COMMUNITY - FORUMS - GENERAL DISCUSSION
Depth of Developer Micromanaging Community

This thread is to determine how deep or by what parameters the Developers will be micromanaging the community in-game.

Will you be as laissez-faire as CCP and their management of Eve Online? Where they allow players to attempt to 'break' the system? Giving the community the most fee reign to interact independently toward other PCs and NPCs with no limit of toxicity?

Of course within the limits of not hacking, modding, and botting. Glitches are the Developers' fault and exploitation for leverage is common nature. Would you personally as Developers take responsibility or would you pass the blame and repercussions to the playerbase?


"...When it comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song and die like a hero going home." ~Chief Tecumseh

2/26/2017 5:55:40 PM #1

I think it was said during a Q&A that exploits/glitches that should clearly not be there are a no go and should be reported and not used.


2/26/2017 6:02:52 PM #2

He's not talking about developers letting players use exploits.

He's talking about developers allowing the world to burn to the ground because there were too many wolves and not enough sheep, or letting it become a pacifist paradise because of the opposite.

I really hope they go hands-off with the community so long as hacks/mods/bugs are not influencing things.

It won't be our world or our "10 year story" if SBS decides that theres not quite enough of X in a server. Its like when a Dungeon Master or a Storyteller railroads a tabletop rpg and just arbitrarily decides for his players that "now this happens and you can't stop it".

2/26/2017 6:15:53 PM #3

Oh right. Well for me personally I prefer it being hands off and if the world descends into a dystopian chaos where the world becomes a wasteland then so be it. But I'm sure it was mentioned that if the need arised they would step in at times to stop it getting too far gone but can't remember where I heard it.


2/26/2017 7:52:53 PM #4

They did say if they say the world becoming to far unbalanced in some way. They would add story arks or other events to help bring it back closer to balance.

Though they didn't provide these examples, These are entirely from my head.

If the world started to run out of some basic metal, because the procedural generation just didn't add enough. I could see them dropping in meteors to an area.

Story ark: deal with the fires and destruction

balance: injects of raw material(s) to solve the imbalance.

what concerns me more, is there is a strong possibility some clan manages to get 1,000 + members working towards a goal, which will attract other... vassal clans if you will.

and could end up with one kingdom owning a whole continent. Which would severly limit large scale pvp combat.

In that case I could see them adding an NPC invasion force (something like the huns, or the Europeans in the americas) from another continent who is trying to colonize this continent to add that pvp element. and possible enough destabilization for the one kingdom to fall back in to be being multiple again. (and you could spawn in to these families with new spark. so this npc army, could become an pc one)

2/26/2017 8:02:26 PM #5

The problem with one Kingdom owning everything is insurgency. People will move their attack vectors to criminality, where they can get away with PVP, and not be bound by CB requirements (which ultimately becomes harder and harder to get as time goes on)


2/26/2017 8:30:33 PM #6

To make things interesting, you need input from a GM.

I mean if I was SbS and saw that everything was boring and nothing was happening, I'd add in a meteor or two for excitement.

The proper oversight of the game and creative thought can make the game 100x better (raid bosses, world bosses, natural disasters, ie), but if GMs/Devs make it so that everything is "fair" for a particular group or etc, that's when stuff can get murky and suspicious.


You may have erased my signature, but you can't corner the dorner

2/26/2017 9:07:24 PM #7

In regards to a 1000+ clan, honestly that won't even put a dent in anything except perhaps a duchy. We're talking easily over 10000+ players per kingdom here.

Huge empires are a pain in the ass to manage and when a thousand counts, former dukes and former kings are lighting the torches and gathering pitchforks, legitimized by CBs then you've got a problem.

Now will some groups dominate a location, a town, a county or perhaps even a duchy? Yes, most certainly. That's a good thing. It adds conflict, color and story. Will one group manage to control a server? Sure, it's possible, but you try herding over 10,000 players into one cohesive unit. It's worse than herding cats :D

What SBS has stated in interviews is that they will keep an eye on things, but essentially the Soulbound Engine is the GM, which means that it should address major imbalances through story events.

Now if things get totally out of whack, they said they'd step in, but otherwise we should manage things.

Equally they said some things in the game might change due to our actions, quests, mechanics, cults etc... However it is supposed to be our world as well, the world we make of it, we create and form, and since many members of the team do plan on playing the game, I imagine they'd rather experience the game as a game, rather than as a GM.

After all if the Soulbound Engine is good enough, it'd throw even them for a loop.

So I wouldn't worry too much on feeling the grasping hand of a GM and focus more on planning and eventually playing :D


2/26/2017 9:23:42 PM #8

Perhaps the OP can clarify, but, being a long-time EVE player and knowing that community, i do think they are asking about what are commonly referred to as exploits. There is a very vocal element within that game's community who attempt to blur the line between "exploits" and "emergent behavior."

They essentially argue they're playing the game as it's presented to them, and, if the devs don't like what they're doing, they should patch. But they also argue nobody should be punished for having taken advantage of the mechanics they were presented with.


2/26/2017 9:37:01 PM #9

Posted By Vucar at 8:02 PM - Sun Feb 26 2017

He's talking about developers allowing the world to burn to the ground because there were too many wolves and not enough sheep, or letting it become a pacifist paradise because of the opposite.

I really hope they go hands-off with the community so long as hacks/mods/bugs are not influencing things.

Pretty sure that's something they "hope" to see, they don't want to stop people from cutting out the forests even if they know it will lead to the disaster, they want to see how people adapt to the things they have done. I'm basing this from recent Q&A that if you have falling out with your king you cannot change the kingdom because they wish to see how further gameplay works out between you two.

2/26/2017 11:16:58 PM #10

This actually brings up a fascinating question that I don't believe has been answered by the devs.
Clearly the hands-off or hands-on nature of the relationship between game and game master is going to be up for interpretation based on definition.

But I really wonder what Soulbound Studios' official response will be to riding bugs that are officially and publicly intended to be patched out.
As somewhat of an info hound about this game, in all the Q&A transcripts I've scoured I haven't heard a comment to set precedent. Good question.


Count of Boros

Luna (NA-E)  Ⓛ  Vornair Ⓥ  Dawn's Reach (The Stormlands)

2/26/2017 11:17:57 PM #11

A guild of 1000+ descending on the game and taking over a kingdom or two is not the nightmare scenario. The nightmare scenario is a guild of 1000+ coming en masse and ignoring the Kingdoms altogether.

Instead they come in all ex-pats sticking together in foreign lands. They settle somewhere, use their muscle to brush local opposition aside, raid and burn down any undefended settlements they find, and try to bait the kingdoms with foul language to come attack them. No subtlety, ignore the lore, just "Fight us or you're $^%" so they can prove their leetskillz.

In 3-6 MONTHS they are dead are don't get a new spark 'cos "there's no good PvP here" but by then it'll be too late.


2/27/2017 1:39:43 AM #12

Thank you for the thread support everyone. Hopefully the Devs will see how important this is to the community and respond when they have time.


"...When it comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song and die like a hero going home." ~Chief Tecumseh