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Property Ownership: sad state of affairs

Discussion in 'Release 58 Feedback' started by Kara Brae, Sep 30, 2018.

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  1. Kara Brae

    Kara Brae Avatar

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    Wake up, Devs! Take a walk through the many towns of New Britannia in R58 and ask yourselves why beautiful NPC towns like Aerie have so many deserted and undecorated properties and even empty lots in prime locations!

    Ask yourselves why you just removed 3 PRTs from the map because not a single lot was claimed!

    Ask yourselves why engaged POT owners are struggling to find residents for their towns!

    This game cannot live and thrive from combat and quests alone. It needs a hook to make it feel like home to the average player, but you are actively barring players from the most successfully implemented feature of the game - home ownership - by making it too difficult to achieve.

    To the early backers who spent a lot of money for the privilege of belonging to an elite class of property owners I say what were you thinking?? Did you expect this would mean a successful game? I myself spent a fortune (well it is a fortune in my eyes) for an Edelmann pledge and an Ancestor pledge and was able to claim row lots in both Ardoris and in Aerie with them. The Ardoris lot is a guild chapter house and the Aerie lot is an active residence. If I weren’t using these lots I should lose the use of them and some active player who would contribute to the beauty of the town should be able to claim them without having to spend a fortune. The Aerie lot I really wanted and missed claiming by a fraction of a second has never been decorated and has been deserted and locked since day one.

    Does that make sense to anyone to wants this game to be successful?
     
  2. Gorthyn

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    Agree 100% ! The whole property pricing regime needs a major overhaul with more realistic price levels being set in the store. What we have now is ridiculous if we want this element of the game and indeed the game itself to flourish.
     
  3. Innascual Inch

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    Agree with you @Kara Brae 100%. I paid a lot of money too for a pledge a fee years ago, but I would not mind if Port drastically reduced deed prices and taxes to get more people into homes and encourage more people to play.

    I see empty lots everywhere, and this problem is only going to get worse with the next huge influx of POT's and NPC towns in Episode 2.
     
  4. Anpu

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    People have just moved to living in Player Owned Towns. I keep noticing new houses going up where I live all the time.
     
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  5. Kara Brae

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    My main residence is in a Player Owned Town (Rift's End), so no one has to sell me on the advantages of living in one. :)

    That doesn't change my mind about the state of property ownership in this game though.
     
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  6. Floors

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    You have to be realistic - the steam numbers show that between 100 and 200 players play this game so expectations have to be tempered.
     
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  7. Anpu

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    And many people don’t use STEAM. I stopped using it a long time ago. The self alone installer is just way more efficient.
     
  8. Mishikal

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    Yeah, I don't use steam either, but even still, I think you're looking at about 400 active players tops.
     
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  9. Mishikal

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    I think the main problem is they're basically held to promises they made while designing the game that in retrospect probably weren't good promises to make. PoTs took off in a way they never expected which also changed the dynamics of the game in unforeseen ways, but they were still bound by the earlier promises.

    Mainly, that the only backers would have TF PA deeds. Then came along PoTs, of which they'd only expected to sell a few. Instead they sold hundreds creating a glut of available lot space. Many of the backers moved their TF PA deeds into PoTs, so now you just end up with deserted towns all over the place. So for non-PoT spots, there's just not a lot of demand outside of the Brittany locations.
     
  10. Floors

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    Many people is debatable. I’m going to guess its not more than 3 times the steam users, which is still really low

    I can just feel the game is emptier now than 6 months back. Even the forums are getting to be tumbleweed.

    Recently, a good friend of mine, a Hobloth veteran, a supporter financially of this game to a large sum of money was banned from these forums. Yeah, he was a neg poster but he wasnt a reddit troll. When enough things like that happen, it affects your sentiment, and they should be more careful how they manage their community.
     
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  11. Rat2

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    I'd like to see full service NPC's for all NPC towns. I hate having to leave town and go across the map for basic things like seeds. There isn't any reason to have a lot in anything but player owned towns except some of the more popular don't allow anything bigger than row lots. Hey, I have to show off the Kobold Barn somewhere....
     
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  12. Beaumaris

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    Taxes on lots is the first issue that has to be addressed, IMHO.

    Even with a low population, I suspect more of us would be willing to buy more deeds if only there was not the drag of constant tax upkeep.

