Players claiming land/renting servers

Do Player Rented Zones Interest you for Em-8ER?

  • Yes

    Votes: 37 42.0%
  • No

    Votes: 31 35.2%
  • Undecided

    Votes: 20 22.7%

  • Total voters
    88
  • Poll closed .
Aug 18, 2016
30
64
18
#41
I am very worried about this feature bordering on fearful, I dislike private server games in general, and this Idea would be a serious negative for me if it were implemented into em8er.
 

Pandagnome

Kaiju Slayer
Fart Siege
Welcome Wagon
Happy Kaiju
Jul 27, 2016
7,730
10,079
113
Island of Tofu
#42
I dislike private server games in general,
Private servers can be annoying especially when you want to hop in to play and help out but its password protected or restricted.

I am sure some would argue that having private servers would mean they can play with just their friends and avoid the trolls.

Perhaps the server is not private but the owner can restrict certain areas, and if you prove to them by helping them out often in their server you could be given privileges to eg. access foundry, and perhaps a secure storage facility, even be added to the access list etc etc

I don't know just spewing ideas, and i am going to go with a yes now because if its planned properly as a future update/milestone we could figure out solutions to make it work right?

This reminds me of something we had in the workplace half the group did not want the group to climb
since it was considered dangerous. The other half wanted to because it developed balance, co-ordination and strength. We figured that if it was constructed away from any other obstacles with a soft surface in-case someone fell that was one less thing to worry.

The next part was instructing and making sure we all knew how to safely and confidently climb with assistance or without. Eventually it become second nature and the fear and doubts mostly expired though there will always be some doubt and risk e.g. if it rained or if the structure was damaged in some way.

I am glad we did it because now it is part of the activity and everyone loves the climb!

So what i am trying to say is if we could see past the issues and create solutions maybe this server plan could take off hmm
 
Jul 26, 2016
1,461
2,441
113
43
#43
It could be a cool idea later down the line but it seems tricky to implement.

KISS (no homo) for now, is probably better.
hey, the KISS I remember is, Keep it Simple, Stupid! ... is that the same one?

-----------------------------------

oh yeah, I'm in the undecided group mainly because I remember reading about the development process behind Duke Nukem Forever, Battleborn and other idie title that never got where they wanted to get to because of feature creep & other crap.

It's an interesting idea, just not something that should be developed at this current time.
 
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Dam13n

Well-Known Member
Mar 4, 2019
160
293
63
#44
hey, the KISS I remember is, Keep it Simple, Stupid! ... is that the same one?
.
yeah, that's what i meant.

It's a good rule imo for pretty much everything.

I could see his idea work somewhere in the future but for the time being a good foundation is the only thing that should matter.


*Either that or I have a crush on Grumzz *
 
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Brohawk

Firstclaimer
Jan 26, 2017
7
19
3
#45
I said yes for the simple fact that I wish I had the ability to have a private server for Firefall or Tabla Rasa right now. I personally have private server for Conan Exiles and Atlas. I think it is a great feature.

So as long as I can run that server independent of the official servers, I would very much appreciate that functionality. As far as private servers dovetailed into the official servers, that is a very interesting concept, but I am unsure how that would work.

Extrapolating on that a bit, I would think that the settings would have to be the same but have the invasion mechanic dynamic based on the current population so at least you have a fighting chance to defend your server even solo if you are the only one on that server. Doesn't have to be easy, but at least doable.

If you did allow settings variations of private servers that are connected to the official servers, then I know I would just max out the XP and resource multipliers, but of course the nefarious condition that could create is that say you max out XP and resource gathering by 10% each, then the invasion strength and cooldown would also be increased/decreased by the same amount, or maybe the additive amount, so as an example, enemy strength is +20% and they respawn 20% faster. That would be a very interesting way of increasing the difficulty and risk/reward system.

The more I think about that, the more I like it. Each setting that you bump up, increases the difficulty and of course you could decrease settings as well to lower the difficulty, but I think you would have to have a limited number of settings for that to work, like maybe 5 or 6 max that you could change. Off the top of my head: XP, resource, health, power, armor, shields.

Anyway, I would like the ability to have a private server so that Em8ER could live on... where others couldn't.
 

RaZoR

Death Reaper
Jul 26, 2016
65
85
18
#46
Still to early to fathom the complexity of the core dynamics. Until this game gets well established in the matrix of fairness for all, I'd say leave it on the burner for now until we know what for sure, this way forward is the right direction.
 

Thorp

Omni Ace
Jul 27, 2016
193
518
93
California, CA
#47
After a lot of thought I boiled down my thoughts to two things. As described the rented servers will receive their own invasions, provide their own amenities, and have the option to be open to the public or closed to guilds. My perspective below assumes there will be sufficient public rented servers for players to drop in and out on whim.
___________________
1) Concern that player rented servers will cheapen the value of defending any location

I am concerned that in the event there is a large spectrum of player bases it will not be of real concern when a player base is destroyed. We're expected to "rebuild" but I would imagine non-owning players would be more inclined to just pack up and move to a server that is in better shape. I understand eventually players will run out of servers populate if they jump ship every time. There needs to be a real incentive to encourage players who do not own the server to invest in dead player bases.

Continually I can imagine defending a player's base can eventually lose meaning when other servers contain the same or better amenities. Successfully defending low tier bases needs to be valuable when there are player bases that provide better amenities.
____________________
2) The intention that every rented server will experience their own invasions should remove the combat downtime experienced in Firefall.

