Add More & Better Land

[Endo Fett 73]

I am honestly appaled at the state of the map.

The largest islands are few and far between (and mostly the same if not an exact copy) and the smaller rocks don’t even deserve a mention.

There are entire grids with some of the better islands still labelled “lawess” and unclaimable.

There are no large landmasses, no unique island chains, and the ammount of copy/paste used for both the islands and the assets found on them is astounding. 

You end up sailing for an age, sometimes through blockades of clustered up ships of the AoD, only to arrive at the same island you left flipped 90 degrees clockwise. 

What little boring land there is, has already been claimed by a player-base that has been crammed into a single server with the Chinese and Asian communities.

You can play whack-a-mole with the flag claim system forever, it won’t solve the core issue:

There is not enough land for everyone.

[Percieval 1,067]

I believe there is land enough for everyone wanting to play on official. It’s just that the claiming system is screwed up making it nearly impossible for new peeps to settle in. 

 

You can add more land, but that isn’t a matter for GS but a matter for Nitrado. The amount of islands and the distance in between them is what makes the load, meaning they either need to up their game or do some good security checks before launching anything like this. 

 

I have done some testing myself with dedicated server/making your own map and it is pretty glitched at this moment. Sometimes your RAM usage can double (!) at restart when the islands are in some particular order. Now that doesn’t matter if you have 32 gigs for 1 grid, but they have 225 grids they need to take care of. If those start doing weird stuff.. 

 

Not to forget that making more land will probably be taken by mega’s at some point along the way. They can just better make a good claiming system with maybe even 1 island per company. Fixing some good trading between alliances, which is from my experience way too little. 

Edited January 15, 2019 by Percieval

[Endo Fett 73]

2 minutes ago, Percieval said:

I believe there is land enough for everyone wanting to play on official. It’s just that the claiming system is screwed up making it nearly impossible for new peeps to settle in. 

 

You can add more land, but that isn’t a matter for GS but a matter for Nitrado. The amount of islands and the distance in between them is what makes the load, meaning they either need to up their game or do some good security checks before launching anything like this. 

 

I have done some testing myself with dedicated server/making your own map and it is pretty glitched at this moment. Sometimes your RAM usage can double (!) at restart when the islands are in some particular order. Now that doesn’t matter if you have 32 gigs for 1 grid, but they have 225 grids they need to take care of. If those start doing weird stuff.. 

I appreciate the difficulties involved but this is what they do, as a professional company.

If you can’t provide reliable architecture for a compelling game then your player-base will wander off to greener pastures. 

Have you explored much? Beyond the arbitraty resource locations, there isn’t much out there to see.

If the game is largely about exploration (see discovery point progression) then it behooves them to provide something interesting and varied to discover.

[Percieval 1,067]

2 minutes ago, Endo Fett said:

I appreciate the difficulties involved but this is what they do, as a professional company.

If you can’t provide reliable architecture for a compelling game then your player-base will wander off to greener pastures. 

Have you explored much? Beyond the arbitraty resource locations, there isn’t much out there to see.

If the game is largely about exploration (see discovery point progression) then it behooves them to provide something interesting and varied to discover.

At 2 years before launch? I’m sure stuff will come along the way. I’m not saying it is technically impossible, I’m saying it can take a while before Nitrado agrees to something like it since more load will cost them more money than agreed upon. It’s not an easy clap thing. 

Edited January 15, 2019 by Percieval

[Adfax 157]

12 minutes ago, Percieval said:

I believe there is land enough for everyone wanting to play on official. It’s just that the claiming system is screwed up making it nearly impossible for new peeps to settle in. 

 

You can add more land, but that isn’t a matter for GS but a matter for Nitrado. The amount of islands and the distance in between them is what makes the load, meaning they either need to up their game or do some good security checks before launching anything like this. 

 

I have done some testing myself with dedicated server/making your own map and it is pretty glitched at this moment. Sometimes your RAM usage can double (!) at restart when the islands are in some particular order. Now that doesn’t matter if you have 32 gigs for 1 grid, but they have 225 grids they need to take care of. If those start doing weird stuff.. 

 

Not to forget that making more land will probably be taken by mega’s at some point along the way. They can just better make a good claiming system with maybe even 1 island per company. Fixing some good trading between alliances, which is from my experience way too little. 

Off topic from the thread, but every time I read one of your posts, you're always defending the devs. You need to take a step back and stop ass kissing them, because it doesn't do them any good to constantly say everything is fine with the game when it isn't. You're actually doing a disservice to them by being like that, since it doesn't help their game become any better when the popular opinion opposes a bad mechanic.

