Final Wipe and Lot Selection

It all depends on how much importance they want to apply to regional economies. Giving the impression that they are important and are constraints to gameplay, while in fact they are not, makes the game feel a little shallow and fake in that respect. They can be enjoyed as such in a RP sense of course, but most people will just do the easiest thing..run through them as fast as their +4 boots of wind will let them. Personally id like them to be a BIG part of the world, it would cut off lots of Novia to players of course for a duration, which many wouldn't like i imagine, but it would add a lot of gameplay to the world. If each region was self sufficient for player levels then it isn't so much of an issue for me. Having to 'conquer' your region before progressing that much into others would encourage community within each region and of course trade would be split pretty evenly between regions. No central hub of the world initially, but each region would be a lot fairer to little traders and each region would have its own central hub to a point. This would help everyone no matter their pledge level a chance to progress further in the world due to player skill and time invested over money. You are right that this would have to be at the core of the game from the start though, with lots design choices weighted to give importance to it over other aspects of the game. I fear we are to late in development to allow this, but maybe for future episodes differing continents could apply this design or something similar to make distance and natural geography an important part of the game.

I do have faith that this first episode is just the building blocks to a well thought out and challenging world, part of me wants it perfect before its released, all choices made and a firm design in place, but i do lean towards just getting it out now but with an emphasise on expanding it all into something special and genre defining. I believe the team want something special as well and are open to ideas from the community so between us all maybe we could be on the cusp of something. Time will tell.

 

From the hangout yesterday, it seems like they're going to try and regionalize basic resources. (like wood, so you can't find it, at all, in an entire quadrant of Novia)

Having seen this tried and fail spectacularly in Pathfinder Online in 2015 (they didn't even make their modest 4k target goal for subs in the first 9 months) I have no confidence that repeating the same experiment and expecting a different outcome will be successful.

The other side of this coin is that if you let any player, ever, travel to and from any region, to however small a degree, player co-operation and co-ordination can crush any attempt at regionalization. All resources will then be everywhere, and the same price. So it is a bit of a head-scratcher, to me, that they're spending time and resources on such a design goal, knowing it won't be enforceable?

 

I'm also curious about this. When RG was explaining the plan that was the first thing I thought too, that it seems trivial to go from one region to another and bring hordes of "rare" stuff to the region that doesn't have it.

I understand and fully support the goal of a regional economy, but I'm very interested to see it working. I'm glad they're thinking about it, but I have a lot of questions. The reason triangular trade worked so well in real life was because there was a HUGE time sink between one region and the next (i.e. an ocean that took months to traverse) but here in SOTA we're talking about 10 minutes to move from one side of the map to the other, or 3 minutes to zone there using a teleport to friend scroll.

Again, it will be interesting to see how they manage this. As for subscriptions, I don't think there's another game we can compare SOTA to. I think this is new territory in a lot of ways. I'm not going to argue about it with anyone, not many people get it (or want to).

 

Personally i like this.

Confuses me as well.

 

Ideally, you want some movement of goods between regions, with the incentive of price gouging in the region where things are rare. But I agree, it seems difficult to the extreme to limit that rate to the extent that it doesn't eventually flood all market. I guess I'm concerned that this feature will have to be prioritized above all other features, including 'fun'. A lot of times this sort of thing ends up being so difficult, it becomes inaccessible to all but the largest, most 'time spendy' guilds. Interesting experiment though.

 

The problems of economy can be handled - there are some ideas of raising/lowering values, calculating demands and prices automatically for simulated economies. It all depends on transport ways, limitations (e.g. weight) and the time to get a product from spot A to spot B. Not to mention that recall and teleport or any similar concepts of transportation hurt the economy-idea.
afaik, these game-decisions have been made (should have been made?) in the first plans of creating a fantasy-continent. It is very complex and can result in serious troubles with players if wrong enonomy-decisions are made.

 

It seems to me that any serious attempt at the realization of "regional economies" by the dev team necessarily implies merciless and unapologetic control of access between each of the regional economies. So no fast travel at all across regional economic boundaries. Period. Furthermore, control points must not be too easily passed through; only groups of determined, well-equipped, relatively high level players should be able to fight their way through such control points.

That makes the current plans for the Land Rush "challenging" to say the least. And it means that social events (e.g., the recent wrestling match at Rifts End) will likely have to be regional as well (not a problem if this game can attract and support a largish player base). But at least there would be a new career path for players that augments crafting - traders - moving wagon loads of goods, with an escort of course, from regional economy A to regional economy B, then loading up the cart again and returning to regional economy A; rinse and repeat.

 

How will shipping effect the regional economies in episode 2. That would seem to be a rather easy way for smaller groups of players and new players to get around the checkpoints rather easily?
Just catch a boat ride with a player that has one starting in Episode 2 or via the in game shipping routes, once they go live with the whole maritime aspect of the game.
We are planning on building a major regional port down in Longfall as part of the Memento Mori Guild group of player owned towns. One of the aspects will be hauling cargo and supplies to and fro, unless Port nerfs the idea via giving everyone the ability to fly a frigging ship thru the sky anywhere they chose. Was a bad idea when they came out with the stupid ship balloon. Still think it was a bad idea. it has potential to wreck a lot of different aspects to the game.

 

There is an astounding amount of drama based on pure speculation and assumption in this thread. I highly doubt they are recklessly planning this out, and Im sure there will be a lot of tweaks and adjustments to be made over the year to keep regional economies interesting.

 

Word.

 

I don't agree that increasing the difficulty of the control points is a good idea. In fact, I think it is very important to provide a way for avatars of every level to get through every control point (example: Eastreach Gap). At the very least there need to be a few strategic control points which are passable by anyone so that anyone can choose to take a difficult direct route to another region or an easier more roundabout route. Why do I think that?

