How do you feel about the land rush? Would an alternative lot distribution option be viable?

Aye, that too, forgot that one. There's going to be a lot of irritated and upset people. Myself, I already know I'll be settling for a PRT lot, and I'm fine with that.

If we're able to travel about like we did in UO with marks and recalls of some sorts it may not be so bad regardless of where we all settle in. If we have a way to travel to each others places, even if they're out in the middle of no where like some of our places in UO it wouldn't matter so much because you could still get visiters/customers. I'm hoping it works out for everyone.

 

Keep it clean, guys. Had to remove some posts already.

 

If a ticket system was established that only allowed one selection at a time, by person and not group, then you wouldn't have to worry about your first or last choice. Unfortunately, it would likely take way too long to work down the list I would imagine. Now serving number 60,274. Estimated wait time, 5 months.

 

It really doesn't matter what system is put into place here its just going to leave a lot of people with sour grapes reguardless

I too am an Australian so I'm not holding out any hope in obtaining a lot that I want even though I backed back in 2013 when they said purchase this package and be garenteed a lot. With my connection and being an international player I already know my ping will not hold out on winning the clicking race if there are others going for the same lot. What I do hope is that the devs realise that once they know the total number of accs that have tax free lots per lvl of lot they make sure there is enough for everyone with spares left over and I'm not refering to the POTS as I feel that they are a silly addition to the game and hold no relevance to the game\story its more for players to show off what they bought and can control.

Now don't get me wrong I'm not against the way they are doing it as its better than the way they did it in UO and many other games I just know its not going to suit everyone and I'm sure they realise this aswell

 

Hehe, I will lose for the same reasons I lose in PVP--Old, Slow, Stooped. Still, I support the initiative because, as @Solstar said, I would rather the developers and designers spend their time in other pursuits.

 

I'll probably end up in some place like this, in the middle of trees with no view, and weird neighbors that place blocks forming words instead of a house lol.

 

Not the best view there, lol.

 

Not until someone discover there is shale oil deposit in there.

Regardless of how we do the land rush/lot selection, there will always be those who will get the spot they want and those who won't. Better just leave things as is and focus the energy on wrapping up the tasks for pre-wipe and maybe move some of the post-wipe stuff over to the pre-wipe if they have extra time.

If our government can't get HealthCare.gov right at launch, I don't think having the team spinning up web application for people to make reservation will go well either. There will be plenty of people who lag out and cannot access to the system. Hence, add additional stress on top of encounter post-wipe bugs and issues.

 

I remember the huge rush to slap houses down in UO when Trammel launched, and you had groups of 10-20 people running around a spot anxiously trying to place the deed. At least with the way they are handling plots, you have less issues with making sure it will place properly, but it does seem like it will be akin to Black Friday shopping at a Walmart

 

I think it's interesting that some folks want to compete in the economy, compete in PvP, compete in character progression, compete in story completion, but don't want to compete in a land rush.
There are 95 people in my group. I think it unlikely that I will get an island keep, but I'm still going to try.

 

Would it be possible for the staffs to disclose the latest data on number of pledges? It will definitely help most of us decide whether we should be upset or content

 

There's the basic info on the front page of the website; there's 172,623 New Britannians currently up there, so get running!

 

I'm curious where someone like a Knight Marshal Benefactor will end up as it seems like a bad tier to be in regarding town lots. Better move up to Lord lol.

 

i've already conceded, I probably won't look for a lot until well after launch, i'm just not willing to stand in line for pixel placement, just not that importnat to me, will it affect how successful i am it this game? probably? sigh

 

Darkstarr already put that info in the doc. Each tier lists the number of players in it.

 

Those are the forum accounts. By this: https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/?page_id=35155 the pledges are
Total Backers: 58,761

 

Dang... so less than 100K actual? I'm wondering if that includes the Steam purchases or not?

