A simple message to POT owners

I'll just speak for myself here...

1. As of R26, Rats Nest version 3.0 is up and running. It's lacking in a lot of areas though. It's hard to deal with all the trees, NPC's don't do whole lot (especially guards) and the overall design of the town is not really close to what I was going for. Version 3.0 is more of a proof of concept than anything else.
2. My POT is on the farthest reaches of in-game content that there is. It's also a full PVP zone. These two things combined make it not such an attractive place to live at the moment. Rather than wedge it into the Vale near Owl's Head or some other high traffic area, I wanted a specific spot on the map that players would remember. They may not go there much now, but I think people generally know where it is.
3. I haven't had an opportunity to have a Static town created and a development session with Portalarium. I like the long term flexibility of a dynamic town, but until the tools are a little better I'm leaning towards making the town static. I hope this changes soon so that my choice is a little more clear. I'd really like to use the dynamic tools so that I can figure out what works best and make changes on the fly when I need to.

My hope is that as we move past the final wipe more and more players will live in my POT because it provides a unique experience that they can't find anywhere else. The best I can do right now is hold serve by creating a version of what I want the town to be so that people know that I'm serious about the town and can plan to live there after the wipe.

 

I built up Serenite twice and in doing so I learned heaps. Now I now all the quirks to placing lots and the best possible layout for the type of look and feel I want. In July come check out Serenite in Grumvald. Hopefully it will meet your standards. Its alot of work to build one up to have it torn down. So alot of cities are now empty.

 

Ohh I have made note of where Rat's Nest is, and even though I am only lvl 40 adventurer and lvl 80 blades I still bought me a Row Deed from the npc so I can place in Rat's Nest for Release 26.
I might not be able to hang with the best pvpers. But I will give it my all.

Besides i like the fact your POT is all the way out in the sticks, makes it a worthwhile accomplishment once i arrive there and place a home.
I plan on doing the same once final wipe comes.

Thank you Baron Drocis for creating such a wonderful town to slaughter ppl in.

Sincerely with an evil grin,
Schneider

 

To reiterate what others have said, and give insight into my own particular situation, I'm also on the fence about whether I wish to remain a Dynamic Template or opt for a Static Scene. There are a lot of unanswered questions that will be important to my decision including the tools available to Governors for Dynamic Templates, the final Decoration Limits after performance tuning, the range and limits of the customization that will be available for Static Scenes among others.

I would prefer to remain a Dynamic Template for the flexibility, immediacy and self determination it provides, however my desire (See the post linked through my signature) far exceeds the limits currently imposed on me by the state of the system. The Decoration Limit is about half of what I need to build what I wish. I also need to be able to pave a section of the template for my city center, and while "Giant Pavers" have been put into the backlog, I don't know when they will be available, or what the sizes of them will be. It's also not in the plan (to the best of my knowledge) to allow Governors to be able to define and create roads through their templates.

With a Static Scene I could provide the Devs with a very detailed description of what I want, where I wish lots to be placed, where and what type of roads I would like, where I would like trees added, request a couple of small Points of Interest I would like to have placed, and specify the cardinal orientation of the scene with attendant names. Also, with a Static Scene, the decoration limit would cease to be a limiting factor. I don't know, nor do I have a ready method to find out, whether what I want is within scope for a reasonable Static Scene request. I would also be giving up the ability to redefine the size and placement of lots to meet changing needs. Once they're set, they're set.

Without this information, I don't have the ability to realistically judge what route is best for my town.

Setting up what I wish to build (even beyond not being able to do so with the current decoration limits) is a significant amount of work. There are two more planned wipes prior to the Final Wipe on the 28th of July. Even were it possible to build exactly what I wish to build (Other than defining roads, which I don't believe is envisioned to ever be within the scope of the Dynamic Template tools) I would be hard pressed to find the time or motivation to do it now and two more times prior to Final Wipe.

I've been experimenting, seeing what works and doesn't, exploring my template (Grasslands, only recently released into the wild. Prior to the last release I was on the Pax Lair template) and refining my plans.

So, yes... Dawn's Keep is largely empty, and in only very minor ways reflects what I wish it to be ultimately. Until I have more answers, more tools, and enough information to make an informed decision on whether or not I want to remain Dynamic, or request a Static Scene, it will remain a place for me to play, plan, and discover.

 

Winfield and I spent most of our Sat/Sun working on PaxLair, tearing it down, experimenting with castle walls. It's is a massive undertaking and tons of time invested. For us it's ALL about finding how we go about building what we want.
It's NOT about making a pretty place for folks at this time. That will come, in time, post R32.

Has has been said, many of us have rebuilt a number of times after wipes. It's great fun when new....turns into a chore when done 3-5 times. Come post R32 and I think you'll find big differences in most. Some may not, we'll see.

