After discussing this with my community and putting together some thoughts, I wanted to make a separate thread to voice my satisfaction with the current iteration of freehold acquisition and provide a more in-depth answer on why the new changes regarding freehold acquisition and limited numbers are extremely positive for the game, and not a reason for concerns.
I'd like to begin by addressing some of the concerns that are being brought up, by players that are unhappy with the changes due to their realization that Ashes is actually a group-centric MMORPG.
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RMT
A non-issue when it comes down to the recent changes. This is simply reflecting the lack of arguments against the changes, as Steven himself replied yesterday on Discord
the nature of open player-to-player trading already introduces that "issue" in the game and to a much much worse degree. The BiS Legendary and Legendary unique tier items will be able to be traded, you would be able to buy literal Power with RMT skipping the need for freehold entirely. RMT is a separate issue that will need to be addressed but freehold being bought with gold is one of the least worrying things about this.
"but with RMT you can get them first" - you can only buy a freehold at level 50 so not only you need the gold, but also you need to put in the hours and grind, only the most dedicated players will get those first freeholds, not RMTers.
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Bidding is bad
What were people expecting? Did someone actually think that you wouldn't need an extremely high gold investment to acquire an open-world piece of land in an MMORPG? There is absolutely no difference from fixed price to bidding, because if Intrepid did fixed price that amount would need to go up according to demand/supply and would also need to be EXTREMELY high... why?
Because freeholds are 1.5 acres and as this post shows
It is impossible that with 480 km2 land mass, we have over 2000 freeholds. There is no physical space for all the 50 000 players on each server to own their freehold, so what is the solution? delay the game for +10 years and boost the world size 10x? shrink the freeholds?
Bidding is not what makes them limited in quantity, and bidding is not the reason a casual player won't get a freehold before large guilds. There was never a possibility for a casual player to be able to compete and get to a certain level and farm the resources Before organized groups that have multiple, hundreds of players working together, unless you made RNG freeholds acquisition which would be the worst, most ridiculous system ever.
If there is any amount of grind/gold/level competition involved, there is no hope for less dedicated players to beat the most dedicated players, and Ashes is not a game where "everyone is a winner" This is their core philosophy players WILL be rewarded accordingly. So what is the issue here?
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Steven lied when he said everyone can get a freehold if they put in the work
How is that statement a lie? he never said you would get a freehold on day 1, he never said how hard or what was his definition of putting in the work. If you are a casual player and you save up gold, you WILL eventually be able to bid and win a freehold when one becomes available, and Intrepid added freehold trading to make sure this will happen. Everyone, eventually, will get the opportunity to own a freehold, if you put in the work, after all... this is a monumental achievement, as it should be.
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Intrepid sold freehold cosmetic skins
"Everything is subject to change" and here is a screenshot from Ashes of Creation's Terms of Service that you can find under "In Game Purchases"
https://ashesofcreation.com/terms-and-conditions
Despite that, Intrepid will already be offering refunds in the form of Embers to anyone that bought freehold skins, as they did with crossbows. Problem solved.
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Everyone will be homeless
In most MMORPGs that is true, in some there isn't even any housing system at all, in Ashes players will have access to not only Instanced apartments with storage, and furniture but also in node open-world housing, which is more than what you get in multiple popular MMOs, so why are some players acting like the game is doomed because you can't get a land piece? What about flying mounts? castles? Legendary gear?
Ashes was always a game where we would have multiple tiers of content for different players, why should that be different for their housing system?
It does feel amazing to have a legendary sword that you walk around and everyone recognizes because it's so dam rare - it's also amazing to have the land you worked so hard to get and everyone desires, this adds purpose to the game, makes it so that housing isn't just another system that you roll through but you actually need to either join an organized group of people or put in the work to get one some day.
This is the feeling many of us want, and if you are not willing to join guilds, make friends, forge alliances, or put in the work, maybe Ashes of Creation won't be a game for you.
EDIT:
*I'd like to add some extra details
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Locking players behind professions
Many people simply did not understand the system for making this assumption. The limited number of freeholds does not mean only the freehold owners will be processors.
Everyone can do processing WITHOUT access to a freehold. You can do processing up to T3 (T4 is basically your BiS endgame, and T5 is legendary) but there is even more to it.
It was said that freeholds are FAMILY content, each family member can have access to all processing stations and level their profession, so if there is 3000 freeholds that's not just 3000 end game processors.
Each owner can invite up to 7 people and all the 8 family members will be able to get the highest tiers of processing so with
3000 freehold that's 24k endgame processors, 48% of the server
which honestly, by the way they described "masters" in the profession before, that would be so difficult and rare that you would be recognized in your region, I never, ever expected the number to be so high.
Finally, I'd like to leave a screenshot of a thread I've made last year. I think this is my best post and it remains true now more than ever.
Thread:
