Enhancements for Dynamic POTs - ideas?

I can see rocks and stones for this,but we can't have railroad ties when there is no such thing as a railroad in the game.

 

we already have railroad splines in the mines for the carts, if i remember correctly. i could be wrong though, it has been months since i went into a mine.

 

They have mine carts in Port Graf and tracks for them are everywhere.

 

i think i saw them in brittany wharves too?

 

You are right,there are mine carts in some of the mines. The statement I responded to did not say mine cart ties,it said railroad ties. Historically, tracks for mine carts and railroads are very different from each other in their standards and requirements for materials,including tracks and the wooden "tie" or cross member support system.
Although it is true there are larger mines in the world that use engines to transfer carts from the mine depths to the surface,you will notice all the mines in Shroud, carts are moved by hand and do not require nor do the mines have a system set up in this manner. For a mine to use a engine system, it would have to be huge and none of the mines in Shroud qualify as that. The hand pushed based mine cart system does not have steel track that is anywhere near the size of a railroad track.
My comment was based on using this current game information and the history of mines and railroads,railroads which Shroud does not have. Although I have not been in the mines recently,if any mines contained "railroad tie" sized wooden cross members, they would have been drawn incorrectly historically speaking.
If my post seemed to dismiss your idea, I am sorry. I only based my response on the information I had about railroads,which a mine cart system isn't.

 

no worries, man. none whatsoever.

good point there about mine vs rail tracks.. most of the wood i see are 4x2's horizontal attached to 4x4's to "keep the roof up" type things.
fortunately this game doesn't have to rely on any specific type of historical timeline nor model, and can draw from just about anything they wish due to the nature of the lore of the avatars coming in during the information age of earth (sucked through the computer screen), so it wouldn't be much of a stretch and wouldn't cause too much suspension of belief just for that one item to be added. i can also see how they can add those items to many different biomes and zones to make some of the landscape more believable too.

 

And again some ideas:

- Decorative animal spots (crabs, frogs, snakes, insects, ...). You place a trigger e.g. a bush and decorative animals appear from time to time, walk a little around/make a sound and disappear again by stepping back into the bush

- Erratic boulders as decoration (simply a large rock) maybe in different types (spheric or elongated) to e.g. create your own and individual stone circle

- Special versions of (street) lamps that are surrounded by moths or something you can put on an existing lamp to create this effect

- More versions of (street) lamps (bone lamps, hovering lamps (e.g. on top of a machine or a magic stone), …)

- Floor lamps (electric, magic, lava) as spot or line (e.g. to create a path in the dark, highlight a specific area,…)

- There was already the suggestion to create a gust ball arena, why not also a stadium with hurdles or a water basin or something alike to create additional sportive competition areas

- Maypole, fortuneteller tent + glass sphere, fairground stall, high striker, … and other items to create a funfair

- fishing net, hay bale, rubble heap, wood shavings heap, … as decorations to display the local crafting professions

- garbage cans that avatar can discard items they do not need

- a larger city escutcheon made of wood/stone/iron/... displaying the name of the city and a crest (e.g. the one of the owner) and could be placed at the entrances of the village

 

if we get a fortune teller tent i will have a Problem in the future, because i've not enough space anymore in my garden, but maybe i can use one on the marketplace

 

oddly, what piqued my interest more was this:

would they despawn items thrown in, or would they be like public cache chests where anyone can go in or out?

could the pot owner set one up with labels 'scrap wood' and the likes, set the type on the chest, and then only allow 'deposits' of that type?

 

Well actually I thought about to literally trash items. I think currently you have to right click on the item to destroy it. If you have multiple items you and no one else seem to need this could be an annoying repetition.

By using the already existing mechanics a garbage can could be a less annoying solution...e.g. for getting rid of stolen goods.

But I think there would be no problem if someone would like to rifle through the garbage of other people…so maybe the garbage cans are e.g. emptied once a day and until that happens everyone could pick something out…the garbage of the one is the treasure of the other.

 

All... From the Standup Notes from Monday:

 

As a new POT owner, I enjoyed reading all the great ideas and look forward to seeing some of them happen.

One I did not see was a 'rippled' fishing area that shows where the fish are biting like in non-POT scenes. I looked at all my POT water areas and didn't find any. I would like to place one in the Outlander Welcome Center so I can place a chest with fishing poles and worms near the fishing area (I know the chest would have to be on a lot so the 'ripples' would have to be in range of an area a lot could be placed on).

OR create a POT deco container called 'Fishing Basket' that could contain fishing poles, worms, fish, etc. that could be placed anywhere.

@Winfield , any other fishing ideas, I know you have them!

 

POTs are probably the least cared for game feature. I'd like to see some simple scripting abilities for POT owners and, in general, just a variety of tools to make events.

Some very simple ideas:

Event NPC - POT owner should be able to right click the NPC and set up some simple dialogue.
Dialogue options
- broadcast option - NPC broadcasts specific text, specified by a POT owner, to a zone at a set time interval
- question and answer option - POT owner configures questions and set of answers

POT only placeable interactable objects - pot owner places the object down, opens it and gives it some action (example - click the object and it gives you an item). We have one stupid chest right now, for 30$ in the store. What I mean, make things interactable, like the statues we place - you click on it, it says something, based on what you configure it to say etc etc

POT only placeable none-exp Mobs - POT animals/enemies - PvE mobs that POT owner can customize in some way (patrol, fight, speak, run, talk).

