MMORPG SotA Column: Concerns Worthy of Note

Actually I think you may be misunderstanding that post. The lot and property would still belong to the player but the use of the space in the player owned town would be removed by the owner of the player owned town. No one losses anything they paid for.

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I agree... and that's what they're giving us. Both options. The reality is the quotes you missed have all the information to solve the issues you mention:

 

I didn't say taken, I said loss. And that was not my implication, Adam said that, and Violation stipulated agreement in that action. If someone comes in here and has property in a POT, and that POT owner is a jerk, and said player gets booted from said POT and cant find another place to land, that is somehow acceptable. Its ridiculous honestly.

But that is not my point and somehow becoming convenient to focus on, skipping past that this talk, for the last 5+ pages, is more about bringing real world problems into a game, to simulate, for some odd reason.

Can we just get a nice Ultima style game first? And skip all the "I want to live like a SIM in an Ultima-style world" for now?

Talk about it? Ok, but even that... really? This is what complicated stuff we want to throw in here on the DEVs plate to solve? Not enriching combat, resources/crafting, social interactions, adventure, story, etc... well along for the next 3+ years?

We want them to do contracts?

 

So this is just an exercise in futility - because I don't think this will get implemented / but as some of you may know I enjoy some form of strategic pet combat system / that strays from the norm of here is my dragon ... I made a lot of suggestion in the thread of pets, taming and ranching ... but at the time - the i had no idea about the combat system ... so here is a twist on my previous ideas ... with the card combat system in mind ... doubt it will get implemented but who cares ( i just want some info on the pet combat system)

Red Fox
Cause a reshuffle of your deck

Gray Wolf
Bite roots you in place / causes 5 second bleed

Ferret
Steals a card from your deck / brings it back to owner / replaces a card in their deck

Gyrfalcon
Blinds you / decrease you hit change by 15% / next attack

Cape Buffalo
Knockdown / Daze for 5 seconds / miss rate 5%

 

I do.

Even if it's just a record keeping device that doesn't hold any weight but what we give it. It's better than nothing.

It would allow merchants to keep better records of shipments. It would allow assassins to prove they have a good history of getting the job done and are worth the extra coin. It would allow new players to better filter out who could be trusted and who could not.

I don't really see a downside to the record keeping system. It's very simple and other than requiring the devs to build a database for it, I'm not sure what the downside would be.

 

These two are brilliant ideas and more along the lines of the "deck management and hotbar management skills" that I was asking for. You've creatively done so via combat pets, which sounds very cool. Would love to see damage not against the player, but his deck or hotbar (dealt glyphs). How about a knockdown that also causes him to lose all glyphs in his hotbar and thus has to deal them out again (effectively taking him out of combat mode and re-enter). Similarly, skills against the opponent that temporarily locks glyphs or unlocks them or unwraps combo'd glyphs, or locks slots making them unusable temporarily, etc.

 

Those are great - specially, cards falling out of someones deck - if we are keeping the idea in the context of pets - an elemental could attack your deck - burn your card (causing it to decrease said effect) - freeze your card (causing a delay such as a lock on "use" ) ...

let me think a little more

 

Okay so I have a good one - mind you I'm keeping my examples to earth animals - I tend to look for animal characteristics and exemplify them in their "card attacks" -

Chameleon - would change the appearance of two cards currently in your deck or change the appearance of a new card entering your deck ... this could also work for an imp - considering that they do have some magical powers and they will be in game

Owl - Increases the duration of card "stay" on users deck at night

Its a little hard thinking of examples and not making it too gamey or just completely taking into a card game direction

The other approach would be to add animals to counter attacks - for example the Wolverine would negate any attacks from the fox or ferret

but I'll keep thinking

 

NO better yet, the person who actually owns Beran's Reach, could decide he want's nothing to do with the bear tavern anymore. Does he own the Metropolis? Does he own the guildhouse? See where I'm going with this?

