Novian Salvage Might Be Coming

Manga showed up in Market tonight and had this to say (log edited for relevancy):

[marketplace: Kwinn] all I want to be able to recover some of the investemnt in a current plot thats a lot of time, money and effort. And its gone like a fart in a windstorm if I want to get rid of my plot
[marketplace: Grummel] Yes Novian resources would be nice..I want to rearrange my plot
[marketplace: Levity] *agrees with Kwinn* I really want a do-over on my lot's layout. Plus a lawn, of course, but that's dreaming.
[marketplace: Widmer] even if we lost 20% would be nice to be able to redsign plots
[marketplace: Nich] I'd love to just move my things around
[marketplace: Manga] It's not dreaming
[marketplace: Darkmagius] they dont make plots the size I want
[marketplace: Manga] Its on the schedule...
[marketplace: Levity] *nods* that would do it for me, too, I don't need to replace anything, just make room for new border trim as it were
[marketplace: Levity] Lawns? they are scheduled? *huge hug to Manga*
[marketplace: Manga] nope
[marketplace: Manga] building - > novian
[marketplace: Nich] I have a large plot, and planning it all out at once is a guaranteed crash, so it didn't turn out exactlly how I wanted
[marketplace: Levity] oh! Well, that's great too! *does not rescind hug*
[marketplace: Glimmers] how about just the opition to have the plots land covered with grass like in talandar
[marketplace: Levity] Heh, I had spent 3 hours planning mine only to have a shard shutdown. I really rushed the second time.
[marketplace: Levity] Glimmers, that is what I mean by "lawn"
[marketplace: Glimmers] ooh
[marketplace: Nich] I crashed at least ten times, before doing it in quarters
[marketplace: Levity] Manga, any plan on how much can be saved to Novian? Percentage wise?
[marketplace: Manga] TBD
[marketplace: Nich] it'd be nice for a 100% grace period :)
[marketplace: Samael] Smaller shrubs, flowers and perhaps statues and birdbaths for smaller plots would be nice :P
[marketplace: Manga] samael - the first 2 should be hitting blight soon
[marketplace: Samael] sweet :)

After which we all pelted Manga with our wishes for lawn gnomes and koi ponds and he left to go to sleep *grin* He was really there throwing Kwellens at Dalimond but we pounced on him about Novians.

-Levity Merrel

Ehhh.. that's kinda scary. I can see potential for real abuse of making Novians.

They need to just implement a plot construction material bank. There are only 12 construction resources per tier (may be more when Lairs make it in). Each plot could have a salvage bank where salvaged construction units go to that could only be used on the plot.

I also suggested that builders could directly contribute to the bank, to stockpile resources for the owner while he decides what he wants to build.

I actually don't like the idea of tying the novians to a specific plot. I would LOVE to move somewhere closer to my other friends but given the amount of work I, and my friends, have done on my plot I won't. It's just too much time invested to just sell it to someone else and hope for the best and have to start all over.

The only way I'll ever move is if I was able to rip it all down and get novians back so that I can buy another plot somewhere else and not have to start all over from scratch again.

If they could attune the resources to the character and any plot the character owned at any given time that would work but not the plot the novians were salvaged from.

*shrug* I don't have a problem with "starting over". Building is half the fun of owning a plot to me. I would expect that, over time, people would continue to add to their plot banks, which would make their plots more valuable to sell to a potential owner, because of the potential for remodeling.

The Novians served a purpose because the world was remade. Outside of that, I can't see them having a purpose. They are 1/240th the bulk of normal construction items, and thus are easily stockpiled and transportable.

Imagine a series of new world projects that would pop up one day, meant to be long-term construction projects for the various construction crafters in the world (like the Novo, for example). 5 crafters go and withdraw Novian construction materials from their stockpiles, drag their disks to the construction site, and poof! The project is completed in under an hour.

No, thanks.

If they are going to do salvage that people can carry around in their inventory, they need to actually give you the 120-bulk materials, maybe put them in your vault, which of course would burst at the seams from the bulk resulting from even a modest building.

To an extent, I'm all for Novian salvage. It's essentially building recycling. It gives you the ability to get back from what you've built when you tear it down.

Only way I'm against it is that it would reduce some of the load on the builders out there a bit. Oh, wait. I'm looking at twenty-four world projects on Order.

So, let's go for it.

If they do allow Novians to result from scrapping buildings on plots, the next thing you are going to see is people going around, buying all the unowned plots with buildings left on them, scrapping the entire plot for the Novians, then selling the plot back to the community manager. Lather, Rinse, Repeat.

Oh, and 24 projects on Order is NOT a good justification for Novians. I don't want to see all those projects done in a couple days, leaving us nothing to do for months, and cheating the rest of the builders who wanted to participate, but are too new to have Novians stockpiled a chance to contribute. To me, it feels like cheating, probably because it is.

Now, they could make an irrational game mechanic that prevents you from using Novians on community projects, but it still won't solve the first problem where people buy up plots and raze entire communities to the ground just to greedily stockpile Novians.

There's an easy fix to most Novian-like resource exploits, I think I heard Smeglor talk about it once. Just make the novian's attuned to the player that decon'd the building, and only allow them to be applied to their own personal plot. It's a simpler solution than creating a whole system for managing how much of a particular resource a person can decon, etc.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hal`cyon Sskyler

There's an easy fix to most Novian-like resource exploits, I think I heard Smeglor talk about it once. Just make the novian's attuned to the player that decon'd the building, and only allow them to be applied to their own personal plot. It's a simpler solution than creating a whole system for managing how much of a particular resource a person can decon, etc.

