Edited 7/12/23 after watching the full stream on youtube and the interview with Steven by dygz and the lot.
How do you feel about the systems shown thus far for planting crops on your Freehold? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
Seems ok. I would suggest using different animations instead of just sickling everything. I mean you wouldn't sickle a tomato plant. You'd pluck them and prune. I'd hope to see harvestable tree's and or fruit/food tree's as well like a orchard. Besides that seemed ok. Just hope it doesn't dominate marketplace vs gathering outside freeholds.
How do you feel about raising livestock and collecting resources from them? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
It seems pretty good but i wish the animals moved. The soft killing of the pig was fine by me without the whole cutting up and skinning. I could go for either but i'm impartial.
What kind of customization do you want with your Freehold, or buildings on your Freehold?
Is there anything in particular you’re excited about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
The option to link different free-holds in a single node to work together for bonuses. I do expect alot to be guild ran so i really don't mind suggesting this. Also the option you can run a inn... please just be sure to have fixed rates to be set. I really don't want to have to endlessly deal with owners booting people out and scamming people in this way. Especially if there is a personal chest in said rented room. This is not the scam to support. It should be upfront and honest and you either pay it upfront for allotted time or you dont. I hope you allow us to put names on our building signs that correlate with the owners choice like "Bobs Doughnuts" or "Hacks Lumber-milling" just use a text style template or give us a few choices.
Is there anything in particular you’re concerned about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
Concerned of all the good spots being taken up to place a freehold. Can we be assured there will be specific areas that are optimal no matter node location for each or most types? Otherwise i fear the node will be working against its own best interest. Just owners fighting each other and for business. Lines may change but i still believe everyone should be given the same chance to get land bonuses of the same or set number around a node that is the same to the other node. I understand boundaries may change.
PvP and freeholds/lots
I am also concerned about how with all this attraction will endlessly lead to ganking. Should i expect to be endlessly ganked the moment i step outside the freehold? Is there a way for the owner to kick you off the land foreably? THis just leads to more ganking.. I get that pvp is a part of the game but its pointless to implement these social systems for players to discover and explore if your just endlessly going to get gut wrenched by other players. How does that work? I mean i wouldnt want to back a game that just ends with players getting banned for ganking players endlessly till nothing falls out of there pockets anymore.. not much of a good design. We don't want to see you ban pvp'ers or anyone because a design was exploited. Events like these leads to uproar the community against the game to just a laughing stock. If so we will be forced to join node owners whether one large guild or another. And also in which case you can predispose all lots will just be node owner/guild owned anyway so whats the point telling individuals they can own land? What stops others from blockading your freehold endlessly and just killing you every time you try to get to your freehold? Or do you become a prisoner of your freehold? If you allow people to break the game and ruin gameplay design unless meant to be, people will try to do dumb things that ruin the game for others. Again i would not back a pvx game if i did mind pvp but still misunderstanding all the pleasantries shown prolly just to be covered in blood. I know you have gone over how flagging works, perhaps i am misunderstanding something? It might be helpful that you run through scenarios and show people ingame what is possible and what is not before we get to alpha 2 regarding pvp in the open world. This update made me feel like as a majority pve player who enjoys pvp when its not 24/7 bloodbath that all the things you show with pve gameplay is just a way for someone to ruin your day that avoids the mention of whats really going to happen when you are ingame with other players you dont know. It makes me lose faith in the game from a pvx game to a almost purely if not purely pvp game. Just because you have pve content in my eyes does not make it a pvx game. It would have to be close to 50% pvp and 50% pve and systems so not only pvp players are heard felt and seen endlessly. Also locking content for only pvp rewards or otherwise there should be equal gear opportunities for all no matter gained by raid, pvp, religion, etc. I'm not so sure about corruption helping much. I'd just expect 75% of the pop to be corrupted from pvp, maybe more. Corruption itself wont stop people from essentially griefing other players who essentially are totally non-combatant. So in essence its not really pvx its just pvp. There needs to be much larger systems in place. I have heard you talk about bounty systems but unsure how worthwhile it would be, i assume most griefers who are smart will not run around alone so i hope you allow to share the wanted poster with a group. You could just exchange one corrupted player for a non corrupted and rinse and repeat till the cycle of the original line up resets. No?
The amount of freeholds does not concern me. even 2000 max with a membership of 5 players still leads to a occupation of 10000 players participating in freeholds. Sure, it'd be better to allow all players a chance to OWN it but i dont want instanced garbage homes/freeholds beyond apartments.. 15000 player freeholds is silly and stupid people.. However i would add that single lots without a freeholds participation in any way would be a great way to allow the other 5000 to participate. I just went with 5 because 5 in most mmo's is a small group. Could be less, could be more.
I know you didn't ask but i am extremely excited how in-depth you have gone with the systems. You have really brought it to life!
I really hope I don't have to return every couple hours or login everyday to receive Freehold Farmable items. I would prefer to be able to hire a NPC to farm everything for me. I'm not sure if I would enjoy having to consistently be watching my farm when I can be out venturing on some quests. If it takes at maximum 30min to farm everything in the Freehold then it might be worth doing, but other games have done dailies that require 30-60min of dailies similar to this. However, if you add daily quests on top of this Freehold dailies, its going to feel like Lost Ark, where you spend 1+ hours per character just doing daily content. Its going to feel repetitive and I certainly will not enjoy it.
How often will I be able to farm items in my Freehold? Will I be able to hire a NPC to auto farm for me?
I really hope I don't have to return every couple hours or login everyday to receive Freehold Farmable items. I would prefer to be able to hire a NPC to farm everything for me. I'm not sure if I would enjoy having to consistently be watching my farm when I can be out venturing on some quests. If it takes at maximum 30min to farm everything in the Freehold then it might be worth doing, but other games have done dailies that require 30-60min of dailies similar to this. However, if you add daily quests on top of this Freehold dailies, its going to feel like Lost Ark, where you spend 1+ hours per character just doing daily content. Its going to feel repetitive and I certainly will not enjoy it.
How often will I be able to farm items in my Freehold? Will I be able to hire a NPC to auto farm for me?
They have stated in the past that you will be able to hire NPC's to perform labor on freeholds for you. The problem is actually the opposite. What does Intrepid plan on doing to incentivize actual immersive crafting and farming versus just doing the thing you seem to be planning on doing? Right now we don't know and they may full well 'intend' for the way you want to play the game to be 'the most correct and intended one'.
"My suggestion is to adapt the Node leadership system to the Freehold acquisition but on a smaller scale. Economic Node = Highest Bidder or Bought from another player (You wanted Bidding, Buying and Selling, here it is.) , Military Node = Combat and Gladiatorial oriented (You can fight, you can live here, but you best win), Scientific Node = Reputation and Notoriety oriented (You become a well known around this area, your reputation precedes you) , Divine Node = Devotion and Faith oriented (You have proven yourself to the gods and they have smiled upon you, deeming you worthy to live within these lands). This allows for exclusivity and limitation while also making it obtainable by anyone who puts their mind to it and actually have it feel like a monumental task on a personal level. [/quote]"
I've been struggling to say something about this because I felt you would just disregard it, since I haven't released a successful MMO yet. But, since neither have you, here it goes.
Winners need to have losers, in order to be winners. Someone needs to want to keep playing even while losing. So in order for there to CONTINUE being losers and therefore winners, the losers should be allowed to have fun even while being losers. So therefore losers need and deserve SOMETHING to appreciate doing even when everything else goes bad for them. A space to have of their own, that they can customize, express in and feel good about is just about the best possible option for this. Up until this livestream, I had been assuming this is what freeholds would end up being, because they're the best candidate for this role. Customizing their freehold and looking forward to getting absorbed in its activities is the best possible thing to offer to a loser, to look forward to in your game.
By making the decision only winners get to have freeholds, by denying the losers their own space to look forward to, your Design has gone against your Design Goals. By gating one of the cooler expression spaces in the game behind the winner/loser dichotomy, you have chosen a Design which is less than it should have been.
I am of the opinion everyone should be able to get a freehold (at the same time), winner or loser, and that the variables would be the location you are able to get it in and how much gold you would need to invest in it and related taxes. I think this is the more fun way for the game to be. I think you have not provided the aforementioned thing that the 'losers' (whether they are losers in economical terms, pvp terms, social terms or what have you) would stick around for.
As it stands, I don't want to be a loser in your game because it means I cannot get access to this cool feature you have made. And I don't want to be a winner either because I know that by doing so, I am basically shitting on someone else's enjoyment of the game. Therefore, what this stream has shown me is that Ashes in its current form as an MMO is simply something I do not wish to engage with.
As usual, I sincerely appreciate the transparency.
Bow before the Emperor and your lives shall be spared. Refuse to bow and your lives shall be speared.
When I consider game mechanics, I think about the ideas of simulation (actually trying to simulate real life things in a game) and emulation (making you feel like you are in the game while not being as realistic). My favorite games prioritize emulation with a desire to include simulation where possible and appropriate as long as it’s actually fun and not tedious and annoying.
How do you feel about the size-and-shape inventory management system?
I like the tetris-like idea! For me it straddles the line between emulation and simulation. It may be tedious at times but with that comes significant mechanical balancing and problem-solving required in what are normally very basic, shallow game mechanics.
