POT submission form : Guidelines and FAQ

POT submission form : Guidelines and FAQ​

I asked DarkStar some questions about the POT submission form and received clarification on many points. I present the following post as a best efforts guide and FAQ to help POT owners to complete the form.

General information
1. The submission form is a work in progress: should I fill it it now? Can I edit it later?

Fill in now please, mainly we want location, size, name, and layout so we can plan for big picture. You can edit and change until we start working on your town.

2. Is there a timeframe within which this form must be completed? There is a disclaimer at the bottom of the page that says I might lose priority, but if I hadn't read the entire page I wouldn't know about this. Many POT owners look at the form and glazed over without realising that there might be a tight deadline.

Good point. We will craft and send an email soon.

3. If I miss this timeframe do I get moved down the priority list? What is absolutely essential for right now and what can wait?

See #1


The submission form

Section 1 - Town Purchase Information

• Owner Username <account username>
• Owner eMail <account email>
• Town Size Metropolis (83400m2)

This is the most basic information about your account and POT. Note it is your account name and not your forum name or in-game name.


Section 2 - Basic Design Information

• Desire town name - type in the name of the town you desire. (Assume the usual rules of decency and copyright / trademarks)
• Open PVP? - Check this box if you want your town to be initially set as Open PVP. There are no current plans to allow PVP setting to change for PoTs. Portalarium might consider it after Episode 1 but if we ever allowed it then it would have to have huge windup/cooldown (measured in days/weeks) to prevent exploits.
• General Map Location - Number each quadrant from most desireable to least desireable using the drop down boxes. You can select two quadrants to have equal weight if you have no strong preference.
• Town Location Details - Quadrant selection doesn't give you much in terms of the granularity of choice. However, within this box you can state more specific preferences.
• Biome - Select preferred type of Biome. The choice of biome should fit with the location you want (can't have a sandy desert biome set surrounded by snowy mountains)
• Template selection - Once you have selected Biome you will select a template from that particular biome type. Currently the choices are limited until more are released.

• Additional Features - Request additional features for your POT. These features are "would like to haves" rather than guarantees.
• Upload Town Layout - While it would be best to create a town layout from the templates provided it is possible to upload an image that shows an idea of what you'd like.

4. Can I select / agree upon a location before confirming all the other details? I understand that biomes must match for certain locales.

Yes

5. If I pick a location which isn't acceptable (to the devs) then there is a chance I'd want to be in another quadrant. Picking a quadrant as a whole might be hard when there are many places within a quadrant that have limited appeal. Should I just list all the possibles in the description box?

Please list all your desired detailed locations in ranked order in the "Town Location Details"

6. Biome selection is somewhat contingent on the previous question. I feel uneasy about picking biome until I can be sure on location. I'd happy for the biome to fit with the location; the latter is more important than the former.

Please just note that in "Additional Features" or "Town Location Details".

7. Will there be the possibility for new islands to be created in order to accommodate a POT? I'm not talking about a whole new continent but rather an island that encompasses the entire town (so just a single hex).

Yes and in fact these are great for us (as long as there aren't too many)

8. Can POTs be connected to other towns (NPC + POT) via boats? e.g. like Ardoris and Kingsport had. Looks like no for EP1 given DarkStar's reply to Guni. Although if I can occupy a small island then I'd need a boat to somewhere.

You can connect to other PoTs if they are adjacent. If you are an island there will be a boat from the overworld.

9. Will there be city walls?

Please request this in "Additional Features"

10. Can we request animals?

Yes it can be a request but no guarantee (DarkStar's reply to Darth Jodoc). No non-human NPCs for EP1. Animals are considered resources so Portalarium still to discuss this.

11. Can we have soft exits from the scene?

We can request that. Soft exits are those where you run to the edge of the map and exit (like in a flat grasslands scene).