Retrospective to Firefall's invasion of New Eden and the Amazon the gameplay was immensely quiet when the Chosen were completely repelled. Player rented servers will experience their own invasions thus creating more combat opportunities for players. Furthermore the varying tiers of player bases will provide lower tier players equal opportunities to do their part while higher tiers can maintain higher tier incursions. Spreading player tiers out will give the up and coming players something to look forward to rather than be smothered in high tier players doing all the work.
____________________

In the long scheme of things I believe, when player investment is well balanced, the player rented servers will increase gameplay opportunities for all player tier levels. I am concerned the player servers will usurp the perceived value of the main world however combat downtime in a combat game is problematic. When I log in to a combat game I expect combat; I do not want to experience another quiet Amazon or placid endgame zone. Some reprieve is good but combat needs to be available and player rented servers can provide quite literally, endless gameplay opportunities.
 
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Biglulu

Deepstriker
Sep 9, 2017
7
19
3
#48
Instead of making separate private servers for guilds, why not allow guilds to take ownership of bases within the established persistent war main game? Guilds could fully customize the base they own via a proper building system, instead of the static system that was described previously. I think this would fulfill the wishes of groups that want to customize their own bases, and these bases would provide all the necessary functions for random public players and could still be destroyed by the invasion forces.
 

Pave

Commander
Dec 12, 2016
8
14
3
twitter.com
#49
---
At first, wasI first reminded of "Virtual Land Areas" from the "Entropia Universe" which although are already pre-made unlike the cities in "Anarchy Online" (which I've yet to play),
they are still things owned by the player(s) themselves of which they have control over various things
( E.G. what mobs the area hosts and the tax-numbers ).

This also reminded of the "ever-expanding-world"-concept I had on my project:
Similar to how all starts in "Em-8ER" (and "Firefall" also) with only a single zone, players would be opening more of the world eventually.
Problem of course would be the eventually growing server-costs for expanded world.

So how was non-profit-project of mine would be able to overcome this?
"Donation-drives"
Since there was no microtransactions or anything else in relation, everything extra funding-wise would have been completely in hands of possibly happy, satisfied players themselves with whatever amount they wanted to throw-in.
The more money was being donated, the bigger zones were possible to procedurally generate
( world-creation-feature heavily inspired by the "30X9"-series by "Phr00t". )
And more consistent / frequent donations also meant that more often new zones could be opened.

(( In my vision, our game was government-founded-open-source-project to openly make research on player behaviours and such, so the studio itself was not in risk of being closed down as long as there was interest in general.
Of course, this game also allowed to play completely anonymously without any extra registration.
But if you wanted to have a player-name you then had to register and also work for that name-recognition. But that's another story I might go more in depth elsewhere. ))

---

"Zoning / Area Planning / Plan General de Ordenación Urbana"
( because for whatever reason Wikipedia also suggested that article )
would have been a community driven also where higher-ranking players would had more voting power
(( although the game was about "colony", there was still enough individuality emerging to eventually raise the recognition further-up for some individuals through their merits )).

Main ideal goal was to build these areas to benefit the colony the best as possible while also trying to keep them as hidden as possibly or otherwise protected from the "assimilators"
( imagine "Borg" from Star Trek and "Chosen" from "Firefall" having a mute-baby;
I'll have more details on that aforementioned project-link ).

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Likes: Pandagnome

Methanoid

Deepstriker
Feb 24, 2019
8
17
3
#52
Voted No.

I'll echo the point Quadrana made above - this looks to be a complex feature and could very well split the player-base - especially if mega-guilds get formed.
If I owned, or was part of a guild that owned, such a private space I would be much more invested in "my" part of the world rather than the public shard - which I guess would in turn limit development of that public server due to fewer people getting involved in the public events.

On a similar note - even if this idea picks up, I think this should go on a "nice-to-have" list rather than bogging down development for the "first stage" of the main game.

Extra features are always nice, but I think everyone would benefit from a laser-focused core game experience.
i would balance that by having a need for "collecting" things in the public world which needs to be donated to keep the Player Owned worlds going, maybe the Public Owned worlds can run without donations but would suffer some form of debuff to encourage guilds/mega guilds to get their members to goto the main worlds and farm stuff to bring back to their player owned worlds.

This encourages the use of public owned worlds while giving guild members a guild related activity to do which has a positive effect on their guild and the world(s) they own.
 
Likes: Pandagnome

Infamy

New Member
Apr 9, 2019
3
12
3
#53
I would much rather just see everyone on one server like how EVE does it and just make it one HUGE open world Again like EVE the one thing that made me the most upset about Firefall was that the melding idea never seem to really take flight I LOVED the idea that it was the last stand city with Copacabana the melding and chosen where knocking on the door Will we perish or will we push them back this was not only fun and made the community seem to wish to help each other but at the same time it offered a ton of incentive to see what would happen if you kept pushing to explore the unknown something I hope is realized in this game I want to see the planet map slowly and slowly change showing our progress where we are losing ground and gaining in others like a true war...
 
Feb 19, 2019
8
15
3
#54
I'm not a huge fan of the idea of privately owned servers myself, not in a game like this. Maybe after the game is finished and we have a better idea of what it would look like, what the advantages would be, etc. But I am a huge fan of guild owned things. I really liked how warframe did it, I think it was their solar rails? The guilds would offer missions or something and also set a tax on the materials collected during their missions. It led to a nice amount of competitions and ended with the guild owned missions being highly profitable for everyone.