Although I do agree that people who own the town should have the right to evict, the person being kicked out should have some time to look for another spot, and/or take some stuff out of his house that he might need if he cannot find a spot.

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Although, I would be disappointed if they made a decree saying people cannot boot people out of their town, but I also see the need to protect the people living in that town to some degree. Since it is a feudal era I don't think a jury of the peers is necessary. The cities should be run by dictators and royalty. If there is any council it should be player run, and role played, but the one with the ultimate authority should be the town owner.

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Still I will never live in a player run town unless I'm the owner. Unless I have multiple properties.

 

The contract could simply be, by living in this town you accept the rulership of the town's supreem magistrate. This lot may be revoked at any time by the magistrate's discretion. Do you accept these conditions? DONE

What I propose be added to that would be the following line...

If the magistrate evicts you from your lot, you will be notified, and have X number of days to move otherwise this lot will automatically be vacated at this time and hour, and your home/lot will turn into a deed in your possession.

 

Yeah, but I think I'll take it somewhere else... what if a player owned town could be set, by the owner's choice, to be a republic instead of a dictatorship? I personally wouldn't do that and have no need to as the people who live in my town will fully trust me and I fully trust them... and it would just slow down the process of handling issues... I'd rather set my co-owners to have my power and we can all just do what we need when we need then votes don't slow things down. But... what if... you could pick both... *ponders*

I think that might come up in the hangout tomorrow night if towns are still on top

 

In this game money talks big time, and that's not necessarily a good thing.

 

That makes me sad to hear every time I hear it... I think I'll respond on this point and then exit the conversation...


During DragonCon @RichardGarriott and @Darkstarr reserved the front row of a room during a deep dive chat... for any backers. When it started they told people, on the trust system, to take a seat in the front row if they already backed the game... they didn't ask if they were a dev+ or above... they didn't ask if they were a patron or above... they said "backers" come take a seat... and they gave all the backers a priority to questions/answers during the chat time.

I think the fear that most people have about money talking is less reality than they think. I personally have a huge passion for the game and a drive to do as much as I can and be involved in as much as I can and that gives me more chances to talk with them in-game, at conventions, in hangouts, etc... I close my office EVERY release so I can have as much saturation with testing and community that I possibly can... that increases quantity of impressions NOT depth of impression. I truly feel that my responses from Darkstarr (I haven't talked with Richard as much but him as well) have been the same since I first started messaging him when I was a citizen backer. I know it can look and feel that way, and if you take into account the Dev+ forums you could make a valid argument that it's true... but I think they are EXTREMELY welcoming to people and my point will rest in this: the forums are available to NON BACKERS. Some Kickstarter games only allow forum access to those who have paid... SotA has theirs open to the public.

In my opinion, they do the best they can with a small team. They are striving to make a game that will keep them all employed over the coming years... I think that is the best thing to keep in mind and not "how deep my pockets aren't" fears. I assure you if they didn't treat me as a valued community member when I was a lower level backer (I started at the 2-week early skill level with less than $100 in and then hopped in IRC and chatted with devs before going up... watched hangouts and dev ks videos and the spoony interviews... read all the updates (yes, all of them...) before I backed more... watched to see how they handled tough people... etc) I would never have gone to citizen... and I personally reached out to community members about that same feeling you have and found that 99% of this community is very accepting to people no matter what their backer title is... in fact, during this conversation I'd bet no one has asked you what level you backed before talking with you... have they?

Yes, money talks... no, one person's money isn't the controlling factor here. They want to make a game that they can market and believe in... and they want to involve us where they can. I'm sorry you feel differently and I hope some day something you see will change your mind.

*Turns and readies himself to walk out, paying the bartender for his cold drink before leaving, and giving a glance and a nod to the people around*
Have a good one and well met.

 

It is perhaps worrisome -- but no one knows how much, though, because there has been no game of this size (in any dimension: budget, team size, design scope, etc.) that's been released to the public as early as SotA was. If Skyrim or Dragon Age or The Witcher or *any other game of this kind* had been showed to the public as early in its development cycle as SotA was, people would be saying all the same negative things. It really is an experiment.

