Players claiming hundreds (or more) of plots to block access to Diamonds

[Venom]

Ok lol

[Karrade]

@Jirodyne

What I’m saying is that it isn’t NEEDED, and that you can literally rip it out, and the game would still function the exact same. People would still be making shops, only for hand trading instead of coins. Using Signs to list their wares, and Location Chip Request Baskets for people to leave a message with the item they want to buy and their user name and times they play so the Shop Owner can contact them during those times.

It would be more steps to do it, but it CAN be done.

its not practical. Certainly not when I’ve got work on again.

Maybe arranging a week next tuesday to get one machine that I could have spent the week using, if I am lucky enough to catch the guy on. Not to mention timezones making some shops just completely non useable for me. The owner of a busy store would need to be stood their 24/7 in some cases.

If they could do alts that were online at the same time, or a basket system for barter that would work, but that’s what coin is minus things like banks, debt interest or currency trading, just an easy method of bartering.

[crypticworlds]

A player shouldn’t be told how to use their plots so long as it follows the CoC guidelines and rules. If they want to plot around resources, fine. IMO they aren’t really doing much but wasting plots doing that. It would take a group of players a lot of time and money to do that to an entire resource on a world and when other worlds that spawn the resource (such as a particular gem) is introduced it completely negates it. This is of course if that group of players had the goal of trying to capture an entire individual resource on a world.

I would much rather build something with those thousand or so plots that generate footfall, has a shop on it, and provides something of value to the player base. It isn’t my place to tell someone how they should use the stuff they have in the game as I can only make suggestions.

With that said… so what if they wall off resources cause they can play the game that way if they want to within the game rules?

[Peyago]

Sorry, I only skimmed your posts due to length.

[Jirodyne]

Waiting two more days to get paid, then buying Fallout 76 or whatever to try. Want to see how Bethesdia screws up another Fallout game.

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This topic is temporarily closed for 4 hours due to a large number of community flags.

Are people actually flagging the Thread, or is there just a single player reading the title of the thread, and flagging it with bots cause it has a not so happy title? I know one of the other threads got locked again and again and again after each time it unlocked.

[james]

(Minor abuse of my privileges by replying to a closed thread - but whatever…)

@Manabanana

I am trying to be positive here… but how is this not directly pay to win? As a player, I can spend real life currency to gain an advantage in game using this method. Sure there will be other less dense areas, but following these guidelines, I can ensure I have access to the most dense areas, thus giving an advantage. It isn’t even that expensive to do so, it would seem (I guess everyone’s $ is different though).

If players were able to pay to beacon the monopoly of diamond sources then I fully agree this would be a pay2monopolise situation. But in this particular case I don’t see that. It’s 1 player claiming a tiny area that is no different to building a base. The resources that have become unavailable are basically the same as someone building a base in the same area. They have claimed a tiny fraction of the viable spawning area of diamonds. This will have zero effect of the availability of diamonds for all other players.

Now let us assume that many players claim chunks of the world. Then let us then assume that finding viable diamond spawning areas becomes much harder, then as I said here:

@james

New worlds are generated based on concurrent population, beacon coverage, and some other heuristics.

… new worlds would automatically be spawned.

So again - I don’t think it would ever get to the point where non-paying players wouldn’t be able to easily find the resources they seek.

(To be clear - we’re working very hard to make sure the game isn’t pay2win. I understand that introducing any monetisation into a game could lead to winning - but we’re working hard, and thinking hard, and striving to keep stuff fair and reasonable and considerate of everyone in the game. But we need some monetisations to maintain the game servers. If we didn’t need to maintain the game servers, say it was an offline game, then we would never had introduced IAP.)

@Manabanana

Your comments about walling off half the world seem to make sense. Is there really difference between walling off half the world and walling off a large cube, with the sole intention of denying players access? What is the threshold?

My point is that it’s almost impossible to determine what a player is claiming and why. It’s extremely open ended. So ideally we want to be able to give players freedom.

(A quick note - I’ll be posting shortly about some ideas for reducing player-player claiming conflicts.)

@Manabanana

In a way this relates to 1. In a game we play for escapism, should we really be bounded by the amount of $ we have? If we are accepting this behavior, and it is enough of a hotbutton issue with the 1000 or so daily players we currently have (best stats I have), how will it get better?

Totally agree. You should not be bound by the number of $ you’ve played. I don’t believe that players who can claim a mountain are at an advantage give the huge amount of unclaimed resource rich environments. Once the world contains too many plots a new world is automatically generated.

Additionally - I’m also exploring a system for temporary worlds. These worlds would be added to the universe for a fixed period. They could be discovered, warped to, explored, mined for resources, and harvested for unique colours. But as they’re temporary they wouldn’t allow claiming plots. This would also limit the value in claiming resources. There will be other worlds that offer the same resources.

