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
Limited is good. The philosophy is there is no participation trophy. If you have ever played MMOs pre WoW the idea of Limited is very very good. Infact it's probably one of the main things that have destroyed modern MMORPGs. It's the difference in actually winning a hockey game as opposed to not keeping score. Sure losing can suck but it also creates a drive to win and the reward matters.
The MAIN reason I am excited for this game is this entire philosophy. I don't want to play Hockey anymore if I can't actually win.
Its the concept of it. You can say flying mounts would be a 10 on the scale in terms of rarity. Where freeholds being the highest level of housing in terms of special use with its rarity being on a 7. Housing in node could be a 6 or maybe a 8 (depending on the node).
I view freeholds as the smaller, family settlements in a node that supports the town, city or capital in that node. I would expect a lot of player interaction in freeholds with the opportunity to provide services for coin or resources, whatever is desired by the owner. And those goods and services could go both ways, making it a convenient economic outpost closer to the action, danger, resources, etc.
I would rather have well managed freeholds with people who will use the time and resources to make them good versus some meaningless status symbol. If you manage your freehold well, then you can pay the taxes and thrive. If you suck, then your freehold would be best put back on the auction block so that the node can recoup the losses (more like opportunity costs for a poorly managed freehold).
This is why I don’t think everyone deserves a freehold and the game needs some tangible methods to prove you deserve it and that it’s not just some check-the-box achievement. It is nice to see they’ve put some thought into this.
Interesting. @Noaani
What specifically are the requirements/cost of a freehold?
and, similarly,
What is the cost and requirements of starting a seige?
Destroying a node enables the possibility of destroying freeholds, which would make them available for 'bidding' again. If a node and its guild(s) wants to damage a competitive guild/node, might they not recruit a bunch of hungry "casual" (with their strong network and resources) players and form an alliance with the carrot being the possibility to bid on freeholds in the newly built up node when it reaches state 3.
Just imagine a unicorn that eats ore and poops ingots. Done.
An answer to both is simple.
Organization is the requirement, time is the cost.
If we assume that freeholds are essentially an economic engine (the only assumption I have made in relation to freeholds, based on logical conclusions), then it stands to reason that guilds will want as many as they can get.
double talk and nonsense.
What about that is double talk?
Doublespeak usually means either ambiguous of obfuscated language, basically saying things in a way where they arent clear.
If anything I have said above isn't clear, by all means let me know and I'll attempt to clarify.
If I could work my behind off to get one for me and my boyfriend, so we could farm and run a tavern, I'd be super happy. Pipe dreams.
No single player will start a siege.
Freeholds requires gold to bid, and maybe gold + something else, like Steven said in the Forge stream.
There's no instance in where you would start a node siege without 100% certainty that you will have a large numbers of players backing you up.
I'm not even considering the control that freeholds will have on material prices, since there's a clear bottleneck. Freehold owners will decide prices, and usually when you have a cartel or oligopoly, the buyer sets the price.
customer: how much is that car right there? <points to a car>
Car Salesman ( @Noaani ): It is going to cost a lot of hard work and organization.
Customer: thank you. That was not doublespeak at all. In fact, it was not ambiguous or obfuscated language either. Plus it is very clear... and specific.
I believe this is technically incorrect. I think a single player will initiate every siege, but I think I know what you mean.
A single play will not be able to complete the requirements to get a siege scroll by themselves, we believe, although we have no idea what those specific requirements are yet.
I mean, it isnt as if we have an exact coat.
What we do know is more organized players that are able to commit time will have the advantage.
I'm going to make an assumption, the basis of your argument seems to be that we dont know what it will take to get a freehold, thus we sont know that guilds will have an advantage.
If this is indeed what you are trying and failing to get at, are you able to come up with any system at all by which an organized group of players wont have a large advantage over less organized players in getting a freehold?
My assertion is that if freeholds are desired and limited, guilds will have a hold over them just as they do everything in games that are limited and desired. The specifics simply do not matter.
The specifics simply do not matter? it has been my experience in life that the only things that matter are the specifics. Winning and losing are often decided by understanding and attention to the specifics. But, they are hard and nuanced and do not lend themselves to "know it all" generalizations.
You are a goal post mover. I am done engaging you directly. You just slide to a spot where you can spout nonsense again.
The problem is, you seem to think there is some competition on these forums to prove me wrong, where I am trying to have a discussion.
Basically, you think there are goalposts, I do not.
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My point in this matter is that regardless of what the specifics of obtaining a freehold are, there are only three ways Intrepid can make it so guilds wont have a monopoly on them. They can make them less limited, less desired or obtained via RNG.
If they are limited and desired, and if there is a set process to acquire them, organized players will complete that process first, because they are organized.
That has been my point since the day of the livestream announcing these changes. It hasn't changed. It won't change. As such, even if there were goalposts, they have not moved. You just seem to have your own perception of where they are.
Totally agree.
I'm of the opinion that freeholds need to be opened up a little from where they are now, but there still does need to be a limit to them.
I agree with this competing for things in a game like this is great. The only proviso I have with it is that everyone playing the game still needs enough of a game to play.
To me, people should have a base level game to play, and then anything above that base level game should be something you have to fight for.
What that means in regards to freeholds (or to land for farming in general) is that there should be a lower tier of player owned land that is the base level, with larger areas that allow you to do more being a thing you have to fight for.
This gives players a base game to still play, but means that they have a game to play during times where they perhaps aren't currently winning.
I think with Inns on freeholds they should allow a handful of rooms depending on quailty/upgrade to get like maybe 6 people at max level that can be rented out by the day and anyone in the inn can use processing benches on the freehold.
My thoughts are similar to this. Allowing people to lease land to place a smaller freehold from the person that owns the larger freehold. It's similar to what you have suggested here in function - pay a player in order to gain access to freehold services - the main difference being that the player has a to still build their freehold up.
Freeholds will be very limited as intended. AoC has a risk/reward philosophy. So, if you just instance the Freeholds how will there be a risk involved while you are on the Freehold? Penalize players more for growing crops with a higher diminishing returns, higher 'fuel' costs, or how about a Lost Ark approach to higher end crafts? I want to have the discussion, not just a random take with no context or evidence.
Can you expand on why you think Freeholds will be game breaking?
not sure if that was supposed to be a dig, but im going to be checking it out. seems like a change of pace for an mmo and might actually be chill af. but it could also be a snooze simulator. depends on how interesting they make the process.
You are 100% a goal post moving on these forums you don't care what others say but yourself. We already have examples of this where you went from trashing L2 compared to all other games. To moving the goal post back to just saying everquest.
Stop lying on these forums and weaseling out every second. Take ownership when you spread false information or have bad takes.
Thanks.
It is very freeholdy with there housing