Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
I like the size/shape Inventory Management system, it feels more realistic, and will greatly benefit your Caravan looting system - just please don't add weight limits which affect your travel speed, that was highly annoying in games like Skyrim.
-[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?]
We weren't shown any crop planting in the video, but it would be nice to know if Tills, Hoes, or Rakes are needed to prepare the soil before seeding/planting. Also, I would like to see a "Picking Action" and rustling leaves sounds used when harvesting certain things like Tomatoes, Corn, Berries, etc. Just waving the little sickle around for each food resource got boring real fast. Especially for Apples, nobody is going to use a sickle on an Apple Tree or an Ashes Apple Bush either.
-[How do you feel about raising livestock and collecting resources from them? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?]
I really liked the "good boi" harvesting wool from the sheep using a Pet emote, that was really unique and I enjoyed it very much!
For the gathering of Meat, I think it would be more entertaining if you could only harvest meat from a fully grown Fat Pig or a Fat Cow, and when you do collect Meat the animal reverts back to it's baby Piglet size or Calf size instead of dying.
If you do move forward with the killing for meat gameplay, it might be nice to have a friendly setting on your Freehold for "Good Boi Mode" where instead of Killing the animals, you give them good boi pets instead.
The Cow Milking was really really entertaining, don't change a thing there!
-[What kind of customization do you want with your Freehold, or buildings on your Freehold?]
Themed Outdoor Seasonal/Holiday decorations are a must have. Including but not limited to indoor/outdoor strings of christmas lights/lanterns/lighted flowers that we can run across the roof, fencing, etc.
The amount of outdoor decoration slots has always been dismal in other games, please just give us a LOT and I mean a LOT of furniture/decor slots inside and out! I'm talking at least 50 outdoor and 250 indoor decor for a Small Freehold house!
-[Is there anything in particular you’re excited about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?]
I'm excited about the 1.5 Acre size and being able to harvest my own Vineyard and Beehives to make Mead, Mulsum and Wine in my Freehold/Node Store, I'd also like to be able to sell some items from my Bazaar bag on my back while traveling, dungeons, etc!
-[Is there anything in particular you’re concerned about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?]
In addition to in-node housing, you MUST add in-Node instanced Housing which is available to every Citizen at Node rank 4 or higher. No bidding none of that, leave that up to the In-Node Housing and Freehold Processing folks.
If People want to pursue Processing beyond Journeyman, then you have to Bid on a Freehold plot somewhere outside the city, risk/reward and all that. But instanced-basic (up to Journeyman) housing must be available to everyone in every city beyond rank 4 or higher.
In-Node Apartments are an absolutely unacceptable solution, it's a fantasy game and you must give people the ability to attain home ownership in a world they'd otherwise be unable to. I think an instanced in-Node Small House should be absolutely free with Citizenship, with medium and large in-Node instanced housing costing X-Luxury gold taxes every month. Players who do not want home ownership/processing/etc can use your INN/Tavern system throughout the world.
Lastly, I don't think it's a good idea to have players able to be attacked while on their Freehold. Especially if you're going to have a crafting mini-game. I don't think you should be able to be murdered while collecting your chicken eggs either, that's just not fun.
Sure, if you're out in Timbuktoo Mining gold ore that should be risk that's taken into consideration.
But leaving your house, picking Tomatoes, then getting murdered and someone steals them from you just isn't fun.
If you are going to go this "killed on Freehold" route, the Freehold must come standard with 5 NPC Guards that patrol your Freehold. None of this get sniped from the treeline bullshit either, they gotta come ONTO the Freehold footprint to attack you, Guards immediately sound the alarm, and you can either help them fight, or run into your house and call for help. That persons name should be automatically logged into your Freehold guestbook for reference as a hostile individual.
Thanks for your time!
Player traded gold is not essential or great(it cannot be good, good is love and love is a verb not an adjective), actually it's quite the opposite. Gold or currency is symbolic of "I do for you, you do for me" and not only does it get twisted into some really %$&#!@ up stuff because of greed, it's an inefficient tool. Ants don't use money. And if they did it would just slow them down. Which is fine I guess, timegate the ants lol, DLC soon.