How do you feel about the systems shown thus far for planting crops on your Freehold? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
The only thing I would encourage you to consider is allowing players the option to plant outside of their freehold boundaries and treating those plants as open gatherables. Risk vs reward here. Players can expand their growing space as much as they want, adding to the world, but with that comes the risk of other players stealing it. To me that would just add to the game. (You could also do the same with livestock.) Maybe some restrictions would need to be in place so the market isn’t flooded with plants but I think it’s worth considering. One idea would be that two much farming would have a negative effect on the native plants/resources which would cause other problems.
How do you feel about raising livestock and collecting resources from them? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
As a hunter and homesteader IRL I think your animations were fantastic. Particularly the culling of the pig. It beautifully captured the mixed emotions of killing an animal. I tear up every time I harvest an animal. I acknowledge the violence required in eating meat and using other animal products like leather and I also have a great love, care and appreciation for animals and what they offer me, my friends and family in both life and death. Thank you for doing justice to that very important aspect of reality that many people are disconnected from.
What kind of customization do you want with your Freehold, or buildings on your Freehold?
You covered everything I can think of. It looks super customizable.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview? Is there anything in particular you’re concerned about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
This is a big one and I am both excited and concerned. First, I am excited about the vast majority of it. So much to love. I also really like the ideas of freeholds having the highest level of processing. That by itself just adds a whole new layer of depth and complexity to the economy and game as a whole. Where I am concerned though is how freeholds could play out. I totally understand why you plan to do everything you said so far but my main concern is that it could actually end up having some pay-to-win aspects to it and also heavily incentivise “no-lifing” the game. If someone could only own one freehold per account but can own numerous accounts as long as they can afford it, then people who have a lot of money in real life would be incentivised to own multiple accounts and control the limited number of freeholds. Larger guilds would also more likely get them.
Personally, I would rather you keep the sale of freeholds outside of the market/economy. I get that you want the economy to be a core aspect of gameplay (which I want as well) but to me, having a real-estate economy that can actually be influenced by real-life money is not good. We have issues with that IRL as it is and don’t want our game to have the same problem. The answer of “well there are other types of housing” and then listing lesser forms of housing like apartments makes you sound like the typical capitalist saying people IRL should be happy that they can rent an apartment for the rest of their life while the rich people own multiple mansions around the world.
So my suggestion: Keep a limit of one freehold per account. Don’t allow players to sell freeholds to each other and make profit off of it. Focus on making sure certain real-life wealthy players or large guilds can’t have a monopoly on freeholds. There is already so much wonderful depth and complexity to the AoC economy, just keep it out of land ownership please. If you do this incorrectly it could actually be game-breaking for me. The idea of questing to earn the rights to a deed is great. I am part of a smaller guild that is really excited for AoC. We want to be an integral part of the economy and also desire to have a healthy game/life balance for ourselves. We like the idea of AoC focusing on risk vs reward and rewarding players for doing tough things but we need that to not require an impossible amount of time and effort for a small guild to achieve together while also taking responsibility for our real lives and I ask that you take that into consideration in freehold design. You could easily push away many great, committed players who will contribute a lot to the game if given the chance.
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ItsFayneMember, Phoenix Initiative, Royalty, Kickstarter, Alpha One
This is literally the worst take I've read in 7 years of following this game.
the way they are doing free holds is terrible you basically asking for rmt and or large guilds to buy up all the plots,if i caint get a freehold so i can master weapon smithing i wont be playing this game cause your locking away major mechanics for a large portion of your player base and its wild that no one at the studio sees this saying freeholds are a privilege is spitting in the face of alot of us who backed this game for this long and is disgraceful tbh.
I find myself left wanting to see more. I also can't really wrap my head around the numbers. If a freehold is approximately 1.5 hectares and they are able to be placed on a "parcel" of land within a Node's ZOI. How many "parcels" of land will make up a Nodes ZOI? With approx 480SqKm of land in Verra and 85 Nodes. (With castles and stuff) The land mass of the entire map will need to be divided up into approximately 100 areas of around 4/5 SqKm each) Say a SqKm of land is divided up into 4 "parcels", each of which can support the placement of 1 Freehold, meaning an entire Node's ZOI can support up to 20/25 Freeholds total. With the entire map supporting a max of 2000/2500 Freeholds. Do castle ZOI support freeholds?
As for the stream itself, I felt it was... ok. For a freehold stream, the fact we didn't get to see anything being built or placed was pretty disappointing, lots of talk about customisation. 0 actually shown. It almost felt as though the freehold had just been placed by developers rather than built by a working system within the actual game.
A bit, smoke and mirrors and lots of padding. Because when you break it down, what did we actually see on stream that was new? We saw the gathering of Stone, Wood, Wool, Milk, Pork, Wheat, Corn and Tomatoes. (Most of which we have seen before and it's like a handful of character animations). A new mount (which was nice but the slow-mo run needs a pass) some inventory stuff (Chest and bags are cool but I dunno, isn't this something that is already settled? It's an inventory system, a dev team should be able to have a fully fleshed-out inventory system covering chests, bags etc in a few weeks. It strikes me as strange that such rudimentary things are still being "shown of" and discussed years into development)
I thought the environment was nice, but hope that it is very much a reflection of the direction it is going and will see much more development. The fidelity is generally fine (although the Unreal Engine 4-based assets are already beginning to look pretty dated which is a big problem with a project that is being developed over such a long period of time.) but I think things, in general, could do with more visual "punch".
* The sound/graphic of harvesting the pigs would weight a lot on what rating Intrepid wants the game to be. If the game is intended to be for MA's, then it's ok. If they are rating the game "Teen," then the sound/graphic shouldn't be quite this detailed.
* As it was mentioned in the preview...milking the cows was extremely fast. It should be about 1/2 the speed or more.
* I didn't see any footprints coming from the "Lightfoot" mount.
* When depositing resources into the Freehold harvest crates. Instead of drag/drop each resource, there should also be a deposit all harvests option.
** What thoughts might the community/Intrepid have about random dreams (trailers) while sleeping?
How do you feel about the size-and-shape inventory management system?
Idk never try something like this before. Sound good and all this extra bags for different jobs also sound good, exited to try this in game. How do you feel about the systems shown thus far for planting crops on your Freehold? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
- Its fine, slow but fine. Steven say we can speed up this process or get help from other family members so im cool with that. Just wonder if Companion App with help us with that, and what can we do on mobile phone on our Freeholds. How do you feel about raising livestock and collecting resources from them? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
Again fine, just for god sake dont sleep mama pig in front on her babys! What kind of customization do you want with your Freehold, or buildings on your Freehold?
Move buildings, crops and everything else freely, give us grit like in backpack and give us freedom to manage it. Is there anything in particular you’re excited about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
Yea, it is a Big Chunk of land! Sounds are amazing, its gonna be a lot of hard work to lvlup everything in my space and i Love it! Is there anything in particular you’re concerned about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
Family Drama with permissions when somebody destroy or steal something. Crying about node destruction and needing to rebuild. Player collision and trolling others when they try do some work in there.
The format was great for a major system like this as we got some specifics on how things work.
Keep it!
How do you feel about the size-and-shape inventory management system?
I also liked the idea of having different systems for different inventory tabs but of course this needs to be tested.
What kind of customization do you want with your Freehold, or buildings on your Freehold?
Customization should be done with the minimum effort and the imagination should be the limit.
The only thing I don't think should be allowed is uploading of pics for paintings and stuff, it can be trolled in so many ways.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
I think all of it.
This will be a major thing ingame if done right. It has so much potential. I loved the building trees upgrades!
Is there anything in particular you’re concerned about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
I think this method of bidding can really open RMT and that is very difficult to control even with active GMs.
It's understandable that freeholds should be a milestone and with that a great feeling of achievement for the player. With that said I don't think it should be impossible for someone who joins Ashes 1 ou 2 years after the launch date to get it. It should be a monumental work either with resources and coins and/or quests and other stuff but should not be impossible to get. Otherwise you are locking the high-end mechanic of processing for a lot of people even if they work very hard and for a very long time just because they joined later and all of the land cannot take any more freeholds.
I know they will fall with sieges but once it gets up for bidding again they will never have the amount of coin that the person that started on day 1 has. This is why bidding should not be the way to do it.
Q: How do you feel about the size-and-shape inventory management system?
A: Not really a fan.
I would assume that there is some form of a Weight Mechanic at play as to disallow me from carrying a billion of just three different types of materials, for example. However, if this is the case then why not only have the Weight Limit at play instead of restricting the things that I can have (potentially) to just a few different types of items?
In simple terms, I would prefer to be able to have one of a thousand different items rather than a thousand of only one or two items.
Q: How do you feel about the systems shown thus far for planting crops on your Freehold? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
A: I love it. I don't really see any problems with it thus far.
My only ask regarding this is that I would like to see a more or less nonexistent limit on the size of farms. The only 'soft limits' could be the limits of the player's financial wealth and perhaps they're limited by their resources and other assets to be able to develop and maintain their own massive farms.
Q: How do you feel about raising livestock and collecting resources from them? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
A: I think it's awesome! I really hope that there are many different kinds of animals to domesticate, adding to the diversity of the economy in Verra!
It would do a lot for the greater stage if a freehold could be made even more unique by its farming of a certain exotic, rare and very resourceful domesticated animal. Maybe like a Rainbow Sheep which has wool that slowly changes colour, and continues to once sheared!
Q: What kind of customisation do you want with your Freehold, or buildings on your Freehold?
A: I think it is imperative that Freeholds are not used only as important economic areas in a Node's ZoI but also as a political area or militarily strategic location!
