Novians - And Novian Farming

[Summerbreeze]

So because someone wanted 4G, the rest of the community suffers and in some small part the entire game is affected for a long period of time. Sometimes it's not all about me me me. Sometimes you need to look at the whole.

As to why someone can't save it, perhaps they already own a key plot. One person cannot save the world from one who has no plot and can go razing as they please because that is thier choice. Even if one plot is saved, there are still others.

I agree, you get used to having a machine or a conni or public silos somewhere & then they are gone you feel it's now harder on you for no reason. But you made due before they were gone & will again till rebuilt. I hate it too when my favorite store right down the road closes & moves to the next town over, but I deal with it.

Simply put, ppl are complaining because plots were razed that were gonna be razed anyways by the dev's on resizing!! The plots were opened up by the dev's TO BE RAZED.. because it was us do it & get something, or them do it & get nothing. Either way... those plots were gonna be razed!!

As for "I already own a plot so can't save one" Maybe it's just a matter of what you want. It's quite possible & very likely the person razing owned a plot too. Prehaps they added another sub so that they could get novians? Just as another sub could have been added to "save".

A few months ago in Harro someone bought the plot with the vault & removed the vault. OMG.. the whining & crying about it!!! But the person BOUGHT the plot & has the right to do as they wish!! Maybe they needed more storage room, maybe it was thier only plot.. maybe they had other plans for the plot... They bought it!!

When the resizing started, the first t5(6) PB to go was Apia. Oh the complaining that day!! A couple of ppl even had the nerve to put down the guild leaders AFTER they found out it had to be done 'cause it was on a "small" plot!! People complaining... well that wasn't cool of them... what?, they elitist now?... Why didn't they like everyone using it?... This was one they took down so they could rebuild later!!!

Come on!!! If someone buys the plot it's thiers!!! The world changes, that is the uniqueness here!! Live with it.

[Sigi]

For those disliking the deconning of "keyplots"

Shouldn't you frown up the person who abandoned the plot in the first place? Leaving it there up for auction or whatever without taking care of it like selling it to someone who cares?

Do you think someone who owns the plot, build the machines and such but decides to decon the machines himself because he wants to do something else with his plot is bad?

[Zexoin]

Do you think someone who owns the plot, build the machines and such but decides to decon the machines himself because he wants to do something else with his plot is bad?

That's okay, but farming novians for the sake of farming, and selling the plot back to the community, is not, in my opinion. A simple timer between buying and selling a plot would solve that problem and make everyone happy.

[Aaelefein]

A simple timer between buying and selling a plot would solve that problem and make everyone happy.

I agree totally with this, may it be a 2 or 4 hour timer! I think anything longer would adversely affect normal game play.

The benefit is great...

It allows those that do not wait with baited breath for the for a system restart or the auction to be complete to pounce on a plot. Lock a player from selling the plot for 2-4 hours...it gives others a chance to buy a plot not sold during auction. Not everyone can be on at all times of the day to camp the plot(s) they want.

Does this prevent novian farming? No! But it does at least give others a chance to save plots...whether they are key plots or plots that once belonged to a guildmate that no longer plays.

[Shian]

Simply put, ppl are complaining because plots were razed that were gonna be razed anyways by the dev's on resizing!! The plots were opened up by the dev's TO BE RAZED.. because it was us do it & get something, or them do it & get nothing. Either way... those plots were gonna be razed!!.

It was my understanding that ones with structures were to be auctioned off after this whole thing started, so players could move in to fully or half-built homes. Thus not wasting resources already placed and places could be saved.

I thought that is what the point of the auctions is. Otherwise they would just flatten all of Istaria (In this case, razing and saving the work is a good idea) and set them at standard Imperial price. Or are we to be bidding on empty land?

[Aaelefein]

It was my understanding that ones with structures were to be auctioned off after this whole thing started, so players could move in to fully or half-built homes. Thus not wasting resources already placed and places could be saved.

I thought that is what the point of the auctions is. Otherwise they would just flatten all of Istaria (In this case, razing and saving the work is a good idea) and set them at standard Imperial price. Or are we to be bidding on empty land?

For the most part true, but...

Plots that were owned by non-active players AND were under the 1600 sq m threshold, were put up for sale for 1 week. The idea being that guilds would be able to retrieve items and novians from their absent guildmates' property AND make it easier for the DEV's to delete and or enlarge plots without having to raze them first.

