PETITION/POLL: Please Portalarium put a hard cap on sales of Player Owned Towns

Oh, I missed your point then. I thought you were implying that they are not going to fulfill the list you gave. My mistake

 

• Shroud of the Avatar is infused with rich storylines, deeply integrated into game play, developed by Best Selling Author Tracy Hickman and RPG legend Richard Garriott.
• Players will adventure in an interactive world where their choices have consequences, ethical paradoxes give them pause, and they play a vital part in weaving their own story into the immersive world and lore surrounding them.

Think these two items will still get done? I'm not sure they rank high in the open world sandbox game that this has become.

 

Of course they will. No one will know the story before the launch or close to before the launch. Thats why you have not heard much about it. I truly believe the single player game you want will be great. You just cant see it before hand. Imagine all the people tweeting and blogging about the story. It would be ruined in hours for many people.

 

I'm well aware they can't let stuff out...I just don't believe it is the focus anymore....player owned towns and persistant online stuff is the meat of the game.

 

I believe they already are. For example, the feud between Khasi and Siranto is riveting. Who is responsible for the undead uprising? I find that just one among a number if rich story lines I've seen, but full disclosure, I am saving myself for release.

The Oracle is in place and I have experienced my actions having consequences. That said, I don't believe it is *fully* implemented yet.

Here's my question, what does any of that have to do with PoT's or the possibility that PoTs were oversold?

Well, the Stand Up Corner shows where the focus is for each artist, designer and programmer and I can tell you that PoT's are not *the* focus, unless we define focus as:

It's simply the time in the development cycle to get them released.

I didn't thing the information I previously provided would change your mind, but can't blame a girl for trying to instill some trust in the process.

***edited to add comments

 

I dont know what to tell ya. I am pretty sure that they will have it ready for you though, thats just my opinion. I know a large group of the player base is looking forward to the single player offline just like you. I dont think that they would cut off their nose to spite their face. I do understand though that there should be some posts talking about single player offline and they probably should let us know the stages of development for it.

 

Nothing, got a bit off topic...I'll let it go.

 

Welcome back Rune. I hadnt seen you for a while. Well it's ok to feel the way you do. The game may still be what you want in many ways, but as development has revved up changes and additions are being made. I don't believe it was planned to go that way, but when you develop with a community there are going to uproars and that brings about changes and while some would like it to stay static on course from the kickstarter page as you can already see it is not going to. So the choices we have are either to go with the flow or uproar about that. This is a new way of making a game so of course we all will have learned much after this experience. I am now enjoying it the very most.

 

Youre kidding right? The stand up corner is vague at best. Dev+ is a ghost down and some of the games biggest announcements have come from third party sources whilst the rest of us are meant to keep quiet. Explain to me why the skill change was announced on NBNN?

I mean come on you cant serious think the communication is fine? You cant seriously point people to those blogs and expect proper information?

 

Looking over those stretch goals generates a lot of questions. Even the language sometimes doesn't seem to fit with where the game is now. It's probably worthy of an update. But probably the biggest thing worthy of an update is still: October 2014.

 

Did I sound like I was kidding? But yes, I seriously CAN point people to the Stand Up Whether you or anyone else chooses to believe what's posted there is out of my control. I'm not going to debate you about NBNN either...LOL!

My point remains - PoT implementation is NOT the*main* *single* or *major* culprit when it comes to a delay of game release. End. Of. Story.

***Edited to add these qualifiers: *main* *single* or *major* . Ta Da!!

 

Not really. It's a contributor. Amongst several other things which are contributors such as the world map (because the "painted world map" was terrible) and the combat mechanics (which... need a lot of work and are being worked on).

 

Fair enough, I knew I should have qualified that with *main* *single* or *major* culprit...lol. So consider it qualified now

 

Your level of insider knowledge is inspiring.