I can imagine two powerful Nodes which border each other, and along the border are player-built walls, fortifications and such which are all part of that player's Freehold! Linking back to the Risk & Reward game pillar that AoC has (which I always try to do), a player with such a Freehold could be rewarded politically with a very high rank in the military of that Node and perhaps there could even be Node Policies which would indicate their Freehold as a March/Marcher Freehold, giving bonuses to the owner of the Freehold, the Freehold itself, and in turn also help the Node's military standing.
A Freehold with political buildings could also have amazing implications! I imagine a player could own a Freehold within a Node's ZoI being very close to the actual Node itself. This player could build political buildings within this Freehold, giving bonuses to the Node and its buildings. Perhaps this could be a very good reason for this player to be elected as leader/mayor of the Node, since they are very clearly committed to its standing! Again, Node Policies could indicate this Freehold as some kind of Government Plaza, giving relevant bonuses and such.
Q: Is there anything in particular you’re excited about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
A: Yes, the possibilities of how a Freehold can affect the wider world as a whole. Either the Freehold can help the owner entirely by helping their (guild's) business, or the owner of the Freehold could dedicate its use to more worldly means, by ways such as the examples given above.
The possibilities of how Freeholds could be used is also seemingly endless. Say for example, all Freeholds could build an Iron Mine, but in a particular area which a Node has managed to extend its influence over, iron is very rich there. The output of an iron mine in that area could have major bonuses. This would in turn dynamically impact the economy and flesh out the strategic campaigning of Nodes with this implementation and heavy encouragement of geopolitics.
It doesn't stop there either; What about Freeholds that are slave camps, industrial complexes, wizard towers, military bases, university campuses, grand canals. The list of ideas are endless and their effect on the relevant Node and Verra as a whole are also just as endless!
Q: Is there anything in particular you’re concerned about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
A: There are three different types of housing, and as the main man himself says, "technically four with Inns".
I would then think on the size of Verra, the size of actual Nodes, and the size of Freeholds. Now consider the idea of having Minor and Major Freeholds. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely agree that Freeholds should be a privilege and not a right, but perhaps more players could be exposed to the taste of the real privilege of having a Major Freehold by being able to own a Minor Freehold? Major Freeholds being as shown in the stream, and Minor Freeholds being much much smaller. A Minor Freehold might not be able to be a military or political based Freehold as mentioned earlier, and it may not even be able to have such big farms or some of the later and greater artisan buildings - but it could at least provide a house which could level to max, and then a small area of land to use however the player wishes.
Who knows? Perhaps that could even give way to Freehold Wars, a little like Civil Wars in a Node.
Thank you again Intrepid Studios for another absolute B A N G E R of a stream! Much love.
Storage - Size of storage needs to be upgradable enough to store every resource in the game and to hold a good selection of armor and weapons. Nothing is more frustrating to me than storage that is so restricted that I'm constantly having to manage it by throwing stuff out.
Inventory - Inventory should be upgradable to the point that you can carry a hefty amount of things. I don't mind the resource tab being smaller to force you to drop things off at your storage. The resource tab being separate is amazing. Quest items should be a separate tab. Please no clutter items like "pickax" or "sickle" that takes up inventory space.
Freehold Crops - I would prefer long cooldowns, such as 24 hours or longer to harvest crops, but the yield is large enough to not make the resource too scarce. Requiring watering during dry seasons and an upgradable auto irrigation systems would be cool. Different Fertilizer for crops to have higher yields, faster cultivation, or rarer yields would be nice.
Livestock - Prefer long cooldowns on harvesting. Different feeds to cause livestock to either grow faster, yield more, or provide rare materials would be nice. The more immersive killing of the livestock is great. Taking it a step forward and requiring butchering would be nice, including the graphic skinning. Processing meat isn't pretty. Red Dead Redemption 2 is a great example of how to do it.
Freehold customization - Very free placement of crops/livestock/buildings/processing stations would be nice. I hate having "5 slots" in designated areas. Limitations on the number of facilities is fine. Being able to design the structure of your buildings would be very fun, like you would in the Sims. Being able to place trees, paths, fences, etc. would be nice.
Housing Zone - Please make freeholds accessible everyone by creating a zone designated to only housing. The main open world having freehold spots for guilds is great, but I would love to have my own plot of land and some neighbors to say hi to. Feels like a waste to create this whole system that only guild leaders get to really play with.
REGARDING FREEHOLDS BEING A PRIVILEGE, NOT A RIGHT!
There are three different types of housing, and as the main man himself says, "technically four with Inns".
I would then think on the size of Verra, the size of actual Nodes, and the size of Freeholds. Now consider the idea of having Minor and Major Freeholds. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely agree that Freeholds should be a privilege and not a right, but perhaps more players could be exposed to the taste of the real privilege of having a Major Freehold by being able to own a Minor Freehold? Major Freeholds being as shown in the stream, and Minor Freeholds being much much smaller. A Minor Freehold might not be able to be a military or political based Freehold, and it may not even be able to have such big farms or some of the later and greater artisan buildings - but it could at least provide a house which could level to max, and then a small area of land to use however the player wishes.
Who knows? Perhaps that could even give way to Freehold Wars, a little like Civil Wars in a Node.
For Freehold taverns that sell the xp boost or strength boost foods and drinks. They should have an expiration date so that after you buy it you have to consume it within a couple minutes. That way it forces players to buy them near the mob spawn point of interest. Otherwise a player will just buy 30 of them in the capital far away and use ones bought a week ago.
Also I liked the slight amount of gore from the pig slaughter scene, but I wouldn't go much further with it.
Thought it was an excellent stream. I did have a thought that would be cool. When steven was chopping down that tree the thought came to me... is there a way to chop a tree of that size down, that is lets say worth 1000 lumber. The initial chop gives you 100 lumber and then there is a timer before it disappears and the resource is lost. Resulting in opportunity for the player and friends to all join in together to harvest as much lumber from the tree laying down before it disappears.
Gardens- I thought were fantastic. Would be nice if again crop rotation mattered. Planting corn, then melons, then wheat, etc to give optimal harvesting. As opposed to just... I always plant corn here. So there is again incentive to plant a variety and a player needing to choose what will they plant and when.
Animals- The bigger the animal the more resources that should come from them. More wool, more fur, more milk, more meat, etc. I do agree with the idea of just having them appear to lay down in a sleep state for the process. I grew up on a farm and have no issue with the actual butchering process of animals... but not all share that sentiment. So the sleep state would be more accepting to the general populace I think.
Freehold ownership- I know intrepid mentioned not everyone would own a freehold... While I can understand the stance, What happens to those that purchased cosmetics towards freehold buildings? Could perhaps it be that only a (maximized 6-10 people) family can own a freehold? And only members of that family has access to it's goods/services. This incentivizes the creation of the family/maintaining a family while also allowing the player base to use the skins they purchased? I think it would be a good opportunity to really "minimize how many have one", yet again incentivize the family or guild to form together to have such a benefit in game and maintain it.
A solid showcase and I look forward for future streams and Alpha 2! Well done intrepid!
It would be good if you can shrink the freeholds back to 1/3 the size of 0.5 hectares. Means three times the current amount of freeholds will be available per server. No one asked for larger freeholds and to my knowledge no one needs massive freeholds.
But after listening to full stream showcase, and reading about it here, I'm less and less optimistic about this. It was only a matter of time before they messed up something badly, and lo-and behold, here we are.
First off, freeholds offer too much stuff to be so limited to only a certain amount of players. You're basically asking for powerful guilds (zergs) to control most of them, the rich get richer, etc. it has been explained multiple times in this thread already. The whole bidding thing should definitely go.
Archeage had a problem where the land would get taken up pretty quickly, so if you were late to the party, were kinda left without a farm plot. But even in that case, I always managed to get farm plots close to my guildmates, because it was one of my main goals in the game. It was a mess, plots were too close together to other players, they were kinda small, and the system obviously wasn't perfect, but at this point Freeholds look way worse.
Then comes the whole, "your freehold gets destroyed together with the node". Which just seems like it's out of your control entirely. If a powerful guild wants to destroy your node, and you happen to have a freehold there, well good luck, all of it is now gone, start over (if you can). If you decide to move away from large guilds, and build a freehold in another node where there's less competition maybe, in hope of a more peaceful life. WELL GUESS WHAT, THE BIG ZERG CAN COME AND DESTROY YOUR NODE, WHICH IN TURN DESTROYS YOUR FREEHOLD. GOOD LUCK PAL. They could even straight up prevent you from actually maxing out your crafting skills, by sabotaging your node constantly and destroying your and any other freeholds in that node.
Obtaining a freehold blueprint should indeed be hard/time consuming in some way, but it shouldn't be mainly tied to how rich you are, because that way, rich and powerful guilds will easily be able to control who gets what. It should be hard to get, but it shouldn't be limited to only certain groups. Instead, it should come with a mix of needing a time sink of some sort, completing certain achievement/quest, and a bit of gold/materials to obtain the blueprint. This could guarantee that players who are dedicated to it will get a freehold (that is if we assume everyone starts at the same time, from day 1). Then, there should be a certain timer, if you don't contribute certain things to extend the duration of your freehold, it's removed (like in Archeage, you get the blueprint mailed to you, and you can place it again somewhere, if you find the spot).
In any case, all this means is those who are dedicated, will get a Freehold faster, and will be able to choose a better location or something. But this does not mean that a large amount of playerbase is completely locked out from having one.
