Final Wipe and Lot Selection

Its an interesting notion. Will control points be beefed up to be such great impediments that they will prevent land rush access? My hunch - and this is just a hunch - is that if control points are meant to be much harder than they are today, they will not be tuned up to such a harder level until after the initial land rush is completed. If not, if the control points are made impassable for low level solo players now before the land rush, well, bring the popcorn because it will be a sight to behold here in the forums!

 

I shan't.

Also not true of me.

 

We know you're special Rufus besides you can't be the keeper of Dawn's keep without keeping your arms open

 

I, personally, love love love this game. It was a bit odd a few releases ago, but its growing into something really amazing. I hope that devs will be able to realize the amazing potential that game has and won't turn it into a complete sellout, like so many other MMOs are today. While F2P business model brings a lot of profit to publishers, it is an utter degradation of the gaming quality.

 

Generally, margins on F2P w/ MTX titles are razor thin... a 1% conversion rate is very good (Meaning you get Any money at all from 1 of 100 players)... a 2% conversion rate is a big hit... a 5% conversion rate is a blockbuster.

 

People assume there will be a great land rush. It will be much less than that. Each tier will have two days duration. So if you are a Lord, the game will have been open for 6 days. Everyone will be able to log in and create their characters from day one. When your time rolls around, you will have had plenty of time to get to your camp sight and plan your route to your second choice if someone beats you to it. In any case when your time opens, you will be at an empty lot because you have scouted your choices to see if anyone in a tier above you has already claimed. The strategy and key is to be able to hang around your lot looking disinterested or hiding some way till the last moment. What fun!

 

An afterthought (sorry).... In SPO mode you will not even have to hide.

 

Personally I think you're better off not to hide. I know while Im looking for my possible lot locations...I will choose 3 or 4 and if someone is already sitting waiting at 1 just before my time slot, Id rather just move on to the next lot on my list, can't be bothered with the click fest/chance of losing. I'm sure a lot of people will do the same.

Of course, if its a prime lot in say owls head....then you will have to play who 'who can click the fastest', unless of course you are a LOTM getting a row lot (which is GONNA happen). I'm not even gonna bother with trying to place my Town house in a NPC town...think Ill just try and get a decent PRT town...thats my plan anyhows (as long as they do upgrade the PRTs).

 

Nor will I charge to live in my town.
Everyone is at a different level of experience. Playing and learning is an extreemely rewarding experience no mater what level one is in real life or in game life.
I also got my hats as a very very nub game player. Just as in earth life I have worked hard on things I wanted to do and learn, failing often to do it. So it w ill be in this game. Whether I am a nub or and oldie my opportunity to have fun and to learn is up to me whether it is choosing a lot or not. I'm looking sooo forward to the entire process for I also know there will be many people ready and willing to help...even learning how to choose a lot.

 

Phew, just read through all these pages. Lots of great information and entertainment throughout. Original Kickstarter backer but have not done much in the Alpha testing other than a few hours here or there in some of the early builds. I have now put a good 7-8 hours into build 27 and am really enjoying it! I want to thank all the helpful people and great posts to point people in the right directions. When it is my turn to pick a spot to use my deed on I will be looking at a POT. I believe my picking group is 82 if I read correctly. I look forward to adventuring with all of you in the upcoming months!

 

Sorry if I missed this, but do we have to log out / log in to place our houses when its time for our group to go? Will there be an in-game notification announcing its time for each of our group, or all groups, to place a house? Can we just stay logged in, check the time, and click our lot stones when the clock ticks over?

 

A thing that I have been wondering. In an effort to meet the July final wipe deadline, a number of the NPC towns are being cloned though it is said that they will be revisited to make them unique later.

The problem is that players will have moved in to those towns so how are they going to be made to look unique without uprooting people? (I'd prefer that but the people who move in to those towns might not be so happy about it) I'm concerned that towns could end up looking the same like how Braemar and Soltown are essentially identical. (This is another reason I'm not a fan of the final wipe schedule)

 

https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...-august-happening-too-soon.46663/#post-515492

 

@DarkStarr addressed this in the most recent Hangout of the Avatar. The PRTs (To differentiate from the story-line essential NPC towns) will initially be clones of each other. They will then later be differentiated, but, and this is the important part, the locations of the Lots in the template will not change. This will allow Portalarium to switch out the template without disrupting the residents.

