Winter Thorne

I'm thinking that if the PTR has a smaller map, anything bad that happens will be blamed on the smaller map. "It'll be ok on live, with more room. Give it a try and see." If it has the standard map, it's likely nobody will even see another player. Everybody gets their own island. The only discussions will be about the upkeep level. If we set up a situation like you suggested, the response will be that it was a setup. Companies tried to be bad landlords as part of a setup so it doesn't count. I just don't see any way that the claim design gets a shakeout on the PTR, unless a huge number of players come back and log into it.

bah. You can't just throw everything into a genre bucket. That was Ang Lee's first movie. It was great. And really funny in odd little ways. But yeah, Shakespeare in Love? That was a mistake.

Sense and Sensibility - 1995. Would have won the Oscar if it weren't for a bunch of guys with hairy legs wearing plaid skirts.

Well, that's a point that has actually come up in some of the discussions here. I don't think there are any MMO features they can add that make players, especially new players, not want a piece of land to own. The only thing I can see them doing that would change the dynamic enough is to turn the islands into towns and bring in a system of villagers who have a say in the town government. People would be happier to have a plot of land in a town and contribute to the town upkeep, rent a shop, etc. That would make the landlords unhappy, knowing they don't own it anymore and can get voted out. Maybe wouldn't appease all the people who just want a piece of land somewhere, but it would probably make enough people happy to fix things. But that's a big structural endeavor for this dev team. (And most dev teams these days) They prefer to "add MMO" by throwing in a dungeon or repeatable quests. They throw doodads at the game rather than building complicated structural things. I think at most, they might program in some type of invasions hoping everyone on an island would band together and become a group in order to fight them. But if I'm a small group/solo having to be a tenant with a restrictive or bad landlord, that wouldn't do a thing to fix that problem. In a game like this, having a base that you own and control is fundamental. There are whole skill lines based around being able to build things. You can't expand on top of a structure that doesn't provide that and expect to overcome that problem.

I miss Alan Rickman. That voice!

The Walrus and the Carpenter Were walking close at hand; They wept like anything to see Such quantities of sand: If this were only cleared away,' They said, it would be grand!' O Oysters, come and walk with us!' The Walrus did beseech. A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk, Along the briny beach: We cannot do with more than four, To give a hand to each.' The eldest Oyster looked at him, But never a word he said: The eldest Oyster winked his eye, And shook his heavy head — Meaning to say he did not choose To leave the oyster-bed. But four young Oysters hurried up, All eager for the treat: Their coats were brushed, their faces washed, Their shoes were clean and neat — And this was odd, because, you know, They hadn't any feet. Four other Oysters followed them, And yet another four; And thick and fast they came at last, And more, and more, and more — All hopping through the frothy waves, And scrambling to the shore. The Walrus and the Carpenter Walked on a mile or so, And then they rested on a rock Conveniently low: And all the little Oysters stood And waited in a row. The time has come,' the Walrus said, To talk of many things: Of shoes — and ships — and sealing-wax — Of cabbages — and kings — And why the sea is boiling hot — And whether pigs have wings.' But wait a bit,' the Oysters cried, Before we have our chat; For some of us are out of breath, And all of us are fat!' No hurry!' said the Carpenter. They thanked him much for that. A loaf of bread,' the Walrus said, Is what we chiefly need: Pepper and vinegar besides Are very good indeed — Now if you're ready, Oysters dear, We can begin to feed.' But not on us!' the Oysters cried, Turning a little blue. After such kindness, that would be A dismal thing to do!' The night is fine,' the Walrus said. Do you admire the view? It was so kind of you to come! And you are very nice!' The Carpenter said nothing but Cut us another slice: I wish you were not quite so deaf — I've had to ask you twice!' It seems a shame,' the Walrus said, To play them such a trick, After we've brought them out so far, And made them trot so quick!' The Carpenter said nothing but The butter's spread too thick!' I weep for you,' the Walrus said: I deeply sympathize.' With sobs and tears he sorted out Those of the largest size, Holding his pocket-handkerchief Before his streaming eyes. O Oysters,' said the Carpenter, You've had a pleasant run! Shall we be trotting home again?' But answer came there none — And this was scarcely odd, because They'd eaten every one."

