Questions for the players

[MrDDT]

It would be nice if you talked for yourself...or are you referring to yourself as 'we' ? Its kind of confusing. I don't remember the playerbase electing you as their spokesman. You assume that your opinion is everyone's opinion, which is very clearly wrong.

The combat system is already in work. I agree, it has to be completed first, till then we can't even talk about combat. Another point not to dedicate the new zones for contest.
Adding a siege system is a very different question.

Who will build in an area where there is no way to protect his territory when he is offline, and his totem can simply be destroyed by running there and hitting it ? If you meant expansion totem that may work, but in that case there is no reason not to allow safe tribe totems to be placed in the new area (not on the rare resources).

We don't have tons of room. Every land was taken on the first day after launch when the population was very high, and these totems are still there. There are no good free spots in the game.

Yet what you propose is just a free for all of whatever amount of rare resource you want to farm, if combat isnt working, you cant place a totem to protect it from being jacked.

Talking in "we" is common English, you should try learning it. When its more than 1 person wanting it (see this thread).

I dont think combat has to be "completed" I would love if it were, but it surely doesnt have to be finished. I dont understand either why you feel something has to be protected 24/7. So what if someone cant protect a rare resource 24/7 sounds like a great system, I would hate to see a group have a rare resource 24/7.

There are already tons of areas for safe totems, why would you want to hinder the gamer with more of them? Every land wasnt taken first day after launch. Heck I started building just about 2 weeks ago. I know others have moved 3+ times since launch. I have no idea who you are fooling here.
Good free spots? So the only way you plan to get more "good" spots is to have MORE safe area that cant be taken? That doesnt make sense at all, according to you, they will be taken on the first day of the expansion (AKA mist being pushed back), that would mean they would have to push the mist back daily just to keep up with this need to build these safe totems only to have them never decay.
Or we could try what they said was planned. Contested areas with rare resources. Wow what a concept. Its only been stated many times and clearly what the players want.

[Jadzia]

Enforcer Dezgard!

Rare resources don't need to be protected 24/7. I was talking about tribe areas with buildings, terraforming, read it again if you didn't understand.
There won't be more safe areas. Every player can only have one, so if (s)he moves to the new land the old totem has to be removed.

The new land won't be taken fast since there aren't such a huge amount of players as they were at launch. Much less, and most of them are already settled and don't want to move.

They planned new areas, both contested and normal. All I said was that this first expansion shouldn't be a contested area, since the contest system is not in place yet.

Xsyon said he will open up 5 new zones. He can even divide it, 2 for contest (still doesn't make sense since you can't take over lands but oh well perhaps this helps you) and 3 more for new lands to settle.

Added after 8 minutes:

Yup. Free up land, pretty much recycling content. Might tweak it up to a month instead of two weeks, just to make it one full payment cycle. I'd also make it retroactive though. Any account that's been unsubscribed a month goes into the revenant phase immediately. Send emails to every account you have in your database announcing the new and exciting revenant incursions and consequences, no surprises.

Xyber's idea means that while it's unfortunate you're losing a customer, the loss of that customer increases the likelihood of others staying as they're getting more content.

I presume Xsyon is coming from the hopes of getting those customers back by keeping their stuff around but... I'm not sure that would be the determining factor. Allow people coming back to rejoin with anything they had on them. They can always make arrangements to keep things at a friend's, or a storage business, if they're just taking a break and think they might come back.

I recently went back to Eve for a bit and some of my stuff was so old, I either couldn't remember what it was, or it was just irrelevant at this point. Glad to have my cash and maybe a couple of ships... but those arrangements shouldn't require a non-customer to have a 6 month hold on land over an actively paying customer.

Perhaps it could help if everything a player owns were stored in the database and he would get the opportunity to place his items again in the game world when he comes back. He would lose his spot and the terraformed stuffs, but still could keep some valuable things.

[Book]

Hmm, well yeah, I guess that's right Jadzia Stuff could be saved and just put back down somewhere else when they come back. My ideas can be a bit draconian at times...

I just noticed the expansion is going forward. Not 5 zones... but 50 zones?!

Just when I thought I was out, they're gonna pull me back in! darnit.

[Jadzia]

Hmm, well yeah, I guess that's right Jadzia Stuff could be saved and just put back down somewhere else when they come back. My ideas can be a bit draconian at times...

I just noticed the expansion is going forward. Not 5 zones... but 50 zones?!

Just when I thought I was out, they're gonna pull me back in! darnit.

Wow you are right 50 zones !! Now thats a huge land to explore

[Vandal]

50 Zones is almost more than what is currently available.
And if it's really NW of the map, I'm pretty happy about it. The Templar's Temple will be right in the middle of it.

