I will make this short, my idea about gathering starting with an IF:
IF there's policies that prohibits havesting something then:
let people harvest it with no consequences regarding fees, xp or corruption
make greens turn purple for 5 minutes if the player harvest something prohibited
when something is prohibited, it should be prohibited for everybody (even citizens)
emergencial actions by the mayor should last for hours, maybe 24-48h
prohibitive policies should last for many days and then wear off, people would have to vote for it again if they see such prohibition is still important
nothing should be permanently prohibited
This is PvE and PvP friendly.
We want people travelling, that's why it should be prohibited even for citizens, we don't wan't to discourage travelling.
Let the carebears steal lumber, they just have to be sneaky, this is engaging gameplay and will bring fun for repetitive grinds.
Let all PvP tree hugging hippies go defend the forests if a prohibition is active.
How close are our views at the momment?
I wouldn't agree on prohibiting resources to visitors, because I think it's best if everybody feels confortable about travelling and harvesting other kinds of stuff.
So in my view if something is prohibited it's because people are REALLY worried about the enviroment or have any other reason they conider serious, it's because they meant it and not just because they want to isolate themselves.
Also prohibiting things targetting groups is micro-management, it's kinda not fun
I like systems with very minimal punishments or no punishments at all with PvP windows in between things and PvE windows in between things
PvE means: A handful of coins and a bag of boredom.
Flagging a non-citizen (turning their nameplate purple) is a great way to add risk to collecting resources from a node of which you are not a citizen.
I heard Steven talking about a Stolen Goods System system, so maybe they just add Poached resourced to that, whatever it is?
In my view about this is that everybody should be flagged purple, if people prohibit something based on enviromental reasons then they should uphold that
Otherwise people will prohibit something based on isolationism and this could discourage travelling
To me, nothing should be permanently prohibited and any prohibition should include everybody, with no micromanagement based on player groups.
Just make greens turn purple for 5 minutes, that's a lot already, a lot of player driven content will emerge from this!
PvE means: A handful of coins and a bag of boredom.
This feels absolutely insane to me. If IS wants to have artisan skills (gathering included) be a major way players play the game, we can't have systems that actively discourage player engagement with them. In the OP @Nerror says it would feel weird if the mayor could pass laws about aggro mobs. Well for a player who wants to engage with the artisan system and gathering as their primary role in the game, that's what this is akin to. Imagine the game had a system that if you killed too many mobs, the gods would look unfavorably on you and your node so you always had to take into consideration some god's reputation status that is impacted by all players in the area (not just you) before you killed a mob. You'd be livid that this game system is allowing something to dictate how you want to play based on everyone else's decisions. As a gatherer, this is what that would feel like. You are basically describing support for a system that would discourage gatherers from gathering because of what other people have been doing. Doesn't sound very fun to me.
Any area not within the ZOI of a lvl 3 node or higher is always a free-for-all.
...
Illegal doesn't mean it's impossible. It means it comes with risk. Anyone breaking the law will automatically be flagged as enemy of the node to all node citizens. In other words, they will appear as enemies/combatants to all citizens of the node, but not to anyone who isn't a citizen.
I think flagging for PvP somebody who just want to be a smuggler is too harsh.
I would rather prefer a reputation system where if this smuggler does this activity consistently for a long time, it loses gradually the protection the corruption system provides.
I think flagging (purple) someone for poaching-gathering is a perfect solution, assuming that there is a downside for the node (making that resource worth zero node advancement). Also, there need to be warnings that you are going to flag yourself.
This provides players with reasons for conflict, even though in actuality I think it won't do much outside of heavily gathered areas. The combination of someone gathering forbidden resources, and then someone else in the area that wants to fight him will probably not happen that often. Not a lot of people play MMOs to protect the carrots from rabbits.
I think flagging for PvP somebody who just want to be a smuggler is too harsh.
I would rather prefer a reputation system where if this smuggler does this activity consistently for a long time, it loses gradually the protection the corruption system provides.
I don't like long term consequences or standings fix that requires a grind, in the long run it's burdensome.
I would rather the gatherer becomming purple for a few minutes then back to green, it's way better having risk control than just suffering penalties for doing stuff
PvE means: A handful of coins and a bag of boredom.
@Nerror I can't even think about those things, because the way you described it makes really hard understanding the thing, let me do my version of what you just said, but better imo:
If harvesting a certain thing is declared ilegal then anyone harvesting the thing should be turned purple for a number of minutes
mayor edicts would have 24 hours effect only and would have a big cooldown
citizens could vote for policies
So gatherers snatching what was forbidden can still harvest with no burdensome consequences, they just have to take care and be discreet about it since they will have the purple for a number of minutes. This is nice and engaging for both parties.
How about that?
Much better!!!!
Much better, PVE and PVP friendly, this is PVX in it's truest form.
