Personal living space with account wide storage?
By
AzureSkyCiel,
Posted on: 2009-06-16 23:11 in Suggestions and Ideas
I've got to agre with Grouchybeast and others the "new player will be at a disadvantage" argument doesn't hold much water my Alts are all pretty much self sufficient i dont transfer inf/IOs/recipes eet between alts except in very special cases (rocket boots/tech wings on a low level concept toon)
And while some toons do better than other most of my alts are Ok for inf there not mega ritch but there not skint either.
th elow levels can produce some of the most desired salvage such as luck charms sell a few of them and you'll be able to outfit a new toon with TO with ease or save up that inf and be able to SO out a toon at 22. its all about playing smart and its that that gives veats the advantage over new players not team black wands and hordes of inf and best of all you can pass on all you've learned to new players. You can point them in the direction of the market, You can advise them to not purchase TOs and save for SOs"
I know the best thing i ever learned in the game was how different groups drop different enhncments. So if i want enhncments i can use on my tech origin brute I go after enemies that drop them saves me thousands in inf as i get the enhncments i need from drops.
Also i allways sell at the correct shop so magic enhncments get sold at the magic shop etc. These are things i always tell new players about as the'll help them all the way thrue the game far more than a perma temp power will.
Oh and i much prefered super jump when i first started and could be seen bouncing around the zones going "boing boing boing" was such fun 
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Oh and i much prefered super jump when i first started and could be seen bouncing around the zones going "boing boing boing" was such fun
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I tried SJ on my 3rd toon and it's by far my favourite for travel powers for pure 'fun'. 
I actually agree that the way veteran players can feed stuff to new alts makes a lot of difference compared to being a genuinely fresh alt. Always has. Some of us will remember the old days, when a genuinely new toon would only slot TO End Redux and Accuracy in order to save a bit of money - and even then you'd face a nasty choice between DOs now and SOs later.
But the point of this suggestion - which I like - is to eliminate the conflict between wanting to be in a real SG and wanting to make use of a personal SG base; and a personal SG base makes feeding stuff to new alts very easy. As long as the personal living space isn't any _better_ for that than personal SGs, it won't exacerbate the new-alt problem; and if it's _worse_ than a personal SG, it won't make people stop using personal SGs.
For example, it's sheer madness to have the personal living space accessible only by finding a green door with three Mortificators in front of it. If it's harder to get to than an SG base, people will go right on using personal SGs. (That said, I've no problem with customisation for chrome there - for example, if you can establish where your living space's front door is and as a result you have a choice of coming out there rather than the Base Portal, cool.)
I think we're in agreement, but I'm paraoid and still cant believe I haven't been flamed to toastyville and back for suggesting this thread, so i'm going to restate something to be sure.
I think its really important that PEARS(tm) should not undermine sg bases in any way. An sg base should come across as being superior in the same way that the Fantastic Fours huge complex and technological gadgetry inside it seems superior to my one bedroom flat and my glow in the dark kettle in the kitchen... (still much love for the kettle though 
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I just think that theres room for a few things with PEARS(tm). Firstly, adding another background detail/backdrop for your toons roleplay or player personal gratification (like a well written bio). Secondly, as far as storage is concerned, account wide or not (and no, i never envisaged it being available across the red/blue divide) to not have to make it compulsory to declare yourself a Super Hero "The Omega Squad" just for the priviledge of a single room and some cupboards. But i would not want to see PEAR's(tm) overshadowing the pros of owning your own sg base, if thats what you were prepared to work for and build, whether it be solo or not. If that were to occur i would definetly rue the day i ever suggested PEAR's(tm) 
I dont believe that if implemented as i envisage that new players would feel disadvantaged, any more than i did when i first started and saw well developed flying toons whilst i was still making bunny hops cos i thought it seemed faster than sprinting. Everything one player has is achievable by another in this game, and I've never started playing a new game under any illusions that i'm going to hit the ground running. I dont think any player that thinks like that will stick at any game, never mind CoX.
