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World Size Too Big?

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Comments

  • tautautautau Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    I agree with Mag7 that we will have to trust the developers on this one. I am personally confident that we CAN trust them because I think I know what they are doing. Let me start with the assumption that Steven, and his team, are quite smart. Are you OK with that assumption? If so, read on...

    According to Harvard business professor Michael Porter, there are certain generic business strategies which a business can choose. However, if your business chooses a blended strategy combining more than one of them, it is likely that your business will fail.

    One strategy is called 'Low Cost', a Wal~Mart or Dollar General type strategy, where you keep your costs low and sell for less than your competition and aim at having a large sales volume and a lower markup. The other is the 'Differentiated' strategy where you provide a unique product that a targeted market group really wants, kind of like Mercedes or Nieman-Marcus. You don't try to make everyone happy, just your targeted customer group.

    AoC is a differentiated product. They are NOT trying to appeal to every gamer from WoW, FF14 or a host of other games...they are NOT trying to make everyone happy. Instead, they are aiming for a specific type of gamer (like me) who isn't into the majority of the cheap games we so often see churned out these days - low cost junk aiming for a wide group of gamers (like New World). They are smart and have done their market research. Better to attract 200k who pay monthly for 10 years than 700k who quit in 18 months, right? Plus, by attracting a smaller player base of loyal customers, they avoid the cost of having tons of servers which then need to merge as most of the 700k quit.

    You can see this in their attention to quality, in their pricing model, in their deep game design and other ways. Since Steven is self-funding, they do not have to show a quick profit to make investors happy, they can go for the larger long-term profit.

    So yes, Steven and his team are smart folks, and we can trust the designers on issues like this one and plenty others.
  • NoaaniNoaani Member, Intrepid Pack, Alpha Two
    OnyStyle wrote: »
    Natasha
    Yes. I will be slower. I would be slower even with faster travel time. So what?

    You will be slower even with slow travel, so why implement faster travel?

    Again, as a casual player, all you should be caring about is that you have a fun thing to do on any given day. If you want to think any further ahead than that, then plan further ahead (you don't get to think further ahead but then also say you cant plan ahead).

    If you are only needing to thi k about content for the day, if you run in to any lack of content issues, the issue is that there is not enough content in the area tou are in.

    That could be something where it is on you to rectify (move to an area with more appropriate content for you), or it could be that there us a lack of content suited to you.

    Neither of these issues require adding in more fast travel as a fix. That is simply the fix to the potential problem that you want to see.
  • LudulluLudullu Member, Alpha Two
    Mag7spy wrote: »
    You aren't going to know who to talk to since you won't be able to interact with anyone since you are trying to rely on extremely old school methods with "say + yell" as options.

    You are effectively forcing people to use discords and get out of the game to chat with people.

    If there is no global chat I'll be forced to use discords for information on the server. Id rather do everything in game since ill be running a large guild.
    We have several chats, with the potential of being "global" already
    https://ashesofcreation.wiki/In_game_chat

    And we have node chat (which I hope is the "vassal system" chat), which would be the main means of communication with people who're in the near vicinity and could help you in reasonable amount of time instead of someone from the opposite continent who needs 40 minutes to get to you.

    I'm also planning on talking mainly in my node's chat instead of discord. I wanna be a mayor and provide people with company in-game and not in a 3rd party app. And this is exactly why I don't want global chat. There's no feeling of tightknit community if you can always talk to someone across the world. And the game is supposedly all about those kinds of communities.
  • AerlanaAerlana Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    edited September 2022
    OnyStyle wrote: »
    Big fights are super cool and such clashes are something I look forward to. If you think a 20 minute travel time doesn't feel like a big decision, I think we value our own time very differently. Sure does 40 minutes (ONE WAY) feel like a bigger decision, yeah, but at that point I'll just spend my limited playtime a day on a game that actually respects my time.

    if your character home is quite in north of a continent, and get to farm a plant in south, you ahve to chose :
    Gathering the plant, or be able to defend the territory against invader.
    This is where the time of travel imply a choice... not the choice to farm or do X min travel to defend... the choice to do one, or other.