Someone who knows Steven, please forward this to him, this is simple and fair.
@Nerror I can't even think about those things, because the way you described it makes really hard understanding the thing, let me do my version of what you just said, but better imo:
If harvesting a certain thing is declared ilegal then anyone harvesting the thing should be turned purple for a number of minutes
mayor edicts would have 24 hours effect only and would have a big cooldown
citizens could vote for policies
So gatherers snatching what was forbidden can still harvest with no burdensome consequences, they just have to take care and be discreet about it since they will have the purple for a number of minutes. This is nice and engaging for both parties.
How about that?
Much better!!!!
Much better, PVE and PVP friendly, this is PVX in it's truest form.
Someone who knows Steven, please forward this to him, this is simple and fair.
This feels absolutely insane to me. If IS wants to have artisan skills (gathering included) be a major way players play the game, we can't have systems that actively discourage player engagement with them. In the OP @Nerror says it would feel weird if the mayor could pass laws about aggro mobs. Well for a player who wants to engage with the artisan system and gathering as their primary role in the game, that's what this is akin to. Imagine the game had a system that if you killed too many mobs, the gods would look unfavorably on you and your node so you always had to take into consideration some god's reputation status that is impacted by all players in the area (not just you) before you killed a mob. You'd be livid that this game system is allowing something to dictate how you want to play based on everyone else's decisions. As a gatherer, this is what that would feel like. You are basically describing support for a system that would discourage gatherers from gathering because of what other people have been doing. Doesn't sound very fun to me.
The idea of this whole topic is to make node resource management a community issue... Don't over farm and strip mine the area for your personal gains if you are part of a community. If you want to go raid and strip mine an opposing node. Great, but you should not be able to do it without a risk applied that is the discussion here.
I think that the whole concept of micro-managing the world with sets of complex rules goes totally against the whole idea of a player-based game world. The flagging system is sufficient to manage all these things.
In other words, let the players...I mean let US...work it all out in game. If you don't want someone gathering around your node, flag on them.
This makes the most sense to me. As a mayor you can create whatever policy you like, but laws without enforcement are meaningless. So if you want to organize and compensate players to enforce laws as the mayor then go ahead.
I just don't like the idea of a game system to do it for you. Sounds like a dictatorship where the mayor wants complete control, sounds horrible.
I think flagging for PvP somebody who just want to be a smuggler is too harsh.
I would rather prefer a reputation system where if this smuggler does this activity consistently for a long time, it loses gradually the protection the corruption system provides.
I don't like long term consequences or standings fix that requires a grind, in the long run it's burdensome.
I would rather the gatherer becomming purple for a few minutes then back to green, it's way better having risk control than just suffering penalties for doing stuff
The worst thing would be the game to give no way defend unless taking corruption. But policies were mentioned so this will happen.
Next bad solution would be to make the resources invulnerable. This coupled with a coruption balanced to protect, would make these areas feel very PvE, with no risks at all.
Then the solution of setting a player purple just for a few minutes require constant presence of players on the area, defending the resources.
It coild work if the access to resources is through choke points. Defending them is easier than spreading defenders all over the surface. But how to make such a map?
The solution with standings can help recognizing offenders before they act and implement game mechanics to warn their approach while allowing stealth too if the thieves want to do this activity often.
So I see standings not a fix but a reward.
Grind is if you want actually to skip stages and you want just some other end result: to fight or to grab resources fast.
September 12. 2022: Being naked can also be used to bring a skilled artisan to different freeholds... Don't summon family!
It could be interesting to have nature and resource based policies that are set by the local town.
IF such a thing were to go in, i would like to see enforcement be an investment by the local town.
IE. Mayor hires guards to go on patrol in the local wilderness. If you're in vision of a guard and you break a policy, you take a (local) reputation hit/go purple.
Perhaps allow players buy permits to access the local resources.
These guards would have a gold upkeep. The more guards, the more gold.
Don't want to pay the gold? Do the rounds yourself!
The idea of this whole topic is to make node resource management a community issue... Don't over farm and strip mine the area for your personal gains if you are part of a community. If you want to go raid and strip mine an opposing node. Great, but you should not be able to do it without a risk applied that is the discussion here.
Right, but the premise of having resource management is what I think is bad. This is not like any other system in the game I am aware of. It uniquely discourages engagement with the system it layers on top of. No other system punishes you from engaging in something you like 'too much'. No other system pits your personal interest against the interest of the community. The node system itself, and how it gains xp, aligns your interest with the node's. All of the soft and hard friction systems in the game, pit your personal self interest against another player's, or your community's (node's) against another's.
The idea of this whole topic is to make node resource management a community issue... Don't over farm and strip mine the area for your personal gains if you are part of a community. If you want to go raid and strip mine an opposing node. Great, but you should not be able to do it without a risk applied that is the discussion here.
