I want to float this idea out here.
In another post, we're talking about PLEX/Krono items and ways for VR to generate income outside of the subscription. Nobody wants an in-game pay to win shop, that much is obvious - and the idea of making a purely cosmetic shop scares other folks (rightfully so).
But, what about making Housing a, purely, real money transaction?
Set it up just like the real-estate market, VR. Have the costs of the plot of land be determined by the location in relation to commodities/other cities/etc., and have the purchasing of those plots be done only through real currency. The furniture and extras could be crafted, but the actual plot itself would be bought with real money.
This would, I think, solve two problems.
One: Gives VR another way to generate income that isn't game-breaking. Nothing Pay-to-win about housing.
Two: If the buyable land is not instanced, and the worry is the rush of players and the overcrowding of these areas, I think this would even that playing field out. Only those serious about their housing in-game would be interested in spending actual money on it. I'm willing to bet there are plenty of people out there who would shell out the cash for it, but not SO much as to make it as chaotic as we've seen in other games.
Just a thought. Wondering what others think.
Note: I KNOW we don't want in-game items to cost real money. That's a perfect world. I'm thinking of ideas that might help VR keep the lights on.
Beefcake said:I hate the idea of trying to keep people in a city, just because you want to see people there.
I love the idea of movable housing. This creates emergent villages/cities built by the players where they want to be.
I see no point in cities being the only and forced social areas.
Even though I wholeheartedly disagree with with you in allowing cities to become vacant waste of space, I do think you make an equally valid concern.
Thanks for sharing.
Tralyan said:I want to float this idea out here.
In another post, we're talking about PLEX/Krono items and ways for VR to generate income outside of the subscription. Nobody wants an in-game pay to win shop, that much is obvious - and the idea of making a purely cosmetic shop scares other folks (rightfully so).
But, what about making Housing a, purely, real money transaction?
Set it up just like the real-estate market, VR. Have the costs of the plot of land be determined by the location in relation to commodities/other cities/etc., and have the purchasing of those plots be done only through real currency. The furniture and extras could be crafted, but the actual plot itself would be bought with real money.
This would, I think, solve two problems.
One: Gives VR another way to generate income that isn't game-breaking. Nothing Pay-to-win about housing.
Two: If the buyable land is not instanced, and the worry is the rush of players and the overcrowding of these areas, I think this would even that playing field out. Only those serious about their housing in-game would be interested in spending actual money on it. I'm willing to bet there are plenty of people out there who would shell out the cash for it, but not SO much as to make it as chaotic as we've seen in other games.
Just a thought. Wondering what others think.
Note: I KNOW we don't want in-game items to cost real money. That's a perfect world. I'm thinking of ideas that might help VR keep the lights on.
It's an interesting idea. Personally, I'd be willing to pay VR an extra few dollars on my sub every month to secure housing plot access. I have more thoughts but I have to go offline (darn that RL work stuff) so I'll post later...
I want my own front door.
To achieve this , I propose that maintenance (upkeep in a way) is tied into a graphical representation of the state of the propetry in various levels of decay.
This would make an experience that a city is alive and ever changing.
When maintenance has been too long overdue, player configuration is stored server side and the lot becomes vacant for a new player.
A player could buy multiple adjoining lots in various touching shapes for various shaped player crafted housing (am i going too far?).
(ofcourse there should be cerain limits to avoid undesirble city planning effects) A player should also pay for ajoining "plots" for roading.
This could result in various changes in road paterns when players buy property to build uponand intricate city design.
(yes, this could result in a maze; maybe guild housing can control mayor city lanes)
Nephele said:Kittik said:Saicred said:As some others pointed out. I would love to see Guild NPC Vendors that can act like Auction Houses as well.
Meaning as a Guild I'd love to be able to place items up for purchase to those traveling by our outpost "or stale in the city market", and also to add onto this thought I'd like to be able to purchase items needed for the guild as well through this vendor. IE - I need 20 shrooms for potions for a raid. I place a purchase order with the Vendor and anyone who passed can see that I'm willing to buy 20 shrooms for X amount of gold.
