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Open world Freeholds

In the last Q&A I saw that Steven mentioned that open world freeholds would be very very rare. He did say however that there would be no land rush, considering you can only claim open world land surrounding a node once the node reaches tier 3.

Anyone else kind of disappointing about this? I was really hoping that there would be enough open world land for everyone (well just me really).

Anyone know if you'll be able to use your kickstarter exclusive freehold skin for instanced free holds?

Comments

  • I don't understand why opening at Tier 3 prevents a land rush if the freeholds will be rare.
  • What made you think they'd be rare? I took onboard that they didn't unlock until Tier 3, but nothing really suggested -- to me -- that they'd be rare. Can you remember what he said?
  • Well I guess we will have to see how housing and land works and test it out. One the of the reasons Archeage crashed and burned was because of player's frustrations over the lack of land and land rushes, having no land in AA was crippling to your character's ability to earn income and progress in the game , maybe in AoC not having land won't effect your character as severely. One thing is for certain is the fact that nodes will be in different stages of development and there will be no one big land rush at once to grab all housing locations, over populating the servers with queue times because everyone is desperate to get in the game and stake a claim.
  • I'm fairly certain you mis-heard what Steven meant.

    From the 2nd Node Blog
    <blockquote>The final type of housing available are our freeholds. These pieces of property can be built anywhere within a Node’s Zone of Influence, and only after a Node reaches stage 3, the Village stage. These are sizable plots of land that all sorts of structures can be built on. Inns, taverns, forges, smelters, lumber yards, mills, stables, are all things that you might find on a Freehold. These plots of land are where a player can really get creative with their buildings. Because they’re built within a Node’s Zone of Influence, they grant citizenship as well! The larger the Node, the bigger its Zone of Influence is, which means more Freeholds can be built!</blockquote>

    Considering Freeholds can be built 'anywhere' in the Nodes's Zone of Influence and those Zones get bigger as the Node advances to higher levels that's a lot of land for Freeholds. Freeholds seem the primary location where resource processing and crafting will take place in Ashes of Creation so they'd very much need to be abundant.
  • It won't necessarily become a major problem. We do not know the exact size of the world map, or even the dimensions of a freehold plot (not to mention the fact that the land mass available will increase/decrease with the node's development). The recent Twitch stream gave a decent idea of the size and it did not appear overly large or small compared to the world around the plot. What we do know is that besides these freehold plots are the instanced plots outside of the overworld that will hopefully be available to all players as a default housing choice. Meaning that even if you are not able to grab a freehold plot, you have the instanced plot to fall back on as insurance for assured income or possibly storage.
  • [quote quote=17548]We do not know the exact size of the world map[/quote]

    In one of the latest videos with Steven testing a stream someone in the stream mentioned while they were in a node that another node was "2 miles" away. Dunno if this helps lol
  • [quote quote=17557]<blockquote>
    <div class="d4p-bbt-quote-title"><a href="https://www.ashesofcreation.com/forums/topic/open-world-freeholds/#post-17548" rel="nofollow">CptBrownBeard wrote:</a></div>
    We do not know the exact size of the world map
    </blockquote>
    In one of the latest videos with Steven testing a stream someone in the stream mentioned while they were in a node that another node was “2 miles” away. Dunno if this helps lol

    [/quote]

    If that was the friday Twitch stream I did not catch that, nice find! While it gives an idea it's a vague one still, for the same reason that we don't know how large a mile is in-game. Could be 500 steps, could be 1500. All will be revealed in time, though.
  • He never mentioned that they would be RARE he just mentioned they would be limited. There are two types of limited player housing; freehold and houses within the city. There is a third type of housing called apartments that will be instanced housing.
    Steven meant that there will not be a land rush because you will not be able to log in and run to the land before everyone else and grab it. The node will require time to level up to level 3 before land can be acquired. New land/housing can be acquired at the next level from level 4 then to 5. You also want to consider that not everyone can gather due to players having to choose 1 of the 3 paths; gathering, crafting, and processing. A crafter may not want to have freehold land as they may not be able to gather or use the land properly. Lastly, when a node delevels the zone of influences get reverted back as well as the housing that was made available at that node level. In short, if you acquired land from a node leveling from level 4 to 5 it will be lost.
  • Plus, not everyone's going to be competing for land outside the same node... people are going to be all over the map at a lot of different nodes. Spread out quite a lot.
  • [quote quote=17564]A crafter may not want to have freehold land as they may not be able to gather or use the land properly.[/quote]

    I was under the impression from that last twitch stream that you could build crafting stuff or even alchemy stuff on a freehold. He mentioned a furnace in the video as well as "cooking." Check the vid at 3:00 min

    <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7oXj-NaMOk">YouTube Vid</a>
  • [quote quote=17605]<blockquote>
    <div class="d4p-bbt-quote-title"><a href="https://www.ashesofcreation.com/forums/topic/open-world-freeholds/#post-17564" rel="nofollow">Ezenkrul87 wrote:</a></div>
    A crafter may not want to have freehold land as they may not be able to gather or use the land properly.
    </blockquote>
    I was under the impression from that last twitch stream that you could build crafting stuff or even alchemy stuff on a freehold. He mentioned a furnace in the video as well as “cooking.” Check the vid at 3:00 min

    <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7oXj-NaMOk" rel="nofollow">YouTube Vid</a>

    [/quote]

    I am sure you can, but you may also be able to do this in the housing offered by the city maybe even the apartments to some extent.
  • Ok cool, but still. Freehold is soo much more awesome lol
  • Go to 14:13

