No Binding everywhere!!!!!

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Chatele, Sep 7, 2018.

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  1. Arradin

    Arradin Avatar

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    Its fantastic and long overdue
     
  2. Black Tortoise

    Black Tortoise Avatar

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    [​IMG]

    I would accept UO style rune libraries in PoTs as a compromise to this new "feature"
     
  3. GrayFog

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    Yup, might as well just add Runes and Runebooks now.
     
  4. Duffrey Blake

    Duffrey Blake Avatar

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    If it really has to come over us then make it a runebooks like system @DarkStarr
     
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  5. Steevodeevo

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    Hopefully somewhere in between? If you are a die hard 'glass half full' person, then you may be able to convince yourself that this grand social experiment we all play intentionally started out super tough and quirky and is compromising only where it has to or else lose its diverse audience. Maybe the Devs, who have all been around the block a few times, hope they will end up retaining a unique, tough and appealing game that is still attractive to a significant mass audience?

    Consider this idea logically: how else could they do this with their moderate budget and resources? If they simply decided in advance what degree of grind, difficulty and uniqueness this complex target audience of old UO players, Ultima RPG fans and new MMO players would tolerate and they got it wrong, then its all over. On the other hand, if you set out your 'ideal' (extreme?) vision for the game and then use player engagement to undertake a planned step by step approach to achieve the 'optimal' model, then you have a much lower risk approach and achieve a more heavily invested audience who are likely to stick with the disruption of managed change and ultimately stay around longer.

    Evidence that this may be the approach is it's pretty much what is happening :) plus, how tight lipped Portalarium are about their specific development philosophy (not the future features menu), though they they will most surely have one.

    The other side of the sword blade however is the risk in itself of using a fully open development model with the target audience should this audience lacks consistency and logic in its shared vision for the game.

    With this in mind, specifically on the subject of teleports, fast travel seems hugely divisive in SOTA. Some describe it as 'a line in the sand' which is understandable especially if you were an UO player (I was not, so have no idea) and have extreme views on either side of the runes argument. Coming to SOTA with no UO baggage as I have, I think the biggest error would be to lose the massive potential of the Overworld by over reaching on fast travel under pressure from the section of the SOTA audience that are very vocally (and effectively) demanding instant travel. If it gets to a point where we all use a list to zap around the different instances and events and never touch the overworld map with its random events, encounters, seasonal harvests, boss spawns, etc then we will lose a great deal, not least a core and fundamental feature of Richard Garriott's vision for SOTA.
     
    Last edited: Sep 8, 2018
  6. Blightlord Knightmare

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    Agreed, this is just horrible news, it feels like they've changed management and they're going absolutely nuts trying to destroy the game, or they brought on a World of Warcraft junkie to take over the game design. I think even binding at 3 places is too much, it's crazy. I certainly won't be doing it and I'll consider it cheating if anyone else does.
     
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  7. kaeshiva

    kaeshiva Avatar

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    I seriously do not understand the objections to this, not one bit. Unless its just like, intentional outward inflicted selfishness.

    Enjoy having your little travel across the overworld dodging bandits every time you want to go somewhere? Then do it.
    Think you don't "need" more bind spots? Then don't use them!

    I don't think we "need" PvP zones, so I don't go in them, but some people like them, so as long as they don't interfere with me or require me to use them, it does not affect me.
    The nice thing is, if I am feeling a bit pvp-y, that choice and feature is there for me to partake if I want.

    Everyone says the game is about choices but it seems that giving players MORE choices is heavily frowned upon by the regimented 'old guard' who seem to believe that the game needs to be slow and frustrating and full of needless annoyances and frustrations in order to accurately immerse folks. Sorry to say this, but the immersion ship has SAILED, that excuse will NOT fly anymore as a reason to not add quality of life. Rainbow cycling sparkly horse heads and robots and electric swords and fairy wings - sorry, its simply a moot issue at this point.

    While I've certainly never agreed with all the decisions that the dev team makes, the last couple months have shown me that they are making a genuine, earnest effort to try and make the game enjoyable, to give it a leg to stand on in the current gaming market, to bring in new and retain existing players, to break down barriers and let everyone enjoy doing whatever it is they do. I'm really tired of hearing the contingent of naysayers whose objections seem to be purely based on the sentiment that "we struggled, so all must struggle" out of some sense of cosmic balance or worse - entitled self-interest.

