Number of POTs - too many, too few and the dilution problem it may present.

Personally, I feel the vast number of POTs is spiraling out of control. Spreading out a thin crowd, regardless of intent, seems to propagate the feeling of lack of immersion and play-ability of this game. What do you guys think?

 

Yupp. Nothing to add here.

 

Once we have this:

POTs on the overworld map or off the overworld map won't be a problem. If it's a ghost town, it will have a small footprint and people will ignore it.

 

Not to be rude, but this is kinda beyond beating a dead horse at this point. They've already stated there will be around 200 actual POTs (already purchased) that will have overland access, and will allow others to be done with town-to-town access. With the announcement of the final wipe and the upcoming land rush in July, there's really not much else to be said. Once the virtual dust settles, and we see the houses placed, we can actually get to see and enjoy the communities and roleplay start to get going and actually judge it from there.

I don't think it's in anyone's interest at this late date for the Devs to go back and try to abruptly do a major sweeping change to the housing system. It is what it is, and I'd personally prefer they focus towards the rest of the game at this point.

 

This game is my dream game. I have been waiting for this game for a very long time. Why would I ever think of denying someone else their dream of owning their very own town. These Pot's will become very valuable assets in the future. Of course now they are not complete as is nothing else . As it has been stated numerous times, this will be an on going game and many, many things will be added in the future, of which I hope is a very, very long future. Pot's do not intimidate my game play , nor do they influence it in any way. Pot owner's will play in their way and I in mine. I do not see a vast waste land of empty space, why ever would you invest in your very own town, unless you intend to use it?

 

Unless people are stubborn enough to stay within their own (empty) towns, I'm pretty confident that the population won't be thinned out as much as some people expect. We're all on the same server and we're all going to congregate on a few towns.

 

My big problem is still with the way nested towns are set up. Owl's Head already has three wagons to places that you can't see on the map.

Not a big fan of sprawl on the map, but if the big open areas of wilderness that are in the game now remain there with limits then it isn't a huge problem.

I'll be happy when more continents open up and we have more map space.

As for NPC towns being empty, I think there will still be a lot of reasons to go to them, and there will be a lot of people who don't even have houses so will be hanging around towns. Though IMO whether NPC towns continue to have a lot of traffic especially depends on future design decisions by the dev team. I can see taverns being hubs where you can get food, hear gossip, meet people to form parties.

 

I would prefer if there was always at least one scene between towns.

 

Wow, post got moved to a non used forum.

 

Too many frustrating things to say about this subject. That's all I'm going to say. Excuse me as I go listen to Frozen - Let it go..

 

It'd be nice to have a feature to see where people are at in the world at launch. Doesn't have to be numbers persay if they don't want to, but more of a hot - warm - cold system for just these areas? 200 player owned towns seems like a lot, I imagine one or two will be populated on a regular basis.

 

And this masked things better because?
They will still litter the map and they still will be ghost towns.

 

Welcome to Dead Horse (That's my town. Don't bother going there.)!
The number of towns visible on the map is fixed, so I don't agree that it's spiraling out of control.
The busy towns will become known, and you'll hardly notice the rest. I have a feeling many of the holdfasts are for private groups, and aren't intended for the larger population to visit. It only impacts your immersion if you let it. Ever look at a real map? Lots of tiny towns around Kansas that nobody ever visits except the people that live there. Doesn't make the world seem less real to me. Same for New Britannia.
I think you're making this out to be more of an issue than it really is.

 

The goal would be to make unpopulated towns have a smaller footprint. If no one lives there, it might be a very small patch of grass. If a few people live there, maybe it's a building. That kind of thing.

 

Wouldn't us posting in it make it "used" though?

I think the better description would be....."post got moved to correct forum"

 

There are a couple of points to consider when looking at this.

The first aspect is that Portalarium has promised that there will be enough space in NPC/PRT's come R32 to cover the entire amount of deeds sold through pledges and the add-on store, plus 30%. Which means that there will be a large surplus of spare land at launch - by my calculations the amount of claimable land in PoT's will at least approximately equal the amount that is in these NPC/PRT's, potentially there being 3 times as much claimable land than deeds pre-sold for $.

However, that is just looking at the population that start with lot deeds (around 5 or 6 thousand players). You then need to consider the other 50 thousand backers that don't currently have deeds, and also how many new players will sign up when they start campaigning (true game launch). One can assume that many of these players will eventually end up with enough gold coin to purchase a lot deed in game, and will need to settle. It is at this stage of the game that these ghost towns could start filling up, and there could indeed be a land shortage until episode 2.

 

And, the tools that town owners need to fully build out their towns won't be in until after July, so many may continue to be ghost towns until launch.
Except Dead Horse. It will always be a ghost town.

 

The number of POTs is one thing but then take into account how this sets up a Fel/Tram split community on top of that because of a portion of POTs being PVP enabled and a portion that are not. There will be those on both ends that just won't interact with the other.

 

Will many towns intended for general population become ghost towns? Yes.

Is this intended? Maybe no.

Will many ghost towns be so because the owners don't care about visitors/tourists and just enjoy their own land? Most likely.

Is this intended? Sure.

Will many towns intended for general population become sprawling hubs of events and trade and fun? Absolutely.

Is this intended? You can bet your bottom parts.

What would you call POTs whose owners want to succeed and fail, while others will thrive and flourish? Survival of the fittest.

 

And that's perfectly ok. In fact, the way Portalarium is going to sort us into instances will make it that way, and has been the plan right from the start.