Baron Level Early Access

I fear you are going to be disappointed after all is clarified....

 

Why would you care if a citizen places before a baron? As a baron, are you planning on building on a village lot?

 

Yeah, Barons get city-size lots. Citizens can only choose village-size lots. There's no conflict there.

Man, they really need to settle this once and for all. And LoneStranger is absolutely right. I think any official comments made during the KS campaign should be put in the FAQ. It's clear mistakes are being made so they are indeed in a bit of a mess here.

Perhaps we should consolidate all those comments to a sticky post. It does not appear like the Community Managers or Devs have time to do that and it will help with these discussions. And by help, I mean, cause further debate

 

The best & only fair way for them to do is Founders get a 2 hour window never mind if you have spent a couple of $'s more you put in your claim and its first come gets it.
None of this whinging about I'm before him/her leave that in the classroom.
I'm worried If you are the High Pledgers and have access to Dev+ to put in your idea's for the Game. I can see how we ended up with the farcical change to one Player owning multiple plots,it seems you didn't want to support the game but your own interests above 25K+ other players.

 

Good point, I guess I got caught up in the idea that somehow I'm competing with 22k lower tier Kickstarters, but really I guess Im only competing with Barons and above.

 

The reason why people can own multiple plots is because Portalarium gave it to them. That's what initiated this. As part of a contest, you can win a land deed and prior to this nobody could own more than one piece of land. But because of the contest, some backers who already owned land ended up winning it and got two pieces of land. So, they had to open it up for everyone. So no, it wasn't because of Dev+ self interest that drove this. Portalarium opened the door for everyone.

Are you seeing a pattern here? No good deed goes unpunished and Portalarium always ends up in a bit of a mess where they now need to solve for everyone. You can't fault them for trying to please everyone when there can be conflicting interests. It's a difficult thing to do and I'd hate to be in their shoes.

 

@wagram I think if you had access to the Dev+ forum, you'd be really disappointed in what you find there.

All the action happens out here in the open.

I haven't seen a single discussion with anybody claiming to be better than anyone else.

As to your suggestion, it just doesn't go along with what we were promised, so I doubt they'll consider it.

 

Just because they already had a Plot doesn't mean they should then give everyone multiple Plots, The could have given them $200 to spend in the shop anytime before launch.
And that still does not condone throwing the game wide open to gold farmer abuse.
Ok so someone had 2 plots that still didn't give him the right to place 2, So another big change to policy and now they can own multiple homes.
They should be concentrating on making the game attractive to People on launch not caving into those who have already Pledged their support.
If all you Multi Plot owners are not buying to make a quick Buck, tell them to go back to 1 placed Plot allowed per account and either credit you your money or have it added to your Pledge.
I know that will not happen and we will be stuck with a failure due to the Greed of the few.

 

It is what it is. There's pretty much no turning back on that decision now. Another other thing they can do is to not allow players post-launch to claim multiple plots of land (they can own all the deeds they want, they just can't claim more than 1 simultaneously), so it would mean this perk is a pre-lanuch backer only thing. But yeah, that's probably going to piss off another set of players too. Like I said, you can't please everyone so there's always going to be someone that won't be happy.

 

But the Object is to please the Majority if they don't like it they will leave and you end up with the few so the game fails.
Much better busines sense is if the few leave and the majority stay.
I'd say about 10% of the 30k backers maybe less are active on these forums in just over a week they will I would expect get an email to direct them to the beta download, which the first 2 days is dedicated to housing & decor.
If thats their thing they wont be happy.
When they signed up it was 1 house per account. They will be in for some major shocks when they check out the add-on shop.

 

Participation in the forums seems to be closer to 1% than 10%.
It seems most people are just waiting for the game to come out.
We are just the vocal minority.

Smack is right. Portalarium is trying to do good things, even though there seems to be a line of people that will bash them no matter what they do.

 

I think some of the problems could have been avoided if they had been thought through to conclusion a bit more. Perhaps in a non-transparent development situation pushing things off for a solution later is possible, but when you are releasing information to people earlier, you kind of need to have semi-solid plan that has been seen by more eyeballs and perhaps had a couple iterations.

 

When did they ever give a definitive statement originally that they were limiting accounts to 1 house? They limited pledge rewards to 1 house per pledge - that is unrelated to how many houses you can have in game, though.

 

To their credit, they often say "This is our current plan, but it may change".

 

I'm sure they are trying, but I'm afraid they are failing to look at the long term implications of the multi Housing Plot scheme, The only time its feasable to sell anything from an ingame shop is when it is an unlimited supply.
I would never want Housing to be unlimited. But I expect to go into a game and compete against the other players to buy that with ingame gold, if you can buy it for $ whats the point of the Multiplay game,
The offline play will be ok but we all play multiplayer to compete equally, Only cheats resort to BOTS this principle is like a developers BOT as it gives some an unfair advantage.
Its no good making excuses for Portalarium they have made a mistake and they have to correct it.

 

Well if you read this earlier article it tells you why they changed it.

 

I never thought it was one lot per account, just one character. Guess I wasn't paying attention.

I figured all founders would go first by lot size then pledge amount, then benefactors in the same manner. They could allow all of these people to place ONE property at their preferred level, then go back through again, like a draft pick. POST benefactor but prior to launch, a housing lottery makes some sense, or placement simply by purchase date. These additional properties could be added into a lottery system. This would likely infuriate some different people, but would seem fair and even (dare i say it?) fun.

A fair rule would really be that you get to place any lots that come as part of your pledge, according to your pledge, and all add-ons are placed through lottery, regardless of your total pledge amount. This would give equal footing to those who go a-la carte while preserving the preference for founders/benefactors.

As far as I'm concerned, they can do what they want with prize winners. If they want to give the Eslingers first pick, good on them.

 

The way it was explained is this: You only get one (1) lot with your pledge. That's the lot you will place when your time comes to select a lot. Any additional lots you own will be after all pledge lots are decided. This includes the addon lots and the lots awarded in the contests.

In the Lot Add-on description:

"There is only a finite amount of land in SotA, and the available property deeds are going fast. If you purchase your Village Lot Property Deed through the Add-On Store, you will have lot placement priority over everyone else that waits until SotA launches before they purchase a property deed."

and

"First priority will be given to backers for lot choice. The order will be determined by amount of pledge. Backers will be given an exclusive window to choose their lots. Each backer can choose exactly one lot during the window. The next window will be given to those who purchase lots from the Add On Store. After that window lot choice will be open to all players )"

 

I remember reading an interview were they liked the appeal of the Oklahoma land rush. if you are all going to be given a few hours head start on other players its not much of a land rush.
I'm hoping after the launch of the game NO more Plots will ever be sold in store and they will have to be paid for with in game Gold there can be no satisfaction gained in starting the game with one of the main things everyone will be trying hard to achieve.

So maybe instead of wanting a head start on everyone else, they reserve the number of Plots that have been allotted so that amount of each type can never be acquired. You then set off Adventuring to earn the Gold it will cost in game to buy,once you have achieved that you choose a Plot that is still vacant of that size. You keep your in game gold but need to have it in your account before you can use your deed.

 

Guess it is settled then.