1 Topic by Lupus Aurelius (edited by Lupus Aurelius 2010-12-06 01:20:39)

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Topic: Future developement of Nia Geography

As the population of Nia grows, I imagine that the Devs will be adding islands.  However, as part of that, some changes come to mind.  ATM, all the alpha islands are contiguous, with all major markets convienently available to each other.  No risk is involved in order to transport goods and materials between the alpha islands, even though significant financial rewards exist in those markets.  Also, it creates homogeneous market prices, and limits the ablity to actively trade for profit (buy low sell high).

At the same time, currently there are 2 environments, PVE islands and PVP islands.  There is no middle ground, no area that you can explore the PVP zones without being "in the deep end of the pool"

What I am suggesting is that when the islands are increased, that the alpha islands be seperated by "low security" islands, were there may be more resources than alpha, but less than beta islands, and which have significant areas that pvp is possible.  Teleports from the apha island would deposit you in a safe zone, but in order to get to your target alpha island, you would have to traverse a PVP zone.

This accomplishes a couple things - it localizes market economies that are influenced by the regional availble resources.  It creates a risk vs. reward environment for those who want to "work" markets on other alpha islands.  For those shoppers, it means that in order to get that "bargain price", you have to not only safely get to that location, but bring it back to where you need it. It would provide a "low end of the pool" for those wanting to get into PVP.

Potentially, this would add alot more depth to the Nia market, increase the risk vs reward environment, and provide a "training ground" for those who want to experiment with PVP.  Potentially, as part of this, the PVP islands can have all safety zones removed, creating a true PVP environment with no ablity to just sit in a safe zone and thumb your nose at passerbys.

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Re: Future developement of Nia Geography

I love everything about this idea. /signed

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Re: Future developement of Nia Geography

Thumbs up to this idea from me, and more generally to anything that makes the markets more interesting/risky.

4 Reply by Roxi (edited by Roxi 2010-12-06 14:23:00)

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Re: Future developement of Nia Geography

Been Thinking about this, Currently the island to island teleports look like : http://img577.imageshack.us/img577/3571/mapnow.png (not accurate, just to give a general idea)

And this is how I think it could look given the ideas in this thread : http://img802.imageshack.us/img802/5103/mapidea.png (Again, not accurate, just a concept)

Blue areas = syndicate protection.

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Re: Future developement of Nia Geography

I like the idea Roxi but I think the Alpha islands NEED to be connected via protected just for fairness. How would they go about adding more island after this?
I like the initial idea and I think that not every island after the three beta island should be the new larger islands. But we'll see.

Very nice graphic. It would be nice to see more ideas for maps like this.

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Re: Future developement of Nia Geography

Roxi wrote:

Been Thinking about this, Currently the island to island teleports look like : http://img577.imageshack.us/img577/3571/mapnow.png (not accurate, just to give a general idea)

And this is how I think it could look given the ideas in this thread : http://img802.imageshack.us/img802/5103/mapidea.png (Again, not accurate, just a concept)

Blue areas = syndicate protection.


Close, but I was thinking more along the lines of the alpha connecting islands having about 50% of the landmass non-pvp.  That would generate a more"low end of the pool" environment, and give a fighting chance for ppl to be able to go between the alpha island teleports

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Re: Future developement of Nia Geography

Or this, http://img827.imageshack.us/img827/8605/mapidea3.png though things that would need to be looked at, for example :

- Flagged players being able to travel from beta to "buffer" islands and vice versa while maintaining flagged status. (main reason behind this is to prevent safe scouts on into beta teleports)

- The distance that would need to be traveled on the "buffer" island to get from one alpha island to another, i know some would like you to have to travel through pvp areas, but maybe making syndicate protection have a longer route than to go via pvp would give a certain amount of risk vs reward.

- Minerals should be the same as alpha, maybe just more abundent.

