Concern About Castle Deeds

Castle deeds are not available outside of pledging.
City deeds are the largest available in addon store and through in game gold.

LOTM just like everyone else with a pledge/addon deed are guaranteed a place in the lot rush. No POT needed.
What most POT owners want is the ability to have friends/guildies/etc in the same town as themselves.

 

There will be a huge amount of new areas and towns in future episodes anyway.

 

Welcome Scrolls_HD!

castle deeds are only available from a pledge or a trade from another player that has it. I have the LOTM, but not a POT. POTs require maintenance and I am lazy.

 

Thanks! I didn't realize that pledges would one day be no more but I guess that makes sense considering they are trying to convince people to help finance the game before the release and they feel they need to offer them something unique in order to accomplish that. I wonder what the value of the castles will peak at. This could get interesting.

 

As defined it doesn't cover out-of-game, non-store related mechanisms such as competition rewards or random draws etc. Nor does it disqualify a hypothetical Non Lord Of The Manor lot of similar size (or even larger), which could come in with later Episodes. All it states is that LOTM Castle pledges are tied to that Pledge, a fact that can be changed by simply applying a different texture to the outer stone wall of any future plot...

 

No, nor will Keep Lot Deeds.

 

I understood that they would not be available in online mode but could still be bought with in game money in single player mode after release. Is that incorrect?

 

You focused in on the red statement so I have highlighted the first part of it here instead:
This lot size only available through pledge purchase...

So as defined it does cover all other eventualities, not exclusively add-on store and in-game. AND it does say the lot size is exclusive, not the colour of the walls. The castle refers to the lot size, not the home.

Developers have made it pretty clear the only path to obtaining Estate & Castle Lots is through pledging. It would be really splitting hairs for them to introduce a 3.5xCity Lot once the game launches, and new tech and no real incentive. Giving away a $2000 City Lot would already be stellar and games just don't give away that kind of money anyways. Current prizes are far far smaller, so giving away something that currently costs 12k to obtain through their pledges is very unlikely.

Now a cool idea might be the ability to have some kind of pop-up festival or the ability to "rent" a castle lot for an event that is not in current use but that's not likely a priority for Portalarium either.

 

No, "This Lot Size" doesn't cover all eventualities, and I notice you actively distorted what I specifically said; "Non Lord Of The Manor lot of similar size (or even larger)". A 100x100 lot isn't the same as a 99x101 size lot. And there's a damn good reason Portalarium ought to be considering working around people trying to lock down their advantage for all time, and frankly I'm personally getting very, very tired of the argument that somehow there's a financial point above which a donation for funding, which most of us are expected to accept that's all our money is, becomes an absolute right to demand permanent advantages in game.

Because yes, Ultima Online did give castles away when they were worth $2000 dollars, at least by what the players outside of the game valued them as, because back then only the physical land was rare; the game itself didn't ascribe a real world cash value to a Castle at all. Because MMOs instinctively knew back then how bad that was for long term player retention and their public image... they were interested in maintaining a healthy, wider community; So in game there was nothing stopping you working towards and then waiting for a Castle in game if you wanted; Wait, wait, wait for a Castle to drop or a player leaving the game to sell it, and that was fine, you would remain playing and keeping that virtual world alive whilst you looked every day to upgrade to a better home. Thus all that giving away the only 3 castles that could be placed in Malas (or later on, the only homes that could be built in the Stygian Abyss, with guaranteed traffic if you had house teleporters to elsewhere) did was give you a unique location. But who really cared about that? It was the utility people were after. The extra storage space. The simple pleasure of actually owning a castle in a Medieval themed MMO.

What Shroud is doing, what this thread was subtly trying to find a way out of (I expect), but a small core of users seem determined to force it to not just honor but completely embrace, is setting aside land access permanently and only for people who spend the equivalent of 1/8th of the entire yearly income of the average worker in real life... or more. And as it currently stands, going to launch with that design, I believe that you're going to see a huge wave of negative press from the potential audience when they see it wasn't just funding development, but permanent Feudalism is now set in stone. The idea of a virtual decoration for $70 caused a huge outrage in EvE; do you not think the idea of actual gameplay affecting content for literally 100x that isn't going too?

