NiKr wrote: » Depraved wrote: » in game, u simply trade someone, give them the gold and they invite u. if they scam you, you only lose in game gold and they get a bad reputation and repercussions from other players. in real life, u give them money and they scam you, you lose real life money and you cant even advertise that they scammed you, since rmt isn't allowed and you can lose your account, so no punishment for the offender. This is only true if the freehold owner is a kid or dumb. Any smart person would just build a good rmt rep by providing their services in an honest manner. Why scam one dude out of $20, when you could earn hundreds and have future rep stored up to do whatever you want. Especially when you consider that freeholds will probably be a guild thing, so providing its usage will also be a guild thing, so rmting it will ALSO be a guild thing. At which point you have a whole proper system and keep making big money w/ pretty much 0 traces.
Depraved wrote: » in game, u simply trade someone, give them the gold and they invite u. if they scam you, you only lose in game gold and they get a bad reputation and repercussions from other players. in real life, u give them money and they scam you, you lose real life money and you cant even advertise that they scammed you, since rmt isn't allowed and you can lose your account, so no punishment for the offender.
Depraved wrote: » if Is implements a system to let others access services on your freehold for a fee (in game money) people can still rmt, cant they? that doesn't stop anyone from rmting, it only stops scammers. but if you have a good reputation of not being a scammer, you also don't need said system, you can just charge gold for said services and people will pay based on trust.
NiKr wrote: » Depraved wrote: » if Is implements a system to let others access services on your freehold for a fee (in game money) people can still rmt, cant they? that doesn't stop anyone from rmting, it only stops scammers. but if you have a good reputation of not being a scammer, you also don't need said system, you can just charge gold for said services and people will pay based on trust. Intrepid could just setup default (unchangeable) prices on those services and make that the only way you can provide processing services to others (well, outside of family). This way Intrepid could then put trackers on frequent family changes and then look into those accounts more. Right now, w/o a proper system, tracing all family changes would most likely dilute any potential rmt tracking with just proper in-game services. It's just a silly approach to an already shaky unstable and risky system of trying to catch all the rmt in the game. In other words, this would just move the "dev" time from making a good system to GMs sifting through different accounts. Now, obviously, GMS will be paid way less than Intrepid devs, but I feel like in the long run the impact of this decision would be quite big.
Depraved wrote: » that still wont stop rmting. they talked about how they can track rmets. that's what will most likely stop them.
NiKr wrote: » Depraved wrote: » that still wont stop rmting. they talked about how they can track rmets. that's what will most likely stop them. It will make it easier for Intrepid to track suspicious interactions. If the approach rn is "players should just change families willy-nilly (btw, it takes days to change back lol)" just to be able to use processing on someone's freehold - you can't really track the difference between rmters and normal players trying to process some shit. But if there's a proper system in place, majority will just use it because it's the easiest way to do so. And then you can track families that have super frequent changes as something suspicious, because there'd be no in-game reason to change your family that frequently, unless you were trying to go around some system.
CROW3 wrote: » @Azherae, to your original point - what does the ideal distribution of economic agency look like in an MMORPG? I don’t have answers either, but when Freeholds are in the open world there are some considerations that may result in a more feudal outcome: - Available land is a limited commodity - Proximity to ‘x’ or ‘y’ is a limited commodity - The success and population of the node a limiting constraint - Distance from or near other players is a limited commodity (thinking about the jam-packed real estate in Archeage) - Instanced freeholds are antithetical to the design approach - In a free economy, the buying power of most groups, supersedes the buying power of most individuals (so a heavy tilt toward guilds) You would either need some very clever instancing (which would balance placating the casual crowd while not undermining the sense of risk&reward connection to the node’s success) or some sort of land granting mechanism that would allow individuals with less buying power to compete equally in freehold acquisition.
Azherae wrote: » Mag7spy wrote: » Still trying to figure out in what world does people think every players will own land in the game. That is one of the most unrealistic takes I've seen. 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'.
Mag7spy wrote: » Still trying to figure out in what world does people think every players will own land in the game. That is one of the most unrealistic takes I've seen. 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.
Azherae wrote: » Achieving the Freehold should not be monumental. Profiting from it should be, and most importantly 'holding onto it just so others functionally can't have it' should be a remarkably stupid idea.
