Release Date Trailer: Eternal Alpha, Aug. 21st 2015

[amasarac]

I always think of the player as taking a shit when he stands in one spot, plowing uselessly, only to eat more.

Where is flame when you need him?

[Kaios]

I was thinking about the spawning issue while reading the forum the other day and a possible solution might be to give a "free pass" to the very first character created from that account or computer (email address/ip address/mac address?) but then again unless you guys were to take a harder stance on multiple accounts as well this solution would be somewhat pointless as a person could simply create more than one account and spawn a character from each. However, creating multiple accounts and only getting one character out of it is obviously more difficult than creating one account and spawning several so maybe this is a somewhat reasonable solution.

Another might be to create static spawn areas, not so small that players are spawning directly on top of each other of course but perhaps for example a supergrid sized spawn zone in the center of the world which if I recall correctly is a method that has in fact been utilized in the past already. Could maybe add other spawn locations at north, east, south and west grids.

I can't really think of much else at the moment.

[Tacheron]

I don't know squat from coding and programming, but if the idea to remove HS spawning comes from trying to tackle alt abusing, would it be a possibility to limit the amount of times you can do that per account to once and then maybe monitor multi-account use? Or even better, allow HS spawning for the first 2-3 days in the game, when there will be a rush of people wanting to play who want to play together. Later on, it will probably be much easier to locate someone, once maps are in place.

OR, is it possible to localize spawns to at least within the same supergrid if you have some sort of HS equivalent of a player you wish to play with?

I mean, it won't put me off of the game either way, but a big portion of the enjoyment for me is the forming of the initial base with my friends. Give us party arrows at least and there will be no problem

[Tacheron]

I was thinking about the spawning issue while reading the forum the other day and a possible solution might be to give a "free pass" to the very first character created from that account or computer (email address/ip address/mac address?) but then again unless you guys were to take a harder stance on multiple accounts as well this solution would be somewhat pointless as a person could simply create more than one account and spawn a character from each. However, creating multiple accounts and only getting one character out of it is obviously more difficult than creating one account and spawning several so maybe this is a somewhat reasonable solution.

Another might be to create static spawn areas, not so small that players are spawning directly on top of each other of course but perhaps for example a supergrid sized spawn zone in the center of the world which if I recall correctly is a method that has in fact been utilized in the past already. Could maybe add other spawn locations at north, east, south and west grids.

I can't really think of much else at the moment.

Lol, I see we were on the same page and at the same time But yeah, alts that are active at the same time DO come from different accounts, you can't have 2 characters active at the same time from the same account iirc.

[Kaios]

Lol, I see we were on the same page and at the same time But yeah, alts that are active at the same time DO come from different accounts, you can't have 2 characters active at the same time from the same account iirc.

Haha great minds and all that, but yes you're right for the most part anyone that plays more than one character usually has more than one account to do so (Like you said, two characters active at the same time, probably a warrior and farmer). I am not looking to resolve that though and I don't think Jorb and Loftar are either, I think this has more to do with the overall abuse of that system on a larger scale which is why I think limiting it by account in some manner may be a viable solution.

I'm also more than willing to give not spawning with my friends a chance though, it might not be that bad if it resolves a lot of these alt abuse issues and I would really enjoy having most people playing a "main" character.

[Potjeh]

Consumption rate is a major challenge. On the one hand you can create a situation where players are essentially locked out of fun gameplay mechanics while waiting for timers or whatever, and on the other you can create extremely stressful setups where you basically cannot take any sort of break from the game -- i.e. the situation you describe where you can eat without any sort of impediments -- without falling behind in the rat race.

The obvious fix here is removing the rat race, which you are already doing with delta capping. Just extend it to all character stats rather than just UA/MC and there's no longer any need to control the consumption rates.

[venatorvenator]

Tracking multiple accounts would take them effort that could have been spent in improving the game. The question, however, is whether doing that isn't also a way to improve the game.

The one-char-per-account idea makes sense though - if you want multiple accounts, you would have to make some effort to create them (just as, if you want hq crops, you have to make the effort to grind). If that's also IP tagged, you'd need the effort to set up proxies to dodge it. Logic says that would indeed limit the number of players who use alts, and the number of alts per player as well. Going to the extreme, that can be combined with forum moderation that bans players who claim they have multiple accounts. That's not hard, just needs mods reading ICA.

The obvious fix here is removing the rat race, which you are already doing with delta capping. Just extend it to all character stats rather than just UA/MC and there's no longer any need to control the consumption rates.

As a sandbox game, wouldn't it make more sense to award or stimulate players who play outside of the rat race rather than completely removing that? I've mentioned somewhere else about implementation of skills that would be useless in grinding but would give more content, meaning, and status to someone who chooses to play outside it. I'm sure other solutions exist too.

[simimi]

Since we're talking about salem mechanics, here's one I've seen warriors praising that gave crafters huge headaches: The ability to consume food without any form of effort or time input. It caused a lot of supply issues due to a single warrior being able to clean every cupboard in town in a single sitting. The consumption being that fast made it hard to ensure food was shared without headaches, and made the effort of crafting it feel devalued since it disappeared nigh on instantly.

Consumption rate is a major challenge. On the one hand you can create a situation where players are essentially locked out of fun gameplay mechanics while waiting for timers or whatever, and on the other you can create extremely stressful setups where you basically cannot take any sort of break from the game -- i.e. the situation you describe where you can eat without any sort of impediments -- without falling behind in the rat race. Various iterations of Salem have at times suffered from both those problems, and Haven presently suffers from the very ugly plow-to-eat-more "mechanic". I always think of the player as taking a shit when he stands in one spot, plowing uselessly, only to eat more.

Basically I want the game to have a pulse related to real world time -- so that you can take breaks -- without ever really locking players out entirely from gameplay -- so that you yourself can decide how much you want to play. I think we have managed to implement at least some fresh takes on these issues.

More on the 21st.

What about a litle food bag you keep with you and eat along the day : like the curiosity study but for food ?
No gloutonery, no plowing, no useless waiting.
Could use the same box as the curio and put curios and/or food, you could then choose to improve LP or stats.

And for the spaming alt problem, what about allowing TP if you do some moderatly hard task that :
- a boot cant do
- equaly hard for everybody

Like : you have 1hour to find and kill 3 rabits (first kill start the timer ) and then you can TP a freind before the timer ends ?

PS : you'll have to make little change to rabbits, like you cant store them in your bag for futur kill, they could just been killed like cows and cheeps by right clik and "kill".

[mvgulik]

we are rather considering extending support for actually caching maps that you character has seen.

Mmm. Sound like something that might give rise to outside-game-trading in map data. (no personal good/bad POV included)

[Bob_the_Cat]

What about a litle food bag you keep with you and eat along the day : like the curiosity study but for food ?
No gloutonery, no plowing, no useless waiting.
Could use the same box as the curio and put curios and/or food, you could then choose to improve LP or stats.

Honestly I really like this. I like the curio system because although some curios are more spammable than others, you can still get ones that are long and good for logging out with. They make it so if you dont have a lot of time you can still progress, but if you have a ton of time you can progress faster, but not 100x faster because you have limited intel and can only study 1 of something at a time. At least in early game, where everything you do matters.