Besides there's no way they ever would remove currency, people love their money too much. I would much rather see combat trials for land ownership in military nodes lol.
I'm a casual AoC enjoyer. A hopeless MMO fan waiting for something to get lost in after I come home from work and have a few hours to play. In the beginning, I was very excited about the project; now, with every passing stream I'm losing interest more and more.
Freeholds/bidding is the most naive system I've encountered to date. It's guaranteed that Guilds who can no-life this game for a few weeks will take control over everything that can be controlled and make the game a living hell for a casual player with no hope for an "endgame" experience with regards to this feature. This puts me off, it's annoying, and I know what MMO players can be like, especially with systems that they can have control over - The tax system in New World is a simple but great example: the second a guild took over a town the taxes on everything went up to the highest possible... this does not create a rally among people to take over the town, it's not real life because you can log off and never be bothered by these features again - people will get bored annoyed, and they will quit.
I'm bored and deflated just thinking about it. I want to have things I can work towards, I want them to be challenging and special to get, BUT I want them to be attainable at some point. I don't mind working hard towards a goal in the game; in fact, I welcome those sorts of activities, but this seems an impossible system to take part in for anyone that doesn't spend their whole day playing with 50 other people doing the same and are happy to support you.
Someone in one of the comments on YT highlighted another problem with buying and selling plots. Because they will be these crazy hard, end-game activities for the chosen few, the feature will become an RMT hell abused by inevitable whales. It's a disaster waiting to happen, and it will happen. It must, because anything hard to get but can be bought with tradable ingame currency WILL be something botters are looking at and drooling over, just waiting for the people who want that plot, but are missing the few x amount of gold needed to put that bid in, to come their way.
With regards to the freehold, the gathering, and Tetris inventory... when has that ever worked out well for an MMO? I'm afraid this game will release with the developers banking on the "immersion" keeping players happy without the necessary quality-of-life features to keep the vast majority satisfied (I don't mean fully automated, but you NEED something in a game to make it a little more enjoyable and less annoying. I don't want to feel like I've come from work to go onto my game and do more work.) Every time an MMO releases without a balance of QoL systems, it inevitably caves under the pressure of a mass exodus of players and spends time implementing features that should have already been in the game from the get-go.
Every time I give feedback on this game (mostly on YouTube), I get comments from people saying, "Maybe this project just isn't for you"... okay? Am I not the target audience, then? I love MMOs; I love having a character, making it powerful, gear progression, power progression, "bragging rights" items that you've gotten through hard work (powerful looking items with cool particle effects or cool looking mount, etc.). Who is this game for then if it isn't for me?
By the looks of things, this will be a New World 2.0, mountains of hype only for the penny to drop 2 weeks into launch, beginning a tedious and long process of developers trying to save the game through emergency QoL patches to keep people happy and paying (that's counting in months, months that could have been spent improving the game otherwise, then adding things that should have been there in the first place, if anyone at all learned anything from the mistakes of past MMO releases). Let's not pretend this isn't a business and the development team won't work on keeping players satisfied.
Do not make the mistake of releasing this game, thinking some systems are "immersive" rather than "tedious and annoying." People value their time more now; there are more games to play than 15 years ago and more things to do.
I truly like your thinking on the first one, the bidding system should only be for economic nodes!
That might actually work for those who want it that way. It makes sense that when you live in an economic node, I'd assume you become a rich player faster/have a rich family or clan if you play your cards right and therefore have the means to outbid others.
I don't like the bidding idea for every freehold in the whole world however, because then lots of players can always get outbid everywhere by a richer player or rich clans and families and have them buying out all the available parcels to then sell them against ungodly prices just because they can. And then the bottom 95%-ish who works just as hard for their money or even a tiny bit less never have a chance of obtaining a freehold.
What I would like to see is an increasing but capped price system for freeholds. You could make it more expensive the closer you are to the metropolis of the node.
IRL the price of land is more expensive closer to a metropolis than in the outskirts of a small village or middle of nowhere, after all.
To make the pricing still challenging, lets say:
Freeholds close to a village: 10k-50k gold. This creates a first come, first serve environment with a lot of opportunity to make big bank for people who are lucky enough to get to keep their freehold through the villages' growing stages and sieges.
