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
Obviously even a casual player can get their hands on a freehold. It'll just take them years of playing the game and not spending money on anything else. Just as it is the case with any other item in the game that has even a slightly limited or low amount.
The "it's always a guild thing" comes from a, as it seems to me, a logical conclusion that guilds would want to buy freeholds, so your competition, as a solo player, would be whole guilds of people. At which point the time scale required for you to acquire a freehold becomes, in fact, monumental.
This is not how this works though?
Like, people have said in this very thread 'it's as if they didn't learn from FF14's mistakes'.
This is absolutely not how this works in practice because it's saying 'you can get some stuff when the game starts to die/there is enough churn'.
But the ones who stay from the beginning just keep winning.
It comes back to Opportunity vs Necessity again. This works in EVE and similar games because those games are about 'being out in a truly huge near-unlimited space'. Fantasy MMORPGs on the other hand are a fail case for this design type.
This is an absurd comparison.
That space is then reduced even more by other features of freeholds. Their size (formerly 0.5acre). The required distance between the freeholds. The "no freeholds on roads, near POIs, right up to nodes".
So it's only logical to conclude that the amount of freeholds is fairly limited (definitely nowhere near 50k). At which point we realize that the guilds that would want to buy up all of them would have the ability to do so, because they'll always have way more resources than a solo player.
Any given player can always put in the effort of playing a lot or joining others or socializing or whatever else and get their freehold, but you'll still either need a MONUMENTAL amount of time as a solo player or just a bit of effort as a guildy.
No because you are supposed to scale it so that owning too much of things creates Necessity but not Opportunity so that people naturally hit a limit.
This is basic Econ for every game of this type. Expansion hits its limit when the scale of opportunity diminishes but Necessity stays the same or rises. Or, the easier way for most designers is to explicitly find a way (usually unrealistic) to make Necessity scale while Opportunity stays the same (this is less effective).
There are definitely players who don't think a lot about this sort of thing, they just 'assume a Dev can make something that works and is fun or they won't do it'.
And then you get an Econ Designer who does just that; 'makes it fun or makes it go away'.
The limitation aspect of this is among the least important. Learning how to manage 'there is a limited amount of X and multiple people want it' is the absolute baseline for MMO Econ design, if you don't manage that, you haven't even started yet.
But as I said before, I'm near certain that Intrepid will walk this back within the next few months, if not weeks. And Bill will potentially be the one to push Steven towards doing so. The backlash is too great at this point.
Did you see what I suggested? Would that work in your opinion?
I don't see any of this as necessary but as noted in the other thread at this point I'm basically just 'insulting Steven's design sense' I feel.
And that's a sign that it's time to pack it up.
Do you see where saying something is limited but saying everyone can get one that wants one does not line up?
And I still don't see the use of the world limited in regards to having a freehold. They can adjust the world size to hit target numbers. Steven in fact mentions doing that in another Livestream question and answer with the new map reveal.
oops I meant 10 hours for all 10 players, not 100 xDDD lemme edit that.
also, to clarify, the guild still needs 100 hours of players farming, they can just do it in 10 hours...10 players for 10 hours.so you also have to consider that not all players will be available all the time to farm gold
any player has the opportunity to get a freehold. that doesn't mean every player will because there isn't enough freeholds for everybody
That's your quote, not Steven's.He specifically said 12 months ago every player who puts in the time and effort will get a freehold.
That is still the case. Please rewatch the live stream, they made a change that allows players to resell freehold, eventually, after a lot of time and effort, also taxes will make sure that there will always be freehold available for sale/bid. If you farm enough gold, you can get a freehold, as simple as that. You are the one that assumed "monumental effort" didn't meant farming a tremendous amount of gold.
They never said you would get it at day 1, or month 1, or year 1, they said everyone could get it with time and effort, how did that change?
you quoted him saying ANY player, now you are saying he said EVERY player? which one is it?
there is a difference between any and every...
its like saying anybody can be part of the 1% but not everybody will be (not at the same time).
"If a player wants to achieve a freehold, they can achieve the freehold. However the amount of effort, resources and time that's required to achieve that freehold is a large amount. It is something that is a monumental achievement for you to get that freehold.
Anybody who puts the effort in should be able to achieve a freehold, but it is going to be a major achievement."
Spin it however you feel it needs to be spun bud.
"Anybody who puts the effort in should be able to achieve a freehold, but it is going to be a major achievement."
"Everybody who puts the effort in should be able to achieve a freehold, but it is going to be a major achievement."
do you see it now?
I'm glad iI wasn't the only one that had a sense of understanding his wording plus how it was going to be int he game world lol. If it exist and not instanced it is going to be difficult for most people to get one. I felt that was pretty obvious.
For perspective, I am a pretty hardcore player in games, I tend to do most of the content I find engaging, which is raiding, pvp, and massing huge amounts of money thru crafting or trade or something.
I am going to be grinding pretty hard most of the time, and I will be a part of one of those large guilds where I contribute to its resources and hope to have some things sent my way also over time. (Or I will be finding a new large guild to be a part of, there has to be give and take ya know)
My worry about freeholds, is that player housing is a very sensitive subject in every game I have ever played for decades.
Its totally fine to me that max crafting is limited to the top housing, that forces me to interact in some way with others that have what I need, which creates economic need, supply and demand. I expect the large guild I join will have access to a freehold or ten to provide access to what I need.
But, I can tell you that if every player in the game cannot get a house or "plot of land" with reasonable effort (I vaguely write reasonable) to call a spot their own and do whatever with it, the casuals will quit, and the game will die a slow death from lack of player interest.
And by housing I dont mean "Here is your inn room, this counts as housing". Folks want a plot of land.
It is totally reasonable that the best stuff goes to groups that pool their resources, but casuals will need to be able to have some skin in the game with being able to buy, decorate, rp, do whatever they want with some basic housing that exists in the world, that is not a inn room.
And keep in mind that no land ownership is permanent, with node control changing hands, players may lose their homes. The process of them moving and getting a new home (and hopefully saving their hundreds of hours of decoration work) needs to be less painful than it would be for large guilds rebuilding freeholds.
TLDR, I want to know more about the other tiers of housing still. If the casual playerbase is driven away, the game is doomed. See Wildstar (best game ever) for more details
what if there was no housing, does that means casuals wont play?
also, casuals don't contribute too much for the game economy. a server wont die because there are no casuals not contributing with items lol. this is a different game. it can happen in other games though.
It might be hard for some players to join a guild.
Can somebody explain why?
Is there an advantage of playing solo?
Is the game stopping you from bidding and obtaining the land if one is available? If the answer is no than everyone has a chance to get it.
You are trying to spin the statement as if he meant everyone will get one which is not the case since it was clear being limited spaces in the world. Effectively you are arguing semantics, if his words were not clear enough for you before now you understand the weight of meaning on what was said.
So it would seem if you were to obtain a freehold it truly would be a monumental achievement.
Depending on their goals, I think strict solo players are going to struggle in Ashes.
Everyone shown be able to own a house though, and id go as far as saying your cosmetic house skins and such should be able to influence that so people get use out of it atleast.
The point is not to make it so that every player can own land.
The point would be to make it that not every player wants to own land, and then tie people's desire to own land to 'how available land is'.
i.e. when a big guild buys up 6 plots, that they find themselves going 'damn, no one wants these for high prices, and it's not a benefit to us to hold onto them, we probably have to sell them for cheap'.
you are right, but hey if I really don't want a freehold, I wont get it, even if It means fking up the competition. ill just let someone else in my guild get it and fk up the competition.
And how do they make people not want to buy land? What would be strong enough to stop them from overcrowding the world to begin with.