    There has to be another creative way to 'time out' lots (player log in, something) to return them to the publicly available pool than taxes.
     
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  13. Xee

    Xee Bug Hunter

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    I disagree on this. I am seeing a lot more new players and my friends list is still growing for active people online.

    I do think higher end lot taxes are a heavy burden but affordable later if one is a successful seller. I do think that some NPC towns are not doing as well simply for the same reason some pots are not full They are out of the way of the core traffic areas. Central Brit are is always busy which is where all the key market towns are. Those towns have alot of people coming and going. Looking at metrics some of them towns are doing 57 mil in transactions which is alot of coin exchange.

    I think what would make these other towns better is if there was more reason to be in those areas to live. Mines, and the likes seem to attract people to live near them to haul more. If there is a town with no reason to live there why live there? just like real world if there is no work or sales in an area it collapses.
     
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  14. Floors

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    I agree with the last part of what you said, but there's no doubt there's far less people on now than in March. Less LFG expeditions, less overworld people, just less people. It should be trending up.
     
  15. Elwyn

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    Remember all that advertising for the game? Yeah, I don't either.
     
  16. mass

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    They've done some good things to go in the right direction, like the POT deed for the main quest, but they do need to go further. A substantial decrease in tax rates would help get more players into higher level lots. For me, anything but tax-free is a non-starter under current tax rates. I'm always broke or saving up for that next thing I'm trying to accomplish. I just couldn't deal with the additional stress of 'pay-or-lose' for my lot. So, while I feel like I paid out the nose for a tax free town lot (relative to my common video game expenditures) I really couldn't enjoy the game nearly as much without it.

    I will say I also I find it frustrating that as an active player who at least attempts some decorating and vendor stocking that I see prime lots that simply have an empty building on it, owned by an account that clearly logs in every 189 days to prevent the loss of the lot. Not sure what to do about this. Port has to respect the time-outs they tell everyone, but I'd bet many towns would appear more active if active players actually owned the property near entrances and other prime locations. Those guys holding onto lots simply because they think they will increase in value are helping to ensure that they won't by contributing to the appearance of a 'dead game'.
     
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  17. jutman

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    I believe the entire basis of Port's design for monthly income was based off the fact that people would buy cotos for taxes each month. Now that we are into the game we can clearly see that is not the case of what is happening. I would suspect there could be a slight change to even a drastic change in the way taxes are handled in the future. This change could cause more of or less of a problem with people claiming lots and never using them. I for one have a keep lot in an NPC town (brit estates) that I dont use and have no real reason for owning it except for the simple fact of owning it. I utilize my town lot in a POT for everything. TBH id be ok and just as functional with just a row lot in a POT/PRT/NPC town. That being said, housing and lots are more or less a status symbol in this game.
    I think Port has seen this coming and is trying to implement a new way for monthly income as in their 9$ a month reward program. Personally I wish they would offer a higher level pledge for their monthly reward program perhaps like 30$ a month (but it would have to be worth it) .
     
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  18. Vladamir Begemot

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    Here's the deal, everyone CAN have land, but it's behind a very long tough haul, and not everyone makes it.

    I like the free Row deed idea, but honestly putting it at the end of the story means a lot of would be home owners never get there.

    I don't know how to address this, but maybe give the land deed up front (sorry to Inn owners, including me, we'll never have Inns with people) with the promise (from the Oracle) that if they turn out to be long term Avatars (finish the story) the taxes will be dropped from 500 to 250. Something like that.

    (Yes, I know all Row taxes are 250 right now. I don't know. Something like that.)

    Now, I have had people rolling through the Factorium who have finished the quest JUST for the deed.... it's a good incentive, but since the story is actually not the strong point of the game, this method is essentially pushing them through one of the buggier components to get to one of the best components, and probably the stickiest.
     
    Last edited: Oct 12, 2018
  19. Snakyy

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    HAhah, you clearly have not done either one as this game have hilariously bugged underdeveloped and unbalanced combat system that to be honest...is very boring.
    What come to quests this game is hilarious JOKE :rolleyes: Quest journal does not work. Most quests are written like 10 years old and rewards are generally poorer than grind 20 min trash monsters on some tier 4 area.
     
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  20. Vladamir Begemot

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    Actually combat is quite good, deep, and customizable.
     
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