Freeholds just offer too much, too many systems are tied to it, the economy is tied to it, the only way to become a master in crafting is to have access to one, and that would've been fine, if say 70% of players have access to it (95% of active players should have it, 70% is just used in general because there might be some players who just log in a few times a week for only an hour or 2, or some people who just want to pvp, and don't want to deal with crafting, gathering, etc.).
Also PvP being enabled in your freehold is... not that great. Because if you're just afk processing or doing w/e, and you just get jumped by someone and killed, then it's a bad bad thing that shouldn't happen. It would've been okay-ish, if you didn't also drop certain stuff from your inv. but even in that case, it's extremely annoying that you can't have a safe-space on your own piece of land.
And now the juicy hypothetical. (just as I was typing it, I came across @OutSiDeR304 's comment which explains it better than me, oh well)
Imagine 2 guilds collaborating to exploit the system. One guild that controls the node just straight up starts selling all of their freeholds for some juicy profit. Then they abandon the node, and let the other guild destroy it. Boom, you've just been scammed. You bought the freehold, and now it's destroyed, due to matters completely out of your hand.
The whole "If you own a home in a node and you don't want to see that home destroyed, you need to defend that city" thing that Steven has said, is incredibly bad. You can't do anything if a large enough zerg comes to destroy your node. What are you going to do as a solo player? Nothing. What are you going to do as a small guild? Nothing. You're going to get destroyed.
I was excited to have a freehold and be a farmer, but having watched the presentation I'm pretty downbeat about them now.
The idea of "bidding" to own a freehold for example makes me think they'll be out of reach for anyone who can't spend half their life in this game. Can a casual player, a couple of hours a few times per week, for example, ever own a freehold? It doesn't sound like it. Any available plots will be snapped up by the people who take 2 weeks of vacation at launch and no-life the game, the RMT traders etc.
What's the housing proposition for a casual father of two? At least in New World anyone could have somewhere to call their own.
If I never own a freehold (likely), what's my cosmetic skin worth that I bought as part of an alpha pack?
I'd like to link a separate thread I made to serve as my feedback here, since it's directly related to the acquisition method even tho it is a more in-depth discussion
Freeholds are one of the features I was most excited about when I first heard about Ashes of Creation, and it's incredibly demoralizing to see that they are yet another feature that will only be available to a small elite segment of players. Why does every aspect of the game need to be this way? Isn't it enough for the power players to fight over flying mounts, castles, metropolis, world bosses, and legendaries? Do they also need to have sole control over freeholds?
Why can't you just make certain freeholds more desirable by having larger plots or more ideal locations, and let the elites fight over those, but then also provide plenty of smaller, more secluded freeholds such that at least a good portion of the playerbase will have access to one if they work hard enough? There don't have to be enough for EVERY player on the server, but I think they should be an attainable goal for a player who is willing to put in the time and effort and makes getting one a priority.
I used to be so excited for this game, but this design philosophy that only a small percentage of players get to do anything cool is really killing my desire to play it.
Wow - what a great reveal! Enjoyed the format, found it was likely the most-conductive to relaying the information that Steven and Margaret needed to go over. The Q&A was also quite informative.
How do you feel about the size-and-shape inventory management system?
This part was a tad odd - but was relieved to hear that bigger/different bags will be available, to replace the one from Sanctus. Definitely an approach to inventory management that yours truly has yet to encounter.
How do you feel about the systems shown thus far for planting crops on your Freehold? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
The explanation on this very neat! The prospect of being able to highly-customize the functionality and land-use of the Freehold plots is AMAZING! Yours truly will probably have 1 center for processing, and then the rest as fields - until the server gets more-packed, and then an inn seems quite feasible. Being able to plant different crops and even mix the crops seems quite innovative.
How do you feel about raising livestock and collecting resources from them? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
This seems like a good way to both manage and to let others know what your interest in livestock is; Some animals are well-defined as "resource" animals, others for mounts. It offers the opportunity to know what someone is preparing, before they're perhaps ready to offer it to the market-at-large. Killing the pig didn't upset *me*, but maybe it could have your toon take it over to the shed, for culling?
What kind of customization do you want with your Freehold, or buildings on your Freehold?
The named options seem both plentiful and just fine. Found the prospect of looting/trading rarer blueprints from things like bosses neat. Am planning to use cosmetics, largely. Will probably keep the personal house smaller, in order to keep the other space available for productivity - a really cool option!
Is there anything in particular you’re excited about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
This is an aspect of the game that had me hanging on every word. Yours truly usually plays healers and traders in MMORPG's, and so this kind of insight was really great to have! To learn that our Freeholds can essentially function as "factories" and look akin to small towns was fascinating, for those of us who may not go for in-the-city real estate!
Is there anything in particular you’re concerned about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
Ha - I thought the pig killing might upset some. Again, that shed on the side *could* serve more than one function....
How do you feel about the size-and-shape inventory management system?
I like it for materials/secondary components for crafting. I think it creates an interesting gameplay layer making some things more difficult to transport, making them more expensive to transport as a result.
How do you feel about the systems shown thus far for planting crops on your Freehold? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
I would like to see information about my crops - how far along are they in their growth cycle, yield per crop, penalties for not rotating crops and other things influencing my gardening. Not all of these are necessary to know of course but might make it frustrating if omitted.
How do you feel about raising livestock and collecting resources from them? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
Same as the crops, information about my livestock so I can plan my resources accordingly. Not sure if livestock is planned to have a lifespan, but I think that would make managing it a little more interesting. Maybe for livestock which produces resources continually, they might produce less as they age and then they would be ready for slaughter/sleep. Maybe slaughtering younger livestock gives higher quality meat needed for the best food recipes. I would also like to see buildings and other objects for livestock increasing their happiness which could increase their productions/lifespan.
What kind of customization do you want with your Freehold, or buildings on your Freehold?
I would like to see the fence around the freehold to be fairly customisable. Outside of furniture and small cosmetic placeable items I would like to see some color variation for each building so it is possible to match our buildings to the environment.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
I was excited to see how well the freehold blended into the environment - having native trees in the freehold helps a lot. Also having different paths of specialization for processing/business buildings sounds like a great idea. The interior of the house looked great, love to see how well you can make your house look when you give it some thought and effort.
Is there anything in particular you’re concerned about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
I was wondering why not make more sizes of freeholds available. Someone might not want to do anything else other than have an inn or a field for crops they would sell. I understand that freeholds are mainly a way to get to the highest processing levels but you have already shown things which have nothing to do with processing and I think it would make perfect sense to have smaller plots of land to sell for people who might not want to create an entire processing plant.
Please setup up an escrow system for processors much akin to the escrow system for crafters. It woukd be nice to not have to wait for processors to log in seeing as there will be few of them.
Looking Good!
Reminds me of SWG w/player cities.
As far as any animal, farming, crafting in general. Keep sounds and actions like they would happen if we were to do them in real life and put option in settings to avoid these if they don't want them....Problem solved.
Keep the game challenging....which will keep it interesting and fun to play.
Mentioned SWG cause it started off Great till it catered to everyone wanting to be able to do everything and have everything faster.
Really like the Info and the way you all are asking for feedback. Keep up the good work!
I think the freehold system data-dump was great, and provided a lot of good information. I, for one, really love the system design for freeholds. Nonetheless, I've seen a lot of people who are upset about the update, for two main buckets of reasons. First, there seems to be a number of folks who have made assumptions about what the freehold system would be based on the availability of cosmetics. Second, there seems to be people who disagree with limited access to freeholds because they wanted to be guaranteed a freehold regardless of whether they put in any effort. I think people who are upset about the system-design for freeholds are having trouble getting out of their own way, and are just trying to make this game into other games that the larger mmo community has already largely abandoned precisely because it wasn't fun. Please stop trying to make ashes into the games you have played in the past--people stopped playing those games for good reasons.
To the first category of people, when I ask them if Intrepid ever explicitly said freeholds would be accessible by everyone regardless of effort and without limitation to the impact of freeholds on the game world, they will all agree that the answer is no--with the exception of limiting freeholds to one-per-account. Instead, they have simply inferred from ambiguity in what the system would ultimately look like that the system would be exactly what they wanted. Nobody told them to make assumptions about the freehold system, and they bought freehold cosmetics knowing that the system design had not been entirely revealed. If folks reached a particular conclusion about what the system would be, they have only themselves to blame for making assumptions in the first place. I have no patience or sympathy for the people, and it seems Intrepid will nonetheless be offering them the opportunity to sell their cosmetics back for embers.
To the second category of people, I have to say that I could not be more excited or happy about Intrepid's design decisions. I will name a few of the reasons I think Intrepid nailed it. First, the scarcity of freeholds will create additional reasons for node sieges as guilds desiring to establish freeholds close to the best POIs may want/need to tear down established freeholds to build their own processing centers. The best POIs may change over time as the world evolves, creating yet another incentive for strategic-level conflict that will keep the world refreshing and give players many more ways to be involved in intrigue and war-gaming. Second, the limited number of freeholds will enable an entirely new way to engage the world as a business-owner selling services and goods that cannot easily be replaced by other people. In a world where everyone can have a freehold and there is no barrier to entry, there is no great business sense in investing heavily in your own. This is yet another layer of gameplay that will keep the world alive, and bring in more players who may not have had the same opportunities for mercantilism in some other games. Third, family-access to freeholds will give more ways for folks who play together frequently to work together than traditional pve/pvp group combat. I love this.
