Town Founder

[Idana]

I have an observation and a suggestion.

Observation: Many of the guild towns are empty or are only populated on the main plot.

Suggestion: As things are revamped and areas are rethought, would it be possible to make some of these empty areas true player city centers? In other words, make the main plot (A TOWN FOUNDER PLOT) much larger and purchasable through a larger amount of gold AND ALSO loyalty tokens, and the smaller plots (purchasable by anyone) maybe more expensive than a single silver, but not as much as independent communities. Also, it would be nice if there were actually a decent number of resources nearby.

Why am I suggesting this?

1. It rewards long time players who value the construction system with the ability to make truly useful city centers that, given the player's longevity, have a chance of sticking around and continuing to be useful. With enough space, the plot owner has the ability to not only make the place useful, but also to create a beautifully landscaped area that is attractive to others. It gives other players who don't want to go to all that trouble a place where they can find what they need and put up a little homestead.

2. I can't speak for Chaos, but on Order there aren't that many guilds who are large, active, and use the guild plots. The larger guilds here generally take over independent towns where the plots are larger and more useful. There are so many empty guild plots and it's a sad waste of landscape.

3. Right now, in many areas where the guild plots are, it feels like there are some token resources thrown in, but not much to speak of in many areas. Unless something got ninja'd in, there's not a single mob or resource to be had on Shepherd's Island. It's just a place to build something pretty and dump your stuff. The big plots are taken because, well, they're big and the rest of the place is just a big empty nothing. Sad. There's no reason to explore or revisit.

4. I'm aware that there are logistic issues with this suggestion and that plots are claimed differently on each server. However, I'm willing to bet there are places that are just flat out empty in both places because they just don't have much to offer an active player. If whole tier areas can be revamped, so can plot areas. It doesn't have to be right now, but can it be at least considered?

[Azath]

I mean...they kinda do exist, just not many.

Ex: Guild: Clearport, chaos, THE tavern of chaos, one of the most popular connies too.
Morning Light also gets pretty close to a useful town both shards, it has one of Order's taverns of choice and confectioners surely love the corn/lemons. Harro on order also particular strikes me as a "community".


Problem is: Player population.
Not many people to hold a lot of plots. The idea of a city doesn't please all (example: I have my plot in the back of one of the most underused communities i've ever seen in istaria because it's just for guild storage and is 95% buildings for stack space. that's private, i would never take that to a city) and you'd be lucky to have more than a few plots taken up in non-city (bris, dralk, chic) non-guild non-t5 places - you may have noticed that the only consistently owned communities are t5 or dikaina island or falathien island.

Right now they are very much restricted to guilds with open services (chaos/clearport/scarlet dawn for sure, order/harro/scions maybe) since only guilds have the community planning (chaos/clearport: tavern and connie right by pad), the uhhm...harmony? of plot cities, where one plot lacks something another one has it - that doesn't happen if people aren't working together which is unlikely outside of guilds since everyone fills plots with their personal goals instead of the communities goals unless it's the central plot.


Not that i'm against them, neccesarily - would just hate to see a "plot town" intended and have only the large central plot owned lol.

[LOVWYRM]

Not that i'm against them, neccesarily - would just hate to see a "plot town" intended and have only the large central plot owned lol.

But that is exactly what is fact atm with the guild plots.

We `ve been searching on Chaos for days now- Found the big guild (main) plots occipied- all other empty.

And all this nice guildplots and plots: Those which are free are soo small- even main plot- AND have no porter /pad /lair.

(hint hint- Frostwatch eg, Winters Peak, Heather, Genevia and lots of others) .

So we are not tempted to buy more plots/lairs than we urgendly need to store our possessings.
And I bet- those place I mean are free on all shards..so should be no prob to resize

[Idana]

All it takes is a person who is now their ONLY REMAINING guild member to lock out the rest of the server. It's a problem. I'm not saying change them all, I get wanting an out of the way place for some things, but there are so many that CAN'T be used or aren't desirable and it's a lot of empty landscape.

[Guaran]

A few of the existing, empty guild communities, it might not hurt to change it so that the guild aspect is removed, then the other plots are more "open" to be purchased.

I was actually very recently thinking that the plots do need another pass at enlarging, merging, etc. For all plots too: existing guild community plots as well as the rest.

On chaos my guild actually owns multiple guild plots, not because we went after them in that way, but due to multiple guild mergers over the years. And when anyone really wants a plot who isn't in my guild, they are welcome to buy one of my guildplots. But, the only way to do that it to temporarily invite them to my guild, or myself to their guild, let them make the purchase, then switch back.