 

Well said Rufus.

 

I have found that it takes me over 12 hours to put Rats Nest together. It's probably closer to 16, but 12 is about the point where it starts to resemble some kind of "finished" look. That's really without going through and adding much polish or small details too. It really is a huge time sink that can take several days, only to have it torn down again at the next wipe.

 

I'm somewhat curious, do they give you extra tools to be able to export a "finished" design? It would make sense especially if it would be a Static map, that they could take the raw data to review and then "bake" into the game, as opposed to having to redo it all from scratch each time and save everyone a lot of time and effort.

 

No.

 

Nope there are NO tools in static design.

Once they make your design. That's it. I do NOT believe the design "session" folks are talking about is going to be what they think it will be. I think you need to be very detailed on your form

You may have an opportunity to make changes on the design down the road , but it's considered a chargeable change.

That was as I knew it going into the design of PaxLair when we did the first template. Things may have changed on how they are going to handle them now that "dynamic" towns are around. Looking forward to @DarkStarr 's wall of text about the current thought/ coming features on PoT's.

 

That seems excessively painful, even if you're not going back to change the overall map. Sounds like a boatload of work just to go back and redecorate everything at the final wipe & land rush.

 

Which is why most PoTs are empty right now, to tie back to the OP.

 

Oh. It is. It's a pain. Because you have to do it after every wipe.
But I guess most of us pot owners knew or at least expected that.
The problem is that a 'dynamic' pot isn't that dynamic at all. That's why they all more or less look the same.
Even the item limit of a metro ties your hands if you want to build something that at least remotely reminds you of a npc metro.
Now imagine you are trying to decorate a hamlet or a holdfast.
And by decorating I am not talking about the details. I am talking about pavers for roads, lamps, maybe a perimeter wall. Try to do that with....what is it for a holdfast at the moment? 25 pices? That's not even enough for a cobblestone road in every street and a lamp post at every junction. Which is, for me, the minimum requirement.
That's one of the main reasons why i am thinking about going static.
But even if I could place all items I want...there is still the question of my bank account not willing to afford it.
The walls are incredible expensive. And they don't fit into my concept.
I would need a wooden palisade with towers.
And even if I would have everything, the money, the non existing items...would i be able to place the stuff the way I want?
I can already tell you no. I can't. One of my inhabitants tried it with the wall set from the add on store for good measure. Not a chance to build my idea by myself. At least not at the moment.

 

POT decoration and design is an enormous pain in the proverbial behind, one that only gets worse as the POT increases in size. It takes planning, organisation and sheer bloody-mindedness to make a reality, especially if it means trying to support an active population that will call it home. As the final wipe passes and people ultimately begin to fall in love with their respective little bits of paradise, I'm guessing that more POT owners will begin to make full use of their purchases. Some will remain derelict, most won't. Ultimately, I think the contrast of incalculable POT variations (hey, not all POTs need to be glamorous) will add a bit of welcome variety as SOTA matures.

That's probably a long way of saying, relax and don't worry, it'll sort itself out.

 

I would so like to buy my own pot,but at the moment they all seem so sad.If the Dev team would say " Right in the future you will be able to make your pot truly unique, you may design it like a creepy scary place, an English country garden or a Mad hatter's tea party or a mixture of all of it" I buy one now. We could even have our own sky, weather system which we could buy from the add on stores. How wonderful would that be. Also say we buy the smallest of pots, it would be nice if we could crop the land to the size of our liking so you don't get these vast empty spaces

 

A holdfast is allowed 20 decorations. I use 18 to build a wall around a village sized plot, leaving me just two items to decorate my town.
A holdfast is allowed 5 lights, which I place along the docks, because there's not much else I can accomplish with just 5 lights. I can't light the path from the entrance to the docks, as the lights are then too far apart to see from one to the next.
A holdfast is allowed one NPC building and two NPCs. I put up a tavern for a while, with bartender and customer. Right now, there's just a public garden, which is a greenhouse and two planters.
I do wish I knew what the eventual limits will be.
It is fortunate that Dead Horse is planned to have zero population.
My only choice right now is to use my keep plot and the walls and blocks to create a ruined town and to live in a village home, or to not decorate.

 

There really should be some better tools for people to decorate. 20 items is a ridiculously small amount of items, especially compared to what folks use to do in UO with items to make cool looking displays. Especially for stuff that would not be changed (like torches, wall hangings, etc), it would be awesome if there was a method for the players to submit the info, and have it baked into the actual server, so there would be less need for the game to draw separate gumps for everything.

 

Im just curious on the POTS, is my understanding that there are no more POTS with overhead map access? If thats the case what would be the point of purchasing a POT that doesnt have overmap access, and how would the players that do attract people to their POTS? Unless the ones with overhead access are horrendous. I guess player events for Heavy RPers would be a good way.