 

@Bubonic, I couldn't agree more with you. I absolutely despise the "land rush" scheme for all the reasons that you and others have already stated. Also, I do not in any way want to live in a POT for a variety reasons (most of which involve requiring only pre-approved people to live in a particular POT, and/or draconian evictions from POT lots based on what ever trollish/petty,mean-spirited reason that humans are prone to, and whatever other mean-spirited things I cannot think of now but am confident such people will dream up).

I would much prefer a scheme like this:
- Players record in advance the sorts of biomes they like best to last; preferred town size: hamlet, village, town, city, etc.
- Prot, behind the scenes, categorizes lots ranking them according to what is appropriate based on pledge tier level.
- When it is time to claim land, let the system randomly determine which lots you get based on your pledge tier and your biome preference. One for each deed you own.
- Once this automated land rush is complete, you are guaranteed to have one claimed lot per deed you own. If you want to transfer your deed to a different, unclaimed lot, then you can do so in your own time.

Another aspect of this is the mentality of some lots being more desirable than others. That is certainly going to be true based on each player's sense of aesthetics (e.g., I prefer wooded biomes) and there is not much Prot can do about that. But I think there are some things that Prot could do to minimize the desirability of lots based on their proximity to exit gates - when you enter a town the location in which you materialize is randomly determined.

Another thing is the lot's proximity to town-owned crafting stations. I am planning to make my own so I don't care how close my lot is to town-owned crafting stations. But some people might. Not sure how to deal with this, if at all, but one idea might be to spread the crafting stations around town and not bunch them all up in one place. Or create more such bunched up crafting stations and spread them around in the town.

 

This system would reduce the requirement for much coding on the dev's part, and would work in line with existing systems (no need for a web interface or the server online-ing zones that haven't been visited, etc, since they have to be visited to set stone).

It seems like the current system has a couple of artificial problems that are easily solved, and that are going to yield incessant complaining if they're not. I write this post merely to point out that if we can reduce problems, artificial or otherwise, this will go smoother.

Now, understand that you may personally not view it as a problem, or view it as unlikely, but there's still going to be a perception of at least 1 person having issues for at least one of these problems, whether it's real or not.

Problems:

1. The predetermined times favor some players over others - Whether it's due to your time being in the middle of your sleep, you having to ask off for work, etc.
2. The in-game system favors those with faster machines, better connections, or who utilize system enhancements (razor/bots/whatever) to allow them to beat out someone in a click-war for the same lot.
3. Lots were said to be available "at launch", whereas now they are being made available slowly after the final wipe, which means some players will get a much greater advantage from having their houses/tables/vendors placed earlier. I could be wrong on this one, i haven't read every post in every thread.

1. If a lot is contested, whoever loses will have to find a backup lot, which will require manual travel/searching, and could even take them conceivably longer than their window allows, unless they rely on guildmates and friends to check and teleport. This punishes those who lack these resources.

1. In order to accurately get an idea of what lots are available, you will need to spend time scouting before your window, which again enters into the time argument for some players. What turned into a "get a lot at launch" now is, possibly, a 4+ hour commitment.

I think most of these problems could be easily resolved by adopting a silent bidder option for lots. Whether this is done in-game, or out of game via a web interface, i leave up for discussion. But it could easily be done in-game, which would negate the need for a lot of extra programming. I will attempt to describe an outline for such a system below.

Reserved Silent Bidder System:

1. Every player is given a list of 20 (arbitrary number) lots they can fill in. They can do this by going to a lot, clicking the sign/stone, and entering it as one of the slots. These slots are ranked in order, with rank 1 being the most desired, and rank 20 being the least desired. Players will have the window before their draw time to enter and adjust these entries. So for example if I really want the first house on the left in owls' head, i'd go to that sign, and click "Reserve lot bid", and enter 1 when it asks for rank (1 being the most desired). if I'd be ok with a corner row house in ardoris, i'd go to it, open the sign, click "Reserve lot bid" and enter in a 5 (saying that if i don't get my picks 1-4, i want this one as my 5th pick), etc.
2. As each window opens, it will look at the list of all players in that window.