On top of this being able to have a Guild Only version of this vendor would be amazing IMO. There are items that I would only like to sell to the guild members and such...
I won't go into my thoughts on Guild Currency just yet, but there is a lot more to this thought overall that I believe could be done. The biggest piece is having the ability to have a Guild NPC Vendor with the abilities of an auctioneer as seen above.
Nope! This is was the biggest community killer I witnessed in EQ2. Everyone used to gater at Qeynos Harbor and as soon as brokers were available to be purchased and put in your guild hall, town instantly turned to ghosts town.
I don't think Saicred's getting at the same thing, exactly. He was suggesting an NPC where he could place "buy orders" - so for example, if he's a leatherworker, and wants to buy pelts from people in the zone, he tells the NPC "hey, here's 100 gold, buy pelts from people at 5 silver each until you've used it all up". Then he comes back later and collects the pelts.
You could do it the same way with "sell orders" too - Hey NPC, here's a stack of 50 potions of invisibility. Sell them all for 1 gp each. And then you come back later and collect the profits.
That's a lot-different from a global market board.
I keep saying this in lots of threads and I'll say it again. I don't want global market boards. Not in NPC cities, not in player housing areas, not in outposts, not anywhere. I want local and regional markets, where crafters are able to compete on price, quality, AND location convenience. I don't want anything that we can click on and buy something from someone half a world away. After all, it's not like Termizon has an army of goblin drones to deliver those things to us, is it? :) Local and regional markets make *every* place in the game where you can buy/sell matter more - which means, more traffic in population centers of every size.
In short, yes I'm completely against a global market or auction anything :) - Buy order, or sell order on a vendor is exactly what I was looking for. Thank you Neph for helping making that clear and sorry Kittik for the confusion.
*edit: Also I was talking about using the guild outpost or city market stales which would just be as simple as a local vendor there I could purchase to sell and buy items for the guild or myself if I have the founding to support :) - Thanks all!
Tralyan said:I want to float this idea out here.
In another post, we're talking about PLEX/Krono items and ways for VR to generate income outside of the subscription. Nobody wants an in-game pay to win shop, that much is obvious - and the idea of making a purely cosmetic shop scares other folks (rightfully so).
But, what about making Housing a, purely, real money transaction?
Just a thought. Wondering what others think.
Note: I KNOW we don't want in-game items to cost real money. That's a perfect world. I'm thinking of ideas that might help VR keep the lights on.
I'd pay VR for it. However, I wouldn't pay a secondary company that bought the land and has increased the price. Which is what a gold selling company would do.
Kittik said:Aradune said:Hesitant to say much because all of this is post-launch, regardless of the details.
Fair enough, thanks for the post though.
Aradune said:When you out level the area you pack up your Outpost and make the trek to the next region, place and build up your Outpost yet again. Some aspects of the Outpost must be restarted or rebuilt each time, while others will save. For example, a residence could be decorated just like in the instanced housing you've seen in many MMOs.
One of the very key components is, of course, that it doesn't stay in one place and can only be built in areas designated and that make sense. This way the Outposts you come across will not always be there, we wouldn't need to allocate large regions ala Vanguard that just get filled with housing.
Could I possibly create an "outpost" in one of your slightly lower level zones that have been designated as outpostable and then just leave it forever? (Because I don't want to move it with me, I want a permenate home.) Also, when you say "others will save" you mean, the interior design will save, so when the "new" outpost is built, people don't have to redecorate. And, I'm assuming only one person has ownership of an outpost lot, so even though many people made it their "home" they are just out of luck when the owner wants to move?
Most likely no. First, you'd be paying the upkeep for an Outpost in an area you'd outleveled, which would be a complete waste of money. 2nd, you most likely can only have 1 outpost at a time, so if you didn't move your one to the next area, you'd not be allowed to build any in areas beneficial to you. Lastly, if we had to (e.g. 1 & 2 above didn't do the job) we could set a maximum time an Outpost could exist without being moved. My gut says we won't need to do #3 however.
Tralyan said:I want to float this idea out here.
