Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Comments
I don't have any specific concerns about how they combat freehold RMT. I am sure it'll be difficult. It's more that they now have to, where they didn't before, because player sales of freeholds wasn't a thing. Well, early on it apparently was a thing, then they changed it to not be a thing for a long time, and now it's a thing again.
The whole thing is just exponentially exacerbated by the combination of them being expensive, scarce and so vital to the economy that basically no endgame items can be crafted without them (no endgame materials for it).
It really boils down to Intrepid creating this massive spike in RMT incentive for what is not a very essential part of typical MMORPG gameplay, which is real estate speculation. I am sure there are a handful of people who might enjoy that, but 99.99999% or more of the player base didn't sign up to ashes to flip properties.
People will do it now that it's possible of course, because it's easy money for those who have the means to acquire them early on. That and there'll be more attempts to control the markets by blocking others from accessing artisan gameplay.
Intrepid's anti-RMT resources are limited and there is no magic bullet for this kind of thing. I would much rather they spend those resources combating RMT for items and gold and on combating botting and exploiting, because if they fail to do so due to the massively increased RMT pressure from both companies and players, it'll just end up being another shit P2W game full of cheaters. I really, really don't want that. It is just so completely unnecessary to allow player sales of freeholds. It wasn't a problem before. People had generally accepted no sales because it made a lot of sense.
I actually think the $1000 average price is set way too low btw.
My metaphor for it would be that there is 2 ways to not have a leak. Either you don't have the hole in the first place, or you have the hole and tries to patch it.
Now with this metaphor any kind of trading in the game is sort of like a hole for RMT to leak through, so IS is going to have try to keep some holes and worry about keeping them patched, otherwise there won't be much of a game.
However, the currently known details about Freeholds makes for a very big hole, that means it is going to take a lot of resources to keep it patched. And in this case, the clever choice maybe would have been to not have this particular hole in the first place, since it might not be one of the more necessary holes. Or at least not worth the additional expense it is going to create on IS part.
EDIT: Some could argue that thinking like this is giving up, but sometimes discretion is the better part of valor.
Yeah I've definitely noticed this with Liniker. A lot of the information he uses to back up his arguments aren't 100% correct even according to the wiki. I haven't given feedback on the forums that much when it comes to the freehold system yet because honestly it's all hearsay as of right now. I also wanted to simply observe how the community was feeling and why the community was feeling that way. I'm impressed with a lot of community members honestly. A lot of them brought up points that were really good that I hadn't thought of.
So, player sold freeholds are the only thing they need to worry about relating to RMTs? Nonsense.
They have been talking about how to combat this since I have been following the game. You think all the sudden Intrepid just forgot about it? How bad it is for a game? Seems pretty unlikely to me.
I am just saying...again.... i get having concerns...even big ones, but you guys feel free to speak so definitively about things you could not possibly know yet.
I think we should spend our energy thinking of realistic ways to make rmt's impossible in the sale of a freehold.
What if a GM had to personally review and approve a freehold transaction? They could review the financial history of each party (even more than whatever automated checks they are planning). If there is anything odd in the last XX number of months (or ever). No sale.
The devs can't build Ashes with a Zerglord mentality and expect their ideas to stick. Eventually they will have to look at the game from
A2 will reflect that, bad ideas are going to get thrown out and add more development time to the game and that's not a prediction, thats a spoiler.
It's actually IMPOSSIBLE to end this kind of transaction, in the limit i could just hire a lot of people to play in my party and let me get all the loot from everything.
I don't think this is a fact. It could be true but i think we still lack information about this. Tier 4 equipments can only be crafted with Tier 4 processing items? or the tier 4 and 5 for freeholds only means you will fail less at that task?
This seems a bit of an overreach. Only lv 50 players can own an freehold, not everyone wants a freehold, people will get tired of freehold, freehold benefits decrease over time.
All of there factors described above contributes to a lowering the price of freeholds.
Overall i disagree in these points only.
That being said it's OBVIOUS that with more ways do to RMT it becomes more viable, thus create an incentive do people do this kind of thing, but that doesn't mean that the design should be changed. It just means that Interprid has to do a good job at stopping it.
