Winter Thorne

??? This is not the first iteration of the system. Somebody sits down to design a game and doesn't consider these things? Somebody works out a design for the initial claim system and nobody says, "uh, guys...unlimited claims is a bad idea on pve."? It's not arguable that it should have been there from the beginning. It's laughable that it wasn't. Come on, I can understand being a bit off the mark and needing some tweaks, but seriously...that was game design malpractice. Nobody ever asked, "What could possibly go wrong?". And it's not "a terrible system that hasn't been implemented yet", A terrible system was implemented, a terrible fix was implemented, a terrible fix was announced and implementation is impending, The community has made a TON of suggestions, but rather than suggesting how to fix this fix to the fix, they are suggesting how it should have been done in the first place, before the solution gets so convoluted and complex and contains so many rules about this and that that the possibilities for unexpected consequences become astronomical, and the code becomes impossible to ever change again. There's a huge difference between sitting down with a team and brainstorming an idea, challenging the idea to make sure there aren't any glaring drawbacks, and then test deploying it...or just "having an idea" and throwing it at the wall to see what sticks. The players are actually doing the former. It really looks like the devs are doing the latter.

The scope is too big to address all at once so I'm just looking at the claims part (and any other idea that really needs claims to be a certain way to work). Before that, though..the pve invasion stuff at the end is great, and there are other things that could be added to flesh that out and make it more programmable as well. But..claims: Definitely agree with you on the history of what has happened with claims and what went wrong each time. I think you give up too easily on this idea though: I think many of the people who said they wanted "lawless" don't really care about having lawless. There were a lot of different claim designs floating around at the time, and some of those people said that in reaction to whatever idea the devs or other players were coming up with that moment. I think if the situation was calmer and you simply asked them if they would like to have claims per person, they would overwhelmingly say yes. I don't think we need 2 different servers. If there were a significant minority that really did like lawless better than having a claim, here's what I'd do. Put in a claims per person system. Leave just a few of the lawless islands around if people want them. Take the other lawless and make them no-build islands for resources (and keep them in my back pocket for expansion if the playerbase started growing and I needed more claims. That would help me transition to the point where I was ready to expand the server or open a new server). Tax rate solution - I'm wondering if taxes also work as a deterrent for people coming in and strip mining someone's claim. Or if that's even an issue. Just a thought. The solution would keep people from being pissed off about taxes. I think they wouldn't have gotten pissed off in the first place if just a select few (claim owners) weren't the only ones that could collect them. When everyone gets to do it, what's to complain about? In any case, it needs to get "fixed" so that people quit being pissed off about it because it needs to come back later. (For some of those other ideas you have that I want to add to) Instanced Islands - I'm not sure I understand this idea. It doesn't really seem to have anything to do with claims so I'm not sure why it's needed. Unless the final claims design prevented everyone from having one, and these instanced islands were meant to be some sort of consolation prize. Are there people who just really don't want to interact? Maybe the rumored single player mod is what they need. Derelict boats - The lighthouse thing is interesting. Maybe let the people set their own prices. If they're trying to be big traders they might not want to charge. If they expect any deliveries from Atlas Mail (We're Going Postal!)TM they better not try charging the postal boat to park. More later......

In addition, I can guarantee you that when someone considering whether to buy the game reads this: Form a company, claim territory and apply taxation and behavior rules to that which you own: be a benevolent governor, a feudal lord, or a ruthless dictator. They are thinking that THEY can do those things. They are not thinking this - If you are one of the first 100 people to enter the game, beat the bugs and the lag and build a ship, you can claim territory and apply taxation and behavior rules to that which you own: be a benevolent governor, a feudal lord, or a ruthless dictator. Some of the rest of you will be lucky enough to live under a benevolent governor, some of you may have to endure a feudal lord, and unfortunately the rest of you will have to live under a ruthless dictator. So if that was part of the vision for pve, that's a terrible vision. Maybe they should have used some more of the formal decision process on that.

If I get any quiet time, I'll have another look at your suggestion post and make some comments on it.

Given the probable timing, it should be an Easter bonnet.

RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!

