Where will my $500 house be?

I don't get it... if this isn't going to be an MMO, why would I pay $500 for a plot of land? Maybe there is one server where all the towns (when playing multi-player) are a single "reality" and we're just in instances of those? Seems funny to pledge $500+ before figuring that out.

 

My thoughts are say only 50-100 players can be in any village / town at a time. If you purchase a house, which ever location you place it, every player in the world that happens to enter that village, your home will always be there. Even if you are offline perhaps you could have vendor NPCs ( UO style ), that other players could view your wares and purchase them if they wished to.

 

I think there will be vendors, pretty sure RG said that on the podcast.

 

From what I saw it seems that it is going to be linked to your friends for the most part. Though I am sure there will be other ways to find friends for the game. So you'll mostly be sharing the game with your friends.

I think the trickiest thing will be to get the player economy to work right. This is a new sort of concept of how to bring players together.

 

Yea, playing with friends is great.
But so is playing with strangers.

 

I agree. I'd love to stumble upon a player in his house, and not know whether he is going to come out and say hi, or attack me.

 

I say we should wait for the incoming annoucement regarding where is the game between multiplayer and singleplayer before commenting on anything of this issue.
When LB say you can play with your friend, I think he simply means that if you see one of your friend entering a village on the overland map, if you enter it as well, you are going to be on the same instance as him.
I really don't think you will only play the game with your friends, that wouldn't make much sense, concerning the titles pledging give for everyone to see in the game.
But they said in the stream, yesterday, that we would be knowing more, soon. Let's hope this is before april 7th, so people can set where they really stand in the pledging.

 

Richard Garriott mentioned in the livestream yesterday afternoon that it would not only be friends that would be around in the persistent game, but also enemies and people of interest as well.

He also stated that if someone plopped down a house or business in a certain area, that it would show up in the persistent universe of the game. Friend or enemy.

I take that all to mean that not only people on your friends list, but probably any guildmates, enemies of your guild, people you have fought in PVP, etc. will all show up in your shard as you travel around and go about your daily activities and quests in the game.

 

I am still failing all over the place to understand how if there is no central server.. how can I who is playing the game installed on my computer can see a friend or anyone else in my game and yet they are playing on their computer. Neither of us is logged into the others computer yet we can see each other much less interact with each other? XBOX can do this because all XBOX machines are on the XBOX LIVE servers. They can play single player games but still have their friends available in a drop in/out method. Steam can do this because everyone has the Steam client and also all connecting to the Steam servers.. but if SOTA has no servers.. then how is this physically or technically possible? Also when RG makes reference to the, "Persistent" SOTA world.. which world is he talking about if not one on some type of server?? I heard him say several times there will not be any servers though.. so I'm at a loss on how this makes sense.

 

He said they will less likely make the 'shards' but there will be a server. You will need the Internet connection in order to play the game.

 

My understanding is that there will need to be some sort of server to handle player matchmaking and game updates, if you choose to play the multiplayer game.

However, it won't be a server in the classic client/server architecture of an MMO, where the server handles all of the game logic. So, you will not need to be online to play the single player game, except to get patches or content updates.

As such, I'm assuming that if you play offline singe player, you will not see other people's houses. Jump online to multiplayer and you'll be updated with the persistent world content.

 

@Smack, what state did DH and Zoo live in? Checking to see if your a guy I used to hang with online back in the 1990's.

 

To me, it sounds like homes will work a bit like bases do in Planetside. For example in Planetside you only receive data on players that are relevant to you through Peer-to-Peer. The server had a weighting metric to determine who you received data on (distance was the primary metric in Planetside). Just as a base in Planetside showed up for everyone whether they were engaged in the battle or not... your home will show up for everyone who connects to the multiplayer server.

Interestingly at one point their was a comment that homeowners would have a higher chance of showing up as they were more important in that village/town/city... I believe this was in the Rock Paper Shotgun write up.

 

For people who play online, there is 1 persistent world. Map changes will be across the board for everyone, including placed houses. Specific people you encounter while playing will vary. So if there are 10,000 people playing right now, you won't see 10,000 people - the game will be matching you up automatically with certain people based on criteria (friends, people of interest, people with similar play styles or levels). In that sense, its not an MMO because you are not on a server with 10,000 people visible to you. However, the community as a whole affects the map. You may not be visible to someone else, but you are both looking at the same houses and such.

The ability to have vendors, like in UO, available to ALL players 24/7 is the attractive part of housing at the moment, it seems.

If you don't play online, I'm guessing that housing may be unavailable or otherwise limited, as you should have to be online in order to find an empty plot to buy. But perhaps once you place said house, you can continue to play with it offline. I haven't heard details on that yet, and maybe they don't know themselves yet.


This is based on what I've understood so far, at least! I may be wrong or may be subject to change..

 

I have made friends through UO whom I have never met in person, yet we have kept in touch for over a decade - and should I ever get married, they would be invited to my wedding.

This is the power of a good MMO, and this is the value of meeting and playing with strangers.

I hope the multi player element in this game is as strong as possible, I hope that the instances where you can place player houses are linked, so you can meet not only your friends, but also strangers.

 

This is what confuses me. If the people you see are based off who you are friends or enemies with, who do you see when you start the game. I assume it is completely random at that point. So if i put my house down and my house goes in a location that is based on the group of people i am friend/enemies with, what happens if someone in another reality has a house in that same spot and eventually becomes my friend/enemy?

Houses will have to have 1 persistent location.

 

You can't place a house where one already exists. The online multiplayer server makes houses omnipresent. Your house exists in ALL multiplayer realities for everyone everywhere. Does that help?

To put it another way your house is the Dark Tower.

 

@Antalicus: In the recent interview RG called it "selective multiplayer." You can regulate your level of exposure and interaction with the game world. Basically, can toggle people and certain events on/off in the game world. Shops and structures will be persistent. "They will see your shop, but they may not see you," RG said, depending on your settings.