I know some players have definite views on storage not being account wide, but other games do this (eg, Guildwars "Xunlai chest" I think?), and it breaks the game, or disillusions newby players not one iota. I dont see why its game breaking, when people swap inf, enhancements and salvage all the time already, really, they do, and are not likely to ever stop. I wouldn't want to overshadow sg storage, so in the interests of preserving sg base superiority, and "object creep" is never good for a games performance, account wide storage should be limited, severley, if implemented. I suppose one compromise is to allow a maximum of 10 items(maybe less even), plus inf transfers to be account wide stored. That way you would most likely only ever use account wide storage to transfer items between your heroes, or villains, exclusively. That space would not be sufficient to serve as a permanent storage space for all toons.
I've just had another random idea. Keep PEARS(tm) as purely personal for your toon as far as storage is concerned. If you want to share storage across your account, there could be a "Static Miniture Dimensional Wormhole"(tm?) type item available only to sg's and their members, so that you would need to join an sg to fascilitate easier item and inf transfers. It could work in a similiar way to the Vault, one static device that only shows player specific items. This item wouldn't even be difficult to imagine in game, given all the dimensional and time hopping we do via Portal Corp and Ouroborous already. It might even be a Portal Corp (Tech) or Ouroborous (Arcane) type item. You could still own your own PEAR as normal, but as a solo player, you might still be motivated to either create your own sg base or join anothers sg for that functionality.
Personally i would prefer also to see a different tileset for PEAR's(tm) but thats just me, and may be a lot of work for something thats just a scaled down version of functionality that already exists in bases (but the fact that that functionality already exists means that PEARS(tm) would not be that difficult an idea to implement in itself).
(runs for his flak jacket and prepares for the onslaught)
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I know some players have definite views on storage not being account wide, but other games do this (eg, Guildwars "Xunlai chest" I think?), and it breaks the game, or disillusions newby players not one iota. I dont see why its game breaking, when people swap inf, enhancements and salvage all the time already, really, they do, and are not likely to ever stop. I wouldn't want to overshadow sg storage, so in the interests of preserving sg base superiority, and "object creep" is never good for a games performance, account wide storage should be limited, severley, if implemented. I suppose one compromise is to allow a maximum of 10 items(maybe less even), plus inf transfers to be account wide stored. That way you would most likely only ever use account wide storage to transfer items between your heroes, or villains, exclusively. That space would not be sufficient to serve as a permanent storage space for all toons.
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On the other hand GW has only one faction and all the servers are effectively the same one. I think whatever restrictions are currently enforced re transferring stuff from place to place should remain, though I'd prefer to see it as software hack in the sense that all the characters on one account share a single 'house' but villains can only access stuff stored by other villains etc. Server wise shouldn't matter as much because the servers have a shared economy anyway.
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On the other hand GW has only one faction and all the servers are effectively the same one.
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What difference does that make though? The fact that we have two factions is not really an issue as i never envisaged, or suggested, that account wide storage should cross the red/blue divide, in fact I have stated the exact opposite. In terms of game programming, i would imagine its no more difficult to implement than the "no trade" rule between red and blue across shared zones and the markets.
I understand you have a slightly different slant on the way you would prefer to see account wide storage implemented (if it is, fingers crossed!), i just dont see why GW's one faction/server is relevant?
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I think its really important that PEARS(tm) should not undermine sg bases in any way.
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That should not be an issue. Anything (like PEARS) that decreases the incentive to create personal SGs will naturally promote SG bases.
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I know some players have definite views on storage not being account wide, but other games do this
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You're getting dragged into a diversion here. Storage is *already* account-wide at least across a particular server because of personal SGs. Don't argue about whether it *should* be - as long as PEARS don't make it significantly more so, the issue isn't pertinent.
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I've just had another random idea. Keep PEARS(tm) as purely personal for your toon as far as storage is concerned.
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Terrible. We started with PEARS as a way to reduce the incentive to have personal SGs, and now you want to make them less useful than personal SGs!
That said, the idea of an SG base item that gives access to account-wide storage isn't a bad one, as another way to diminish the incentive to have personal SGs.
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I've just had another random idea. Keep PEARS(tm) as purely personal for your toon as far as storage is concerned.
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Terrible. We started with PEARS as a way to reduce the incentive to have personal SGs, and now you want to make them less useful than personal SGs!
That said, the idea of an SG base item that gives access to account-wide storage isn't a bad one, as another way to diminish the incentive to have personal SGs.
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Yes, fair enough, you are correct, the idea did start out that way. But...