Freeholds close to a town: 100k-150k gold. In a town people might already have a steadier income and are willing to pay more once they are in the market for a freehold there.
Freeholds close to a city: 250k-1M gold. It should be pretty rare at this point to find an empty plot in a parcel up for grabs, or a freehold for sale. You better invest some big money, but still have lots of potential for growing your business. An owner selling his freehold there to set up a new one in another area or node deserves a decent amount of return of investments or starters cash aswell to set up elsewhere.
Freeholds close to a metropolis: 5-10M gold. In the parcels surrounding metropolises built up by the biggest and smartest clans, people know what they are doing. They have their monetary structures fleshed out, are bundling their money and have the most efficient ways to at least a good return on investments and opportunity to be on top of the economic foodchain.
Freeholds nearest interesting POI: Could also be made more expensive than others farther away. For example a freehold placed closest to a dungeon where it would be smartest to place a tavern to gain massive income from dungeonraiders, would be more expensive than the next freehold down the road.
Obviously we don't know how hard it will be to make such amounts of money just yet, so untill we get the ingame prices of resources and rare drops and such, these would be placeholder prices ofcourse.
But at least I think it should be somewhat in the vacinity of these increments, to still make people work for their own plot of land.
Selling your freehold for a higher price than what you bought it for could work, but only if it is sold in the configuration the owner designed it in. If a player bought an empty freehold and made a hyper efficient layout that makes him a lot of money, the price should go up since you then know you could really make a lot of money there. What we need then is a summarization of how much money the seller has made lets say in the previous month to 3 months (to account for resource inflation) in this specific configuration. The new fixed selling price would then be base price + an average of these last 3 months.
If a player resets his freehold plot to empty or doesn't invest as much time and effort into making money out of it, prices drop again down to base price only. The base price grows or shrinks accordingly to the stage of the node aswell.
A player might want to reset the freehold to empty to be able to sell the plot faster, with the ability to sell the resources invested in building all the buildings on said freehold, with a slight loss. For example: invested 100 wood to build a house -> demolish -> get 75 wood in return.
What do you all think about this?
Thank you for reading.
This... couldn't have said it better myself. seriously!
How do you feel about the size-and-shape inventory management system?
I think this is a smart system to use for the resources since they are at risk of loss in PvP. I already play several games with this system and find it fair. The management of this will definitely keep me in a “extraction style game” mindset. Which I think will be important as a reminder in calm and peace that you are still at risk. Carrying full bags will be exciting. I do worry about the frequency of opportunities I’ll have to sell or deposit my materials for later use. What’s the intended time between bags filling up ? how long do you believe it should take a player to safely deposit them? I think I might see how this system pushes people towards caravans since the risk of running to a different region and back with only the materials you can carry alone being truly suboptimal. That excites me. I love the caravans and them being necessary for a not just an individual to advance but potentially a whole nodes worth of crafters and processors to do so is really compelling. The idea of bags made for specific types of resources sounds cool but I am unclear how it would actually differentiate between say a resource that is two by two and one that is one by two.
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 really like the systems. I’m curious about crops and topography. Will all crops need flat ground? Will some farmers want a hillside for certain crops?
How do you feel about raising livestock and collecting resources from them? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
I think it is additive to immersion. I’m not that interested in livestock rearing my self but I do like the idea of my farmer friends having favorite cows or chickens. The animals having grazing spots around the freehold would be even more engaging. I love the idea of not only having a favorite tavern by a hunting spot but know that cow out front is Betsy cause I been coming here so long I remember when she was the only cow! Oh and I think visitors should be able to pet certain livestock. Petting animals is VERY important to me.
What kind of customization do you want with your Freehold, or buildings on your Freehold?
I’d love to see some control over trees and bushes in my freehold, paving stones and fence types would also help it like it was homey and also growing and becoming more lived in. A long established freehold having nice stone walls, paving stones, landscaping ect. It would not only be a status symbol but an advertisement for their tavern or other services. I have a question for me about Freeholds on hillsides and shores. Will there be any way that a freehold can have less than the allotted structure spaces? Would a freehold on topography include stairs or a freehold bordering water get a dock?
