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About the 5:1 Active Thing - Are 8 Cottages in 103 Villages Really Enough?
Tyranthraxus
Member
Yours truly only learned about the plans for the "50k players/server" plan because it's become a hot topic lately, in this month's Q&A thread. It raised a few questions for me, that feel like good ideas to spread the discussion of:
1) Freeholds would naturally then be the primary place-of-residence for anyone who isn't able to grab a house in-town, once Villages grow into being. Do we have to place these such-and-such distance away from the Village to begin with, to accomodate the Node's future growth into Towns+? If not, what happens to the Freeholds that are too close to the Village, Town, City, etc, once it levels up and becomes larger?
2) Maybe this is a good thing? Freeholds are where animals and crops and materials-processing will take place, so perhaps it would be of benefit to a server to force the vast majority of players claim their Freeholds as their primary residences?
3) 8 times 103 is only 824; This will be the absolute maximum of the Cottages that are buy-able by citizens, and thus is also the max number of potential "main-street mansions" ('potential' because with 5 Metropolises, that's an actual max of 40 highest-level mansions). While the pre-launch prediction is 10k active players out of 50k players/server, this number seems incredibly low; That's less than 10% of the active player base being able to grab a house in a Village, before it levels up to a Town. I know the amount of housing increases with each new level past level 3, but especially with a predicted beginning of 50k players/server taking part in the launch-game's housing market, isn't 8 Cottages per Village really, REALLY low?
4) Governments can replace/remove buildings placed by former governments - so does this include occupied apartment buildings? SHOULD apartment buildings be remove-able, without restriction? (example: Mayor 1 initiates a removal-timer for an apartment building, and the next one - Mayor 2 - can either let that timer run out, or cancel the destruction)
I know that AoC's goals include a hot housing market, but these numbers just seem very odd. They are - of course - subject to change, before launch. If there's an equation or some type of math that this was based upon, it may benefit the to-be player-base to know what this equation or math is - just to put our minds at-ease about Housing.
1) Freeholds would naturally then be the primary place-of-residence for anyone who isn't able to grab a house in-town, once Villages grow into being. Do we have to place these such-and-such distance away from the Village to begin with, to accomodate the Node's future growth into Towns+? If not, what happens to the Freeholds that are too close to the Village, Town, City, etc, once it levels up and becomes larger?
2) Maybe this is a good thing? Freeholds are where animals and crops and materials-processing will take place, so perhaps it would be of benefit to a server to force the vast majority of players claim their Freeholds as their primary residences?
3) 8 times 103 is only 824; This will be the absolute maximum of the Cottages that are buy-able by citizens, and thus is also the max number of potential "main-street mansions" ('potential' because with 5 Metropolises, that's an actual max of 40 highest-level mansions). While the pre-launch prediction is 10k active players out of 50k players/server, this number seems incredibly low; That's less than 10% of the active player base being able to grab a house in a Village, before it levels up to a Town. I know the amount of housing increases with each new level past level 3, but especially with a predicted beginning of 50k players/server taking part in the launch-game's housing market, isn't 8 Cottages per Village really, REALLY low?
4) Governments can replace/remove buildings placed by former governments - so does this include occupied apartment buildings? SHOULD apartment buildings be remove-able, without restriction? (example: Mayor 1 initiates a removal-timer for an apartment building, and the next one - Mayor 2 - can either let that timer run out, or cancel the destruction)
I know that AoC's goals include a hot housing market, but these numbers just seem very odd. They are - of course - subject to change, before launch. If there's an equation or some type of math that this was based upon, it may benefit the to-be player-base to know what this equation or math is - just to put our minds at-ease about Housing.
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Comments
In any case that does seem alarmingly low.
I was previously under the impression freeholds were rare and expensive, but node housing was more common - maybe you're right though, in that the intent is the reverse.
I think part of the question is related to how little we know about the makeup of nodes. How much of a node is 'empty' NPC housing versus how much is able to be purchased and used by players? How big are nodes actually expected to be with respect to population?