I will probably not own a freehold, but I certainly intend to join up within a family of someone who does and help develop our tiny corner of the world. It is a home away from the node. It is another layer of gameplay that I didn't expect to have given that I never wanted to manage a freehold myself. Great design choices Intrepid--ignore the haters; all of their arguments have been entirely one-dimensional and no reason at all to reconsider your design decisions.
This has been the best live stream so far in my opinion. The PowerPoint presentation was perfect, giving us context before we see gameplay made it way more enjoyable. I recommend doing this from now on, having PP for context and then the devs can just play and just explain small stuff.
2)The Freehold:
The Freehold looks amazing. The area and the building look amazing. The whole concept is something i like (with some caveat I will put below).
3)Customization:
From what i have seen, there is complete customization? So no idea what to put here.
4)Resources:
I feel we need more info on this to have an opinion. Time to grow for livestocks and crops etc etc. I like the animations though (except the milking of the cow was too fast, like the whole animation was running in 1.5x speed, but it looks real good)
5)Concerns:
Regarding Freeholds slots, I saw on discord Steven mentioned "low 1000s" plots. My question here is, how many players will have an account on a server. 10k players concurrent, but how many in total? Freeholds should be rare af, but I wonder about mega guilds holding most of freeholds on a server if the population is 20k total (or more)
Regarding Freeholds plots: here is more of a question as i didnt actually understand, are plots next to each other? Massive area where you put your freehold, but are the plots next to each other, so can there be 2 freeholds right next to each other? i mean walls touching each others?
Regarding Freeholds acting as Processing Powerhouses: super idea, as processing needs most space out of the 3. However could there be different "freeholds" for gathers and crafters? A gatherer would need a small area with a house and chests, crafter something similar. Not having this makes Processors the only path that is actively punished for not having a Freehold, unlike crafters or gathers.
Also, Steven mentioned in discord after the stream that there won't be a UI interface for a player going to use a freehold's processing table. So if i want to use a master table, the player that has the freehold needs to be online, at his freehold and give me access after i pay him money. I feel this will mean most people won't be able to use those tables (which players spends their time in the game waiting to see if customers show up or not?). However having a UI interface, (like the tables in the node) will mean that not having a freehold won't be as massive of a disadvantage.
Combining the last 2 points, from what i understand, freeholds transform processing into the most difficult path for players, and it makes having one a necessity rather than a benefit. A gatherer with a freehold and a gatherer without one are the same. A crafter with one and one without are the same. A processor with one is magnitudes more powerful than one without.
I have no idea how to fix this tbh. But considering the processors are the middle link between gather and craft, i feel that there will be a number of processors that all gathers go to sell and all crafters go to buy and all other processors are left in the dusk.
Comments
How do you feel about the systems shown thus far for planting crops on your Freehold? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
Seems ok. I would suggest using different animations instead of just sickling everything. I mean you wouldn't sickle a tomato plant. You'd pluck them and prune. I'd hope to see harvestable tree's and or fruit/food tree's as well like a orchard. Besides that seemed ok. Just hope it doesn't dominate marketplace vs gathering outside freeholds.
How do you feel about raising livestock and collecting resources from them? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
It seems pretty good but i wish the animals moved. The soft killing of the pig was fine by me without the whole cutting up and skinning. I could go for either but i'm impartial.
What kind of customization do you want with your Freehold, or buildings on your Freehold?
Is there anything in particular you’re excited about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
The option to link different free-holds in a single node to work together for bonuses. I do expect alot to be guild ran so i really don't mind suggesting this. Also the option you can run a inn... please just be sure to have fixed rates to be set. I really don't want to have to endlessly deal with owners booting people out and scamming people in this way. Especially if there is a personal chest in said rented room. This is not the scam to support. It should be upfront and honest and you either pay it upfront for allotted time or you dont. I hope you allow us to put names on our building signs that correlate with the owners choice like "Bobs Doughnuts" or "Hacks Lumber-milling" just use a text style template or give us a few choices.
Is there anything in particular you’re concerned about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
Concerned of all the good spots being taken up to place a freehold. Can we be assured there will be specific areas that are optimal no matter node location for each or most types? Otherwise i fear the node will be working against its own best interest. Just owners fighting each other and for business. Lines may change but i still believe everyone should be given the same chance to get land bonuses of the same or set number around a node that is the same to the other node. I understand boundaries may change.
PvP and freeholds/lots
I am also concerned about how with all this attraction will endlessly lead to ganking. Should i expect to be endlessly ganked the moment i step outside the freehold? Is there a way for the owner to kick you off the land foreably? THis just leads to more ganking.. I get that pvp is a part of the game but its pointless to implement these social systems for players to discover and explore if your just endlessly going to get gut wrenched by other players. How does that work? I mean i wouldnt want to back a game that just ends with players getting banned for ganking players endlessly till nothing falls out of there pockets anymore.. not much of a good design. We don't want to see you ban pvp'ers or anyone because a design was exploited. Events like these leads to uproar the community against the game to just a laughing stock. If so we will be forced to join node owners whether one large guild or another. And also in which case you can predispose all lots will just be node owner/guild owned anyway so whats the point telling individuals they can own land? What stops others from blockading your freehold endlessly and just killing you every time you try to get to your freehold? Or do you become a prisoner of your freehold? If you allow people to break the game and ruin gameplay design unless meant to be, people will try to do dumb things that ruin the game for others. Again i would not back a pvx game if i did mind pvp but still misunderstanding all the pleasantries shown prolly just to be covered in blood. I know you have gone over how flagging works, perhaps i am misunderstanding something? It might be helpful that you run through scenarios and show people ingame what is possible and what is not before we get to alpha 2 regarding pvp in the open world. This update made me feel like as a majority pve player who enjoys pvp when its not 24/7 bloodbath that all the things you show with pve gameplay is just a way for someone to ruin your day that avoids the mention of whats really going to happen when you are ingame with other players you dont know. It makes me lose faith in the game from a pvx game to a almost purely if not purely pvp game. Just because you have pve content in my eyes does not make it a pvx game. It would have to be close to 50% pvp and 50% pve and systems so not only pvp players are heard felt and seen endlessly. Also locking content for only pvp rewards or otherwise there should be equal gear opportunities for all no matter gained by raid, pvp, religion, etc. I'm not so sure about corruption helping much. I'd just expect 75% of the pop to be corrupted from pvp, maybe more. Corruption itself wont stop people from essentially griefing other players who essentially are totally non-combatant. So in essence its not really pvx its just pvp. There needs to be much larger systems in place. I have heard you talk about bounty systems but unsure how worthwhile it would be, i assume most griefers who are smart will not run around alone so i hope you allow to share the wanted poster with a group. You could just exchange one corrupted player for a non corrupted and rinse and repeat till the cycle of the original line up resets. No?
The amount of freeholds does not concern me. even 2000 max with a membership of 5 players still leads to a occupation of 10000 players participating in freeholds. Sure, it'd be better to allow all players a chance to OWN it but i dont want instanced garbage homes/freeholds beyond apartments.. 15000 player freeholds is silly and stupid people.. However i would add that single lots without a freeholds participation in any way would be a great way to allow the other 5000 to participate. I just went with 5 because 5 in most mmo's is a small group. Could be less, could be more.
I know you didn't ask but i am extremely excited how in-depth you have gone with the systems. You have really brought it to life!
How often will I be able to farm items in my Freehold? Will I be able to hire a NPC to auto farm for me?
They have stated in the past that you will be able to hire NPC's to perform labor on freeholds for you. The problem is actually the opposite. What does Intrepid plan on doing to incentivize actual immersive crafting and farming versus just doing the thing you seem to be planning on doing? Right now we don't know and they may full well 'intend' for the way you want to play the game to be 'the most correct and intended one'.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Yhr9WpjaDzw
"My suggestion is to adapt the Node leadership system to the Freehold acquisition but on a smaller scale. Economic Node = Highest Bidder or Bought from another player (You wanted Bidding, Buying and Selling, here it is.) , Military Node = Combat and Gladiatorial oriented (You can fight, you can live here, but you best win), Scientific Node = Reputation and Notoriety oriented (You become a well known around this area, your reputation precedes you) , Divine Node = Devotion and Faith oriented (You have proven yourself to the gods and they have smiled upon you, deeming you worthy to live within these lands). This allows for exclusivity and limitation while also making it obtainable by anyone who puts their mind to it and actually have it feel like a monumental task on a personal level. [/quote]"
I like your idea a lot. Well put.
I've been struggling to say something about this because I felt you would just disregard it, since I haven't released a successful MMO yet. But, since neither have you, here it goes.
Winners need to have losers, in order to be winners. Someone needs to want to keep playing even while losing. So in order for there to CONTINUE being losers and therefore winners, the losers should be allowed to have fun even while being losers. So therefore losers need and deserve SOMETHING to appreciate doing even when everything else goes bad for them. A space to have of their own, that they can customize, express in and feel good about is just about the best possible option for this. Up until this livestream, I had been assuming this is what freeholds would end up being, because they're the best candidate for this role. Customizing their freehold and looking forward to getting absorbed in its activities is the best possible thing to offer to a loser, to look forward to in your game.
By making the decision only winners get to have freeholds, by denying the losers their own space to look forward to, your Design has gone against your Design Goals. By gating one of the cooler expression spaces in the game behind the winner/loser dichotomy, you have chosen a Design which is less than it should have been.