 

I don't claim insider knowledge Bubonic...lol. But that's a nice way to dismiss what I said in my recent post, disregard what I've posted throughout the thread and even attempt to make me look bad all in one sentence. Nice job there!

But hey, to each their own. At the end of the day, I'll stand by my contention that PoTs have not been the*main* *single* or *major* culprit when it comes to a delay of game release. Especially since there is loads of evidence all over the forums and all over the updates to back up that contention and absolutely nothing to prove otherwise. Has nothing to do with insider knowledge. It has to do with how you interpret the information being supplied by Portalarium. Is it factual or BS? I choose to believe it's factual and yes - SERIOUSLY....lol.

Now the whole, did Portalarium sell too many PoTs, did they manage it right, does the poll help clarify things, well that's a whole different conversation that we're having on this thread. So, I'll get back on track and apologies to Spoon for being off-topic.

 

Thanks! I have spent many years perfecting my internet criticism skills.

In all seriousness, it was not my intention to make you look bad. But when posting statements like this, closed to any opinion other than your own, how do you expect people to react?

I also give a nod to spoon, didn't mean to hijack here.

 

I just got a strange image of Spoon, standing up on the stage (As every OP should), grasping onto the last flap of fabric from what was once a grand, majestic robe. Following the unraveling garment escaping from Spoon's fingers through the crowd, we see the culprits yanking on his regal thread through the muddy streets, everyone staring at the strange game of tug-o-war.. **I snag the thread with my coconuts and prance back onto the stage to hand the unraveled mess back to Spoon.**

Since we know Portalarium plans to 'nest' towns within towns, I'm curious, What limits should be placed on nesting?:
Should they allow Larger towns to be nested inside Smaller towns?
Should they allow towns nested inside towns nested inside towns?
How many towns should we see links to within a single town? 3? 6? 10?
Should nested towns be required to only link to one town on the world map, or several?
Can nested towns link to each other too? (as long as they link to the same overworld map location? Should this be a restriction?)

The answers to these questions will help define what the world will feel like to play in, and personally, it feels too instanced just thinking about the mess, but I really would like some answers, because this could help us determine what the new 'limit' to POTs might be.

 

One of the USPs regarding the game was the fact that Housing is rare due to land being limited. The introduction of PoTs no doubt has led to more space for housing and for as long is it really fits into the world/map it's not a bad thing.

When it gets the the point where PoT to land ratio is too great then it is clear that there needs to be a limit. I guess this is what has happened as no new PoTs can have map access. In a nutshell I have two concerns:

1- Have PoTs with overland access already been oversold prior to the discovery of the PoT to Land ratio being an issue?
2 - Will the continuous sale of PoTs without map access destroy the USP regarding land/housing?

 

USP=unique selling point?

From reading all the different viewpoints over the past several months, my impression is that for every kickstarter who backed the game on the promise that housing will be rare, there is another poster who thinks there should be enough housing for everyone and predicts that the game will fail if there isn't. I'm sure Kickstarter supporters don't want the game to fail. I don't envy the devs for being the target of criticism no matter what they decide.

I will be living in a POT when the game releases, so obviously I like the idea of POTs. I do share people's concerns about POTs cluttering the overland map. I like the idea of having some kind of algorithm to decide which towns show up on the overland map (active, populated). I would like to have a zoom modus when on the overland map that you could explicitly invoke if you wanted to see the smaller or less important towns. It would be like using a map of Europe to drive from Berlin to a tiny village near Paris. Once you finally get near Paris you have to switch to a local map to see the smaller locations.

 

Keep in mind that housing deeds themselves will still be rare. Port has not added any more to the store than what was there at the start. A few pledge levels got an extra lot but overall it's a small number. Although you can buy a deed easily enough in game right now, that is not going to continue. According to their last train of thought they would only be available by lottery and only so many as were sold in the store. And they made it clear that they would only make a limited number available. So even if there were a million POT lots available, most will remain vacant as there won't be enough deeds to use them.