You can't please everyone.. "Quality of Life"?

Just some commentary the 'quality of life' stuff in R57

I'm obviously going to be in a minority on some things and I guess that's fine but I am never the less compelled to at least provide feedback.

So the devs have finally abandoned the "regional economies" idea. That is my first major take away. It's just as well as it was never going to work without some manner of price regulation which was never going to happen in the "player based economy". The cost of transporting goods from one end of the world to the other was negligible to begin with. Anyhow..

Control points: Mixed feelings. On the one hand it's good thing we can bypass them but it really makes them feel like a failed experiment. I had always had a mind that players should be able to bypass them IF one instance was player controlled. That's what I would've done.

It's always easier to give than to take away. Once this stuff is implemented there would be hell to pay to take any of it back.

I feel like control points could still have value, but if we can simply bypass them then they become like any other scene. I'm not sure where they will go from there, I hope there's still a plan for them.

Sieges: Really?? Just allow everyone to bypass them? Then what is the cost of having shrines in towns? If you're going to break that cost entirely then may has well reduce or eliminate sieges on player towns. It's their overall frequency in the world that makes them as annoying as they are.

For sieges I would've reduced the probably of a player town siege to something like 1%.. I mean how many cultists are there anyway. It's more realistic from a practical and story perspective and players having to go through them is greatly reduced right? Not even the Obsidians at the height of their power had the resources to wage war on so many towns at once. And after all, a siege that can be easily bypassed isn't a siege.

Still, personal preference thing. Speaking of personal preference things.. Global banks. Ugh! Guys if you're going to make stuff in one location accessible from another at least have a transporting fee and time delay on it to move items from one bank to the other. Is this a medieval/fantasy world we live in? Or just another MMO?

What I'm seeing here is the quick & dirty fix aimed at appeasement. If I'm entirely honest here, will the majority be happier? Probably, but there had to be better ways to go about it than just flipping a switch.

 

I think regional economy can still happen int he future.

One of the biggest things was that compared to other games with regional economies the world is very quick to get across even with all the hurdles.

But afaik entirely new continents are on the way, and the potention to still have access to those land masses be on schedules

 

They can turn all these things back on if they wish at anytime. Perhaps they realize what they intended was just not happening with the current systems in place. Of which, they can then go back and revisit these to possibly function they way they originally intended.

 

True but it can't really happen with global banks. The real key to regional economies is the cost to transport goods. The world size as is for EP1 makes that cost negligible no matter what you do so long as it remains in the hands of the players.

Now if global banks remain truly global, then that cost will always remain negligible even across continents. They would need to introduce a transport fee between land masses as well as restrict teleportation between continents. (You might be surprised at just how much one of my characters can carry and still teleport).

They could be but there would be a LOT of blow back. Part of my issue here isn't just moving in this direction, it's the degree of change that there may be no turning back from. It's far easier to be strict at the beginning and then loosen up than it is the other way around.

It's also another example of design and implementation that's a personal pet peeve. You try to achieve one goal and then to resolve an issue you do something quick & dirty that directly contradicts what you wanted to achieve. ie sieges that become meaningless to have at all because they can just be ignored and yet are significant to the story. Every time something like this is done I feel like they're shooting themselves in the foot.

What was it said? You choose to sacrifice either time, money or quality. And in cases like this it's quality that loses out.

 

Perhaps the best change this game has ever implemented is global banking. Regional economies won't work unless we implement EVE type PVP where players and guilds can restrict movement and grief opposing factions.

So either go hardcore PVP and make 99% of the playerbase angry or implement global banking and give up on a fools errand of regional economies.

 

The locked passes literally only did one thing, make exploration difficult for lower level players, until they built up a massive gigantic friend list. That has been my experience since playing since R4X (I forget which release I actually started playing).

Currently I can click a teleport scroll and go anywhere while playing now.

However with the passes unlocked, I’m now going to completely purge my friends list to people I actually know.

 

That would just be one form of cost to transporting goods, but not the only option. However, it may be the option most in-line with a "player based" economy. Not sure how effective that would be though as anyone capable of restricting another's movements would also be free to move their own goods at less cost. The cost of transporting goods from A to B needs to be more or less universal for everyone.

 

You are exactly right. Those with power will be able to transport goods for less cost. Those will power will be able to sell goods for less cost. This exactly describes the outcome of a regional based economy. Everything else is fairy tale land that won't work.

Therefore remove the flawed content of regional economies and replace it with something that will keep people in game playing and paying the bills, global banking.

 

I was running through those control points at level 5. Many of them anyway, and with ankhs at both ends I'm not sure how restrictive they ever were. I've never once used teleporting for the purpose of bypassing a control point since their inception. Certainly, they've never kept me from going anywhere.