PEARS(tm) still have merit as an idea even if they are just for background and round off a toons concept. The fact they could be used for toon level storage only again does not invalidate that either, as with even just toon level storage you would simply have the same issue you have now, regarding getting someone to hold your stuff while you relogged with your second "recieving" toon etc... but you would now not need an sg to get that storage just for your toon if thats all you wanted.
Effectively i have moved the solution of account wide storage to an sg instead of a PEAR, by that wormhole thingy i suggested, which i actually like because it pushes the functionality of an sg, whilst the idea of a PEAR in my mind still has merit, as a toon level (only) storage medium, and background detail for your toon concept.
I'll be honest in that i'm still playing with the ideas from this thread in my head, so apologies if i seem to be advocating one thing one minute, and another the next. 
But i'm happy for the idea to be attacked, poked and prodded from all sides as it seems generally to be worth thinking about.
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I know some players have definite views on storage not being account wide, but other games do this (eg, Guildwars "Xunlai chest" I think?), and it breaks the game, or disillusions newby players not one iota.
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The difference being that allowing people to share stuff account wide with no restrictions like GW would quite likely break the AH.
And before you start moaning at me for not understanding perhaps you should look at the post you referenced in the OP, and my other replies in this thread.
I want account wide storage, but I think sensible limits should be used rather than just using a Xunlai Chest thing!
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I know some players have definite views on storage not being account wide, but other games do this (eg, Guildwars "Xunlai chest" I think?), and it breaks the game, or disillusions newby players not one iota.
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The difference being that allowing people to share stuff account wide with no restrictions like GW would quite likely break the AH.
And before you start moaning at me for not understanding perhaps you should look at the post you referenced in the OP, and my other replies in this thread.
I want account wide storage, but I think sensible limits should be used rather than just using a Xunlai Chest thing!
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Ummm... what is "AH" you are refering to your post? Secondly, i think we are in agreement on limits for account wide storage, i have said in a previous post that it should be limited quite severley (maybe 10 slots, even 5!), so that its not useful enough to be used as storage per se, but more as a way of transfering storage between toons (hero to hero, villain to villain). i would not want account wide storage to undermine existing storage fascilities in game, just to provide a means by which items could be transfered.
so i think we are in agreement about it being limited, though maybe not in agreement on some of the finer details... i think 
AH = Auction House.
Easier than trying with Wentworths or whatever the hell its called red side.
And I do disagree with such severe limits, if you're going to go with such a low limit why bother having storage at all? Should be at minimum the same amount of storage a capped level 50 has at base, IMO. I can think of nothing worse than having to swap back and forwards to transfer stuff from character to character because the storage cannot contain enough to be useful. Or make your figures the base that everyone gets and additional storage can be earned.
I approve of this idea, account wide would be cool but even if it's only a small, character specific lair, perhaps not on the same size scale as SG bases but certainly somewhere to keep stuff, wouold be ok.
I'd even go so far as suggesting it be just a couple of rooms max and no teleporters except for the exit or to your SG base with an option for open access (for your SG members and coalition members) SG access (SG members only) or private.
Just my 2p.
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if you're going to go with such a low limit why bother having storage at all
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Because one of the initial points of this was that you shouldn't need to have a solo SG just to have some cupboard space. If you have a PEAR with some toon level only storage, that fixes that issue specifically. If however what you want is a fascility to transfer items between toons without an sg or willing lackey then that is a seperate issue. Account wide storage, and its associated "object" (table, cupboard or wormhole), might only be necessary to serve as a way of transfering between toons, not as a permanent storage medium, if toon level storage is already available in your PEAR and your happy with that.
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Should be at minimum the same amount of storage a capped level 50 has at base
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umm... Please explain, what cap is that? You mean the salvage cap? or the 10 enhancement limit on each toon for storage? Or the maximum amount of storage i can hold in my solo base? That would be a lot, and the same amount of storage that any base has, which i have stated i dont want to emulate as i dont want to see sg base functionality undermined. Apologies for being dim/slow if i've missed something obvious here. its quite possible.
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I can think of nothing worse than having to swap back and forwards to transfer stuff from character to character because the storage cannot contain enough to be useful
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I'm only playing with the possibilities, its not a necessity for account wide storage to be substantial if your toon level storage is sufficient, and yes i am suggesting they be seperate and distinct. I'm not bothered if account wide storage is so low in space that it can only be used to transfer a few items a time. It depends what its focus is, is it to be "storage" proper, or just a means of transfering, and currently we are both hoping for personal storage of any sort to be possible. To me its better than handing over stuff i've spent hours earning to a complete stranger on the internet who i've never met in real life as a solution. Since when is that good advice? But thats the only alternative to owning an sg at the moment. Luckily for me i have finally persuaded my gf to play as well, so thats one nightmare over. Anything is better to the only two existing solutions at the moment imo.
