Design Concept: Land Ownership and Terraforming.

[LordPariah]

This thread is the product of a long night of brainstorming in the official discord. I'd recommend you all go on there and speak to the devs! They have a wonderful sense of humor, and JoeSolo in particular was wonderful company.

Regardless, onto the meat.

An idea we came up with, in regards to land ownership by armies or clans, and how that could tie into a core concept of Ember: Terraforming.

To state it simply, the concept is as follows:

Clans/Armies can lay claim to "plots" of land through some means. This gives them certain privileges. Chief of which, is choosing how to terraform it. For example, they could terraform it into a certain biome for the purpose of changing or at least encouraging certain mobs and resources to spawn there. Perhaps the plots of land could have a base bias towards certain drops and spawns, regardless of its biome.

Clans/Armies could receive a bounty or perhaps a tax of what drops there. They could set the amount.

This is where the second half of the concept comes in.

Other Clans/Armies could compete indirectly for plots owned by others. Not by direct conflict, but by democracy. Or perhaps, partially by direct conflict, partially by democracy.

The invading Clan/Army could move in and set a counter-offer, perhaps to change the tax rate, or the biome. Maybe both. Players that partake in the conflict could offer their assistance to either side, perhaps being rewarded for their support via that clans coffers or offers.

Done correctly, this could guard against clans that lose activity over time, losing the ability to hold land. It'd also guard against bigger clans stomping smaller ones, since the playerbase as a whole could theoretically decide what it wants, rather than the clans having a monopoly.

Someone with a lower tax rate and a better idea as to how to use the land, could come in. Regardless of size.

 

[DeyjaVou]

If this was the brainstorm session I was involved in, I'll add more of what we came up with.

If plots are not clan/army (coalition?) exclusive, player plots could also be implemented. Regardless, acquisition could be done two ways:

1. Random assignment (cheap)
2. Plot Title (expensive)

For random assignment, you would talk to an Accord quartermaster (or whatever central governing body exists) and he would assign you a random plot of land on a planet of your choice, its size corresponding to your reputation with the Government. On that plot of land, most statistics would be randomized. This includes the quality of ores contained within, the biome, population by local wildlife, etc.

Given that the various "resources" are randomized, you might get a "barren plot", meaning wildlife is scarce, and the quality and quantity of the various minerals contained within the ground would be also. It would still be worth something to get a thumper out there, but not much. On the other hand, you might find a "lush plot" or a quarry, teeming with wildlife and minerals. These plots could be mined for profit, or auctioned off/rented to players with a vested interest in that land. Reasons for doing so could include being under-equipped for the local infestation or a desire to be a land tycoon.

For the second, you could buy beacons that act as plot markers, effectively allowing you to claim your own plots of land. Picture the process of looking for ore in open beta Firefall, except once you find a good vein with the scan hammer, you drop a circular perimeter you alone can call down thumpers in, auction off, etc.


The choice of where to put a plot is more expensive because you can actively seek out richer areas, and the randomized model is cheaper because having a core part of the game rely on both good RNG and grinding wealth will create more headaches than returning players.

Another disparity in implementation is the actual travel to these plot sites. With random assignment, envisioning the planet map of yore, you could create "melding" pockets and essentially create instanced plots. With manual plot placement, I can't imagine a way to fairly do that from space, and a vast open world would be necessary for implementation. Not to mention, that with player choice comes the potential to transform a planet into a crude patchwork of different biomes. You could have a proximity system that makes it more difficult for a player to terraform a desert if he is surrounded by forests, but an instancing system would allow for free terraforming, since you can't have a checkerboard of ocean and desert side by side that way.

It's all well and good to consider the future, but we also have to keep in mind that this isn't happening any time soon, and implementing this on the scale we'd like will probably be extremely difficult. During our brainstorming discussion, there was definitely a feeling of EVE Online in terms of the scale and complexity of systems being imagined. Coalitions could own entire planets, which would have an income and upkeep. It got to the point where planet-owners paid quest costs to low-level players who did extermination quests, because a lack thereof means some bugs would multiply and become an upkeep problem. Designing a player economy that mimics that of real society down to the actual woodwork would be an almost impossible task.

Instanced coalition/player-owned terrformable plots of land, whether they're assigned randomly or not, would probably be most feasible for now. Unless massive open-world was the goal, in which case I'll buckle down.