I am of the opinion everyone should be able to get a freehold (at the same time), winner or loser, and that the variables would be the location you are able to get it in and how much gold you would need to invest in it and related taxes. I think this is the more fun way for the game to be. I think you have not provided the aforementioned thing that the 'losers' (whether they are losers in economical terms, pvp terms, social terms or what have you) would stick around for.
As it stands, I don't want to be a loser in your game because it means I cannot get access to this cool feature you have made. And I don't want to be a winner either because I know that by doing so, I am basically shitting on someone else's enjoyment of the game. Therefore, what this stream has shown me is that Ashes in its current form as an MMO is simply something I do not wish to engage with.
As usual, I sincerely appreciate the transparency.
How do you feel about the size-and-shape inventory management system?
I like the tetris-like idea! For me it straddles the line between emulation and simulation. It may be tedious at times but with that comes significant mechanical balancing and problem-solving required in what are normally very basic, shallow game mechanics.
How do you feel about the systems shown thus far for planting crops on your Freehold? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
The only thing I would encourage you to consider is allowing players the option to plant outside of their freehold boundaries and treating those plants as open gatherables. Risk vs reward here. Players can expand their growing space as much as they want, adding to the world, but with that comes the risk of other players stealing it. To me that would just add to the game. (You could also do the same with livestock.) Maybe some restrictions would need to be in place so the market isn’t flooded with plants but I think it’s worth considering. One idea would be that two much farming would have a negative effect on the native plants/resources which would cause other problems.
How do you feel about raising livestock and collecting resources from them? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
As a hunter and homesteader IRL I think your animations were fantastic. Particularly the culling of the pig. It beautifully captured the mixed emotions of killing an animal. I tear up every time I harvest an animal. I acknowledge the violence required in eating meat and using other animal products like leather and I also have a great love, care and appreciation for animals and what they offer me, my friends and family in both life and death. Thank you for doing justice to that very important aspect of reality that many people are disconnected from.
What kind of customization do you want with your Freehold, or buildings on your Freehold?
You covered everything I can think of. It looks super customizable.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview? Is there anything in particular you’re concerned about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
This is a big one and I am both excited and concerned. First, I am excited about the vast majority of it. So much to love. I also really like the ideas of freeholds having the highest level of processing. That by itself just adds a whole new layer of depth and complexity to the economy and game as a whole. Where I am concerned though is how freeholds could play out. I totally understand why you plan to do everything you said so far but my main concern is that it could actually end up having some pay-to-win aspects to it and also heavily incentivise “no-lifing” the game. If someone could only own one freehold per account but can own numerous accounts as long as they can afford it, then people who have a lot of money in real life would be incentivised to own multiple accounts and control the limited number of freeholds. Larger guilds would also more likely get them.
Personally, I would rather you keep the sale of freeholds outside of the market/economy. I get that you want the economy to be a core aspect of gameplay (which I want as well) but to me, having a real-estate economy that can actually be influenced by real-life money is not good. We have issues with that IRL as it is and don’t want our game to have the same problem. The answer of “well there are other types of housing” and then listing lesser forms of housing like apartments makes you sound like the typical capitalist saying people IRL should be happy that they can rent an apartment for the rest of their life while the rich people own multiple mansions around the world.
So my suggestion: Keep a limit of one freehold per account. Don’t allow players to sell freeholds to each other and make profit off of it. Focus on making sure certain real-life wealthy players or large guilds can’t have a monopoly on freeholds. There is already so much wonderful depth and complexity to the AoC economy, just keep it out of land ownership please. If you do this incorrectly it could actually be game-breaking for me. The idea of questing to earn the rights to a deed is great. I am part of a smaller guild that is really excited for AoC. We want to be an integral part of the economy and also desire to have a healthy game/life balance for ourselves. We like the idea of AoC focusing on risk vs reward and rewarding players for doing tough things but we need that to not require an impossible amount of time and effort for a small guild to achieve together while also taking responsibility for our real lives and I ask that you take that into consideration in freehold design. You could easily push away many great, committed players who will contribute a lot to the game if given the chance.
As for the stream itself, I felt it was... ok. For a freehold stream, the fact we didn't get to see anything being built or placed was pretty disappointing, lots of talk about customisation. 0 actually shown. It almost felt as though the freehold had just been placed by developers rather than built by a working system within the actual game.
A bit, smoke and mirrors and lots of padding. Because when you break it down, what did we actually see on stream that was new? We saw the gathering of Stone, Wood, Wool, Milk, Pork, Wheat, Corn and Tomatoes. (Most of which we have seen before and it's like a handful of character animations). A new mount (which was nice but the slow-mo run needs a pass) some inventory stuff (Chest and bags are cool but I dunno, isn't this something that is already settled? It's an inventory system, a dev team should be able to have a fully fleshed-out inventory system covering chests, bags etc in a few weeks. It strikes me as strange that such rudimentary things are still being "shown of" and discussed years into development)
I thought the environment was nice, but hope that it is very much a reflection of the direction it is going and will see much more development. The fidelity is generally fine (although the Unreal Engine 4-based assets are already beginning to look pretty dated which is a big problem with a project that is being developed over such a long period of time.) but I think things, in general, could do with more visual "punch".
* The sound/graphic of harvesting the pigs would weight a lot on what rating Intrepid wants the game to be. If the game is intended to be for MA's, then it's ok. If they are rating the game "Teen," then the sound/graphic shouldn't be quite this detailed.
* As it was mentioned in the preview...milking the cows was extremely fast. It should be about 1/2 the speed or more.
* I didn't see any footprints coming from the "Lightfoot" mount.
* When depositing resources into the Freehold harvest crates. Instead of drag/drop each resource, there should also be a deposit all harvests option.
** What thoughts might the community/Intrepid have about random dreams (trailers) while sleeping?
Idk never try something like this before. Sound good and all this extra bags for different jobs also sound good, exited to try this in game.
How do you feel about the systems shown thus far for planting crops on your Freehold? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
- Its fine, slow but fine. Steven say we can speed up this process or get help from other family members so im cool with that. Just wonder if Companion App with help us with that, and what can we do on mobile phone on our Freeholds.
How do you feel about raising livestock and collecting resources from them? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
Again fine, just for god sake dont sleep mama pig in front on her babys!
What kind of customization do you want with your Freehold, or buildings on your Freehold?
Move buildings, crops and everything else freely, give us grit like in backpack and give us freedom to manage it.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
Yea, it is a Big Chunk of land! Sounds are amazing, its gonna be a lot of hard work to lvlup everything in my space and i Love it!
Is there anything in particular you’re concerned about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
Family Drama with permissions when somebody destroy or steal something. Crying about node destruction and needing to rebuild. Player collision and trolling others when they try do some work in there.
The format was great for a major system like this as we got some specifics on how things work.
Keep it!
How do you feel about the size-and-shape inventory management system?
I also liked the idea of having different systems for different inventory tabs but of course this needs to be tested.
What kind of customization do you want with your Freehold, or buildings on your Freehold?
Customization should be done with the minimum effort and the imagination should be the limit.
The only thing I don't think should be allowed is uploading of pics for paintings and stuff, it can be trolled in so many ways.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
I think all of it.
This will be a major thing ingame if done right. It has so much potential. I loved the building trees upgrades!
Is there anything in particular you’re concerned about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
I think this method of bidding can really open RMT and that is very difficult to control even with active GMs.
It's understandable that freeholds should be a milestone and with that a great feeling of achievement for the player. With that said I don't think it should be impossible for someone who joins Ashes 1 ou 2 years after the launch date to get it. It should be a monumental work either with resources and coins and/or quests and other stuff but should not be impossible to get. Otherwise you are locking the high-end mechanic of processing for a lot of people even if they work very hard and for a very long time just because they joined later and all of the land cannot take any more freeholds.
I know they will fall with sieges but once it gets up for bidding again they will never have the amount of coin that the person that started on day 1 has. This is why bidding should not be the way to do it.
A: Not really a fan.
I would assume that there is some form of a Weight Mechanic at play as to disallow me from carrying a billion of just three different types of materials, for example. However, if this is the case then why not only have the Weight Limit at play instead of restricting the things that I can have (potentially) to just a few different types of items?
In simple terms, I would prefer to be able to have one of a thousand different items rather than a thousand of only one or two items.
Q: How do you feel about the systems shown thus far for planting crops on your Freehold? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
A: I love it. I don't really see any problems with it thus far.
My only ask regarding this is that I would like to see a more or less nonexistent limit on the size of farms. The only 'soft limits' could be the limits of the player's financial wealth and perhaps they're limited by their resources and other assets to be able to develop and maintain their own massive farms.
Q: How do you feel about raising livestock and collecting resources from them? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
A: I think it's awesome! I really hope that there are many different kinds of animals to domesticate, adding to the diversity of the economy in Verra!
It would do a lot for the greater stage if a freehold could be made even more unique by its farming of a certain exotic, rare and very resourceful domesticated animal. Maybe like a Rainbow Sheep which has wool that slowly changes colour, and continues to once sheared!
Q: What kind of customisation do you want with your Freehold, or buildings on your Freehold?
A: I think it is imperative that Freeholds are not used only as important economic areas in a Node's ZoI but also as a political area or militarily strategic location!