I'd be happy with your version too i think probably, but i dont see it as a bad thing to have limited account wide storage if you also have seperate toon level storage in your PEAR. i think we both agree there need to be limits on that storage, account wide or not,for me the reason for the limits is that i would like to ensure that bases are superior in every way in functionality. I'm not going to assume your reasons are the same.
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Oh and i much prefered super jump when i first started and could be seen bouncing around the zones going "boing boing boing" was such fun
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I tried SJ on my 3rd toon and it's by far my favourite for travel powers for pure 'fun'.
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Whan I first got SJ on one of my toons, I thought I could be clever and bounce off Lusca's head. I didn't even reach it before she (it?) swatted me out of the sky. I generally get fly now, it's safer for the more impulsive amongst us 
As far as account-wide storage goes. I'd like to see that. It would make some things so much easier. But, the devs are dead set against giving us the ability to share things amongst our toons - I don't know why, other games allow it without any real problems.
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if you're going to go with such a low limit why bother having storage at all
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Because one of the initial points of this was that you shouldn't need to have a solo SG just to have some cupboard space. If you have a PEAR with some toon level only storage, that fixes that issue specifically. If however what you want is a fascility to transfer items between toons without an sg or willing lackey then that is a seperate issue. Account wide storage, and its associated "object" (table, cupboard or wormhole), might only be necessary to serve as a way of transfering between toons, not as a permanent storage medium, if toon level storage is already available in your PEAR and your happy with that.
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I don't think it is a separate issue TBH, what precisely extra do we need in the way of storage that you can't access already outside of a SG? Salvage will go into a vault and everything else can be either stored on your character or in the AH. So why would personal 'bases' need any storage? Unless of course you're going to use it to transfer between characters.
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Should be at minimum the same amount of storage a capped level 50 has at base
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umm... Please explain, what cap is that? You mean the salvage cap? or the 10 enhancement limit on each toon for storage? Or the maximum amount of storage i can hold in my solo base? That would be a lot, and the same amount of storage that any base has, which i have stated i dont want to emulate as i dont want to see sg base functionality undermined. Apologies for being dim/slow if i've missed something obvious here. its quite possible.
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By cap I meant the total amount of storage a level 50 can achieve outside of a SG. So 50+ Salvage, 20+ Inspirations. And as said ten Enhancements. Personally I'd go with 30-60 salvage, 20-30 inspirations and 10-20 enhancements.
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I can think of nothing worse than having to swap back and forwards to transfer stuff from character to character because the storage cannot contain enough to be useful
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I'm only playing with the possibilities, its not a necessity for account wide storage to be substantial if your toon level storage is sufficient, and yes i am suggesting they be seperate and distinct. I'm not bothered if account wide storage is so low in space that it can only be used to transfer a few items a time. It depends what its focus is, is it to be "storage" proper, or just a means of transfering, and currently we are both hoping for personal storage of any sort to be possible. To me its better than handing over stuff i've spent hours earning to a complete stranger on the internet who i've never met in real life as a solution. Since when is that good advice? But thats the only alternative to owning an sg at the moment. Luckily for me i have finally persuaded my gf to play as well, so thats one nightmare over. Anything is better to the only two existing solutions at the moment imo.
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No I agree, but if you set the account wide storage too low, which I felt you were suggesting, you end up with it not actually being especially useful. In the old days you used to be able to trade inf between characters. But with a maximum value of (iirc) 99,999 per trade. So the ability was there but it was so pitiful it wasn't worth being there.
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I'd be happy with your version too i think probably, but i dont see it as a bad thing to have limited account wide storage if you also have seperate toon level storage in your PEAR.
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I think rather than quibble over the idea which I am quite happy with, I'm quibbling over how limited you think the limit should be. 
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i think we both agree there need to be limits on that storage, account wide or not,for me the reason for the limits is that i would like to ensure that bases are superior in every way in functionality. I'm not going to assume your reasons are the same.
