Character Wipe: Discussion

[jorb]

@ copycannon: I agree that the carry over of goods into the new world is annoying. If it were just one full inventory per player, I'd be cool with that, but people will obviously be bringing over their entire alt vault full of steel and silk, which I'm not entirely cool with. We'll see what we'll do about that.

[copyannon]

Awesome Jorb, thanks for the heads up.

[sami1337]

@ copycannon: I agree that the carry over of goods into the new world is annoying. If it were just one full inventory per player, I'd be cool with that, but people will obviously be bringing over their entire alt vault full of steel and silk, which I'm not entirely cool with. We'll see what we'll do about that.

Well that's true. Thinking about that i don't even care taking my inventory with me. The only thing hard to replace would be the ranger gear.

[Ferinex]

@ copycannon: I agree that the carry over of goods into the new world is annoying. If it were just one full inventory per player, I'd be cool with that, but people will obviously be bringing over their entire alt vault full of steel and silk, which I'm not entirely cool with. We'll see what we'll do about that.

Simple solution: Prune accounts. Less than a certain amount of playtime in a certain time/not logged on for a set amount of time (perhaps proportional to their playtime); snipsnipsnip.

Edit: It works for forums pretty well.

[Ruggan]

@ copycannon: I agree that the carry over of goods into the new world is annoying. If it were just one full inventory per player, I'd be cool with that, but people will obviously be bringing over their entire alt vault full of steel and silk, which I'm not entirely cool with. We'll see what we'll do about that.

Simple solution: Prune accounts. Less than a certain amount of playtime in a certain time/not logged on for a set amount of time (perhaps proportional to their playtime); snipsnipsnip.

Edit: It works for forums pretty well.

This always works well, even for games (although usually there should be a point of no return after which characters aren't deleted, otherwise it tends to discourage oldbies from returning).

As for the altvault issue, there are a couple concerns:
1) You allow people to only flag one character, and they potentially lose alts that they've invested time into (i.e. not mules). Also, people will create new accounts to carry additional materials.
2) You allow people to only carry over the items they are wearing, and they will expend all the raw materials to create items that they can wear on mules into the new world (this prevents the giant influx of raw materials, however).

Anyone have any ideas? I'm assuming Jorb/Loftar do not want to penalize characters for their hard work, but want to prevent excessive amounts of resources from being carried over into the new world. I suppose there's a downside to everything.

[Rift]

hmm, if no alternative was found, while i would be not exactly happy with it, i would accept characters entering with no inventory and naked [or with the basic start-gear you normally get].
I guess if the items-decaying fast-ish in inventories that are offline was implemented it would help somewhat? athough it obviously would need some time to take effect.

[Yolan]

Myself, I have one main character that I use, and he is the only one bringing anything. Got my tools, some seeds, a few bars of useful metal/some steel coins for trade. Actually, I stopped playing actively a few weeks ago now. I'm waiting for the next world.

[kobnach]

I've moved recently - with a few cartloads of stuff, onto a map with essentially the same rules (i.e. the same map), except trees were suddenly very rare, bodies of water nonexistent, and clay mines available.

It was a massive PITA. I'm barely at the point of feeling recovered enough to be building for other reasons than merely recreating my infrastructure. And the move was weeks ago - shortly before Old Goonheim got fully established.

It's going to be worse moving to a map where resources I expect may not be available, uncertain whether I'll e.g. be unable to find wild flax, or mine points, or fish, or ... whatever. This makes me highly motivated to start creating mules, and load each one with a different basic resource - flax seeds, wheat seeds, carrots, grape seeds, hemp, tea seeds, glass (or glass bottles/mugs); cast iron, wrought iron, silk eggs; even wool and butter. And this is on top of the basic kit I want to take on my main, and on my primary alt (played as much as my main, but younger).

Of course much of this is motivated by paranoia - I expect some of my neighbours' first priority to be trashing other players. Thus even keeping wicker baskets undestroyed may require a brick wall, or at least a palisade. And given that deforestation is a PITA, I'd rather go with the brick wall - so that's 5 steel, and preferably more than 20 wrought iron as well. (I forget the exact numbers for a square brick wall with 4 corners and one gate.)

If folks want to control the portage problem, I suggest disabling pvp entirely during the resettling period - no vandalism, theft, assault or murder. Then there wouldn't be such a desire for instant fortifications.

At that point, starting with just objects worn becomes reasonable - provided the truce period lasts a reasonable time, with its ending date pre-announced.Otherwise we'll all be busy killing griefers, who'll doubtless pop happily out of their holes when people's fences get taken away from them.

[Coldsteel]

I've moved recently - with a few cartloads of stuff, onto a map with essentially the same rules (i.e. the same map), except trees were suddenly very rare, bodies of water nonexistent, and clay mines available.

It was a massive PITA. I'm barely at the point of feeling recovered enough to be building for other reasons than merely recreating my infrastructure. And the move was weeks ago - shortly before Old Goonheim got fully established.

It's going to be worse moving to a map where resources I expect may not be available, uncertain whether I'll e.g. be unable to find wild flax, or mine points, or fish, or ... whatever. This makes me highly motivated to start creating mules, and load each one with a different basic resource - flax seeds, wheat seeds, carrots, grape seeds, hemp, tea seeds, glass (or glass bottles/mugs); cast iron, wrought iron, silk eggs; even wool and butter. And this is on top of the basic kit I want to take on my main, and on my primary alt (played as much as my main, but younger).

Of course much of this is motivated by paranoia - I expect some of my neighbours' first priority to be trashing other players. Thus even keeping wicker baskets undestroyed may require a brick wall, or at least a palisade. And given that deforestation is a PITA, I'd rather go with the brick wall - so that's 5 steel, and preferably more than 20 wrought iron as well. (I forget the exact numbers for a square brick wall with 4 corners and one gate.)

If folks want to control the portage problem, I suggest disabling pvp entirely during the resettling period - no vandalism, theft, assault or murder. Then there wouldn't be such a desire for instant fortifications.

At that point, starting with just objects worn becomes reasonable - provided the truce period lasts a reasonable time, with its ending date pre-announced.Otherwise we'll all be busy killing griefers, who'll doubtless pop happily out of their holes when people's fences get taken away from them.

A character wipe would automatically force a truce period until someone is able to grind up enough LP to get the necessary skills to even trespass or steal. In the time it would take to get those skills, you should be able to build a superfortress of brickwalls and also have a character skilled enough to kill thieves/vandals.

Starting a new map and being able to carry cartloads of items over on alts is like being a newbie just starting out on the current map and having the ability to throw down a bricked fortress that is fully stocked with equipment and supplies.

[theTrav]

@ copycannon: I agree that the carry over of goods into the new world is annoying. If it were just one full inventory per player, I'd be cool with that, but people will obviously be bringing over their entire alt vault full of steel and silk, which I'm not entirely cool with. We'll see what we'll do about that.

Good to hear. I hadn't even thought of that problem. I'd vastly prefer to enter the world with zero inventory or some fixed inventory over having massive alt vaults come along with us.