Going into that one-week period of open-sales, I too was operating under an assumption...that that week of selling inactive plots was limited to guild community plots...this was not the case and it was a novian gathering frenzy...something I found out when I made an appearance later that day.

Oh well, such are the foibles of Dev's and Player's alike.

[Summerbreeze]

It was my understanding that ones with structures were to be auctioned off after this whole thing started, so players could move in to fully or half-built homes. Thus not wasting resources already placed and places could be saved.

I thought that is what the point of the auctions is. Otherwise they would just flatten all of Istaria (In this case, razing and saving the work is a good idea) and set them at standard Imperial price. Or are we to be bidding on empty land?

Not ALL the plots were unlocked for razing.. only those that were set to be resized! Those are the ones that were razed! The plots that were not resized or not needed open for the resizing were NOT unlocked for the raze & will be auctioned as is.

[velveeta]

i feel that novians should be tradable or at least placeable on other's plots - simply because i have never built a plot completely (not even majorly) on my own, and i feel that those peeps who contributed hard work should benefit from it as well if i decon those buildings.

is novian farming really such a big deal? certainly as it stands now, i can't imagine what is considered farming?

as was pointed out, if i buy an abandoned plot, with or without existing buildings, it is mine to do with as i wish. if i have the patience and finances for several subscripts and want to buy as many abandoned plots as i can and decon all of them, i am paying for the privilage.
i just don't see the problem, frankly.......

[Radamanthas]

Okay...I started this thread as a way of suggesting a 'fix' to novian farming - IF it was the desire of the devs to limit novian farming...that's all. It was never meant to be a discussion on the merits of novian farming, pro or con. I even posted later suggesting that the posts should remain on topic, and suggested that the thread be locked if it couldn't be kept on topic.

Well, the thread hasn't been locked, and we are quite off topic here - and apparently going to remain that way...so as the OP, I suppose I will throw in my outlook on it all...

[WARNING: The following content is extremely flammable - approach with caution. No smoking within 100 feet...]

I will start off by saying this: I don't give a rat's patootie if you farm novians or not. If that's your thing, and you get enjoyment out of the game by doing it, then have at it...

Having said that, I will also say this - you can cloak it behind whatever excuse soothes your conscience, but the plain truth of it is, is that novian farming is profiteering, pure and simple, and contrary to the spirit of the game. If you think it is not, then ask yourself why the devs, on multiple occasions have made comments in various posts on this forum to the effect of, "Gee, we'd like to stop novian farming [my emphasis] - we just can't see how we can do it, without limiting everyone....". Ask yourself why the game is coded such, that you can't trade novians directly, or even place your novians on another's plot, without having to go to the extreme of buying the 'clients' plot, placing the novians, and then selling the plot back to the 'client'. If the people that developed the game had thought it was cool to farm novians, it would have been EASIER to code the novians to be the same as any other simple object, that could be traded or placed anywhere...i.e. it took a special effort, on the part of the coders, to write extra code, limiting novians as they are - meaning that the intent was never to allow for anything more that the stated purpose of having novians in the game, in the first place (that being, that players that wanted to 'trade up' to a larger plot or just simply move to another location could do so, and only lose a minimal amount of THEIR work).

I've been playing around on computers for a very long time. In fact, I remember having a TRS-80 model I computer from Radio Shack (who remembers those ) with it's massive 4k of random access memory...hehe. I was logging onto local BBS's, before there really WAS an internet or world wide web. I remember spending many happy hours playing those text-based (everyting was text, back then - the only graphics were ASCII graphics) role-playing games. They eventually came to be called MUDs (Multi-User Dungeon). They were great fun, at the time...trying to improve your character by gaining experience, etc.

Why do I mention it? Well, someone (I think it was Summerbreeze) posted earlier something to the effect of, "this is happening, make due, and deal with it" [paraphrase]. I agree and, for my part, I do deal with it - which is why I could not care less if you farm novians or not. Just don't try to convince me that it is all a part of 'normal game play', when it is blatantly obvious that farming novians is an exploit that a few choose to take advantage of. Those who do choose to engage in novian farming remind me very much of the few players we would get every once in a while, back in those old MUD days...the ones that didn't want to spend days or weeks carefully and lovingly building up their characters through their own efforts, and just wanted to be at the top NOW...the ones that had a friend with a high-level character who would tank a mob many levels higher than the new character, so the new character could attack without fear of reprisal, and gain massive levels off of one fight. It didn't affect me, or my game...but it did always leave me wondering, "What's the point? Why bother playing the game at all?"

