Wanted to shoot out an idea to make bases popular
By
Ahkileez,
Posted on: 2006-11-02 15:34 in Base Construction
Someone once mentioned a specific door that led into your "personal room." I kinda like the idea, but at the same time, it's like "What's the point?" A player goes in decorates and then never has reason to visit it again. Lots of time and coding for what? And don't you think it's hard enough for many SGs to raise prestiege for rent without their members saying "No, you can't have any of my prestiege because I need a million to place the Lord Recluse helmet in my room"
Again, it gets back to common goals versus personal goals. If personal rooms were free, then maybe. But I still think they'd be fairly useless.
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as I said when this was mentioned in another thread, this doesn't solve the problem, it ignores it.
you still have a core SG base that only 1 or 2 people in a SG are allowed to decorate.
*adding* a personal space per player does not change the problems with using/decorating *group* space.
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I kinda like the idea, but at the same time, it's like "What's the point?" A player goes in decorates and then never has reason to visit it again. Lots of time and coding for what?
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Take a look at housing in other MMOs. Rarely it was anything but simply decoration or a place to display 'phat lewt'. You could even look closer to home, why bother to make a costume when its totally none functional. You could just hit the default, give it a name and the character will be just as useful as someone who spent an hour on the design of their character. Personal bases are an extention of your character.
I don't know about this idea, it's good in theory, and there's certainly a market for it, but I wonder how much of one...
Here's what I see happening:
They add the "doorway to the apartments" item and I put it in. Jim the Villain goes in and, after the initial load screen, decks out his place, putting up decorations, maybe a functional item (personal storage locker maybe) or two, and then looks around. "Ah..." he says. "Can't wait to show the guys."
He exits his room and, after the load screen to get back into the base, looks for "the guys" who he wants to show. But we're in a mission.
"Guys!" he says. "I made a room!"
"Congrats."
"Can you come see it?"
"We're in a mission right now. It's a two-parter, so we might be awhile."
"Oh.... but I put a bed in there and everything."
"That's good Jim. I bet that bed is exciting. We're busy."
Undaunted, Jim goes out into the world and runs into Joe the Guy Who Plays Villains But Pretends to be a Hero in Disguise Because He Only Ever Had One Good Character Concept and He Already Used it in CoH.
"Hey Joe, come and see the room I designed."
"Okay."
(Joe joins team)
"Um... Jim, I can't get into your base. I keep getting kicked out."
"Yeah. There's a bug. You'll have to quit your SG."
"I'll have to do what? What's in this room anyway?"
"There's a bed and some posters and a locker."
"Yeah.... so long Jim. I have to murder people because I'm a hero in disguise."
Jim is depressed, but he goes to Mercy and waits for someone to roll up a new villain. Eventually, Johnny Newman pops up.
"Hello Newman. You're new and therefore not in a SG. Want to come see my room in my base?"
"k"
(joins team)
(enters base)
(base kicks them)
"Darn, sorry Newman. Bases do that sometimes. Let's try again.
(Waits for the load screen yet again)
(Waits for the personal room load screen)
"So this is my room Newman, what do you think?"
"Im in UR locker, stealing UR stuff."
"Wait! I'm supposed to be the only one who can use those."
"lol newb these are bugged. thx for Hami-O's!"
fin
- J
I've mentioned this idea a few times. I think it is a good one, since those that want a little space for themselves can have one. However, I think with it should be a small storage section - maybe 25-50 items total. Maybe salvage/enhs/insps all in one thing. Call it a "footlocker" or something. It allows people to store HOs or whatever without having to worry about them in the sg base storage. Other than that, the room would be 3x3 or 4x4 and purely decorative. The footlocker could maybe be a crafted item or a reward for something. Anyway, I think it solves some problems.
And MadScientist, I'm sorry, but having "group" space controlled by everyone is neither practical not advisable. It invites chaos. I really can think of no way around that problem. Someone on another thread mentioned that the majority of the playerbase really is not interested in base design or decorating. I think this is true. Most people seem only interested in playing the game and levelling without worrying about the special problems inherent to base design. It'a a labor of love, really. Why else would anyone want to deal with the headache? The raid pathing rules alone make me want to put my fist through the screen everytime I edit.
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I like this idea, because I enjoy base editing and I share creation/editing responsibilities with other members of both a SG and VG. I'd like to see what other people could create, but I think that many don't want to experiment with what we've created for fear of destroying some of the functionality of what's already been created.
Having a personal area would be an interesting way to let other players add to the overall environment of a SG or VG. I do think that limited functionality would be nice to have though, especially personal storage space. This makes me worry about some of the more chaotically-run groups, though, where infighting might lead to people kicking other players from a group. In cases like that, losing a space with any sort of personal investment, be it in-game objects, or simply the time which was invested, could lead to very sour situations for some players.