What kind of argument is this? you are so salty wtf
You actually think that no solo player can own a freehold?
You think there will be 2000 hardcore guild members that want anything in the game but own a freehold?
What incentive a guild have to own all freehold in the node? It's just not profitable.
"Ain but don't want other people to have it so they will buy freeholds." Guess what, there are other things at stake too, like world bosses, castles etc. Guilds just won't have a net negative opperation just so other people don't have land as well, as that it's innefective not only in gold but in the end goal as well.
Tell me you did not read my entire post without telling me you didn't read it.
The line after you cut of the quote is where I say that any kind of trading is an RMT problem, which means that no, I never said freeholds are the only thing, and I'm flabbergasted and/or concerned that you somehow managed to get that out my post. I further explain that because of this we cannot avoid exposing ourselves to RMT and still have a game.
The point I'm trying to make is that fighting RMT is gonna require funds, time and resources from Intrepid. The more money the RMT-industry believe they can make, the more they will invest, and in so doing they will force intrepid to invest more as well. Thus, it makes sense to not carelessly expose the game to RMT, but rather specifically only expose the game in the way that benefits the game experience the most. Ie, try to get the most bang for the buck from Intrepids point of view.
Considering the potential RMT-value of freeholds, and considering the limited entertainment value direct sale gives to the game, this particular exposure looks to be one which is likely to cost a lot, while providing very little in return.
Afterall, it is quite telling that your solution involves having a presumably paid individual look into and monitor every ingame interaction of that type. As it is most certainly a resource intensive solution. It's not that it is not possible, of course it is. But is it worth it? Or can those resources be used elsewhere to benefit the game experience more?
Freeholds will be the primary means by which players interact with the games economy.
They absolutely will be profitable - this should go without saying. I think if there are 5000 players that consider themselves "hardcore" and are in guilds, there will end up being 4950 of them that want their own freehold due purely to the profit from them.
Yes, there will be world bosses, and there will be sieges, and there will be PvP - and between those activities there will be various means of engaging with the games economic system, of which freeholds will be a primary factor.
It is the default setting, we would need evidence to assume otherwise.
Default would be nodes actually, everyone has access to this that will be the primary means players interact with the economy. Those will be the trading hubs and where people will move materials around by default.
Like a lot of things Noaani says, it's just his made-up arguments that are not supported by anything intrepid puts out.
like Mag explained above, the primary means players interact with the economy is through nodes, not freeholds.
freeholds are just the primary means players interact with the highest tiers of 1 out of the 3 branches on the artisan system - processing, and business buildings such as taverns, that's it.
the other most common processing tiers, also all the crafting, gathering, all the player shops, player stalls, auction houses, markets, other 2 types of housing, and everything economy-related are done through nodes.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. I cannot express my gratitude enough that you are focusing on this, clearly have the ability to write thought out beautifully formatted posts, and have chosen to communicate with the community about it.
Steven just said in his Theory Forge interview yesterday "how can we iterate on the designs and the approach of Ashes of Creation so that we fullfill the promise of our goals, promise of our philosophy in the game design, and the pillars that we expressed when we started the journey".
Your napkin math actually looks like some dull pencil drawn cheap recycled printer paper math, pretty decent honestly. I would say you are plus or minus 70 million or so dollars on the money.
Let me address a couple things though. You don't want to disallow players the ability to sell a freehold after they've acquired it, that's just not great design.
Initial acquisition can DEFINITELY be changed to a method that utilizes some kind of non-tradable currency like Steven was just talking about in his Theory Forge interview. There are also many different options that don't include player trading, but whatever it is it has to maintain the aspect of teamwork.
In doing that there really isn't a need to decouple master/grandmaster benches from freeholds or increase freehold quantity in the world(I actually suspect they'll do this in an expansion, hence part of the reason for parcels being like "counties").
I'm not Nerror, but I can tell you what my concerns are. You can barely put a dent in non botted RMT because it's not a matter of skill, manpower, resources, money, or tech. Human gold farmers are legit players, their transactions are federally protected within whatever payment processor they use, and their action of giving away seemingly free stuff is not against the rules.
