Making outposts more attractive options

[Dresan]

I don't believe I've seen or participated in a single internal discussion where anyone said "let's make outposts lame".

Besides banks, what do you think would make these locations more attractive options?

1. Homes:

For years Luirs had a bank, but it never felt like a good place to live. Once upon a time I thought it was because of how some kuracis could be heavy handed. However after seeing the shanties, see  life in luirs, interactions, between the tibes, kurac, hunters, north, south. What a difference.The only thing is that kuraci memebers should not be renting in the shanties, they should have some better housing options ontop of barracks.

In short, I would really love to see, morins and cenyr get their own version of home with the same love as the shanties. Love those trunks.

2. Area:
Redstorm has apartments. Sure it has no bank,but you can still manage. Despite that, when choosing between between luirs and redstorm, I would rather stay in Luirs. The reason is mostly because the area around luirs is much more newbie friendly and interesting to play in. I think I would even rather be in Cenyr too, because I have allanak on one side, luirs on another. It could use a touch of love but not as much as redstorm. Morins of course being one of the best areas in the game in my opinion of course.

The area of redstorm specifically is the block of area north of redstorm. Oddly I see no problems with the southern area of redstorm, it feels more fluent. However the northern area has always seemed clunky to me, either blinding storm or completely clear depending on server time. You can step out of the gate to have a beetle attack you. That area needs to be expanded a bit more, the dangers should still be there, but the area around the village should be given a tiny bit of the allanak treatment and made more playable, just like around allanak the biggest danger should be the PC there. Weather should be shitty somedays but it should probably be closer to allanak's weather for playability sake.  

3.Pissing people off in one place, shouldn't exile/killed in other places.  

All outpost should continue following redstorm policy of:'Just don't shit where you eat'. Whatever happens outside the wall is not their problem. Its served Redstorm well all these years. I am not saying this is always the case but right now it does feel like kurac has every political reason to keep  allanak happy.  I am hoping that someday luirs, outposts, and the pah, become interesting enough that kurac can cut almost all political ties to allanak agian without making it seem like kuraci players are losing a huge chunk of interaction. They managed in the past, but back then it was more attached to the hip with tuluk.

4. A little room to grow.

This doesn't mean in the same way as allanak with minor houses or warehouses, but in redstorm at least, i could some places being made available to be used by more than just two people.

[evilcabbage]

van sized monsters can sit right outside the gates of allanak.

you are not safe.

the beetles get there because people lead them there.

same with mekillots.

[Inks]

Lately I prefer playing in outposts (including Morins). I find them extremely attractive due to playstyle and mostly IC reasons for the pcs I am playing. The rentable spaces in Luirs was a superb move by Imms. Kudos.

[Dresan]

I'm not saying there aren't dangers in allanak. Those dangers have always been there.

And then after some discussion it was decided to also put chalton, vultures and other stuff around that weren't van sized.

I would like to see the same done for redstorm's northern area, and possibly expanded slightly.

[Miradus]

I like the outposts. I've almost exclusively played in the north and it's a pretty cool swath of territory. My life expectancy in the south has always been much, much lower.

[Armaddict]

I actually think the change to move dangerous wildlife away from cities was -bad-, not good.

I far prefer to maintain a 'Desert's a dangerous place' world than one that is built like an MMO with progressively harder encounters as you draw further away from the city.

[Dresan]

The known is a big place though, it doesn't take too many rooms before it becomes as dangerous as can be, though I've never died from a mek, only other PCs    It just makes sense that the most dangerous stuff is probably the first to go. You don't see wild bears near RL cities that often. The fact that people hunt that stuff for resources mean that anything near a city would have probably made into a shirt a long time ago.

Realism aside however, from a playability and fun perspective, the area around allanak is huge success, kudos to staff for making that happen and I hope they do the same with the area north of Redstorm.

[Culinary Critic]

I actually think the change to move dangerous wildlife away from cities was -bad-, not good.

I far prefer to maintain a 'Desert's a dangerous place' world than one that is built like an MMO with progressively harder encounters as you draw further away from the city.