I wonder if there is an argument to just do away with the guild communities' guild membership requirements altogether when making plots available for sale? Hmm.. probably not. Some could be planned future expansions for example.

But completely unowned guild communities, might not be a bad thing for at least a few of them here and there to be changed and have the guild restriction removed: i.e. make it no longer necessary for the master plot to build a guildhouse before any subplots can be purchased, no longer would guild membership have to match that of the master plot owner for purchase of subplots. And do as OP suggests, make the main plot larger, but really, make all the plots larger. Having a really big central plot is good so that once its built or partially built, would attract neighbors that wouldn't even need to build shops, if the big main plot has all the shops.

I do think at the minimum another pass should be done to once again enlarge plots, perhaps merge plots where possible. Maybe make some L shaped plots by merging two smaller but next to each other plots where there isn't room to just make a larger square plot.

And for Istaras' sake make some plots that do not line up with north-south orientation. Still very sad that shepherd's mountain got butchered the last time around because someone didn't know how to enlarge a plot that was placed at some angle other than being a rectangle aligned north-south... the game can do plots angled to fit the terrain... I can think of multiple locations where a plot set at an angle would fit into the terrain and plots could be expanded and/or merged. Some locations are along coastlines, and that last thing to do would be destroy the coastline by making it align with north/south just so that placing a plot would be easier. The places in game where its obvious that the plots/shore were created to line up, just look artificial.

[Idana]

Oh, and also, I was thinking that there could be "Town Founder only" structures (purchased with loyalty tokens and resource heavy to build) that could provide community service. Off of the top of my head, I was thinking about that legacy building that has the basic trainers in it, maybe some kind of quest giver structure so you can earn civic pride tokens for things only purchased from a vendor there. There could be some decorations that only go in the plot (like the mosaic tiles you find in Kion as floor tiles), or a plaza, floating dragon resting pads, or things that are already existing structures found in NPC towns.

[Ming]

I asked a long time ago that the tiny plots in Sem be combined. No guild members wanted those tiny little plots. I was told the structure of the land did not allow this, but that does not address the fact that the small plots that do exist could be grouped together into larger plots. Even the adjacent dragon lair is too small. It would be great if I could decorate the inside of the old tier V guild hall. The newer ones seem to have acquired decor all by themselves..........

[Knossos]

Ming:

Clear your World cache - the decos will magically appear in your T5 legacy guild house..

Knossos

[Garrick]

This thread seems remarkably similar to another thread in general discussion brought up by Yfelvik.
See : Desirable Guild Communities.

[Idana]

This thread seems remarkably similar to another thread in general discussion brought up by Yfelvik.
See : Desirable Guild Communities.

Actually, my real intent was to suggest Town Founder plots and underutilized guild communities just seemed like a good place to try them out. I was more interested in suggesting a way to reward long time players AND possibly create a more lasting player town. Maybe I should have written it differently.

I mean, my plots in North Crystal are really cool (but aren't guild plots) and at one time would have been really useful to other players since I have all of the expert machines, a (now mini) tavern, connie/pawnie/vault, and lots of storage but there's no reason to come to Shepherds Mountain unless you already own a plot there. So now I've gone into that mode a lot of us old time crafters do and I endlessly rip up and rearrange things just for something to do to amuse myself while avoiding the grinding aspect of combat leveling. I would have liked to have created something that would have been of use to the whole server.

[Ming]

Thank you, Knossos. I didn't know. Looks much better now!

[Garrick]

what exactly do you mean by "Town Founder"? You didn't explain the meaning behind that at all. Do you mean the player that buys the master plot essentially owns and can build on all the plots in the community? Because that seems like a bit much. Granted we have a ton of empty plots and communities lying around, but seriously, one player owning a whole community for the price of one plot?

[Idana]

Actually, I kind of did:

In other words, make the main plot (A TOWN FOUNDER PLOT) much larger and purchasable through a larger amount of gold AND ALSO loyalty tokens, and the smaller plots (purchasable by anyone) maybe more expensive than a single silver, but not as much as independent communities.

1. It rewards long time players who value the construction system with the ability to make truly useful city centers that, given the player's longevity, have a chance of sticking around and continuing to be useful. With enough space, the plot owner has the ability to not only make the place useful, but also to create a beautifully landscaped area that is attractive to others. It gives other players who don't want to go to all that trouble a place where they can find what they need and put up a little homestead.

