Goblin Squad Member
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@teribithia9: No worries it's mostly over my head too. It'll become more clear as the map is added and the vote system is brought online at goblinworks website, I'm sure. Though a dev on hand would be useful of course.
It's now appears you meant just the winners would get a guild house, but that wasn't the way it was phrased at the time.
No, if you have the guild level I think anyone in the pioneer segment of backers can vote to claim a hex and that's now kicking off with phase 2 so you're in the right place at the right time (as well as being the right person!).
However it's a good time to suggest that Goblinworks pose some useful info such as:
> List of guilds
> How many players are we needing to be able to run a settlement in the landrush ie minimum-viable-population?
> If a guild is more inclined to be a CC, therefore, what should they do? Join up with one of the other guilds via negotiation to claim a POI on their behalf?
Etc... food for thought (not very well cooked mind).
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Goblin Squad Member
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The entirety of the Crowdforger Guild level reads:
Crowdforger Guild - Patrons at this level get six copies of all the Loremaster rewards, including six digital downloadable copies of the Pathfinder Online MMO and an invite for six to play once the game hits Early Enrollment, six three-month game subscriptions, six New Player Packs of consumables, and six Pathfinder Alliance Packs. Patrons at this level will be invited to join Early Enrollment as a guild of six in the order that they pledged this level. The first 200 guilds will be invited into month number one of Early Enrollment. Once we have reached 200 guilds at this level, the next 200 guilds will get invites to month two, with the next 200 guilds getting invites for month three and so on through the ninth month of Early Enrollment. Patron guilds will receive a Guild Starter Pack, as well as having the right to reserve their guild name (subject to name approval).
Is this where you read you'd get a guaranteed piece of land, or was it somewhere else?
Oh, as for the email bit, they aren't doing the email until the changes to Goblinworks.com as mentioned in the blog are in place. Because it would be a big flood of people coming to these boards confused as to why they can't make accounts on the site, etc.
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Goblin Squad Member
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My understanding is that you will still be able to found a 'guild' (now called a Company) and have priority on your chosen name. You can also participate in the land rush to get one of the initial settlements. If your group is too small to get one of those settlements that DOES NOT mean that you cannot have land and buildings... you'd just need to do a bit more work. There are tons of open settlement hexes all over the map (far FAR more than the 33 which will be 'jumpstarted'). You should be able to claim one of those hexes and build your own settlement. The land rush winners are just getting a 'head start'.
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Goblin Squad Member
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A settlement isn't a guild house, it is a place to build a settlement, like a village. To the best of my recollection the only 'guaranteed' building that was offered was an Inn that couldn't be taken from you by force (though I expect there would be some sort of upkeep to maintain it).
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Goblin Squad Member
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Alternatively, you can team up with like minded individuals and companies to become a landrush "guild" (terminology being used just for this purpose in PFO) and vote for a spot together, perhaps moving on to form your own settlement later. Being "small" does not preclude you from taking a spot, it just means you'll have to work with others to do so.
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Goblin Squad Member
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For the record, teribithia9 is likely referring to this bit from the sticky land rush poll;
During Early Enrollment we will not have the Territorial Control game mechanic implemented. During this period, Settlements will not face the threat of being displaced by hostile forces. Near the end of Early Enrollment we will be expanding the territory in the game to include a lot of unclaimed Hexes where players will be able to create new Settlements even if they were not participants in this Promotion. After a suitable interval, the Territorial Warfare system will be introduced, and Settlements will begin to vie with one another for Territorial Control.
You'll be provided with a Guild Lodge in your Hex that you can restrict access to and probably some other early buildings as the Settlement system matures.
The entire Settlement system will be implemented incrementally during Early Enrollment so issues of Settlement Charters, Settlement Alignments, Settlement Management, etc. will all be determined later as a part of the Crowdforging process and you need not worry about them for the purposes of this promotion. Until the system is more robustly implemented, these initial Settlements will not affect a character's ability to train skills and gain character abilities.
Obviously A LOT has changed since then. The 'Guild Lodge' may be roughly equivalent to what is now called the 'Town Hall'.