Edit: to clarify, I don't think well-populated worlds, or worlds within the central government's sphere of influence should allow for contested plots. Open PvP could potentially be allowed on the frontier, but not everywhere. We don't need to mar this with some convoluted survival PvP system, but we shouldn't completely discount company pvp.

 

[Dr Doom]

official discord

Where is that?

 

[spiralofhope]

official discord

Where is that?

There isn't one, but the poster probably meant https://discord.gg/xwRCmWW

 

[Rocket]

There isn't one, but the poster probably meant https://discord.gg/xwRCmWW

If @Grummz is a regular (which he is), that's official enough. Link is at the bottom of this page, under the Site Functions heading (Join Ember Chatroom).

OP needs tearing to shreds. That's Warframe's Solar Rail conflicts all over again. DE killed them for a reason.

 

[MattHunX]

Wouldn't all this be an aspect of PvP and not necessarily PvE, though? Forcing conflict between armies/clans for dominance over areas?

Maybe it should all be about players completing objectives and gathering resources to keep up maintenance on an established base, the presence of which would affect its surrounding area by yielding bonuses from resource-gathering and dealing with threats from rival factions (not other armies/clans) or wildlife. Installing new guard-tower, upgrading perimeter defenses and maintaining them, the ignoring of which would lead to bases being overrun and defense-events, take-over, retake events.

 

[DemonSlayer873]

Thats an awful idea which will discourige the existance of multiple clans in the game, punish solo players and pormote toxicity aswell.

 

[Fryepod]

Other Clans/Armies could compete indirectly for plots owned by others. Not by direct conflict, but by democracy. Or perhaps, partially by direct conflict, partially by democracy.

This is pretty much what I'd want as a concept, it's close enough to what I'd implement if I controlled development. I'd agree with multiple versions of how this could work. My main concern would be that a player with lots of $$$$ would never be able to buy/sell/resale plots. Or at least be regulated to a fashion where it isn't one of those property oligarchy things.

Also, I wouldn't want to see anyone inside the PvE world ever have to compete in direct combat with another player over resources IF they didn't want to. They should have the choice to ignore it all together and get better plots/ resources through some kind of non competition clause inside your army/squad/personal preferences.

I saw this first hand in a place once upon a time know as BP as I'm sure many others did. It was the root cause of the problem. (however in this case it is to be mentioned that BP directly offered higher%'s of resources than could of been found anywhere else in the game)

 

[MattHunX]

Thats an awful idea which will discourige the existance of multiple clans in the game, punish solo players and pormote toxicity aswell.

Who needs clans, anyway? We're mercs. Why tribalize the community? And how would encouraging players to contribute to base-building/defense/maintenance, all of which would reward the players with bonuses, more things to do...etc. punish solo-players? And how would it promote toxicity? If anything, rivalry for areas between clans is what would promote toxicity.

 

[NitroMidgets]

It could have a wall building effect on potential new players as they worry about availabilty of land. It creates a perceived wall between them and even getting forward momentum started. I am not sure about "ownership" of land. That was at least one of the few things FF got more or less right. Ownership will only encourage a land rush from the start. New players may not even have the gear to travel outward far enough to find free land to own.
I guess it would all come to implementation.

 

[Nunaden]

well, that problem could be solved through the ownership of land through the local government that serves as neutral zone for all players, and is open to anybody

 

[NitroMidgets]

Could be. For now I am neither for or against it.

 

[Demigan]

If this was the brainstorm session I was involved in, I'll add more of what we came up with.

If plots are not clan/army (coalition?) exclusive, player plots could also be implemented. Regardless, acquisition could be done two ways:

1. Random assignment (cheap)
2. Plot Title (expensive)

For random assignment, you would talk to an Accord quartermaster (or whatever central governing body exists) and he would assign you a random plot of land on a planet of your choice, its size corresponding to your reputation with the Government. On that plot of land, most statistics would be randomized. This includes the quality of ores contained within, the biome, population by local wildlife, etc.

Given that the various "resources" are randomized, you might get a "barren plot", meaning wildlife is scarce, and the quality and quantity of the various minerals contained within the ground would be also. It would still be worth something to get a thumper out there, but not much. On the other hand, you might find a "lush plot" or a quarry, teeming with wildlife and minerals. These plots could be mined for profit, or auctioned off/rented to players with a vested interest in that land. Reasons for doing so could include being under-equipped for the local infestation or a desire to be a land tycoon.

I would make sure that even getting a barren plot has a nice trade-off.