---

And that's what I was saying. Have them attuned to the person and whatever plot they currently own so they aren't attuned to a specific plot thereby restricting the person from moving. If a person moves the novians go with them and get reattuned to the new plot. While the player remains plotless the novians remain inactive.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Pharcellus

Oh, and 24 projects on Order is NOT a good justification for Novians. I don't want to see all those projects done in a couple days, leaving us nothing to do for months, and cheating the rest of the builders who wanted to participate, but are too new to have Novians stockpiled a chance to contribute. To me, it feels like cheating, probably because it is.

---

I'm not talking about using Novians from an individual plot to build the world projects. I'm looking at it from a standpoint of my guild having just moved from Nong. We're buying all our own individual plots. I am working on my own plot, Tagath's plot, and jumping in with the world projects. When the time comes to tear stuff down that has been partially built on the individual plots due to upgrading and such, it would be easier to harness the novians from there to assist in other areas of construction on the individual plots elsewhere.

I concur that swiping away all the fun from the world projects builders by using novians is wrong, especially since we've gotten a bunch of new builders on Order joining and getting their hands dirty for the first time in building BY doing the projects.

Right, and I am looking at it from the standpoint of that if we have scrap to Novians, we WILL have the problem I ascribed.

I expect that you wouldn't. The problem is not that you would, but someone would.

Can someone tell me what Novians are?

Jayne

When the shards were merged, all plots were repossessed by the devs and put up for auction. All buildings were destroyed (because the worlds they existed in were destroyed).

However, to prevent complete erasure of all that hard work, the devs issued a number of coupons to each plot owner for each and every type of structure unit placed in buildings on the plot. The coupons are 1-bulk items called "Novian <construction unit>", like "Novian Dim Essence Source", are stackable and can be applied directly to the structures by anyone without tools or skill. 1 Novian Unit = 1 Structure Unit, unlike normal construction resources which vary from 5 down to 2 per Structure Unit at optimal skill.

Well, putting aside the convenience aspect of moving (which is a pain in RL), it seems best to apply some realism.

Salvagingconstruction will result in a loss of resources. The precedence is 50% recovery at maximum salvage efficiency. The rates may differ, from stone and wood recovered a lot easier than essence.

A building is demolished, so now there is a pile of resources. So it is best to have a "bank" to put them in. It would be associated with the plot and the construction resources deposited in it can't be traded - they would be forced attuned to the character. There would be bulk limits to this "bank," and perhaps some storage fee on a monthly basis - this to prevent build/demolish actions (due to size limit of this "bank" and its cost).

Want to move from plot A to plot B? Well, should it not be a characterchallengeversusa player convenience? Character to character interaction in the moving process (which takes time and planning)vs. a playermoving "novian" like construction resources with his/her character rapidly?

Novians, by their lore, served their purpose - the Novo machines moving the peoples and their structures to the new world / server merge. Well that and 1,000,000 bulk vaults. Sure the game mechanic is available, but at least TulgAE can "reskin" novians into something more rational - with proper bulk - if they opt toreuse this content. Hopefully reason and imagination will prevail, not a crutch called novians.

Novians made sense in the context of the merge to avoid players loosing everything from their plot. NOVIANS have special rules to fullfil this functionality which DON'T MAKE SENSE IN THE CURRENT GAME !!

If you want a return from deconstructing a structure, make it RESOURCE NODES returning part of the raw materials that have been used to construct the building. This is then pretty much more like in reality, because in reality what you get as return is a huge pile of junk, mostly and not lazy player applyable high quality construction material like novians.

These nodes should spawn in a line right outside the plot near the plot marker and each node knows how many resources it contains. And only a crafter with the appropriate skills can use the material from these nodes and recreate whatever can be created with stone, metal, cloth and essence resources. Actually any crafter that passes along (har har, i hear the whiners again !!)

Now how about that idea ? I'd like this pretty much better than unrealistic economy-ruining novians. What a bad idea, catering to a handful of professional whiners, is my guess. And it perfectly solves the space problem, that return of any type of material into the vault or inventory of a player would involve.

Correction: IS COMING.

http://community.istaria.com/Web/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=84983

And it's happy and then some that I am! But note that I posted that back in June and it took to late July for it to be confirmed. *doesNOT go back to edit every post title she's ever done to bring it up to current knowledge* :)

-Levity

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by DocMoriarty

Novians made sense in the context of the merge to avoid players loosing everything from their plot. NOVIANS have special rules to fullfil this functionality which DON'T MAKE SENSE IN THE CURRENT GAME !!

If you want a return from deconstructing a structure, make it RESOURCE NODES returning part of the raw materials that have been used to construct the building. This is then pretty much more like in reality, because in reality what you get as return is a huge pile of junk, mostly and not lazy player applyable high quality construction material like novians.

These nodes should spawn in a line right outside the plot near the plot marker and each node knows how many resources it contains. And only a crafter with the appropriate skills can use the material from these nodes and recreate whatever can be created with stone, metal, cloth and essence resources. Actually any crafter that passes along (har har, i hear the whiners again !!)

Now how about that idea ? I'd like this pretty much better than unrealistic economy-ruining novians. What a bad idea, catering to a handful of professional whiners, is my guess. And it perfectly solves the space problem, that return of any type of material into the vault or inventory of a player would involve.

---

Simply put..if I tear down my house I do NOT get logs, ore, petroleum (plastics), sand (glass), etc. I get some 2x4s, 2x6s,plywood,glass,electrical wire. However, I will not get back enough to build another house as some material is always destroyed. I will not get the proper materials to build a newer style or bigger house either. I will not get the materials to build a car from tearing down my house.

No the way Smeglor is doing it with Novians makes perfect sense to me, moreso then returning raw resources does.