[Patfor333]

A huge problem with having to renew torches and such is how tedious it would be. I always shoot out hundreds of torches out in one cave. If I had to renew each and ever single torch, I would rather just place new ones or find a different mine.

[Patfor333]

While I don’t like the idea of humanoid NPCs and I hate the idea of NPC markets, I like your other idea you posted.

Someone should make a forum for player submitted concepts. There could be drawings, stories, maybe even modellings. An artist could submit their post where the devs could check it out. Even non devs could comment on the submissions, giving the devs a gauge on how much the community likes it.

[Patfor333]

So by Kuma’s math, it would be incredibly difficult to conquer even a fraction of a world.

I like the idea of being able to raise your amount of beacons you can own through use of materials. It’s very similar to having to craft them, but this way you could more easily travel with beacons as they wouldn’t be an item in your inventory (as they are a statistic in your character, and you wouldn’t be able to drop them on death).

However, you can also do this by making the amount already unlimited, you just need to craft them with the same amount of materials it would take to increase your limit. Also if it were this way, you could make them have a separate section to be held in (like another inventory slot, or armor slot in a way, that isn’t connected to your normal inventory) so when you die you don’t drop them.

But… These two now are the same exact things, just a different story to its truth. Haha I think it’s interesting how those two thing literally are identical (both would take the same materials to craft, neither would be an item in your inventory, and neither you could drop).

After thinking about it, the idea of beacons being an item that occupies your inventory that could be dropped, lost, or traded sounds lame.

Now another question: Can beacons be picked up again? Can they be deleted or destroyed?

[Patfor333]

Haha I don’t understand the economy well enough to know about that stuff. Just speculating, do you think if an amount of gold (possibly all, possibly a percentage of) was dropped on death, this could work as a gold sink if that dropped money wasn’t recollected in time? I’m sure there are several ways to prevent inflation, do you guys have any ideas?

[Patfor333]

bump -any news Mittekemuis?

[Patfor333]

No, but some people mentioned it, and that isn’t a bad thing that more ideas are talked about.

It’s true, they definitely have their usefulness. They benefit the individual, but you must remember they hurt the community (and I say this as a solo player).

These are some reasons I wouldn’t want them:
-if they could buy or sell things. When you trade with a vendor, the items you sell to him are deleted from the game, and the gold you spend is deleted too. It is better to trade with a player, the items go to another person, and the gold supports the economy while going to another player. Trade is a great thing and in a game where there is no auction house or vendors, many things are possible. There could be giant traveling caravans, enormous trade cities, or even a large network of trade routes.

-if they give quests. If they give quests, they have to give rewards. If they give rewards like items then that would be items that you didn’t get, or maybe even couldn’t get, from interacting with others. If they gave experience people could/would grind quests and not explore or do things out in the world as much.

-if they can perform actions such as crafting, building, mining etc. They all have their usefulness but this hurts the business of other players who could do this, and might make you not learn to craft/build/mine yourself.

-if they offer services that require gold. Basically reasons mentioned before, the gold disappears into a dark abyss when you give it to an NPC, hurting the economy and taking away from players who could offer their services.

-if they spawn from something craftable. Players could make several NPCs from their hands and it doesn’t make sense lore-wise.

I’m not saying these are your views, but this is my reasoning against these kind of NPCs.

It would be better if they focused on the diversity and abilities of animal NPCs instead of making and balancing the kinds like that. You could have a lot of cool possibilities with animals, taming them could be very rewarding.

In a way you either sacrifice short term rewards like being able to sell anytime and ease of access or you sacrifice long term rewards like a strong player driven community with large growing cities and new bonds being made all around.

[Patfor333]

I didn’t even think of different sized beacons, I love that idea. I also like the idea he mentions in that post about decay. This would be really interesting and great to counter griefing, and allow for many resources to respawn. The only problem I see is making roads between cities, but then again if both cities collaborated on roads they could probably get some beacons for it.

You’re right, it probably would cause more need for collaboration between guilds if beacons were limited. If they do implement decay outside of beacons it would create more of a necessity for them. This would be disproportionately bad for solo players (like me).

However, if beacons were unlimited per world, but were very expensive, this too would call for collaboration between guilds or more of a tight community within guilds. It could raise the economy for miners and crafters, as the need to expand would call for more supplies and more labor.

I think if a player is willing to work hard enough, he should be rewarded. This game runs off of player interaction, but it should avoid limitations that would punish you otherwise.

[Patfor333]

1) Why would I personally, or why would anyone? Clearly someone would. If I had to place a beacon in a mine it would be of two reasons. 1: I was at an area rich with resources that I wouldn’t have time to mine in one go (and wouldn’t be able to sleep with confidence that no one else will find it). 2: There were valuable resources I don’t have the proper material to mine yet (like I have a tier 7 pickaxe but I see tier 10 resources).

2) Okay… Say they are in a temple, do I now not want to place a beacon? I’ll tell you that would be all the more reason to place one, once I finally clear the temple. Imagine that there are portals naturally occurring outside of temples (which I imagine they could implement, otherwise you’d be stuck on the world you spawned on for a long while…) would you still think people wouldn’t find it worth placing a beacon for?