[MrDDT]

Lol, not again. Stop this please if you can't support your 'facts' with official polls. 11 players posted in this thread, and only you and Dub voted for new areas to be contested. 4 more want rare resources to fight over, but they don't care if there are other safe totems as well. The rest don't even care if there is combat content update.
Don't base your opinion on 11 players' posts. We don't represent anyone.

Rare resources don't need to be protected 24/7. I was talking about tribe areas with buildings, terraforming, read it again if you didn't understand.
There won't be more safe areas. Every player can only have one, so if (s)he moves to the new land the old totem has to be removed.

The new land won't be taken fast since there aren't such a huge amount of players as they were at launch. Much less, and most of them are already settled and don't want to move.

They planned new areas, both contested and normal. All I said was that this first expansion shouldn't be a contested area, since the contest system is not in place yet.

Xsyon said he will open up 5 new zones. He can even divide it, 2 for contest (still doesn't make sense since you can't take over lands but oh well perhaps this helps you) and 3 more for new lands to settle.

My poll is in game. How is that doing? Pretty good huh? Oh wait its not. Then come here and read the posts and wow here they are also asking for things to fight for and contested area. On top of that Xsyon already said he was going to add contested area with pushing back the mist.

It certainly lacks a lot of things and that is evident. All I do is train my skills so I can level up and have more hit points or I work on the city. Both are becoming less and less fun each day without any player conflict

Combat (its as if there is none atm)

I would like to see more purpose for combat.
I want the wars to be eligible. So that we can conquer each other for a purpose, either it be territories or ressources.

1. Combat. Was fubar. Devs are making strides to unscrew it. Great. This is a mechanics correction, not a content creation. But if they get this done correctly, it's a pretty huge step. Combat is merely a means to an end, not the end itself. Combat settles conflict, but the conflict itself should be primarily driven by political and economic concerns.

5. Accountability. Even if everything stated previously is addressed to a satisfactory degree, it's all pointless if there is not some degree of player accountability. The ability too hold a player accountable for their actions is paramount to the larger game. Accountability is the glue that holds the pieces together...you can't have politics without it. Your economy will stagnate without it (if you control/monopolize a resource 'we' need to be able to make a decision if we want to tolerate that...which in large part will be dictated by the controllers actions). Very simply, without accountability, every gameplay item is really artificial...the moment you make players accountable for each and every action is when you start to see real drama unfold, as players seek to protect and expand their interests.

so while the game is a sandbox [insert meaning], and yes, the players ultimately should determine what happens in it, the game design should assist by channeling players to some type of crucible that serves to ignite gameplay.

Thats just from the first page of people, without me listed on there btw.

I dont know why you think its only me and Dub.


Why does contested have to mean over tribe areas? Did you NOT see the post about adding HP to a totem and poof its contested? It doesnt even have to be anymore more than that. It doesnt have to be about buildings and stuff.
Heck why cant it just be over outposts? What I dont want to see is more safe totem areas. Because its NOT helping, its NOT needed and its where most people that I know have got bored and left the game. Economy is in the crapper. There are many reason for this, but mostly its due to the lack of strife for anything.

I wouldnt call "Launch" huge. Plus with the new combat changes and contested areas, you have no idea how many people will be playing, so your theory-crafting is failing here.
The combat system is in place. Its not a great one, its broken but there is a combat system. If these new areas have rare resources that are worth a damn, I can see lots of people moving and living in these areas for the better access to something in the game that means a damn.
Plus the combat system is likely to be put out very very soon. Adding more puffy carebear safe totem areas is going to make the combat system next to worthless. I guess maybe we can use it on the bears, oh wait I kill those in 1 to 2 hits now.

He shouldnt divide it at all. You have 50+ zones of safe totem area already heck you have that many and you still want to take the lions share of new lands, we have been waiting over a year for contested areas. Stop trying to get your carebear world pushed on to a game where its a sandbox.
We want contested areas, we have been waiting for them. Pushing back contested areas is a bad idea. Please get out of here with your carebear safe totems everywhere. Stop trying to CHANGE the game to how you want it. Yes YOU. This game had features and listed a guideline of that system. Its people like you trying to warp it into some carebear land with all your crying about "Im being griefed because he killed me".

Strife is what makes the economy work, these goals are there for a reason. You have your safe areas now. Stop trying to take the whole map.

[Xsyon]

Reading this discussion gives me an idea regarding resources that would be fairly easy to implement.

1) Normal resources, including scavenged resources, are distributed by areas. This will make even some common scavenged resources scarce in some areas.

This is already implemented for plants and fish and somewhat for creatures who should be defining their own areas by avoiding or chasing off other creatures and selecting home locations.

2) Rare resources will be distributed by area as welll.

3) The frequency of rare resources will be higher on undeveloped land and land claimed by expansion totems. I could even set it up so that once scrap pile is claimed by a town totem, it will no longer yield rare resources at all.