@LennonMarx

I just want to piggy back on this, as my reaction is largely the same. The community in this game has great elements, but the economy is trending toward EVE, and the economy of EVE makes all of EVE a cesspool. For a game that at least wants to use the term “sandbox” in it’s marketing, I don’t understand the desire to have a hyper competitive economy driven by artificial scarcity.

To be clear I said:

@james

6. But there is an argument that there is an economy in the game and we should leave the economy to work.

I’m not saying this is my argument. But rather it could be argued.

I think this is already happening. But the unlimited amounts of resources per world via regen makes it almost impossible. So it’s really an issue of time to gather rather than payers monopolising any resources.

@fidach

With diamonds, and I wish to concentrate specifically on these, you have created a resource which is essential for making advance crafted items. And there is only 1 planet with limited points on this planet that these can be gathered.

So to say there is little difference between plotting the surface to build and plotting the limited spawn area of a resource to block others access seems a little skewed.

Understood. But you’re thinking this with only a single Blast world in the universe.

Whereas I’m thinking about this knowing that more worlds will automatically spawn based on plot density on the Blast world. (And the ideas for temporary worlds that I’m exploring. Maybe we should turn off regen on them?)

[MoriOni]

So… ahhhhhh… lets get to plotting the high worlds and see what happens?

[JohnDeW]

I love this game !

I wish we could buy sell plots for coin! And I love the limited time items.

[Karrade]

@JohnDeW

I love this game !

I wish we could buy sell plots for coin! And I love the limited time items.

I know this is going to sound backward, but you can to a limited extent.

Rather than refining the materials you gather, and thus gaining XP and plots from the crafting.
Sell them all, everything you gather.
I know this only counts for a % of what plots you would gain, but it can achieve something similar.

A player selling his own plots to the system, not each other, but for a flat fee might be an option if the economy ever needed more money.

[Karrade]

@james

For example, what will happen to the price of the spooky seeds once the event completes? There is zero supply at this point. The price will gradually increase. Should we instantly spawn more spooky seeds when new players complain that they can’t afford them or find them? Or is this a benefit for the players who collected the seeds during the event?

I enjoyed the rare item market from old days Ultima Online. The only other game i’ve seen it in, to a lesser extent was star wars galaxies. That was items that over time became rare and traded. Collectors loved these and it became a whole new sub game. Personally I hope we get to the stage of starwars galaxies where we see player run auctions selling semi unique items either out of rare component combinations or just because they are no longer produced. - These work better when they are merely decorative additions of course, and when there are already alternatives, so it becomes just aesthetic.

[JohnDeW]

Oh that is a great idea, thats the thing I wouldn’t want to buy any resources, it would ideally be the location and having the prime location and the risks of the value going up and down as new city’s come and take over the spot light for better real estate, it would be a interesting rollercoaster of a ride

Btw I loved Ultima online, I miss how they had amazing events during the holidays , rare hues and very nice deco from the events, and the server I was on, had a handout to anyone that was logged in on at a random time during the holidays as a added incentive to play and have peak playerbase online all at the same time would be really cool if boundless adopted some of the ideas

[Manabanana]

First I want to say, that while it wasn’t the response I was hoping for, I’m glad to at least have a little insight into what you & team were thinking.

I am excited at the prospect of temporary planets for mining, planets that can’t be… for lack of a better word… cheesed the way we are starting to see on our existing worlds.

I want to add that I am not against micro-transactions, and am not against you monetizing the game. As a developer myself (albeit one who has enjoyed far less success than Wonderstruck), I get it. As an early backer I saw plots as fair game as it seemed more cosmetic… you could build larger and more beautiful structures if you paid.
The problem that I did not anticipate was that the plots you have could potentially intersect gameplay, as, in my opinion we are starting to see now.

I agree, it can be hard to know players true intentions. In this case, and I will try to be as general as possible, in order to not name and shame… you have players who we can verify are the ones partaking in this activity, and they are, in this very post, admitting to the fact that they intend to cut off resources. I don’t think their intentions will ever be more plain than what we can see now.
To make matters worse, they are explaining their justification by saying the marketing material from the Wonderstruck team is encouraging them to do, what most other members of the community (as least judging from this thread, and the others like it), a bad activity.

Perhaps some direction from someone in a leadership position saying “this is not what we intended”, even if you can do nothing, practically, to stop it. I believe it would at least do some measure to curb the activity, and steal the moral imperative this small number of individuals feel they have now.

I only recommend this because shaping the community is probably the most important part of a game. It’s possible that there is a crossroads, but a little encouragement and direction might help guide the community to be positive and collective instead of competitive and malicious.

Thanks for your time and your thoughtful response James. At least I feel as if I have been heard. You have an incredible game on your hands, and I don’t want to sound ungrateful. I may not agree with all of the decisions, but there is a great community and much to look forward to.

P.S. It’s strange that this post is getting locked again and again, despite it taking a more constructive turn. Is there a bug with the auto-moderator, or are players potentially abusing the flag system?

Edited for spelling