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My base at the moment has 6 salvage storage racks (used to have 9), so straight off I have more storage than anything like I am suggesting. On top of which my base has a medical bay so I can go there instead of the hospital, teleports to nearly all the zones. Enhancement storage so I can store 200 enhancements and crafting gizmo's for short term buffs and enhancements And I can store inspirations.
I really don't think that player 'housing' will in any real way detract from any but the most basic of bases. And I suspect that the most basic of bases now are going to be for those people who are using them as 'housing'.
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I don't think it is a separate issue TBH, what precisely extra do we need in the way of storage that you can't access already outside of a SG? Salvage will go into a vault and everything else can be either stored on your character or in the AH. So why would personal 'bases' need any storage? Unless of course you're going to use it to transfer between characters.
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Good point about the Auction House, i had completly left that out of my thinking. But the amount you can store in the Auction House is pitiful (18 on my oldest toon i think) as well so that proves your point as far as if capacity isn't good enough it might be more frustrating than anything else. I would like the fascility to store up a few sets i've made and bought, for instance for a future respec i'm planning to unleash on my enemies, or just any of the same storage related reasons why i ended up creating an sg for myself in the first place (i just wanted more than one toon had).
Am i right in thinking that you're advocating only account wide storage in the PEAR? You seem to want extra storage and PEAR's but by your statement above not want extra toon level storage at all...? Just want to be clear. Apologies in advance if again i've misinterpreted.
If thats the case, we can just agree to disagree on that, i would prefer to see a mixture of extra personal storage along with the fascility to transfer stuff between toons. In the same way that the AH is not really sufficient as a storage mechanism for me but perfectly fit for purpose as a buying and selling medium, i would be happy to see account wide storage as smaller in capacity, but good enough for temporarily holding items until the intended toon logs in thats going to collect them and hold in its own personal storage. If however your version was implemented instead, with a larger capacity for account wide storage but no extra personal storage as such, i'd be happy too with that. i just prefer my version, but seeing as neither version has been implemented and we're not able to mind control the devs to force it one way or another, its all moot to me.
I see storage as "purchaseable" in incremental steps for PEARS, and with PEARS being personal to the toon they are created for. Any functionality thats put in them via purchaseable items would not, therefore appear in another toons (hero to hero/ villain to villain) PEAR on your account. Otherwise again you are straitjacketing a PEAR in the same way as an sg base. You would have to choose the storage that one toon over all the others needed, and that storage would have to appear in every other toons PEAR whether it was wanted or not, to the same degree or not. Account wide storage should be more of a fascility in transfering rather than storage to me, so a single item providing that functionality, if bought at the toon level, across all your toons seperate PEAR's makes more sense to me. All those toons that have bought it can share stuff, those that haven't cant. I like the idea of each toons PEAR having only the functionality and storage that is suited to that toon, like each base is, which is the players choice ofcourse, limited by what that toon can purchase with its own inf/money. Even if that inf can be transfered from another toon. Some of us are pedantic and like to go through the motions of "earning" certain things toon by toon. I believe also in Guildwars, that each toon has to specifically buy the "fascility" to store items in the account wide Xunlai chest.
For PEAR's, having to save and buy over time the functionality and decorative items within your fave toons PEAR should be something you should enjoy doing seperately with each toon, or not do, if you dont want certain or all toons to have a PEAR. I dont like the idea of buying/creating it once on one toon and its present for all PEARS on ever other toon. The way account wide storage is implemented in Guildwars is good, but its not very exciting, it does the job, but otherwise its one box that sits in the middle of various locations with an agent standing next to it. You pay a minimal amount of money to access it the first time and thats it, its all the same for all toons. I like the idea of being able to go to various and multiple different objects in a PEAR to access different types of storage (bookcases for recipes?). I also like the idea that the storage should be limited per storage object (5 items per table or rack of shelves, for example only!) in the same way that its done for sg base storage, just scaled down slightly. If you want more shelves, boxes, vaults or other storage objects then you should have the freedom to expand your toons personal storage as you see fit. It would feel more realistic and therefore be more immersive, and give a feel of depth to a PEAR, than a generic buy once only item that does everything storage related for every toon on your account as in Guildwars. PEAR's should be as cutomisable as bases, but scaled down in functionality, size and cost so as to reflect the smaller scope of a PEAR compared to an sg.