3) In worlds where overcrowding is a problem, I doubt it will be the result of one player using several beacons. I do support beacon control, as I’ve said before. I don’t think they should be limited in the number of beacons you can create. I don’t support your specific views on limitations but I still do support limitation, not supporting your view doesn’t mean I don’t support limitation. I think beacons should be very hard to craft, probably taking a lot of expensive material, and this would mean it would take time. Do you think someone would spend weeks or months (which it could take to make your first crafted beacon) progressing in the game, becoming so invested… just to make a beacon and grief with it? Can’t you see there are some agreements here?

The reason you would need multiple beacons one world are numerous, we both know this. We both know that people can really mess around with beacons if they aren’t limited, we just have different ideas of getting there.

I want people to be able to craft as many beacons as they want. If they wanted to they could place 100 beacons in the same world, but they won’t. Not if you impose the correct limitations.

Let me quote the main website again: “Each player is entitled to craft a number of Beacons that can be used to claim and control land…” This doesn’t mean they won’t limit the number of beacons per world, but I hope they don’t. They won’t need to if beacons are hard enough to craft.

[Patfor333]

I’ve specifically said I wouldn’t want these kinds of NPCs filling the rolls, not that no NPCs should, as animals too are NPCs. You can’t buy things from an animal, gain quests from them, or talk to them. You’d need to find a human for these things, which is something I’d want.

By it not being a part of the lore or fitting in I meant that it wouldn’t make sense for you to create or spawn people. What would you imagine, them to say “The fireplace people are very interesting indeed. All you need to do is place a fireplace and out they come. They reside in the buildings you create, and can perform several tasks, even generating the occasional quest for your character.”

First, I don’t appreciate you attacking me personally, it is uncalled for and has no place in a debate or on these forums. I don’t think it’s short sighted to embrace an idea for a moment, study it, and find its pros and cons. I was trying to show you that there would be limitations needed if there were spawned NPCs like this. I think that is a valid reason of concern. I do my best to address any points you’ve made in counter argument, and if I agreed with those points I would still address them, saying so.

Yes WOW and Oort are both (or will be) MMOs. However, they are very different. WOW has a storyline, one that is presented to you through their NPCs. I like WOW, and their NPCs fit perfectly into their game; WOW wouldn’t be what it is without them. Oort too has a storyline, one that we will create with each other. This isn’t something NPCs the way you describe can do or help us do, they can only hinder us. Our storyline would be tainted if they replaced things only other players would have been able to do, like trading. WOW isn’t similar to Oort in that it is based around player interaction.

[Patfor333]

1) Let me quote the main website: “Beacons can even be used to secure strategic resources or locations. Find a rich resource deposit and claim it before anyone else, then set up a shop on the surface and sell the goods.”
2) The lore says the Ootians once used these portals to travel the universe, and that they crafted many of these. I wouldn’t doubt there is at least one portal left behind by the Oortians.
3) There’s an infinite amount of worlds, if you cant find an area to live in one world then travel to the next, you may even like this one more.

Addressing your last point, again there’s an infinite amount of worlds you could go to.

[Patfor333]

Oh thank you. So when he says that’s the standard size, is that an implication that there will be varying sizes? That connecting of the ends idea sounds really cool.

Even if it isn’t limited in terms of how many beacons you can place in a world, it could be limited in different terms. You could limit them in the amount and quality of resources it takes to make a beacon, or have it take a very large amount of time to make one.

Also the growing beacon idea sounds interesting, like a town expanding.

[Patfor333]

It’s not necessarily true that they don’t replace players. To some degree it would be bad for the player interaction side of the game (and it could be very detrimental). If these NPCs truly did very basic tasks, I don’t see the point in creating them when you already have tamable animal NPCs that could fulfill the role of say guarding and assist in farming.

You also have to consider the price of making these NPCs and how to set limitations to them. If you could just spawn them in with a fireplace, people would end up making lots to over-guard their town. From a lore standpoint, the ideas don’t fit into the game.

The point of making this an MMO of connected worlds is to create and allow for an unlimited amount of unique player interaction. If they wanted you to talk to fake players they could have just made this a single player game.

[Patfor333]

Or if you could allot access to chests individually.

[Patfor333]

I really hope there are no NPCs in the game as described. For me it would ruin the immersion, and I find player to player interaction much more valuable than this sort of interaction. I think it would be great if every time you needed to buy something, you had to go to another human being, or if you needed a guard, you’d need a real player. This would make the community stronger, and while towns would be less populated, it would bring people closer. There would be trade between towns rather than a mindless tool, there would be a growing player economy and all money spent would go to humans rather than thrown away to a robot, and this would lead to greater things like huge establishments of cities, trade, and jobs. You couldn’t hide out in a lonely town filled with empty people whose only use is to sell an item, guard a house, or give a “quest”. How would questing work in this game? You wouldn’t be able to generate quests other than “bring me this” or “kill this”. “Quests” in this game without these kind of NPCs would be quests other people gave you like, “Guard me on my way to town, the pay is good.” However, tamable animals could fulfill some of your desires as NPCs, unable to trade but willing to defend you, carry your items, and just be a welcomed member of your home.

Make these sort of NPCs and someday you’ll be sitting around shouting, “They took our jobs!”

[Patfor333]

bump

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