This sounds sensible, that's the whole point of the thing, this is PvE and PvP friendly which gives us a good PvX result
PvE means: A handful of coins and a bag of boredom.
I think flagging for PvP somebody who just want to be a smuggler is too harsh.
I would rather prefer a reputation system where if this smuggler does this activity consistently for a long time, it loses gradually the protection the corruption system provides.
I don't like long term consequences or standings fix that requires a grind, in the long run it's burdensome.
I would rather the gatherer becomming purple for a few minutes then back to green, it's way better having risk control than just suffering penalties for doing stuff
The worst thing would be the game to give no way defend unless taking corruption. But policies were mentioned so this will happen.
Next bad solution would be to make the resources invulnerable. This coupled with a coruption balanced to protect, would make these areas feel very PvE, with no risks at all.
Then the solution of setting a player purple just for a few minutes require constant presence of players on the area, defending the resources.
It coild work if the access to resources is through choke points. Defending them is easier than spreading defenders all over the surface. But how to make such a map?
The solution with standings can help recognizing offenders before they act and implement game mechanics to warn their approach while allowing stealth too if the thieves want to do this activity often.
So I see standings not a fix but a reward.
Grind is if you want actually to skip stages and you want just some other end result: to fight or to grab resources fast.
I almost can agree with standings if someone witness the guy stealing resources and click on him and hit a Denounce button. Or at least turn the guy purple and if he gets killed then he will take a little of standings hit ... maybe that's an feasible option
I'm not fond of automatic magical systems running the law on people just because they are playing the game
I actually want people stealing, let the carebears steal and get away with it, let them reap the rewards, let the carebears be sneaky and have some little PvE adventures
PvE Carebears have barely any rush in the game, let them steal and escape without any standings system hindering them. If the carebears play smart, they will escape and profit, this is a satisfying experience don't take this away from them
I prefer player driven content thats why I would like to see people sneak into the woods and steal stuff and people follow them and try to stop the thieves. Let them play catch
Let PvPers go steal resources as green turnning people just to bait people into fights
If the game has automatic magical systems punishing people for clicking then that will kill many possibilities of emergent content
PvE means: A handful of coins and a bag of boredom.
I think that the whole concept of micro-managing the world with sets of complex rules goes totally against the whole idea of a player-based game world. The flagging system is sufficient to manage all these things.
In other words, let the players...I mean let US...work it all out in game. If you don't want someone gathering around your node, flag on them.
This makes the most sense to me. As a mayor you can create whatever policy you like, but laws without enforcement are meaningless. So if you want to organize and compensate players to enforce laws as the mayor then go ahead.
I just don't like the idea of a game system to do it for you. Sounds like a dictatorship where the mayor wants complete control, sounds horrible.
Regarding policies, today there's emergencial actions and policies, the emergencial actions can be done by the mayor and the polices need voting
I think if a prohibitive emergencial action comes into play then it should remain for hours only, maybe 24-48
But if a node votes for a prohibitive policy, then the situation is serious and then it shoul remain for many days, maybe up to a couple weeks
Such long lasting polcities affect everybody's harvesting so it should be a vote think if peopel are concerned about the fauma and flore in their node
Nothing should be forbidden permanently
PvE means: A handful of coins and a bag of boredom.
This feels absolutely insane to me. If IS wants to have artisan skills (gathering included) be a major way players play the game, we can't have systems that actively discourage player engagement with them. In the OP @Nerror says it would feel weird if the mayor could pass laws about aggro mobs. Well for a player who wants to engage with the artisan system and gathering as their primary role in the game, that's what this is akin to. Imagine the game had a system that if you killed too many mobs, the gods would look unfavorably on you and your node so you always had to take into consideration some god's reputation status that is impacted by all players in the area (not just you) before you killed a mob. You'd be livid that this game system is allowing something to dictate how you want to play based on everyone else's decisions. As a gatherer, this is what that would feel like. You are basically describing support for a system that would discourage gatherers from gathering because of what other people have been doing. Doesn't sound very fun to me.
It's because the land management, in AoC people could actually deplete the node
If you harvest nearly all flora of a certain kind, it will spawn much slowly then. So for the land management people should vote for prohibiting harvesting that flower/bush/free for a few days so they can regrow
For sure prohibitions will never be permanent, it's just for the fauna and flora regrowth.. if stuff regrow they will start spawning at it's regular speed again
There's also a possibility that a certain weed/plant/whatever will outgrow everything else and people will have to cut them down to save the enviroment
Land management will be a thing in AoC and for sure this belongs to the future in many games
PvE means: A handful of coins and a bag of boredom.
The idea of this whole topic is to make node resource management a community issue... Don't over farm and strip mine the area for your personal gains if you are part of a community. If you want to go raid and strip mine an opposing node. Great, but you should not be able to do it without a risk applied that is the discussion here.
