What is the intent to meet pledged lot demand?

@DarkStarr @RichardGarriott @dallas
DISCLAIMER: The amount of lots in this thread is being pulled from HERE. If this is inaccurate, please let me know!

At the moment it appears as if there are only about 45 town lots, which makes me quite concerned. Extrapolating the current 15 towns to the expected 40, we are looking at approximately 150 town lots in total.

From the backer amounts posted by Darkstarr in the main thread, there are currently 846 pledges ABOVE the Knight Marshall level. It is impossible to tell exactly how many Knight Marshalls there are, because they are in the same group as Knights (why is this, anyway?).

So, 846 pledges PLUS however many knight marshalls. From town lots up, at the moment, there are only 78 lots available in NPC towns. Again, extrapolate that out to 40 towns from 15, and you have... less than 240.

How do you guys intend on making sure that we get the type of lot that we pledged for? It is sure looking, at the moment, that EVERY SINGLE AVAILABLE town lot will be taken by the time our group even gets close to starting.

Unless I'm confused, which happens often.

 

Once again, @DarkStarr really needs to put a sticky up with all the housing information in a nice, clear format, so there's less confusion about this come Land Rush day.

 

Player Run Towns is the plan to house the rest of us that don't want Player owned town lots and can't get a lot in an npc city. There are still some npc towns/cities/villages are not in the game yet too.

 

SO.... essentially what Portalarium has decided is that unless you are BARON pledge or above, you have to live in a player run town? Because that's all the lots that will be available.

 

Baron isn't immune either, we have 147 dukes and 43 lotm atm that could possibly take the city lots in npc towns leaving us to PRT's too even if we go first or second in our tier. hehe.

*Edit* player run towns are not player owned towns. They're like the Holtrot/Aldwaters you see in game atm. No player can kick you out of a PRT.

 

I have to wonder if this has sunk into the majority of the community yet.

 

Well, the map is suppose to be easy for additional scenes/housing, so maybe it was part of the plan to cut and paste?

 

Glad someone/lots have found this issue before me and are on it. Good spreadsheet Ice Queen, showing my fears not ungrounded. I was unaware of PRT's ...Not as good as a NPC town of course...and a bit like a instance if looked at the wrong way, but better than i imagine being at the mercy of a POT.

 

If we have means to craft things like runes and recalls it won't be so bad, since even if you're out in the middle of nowhere you can give people a way to get to your shops pretty easily. If not, then I could see a lot of irritated people. At this point all we know is there will be a place for us all to choose from Npc Cities/PRT's, but we may not get the places we'd likely desire which is in Npc cities if those tiered above us decide they'd like them first. We don't know what the sizes of PRT's will be (Size of a Holtrot? Using templates of PoT's?), if they'll have different biomes, or where they will be as in will they be in the form of wagons or some other objects within the cities to keep from cluttering up the overhead map more? Or will they be on the overhead map? Some unknowns about it. Hopefully, when the next hangout comes they can put people at ease and answer a bit more specifically for those that might be worrying about these things.

 

The idea that the town lot I worked so hard to get by raising my pledge bit by bit will not even have the slightest chance of being in a real town is a travesty.

The news just keeps getting better.

 

I mentioned the same about runes and recalls a long time ago.... They were one of the best features of UO, amongst many best features i ever seen in mmo's..I understand how it contracts the size of the world and i think i said before that marking/recalling could work if you were only allowed to recall when you were within a certain region of the location. THis would cut down on regional jumping and hopping willy nilly about...maybe you could only recall within a region...as many times as u liked but if you wanted to go to a location in another region, then firstly you would have to walk there then once close can recall etc.

This would also gice everyone not in prime location a reason to build a shop upand have a vendor. Prime areas for foot traffic would still be best of course but people like to trot about and see whats about, but they will only do that on occasion, thus keeping the prime locations as by far the best. Would just give the little people out in the woods behind the hill a chance of selling something....once in a while.

 

This is why I'm reluctant to move from Knight to Knight Marshal. The town lot is really the selling point to me but I'd be disappointed to end up in a place I don't enjoy. I would rather spend the extra $500 and buy a Holdfast so I can ensure I get to live where I want which is what I'm contemplating doing. It has more to do with the biome than anything else for me.

 

PoTs looks like very good placement choices too, they can have many vendors and services and, if you are in a guild, your neighbors will be known to you.

 

There so many things that could happen for the residents of a POT that could leave them out on the streets. At least with Npc cities and PRT, the only fear of losing your lot space would be if you didn't log in or if you don't have a rent free deed, forgot to pay your taxes.

*edit* I'm not against the PoT's for those that have them or choose to live in them. I just can't put that trust in a spot always being there for me in a PoT, anything can happen and if I'm on the streets, I'm basically out a lot of money since I paid a lot for the pledge with the deed I wanted. With npc cities/PRT I don't have that problem or worry.

 

The question about Mark/Recall was first raised on December 28th, 2013.
Since then, there's been a few mentions of it from Chris, but nothing specific regarding implementation mechanics, IIRC.

The big question about the aforementioned Teleportation mechanic is: Will players be able to mark & recall, without frequency restrictions, into any housing hex they've previously visited?

If the answer to that is Yes, or the answer to that will ever be Yes, then customers need to know that BEFORE the land rush, to make an informed decision about placement location.

 

DarkStarr spoke briefly about the teleportation craftables here at about 2 hours 9 mins

 

I would point out here that at no point has anyone at Portalarium ever promised anyone that they would be guaranteed a lot in a major town. Only that enough lots would be available for all pledges and then some, which they have been saying since Kickstarter.

 

And you would be correct. Technically, they didn't promise anything. Legally, there is no issue.

That's not the point. They also didn't say that 90% (or whatever it is) of pledges, even royal founder kickstarter pledges, would have to have their lots in housing farms. They didn't say that unless you pledge $3000 or more, there is no way you will ever get a lot in one of our NPC towns.

Just because they didn't promise it, doesn't mean it doesn't suck.

 

One of the post-launch tasks in the list is making cloned scenes unique. I suspect copies of npc towns.

 

Yeah, it's basically what they've said for 2 years. It might be like this, it might be like that, but no confirmation. At least, though, that's the most recent information, so good tag, Ice Queen.

Personally, I would prefer both options they discussed (one way scrolls, as well as a more flexible "totally not mark and recall, mark and recall") to both be able to give away scrolls and be able to return to places I've found previously.