Regional economies are a great concept, but they need to provide entertainment to the masses, otherwise they are contra-productive to the success of the game. If each region is shut in by difficult control points that only groups or high level avatars can traverse, then groups and high-level avatars will control the economy. To some, this may seem immersive because in real-life most of the wealth in the world is also controlled by a small part of the population. The difference is, in real life the poor masses can't do anything about it. In a game, people will just stop playing if it turns out not to be fun.

Already people are complaining about travel restrictions, but these will become even more confining. Currently, travel is still pretty easy.

• You can add anyone you want to your friends list and use an easily obtainable scroll to zone to the area that person is in. Later you will need to have "real" friends who allow you to add them to your friends list.
• Resources needed to make travel scrolls are currently cheap (NPC vendors) and easily obtainable by foraging. There are plenty of reagents needed to make scrolls in beginner areas in the Hidden Vale and the Perennial Coast, so anyone can collect them. In the context of resources only being available in high level areas which, in practical terms, are only accessible to groups of high-level players, DarkStarr has stated that "It has never been the intent for resource collection to come without risk." https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...-xp-delay-final-wipe.47133/page-2#post-519373 I assume that scrolls will become more expensive and the only people who can afford an unlimited number are those who belong to a mercantile network.

 

Complaints alone can't be the basis for changing plans... were that so we would have:

• Full loot, full world manditory PvP with compulsory Cannibalism
• No PvP at all
• 7000 prime vendor location lots in NPC Towns
• A world map that was a full game in and of itself

...for example.

 

Thanks for taking the time to reply.
My initial idea has been revised a little in further posts down, but i ask you if we make control points passable by anyone what use are they apart from a RP element? From the quote you took of mine you will notice i have given room for players to make that crossing into another region, less deadly but more time restrictive and it involves a bit of game knowledge, the catacombs. Be like proper smugglers building tunnels under countries borders a bit. Can still be done by all jjust takes more effort until the player is a stronger character.
The revision of my ideas was due to Last Trinsic Defenders good idea about making control points tied to faction standing. If you have good standing due to quests/whatever in that region then the control point will be less dangerous, encouraging a questing system/purpose of doing. This encourages players to raise standings in all regions(if this would be possible or wanted) to allow full access across land between regions, ideal for traders and thoose that choose to profit from the various economies on a larger scale than those that just want to travel to and fro easy using the catacombs or getting a party together etc.

With control points easily passable and a teleportation system as large as your friends list, regional economies are doomed from the start in a purposeful sense imho and what we will have is just regions with differing prices and materials/resources that will be just a short walk(run) away. Still better than not having but then i don't see much reason to having the control points unless for a RP perspective or the illusion.

 

Agreed, and for different reasons. During the Final Wipe and Lot Selection, everyone will need to be able to travel to everywhere, in order to claim their desired lot. If a person starts in Aerie, but their desired lot is on the other side of Novia, and they have a limited time to get there, now what? They MUST be able to reach their desired lot, at least once during their lot selection window, otherwise their hundreds/thousands of $$$ investment will be, if not lost, certainly devalued.

And to those that would say "too bad, so sad!", by using a (imho) farcical attempt at regional economies to justify preventing them from claiming their RL$ pledge lot after July 28th?
You'll find that typically, financial investment creates emotional investment. "rage-quit" wouldn't even come close to describing how bad that would be, for the game.

 

Hoho - a threat.
Don't even try to extort - there are surely more players who didn't spend hundreds/thousands of $$$ and they won't do it - if the economy isn't fair.

 

You have a good point but I'm not worried about that. I'm not a LOTM so I have enough time to level up before it's my time to choose

Only kidding! Of course I think that all backers should be able to reach their chosen homesteads.

 

It's not a threat. It's not extortion.

How do you think it would turn out for Portalarium, on world-wide social media, if all the thousands of pledgers who pledged thousands of dollars were unable to reach their desired lots, or even their PoT's, due to control points preventing them, on or after July 28th, 2016?
Would it turn out positive or negative, in your opinion?

 

It would turn out to be an intentional game experience. Perhaps the game exists more as an artform and less as a means of entertainment. Perhaps we should settle into localized regions, instead of crossing an entire continent, that technically, our avatar knows absolutely nothing about.

Perhaps Port isnt here to produce a "postive" turn out on world-wide social media. Perhaps they are just here to present their art form, and you can choose if its for you or not.

 

I've done every hat quest with a level 0 character in starting armor in addition to my own main character. Many times that required going through control points, I'm assuming there won't be thousands of players unable to reach their desired lots.

 

You are wrong, good sir. You are one of the most loyal backers. There are thousands of players who will get lost after 2 hours of playing, that I know for SURE. To get all your hats in baby armor and being level 0, you'd have to know what you doing and where you going. Trust me, when real players get on board, there will be a mass of confusion what to do. SotA has quite steep learning curve, there is no map, or any kind of guidance that millions of gamers are used to. When they get in the game, they'll realize that they have stepped into a very strange world, strange to them. Its not strange to us because we cherish the old school Ultima style gaming, where your survival and progress depends on willingness to discover and explore. For them this world will be so strange, that they won't even be able to find their own pants... figuratively speaking .

I wonder though, why people are stressing here? Yes, there are control points, but you can start the game at any point of story either its Courage or Love, start in Highvale or Solace Bridge, go to your lovely lot and reserve it. As far as POTs go, why even worry? Those are locked and only POT owner can decide when the lots will be taken, and nobody can claim the lots unless POT owner unlocks them first. I bet $1 that MANY POT owners, will keep their lots reserved and locked until they can charge players abysmal prices, when all the other lots are gone.

When people invest so much money in a virtual world, it becomes a business for them more than a mere entertainment or fun times.