Right, but the premise of having resource management is what I think is bad. This is not like any other system in the game I am aware of. It uniquely discourages engagement with the system it layers on top of. No other system punishes you from engaging in something you like 'too much'. No other system pits your personal interest against the interest of the community. The node system itself, and how it gains xp, aligns your interest with the node's. All of the soft and hard friction systems in the game, pit your personal self interest against another player's, or your community's (node's) against another's.
It's because the land management, in AoC people could actually deplete the node
If you harvest nearly all flora of a certain kind, it will spawn much slowly then. So for the land management people should vote for prohibiting harvesting that flower/bush/free for a few days so they can regrow
For sure prohibitions will never be permanent, it's just for the fauna and flora regrowth.. if stuff regrow they will start spawning at it's regular speed again
There's also a possibility that a certain weed/plant/whatever will outgrow everything else and people will have to cut them down to save the enviroment
Land management will be a thing in AoC and for sure this belongs to the future in many games
Right, so why have this system? Steven explicitly asked for feedback, and mine is to not put this system in the game. I don't understand how people think having in-game systems to police how you spend your time is fun. Just because something can be technologically done, doesn't mean it should. You know AoC had dabbled with the idea of having light be a resource in dungeons? You may have had to bring a torch or magical sources of light with you to explore dungeons. People ran with that idea too. But ultimately, IS said that they are looking into if this would be a fun mechanic or not and that's the last we heard of it (I assume they determined it was more tedious than fun). This is my opinion of the land management system. Yes they are thinking about it, just like lighting as a mechanic, but I think it's more tedious than fun.
You are absolutely right, so why do we have mechanics to layer on gathering instead of slaying monsters? I propose that dungeons can have their mobs depleted if players farm monsters and bosses too quickly. So the node needs to police who gets to kill the boss to avoid long re-spawn times. Monsters are resources too you know. But if players DON'T actually fight and kill the monsters, maybe new monster types will spawn, so you know, you have some incentive to not engage with dungeons so that your (and other people's) future engagement with it will be fun. The game will have to create a police profession and an in-game calendar where players can schedule their dungeon runs to not deplete the monsters, but the game is about killing things so yeah. But don't worry because you can illegally farm dungeons, although you may get flagged as corrupted and lose your gear when killed if a police officer catches you.
What a ridiculous, reductive statement. The game is not caravan simulator either but they are a fundamental part of how the game functions, so systems that impact caravans are important for the overall health of the game. The artisan system is a huge part of the game, and to layer a system on it that discourages engagement with it is perplexing to say the least.
It's because the land management, in AoC people could actually deplete the node
If you harvest nearly all flora of a certain kind, it will spawn much slowly then. So for the land management people should vote for prohibiting harvesting that flower/bush/free for a few days so they can regrow
For sure prohibitions will never be permanent, it's just for the fauna and flora regrowth.. if stuff regrow they will start spawning at it's regular speed again
There's also a possibility that a certain weed/plant/whatever will outgrow everything else and people will have to cut them down to save the enviroment
Land management will be a thing in AoC and for sure this belongs to the future in many games
Right, so why have this system? Steven explicitly asked for feedback, and mine is to not put this system in the game. I don't understand how people think having in-game systems to police how you spend your time is fun. Just because something can be technologically done, doesn't mean it should. You know AoC had dabbled with the idea of having light be a resource in dungeons? You may have had to bring a torch or magical sources of light with you to explore dungeons. People ran with that idea too. But ultimately, IS said that they are looking into if this would be a fun mechanic or not and that's the last we heard of it (I assume they determined it was more tedious than fun). This is my opinion of the land management system. Yes they are thinking about it, just like lighting as a mechanic, but I think it's more tedious than fun.
What people want in all games is a living world and people want to see that their actions and decisions matter
That is very covered in a land management system where you can deplete nodes of certain resources, for example:
-killing all criters will leave the wolves with no food, so the wolwes will migrate elsewhere
The era of mindless farming has to stop,
If today you are cutting down tress then tomorrow you will be gathering herbs or using your stockpile for crafting stuff for selling
You always have options anyway and you can also walk to your neighbouring node and gather there
Also not all areas have policies, it's just in the node, there's space in between nodes where it's completely free of any policies
PvE means: A handful of coins and a bag of boredom.
Also not all areas have policies, it's just in the node, there's space in between nodes where it's completely free of any policies
This is a huge point to mention, and a reason I don’t think we can be too sure of how this system will function or how difficult it will be to manage until we see it in action. We simply don’t know how much of this unoccupied land there will be between nodes, or how that unoccupied land is arranged.
There may be enough unoccupied land for most gatherers to get their fill as long as they spread out and don’t get lazy about traveling to get their resources. If anything, these limits on gathering may just exist to incentivize players to travel and rotate around to complete their objectives. Having to travel for resources will encourage the use of mules, and otherwise decrease the amount of resources taken from each area at a time, since backpack space will be limited and carrying a mule load of resources may take more travel time.