    Its about choices. You think you should have to go through the control point or siege when you travel? Then DO IT. Click the button, in you go. Objecting to this change is really just saying "because I want to waste my time doing this, everyone should have to."

    Hate to break it to you folks, but Novia's already pretty empty. I've spent a lot of time cruising around between sieges in the past, and I regularly 'walk' from my town to the guild town because its not that far and I'm cheap - and unless there's an event or something going on I see <5 people on it at any time of day, none of whom speak and are presumed afk. That's because there's nothing really to do, on Novia. Its like a lobby or a safe place to stand so you don't get killed while stepping away to make a coffee. And its a travel network, like many other games have had (I'm reminded of the 'grid' in old Anarchy Online, that's what this reminds me of, in a completely non-sci-fi sense). You didn't see people standing around in the grid all day. You used it to get where you were going. There's no reason for that process - of getting where you're going - to take longer than necessary.

    You're never going to have impromptu crowds of people stood around anywhere - that's part of the core game's design. In a few starting area towns sure, and in some of the more popular adventure scenes you'll run into a couple folks, but we have selective multiplayer so we can take our friends and drop out into our own instance so we don't have to deal with lag, inteference, trolls, killstealers, cottonbush stealers(!), or any other such nonsense. Its a fantastic idea, a way to have a multiplayer online game that removes a lot of the annoyances of such. But the potential downside is you wont see hundreds of people stood around or sharing a single scene - if you did there would not be a single mob to kill or tree to harvest, it would be stripped clean. We had 7 of us in a scene last night getting those big bears and after 30 minutes the entire scene was strip mined of all resources. The game just isn't designed to support such crowds.

    The "game feels empty" is certainly a valid new player concern to be addressed, but I don't think limiting fast travel is going to make a bit of difference one way or the other. People already fast travel. A lot of us aren't stood around in towns cause we're out actually doing stuff. I regularly will enter adventure scenes on open mode just to meet new folks. If I have limited time or am in a foul mood and don't want to meet new folks, I go on a private grind session. Choices, right?

    I think the whole thing is a bit hilarious really. I mean world of warcraft, right? No one's going to say that game 'feels empty' or 'doesn't have enough players' - and yet, when a work colleague of mine convinced me to go on a romp down memory lane and roll up a couple new characters on that a year or so ago, I did not see a single other player in the starting area. I saw a grand total of 1 other player in the first big town I got to, and they were afk. I went through 6-7 quest hubs and the first few "zones" and saw, at best, 1 or 2 people, none of whom spoke. Sure, once I got to the 'capital' there were people everywhere. But I didn't get there for like, 3-4 days.

    I mean why aren't these naysayers pushing for a central, open mode only capital city with centralised commerce and convenience options, the Ironforge of Sota? You want realism, and niche, and travel to be a slow painful slog and regional separation with hardship/timesink blocking the way - but in the same breath you want people to be able to find each other and congregate and for the world to look full. You can't have both of these things - they don't go together lol. There's half a dozen people online in my town at any given time on a regular basis going about their business, because...drumroll...its where their bind point is! Sometimes we forget to switch back to open mode -and I liked that idea a while back about toggling open mode in towns automatically (if desired). That's an example of a suggestion that would help. Just saying NO to bind points (and maybe someday, a runebook like thing) is not going to help a thing.
     
  8. majoria70

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    I understand all the upset on the upcoming changes but overall the hugest complaint of this game is the inconvenience, lost and confused, a zillion loading zones, and UI and quest bugs and issues. Our journal sucks.

    Changes have to be made now for this game and who says we cannot make other interesting changes also. I am not trying to tell everyone how to feel but just to hang in there as we evolve drastically with the situation this game is in. There is no reason this game cannot pull out of this and in the long run some will not like it and some will like it much better.

    This is still a very young game and we can counter every surprising change with something else. We have to let the devs make some changes even if they seem radical at this time. That is the only way we will find the true sweet spot imo. Hanging on to the original vision fully is not going to help this game. We have to make some drastic changes.