Section 3 - Town Connections and Accessibility

• Enter / Exit via overland map? - Most towns will want to allowance for entering the POT via the overland map. The exception are towns which are connected towns, e.g. an underground town which sits beneath another town that is connected to the overland map.
• Connect to adjacent town - include the names of the towns you wish for your POT to connect to. The POTs must be physically adjacent to each other.

Section 4 - NPC Information (NPC building selection)

• Town Crier - Name your town crier and provide a description
• NPC Building 1 - Select which NPC building from the drop down menu then provide a name and description for each NPC. The descriptions are "would like to haves", not guarantees.
• NPC Building N - Continue with the above step for all NPC buildings you can select.

12. Can I select two NPC buildings which are the same? E.g. two Titans of Courage. I'm not planning to but I want to understand the limitations. Some buildings may allow multiple placements, e.g. 2 craft shops.

We will allow duplicates but in the case of monuments that generate blessings the blessings will NOT stack so there is no game play benefit for picking two of those. Also two identical shops won't have different stock, just different names for the NPCs.

13. Is there a full description of these buildings somewhere? I see that we can change the buildings picked if the features change.

Sorry not yet. It's on our "to do" list but we just have not gotten to it yet.

14. Can the town owner place items / decorations / usable objections in an NPC building? Can I place a crafting table into building? Or perhaps we can place several player owned vendors into an NPC building and create a mall.

Not for Episode 1.


Section 5 - Lot Information

• Provide numerical values for each type of lot. You can't assign a greater amount of lot space than is allocated for your town type. I suspect that these values will be estimates rather than exact figures while template don't yet exist.

Section 6 - Add-On Store House Selections

• Choose which of the add-on store houses you would like. These houses are part of the cost of the POT. Bigger POTs get more choice.

15. City homes: I shouldn't select these yet? I can't select 4 LOTM houses without seeing the other designs (which don't exist yet). Does that mean its possible to return to the form after it has been submitted?

You can pick any sized house (row, village, town, city) for those 4 city sized slots. If you choose the LotM house as 1 of them then you will only receive 3 additional city houses when they become available. Right now we do not have an estimate on when we will work on any more City sized homes so if you want a city sized house guaranteed for when we start building your place then you need to select the old LotM house now. Or you can wait and see what comes later if the old LotM house doesn't appeal to you.

16. Other homes: will more homes be added at the other sizes before launch? Can I change my selection later if new ones come out?

It is highly unlikely that we will be spending time on more homes before launch. If you have not claimed nor used any of the homes then you can submit a support ticket and we will consider a change request.


Section 7 - Custom Playlist

• Choose from the drop-down boxes which music you would like to hear in your town. Custom songs can be made upon request with the Poet's Circle.

Section 8 - T&Cs

• Read and tick the boxes. You don't have a choice. ;-)

​

Don't forget to read them. ;-)

Then click update.

Remember: you can return to this form as many times as you like. Get started by filling out the basic information then edit when you have time.

 

Is this a Guildline and FAQ, or a Guideline and FAQ?

 

Ack... topic title should be: POT submission form : Guidelines and FAQ

Mods please fix.

 

We sure about that? I thought this was a DLMB and it seems to be answered fairly factually here. From my understanding their IDEA was "you can change it, or not, yeah I think we'll let you change it with a cooldown, but for now you can't change it at all, we'll see" or something like that. @Darkstarr - input?

Edit: for non frequenters of the forums or dev hangouts: DLMB is an acronym for Don't Lawyer Me Bro. Coined by Darkstarr during a hangout as a way of saying "We're in design sessions and everything is very lightly written in the sands of time that change. So everything we say is subject to change."

 

There are no current plans to allow PVP setting to change for PoTs. We might consider it after Episode 1 but if we ever allowed it then it would have to have huge windup/cooldown (measured in days/weeks) to prevent exploits.

 

I'll re-word what I said to reflect this. Thanks!

Edit: I just copied / pasted what DS said.

 

I did find that a Holdfast cannot select anything but village homes. That now means I will have to spend $75 on a town Druid house now, instead of getting it through the holdfast purchase, with the new changes of the form.

Just a FYI of this change.