Game Development: World 16.2

[Shaki]

but jorb removed it and did nothing to give any early game safety.

Say it louder for the ones in the back, you aren't safe until leather (and it takes longer to make leather than to get skills allowing you to completely ignore the fences) BY DESIGN. Thank the devs.

[abt79]

The playing field has now been leveled.

All you need to do to succeed in Griefing & Bonk World 16.2 is:

• Possess a decade-spanning well of arcane game knowledge and skills
• Get access to an actual client (nightdawg *mwah*)
• Devote all your time and entire existence to a Skinner Box MMORPG

My dopamine levels have never been higher. Best of luck in the hearthlands, folks, and thanks for all the hides

[terechgracz]

Stop lying game pop is healthy

[ddrboy54]

clearly everyone here has forgotten that people have always been able to get vandal before palisade walls were dry. this change makes zero difference but giving them a bigger time window.

It makes it so you can buy rage for cheap and then spend the 125k LP that the other guy spent on unlocking vandalism on combat skills and fuck them up

Well not like, YOU, but people who actually like... try

[Mr_Bober]

ENJOY!

I doubt you or loftar will ever get to read this, but I'll share my experience anyway in the hope it provides some insight on how changes actually affect players.

You login at world start. The race against the clock starts: you have roughly 48 hours before people unlock vandalism.
And this time around, you've got only a couple of hours before they unlock Rage, if that.

First decision to make: stay where you spawned or spend a few hours looking for an isolated spot to be harder to find?
In the past you've tried to stay. The result was getting the claim bashed before it activated, or having to wait for the claim to be up to even start drying hides -as any random would just take them off the racks if they saw them.
This time you decide to look for a new place. A few hours later, you're on a different continent. You settle one of the first caves you can find, as time is ticking.
You set up a claim, drying racks, all that stuff.

Next morning, the claim is up. Build a fence, lock the gates.
You're safe, for now. Vandalism is likely still a day away, although Assault reports are coming in from the main continent.
Hours go by. The first batch of hides is dry. Tanning begins.
Gather some good stuff, maybe start planing the first wild crops -as domesticating crops takes ages and waiting for a dry palisade means losing precious time.
The day goes by, everything is fine. Not much traffic in my area.

It has been 48 hours. You hear the first reports of Vandalism.
There's nothing further you can do to protect the tanning tubs.
For all the other stuff, the only real safe way to keep it would be to spam a bunch of alts and use them as containers instead of actual crates.
You've tried this before, it makes the game impossibly tedious.
It doesn't matter anyway. Leather right now is all that matters, if you lose that you lose everything. It would mean your place isn't safe anymore, so you'd need to resettle, wait for a new claim to set, rebuild everything... and restart the clock from drying hides.

The hours go by. The leather will be done in a couple of hours. You've almost done it.
The spot for the palisade is planned, resources are ready, just need to wait for that leather to be done and then hope nobody will find the fresh palisade for a few more hours. By tomorrow everything will be safe.

Then, your luck runs out.
Someone finds you. The gate gets bashed. Vandals get in.
You try to fight, as even running to a locked house is no longer an option.
You're no match for them. You haven't focused all your efforts into a combat character, they have.
You get KOed.

Thanks to the new "Travel to Ring of Brodgar", they don't even need to pick and choose what to take. They can take everything.
All they need is to build a beacon to spawn a fresh alt.
They take the containers out of the claim, then lift them with the fresh alt (or use a cart) and "Travel to Ring of Brodgar". Another alt will be waiting there to take them and travel back to their base with it.
Repeat until everything is gone. Travel weariness is not even a concern, so you can do as many trips as you'd like.

If something can't be taken, it's destroyed.
Their goal might be to loot, but griefing is free.
10-15 minutes go by. You log back in to check the damage. They're still there -you had no way to check- and attack you again. They know you have 1SHP and have been stripped naked. But killing you is inconsequential to them, especially this early on, so why not?

You're dead now, and your body is dumped into a lake somewhere. Or maybe you are still alive, but(t) naked, without anything left, severely wounded; and they know your location now, so trying again in that place is not an option as they're likely to check it again before you can get get hides, leather, and a palisade up.

The end.

---

You're left to think what you could have done differently.

• Settling deeper into a cave might have been safer, but also meant being stuck there every time a bat or two are between you and the exit. Or having to fight your way out every time.
• Avoid leaving any tracks of your passage. No chopping trees, no stripping them of branches, boughs and bark, as that too is a sign someone lives nearby. No paving or plowing, as that shows on the map. But there aren't many caves in the area, so it's likely they would have checked your cave anyway -as everyone is settling caves in the early days.
• Ignore every part of the game that isn't PvP and just spend all your effort and LP into gaining more combat stats/skills, so if someone does get to you (and they are alone) you might be able to fend them off.