As some one who wants to be a shipwright focused carpenter come release, I’m really in love with the idea of providing passage and caravan services across the seas. The idea of moving that operation from a city dock to a more advantageously placed freehold is really compelling to me.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
I’m really excited for different sized buildings. Hopefully it’s not just houses that you can change the size of. I love the idea of business focused buildings expanding as well. The story that would tell about the freeholds use would be fun. At first it was just a little logging camp. Now it’s this whole lumber mill and ship yard. I like the idea of seeing changing priorities reflected in the structures of the freehold (which is already there with the inclusion of being able devote land! Yay!) . The tavern is cool and will be widely useful but I’m really excited about other Business buildings too. A Lighthouse, or dock being a place to sell and book passage. Also I think a stand to request/buy
Is there anything in particular you’re concerned about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
I am concerned that I won’t be able to actually run a business with out a freehold. I understand the idea of the freehold being a privilege and end game crafting but I would like to see more about systems in place for player businesses that aren’t freehold dependent. A posting board in town, a market stall, a dock in the harbor. Those are places you might also see player run businesses. And I feel like a way to help ensure that freeholds don’t just become guild hall extensions (which seems to be people’s concern) is to support solo or small family player businesses. So I’d be very interested in what other business opportunities players would have outside of freehold buildings and what systems would support them if any.
I think it’s interesting and unique, and something that would definitely need to be tested. It may work well on materials and resources, but I could definitely view it as a chore and frustrating when considering armor, weapons, etc.
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’m relatively ambivalent on farming.
How do you feel about raising livestock and collecting resources from them? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
I am looking forward to this, I enjoy leather working and tanning in mmos, so this would be great. It was quite brutal watching the pig die, but very realistic, which I can appreciate. As long as there is a mechanic to only pet/care for baby animals and not slaughter them, I’ll be good.
What kind of customization do you want with your Freehold, or buildings on your Freehold?
Nothing crazy! Building placements, angles, upgrades requiring resources, making use of the land available to you are all very exciting to me. What was shown in the video surpassed my expectations.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
Building, decorating, and crafting are all processes I would be excited for!
Is there anything in particular you’re concerned about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
I think my main concern is the lack of availability in maxing out processing crafting outside of freeholds. Why would this only be available at what might be a random farm in the middle of nowhere as opposed to a metropolis. It seems like an odd choice to me, but hey, I could go for it. If a friend or guild mate or even a stranger said I could use their processing buildings, that’s fine with me.
If I am part of a guild already. If we start to play the game at release and we want to stick together and we acquire one or more freeholds what happens after a siege?
If freeholds are destroyed and the owners want to get new ones, will the guild members end up spread on the map in different nodes? Will they end up playing against each-other during sieges?
I feel that the freehold ownership / game mechanic works against holding guilds together. If guild members leave the game, I will leave too rather than playing against them or joining another guild.
You would be enemies if the two nodes went to war, yes. However, you don't have to partake in the war or the siege against your kin. They say Node Affiliation beats Guild Affiliation but its simply not true.
I like the idea. I've seen a similar system being used in the lovecraftian fishing game "Dredge" and it worked really well there, so provided we will have access to suitable bags to carry everything, I'd say this is a fun little mechanic to specialize in gathering.
With that being said - taming is also a gathering profession and this didn't gave me any idea on how that will work, so that was a bit of a bummer.
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 personally don't find them very exciting, but we probably have not seen all of it yet. If I remember correctly, the ground didn't look like it was broken up or anything, which would probably be a nice touch and the whole gathering mechanic was just that one animation. I'd hope that depending on plant size the harvesting animation will vary a bit in the future. I'm not too worried about it, things like animations and a more interesting UI are not really what I consider a focus of an Alpha stage, but I hope it will become a bit more refined before release.
How do you feel about raising livestock and collecting resources from them? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
It's cool that we will have this variety of animals we can keep on the freehold, though I'd hope that the animals would move a bit more and maybe have a bit more options to interact with. e.g. I love to be able to send my cows out of the pen and grass on the land near my freehold. This could make them PvE targets for players but also wild animals but also increase the quality of milk and meats they get - risk & reward basically.
What kind of customization do you want with your Freehold, or buildings on your Freehold?
