What % of population should be able to own land?

How many Lots do you imagine would need to be created to satisfy your requirement?

 

1 point I have to /poke at, currently there is no housing market. After the final wipe happens the gold farming begins. Once the initial lot selection goes through anything is up for grabs.

The number of lots in game doesn't matter to me. What matters is the endurance phase. How long will one have to grind, is there a grind at all? How many will risk the POT life and how risky will the devs keep POTs for the renters?

The next part is the macro economics. Since people can own more than one lot, will the gold hoarders be able to snatch up anything and everything to hedge up the values. Which is my personal pet peeve. Too many games ignore the macro economics to the point that the top end gold farmers end up with practically an infinite amount of gold.

Really though, what it boils down to is hope. If people can at least feel like it's possible to own then things will be fine.

 

Geez, sometimes I wish there was a dislike button. We haven't even gone into our own prelaunch and you already want to split the world up? Come on now LTD. You can't really be serious are you?

BTW!, I'm in for a whoppin $90

 

I'd submit that using percentage as a metric is foolish. It is fraught with too many fungibles much variation. Every player that buys the game? Every player that sticks around for a month after story completion? Every player that is willing to put effort into it? What effort? Quit job? Give up bowling night? Login once a week to chat?

Asking a player if they want a lot tells you nothing. You may as well ask if they want a cookie. You need to look for indicators of desire. How active is the land market? How many hours of grind are people spending to afford a lot? What is the gold to real currency rate? These are things that can be measured and influenced.

Most agree that the end result should be an active market where land ownership is a "reasonably" attainable goal. I'd bet that this is Portalarium's goal too. It will be up them to assign values to these metrics and do what they can to influence them.
[Edited for clarity - misuse of word]

 

Here's how I see it.

Traditionally in MMO's with limited land/housing, you're right the gold farmers take over, the large guilds take over, the casual player really has a hard time saving up and buying a home. Any land that is claimable will be owned by someone that has too much time on their hands, is a part of an organized guild or gold farming operation, or is just one of the lucky ones that got there first. This is the big fear of the single casual player just trying to have a good time and experience the game in a fun way.

So barring the implementation of meaningless instances where everyone has the same exact opportunity to own a house but who cares because they're all the same? Having limited and rare housing like we have in SOTA is actually going to help things. The reason I feel this way is because it's my belief that the pledges and the add-on store actually help baseline the secondary economy for everyone, normal people, gold farmers, guilds, everyone.

Here's an example. Right now you can buy a taxable row lot for $100 in the add-on store. Or you could purchase a tax free row lot for a $275 pledge. So what, right? Well this is actually really important to understand. What this means is that a taxable add-on store row lot can never justifiably exceed $275 in the current market. This might change as demand pushes lot deeds higher during and after the land rush, but for now this is just a fact. Basically what it means is that if you're going to pay $275 for a taxable row lot, you might as well just buy a pledge and get a tax free row lot instead!

So if you're a gold farmer and you start buying up all the deeds in the game using in-game gold. You're capped out at your profit margins because you're always going to be competing with the secondary market and the add-on store. And what that means is that eventually the amount of time it takes you to farm enough gold where a player will sell you a deed is going to exceed what you can make a profit on. So what's that mean? Well to the casual player that doesn't care about making a profit and just wants the lot deed, it means that at some point you can out bid the gold farmer.

This is a fundamental economic reality that the average player simply doesn't understand. But the result is that yes it might cost you 1 million gold to buy a taxable row lot deed on the secondary market. But if you're willing to work hard enough and save your money, you won't ever have to pay cash and you will always be able to find someone that will sell you a deed if you have enough gold. Obviously the best thing to do would be to get into the game as fast as you can, and buy a lot from an NPC as early as possible before they're all gone and before the price increases. If you can do that you're golden. But if you can't and you end up behind the curve, I still feel that there's a lot to be hopeful for.

Unlike other games where maybe the add-on store doesn't set a completing price point, there's really no pressure to sell or speculate on the market. The prices settle down and gold farmers simply move in for the kill and hoard everything. But once the SOTA market gets going I don't think they can do that. I think it will take too much time and they won't see the rate of return and the profit margins they're looking for.

I personally think that's a really positive story, I just wish more people could understand that having this secondary market compete with each other is actually going to help players obtain housing because the more competition and once all the deeds are removed from the NPCs, the price point should be obtainable if you're willing to grind out tons of gold.

If you're not willing to grind out tons of gold, well that's not really a fair expectation in my opinion. Because the amount of money people paid to develop this game in the first place has to be worth something, and I would argue that my money is worth someone elses time. It certainly took me a long time to make all this money in the real world, so I don't see what the problem would be if someone had to spent a lot of time in the game world to get a house.

 

I haven't finished reading it all yet, Baron.... but I had to stop and say that it's reading as your best logic yet...
Now, back to reading the rest of it.....