If a system could be created to insure the safety of personal inventories, then I think that the inclusion of personal spaces to bases would be a great addition to the game. It would serve both a creative and functional role to players, which is what I look forward to when new systems are added to games.
I also don't like the idea of having the players make a choice between separating prestige for personal or group use. I think that if players are earning prestige, and a count has to be kept, have a separate tally for each that increases as normal. However, I'd have the personal prestige increment at a slower rate than the group prestige, because the space they're using it for is somewhat more limited. I'd also make sure to not have personal space development use influence over personal prestige, because this may lead to some members not playing in SG mode. It makes more sense to me that additions to the base, even personal ones, use the appropriate currency to do so.
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hmm, all the members of my SG say they love my base design. I have previously allowed others to have editing priveleges, but most worry about messing something up. The editor is extremely touchy and I have been known to screram on vent and in sg chat while modifying it.
One of my coalition SGs allows all the core membership to edit. Still, only 2 players actually take the time. The addition of the teleporters to almost every zone andstorage and inspiration selling objects (healing badges) should have result in increased appeal for bases.My SG and my coalitions are constantly in my base.
One thing that could make the bases truly more appealing are more aesthetic design options and an easier inteface. Seriously, a lot of bases I have seen are just blah (usually because the designer gets frustrated w the editor)
Now, since I love showing off my base 
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I kinda like the idea, but at the same time, it's like "What's the point?" A player goes in decorates and then never has reason to visit it again. Lots of time and coding for what?
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Take a look at housing in other MMOs. Rarely it was anything but simply decoration or a place to display 'phat lewt'. You could even look closer to home, why bother to make a costume when its totally none functional. You could just hit the default, give it a name and the character will be just as useful as someone who spent an hour on the design of their character. Personal bases are an extention of your character.
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There are two BIG differences between Costumes and Bases:
A) Bases take time to load. Costumes don't. It takes me 2 minutes to load into my base sometimes, after 3-5 minutes just to get in game. I love bases, and that deters even ME from heading in at every opportunity.
B) Costumes are ALWAYS THERE. Other players HAVE To look at your costume. You aren't dragging your base around behind you, however. No one HAS to look at your base.
If the coding wouldn't be that difficult and time consuming, I do wish they would do something like this. While I think they could set up an interface to load from the Base Portal, sometimes things like that just aren't thought about ahead of time and would take forever to make it into the game (storage sorting?).
But if they just kept track of all the prestige you made and kept that in your info like how much influence you have, and that is what is used for your personal room. But you have to be in an SG to use the room, and that same amount is deposited into the SG bank for the overall base. That way, nothing is taken away from SG, and the person still benefits. If they are kicked or quit the SG, they still have the total prestige count in their info, and make it so their personal room still stays the same. If they join another SG, they start making prestige for that group, have the same personal room they had before and didnt' lose anything.
Of course, there would have to be something functional in the room to make it appealing to people. The only people that would probably be interested and probably the same ones designing bases now, so that wouldnt' change anything. A storage locker would be nice. And then just have it so your /friends can enter and deposit/take stuff from it, even when your not on. That way, you can friend yourself and enter the room and grab some SO's you left for another one of your characters or such.
If they could do something like that, without taking forever and without losing a large amount of resources on other parts of development, I would love to see it...
I think this is a good idea, but perhaps the method of pay and functionality of personal spaces should be rethought.
Also, I would just like to say that bases are unpopular because that is how cryptic designed them.
-Most people are unable to pay for bases.
-Items of power, a main focus of bases, are still broken.
-Many of the functions of a base, are not that great.
This is how cryptic designed it. It could be very popular, but they made base functionality very narrowly focused, and often available only to the most elite sg's.
Fix IOP's, and make more stuff available to the average player, and it will improve. Make more design improvements and it will improve further. give people thier own personal space, and it will be further improved upon.
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OK, seems that Statesman knows that bases aren't as popular as he wanted. The situation is simple, what you have is maybe 1 or a few people designing the base. It becomes exactly what they'd want for a personal corner of the CoX universe and then everyone else in the SG simply gets to borrow it. So you have a whole SG paying for someone elses dream.
If you wanted a comparason, its like placing a maintainence cost on your costume. However 3 other players on the game cannot choose what they're character looks like as they are only allowed to look like you. On top of that fact you and these other 3 people have to keep playing the game in a state which brings them some personal loss in order to maintain their costume or have it revert to something generic.
Thats the problem. Bases aren't actually for every player, they're for those who start SGs and have admin rights.
