Lets discuss the 'feeling' in a constant changing environment

Turjilin

As far as we know a large portion of the world is going to be made up of random point of interests generated by the nodes and the nodes themselves. Till this date we are used to explore and travel to unknown places only one time and after spending several hours going around we feel the usual sense of achievement that the place has been explored.

Do you think that the feeling of exploration will be somewhat tainted since everything around you is constantly changing? Some might say that being part of unfamiliar environment all the time somehow may get overwhelming by feeling lost all the time or can make you loose interest to keep exploring new places. What do you think? Do we need a balance between permanent places/objects/events/buildings and the nodes that are changing?

Strevi

If I don't attack the wrong node is OK.

CROW3

'Tainted'? I'm not sure this question is for explorers. I think it's for completionists.

As an explorer, I'm intrigued to go to new places. If places I've explored change to open up new things, I see this as awesome, not a setback.

Verra's a dynamic place, so those achievement hound checklists are always going to be changing.

SilkTouch

From the gatherer/crafter point of view it would be more enjoyable in some cases.
1. If there will be items(weapons,armors etc.) that are perishable due to excessive usage there will be always reason for all tier gatherables.
2. Second reason to visit those places would be seasonal crafting materials due to weather system.
3. With environmental changes there shouldn't be reason for players to stay at one place and cherry-pick best material node(in case that node will be available for one player at a time like in ESO).
But of course finding the balance between crafting and expiration of those items, economy wise, would be extremely hard.
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Sorry for my english and possibly lack of core mechanics knowledge but I am too excited to not reply to this thread:)

MrPockets

It probably depends on how often and/or how much changes at once. There is probably not going to be drastic changes every day. I think the idea is that it takes time to build/destroy nodes. I'm picturing a world that gradually changes overtime, with maybe some big events sprinkled in (ie: destruction of a max lvl node).

I imagine that each time a major node is destroyed, there will be a large uptick in players coming back to check it out. Maybe they want to try and build the node they want, gain political power, explore new quest lines, etc.

I think the node system overall is one of the main selling points of AoC, it is an amazing innovation in the MMO space. I think most players here are looking forward to a changing/dynamic virtual world.

BaSkA_9x2

Turjilin wrote: »

As far as we know a large portion of the world is going to be made up of random point of interests generated by the nodes and the nodes themselves.

I somewhat disagree. Most of the world will actually be "hardcoded", the only reason why it will feel like it's random is because of the conditions that need to be met so that certain things appear or vice-versa.

In other words, if two different servers had all of the same nodes leveled up the same way, they'd look pretty much identical, maybe except for quests and other minor things (or major, I could be wrong) that change based on which race developed each node.

So I believe that the first months, possibly first year, after launch will be the most interesting before not only classes but also node development falls into a meta. Then, more and more servers will start looking the same, for a variety of reasons such as: which are the "best" dungeons/raids to have on a server, which nodes are the most helpful to Castles, which nodes usually gathers the most people given the available raids/dungeons, etc.

I would also bet that after a while the biggest groups in each server, the only people with enough resources to declare, attack and destroy nodes level 5 and 6, will simply stop attacking big nodes because it's probably not the most efficient thing to do, unless Intrepid somehow encourages attacking them (maybe the higher the node level, the higher % of loot you can get from a war if you win). A similar thing happens in Rust, which on the surface has no similarities to Ashes, but in my opinion it'll probably be analogous regarding zerg behavior and alliances: successfully raiding (analogous to a "node war") a zerg is more profitable than anything else you could do in the game but the cost is just too high, so it's better to obliterate the small fish on a daily basis than to gamble to try and attack another whale.

It's going to be hard to balance nodes but it's a lot better than having a static world, so I just want to make sure I'll enjoy the game and the node system while they're a novelty and, hopefully I'm wrong, before node wars between big powers become something almost non-existent.

tautau

Every time any node levels up, or any time that the seasons change after a node levels up, you will have to re-explore the area to see what is new. So, the world of Verra will be constantly changing even without the world getting larger. I think that this is a brilliant game design.

akabear

Rate / frequency of change is more the issue than change itself

daveywavey

Will the feeling of exploration be tainted because there's always something new to explore? I'd suggest that the feeling of exploration will be enhanced, rather than tainted. You can come back to an area that you'd otherwise have ignored for the rest of the game, and find new stuff there! Fantastic! Re-explore the same placed you've explored, and find that feeling of exploration all over again!