When the game first went live, the main pve complaint was that there wasn't enough land for everyone to have a claim. Now the pve grid has been reduced from 225 tiles to 50 tiles. Claims are limited, which helps, but you've also put the pvp players in there, and nothing in your design says they can't have a pve claim as well. There's not enough room. From a pve point of view, it's pvp getting all the goodies again. You've reduced the claimable area for pve and then put important skills and mats and additional claim space behind a pvp firewall. At this rate I'm expecting someone to come up with a solution that pve servers will only be online from 1:00-3:00 PM on Tuesdays and you can only tame chickens. There are a number of problems that can be caused by allowing a pvp player to run back to a safe zone and a safe base as well. I would be against the idea anyway because of the culture clash. That's one of the reasons some pve people play pve, But I'm not sure the idea is workable in the first place the way it's set out.

Too much standard physics, not enough quantum theory. Where's the chaos in it? If I am standing in a closed box, I can either be time traveling or not time traveling and you won't know until you open the box. Who are you people and what are you doing in my livingroom? Get out right now or I'll call the police!

I did not chase the new people away, I swear. I was very nice to them and I hid so they couldn't get a look at me. Maybe it was the snakes.

uhh..I"m not gonna tell him. One of you guys do it.

I think you should change the thread title to - Are there any people left in the game?

I think he's talking about himself and his group of friends.

Self-fulfilling prophecy.

You won't find out on the ptr. It's only a week and the player numbers are very low. Everyone's going to get an island, probably, and it'll look great for a week. Nearly everyone will be very happy, except that we'll all be separated on our own islands and can't talk to our friends. The real conclusions won't happen till much later on a live server with a larger playerbase. (If that happens)

I was very vocal in discord about what a bad idea this was but, I knew that they wouldn't develop two claims systems, for PVE , its too much effort. for PVP...sure. There..fixed that for ya. Sorry to see more of the good pve players leaving. Happy trails and red sunsets, Unclemike.

And the PTR is only intended to test for bugs in the code, not how well these design changes work, so all that will have to come out after the servers get wiped and go live, which means if people hate the new system enough, another wipe of some sort, and "more changes based on our feedback" if we're lucky. More changes based on some idea someone pulled out of their nether regions if we're not. And then more "iteration". This new claims design for pve will take months to sort out with the low player numbers. If there are only 200 people playing, everyone gets an island. Everyone is happy. The problems won't show up till the numbers start creeping back up. So be prepared for everyone to be saying what a wonderful thing it is for the first few weeks. On the other hand, the feedback from pvp seems to be understood and accepted. (Whether it's a good or idea or not, I can't say), but they listened to the feedback at least.

To my understanding more players just wanted caps on claims. But I think you've misunderstood the other side of the argument too. If there are caps on claims then no freebuild is fine, because everyone is getting a claim. If it's the island system you have to have freebuild, because all the players won't have claims and they were promised land to build on. (Not claims which is what they wanted, but just land to build on). The freebuild is the only thing in that system trying to balance the power of the landlords and ensure land, so you have to have it. People who wanted caps on claims aren't also arguing for no freebuild with the other system. Two things strike me about this captain's log. One is the amount of focus and resources being put into pvp, with pve being an afterthought. Two is that we have even less information about what's coming up than before.

That kinda depends on your definition of winning.

I was thinking about this, this morning. How the heck are people supposed to know where they can find land? Used to be, you could sail around and see the red claims circles. Do we know if there's just going to be a big red circle around an island if it's claimed now? And then how to do you tell if there's room to build without just running all over the island or doing a slow sail around the coast? And how to tell if the landlord will allow building or wipe it all out?