Well, I could say more - but I am sure this will get responded to, and this is already a wall of text, so I will save 'more' for responses to the responses, if I feel the need. I will say just one more thing, however, that I think is pertinent...we all (for the most part) have seen the movie 'Jurassic Park', neh? Think back to a part of that movie, near the begining, where they are all sitting down to lunch, before the big tour of the park that goes horribly wrong. Jeff Goldblum's character was arguing the fallacies of the efforts of the park's scientists. In that argument, there was one line, that I think is applicable here...to wit:

"Yeah, but they were so concerned with whether they COULD do it, that they didn't stop to think whether they SHOULD do it..."


Think about it.....

[Steele]

I've always thought the whole novian thing was kinda akin to corporate acquisitions/mergers.

Four years ago my former employer was purchased, supposedly "as a positive change for the people"... right. Shortly after securing our clients, which they inherited, our main office was shut down, our business was gutted like a fish and the leftovers were unceremoniously discarded as quietly as possible. Many of us saw the writing on the wall and waited complacently for our severance packages, but a few folks actually bought into the early propaganda and were emotionally crushed. Now, that said...

I view novians kinda the same way. If someone comes in and says:
"Look, I have a mound of gold burning a hole in my pocket. I'm going to buy this plot, decon the hell out of it and finish my own expert shops to ensure that there are expert shops in existence on this server, on an active account"
..I really don't have a problem with it.

On the other hand... if someone stealthily snatches a plot after well-known public servants publicly say they intend to preverve it as-is for the community, then proceeds to decon all the expert shops so they can finish their 3rd Tier6 guild hall with the resources. Then they sell it back to the Empire for minimal loss, and repeats this in multiple communities (which may very well be possible if the auctions are staggered by community, giving plenty of time to raze a community and move on to the next one before it goes on the block)...

The SECOND scenario is the one I have a problem with; the first one is just how life works.

[Justa Mirage]

I've been playing around on computers for a very long time. In fact, I remember having a TRS-80 model I computer from Radio Shack (who remembers those ) with it's massive 4k of random access memory...hehe. I was logging onto local BBS's, before there really WAS an internet or world wide web. I remember spending many happy hours playing those text-based (everyting was text, back then - the only graphics were ASCII graphics) role-playing games. They eventually came to be called MUDs (Multi-User Dungeon). They were great fun, at the time...trying to improve your character by gaining experience, etc....

OMG I was one of those, I programmed assembly language on those (Z-80) and who would ever think that you would ever run out of 4K of memory!!

We were the pioneers (I ran a BBS from 1980 - 1991) using fidonet. Ah the good ol days of logging into a multi-chat 8 modem system (only 8 people at a time could chat) and role playing.

[Mensar]

See next post, someone already suggested the timelimit so I deleted this post *cry

[Mensar]

I'm all for a two week timeframe where the purchased plot can only be sold to other players, not to the community and that can only happen after 24 hours of being frozen.

Will that burn the novian farmers.. yes.

What? You're waiting for a better explanation? Mwahahaha!

Let's be honest.. nobody is going to care about any of this after reclamation is over. So will the devs change something? probably not. Will everyone be upset at the Novian farmers? Probably not. Will life go on? Probably n.. I mean.. yes!

We'll see who the nice novian farmers are in our communities and shun them.. SHUNNNNNnnahhhhhh.. Or not. Really, who cares?

[Amarie Ancalimon]

It is true, this post has very much gone from ideas of deterring novian farmers to what everyone thinks about novian farmers.

The developers want to stop novian farmers, but do not want to inhibit the work of others (yes we have read all of the responses on things that could happen and might possibly not inhibit the work of non-farmers).

Time limits have been discussed, and although many suggested recognize that people sell their plots to alts for deconning, any amount of time could hinder that (what if someone only has a few hours in a day to get something deconned, sold back, and work begun anew).

So, although it may seem that we're NOT interested in stopping novian farmers and their effects on the community, we are constantly discussing and revisiting the idea (and all of the ideas presented here). As stated before, Novians are attuned to a specific character making it impossible to exploit by selling them, trading them, etc.