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8 Reply by Lupus Aurelius (edited by Lupus Aurelius 2010-12-06 18:21:26)

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Re: Future developement of Nia Geography

Roxi wrote:

Or this, http://img827.imageshack.us/img827/8605/mapidea3.png though things that would need to be looked at, for example :

- Flagged players being able to travel from beta to "buffer" islands and vice versa while maintaining flagged status. (main reason behind this is to prevent safe scouts on into beta teleports)

- The distance that would need to be traveled on the "buffer" island to get from one alpha island to another, i know some would like you to have to travel through pvp areas, but maybe making syndicate protection have a longer route than to go via pvp would give a certain amount of risk vs reward.

- Minerals should be the same as alpha, maybe just more abundent.


The idea, though, is to have the teleports to the alpha islands seperated by a "small" pvp zone.  also, multiple routes need to exist, so that one cannot simply camp between the teleports and easy gank ppl hauling.  Whereas there should be risk, it should be manageable risk, for a co-ordinated corp to handle.

In the gods we trust, all others bring data!

9 Reply by Campana (edited by Campana 2010-12-06 19:46:46)

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Re: Future developement of Nia Geography

Ok, here are my thoughts on this.

I can't see them taking away the connections between the alpha island teleports. Once you give a playerbase a safety feature like that you can't take it away without there being a serious outcry and a risk of lots of people unsubbing in frustration. By adding those connected safe zones they've already attracted players who want to stay in them, bad business practice to completely take it away.

However, when they do add more islands (call them gamma islands), they can make sure these are routed through the beta islands to get to the original alpha islands. Then they put a some kind of resource on the gamma islands (whether it's kernals or ore or whatever) to make it an industrial attraction/trading hub.

What we want to be simulated here is trade caravans travelling back and forth which have a risk of being attacked by bandits but are not completely vulnerable. The risk needs to be low enough to attract people to do it, while still allowing the opportunity for some interesting pvp to happen.

I have some half formed ideas, here.

One is that corporations can have the option to take control of teleport stations. Once they own that teleport station they can choose to set the station as "defended" or leave it as "undefended."

Defended teleport: police towers spawn on the beta island route between the gamma and alpha teleports. Any player passing through the teleport must pay a small fee to which goes to the controlling corp. So long as they stay on the route they are protected. Any player aggressing them will be fired on by the police towers. You could also have ways corps can fight over the police towers (e.g. jamming them). And players passing through have to pay careful attention to the status of the towers.

Undefended teleport: there is no fee, but there is no flag either. Any player passing through does so over his own risk.

There main thing I don't like about this idea is that you are increasing safety zones on beta islands. Also it will breed more conflict between corps trying to control trade routes than giving people the opportunity to be a pirate.

On the other hand it does balance the risk vs reward thing better than just forcing players who do not enjoy pvp to travel through beta islands.

10 Reply by Crynth (edited by Crynth 2010-12-06 20:36:57)

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Re: Future developement of Nia Geography

Here's an image of the map as Lupus describes it, the lines being some sort of terrain obstruction which would have to allow multiple paths.

http://img130.imageshack.us/img130/773/nextl.gif

The biggest problem I see with this is that such a drastic map change may unbalance things in unforeseen ways. It may give old players an even greater head start, or allow new players an advantage that current players didn't have (through mob/resource distribution etc).

Campana wrote:

Once you give a playerbase a safety feature like that you can't take it away without there being a serious outcry

I disagree. Players can still be perfectly safe and happy on one island. No feature is being removed, only added (in this case new islands). I was perfectly happy on the same island for my first few days until I was ready to join a corp.

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Re: Future developement of Nia Geography

Crynth wrote:

I disagree. Players can still be perfectly safe and happy on one island. No feature is being removed, only added (in this case new islands). I was perfectly happy on the same island for my first few days until I was ready to join a corp.

I'm not talking about new players. I'm talking about established players who spend 100% of their time on alpha islands, and were attracted to the game because the mechanics allowed them to do so. Do they often travel to different alpha islands? I'm not sure either but I would guess so. You probably spend about 90% of your time on beta islands so you're not the demographic I'm talking about here.