    Also would need to communicate with guildmate to avoid to have everyone out of node, elsewhere in world for various farm...
    NiKr wrote: »
    I'm also planning on talking mainly in my node's chat instead of discord. I wanna be a mayor and provide people with company in-game and not in a 3rd party app. And this is exactly why I don't want global chat. There's no feeling of tightknit community if you can always talk to someone across the world. And the game is supposedly all about those kinds of communities.

    This is the problem with global chat for a game like ashes who tries to bind people together...
    the error is to think that it means the WHOLE server together, not, it is more regionnal. In the end, leaving the region is also leaving a community... an argument to do it, or an argument to stay (if you hate/like the others)
    Global chat would remove all of that... it would also reduce a lot the use of those "local" chat, so a "just don't use it" is not so easy, because the simple fact it exist impact the part of the game i use in a negativ way.
  • ariatrasariatras Member, Founder, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    OnyStyle wrote: »
    NiKr wrote: »
    perryuppal wrote: »
    With that in mind, it is completely understandable and expected that hardcore players still be accomodated. Of course, there will be content that is strictly geared to that playerbase, which is perfectly fine. There SHOULD be content that only the top X% of players can do and content that the hardcore grinders want to do. Games need hardcore players as well as casual players to thrive. The problem being discussed, however, is part of the core gameplay loop that every player will experience. Once casual players like the average video game player sees how much of a percentage of their play time is dedicated solely to traveling and not engaging in content, they very likely will leave. In addition, potential new players that see how much of a slog they have ahead of them will cancel their subscription after a month or so.
    You know that this game is owpvp, right? So in that context you gotta realize that your suggestion of "anyone can reach any place on the map within 20 minutes" will just mean that any zerg or strong group of players will be able to go to the same places you want to go to, except they can just run over you and your friends and you'll never experience that content in the first place.

    While with meaningful travel time, your local node might have good content (or you moved to a node with one) and there's only one or two local strong groups that can farm that place instead of 20 from the entire server.

    And if you're talking about casual content, that shit's supposed to be on every corner of the world due to how Node's progression and design works.

    The game is designed with a player anchor. Your node is your home and you're meant to work on its improvement. If all you do is just travel every day - your node will die off. At which point you've failed at the most important part of the game, because you were too selfish and wanted to farm your own content instead of what your node (or the vassal system that you live in) presented you with.

    This is a different style of game, targeted at a particular audience. Will that audience be way smaller than smth like WoW or FF14 have? Of course. Do Steven and Intrepid know that and still continue to develop the game in that manner? Also of course. And this is why people on this forum (who're here exactly because they support the current vision of the game) are against your suggestion.

    Traveling between large distances makes battling zergs easier. In fact, if travel remains super slow, then zergs will be near unstoppable. Bounty hunters may not be bountiful enough in that area to battle them. It would be trivial to get a large group of players in an area and start hobo killing. And because of how difficult it is to travel large distances, it would be difficult to go fight against. I am unsure you realize how long 20 minutes is. 20 minutes is a long time for a lot of people.

    I think @ariatras has explained it best. The average player is older.

    The reality is, you will not be staying within your nodes zone of influence (zoi) for 100% of the time. You say it is selfish to travel outside of your nodes zone of influence, but that is simply false. There are plenty of reasons one may need to travel outside of one's node. Gathering resources that can't be gotten in your own node, running out of quests within your own node, fighting other nodes bosses for crafting materials, checking out prices on other nodes markets, etc etc.

    Finally, if you think Steven is like "Yeah, I want to make an MMO that is less popular than WoW and ff14" you are mistaken. While he understands that not everyone will enjoy all of the content, he also has said repeatedly that he wants there to be enjoyable content for everyone. Pvp is important but if you don't like pvp, there is STILL a place for those people with the awesome raid system. Don't like pve? That's okay too because the pvp system is expansive! Want to rp? They are targeting that audience too!
    Steven's goal is quite literally the rebirth of the mmorpg genre.

    And when gathering the materials, I'm very sure it was explicitly stated you wouldn't be able to fast travel then. And I am referring to the teleportation/family summon thing.

