ONE QUESTION WHY?

regional economies < playing the game where you want when you want. The best part about the runebook system of UO was not traveling 5-20 minutes to where you wanted before you even started playing, like in every single other game ever made. It was awesome to just start having fun instead of including a traveling escapade full of false entertainment. Regional economies sound great on paper, but anyone with multiple accounts will easily the evade the system.

 

No...

 

As I understand the local economy will be really important in SotA. E.g. you will be able to gather a resource just in a specific region and nowhere else. E.g. maple wood could be a local resource of hidden vale and everyone who needs maple wood has to:

A – travel to this region
or
B – pay for a delivery

With multiple bind points this system is more or less senseless. Why should there still be regional resources or why should I pay a "fee" for a delivery if I can simply create an additional bind point and get it myself within seconds?

And I think running on the overland map in SotA is generally not some kind of boringness…just if you take it as boring it will be. You can meet other avatars, see changes on the map if a new scene appears, you can get in difficulties or meet something rare in a random encounter,…

Of course it would be more simply if you could teleport to every region but I think the world would lose some flavor. I think the generally idea behind most mechanics is that “the journey is its own reward”. If you wouldn’t have tried to buy some maple wood in Owl’s Head, you wouldn’t have met the Farmer on the road between Kingsport and Owl’s Head and maybe never heard his story about some missing child’s around Holtrot and never found a cultists outpost in Greymark Forest,…, befor you were finally able to bring back a fathom maple wood to your home. By simply running to your destination you can create a personal storyline for your avatar you could talk about if you are sitting with some friends in a tavern.

 

...But EVE.

And guess which game is the only one with a player driven economy worth of this name? Want to guess why?

 

Here...raise Hands...

...since I play, I havent used a SINGLE scroll or teleport thing. I even wouldnt know how they work. Each time I need to go somewhere to see a trainer I walk over the map, get through the passes (nightshade or burst!).

And you know what, even with the loading times It takes me less then 6 minutes to get from Resolute to the Hidden Veil. Since I play I learned the map almost by heart (well, the places I visit frequently) and I didnt get the impression to miss anything.

So...I'm wearing my fire proof suit (mwahahahaa) and thats why I can proudly ask: please remove every quick travel thing from the game exept the first one after character creation.

---

The only thing I think of why it would be needed is for the guilds to be able to watch their PvE players and help them if they get attacked. That needs to be fast, I agree. But for the sake of playing a game...why take the work and make a nice map when people zig-zag around it without seeing it?

 

I agree that some relief from the constant running around should be given, but it should be done in the form of the Moongates working like they did in the Original Ultimas, i.e., fairly quickly and rapidly changing to different locations and more easily accessible... would be amazing to see them on the overworld map even. Then you'd still have to run around sometimes... even if it's by coconut, which seems faster to me, which is fine, I do like running around some of the large maps a bit for exploration.

 

~It's a small world to some and a big world to others~


~Our Happy Homeless, Apartment Dwellers & The Wondering~
I'm certain that there will be economic zones, yet the definition of "our economic zones" is yet an unknown. Even within old UO there were always places to get some things cheaper or in a larger abundance than normal. Without knowing what those different goods will be, or how large or where those zones will be or have, we truly don't have any baseline to compare to. Will there be traveling merchants? We just don't know. But when we talk about economic zones, we get "all freaked out" by what that could mean to everything including teleport travel restrictions.... of the rich and the poor new player...
"The rich will become bored by our game long before the poor will for lack of challenge.... if anyone ever does get bored with our game... our trade and possibly flocculating trade markets should prevent that"


~We can already see zones within our game~
These zones are separated by "passes" and they could become those barriers that will separate a few gatherable goods, and possibly goods that can only be made in those zones. There are some long ways around such zones without heading through a pass, yet these special gathered commodities are not something that could be sold for a great deal of gold to NPCs, due to demand because of our player driven economy. Our rich will have a demand for such gathered commodities because rich = luxury and therefore (ok maybe) lazy or ease of play. But these facts are not important, other than if a traveling player comes with a bulk of whatever there was in another zone, then those craftsmen or rich they are selling to will be encouraging or discouraging the return of that caravaneer marketer. It's for the small and homeless that we will have such things in our game for them to make money at doing, which are a good way for a new player to make some gold, meet some new friends and help them understand and remember our maps and cities more clearly and what is or is not in demand there. "What is and is not in demand" will effect the ability of these players to make the money transporting it, because without such zones, this type of adventuring are not as possible and educational as it could be with such zones.
"Traveling and marketing should be a quest all it's own"