Those things aren't part of a "vision", they're part of someone's solution. Nobody starts out to make a pirate game with one of the goals being landlords and tenants. Vision/Decision - players can build structures and ships and bases and we'll include whole skill lines to enable them to do that Analysis/Problem - the system we've made for having land doesn't let all the players have land to use those skill lines Fix - Lawless New Problem - Lawless is a disgusting mess and the players are griefing each other. Players are unhappy. New fix - new claim system, landlords, renters, upkeep New problem - Players don't like landlords, this doesn't fix the 1st problem of spam, etc etc.... So this is not the Devs trying to implement some vision of landlords. This is the devs trying to implement a vision of players building things using the skill trees in the game. They'd abandon landlords in a heartbeat if they came up with a better workable idea of how to handle the land and building issue. The problem seems to be that they don't iterate over the fixes with the "what could go wrong?" process and try to prevent that enough. (Also, I think their vision might include higher structures of organization, and they are trying to use landlords to do that as well as fixing the land problem, but it doesn't work well for either, really.)

There has to be a vision and a direction for the game. Once that's set then the details have to be filled in about how to bring that vision to life. That's not part of the vision, that's part of the details. Vision - We want to make a mmo sandbox with a pirate theme that will accommodate both pvp and pve styles. It should be exciting, dangerous, unexpected, and beautiful. Details - Everything else. I don't mean to trivialize the details. That's where the devil is. As to whether developers can flip and flop - on the vision, no. On the details, yes. But it's better that they not do that too much on the significant details. Why do they flip and flop in the first place? Because they have made a mistake on a detail, the players don't like it, it has unexpected consequences, etc. The better the decision making gets, the fewer flips and flops you have. I taught classes on formal methods for problem solving and decision making for a while. There's a number of steps to decision making, and in the end you pick one of the choices and make a decision. But that's not the last step. The last step is asking "What could possibly go wrong?", then working out ways to mitigate all those things beforehand, so when/if they happen, you already know what you'll do about them and are not running around with your hair on fire. I suspect the devs are not doing this, but if they are, they could handle some of this forum and discord angst by explaining the decision, explaining the potential drawbacks and how they'd handle them, maybe giving a reason or two that other choices were discarded - the engine wouldn't handle that, the numbers don't support it, etc. As it stands, it just looks like they are making decisions badly and having to change them again and again.

It's commensurate with deliveries. It's a percentage of the cost. Atlas Mail - not exactly a job, Definitely a "thing". Or a thingamabob. Take your pick. ATLAS Mail Service - Let's Go Postal!

You can do anything with active admins and a small server population.

There's a bunch of sweet ideas in there. There's also some I don't like. I think if you and I put our heads together, we could cook up a hell of a game. (And then we'd probably kill each other) Seriously, though. it's a mountain of ideas to get through. I hope the game is around long enough for us to hash them all out. It would take some time.

I think we're talking about a different "now". The system of claiming land and then marking areas buildable/unbuildable with a cost to the "tenant" has already been rejected, hasn't it? This sounds like the new upcoming idea with the old idea tagged onto it. It's basically that older system with more limited claims available and some sort of claim limits based on points or something. I think this whole thing hinges on a balance between benefits to landlords and benefits to everyone else, and I'm not sure those can be balanced. Or to look at it the opposite way - balancing the problems dropped onto the landlords, vs. the problems dropped onto the tenants. (Because to me, I can't figure out which of those roles I would like to do, and end up having to decide which of those roles would be less aggravating instead)

The new system is "everyone can build anywhere". You can't prevent anyone from building on your island. All you can do is follow them around destroying things. From the Captian's Log on PvE changes: .

Isn't that very close to what we have now?

I"m already putting up wanted posters in the post office. Sorry if the pictures aren't a great resemblance to any of you.

I'm expecting more gates after the wipe.

I"m with this guy. If you start with a big company or join one right away , maybe that's fine. I'm enjoying playing the game with people I met along the way. I like touring their bases and seeing what they've done. I like having other people around (if they're decent people). I like helping other people build their stuff if they need it, and the list of people who have helped me is already getting large. Even this new claim system where a claim is an island can be isolating. If you're a very small group or solo, that seems like single player to me. If it all goes instanced, how would anyone ever meet new people? Not on a lawless expedition to grab supplies and get back to whatever you really wanted to be doing.

If there's an address, it gets delivered. Doesn't matter what you call the recipient. Unless the GM landlord wipes out the mailbox. Then NO MAIL FOR YOU! ONE YEAR! Yes.

When you're figuring number of claims needed, those numbers don't matter anyway because that's concurrent players. It's not like when you log off for the night, your claim is magically replaced with one for the player that's just getting online... wait a minute...there's an idea...

No, he's talking about pve. There's some kind of point system that says how many islands a company is allowed to have.