NiKr wrote: » Azherae wrote: » Achieving the Freehold should not be monumental. Profiting from it should be, and most importantly 'holding onto it just so others functionally can't have it' should be a remarkably stupid idea. Would "paying it back" work? Smth like "taxes constantly increase if your plot is not providing any node points". This would probably require the thing I discussed with Depraved (a system to provide your processing to others) and farming to somehow count towards "paying back" as well. Business-based freeholds would obviously provide a service to the node. In other words, make freeholds unsustainable unless they're good for others outside of the player/group that owns it. And it would be a huge gold sink for anyone who just wants to squat land to "fuck others over". This obviously doesn't resolve the issue of "not everyone has a plot of land to chill on", but it could at least bring more positivity into the game? Maybe?
Azherae wrote: » And yet... Land speculation.
NiKr wrote: » Azherae wrote: » And yet... Land speculation. In Bill Trost we trust then
Azherae wrote: » If the server offered 8000 plots, and one guild decided to quest up 70% of those just to keep other people from Processing high level Ores, then they've created many accounts whose outcome will be not to produce but also while not producing, to actively drain their resources. The more they have to get control off, the smaller the Opportunity for them.
NiKr wrote: » Azherae wrote: » If the server offered 8000 plots, and one guild decided to quest up 70% of those just to keep other people from Processing high level Ores, then they've created many accounts whose outcome will be not to produce but also while not producing, to actively drain their resources. The more they have to get control off, the smaller the Opportunity for them. Would heavy node point weights on freeholds be too strong of a solution against this? Say, node needs 1k points to not decay. 300 of those can be provided through normal player means, while 700 gotta be provided through freehold activity (which links back to the "give back" idea). Now, if that guild decides to buy up a shitton of plots (w/o working them), they're pretty much dooming those nodes to decay, which means that the guild has now not only literally wasted all their money, but also lost the freeholds.
CROW3 wrote: » Good thoughts, @Azherae - as usual. I’m wondering if between citizenship requirements, one freehold per account limits, and the up front cost of a freehold - There are enough constraints such that you would need a very well organized guild to take land speculation to a problematic level at scale. I think individual realtors/speculators will paint themselves into a corner relatively quickly. They would either find themselves without a Freehold (with lots of capital), or with a Freehold they cling to and won’t sell. Totally agree on the land grabbing; it’s a zero sum game, with advantages to guilds dominating a node. Of course, the real lever in this equation is that all of those players pay the same sub. So, I think there’s some longer term revenue advantages for Intrepid to throwing the FFXIV crowd a really robust set of aesthetic options for those instanced apartments.
Azherae wrote: » land's ability to produce is the only real value and the societal structures built up around it that we take for granted. It would become politics.
Azherae wrote: » I believe that the land speculation can be avoided while retaining (rather, by increasing) the limits, and that the price that will be paid is 'denial of this content to a very large portion of the playerbase' which is the thing I have the problem with. And as you know, this is not a personal problem.
Azherae wrote: » CROW3 wrote: » Good thoughts, @Azherae - as usual. I’m wondering if between citizenship requirements, one freehold per account limits, and the up front cost of a freehold - There are enough constraints such that you would need a very well organized guild to take land speculation to a problematic level at scale. I think individual realtors/speculators will paint themselves into a corner relatively quickly. They would either find themselves without a Freehold (with lots of capital), or with a Freehold they cling to and won’t sell. Totally agree on the land grabbing; it’s a zero sum game, with advantages to guilds dominating a node. Of course, the real lever in this equation is that all of those players pay the same sub. So, I think there’s some longer term revenue advantages for Intrepid to throwing the FFXIV crowd a really robust set of aesthetic options for those instanced apartments. I believe that the land speculation can be avoided while retaining (rather, by increasing) the limits, and that the price that will be paid is 'denial of this content to a very large portion of the playerbase' which is the thing I have the problem with. And as you know, this is not a personal problem. If it reaches the point where it is a 'personal problem' for my very tight knit family who are basically all 'definitely not casuals' then I have no condolence I can even offer to any other. I just believe that 'repossessing someone's cool Trophy or functional furniture' is cleaner. If your house is empty, why should the Node/State 'let you keep it' in a game like Ashes anyway? It's unrealistic. The Node Citizens would vote to have it taken from you. I really really don't want to go all the way down to explaining how land's ability to produce is the only real value and the societal structures built up around it that we take for granted. It would become politics.