Also not all areas have policies, it's just in the node, there's space in between nodes where it's completely free of any policies
This is a huge point to mention, and a reason I don’t think we can be too sure of how this system will function or how difficult it will be to manage until we see it in action. We simply don’t know how much of this unoccupied land there will be between nodes, or how that unoccupied land is arranged.
There may be enough unoccupied land for most gatherers to get their fill as long as they spread out and don’t get lazy about traveling to get their resources. If anything, these limits on gathering may just exist to incentivize players to travel and rotate around to complete their objectives. Having to travel for resources will encourage the use of mules, and otherwise decrease the amount of resources taken from each area at a time, since backpack space will be limited and carrying a mule load of resources may take more travel time.
This wasn't mentioned in the last video, but in a video a while ago when the amount of nodes was reduced.
In the past the nodes were connected to each other having no wild areas in between, now there's space between them and that belongs to no one
PvE means: A handful of coins and a bag of boredom.
This wasn't mentioned in the last video, but in a video a while ago when the amount of nodes was reduced.
In the past the nodes were connected to each other having no wild areas in between, now there's space between them and that belongs to no one
Right, that’s why I kind of forgot about it in relation to the more recent info about land management. Putting those two pieces together could change many people’s perception of the system a lot, depending on how Intrepid handles it.
What people want in all games is a living world and people want to see that their actions and decisions matter
That is very covered in a land management system where you can deplete nodes of certain resources, for example:
-killing all criters will leave the wolves with no food, so the wolwes will migrate elsewhere
The era of mindless farming has to stop,
If today you are cutting down tress then tomorrow you will be gathering herbs or using your stockpile for crafting stuff for selling
You always have options anyway and you can also walk to your neighbouring node and gather there
Also not all areas have policies, it's just in the node, there's space in between nodes where it's completely free of any policies
Right but the implementation of this 'living world' needs to be fun and done well. The UO video in this thread is evidence of that. Unless it is done well, meaning that players interact with it meaningfully and have fun doing so, it might as well not exist at all.
Also, this system absolutely does NOT make a player's actions and decisions matter. It does so in a vague collective sense but not for individuals. If I cut down trees, even if I do so all day, my actions are unlikely to change tree re-spawn rates (not by myself), unless the collective amount of tree harvesting by all players in the node exceeds some threshold (and it would not be an immediate consequence). A player could never touch a tree, decide they want to build a boat and realize their node has no trees or some aggressive preservation policy due to over-harvesting. This is not a consequence of that player's actions.
A node siege is an example of a system where your actions have consequences with great implementation. Node sieges are announced ahead of time and scheduled during server primetime. Players feel like they participated and made a decision even if their individual contribution did not matter. The player's interests are aligned with a community and the consequences are predictable and impactful.
Land management involves perpetual observation of harvesting in an area which can occur at any hour by any player independent of their home node location. The extent of player decision making is simply where to harvest which is already a decision point due to the OWPvP nature fo the game. The outcomes are unclear and apply to all players equally who exist in this part of the world and do not reflect player contributions (who harvested the most or least does not matter). It creates a time-delayed consequence for players who harvest there in the future as those who harvest there initially will not be subject to any consequence or policy change. It punishes others (and possibly to a lesser extent yourself) in the future for your current actions if you actively contribute to over-harvesting and it punishes you for the actions of others if you don't. Similarly it would 'reward' players for not participating in gathering by leading to better sustainability (a strange idea to wrap your head around). This does not sound like a good implementation of a living world to me.
I hate the idea of mayors being allowed to make certain things illegal or not, players should not be able to enact policy over others players without consent, that's how you ruin other players' experience and get people to leave the game if every mayor starts saying "this is my node and this is how its going to run"
2
akabearMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
No issues with "eco-warefare"..that is what pk`ing or declaring war could be used for.. but perhaps a longer duration to gather outside your ZoI
Does anyone have a good metric on how long it takes to move from a town/city in one node to another node and gather?
I ask because if it takes 15 min to go from the city that you call home to another non-allied node (might be more than one node away due to vassals), one hour to fill up inventory, and another 15 min to get back, then these eco-warfare gathering trips are going to waste a lot of time. But I guess you can always hope that someone tries to gank you and take your stuff on the way back.
This wasn't mentioned in the last video, but in a video a while ago when the amount of nodes was reduced.
In the past the nodes were connected to each other having no wild areas in between, now there's space between them and that belongs to no one
Right, that’s why I kind of forgot about it in relation to the more recent info about land management. Putting those two pieces together could change many people’s perception of the system a lot, depending on how Intrepid handles it.
Absolutely
I can see that is easy to fail in public relations since alpha, because this would be interesting bringing in the last video.