All anyone has to say is "I don't know who they were, they just gave me free stuff" or "I voice chat with them on discord and they're a friend" or tell the gold farmer in game "thanks Todd, I'll get you back on this in a month or so". I could give you a hundred other excuses too, they CAN NOT stop non botted RMT without:
Or they can just re-design susceptible systems(like freeholds) so that they still encourage teamwork(like trading does), but they aren't directly tied to trading. Like elections, points, tournaments of some sort, ect.
I don't think they care about RMT existing or not existing.
The turnover rate of freeholds? You think sieges are going to be common given their declaration price and the MMO communities obvious seething hatred for PvP?
Either way, freeholds are going to be for RMT'ers, sellers or buyers.
If they're not going to re-design the freehold acquisition system to something preventative to RMT and something that still encourages teamwork, like the mayoral system imitation I suggested or the reputation or quest points people all over Youtube brought up(and Steven in his Theory Forge interview, though he said you could still bid with gold or those), then they really might as well just sell gold themselves.
Cause that will probably mean the community really doesn't give 2 shits about RMT and at that rate, why not. More money for Intrepid = more money for the game if it's fun for you guys.
There's literally 2 people, me and Nerror, who seem even the least bit concerned with what is clearly one of the most susceptible systems to RMT. Not just that, but that it can be easily prevented without sacrificing the fun or other systems. If anyone else has been reading the sheer amount of SPAM i've been flooding these forums, Reddit and Youtube with then it'd be clear non botted RMT will be alive and well in AoC despite any of Intrepids best efforts. Even Steven basically said it himself, It's the quote Vaknar keeps throwing around in regards to this topic.
Or how about initial freehold acquisition is changed from strictly gold bidding to mimicking the mayoral system. Elections for the scientific node, combat tournament for military, speedrun quests or tasks for religious nodes and even have gold bidding for the RMT'ers in the economic nodes.
That takes care of RMT, problem solved. In my view it even looks like a more fitting system and it still encourages teamwork which I know was one of the main reasons to have freeholds done like this.
Also, what's that GM suppose to do when he inspects a persons freehold transaction? You know getting gold for "free" is not against the rules. You can tell them "I VC with this guy on discord, he was just helping people out, says he likes farming lol". That's the whole point, non botted RMT is all 100% not against the rules except for one small hidden transaction in a payment processors vaults protected by privacy laws.
The only way someones actually getting caught is in a honey pot, which Intrepid was so kind to tell everyone about before they set it up.
You can stop it, it's called re-design systems highly susceptible to RMT like limited open world non-instanced housing, which people lose their %$%#@*& mind over, into something that is bided for by quest or reputation points like Steven already mentioned in the recent interview.
You can hire farmers to join your family and assist in collecting those points to bid and spend on a freehold, but at that point you really aren't getting an advantage cause the family limit is 8 and everyone else will have their family filled with a lot of people smarter than a couple of farmers from Indo(not talking $%*&, they just have really poor education) who you probably didn't even get to vet.
Everyone and their grandmas wants a freehold dude. I've never seen something more desired in the MMO community than open world non-instanced housing done right in a great MMO.
Lol Sorry. Got ahead of myself a bit.
Freeholds are a privilege not a right, meaning that there is a limited number of freeholds that will be available within the game world; and that's a very important aspect of this particular feature.[19] – Steven Sharif
You have unexplained cash in your history, no freehold. Don't want to be barred, dont accept gifts.. or have those gifters be part of your application (pooling gold and resources for a freehold seems fairly likely).
Made a killing. He sold lots, made a killing. He used his other buddies and brother to sell our wares as they played at differing times. He would give me all the gold... to reinvest.
I got a letter in email for "too much gold" and was banned for 2 weeks.
Screw that! 1000%.
Intrepid have said in the past that freehold access will be one of the main means by which they limit player production.
In order for freehold access to be a limit to player production, freeholds need to be the primary means by which players interact with the games economic system.
If the main means by which players interact with the games economic system is in fact within the node system, then limiting freeholds can not have the effect Intrepid want.
So, rather than me making up my arguments - as you suggest @Liniker - I am simply putting more thought in to my arguments than you ever put in to yours.