Agree completely with the second point.  But disagree with the first.  People leave a city to hunt, greg, whatever.  As they get a couple of rooms away, the chances of a person visiting a specific room decreases.  Meaning that the rooms farther away will have less visitors and thus less chance of having the big nasty thing there killed, driven off or chasing someone away.  But those rooms closer to the city have more visitors and are less likely to remain free of people encountering the big nasty thing.

If we had a large virtual population leaving and returning regularly, those closer rooms would naturally have less big nasty things in them.  Thus the way things are makes sense to me.

But, on the original topic (sorry), I've played one character in Storm and hated it.  I've visited Luir's for more than a day at a time and pretty much hated it.  This could easily be because I play more off-peak, but I can only solo so much.  (yes it was a while back, pre-Tuluk-closing, and I should probably try again.  I will commit to do this).  I also found that anyone I did run into was passing through, so had little time to develop any relationships other than very, very casual.

[Chettaman]

luir's:
To help make outposts more attractive I want to suggest people who want interaction to sit by the firepit in luir's, because that's were every passing person usually goes to hang out - so they don't have to pay any fees before they leave like they were going to do anyway.
Or have people stable their mounts and sit in the bar for a set amount of time equal to how long they think their mount needs to rest.
wildlife: the nasty stuff around there is smart so they stay away from the outpost. It makes sense.
love the apartments. Storage space is effing huge, though. HUGE. Being able to actually live in luir's has made it awesome to me.

Red storm:
It's fine, I think. Nasties all around surrounded by a super-storm that is completely ''unpredictable''. People can leave a place and go to another place to make money and then return home. That happens. To make red storm more appealing, I would encourage this idea. Sometimes people travel hours to do work they want to do, or have to do. Allanak is pretty far, but you could just walk to it. You don't have to live somewhere just to work there. Especially as a commoner/indie.

the farm village east of allanak (yaroch):
Move the bar closer to the drunks. You have to get through a damn maze to get to the bar there! ... I guess it's not really a problem, though.
More merchants that buy things. And apartments. And strippers.
More NPCs that respond to the discuss command to help set the ambiance of a farming village.

the farm village west of allanak:
all the same stuff as yaroch.

cenyr:
NPCs that respond to discuss

Morins:
Apartments and npcs who discuss.

[rodic]

Mul outpost could use a bar...

Just my opinion... man.

[shadeoux]

Mul outpost could use a bar...

Just my opinion... man.

The Mul outpost could use a bunch of stuff. And I foresee there plenty of opportunities for growth there more than anywhere else. 

[Jihelu]

Morins, if its considered an outpost I guess it is?, is pretty gucci in terms of content.

[Majikal]

Mul outpost could use a bar...

Just my opinion... man.

The Mul outpost could use a bunch of stuff. And I foresee there plenty of opportunities for growth there more than anywhere else. 

For a place with history and a cool location it really takes some effort to treat it it right. Icly, I know how the place is supposed to feel. Oocly, it's hard to look at it as more than a place where 5 npc's kick it.

[nauta]

What I'd love -- with places like the mul outpost, Cenyr, and other various little nooks that have some history attached to them -- I'd love it if some veteran players or staff would toss up some discuss scripts on the NPCs about that lore.  A grizzled mul settles down at the bar next to you, and tells you everything.

To a new player, those places just look like a few NPCs, their descriptions, and the room descriptions.

[tiptoe]

What I'd love -- with places like the mul outpost, Cenyr, and other various little nooks that have some history attached to them -- I'd love it if some veteran players or staff would toss up some discuss scripts on the NPCs about that lore.  A grizzled mul settles down at the bar next to you, and tells you everything.

To a new player, those places just look like a few NPCs, their descriptions, and the room descriptions.

I could see this potentially happening for the mul outpost, but not Cenyr. Though with the mul outpost, I think the NPCs might be just as likely to kill you than give you a story.

Cenyr is its own beast, and is not available to be used in PC backgrounds for a reason. I would check with staff for any further elucidation than that.

I do agree with maybe having the farming communities be a little more interactive. But for Morin's, it would seem counterproductive to close Tuluk and just build a baby Tuluk next to it.

[Molten Heart]

What I'd love -- with places like the mul outpost, Cenyr, and other various little nooks that have some history attached to them -- I'd love it if some veteran players or staff would toss up some discuss scripts on the NPCs about that lore.  A grizzled mul settles down at the bar next to you, and tells you everything.