Also, what the game really needs are continents. That is what the game lacks right now. The entire game is just an archipelago, where most of the space per server is infact ocean.. What they need is a gigantic landmass that spans many server blocks, but has a coast.

 

Edited January 15, 2019 by Adfax

[Percieval 1,067]

6 minutes ago, Adfax said:

Off topic from the thread, but every time I read one of your posts, you're always defending the devs. You need to take a step back and stop ass kissing them, because it doesn't do them any good to constantly say everything is fine with the game when it isn't. You're actually doing a disservice to them by being like that, since it doesn't help their game become any better when the popular opinion opposes a bad mechanic.

Also, what the game really needs are continents. That is what the game lacks right now. The entire game is just an archipelago, where most of the space per server is infact ocean.. What they need is a gigantic landmass that spans many server blocks, but has a coast.

 

Off thread? I’m telling him why his idea probably won’t come here any time soon with thoughts and actual testing myself. What should I say? ‘It’s technically hard to do at this point, but even if it was easy they wouldn’t do that’

That sounds like I’m a pessimist at that point. And maybe you should look a bit more on the forums then, since I’m not doing any of it. 

You want me to say; It’s not a GS problem, but it needs to come more from Nitrado, but let’s blame GS for it anyway? That’s a bit childish isn’t it. 

Edited January 15, 2019 by Percieval

[Vaenix 131]

1 minute ago, Adfax said:

Off topic from the thread, but every time I read one of your posts, you're always defending the devs. You need to take a step back and stop ass kissing them, because it doesn't do them any good to constantly say everything is fine with the game when it isn't.

Also, what the game really needs are continents. That is what the game lacks right now. The entire game is just an archipelago, where most of the space per server is infact ocean.. What they need is a gigantic landmass that spans many server blocks, but has a coast.

 

I don't see where he said everything is fine. From the post I read just now he mentioned that there is another system screwed up and until that is fixed adding more land won't really solve anything.  Constant negativity doesn't help anyone either but we have a lot of that in these forums and if you are anything but that people seem to hate you for any/all disagreements.

 

Either way, I'm of the mind set that until different islands get added in making exploration more eventful, I'm really travelling to meet new people.  There is plenty to be said about the different kinds of folks you meet when travelling across the vast map.  Although I'd rather they didn't add more land but rather add more server entry points.  Rather than just 2 for NA/EU, I think 3-4 would be better, it would just cost a lot more.

[Percieval 1,067]

Just now, Vaenix said:

I don't see where he said everything is fine. From the post I read just now he mentioned that there is another system screwed up and until that is fixed adding more land won't really solve anything.  Constant negativity doesn't help anyone either but we have a lot of that in these forums and if you are anything but that people seem to hate you for any/all disagreements.

 

Either way, I'm of the mind set that until different islands get added in making exploration more eventful, I'm really travelling to meet new people.  There is plenty to be said about the different kinds of folks you meet when travelling across the vast map.  Although I'd rather they didn't add more land but rather add more server entry points.  Rather than just 2 for NA/EU, I think 3-4 would be better, it would just cost a lot more.

But what do you want for island types? You want more islands in the sentence of just islands you can live on or boss islands etc? 

[Adfax 157]

1 minute ago, Vaenix said:

I don't see where he said everything is fine. From the post I read just now he mentioned that there is another system screwed up and until that is fixed adding more land won't really solve anything.  Constant negativity doesn't help anyone either but we have a lot of that in these forums and if you are anything but that people seem to hate you for any/all disagreements.

 

Either way, I'm of the mind set that until different islands get added in making exploration more eventful, I'm really travelling to meet new people.  There is plenty to be said about the different kinds of folks you meet when travelling across the vast map.  Although I'd rather they didn't add more land but rather add more server entry points.  Rather than just 2 for NA/EU, I think 3-4 would be better, it would just cost a lot more.

He is saying "that won't work" in defense of the devs making the game the way they did though. I make this assumption based on the various other posts they've made. Always defending the game as is, and by extension, the devs.

[Percieval 1,067]

2 minutes ago, Adfax said:

He is saying "that won't work" in defense of the devs making the game the way they did though. I make this assumption based on the various other posts they've made. Always defending the game as is, and by extension, the devs.

I’m saying if it won’t work, it is because of Nitrado, which it is. 

Could you stop spreading misinformation? I’ve told my concernd about numerous things already. 

[Vaenix 131]

3 minutes ago, Percieval said:

But what do you want for island types? You want more islands in the sentence of just islands you can live on or boss islands etc? 