I can imagine two powerful Nodes which border each other, and along the border are player-built walls, fortifications and such which are all part of that player's Freehold! Linking back to the Risk & Reward game pillar that AoC has (which I always try to do), a player with such a Freehold could be rewarded politically with a very high rank in the military of that Node and perhaps there could even be Node Policies which would indicate their Freehold as a March/Marcher Freehold, giving bonuses to the owner of the Freehold, the Freehold itself, and in turn also help the Node's military standing.
A Freehold with political buildings could also have amazing implications! I imagine a player could own a Freehold within a Node's ZoI being very close to the actual Node itself. This player could build political buildings within this Freehold, giving bonuses to the Node and its buildings. Perhaps this could be a very good reason for this player to be elected as leader/mayor of the Node, since they are very clearly committed to its standing! Again, Node Policies could indicate this Freehold as some kind of Government Plaza, giving relevant bonuses and such.
Q: Is there anything in particular you’re excited about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
A: Yes, the possibilities of how a Freehold can affect the wider world as a whole. Either the Freehold can help the owner entirely by helping their (guild's) business, or the owner of the Freehold could dedicate its use to more worldly means, by ways such as the examples given above.
The possibilities of how Freeholds could be used is also seemingly endless. Say for example, all Freeholds could build an Iron Mine, but in a particular area which a Node has managed to extend its influence over, iron is very rich there. The output of an iron mine in that area could have major bonuses. This would in turn dynamically impact the economy and flesh out the strategic campaigning of Nodes with this implementation and heavy encouragement of geopolitics.
It doesn't stop there either; What about Freeholds that are slave camps, industrial complexes, wizard towers, military bases, university campuses, grand canals. The list of ideas are endless and their effect on the relevant Node and Verra as a whole are also just as endless!
Q: Is there anything in particular you’re concerned about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
A: There are three different types of housing, and as the main man himself says, "technically four with Inns".
I would then think on the size of Verra, the size of actual Nodes, and the size of Freeholds. Now consider the idea of having Minor and Major Freeholds. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely agree that Freeholds should be a privilege and not a right, but perhaps more players could be exposed to the taste of the real privilege of having a Major Freehold by being able to own a Minor Freehold? Major Freeholds being as shown in the stream, and Minor Freeholds being much much smaller. A Minor Freehold might not be able to be a military or political based Freehold as mentioned earlier, and it may not even be able to have such big farms or some of the later and greater artisan buildings - but it could at least provide a house which could level to max, and then a small area of land to use however the player wishes.
Who knows? Perhaps that could even give way to Freehold Wars, a little like Civil Wars in a Node.
Thank you again Intrepid Studios for another absolute B A N G E R of a stream! Much love.
Inventory - Inventory should be upgradable to the point that you can carry a hefty amount of things. I don't mind the resource tab being smaller to force you to drop things off at your storage. The resource tab being separate is amazing. Quest items should be a separate tab. Please no clutter items like "pickax" or "sickle" that takes up inventory space.
Freehold Crops - I would prefer long cooldowns, such as 24 hours or longer to harvest crops, but the yield is large enough to not make the resource too scarce. Requiring watering during dry seasons and an upgradable auto irrigation systems would be cool. Different Fertilizer for crops to have higher yields, faster cultivation, or rarer yields would be nice.
Livestock - Prefer long cooldowns on harvesting. Different feeds to cause livestock to either grow faster, yield more, or provide rare materials would be nice. The more immersive killing of the livestock is great. Taking it a step forward and requiring butchering would be nice, including the graphic skinning. Processing meat isn't pretty. Red Dead Redemption 2 is a great example of how to do it.
Freehold customization - Very free placement of crops/livestock/buildings/processing stations would be nice. I hate having "5 slots" in designated areas. Limitations on the number of facilities is fine. Being able to design the structure of your buildings would be very fun, like you would in the Sims. Being able to place trees, paths, fences, etc. would be nice.
Housing Zone - Please make freeholds accessible everyone by creating a zone designated to only housing. The main open world having freehold spots for guilds is great, but I would love to have my own plot of land and some neighbors to say hi to. Feels like a waste to create this whole system that only guild leaders get to really play with.
There are three different types of housing, and as the main man himself says, "technically four with Inns".
I would then think on the size of Verra, the size of actual Nodes, and the size of Freeholds. Now consider the idea of having Minor and Major Freeholds. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely agree that Freeholds should be a privilege and not a right, but perhaps more players could be exposed to the taste of the real privilege of having a Major Freehold by being able to own a Minor Freehold? Major Freeholds being as shown in the stream, and Minor Freeholds being much much smaller. A Minor Freehold might not be able to be a military or political based Freehold, and it may not even be able to have such big farms or some of the later and greater artisan buildings - but it could at least provide a house which could level to max, and then a small area of land to use however the player wishes.
Who knows? Perhaps that could even give way to Freehold Wars, a little like Civil Wars in a Node.
Also I liked the slight amount of gore from the pig slaughter scene, but I wouldn't go much further with it.
Gardens- I thought were fantastic. Would be nice if again crop rotation mattered. Planting corn, then melons, then wheat, etc to give optimal harvesting. As opposed to just... I always plant corn here. So there is again incentive to plant a variety and a player needing to choose what will they plant and when.
Animals- The bigger the animal the more resources that should come from them. More wool, more fur, more milk, more meat, etc. I do agree with the idea of just having them appear to lay down in a sleep state for the process. I grew up on a farm and have no issue with the actual butchering process of animals... but not all share that sentiment. So the sleep state would be more accepting to the general populace I think.
Freehold ownership- I know intrepid mentioned not everyone would own a freehold... While I can understand the stance, What happens to those that purchased cosmetics towards freehold buildings? Could perhaps it be that only a (maximized 6-10 people) family can own a freehold? And only members of that family has access to it's goods/services. This incentivizes the creation of the family/maintaining a family while also allowing the player base to use the skins they purchased? I think it would be a good opportunity to really "minimize how many have one", yet again incentivize the family or guild to form together to have such a benefit in game and maintain it.
A solid showcase and I look forward for future streams and Alpha 2! Well done intrepid!
But after listening to full stream showcase, and reading about it here, I'm less and less optimistic about this. It was only a matter of time before they messed up something badly, and lo-and behold, here we are.
First off, freeholds offer too much stuff to be so limited to only a certain amount of players. You're basically asking for powerful guilds (zergs) to control most of them, the rich get richer, etc. it has been explained multiple times in this thread already. The whole bidding thing should definitely go.
Archeage had a problem where the land would get taken up pretty quickly, so if you were late to the party, were kinda left without a farm plot. But even in that case, I always managed to get farm plots close to my guildmates, because it was one of my main goals in the game. It was a mess, plots were too close together to other players, they were kinda small, and the system obviously wasn't perfect, but at this point Freeholds look way worse.
Then comes the whole, "your freehold gets destroyed together with the node". Which just seems like it's out of your control entirely. If a powerful guild wants to destroy your node, and you happen to have a freehold there, well good luck, all of it is now gone, start over (if you can). If you decide to move away from large guilds, and build a freehold in another node where there's less competition maybe, in hope of a more peaceful life. WELL GUESS WHAT, THE BIG ZERG CAN COME AND DESTROY YOUR NODE, WHICH IN TURN DESTROYS YOUR FREEHOLD. GOOD LUCK PAL. They could even straight up prevent you from actually maxing out your crafting skills, by sabotaging your node constantly and destroying your and any other freeholds in that node.
Obtaining a freehold blueprint should indeed be hard/time consuming in some way, but it shouldn't be mainly tied to how rich you are, because that way, rich and powerful guilds will easily be able to control who gets what. It should be hard to get, but it shouldn't be limited to only certain groups. Instead, it should come with a mix of needing a time sink of some sort, completing certain achievement/quest, and a bit of gold/materials to obtain the blueprint. This could guarantee that players who are dedicated to it will get a freehold (that is if we assume everyone starts at the same time, from day 1). Then, there should be a certain timer, if you don't contribute certain things to extend the duration of your freehold, it's removed (like in Archeage, you get the blueprint mailed to you, and you can place it again somewhere, if you find the spot).
In any case, all this means is those who are dedicated, will get a Freehold faster, and will be able to choose a better location or something. But this does not mean that a large amount of playerbase is completely locked out from having one.
Freeholds just offer too much, too many systems are tied to it, the economy is tied to it, the only way to become a master in crafting is to have access to one, and that would've been fine, if say 70% of players have access to it (95% of active players should have it, 70% is just used in general because there might be some players who just log in a few times a week for only an hour or 2, or some people who just want to pvp, and don't want to deal with crafting, gathering, etc.).
Also PvP being enabled in your freehold is... not that great. Because if you're just afk processing or doing w/e, and you just get jumped by someone and killed, then it's a bad bad thing that shouldn't happen. It would've been okay-ish, if you didn't also drop certain stuff from your inv. but even in that case, it's extremely annoying that you can't have a safe-space on your own piece of land.
And now the juicy hypothetical. (just as I was typing it, I came across @OutSiDeR304 's comment which explains it better than me, oh well)
Imagine 2 guilds collaborating to exploit the system. One guild that controls the node just straight up starts selling all of their freeholds for some juicy profit. Then they abandon the node, and let the other guild destroy it. Boom, you've just been scammed. You bought the freehold, and now it's destroyed, due to matters completely out of your hand.
The whole "If you own a home in a node and you don't want to see that home destroyed, you need to defend that city" thing that Steven has said, is incredibly bad. You can't do anything if a large enough zerg comes to destroy your node. What are you going to do as a solo player? Nothing. What are you going to do as a small guild? Nothing. You're going to get destroyed.