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No I agree, but if you set the account wide storage too low, which I felt you were suggesting, you end up with it not actually being especially useful. In the old days you used to be able to trade inf between characters. But with a maximum value of (iirc) 99,999 per trade. So the ability was there but it was so pitiful it wasn't worth being there.
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Yes, i remember that time and i get your point. I think its the same point i would make, and made, about the AH being used as a storage medium. You can do it, but its going to be very frustrating because its not really good enough as a generic storage medium. Again, i think, but could be wrong, you are in favour of larger account wide storage, whilst i would prefer larger toon level storage fascilities in a PEAR, with the fascility to transfer items to other accounts via a smaller account wide storage medium. Again, if thats the case, we can agree to disagree.
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I really don't think that player 'housing' will in any real way detract from any but the most basic of bases.
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I hope not, i certainly dont want it to. Bases are a valuable part of the game for me, i would hate to think that a new addition to the game broke an existing "good thing". Definitely not what i want.
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And I suspect that the most basic of bases now are going to be for those people who are using them as 'housing'.
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Yes, agreed. Thats how mine started, but with a gf whose tf crazy and now more hooked than i am, my base is starting to look like a base for an sg with at least ten active players. And it always nice to get the sg badges too...
Signed, signed, and signed.
Brilliant idea, just like the warehouse system in Lineage 2. It will add a new level of depth, and character development to everyone's toons, AND allow people to avoid having their stuff stolen by having to rely on strangers.
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But the amount you can store in the Auction House is pitiful (18 on my oldest toon i think)
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But those 18 slots can store 180 recipes or 180 salvage or 18 enhancements. If you have a character that doesn't use the AH, I have several, they can be used to store a huge amount of stuff.
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Am i right in thinking that you're advocating only account wide storage in the PEAR? You seem to want extra storage and PEAR's but by your statement above not want extra toon level storage at all...? Just want to be clear. Apologies in advance if again i've misinterpreted.
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I'm advocating a personal base that would work like an account/side wide house for your characters. So each server/side would have a separate one eg all your heroes on defiant would have access to one and the villains on Union another.
Within the house/base/apple/etc you would have some storage that could be used by all the characters that have access to that house to store enhancements, salvage or recipes in limited amounts (but not so limited as to be pointless ).
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I see storage as "purchaseable" in incremental steps for PEARS, and with PEARS being personal to the toon they are created for. Any functionality thats put in them via purchaseable items would not, therefore appear in another toons (hero to hero/ villain to villain) PEAR on your account.
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Apart from storage as I see it above and perhaps access to a SG base I don't think there should be any functionality to personal spaces. As you say you earn that for SG bases, adding it to in effect free space would be counter productive. Perhaps access to the tailor, which bases don't have and would be thematically in keeping with the personal space idea.
I think I would probably make the personal space subject to a booster pack (which would generate funds for the game) but also reduce the amount of data storage that the devs would need because not everyone would buy the booster.
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Otherwise again you are straitjacketing a PEAR in the same way as an sg base. You would have to choose the storage that one toon over all the others needed, and that storage would have to appear in every other toons PEAR whether it was wanted or not, to the same degree or not.
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One of the reasons why I don't want a tiny storage allocation. But I think if you do it like this people won't just hoard everything, because if you have say twenty characters using one 'house' there won't be enough storage for all their gear, so some will have to be sold, or at least stored in a more socially acceptable way.
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Account wide storage should be more of a fascility in transfering rather than storage to me,
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If it is just transfer of items you want from it surely an easier method of doing that would be to implement some sort of mail system similar to WoW, you'd get all the functionality without the additional over heads, plus you can then establish a trading interface bypassing the AH and its associated costs.
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seperate PEAR's makes more sense to me.
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But not for me...
It comes down in a way to how you plot your characters. Most of my Defiant heroes are close personal friends, they share their equipment, they share everything... including beds in one case. They would if given the chance set up a single house for themselves, after all they aren't all going to be there at once so why not? In that context storage that is in the house would be far more sensible to be shared than if each had their own house and couldn't share without their next door neighbour holding onto stuff for them.
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I believe also in Guildwars, that each toon has to specifically buy the "fascility" to store items in the account wide Xunlai chest.
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Its true, quite annoying too. 