Right now Shroud is coasting on the goodwill of the media that covers it, the assumption it's still being developed, and a tight knit community that wants the game to succeed. But the more I see of these forums, the more I'm convinced that despite being a "Buy To Play" game, it's actual development has gotten sucked into a strange F2P/P2W mindset, because here we have some very, very vocal Whales who not only want to be gouged, but throw more and more money at Portalarium to try and ensure that development proceeds on the assumption that they're the core business plan. You said;

Don't you think it's a bit worrying that cool ideas, at least that specific one, are not likely to be a priority?

In particular, ask yourself where the extra funding for episodes 2 onwards are going to come from? Low tier pledges? Why would they support an expansion pack when they'll have already seen most of the core gameplay, but parts of it will forever be locked off from them. Every time they go to a city they'll see a castle they can never, ever own. Every time they go onto the World Map they'll see player cities they can't ever rule. High tier pledges? You want to ensure they can't expand any bigger than a Castle... so what else will there be left to buy? Even more flashy elite items? Sure, you can expand out the elitism to even more content, and in doing so drive away more of the low tier pledges...

Peter Molyneaux (of all people) said this recently about his experience Kickstarting absolute catastrophe Godus;

I truly, honestly think something somewhat similar has happened here, they've gotten so focused on pulling in the big donations they've lost track of the original game idea they had; and whilst the basic game will be there for all, I wholeheartedly agree with the original poster that some sort of Community Castle Project is absolutely vital... and Portalarium desperately need to reign the Whales in and frankly just stop pandering to them. What's the point of slapping in more and more empty Castle plots in player run towns when no one else is going to be able to afford them in real life, and everyone else is just going to resent seeing them bare but knowing they can't put so much of a row house on them? The game should never, ever have allowed itself to be drawn away from a pure Buy To Play model, and if it doesn't change course and listen more to the community minded posters like Rasmenar, Shroud is going to get slaughtered at launch.

 

What advantage does a keep or castle lot actually offer? City and Town lots will be obtainable in game (somehow) and they are huge. I am an example of an extreme hoarder and even i am content with a town lot. The city size buildings have not even been created yet (other than the pledge items) but i am pretty sure there will be something suitable to use as a guild centre. The keep and castle lots are just a luxury that offer no game breaking advantage whatsoever and it is a pretty suitable thankyou for people that reached so deeply into their pockets to support the creation of the game, not to mention the fact that they are the sole reason that many of the larger pledges were even made. I gave it allot of thought and i can't come up with a single example of a game breaking advantage that can be gained by owning a keep or castle lot.

 

Agreed. It's not any real advantage at all. I'm happy with my village lot for personal use. It's more like this: It's a status symbol. My group would like to eventually own one simply for the bragging rights if nothing more, lol.

I do still see open castle lots as an eyesore. Hopefully they'll just stick a default building on it, that'd take care of the problem rather quickly I think.

 

Yeah i believe they do have some sort of default buildings planned.

 

I hope the rental system will be added. I'm plan to rent out rooms in the castle if it does get implemented.

 

^This

Castle lots should be PLEDGE ONLY!

 

I sure hope we are able to do what ever we want with our POTs. Even multiple castle lots in them. Who says you have to put a castle on a castle size lots. Maybe there will be a nice market for big lots for a farming community, with smaller homes on them. Maybe make a tent city for a huge open market for vendors and a farmers market, and the dreaded vendor mall, a town park of epic size, maybe someday we could be allowed to make a lot into a pond or lake so those who are land locked could have some homes by the water or any crazy ass fool of an idea someone comes up with. That's right I said it!

GK

 

I'm sure, were you to buy a Crossroad Village and ask for a Keep Lot and 3 Castle Lots, or a City that consisted of 7 Castle Lots, Portalarium would honor your request... They might look at you funny, but I doubt they would refuse. They've mentioned that one person has bought a holdfast, to be place in a swamp biome, that will have a single lot.

 

That does bring up a thought. Do you have to accept all the NPC owned buildings and add on houses? Can you just say give me my lots nothing else?

 

While I have no authoritative answer to your question, I very much doubt that they would force you to take something you didn't wish to have. I would imagine this would be a point of discussion during the design session.

 

This is actually a pretty good idea.

 

The same thing goes for Duke keeps.

Thing is, portalarium has never said that Pledges will be unavailible after launch, so i guess people will be able to still become LOTM even after the game launches...

But yes, there will be empty castle/Keep lots, and i have no idea how they will tackle is 'issue'