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You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Motivate Me - Taverns
Professor Posh
Member
Awesome, we're getting Taverns! Great... so uh... what's the motive?
Now don't get me wrong, I love the idea of Taverns having the opportunity to settle down somewhere in the world of Verra and I also get the RP influence that comes along with it, but, I am struggling to find the motive to want to keep coming back to "The whatever Inn" other than that reason. What I see happening is that players will completely overrun the Tavern after it's doors open (for the first time) for a couple of days, to then eventually it becoming dead silent in there. I personally believe players should be given a better reason to come and visit "The whatever Inn" somewhat regularly other than for the purpose of Role Play because let's be honest, the majority of us would only spend like less than 5% of our overall time Role Playing at all so, the question is, what can be done to enforce this idea?
Now don't get me wrong, I love the idea of Taverns having the opportunity to settle down somewhere in the world of Verra and I also get the RP influence that comes along with it, but, I am struggling to find the motive to want to keep coming back to "The whatever Inn" other than that reason. What I see happening is that players will completely overrun the Tavern after it's doors open (for the first time) for a couple of days, to then eventually it becoming dead silent in there. I personally believe players should be given a better reason to come and visit "The whatever Inn" somewhat regularly other than for the purpose of Role Play because let's be honest, the majority of us would only spend like less than 5% of our overall time Role Playing at all so, the question is, what can be done to enforce this idea?
Forgive and you will free yourself. Peace be with you all.
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Comments
Why what? 😂
Personally, my relax time is off the game
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Taverns
I did not know you could rent rooms... thanks for the info. Also, regarding the food and drinks you talk about, will they only be available specifically in Taverns?
You know what, that link gave me everything I needed to know. Thanks!
For me, there are a variety of reasons to be at a Tavern, indicating return trips:
-It's a place where my friends and I meet up when we can all play together
-I like the particular aesthetic and the rp offered by the Tavern's patron
-Taverns *hopefully* have local crafts from alchemist/cooks for provisions (as stated above)
-Location, especially if it is close by an area I like to adventure in (since zones won't theoretically be static)
-There could be a series of taverns I hit up on my way out and about and on my way back. If a particular tavern is not of my taste or the local patron/crowd is not what I consider good company, i'll find others.
-Tavern games (gained via the KS)
-Social interaction with others, likely citizens and non-citizens.
But these are just the reasons I can think of before playing the game. Those that don't role play, like stated above, if they're not in the tavern picking up or completing quests I'm not sure what they would be doing. Perhaps they are closet role players that can only experience the true joy of role play through watching/listening to others because they feel as though there is a social stigma to playing 'make believe' as adults.
In general, as a reason why someone else would continue to visit a tavern, that's on them. We can't make each other have fun now, like things, or do things can we.
*Whispers* TBH, I just wanted to start a discussion about something as I was bored but little did I know it need not be hehe 🤣.
(Like a physical groupfinder)
"Taverns foster adventure in a few ways, one large part being the bulletin board. The bulletin board, quests can be posted here and completed too. If a Tavern owner needs supplies they can post quests, others can also purchase space in order to post quests as well. This keeps the Tavern as a hub of activity. It’ll have people moving in and out, but it will encourage new patrons for the owner and will encourage a higher base of “regulars.”
https://ashesofcreation.com/news/the-mighty-beard
Just like in real life there are those who like to watch and listen, and those who like to "show off" love an audience.
Formerly T-Elf
Most roleplayers don't care about you or your attendance. They visit the tavern because they want to.
In fact, I foresee this particular request as something RPers would NOT want, as it floods their favorite gathering points with idiots just looking to min/max their game time rather than, yanno, play the role playing game.
I'm not a particularly heavy RPer, but even I can see that this is just an attempt to get something for nothing out of the game... The RP community likely won't see advantageous benefits for spending MORE time in the tavern than random players seeking out some stupid boosts, but will still have to put up with said randoms running in and potentially ruining their experience by running circles around RPers or jumping wildly on the counters or typing random nonsense.
The less time people spend in taverns, the more time people will spend in taverns.
It seems to be something planned regardless of whether the RPers want it or not, but I can see your concern. It will be interesting to see which players prefer the NPC run taverns in the nodes, as opposed to the player-run taverns in the freeholds. I anticipate there will probably be a divide between the "RP taverns" and those used by non-RPers.
RPers should be able to RP anywhere. Just stay in character and/or focus on what's transpiring in the game rather than talking about stuff that's happening in real life.
It's a tradition. One of the most common ways to start a D&D campaign is to have the player characters meet in a tavern/bar/inn where they are either told about or overhear a problem that sets them on their quest. This tradition has transferred to mmorpgs.