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For PEAR's, having to save and buy over time the functionality and decorative items within your fave toons PEAR should be something you should enjoy doing seperately with each toon, or not do, if you dont want certain or all toons to have a PEAR. I dont like the idea of buying/creating it once on one toon and its present for all PEARS on ever other toon. The way account wide storage is implemented in Guildwars is good, but its not very exciting, it does the job, but otherwise its one box that sits in the middle of various locations with an agent standing next to it. You pay a minimal amount of money to access it the first time and thats it, its all the same for all toons. I like the idea of being able to go to various and multiple different objects in a PEAR to access different types of storage (bookcases for recipes?). I also like the idea that the storage should be limited per storage object (5 items per table or rack of shelves, for example only!) in the same way that its done for sg base storage, just scaled down slightly. If you want more shelves, boxes, vaults or other storage objects then you should have the freedom to expand your toons personal storage as you see fit. It would feel more realistic and therefore be more immersive, and give a feel of depth to a PEAR, than a generic buy once only item that does everything storage related for every toon on your account as in Guildwars. PEAR's should be as cutomisable as bases, but scaled down in functionality, size and cost so as to reflect the smaller scope of a PEAR compared to an sg.
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I think that such a method of creating a 'house' per character would stop me after the first one. Don't get me wrong I enjoy using the Base editor now, I've done some funky things with what I have, and I'd enjoy doing it with a 'house' but I wouldn't want to have to do it for every character on defiant (some thing like 30 characters just hero side). For storage having lots of small amounts of storage just means you'd never be able to find what you wanted, especially if you have 30 characters each with ten book cases holding five recipes each.
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You can do it, but its going to be very frustrating because its not really good enough as a generic storage medium. Again, i think, but could be wrong, you are in favour of larger account wide storage, whilst i would prefer larger toon level storage fascilities in a PEAR, with the fascility to transfer items to other accounts via a smaller account wide storage medium. Again, if thats the case, we can agree to disagree.
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I think that you want to over complicate the whole issue. IMO Limited storage on an account/server/side basis which allows transferring of items in a limited way between characters on the same account/server/side and is interfaced through a new player owned (rather than collectively owned) base, is an awful lot simpler than increasing personal storage and implementing both housing and some sort of account wide storage.
The devs have already said that they don't want to increase our personal storage as they fear that too many people would hoard stuff and kill the AH. If you increase every characters storage space across the board that would be entirely what you are doing. If however you only increased each characters storage by a tiny amount that on its own is of little use then you don't run that risk. Adding the tiny additions together to make a large collective pool for several characters would then be a sensible option.
The other thing that I think should be thought about is server data storage, the more complicated the solution, in the sense of adding more stuff per character the more data that will have to be stored and transmitted. One house per account might take up 100k of data (no idea how much it really takes) if you then say you have all character slots open on an account they still only take up 100k. If you say that each house is individual to the character with all slots open your looking at 3Mb or more of storage/transfer.
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But the amount you can store in the Auction House is pitiful (18 on my oldest toon i think)
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But those 18 slots can store 180 recipes or 180 salvage or 18 enhancements. If you have a character that doesn't use the AH, I have several, they can be used to store a huge amount of stuff.
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Not even to sell stuff? If so, that's a bit like saying "if you're a nudist, you can keep a lot of tools in your wardrobe". Sure, but it doesn't tell the average Joe much.
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I'm advocating a personal base that would work like an account/side wide house for your characters. So each server/side would have a separate one
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Me, I don't see that it shouldn't cross servers, since the AH does.
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Apart from storage as I see it above and perhaps access to a SG base I don't think there should be any functionality to personal spaces. As you say you earn that for SG bases, adding it to in effect free space would be counter productive.
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It would be free space, but the facilities could cost influence. Also, you don't earn your first 300,000 prestige of SG base (but see below).
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I think I would probably make the personal space subject to a booster pack (which would generate funds for the game) but also reduce the amount of data storage that the devs would need because not everyone would buy the booster.
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The data storage requirement is laughably tiny. The issue with paid boosters is the same one that keeps coming up with PEARS; if it's less good than a personal SG base, why bother? Having to pay money definitely qualifies.
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If you say that each house is individual to the character with all slots open your looking at 3Mb or more of storage/transfer.
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At a generous estimate, the cost of backed-up racked good quality disc in a server facility is ten times the cost of just buying a disc. Right now, a terabyte goes for about 60 quid (no serious effort made to find the cheapest possible). So that 3Mb of backed-up etc storage will cost about 1/5 of a penny.