 

[Edit - derp, diddnt see I got sniped above ]

I have another idea for lot selection solutions:

Lets allow playtime invested in "pre-final-wipe" testing contribute to lot selection group. In my opinion, a player that has donated $1000 but never tested (except for the 5 mins it takes to get the rare hats) has made less of a contribution than a player that has donated $100 but plays constantly, provides feedback, and helps uncover bugs. I have a multi decade career in software development, and know first hand that this sort of crowd-sourced testing is far more valuable than a 4-figure sum of cash.

Naturally, those who have donated tens of thousands of dollars are the ones who truly made this game possible, and I do agree that they should reap the greatest reward (I am no where near that level of monetary contribution, so I say that relatively unbiased).

However, they have to have some kind of record of each account's login time and activity, even if that implies grep'ing a giant pile of server logs (good lord I hope not). I think the community as a whole would benefit from this being factored, at least somewhat, into housing lot selection groupings. There are many lower tier players who have invested large amounts of time in nearly every aspect of the game - overworld map, exploring each and every zone, testing out as many skills as possible, uncovering and reporting exploits, testing all the crafting recipies, etc, and this is priceless data.

There are also many users who admit to barely being involved in the pre-alpha culture, and are just waiting around for the final wipe and lot selection. I dont mean to devalue them as players, and am in no way negatively criticizing their choice. However, they have not provided valuable contributions to the testing phase of this game, so shouldnt be included in this suggested "reward." There are even more backers who have never accessed the forum, and may not even have participated in the super-simple rare-hat grabs of the prior releases. I am very grateful for their monetary contribution, but feel there is still considerable value to be addressed in participating in the pre-alpha culture and development.

This not only encourages greater stress testing, bug reporting, feature development, and overall game culture development, but gives those backers who simply cant afford to make large donations/backings a bigger representation. Port only has something to gain by having more and more and more players active and engaged during pre-alpha testing - fail fast and often! Without the most-active and most-engaged players during this pre-final-wipe phase, development would be slower, less directed, and less stable.

Maybe this could come in the form of - "every 20 hours invested = bumped up a lot selection group" (I made that up off the top of my head, the devs/producers can decide the formula). Players would have to be actively engaged - significantly building up skills, crafting lots, decorating houses, questing, logging interactions with NPCs, accessing a multitude of scenes, whatever, just not AFK or standing in one spot macroing against a gust ball.

At the very least, those of us who have invested a large amount of time in the pre-final-wipe phase should get some sort of reward, like a small ultra rare house deed, or a rare pet, heck Ill even take another rare hat .

 

This would be a basic alteration of the terms under which the early investors made their contributions to the development of the product.

 

Will there be enough lots in NPC towns whether cloned or not for all backers? Or will some backers be forced into player run towns?

 

This all sounds good if you have not pledged very much but played a lot. Unfortunately its not what Portalarium has advertised so won't happen.

 

Well it could go on a gradual basis - like you can only get bumped up to like "middle tier" lot placement, and no play time bumps you up into the "upper tier" lot placement. So like, total off the top of my head example, your a modest Ancestor level pledge, but you played 40 hours in R26, 50 hours in R27, 30 hours in R28, 20 hours in R29, and 40 hours in R30... you get bumped up to the Knight level lot placement group.

I personally am in that so called "middle tier" of lot placement, and I currently have the advantage of playing a crapton since my freelance contracts are late on payments (thus I stop working ;-) ), so just saying this suggestion doesnt help me out that much. I do think it might make some of the "lower tier" lot placement folks happy, provided they contribute a hefty amount to stress testing the game.

Besides, people are also suggesting let the row-lot-only tiers go first, which was also not Port's description, and I also think thats a great idea.

Completely understand if that wouldnt fly, especially for lawyer-bro reasons. Just another idea I had this morning.

Another suggestion: Give "upper tier" lot placers the option of allowing a "lower tier" placer to swap places - in exchange for some kind of rare gear or something. That might be a PITA to code into the system tho.

 

Yes, +30% more than required. This has been stated repeatedly for more than a year.