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Goblin Squad Member
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No, there was a mention that these "original settlements" would be guild houses that could get upgraded as GW expanded the settlement mechanics. The expectation was that we'd have a place to hang our hat until the mechanics were worked out and the "Guild House" would be upgraded to a basic settlement by the time settlement warfare went live.
I recall that being said, but cannot quote it, but I believe this is teribithia9 is talking about. Still, those guild houses were not guaranteed to anyone except the winners of the Land Rush from what I remember. Now, this is separate from the Tavern you could buy. That was in no way tied to the Land Rush.
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Goblin Squad Member
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This, back in Dec, 2012, never stated that it guaranteed land.
If you have an EE account you can apply to join any guild you want and help them get a settlement. Maybe trade your vote for promise of future favors in game? You won't get to choose settlements directly, the guild administrator does that, but you can affect what guilds get to choose. You don't have to join that settlement once the game starts; this isn't a binding contract.
All you were guaranteed at the Guild level, was to start the game with your registered guild name in tact/saved, as well as a Guild Starter Pack.
You can throw in your lot with whom ever, or get whom ever to join you, but I guess you will have to decide who gets the settlement.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The 'guild' usage IS a bit complicated, but basically it breaks down like this;
A group of players in MMOs is frequently called a guild. This usage of the term appeared in the PFO kickstarter because many people are familiar with it. In the actual game this sort of in game group will be called a Company.
The land rush which is launching soon is again aimed at a large population who are not up on PFO specific terminology and thus the term 'guild' is again being used to describe a group of players. The group of players in the land rush MAY be a PFO Company or just various players who all want to occupy the same settlement... either as individuals, a collection of Companies, or some combination of the two.
Once the land rush is over the term 'guild' will be retired from PFO usage and banished to the Outer Hells to avoid further confusion.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Here's the system as I understood it.
First off, it was horrible to use the term 'guild' all it has done is lead to more and more confusion. Guilds will not be represented in-game. We have companies, settlements, and kingdoms.
The guild pack gives you 6 accounts, and a FCFS name registration based on the time you pledged. The name reservation is for the in-game company you will form. I was never under the impression that the guild pack would guarantee land or structures in-game.
The land rush was made to give the largest guilds settlements, in the order they came in on the land rush. But there was only a few guilds that were pulling enough votes. So they ended that land rush, and gave the top 3 positions the first 3 settlements in PFO. I think GW was hoping for hundreds of votes for each top 10 guild.
The new land rush is designed to draw more people in (which they intentionally did not inform everyone of yet, because the system is not ready). And will require more active participation.
As stated by others, there was never a promise for land without contest.
The game is being designed with smaller groups in mind, this is where companies, come in. They are meant for groups of like minded players. Settlements are for larger groups that can take on the task of running a city. If you plan on playing in a small group, I would focus on being a company and find a larger guild that is creating a settlement you would like to base your activities out of.
I suggest reading through this
Again, I base all of this confusion around the usage of the term 'guild'. The "Crowdforger Guild" should have been "Crowdforger Company".
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Goblin Squad Member
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Again, I base all of this confusion around the usage of the term 'guild'. The "Crowdforger Guild" should have been "Crowdforger Company".
Damn temporal causality! :]
That is, at the time the kickstarter took place, the decision to call a group of players a 'Company' had not yet been made.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Ryan has confirmed that the term "guild" is a limited time, land rush only term.
We need to keep this in mind when creating "guilds" in the land rush system on Goblinworks.com, they are not our companies, they are the collection of players that want to share a settlement.
That said, it seems reasonable that one company will be spearheading any given effort, so that is probably what we will see a lot of.
Settlements are shaping up to be bigger than one little company. You will need to either garner votes to bolster the population of the settlement you are proposing, which means you need to formalize such a settlement and get people on board, OR you should spend some time reading up on the various companies and alliances that are spearheading a settlement effort, and see if any look like a good fit.
Another option is to simply wait things out and try to claim a plot of land once those unclaimed plots go active. This will entail a considerable amount of work to get started and you may end up needing help for this as well.
