Will PRTs survive much longer?

And a free row lot deed isnt enough for the start?
It sounds like without a big house you can not play at all.

 

Only free when you are able to plough through the entire main quest does not equal anything like "at the start"

 

Why not offer lower rent in PRT's? That would entice more to move into a place with no amenities.

 

It's not hard to acquire housing right from the start in this game. There are tons of players willing to help with the quest line or just give away free room and board to players that ask. Plenty of inns, rentals and other options, even larger houses.

Earning a house for yourself shouldn't be extremely difficult or expensive. But it should still be an accomplishment. Lately it has gotten much easier for new players to acquire housing so it seems like things are headed in the right direction.

With the game being ftp now you obviously just can't hand out housing deeds to new players. I think finishing the main quest line is a great way to earn your first deed. I can't think of any other way to give them out that wouldn't be completely exploited.

 

WHY do you need a village+ lot?

Automate the room rental system. THERE, you have a starting point. Build a quest to rent a room, make a couch, now DYE it.. WOW now you've linked players to the best system in the game, stimulated player to player economy AND perhaps got them to buy something from the add on store. All with systems already written. Players don't want have to contact other players to rent - they just want it to work on its own.

Make a quest to see something on a vendor... Its amazing how hard people are making this game out to be. Its not. The problem is confusing controls and lack of good vendor tools. As a new player you should be selling whatever you can. There are tons of resources in starter zones you should be gathering. Selling them to other PLAYERS is where the good money is, but most don't do that because the vendor controls are wonky. Instead they try to use public vendors which nobody searches. Create a global search system, but make people travel to get the goods. Instead of making useful game tools, SOTA puts the brunt of the work on the player to search, travel, find, contact, etc. Its too much. You don't need to lower prices, just make better game tools so that its easier to leverage the current gaming loop.

 

Still i am in the opinion that the most outstanding feature - Player Housing should be the one New players should not overlook!

Please all be aware that all of you backers on this forum started from the beginning on with a "wonderful house" and "place of living".

No one of us knows how the game would have felt if we started without nothing and not knowing anything of the housing feature from start.

That is how a new players feels it. No clue about the player housing, no access at start ... something far away.

 

I like the idea of all PRTs essentially becoming like Blood Bay, with the ability to place your own plots as space is opened up. Its not like they didn't have to build that tech anyway. Would make them distinctive from NPC towns.

 

Could we stop with this "TONS of Players" preaching and get a reality check.
This Game would not be now "free to play" if we had Tons and Tons.
And Earning a House should not be an accomplishment in this Game. It should be right from the start a feature accessable for everyone.

The accomplishment should be the upgrading it and making it larger and bigger and "wow".


But it should be in a basic form right from the start accessable and enjoyable for everyone who tries out this Game. To get player growth for your Game.

 

And how do you do that now since the game is ftp?

Change all the prts to starter towns and let only new players with starter deeds live in them? I don't think that would work.

I and every other merchant in this game would just make new characters to sell our stuff in the starter towns...

I cant think of anything that makes sense. What are your ideas?

 

The removal of the PRTs makes no since. Better to polish them for future use. (BUT) This is what you do when a PRT is removed, keep a eye on that location and if a POT is risen in the same location you will see who really is pulling the strings on PRT removal }8} I can not see any other reason to remove them but to push people to POTs or replace with a POT for location advantage.

 

Just let a player start with a limited one month place anywhere deed when they starts. Done. Problem solved.

I do not care about merchants and what they do. I do not think RMT. I think - players getting attrackted to the game. does not work with a RMT mindset.

 

outside of rmt now that its f2p you will just have people creating new accounts over and over to keep free housing claiming it to if nothing else troll.

 

I do like the idea of the PRTs being more survivalist-based, with animal attacks, etc, and maybe I can get my lot-NPCs to get off their butts and defend or something.

