Ressources like in UO or random spawm? -- (Dev) Replied

Can i go into the wood (like in UO) and chipping wood with an axe, or will the gameengine randonly spawm ressources like in EQ II, WoW, Rift and so on...
I really prefer the first option and hope we will get a similar system like in UO. Its not really clear for me how Sota will manage this all.

P.S: Or digging ore in a cave...yes it was grinding but i loved it and for me this was a part of Roleplay. Being honest, i hate the random ressource spawns.

 

there would need to be some sort of node system, even if those nodes are hidden inside of all of the trees in the woods. nodes limit how much of the raw material can be brought into the world, which is a good thing since it limits the amount of crafted goods, making them more rare and in turn more valuable.

i am not suggesting nodes like in WoW that appear on the map and vanish after being used, but rather a grid based node where an area has a saturation level that slowly gets lowered down, and replenished at different intervals.

Players would then have to use Prospecting tools to determine if an area is resource-rich before they attempt to gather said resources. Star Wars Galaxies was much like this, but the resources there also had different quality levels, so Ore in one location might be better or worse than Ore from another location, and the resulting crafted good would have differences depending on the quality of materials used.

 

@macharborguy: Won't that just cause the issue we had with UO where you mined on a spot, moved a few steps and repeated? Digging ore in the caves was only enjoyable when you had good company and good macros. I'd rather not go back to that. WoW's ore nodes are even worse.

But I don't have any better idea on this.

 

And that is the problem with resources in MMOs. When we mine we just tap and area and get the resource. In the real world we have to physically open up the ground and remove the ore, which does not replenish itself. Once an plot of land is mined out, it's mined out forever. This doesn't work in an game, since mining out a whole area would eventually remove all craft materials from the game.

So for a game, we have a repeatable mechanic for gather from nodes or grids that replenish themselves over time. Very unrealistic from the real-world sense, but works from a game perspective, but is also very tedious after awhile (I too got tired of riding around in WoW hitting node after node).

With things like farming, there is time involved in planting and growing, time to grow, harvest, replant. That could work fine.

Honestly, I think Minecraft got the whole scares resources thing perfect. The world is randomly generated, and continues to generate almost endlessly as you adventure to new areas, you have to dig and alter the landscape to get the resources, and once the area is mined out you have to move on to a new area. And farming in MInecraft is great as well since it is very involved (though bonemeal makes the wait time to harvest over in an instant).

 

Well.. Explorers could work as prospectors in the world, mark ore locations that aren't static but appear and disappear as time passes, sell it to guilds/miners or mine it themselves and move on to a new area. Though the mining itself could be done by hired NPC's and have a timer to it.

 

I rather liked the SWG system for resource collection. No "hitting the rock", unless you really felt like it, but you could place harvesters. You had to prospect about once a week to find the stuff you wanted. I could absolutely see something like that, only obviously instead of "placing harvesters" it would be more like "hiring miners".

 

I would much rather see resources not respawn in the same location again and again a la Wow and other games. Make the resources spawn in random locations so that players have to look around for them instead of just marking X spot which will always spawn copper etc.. I also am in favor of resources having quality levels like SWG had. This would make the skill level of the crafters important as the items they produce would vary in quality from crafter to crafter.

 

best resource system was Star Wars Galaxies ...

 

The idea of prospecting sounds similar in ways to EVE online. Where you could scan down different anomalies and some would be asteroid belts that you could mine or other various things.

I had no qualms with mining in the cave north of Britannia and having to click over and over other than Jackal PKing me all the time. But I'd just run back out there and mine more. Any sort of resource gathering should be a grind, whether or not you should be able to get attacked doing it, isn't for this forum but I digress.

I like @macharborguy idea of grid saturation which would vary slightly from say UO where you know there was going to be Valorite ore in said spot always unless it was mined out. I'd imagine this way you'd have to search an area and instead of a single rock giving the best ore you'd have x% chance based on skill etc to mine a higher level ore out of any rock in the grid?

 

How about a system where you can gather the lowest tier of gathering material from anywhere, and have them not very useful for crafting. So like every tree in the game will give "Worthless Wood" or something

That way you can make basic campfires, and maybe some crappy arrows and bolts without needed to find a "Superior Wood" node.

Same could be done with stone(or a common metal) and grass (or maybe a common weed?)

If you want higher quality metals woods or herbs you could switch over to a node based system, as these items have trade value.