In another post, we're talking about PLEX/Krono items and ways for VR to generate income outside of the subscription. Nobody wants an in-game pay to win shop, that much is obvious - and the idea of making a purely cosmetic shop scares other folks (rightfully so).
But, what about making Housing a, purely, real money transaction?
Set it up just like the real-estate market, VR. Have the costs of the plot of land be determined by the location in relation to commodities/other cities/etc., and have the purchasing of those plots be done only through real currency. The furniture and extras could be crafted, but the actual plot itself would be bought with real money.
This would, I think, solve two problems.
One: Gives VR another way to generate income that isn't game-breaking. Nothing Pay-to-win about housing.
Two: If the buyable land is not instanced, and the worry is the rush of players and the overcrowding of these areas, I think this would even that playing field out. Only those serious about their housing in-game would be interested in spending actual money on it. I'm willing to bet there are plenty of people out there who would shell out the cash for it, but not SO much as to make it as chaotic as we've seen in other games.
Just a thought. Wondering what others think.
Note: I KNOW we don't want in-game items to cost real money. That's a perfect world. I'm thinking of ideas that might help VR keep the lights on.
I feel strongly against this. If and when housing is introduced in the game, it will become a fundamental part of the experience. I'm 100% for paying for the game, the game time (subscription), and expansions. But I'm not in favour of having a "tiered" game where whoever can pay more gets access to things other players may not have. For me, it's either you have a sub or you don't. Putting housing behind a paywall seems to me like A Very Bad Idea right off the bat.
As I've stated elsewhere, if VR ever needs to increase revenue beyond game/expansion purchases and subs, I would be far more amenable to their offering convenience purchases with no real impact in the game, such as name changes or additional character slots.
oneADseven said:Breath of Fire 2 had something called Township that I always thought was really awesome. You could make your own little town, and fill it with different NPC's from around the world. There were different home "styles" that could be built, depending on what builder you had in your village. One built traditional homes, another built treehouses, and the other built a more luxurious style. Other NPC's might set up a weapon shop, or a bank. Your population was limited so you could never have all NPC's at once ... but there was even a "bum" that literally contributed nothing. He would take up a house and offer no value to your town. I think something like that would be awesome in an MMO ... when you "save the farmer" maybe he comes back to your town and actually starts farming rather than just giving you some copper. If you save the imprisoned guy at the bottom of a dungeon, maybe he comes back to your town and can offer a unique quest when there is a full moon outside.
It would be a nice way to engage with the different NPC's in the world, and could make it so each "town" was a little bit different. Maybe ... there are X amount of these NPC's available throughout the entire world, and they are all unique? You could still have multiple bankers ... but the requirements to bring them back to your town could be different. Due to population cap, you might have to evict someone from your town which would put them back in the world and open up the opportunity for another player to bring them to their town. I think it would be pretty damn awesome if NPC's had this kind of value ... and rather than just player "housing" it could be a custom player town, and they would all be different.
Huge Kudos for the Breath of Fire 2 reference. One of my favorite series/franchises. You, sir, made my day. Thank you.
Although Dragon quarter I just didn't get into.
My opinion on this is, not shockingly, the same as my opinion in the more general thread.
Housing is cosmetic rather than functional - we can live with paying real money for improved houses a lot better than we can live with paying real money for weapons or armor or lootboxes. In fact paying for houses is *better* than paying for cosmetic outfits - the people who say that a tank in a bikini breaks immersion and anyone with even the appearance of high end gear that they didn't earn destroys much of the incentive to get it the hard way make excellent points.
Paying for anything in-game is bad - not just in and of itself but because of the slippery slope syndrome. Please don't do this unless the other choice is probable financial failure of the game.
But if you conclude that you *must* sell in-game items to make ends meet do it. Better a good game with impurities than a perfect game that has failed. A few people have said that if you compromise on any of these points they will leave. I respect their opinions and share their fears. But compromise is far better than failure as long as what is left after the compromise is significantly better than what is out there now.