I think long gone are the days that you can reasonably expect to have a clubhouse for your company. Settlements are going to be big, and you really want them to be, to ensure the best chance of success for their members.
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Goblinworks Game Designer
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As explained above, the term "guild" has been used a couple of times in promotions because the general idea is more likely to be immediately understood (even if that means the specifics are more confusing).
In-game, we don't actually have "guild" as official terminology. We have:
- Companies, which tend to replicate the feel of smaller guilds of a few dozen people or less. They can hold a resource-gathering outpost or a central structure (PoI) in a wilderness hex. They're meant to practically max out at around 50 members, and to have some things they can do with less than 10.
- Settlements, which tend to replicate the feel of larger guilds of over a hundred people. They can hold a settlement, which is a whole village of buildings, and are meant to be made up of several companies. Eventually, settlements (particularly in contested areas) may require several hundred members to achieve maximum strength and sustainability.
- Nations, which tend to replicate the feel of big guild alliances. They are a series of allied settlements that can share resources more easily (to an extent TBD). They may represent thousands of players (most of which are also in a settlement and a company).
The guild pack was basically for a company, and the guild land rush is for a settlement, so that is pretty confusing.
As a guild pack owner, you're in a good position to go ahead and make friends with a larger group that wants to form a settlement and has similar goals to your own, because your votes can help them get the settlement space they want in the Land Rush. Once settlements go live, you're then in position to have your company sponsored by that settlement, which gives you access to all the benefits of both settlement and company.
Once PoIs are working, whether or not you're sponsored, you'll be able to capture and claim one of those for your company (and if you're sponsored, that hex becomes a vassal hex of the settlement), building an inn/watchtower/other company building. Keep in mind that this does require resources, maintenance, and defense from others that want that spot, so it's still a good idea to have a sponsoring settlement unless you plan to have enough company members to make a go of independence even though you only want a single hex.
But I do advise going ahead and making friends that have similar goals to yours for play (and what alignments and such you're planning), as your votes could make a big difference to someone's standings in the Land Rush and this is your chance to influence the initial map makeup of player organizations.
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CEO, Goblinworks
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I wanted to jump in here to clarify one point, which is that there had been some change between what was offered during the Kickstarter and what we are doing now. There has been no change.
If you read the message that appears below the Leaderboard poll, you will see this text:
The Kickstarter Land Rush Promotion
This Leaderboard will determine the order that initial Settlements will be created in Pathfinder Online during the Early Enrollment period. After a suitable amount of time has elapsed in Early Enrollment for players to get a sense of the available territory and the relative merits of the initial Hexes available, we will conduct a draft for Territory.
The Guild with the highest Membership total will draft first, the second highest Membership will draft second, etc. These Membership totals will be finalized as a part of the post-Kickstarter survey process so final totals will not be available until after that process has completed. This Leaderboard should give Guilds a sense of where they stand in relation to other Guilds during the Kickstarter and it will help them track how effective they've been at recruiting Guild members to join the promotion.
The Guild Land Rush promotion is just an extension of what we did during the Kickstarter. We did not use the Kickstarter survey process, but this system is an analog to that system. The only significant change is that $35 backers could participate in Phase I, and they cannot in Phase II.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@teribithia9
Glad you could join us. Make sure you read up on the Nihimonicon and the Introduction threads, and ask all the questions you want, the majority of posters here are very friendly and helpful.
Then there are few who will rob you blind, tell you WHY they did it and how to prevent it happening again; leaving you poorer but wiser. (grin)
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Goblin Squad Member
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What I would like to know is what does it actually mean to get a settlement plot and how beneficial is it to get one?
- At the onset of EE, is it just a promise that you will be the owner of that spot once settlement construction is enabled or will it be a "proto-settlement" with some buildings and functionalities implemented already there from the start?
- How will a settlement plot be claimed later in the game (not as part of the land rush)?
- Will founding of new settlements be implemented at the same time as improvement of land rush settlements (building new structures, upgrading buildings) becomes possible? If not, will founding of new settlements at all be possible during EE?
I believe that these questions are relevant because we need to know how valuable a land rush settlement plot is in order to decide how much effort we should put into securing one.