The problem with most MMOs in my opinion is that they space out nodes to create a time-sink. You as a player run around a farming circuit, and you gather things that respawn as you stumble across them. Not the most exciting gameplay, and one that promotes "farming"

I feel that if you cluster nodes next to eachother, not only does this make the world feel more realistic, but it promotes exploration. This would also be a good way for the more adventurous explorer non-combatant types to find resources.

Maybe a more stable way to find resources (but dangerous) would be to have clusters of mining nodes in caves/mine type dungeons, but you need to fight to clear them out. This would be a good way for combatants to find resources.

If you are a combatant that does not mine, maybe you will want to group up with a noncombatant and clear a dungeon, you split monster loot with him, he splits ore with you.

Very large concentrations of nodes could spawn in clusters during rare astrological events in PvP enabled zones, This would be a way for luring PvPers into an area to fight over the resources. This could also be a way to encourage bold non-pvpers to take a risk in entering a PvP area, because the payoff could be huge

 

Grimkor, I'm not sure if you are familiar with Eve Online but some of what you are suggesting is similar along some lines. Without going into too much detail, some of the riskier areas of the game where PvP was open miners would usually have friends or alt accounts nearby for protection from not just PvP but Pve mobs as well.

As always, higher risk granted higher rewards.

Grouping resources or nodes could also be disadvantageous in open PvP areas as you would essentially just be gathering the sheep for the wolves.

The time-sink you mentioned does promote exploration as you can't have limited resources and mats do need to respawn. But since everyone won't be in the same world at the same time I really don't know how they'll approach that. Will one person playing SPO be able to just farm the same area continuously because they are the only person there? Whereas those in open may have to move around as others playing online near them are simultaneously gathering resources? I'm sure they'd have to balance that somehow.

I do like and support the promotion of combatants and non-combatants working together.

I'd be interested in hearing more about the Star Wars Galaxies resources. Maybe time for some independent research.

 

@rschultzy80

Its been a while since I played Eve, but yeah not unlike that from what I remember

I remember asteroid belts in lower sec being quite a bit more valuble, and you would have people dedicated to mining them, with maybe an escort fight off other players and pirates, as mining ships couldnt really defend themselves. Perhaps not unlike non-combatant gatherers in SotA being defended by PvPers


I was thinking that if you had exploration nodes be pretty damn rare, but have a very large yield, it could almost encourage searching for them as a group experience, then whoever finds one tells his friends, and you have a little expedition.


As far as SPO, I have no idea how they are going to solve that issue.

Do we know if item weight is going to be factored into this game? That could help promote grouping, or not completely mining out an area.

I think how GW2 did it (and this may be the best solution) is make all of the nodes shared. That kinda destroys the PvP aspect of the system, unless you make the PvP zone nodes not shared and just stupid valuable or rich.

 

The great part about mining on EVE is that even the secure zones with their common metals are worth mining. It's the basic component for about everything, the rarer stuff are simply added on top of the cheap metal for the more expensive products so there's always a need for the common metals as well.

 

I liked having to gather resources in UO.
I think that opens up more skills for people to play.
I never had a character that could craft but I could gather resources and have someone make me new armor fairly quick. Plus selling the resources made you money. Not everyone wants to go out and chop wood or mine.

 

It will initially be implemented as a node based system. The spawning logic will be something we will have to discuss, play test, and tweak. Certainly though more dangerous zones, either via PvE or PvP, will have high quality nodes.

Great ideas all around in this thread. I expect resource collection to go though a few iterations throughout development. We have to get started somewhere.

 

Can the nodes move around (be randomly placed)? This could cut down on node camping. It never felt normal to make my rounds visiting known node locations and gathering stuff. In GW2 it was more like "time to go get my 5 strawberries for today".

I suppose this is the same as asking if each point in the world could have attributes defining which assets could be placed there.

 

As long as we don't get started with nodes :/

 

Nodes take away from the ability to go into a forest and randomly cut down any tree like RG did in the demo, watch it fall, gather your wood, and see it's stump remain. With nodes are you only going to be cut down "highlighted" trees? Same thing could be said about mining, and not being able to swing a pick at anything that is stone based, as in, in a mine or a mountain... You will have to walk around looking for that one out of place highlighted thing to smack?

 

Having a node system takes away alot of the 'Sandbox' Feel , For sure.

It also leads to the problem of grinders and scripters, aswell the fact that you would probably need to go weird places to get the high end mats...

 

I'd prefer a more free-form gathering procedure than the "node" system. I agree that the Alpha and Beta testing (perhaps even after lanch feedback) will determine if the game can follow the freeform style, still I really hope that we wont end up with yet another game that utilizes the node simply because it takes away so very much.