    Imo some will walk away only to find that what evolves from lots of changes and fixes will be something unexpected and perhaps interesting to try out again one day.

    Anyway we can still feedback all those changes to make them a bit more detailed and interesting as we go along.

    We can make things happen on the map that will give incentive to be there, for example x marks the spot for treasure hunting, trade routes, weigh points, and who knows what all at this point.

    Mounts in my opinion can be more than just used as something to get from point a to point b. They can perhaps one day make horse racing and hurdle jumping. They could be battle mounts. Who knows one day there could even be flying mounts.

    We just do not know where this game can go if we let go of some old visions. This game is not that game and it will not be that game. That ship has sailed.

    It does not mean it cannot have other things and be a big sandbox world full and rich with details. We can still try for that with feedback along the way.
     
    Last edited: Sep 11, 2018
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  9. Chatele

    Chatele Avatar

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    The overworld map is already fast to traverse. The only loading screen is when you click on the scene to enter it , same thing when you recall or teleport to a scene, it still needs to load. So, that is not the issue. The issue is, not seeing people on the overworld map, because everyone will be binding almost everywhere, hence, the overworld map will appear to be dead, not seeing real players running around. People are already complaining about not seeing anyone on the overworld map, and I believe this change to binding wherever will make it worse not better. Why bother with the overworld map then? We might as well just zap to scenes.... JMHO don't hang me :)
     
  10. Paladin Michael

    Paladin Michael Bug Hunter

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    1. Control Points:
    After the opening of the control points moving around the world is fine. From now they are something very interesting to explore.

    2. Sieges:
    It would be great to make them a kind of event - less often counts more. Like the lost vale: from time to time. And only targeting a few towns. At that moment the town crier in every town could call for help for the towns under siege. That would be great.
    Those sieges shouldn't be passable. And to prevent that new players get into one on their path of the Avatar: well, the choice to take a leader as before would be fine.

    3. Binding to town
    To bind to a hometown is fine.
    If someone owns different houses (s)he should have a way to use a fast travel from one to another house.

    I think it isn't a good idea to give us a "teleport list" (former friends list) including our visited towns to make a fast teleportation.

    4. Teleportation
    Why should everybody could be able to teleport without using a kind of magic, like potion, scrolls/runes (--> scribed by using a skill to do so) or especially a special teleport skill?

    Teleportation (be good in the air skill tree) could give great skill experience!
    1. Teleportation (should be a high tier skill)
    2. grey one to raise the radius of teleportation
    3. Teleportation shouldn't be possible to other land masses, if water is between them (Novia <--> Hidden Vale and the new land masses of Episode 2)
    4. There should be a way to take magic barriers at some places to prevent teleportation! Obsidians could use them ;) Or POT owners for special Guilds ...
    5. May be a good idea to give the possibility to bind to one lunar rift, too?

    Often SotA is compared to other games.
    In WOW you have to run around the world - until you can use a horse or other vehicles with a higher skill!

    In SotA we are much faster by foot from a to b as for example in WOW.
    So it would be fine to have horses and ships for further Episodes!

    Giving a "bind to everything" - like the friendlist how it works now - takes away a lot of potential for the whole game and next episodes ...

    After the control points are gone I love it to run around on the overworld map and I am using teleportation most time for fast travel back to my "home town" ...
     
  11. Bowen Bloodgood

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    You may think it only affects the individual but it doesn't. Sure, it your choice but if you're doing it out in the open then everyone else will see you teleporting in and out everywhere you go. It was so bad in UO that people were literally teleporting across the street from store to store to save two seconds. And I will never forget the guy who stood outside the Vesper bank for literally 20 minutes begging for a gate to Minoc.. he could've ran there in 5. You can run across Novia end to end in 5, control points included.. So many people were doing it that you were expected to do it yourself. If you had to meet up with someone you were pretty much expected to teleport there. It's more than just a feature of convenience when it changes the expectations players have of other players. That affects everyone's experience save those playing offline or hiding in solo mode all the time.