Thanks for the advice. It's interesting that in this huge thread full of long posts where (mostly 3) people are kicking around game design topics, you feel my walls of text are different than anyone else's. Or that the force of my arguments is more rude than anyone else's. Sorry you feel that the topic has degraded. I guess you missed the parts where some of us are moving our opinions around based on what the others say, and have actually come up with some new ideas and new things to try. Good thing about the forums...if a thread doesn't appeal to you, you can just stop reading it. (No need to fling poo at the walls as you leave though)

It's not perfect at all. It's going to suck. The thing I liked best about this game is that small tribes and solos were able to find friends and get together and do stuff because they were on the same island and seeing each other around all the time. I'd be having a hard time with something and someone would run over and help and vice versa. That's how small tribes and solos get a community feel in MMOs. (Anyone who thinks they don't interact with other players just doesn't get it). I saw 3 good communities break apart early on because of griefing and lack of land to claim. People just quit the game, and the places got deserted. Later on when so many people had quit that land started becoming available, I got to be part of another community. That'll be gone now too. Everybody exchanged steam IDs to try to stick together after the wipe, but we'll all be on our own islands now. So instead of all running around seeing each other every day and helping each other, if we're lucky we'l all get in the same zone and they'll just be another voice in general chat. It would be better if they gave the small islands to the big companies and left the big islands to split up among the solos and smalls. The big companies organize themselves and stick together anyway. They don't need to all sit on the same land.

That's not a community. You can't just call something a settlement and have it be a community. I have no problem with the game having communities and leaders. In fact, I hope they do that. But this isn't that. There is nearly no difference at all between a settlement and a company, except that this adds rules for land ownership. It's likely that settlements will just be company land with whatever outsiders are needed to take up the rest of the space. What can a settlement do that a company can't do? See, I think the devs are cheating a bit here. I've been in games that worked really well that have had communities with governors, kings, mayors, etc., and communities where the people took on roles like treasurer or something. The game has to provide them the mechanics to organize like that. There were town-owned buildings, voting systems, public bulletin boards right in the game. The towns had an economy - if your shops didn't do well, you weren't going to be buying those defenses you wanted or the big storage building that gave all your crops a 2x. The games also provided reasons for the players to organize and belong to the towns and to do the work to improve it. There was competition with the other towns over trade and resources, there was diplomacy and failed diplomacy with backstabbing and treachery, town vs, town pvp with NPC troops. Towns could take control of neutral areas where NPCs lived and add them to the town. Players organized in other ways too - everyone had a profession and a professional guild they belonged to with a guild leader, and that guild would have members in multiple towns. They could belong to one of the games religions and organize around that as well. But the games had to provide the whole structure behind the towns, a reason for them to be there in the first place, a way people with various playstyles to contribute (fighter, farmer, politician, shopkeeper, spy), and make all those roles valuable. Grapeshot is trying a huge shortcut to making a settlement with a governor. There's no common goal for the settlement. They've put nothing in the game for these people to work together for as a team, and in fact, they've made it so they work against each other. The governor tries to tell everyone what to do and can delete their stuff, and the only way tenants can express their displeasure is by using the "build anywhere" rule and saying "I'll do what I damn well please". If you really want settlement communities in the game, you have to add that whole structure on top of the basic game. You can't just say all the first and fast ones are going to own settlements, and the rest of you will be "the community. You'll own nothing. We've given you no ways to work together, and nothing to work toward. The owner may belong to some other group you aren't a part of, and it's your job to just pay him and not annoy him. If you're lucky, the owner will be nice." That's not a community.

You forgot to say Get Off My Lawn. Oh yeah, this I can agree with. And all they had to do was limit claims to avoid the huge mess.

That's not what we're talking about here. (And not what he said anyway)

You aren't getting it, Lotus. The lashing out is because the developers keep hearing people complain because they have no land and then putting in yet another system where they have no land. Wiping the server to put in another system where they have no land. And you keep supporting this with justifications about why it's good to have systems where people have no land. As long as you are not supporting the idea that every player should be able to own a piece of land, you're going to get this kind of pushback. Doesn't matter how nice you are or the lists you post of nice things you did. We're talking about game systems here. It's not all about you. It's not even mostly about you. Well, technically you're not. And that's the problem. A griefer is someone who goes around the game mechanisms to hurt other players. The devs have given you a mechanism to hurt other players on a silver platter. In fact, they encourage it. If you want to know why people are lashing out, try this - when the game comes back up after the wipe, drop your company, come in as a new player or with one buddy, come in late, too..sit out the first few hours after the servers come up. Give yourself 3 hours of playing time every day. Then try to play like that and see what you think of the game.