World Map

This might be a great place to start...
https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/standup-corner.2315/page-32#post-485627
To get that "proof" one way or another every time someone makes a claim that too much/too little Dev time/money was spent on anything.

 

Not really the point, I know what they worked on. The point of the matter is the map isn't nearly good enough, the rest is a red herring. Just because they put up what they worked on doesn't change the fact the map isn't that good at the moment.

As an aside it would be interesting to go back and see how many of those updates include PoT work.

 

Actually very much to the point as you point out in you last sentence... How much Dev time has been spent on pot's compared to everything else... My cursory glances over the past few year rarely shows much. Your complaint is that too much time was wasted on pot's (a feature unlike the others that collected it own Dev money) that could have been used on the map, these daily logs can prove it one way or another.

 

Sure, since you know they were not introduced three years ago. How about since they were announced?

I know there is a lot of personal investment by some in PoTs but I fail to see how they made the game better. I am seeing areas that need a lot of work like the map, which is what this thread is about.

 

9 of 15 of your comments on your own thread speak of PoTs and your disdain for PoTs. You derail your own thread.

 

One of the reasons I plan to play primarily in offline mode is that I don't have to see POTs and player houses. I want to experience a world without such distractions that hurt the atmosphere and immersion.

 

No prob... I think a review since they were introduced would be interesting to see. I'm not going to argue though if they made the game better or not... I think that is subjective for each of us. And I absolutely agree a lot of areas need major work still (I personally hate the 'magic' system in the game.) But I also think cosmetic things could be put on hold to finish things needed for a functional game at the basic level. Heck even at a certain pledge level there's mention how'd you get access to new skills early... so the plan always was to release a game that was not quite complete but functional.

 

IMHO, It would be really nice to have a Gameplay option to ☑ Hide All Player Owned Towns on the overland map, for online modes, persistently. REALLY nice.

 

That's been a frequent request but one that annoys me even more is the inability to turn off the town banners on the overland map. Please let us hide those!

 

When I purchased a player owned town, I wasn't aware that I purchased something no one would ever see. They're not instances, they're persistent towns in the multiplayer game that represents the spirit of the "players take over the world" stretch goal from the Kickstarter.

It seems to me that if you want to play Single Player Online mode, that would be a perfect place to turn off Player Owned Towns. But if you're in multiplayer mode, I think the towns should be visible to all.

 

I was just thinking about how out of place those banners look to me. They'd sure make sense in a paper map, but don't really fit into a 3D one.

 

Ah it just always seems a bad idea for me when you split up the game so different people are playing different versions of the same game. That's just my view on that.

@smack, yea, I've wanted to turn banners off a few times just at least for screenshots ! I take a lot of screenshots of in scenes, but the map can be pretty too. The banners get in the way. I don't mind them so much while I'm playing though.

 

Yeah, but since it's such a frequent / popular request, I can see the devs offering it as a client-side option for that player. You make an interesting suggestion though about only giving that option in SPO vs OPO.

Personally, I will leave them on when playing online in any mode, because I do want to visit them while out adventuring. Offline, they don't exist so it's a moot point. But my point really was that I also want the option to turn off the town banners regardless if NPC town, PRT, or POT.

 

POTs have no town banner.
Only a small rectangle appears if you are standing near the town.

 

Just to keep the facts straight here...

This is a screen shot taken a few minutes ago. You can see Verdantis Shardfall has a banner, all the surrounding POTs do not. My mouse is hovering over Rats Nest which is why you see the name of the town at all.

Also notice the complete lack of "urban sprawl" that some people like to pretend exists on the overland map. It doesn't.

 

@Baron Drocis Fondorlatos,

Sprawl is more of an issue in some places than others. But yea, there are huge tracts of wilderness in some regions of the map right now, which I like. Are all map-access POTs already in the game?

 

For me, it's not about the banners, it's about having them on the map, visible, at all, ever.
I have no reason to enter a PoT. I have no interest in visiting them, ever.
I do not want to see them in the rain, I do not want to see them on a train. I do not want to see them, no sir, not their banner, not their model. Heheh.

I completely understand that currently, there are no Banners on the overland map for PoT's. That's not good enough, for me. I want them 100% invisible for me, while I play. 100% gone. No model, no banner.

 

You're right, only NPC towns do. But just in case other town types get them in the future (which I can see happening), the option should hopefully work regardless of town type. They can make it more complex and give additional banner filters. And those filters can be applied in options or even dynamically via hotkey. Like hit a hotkey and all banners turn on, or only NPC towns turn on, or only POT banners show, or only dungeons, or only those that I've discovered/visited, etc.

 

I'm not sure how many of the overland map POTs are in game at the moment. I think there's plenty of room for whatever we have left though. I don't believe there are a large number of POTs left to be placed on the map, but that's a question only Port can answer.

 

The developers have been clear as mud about this since the beginning of POT's. I used to complain a lot about wanting POT's to have more fun elements and promotion tools. But as a player, when gathering mats, doing quests, and skilling up, the POT's are very annoying because they are a waste of time when your focus is on the core gaming objectives. I am very glad that the towns that are not POT's are obvious with the big ribbon above them. I still welcome content that improves POT's in term of gameplay value, just a long as the content players want is obvious. Nobody wants to get stuck for 10 minutes walking through a ghost POT expecting to see mobs. That said, the right to ban was a very stupid move for POT owners that want to have compelling content provided by the game.