MMORPG SotA Column: Concerns Worthy of Note

That's great for the players who can form a connection with a town owner, but it's important to remember that you can't just pluck up a player town lot, even if there are a million of them. To live in a player town requires the blessing of the town owner. You can't lump those lots together with the ones that are open for claim.

 

Good point, and it begs the question I've been asking periodically "what's to stop a town owner from must being an unfair jerk and kicking people out of their town for no good reason?"

I'm all for player freedom, but I think this is another solid reason to have a system in place that at least keeps lot ownership (even in player towns) a little more consistent. What I'd prefer to see is players that own towns have to sign a contract (could be a week, month, 3 months, or 6 months) with another player that wants to use a lot in their town. This way the length of time a person stays in your town is no longer arbitrary.

 

You're still beholden to the town owner. Some people might fantasize about being a medieval lord, but should this really be the solution to housing problems? forcing players to enrich an already wealthy player?

 

As far as I know, there are currently no plans to even try to prevent town owners from being unfair jerks.

 

Why should they? It follows the same me first logic that property owners have shown towards instanced housing.

 

Is that really legal? Can they run a kickstarter to develop a project that is already done. LOL that's really pathetic. That is right there next to money laundering and organized crime. What a ripoff!

Hey if people want to go with it great. I myself am not a fan of kickstarter anymore because of stuff like this. These crowd funding sites are not necessarily good for the economy either. People are in debt enough as it is, and many of these projects go nowhere. (produce nothing of value to society).

If somebody really wants to get public funding and support to create a computer game or some software, start a non profit and make your software open source, and then it really is a community based project. This really would benifit the community. Also if the management goes bad, the developers can leave and start a new group fork the code and build the project the right way. (See how you could get a corporate backer and then leave them if they mess with the project?) This is how the community would benefit the most. From what I see, Kickstarter does not benifit the community as much as people think it does.

 

Have to disagree with this.. For privately owned towns where no "rent" is being charged then there should be no contract. If someone is arbitrarily 'kicked out' then they lose nothing, everything is placed in their bank and they need only find a new place to set up shop whether it be an in a game town or with someone else that they may trust. It is only when some form of in game currency payment comes into play that the control of who remains and who does not should be taken out of the owners hands and game mechanics should take over.

 

I personally don't know what's needed or how it could be integrated - but I'm also not opposed to a web- based manual - that shows folks how to play the game ... at least the basics of playing ... like crafting / deck system / inventory and what ever else can be useful ... not hold holding but referencing (asking people in town is great - but we do have folks planning to play this as a single player game)

 

I don't think Archeage used Kickstarter - at least not to my knowledge

 

I agree that you should always be allowed to rent privately without a contract, but you do so at your own risk. If the majority of players demand a contract, I think that mechanic should be offered. Ideally, most landlords should want to operate honestly like that.

If this is how it worked, then as housing becomes more rare the property owners would have more say regarding signing a contract or not. But as more and more people get scammed, they'll begin to demand a contract to protect themselves. Somewhere in the middle is common ground. But if no mechanic exists, then what you'll have is an unfair advantage to property owners and scammers that will negatively impact the game.

You have to remember that no mechanic exists in "real life" either...but we have "real life" mechanics that don't allows us to ignore other people in the world with the push of a button or the signing off of a computer.

 

This made me think about how POT's degraded the value of getting our lots through pledging. Originally, housing was intentionally limited, which increased it's value and gave an incentive to get in with pledging. Now the supply of lots will go up, because I don't think they will decrease the number in the regular towns. Now, the number of POT's looks like it might start to be a significant percentage of all towns. So, the value of getting a lot through pledging has gone down. To be fair, they never specified how limited lots would be, but if we had known about POT's at the beginning, the pledging might have been different. Too few seem to get the problems that POT's have generated.

 

They stand to lose an opportunity cost. If you set up your home in a player owned town from the beginning, great. You've got your lot reserved, you can take your time saving up for a lot deed if one doesn't come with your pledge, and generally, you're all set. But if you keep your house on that lot for a year then get kicked out, you might find there are no lots left for you to claim.

