Freehold Placement / Pathing

Hey there, y’all! To preface - I don’t know if this is something that’s even possible (after last month’s weather livestream, I don’t know what is and isn’t possible anymore!) but I figured I’d get the thought out and see what other people had to say.

I was recently taking a look back on some old ArcheAge video content and it hit me just how horribly disjointed their housing system made the environment look. I took another look back on some of the most recent photos and videos of the alpha Ashes freeholds and was relieved to be reminded how natural they looked in the setting.

I could see in my mind the rolling hillsides and lightly forested foothills dotted with the occasional tended plot of land, but it hit me that there’s another thing that’s missing. Roads.

When you imagine a rolling English countryside from a bygone age or something similar, you probably imagine some gently meandering dirt roads that’ve formed over time from many years of continued travel. The paths of least resistance formed between regular points of interest, otherwise known as desire paths.

I think it would be awesome for freehold owners to opt into being linked up to a main roadway or the nearest existing desire path, always linking the owner up to the nearest main road through the path of least resistance.

Perhaps this could cause more issues than benefits, but I think it would improve the visual nature of these “modified” environments a great deal and make our added improvements seem a little more immersive. Like they’re connected to the rest of the environment, rather than just slapped on top.

Again, this could be totally infeasible, I have no idea. But I figured I’d get the idea out there, at least. Thoughts?

Edited for broader / more inclusive topic title on freehold placement, rather than just pathing.

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Comments

mcstackerson

Even if your recommendation was infeasible, i think your gripe is reasonable.

I loved AAs housing but looking back, it didn't look very natural and giving players complete freedom, it never will be. It would be nice if they can design plots so the landscape looks more natural after people have built on it.

I imagine the way to do this would be to have the devs set the plots instead of giving the players an area to freely build. All freeholds are the same size so this should would well. From there, they could also implement your idea on some plots by having a road go to it if someone owns the plot. They showed roads being formed as nodes advanced in a previous live stream so this would work a lot like that.

Sengarden

mcstackerson wrote: »

I imagine the way to do this would be to have the devs set the plots instead of giving the players an area to freely build. All freeholds are the same size so this should would well. From there, they could also implement your idea on some plots by having a road go to it if someone owns the plot. They showed roads being formed as nodes advanced in a previous live stream so this would work a lot like that.

I think I agree completely with you. The number of available plots for freeholds is also supposed to increase with the level of the node, so maybe certain plots can be totally covered up with trees, huge boulders, etc before they’re available, and after the node hits a certain level, the natural resources on/around the site have been “processed” and the plot would then be available for building.

This would just utilize the same tech they discussed last month for conditionally appearing/disappearing assets. You’d have semi-cultivated backdrops, paths connecting freeholds to main roads... I don’t see the downside.

People can argue that they want free choice over where to build their plots, but the vista of the entire game world is a pretty big responsibility to just drop into random players hands. Besides, wouldn’t a local government of a region typically dictate where you can and cannot break ground? Seems to make sense to me logically as well that there would be a “professional” in charge of creating ideal housing plots for each node (in this case, the art/design teams).

Craiken

I recall a livestream discussion about freehold placement. The locations of freeholds will definitely be limited. For example, they can only be built outside the maximum space a node could cover. I expect that means there are predefined spots for them.

As for roads, I totally agree it would make sense for small roads to lead to freeholds.

SongRune

@Craiken, While I don't particularly doubt the possibility that freehold location 'slots' will be predefined, in some way, it's not necessarily required to be inflexible. BDO has a system for the placement of player farms, where you can place them on basically any reasonably level terrain that doesn't have any major obstructions. You go to an area, and activate the farm 'item' in your inventory, and it brings up an aerial view of the area. Areas which are not suitable terrain-wise, or are obstructed are marked with a red grid, areas where your farm can be placed are marked with a blue grid. The important part however, is that they exclude areas near towns from placement using this same system. If some terrain is within a town's "borders", it's just not a legal farm placement.

You can get a reasonably flexible system while still having basic restrictions on terrain quality, obstacles (maybe for freeholds it ignores trees and the like if they prefer that), and "excluded regions" such as a node's central growth boundaries. They could easily enough permit "anything within some large radius of the node, which isn't obstructed or extremely close to the core node buildup".

Sengarden

@SongRune I could see that potentially working well. A lot of flexibility to be had in the design, for sure.

I don't know, call me a pessimist, but I don't carry a lot of faith in the general public's ability to make good design choices (hence why hundreds of thousands of people will pay to play a game made with the design sense of less than fifty professionals). It's the same reason we pay taxes for city planners, architects, and contractors. You could say I'm taking it too seriously, but I think having a well curated environment, with player housing options worked in where appropriate, is worth considering for the sake of the beauty of the game world the environment team have been painstakingly putting together for us.