• For each rank in the reserve list, it will do the following, starting at rank 1 and going down.:

1. If a player who still needs a lot has a lot selection(at current rank) that is not picked by any other player in the same window at the current rank level, that player is assigned that lot.
   EXAMPLE:
   Player 1 has lot 21 as rank 1(most desired), lot 31 as rank 2, and lot 41 as rank 3(least desired).
   Player 2 has lot 31 as rank 1(most desired), lot 21 as rank 2, and lot 41 as rank 3(least desired).
   Player 3 has lot 31 as rank 1(most desired), lot 21 as rank 2, and lot 42 as rank 3(least desired).
   In this example, in step 1, Player 1 will be awarded Lot 21, since he is uncontested for it in his window, at the current rank level (1). He is then removed from the list of players still needing lots in this window. Players 2 and 3 still need houses as their current rank lot pick is not uncontested(they both want it equally badly, as it is their highest priority).
2. For all houses that were contested, one player is selected at random among the choices. In the above example, since both player 2 and player 3 put lot 31 as their rank 1, the system would pick one of them to get the lot selection. We then remove them from the list of players still needing a lot this window.
3. We now move the rank up 1, going to everyone's rank 2 picks, and repeat steps 1-2, up to the limit of our ranks (20 in this example).
4. For all players who were assigned lots in step 2, they now have time to log in, see what lot they got, and accept/decline it. If they accept it, it locks that lot to them and they can place a house like normal. If they decline it, it goes through their rank list and sees what the next highest lot on their rank that is available right that second. You could even make this a window that shows all available options before forcing them to accept/decline. Maybe a player wanted that lot, but now hates their new neighbors, or found their friends are in a different town. This allows them to quickly explore their options before locking it in, and if they decline it, it can go through the list to see what other players want it and offer it to the next highest rank, most likely someone they beat in lottery for it.
5. For all players who are yet to pick made lot selections that were taken in window we just processed, it removes those lots and moves your other options up in rank, so if your rank 1-2-3 were taken already by the time your window opens, your rank 4 becomes your rank 1. This allows them to rebalance their lot selections based on each window's choice, if they want to, or if they made a long enough list, just watch it shrink each list and move things around, or just ignore it entirely and let the system sort it out after making their selections before any windows.

The proposal above fixes the perceived problems by:

• Lowering the time commitment, allowing you to decide what lots and what rank you prioritize them that you want at your own pace before your window, potentially even while you're patching the final release.

• Removing the advantage granted by geographical region with respect to time and latency by removing the requirement that you be online for your window.

• Removing the advantage/disadvantage due to computer issues, faster processing, robotic assistance, etc, by ensuring everyone has the same chance for the lot when the window opens.

• Remove the advantage of time lost when you miss out on your initial lot due to travel for those who don't have other players to zone to or scout for them to see other available lots.

• Remove the complaint that people have to be on the second their lot is open, negating sleep, work, and the hard feelings that will arise when someone has a medical emergency and misses their window. Now they just have to be on to set their selections, and if they miss their window even by days, they still have one of their selections they wanted.

Possible side benefit:

• This also has the possibility of allowing us to shorten our time windows, since you won't need to account for travel time to find backup lots. Which would let more people get into their pledged homes faster, making it closer to the original statement of launch hos. This would help eliminate the complaints that people who have to wait weeks after the "last wipe" feel they are being deprived of the use of their lot and vendor during that critical period.

Technical feasibility:

• To implement this solution, we would merely need to store an ordered list of Identifiers on each character, and allow updating that list through the existing house sign interface. The implementation work and testing required would be a modification to the house sign menu shown to non-owners and non-friends of the house. It would also require the addition and testing of a function to allow the lottery drawing and updating of house properties remotely, and potentially a timer if there are no current timer based functions on the game server. Still, much less work than a web based pre-pick selection.

Thoughts/opinions/issues?

 

It includes ones who linked their account. Also note some people have multiple pledges on one account. Those will need to be split into multiple accounts or merged by final wipe.