The solution is simple. Personal player housing through SG bases.
The concept is that you're allowed to have a personal plot starting with a 4x4 room however in order to own that plot you need to join an SG. Once you join one the SG will have either doors or portals which you can enter to walk into your personal plot or other players personal plots. Inside a plot the owners has almost complete access to what the base designer tool offers but only in that room. They can make it look anyway they want and because its isolated from the main base it doesn't have to clash with the SG base's design. Prestige is generated almost as normal with one exception - all prestige goes right into a personal bank account. You can then choose to donate an amount to the SG or use it on your personal plot.
To keep things interesting though the player cannot add any functional items to their personal plot. No telepads, no medibay, no work stations. These are SG base only items. Additionally if the rent isn't maintained on the SG base as a whole then when the base shuts down the personal plots are shut down as well meaning its in everyones best interests to keep the prestige donations coming.
This idea solves both problems in one go. Everyone gets a 'base' that they can expand and develop for themselves which others can wander into any time you allow them in for a look plus you have the need to join an SG base and need to develop an SG base which provides a unified goal to the members.
Thoughts?
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I am for this idea. Only thing I would change is to have the users be able to add there own personal storage to their "Room", it could be a 4x4 room alotted one storage item. So they would have to choose what they placed but I can almost bet most would put down a Enhancement storage for it.
I would also like to add that adding permissions to your living quarters would be a good idea so that a players alts could access there other hero/villain's room and access the storage they may of left for another toon. That would increase popularity of bases by giving them the sense of security in their home and being able to place something in storage and not having to immediately switch to get it out before another sg/vg mate grabs it thinking it was put in for "community" use.
Personally I think personal spaces could be stand-alone housing that could additionally be connected to an instancing door in the base. The door could be a functional item bought for minimal prestige and placed in the base to allow common access to all the members' spaces (if they set the permission to allow non-teamed members to enter without the owner present). I also think it would be better to let inf pay for the personal space, since it would need funding even when not in an SG.
Just my 2 inf and whatnot.
Good ideas but personally I'd like to see the Devs develop more "social" functions for the base.
Being able to sit down at the board room table would be a start! In fact anything that allows you to interact with the base would be good.
This is a song about a super hero named Tony. Its called Tony's theme.
Jagged Reged: 23/01/04
Another fix would be to make bases much more affordable and therefore reasonable for much much smaller SG's to have. This way, you can lead one supergroup and have membership in several others. Then many more of us could give base design a go. The current dynamic steers all but the most dedicated, stubborn, or indifferent players into the massive, maxed-out, often impersonal, and usually unthemed 75 member supergroups.
Some of us simply don't want or can't afford to play this way. (For me, the 'play regularly or get booted' rules keep me away due to a complicated RL schedule that gives me weeks to binge on Co* and several weeks at a time where I cannot even think of logging in.) So plain and simple, before even adding personal rooms (which I actually like as an idea), the devs should put a couple people on simply redoing the numbers on a spreadsheet and then re-entering them into the existing code.
I suggest the following:
- Reduce the overall room and plot costs by at least 25% or more.
- Reduce the cost of rent
- Eliminate rent from AT LEAST the smallest plot
- Make rent scale based on the number of SG members. Current rates should ONLY be experienced in the LARGEST of SGs.
For a small themed group with maybe a half dozen semi-active toons, getting nailed with a 25K prestige bill essentially and efectively halts all and any future base expansion. Plain and simple this is a borked aspect of base dynamics. Borked enough to make me consider taking a break. Frankly, the small themed groups I've gotten invovled with have breathed fresh life into Co* (player made content I suppose) but now that each of these groups is hitting an insurmountable prestige wall (unless we just go and give up on any of the themes and mass recruit like the big bad power groups).
I'm finding myself quite disappointed by this. As the OP pointed out, we are not taxed on our costume designs. We are not taxed on our powers. (Imagine logging in to find out you have to turn in 2.5 bubs worth of XP. Woot! For a casual player, good luck ever reaching 50.) The promise of a non-combat rikti monkey doesn't feel like enough to keep me hanging on... 
I really really really hope Positron puts a couple developers on this between I8 and I9, at least to eliminate the rent on the smallest plot or two.
I was just having this thought myself. I spent a few hours on Saturday reworking my alt SG base. This SG is comprised of the alts of about six people. Most are very casual players, so my husband and I share the base editing duties.
It occured to me that I'd really like to give the other people permissions so they can each decorate a room of their own some day... but as things stand now, that isn't going to happen. It would be really nice to have several tiers of base editing permissions: like a master architect who can edit common areas, and allowing other members edit permissions for personal space. It would also be nice if there were trophies people could display for personal accomplishments (maybe based on badges). Oh well...
