Lets do Regional Economies today!

Alright boys and girls,

I am not sure what the devs have planned for regional economies, regardless it is probably pretty far off and will take a lot of man hours to pull off, as we all know there are a lot of more important items the team is working on right now.

So what's the work around you ask? How can we make semi-regional economies that makes PvE and PvP players happy?

**NOTE** Because people seem to have focused on the Control points forcing players into PvP, I would like to clarify that I simply meant to participate in this event you would have to be flagged for PvP. However there could be a PvE version of this it just would not be as random and dynamic in my personal opinion, sadly we cant program a NPC to double cross a guild by providing their enemy with information.


Easy!

Step 1. Give each region a special item that can be either created or purchased. There can be items that can be crafted or purchased by a single person or a large group of players... you know like a guild or a raid. The main point is the harder the item is to create the more it will payout. An example of a Guild level project would be to create something out of 1,000 silver ingots.

Step 2. That person/raid/guild will need to move that item they created from that region, (Block all ability to teleport/recall if you have the item on you) across a control point in order to sell it on the other side, the more control points the item is moved thru, the bigger the payout/reward, i.e. the item receives a multiplier or something like that for every control point it crosses thru.

- If the player carrying the item dies, it can be looted by anyone..
- Players would have to opt into PvP in order for this to work, or possibly implement a PvE version of this. The main point being that it is optional, and no one is going to force you to do this...

Step 3. Mass chaos, guild warfare, dogs and cats sleeping together. People/Raids/Guilds will be battling it out, trying to get that item from one part of the map to the other. If they make it, let the victor be well rewarded!

@Lord British2 @DarkStarr @Chris

Can we do something like this?

 

I love it! High risk high reward. But I would think connecting control points would give much more of a risk to it. This would give raiding groups many points to enter and attack. But to the victor goes the spoils
The big question would be what kinds of payouts could the winning teams get?

 

Good question Dreamlarp, but I think that would be up to the Devs to decide, the only thing I would suggest is that it is well worth the trouble.

 

What are the alternatives to getting through control points? Devs won't make somewhere open PvP if it will hinder story progress and whatnot. As soon as you mentioned 'force people', I knew you'd have a lot of resistance. The devs have stated numerous times since the beginning they wouldn't force people into PvP. The answer that, "you don't have to go through control points, you don't have to PvP" won't fly because if someone needs to get from point A to point B and there's a control point in between then you're leaving them no choice but to flag for PvP. Just my opinion based on conversations I've seen.

 

I don't know if they changed their minds, but they mentioned that they would be making control points open PvP in the next release or two anyways, I hope they don't get bullied into diverting from their master plan.

It is very easy to bypass control points, just teleport to a friend or alt. Or possibly make some control points purely PvE? I don't know, but I think this would be a lot of fun for everyone.

You could even have some type of opt in button, if you don't opt into the chaos, you don't get any loot.

Just to put this into perspective, this suggestion is coming from a guy who is horrible at PvP, and belongs to a guild, that could not PvP its way out of a nursery.

 

I'd like to see where you read that. I'd be surprised if they made any area completely open PvP that would bottleneck players into one region. I don't think it's a matter of being bullied if they never planned to do it in the first place.

Well, you mentioned not being able to teleport if you're carrying certain items from that region so that wouldn't always work for certain players.

You could have an opt in type system, which is essentially what we have now. You'll get some resistance from the PvP crowd because that's not really open PvP then, is it? Plus, if you're doing any type of warfare, they would suspect people just running through could be acting as spies for one side or another. People wanted to go into Shardfalls without flagging even if they got no loot but it was decided to make them PvP only. However, those are essentially dead ends on the map. There's nothing they are blocking access to on the other side so they aren't really a 'gate' per se.

From my perspective, I'm not someone who enjoys PvP. I know you think it might be fun for everyone but that's not entirely true. I can do realm vs. realm type stuff where you're fighting for an objective along with others but just open PvP? I don't care for it at all. Not saying your idea is bad. I'm just trying to see what the reality of it might be regarding what I've reading about PvP in general.

 

Here you go R33 Release Notes: https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/release-33-instructions.59693/

PvP Zones Are Open Multiplayer Only: Players will now encounter other players in zones flagged for PvP regardless of their match-making mode. You will no longer be able to enter these areas in Single-Player nor Friends modes to circumvent PvP risk. There are a few areas like the Obsidian Ruins where story elements require venturing into those areas and we are going to work on alternate ways for players to navigate those areas like we have experimented with in some of the Control Points (i.e. the teleporting Wizard). For example the Crypt of the Avatar which is located in the Midras ruins can now be alternately accessed via the Midmaer Passage. We know this change will be controversial, but we believe it is the best decision for the long-term health of the game.

They also talked a lot about this in past postmortems, not going to dig up what one though.

Guess some of us will have to start paying for the wizard or have some fun with your friends occasionally and not worry about losing some pixels.

 

I thought that quote was specifically about the change to the Shardfalls. They talked about putting wizards there like Control Points for players to get to quest locations without going through them or altering the way you get to those quest areas entirely. I just don't remember them talking about this coming to control points themselves but I'll look for the postmortems.

 

Makeing controlpoints like Eastreach gap a PvP-zone definitly is a no-go for me. Forcing players into PvP just to get from A to B? No, thank you! I don't understand why many cool and intersting zones have to be PvP-zones, but that's another topic. PKers drove me off UO and EVE Online. I don't want to see that happening here again. I really don't get why those PvP-junkies are so eager about forcing other players to their playstyle. You don't get more players to play like that by forcing them to do so.

 

Did you actually read my post or are you just talking at me? I am talking about implementing a trade route that is OPTIONAL where players have to fight their way thru a zone in order to receive an award, once the item is delivered.

If you don't want to PvP, which I don't 98% of the time, you don't have to do this, as @DarkStarr stated they are exploring ways for players to bypass PvP zones.

 

Sure, I read it. Basically what you try to propose is some PvP-quest. This will have no impact on any kind of regional economy btw. it's simply a way for PvP-players to make some money and have some fun. Then you plan to turn the PvE-Controlpoints into PvP-controlpoints, basically turning them into PvP-zones. That's not just some zone you can simply bypass to get to a quest. Those are points nearly everyone has to travel trhough to get around. That all has nothing to do with regional economy, it's about turning this game more and more into the PvP-heaven I don't want to play in.

 

This is an interesting idea. the way I see it would be something like this:

• Once the trigger is done, a wagon is generated on the overworld and players have to protect it as it moves.
  
• It draws random encounters as it moves.
• When it reaches a control point, players are drawn in with it and have to protect it through the gates.
  • It happens to "rest" for a bit on the control point, so you have to fight off a couple waves
• Repeat the random encounters on the other side.
• When it reaches the destination, you get a resource load payout.

If you are PvP enabled, this same thing could happen, but the random encounters are replaced by PvP encounters, and while the wagon rests in the control point the entire control point might be open pvp flagged for the duration.

 

Alright, lets leave PvP out of it for a moment... The idea about an escortquest isn't that bad and might be fun. But what would you think needs that kind of transportation that cannot be transported by a player him/herself?

 

If its something that a player can carry, there isn't much excitement in the quest. Players can run through just about any encounter currently. Control Points don't even stop level 1 players. Its just another mail delivery quest at that point.

In a regional economy, they don't send a dozen of their goods somewhere, they ship a thousand. Its costly to deliver things, so they do it in bulk to save money. Look at import/export businesses here on Earth; we ship huge amount of specific goods in specific directions. I expect the same would be here; you make 250 of some good, and then everyone who contributed has their goods stacked on a wagon (or ship, whatever) for transport. They don't have them to 1,000 Avatars and have them run for it.

 

That paragraph you quoted definitely does not say that control points will become PVP zones.

 

Nope. Never going to happen. Control points will never be forced PvP. Darkstarr has confirmed this in Dev+.

 

So what is your point, this is about an optional event for players to do, not an argument on control points which are basically useless at this point. Couldn't one opt in to participate in an event like this, by being forced into having to flag for PvP and as mentioned above there could be a PvE event as well, it just would not be as fun considering NPCs cannot replicate humans at this point in time. Anyways I would ask that people don't get stuck on being forced into PvP because that is not the main topic of this post, it is about giving the players something fun they can do together as a team, and which could be enhanced if there was PvP versions of this as well.

I am honestly surprised people are using this to talk about forced PvP... this is about a event that you do not have to participate in, so get over it already not everyone should be forced to play your way either.

There I changed the sentence about having to force people into PvP when going thru control points, to make it more clear that in order to participate in this event, you would have to opt in for PvP.... just like we do now.

 

With fast travel, any attempt at regional economies is a facade, at best. Sorry, that's the logical flow, there's no way around it.

 

Again, please read the first post, this is a suggestion to the devs for a regional driven event that players can participate in. Regional in the sense that each region has an item players can craft that will reward them with something region specific when turned in.
Not about fast travel, not about forcing people into PvP.

Your killing me Smalls....

 

Sounds like more of a guild based triggered event. (doesn't seem to have anything to do with Regional Economies, tbh)

If that's the case, then the guild would just do it at 2am (or whenever everyone is sleeping the most) to avoid any response.

However, Meridian59 did this with NPC's during busy times, and it worked to great effect. In fact, it was one of the most memorable aspects of the game, but it was based on NPC factions, and running/pitched open PvP battles by all the participants in a world without the overland map.