I think this will give more incentive and meaning for players to trade and create quests (which I plan to improve as well, by adding XP gain and additional quest variables).

Any opinions on this?

[inhabit]

Like the ideas Xsyon, and it should hopefully help promote trading between players.
However as said before we need a method for transporting goods as the current "death warp" isn't a viable solution.
In my opinion I think this needs to be made a higher priority especially if your are opening up 50 more zones next week.
Also with the zones expansion are you going to think about opening up world wide chat temporarily as even at the moment its hard to get in touch with people.

[VeryWiiTee]

I specifically said: "Expansion totems" would be easy to add hitpoints to without it being a major problem.
Just because the main totem cannot be destroyed shouldn't prevent them, Jooky and all the others, from making totems that can be destroyed.

I seriously doubt a land expansion would arrive earlier than expansion totems (in which case new land will be pointless as all the 'new' and possibly rare resources will be jacked and you can't suddenly start shutting off areas because a resource is beneath it. That would require millions of checks and frustrated players not being able to find a totem spot - AND that wasn't the original idea. They probably arrive around the same patch .
An expansion totem is supposed to be contested area.. I don't think you have much more than the warning 'you are encroaching on tribe land.'

Added after 15 minutes:

It is supposed to be hard.
If you open up Global again we'll have a spam-o-rama regardless of what you say, do or try to limit it.

Do it do it do it do it.. AALL of it. Even though players might complain that rare resource goes *POOF* should they place their Town totem on the spot, it is still worth it.. Creates a little bit of risk. Forces people to interact and to fight.

and Jadzia, I'm still on MrDDT side, even though his carebear flip might be a bit too much because it was never intended for this game to go into full-blown PvP with sieges and major PvP fights. It was asked by most of the community and they listened... To begin with it was just to be minor conflicts that arose due to resources. Either way, both side needs to be taken care of and the carebears have had their time.. It founded a good base for the game, but it is still lacking some of that combat, something to fight over.

Reading this discussion gives me an idea regarding resources that would be fairly easy to implement.

1) Normal resources, including scavenged resources, are distributed by areas. This will make even some common scavenged resources scarce in some areas.

This is already implemented for plants and fish and somewhat for creatures who should be defining their own areas by avoiding or chasing off other creatures and selecting home locations.

2) Rare resources will be distributed by area as welll.

3) The frequency of rare resources will be higher on undeveloped land and land claimed by expansion totems. I could even set it up so that once scrap pile is claimed by a town totem, it will no longer yield rare resources at all.

I think this will give more incentive and meaning for players to trade and create quests (which I plan to improve as well, by adding XP gain and additional quest variables).

Any opinions on this?

Just remove the stupid need for quest rewards. I'm already giving them free exp in form of using skills and about a 5% exp gain from delivering the quest. Some objects are just not worth putting up a reward for, some should reward you enough just getting you that closer to a level and 10 free skill points.

[MrDDT]

Reading this discussion gives me an idea regarding resources that would be fairly easy to implement.

1) Normal resources, including scavenged resources, are distributed by areas. This will make even some common scavenged resources scarce in some areas.

This is already implemented for plants and fish and somewhat for creatures who should be defining their own areas by avoiding or chasing off other creatures and selecting home locations.

2) Rare resources will be distributed by area as welll.

3) The frequency of rare resources will be higher on undeveloped land and land claimed by expansion totems. I could even set it up so that once scrap pile is claimed by a town totem, it will no longer yield rare resources at all.

I think this will give more incentive and meaning for players to trade and create quests (which I plan to improve as well, by adding XP gain and additional quest variables).

Any opinions on this?

Xsyon the problem with this is 2 things.

1) Why get 1 resource over another? Right now I can get 10 diff types of fish or something like that, but why would someone want to trade me for the type of fish I have? The effects are minor at best some are the same.
Foraging right now is all but worthless, you can eat some of the plants but eating plants is the worst way feed yourself. So foraging is really just bad.
Rare resources should be much more common in some areas appose to others. Things people really want. Like say metal buckles can be common in the south by like 100 to 1 than the north. While the north has metal decorations 100 to 1 compared to the south.

2) Exporting items. Like someone else said. Right now the death warping items is really the only effective way to export items and even that isnt fun and feels like exploiting. Really need a system where we can transport goods from places. Im not talking like an insta safe teleporting system either. Trade routes should form in the game with faster travel and also allow for exported goods. However, it shouldnt be 100% safe either. Even just sleds, carts or packanimals would go a LONG way for this.


About your player made quests for exp, I can see that being exploited because I doubt you are going to xfer the exp from the quest-giver to the questor.


With more zones coming we as players will also need faster modes of travel.