Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
I loved the complexity that the resource system in Star Wars Galaxies presented. If you are unfamiliar it had a number of stratified resources with about 6-10 variable qualities and those qualities were more or less important for various items and sub-items to be crafted.
But none of them ever expired. Instead because the resources were on a randomly generated scale and the source shifted position and in and out of access on any given server it became a matter of choosing WHEN to use that very rare high-quality resource rather than just the common stuff you have gathered or purchased. It came down to making a choice.
So I like my difficulty broad rather than tall but as you said, it is all about preference.
Gathering and marketing (selling at the right time) will be a huge thing I hope and putting stuff on a time limit could potentially disrupt the long term thinking of seasonal awarenes, events, world changing. I mean it all depends on how it would be balanced, but then again what's the merit in preservation stuff? Most stuff you preserve has some form of downsides.
Dried spices are pretty much always considered inferior to fresh ones. Still beats having none, but the point is, do we have to go that far in a magical land?
It's interesting and it made me think about the topic for quite a while today, but I do think I would be against such a thing.
http://wiki.swganh.org/index.php/File:Nge-Surveying-SurveyedMineral.JPG
this image shows you how SWG Surveying worked, you would survey for a material and you would see percentages of that material in your survey tool. The percentages is how concentrated the material is and how fast you would gather that material. You always went to the highs percentage because you gathered more faster. Now that material tomorrow might no longer be there, or in a few days from now. There might be nothing there to gather at all. The resources changed every few days. Each resource had different stats and they popped up at different times across the game at different locations.
There was no way to control resources. So you might find a spot on Node 36 were the concentration is at 60% while the same resource is on Node 99 with a concentration of 80%. Tomorrow these resources can be gone. This added a lot of depth into crafting because what was good for one item was terrible for another. For example Byrothsis Crystalline Gemstone might be great for my Rocket Launchers I made as a weaponsmith in SWG because it adds damage to my Rocket Launchers. But the Byrothsis Crystalline Gemstone for a sword might be crap and the sword I made does low damage and breaks faster. The best crafters on the server were very skilled at understanding the different materials we could gather. I was known on Wanderhome for my Rocket Launchers. My best Rocket Launchers never lasted more then a week on my vendors.
This would prevent guilds from controlling a server because if we allow the gathering be like SWG and not be solely focused on if you take the mats from Node level 4 to level 6 just to make really good gear. A mega guild could never control a server. This system also worked great because non crafters put down harvesters all the time with their guildmates so they could gather mats. Then they would help out their guildmates with mats, and they would sell some of the mats making gold well credits in SWG. It created a very fluid economy.
Byrothsis Crystalline Gemstone might be great for my Rocket Launchers I made as a weaponsmith in SWG because it adds damage to my Rocket Launchers. But the Byrothsis Crystalline Gemstone for a sword might be crap and the sword I made does low damage and breaks faster.
Sounds almost ideal. If 'all' materials are actually compounds of raw elements. You can ensure having a monopoly on a specific material never actually allows a monopoly on any raw elements if it can be found in alternate materials. Having the compound yield different % elements would allow the materials to be differentiated too.
Popping up randomly far away from any base at any time will of course make it unlikely that a fixed base is always at the perfect location to receive specific materials. So yes it does induce and demand 'trade' through supply lines, but introduces a Goldilocks problem. To stop a monopoly you cant have a material locked to a location. But spreading out for mutual access negates the need for caravans if it will pop at a location near you anyway. By forcing materials to move from any one spot, it must by extension arrive at all spots. You can wait for the mountain to come to Mohamed in effect. Especially if a nodes field of influence grows wide enough to cast a large net.
eg. A Maldives size node is far less likely to have access to a wide variety of raw materials compared to an America size node. Purely because the American realm cover a vastly greater percentage of the available total area.
As all tools/clothes/weapon/armour/jewellery/etc could be crafted from various elementary ratio combinations, this ensures a wide variety of elements/materials are always in demand. So nothing is worthless with a wide variety of craft.
I never considered complexity as being wide and shallow rather then thin and deep and the same problem regardless. Nice post.
A Freehold produces alcohol. This can be used to preserve alchemical ingredients, or fruits. Or you make spirits for consumption. Or you can make vinegar out of it, also for storing or for recipes. Of course this would also need something to store things in - either earthenware or glass - which have to be produced somewhere. This would open up a lot of opportunities for trading systems and give more potential to profits.
A Freehold produces vegetable oil (or animal fat). This can also used for storage - for example for fish. Also for treating leather, or used in Blacksmithing. Of course you would also need barrels to store oil and fish. So you would have the need for someone to make barrels. (which makes sense if you consider caravans).
In general i think buff foods should be perishable - it always stroke me very stupid that someone is carrying around 50 feasts of mighty buffing. And with seasons and growth cycles you need to plan ahead - which makes the trader crowd happy.
This idea isn't something I'd like to see personally. I think there's enough potentially in the game to encourage players to not hoard a lot of goods but sell them instead, economic node, trade caravans etc. If they can create a game that encourages the quick turnaround of goods that's better imo.
Also, I'd like to think that if I wanted to I could hoard goods. I want the choice to be mine.
But yes, player 'choice' should always be at the forefront of the game.
I dont think anyone can really argue with that.
There just has to be a point where the game must regulate that player choice if it becomes a game breaking situation. Thats my angle anyway.
Q: Will Ashes alter how food grows and the available resources during each seasons?
Think we have to understand the direction Intrepid Studio is aiming for. Do they want players to shift the way they play a little each season? Maybe hunting and fishing becomes much more viable source in the winter? Maybe there is scarce food?
In that case food would need to have a significant impact on the player and needs to be part of the core mechanics. How much survival mechanics are the developers interested in incorporating?
And “then” we can decide on the systems and balancing on whether or not good should expire because stock piling would be a detrimental quirk in their design philosophy if players could just farm a million wheat and all the systems they’ve worked on implementing are just useless.
I also did BitChute as well https://www.bitchute.com/video/eLzuJDuzFO3t/
Thanks for watching. I would really like to see a SWG like system.