There's already been discussion from the design team on waiting periods and public bidding for apartment/housing spaces within node structures. Perhaps whenever a new set of freehold plots become available for purchase, the town notice board would be updated with an option to have map markers set for you to go and check out. You could tour each property at will during the waiting period, decide if you want to bid on one, and spend the week bidding on it. You could only bid on one at a time, in order to keep people from raising all the plot bids up too high.

This way, the player base will decide for themselves how valuable each plot is. Some may not be worth as much as others in the eyes of the community, and this could give some players the opportunity to more easily afford a freehold plot (that was still hand-curated and ensured to be decent looking by a professional design team) while giving others a reward for their successful efforts in accruing more wealth. This will all be totally dependent on how each iteration of that community values the different plots. This solution would also allow for the roadway pathing to occur.

Sengarden

Another point I'll add is that if you're coming into a relatively untouched environment and are looking to settle a territory, you likely won't stop with what's already perfect housing ground. Most of the time, you'd be lucky to find any sizable plot of land that's already ideal for building on. There's going to be some degree of processing required. If the system functions by having players walk up to an area and only be able to place their freehold on a clear spot of land, how much clear land will there be all over these areas? Doesn't really make sense.

The forests are bound to have stretched much further from where they were when society left the world, anything could have occurred to the terrain by the time of our return. Earthquakes, avalanches, you name it. Realistically, there'd be some processing required to settle any sizable degree of territory, and I think it also makes sense that settlement plots would be cleared out a few at a time as needed by the local node, not all at once as soon as people start moving in. So in this way as well, I think there's some decent sense in a system like the one I suggested. But again, just my opinion.

SongRune

Intrepid decides, obviously, what's considered an obstacle for freehold placement. I'd figure they'd let you "cut down trees" or move all but the largest rocks, simply so you even can have a freehold in a forested area. Having pre-defined placement options isn't the worst thing in the world, but it can be a bit limiting. In BDO, there are several house options that I can't use just because I'd want them to face a different direction, or be positioned a little different, for a different sort of view.

HiddenDaggerInn

Yes would really like to see housing boundries set up like Archeage, and boy could it get interesting if they held a sort of land rush like AA, I think that would be worth getting corruption for, getting the spot u want.

Sengarden

SongRune wrote: »

Intrepid decides, obviously, what's considered an obstacle for freehold placement. I'd figure they'd let you "cut down trees" or move all but the largest rocks, simply so you even can have a freehold in a forested area. Having pre-defined placement options isn't the worst thing in the world, but it can be a bit limiting. In BDO, there are several house options that I can't use just because I'd want them to face a different direction, or be positioned a little different, for a different sort of view.

That's true, they could allow the player to mow down some lighter obstacles in order to break ground within realistically diverse landscapes if they wanted to, but within the realm of immersion, is every random person falling back into the world for the first time in centuries going to have the skills and knowledge of how to properly break ground and build a foundation? Would the developing local authority just say yeah, sure, we trust whatever your plan is, we'll send you some builders? You could make an argument saying yeah, and I'd go along with it for the sake of the design if Intrepid thinks that's what's best. I guess I'm just saying there's a way to have fixed plots make logical sense within the context of the world if they choose to go that route.

So does BDO have placeable housing? Or are you trying to say that, with their system of purchasing/renting static homes that always exist in the world in a specific/unchangeable location/orientation, you often dismiss certain properties because there's one thing or another you really don't like about how it was designed? If that's what you mean, I guess I can understand that. Intrepid might have some great environment designers, but at the end of the day, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and everyone's going to have a different opinion on what looks the best. I guess it's just a matter of how many prospective players would trust the design team with that authority, and whether the team decides to go with majority rule (either in, or not in favor of that authority) or with full player autonomy.

Sengarden

PeggysuegotParried wrote: »

Yes would really like to see housing boundries set up like Archeage, and boy could it get interesting if they held a sort of land rush like AA, I think that would be worth getting corruption for, getting the spot u want.

From what I've read, it seems like if they go with the system they have in mind right now (fully autonomous property placement/orientation within valid zones) you will have a currently undefined buffer between your freehold and other freeholds. So you will have a bit of a barrier from someone dropping their plot right next to yours. However, they have also stated that there will be quite a limited number of certificates sold for land ownership within each node, only increasing with the leveling up of the node (which takes quite some time past the beginning of the freehold ownership phase at level 3) so I don't think it'll be quite as crazy as the AA land rush.

Sengarden

They've also discussed freeholds potentially playing host to player-owned businesses, taverns, and inns. This would make the suggestion of roads/paths connecting freeholds to main roadways/other freehold paths even more reasonable imo. Would be kinda weird to have a popular tavern/inn out in the middle of nowhere with no discernable path connecting it to the main road.

