Eurogamer: $12,000 castles and $2100 deeds - inside Shroud of the Avatar's booming housing market

Eurogamer just posted an article about the housing in SotA:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2016-02-02-shroud-of-the-avatar-real-money-housing-market

Some interesting quotes:
- "We're going to say if you're a 40-hour-a-month gamer, which we think is a very active gamer, you should be able to be a property owner for no load," says Garriott. "We think at that point your value to the community is all we need from you."
- "We haven't set the final number because we don't really know what the value of a gold piece is until the economy has been running a little longer," he says. "But the intent is that if you're an active player fighting and mining and trading, you should be able to pay for a row lot - it's plenty, plenty of space for you to collect and display all of the trophies of your existence - with 10 hours a month or so of your time." There will also be the option of paying rent with real money.

The ability to pay your property tax with real money has come up before a few years ago, so it's interesting that this is still in the plan.

- "If you wait until the game has launched, we're going to make sure there's plenty of property for you to have access to," Garriott says. And in the future the world will grow with new cities and areas via game expansions every 18 months or so - that's the generous estimate Garriott gives me (though he'd love one every year).

Also, it's been said in the past that the Episodes will be yearly, but now it seems they're being more conservative and suggesting 18 months. And while the game will be "in development forever" as everyone loves to repeat, the concept of self-contained episodes is still there.

- "Real Estate is the most precious material of the game. We don't want to swamp the world with new territory, with new lots, that suddenly those lots people paid a lot of money for are worthless; conversely we don't want [prices] to sky-rocket either. We will do our best to make sure it doesn't get out of control."



Check it out and discuss below!

 

In a way that was always available from the beginning? Tax free lots - you paid RL$ to pay for your property tax/rent.

 

Can't see anything new there to be honest. But it's nice to see that everything is still as it was planned.

 

And people wonder why this game has a reputation of being pay to win among gamers.

May the reason we don't have char customization be that they'll put that in the cash shop, too?
"Only 200$ for the mustache" ^^

 

This is all standard issue. I don't see anything weird here. Old news.

 

Most likely they will have the option to pay real money for lot taxes after all existing pledges are expired in this Aug.

Which essentially, it's the same thing as paying extra for these rental fee lots IMO right now.

 

So let me get this straight. You win by being able to pay your property taxes with RL money? I pay my property taxes with RL money now but it doesn't mean I just paid to win at life?

 

Naw, the only reason we don't have it yet is because the dude working on it had to do other stuff. It was mentioned in one of the hangouts, I think - forgot which one though.

 

Good article.

Seems like the devs are trying to have it both ways "If you wait until the game has launched, we're going to make sure there's plenty of property for you to have access to." Yes, it's called POTs. Rats Nest will have 524 Row Lots.

The real question is, will there be plenty of deeds? My answer to that question is no. We'll be completely out of deeds some time after the wipe, assuming the game is fun to play and people generally like it. If they don't like it and the game isn't fun to play then we have bigger issues to worry about than housing.

Some people will read that quote and say "See they said there would be housing available at launch!" I can see this quote being used incorrectly for the rest of the games existence. Oh well, I'll be in the game having fun not reading those posts.

 

This information is new to me and sounds interesting:
"There will also be the option of paying rent with real money."

 

Here we see a perfect example of the gaming press construing persistence as launch...
@Katrina Bekers
Proven right not even within a couple of weeks. How does it feel?

 

That's a problem with perception and the stigma of the Early Access tag. I'm hoping once the game is "permanent" with the final wipe, there will be more involvement towards how the housing market stuff all pans out. I think it will start settling down more as newer players get in, and actually get to see what lots and land are still available. Plus, the Devs have said that each new episode will have more and more landmass, since Novia is only the first continent so far.

 

How could they not? It's been the "flipped switch" since 1995 that determines if a fantasy themed multiplayer online game is live or in production.
Every single one has used persistence as the flag, toggle, or switch. (to be clear, I'm agreeing with you, Spoon, the gaming press will always consider July 28th, 2016 as the launch date for SotA, regardless of the wiggle words used to claim otherwise)

 

Nothing new here, old info ... whats to discuss?

 

I thought it was a pretty good article. It seemed mostly unbiased, or biased positively toward the game. And, it approached some of the higher ticket items with at least an open mind (instead of going with the knee-jerk P2W reaction with a big pricetag).

 

They mentioned an idea like this shortly after Kickstarter.

There was a big negative reaction among backers here, not just because a lot of us don't like the cash shop -- which, honestly we don't -- but also because a lot of us think players being able to personalize their character's appearance is a very important thing for the game.

 

In the end, this game will be catered towards people with high disposable income and nothing else to spend it on but online gaming. Players who only bought the game and never touch the cash shop will play a demo version, basically.
I'm not surprised people even defend the system, having sunk a substantial amount of cash into it already. More power to you.
Just don't expect this game going mainstream like this.

Personally, I pledged the amount I needed for early access and have no intention to up my pledge.
Look at what we have here: The skill system is far from being next gen. It's very generic and copy&paste in many aspects (same skill in various trees in different colors with different names, for example) and a lot of the core gameplay is clunky. Sure it is, you say, it's pre-alpha. But at the same time, a lot of resources go into developing cash shop content or new minizones to run around in.

I wonder where the priorities lie and so far, my suspicion is that, if they plan to deliver in June, the remaining time will not suffice to make the gameplay as such fun enough to be worth it for players like me, who came here for playing an Ultima game.
Almost no (and very boring) solo content, combat very whacky, the skill system and gain rather cheap, not newbie friendly at all, parts of the skills not accessible to new players (like Taming, for example), coupled with horrible animations (fighting on ice or why is my char gliding through the area?).

That's the reason I'm worried. I don't see progress where I feel it has to get better much faster. More cash shop content for the bored upper middle class players can come when the GAME is done. Unless THAT is the game and the other things are just icing on the cake.

But then, it's not Ultima. It's The Sims with some added stuff like swinging a sword or casting a "random generic fireball in different color with different name". And that's lame. And that's what you read around the net in gaming forums and it's not something that can even be defended against, because it's fact.

 

I don't understand why if one player uses cash to pay rent and the other uses in-game gold it's a big deal. What's to be upset about?

 

It depresses me that we've rushed PVP and combat skills to please only a few *literally invisible* supposedly huge pvp guilds that we don't see in game or on the forums.

And now everything indicates that they are gone...

we should have had priorities set on the delivery, the intro experience, the OWM strategy elements... ethical concerns.

Makes me sad cause I like the art and the feel of the game so much

I was flagged pvp for many releases and never was attacked once even if I flagged as soon as I created my character.

 

Some people feel like they aint got the time or money.

It's the principle thats a bit overworked, and the meta-gamers using cash earned from RMT markets in other game just to make a profit here by stealing the deeds and "prime land" from honest players like me who put ALL they could in kickstarting this game.

It's all a matter of priorities I guess but at the same time, I'll say it like this.

I'd rather pay 20$ a month to play the game and have no meta-gaming at all, the darth vader calculations are a vicious spiral. People inevitably get alienated.

People wonder why you can't like in UO purchase a tent for 10000 gold and place it wherever you want in the wilderness.

It's a kind of betrayal of how the title evolved, so to speak