    If it's a pay for feature, the cost will act as a limiter so it shouldn't be quite as bad, but for me it's a matter of principle more than anything. There's tediousness and there's challenge. I agree that tediousness should be kept to a minimum, but I have a really hard time accepting that an already relatively short travel time is tedious. You can only water down a game so much before people start losing interest. Convenience for its own sake is not good design.
     
  12. Cinder Sear

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    I actually still enjoy the overworld, the 'random encounters' offer an easy way to get gold or other ore.
     
  13. Rowell

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    Really, really don't see a problem with this. This change will:
    - Free up the friends list to actually track friends; not maintain a list of teleport locations (and my chat isn't spammed with 1000 messages a minute of people logging on/off).
    - There is a cost involved to set a bind point.
    - I'm thinking that teleport to bind point doesn't happen at will. I'm sure there will be a teleport scroll use involved to get you there. No difference between what we have now.

    So what's the problem? You're moving your hundreds of bind points out of the friends list, into another construct.

    Bravo, Portalarium. Bravo.
     
  14. Bowen Bloodgood

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    As with all features a great deal depends on implementation. If you MUST do this.. then do it with a limiter.. and cost is a respectable limiter. However, concerns regarding the overworld are not unreasonable. So what I would ask Portalarium is.. how do you intend to make the overworld map a place worth going to? Improving random encounters and siege content would be worth looking into as these are locations you won't be able to bind to, so the overworld is the only way to get to them.

    Portalarium is in a very tough spot I think. There isn't a lot of money or manpower to throw at complicated problems. It is partly a source of issues that really get under my skin as quick 'gamey' solutions to problems are often contradictory to their original intent and even introduce new issues. I think this is one of those things and they're trying to walk a tight rope without a net here. I'd love to have been to hear the actual discussions they have behind the scenes to understand their full line of reasoning. It's really hard to come to an educated conclusion amongst all the player speculation.
     
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  15. Floors

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    I do; but they've mismanaged the overworld. The encounters are lame, the way the collision works is broken with them and it makes little sense.

    I'm not UO person so I don't want runebooks. But if you're going to have an overworld, make it work like the old ultimas. Varied, rare and interesting encounters should occur on the overworld, they should be able to hunt you down like in the old ultima and they should have rare resources.

    Travel is dangerous !!!! The CP and Sieges were bad, so much better without them, but Moongates should be on the world map, we should even be able to get resources on the main map. Make the main app great again !
     
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  16. Cage Storm

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    I feel like this is a good quality of life improvement for the players who want to use it, although I wont be wasting money on using it because I enjoy the Overland Map. So for me it's yet another good decision by Port.
     
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  17. DavidDC

    DavidDC Programmer Moderator SOTA Developer

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    I find the encounters actually great. You can get unicorn in encounters, bandits with sometime a treasure chest, some rare spawn like the razorback, sometime even a dragon. Not counting the twins troll, the atavist, the guy who do the spin emote that can be teached, the cultist doing some ritual, the bunch of farmer mad at you cause u killed their sheep. Ive spent a couple days doing encounters and still doing them.
     
  18. Floors

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    The encounters themselves are good, but not the way they work. Especially if you used to play the old ultimas - now that's real random chance of running into interesting things.

    Been playing for 2 years and never had a random encounter with a dragon in Novia. I heard there's one in the hidden vale in plains enounters, but I'm rarely over there.

    You have the guy spinning in the forests with no shirt on - I don't consider that a good encounter. Same with the duck encounter.

    Unicorns are cool, granted. Razorbacks ? Does ? Not so much. We need more variety. In the old days for example : Orcs, Headless, Bridge Trolls, Daemons, (3 kinds in U3 !!) Gremlins, Sea Serpents, Mongbats, Insect Swarms, Hydras, Enemy Ships, Skeletons, Brigands, Slimes, Snakes... it was far more varied and that was in 1985. I don't know why they didn't build like 20 or 30 overworld scenes.

    The way it is now I can run through those things and they don't even trigger anymore. What's the point of the overworld with the upcoming fast travel changes at all ? Just ditch it and reduce yet another set of loading screens.
     
  19. Blightlord Knightmare

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    God this is so well said, thank you.
     
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  20. Scanphor

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    Spot on
     
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