I would hope that I can with sufficient materials, choose to draw paths, improve them (e.g. a cobbled road) and draw some low (or higher) walls around and within my Freehold to give it a real outpost feeling. "Last tavern before the savage wilds" is what I am aiming for.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
I really dig the improvement system of building and I am excited to see what synergies will be possible.
Is there anything in particular you’re concerned about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
For once the aspect of "freeholds are a privilege not a right" makes me wonder if they can be sufficiently be tested in the alpha phase. And since they are quite limited in number there is concern that people who are willing to spend that money on secondary accounts will pick up these freeholds on their server and block out that piece of content. This in my mind would be a clear violation of the RMT policies and I would hope we will get a clear statement from Intrepid whether paying for extra accounts to bypass account limitations will be tolerated or not.
Secondly, the parcel thing. I have to be honest and say I heard it but it made me none the wiser what it actually means. Are the parcels just to manage distance between Freeholds or do they also limit us in respect to terrains where we can place them. I think there is a big information deficite there to really understand what that meant and a visual example would have greatly helped, where we can see what these parcels look like and how they guide & limit players options when placing their Freehold.
Please don’t feel limited by the thought starters above. Feel free to share anything you’d like about Ashes of Creation’s Freehold Preview shown during the June Development Update
There is a lot of potential with freeholds and I think as a system they are almost like private mini-Nodes. That to me makes it almost necessary to really dip into it. Hence while I like the idea of bigger freeholds with peak processing happening on these freeholds, I would hope that there would be a smaller type of Freehold for commercial, "adventuring" and private purposes. These Freeholds would be
- considerably smaller (at most 0.5 acres and a maximum of 3 buildings/structures)
- a house would be optional on them
- they do not allow for the placement of master processing facilities
- they are not "safe" (mobs can enter them, cause damage to animals & structures [disables bonuses & material sink])
And while these shouldn't be available to "everyone" either, having 1000-2000 of these could be a viable option that doesn't overthrow the whole balance of the initial concept.
All in all a great update, lots of points to discuss and to speculate about.
One last thing: The view off the cliff over the landscape at the beginning of the ingame footage was amazing! If possible without too many spoilers, I'd love to get something like a 10-20min "scenic ride" through some biomes of the actual Riverlands with the seasons changing to get a feel for size and environmental variety.
I am concerned about the bidding system for the Freeholds. Anyone at Intrepid that has played many MMOs and/or done research on illegal RMT'ing in games, knows how massive the issue is in MMOs, especially for things that are limited and hard or near impossible to obtain, like freeholds.
There is no stopping RMT(unless you want to start swinging the ban hammer at everyone who receives free gold) but you can design around it.
Steven said that all player trading is influenced by RMT when confronted with this issue, which is true, but there are aspects of the game that aren't influenced by RMT, mayoral elections would be a prime example.
I thinks its spectacular y'all at Intrepid are so focused on making the game group oriented, it almost brings tears to my eyes because I never thought I'd see the day again where something like that would happen in an MMO. I see how you designed the freeholds in a way to encourage a "family" or a party, just like you would a dungeon, a phenomenal design.
I just beg of y'all please don't have a bidding system. It's asking to cause un-needed grief in the community. Please replace it with a system identical to the mayoral system to decide who gets housing or what families get housing, even then the economic nodes would have bidding for those who want it. Or use something else that is perhaps even more team based, that would be great to.
This all of our chance, as passionate MMO fans, to finally rid ourselves of external and internal P2W mechanics, as much as we can. This might be the only shot we get in several decades, who knows, maybe forever. I know Steven is passionate about not having P2W in the game(supposedly one of his driving motivators for helping create AoC) and I know you all are going ban when you can, but call some other MMO developers, ask for their department that handles bans and ask them, there is no stopping it. Jagex has the most advanced system that exists for detecting mouse and keyboard macros, scripts, programs, and they can only even partially stop just the bots. Let alone real players playing the game the way it was build to be played.
- I'm a fan for sure. It feels more immersive to have physically bigger items take up more room. Also puts greater value on having a mixture of bags that are good for different things.
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?