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Good ideas but personally I'd like to see the Devs develop more "social" functions for the base.
Being able to sit down at the board room table would be a start! In fact anything that allows you to interact with the base would be good.
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Do you mean /em sitboardroom, or something static where you click on the chair?
Because if it's the former, I8 will make you happy.
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In both our SG and VG, we have a main and an alt group. In the main, only the officers can edit the base. In the alt groups, anyone can edit the bases. In reality, there are 1 or 2 people who play around with ediiting. Now the alt groups don't have as much prestige as the main, but they have enough that aside from med bay, power and control rooms there is enough room for 3 or so TP rooms and generic room space.
People haven't seemed that interested. Some of them may be afraid of screwing something up and that's why they don't, but we even created a basic guide/faq to base editign to help them mess around if they want.
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Good ideas but personally I'd like to see the Devs develop more "social" functions for the base.
Being able to sit down at the board room table would be a start! In fact anything that allows you to interact with the base would be good.
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Do you mean /em sitboardroom, or something static where you click on the chair?
Because if it's the former, I8 will make you happy.
--GF
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Cool. Didn't know that. Thats a start 
This is a song about a super hero named Tony. Its called Tony's theme.
Jagged Reged: 23/01/04
I would love to be able to link a "personal door(s)" to the base design. This door is linked to a characters personal space and then that character can edit what ever they want and set visit permissions for the door (owner , owner and SG). Another Idea is a 1x1 square that is either an elevator/stairwell/portal that brings the SG to a Personal Living space floor. Here I can design a non raidiable portion of the base that I can install up 75 doors 1 for each SG member.
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The solution is simple. Personal player housing through SG bases.
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Great minds think alike. Posi and I have been talking about this for awhile.
Here's the not so simple bit: the tech. But it's an interesting idea that we're wrangling at the moment.
States,
I'm still not seeing how adding a feature for individual housing will do anything to address the current issues with a Group's collective space.
To draw an analogy, it woudl be like adding more PVE content to distract from PVP imbalances.
I think most people would just like either
a: a personal storage locker in base
b: a personal storage locker in base
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I think most people would just like either
a: a personal storage locker in base
b: a personal storage locker in base
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Bingo.
I dig this idea...but I have to admit that I'm barely interested in bases. Once I knew the bases weren't going to be actual locations, I kind of lost interest. When I originally heard they were coming, I thought it was going to be like this:
"The Liberty Patrol, huh? Where's your base?"
"Talos Island. Due west of the Tech Shop. Can't miss it."
Instead, it was:
"The Liberty Patrol, huh? Where's your base?"
"You know that little glowing column of light in every major zone? That's us."
Yes, yes...I know that it fits the whole teleportation grid theme of the city and that to do it any other way would be kind of tough in a city environment without large open areas to "develop"...I just thought bases would be real places, ya know?
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OK, seems that Statesman knows that bases aren't as popular as he wanted. The situation is simple, what you have is maybe 1 or a few people designing the base. It becomes exactly what they'd want for a personal corner of the CoX universe and then everyone else in the SG simply gets to borrow it. So you have a whole SG paying for someone elses dream.
If you wanted a comparason, its like placing a maintainence cost on your costume. However 3 other players on the game cannot choose what they're character looks like as they are only allowed to look like you. On top of that fact you and these other 3 people have to keep playing the game in a state which brings them some personal loss in order to maintain their costume or have it revert to something generic.
Thats the problem. Bases aren't actually for every player, they're for those who start SGs and have admin rights.
The solution is simple. Personal player housing through SG bases.
The concept is that you're allowed to have a personal plot starting with a 4x4 room however in order to own that plot you need to join an SG. Once you join one the SG will have either doors or portals which you can enter to walk into your personal plot or other players personal plots. Inside a plot the owners has almost complete access to what the base designer tool offers but only in that room. They can make it look anyway they want and because its isolated from the main base it doesn't have to clash with the SG base's design. Prestige is generated almost as normal with one exception - all prestige goes right into a personal bank account. You can then choose to donate an amount to the SG or use it on your personal plot.
To keep things interesting though the player cannot add any functional items to their personal plot. No telepads, no medibay, no work stations. These are SG base only items. Additionally if the rent isn't maintained on the SG base as a whole then when the base shuts down the personal plots are shut down as well meaning its in everyones best interests to keep the prestige donations coming.
This idea solves both problems in one go. Everyone gets a 'base' that they can expand and develop for themselves which others can wander into any time you allow them in for a look plus you have the need to join an SG base and need to develop an SG base which provides a unified goal to the members.
Thoughts?