While I admit I never thought of housing as something to sell - it may be a better idea than most of the other in-game items that you could sell. It isn't even remotely "pay to win" and it isn't obtrusive. As we go about our business our groupmates and guildmates will not, one hopes, have their houses on their backs to show off.
For what it is worth LOTRO introduced "premium housing" fairly recently. Larger houses in a separate area not anywhere near regular housing. Buyable with currency that can be obtained by paying real money. I mention this purely as a matter of interest regarding this topic - LOTRO is not a game that should be a model upon which Pantheon is built though it is far closer than EQ2 in terms of some of Pantheon's core values.
Kittik said:bigdogchris said:The 1 and only 1 area I would allow instancing is housing.
There should be a set amount of perpetual in-game house plots spread around the world.
However, for players that want a house but cannot afford a plot, they could use instanced "appartment" type homes in each major city. Or even allow players to build (and pay upkeep) on appartments that allow say 8 instanced rooms to rent to players. Larger buildings have more instanced appartments but cost more to operate.
I agree. Having larger fancier houses right outside of town, or even maybe some in town that can be purchased for people to use, show off, show case it a great idea. Make a royal manor just outside of towns that people run past and think to themselves "some day". But instanced housing just works. I, honestly, so no issues with instanced housing.
Iksar said:The general idea is that they want player buildings/housing to be impactful and have game mechanics associated with them. Outside of outposts of some kind or big guild/group efforts I just don't see that being feasible. Yes it doesn't necessarily give anyone other than large/wealthy guilds anything but with any kind of open world player housing the problem quickly becomes similar. A limited amount of space for real estate means the majority of players end up entirely out of luck (good luck if you join a server that has been around for more than a few months) unless they want to spend colossal sums to land barons. FFXIV has somewhere around 2500 houses per server and even then they have huge issues with lack of housing for players on most servers, and I can't imagine Pantheon ever breaking more than a few hundred with an open world design.
I agree, it is a silly thing to try to do and I honestly hope VR doesn't go with presistant housing. Instanced housing is a fine, if not, great option. Even using an idea like what I mentioned earlier could work. Giving people more options is not a bad thing.
I don't see any drawback to instanced housing either, it would disallow the urban sprawl...could still have a front door, and those of us that like to collect our achievements and display them, can. Not just guilds. I'm not sure why housing access would be denied to the average gamer, but guilds can have at it? My tastes in decor won't be the same as my guild, I can guarantee that. And if I want to craft in my home, instead of worrying about guild permissions then I can.
dorotea said:My opinion on this is, not shockingly, the same as my opinion in the more general thread.
Housing is cosmetic rather than functional - we can live with paying real money for improved houses a lot better than we can live with paying real money for weapons or armor or lootboxes. In fact paying for houses is *better* than paying for cosmetic outfits - the people who say that a tank in a bikini breaks immersion and anyone with even the appearance of high end gear that they didn't earn destroys much of the incentive to get it the hard way make excellent points.
Paying for anything in-game is bad - not just in and of itself but because of the slippery slope syndrome. Please don't do this unless the other choice is probable financial failure of the game.
But if you conclude that you *must* sell in-game items to make ends meet do it. Better a good game with impurities than a perfect game that has failed. A few people have said that if you compromise on any of these points they will leave. I respect their opinions and share their fears. But compromise is far better than failure as long as what is left after the compromise is significantly better than what is out there now.
While I admit I never thought of housing as something to sell - it may be a better idea than most of the other in-game items that you could sell. It isn't even remotely "pay to win" and it isn't obtrusive. As we go about our business our groupmates and guildmates will not, one hopes, have their houses on their backs to show off.
For what it is worth LOTRO introduced "premium housing" fairly recently. Larger houses in a separate area not anywhere near regular housing. Buyable with currency that can be obtained by paying real money. I mention this purely as a matter of interest regarding this topic - LOTRO is not a game that should be a model upon which Pantheon is built though it is far closer than EQ2 in terms of some of Pantheon's core values.