If these things have already been clarified, could a kind and helpful person tell me where to find the answers?
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Wurner, I'm hazy at this myself, but think the likely answers to be:-
1. proto-settlements will start basic eg the great hall and some of the out-building functionality. These will be useful resources for groups as you can easily imagine so well worth snapping up.
2. They'll just add new settlement hexes with all the current functionality added as they expand the map from EE month1 onwards as new players arrive per month.
3. I'm sure they will.
No doubt a fair bit of change/corrections etc will happen to all/any of the above during EE.
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Goblin Squad Member
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My take is that winning a spot in the Land Rush is just a "head start" that won't make a huge difference in the long run.
The basic plan, highly subject to change once the settlement system gets actually up and running, is that settlements won in the land rush will start with a Hall/Keep (i.e. the first and central building every settlement needs) and a selection of always useful support buildings (banks, possibly some development index boosters, and such) and a bundle of resources. Everyone else will have to go clear out a hex from any hostiles that may hold it, gather the resources to build a hall (bulk goods, company influence, money), spend the time building the hall, etc.
From that, I believe that the Land Rush winners will receive completely constructed Settlements with basic structures already in place on the very same day that everyone else can begin clearing any of the non-Land Rush Settlement hexes in preparation for building a new Settlement there. Once those hexes are cleared of monsters, I believe that everyone else will be able to claim those Settlement hexes and begin construction of their own Settlement. I have no idea how long that will take, or how long it will take to build any particular structures inside it. But I would be a little surprised if the Land Rush winners are allowed to hold their Settlements for a significant time while no one else can even start building new ones. Just my speculation.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Thank you AvenaOats, I appreciate your answer.
I'm hoping there is more information released before the land rush starts though. It is still very unclear to me just how beneficial it will be to win a settlement plot compared to just claiming one later.
If claiming land and catching up building wise to the land rush settlements is easy and enabled early on during EE, all you really miss out on is first pick of location but since we can't know which locations are best beforehand (even though GW have provided plenty of information on hex types and resources) that might not be much of an advantage.
I mean, knowing who your neighbours are before you settle can be pretty important too :D
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think the catch is there will be some settlement hexes not gobbled up in the Land Rush iirc, but there will still be a shortage of settlement hexes!
So any settlement up and running would appear to avoid several pit-falls:-
1. Savings on building
2. Avoid fighting for the remaining settlement hexes
3. Hence a less desirable target if you're up and running compared to those duking it out to become established?!
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Goblin Squad Member
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3. Hence a less desirable target if you're up and running compared to those duking it out to become established?!
I wouldn't be too concerned about losing a settlement during EE. Sieges IIRC will come much later than settlement building, possibly very close to Open Enrollment.
Any settlement, once founded, should be safe for quite a while. Unless there is a placeholder mechanism for taking a settlement but I don't see why there should be.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Thank you AvenaOats, I appreciate your answer.
I'm hoping there is more information released before the land rush starts though. It is still very unclear to me just how beneficial it will be to win a settlement plot compared to just claiming one later.
If claiming land and catching up building wise to the land rush settlements is easy and enabled early on during EE, all you really miss out on is first pick of location but since we can't know which locations are best beforehand (even though GW have provided plenty of information on hex types and resources) that might not be much of an advantage.
I mean, knowing who your neighbours are before you settle can be pretty important too :D
Your last point is pretty valid. However I'm not sure that catching up is going to be easy-nor should it be. A head start on core structures and choice of location seems rather important to me right now. That's why I applaud the bold choices of Phaeros and Brighthaven. Seems like an interesting situation for player conflict from the beginning.
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Goblin Squad Member
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3. Hence a less desirable target if you're up and running compared to those duking it out to become established?!I wouldn't be too concerned about losing a settlement during EE. Sieges IIRC will come much later than settlement building, possibly very close to Open Enrollment.
Any settlement, once founded, should be safe for quite a while. Unless there is a placeholder mechanism for taking a settlement but I don't see why there should be.
Hence the distinct advantage of being one of the 30 (33). An opportunity to grow without the fear of siege mechanics.