Atlas Mail is looking for regional delivery associates to begin work after the wipe on NA PvE. Make your own hours. Work from home. Associates will be responsible for picking up mail from their regional hub and delivering it throughout their region. Pay commensurate with number of deliveries. At the Atlas Mail Headquarters in beautiful Framingris Helm, we are expanding rapidly to serve every area of the Atlas. View our new state of the art processing and sorting area - Applicants must show references upon request, and are responsible for providing their own rum. Join Atlas Mail - We're going postal! (This is not a company recruitment ad. Atlas Mail is not a company nor is it affiliated with any Atlas Company. Atlas Mail - it's not just a job, it's...well we don't know what it is yet. But it's a "thing".) (@jatheish @dollie You know, it would take 2 things to do this - item attachments to notes, limit 2 or 3 with weight limits, and a storage box with customizable permissions, ie. specific names have access, or anyone can deposit items, only specific names can remove. Would be a fun idea. Just sayin')

They haven't explicitly said that all the players don't get to own land, yet it's true. But ok. Nevermind.

It sounds like a nice place. I hope you're able to do that. But I'm worried about your chances. I've heard a number of people saying they'll try to get an island, and then start listing the kinds of people they want - no griefers, no toxic chat, no people who would annoy the other tenants, no spammers, no big boxes for buildings, people have to speak with me first, etc. I know earlier in the game, people who had claimed land were looking to share some of it or build their companies, and many of them had even more specific requirements. I went to chat about offers with a few of them, all very nice people, but all with somewhat different visions of what they wanted to do with the land. One group of nice guys had an amazing build under way, all with a medieval theme. (H/T BvC and JLF) Not my thing...I really want to do a sort of New England/Canadian maritime village place. But it seems like lots of people have a vision for how things will end up on their islands. I wish you all good luck with that, but everybody's got to sleep sometime. A lot of the comments posted are picking out the landlords as the winners and the tenants as the losers in this new design. I think everyone is a loser. Anyone can build anywhere. The first time you have to be away from the game more than X hours, there go your plans. The people you turn away for not fitting into your scheme may go away, or they may be pissed off and watch and wait. In the end, rather than curating your island paradise, you'll get to play a cat and mouse game with someone who is pissed off at you and wants to wreck the place. Who wants to be on the clock for a game that's supposed to be some kind of fun leisure activity? "I'd like to go see that movie with you, but I have to log in and delete pillars, sorry."

Nearly all the players have said they hate the spamming. They've added a "build anywhere" design which spreads the spamming problem from lawless to claimed land. They've added game mechanics for landlords to control spamming, if they wish. They've not added any game mechanics that just automatically prevent people from spamming. Now when spamming happens on claimed land, whose fault is that? Is it not obvious? Only on pvp. On Pve you can't take away someone's claim.

I"m not sure where you're getting the 10% from. Game companies typically don't release info on the total number of active players, although you can get the numbers for total subscriptions sold and concurrent players. Only Grapeshot knows how many active players there are. In any case, if the game is successful, at some point they will need to either open new servers, increase the map, or do something else to provide more space. And if the game is successful, they'll have the money to do that, How many claims exist today, and how many players need land? The top concurrent has been around 4200 lately. We should subtract the unofficials from that, but let's not. We can use the bigger number. We should calculate that the pvp servers are more heavily loaded and subtract again, but let's not, and use the bigger number. Divide it by 4 servers - 1050 is the working number of peak players per server. It doesn't help much, but even with your 10% number , which is probably VERY high, reasonable claims limits can support that. The quote below is taken from a post by MeatSammich. if every company with <25 people got 10 claims, 25-100 people got 25 claims, and companies with 100+ got 50 claims, it would free up a ridiculous amount of land. To bring the maths into the discussion, there is now a company with over 3000 land claims. If they could only claim 50, that would leave 2950 more claims free. That would free up the maximum number of landclaims for 59 companies of 100+ people, or 118 companies of 25-100 people, or 295 companies of <25 people. With a max company size of 250, that would mean that up to 14,750 people would have land claims. ...and thats just the amount of land 1 top 10 company has. There are others with 2000+ land claims, there are multiple others with 1000+ land claims. All the way down to the 1 and 2 person companies that have 40-100 claims. When you couple that with 200+ claimable islands being added, there would be more than ample room for everyone playing the game today, and damn sure enough room for everyone who will continue playing after wipe. Hell, there would be enough land for everyone who has ever played on the PVE servers, with plenty of room to spare for new players.