I have a VIP house in Lotro, that I never have to pay upkeep on. Its a house that stands in a housing zone, you have to zone in and out to explore outside. There are roads and merchants you can access inside that zone, plus a quest or two. And I have a port that takes me directly to my home. And as I had been away for around 9 years, I bought my mansion with accumulated Lotro points, not real money, when I left (a month or so ago) I still had enough points to buy myself several mansions if I wished to do that. :)
Aradune said:Most likely no. First, you'd be paying the upkeep for an Outpost in an area you'd outleveled, which would be a complete waste of money. 2nd, you most likely can only have 1 outpost at a time, so if you didn't move your one to the next area, you'd not be allowed to build any in areas beneficial to you. Lastly, if we had to (e.g. 1 & 2 above didn't do the job) we could set a maximum time an Outpost could exist without being moved. My gut says we won't need to do #3 however.
Perhaps Outposts being built would trigger an "event" of sorts? Slowly over time the camp would start being sporadically attacked by mobs (whatever main intelligent creature of the zone) that increase in difficulty/strength over time until it gets to the point that you'd need a large group of players just to keep things afloat. If held for a certain amount of time then perhaps sometimes a named boss could lead a massive attack on the base requiring a raid worth of players (level locked maybe, making people mentor to appropriate level) to fend off. Could even have that be part of the progression for outpost leveling, if the boss is slain then perhaps the outpost would gain a trophy/small permanent buff for all future locations.
CanadinaXegony said:I don't see any drawback to instanced housing either, it would disallow the urban sprawl...could still have a front door, and those of us that like to collect our achievements and display them, can. Not just guilds. I'm not sure why housing access would be denied to the average gamer, but guilds can have at it? My tastes in decor won't be the same as my guild, I can guarantee that. And if I want to craft in my home, instead of worrying about guild permissions then I can.
I hope the outpost thing works, I hope it's an engaging event for players, but I know there are going to be huge markets of people that want an Inn room in town. People who are going to want a permenate residence in the city. People who are going to want to be able to zone outside, head to the market, the trainer, the bank, and the crafting stations. I'm just honestly dumbfounded by why something that is technically easy to do (instanced housing) is something they say they dont' want to do, when it would be a great additional feature.
Kittik said:I hope the outpost thing works, I hope it's an engaging event for players, but I know there are going to be huge markets of people that want an Inn room in town. People who are going to want a permenate residence in the city. People who are going to want to be able to zone outside, head to the market, the trainer, the bank, and the crafting stations. I'm just honestly dumbfounded by why something that is technically easy to do (instanced housing) is something they say they dont' want to do, when it would be a great additional feature.
I think you are vastly underselling how difficult and resource demanding player housing is, both in terms of demand on the servers and in terms of the colossal amount of ongoing work that have to be committed to housing art/assests in particular. It's a massive undertaking with large ongoing upkeep involved for something that is almost entirely cosmetic, especially given that most players will never have anyone else even see their house/instance.
Maybe I am way off but I figure that having servers that host 35 zones for the world are likely notably less expensive than servers that host 35 zones + 1,000-2,000 or more small instanced zones that are often changing and have to have all the individual information saved/backed up constantly.
Iksar said:Kittik said:I hope the outpost thing works, I hope it's an engaging event for players, but I know there are going to be huge markets of people that want an Inn room in town. People who are going to want a permenate residence in the city. People who are going to want to be able to zone outside, head to the market, the trainer, the bank, and the crafting stations. I'm just honestly dumbfounded by why something that is technically easy to do (instanced housing) is something they say they dont' want to do, when it would be a great additional feature.
I think you are vastly underselling how difficult and resource demanding player housing is, both in terms of demand on the servers and in terms of the colossal amount of ongoing work that have to be committed to housing art/assests in particular. It's a massive undertaking with large ongoing upkeep involved for something that is almost entirely cosmetic, especially given that most players will never have anyone else even see their house/instance.
Maybe I am way off but I figure that having servers that host 35 zones for the world are likely notably less expensive than servers that host 35 zones + 1,000-2,000 or more small instanced zones that are often changing and have to have all the individual information saved/backed up constantly.