For instance, barren land means you won't lose out on anything if you build something there, like a refinery. This can be a primary way of keeping the economy going and making sure everyone is dependend on everyone else. If you score a hit and have a perfect land-plot with good flora and fauna, high amounts of good quality resources and good options to acquire them, you don't want to destroy a part of that biome to build a refinery, factory or transport station.
That's where the bad pieces of land come in. These can be used to build large objects that would disrupt a land-plot otherwise. A space port, a waystation that sends out caravans to collect resources from other biome's, FOB's that protect the surrounding area and can warn of intruders so players can react before the intruders damage or destroy the more vulnerable things within the lush land-plots, refineries and factories that convert the goods into things other players want. This way even if you get the worst piece of barren land you can do something useful with it. If you get something in between a barren and lush land, you have room to both mine&cultivate and to build some facilities to make it more self-sustaining.

Also, do not create a separate game experience for solo players vs clan/army players. This means that less coding effort is wasted (solo players will see the game mechanics that clan/army players see) and also means that the game experience is more streamlined.
One way of doing this: Solo players work for the general army/colonists/whatever. The efforts of solo players are pooled, and together you can achieve wonderous things and push the story forwards in similar fashion as FireFall was designed to go. Players could be trying to stockpile certain resources, items or research until a goal is reached and the next phase starts. In the meantime whatever opponents the game offers is trying to destroy these stockpiles and reset the world-player's progress.
However, if you join a clan/army you can create a much better streamlined string of land-plots and together you stand a much better chance of selecting a good set of land-plots together (The overarching army/colonist organisation recognizes the higher teamwork capacity and will give these groups tougher but potentially more rewarding Biome's to cultivate). These land-plots will overall have much better qualities and balances, but will therefore be more contested by whatever opponents the game throws at you, which makes sense since they would like to destroy your economy first. These The players have already had a chance to learn through the solo-experience and start with a much better understanding of the game, allowing for a better streamlined experience the moment you join a clan/army.

 

[EvilKitten]

Just to check...is the intention of Ember to be that the entire game is on a single world, or are we going to be world hopping around. Earlier when I was reading about Mark's plan for monetization I had the thought that guilds/alliances/clans could pay money to gain their own private planet. There could be a tiered system where the base tier would net you a randomly generated planet, and you could pay extra to choose what type and design you wanted, and still more to get a bit of custom detailed environment.

 

[Demigan]

This is pretty much what I'd want as a concept, it's close enough to what I'd implement if I controlled development. I'd agree with multiple versions of how this could work. My main concern would be that a player with lots of $$$$ would never be able to buy/sell/resale plots. Or at least be regulated to a fashion where it isn't one of those property oligarchy things.

Also, I wouldn't want to see anyone inside the PvE world ever have to compete in direct combat with another player over resources IF they didn't want to. They should have the choice to ignore it all together and get better plots/ resources through some kind of non competition clause inside your army/squad/personal preferences.

I saw this first hand in a place once upon a time know as BP as I'm sure many others did. It was the root cause of the problem. (however in this case it is to be mentioned that BP directly offered higher%'s of resources than could of been found anywhere else in the game)

Another problem with such a system is that you have to perfectly control the income of players. The moment any form of inflation hits the market then it starts becoming increasingly hard for low-level players to buy plots of land. Their only option would be to capture plots and sell them like crazy to earn enough money for a plot they want, which actually further drives up prices and inflation of money while the land-plots do not produce more. This causes high-level/rich players to start earning exponential amounts compared to lower level players, since these rich players will stand a higher chance to acquire the land-plots people want and can acquire money even faster afterwards after which they buy more land faster yet again etc etc etc until the entire game is monopolized by rich players and the rest is basically enslaved to them to find them plots or work with them as any plot they keep/buy will be completely surrounded by rich players that bought any other lands around it.

So yeah, democracy/bidding/combat for land-plots would only result in rich players/clans to start dominating the game unless it's really well monitored and thought-out.

One possibility: Make sure that the more land you own, the harder it becomes to fulfill all the tasks required to finish it. This means you start becoming increasingly more dependent on other players to help out and give them some form of co-ownership.
You can either set rewards (with a reasonable minimum reward to prevent cheapskates) to complete these tasks. You can also give out contracts to either the overarching army/colonist branch which employs solo players and subsidises part of the rewards (so you need to pay less while solo players still get paid handsomely for completing tasks for you) or you can give out contracts to clans/armies that include insurances so that you know for certain the clan/army is going to do a better job and if they fail at that job you get compensation, which is absent if you hire the cheaper solo players who might not show up.

