Your cotton should not be safe, you need walls.

It'll be interesting to see how agriculture works out. At the moment....you can grow any crop anywhere at anytime. AND, we have to do funny stuff... like constant watering even though the weather brings regular rain. Farming cotton in the snow mountains in the dead of winter is hilarious; as is farming in a basement w/o having to use any lighting.


Idk, maybe I just woke up grouchy but the entire conversation revolving about "you have stuff and I need to have the right to steal it" bores me; it's just a rehash of the same old tired PvP arguments IMO.

If anything though this thread reminds me of how much more work is necessary to bring this game into a releasable state.

We need more substance and less pixel crack in the add on store

At the moment; Sota is kind of like Twitter to me...I own a bit of both... but for now I'm not increasing my positions...

 

We need land mines to hide in the rows. Thus cotton can be stolen, but at the risk of death. Perhaps we could erect electric fences ala Owl's Head powered by a windmill. Guard dogs come to mind. I am for stealing, but with risk. Owner of field should not have to flag for PVP to protect his crops.

 

It's not destroying my economy. I'm diversified.

There are four main materials, cotton (currently being grown in large quantities, at least until low Agriculture skill keeps that in check), leather (I can get a lot of leather scrap from trying to get metal scrap, and hides aren't hard to collect), metals (there are limits to harvest rate even in mines), and wood (I haven't found a good place to get a lot of wood yet, but I have a lot of scrap). By at least trying to do all four, a market shake-up in one doesn't leave me in trouble.

I never sell raw cotton anyhow. There's very little use for it other than through crafting it into thread, so I take that extra step. I'd probably sell it as cloth too, if I wasn't limited to 5 slots per public vendor, and people normally only shop in Owl's Head and Ardoris, which is a moderate pain to keep both restocked. Right now my private vendor isn't much use except to store stacks of stuff to refill the public vendors, and slow-moving stuff, because I'm in a low-traffic location. (Anyone need a few hundred granite? Head over to PaxLair!)

And I'm also pretty sure you don't get beetle carapaces from agriculture cotton.

 

Stealing is an act of PvP (e.g. Pickpocket). If they've locked down housing deco even from PvP, then they need to lock down plants as well, as it is the property of the owner being on that lot. But I would prefer the opposite and open it all for PvP.

Just about everyone already locks down their housing deco behind a locked door to their house, and some even have higher fences with a locked gate. If PvP players wish to protect their crops, they can do the same and build higher walls around their crops, place their crops in an enclosed structure, etc. There are tools to do so in-game that can protect your belongings.

So if they allow stealing of crops in PvP, they need to allow stealing of housing deco (only exceptions are add-on store and pledge items and quest items, as those can't be looted in PvP). We need consistency here. And as it's controlled by the PvP flag, it works everywhere and for (and against) any one person or guild.

 

Stealing decos has so many problems with it.

Even granted that you might be able to lock your doors, it would prohibit you from having a public shop open for business. Even if there was a guard system, it wouldn't work well enough to prevent a lot of damage if you took a break from the game for a week. I don't think the game should punish you for being offline and having a real life, even in a PvP ruleset.

Second, its so easy to move decos by accident; which is why I turn off my decoration mode. I wouldn't want even friendly guests coming in and accidentally moving all the tables and not knowing how to put them back. Which brings us to the larger problem, as suggested by @SeleneNoctua -- not only could you steal an entire field of cotton fairly easily without anybody noticing you, you could also steal a bunch of tables, workstations, chairs, and escape through the door without anybody noticing you. As the game works, its just doesn't emulate any reasonable degree of realism.

So, I just don't think that's viable -- they'd have to figure out a system in which it was possible to burglar a house, but also avoid all these issues. Burglary of NPCs works so much easier; furniture is locked down and items on tables can be clicked to be stolen, but respawn for other players.

As for agriculture, I tend to apply the same issues and agree with SeleneNoctua. While being able to steal crops is cool in theory, really it has a lot of problems with it. So the devs would need to figure out a system for it that would address those problems.