That's a good approach to explaining things I think:
Our putting simple cosmetic housing in an Instance means there is a lot of work involved and it only appeals to those players who truly enjoy the cosmetic-only aspect of housing. We have nothing against that group, of course, and building and decorating a virtual house is very cool. But like with anything else Pantheon, we are always looking at ways to link the cosmetic to actual gameplay. Putting them in an instance to be invited to just doesn't link to gameplay. Making them part of the real world does. Expanding from the house idea to the Outpost idea then adds more people to the endeavor and makes it easier to tie in actual gameplay reasons to have that Outpost. It doesn't exclude or limit the cosmetic part of things at all, nor would we want to. Instead it makes it *part* of the bigger picture, which are these Outposts that do a lot more than simply provide a creative outlet to those who like to decorate and set up their own house. The people who enjoy the cosmetic need to work with other types of players who are setting up the Outpost to help their group or guild achieve their goals too. By making it so that Outposts need players to visit them that are not the owners of the Outpost then includes even more people. By making them so that they naturally move around as the group/guild levels up we hopefully avoid the urban sprawl situation and having to make zones just for housing like we saw in VG.
Yes, tying in crafting stations, vendors, and other reasons in addition to having people by to appreciate your home makes the system much more complex. As does making Outposts part of the real world and not instanced. But that's true for much of Pantheon's design and goals -- we are not looking for the easy way out, so to speak. We really want to do these systems justice. It's why we're clear this is post-launch and deserves a lot of our attention and effort. It's also part of our goal to make the E in PvE matter and be a lot more than just killing mobs. We want the environment to change, to be more dynamic, and in order to do this, in order to have player created housing/outposts truly impact the world, we have to go down this road.
It's the same with cosmetic gear -- we want to do it, but we want to go beyond just dressing up for the sake of dressing up. There's nothing wrong with that, of course, and we certainly want to promote RPing. But if we can also tie it into other ways to advance your character, we'd really like to. Having other ways to advance your character be part of how we expand the game post-launch is a big part of the Grand Vision for the game. I think we were on to something in VG, having the three spheres of advancement, adventuring, crafting, and diplomacy. Making it so you can choose to focus on one or all three was really exciting. Having different levels, so you could be a level 10 adventurer, level 8 diplomat, and level 5 crafter really broadened things and made the world more immersive and impactful. The difference with Pantheon, however, is we've learned some very tough lessons about biting off more than we can chew as well as shoehorning in major features, not having enough time or resources to really do it right. That's why we are determined to launch with an awesome adventuring game. That's why we are so focused on getting that part of Pantheon correct and sufficiently fleshed out. That's why the game at launch needs to stand on its own and feel complete.
So many other big plans we have for the game not only shouldn't be shoehorned in our rushed, but they also rely on having a solid adventuring game in place and FUN. Much better to focus on getting one advancement path in place and *awesome* than to rush multiple advancement paths but not truly flesh any of them out so that they have the depth to keep people interested in months and years.
Again, could we put temporary and more simplistic options into the game, like simple instanced and cosmetic housing? We could, but it would really conflict with how we are approaching the entire development of the game. It's contrary to our core tenants and philosophy. We want to do things right. That's not to say things aren't implemented in building blocks and that every aspect of a system must be totally implemented before it's added to the game. But it does mean that even the first building block has to be substantive enough that it doesn't become irrelevant, or rushed through, or something cool on the surface but when players dig deeper, there's little to nothing there. It's why we're not sure we're going to ship with Bards. We love Bards, and we could certainly include them superficially. But what makes Bards, just as an example, so cool is how they play very differently than most classes. They are not simple melee classes, nor are they simply another type of magic user.
Finally, we always love to under promise and over deliver. Undoubtedly, we will have opportunities to exceed our initial goals, both at launch and afterwards. In that sense, we don't feel like we're sticking ourselves into a box we cannot think outside of. But nowadays, especially, you simply don't get second chances. You don't get to dabble with something that may or may work out, or that may or may not have sufficient depth to become something that people truly involve themselves in and spend a lot time pursuing. This is why we focused first on making a core, basic MMO and then making sure that core is FUN. This is why we've held off on implementing and working on many of the more sophisticated and new features and ideas we have. This is why managing expectations is so important to us. If the opportunity arises where we can exceed the scope we've planned for, then great. But if it doesn't work out, or something needs to be delayed, by not committing to a lot of this, especially by launch, we really achieve the best of both worlds. Bottom line, we'd much rather surprise people and have things in the game that people didn't expect to be there. at least not that early on.