    I am also very doubtful they are targeting the RP audience. Mostly because I don't think they understand what RP actually entails. Steven plays DnD from what I can tell. And RP is the bit where the party just stays at the inn and interacts, strike up conversations with people. People will assign themselves roles not supported in game, except within the theatre of the mind.
    That is not to say you cannot RP with the current systems in place. Like a basic example, you're a woodcutter/worker. And doing your stuff helps the node you're in, and so you're helping your node out.
    Roleplayers use long, custom emotes to describe their actions, they talk soley as their character. Meaning you won't have any real RP interaction with those not interested in these things, so minor things have been asked for, like adding a RP tag to a server. Just so Roleplayers can find people with similar thoughts. Only to be told, yea, no. The game is all roleplay, everything you do will be roleplay.

    Traveling long distances makes it easier to deal with zergs, because they tend to spread out, and you'll have warning of them incoming and can arrange something, or set a different route etc.
    l8im8pj8upjq.gif


  • OnyStyle wrote: »
    NiKr wrote: »
    perryuppal wrote: »
    With that in mind, it is completely understandable and expected that hardcore players still be accomodated. Of course, there will be content that is strictly geared to that playerbase, which is perfectly fine. There SHOULD be content that only the top X% of players can do and content that the hardcore grinders want to do. Games need hardcore players as well as casual players to thrive. The problem being discussed, however, is part of the core gameplay loop that every player will experience. Once casual players like the average video game player sees how much of a percentage of their play time is dedicated solely to traveling and not engaging in content, they very likely will leave. In addition, potential new players that see how much of a slog they have ahead of them will cancel their subscription after a month or so.
    You know that this game is owpvp, right? So in that context you gotta realize that your suggestion of "anyone can reach any place on the map within 20 minutes" will just mean that any zerg or strong group of players will be able to go to the same places you want to go to, except they can just run over you and your friends and you'll never experience that content in the first place.

    While with meaningful travel time, your local node might have good content (or you moved to a node with one) and there's only one or two local strong groups that can farm that place instead of 20 from the entire server.

    And if you're talking about casual content, that shit's supposed to be on every corner of the world due to how Node's progression and design works.

    The game is designed with a player anchor. Your node is your home and you're meant to work on its improvement. If all you do is just travel every day - your node will die off. At which point you've failed at the most important part of the game, because you were too selfish and wanted to farm your own content instead of what your node (or the vassal system that you live in) presented you with.

    This is a different style of game, targeted at a particular audience. Will that audience be way smaller than smth like WoW or FF14 have? Of course. Do Steven and Intrepid know that and still continue to develop the game in that manner? Also of course. And this is why people on this forum (who're here exactly because they support the current vision of the game) are against your suggestion.

    Traveling between large distances makes battling zergs easier. In fact, if travel remains super slow, then zergs will be near unstoppable. Bounty hunters may not be bountiful enough in that area to battle them. It would be trivial to get a large group of players in an area and start hobo killing. And because of how difficult it is to travel large distances, it would be difficult to go fight against. I am unsure you realize how long 20 minutes is. 20 minutes is a long time for a lot of people.

    I think @ariatras has explained it best. The average player is older.

    The reality is, you will not be staying within your nodes zone of influence (zoi) for 100% of the time. You say it is selfish to travel outside of your nodes zone of influence, but that is simply false. There are plenty of reasons one may need to travel outside of one's node. Gathering resources that can't be gotten in your own node, running out of quests within your own node, fighting other nodes bosses for crafting materials, checking out prices on other nodes markets, etc etc.

    Finally, if you think Steven is like "Yeah, I want to make an MMO that is less popular than WoW and ff14" you are mistaken. While he understands that not everyone will enjoy all of the content, he also has said repeatedly that he wants there to be enjoyable content for everyone. Pvp is important but if you don't like pvp, there is STILL a place for those people with the awesome raid system. Don't like pve? That's okay too because the pvp system is expansive! Want to rp? They are targeting that audience too!
    Steven's goal is quite literally the rebirth of the mmorpg genre.

    You are describing the natural order of any strategy game, something which is probably appealing to older individuals.

    You have a map and must work to git gud.

