I believe we presently have a mature enough user base to run such an event without unwanted strife assuming appropriate notifications are sent out and invitations remain open. And being able to do so without having to rely on PFU is, in my opinion, a solid chance to make a political statement that we are here to have fun and are not taking any rivalries or skirmishes personally. And it will also give us a feel for which groups are feeling the same way. It may not, and is not intended to, erase rivalries but it certainly helps keep them in context of being friendly rivalries as opposed to seething hatred rivalries which would be unhealthy. PFU is great and I fully support it. But to rely too strongly on it as a political neutralizer would be both a disservice to everyone as well as abandoning a host of benefits to be had through direct sponsorship. I would encourage more groups to do this as well!
Bluddwolf wrote:
I agree to some extent with the durability being a little too lenient, but would perhaps take a more moderated approach. Leave tier 1 as it is, give T2 items 10 durability and T3 items 5. This provides a more lenient atmosphere for novices and grows less forgiving as you gain play experience. It also makes sure that T2 and T3 crafters are kept a little more busy.
I see a lot of confusion regarding order of events and who did what and when and whether agreements were broken. Towers were only taken by TEO after Golgotha leadership was found and witnessed to be attacking players in Phaeros' core six hexes. This was not about EoX reclaiming lost towers or even reprising against Phaeros towers. This was an organized PvP excursion targeted in the heart of EBA territory during an attempt to try to begin cooling aggression again. --- The exact miscommunication pertaining to which members were covered under cease-fire is an admitted mistake. The placement of a Base Camp that originally started this back and forth escalation was not a violation of any cease-fire terms that had been declared. Rather, it was a violation of a blanket statement that any group or organization engaging in such behavior in EBA territory would be viewed as a hostile act against the EBA. EoX never agreed to not place base camps in EBA territory. As such, EoX broke an EBA law but did not actually go back on their own word or break a law of their own.
I've also had lots of busy moments and distractions preventing me from being online much. However, when I do pop in TEO seems to always have a group socializing and running escalations. When I'm not planning to be on long enough for that I wander out and explore or gather resources for the organization to use. Having purpose really helps dispel the monotony.
Tyncale wrote:
I share the frustration with the ability gates. My DT has been playing up as primarily a Mining specialized gatherer with a bit of Fighter and Rogue for fighting smaller groups of mobs away from nodes. Sadly, I am at the point where I can no longer advance in my Gathering role without picking up several refining and crafting skills, which are then gated by achievements that are completely the opposite of how I intend to be playing. Crafting is mostly an idle way to gain achievements, but in order to get them I have to acquire recipes for one-time use which also feels like a waste. It really feels like I need to learn almost all of the constitution skills in order to reasonably advance my primary interest in mining.
Al Smithy wrote: Auction Houses would probably have more life if people needed equipment, but it sounds like everybody has what they need now. And since there is very little of anything going on, not much equipment is lost. Sounds like generally it is just a how bunch of nothing going on. Am I right? Deaths happen during travel and PvE escalations. But there is still a lot of barter for goods and communal efforts going on. From what I understand, our queues stay busy.
Bluddwolf wrote:
The folks of the southeast have congregated as such to avoid becoming targets. All of those years discussing how people become targets and how to avoid it has led to a more cautious user base up front. In addition, I think many players lack reason to roam far from home at the moment. We often do so for escalations, which really assumes a long trip. Aside from coal, we SE folk have little reason to wander out in small groups. And even then, merchants have little reason to travel as few buy with coin yet. I believe getting the coin sinks in will put life into auction houses which will get people moving around to sell goods.
I believe a separate Mumble and TS server would be counterproductive. It would be a splitting point in an effort to bring a unifying communication front. The suggestion provided using the Virtual Server is what I believe we are doing at CotP (TEO) and seems to work well. I think the best idea is to look at what the biggest bang for our buck is because while donations are generous now, we have no idea what they will be in two years which may also need to support a growing base.
Skorn wrote:
There is a lot of focus regarding 'what' is happening and not 'why' it is happening. This is not about grabbing territory and exercising control in order to lock other people out. If you are neutral or friendly, then you can probably obtain harvesting rights with little difficulty. Get in touch with a point of contact to make yourself known and you should be fine.
* Would you be satisfied with a PFO where everyone just farmed escalations, gathered tansy, and crafted increasingly pretty suits of armor, with no significant quantity of PVP content? Yes. In fact, I almost never PvP in any game. I've spent years in WoW on an RP server and have also spent significant time playing Minecraft with no desire at all to attack another player. Heck, I rarely even seek a military victory in Civilization, favoring science, diplomatic, or cultural victories. * Do you feel comfortable that if everyone on the map were playing the same way you do, there would be enough content to keep the game interesting and afloat? The game would need to be designed that way. * Have you seriously considered engaging in content creation? Have you done so? If not why not? Not seriously. I am not very good with PvP and never have been. * Have you ever seriously considered initiating hostilities with anyone who isn't NC? Have you done so? If not why not? Nope. Not my thing. * If the NC is the sole target of all non-NC content creators, how long do you think that dynamic can realistically be expected to survive? I believe when resource needs come into play and conflicts start becoming more meaningful that we will see more skirmishes beyond what NC is providing.
Bluddwolf wrote:
Wizards... I blew a lot of rep with a wrongly timed AoE attack during a PvE escalation. Oops!