 

Lol, considering that walls and gates are also decos, burglars would be able to pick them up also if there were no system that were thought out. And trees, large fountains, hedges, etc.

 

None of which are not impossible to solve. Just requires creative thinking and yes, perhaps compromises.

Well, in that respect, so is the house itself and even the crop itself. As I alluded to above, we'll need to draw the line somewhere and compromise. Crops are replenishing resources. So you can only harvest them but not steal the plant itself. We need to start somewhere to find that right balance. But in no way do I see these as unsolvable or even difficult problems. It's only difficult if we're unwilling to be creative and make hard decisions. I just don't want to water down the Open PvP experience to the point where danger and risk are just laughably silly.

In any case, did not mean to derail the thread about stealing deco objects too as the thread is about cotton (harvestable resource). Perhaps we can create another thread or re-use one that already exists regarding stealing deco objects.

In regards to the thread, you should be able to steal (harvest) any agricultural resource on an Open PvP player's property, and that player can use in-game tools to protect it. If we need more / better tools, ask for them vs shutting this down?

 

Actually, I'm not shutting it down. I just think there's some complexity to it.

I don't think the fact that its renewable justifies the scope of damage that someone could do to your crops, if there are no limits to what they can do, when you're off for the day. If the solution is walls, yes that works, but then everyone growing will just have walls, and it'll end up a cosmetic solution. If there's guards, fine, but guards can be easily killed. I think its something that will probably have to be thought about when they think about home burglary and how that will work. Plus, as you said, some consistency would make a difference. I'm not shutting down the idea; I just don't know if its within the scope of what they have planned so far. I think the devs have to think about whether they want to do things like burglaries and how that will actually work. And yea, a thread on that and brainstorming about that would be great.

 

Also, the whole topic I think just cries out about why a broader justice system would benefit the game. Someone stealing could be a criminal, just like someone murdering could be a criminal.

PvP without a justice system is just free for all.

 

Agreed, it can be complex but only as complicated as we design it to be. The more exceptions or different rules we create, the more complicated it can get.

I think renewable resources at least establishes a category of items. And the act itself is limited, you can only harvest the crop, not take the resource itself. And this also only affects Open PvP players, and only the subset of those who are invested in agriculture on their property.

But in regards to the issue of having things stolen when you're "off for the day", are you suggesting that crops can't be stolen / harvested unless you're online?

 

I'm not suggesting either way... whatever works... just commenting that it would be easy for a certain PvPer kill a guard and steal all of the crops in one fell swoop. It could happen when you spend a day off, or just are online but off adventuring and doing quests. And that would lead to people just not choosing to do agriculture without walls, because it wouldn't be worth doing. And then the walls would just be a cosmetic thing that wouldn't add much to gameplay.

Same thing with deco... it might just lead to people not decorating, or just putting up walls. And what does that add to gameplay?

In the end, I'm just saying, whatever the solution is, it should create meaningful choices. IMO, all of these issues are why it just feels like it has to be integrated with a justice system.

 

My cotton should not need walls to be safe ... because if I get walls, the cotton does not get enough light to grow.

 

greenhouse!

 

And I'm also not suggesting one way or the other, just trying to get clarity on the points that are brought up. And that's the choice. We keep talking about giving more player choice and consequences of those decisions. If you choose to go Open PvP, you will risk yourself and your property (or whatever types of items / categories we agree upon). We know pickpocketing uses the same Loot Ransom rules. Why not property? But I digress, we're here talking about crops. If you choose to go Open PvP, then your consequences are to provide protection for your crops. The point keeps being brought up about getting your crops stolen while you're offline. That is strange and funny, because on the one hand, we want our vendors to work while we're offline, and our crops to grow while we're offline, yet we don't want to accept the consequence of them being harvested by other Open PvP players when we're offline, let alone online?