 

Even without global banks I doubt the effort to transport goods will ever be significant enough to effect regional prices, and even if it could.. the cost of travel to purchase lower cost goods in other regions would be insignificant enough to keep local prices down or people would only sell local goods. Regional economy would still have little meaning.

However, like I say in the title, you can't please everyone. Global banks make absolutely no sense for a 'living world'. If that world is important to Portalarium than global banks are a nail in the coffin of that idea. Makes New Britannia seem more like just another game than a living world. Of course, if your priority if convenience in a game than I can see how global banks are a step up. Ultimately, it really is a personal preference thing. It's just not my preference. I prefer the world over the game.

 

There is no World or Game if the servers are shut down. Population must increase.

 

Global banks in of themselves are not a deciding factor in this. Of course anyone who wants that convenience is going to call it a good thing, as with any 'personal preference' feature. I can just as easily argue that too much convenience is detrimental to long term gameplay and player retention.

 

buh bye having to be forced constantly into sieges... LOVE THE CHANGE!!!!!!!!!

 

You could certainly argue adding global banking is detrimental to long term player retention. You would be wrong, but you could argue it.

Didn't you come up with the idea for charged jumping too? Not trying to attack you, but realism isn't fun. If I wanted realism, I'd walk outside.

 

If your actual concerns are them abandoning regional economies, how then do you then suggest they start design of one?

 

No charged jumping wasn't mine.. and I didn't say global banks specifically would be detrimental.. I said 'too much convenience' would be. Emphasis on 'too much' which is another discussion entirely. I never said global banks were horrible in general. I've been describing it as a 'personal preference' for a reason.

I do make the point though that it effects the feel and vision of the game (if only to a small degree). Devs decided early on to make banks local.. for more than just global economies I thought. If they want a living world than this is a step in the other direction.

 

Same change could be achieved by greatly reducing siege frequency. I agree the end result is a good one, just think there was a better way to get there.

Question is a bit moot really so long as they want their vision of a 'player based economy'. Also, I'm not particularly concerned about regional economies. I just think it's noteworthy that they've finally abandoned the notion as it stands. What I find more irritating is when their 'fix' for an issue is in direct contradiction to the vision they're still trying to achieve where their implementation is what caused the issue in the first place.

Sieges as an example. At first, minor annoyance.. ok, cabalists are sieging major cities. It's a big part of the story making their presence known and of course sieges are supposed to be in your way, they're sieges.. they block passage to and from and where you down, that's what they're meant to do. Now come player towns and players want shrines.. ok players get shrines.. now the cabalists are in a dozen places at once all over the map because they want to squash anyone promoting virtues (by putting up shrines)… now it's a major pain because sieges are everywhere.. solution.. make sieges meaningless by allowing everyone to bypass them entirely. So even sieges on major towns will be nothing more than cosmetic for most players who aren't specifically hunting cabalists.

Well you can't just eliminate player town sieges entirely.. because you know.. shrines and all, but allowing them to be bypassed removes them as a cost for having the shrines in the first place. You all see the contradiction there right? Is there really no better way to lessen the inconvenience of having too many sieges? And here I will emphasize 'too many'. The fact they exist as an inconvenience at all isn't the problem.. the problem is how many there are.

I suppose you could say we want to keep them to make hunting cabalists easier, that's what astronomy is for in part to predict where these guys are going to be!

 

I'm with you on the sieges, but I'm okay with the other stuff. I don't think it's really possible to create regional economies through travel inconvenience without making travel so inconvenient that it's torturous. There could still be other ways though, like keeping track of where things come from and charging taxes on sales of things imported into one region from another.

 

If they really wanted to do it.. you'd have to start with realistic weight on raw goods.. ie nobody is going to be able to carry 100 trees in their backpack.. you could chop them down but then be forced to pay to transport more than 1 at a time out of a zone and 1 log would encumber anyone.. fee based on distance. Basically you'd be paying an NPC service to move goods for you. But the complexity of building on that to get crafted products to vendors would be too much. And players would figure out work arounds anyway.. such as using public crafting nearest all harvest points

 

I think realistic/restrictive carry capacity runs into the same problem as inconvenient travel does though. If it were extreme enough to actually stop someone from transporting goods to other regions to sell, it would also crush everyone that's just doing routine things.

On the other hand, import taxes on vendor sales would only affect the person transporting goods to sell and would not be vulnerable to workarounds. I'm fine with just not having regional economies and don't really understand what the appeal of it is in the first place, but I think that'd be the way to go if they really wanted them to be a thing.