    I hope PvP is even more of a thing; I hope players are very aggressive in this game to make it a good Civ vs Civ game.
  • Mag7spy wrote: »
    NiKr wrote: »
    Mag7spy wrote: »
    Example being some people wanting no global chat to reduce socialization options between people which makes 0 senses.
    I don't want global chat because it'd be pointless. The sense of node-based community gets diluted because you can instead talk to the other 9.5k+ people on the server. The sheer spam of such a chat would be insane. And there'd be no functional use for that chat because you can't just go and party up with someone from the other continent.

    It's about "people don't know what they want, even if they say they do". Making people socialize with a smaller local group would lead to a better feeling of community and would provide each player with connections to the people who play within the same location, so if you ever need help with something - you'd already know who to talk to and would be able to get to them quicker.

    This comes down to "I don't see a use for it so i don't want people to have it".

    So me that isn't a reason for it to not be included, what you might feel as spam is not spam to another. Nor does that mean all people are going to be talking at the same time at the server, there will be plenty of people that don't talk or have it turned off.

    There is plenty functional use, just because someone is across the map doesn't mean you can't go there and meet up. For politics there is no reason why you should be limited on chat as that can offer plenty of information on a lot of different fronts.


    I can use the same point on "people don't know what they want, even if they say they do".

    Are you going to sit in town and wait for people to talk to there while not doing content? You aren't going to be interacting that much since you are going to have to rely on friends list and discord to try to talk to a wider audience of people. Global chat can start conversations or you can see people are doing things in your area and simply go join up or do whatever. It makes the games feel more social, over just wondering around single player or with your group in the world.

    Any issue you have with global chat is easily fixed in design from limitations, dividing each area and allowing people to opt into each area through tabs.

    You aren't going to know who to talk to since you won't be able to interact with anyone since you are trying to rely on extremely old school methods with "say + yell" as options.

    You are effectively forcing people to use discords and get out of the game to chat with people.

    If there is no global chat I'll be forced to use discords for information on the server. Id rather do everything in game since ill be running a large guild.

    your "large guild" of 200 concurrent pop or 10k of Whistle Blowers calling out Large Groups moving through their area or some Dungeon popping up that should have been kept secret. . . .
    Yeah I'll just vote No on Global.
  • Mag7spy wrote: »
    Neurath wrote: »
    No global chat will make zergs easier. Takes longer for news to travel.

    This is wrong, you will simply let mega guilds have a huge advantage on the server and crush you without you being able to ask anyone for help. Or use the politics on the server to your advantage and have enemy guilds against them back you up.

    If i have a mega guild at the start of the game i dont want people using global chat. Easy win on the server.

    Easy win. When there are several 'mega guilds' and people can start their own or join up with one after the first bitter.

    You're fuckin' scared!

    You're scared that you'll piss people off and they'll crush your Guild out of spite for months! LMAO
  • SapiverenusSapiverenus Member
    edited September 2022
    OnyStyle wrote: »
    So to your point, I agree that people should be planning. With that being said a 20 minute trip is nothing to sneeze at. At the start of the game, there will be plenty of things to explore and that 20 minute trip can turn into a 4+ hour excursion on a bunch of fun stuff! And I absolutely love that. But after you have explored the region, know what's happening, etc, you just want to get your shit done and leave.
    I am also totally open to the idea that you have to travel to a place on foot before using any of these systems. But don't be fooled into thinking that every trip will always lead to those exciting excursions.

    Additionally, as of current design there will supposedly be some sort of taxi system that you can go afk on to get to other nodes. So the only difference between what I am activating for and what is already in place is it to take place faster. Had the world been smaller like the original design, it wouldn't be an issue. But now that it's bigger I believe it is a new issue.

    You should be approaching a good MMO as "hot in the soup"; it is suppose to be a living world and adventure. Things are changing, dynamic, and it's an adventure.
    If you want something else then you like shit MMOs or small "not massive" multiplayer [singleplayer?] lol.
    Fly in the soup.
  • BaSkA_9x2BaSkA_9x2 Member, Alpha Two
    edited September 2022
    Map size needs to be directly proportional to server size/cap, i.e. how many players a server can hold simultaneously.