At the same time Steven spent too much time overall implying that "griefers" will be high level players killing level 1s cutting trees. This is unreal and just brings a bad impression about players
PvE means: A handful of coins and a bag of boredom.
Land management involves perpetual observation of harvesting in an area which can occur at any hour by any player independent of their home node location. The extent of player decision making is simply where to harvest which is already a decision point due to the OWPvP nature fo the game. The outcomes are unclear and apply to all players equally who exist in this part of the world and do not reflect player contributions (who harvested the most or least does not matter). It creates a time-delayed consequence for players who harvest there in the future as those who harvest there initially will not be subject to any consequence or policy change. It punishes others (and possibly to a lesser extent yourself) in the future for your current actions if you actively contribute to over-harvesting and it punishes you for the actions of others if you don't. Similarly it would 'reward' players for not participating in gathering by leading to better sustainability (a strange idea to wrap your head around). This does not sound like a good implementation of a living world to me.
Time-delayed consequenes are just paranoia and that doesn't matter, because the land management is not about micromanagement and it's not about min-maxing
The mayor will have his window for selecting stuff, let people harvest stuff and cause bad effects in the enviroment, let people see their land is devastaded... then activate a policy and see the land regrow
It's fun, people will feel their actions seeing the land get devastated and restored, that is really nice
PvE means: A handful of coins and a bag of boredom.
Time-delayed consequenes are just paranoia and that doesn't matter, because the land management is not about micromanagement and it's not about min-maxing
The mayor will have his window for selecting stuff, let people harvest stuff and cause bad effects in the enviroment, let people see their land is devastaded... then activate a policy and see the land regrow
It's fun, people will feel their actions seeing the land get devastated and restored, that is really nice
Time-delayed consequences are just paranoia? I'm confused... I'm also not saying anything about micromanagement or min-maxing.
You are assuming that the same players who do the harvesting feel the devastated land but realistically, the players in a node will do different things. Some of them will harvest while others are doing other things. For them to the feel the consequence of harvesting be a devastated land, you need the same players who did the harvesting to feel the negative effects. But if some players just farmed the land into being barren, they will have those resources stored now, while other players in the node who weren't harvesting will now have a devastated land that makes gathering harder for them if they decide to engage with it.
So some players will over-harvest and feel no/less consequences as they will have big stockpiles. Other players will have done zero harvesting and will get hit the hardest if they plan to harvest after the land is devastated. The action -> consequence association is not as clear as you make it sound. That doesn't sound particularly fun to me.
Comments
How close are our views at the momment?
I wouldn't agree on prohibiting resources to visitors, because I think it's best if everybody feels confortable about travelling and harvesting other kinds of stuff.
So in my view if something is prohibited it's because people are REALLY worried about the enviroment or have any other reason they conider serious, it's because they meant it and not just because they want to isolate themselves.
Also prohibiting things targetting groups is micro-management, it's kinda not fun
I like systems with very minimal punishments or no punishments at all with PvP windows in between things and PvE windows in between things
In my view about this is that everybody should be flagged purple, if people prohibit something based on enviromental reasons then they should uphold that
Otherwise people will prohibit something based on isolationism and this could discourage travelling
To me, nothing should be permanently prohibited and any prohibition should include everybody, with no micromanagement based on player groups.
Just make greens turn purple for 5 minutes, that's a lot already, a lot of player driven content will emerge from this!
I think flagging (purple) someone for poaching-gathering is a perfect solution, assuming that there is a downside for the node (making that resource worth zero node advancement). Also, there need to be warnings that you are going to flag yourself.
This provides players with reasons for conflict, even though in actuality I think it won't do much outside of heavily gathered areas. The combination of someone gathering forbidden resources, and then someone else in the area that wants to fight him will probably not happen that often. Not a lot of people play MMOs to protect the carrots from rabbits.
I don't like long term consequences or standings fix that requires a grind, in the long run it's burdensome.
I would rather the gatherer becomming purple for a few minutes then back to green, it's way better having risk control than just suffering penalties for doing stuff
YES!
YES!
The idea of this whole topic is to make node resource management a community issue... Don't over farm and strip mine the area for your personal gains if you are part of a community. If you want to go raid and strip mine an opposing node. Great, but you should not be able to do it without a risk applied that is the discussion here.
This makes the most sense to me. As a mayor you can create whatever policy you like, but laws without enforcement are meaningless. So if you want to organize and compensate players to enforce laws as the mayor then go ahead.
I just don't like the idea of a game system to do it for you. Sounds like a dictatorship where the mayor wants complete control, sounds horrible.
The worst thing would be the game to give no way defend unless taking corruption. But policies were mentioned so this will happen.
Next bad solution would be to make the resources invulnerable. This coupled with a coruption balanced to protect, would make these areas feel very PvE, with no risks at all.
Then the solution of setting a player purple just for a few minutes require constant presence of players on the area, defending the resources.