Maybe the answer is to just do nothing else.
Make 3 drying racks, wait for the hide to dry, then make 3 tubs and wait for the leather to be done.
Don't build anything else, don't gather anything, don't play. Just wait for 3 days, and see if you're allowed to start playing or not.
Is this how the early game is meant to be played @jorb?

---

As I said before, I'm all for experimenting. I just wished I didn't have to wait close to a year to get another chance at a fresh world.
This kind of experimental worlds should run for 10 weeks tops, not 10 months like the last one did.

In my eyes, this particular experiment has already yielded some problematic results:

• Cheap Rage made the Vandalism clock shorter. While it's not a prerequisite, every early game criminal takes Rage before taking Vandalism.
• The "Travel to Ring of Brodgar" made stealing everything much easier, as explained above. The shortened name -Travel to RoB- should have been a dead giveaway...
• The lack of Travel Weariness and the shared Thingwalls makes it much easier for criminals to get around, hit spots that used to be too far, or jump all over the map. They can map all Thingwalls with alts, and do a share-jump session to get them all on their main.
• Trade will not improve. Nobody will travel to another Thingwall to walk to someone's village to trade. They'll wait for Charterstoens to be up, as it's always been, especially given Thingwalls are now more dangerous than ever.
  

[bmjclark]

On a personal level, I love that you can dry loot somebody and just port all their shit to brodgar with one alt then port it home with a different alt. I'm quite sure it's a dumb as fuck change for the game but it's very funny while it lasts.

[QueueSS]

Jorb, FUCK YOU.
you completely ruined this game.
I try to play every world, but the few people who run around griefing everyone else because you seem to get of on people's pain means i wont keep playing.
You are lucky you live on the other side of the world...I havent been this angry in a long time, and you and your stupid PVP cock gagging can get fucked
I hope Russia invades your country and makes you a cuck slave.
once again.,...shove a giant dick down your throat until you fucking die you imbecile.
respectully,
a former player

you are such a pathetic loser lmao

[lemongrabz]

You're left to think what you could have done differently.

• Settling deeper into a cave might have been safer, but also meant being stuck there every time a bat or two are between you and the exit. Or having to fight your way out every time.
• Avoid leaving any tracks of your passage. No chopping trees, no stripping them of branches, boughs and bark, as that too is a sign someone lives nearby. No paving or plowing, as that shows on the map. But there aren't many caves in the area, so it's likely they would have checked your cave anyway -as everyone is settling caves in the early days.
• Ignore every part of the game that isn't PvP and just spend all your effort and LP into gaining more combat stats/skills, so if someone does get to you (and they are alone) you might be able to fend them off.

[/list]

Yes? all those things do make you safer and less of an easy target early on, i dont get what the point of this post is, nothing you do should make you absolutely immune to being attacked, if you do these three things you'll be fine, if you're unlucky you may have to move your setup if you're discovered, but so what? this game would be much worse if there were strategies that always made you 100% safe

[26dollar]

Yes? all those things do make you safer and less of an easy target early on, i dont get what the point of this post is, nothing you do should make you absolutely immune to being attacked, if you do these three things you'll be fine, if you're unlucky you may have to move your setup if you're discovered, but so what? this game would be much worse if there were strategies that always made you 100% safe

but i don't wana lose my stuff or die
i don't deserve it, i'm a nice sprucie

[Barbamaus]

You're left to think what you could have done differently.

• Settling deeper into a cave might have been safer, but also meant being stuck there every time a bat or two are between you and the exit. Or having to fight your way out every time.
• Avoid leaving any tracks of your passage. No chopping trees, no stripping them of branches, boughs and bark, as that too is a sign someone lives nearby. No paving or plowing, as that shows on the map. But there aren't many caves in the area, so it's likely they would have checked your cave anyway -as everyone is settling caves in the early days.
• Ignore every part of the game that isn't PvP and just spend all your effort and LP into gaining more combat stats/skills, so if someone does get to you (and they are alone) you might be able to fend them off.

[/list]

t
Yes? all those things do make you safer and less of an easy target early on, i dont get what the point of this post is, nothing you do should make you absolutely immune to being attacked, if you do these three things you'll be fine, if you're unlucky you may have to move your setup if you're discovered, but so what? this game would be much worse if there were strategies that always made you 100% safe

I agree nothing should be 100% safe. Like characters and everything they carry while offline. That's some bullshit that should be changed, to avoid using alts as banks. At the very least you should see them sleeping on the ground and be able to take their stuff with theft.
There's a ton of goodies hidden in alts every world, especially master keys and rare goodies.
Everything inside a palisade is also 99.99% safe since siege is shit and never worth the effort.

But you shouldn't have to play hide and seek for 3 days just to set up your first base.
From start to palisade it should take no more than 36 hours.

I'd rather see faster base setup and decent siege options. At least that shows some effort.

Would also be nice to see some effort against griefing tbh. Destroying stuff or dumping everything should take more time and more than 1 shp. People would be less upset about losing a their valuables over losing everything because of some asshole.