Will private servers diminish the current experience?

General
61

Well, choosing the colors is part of the fun in making your own world.
It doesn’t mean that those colors will be exclusive to that planet tho, the developers just have to make sure that there are public planets that include those colors, if the players think this would create some sort of imbalance.

Now, having more diamonds than the public worlds (or having diamonds in a peaceful world, and things like that) would make that planet one of those that cannot have portals back to the ‘public’ universe, it would be more like a creative planet that cannot affect the economy in any way, so that shouldn’t be a problem.

62

GOOD GRIEF that is insane!

63

I wonder what would happen if a lot of people are invited to move to a rented planet to build a huge amazing themed city and then x amount of months down the line the owner of the rented planet decides or for whatever reason can’t afford the expense anymore and just stops renting it. Will everyone that’s moved there just lose all their items and be kicked back to Sanctum with nothing but what they have in their inventory?

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64

Now that’s a GREAT question.

65

I would think that is the risk to building on a rented planet. The other players could probably pick up the rent for the planet, and maybe the developers would give them a grace period to move. That is the downside, the rented planets always have the risk of going away. That may be the risk vs reward that keeps the public universe from becoming too empty. A player might build on a rented planet, but always keep a base on a public planet, just in case.

This was a good point to raise

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66

I agree if you cannot do this then you take the chance of getting a pink planet. I would want to pick colors.

I agree with this. Your rented planet has to follow the rules. No gleam on a t1 and if you do have gleam it has to follow the distribution of the public universe based on the tier of the planet you are renting. Same with Iron, Gems etc. No gems on a t3 or less. Iron cannot be common on a t1 or t2. I think if you do not do this you do risk damage to the economy or at least create unfair play. I believe, if you do want to change this then the planet should not connect to the public universe.

67

The issue with colors would go away if your only choices (or random selection) is from what already exists in the universe, that way impact on economy should be minimal as long as the other rules regarding availability of resources and such is followed.

Regarding the risk of the universe feeling empty that is only a concern for me if travel to and from the publicly connected worlds can be restricted.

Still think though that you can achieve the same level of “protection” for your build by just plotting the area you want to preserve around it, might be very expensive though so I guess if you “need” to control the view all the way to the horizon renting a world might be more economically sound.

Another interesting point though would be if beacons on a rented world needs fuel or not, since the world is administered by the renter I guess allowing them to control if beacons are timed out or not would be an option and something I don’t see as an issue (similar to the admin being able to take over beacons).

68

I am interpreting this as the renter cannot prevent people from going to a rented planet and mining or gathering. If this is what you mean then I disagree. One of the reasons to rent is to avoid the kind of destruction that now occurs around major hubs and builds on public planets. Now if you are saying anyone can visit, I can support that. Visiting and exploring a planet does no harm to the renter. It might encourage people to ask to build on the rented planet.

I personally would never take random selection, I might end up with a pink planet and that is not what I want. The key to renting is to be able to make the planet your vision and that includes the colors (not the resources those have to follow rules). I think if you restrict people renting too much, the end result is they create a separate universe and then there is no interaction with the public universe. As the developers have the ability to create any colors they want on new planets they have the ability to counter any colors that are picked that do not already exist, if this creates a problem.

At a certain point it is. . If I do multiple builds it can get very real world expensive to buy all the plots to do this more than once. It also is very time consuming. I realize the rented planet is an ongoing expense, but spending the time actually building versus plotting trees probably makes it worth it.

To your last point, other than access restrictions there has not been a lot of information from the developers so I am not sure how much Admin power they will let the renter have. IN particular if the planet is connected to the public universe.

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My point was that if you want to be able to restrict mining and gathering you would have to be restricted to choose your materials (with specified colors) from what can already be found in the public universe, else you would have exclusive access to something that might be hard or impossible to get from somewhere else which would be an unfair advantage in the market.

70

I can see your point and I think there is a possible issue. There is a new forum thread that shows the colors now available (finding Rock Colours!). There is so much repetition of exact colors on exactly the same rock or tree or clay across the planets. One reason I want the rented planet is to have more color choices. If I cannot do that and stay connected then I probably will rent a disconnected planet or planets. A group can rent a few planets have the colors and resources they want since the rules can be changed and leave the public universe. This is where I think the game can be hurt on the otherside.

I am really in the game to be able to build and I am feeling pretty constrained by the existing color choices that do not seem to be expanding even as new planets are added. This may not be important to you (and that is fine), but it is to me.

71

I like more options to colors and such as well, but that colors avialable wouldn’t be an issue if mining and gathering can’t be restricted. If you still have the possibility of restricting plotting then any damage to the environment would be temporary so plotting more than the immediate surroundings wouldn’t really be necessary to keep your build in the environment you want it while allowing for the choices you want. And if it’s not acceptable that people sometimes might dig a bit near to you then being completely cut off would be the option for you. :slight_smile:

72

Another option might be to mark such resources as mined on private worlds and not possible to sell, trade or place on another world.

73

If the developers will restrict color choices then you are correct, they do allow another option. I just hope if they do place the color restrictions you have outlined that the player base does not migrate too much to a separate universe. I will also say, if I cannot pick white to stay connected and then white appears on a planet in the public universe, I will not be a happy camper.

I wonder how complex this would be. The true resources are ok to sell gleam, iron, copper etc. because they exist in the same form in the public universe. So it is the color of rock, dirt, timber and foliage. Colors and blocks have a tag or tags that are used in stacking. Every time you tried to place, trade or sell a rock it would have to query based on the tag(s) to see if the color existed for that particular block. I like the idea but worry about implementation. However, it would solve the problem.