Opening up small plots (less than 1600m2) before auctions preferably to allow guilds to decon structures, or communities to save important plots before they were reclaimed and deleted came with the many concerns of novian farmers running out to take whatever they could.

There is always the balancing act of attempting to fix an exploit without hindering the game play of non-exploiters. Unfortunately, it can't always be as easy a fix as everyone would like.

If there are anymore suggestions on stopping novian farming then please feel free to continue posting. However, if the forum veers off towards opinions on novian farmers I will be happy to close it as requested earlier.

[Shian]

I view novians kinda the same way. If someone comes in and says:
"Look, I have a mound of gold burning a hole in my pocket. I'm going to buy this plot, decon the hell out of it and finish my own expert shops to ensure that there are expert shops in existence on this server, on an active account"
..I really don't have a problem with it.

On the other hand... if someone stealthily snatches a plot after well-known public servants publicly say they intend to preverve it as-is for the community, then proceeds to decon all the expert shops so they can finish their 3rd Tier6 guild hall with the resources. Then they sell it back to the Empire for minimal loss, and repeats this in multiple communities (which may very well be possible if the auctions are staggered by community, giving plenty of time to raze a community and move on to the next one before it goes on the block)...

Unfortunatly this is what we're facing. It all boils down to what the player decides to do and there's not much you can do to restrict the second player to halt thier actions without also halting actions of the first player.

Let's pretend this is codable. Would something like this help?

Have novians work as is where your novians can be placed on your plot. It is after all, your plot.
Novians can also be placed on any unbuilt machine or silo. Machines are an 'all or nothing' structure so there's no way one can build one for themselves. This would also encorage those hoarding novians to get rid of them by placing them on unbuilt machines. The community wins.

A wait timeframe would help little in the part of dettering novian farmers, IMO. With a dozen character slots open, if one gets on timeout, just use another. Seems like it would hurt a genuine player more to me.

[Steele]

Why not have Novians tied to the class of structure they came from, and then only allow them to be applied to a similar class of structure?

ie, "Novian Silo Cobalt Jointing" and "Novian Fluff Sandstone Blocks", "Novian Storage Structure Glowing Spheres" and "Novian Shop Thornwood Timbers"? "Fluff" = walls, walkways, flooring, gazebos, fountains, etc... "Storage Structure" = non-silo storage like houses, halls and libraries. Of course you'd need to call it something other than Fluff and I'm running up against the max edit time.

This way they can't just raze a ton of useful Expert shops to augment their second T6 silo farm or third T6 guild hall... and you could kinda-sorta-almost-pseudo-guarantee that they'll be used for the same sorts of structures.

If someone tears down Expert shops, they can rebuild Expert shops somewhere else.
If someone tears down an unsightly silo farm, then they can build... only another unsightly silo farm? Hrm...
And if someone tears down a structure that's no longer available, they're... SOL? Doh!

Unfortunately, it would seem that any time you seek extra security you sacrifice some of your freedoms; in this case, some folks with honest intent would lose the freedom to actually make use of novians that aren't of the proper "class" or "type" for what they want to accomplish. So it really comes down to: How much freedom are players willing to give up and what sort of compromise can be reached?

If you restrict the number of plots that can be bought/sold or slap a timeout per-account, then you hurt folks that have multiple family members playing on one account and end up rewarding people that have multiple seperate accounts.

You could restrict plot buying/selling by credit card instead of account, but that's just as easy to defeat and offers the same collateral inconveniences to the meat of the playerbase (who I'd guess use the same CC to pay for multiple accounts under one master login).

Novians are already attuned, so ya really can't do much there... of course, that's pretty easily defeated by transferring plots to/from a "Master Novian Holder" alt (which has me wondering "what was the point again?", but that's neither here nor there I guess).

You could maybe put an expiration time on Novians, to eliminate the attractiveness of long-term "I might use this some day" farming, but again... as a "relatively normal" player, it would kinda hurt to have all my Novians poof if I legitimately can't redesign the plot in time, or can't get online for a few days or a week due to RL issues - especially if I manage to beat out a Novian farmer by spending my entire life's savings on a plot in the auction...

Getting rid of Novians altogether would eliminate Novian farming. If you think about it, adventurers don't get "Novian experience" if they choose to drop an adventuring class. *shrug* Time spent in construction vs. time spent levelling, or money to pay for construction vs. money to pay for Hunter Trophies; it's kinda all the same.

