That has ALWAYS been announced as part of the auction, and why. Is there nothing you won't complain about, while pretending to be surprised? It was always stated that it would be a limiter on what players could buy, always.

You find evil intent everywhere you look. Or...

<Mod edit: Discussing Moderation> Your bitterness seems legendary and well-earned. If you don't want to contribute further, then don't. Seriously. Please. Follow your "sunk cost" instincts and refrain. But your "buyer's remorse" complaining, acting like the "reasonable cop" in a bad version of the duo is getting old.

Glad you're making the experience for newer characters so fun. Cheers!

EDIT: I guess there's also a reason that you completely edited your post to sound more reasonable while I was writing this.

Please revert it to your first version so everyone can judge it accordingly.

yeah this NPC thing sounds like some shady thing Bethesda or Electronic Arts would do

@Kelnicine

I edited some spelling/grammar mistakes, nothing else was changed.

However, I am honored that I received your first post on the forums.

It's strange that a new account created after I left Discord would know anything about my interactions on Discord, so I will assume you are an alt account.

Feel free to reply to me on your main account, and not attempt to hide behind anonymity.

I guess my question is, will the npcs wait until the settlements hit the lowest amount or will the take the settlement preventing them from hitting the it.

Settlements: $65.00 - $135.00

Using the provided price above will npcs buy at $100 not letting the settlement get low or will they but at the lowest price after like a day or so after players not buying it. If they don't wait until the minimum I could see why people would think that is pretty scumbag.

Posted By Kelnicine at 10:53 AM - Wed Dec 18 2019

It was always stated that it would be a limiter on what players could buy, always.

Interesting, out of all the ways to limit a purchase, a surprise outbid war with a "better buy it now" tone coupled with an omniscient NPC engine competitor is the outcome? Idk about that one chief. It's blatantly obvious they want to pressure you before the sale gets to low which fair play, it's a company, but to guise it as something else just keeps stacking on their questionable plays as of late.

Idk, I dont remember it being always stated they bid with you, I was under the understanding that the NPCs played more of a clean-up crew role pre-settlers rather than a direct competitor but to be fair to SBS I don't remember reading the article thoroughly so if I can find the original I'll read over it again.

In this case I must say there are some concerns with this strategy. Now some lands being reserved for NPCs was always stated yes, most probably figured it would be a static rather than a dynamic thing, ie from day 1 this territory is reserved kind of thing. I know I thought it would work like that and I can even understand making it dynamic and even having quite a few extra reserved as I had assumed these areas would be places where STORY would happen and placing extra NPC territories down makes it harder for us to bring our best meta gaming into play.

Then there is the fact that scarcity of unoccupied lands was supposed to also drive prices up, will the NPCs now put an upward pressure on prices and is the studio letting an algorithm pick the NPC placements or are they going to be specifically targeted placements for maximum price increase.

I for one am interested in upgrading to a count placement but where as I can now afford it, I find this kind of sales tactic is off putting to me and makes me more likely to just wait until the end of event and pick whatever is left in my kingdom and preferably duchy.

I do understand why the event has been designed this way. To a newcomer the sense of let me just jump in and get this NOW might be exciting. But to someone who has backed from a very basic package up to a mayor now this just seems like a rather crass attempt to shake me down for maximum dollar value.

Side note...

The target market for this event is "new players". As such, it is highly unlikely that new players would be involved enough in the community to "coordinate" some type of price manipulation (which I understand was one of the justifications behind this).

Another justification was the impact on the story. That one seems odd to me given that if a specific domain was needed for a story, they could just reserve that specific domain. If it's a general "we need NPC domain leaders for the story", then just use whichever domains are left over after the event.

Neither justification really holds water for me.

I feel that last comment Marovec was in response to my comment before. I tend to assume people do things that I don't like because of a difference or perspective or intent before I jump to thinking they are out to get me so I am trying to offer rationales they might be using while saying im not happy with the situation.

Placement is less important to me than staying in my community as even though im not a high profile member I LIKE the fit and if needed if NPCS take over areas I want im fine working for a year or so once the game releases to tie myself to that family and it will be cheaper for me too!

I personally would have preferred to just buy the count package as I can now afford it but I imagine that is part of the reason why they were removed. As a mayor already it would have been cheaper to upgrade than buy the 'cheaper' territory outright.

@Dalvin

Sorry, that was just a general comment, not directed at you - I just understand those were some reasons Caspian provided.

I like the idea.

First, there were always supposed to be NPC lands. That not only adds interest to the game, it balances it by watering down places that could otherwise be concentrated bases for zerg hordes. Having uncertainty in the political interactions within the domains is a key part of the game -- and one that is lacking if an area is occupied and run like a normal, but extra large, MMORPG guild hall.

Second, I presume that SBS has identified what it thinks are the best domains left based on its understanding of the features of those. The role of NPCs in the world is far less effective if they are relegated to the hinterlands and wastes of Elyria. For an NPC to even have the chance to get an important domain, that NPC must be able to pick it up fairly early in the auction process.

