatar

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    I agree. POTs are a wonderful asset to the game, but they should not be so numerous that they choke up the landscape. And connection to another POT or a NPC town is cumbersome.

    I suggest that they be opened up again for the land expansion of E2 (and beyond)
     
  4. Jack Knyfe

    Jack Knyfe Avatar

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    My personal opinion is that they shouldn't add any new POTs in E2, and instead offer to migrate existing POTs into the new continent, and then open up POT purchasing in E3 when we have even more continent space.
     
  5. Ashlynn [Pax]

    Ashlynn [Pax] Avatar

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    I do wonder if they have done any quick experiments to physically plot the 230 POTs, the NPC player towns (however many that is currently and will be in the future) and the main story-related towns just see what the settlement density looks like. I have a feeling given the current scale of the overland map that it could end up looking very very busy. I might do that myself later - mark 230 evenly distributed points on the Novian map just to get an idea.

    Another issue I can foresee is a question of relevance. For some players - particularly those in single player mode - all those player towns are probably of no interest to them yet they will be passing them in the dozens on the way to where they need to go. =P
     
  6. Jack Knyfe

    Jack Knyfe Avatar

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    POTs won't show up in single-player offline.
     
  7. Andrew Rodrick

    Andrew Rodrick Avatar

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    I too believe there should be a hard cap on PoT's and to be perfectly honest I think we have already passed what is reasonable.

    With the 230 soft cap and now the possibility of additional PoT's which will not have any physical presence on the world map it just seems like the devs have looked for a way to extend PoT sales past what is reasonable and this is what they came up with, not that there is anything wrong with this but it must not have a direct effect on the integrity of the game, allowing connection to NPC towns may do this if its towns like Owls Head or Ardoris.

    I just hope the devs are sensible and measured about how many PoT's past 230 will be allowed because myself and others are clearly concerned.
     
    Last edited: Jul 15, 2015
  8. Ashlynn [Pax]

    Ashlynn [Pax] Avatar

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    I just quickly threw this together so people can get an idea of the current player town density. The yellow spots are the main NPC towns (I think I got most of them - I used the novia jigsaw map as a reference). The red spots are 200 POTs placed randomly on the map. So there would be another 30 but a bunch of those could be on the hidden vale island.

    Not included are points of interest (dungeons, etc), and the non-player player towns. It doesn't actually look terribly overcrowded. Yet.
     
  9. Spoon

    Spoon Avatar

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  10. Miracle Dragon

    Miracle Dragon Legend of the Hearth

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    Wow that map is full. I've said this else where, but I feel 'nested towns' goes against the 'houses are limited and in the game world' format that made this game special.

    Looking at that map of over 200 towns, I don't see limited housing.. and knowing that even more are nested and not even showing up on the map? This isn't what we were told. This is just wrong.

    Cap them off now. Scale the hexes further so they all fit on the map. Then concentrate on making these towns fit in the world and its story so we appreciate their existence, and finally, don't cover up all the natural corners of the map that make exploration special, with areas of wilderness and forests and deserts and swamp lands to explore. (Seeing town names will hopefully help with navigation, I just hope all the names are Lord British approved). ;-)
     
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  11. Xandra7

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    When I was under the impression that there were only going to be a few dozen PoTs, I felt they would be special places to visit ... but when the numbers reached over 100 I lost interest, and do not care how many more we get.
     
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  12. Lord Andernut

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    Nice visual aid Ashlynn, thanks :D

    Personally, I want to see more dungeons than towns - I hope that POT density is an indication of non-generic scene density :)

    If the "average" Player Owned Town is Town-sized (oh Portalarium and your Royal Founder Royal naming schemes) , which is 60% of the size of a metropolis, and the "average" number of residents is 81 (based on 81 village lots fitting, there will be row lots and there will be Town and City and larger lots) then based on 230 POTs this would be 18630 lots.

    A lot of people, okay some people that I assume are representative of a much larger group of people, have concerns.

    1) I spent $x to buy a deed from the store, or pledged for it, will these deeds be available second hand for 10% of their value?
    2) I bought a POT - will there be enough people to live in the POTs?

    I think... based on less than 20k lots in POTs and that I expect fewer NPC towns (with more row lots, granted), your lots will have value and your town will have occupants (if you want them).

    And this will hopefully drive enough demand that people are buying lots from Portalarium for the future episodes as well.

    Disclaimer: My math is not 100% invented and therefore can be treated as not necessarily being completely wrong.
     
    Last edited: Jul 16, 2015
  13. Sir Frank

    Sir Frank Master of the Mint

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    I suspect many are private housing, not intended to be visited.
     