It coild work if the access to resources is through choke points. Defending them is easier than spreading defenders all over the surface. But how to make such a map?
The solution with standings can help recognizing offenders before they act and implement game mechanics to warn their approach while allowing stealth too if the thieves want to do this activity often.
So I see standings not a fix but a reward.
Grind is if you want actually to skip stages and you want just some other end result: to fight or to grab resources fast.
IF such a thing were to go in, i would like to see enforcement be an investment by the local town.
IE. Mayor hires guards to go on patrol in the local wilderness. If you're in vision of a guard and you break a policy, you take a (local) reputation hit/go purple.
Perhaps allow players buy permits to access the local resources.
These guards would have a gold upkeep. The more guards, the more gold.
Don't want to pay the gold? Do the rounds yourself!
Right, but the premise of having resource management is what I think is bad. This is not like any other system in the game I am aware of. It uniquely discourages engagement with the system it layers on top of. No other system punishes you from engaging in something you like 'too much'. No other system pits your personal interest against the interest of the community. The node system itself, and how it gains xp, aligns your interest with the node's. All of the soft and hard friction systems in the game, pit your personal self interest against another player's, or your community's (node's) against another's.
This sounds sensible, that's the whole point of the thing, this is PvE and PvP friendly which gives us a good PvX result
I almost can agree with standings if someone witness the guy stealing resources and click on him and hit a Denounce button. Or at least turn the guy purple and if he gets killed then he will take a little of standings hit ... maybe that's an feasible option
I'm not fond of automatic magical systems running the law on people just because they are playing the game
I actually want people stealing, let the carebears steal and get away with it, let them reap the rewards, let the carebears be sneaky and have some little PvE adventures
PvE Carebears have barely any rush in the game, let them steal and escape without any standings system hindering them. If the carebears play smart, they will escape and profit, this is a satisfying experience don't take this away from them
I prefer player driven content thats why I would like to see people sneak into the woods and steal stuff and people follow them and try to stop the thieves. Let them play catch
Let PvPers go steal resources as green turnning people just to bait people into fights
If the game has automatic magical systems punishing people for clicking then that will kill many possibilities of emergent content
Regarding policies, today there's emergencial actions and policies, the emergencial actions can be done by the mayor and the polices need voting
I think if a prohibitive emergencial action comes into play then it should remain for hours only, maybe 24-48
But if a node votes for a prohibitive policy, then the situation is serious and then it shoul remain for many days, maybe up to a couple weeks
Such long lasting polcities affect everybody's harvesting so it should be a vote think if peopel are concerned about the fauma and flore in their node
Nothing should be forbidden permanently
It's because the land management, in AoC people could actually deplete the node
If you harvest nearly all flora of a certain kind, it will spawn much slowly then. So for the land management people should vote for prohibiting harvesting that flower/bush/free for a few days so they can regrow
For sure prohibitions will never be permanent, it's just for the fauna and flora regrowth.. if stuff regrow they will start spawning at it's regular speed again
There's also a possibility that a certain weed/plant/whatever will outgrow everything else and people will have to cut them down to save the enviroment
Land management will be a thing in AoC and for sure this belongs to the future in many games
Yes, could be!
Because at the momment the bounty hunting feels a bit emptied of possibilities, we don't know much about it for now
The game isn't gatherers R us.
Right, so why have this system? Steven explicitly asked for feedback, and mine is to not put this system in the game. I don't understand how people think having in-game systems to police how you spend your time is fun. Just because something can be technologically done, doesn't mean it should. You know AoC had dabbled with the idea of having light be a resource in dungeons? You may have had to bring a torch or magical sources of light with you to explore dungeons. People ran with that idea too. But ultimately, IS said that they are looking into if this would be a fun mechanic or not and that's the last we heard of it (I assume they determined it was more tedious than fun). This is my opinion of the land management system. Yes they are thinking about it, just like lighting as a mechanic, but I think it's more tedious than fun.
You are absolutely right, so why do we have mechanics to layer on gathering instead of slaying monsters? I propose that dungeons can have their mobs depleted if players farm monsters and bosses too quickly. So the node needs to police who gets to kill the boss to avoid long re-spawn times. Monsters are resources too you know. But if players DON'T actually fight and kill the monsters, maybe new monster types will spawn, so you know, you have some incentive to not engage with dungeons so that your (and other people's) future engagement with it will be fun. The game will have to create a police profession and an in-game calendar where players can schedule their dungeon runs to not deplete the monsters, but the game is about killing things so yeah. But don't worry because you can illegally farm dungeons, although you may get flagged as corrupted and lose your gear when killed if a police officer catches you.
What a ridiculous, reductive statement. The game is not caravan simulator either but they are a fundamental part of how the game functions, so systems that impact caravans are important for the overall health of the game. The artisan system is a huge part of the game, and to layer a system on it that discourages engagement with it is perplexing to say the least.
