Now that we have begun allocating Overland Map locations for Player Owned Towns (PoTs), we have encountered some map density issues. We have decided to cap the number of PoTs with Overland map access rights at 230 total. This means there are only 0 more available PoTs that will have Overland map access rights.
Once those remaining 0 PoTs have sold (via full payment or monthly payment plan), any additional PoTs purchased will not have Overland map access rights, but must connect to another PoT that has Overland map access. Additionally, PoTs that do not have Overland map access (or have foregone that right), and have not requested connection to another PoT with Overland map access, will be connected to one NPC town in the quadrant/biome you requested (you may request a specific NPC town to connect to in your PoT Submission form and we will do our best to honor such requests).
Additionally, we are including Player Owned Towns (with or without Overland map access rights) in our 10% Summer Bonus promotion! Starting at 10am CST, July 10 and running through Midnight CST, August 31, 2015, you will receive an additional 10% bonus added to your Store Credit for any Player Owned Town purchases/upgrades (including monthly payment plans).
(NOTE: The 10% Bonus will be applied to your Store Credit within 24 hours of your purchase; 10% Bonus is for pledge or Player Owned Town purchases/upgrades/payment plans only and does not apply to Add-On, Stretch Goal, or Make a Difference Store purchases; Existing Store Credit applied toward a purchase does not qualify for the 10% Bonus)
Great info. Thanks dallas!
Thanks! Things are moving along!
Really hate POT’s, I wish these where announced at the start and now it sounds like the game has been overly saturated with them.
Not to fear, Deliverence. We are making certain the game will not feel “overly saturated” by the Player Owned Towns. We are committed to insuring that PoTs add value to the overall experience, both for the town residents and the non-town residents.
Hmm, could you elaborate a little bit on this dallas?
The original map had 45ish ‘towns’ on it. Now it would be roughly 250ish. That is roughly five times the density. While they might add value, how are you going to make the map/game not feel ‘crowded’/’overly populated’?
Maybe they could increase the number of hexes by a small factor. I would love for Novia to feel more like a continent than an island.
More hexes means more room for all these towns they weren’t expecting.. and will make the overland map feel that much bigger.
IIRC There was an update which stated that the Icon on the Overworld Map would vary based upon activity and overall population of the “town”. For example, PoT’s will start off with no icons, only an ENTER button when you pass over the area they own. As population and lots increase in the PoT towards capacity, an Icon will appear on the map and grow based upon it hitting it’s “town achievements”. Finally there was a hope that the Icon could animate based upon “live” activity in the town. For example lights my be on in the houses and maybe some smoke in the Chimnies. NOTE: DLMB totally applies here, and it’s just a basic idea of thoughts they threw out on it.
The max number with map access is 230 (not 250). Of those 230 that have the “right” to map access, some percentage of them are already connecting to other towns and not the overland map, so the number of actual PoT’s visible on the Overland map may be less than 200 (DLMB on that number, just a guess at this point as there are around 100 PoT owners that haven’t entered their data yet).
Also, as Aartemis pointed out, we are discussing methods to reduce the visibility of inactive/underpopulated towns, while increasing the visibility of extremely active towns (DLMB on what those methods will wind up being).
Will we clearly see if a town is a PoT or an Npc town?
It would be nice to have an option to make the PoTs stand out.
For example if you are primarily interested in the official story and related places.
Thanks for the response Dallas though I have to say this feels like another one of them times I feel like I’ve been lied to. During Kickstarter it was stated land would be limited such as “Only a few dozen City homes will be available to players in-game.) ” Yet with the introduction of player own towns has opened the flood gates to player housing and furthermore with the unrestricted sale of POT’s it basically creates a limitless supply of lots. When I look back to the initial KS campaign it now seems like it was designed to create a false sense of urgency to purchase a lot before they sold out.
I’ve been around here long enough to know you wouldn’t have set out to do this deliberately and I believe that POT’s where introduced at the request of a backer, but I don’t think much thought went in to how this fits in with the initial outline of what the game.
I know you have a lot of headaches to deal with over there so don’t feel like you need to respond to this, though I would appreciate it if you could reply to Svahn as I’d really like to have an answer to that question. I have no interest in POT’s and I would appreciate a way of being able to recognize these from the world map so I can at least avoid them if I want to.
Finally and a bit of topic but I’ve had no luck with support and as a Baron I believe I should have received a video conference with Richard. Would you mind looking into this and let me know if this is every going to happen? Originally I had wanted to speak to him about some question I had on upgrading to Duke, though that’s never going to happen anymore.
I meant 250ish towns as the roughly 230 PoTs with potential map access and the roughly 20-30 towns Chris mentioned as lore critical to sum up as a total of about 250 (give or take a few).
@Deliverence I will discuss the Baron’s video conferences with the team and see about getting those scheduled.
@Svahn It makes sense to be able to tell the difference between a PoT and an NPC town on the overland map. Exactly how the team plans to execute on that has not yet been designed. We just started including PoTs into the game so we’ll need several Releases to sort out all the UI issues.
Thanks Dallas
Thanks for the update Dallas!
Is it safe to say that the Metropolis towns which were previously submitted will fall within the 250? (Thinks about our Falling Waters Fortress metropolis….)
It looks like they only reached 230 in the last day. As long as the purchase/payment plan was initiated before today, you should be fine?
That is my understanding as well. As long as the purchase was initiated prior to the count down reaching 0, your town will have an overland map connection.
Thanks Dallas, sounds great! And its good news that finally PoT purchasing has come to an end (with a few exceptions) as I too like many others were starting to feel over population was going to be an issue.
This is a good choice 200+ towns are to many as it is for the map size. It’ll be cluttered and immersion breakings.
I like that they are being designed to only be visible on the overland map if they are populated and active. I won’t be entering any ‘cities’ I see just to find a ghost town. Either there will be stuff there for me to see/do, or I won’t see it on my map.
Pretty clever!
Thanks. I had missed this design feature, but do hope that is the case long-term. As for all being visible at launch, I’d have no problem with that I think the POTs would need some equal footing at the start to attract those looking to settle down. Perhaps some visual indicators on the overland map could make it easy to figure out if currently a ghost town, starting out, or bustling. [Tumbleweeds in desert, cobwebs in forest, lack of lights, animated guards patrolling the outskirts, wagons coming and going, animated ships arriving, active moontower, town is different color [b/w] or partially see through, etc]
Could a bit more detail be given about the ‘connection’ they future POTs will have to NPC or other player owned towns?. What will this connection be like? I’m new to finding this and could kick myself for not seeing it earlier. UO was my intro into online gaming life, so this is all very exciting.
Totally missed the PoT thing, pledged in at lord, and seems to me now like that’s pretty worthless now. Just glad I didn’t upgrade to baron. PoT seems a lot better than having a tax free lot that you may not even get to place in a good spot, PoT wouldn’t be so bad if they required one of the higher pledges before getting one, then I wouldnt feel so jibbed, cause as it stands now someone that has a low pledge and a PoT potentially has more in game value than someone with the highest pledge at 10x the cost.