A different line of feedback about forced multiplayer

I'll avoid commenting on things already brought up in the thread that got locked, but I have another concern not yet brought up that I think merits consideration.

While I don't personally have issue with core town centers being public, I do have a pretty big issue with my personal house properties also being forced public in the process. It won't cause me to quit or radically change my gameplay, but what it will change is my landscaping in that I'll be more incentivized to put up huge walls around my land to secure my personal space rather than trying to make nice, open areas for public enjoyment.

Now my reasons for this are disability-related, so I don't know how commonly that sentiment would be shared by the general population, but if I'm not in an extreme minority in this, it could backfire in its goal to make the world seem a more attractive place.

 

I don't really understand this but if you want to put up a high wall and lock all the doors then that's your business.

 

Someone told me they sell nice basements for people that want their privacy or keep botting exp on crafting table without being reported, sorry meant to say disturbed. And another nice option in SOta is lock own lot, another option is play offline mode, cause there are no meaning of play an mmo online where you want just play solo and hide from each other.

 

It's not forced mutiplayer, the offline game still exists. On a side note your house was always public if you play online, even if you never log in to multi.

 

The offline game is a lot different than playing privately online. Online you are still part of the player economy, can see things other people make, and interact in other indirect ways. While it's true that no one is literally forced into mutliplayer, people still have more options when private online exists in towns than when it doesn't. To say that it's not forced because you can play offline mode isn't much different than saying it's not forced because you could watch TV or go skiing.

Instead of removing options from players that don't always feel like directly interacting with other players, it would be much better to add more nuanced instancing options for everyone, like a setting that allows for seamlessly playing in private or friends mode in adventure scenes and mutliplayer in town scenes. Then you would have more socialization without removing any options from people that aren't interested in that.

 

Perhaps in trying to stay brief I wasn't clear enough on what I meant. I love my properties being public. It's something I invest a lot in and get much enjoyment from as a way to express myself and contribute to the gameworld when other social options are more limited to me due to disability. I want my land to be enjoyed by others besides just myself, but what I don't want is to be publically accessible as a player in my own home or shops. That's usually considered a pretty normal convention in real life such that violators can get arrested for not respecting it and an entire class of job market exists for employing people as social buffers to allow others to work for the public without being interrupted by the public, so it shouldn't seem that shocking that some people might desire the same of their virtual properties, too.

However, I'm trying to avoid saying this is a bad decision for the game just because it's undesired by me. Speaking for just myself, if we can't keep the luxury of mixed-mode interaction that currently allows me to do nice things publicly without having to guard my private boundaries in the process, I am more likely to remove my lands from public accessibility to preserve my personal privacy than deal with situations I don't find enjoyable for the sake of contributing to the public good.

This isn't a gaming issue, this is a well-known social issue called the problem of the commons where in most cases the general populace can't be trusted to respect and not exploit public accessbility of people and resources without external regulation. A lot of MMOs have private housing which helps mitigate this problem, but I personally like Shroud's arrangement better which lets me maintain some public presence and contribution without having to sacrifice privacy. If that goes away, then really there's not that much difference between private-instance housing and walled-off housing so the game loses a unique selling point it had in that regard.

**BUT** I also recognize that this is a niche game and as such, its population may not necessarily hold to the same principles as general population theory. From a purely objective standpoint, I don't think it should be too controversial to say that changing the experience of land ownership and maintenance will also as a byproduct change the value of that land to current and potential owners. For me it will lessen my personal valuation of my land and therefore my investment into it, but my case is just anecdotal and something I'm providing as a practical illustration of potential consequence, not something that should be extrapolated as the general case game-wide.

While I feel pretty safe in asserting that land usage and valuation will be affected by such a course, I genuinely don't know if that effect will ultimately be net positive or negative. The very same things that might lessen land value to me might increase it to others in enough measure to offset or surpass my lessened investment. So even if I don't like the change personally, I can still see value in it as a business decision to get some hard data on what the playerbase actually does with it -- ie: if either players turn out to be more trustworthy and respectful than the average population and keep themselves regulated enough to not cause conflict, or if conflict occurs that the dominating side is willing and capable of picking up the financial slack left behind by the disenfranchised -- so long as it remains reversible if players turn out to not have the maturity to make this a constructive thing.

So I am just saying that I wouldn't like it and that I'm cynical about the results, but not that it shouldn't be done. However, I do think the effect on housing experience warrants some consideration because that's a major area of financial input into the game which may or may not be wise to include in experimentation at this time.

 

I like solo mode for checking out other peoples' houses. I won't be able to do that now but I'm okay with it.

 

RMT traders' idiosyncrasies should not be a factor in building a better game for a larger population.

No amount of nuanced language will prevent someone's hidden motivation from being discovered.

 

My disability is Aspergers Syndrome so "nuanced language" is just part of who I am, not an attempt to hide anything. Which is part of the reason I don"t do so well with real-time social settings and find it a pain to have to explain my difficulties to any random passerby who'll be offended by my inabilty to converse with them.

 

I really don't understand this sentiment.

 

My wife also spends hours and hours decorating, and also does not like to do so in a public mode as it interrupts her train of thought to have people coming by. Part of why she does it is for the public as well, so they can enjoy results and for it to add to the game. I.e., by removing the private capability in public towns is a direct negative impact for her.

A side point, that I saw brought up that I haven't seen addressed, is that you could (in solo mode) force a scene refresh if the game bugs out in a public scene such as a town (i.e., the oracle malfunctions). You can't do that with the new mixed mode.

 

That is why they have locks on doors

 

That's not even remotely equivalent. Nice try though. Locks on the "doors" don't keep people from passing by right outside your lot, or bothering you with conversation, emotes, etc. Decorating one's lot does not occur purely inside the house, either (except perhaps row lots)

 

I could always initiate a direct conversation with you regardless of what mode you were in.

 

Unless I block you. But again, really not the same thing. It's one thing to have someone on their friend's list and be able to whisper to a player, if so desired. It's another to have your home on a busy street in a busy town w/ people talking and emoting or doing whatever else they're doing, even if they aren't directly interacting with you.

 

What I find most interesting of all, in all these threads -- I've seen ZERO people say the change is bad. I've seen numerous people simply point out it could use a slight tweak/improvement, which would make the game great for *everyone*. And yet there are tons of really nasty followups from folks implying that what is being asked for is unreasonable. SOTA has been unique in that it offered a respite/refuge for people who have various social anxiety issues or simply want to be able to play in a game world with others but in limited interactions. I personally would probably be in the mixed mode most of the time if it was an option, but there are times I would like to be able to be fully solo. Same with lots of other people, clearly. Why eliminate an option that makes the game great for a larger group of people? There's zero need to do so.

 

The "tweak" that people are asking for is to make it optional, which would completely neuter the change because everyone would just opt-out and continue on with private mode. The point of the change is to make the world feel populated, which is good for the overall health of the game. This cannot be done if people could just opt-out. The biggest benefit of private mode remains; you don't have to compete for resources.

 

The world feels so empty as much because it's too big for the population as anything having to do with modes. I can look at my FL and see so many cases of a single person in each area, except for UT and The Rise, of course. There are simply too many places to go for our current population.

What I am (and presumably others are) saying is to make the change only to Party mode for now, since that is subject to forgetfulness, and since that mode is so commonly used. Let Private mode remain private, at least for now, and see how it works. It can always be changed later. Otherwise it's like a social version of the nerfhammer, and I know you all love it when the nerfhammer is swung too hard.

 

There currently exists no option to be in mixed mode. I think it should be the default mode for all players, with multiplayer and solo remaining as options. This provides the most flexibility. Since we currently do not have this option, I don't think you can really make a hard statement that everyone would opt out. There is for most people little reason to opt out, but there are valid reasons for some people to opt out, and I rather be inclusive to those people than exclusive. I mean, we have a fundraiser for autism, right? So why are we now going out of our way to exclude those people from this game?

 

My concern is that the people who want to opt out will still opt out, just in a more world-emptying way if they have to take their property with them to accomplish it. However, I also tried to be clear that I don't know if such people constitute enough percentage of the population for it to be good or bad for the game overall because the possibility does exist that what diminishes one player's interest might increase another's, so I understand your fears and feelings as equally valid too. Which is why while I would prefer a more fine-tuned solution to this to accommodate as many playstyles as possible, I wouldn't be offended by a trial period of this change to see what really happens one way or another so we don't have to keep theorizing about it.