This does produce risks to players who are gambling on the clock and waiting in the hope that the price runs down -- but some unclaimed counties only have one claimed settlement in them. There is a risk of a player jumping in and claiming a settlement and then the county. The NPC claim risk is the same -- it only makes that a bit more likely (especially for good counties), which means that the sale point should be closer to the price point set by SBS (on which all other domains were purchased).

Some of the same people complaining about this NPC competition also complained about how the auction could undercut their prior investment by selling for too low. That seems like complaining about both the problem and the solution, which smacks of complaining for the sake of complaining.

@Beathan

Fair points. I don't necessarily disagree with them in concept, but rather in the manner of implementation in this event.

Only the most dedicated of complainers were saying selling low would be an issue as upgrading through the packages with the associated benefits was always a much more attractive option. Those purchasing without also spending a considerable sum more on EP are likely to wither and be replaced as they don't do the necessary infrastructure upgrades to their lands.

My concern for zerg hordes is far more weighted towards these in title only nobles being toppled and their lands descending into anarchy than NPC lands which one must assume will continue to be sustained at much the same state we enter the game in, with a general upward trend if the lands around prosper and downward trend if they are in the middle of lawlessness.

I know they have said they wanted NPC cities all along.

But why would they not want to sell off all domains that would have otherwise sold to players instead of some random useless NPC "swoops in" and pretty much kills that settlement and decreases the value of the domains and settlements around it?

Or if this was the plan all along why would they not have generated micro kingdoms between ours that had the same idea with unpurchaseable domains pre-built into the system for the micro biomes?

Whatever settlements or domains that do not sell will already have NPCs running them. If SBS wants to have NPC Quest/content hubs why not just take some of the existing rediculous populations and generate the hubs as new settlements after SoE as a reactionary migration or addition to existing domains when the micro biomes are generated. It pretty much would do the same thing.

These NPC "swoopers" will not add further value a player would who will then purchase EP and develop the settlement come Expo since there is no mention that if these people obviously have $100+ to take a settlement, county, etc that they wont bring something to the table by taking it away from a player just waiting for the domain of their choice to come available on a flash sale or the price to come down.

Besides starting with a dead settlement that wont develop you will also have to CB it at some point and kill off more of your population to liberate it from the NPC mayor who may or may not follow anything you do and will see all your actions as potential threats to their sovereignty as the players or npcs that start there will likely defend the settlement or domain.

Increasingly they seem to keep introducing mechanics that shoot their funding in the foot for no reason rather than attracting more people to fund their game.

I have my own reservations on how the entire SoE “event” is being handled. It’s less to do with the mechanics of how and more of the perception of “why”.

From the start there were always going to be NPC lands be they towns or duchys the point was after launch for genuine new people to have a shot at unseating someone and rising to power. With players it would be substantially more difficult as they would know the ins and outs of the game. An AI noble would always make a more attractive alternative to an actual guild real players.

However the announcement and the last several announcements/sales have been completely and utterly tone deaf in presentation. I’m not going to beat a dead horse (advent calendars) but there is a reason most folks with join dates as old as myself no longer post.

The days of dev journals (shineys are nice but they are largely fluff no real progress is shown) of video QAs and any real information drops are long past. With the exception of DSS which was late, delayed and an all around circus the last dozen updates have been about stores sales, or store based events.

Everyone here knows the game needs money to be developed but we have gone from updates on progress followed by a new sale or a journal followed by a store event but it seems from the outside they aren’t even trying any more they just walk up hand out wanting more money.

The team used to be ridiculously hyped for the game and what their vision promised. Many of us old timers were here before discord before all the hype the Kickstarter or the store. It was refreshing to see ... yet now deep in the “under the hood” construction of CoE that light has faded and it really shows in presentation.

As morovec points out the way the NPC bidder is presented makes it look very much like a cash grab high pressure sales tactic. I personally do not care about the mechanic again my concern is the fact everyone who reads that has a vague feeling of “if I want a deal but don’t meet their hidden reserve for that location I might not get it”.

Whether that’s true or not is sadly immaterial. Perception once more (like with the calendars) is its underhanded and designed to make money without being truly upfront.

Now Ive been around long enough that I don’t truly believe that but I did have the same thought morovec did and honestly that’s sad.

Since this is geared toward new players what are the general jaded public going to think? Especially if they look back and see announcement after announcement for store sales and calendars with no actual product to see?

For those who know me you know I have called out sbs for their publicity and PR campaign now for a long time. I’ve heard from folks from 4 former guilds who have now walked away. Why? Nothing but cash grabs and now pressured sales pop into their emails. It’s sad but I’m almost ready to start believing them.

FWIW, there are 6,099 settlements on Angelica of which 4,977 are still available. That's 82% of the starting continent on NA-W. It's a little bit tighter on Luna but still more than half the settlements remain open there as well.

With these numbers, I just don't see any competition between players and NPCs, at least during the auction phase. There are so many settlements that it's hard to imagine players not being able to find something that they like and can work with. Perhaps as time goes on and the player base expands, this may change but I really don't see any cause for concern right now about NPCs boxing out players.