- Nothing of concern. I would worry that in the future, if farming was just 'click and farm' on repeat, it would take away from the fun of the activity. Some games incorporate little mini games in which success can reap more crops. Definitely not a priority, but something for maybe post launch to think about
How do you feel about raising livestock and collecting resources from them? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
- Again, nothing of concern. Similar to my last point, perhaps a minigame in which you can yield more resources from them would be cool and keep it fun.
What kind of customization do you want with your Freehold, or buildings on your Freehold?
- I'd like the ability to change the exterior look of the buildings. For example, if it has a wood aesthetic, it would be nice to change the types of wood or bricks etc. Also for larger buildings, have the ability to place interior walls to our liking so we can make rooms as small or as large as we want. Other than those, the rest I think is obvious with functioning furniture etc. In regards to buildings, I think the profession based ones are already in a really good place. Will give more detailed feedback on those once players can get their hands on them. I personally want to have a tavern on my freehold where there is a lot of opportunity for player interaction. I remember hearing about the potential for card/parlour games. I really hope this feature doesn't get forgotten about for the release as I think many players will flock to Taverns in their downtime to socialise and to engage in some mostly light-hearted gambling
Is there anything in particular you’re excited about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
- Just being able to have my own customizable space is very exciting. I feel like the least amount of barriers possible are going to make Freeholds more fun.
Is there anything in particular you’re concerned about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
- I am only concerned with the size of the Freeholds and how much space they take up in the world. Steven has been on record before that it would be possible for each player to own a freehold. This was however said when they were at .5 acres. Now that they have expanded to 1.5, Steven mentioned about the bidding system in the stream which to me, implies a limited quantity. Maybe this was always the case and just hasn't been explained comprehensively until recently. I do still worry with the increased size and the lack of explanation, that players will be disappointed to know that they may be locked out of being able to get a freehold. If this is the case, could it be explained through numbers I.E, If a Node is made up of 50 players, 15 of those will be able to have a freehold. If this isn't the case, and all players are expected to be able to achieve a freehold, then I definitely worry about freeholds crowding the world. I could have this completely wrong and the info might have changed but none the less the worry does stand.
Ending thoughts:
Another fantastic livestream! the info dump slideshow was really good also so I'm definitely here for more of those. Communication about updates and other notices is always super great and does often go un appreciated so thanks for that. Keep up the good work team
I am generally satisfied with the new PowerPoint format for sharing new information.
And I'll go straight to my concern for what has been shared on the system.
- Access to full ownership at level 50. I don't understand the reason for this choice, until now there was no incentive to rush to max level and you seem to be creating a game where the journey to max level worth taking and enjoying. Now there's a lockdown on some of the content, and that's going to cause players to rush into the world that you've taken so long to create, in an attempt to appropriate that content for themselves at the expense of those taking the time to enjoy this world created with passions.
-Taking all ownership from full ownership to a large chunk of your player base seems like too much for us.
Having the house freehold accessible to the majority and locking/limiting the economic parts of it behind quests, certificates, auctions seems better.
You could divide the plots into 4 and have us extend them to 1.5 acres depending on our goal and effort.
Give us the freehold land at level 15 with a quest and buy it as a requirement and lock the 3 upgrades behind more restrictive and limited requirements.
It seems to me that this is an acceptable solution for both of us.
Or unfortunately, I'm beginning to believe that me, my family, and my friends aren't your target audience.
This Freehold change is the first design decision you've made that has seriously shaken my confidence in the belief that you understand MMO players and game economics at all.
There is a complete dichotomy - a disconnect really - between the types of players that can actually acquire a freehold, and the types of players the game would benefit the most from having one.
This design decision has killed a powerful dream for a major part of your potential player-base. You've sold freehold skins for years without any disclaimer that there is a very low chance that players are ever able to own one. Only that they require a lot of effort to get. There is a very big difference between the two.
The type of players that traditionally thrive with the freehold gameplay loops are the more casual crowd. They are the farmers, the tavern-keeps, the shop owners, the crafters. There is always overlap between player types, but they are typically not the sweaty, hardcore crowd who level up quickly and grind for days.
Yet, you have introduced a system that caters specifically to the sweaty, hardcore crowd when it comes to acquisition of a freehold. A family of 8-9 people of a more casual nature will almost never be able to grind out the levels and money fast enough for the initial land rush that is going to happen. Even when plots later open up due to node changes, they will still not have enough money to outbid the sweaty, hardcore crowd, because prices will have gone up astronomically.