 

Addendum:

I realize that this is still probably hard to understand so I'm going to add this last part.

After all the lots are sold from NPCs and after the gold farmers sell off the lots for cash. This is the point where all players have hope.

Because the gold farmers are not going to buy lot deeds for cash in that market, they're going to try to buy them for gold and then resell them for cash. But now they're completing against other players that just want a deed. At this point, this is where the average player can out bid gold farmers. The gold farmer can't endlessly mine gold and then sell at a loss, they're running a business. So they're not going to hang out here two months after launch. They're going to go back to WoW and make money. The average player will run them out of business here by simply over paying in gold at a rate that is not profitable for gold farmers to compete with.

 

/nod

The only issue would be when the macroeconomic is out of wack. I haven't seen it myself but the glimpses of the metrix they have in place and from the assurances given during the Kickstarter I feel comfortable knowing the have their eye on that ball.

Blizzard's answer is the currency change up to gate the pace. I hope to never see that level of laziness from Port.

 

Ok, this I don't understand:

Has Port put a "limit" on how many lots NPC's will sell ?

 

Yes these are limited. They're not about to sell more deeds than there are lots to use them in, for example.

 

I think the add-on store will crush gold farmers. If you look at any item in the store, that automatically puts a cap on what gold farmers can sell something for (so long as it remains purchasable in the store). So when add-on store deeds dry up, that's when the prices for lot deeds with sky rocket in the early days during and after the land rush.

But as the deeds find owners that don't want to sell and are not looking to make a profit, that's when the price will reach a point that no one wants to spend that kind of cash on. I mean, I totally think the price of a taxable row lot deed will at some point reach $200 if not more. But that will not last forever. At some point people will just start saying "how about I give you 1.5 million in gold instead" and buyers will look at that and say ok because they'll be able to see that the rate of gold you're offering them is actually much higher than the exchange rate between the add-on store and in-game gold. So they can turn around and sell that gold for a nice profit (read: more than $200).

It's going to be really interesting, but the simple rule of thumb should be, just keep saving your money and eventually the price will be right and someone in the secondary market will sell you a lot deed for gold.

 

Anyone that owns a deed (especially at tax-free one) that they bought with cash is probably not going to sell it for gold, unless they think they can re-sell that gold for an equivalent cash value or higher.

The gold farmers generally aren't going to use their own product. They want to sell that gold for cash so that they can buy deeds and entire accounts with cash, which they will in turn speculate on and resell for even more cash. The market has been created for this, most players will catch on or already have this mind, and the ones that don't are the ones that will get taken, or simply don't care. Perhaps in some cases they might use some of that gold if the deal is a steal they can't pass up, but I suspect that won't be the norm.

And after July when all pledges expire, the caps on any pricing is out the window.

Also, we've gone completely off-topic now.

 

Which takes us back to exactly what Port said (that you have quoted):

Your statement:

doesn't jive with that at all.

They will add new places with empty lots when "necessary", ie. when people want lots and none are available.

So those NPC vendors will NOT run out, which (correct me if I'm wrong)- is what you're counting on in your theory of housing futures in SotA...

But how they do that, without alienating early backers, is the tough nut.... IMO.

 

The number of lot deeds of a given type sold in game for gold will be 30% of the total number of that type sold through pledges and in the add-on store.

 

This is not going to be a fantasy-game as promised - it's an exchange-simulation. Disgusting.

 

That brings up the question of how lots return to the primary markets. If taxes are not paid and the lot goes into foreclosure. Does the lot roll back into the store or does it stay in game for gold. Or is it a foot race vs a wallet race.

 

I would not go that far. The developers are pretty good at prioritizing the needs of the many over the wants of the few. Nothing anyone says in the thread represents the developers.

 

I've asked this question before, the concern being that people could leave the game and forever lock up a deed in their inventory. I don't know the answer to that. But I do know that it's both a foot race and a wallet race until those deeds run out. Then it's on to the secondary market. Again, unlike another game where having a deed in your inventory forever would be mean nothing, there will always be an opportunity to reintroduce that deed into the secondary market for a profit, and that might keep more deeds in circulation over time than what we would traditionally see in other MMO's.

 

I understand how it is necessary for all this to pan out for the longevity of the game, but I do not , nor will I ever agree to deceptive practices. If we just give hope, impression, illusion of future home ownership, what does that say about us as a community. Oh we condone this because it is for the good of the game. I want this game to last far way more than just 5 or 10 years. It is contentious, it is a conundrum. However I do not want to play a game where in the beginning is where a deceitful practice began. We are more than that as a community. Our Devs are so much more than that. Yes , lots in the future should be limited, but not impossible, and not just hope in the wind.

 

Well said. We have to wait and see, but I do think the Devs are aware of that it needs to be open enough for future players as well.