I wasn't looking in terms of it working the way of guild plots in that there is a "master plot" and then "minion plots" than you can only get if you are part of the club, but in that one very large and expensive plot in a community serves as a (preferably expert) city center anchor (PURCHASED WITH MORE GOLD AND LOYALTY TOKENS) and then normal sized plots around it for people who don't want to go to all the work or haven't earned enough loyalty tokens. It doesn't guarantee that the anchor player will stick around, but I would be willing to go out on a limb and suggest that anyone who's been around for years and earned a significant number of loyalty tokens is more likely to stick around than someone who's been around for a year. I don't know about you, but there for a while, I got sick of helping to rebuild Heather because it's a really useful little town, but the folks who had the useful machines kept leaving. It's only one example, but there are more. I'd rather see an anchor plot go to someone who's been around for a long time and isn't likely to be going anywhere.

[Ming]

I helped with quite a few plots at Heather and just won't do it anymore. I put in hours and then the player quits the game. It's great when a player puts up a plot near resources but these plots don't seem to stick around. I think Idana has a good idea.

[Garrick]

I don't see anything about this idea that is in any way different from the current system. Just turning a guild town into a normal town doesn't change anything, and having only one big plot surrounded by smaller plots doesn't change anything either. It just means players will continue to buy those single big plots and ignore all the smaller ones. Requiring loyalty tokens to purchase the plot doesn't change much either, in fact it would probably make the plots even less likely to be occupied. There have been many discussions about what makes a plot popular or desirable, changing the purchase price to loyalty tokens won't change any of those factors.

The nice plots that players build by resources don't always go away because players quit, most often they get abandoned because larger plots open up in nicer areas. There are a good number of plot-owning players who have no qualms with picking up and moving when they see a better plot open up. This has happened quite often in the past couple of years with the numerous plot resizing and community revamps. This has had the unfortunate side effect of having plots that were traditionally near favored resource locations such as Heather and Snowfall get abandoned because the owners wanted to be somewhere nicer rather than provide a service to everyone by remaining in what they consider a sub-prime plot.

[Idana]

The plots haven't been resized all that often. My experience with the constant rebuilds is just that people quit and can't or don't get anyone to replace them on the plot. Yes people also move when bigger plots become available. There's no point in being bitter about that, that's like being bitter because someone accepted a promotion.

Why not make at least one plot in an area so desirable that the owner is unlikely to leave? Why not test it out on an area that is completely underutilized? Why not give those plots special things that can be done with the owner's loyalty tokens? I already have my pet and my awesome vault upgrades. All my tokens are going to do now is pile up. I can't possibly be the only person in game who would jump on the opportunity to use those tokens to get an awesome plot and do some unique things with it. And for a brand spanking new player, it might be nice to be near a plot that has all expert machines and isn't likely to disappear while they're leveling.

How's about some positive ideas instead of trolling? Yes, other people have suggested resizing plots. Yes, other people have suggested getting rid of guild plots. I don't see how that means that neither of those things should be done. In that those suggestions have come up a few times it means others interested in seeing it happen too. And there are also other things suggested in this thread if you read through it. I haven't heard from a Dev yet that they absolutely can't be done. It's just a suggestion. Build on it, make it better, offer a different suggestion. Just because it's been discussed before doesn't mean it can't be discussed again. I'm not the only person who has an issue with the status quo, why settle for it?

[Garrick]

You haven't listened to a word i've said. A post on this topic already exists and it was started by a dev, so you have heard from them, you should read it and you should be posting there.

This thread has provided no new information and has now degenerated into personal attacks.

Moderators, please close this thread.

[LOVWYRM]

its a real problem, that friends can`t live together in a settlement or guild town or whatsoever,
cause of the plot sizes or restrictions.
Atm you have to accept a micro plot or join a guild (only to have a micro plot again^^).
Its been a prob in the the past and still is.
Just experienced it when I was searching for new homes for me and my friends on Chaos.
So like all the years before- we shall be spread all over Istaria.

Idana, your suggestion could be a solution- best I can think of atm.

btw- old threads often tend to be obsolete cause frame conditions have changed- or population-or the needs of the population.

why not try to solve old probs in a nice, fresh new thread- with old and new ideas- with old and new players.

If only one idea comes life one or the other way- we all win

[AmonGwareth]

Going to post here and then close this thread as it is devolving quickly. I get where the OP is coming from, wanting a community with plots that can be obtained without having to be part of a guild. Others, however, want a community where only guild members can purchase plots. There ARE communities that don't require guild membership in order to own plots together.

If there are specific communities that need love we're happy to listen. Can't promise we will do anything as in some cases we can't, but we will listen.