What people want in all games is a living world and people want to see that their actions and decisions matter
That is very covered in a land management system where you can deplete nodes of certain resources, for example:
-killing all criters will leave the wolves with no food, so the wolwes will migrate elsewhere
The era of mindless farming has to stop,
If today you are cutting down tress then tomorrow you will be gathering herbs or using your stockpile for crafting stuff for selling
You always have options anyway and you can also walk to your neighbouring node and gather there
Also not all areas have policies, it's just in the node, there's space in between nodes where it's completely free of any policies
This is a huge point to mention, and a reason I don’t think we can be too sure of how this system will function or how difficult it will be to manage until we see it in action. We simply don’t know how much of this unoccupied land there will be between nodes, or how that unoccupied land is arranged.
There may be enough unoccupied land for most gatherers to get their fill as long as they spread out and don’t get lazy about traveling to get their resources. If anything, these limits on gathering may just exist to incentivize players to travel and rotate around to complete their objectives. Having to travel for resources will encourage the use of mules, and otherwise decrease the amount of resources taken from each area at a time, since backpack space will be limited and carrying a mule load of resources may take more travel time.
This wasn't mentioned in the last video, but in a video a while ago when the amount of nodes was reduced.
In the past the nodes were connected to each other having no wild areas in between, now there's space between them and that belongs to no one
Right, that’s why I kind of forgot about it in relation to the more recent info about land management. Putting those two pieces together could change many people’s perception of the system a lot, depending on how Intrepid handles it.
Right but the implementation of this 'living world' needs to be fun and done well. The UO video in this thread is evidence of that. Unless it is done well, meaning that players interact with it meaningfully and have fun doing so, it might as well not exist at all.
Also, this system absolutely does NOT make a player's actions and decisions matter. It does so in a vague collective sense but not for individuals. If I cut down trees, even if I do so all day, my actions are unlikely to change tree re-spawn rates (not by myself), unless the collective amount of tree harvesting by all players in the node exceeds some threshold (and it would not be an immediate consequence). A player could never touch a tree, decide they want to build a boat and realize their node has no trees or some aggressive preservation policy due to over-harvesting. This is not a consequence of that player's actions.
A node siege is an example of a system where your actions have consequences with great implementation. Node sieges are announced ahead of time and scheduled during server primetime. Players feel like they participated and made a decision even if their individual contribution did not matter. The player's interests are aligned with a community and the consequences are predictable and impactful.
Land management involves perpetual observation of harvesting in an area which can occur at any hour by any player independent of their home node location. The extent of player decision making is simply where to harvest which is already a decision point due to the OWPvP nature fo the game. The outcomes are unclear and apply to all players equally who exist in this part of the world and do not reflect player contributions (who harvested the most or least does not matter). It creates a time-delayed consequence for players who harvest there in the future as those who harvest there initially will not be subject to any consequence or policy change. It punishes others (and possibly to a lesser extent yourself) in the future for your current actions if you actively contribute to over-harvesting and it punishes you for the actions of others if you don't. Similarly it would 'reward' players for not participating in gathering by leading to better sustainability (a strange idea to wrap your head around). This does not sound like a good implementation of a living world to me.
I ask because if it takes 15 min to go from the city that you call home to another non-allied node (might be more than one node away due to vassals), one hour to fill up inventory, and another 15 min to get back, then these eco-warfare gathering trips are going to waste a lot of time. But I guess you can always hope that someone tries to gank you and take your stuff on the way back.
Absolutely
I can see that is easy to fail in public relations since alpha, because this would be interesting bringing in the last video.
At the same time Steven spent too much time overall implying that "griefers" will be high level players killing level 1s cutting trees. This is unreal and just brings a bad impression about players
Time-delayed consequenes are just paranoia and that doesn't matter, because the land management is not about micromanagement and it's not about min-maxing
The mayor will have his window for selecting stuff, let people harvest stuff and cause bad effects in the enviroment, let people see their land is devastaded... then activate a policy and see the land regrow
It's fun, people will feel their actions seeing the land get devastated and restored, that is really nice
Time-delayed consequences are just paranoia? I'm confused... I'm also not saying anything about micromanagement or min-maxing.
You are assuming that the same players who do the harvesting feel the devastated land but realistically, the players in a node will do different things. Some of them will harvest while others are doing other things. For them to the feel the consequence of harvesting be a devastated land, you need the same players who did the harvesting to feel the negative effects. But if some players just farmed the land into being barren, they will have those resources stored now, while other players in the node who weren't harvesting will now have a devastated land that makes gathering harder for them if they decide to engage with it.
So some players will over-harvest and feel no/less consequences as they will have big stockpiles. Other players will have done zero harvesting and will get hit the hardest if they plan to harvest after the land is devastated. The action -> consequence association is not as clear as you make it sound. That doesn't sound particularly fun to me.