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

That feature of limited space for housing "jumped the shark" a long time ago which is one of the big reasons I have downgraded my whole $$$ risk associated with SotA by selling my 1 RF Edelmann, 2 RF Lords and 1 RF Duke accounts as the lack of limited space completely devalued their worth. At this point with POTs continuing to be sold and linked up with other POTs on the overworld it means that SotA is entering the instanced housing realm where land is just created out of thin air with no rhyme or reason to it.

 

No PoT should be able to connect to an NPC Town.........the moment it does it just becomes a meanngless player owned instanced extension on the Town to provide housing.

When PoTs first appeared I expected the cap to be around 100.......it seemed a sensible number to me. I was actually quite shocked when 200 was mentioned.......now we are past that, I just see huge devaluation of housing which was one of the main driving forces behind some of the large pledges........i'm also starting to struggle to see how these PoTs will be filled.

 

That's a very funny post.

You'll be correct if SOTA only has 1500 people playing it. I think we'll see 200k at launch.

 

I was excited when we approached 100 sold thinking they were all about to be accounted for, confused when we hit 150 sold and a little unhappy when it approached 200. I just worry that the bulk of the holdfasts have been bought to avoid a land rush and people have no plans beyond that for them. I am a little biased due to feeling like each one sold at this point devalues my own holdings further but i don't understand why they are still for sale.

 

I'm not entirely against linked POTs , as there can be some cool gameplay experiences that can be created using that mechanic. Having said that, they are indeed at risk of creating boring worlds and endless neighborhoods.

 

…what Sir Frank said… and my two cents below…

So when I bought my initial holdfast the plan was just to have a few lots for me, myself, and I… and maybe a couple of friends. I never planned on having all the possible lots in the scene. Then I continued to upgrade just to add a few more NPC’s for a little extra atmosphere… eventually ending up with a cross-roads village.

At that point I decided to go ahead and add in the extra lots to use up all the lot space alloted just in case anyone down the road really needed somewhere to live (I was in a ‘this would be a nice thing to do’ mood)… but then Port’s discussions on limiting the sales of lots after launch to a random lottery made me realize that those lots would most likely never get filled. Oh well…

Then they recently announce the ability to basically build the town on the fly by giving the owners the tools to place the location of lots… and if this is true and is fully implemented I will most likely go back to my original plan of only a couple of lots in the scene and leave the rest virgin forest… and if anyone comes along wanting a lot, I could always place one down. Hence, really feeling like I was ‘growing’ the town. I’m hoping this isn’t a tool that requires us to ‘build’ the town while we are in pre-launch… but instead a tool that can continue even when the game goes live.

Ghost town, yes if you want to call it that, and hopefully my secluded woodland town will be too small to show up on the map… just what I wanted from the start… a secluded woodland retreat.

Nobody should assume that all 200+ towns want to be the next PaxLair…

 

I would say correct if 75,000 or less regular players.

 

...yeah. Seems like that is another grand design decision that has been thrown out the window, unfortunately. No one's "getting rid of the chaff".

 

Ok, this is kinda like shutting the barn door after the horse got out. With Shroud on Steam, there will continue to be people discovering it and some of those folk will want their own POT, just like the rest of us.(I personally can't afford a Holdfast, but I wish I could.) With the smallest POT costing $900 and the largest $6000, this is definately helping to raise the needed money to create this game. (Game development costs? Take a look at this article: http://kotaku.com/how-much-does-it-cost-to-make-a-big-video-game-1501413649 )

I don't know why game designers keep underestimating how much people want to own property in games, but the designers do.
With that said, they just need to bite the bullet and enlarge Novia. Add more hexes between the main points of interest. I've read here in the forums that adding hexes is fairly simple. Yes, that would mean overland travel would take longer, but right now distances between things are short. I feel like I'm running around England (without Scotland, Wales, & Cornwall) and the Isle of Wight, not a continent and a very large island. Horses and moongates would really be needed if the distances were increased.

