Socialization

[venatorvenator]

I suppose this could go into C&I, but instead of suggestions I'd rather just ask devs some things for clarification, and maybe open the topic for discussion.

Social interaction has been terrible in the game. It's rare to see other people while exploring, and when you do, most of the time they run away or kill you. Village-to-village interaction has been problematic too, and we often read about players who quit because their entire place had been destroyed. Because of this, the concept of building centers for trade or socialization is unthinkable. There's no incentive meet people, visit their villages, make public events in your own, go on caravans to trade. The solution many have found was to walk several hours away from everyone and hermit, since the less interaction you have, the safer you are.

There's no end-game incentive to anything other than pvp either, which I think makes the social issue worse. After a while it becomes pointless to increase stats beyond a certain number, except for those related to combat. Crime is easy and inconsequential, there's no difference between stealing a straw basket, killing five developed characters, or murdering every new player on the spawn grid. Seeing how crime costs SHP instead of HHP, how the debuff doesn't scale, or how there isn't an afterlife for crafters and builders, for example, one gets the impression you want to keep it that way.

Then I'd like to ask: is it your intention that players don't interact positively with each other and play this as a single-player game? And do you intend to focus on pvp updates, or should we expect a balance between combat, trade, and politics? Are you planning to implement mechanics that favor content created by players, such as religion and diplomacy tools? The potential for this sort of lore is what brought me into the game, and it's what I understood from "affect the world in lasting ways".

Essentially I'd like to just have some idea of what kind of game you have in mind for the future. Should we expect one where people are to be avoided, or one where there are other things to do with them apart from murder?

[jorb]

I agree with you that some of those things are problems, and they are certainly things we want to work on. I believe we have stated this in the past, though, for example in the patch announcement posts. The visitor buff, for example, was quite explicitly an attempt at making some of these things more feasible.

[LadyV]

I think more social options would be nice. I would love to see things that require more than one person to do. The quests mentioned have good potential in that area as well. Maybe at some point we could have special events, contests, or just fun gatherings. Valhalla is a nice one for those who have the stats and desire combat. Maybe add upon that.

[venatorvenator]

Thanks, and yeah, but those notes seem to follow some unsystematic forum complaints or more localized stuff, and I’m more interested in knowing your own opinion on what the game should be, especially in regard to player lore, crime, and socialization.

[Kaios]

I agree with you that some of those things are problems, and they are certainly things we want to work on. I believe we have stated this in the past, though, for example in the patch announcement posts. The visitor buff, for example, was quite explicitly an attempt at making some of these things more feasible.

This isn't the response he's looking for...