Honestly, I'm not entirely sure, other than changing the islands so they aren't exactly just duplicates of each other.  Different biomes doesn't really change anything as not all islands in the same biome are the same, for instance in M4 we have an island where the only predator is snakes, an island where there are tigers and lions mostly with rarely snakes, and an island that seems to have a fair amount of bears while having tigers and lions as the rare spawn.  This does also change resources but that isn't what makes the islands unique.  Now the islands I like visiting have unique qualities about them, a bay with an elephant shaped statue carved out in one of the large pillars in the middle of it is unique and adds to the excitement when adventuring, stuff like that would be nice.  But like the OP said, islands that are dupes just spun a different way aren't unique, so removing this and instead adding unique islands across each region would be what I recommend.  You aren't ever going to solve the "enough land" problem though because every solo and small group wants huge bases.  The additional servers just help mitigate this.

[[GP] Guybrush Threepwood 626]

10 minutes ago, Percieval said:

Off thread? I’m telling him why his idea probably won’t come here any time soon with thoughts and actual testing myself. What should I say? ‘It’s technically hard to do at this point, but even if it was easy they wouldn’t do that’

That sounds like I’m a pessimist at that point. And maybe you should look a bit more on the forums then, since I’m not doing any of it. 

You want me to say; It’s not a GS problem, but it needs to come more from Nitrado, but let’s blame GS for it anyway? That’s a bit childish isn’t it. 

He wasn't saying you were off topic, he was saying what he was going to say was off topic.

[Percieval 1,067]

Fact is that if we want to get rid of dupe islands and such, the server will need a complete wipe because they can’t say ‘Your island will be deleted but your neighbour gets to keep everything’ - meaning it won’t happen until launch, ofcourse this is all speculation but I don’t see them wiping the server before that. Or they will wipe it when they have made a very good claiming mechanic but yea, I think we all know the answer to that. 

[Vaenix 131]

1 minute ago, Percieval said:

Fact is that if we want to get rid of dupe islands and such, the server will need a complete wipe because they can’t say ‘Your island will be deleted but your neighbour gets to keep everything’ - meaning it won’t happen until launch, ofcourse this is all speculation but I don’t see them wiping the server before that. Or they will wipe it when they have made a very good claiming mechanic but yea, I think we all know the answer to that. 

100% agree with you on this, just was adding what I think needs to be done if the goal is "better" islands.  Otherwise from what I've experienced exploration is about seeing what others have built and talking to them.

[Percieval 1,067]

Just now, Vaenix said:

100% agree with you on this, just was adding what I think needs to be done if the goal is "better" islands.  Otherwise from what I've experienced exploration is about seeing what others have built and talking to them.

If they’re going for a completely new map, they need 1000 unique islands and maybe 4 grids PVE (so no griefing just like in ARK at an obilisk) spread out in the map with boss islands in between them. 

[Jean Lafitte 451]

In terms of server resources, land consumes much more than water. Water can easily be created client-side. Land cannot. Which is why this game has lots of water and small islands.  Increasing the landmass on each server increases the server load.  And, if you've visited some of these servers that have large numbers of players with huge bases you'll already know that the servers for those areas are already being stressed to their limits. Even the server where I live with 10-15 active players experiences lag spikes that take it from 55ms to 300+ms.  Yes, I'm certain they have lots more code optimization to put in place and that will happen over time.  But, you'll have to imagine a server where 150 people can play lag free and the server is no where near it's capacity before they even think about adding more landmass.

And even then they'd have to choose between creating more land or allowing a larger server population. I'm betting they'd choose the latter in order to facilitate those sea battles that they keep posting.

Don't get your hopes up.

Edited January 15, 2019 by Jean Lafitte

[Hambo 34]

56 minutes ago, Percieval said:

Fact is that if we want to get rid of dupe islands and such, the server will need a complete wipe because they can’t say ‘Your island will be deleted but your neighbour gets to keep everything’ - meaning it won’t happen until launch, ofcourse this is all speculation but I don’t see them wiping the server before that. Or they will wipe it when they have made a very good claiming mechanic but yea, I think we all know the answer to that. 

I've been involved in beta tests that had monthly server wipes to get rid of all the old stuff that has been changed.  Some had server wipes before rolling out an update.  It seems to me that periodically starting with a clean slate will get more players commenting on new systems that they were too established to have to go through, and it's the best way to get rid of older OP and/or stupidly easy-to-get items.

In this case perhaps the "Zergers" would get tired of being regularly wiped and eventually stop showing up, freeing vast tracts of land for the peons (90% of us) to get a chance to experience having a claim.

[Nightstrasza 137]

Would like that there were many more but small islands that are small for like arround 5 claim flags. Right now every island is just a big rock with random animals slapped on, elehpants on tundra?, wolves on extreme dessert?, suuure.