 

[DeyjaVou]

It was my impression that Ember would take place across multiple planets, perhaps simultaneously. If Ember occurred on a single planet over its lifespan, or only on one planet at a time, plot ownership would be restricted to the upper class, or require a contracting system like you described Demigan, where the game limits your ability to till your own field if its too big. Ideally, you'd have a system similar to EVE Online, where as planets become more inhabited, their security rating goes up, the threat and reward goes down, and the frontier is pushed farther out into space. Players can buy plots of land on any planet, unless a planet is at capacity.

 

[Col. Kernel]

Another problem with such a system is that you have to perfectly control the income of players. The moment any form of inflation hits the market then it starts becoming increasingly hard for low-level players to buy plots of land. Their only option would be to capture plots and sell them like crazy to earn enough money for a plot they want, which actually further drives up prices and inflation of money while the land-plots do not produce more. This causes high-level/rich players to start earning exponential amounts compared to lower level players, since these rich players will stand a higher chance to acquire the land-plots people want and can acquire money even faster afterwards after which they buy more land faster yet again etc etc etc until the entire game is monopolized by rich players and the rest is basically enslaved to them to find them plots or work with them as any plot they keep/buy will be completely surrounded by rich players that bought any other lands around it.

So yeah, democracy/bidding/combat for land-plots would only result in rich players/clans to start dominating the game unless it's really well monitored and thought-out.

One possibility: Make sure that the more land you own, the harder it becomes to fulfill all the tasks required to finish it. This means you start becoming increasingly more dependent on other players to help out and give them some form of co-ownership.
You can either set rewards (with a reasonable minimum reward to prevent cheapskates) to complete these tasks. You can also give out contracts to either the overarching army/colonist branch which employs solo players and subsidises part of the rewards (so you need to pay less while solo players still get paid handsomely for completing tasks for you) or you can give out contracts to clans/armies that include insurances so that you know for certain the clan/army is going to do a better job and if they fail at that job you get compensation, which is absent if you hire the cheaper solo players who might not show up.

There's actually a thread on how the economy could work that I found pretty engaging.

It's a simple concept, but a pretty radical departure from your standard MMO economy.

 

[DeyjaVou]

There's actually a thread on how the economy could work that I found pretty engaging.

It's a simple concept, but a pretty radical departure from your standard MMO economy.

Just from the title, I'm expecting something like Path of Exile. Crafting currency based economy has been done before, and with great success, but I've only ever played the three month leagues in PoE, no idea how it would translate to permanent (the economy in Standard's a different beast entirely).

I'll read all four pages when I can find a can of red bull

edit: skimmed the first paragraph, path of exile indeed.

 

[TankHunter678]

Just from the title, I'm expecting something like Path of Exile. Crafting currency based economy has been done before, and with great success, but I've only ever played the three month leagues in PoE, no idea how it would translate to permanent (the economy in Standard's a different beast entirely).

I'll read all four pages when I can find a can of red bull

edit: skimmed the first paragraph, path of exile indeed.

Well Standard in part is kinda fucked on the economy side because every 3 months it gets a large infusion of currency from teh leagues.

When large amounts of currency just poof into the market it causes instant inflation, and since everyone then moves on to the latest leagues... currency just builds up in stockpiles on standard.

But we do not have 3 month leagues to infuse large amounts of currency into the economy every 3 months.


Anyways on the topic of the thread... I am against land ownership. Technically we are just hired to come in terraform and cleanse wildlife for major companies who already own the claim to the planet we are working on. So I do not see how we can fight for territory when we all work for the same employers. Maybe for glory, maybe for more money from said employer, but not over the territory the employer already owns. They could just end our contract and put us on a hit list for trying to steal their property.

 

[Col. Kernel]

Anyways on the topic of the thread... I am against land ownership. Technically we are just hired to come in terraform and cleanse wildlife for major companies who already own the claim to the planet we are working on. So I do not see how we can fight for territory when we all work for the same employers. Maybe for glory, maybe for more money from said employer, but not over the territory the employer already owns. They could just end our contract and put us on a hit list for trying to steal their property.

You, or your guild, wouldn't own the territory, but rather you would be assigned there to perform a task, either terraforming, scouting, or gathering.