  14. Umbrae

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    I am also worried about overland map saturation of POTs. 230 seems like a large number for the EP1 map, so I hope many of the ones currently sold will not be on the overland map ones to keep from overly cluttering things. I, personally, never would have thought so many of these would have been sold. Glad to have the money invested in the project, but holy cow does that seem like a lot and not sure I want EP1 that populated and developed. :)
     
  15. Aenra

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    So many things capped, no longer available, exclusive and so on, and we are still in pre-alpha. Is there not anyone with half an ounce of grey matter that can understand how this actually hurts this game? OP included, and i am sorry, just being as honest as usual.
    If size and geography is an issue, they must increase it. Or they should have thought of it earlier, prior to taking people's money. Not posterior.
    I am uninterested in your income, or what it avails you in terms of SotA. What i am interested in is the broader picture. It being that with Garriott finding it morally perfect to milk you off so he can launch a semi-proper MMO, semi-proper single player game, the ones losing are the players. You the milked whales included.

    Have you never been in other online communities? Have you never encountered the scores of people that (rightfully) wonder why to bother when half the things are beyond them, and a third of the remaining are by now unavailable? Have you never considered how the smarter customer (and judge not from yourselves, they do exist) just refuses to participate in PAID pre-alphas but will rather wait for the final product? If the message he's getting is 'whale/victim or gtfo' what will he do? If, assuming he accepts that, he is also told that he has to get milked before the product is even live or gtfo.. what is the conclusion he is lead to?

    And because the entitlement is strong with those having royally paid for it.. yes, you are entitled.. i am taking it a step beyond that and asking you to consider WHY, and with what a consequence, you are entitled of. And how if this continues, the one thing keeping everything together, community, will suffer.
    Stop being short-sighted. Community entails influx. Of NEW players. The practices so readily apparent from this company disallow that. People smarter than us (and i include me in the 'dumb' people) will just shy away.
    Start thinking. Stop spending. You are the very same person you were last year. All that's changed is that you are giving money to someone else.
    Are you here for a healthy online game? Or are you here to boost your ego? (both is not an answer. We have seen games that promote both. They too suffer)

    So again:
    If size and geography is an issue, they must increase it. Or they should have thought of it earlier, prior to taking people's money. Not posterior.

    This competition a-la 'my wallet is bigger than yours' has driven each and every game that's endorsed it to obscurity. And hard caps on 'whale content', aka do not just pay, but pay 'nao' or you'll be too late, are an even worse type of 'my wallet is bigger than yours'. Wake up :)
     
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  16. Dorham Isycle

    Dorham Isycle Avatar

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    So what if there are multiple towns per overland map icon. You travel to the place on overworld map, the button lights up, click it & another window with 20 towns in a list is displayed, click the one you want to enter.
     
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  17. TEK

    TEK Legend of the Hearth

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    One of the big keys there is the Player Towns that are there specifically to meet the needs of sold player lots through pledges on the addon store plus 20% for newer players. Portlarium can not necessarily factor in POTs player lots to meet the needs of the sold player lots are a POT owner could simply just place 1 lot and have the rest of the scene is their front yard. In order words, as it stands today there is already a horrible urban sprawl. It is not like this problem somehow crept up on Port as this concern was brought up at the very least the day it was announced and in person at the roundtable discussions in Austin when there was only 50 POTs sold.

    Also, the decision to force future POTs to link up to other mainland POTs only compounds the major problem I have with the pay2grief ability to Ban players from POT scenes, which would in turn prevent those players from entering all the linked up POTs.

    If I was a POT owner I would be very livid about this series of bad decisions that devalue POT ownership and give them a potentially bad reputation.
     
    Last edited: Jul 15, 2015
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  18. Stryker Sparhawk

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    [Edited slightly, but still regarding NPC city connections]

    Connecting POT Cities to NPC Cities always seemed to be answered in a 'Not in Episode 1' -- with respect to the boat routes, aka, the circuits between Xenos/Ecterer/Aerie being the prime examples... but does this mean that Overland connected POTs, or even POTs not showing on the Overland map -- yet connected to a Overland showing POT, can be connected to a NPC city destination if it is in range?

    Can there be some thoughts presented about connecting POTs to NPC cities, as a portion of the POT owners will consider:

    NPC cities can and will have trainers, unless the plan is never to place the trainers in NPC cities.

    NPC cities will have NPC building amenities which are conveniently located just a zone away from a connected POT.

    If the plans are still evolving, I will fully understand.
     
    Last edited: Jul 15, 2015
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  19. Spoon

    Spoon Avatar

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    Good point. I should have made it clearer in the OP that I was refering to Player Towns sold in the store. Not Player Towns that could be acquired through game play.
    Also the more POTs are sold the less chance there is for POTs earned through in game means.
     
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  20. Jivalax Azon

    Jivalax Azon Avatar

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    It is certainly an interesting situation. I think like many here when the concept of PoT came out I loved it and thought it was fantastic. The guild has at least one and ties to several. However, 200+ on the current map is a bit much. It just doesn't have the space for it to seem "wild" and "unexplored".

    On the other hand, everyone who wants and can afford a PoT should have something. For a while subterranean PoTs were discussed. Personally I like the idea. So maybe PoT is a stretch but "Mine Complex" sounds nice. "Cavern System"? Some could be teleported to (though I am less fond of this concept). More islands could be introduced. Even "suburbs" of the metropolises. There are ways to support the numbers without ruining the landscape. I would hate to see instanced towns (only accessible thru a teleportation hub), but I would rather see that than a glut of towns everywhere.
     
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