It's also quite practical. Even the most avid RPers don't stay "in character" all the time when they are playing, so having a set location where RP regularly happens helps avoid any misunderstandings or confusion. If a certain tavern is known as the "RP tavern" then you can safely assume that anyone in there is "in character". Taverns are convenient because you don't have to worry about combat and can express yourself better than you can in the open world.
So yes you are right that players can RP anywhere in the world, but this rarely happens, especially on a server that isn't specifically for RP.
In addition to what wanderingmist said, it's not only tradition to form a party there, it's also a great place to meet other rpers you don't know. If you're starting on a new server or in a node that's not your home one, and don't know anyone, if you find the nearest rp tavern you're likely to find people willing to interact with you. Once you know them, then you know someone you can walk up to anywhere else in game and probably get an in character reception, or other people to plan rp events with. It's a great place to meet people recruiting in character for their RP guild, or just get an idea of what the members are like before you even ask if they're recruiting.
And there are a lot of character and guild concepts that have reasons to be in a tavern. For instance, a tavern near a dock or crossroads is a great place to run a smuggling gang out of. Or even a legitimate trading company. It's a place you can do business deals or go brag to some of the other soldiers/guards about how you ran off an overwhelming force while you were guarding a caravan that just arrived here. It's a place to sit in a dark corner and plan an assassination, or gather information about the people doing any of those previous things. It's a place where people can go to perform if they're some flavor of bardic character (or to see someone perform if they're not).
And given the features being added in Ashes, it'll also be a place to hang out in character and play dice or cards with friends, plan the siege of a node or an ambush on a caravan, and for bounty hunters to visit between bounties. Personally I like to have guild meetings in an rp tavern. You have the IC part of it in game and the ooc part over voice chat.
It may make more sense to you if you consider it akin to a mom and pop community-oriented coffee shop. You get strangers going in and out but you also have regulars who all get to know each other and the staff, and there are performances and games and community meetings at random times.
I have a "special" relationship with Lady Luck. She smiles on me often...Usually, with derision.
That depends on what server you're on and who is on it. Perhaps you would only spend a sliver of time (or none) rping, but for people who do RP, it's usually more like 50-80%. I tend to be closer to that 80%. I'm there for the interactions. Otherwise I'd be in a solo game (or working on art instead of gaming at all). The other bits of the game are there in service to building cooperative stories in a community. Like an exceedingly elaborate and much more dynamic story circle. Why else play an MMORPG? If a person ONLY wants to group up and kill pixels or fight other players, there are tons of non-RPG games that offer that more directly.
If you're not there to rp, you don't need extra reasons to visit a tavern (even though they're adding incentives to do so). It's there to, among other things, give rpers a place to meet each other.
I have a "special" relationship with Lady Luck. She smiles on me often...Usually, with derision.
Taverns make the most sense to me for socializing hubs. I know @dygz is an avid D&D player from several of his posts. I think it's odd he is unable to understand why Taverns would be the naturally chosen location to try and center a socializing player base.
Again, there are likely other options that will exists, but it makes sense to me that Taverns would be the most common (used).
Same thing when I RP in MMORPGs. Taverns are not the primary place where I RP.
In D&D, player characters typically do not own homes and typically do not have NPC friends who we know well enough to allow us to crash for the night for free. D&D adventures are designed to have player characters getting rid of their gold by purchasing a safe place to sleep within a town, where it's also going to be safer for the party to sleep. So, players will frequently congregate with NPCs in taverns - which are also typically the best place to gather info, since people in places like temples and thieves guilds are rarely going to share info with strangers.
In Vampire, The Masquerade (a dream come true that I worked on those games when I worked at Activision), we didn't spend much time at all in bars or taverns.
Especially in MMORPGs that have player housing, I don't spend much time at all socializing in taverns.
A lot of the socializing would happen at parties held at player character homes, which include costume contests and house decorating contests, etc. We would create flash mobs anywhere; not just at taverns.
Especially in an MMORPG where players can be queens and mayors, I would hope to see lavish balls an parties being held in castles and mansions; not just at taverns.
Where we have players building temples and thieves guilds and scholars academies, I would hope there is a considerable amount of RP happening in those locations; not just in taverns.
I plan on playing a Predator Vek in a Scientific Node. I hope there is more dev-designed, in-game incentive to RP that character in observatories and temples and thieves guilds than there is in a tavern.
Especially, where we have animal husbandry with breeding, I would hope plenty of RP is going on around how to breed desirable pets and mounts at breeders' freeholds - not just at tavern freeholds.