The idea of "bidding" to own a freehold for example makes me think they'll be out of reach for anyone who can't spend half their life in this game. Can a casual player, a couple of hours a few times per week, for example, ever own a freehold? It doesn't sound like it. Any available plots will be snapped up by the people who take 2 weeks of vacation at launch and no-life the game, the RMT traders etc.
What's the housing proposition for a casual father of two? At least in New World anyone could have somewhere to call their own.
If I never own a freehold (likely), what's my cosmetic skin worth that I bought as part of an alpha pack?
Ah, so there is at least instanced housing? I missed that in the video.
Makes no sense that it won't cover every player though.
It has to be built by the mayor. Though you can also rent rooms at Inns.
https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/55793/happy-with-freeholds-acquisition-method
Why can't you just make certain freeholds more desirable by having larger plots or more ideal locations, and let the elites fight over those, but then also provide plenty of smaller, more secluded freeholds such that at least a good portion of the playerbase will have access to one if they work hard enough? There don't have to be enough for EVERY player on the server, but I think they should be an attainable goal for a player who is willing to put in the time and effort and makes getting one a priority.
I used to be so excited for this game, but this design philosophy that only a small percentage of players get to do anything cool is really killing my desire to play it.
How do you feel about the size-and-shape inventory management system?
This part was a tad odd - but was relieved to hear that bigger/different bags will be available, to replace the one from Sanctus. Definitely an approach to inventory management that yours truly has yet to encounter.
How do you feel about the systems shown thus far for planting crops on your Freehold? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
The explanation on this very neat! The prospect of being able to highly-customize the functionality and land-use of the Freehold plots is AMAZING! Yours truly will probably have 1 center for processing, and then the rest as fields - until the server gets more-packed, and then an inn seems quite feasible. Being able to plant different crops and even mix the crops seems quite innovative.
How do you feel about raising livestock and collecting resources from them? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
This seems like a good way to both manage and to let others know what your interest in livestock is; Some animals are well-defined as "resource" animals, others for mounts. It offers the opportunity to know what someone is preparing, before they're perhaps ready to offer it to the market-at-large. Killing the pig didn't upset *me*, but maybe it could have your toon take it over to the shed, for culling?
What kind of customization do you want with your Freehold, or buildings on your Freehold?
The named options seem both plentiful and just fine. Found the prospect of looting/trading rarer blueprints from things like bosses neat. Am planning to use cosmetics, largely. Will probably keep the personal house smaller, in order to keep the other space available for productivity - a really cool option!
Is there anything in particular you’re excited about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
This is an aspect of the game that had me hanging on every word. Yours truly usually plays healers and traders in MMORPG's, and so this kind of insight was really great to have! To learn that our Freeholds can essentially function as "factories" and look akin to small towns was fascinating, for those of us who may not go for in-the-city real estate!
Is there anything in particular you’re concerned about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
Ha - I thought the pig killing might upset some. Again, that shed on the side *could* serve more than one function....
I like it for materials/secondary components for crafting. I think it creates an interesting gameplay layer making some things more difficult to transport, making them more expensive to transport as a result.
How do you feel about the systems shown thus far for planting crops on your Freehold? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
I would like to see information about my crops - how far along are they in their growth cycle, yield per crop, penalties for not rotating crops and other things influencing my gardening. Not all of these are necessary to know of course but might make it frustrating if omitted.
How do you feel about raising livestock and collecting resources from them? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
Same as the crops, information about my livestock so I can plan my resources accordingly. Not sure if livestock is planned to have a lifespan, but I think that would make managing it a little more interesting. Maybe for livestock which produces resources continually, they might produce less as they age and then they would be ready for slaughter/sleep. Maybe slaughtering younger livestock gives higher quality meat needed for the best food recipes. I would also like to see buildings and other objects for livestock increasing their happiness which could increase their productions/lifespan.
What kind of customization do you want with your Freehold, or buildings on your Freehold?
I would like to see the fence around the freehold to be fairly customisable. Outside of furniture and small cosmetic placeable items I would like to see some color variation for each building so it is possible to match our buildings to the environment.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
I was excited to see how well the freehold blended into the environment - having native trees in the freehold helps a lot. Also having different paths of specialization for processing/business buildings sounds like a great idea. The interior of the house looked great, love to see how well you can make your house look when you give it some thought and effort.
Is there anything in particular you’re concerned about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
I was wondering why not make more sizes of freeholds available. Someone might not want to do anything else other than have an inn or a field for crops they would sell. I understand that freeholds are mainly a way to get to the highest processing levels but you have already shown things which have nothing to do with processing and I think it would make perfect sense to have smaller plots of land to sell for people who might not want to create an entire processing plant.
Thank you.
Reminds me of SWG w/player cities.
As far as any animal, farming, crafting in general. Keep sounds and actions like they would happen if we were to do them in real life and put option in settings to avoid these if they don't want them....Problem solved.
Keep the game challenging....which will keep it interesting and fun to play.
Mentioned SWG cause it started off Great till it catered to everyone wanting to be able to do everything and have everything faster.
Really like the Info and the way you all are asking for feedback. Keep up the good work!
To the first category of people, when I ask them if Intrepid ever explicitly said freeholds would be accessible by everyone regardless of effort and without limitation to the impact of freeholds on the game world, they will all agree that the answer is no--with the exception of limiting freeholds to one-per-account. Instead, they have simply inferred from ambiguity in what the system would ultimately look like that the system would be exactly what they wanted. Nobody told them to make assumptions about the freehold system, and they bought freehold cosmetics knowing that the system design had not been entirely revealed. If folks reached a particular conclusion about what the system would be, they have only themselves to blame for making assumptions in the first place. I have no patience or sympathy for the people, and it seems Intrepid will nonetheless be offering them the opportunity to sell their cosmetics back for embers.
To the second category of people, I have to say that I could not be more excited or happy about Intrepid's design decisions. I will name a few of the reasons I think Intrepid nailed it. First, the scarcity of freeholds will create additional reasons for node sieges as guilds desiring to establish freeholds close to the best POIs may want/need to tear down established freeholds to build their own processing centers. The best POIs may change over time as the world evolves, creating yet another incentive for strategic-level conflict that will keep the world refreshing and give players many more ways to be involved in intrigue and war-gaming. Second, the limited number of freeholds will enable an entirely new way to engage the world as a business-owner selling services and goods that cannot easily be replaced by other people. In a world where everyone can have a freehold and there is no barrier to entry, there is no great business sense in investing heavily in your own. This is yet another layer of gameplay that will keep the world alive, and bring in more players who may not have had the same opportunities for mercantilism in some other games. Third, family-access to freeholds will give more ways for folks who play together frequently to work together than traditional pve/pvp group combat. I love this.
I will probably not own a freehold, but I certainly intend to join up within a family of someone who does and help develop our tiny corner of the world. It is a home away from the node. It is another layer of gameplay that I didn't expect to have given that I never wanted to manage a freehold myself. Great design choices Intrepid--ignore the haters; all of their arguments have been entirely one-dimensional and no reason at all to reconsider your design decisions.
This has been the best live stream so far in my opinion. The PowerPoint presentation was perfect, giving us context before we see gameplay made it way more enjoyable. I recommend doing this from now on, having PP for context and then the devs can just play and just explain small stuff.
2)The Freehold:
The Freehold looks amazing. The area and the building look amazing. The whole concept is something i like (with some caveat I will put below).
3)Customization:
From what i have seen, there is complete customization? So no idea what to put here.
4)Resources:
I feel we need more info on this to have an opinion. Time to grow for livestocks and crops etc etc. I like the animations though (except the milking of the cow was too fast, like the whole animation was running in 1.5x speed, but it looks real good)
5)Concerns:
Regarding Freeholds slots, I saw on discord Steven mentioned "low 1000s" plots. My question here is, how many players will have an account on a server. 10k players concurrent, but how many in total? Freeholds should be rare af, but I wonder about mega guilds holding most of freeholds on a server if the population is 20k total (or more)
Regarding Freeholds plots: here is more of a question as i didnt actually understand, are plots next to each other? Massive area where you put your freehold, but are the plots next to each other, so can there be 2 freeholds right next to each other? i mean walls touching each others?
Regarding Freeholds acting as Processing Powerhouses: super idea, as processing needs most space out of the 3. However could there be different "freeholds" for gathers and crafters? A gatherer would need a small area with a house and chests, crafter something similar. Not having this makes Processors the only path that is actively punished for not having a Freehold, unlike crafters or gathers.
Also, Steven mentioned in discord after the stream that there won't be a UI interface for a player going to use a freehold's processing table. So if i want to use a master table, the player that has the freehold needs to be online, at his freehold and give me access after i pay him money. I feel this will mean most people won't be able to use those tables (which players spends their time in the game waiting to see if customers show up or not?). However having a UI interface, (like the tables in the node) will mean that not having a freehold won't be as massive of a disadvantage.
Combining the last 2 points, from what i understand, freeholds transform processing into the most difficult path for players, and it makes having one a necessity rather than a benefit. A gatherer with a freehold and a gatherer without one are the same. A crafter with one and one without are the same. A processor with one is magnitudes more powerful than one without.
I have no idea how to fix this tbh. But considering the processors are the middle link between gather and craft, i feel that there will be a number of processors that all gathers go to sell and all crafters go to buy and all other processors are left in the dusk.