~Our economic zones are not there just for the rich with teleport scrolls by the 1000s~
The rich adventurer will always have gold to spend because their main thing they like to do, is to stay hunting, crafting, adventuring and beating each other over the head. With zone crafted or gathered goods, economic zones cause a need to travel, whether by road or teleport makes no difference other than contraband, which will not be able to be teleported and must be smuggled everywhere to all destinations. It's these types of gathered, crafted and contraband goods that could be our unique zone commodities, yet for the average player with no real wealth, much lower commodities are needed along with contraband to be in different zones for the new or traveling player gatherer's commercial gain.
"The rich will always have an easy time teleporting everywhere no matter what restrictions are placed for our trade zones, but they must not effect our lower commodity market, yet won't because there should be no big money gained to attract them"

~No POT should be an Island of Everything for Any Normal Prices~
This is the reason that makes economic zones so important, but we also know that "everyone wants everything", and that is a very disregarding thing when it comes to trade routes and unique trade zones which add to the new player or traveling caravaneer marketer's ability to get ahead.

But it is a very small world once everyone has places they need to get to for reasons of, "everything isn't everywhere in abundance"
~Time Lord~

 

Actually judging from how the game currently is, I'm pretty concerned with the fact that most of the players currently playing already have all the crafting stations and all that other stuff they need. I haven't really seen much of the whole "historical item" aspect or "ultimate rare crafting stations" yet, but maybe that's because I haven't played enough.

It's hard to tell how the economy is going to work with the constant wipes.

Since none of the passes are PVP passes, I don't seem them being real barriers to different zones... if they were PVP, then it would be seriously difficult because you know certain guilds would camp them all the time and prevent passage to people, maybe for money or something.

Without moon gates, a large party of badasses, ships or functional balloons, it's hard to see how you wouldn't get restricted into a zone that way

 

Here's a second question. Why are all of your threads lately labeled with all caps?

I kid.

 

Agreed, I get about two hours of game time a night. I would rather get straight to the action.

As for the regional economies, I think it's a weak argument. Once you have a decent friends list, you just teleport to the closest friend and boom your friends list is the equivalent of a rune book.

 

So you will instruct a friend to stand at a specific spot...you teleport, tie up a few loose ends and wait the rest of the teleport-blocking-time...instruct another friend to stand at another spot and so on...sounds like it will be a burden to be your friend.

 

the latter, hasn't been implemented yet. nobody has seen it.

the former - depending on what you mean:
it either hasn't been implemented (yet) and quite literally needs some time to become A Thing. if you are speaking of items we craft are on loot tables... persistence isn't in yet, so wait for some Time after final wipe.
or
those named items from the history of gaming that'll be great for display around your house, but not terribly good stat-wise, havn't been made yet either.

 

ok im going to do some unscientific math here. critics get ready
If we play this game every day for a year and cross the map 1 time one direction lets say that takes 5 mins to go all the way acrossed the map.

so thats 5 min travel time * 365 days = 1825 mins of walking time in a year / 60 mins in an hour = 30.41 hours of pure walking per year of game play not including getting lost or random encounters that will slow you down also not counting a return trip.

 

thats an issue? ijt is still only 5 minutes. if this game was being designed like most mmo's where the players login to do a specific quest, and then log out, then i'd be concerned about travel time. since so many aspects here are designed around 'living in the world', i think 5 minutes is just fine in this scenario..

as you can tell, i didn't do any maths here, just used your example, to get the meat of the response back to ya.

 

That is 30+ hours I would rather spend hunting, and questing

 

thanks for making my point for me

 

Did you factor in the time and expense you'll need to craft or procure Teleport scrolls?
There is a consumable associated with both Teleport, and Recall. And they're supposed to cost a non-trivial amount of money and/or labor to create.
How much time will you be spending to support your Teleport and Recall scroll habit vs. just spending 5 minutes to walk somewhere?

 

Are you insinuating that player driven economies are directly linked to the amount of time you spend pushing your avatar around a map? I don't follow.

 

That's what crafters are for I will buy them all up

 

The regional economies thing would make sense if the world was big enough that travelling to get resources was actually a barrier. As it stands, I can technically walk to wherever stuff is the cheapest within, say, five minutes? There's no real tradeoff. The fact that we can traverse the world map with limited resistance only accentuates the smallness of the world. It's not like some grand, open world adventure like The Elder Scrolls, its a map screen we toddle about on until we get to where we are going. Occassionally I see someone, but we are both just trying to get somewhere meaningful and we wiz on by each other. At this point, I don't understand the world map or the lack of fast travel.