Feedback from A Beginner

[Father_Strix]

Null.

I'm an asinine, egotistical, fool; just like every other sadomasochist person playing this game.

[ImpalerWrG]

I think we should distinguish between incentives to have NEIGHBORS (people with separate personal claims or even towns within convenient walking distance), and incentives to have TOWNIES (additional members of your town).

While their exist some incentives to have Townies, but lot of down sides like infiltration, freeloaders, dolts who leave the gates open on accident etc. The core incentive has always been efficiency through character specialization, more labor and a generally bigger 'posse' to have your back, all strong incentives. If the incentives and risks are properly balanced is another issue.

But currently their really are zilch incentives to have a neighbor. Their is no local trading, because Boston is a bazillion times easier even with current requirements for simultaneous log in, which will soon be eliminated with stalls leaving local trade light-years behind. I think we need to have some form of stall for local trading, AND some quick method of using it that is range limited, AND sales from the town stall go strait into town authority or maybe provide some kind of benefit that can't be acquired through Boston trade alone. At the very least the absence of taxation/fees from local trade would be necessary for it to ever take off.

[Jackxter]

Null.

I'm an asinine, egotistical, fool; just like every other sadomasochist person playing this game.

Didn't mean it as an insult, more as a compliment, cus I just think it's hilarious XD. I don't give a rats ass what people do in the game as long as it isn't truly hurting anyone (like you see on the forums occasionally).

[Father_Strix]

Null.

I was implying it to be funny. Should have added a emoticon.

[Jackxter]

Null.

I was implying it to be funny. Should have added a emoticon.

No worries, my fault XD.

[Potjeh]

I think we should distinguish between incentives to have NEIGHBORS (people with separate personal claims or even towns within convenient walking distance), and incentives to have TOWNIES (additional members of your town).

While their exist some incentives to have Townies, but lot of down sides like infiltration, freeloaders, dolts who leave the gates open on accident etc. The core incentive has always been efficiency through character specialization, more labor and a generally bigger 'posse' to have your back, all strong incentives. If the incentives and risks are properly balanced is another issue.

But currently their really are zilch incentives to have a neighbor. Their is no local trading, because Boston is a bazillion times easier even with current requirements for simultaneous log in, which will soon be eliminated with stalls leaving local trade light-years behind. I think we need to have some form of stall for local trading, AND some quick method of using it that is range limited, AND sales from the town stall go strait into town authority or maybe provide some kind of benefit that can't be acquired through Boston trade alone. At the very least the absence of taxation/fees from local trade would be necessary for it to ever take off.

This, pretty much. The only positive interactions other than Boston trade are between members of the same town, and towns are by necessity small and tightly knit (because you claim that a half-assed half-measure is all that internal town security needs and will ever get). There is *zero* incentive to tolerate neighbours, and all the incentive in the world to obliterate them (removal of hunting/foraging competition, removal of potential threat down the line, loot, tears). Seriously, can you give me one single reason why having a neighbour would ever be a good thing?

Now, making buying stalls (ie where customers put items and get silver) exclusive to towns would be a giant leap in the right direction. An established player has better things to do then go gather chestnuts, but a side of venison would be nice to have. Recruiting newbs into your town just for this is so not worth the risks, though. But put up a stall buying chestnuts for silver, and presto, all the newbs in the neighbourhood are working for you. The important thing here, of course, is that you can't do this with stalls in Boston, or we're back to having no incentive to have neighbours.

Another thing that could be done is raising civilisation level based on player activity in the area, and giving high civilization places some benefits. And no, this doesn't encourage alt spam if it measures the actual activity rather than the number of characters doing it. The only way to use alts to exploit this would be multi-client botting, and I'd wager that botting at such level would be highly conspicuous and as we all know botters will get banned.

At the end of the day, though, it doesn't really matter how you incentivize positive interaction between established players and newbies, as long as it works.

[Orcling]

positive interaction between established players and newbies

The established players get the loot, silver and the scalp of the newbie, so it sure is a positive interaction for them.

[Feone]

The only incentive to have neighbours I can think of is mutual defense, assuming they are allied.

I agree on the town security thing. Sure it's technically possible to manage a town and screen out people but it's far from ideal. Having more options when it comes to town members would be nice, though I highly doubt it'll even be considered because zerg factions might like it.

[Potjeh]

At the very least town claim needs equal permissions management options as personal claim, though it'd make perfect sense for it to have superior ones as town claim is obviously supposed to be more about group play than a personal claim. As it stands I fail to see what niche town claims are supposed to fill. All they've got going for them is town chat and waste claims, and the latter are supposed to be phased out eventually so really we'll just end up paying 2.5k silver plus upkeep for a glorified chat channel. And I'm sorry, but that just doesn't cut it, because Teamspeak or Mumble do a far better job at that.

[KruskDaMangled]

At the very least town claim needs equal permissions management options as personal claim, though it'd make perfect sense for it to have superior ones as town claim is obviously supposed to be more about group play than a personal claim. As it stands I fail to see what niche town claims are supposed to fill. All they've got going for them is town chat and waste claims, and the latter are supposed to be phased out eventually so really we'll just end up paying 2.5k silver plus upkeep for a glorified chat channel. And I'm sorry, but that just doesn't cut it, because Teamspeak or Mumble do a far better job at that.

What did you have in mind if you don't mind me asking?

I've thought the same thing about Town Claim vs P-Claim, and that maybe you should at least be able to remove things without soak like a P-claim with the right permission.