It is still early in the game to be judging as to whether it will spin into a PvP gankfest. I will say that leaving too soon will help it become such as that is what the remaining crowd will want. Do not forget to coordinate with allies and make grievances known among them. The systems are still being brought online to give consequence to overzealous PvP folk. Until then, we must rely more upon each other. Breaking down and quitting now will only cause the game to become that which we do not want.
Passion is quite normally a double-edged sword. There is a lot of energy to be directed and when challenges and disillusionment occur, there is always a good chance of it severely backfiring. It really isn't all that different from how many people treat their exes in personal relationships. After all, they forged a personal relationship with the game.
If we manage to create a system to work without conflict, the devs will start constraining resources and making upkeep more difficult to maintain. At some point, the peace will break for those who wish to remain influential to be able to keep the resources to hold the power to be influential. I really think things will get more interesting when Upkeep comes into play. But it is only really going to matter if we get more growth in all of the settlements. The largest settlements in the game right now are considered 'small' compared to developer intention.
Tyncale wrote:
Here we go again! This was a big discussion a while back.
An entire 12 favorites with I can not adamantly oppose this enough. Some of us have things that happen in the real world which means we do not get an extra 5 or 10 minutes to find a safe place to log out. This would quite literally make the game unplayable for me because I could not leave safe regions. The first time I had to go off and cover some minor emergency at home and come back to find all of my non-threaded gear stolen would cause me to cancel my subscription. I would be fine if the logged out characters would be non-targettable "flavor NPCs". But allowing players to passively lose items because the real world demanded immediate attention is frankly very poor design. The subject was leaving characters in the game world after log-out. http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2qxfh?Sleepers#6
Savage Grace wrote:
Killing people in town is poor behavior and drives people out of the game. If you want a game with the population of a ghost town, then keep on.
Yrme wrote:
What's missing is the aggressor/murderer flag applying to whole parties. Two people kill a man, six sit around and loot him. The victim's party comes to help but only two of the thieves have flags and the rest cause rep hits.
Midnight of Golgotha wrote:
I took it in good humor, but I know what you mean. Lot of hyper-literalists around here!
KarlBob wrote:
Don't think it was. If it is, it is not implemented well. Tink got me yesterday, the rotten scoundrel, and had a second person with him who appeared to be looting my husk. I tried to sneak back once and get some retribution, but attacking his companion gave me the attacker flag. My attempt was not successful anyways, but it was my folly for trying to attack two when I was solo.
Banecrow wrote: Well all things considering I am more inclined to believe the Golgotha members for this one. Considering Atome and 2 of his friends kept killing my alt who had no xp trained while I was killing goblins. Was not afk, even asked why and after I did they came back and killed me again. So it would seem some competition for being the most notable villains are entering the game. This publicity is likely to lead directly to them being able to recruit like-minded pvpers.
Kobold Cleaver wrote:
They have not been easier to defend since everyone resurrects at the same shrines. Perhaps now with husks, they might be easier to defend since a fresh player only has 20 deaths before they need to re-gear and running to the bank is easier for core 6 defenders. But this is also only going to be the case for groups big enough to have larger PvP windows. But then they also need to make it so that you can't just run in naked to grab a few points toward the tower, because right now you don't even need to PvP to capture. You just keep running in and dieing until you earn enough points en masse.
Kobold Cleaver wrote: I'm going by the devs' account of what the War of Towers was for: To give players and devs a chance to observe and test PvP constructively. It wasn't just for our immediate fun, it was meant to be a legitimate process of evaluation. Not that people are really taking advantage of either, thanks to this NAP, but there I go again... ;) I'll take the stance that anything not for our immediate fun should have been dealt with during Alpha. Now that we are in "subscription" mode, I expect features and development to occur for the sake of fun. Evaluation during the fun is perfectly acceptable, but evaluation as a primary instead of secondary purpose should now occur on the test servers. I'll also take the stance that War of Towers is not yet a success. There is very little fun in it, largely because there is very little chance of success for the defenders. When the outcome of a conflict is so predictable, there is little point for the losing side to participate. As others said, just move on and find another tower. The meaningful portion of War of Towers seems to be this diplomatic game aspect, which I believe was meant to be the sub-conflict rather than the primary one. Of course, without the diplomatic game, there might be more PvP but I think we would see the few big powers picking on the small and easy targets. Not out of malice, but out of simple math.
There is a lot of references to EVE still being thrown around. This is not EVE. Sure there is some inspiration, just as there is inspiration from many other games. This game is not meant to be "all about the isk", this game is meant to be "all about player interaction". Having a very limited solo game is indeed going to limit the audience. However, making random murder-hobo a difficult career path adds significant value to the game that a lot of other sandboxes are lacking in and offers a chance to expand the audience by finding a new niche. Competing for the exact same audiences without trying to find a way to draw new players that tend to be less comfortable with the traditional sandbox gankfest is a difficult proposition considering the amount of games already filling that role.
TEO Cheatle wrote:
Personally, I would add User-Created chat channels. It was actually a very useful system in World of Warcraft prior to the addition of LFG tools and group finders. It was also very useful in helping to establish more niche communities like roleplayers, or creating In-Character channels for guilds that would use their guild chat for OOC or vice versa.
Between the shared banking and chat channel arguments, I feel they are both vital. As a software engineer, I think the lower hanging fruit is the chat channel. I believe, bearing in mind I have never seen any of the code, that chat channels should be much quicker and easier to modify or implement, thus providing for a very good short term win.
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