I think we're getting better and better at being transparent and open with you guys while keeping a lot of things under wraps. Game development is tricky, and MMOs the most challenging genre to develop within. We are always discussing and planning out ways to increase awareness of the game. We definitely know that hyping things within reason is what gets people excited and spreading the word about the game so that we launch with the kind of numbers we need to continue development, to be a profitable venture. But we also know there's a fine line there that is easily crossed if we are not very careful. It's why we do occasionally talk about the Grand Vision, the plans we have for the game after launch. But it's also why we are careful to be as clear as possible that these ideas come later. I myself have personally been guilty of over hyping games I'm working on simply because it's so much fun talking about the game as a whole, the game at launch, but then also the game 2, 5 or 10 years later! On a personal level, I couldn't be more excited because in the past, for a variety of reasons, I've never been able to stay too long on an MMO after launch. This means I and others on the team can really dream big and think really long term. And not only is that fun and compelling for us, but it also makes sure that when we are working on the foundations that we architect systems, mechanics, database schemas, etc. where expanding things later on down the line doesn’t require significant restructuring or having to re-do work. As I've mentioned many times, this team is amazing and we are in this for the long haul. Pantheon at launch is like having a baby in RL -- it's an amazing thing and you can look down at your newborn and start dreaming about who this person will become as they age and become more mature. So many things, however, simply take time. Many of these systems not only take time, but they require a certain degree of momentum and a strong foundation architected such that we *can* build upon that foundation and implement ideas that have been literally running through our heads for years, even decades.
But that does mean we have to keep ourselves in check. It does mean that we need to make sure what we launch with is a complete game in the sense that there aren't missing gaps, or something cool on the surface but when you dig deeper there's simply no depth to, where potential is limited because we didn't think it through.
Hopefully that makes at least some sense -- let me know.
thanks,
Nice to see you guys thinking things through and not over-promising. The more I read these types of logical explanations, the more excited I get. I used to help build MUDs back in the early 90s.... we also had the same approach. It's WAY too easy to get over-excited and tell people about all of these new features that are coming.... but people make assumptions about timelines. Keep it real, while keeping it exciting.
Thanks, Brad.
Players say 'camping' when they go offline or for a fight stop.
Start outposting with a place tent option?
Player: a tent? or maybe a raft? up to a gipsy style caravan? (going to cost me a lot of horses\cows\mules)
Guild: a river barge or ocean going ship would be nice, or a pallisade structure for in a regular zone ?
Thanks for that nice and detailed explanation, Aradune.
I agree that having a more limited game that works very well within its parameters at launch is far better than having a game that does everything ....poorly.
With the caveat that *important* things that are *definitely* planned within a *reasonable* period are worth mentioning to show subscribers/buyers that the game will be expanding and developing as in "we are already working on housing and hope to have it so well developed that it can be released within a year". Using "a year" if you figure it will be done in 6 months if there are no snags.
Aradune said:But that does mean we have to keep ourselves in check. It does mean that we need to make sure what we launch with is a complete game in the sense that there aren't missing gaps, or something cool on the surface but when you dig deeper there's simply no depth to, where potential is limited because we didn't think it through.
Hopefully that makes at least some sense -- let me know.
thanks,
It totally makes sense to me. I'll admit, when you described Outposts, my thought was - "sounds interesting, but I don't know that it really goes far enough to satisfy me long term". I think for me, as long as the team doesn't just do Outposts and stop there, forever, I'll be ok. But Outposts are a good way to start and I agree with the goals that the team is pushing for to try and make sure housing is relevant to gameplay, and not just its own thing. I just ultimately want something outpost-like with a bit more permanence to it, maybe once we're 2-3 years into the game.