To a new player, those places just look like a few NPCs, their descriptions, and the room descriptions.

This is cool. The mul outpost is an interesting place. It isn't a welcome place exactly, but some people are a little more unwelcome than others. If there were some way to allow the place to differentiate between outcasts and someone's employees stopping in for various business, some really cool things could be done with the place.

[Dresan]

Closing tuluk was about mostly about consolidating staff effort than anything else and so far so good, but this doesn't mean we can't have homes, interactive NPC and more livable places in other locations.  If there was anything to learn from the closure of tuluk, from other MMOs in the past(SW:galaxies anyone?), its that when you remove the places/things people like to play, they don't  just start playing in whats available, they just get bored and leave. If people want to live in these places, work from these places, and play from these places all the better for places like allanak, some people will, some people won't but it doesn't cost anything to have more places available like redstorm and luirs.



I would love to learn more about Cenyr, and its a damn shame the only way is to ask the staff about it, or hope there is someone in the game who knows more about the place then me and their character has a reason to know that information and a reason to tell me. I think NPC willing to sell you the history and story of a place is a great idea. Talk about actually being able to find out IC huh?

[Vwest]

I would love to see some apartments in Morins.

It's the perfect 'frontier' type of town where a lane of a dozen log cabins would be completely thematic. Where Tuluk felt like a glaring eyesore and exception on the rest of the game, Morins has a real roughneck feel that works with the rest of the game very well. I wouldn't have ever considered a northern PC when Tuluk was open, but I'd definitely consider it in a town like Morins.

It also feels like a really good opportunity to have a lot more furniture made available from NPC shops, to give the place a functional export that would be in demand from PCs all over the world. Logs are nice and all, but only a narrow selection of people want them, where as anyone with an apartment probably wants more options, both cheap and expensive, to customize it and make it feel like theirs.

Just don't build it up and add Templars and clans and the rest of that garbage. It's a nice place for people who don't want to deal with that all the time, or at all.

Throw a bank in Red Storm for the same reason.

[Case]

If outposts get more livable, I hope travel between them gets harder than one mount's worth of stamina.

[Dresan]

If outpost get more livable, you'll probably find yourself stopped by players who have no fear of just looking you in the eye, and asking for your stuff.


If you run, they'll just outright attack you next time you are traveling through those parts.

[BadSkeelz]

I kind of like the lack of a bank in Red Storm. It gives the town a poorer feel and, at least for me, encouraged me to spend coins on goods and services rather than just amass wealth.

I'd love to see some apartments in Morin's, though.

[solera]

Morins. Not a new thought. I'd like to see an update to the rumour board occasionally, telling the story of some poor sod that has come from the city. To give a hint, to new PCs and others, of what it's like back there.

[The Silence of the Erdlus]

van sized monsters can sit right outside the gates of allanak.

you are not safe.

the beetles get there because people lead them there.

same with mekillots.

A mekillot got into Allanak and started killing people once.

The Byn and the Arm had to team up to take it down after it killed a bunch of npcs.

[Barsook]

Morins. Not a new thought. I'd like to see an update to the rumour board occasionally, telling the story of some poor sod that has come from the city. To give a hint, to new PCs and others, of what it's like back there.

Yeah.  The playerbase hasn't heard of anything from Tuluk in ages now. 

[Lizzie]

Agreed about Tuluk v Morin's. There should be at least occasional trickles of rumors, even if it's just:

>A bedraggled inked Tuluki was pulled in from outside the camp's gates last week. His left eyesocket was empty,
but for an oozing infection seeping from the cavity. His ribcage appeared to be broken, and angry welts covered
the skin on front and back of his torso and legs. A slice of skin had been cut out from his cheek, leaving a scant
hint of purple ink curved near the excision. Through swollen, bloody lips, he was babbling about "them"
and pointing toward the looming city to the east. His final words before succumbing to death, were "Tuluk, n-n-n!"

Residents of Morin's tsked sadly at the corpse as it was set atop the pyre and destroyed. A few were noticed to have
shed tears. But so far no one has been willing to admit to know the dead man, and it is likely his identity will be
lost to eternal silence.