I've been imagining a setup where essentially every building is player owned or a public service, but that may have been a mistaken view. I suppose what I'd love to see in an ideal sense is there are plenty of static buildings - enough for a significantly higher fraction, say 25-50% of the population to be able to get one if so inclined, coupled with player owned shops, with a relatively small fraction of NPC owned service buildings - such as crafting, market, churches apartments, etc. Freeholds would then be the fairly rare and luxurious private estates out elsewhere.
I did some theorycrafting based on the size of the one metro we've seen, and with it being predominantly player owned it'd be trivial to have 15-20 purchasable buildings per tier in even a moderately sized node (2-3 minutes on foot from one end to the other.) If that's not the case though, I wonder about the intended size and the makeup of NPCs to players.
If there is too much housing in lower level nodes, players have jobs real once tove to build metropolis level nodes up.
There needs to be a lack of housing on servers to start with in order for the node system to be valid.
Being a titled landowner marks me as a noble after all.
So although the number of upgraded housing units will be limited, this is good in my opinion as it will make it a luxury good to be bought and sold. Not to mention with the risk of losing it all if the node ever loses a siege the available housing units should be changing hands on a slow but regular basis.
Edit:
So I did misread. Okay so nearly every player will have a freehold, and although it's one per account to prevent spamming, it's still going to be the primary residence of most players. If a player wants housing within a city there will be ample amount of apartments (and more can be constructed if the demand is high enough) so anyone that wanted that could also have it. So most players (that want it) will already have two forms of housing to call their own. Housing is a commodity though. It's not going to be something everyone gets and I personally am all for this. It makes the value of housing a gamble because you'll want to invest in your node in order to increase the value of your own home.
I don't think everyone should have a house. It'll be a balance game on where people's priorities lie and what they want to use their gold for.
8 is the number that's presently on the Wiki, and a few of the Q&A's towards the end of the monthly update videos have also stated this to be the number.
Aye - yours truly feels like I'm probably amongst a section of the to-be player-base that has previously assumed that the majority of people would live in a Node's cities, instead of it's outlying lands - but especially in real Medieval times, the opposite was quite true.
I'll likely be playing enough to not have to worry about not being able to score a house in a city, it just seemed like an oddly low number, for the present plans of 50k players/server - even if only 20% stay active. This will - as many of you mentioned, no doubt create a strong housing market.
The idea of the "main street mansions" mentioned in the Nodes 2 video just seemed really neat. The fact that there will be a maximum of 40/server will definately make them coveted - especially if they can't always be replaced, after a siege.
2) Freehold and Apartements are meant to be the primary source for housing. Static Housing is merely a luxury good meant to show of your e-peen and speculate for profit.
3) Static Houses are just a luxury good. They work better with increasing rarity, as that will help the housing market. Only 1 in 1000 owning a a static mansion and only 1 in 50 to100 owner owning the static homes below that seems perfectly reasonable to me. It build a connection to the node in which you have your home and give others a valid reason to get rid of competing nodes in order to build upon your own node.
I dont think there is any problem with these numbers at all.
4) People spend gold buying their apartment. A mayor shouldn't be able to rip down occupied apartement buildings. Imo that would be just stupid.
I expect most players to have instanced housing, since that will be a thing.
Mansions will be rare, they will be a statement piece as much as anything. Most people would likely know who owns the mansions in their metropolis node.
However, even in regards to static housing, there will still be a fair amount.
My assumption is that each now node tier will see the existing housing gain a tier, and my theory is that each new level of node will double the total amount of static housing available (I have nothing to base this on, it is a pure assumption).
That means that if a level 3 node has 8 static houses of tier 1, then a level 4 node would have 8 houses of tier 2, and 8 houses of tier 1. A level 4 node would then have 8 houses of tier 3, 8 houses of tier 2 and 16 houses of tier 1. A level 6 node would then have 8 houses of tier 4, 8 houses of tier 3, 16 houses of tier 2 and 32 houses of tier 1.