 

Its a back logged enhancement that all PRT/POT were going to get systemic ecology. Basically the bigger and more spread out your town is, the less animals and resources would spawn. The smaller the town, the more the unused area would spawn stuff.

I think they want the encounters to be done by the players/town so I think that will eventually spawn from the dungeon system as encounter rooms turn into Keeps and Castles and hopefully place-able things like Ruins, Temples and other POI's.

If they ever got to this point, I dont see why a system could not spawn a POI in a PRT once the hook points are placed for where they could spawn.

 

Where is my free row lot deed after I have been playing since 2014? Oh yes, I have to first complete the Path of the Oracle. I may manage that in a couple of years if I keep training. Not everyone is a warrior, some people are homemakers by nature. But you have to be a warrior to get a home. How does that make sense?

 

Yes. Well. Then you are sh*t out of luck i guess.
There have to be some kind of rules. We can not gift everything away for free. Though....we are on the way there anyway *shrugs* so what am i saying. Sure, let's give everybody a deed. One for decorating, one for fishing, one for crafting and so on.

@Kara Brae i am sorry, you are the wrong person to scream at.
I just think we are losing focus here. This game has much biiger issues than what get's discussed on this forum at the moment.
No offences.

 

Great ideas, I’m sure more players would join the game and more players would be tempted to buy deco from the add-on store. As is, even a lot of the special rewards given to subscribers are completely useless without property to put it on. And a row lot deed is useless for a lot of the deco rewards because they require a village lot or bigger. My bank is full of huge deco junk I can’t place. It’s good to see you making these suggestions!

 

Has nothing to do with RMT. And that doesn't solve the problem at all. In fact that's a horrible idea that simply won't work now.

Any player that has a vendor in the game will exploit that idea whether it's an RMT person or a player that only deals with in game gold.

What's stopping you or anyone else from just creating account after account until there aren't any spots left for other players? You think no available row houses is going to help bring in and retain new players? Try again.

 

Just wanted to address a few things discussed so far:

One intent of this thread was to discuss the perception problem caused by ghost towns, empty scenes, nobody around, etc. PRTs are contributing to this and the evidence backs this up: 7% claimed. There are over 4,200 empty property lots in PRTs. The current population is still far too small in relation to the number of scenes in the game, which includes PRTs. A temporary reduction in the number of scenes would be a move towards solving this. I'd disagree that leaving them as-is is not a problem. But I would agree it's not a popular thing to do and would affect, however small, those players living in those PRTs.

Others have stated how great the housing system is. I completely agree. But let's take a step back and look at it from a different perspective based on stats:

NPC and PRT stats only (POTs not counted):
R32 - 2,983 claimed and 5,908 empty lots
R55 - 2,613 claimed and 5,741 empty lots (some PRTs have been removed since R32)

So after 2+ years since persistence, housing is a mess. An achievement that many tens of thousands of players have failed to achieve. A great feature of the game completely underutilized and furthering the perception problem. A feature that many thousands of pledge holders have abandoned and leaving the game world empty.

Should the game survive another 2 years (I hope it does, but the outlook is grim), will the housing system continue to be in this situation? Will the game still leave all those empty lots unoccupied -- at an accelerating rate -- for another 2 years? The devs have take some steps by removing some PRTs -- I think they can and should get more aggressive about this. As more players are enabled and achieve housing, they can always add more based on need vs. having them all sit out there unclaimed.

And so the other question was asked: should the barrier to entry for housing be lowered? I think it's worth discussing further and some great comments in this thread so far. And by barrier, it could be time, money, or otherwise.

There are a great many things the devs can do to address this, but we have to remember given staff and budget reductions, they gotta prioritize what's best to do that is quick, easy, cheap and will reverse the population trend. Uncloning scenes or creating whole new game systems is likely going to be cost prohibitive, especially considering other priorities (QoL, for one).

 

I do try. And you totally ingored the 30 day limit i suggested. Or just make a instanced area. solved.