The whole thing is exacerbated by allowing players to sell the freeholds to other players. Even if we ignore the obvious RMT ramifications (which would be stupid), the hardcore, sweaty crowds that weren't all that interested in freeholds before will now be, because they can make a shit-ton of gold by monopolizing the market.
Instead of being all negative, here are some potential solutions and feedback to salvage this mess:
There is a very good reason this system exists in the real world. People will abuse it otherwise, and even more so in a game.
I actually made a post earlier in the comments section mentioning this exact thing, give it a like so it can get some traction. Would love for that to be the way freeholds are acquired.
I think the 'Tetris' system works, the size that the bigger items take in the inventory is representative of their weight even if weight is not being calculated. So I think what you're suggestion makes sense, but with the 'Tetris' system it serves that purpose already. Don't you think?
Processing up to T3 can be done in nodes, so no one is locked without a profession.
RMT is not an issue related to freehold, game has open economy and trade.
There are still apartments and houses available that are a lot easier to obtain for solo players in nodes.
Solo players can still obtain a freehold, just not as easily as people playing together and combining resources - as it should be in an MMO.
Players can still join a guild or get a family in game to get access to freehold (imagine playing with other people in an MMO)
It is irrelevant to complain about the level 50 requirement, if they had no level requirement you would still need to do a gold rush to buy it as soon as the node hits level 3, so it would be even worse since nodes hit level three in only a few days.
This pretty much debunks 95% of the issues and complaints people are having here. Expecting Intrepid to provide 50k freeholds for everyone or changing up the system to have multiple different freehold tiers or sizes is completely unreasonable unless you want the game to release by 2030.
T5 is legendary items that pretty much no one outside the largest guilds will get anyways, this was always the case, to get legendary drops you need to do legendary world bosses a content that will be contested by the largest guilds. Zero chances for casual/solo players to compete in that.
T4 will be the soft BiS stuff, also hard to obtain, but more accessible, still, in every game similar to this with an open economy BiS stuff is usually in the hands of large guilds and the masses have to buy it off for higher prices or they need to invest a considerable amount of time to get it.
In an MMO like Ashes you should not have access to the best stuff easily if you want to play Solo.
new to MMOs?
+20 years playing MMOs here. Did you not understand the "game has open economy and trade" part? IF intrepid does not prevent RMT in Ashes you will literally be able to Buy Power, buying the best gear in the game, mounts, weapons, ships, literally everything. You don't need to buy freehold to process stuff you can RMT and buy literal power. So freehold is the last thing to worry about if your argument is RMT.
If you don't believe intrepid can do a good job preventing it, that's a different story, but asking changes in freehold due to that is ridiculous.
The fact that you keep repeating this line of thinking has persuaded me into thinking that you don't understand the gravity of the situation at all, where as before you could have been viewed as just biased but not completely clueless.
Not every game aspires to be pay to win. But when you do not account for the ways RMT can push your game and create unnecessary pain points that will trigger a rush for said RMT you inadvertently create p2w whether you like it or not. Ashes was and continues to be the hope to not be a p2w open world PvP game. The reason they were the hope was that they were in a 'unique position' where they could design around the many failures from other games regarding p2w and RMT practices. You can only design around them if you want to.
If this goes through in its current form, either Steven is surrounded by yes-men or he managed to hire a majority of people who think like him, in which case enjoy. In the end its up to what Steven wants. We can only hope he is making his choice out of an informed understanding aligning with what he really wants not an emotional desire to protect what he thinks will lead to what he wants.
Much love.
Also as far as playing on the freehold goes, I hope it uses a grid, or at least has an optional grid system. All the fun/addicting farming and area design games I’ve played use grids (Minecraft, sims, rollercoater/zoo/tycoon games, animal crossing, the list goes on). I’ve tried other games that don’t use grids, and while in theory they allow for more freedom, they end up just being more frustrating to use.
Similarly, when working on the freehold I hope there is a way to work on it from above and that you do not have to run around to each place. To mark it more realistic, each task could take a certain amount of time.
I noticed it on reddit too mate. We are under siege lol.