 

That's a good idea. If the town owner decides to truly hand it over to a guild maybe there are some guild related permissions that can be applied like voting etc. I suspect that there might be something like that for a guild too. I suppose a GM could have supreem control like UO, but it should have the option for the GM to delegate permissions and even power to some or all members of the guild. So I agree this is possible.

I'm totally with you though. I would rather keep control if I bought a city, but I would definitely listen to my friends and other guildmates before making big decisions. I think most town owners will want to keep good graces with the people in their town. Although I think there might be some creeps that will own ghost towns because they booted people from their town and nobody trusts the guy anymore.

I would really have to trust somebody to place my main house in a player run town. The problem is I speak my mind and it isn't always popular, so my decision to never move into a town that I can get kicked out of, is largly based on MY PERSONAL issues with confrontation. I know my myself. (know thy self, and know thine enemy)

 

I often quote Jeff Vogel (creator of the superb Avernum series): "...if someone is mean to your game on some stupid forum somewhere, never ever engage them, attack them, argue why they're wrong, whatever. Nothing good has even come out of doing this. Ever. Some people won't like your game, or they won't like your face. Let. It. Go."

 

That's a good hangout topic. I'd like to hear some talk about that.

It's the Shadowbane system. Dictatorship, Republic, Oligarchy. I'm not sure what else they used as I never actually played the game. But those are all options that seem like rational ways to show your intent to perspective players. They're not really town structures though, they're forms of government and I'm not sure if RG and Tracy ever intended for there to be 100 city-states randomly strung around the map. It's all a very interesting group of questions to discuss.

This is also a great topic for guild succession planning. That's one thing I think Shadowbane did well on paper (at least) is giving players some tools to keep their guilds running over time. It would be a shame if a few key members left the game for whatever reason and the guilds they left behind had to start over from scratch.

If the developers are truly attempting to make a game that will last 10 years and beyond, built in tools that help succession planning for guilds is a must.

 

My concern (in general, at no one particularly here) is that the devs are in way over their heads at this point, and we will end up with a game that not many are interested in.

You know what happens when a thing tries to be all things to all people all the time...

 

What specifically makes you think this?

 

The original article on MMORPG is very upbeat without any heavy criticism. I can't say that I agree with their assessment, but they make some good points about the competitive market.

I think some things need to be looked at more critically, with fresh eyes. There is a lot of old school in this game. Nothing that is new, like the deck combat or text chat.

The text chat is pre-1990. I mean, take a look at Ultima 6, released in 1990 (that's 24 years ago! C'mon a quarter century!). The current NPC chat system is exactly the same, except the text is over the NPC's head and your own head. It still relies entirely on key words in a sentence. I'd much rather click on a sentence than type the key word they're requiring. (sorry the video was supposed to start at 3:16, to skip the intro which I find kind of lame)



I think Joviex hits on some good points about RW problems brought into a game are probably not going to be as satisfying to someone who plays games to escape RW problems. We're living in an incredibly difficult time in history in RL with income inequality and strife. Why is the strategy to repeat it in a game?

Unfortunately, there are too many commitments to keeping it that way, so I realize I'm just howling at the moon.

The game is appearing more as a cash grab than anything to me at this point. The areas in the hexes are very small, some of the graphics are way too linear and not immersive.

They've made a lot of improvements since R1, and I'm sure they will continue to make more improvements. But when the actual game concept is turning so many people off, what good are graphics and mechanical improvements? It is a competitive industry. People tire of old school or similar stuff that's on the market already.

They will appeal to a niche crowd, the old timers who loved all the Ultima series, most likely. But the young folks - my young adult children and their friends - have passed this game by.

Yet I'm an old timer and played UO for 10 years, and keep my hopes up that things will change for the better. It's the reason I backed the game - high hopes. It's also the reason I haven't upped my level of backing even though I have the funds to do so - those hopes aren't so high these days.