Posts made by Kesef

@Osefa Another Shadow Empire! I have a feeling this will be a power to be reckoned with when the time comes :).

@VyrVandalous The Shadow Empire .. Nice :).

I am going to probably come back to this after I have given some thought for other features I enjoy, but I wanted to comment on the OP's last point.

I currently play a game called Boundless ("voxel sandbox" building MMO). This game does something similar to what you mention, and I love the way they handle it. Every level you gain, you get skill point to put into stats/abilities and a currency called "Cubits." These are used to purchase "plots," used to claim areas of planets to build and keep as your own, cosmetic items, extra skill pages, etc.

Level 50 is the "max," where you will obtain enough skill points to max out what skills points you can actively use. You can continue endlessly to level past 50 to gain more skill points and Cubits.

There are methods to level pretty quick with some effort, so you can obtain endless amount of cubits to use on the cubit shop. Everything you do; building, crafting, gathering, etc. gains XP.

You can ofc, purchase Cubits with real money if you wish, but you are not obligated to if you would rather put the effort into the game and levels.

Here are the positives I can point out off the top of my head:

• You CAN use real money if you want
• You also have the option to put in blood-and-sweat to obtain cool cosmetics without real money
• You gain enough of the currency where it does not feel like it is hopeless. You do not gain so much to make it feel like you are just being handed everything easy, but also not too low where it seems impossible to progress in-game without real money (many other games I have tried have such low gain on the extra currency that you would end up spending weeks and months to obtain a cheap item on the shop)
• The items you can purchase are not Pay-to-Win. There are conveniences and cosmetics, but nothing that really give you an advantage over other players. This might be debatable, as a lot of comments I see out on forums regarding the term pay-to-win, most people seem to think that anything paid for with real money regardless of utility (or lack thereof), think it is pay-to-win. So let me clarify my meaning.
  * I refer to pay-to-win as purchases that increase levels with no effort, are items to increase stats/power that are otherwise
  difficult/impossible to obtain in-game, allows you to mind control and dominate other players against their will, etc.

@Jetah ... Not sure if you are just trolling or messing around, but I assume the OP is referring to a year in real-time, not game time :p.

While this is all awesome and I am behind it, this would be a feature lower on my personal "to-do" list for the devs to complete :p. If we are just talking in the long-run when the game is complete though ...

Seasonal/periodic events have always been awesome to me. My thoughts on these - To happen less often, but have a longer duration. Currently with some games I am playing, I feel like I am trapped with HAVING to spend any game time I have participating in the events, because I really want what rewards they offer, but I have no time to do anything else in-game that I really want, or need, to accomplish. There have been times also where there have been event-after-event, so in like a 2-month period, any normal game progress was on hold because I felt obligated to participate in the multiple events. In conclusion - I would like it to feel like my time can be spent participating in the event, but also not feel like I can't make normal game progress during the event.

Triggered events - I LOVE these sort of ideas. That is something that, to me, really brings a world to life. Not just going about and having simple find-and-destroy bosses, but ones where we have to do something to unlock. Completing some ritual by bringing certain items to an alter, having multiple people stand on certain glyphs on the ground to open a hidden passageway, etc. WoW has something similar with secrets where the communities have discovered and obtained special items, mounts, achievements, etc. by completing. These kinds of puzzles would be really cool to see.

How is everyone? Hoping to hear about Alpha 2 opening up soon!

I guess I will join in the fray here... I am looking forward to this game and what is to come!

I did not have any issues finding a spot. Granted, it was a long trek, but they were there. There were plenty of other players giving locations of free spots. I found a huge area, and even traveled far into it to claim, with many neighboring parcels remaining open through the test (minus the last half day, I was unable to get on).

An alternative I would suggest though - maybe having a world map toggle to show available parcels? Even maybe a toggle to highlight zones a certain shade or color depending on number of available plots (i.e. red has 0, blue has under 100, green has over 100). It does not ruin the whole "running to find your home experience if you were not there first," but does at least give you a direction to go that you know has available plots.

Something else to consider, is that there is not a huge difference between environments currently (if any?). I assume different zones will eventually be overhauled with different looks (i.e. forest, desert, etc.). When that time comes, people are going to be more likely to select their preferred area, rather than picking up the first closest one as fast as they can. I have not looked at all of the upcoming plans for this game yet, but there was a mention of towns and the such. I think there will be many changes that could affect the current land claim system in coming updates.

@Shivashanti I agree here. With the style of gameplay I experienced, WASD movement does not make sense to me. It is not a 3D environment where you are using your mouse to look about. It looks like an autorun option is in consideration, and that will do for me. When there are also mounts, long treks will not be as bad.

That being said, I did NOT enjoy the long treks. Having come in after so many parcels were claimed, spending 45 mins to an hour just running to find a free location did give me a sore hand. I actually found that holding it down was worse than clicking at the edge of the screen every so often. It also did not help that I died (not just knocked unconscious, actual 0 health dead), and respawned back where I started after the first 30-ish mins, making my journey take more like an hour fifteen mins total to find my vacation home :p. I did not mind having to make that trek and putting in the effort to cross the continent, but the aforementioned autorun would have been much appreciated :).