    They talk about how rare houses are, and how they will be strongly contested. They keep repeating over and over about how rare they are and will be a much desired and contested item.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGepb_OZLhQ
  • And by preventing land rush I just mean, preventing a sort of pre alpha access land rush. There will most definitely be one.
  • Ah actually it seems like he's just talking about the homes that are non instanced within a node being rare :) my bad!
  • if at stage 5 node for example, you have a total of 100 houses in city housing that is, maybe another 50 freeholds surrounding a nodes influence
    150 houses at 5 max nodes is 750 houses total you figure maybe 3k-4k people per server ... there can be a rush for housing at start of the game. I just hope they implement some sort of afk timer... if a guy builds a freehold or in city home and then doesnt log in for 2 months and the node has not been contested then that house is going waste...
  • Honestly not everyone deserves to have everything in the game, well that is my opinion at least. If everyone has everything it makes it worth nothing. There's no sense of achievement anymore. With this system they at least give the players a chance to acquire land, maybe not at first, but after time. We do not know for certain how everything will work or how much land there is, but I am sure the Devs will be against hacking of any kind so situations that happened in Archeage will not happen in this game. *fingers crossed*
  • [quote quote=17627]Go to 14:13

    They talk about how rare houses are, and how they will be strongly contested. They keep repeating over and over about how rare they are and will be a much desired and contested item.

    <span class="embed-youtube" style="text-align:center; display: block;">[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGepb_OZLhQ?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent&w=1400&h=818]</span>

    [/quote]

    The houses your link is refering to are the houses inside a physical town (Node) Not the ZoI.

    The freeholds are established outside of the node in the ZoI.
  • In that video (while I did not watch it all) it sounded like they were talking about node houses being rare. Not freehold or instanced housing being rare.
  • Dont mind if the land is rare so long as whats built upon said land is capable of being destroyed, the would be a good incentive for conflict.
  • [quote quote=18052]Dont mind if the land is rare so long as whats built upon said land is capable of being destroyed, the would be a good incentive for conflict.

    [/quote]

    Early info appears to indicate that won't be possible directly. It'll be part of the siege mechanics of the nearest influencing node.

    <blockquote><strong>Can other players destroy my player housing?

    Player housing is only attackable if the node owner loses in a siege, and then only if the housing is within that zone of influence. Items inside of the housing will be retained on the account of the original housing owner.</strong></blockquote>
  • I am more curious about the mechanics about the persistence of the housing.

    $5k backers get a custom designed manor (skin) that, has been assured by the devs, aren't P2W.

    1) Are land claims free for all (a.ka. no deeds required) as long as its available then?

    2) Freehold are supposed to be build and expanded by players. Are they destroyed by parts or as a whole, and is anything salvageable by the owners? What is especially important to know is whether the custom designed manor skin is reusable.

    What is especially worrying is that you might log out with a freehold and log back in the next day with your freehold destroyed. It has a cool yet terrifying aspect to it.
  • Here's a housing tidbit I didn't know

    <blockquote><strong>What will determine the architecture of a node?

    Architecture in a node is determined by the primary contributors to its development. There are 8 different architectures, one representing each race. Each player has racial markers and the back end will track the amount of racial markers that are involved in developing the node, and the more markers there are of a particular race will influence the flavor of the architecture. </strong></blockquote>

    I assume players can override the look of their own houses with skins, but the overall Node look will be heavily influenced by the character races that leveled the Node.
  • [quote quote=17918]I just hope they implement some sort of afk timer…[/quote]

    They have stated that there will be "decay" in the form of upkeep taxes. An inactive player can't provide tax revenue, so with time (I've seen no specifics for how long the decay would take by itself) the plot would become available again.



    [quote quote=18074]Early info appears to indicate that won’t be possible directly. It’ll be part of the siege mechanics of the nearest influencing node.[/quote]

    For the sake of argument I'd like to refute that there will be reasons for wanting to cleanse the freeholds from time to time. For example, when materials become scarce removing the freeholds through conquest may provide plunder in the form of materials or other items.



    [quote quote=18040]The houses your link is refering to are the houses inside a physical town (Node) Not the ZoI.

    The freeholds are established outside of the node in the ZoI.[/quote]

    I'm quoting you only because I like your avatar :)
  • I would review this video. I never hear them say that open world free holds are rare.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uG3nRDfRIOk

    Cheers,

    Falken
  • I look forward to freeholds. That'll be the primary housing I would want. Zones being what they are, it'll be an interesting concept to see where they end up getting plopped down.

    As far as the "skin" goes, that just means "costume" to me. So, you can build a house on your freehold and it'll look one way, but you can use that "skin" to make it look another if you want.

    I am more curious as to how leveling will be. If you have different zones, do they level with the player (like ESO) or are they set a certain way. That's a concern because if it is a set level, then some zones will be abandoned once the majority of players get to a certain level, rather than staying with that zone for as long as possible, even if they travel to other zones for activity.

    SWG had player housing basically "whereever you want" and running/riding around you'd suddenly come across a huge town that isn't on the map and be like "what is this?" and then realize it is a player town that has all the amenities. SWGEMU has people playing and has the same thing still. Player towns all over.

    I just want to find a nice river and plop a plot down there surrounded by trees that will be a nice quiet place to relax and do what I wanna do.

    Just keep in mind, they've already stated that even if your house were to get overrun or "sieged" to the point you'd lose your freehold, all of your household items, equipment, resources, etc., would all be safe and tied to you. I guess there would be some sort of housing escrow where everything is saved there for you until you get a new freehold or some such (lotro has escrow vaults for that)

    I'm an altoholic. We are many. We are I.
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