SongRune

I mean, it might be weird to have a tavern out there in the wilderness, but it could also be really cool to have your secret out of the way tavern where you have to know a guy or get lucky exploring. After all, players could put their tavern near a road themselves, with any meaningful freedom of choice. They weren't everywhere, but Alpha 1 had enough roads that this wouldn't be a problem.

(Yes, that's what I meant about BDO Houses)

Sengarden

SongRune wrote: »

I mean, it might be weird to have a tavern out there in the wilderness, but it could also be really cool to have your secret out of the way tavern where you have to know a guy or get lucky exploring. After all, players could put their tavern near a road themselves, with any meaningful freedom of choice. They weren't everywhere, but Alpha 1 had enough roads that this wouldn't be a problem.

For the record, I do think that if they go with static plots with the ability to add pathing, that the pathing should be optional and the resident should get to choose whether they want a path to form or not. No matter what, people should be allowed their privacy or a sense of seclusion, even if for no other reason than RP.

Another potential solution to allow articulation and slight movement of position, while maintaining defined plot sites, would be to allow the owner to purchase the plot through the bidding method I mentioned before, and once they buy the plot, they're actually given a space of land a bit larger than necessary for their freehold footprint, perhaps by a couple meters on each side or something. Within that slightly larger than necessary space, the devs could essentially give the player the ability to place their own paths that lead from wherever they want their front gate to be up to wherever the static path ends at the front of their owned territory.

You choose the orientation of your freehold, the exact spot, and place it down. Then, perhaps you can get a hoe or something that lets you choose what type of pathing you like (crushed gravel, exposed dirt, compressed snow for winter biome, trenched-out sand for desert biome, etc) and go to town with the hoe anywhere on your property to form your own pathways (just no buildings outside the actual borders of the freehold plot). Some of the videos they showed of pre-alpha freeholds appeared to have already had this ability in place, judging by the hand-curated way the pathing inside the plot appeared to have been painted.

Sweatycup

Seems feasible to me, but not sure you'd really want to go through with it. I know this is directed to freehold housing but because people like to go to certain places like world bosses or dungeons, etc do we make the roads slowly build out from terrain being walked over all over the place? It will probably confuse some trying to get from one place to the other. Like having low levels just starting to venture out end up at your doorstep constantly.. better hope its not a pure pvp guild. Although, I'm sure it can be done but not sure why you'd bother. Even if the roads grow back over to natural form of w/e foliage was there, it still seems like a strange idea. If so It'd be nice only if you put new road signs with arrows pointing. In all honesty you probably won't be able to put freeholds all the time close enough to the road for a hookup. Freeholds can be attacked also, so depending on how you play it, inclusive or up front for everyone to see, your adding unnecessary risk. Also if you advertise to people where your freeholds are i suppose you could just wait for them and once they step off the land loot them, not pleasant. As i understand it right now on freeholds is pvp disabled but off the land it goes back to normal and anyone can attack you, unless the actual node is sieged then you can pvp on/for freehold. I'm sure things like taverns will be right off or connected to the road, i know its not a freehold at all but might be a more practical choice to be connected to a road like in previews.

Sengarden

@Sweatycup
I understand what you're saying, but again, I think it should be up to the player whether they get that hookup or not. If they're concerned about getting targeted, maybe they can opt out of having a path lead to their home. Some people imagine their freehold to be a place of regular engagement with the public, so having a path makes sense, and others might imagine their freehold to be a refuge, so it remains its own little island away from civilization.

However, regarding hiding from conflict... We'll have to see what the game world looks like in A2, but judging from what we saw in A1, I don't think anyone would be able to hide their freehold for very long - no matter whether we get static plotting zones or free reign over an open region. The world won't be that big, and with the same people on the same server playing day after day... We'll all get pretty well acquainted, I'm sure. If someone is enough of a dirtbag to camp you outside your house, you better believe they'll have bounty hunters on their tail in no time. To boot, if someone's really going to go to the effort of finding a freehold to camp a resident, they'll find that home whether there's a road to it or not.

As for how the paths form, I kinda ditched the idea of AI generated paths based on actual player foot traffic. The paths that would form between freeholds and main roads would be hard-placed as an invisible texture layer that reveal themselves if the plot is purchased and the player decides to have the path form. So no need to worry about random little paths spawning all over the place. I think little road signs at the forks would be a fine addition too, the player could even use it to advertise the name of their tavern, shop, or what have you to help bring in new customers.

As for your last point regarding taverns and such being located differently, I'm pretty sure the plan right now is to have those taverns and other such buildings simply be placeable structures inside your freehold. They're not separate. I believe their current plan is to only allow players one freehold per account which... sounds a little restrictive, but I'll trust the team on that one. In such case, people who run a tavern or an inn might still want to have a small house behind the business, perhaps a little garden or a forge or something, making it their homestead as well. I don't think they should be forced into having their freehold placed in a specific area just because they want to run a business. Forgive me if I misunderstood your point on that last subject.

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