Edit: Can I restrict mining and gathering to a certain portion of the rented planet? say and area of 20 x 20 plots? Edit2 and not water has to be land

74

Honestly, if the suggestions ‘To make it fair’ that have been made in this thread were to actually happen, there’s absolutely no way I’d pay for a rented server. Almost all of the reason’s I’d want to spend real money on a private server have been relegated to the scrap heap by the people suggesting that it would be bad for the game.

I want to control my surroundings, and I’d like to pick colours that I actually like. If I can’t do those things, the sole advantage of renting a planet would be determining who can and can’t plot. Unless it’s around £2-3 a month (and I don’t expect that it will be that cheap), I wouldn’t find that dubious privilege to be worth the money.

I’d either end up removing myself from the game entirely and going private (and then I could play it as a creative mode too when I feel like it), or just choose not to put and money back into the game by renting a planet.

75

The issue though isn’t wether you can pick colors or not it’s if you can pay to get access to resource (stone of a certain color being a resource) that isn’t otherwise accessible as easily or at all in the public universe and thus gain an advantage in the marketplace. As long as that issue is solved then I wouldn’t really have a problem with it.

Really simple solution would be to tag everything mined in the world as private and just not allow it’s use or transfer to the public world in any shape or form.

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What about moving it from one rented planet to another? this should be allowed. And ever resource? If I cannot mine iron to make a tool and then not bring the tool with me, that seems unfair. Iron can be mined anywhere so why restrict it? You might be right from a programming standpoint that might be a simple solution. But I would feel it is too punitive and I might as well go off to a separate universe with Marrash.

While I suggested the tagging I have a feeling the overhead it would produce is too much. Do we want to add more overhead to a game that already has lags? But I am not the developers so this is not backed by any fact.

What about a reserve on a rented planet that anyone can mine/gather in? No plotting in the reserve. If you have something unique then anyone can get it if they go to reserve on the planet. People can warp there if they want to

77

Having an area where everyone can mine/gather is another possibility but it would have to be large enough so that everything can be found there (gleam for instance since that might be a unique color). My guess is something like 50% of the surface and volume of the planet maybe, then there is probably no issue.

Regarding the tagging idea, why would you need to mine for resources on your planet if you want to bring the tools off world? Just get iron on a public planet. Having one tag isn’t really a lot of processing, having to look stuff up against a database is more expensive (but might still be possible I guess). The one tag idea though also solves the issue with some resources being scarce in the public universe and thus renting a planet to have an advantage in gathering them would not be an issue.

Moving between rented planets does have the possible drawback that it might lead to the creation of what is basically a payed universe (people renting worlds and creating a cluster) but not sure if I feel that is a problem or not :slight_smile:

78

Maybe we could get some use out of regions, being able to tag an entire region as protected or able to be mined.

79

Then I think you and I are just unlikely to see eye to eye on this. That’s cool. After all, this is just a friendly discussion that the devs will probably read and (hopefully) use to inform their implementation to do what they think is best for the most people.

Personally, I won’t pretend that opening up a world with a colour of resource that nobody has won’t give the player that is willing to pay real world money an advantage. If they zealously guard their unique colours of those materials and charge over the top prices for it, in theory they could make more money than someone who does not. However, there are things to note:

1: The person only has the monopoly on that colour while it is unique to their world. As soon as someone else rents a planet with that colour or it turns up as a colour on a public planet, they largely loose their power over the market. If they have a monopoly and are greedy with a popular colour, this will happen. Hell, if one of the greedier shop owners rented a planet with unique colours and started charging 10c for rock, if it was in my budget range I would consider renting a server and opening it to the whole public with matching colours just to spite their greed.

2: While some people may be greedy, not everyone will be. If I can pick the colours when I rent a planet and those resources are like any other, I would intend to use the colours in my build, and have extras to trade. I’d do 1:1 for other colours of the same materials that I wanted in hand trades, or price them at a price I would find acceptable to be buying blocks (probably ~2c per block for rock etc) for my own use from others.

The important point for me, (and from what I can tell, others in this thread) is that we’re not after renting planets for the advantages you’re trying to prevent against. If I can be in control of taking requests from other people who want to mine rocks on my rented planet (and trust that they’re actually going to listen), I can show/tell them places that I’m happy about mining happening without ruining the landscape. Everybody wins.

I think what I’m trying to say is that I respect that P2W is a label all developers want to steer clear of. That being said, I think that and advantages that ‘could’ be gained by renting a server as I’d want to are lesser negatives than introducing the system that would result from the point of view that renting a server cannot in even the smallest way have the vaguest possibility of non-standard gain.

If renting was set up as such, I’d hazard a guess that the financial return to Wonderstruck wouldn’t be worth having implementing the system in the first place for, and I think the number of players who would leave to play on truly private servers would have a larger negative impact on a player-drive game.

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80

Another thing that might solve the potential (tho in my opinion, minor) issue of certain resources of a certain color being available only on rented planets would be the addition of the system that was proposed (I believe by the devs, but I could be misremembering) back in the beta where you could extract the pigment of a certain resource (let’s say slate cerulean rocks), destroying the item, and then applying those pigments to another set of blocks (let’s say green leaves) to change its color (to slate cerulean leaves, in this example).

That would have the simple effect of making every item + color combination become possible in the public universe regardless of a specific resource only existing in that color with a private planet. The planet renter then would no longer have a monopoly on the market of that particular block and color combination, regardless of rules of access.

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