I am constantly RPing in dungeons and on raids - RP does not just kick in when I enter a tavern.
I'm expecting a ton of in-character current events exchange between players, since we won't all be experiencing the exact same content day after day and week after week - we will miss stuff that happens while we are off-line, whether that's info about which Castle vassal nodes where defeated that week or which new Nodes have appeared or which established Nodes have advanced or atrophied or which resources have been depleted from a region or which resources or mobs have newly popped up in the region. We shouldn't need to wait to enter a tavern to discuss that info with other players. I expect those discussions to occur everywhere.
But, whenever RPers have asked Steven about tools to facilitate RPing, Steven answers there will be tools for that in taverns. And I don't understand what that means. It sounds to me like, "Oh, if you want to participate in dice rolling games, RPG will be one of the dice-rolling games available in taverns."
I understand why players might want to socialize in taverns. I don't understand why taverns are supposed to be a special focus for roleplaying in a roleplaying game. As opposed to just roleplaying everywhere.
For instance, if I were going to consider a wedding a special RP event that I don't want interrupted by players who aren't into player events and staying in-character rather than talking about IRL stuff - I would have the wedding at a freehold and only invite the specific people I know will stay in character and act as intended.
Tavern would probably be among one of the last places I would try to stage a wedding.
I see your point now. I agree in an MMORPG that RP should be facilitated everywhere. A lot of the things you talk about in the second post is Player Driven, and although Ashes would have to facilitate the ability to do that, they can't force those things to happen.
So to me it sounds like they will focus on helping RP by facilitating it in a Tavern. The types of interactions for RP can be better guessed (not known, but guessed) in a Tavern. They may or may not have 'things' to facilitate and encourage RP elsewhere, but their focus in Ashes is Taverns as in their game-world they would like lots of opportunities for players to RP there.
There will likely *hopefully* be a variety of events that encourage RP in other locations like you mention: guilds, temples, markets, etc. But that doesn't mean they can't focus their efforts on Taverns.
Tavern would probably be among one of the last places I would try to stage a wedding."
Actually since taverns will be on freeholds, they might be the best place to have them. If we get the access controls that have been talked about, you could turn your settings to friends list only and limit the guests that way. Because as we had clarified in one of my livestream questions, there will be no special instancing for weddings or other events planned. So Red Weddings are going to be the norm for those that server announce their special day and don't take precautions to limit access.
What I did write emphasized that I don't understand why tavern are supposed to be a special draw for "RPers" specifically.
It's fine if my first post wasn't clearly understood - that's what discussions are for.
When RPers ask Steven and Jeffrey about support for RPers, they typically answer with tools and support via taverns. That's what I don't understand.
And the OP states, "I personally believe players should be given a better reason to come and visit "The whatever Inn" somewhat regularly other than for the purpose of Role Play because let's be honest, the majority of us would only spend like less than 5% of our overall time Role Playing at all so, the question is, what can be done to enforce this idea?"
I'm similarly confused by that concept of RP and why the focus seems to be taverns.
Again, as if RP wouldn't be happening elsewhere or as if a tavern is the primary place where RP occurs in MMORPGs.
And if it's the case that the devs may not have tools to support RPing outside of taverns but will have tools to support RPing inside of taverns - I would want to know why that is because I don't understand why that would be the case.
Formerly T-Elf
wanderingmist makes a distinction between NPC-run taverns and player-run taverns, so... I guess was thinking that NPC-run taverns, specifically would be the last place I'd hold a wedding if I wanted to avoid interruptions by unwanted visitors. Also, I would probably choose a different style of freehold besides a tavern - like a cathedral or even an arena.
And, yeah, I was thinking of the guest/invite mechanics of a freehold rather than instancing.
Players tend to go to taverns that are easily accessible at earlier levels. First large tavern they find, they'll sit and chat for hours. Personally, I prefer doing my RPing in the field fighting monsters. It's one thing I loved about City of Heroes was just the heroic banter with random PUG groups while mindlessly charging through bad guys. I have a super hard time just sitting and talking without keeping myself productive in some way/shape/or form.
AoC is going to be an incredibly different scenario though, since Nodes come and go, as do Taverns, they'll likely hang out at popular freehold taverns that are regularly "run" by players. Many players enjoy being the barkeep.
As for what's planned, I'm fine with the concept of postings in the tavern. That actually makes sense, and shouldn't interfere with RPers much since most players will be in and out and easily add to immersion just by doing their quests.
What I'd be more against are things like going to a tavern to obtain some kind of buff or add incentive for players to go be bored for 10-20 minutes every play session. Bored players are never great for RPers.