The second point about agriculture without walls wouldn't be worth doing is the consequence of your choice to go Open PvP. If going Open PvP causes you to not invest in agriculture, that was your choice. Or you can still choose to do so, but use any number of existing or proposed in-game tools to provide varying levels of protection.

And why would walls only have to be a cosmetic thing? We've talked about lockpicking, about breakable walls with varying levels of durability from tiny sticks to magical barriers. Gameplay can be as deep as what we ask for, not what we accept as purely cosmetic deco. In service of the grand design about world interactivity, we should be asking for (more) function to currently purely cosmetic objects.

Also, we can impose limits on how much can be harvested, either by count, weight, or timer or combination. Heck, just thinking completely crazy here but just as some resource nodes are magically harder to harvest in some scenes than others, we can treat the property lot as a scene equivalent to the level of the property owner and the harvesting is harder to do depending on your level. Not suggesting we do that, but throwing out ideas here, even if they are crazy or doesn't work. But like I mentioned in previous posts, the more complex the system, the less likely it'll get implemented. However, just trying to continue the discussion to placate concerns about having your entire crops wiped out by a single player, which I think can be dealt with in other ways too.

Agreed, it should be meaningful choices, which imply meaningful consequences, and I've tried to clarify that above. And yeah, it feels like there should be an overarching justice system but baby steps, to help define that.

 

What if its everybody's choice? And everyone who wants to do agriculture just gets a non-PvP lot because its not worth it to do it on a PvP lot. What's the point of that game-wise?

I mentioned walls as cosmetic, because you suggested walls would be a tool to keep people out. Yes, I would like things like scaling walls and picking locks in the game. But, okay, lets assume that's added to the game. Why wouldn't it be extremely easy for someone to scale your wall or pick your lock? If its easy for someone to do it, why have the wall at all? How does it help you?

I have an idea about how all of this could work and be meaningful, but it would require putting some justice system-type mechanics into the game. I guess I can put up my ideas on that in a thread. But I think short of justice system-type mechanics its a bit meaningless.

And btw, I'd like to long term think about PvP mechanics which would be fun if theoretically they were global and there were no non-PvP mode. Even though I don't think non-PvP mode will go away, I think the ideal is to create a system in which everyone would find the game better with PvP on.

 

We already see that happening with guild warfare. Even if we remove the Open PvP flag from guilds and make it purely guild-to-guild, the same thing is going to happen: there will be two allied guilds: one PvP (warfare), the other non-PvP (gatherers, crafters, RP, etc).

In any case, wouldn't the Open PvP flag apply to that character, not per-lot he owns? If he owns two houses, both are subjected to PvP. The workaround would be to be made kindred and given full access to another non-PvP character's property.

That would be interesting to see, but you know that will never happen.

 

We're talking about PvP zoned towns versus non- PvP zoned towns I thought.

Yea, I doubt Portalarium will move away from the option to consent to PvP, since they seem committed to the principle. However, IMO, the problem with Open PvP in games isn't even consent per se, but the fact that the Open PvP environment is too unforgiving, too hostile to players. If an Open PvP environment could be created that felt less brutal, I think more people would opt in to it.

 

This whole cotton protection discussion is overblown. If the stuff is easy to grow, and lots of people do it, then cotton will have virtually no value at all. The only reason anyone would want to steal it would be for harassment. Even that would get boring pretty quickly. Take fireworks as an example. The graphic is neat and it is fun to set them off. But you quickly get bored. In UO, everyone had boxes of fireworks sitting in their bank, and you almost never saw anyone use them after the first week or so. Growing cotton will be the same. A great idea, graphically pleasing, but essentially boring. Now if you had a breeding mechanic that would result in rare colors of cotton, or cotton which had special attributes, resulting from special secret fertilizer recipes, then this discussion about protecting the crop would be extremely pertinent. However with the present design, such talk is much ado about nothing IMO.

 

that right there is a very tough nut to crack. i strongly doubt that'll happen, given so many peoples different viewpoints on what 'better' and 'fun' are.