This would mean a metropolis level node would have 64 static houses of various sizes before any additional static housing is added to the node as optional additions.
If we assume a server has 5 level 6 nodes, 10 level 5 nodes, 20 level 4 nodes and 40 level 3 nodes (this seems reasonable to me, but again, I have nothing to base this assumption on), that would be a total of 1280 static houses before any optional extras are built. That is a little more than 1 in 40 people on a completely full server.
I wouldn't be at all surprised if level 5 and level 6 nodes need to double their static housing in order to attract enough people to maintain the node, and if true, that would bring the total number of available static houses on the server to just under 2k.
Then if you add in instanced housing, where most people not specifically wanting to craft will actually want to take up residence which have no cap on them other than the increase in price based on number sold, then I think you can see why my assumption remains that most people will live in the games cities.
I thought 50k per server was like the upper limit, but 8-10k concurrent per server was the reasonable expectation.
Did this change?
If I had more time, I would write a shorter post.
Not as far as I know.
I based my figures above on that 50k, as it seems to me that there will be no more than that number of people that make a given server home, even if only 10k are online at any point in time.
50k are the amount of accounts that can sign up before the server locks itself for further sign ups.
8-10k is the amount that can play at the same time. The other 40-42k would sit in queue if all accounts wanted to play at the same time
I personally like the idea of Freeholds being the primary place-of-residence for most players. You can do a lot with the freeholds, including a lot of customization. You will pretty much require a freehold if you want to do any kind of farming, animal husbandry or probably most of the crafting. I know I personally have no interest in the in node housing. Freeholds within the limit of a node are considered residence of that node, so they still get the benefits of being a part of that node.
I think you are correct here. Frankly, I think that there will be a bigger rush to get a good Freehold spot than there will be to get an in node house.
I feel like the instance housing should be a building that always has a permanent spot and it's just up to the elected mayors to rally the residents to make it. Otherwise it just stays as a vacant lot. And then once built would never be able to be removed, except via siege destruction ofc.
This is very much beginning to feel like the case. Freeholds will initially need to be placed far enough away from the Node's central, city-location, to accomodate growth. It feels like you're right, even if many of us had the initial impression that the in-town housing was going to be more-desirable. However, as pointed out by others in this thread, in-town housing is pretty non-functional, and seemingly just for vanity.
Places like hilltops and plots of land next to lakes and ponds are likely to become prime realty, very early in a Node's development.
I don’t think we’re going to be anywhere near the 10K player limit per server outside of a really special event so this isn’t anything to worry about. It’s like finding out that a Walmart has a 200 person capacity and is in a town with a population of 10,000 and worrying about the angry 9,800 people who aren’t allowed in. Don’t be misled by the numbers here.
That is a reasonably good analogy.
The thing I find funny is that people really don't want Intrepid to open too many servers, as that would mean either dead servers or server mergers after 3 months.
Yet people are also complaining about this.
This is exactly why we should all just assume Intrepid knows what the fuck they are doing, and leave them to do it.
If you think I'm not willing to murder everyone and set the world on fire to get a cute spot for my freehold...well...
Oh, that actually sounds kinda fun!
Next QnA: "Can we commit arson in AoC?"
A really special event such as THE LAUNCH of the game? If there is a time to worry about that limit it would be the launch. What are you talking about my man?
I agree that some people will just have to wait in a queue and that there isn't much that the developers can do about it (since AoC's game design doesn't really support layering/phasing), but to say that you don't have to worry about that limit on launch is just simply ridiculous.
Much preferred than the BDO version, were you can see everyone`s.
I mean I'm not saying that people aren't ridiculous for quitting the game after seeing a queue on launch. But for you to say that we don't have to worry about that player limit because it would only be achieved during a very special event when the conversation is about THE MOST SPECIAL EVENT in the life of a MMO, the launch, you are being ridiculous as well.