    I believe that the land area might actually not be big enough for 10k concurrent players. IIRC there will be roughly 480km² of land, besides that there's also the underworld which let's speculate it'll be a third of the size of the land, so roughly 150km². Let's now forget the fact that there will be mountains, obstacles, swamps, rivers and other un-traversable/useless places for the regular player. That means we'll have about 630km² of land for 10k players, which in turn if you want to make a simple calculation it means each player will have about 63m² of land for themselves. I specifically left out the oceans because there's a barrier for entry there, not to mention it'll probably be the zergs' natural habitat.

    TL;DR: I'm not sure if 630km² of land will make the game feel crowded or empty when it has 10k players online, but I personally prefer a game to feel slightly empty than slightly crowded, while both extremes (too empty or really crowded) are bad.
    🎶Galo é Galo o resto é bosta🎶
  • Mag7spyMag7spy Member, Alpha Two
    Mag7spy wrote: »
    Neurath wrote: »
    No global chat will make zergs easier. Takes longer for news to travel.

    This is wrong, you will simply let mega guilds have a huge advantage on the server and crush you without you being able to ask anyone for help. Or use the politics on the server to your advantage and have enemy guilds against them back you up.

    If i have a mega guild at the start of the game i dont want people using global chat. Easy win on the server.

    Easy win. When there are several 'mega guilds' and people can start their own or join up with one after the first bitter.

    You're fuckin' scared!

    You're scared that you'll piss people off and they'll crush your Guild out of spite for months! LMAO

    You dont understand anything about pvp or large guilds. You are naïve and never been in one or in a position to run one.
  • AsgerrAsgerr Member, Alpha Two
    edited September 2022
    If you only have 2 hours per day to play, there is no way to be a raider.

    Thus that entire portion of the game is out of reach to you. You then must focus on different things, such as developing your Node, your artisan skills and doing what dungeons and PvP are available in your area.

    Remember that it basically takes all of 5 minutes to go from one Node to another. So you can essentially do content for multiple Nodes in your area within your allotted time.

    If you absolutely must go all the way across the world, the process of going there should be a part of the adventure. You can kill mobs on the way, escort caravans from one Node to the other, all as an itinerary of things to do on the way.

    Then once you're at your destination, if you've no time to do the content there, log out and do it the next day.

    Alternatively, join a family in game and have them family summon you if they're already there with more time to play than you have.
    Sig-ult-2.png
  • Mag7spyMag7spy Member, Alpha Two
    Asgerr wrote: »
    If you only have 2 hours per day to play, there is no way to be a raider.

    Thus that entire portion of the game is out of reach to you. You then must focus on different things, such as developing your Node, your artisan skills and doing what dungeons and PvP are available in your area.

    Remember that it basically takes all of 5 minutes to go from one Node to another. So you can essentially do content for multiple Nodes in your area within your allotted time.

    If you absolutely must go all the way across the world, the process of going there should be a part of the adventure. You can kill mobs on the way, escort caravans from one Node to the other, all as an itinerary of things to do on the way.

    Then once you're at your destination, if you've no time to do the content there, log out and do it the next day.

    Alternatively, join a family in game and have them family summon you if they're already there with more time to play than you have.

    This pretty much, that is why i questioned why they are running from one side to the other and what content they are doing. If they are trying to argue about running back and forth constantly id say they are prob playing the game wrong or have the wrong understanding.
  • AerlanaAerlana Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    BaSkA13 wrote: »
    Map size needs to be directly proportional to server size/cap, i.e. how many players a server can hold simultaneously.

    This is also what i think
    Travel time can be affected by size but also shape... a "line" continent will make long travel, while a circle continent will make travel time slightly less.
    The continents shape is middle between those 2 extremes. But it is, in the end, i think mainly a design choice.

    The density of player is a big thing... and not so easy to predict for us.
    nodes themselves will be more crowded : people speaking, afk, flexing etc. While the "savage" territory, where the PvE activity is will be under the average population density. raids area will sometime also have over the high density. And siege will be moment of heavy high density.
    each time there is a "heavy density " event, it will lower the density of the "savage world" for part of the world...

    So in simple... yes real question is "population density" but i have personally hard time to see if it will be good or no...
    Also, we know about increase size map. but maybe they will try to improve server population ?
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