I can't stress enough how little they have done for POT owners. Considering that selling POTs have raised them close to a million dollars, just giving us the biome, where we can only place static objects, without any kind of functionality, it's pathetic to say the least. They could have hired few good programmers for that money to work ONLY on POT features for 1-2 years, with a lot of money left for whatever else they want. Rather, everything went into a one big pot , and, in the end, POT owners got zombie biomes, where all people can do today is host dance parties and dance around those static objects.

I don't consider myself today as a pot OWNER... it feels more like I am just renting this virtual space from Port because of how little I can really do. I mean, think about it, some games I can buy for 40$-50$, and have the whole TOOLSET available, not just some lame piece of land. I can make my own dungeons, even though from pre-designed templates, but still, I can place NPCs, make quests etc etc... and then host my dungeons online and actively GM them. Here, we've spent thousands of dollars for biomes and all we can do is run around with naked butts... But who am I to say anything, and like there is any point really to say anything, hoping that anything will change... so, whatever.

 

Obviously you are frustrated about what POT owners are able to do. This forum has a huge laundry list of suggestions for @DarkStarr and the design team. Personally I am a governor of a metropolis,which like many other invested in the largest town available. But no matter the size of the town, all owners spent their money and want certain things to make their town attractive and vibrant. We all spent money for the ability to lay out a town as we see it and we all have certain expectations

But you also have to realize that there are plenty of issues that involve game play they have to resolve that affect everyone. If you look at it honestly,town owners represent only a small percentage of the player base. And POT's while a large part of the game, only comprise one section of the game itself. I can see why the overall game itself needs work before they do things for town owners. Mr. Whomever,who spent $45.00 on the game,imho, is more important than me and my town, because it is those players that eventually be driving the game for the most part.

Towns are no longer available, unless a owner sells. So we as owners have the ability to make suggestions for what we want and I am sure the design team has not forgot about us. Currently, we have part of the player base wanting a multitude of things and I can't really say "oh me first". Many may not agree with me and that's OK. I feel we will see POT tools and the ability to do a number of things. I just cannot personally see it would be right to put it before overall game play.

 

dude.. I'd just be so F'n happy to get the damned lawnmower tool....I switched my pot to get away from the parking lot....now i have (Forest 1a) all these damned trees I can't move to make what I want... which is a SIMPLE wee village in the woods.

AS it is. I can't see squat.. lining things up is a total joke.. hoping Umuri will release the new version of his HUD with the grid overlay I asked him to make....

and to be perfectly honest.... I think we should get a 1 time FREE biome switch.

 

I know you are trying to be reasonable and all that, but I just used another opportunity to rant because I know that with current dev team size and remaining budget or the lack there of, they will never get to the point, when they will be able to make something for POTs really worth the mention.

The above mentioned lawn mower, was promised ages ago and it's just one darned tool... it just shows not only that POTs are in the end of the very very very long list of priorities, it also shows that with the way things are now, they probably have left one slave of an employee, who works 24/7 to catch up on list of features from a year ago. They will never be able to do anything for POTs the way things are now, I am it seeing any light in the end of this SOTA tunnel. They may finish season one, but this Portalarium train, by the time they get to the finish line, will be all rusted through, going last remaining miles with some awful screeching and moaning.

I hope I'll be able to sell everything that I ever boaght to someone, who just jumped on this screeching crawling train by the time it breaks into many little pieces. I just don't have faith in Port any more. They don't do anything to make things better, they are pushing a dyeing horse and sqeueezing out of us last $ they can through the store items, since there are no game elements left to attract interest any longer.

They should have looked for a sponsor or something, try to raise real money to get the development back on track and make things happen, from real investor instead of trying to squeeze even more money out of players that they already overcharge on everything. it's some kind of a group of buddies making a hop back to nostalgic experiences and overcharging players for everything they can. Here is one crafted item for you and yes, come to the store, there are 15 more models of the same item with awesome skins. We care for you player, don't we? We gave you one crafted item! Come on!

They are pushing content more and more towards spending $ on COTOS. Recent change with repairs only reinforces their "business model" that is becoming similar to an Asian F2P publisher. There is a spiritual successor to UO for you... turning the game into a money making sausage... I am done ranting, it's just not worth it.

 

No. No no no. Just no.

Your logic looks good on paper, but..... If they do that, they are literally beholden to that sponsor, and have to bend to their will. Even if the contract states otherwise, it happens/will happen on backchannels, and in my opinion, that will destroy what remaining faith the original backers had/have.

I do agree though, an alternative additional revenue stream would be welcome, as long as the vision is secured.

 

The financing models for single player and multiplayer games are completely different. A single player game does not require substantial ongoing support, so it can be financed from the game's purchase price. Multiplayer games need to pay for servers to host the game, and office space, salaries, etc. for the staff required for the continuous ongoing development that all modern MMOs require in order to keep players interested.
The ongoing finance for SotA is based on COTOs. Look at other multiplayer games like ESO or LOTRO and you will find similar mechanisms for raising necessary funds.

 

I love the resurrection of this idea. Thanks to @Winfield for reinvigorating this.

As I have said many times in other posts, the devs should give us the tools to decorate so they can eventually step away and work on other things.

One of the things I wanted to see is the ability for us as Governors is to be able to merge walls, castle walls into the side of hills or natural highwalls. This would give the effect of someone having made a retaining wall along side a hill. So I guess this would be the ability to suspend "collision" for some objects temporarily until we have the walls/stairs placed.

Increased deco limits. Big time increase in deco limits. (I know this is a worn out topic)


I will add more later.

 

IMHO, this should be possible as long as NPCs (including pets) do not have to walk on top of walls.

The reason why we cannot do this right now is due to the way dynamic navmesh is configured. Having walls melded with terrain brings in the issue of how NPCs will navigate the terrain to enter the roof of walls, instead of using ladders/stairs.