 

Yeah - I agree - it will have an effect on the game

 

You can't count those lots as "available", though, because whether or not you're actually able to claim one is wholly dependent on the discretion of the owner of the town where the lot is located. If you can't get in touch with a town owner to even ask for permission (or if the town owner refuses to grant you permission), you can't claim those lots, even if it's a ghost town.

 

Which gives owners of POTs significant leverage to demand more and more in rent from other players. Don't like it? Guess what, you're out and with no recourse.

SotA slumlords.

 

The game owned towns are going to be the most stable and frequented by players. That's where the story is, that's where most player housing will be. That's where most of the action will be. (There will be outliers and if you wish really hard you might imagine a world that is the opposite, but that's a lofty goal)

The point I'm trying to make (to piggy back on to Trenyc's point of view here, because I agree with him) is that the value of player housing is primarily worth the MOST in a game owned town. That's what's going to have the best resale value. So if you are looking to make a profit, you want the corner store in the largest town on the main street by the starter quest NPC...etc. etc....

But if you're just looking to roleplay for the next 10 years (like me) who cares about that? You can build a player town that can be whatever you need it to be if you put the work in to make it so. That doesn't hurt player housing in general in any significant way.

 

Hm? Archeage?

 

Imagine this scenario. A town owner charges a fee to allow somebody to live in their town. A few months later they boot those people, and charge some new people a fee to live in their town. This could be a real scenario after all the property is taken. He doesn't have to boot everybody. Just one person here and there to charge some fee to people who want to move in.

Without contracts the player run town system can be used as a scam without contracts. Like I said months ago, if I owned a player owned town I would want to be the Prince of that town, but I would never want to live in a player owned town I did not own.

There is no way I want to live in a town that somebody could kick me out on a moments notice. NEVER! Baron Dorcis is right. We need contracts. Even if somebody leaves your guild, they should have time to find another spot before getting kicked out of the town. At least a full Earth month.

What if there are no places to move to because all the property is taken up? I will never have my "main" house in a player owned town because of this. I don't speak out much about this because there's other more important stuff (and I want Portalarium to fund raise), but living in a player owned town you do not own is a huge risk.

 

- Not pointing at Isaiah in particular, just quoting the topic at hand.

I am amazed at what little regard everyone seems to hold their fellow players in. I doubt most people are like this. Would it happen, yes but not for long, no one would trust that person again and they'd end up living in a ghost town. Still, if everyone is concerned about the worse case scenario then "optional" contracts is definitely worth looking at then those who are worried can choose to only live in a town where contracts are available. As for me I tend to hold people in a higher regard than that and, assuming I am not a complete jerk, I am not going to worry about being thrown out.

By the way, contracts end after a certain period of time and what is to stop the owner from making a slumlord move then? Not only can they toss you for no reason but they can say the had the right to and still do it while looking good because your contract was up.

Also what is in place to protect the owner. The owner signs one of these contracts with a player and the player end up being a completely disruptive jerk and ruining the entire town atmosphere, which is more likely to happen given that there are more players than owners. How does the owner get rid of the problem so that everyone else doesn't leave to get away from the player causing it?

 

It's human nature. The more people I interact with the more I expect it. In an online game, it's exponentially more inherent.

Darkstarr has told stories about all the crazy player things that go on Day 1 in an online game like this. We should prepare for the worst case scenarios.

Nothing, but the beauty of a contract is that you're protected for a certain length of time.

That's a great question, and it's something to consider. If the player is breaking the terms of service it's a customer service issue. But if they are just being a jerk (within the game) then it's easy to say "well you didn't perform enough due diligence and should learn from this mistake!" However, I don't think that's really fair. Still, I don't see much of an alternative. Plus, what can they do exactly? They can't ruin your property, they can't ruin your reputation, they're limited by time. I think the damage would be minimal. What's the worst case scenario? They put 1000 throne of bones on their lawn?