230 Dots "POTs"

Perhaps. But then again, I think that was the point. In previous Ultima games, the overworld "map" was integral part of the game itself, not just a way of getting from point A to point B.

 

Don't get me wrong, I like it. But I think the perspective issues are what is causing this disconnect.

The realism of the terrain doesn't jive with the size of the avatar and zoom distance.

 

I don't think they are intrusive and I like seeing the POTs, but I wouldn't mind having a switch to toggle the visibility of the POTs on and off, if it adds to the enjoyment of players who object to seeing POTs on principle. But that would not prevent players from entering PRTs like Holtrot, thinking there might be something of interest there.

I just claimed a lot in the beautiful resort town of Lux Sanctuary, courtesy of Spoon. In the screenshot below you can see the town a little to the left of the center. I love how it looks and think it adds positively to the overall flair of the landscape. If there were no POTs visible, the land would look almost uninhabited.


Some POTs are in rather central locations, so you can hardly avoid running over them on the overland map, so their name pops up very frequently. Chaos Crossroads outside of Kingsport is an example. I don't mind this, but if it bothers some people such POTs could be moved slightly to the side of the main thoroughfare.

 

Herein lies a problem, then. My character's sister is an NPC in Desolis who references my PoT in her dialog. Not that I think many will visit because of it, but that creates a problem for those with PoTs turned off. I'm sure I'm not the only one either. There will be books floating around the game referencing PoTs. They are part of the game world now.

 

The run lies the problem...when was the decision made that they would be a part of official lore?

 

The moment the developers decided to include contributors in the creative process.

 

Yea, its a matter of perspective though. Because lets agree that the world is small. But if you care about is the feeling of the map having an expanse of wilderness, more towns in the small world also compromises that. Making the map larger is a kind of solution to that, which I (personally) would support.

Just so you know, a lot of the people concerned about the crowding on the map -- like I know smack in particular -- were also concerned before there were ever POTs in the game and where it was only PRTs. So a lot of the comments in this thread aren't just from people who don't like the concept of POTs and are finding an excuse to rail against them.

 

They have Backers NPC's and Tombstones in Pillars of Eternity that are highlighted in a different colour so you do not have to open them and break the game immersion and Lore. With a Warning Tip when you are loading the game.
Maybe POTS can have small coloured symbol and the same warning on loading screen explaining what they are, and the possibility of High rent, real money transaction to live in some and Evictions by the POT owner.

 

It's not going to be just a map though. We're going to have a roving encounters too; things like that. Personally, I'm also pitching for a large wilderness space so we can have things like camping in the game, and a world where camping makes sense. If towns look really close together and you have a tiny space between them to set up camp, well that's just weird.

 

So we all get to be part of that I guess.

I still haven't got my created NPC, will have to look into that.

 

I agree it's not just a map. But I think it's easy to forget it's also supposed to be a map, and distances between towns and the perspective of how much wilderness there is or how crowded it is with towns is too critical. I'm suggesting people take a step back and not look at it as a to-scale depiction of the world.

 

Can't seem to find the other thread at the moment, but Lum specifically said that these indirectly user-created NPCs can only loosely refer to their POTs and cannot direct players to go there. He is approving/crafting that dialog anyways. But any other directly user-created content such as books can write whatever they like (that doesn't violate ToS). Unfortunately, these NPCs will have the exact same dialog in offline and will still refer to POTs in the offline game...where POTs don't exist. That's just really silly imho...anyways.

 

The offline game is going to really suffer dueto some of these decisions. Is anyone hearing this?

I do not like the way they handled this.

 

I agree....we can't even discuss it anymore.

 

That's already been proposed...

 

Cripes...it was bad as the PoT message system to let the other PoT know when they ban someone.

 

Hey I'd support it if when a guild took over a control point they could choose to charge a toll (gold or whatever else) if people didn't want to fight. More about giving control points some purpose for role-playing than anything else.

 

Why would you need to have version people could buy in game?

 

Technically, that's a form of PvP as you are forcing a player-to-player interaction without consent..and CPs aren't PvP-only scenes either...although some are trying to make all CPs that way.

 

I thought the reason people wanted to avoid PvP was because they didn't want to fight, though, not because it involved any player-player interaction. A lot of PvE people are going to interact and socialize in different ways, and it would be no different than paying an NPC. No griefing involved, and possibly still ways around the control point.