As for future abandoned POTs, hopefully the developers already have a plan.
How about this? If the main POT is abandoned, but there's a POT/POTS linked to it maybe they can show a ruin (instead of nice little cottages) on the overland map and when you enter you are greeted with abandoned cottages and a shepard/hunter NPC to inform the player about the history of this POT & how/where the player can acquire the POT.

 

I don't pretend to know what the average playerbase will be. 200k plus accounts sold seems like a conservative estimate though.

 

Before POTs were even available for purchase:

1) estimated they wouldn't sell more than a couple dozen, in total
2) would not devalue property unless there was a "massive run of $4000 cities" (metropolis wasn't added until later)

We're now at 200+, with at least 25 of those being cities/metropolis -- basically the entirety of their original estimate for all POTs.

 

I agree that increasing hex-scale would be the way to go here, I mean hey, we still need room to surround the existing larger cities with farms.

As for development costs.. all the original 200 PoTs were at a price point that would just barely pay for themselves. That price will have to be raised quite a bit to bring in any 'extra money' to help develop the rest of the game. Right now it's just more work, more time, with steadily decreasing value (in terms of game-play).

 

Strongly agree with you Spoon.

 

I think you might be overestimating the appeal of the game. From what I can tell this is currently a really niche game for hardcore UO fans and OG Ultima Grognards with huge disposable incomes. Now where can it go ? I think it has a good chance of growing beyond that but I know for a fact it doesn't appeal to casual or mainsteam gamers atm.

 

Just a small note, I don't mind Holdfasts with no icons and only a Enter button spread all over the map and clustered along rivers and coastlines.
That is how medieval lands looked like in europe all the way through asia.
Wilderness would really be where there was no waterways.

But for the longevity of the game, they can't be permanent fixtures.

So I'd be for a 6 month rent-a-holdfast scheme for cash and gold. Where the game owns Holdfasts all over the place which can be claimed. But if not paid for would revert to the game so that the next bunch of players can take over down the line.

I agree that distances are short.
I'd love it if they just simply multiplied X and Y. I think that travelling should take some time and have that feeling of vastness.

Really like this idea.

Its strange but for the deeds/lots the devs had really early a concept of how the game would regain the area.
So your deed claims the lot, but you need to pay rent, if you don't it revert. And if you have a rent-free deed it is a time limit based on login, before it reverts.

But there is no such thing revealed for sold Player Owned Towns. So if someone goes missing (not that unlikely given the average age of backers... ) the current revealed plan DLMB is not for a revert to game, but rather an inheritance chain of command.
But that means that something could still take up the "area" indefinately without any activity or even inhabitants at all.

 

I agree with everything you've said. What I'm assuming is that there is a massively online audience that tries out everything and conservatively speaking that equates to 200k people.

How many people stay and play long term will be hard to predict.

 

Thanks Ashlynn great work as usual!

Oh and I think DarkStarr has been looking carefully at the whole POT placement thing.

From the last 4 Stand - Ups

Sorry had to delete that stuff, I forgot it was from Dev+! Thanks Miracle Dragon for the heads up, much appreciated. I don't like getting slapped from the Mods <g>, has to be worth it <g>

 

If we get 200,000 players, I'm selling my pledge and buying that fur sink I've had my eye on.

Also, if we get 200,000 players at launch, I'll eat all of my quest hats.

 

Im ok if you dont eat the R19 hat. Wouldn't want you to bleed internally.

 

I think people get in over their heads with towns. Excitement mixed with a relatively cheap entry price = not thinking through the process fully. 230 is a lot of towns!

That is actually my personal experience. Thank god I found my home with MGT where people are amazing, talented and relaxed and share the burden of town design.

Looking forward to customized town lot placement. Bring it on!

As far as this thread goes I hope there are wild spaces and clusters of towns. I did love wandering around UO bargain hunting so I imagine this will be available again with this many POTs