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Another option would be to keep Novians as they are, and add in the ability to revert a structure into a "ghost form" (similar to how a structure behaves when listed under the Planning tab) so that the plot can be re-arranged... but once it's re-positioned and re-planted, no resources need to be applied. There has to be a way to set up a plot-planning process parallel to how New structure planning works, but flag the structure in the parallel process as "Completed" instead of "New" so that it reappears complete instead of as an empty scaffold. Tie a mild in-game fee into this, scaled by the structure's tier and type, to create another much-needed moneysink. Also, tie a much higher fee to structure deconstruction, which would be justified by the convenience of having the additional freedom to use the Novians for other structures.

This would eliminate the demand for Novians due to simple plot rearrangement (because you wouldn't need to actually deconstruct it, per se), and coupled with high deconstruction fees and with tying Novians to the class of structure they came from, should make Novian "farming" less desireable - all while causing the least inconvenience to the vast majority of players.

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Lots of stuff to think about here.

[Shian]

Another option would be to keep Novians as they are, and add in the ability to revert a structure into a "ghost form" (similar to how a structure behaves when listed under the Planning tab) so that the plot can be re-arranged... but once it's re-positioned and re-planted, no resources need to be applied. There hasto be a way to set up a plot planning process parallel to New structure planning, but flag the structure in the parallel process as "completed" instead of "new". Tie an in-game fee into this, scaled by tier and building type, to create another much-needed moneysink. Also, tie a much higher fee to structure deconstruction, which would be justified by the convenience of having the additional freedom to use the Novians for other structures.

This would eliminate the demand for Novians due to simple plot rearrangement (because you wouldn't need to actually deconstruct), and coupled with the fees and with tying Novians to the class of structure they came from, might make Novian "farming" less desireable - all while causing the least inconvenience to the vast majority of players.

This is a cool idea.

How about, instead of novians, get "a full structure" novian. 1 Helian T2 hall Novian; 1 Expert Jman shop Novian. It couldn't be used for anything but that, so farmers intending to use them for another purpose couldn't do so. Those that are simply re-arranging thier plot wouldn't be hindered aside from the fee whether it is monetary or still 80% and it would be impossible to use novians from something and turn them into something else. It wouldn't stop novian farmers, but it would slow progress wouldn't it? With specific structure novians, you'd hit your vault item limit far too quickly even for the simplest of movements.

I've not deconned something yet with the intention of building something else with it, so I do not know how often legit (term used loosly) players would decon a walkway just for the 80% parts to put into a new silo or something.

[Steele]

How about, instead of novians, get "a full structure" novian. 1 Helian T2 hall Novian; 1 Expert Jman shop Novian.

I thought about that at first, then decided if you're gonna go that far, why not just move the jigsaw pieces around on the table?

I've not deconned something yet with the intention of building something else with it, so I do not know how often legit (term used loosly) players would decon a walkway just for the 80% parts to put into a new silo or something.

We've been doing that on the guild plot in Sem on Order... decon'ing Jman shops to build Expert in the same footprint, etc. You get the T4 Novian resources and slap em on the T6 structure for immediate 35%ish complete... you can then use the T2 resources from the Jman structure to make silos or walkways or walls or whatever.

[Shian]

I thought about that at first, then decided if you're gonna go that far, why not just move the jigsaw pieces around on the table?.

Because that would encourage even legit players to think about hot swapping thier lots to have a novian holder wouldn't it? With 6 tiers and 6 resource types currently (for dragons, not sure how many more bipeds have), that's only 36 vault slots. Attach the type of object and you can fill a vault even if it's empty. Yikes! That's why I suggested it be for the whole structure instead.

We've been doing that on the guild plot in Sem on Order... decon'ing Jman shops to build Expert in the same footprint, etc. You get the T4 Novian resources and slap em on the T6 structure for immediate 35%ish complete... you can then use the T2 resources from the Jman structure to make silos or walkways or walls or whatever.

Ah. Okay. Handy, that. Back to the "what are we willing to give up if we want to stop this" eh?

[Hoberton]

Easy way to solve all this: When Auctions come up just delete all structures from the plot and all you are auctioning on is the plot site itself. No novians available. I thought from previous posts and threads that the most sought after item was a better plot.

Do away with the Novain farming all together.

When a player finally decides to quit the game and his account is no longer payed up then do the same. Delete the structures and have the plot come available for sale. Nothing on it.