I don't think there is _any_ set of estimates that can make the data storage requirement for PEARS come out to anything but trivial sums of money.
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The devs have already said that they don't want to increase our personal storage as they fear that too many people would hoard stuff and kill the AH.
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Now here's the core of the problem. Here, I'm talking only about "could PEARS remove the incentive to have a personal SG that means that few people join other SGs". I realise there are other reasons why PEARS might be interesting.
Right now, a personal SG base can easily store 270 invention salvage items. (I'm going to talk about invention salvage because that's the capacity that is hardest to get - inspiration and enhancement racks are huge by comparison). With work you can increase that to 540, but all you need to get 270 is to borrow a friend for ten minutes, get 12 copies of yourself in the SG, and slap down a workshop and nine storage racks.
But as long as that's true, it doesn't matter how good PEARS are. If PEARS are much worse than a personal SG - say, I have to pay real money for significant storage - I'll just have the personal SG. But if PEARS are as good as a personal SG - and right now that means "can store 270 salvage items for little or no effort" - whoops, I'll have a personal SG _as well_, and we've just doubled everyone's personal storage which is a no-no.
The only way this could be made to work is if SGs gained that 20,000 prestige per member on a per account basis, with multiple alts not counting. I can't see that being a popular decision.
Summary - I don't think PEARS can solve the original problem, that of people using personal SGs and not joining SGs with other players, because personal SGs are just too good, and will stay that good regardless of how good PEARS are.
The only thing I can see that might work is to make PEARS as good as personal SGs - maybe with one or two chrome features like tailor access, but if you have a PEARS then your toons can only count once in an SG for the 15-member prestige awards. So if I've got a personal SG, I can go right on using it (so no cries of NERF DOOM etc); if I prefer a PEARS, I can't get two lots of free storage.
First off, Welcome to the Wall Of Text!
onwards...
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But the amount you can store in the Auction House is pitiful (18 on my oldest toon I think)[ QUOTE ]
But those 18 slots can store 180 recipes or 180 salvage or 18 enhancements. If you have a character that doesn't use the AH, I have several, they can be used to store a huge amount of stuff.
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All my toons use the AH, I do missions, they get drops, they get sold via the AH, simple as. The more you use it the more Wentworths badges you get, the more "slots" in the AH you can earn. Regardless, taking my oldest toon as an example, with 18 slots, I can only store 18 different items. I would not want to "store" 10 of the same item, except to sell, so to me, the AH, as a storage medium, would only hold 18 items total, not 180. I would like the fascility to store enhancement sets ahead of the time that I will use them for respeccing, in the same way that storage is used in my personal sg, which certainly holds more than 18 items, the same or not. As I said, the AH is really only fit for purpose as a buying and selling medium, but works very well in that capacity.
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I'm advocating a personal base that would work like an account/side wide house for your characters. So each server/side would have a separate one eg all your heroes on defiant would have access to one and the villains on Union another.
Within the house/base/apple/etc you would have some storage that could be used by all the characters that have access to that house to store enhancements, salvage or recipes in limited amounts (but not so limited as to be pointless ).
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It seems to me that your advocating more a sort of generic warehouse for all account wide storage (lets leave definitions of "account wide" for now, I think we are agreed "account wide" is over stating it somewhat). You would have a player based extra "cupboard" that would be personal to the player not the players individual toons. You are free to suggest that, but if we have PEAR's as well, it makes more sense for that storage to be somehow included in that, game immersion being fairly important to me.
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Otherwise again you are straitjacketing a PEAR in the same way as an sg base. You would have to choose the storage that one toon over all the others needed, and that storage would have to appear in every other toons PEAR whether it was wanted or not, to the same degree or not.[ QUOTE ]
One of the reasons why I don't want a tiny storage allocation. But I think if you do it like this people won't just hoard everything, because if you have say twenty characters using one 'house' there won't be enough storage for all their gear, so some will have to be sold, or at least stored in a more socially acceptable way.
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I think you make a good point there, but I dont think it holds enough water so to speak. Yes, your suggestion here is a nice tidy solution to hoarding, if the player had no alternative. Which they do. They could create their own sg, along with base and storage, something this suggestion was made to avoid in the first place. Each player, can already create their own sg along with base if they require or want to. But, if PEAR's are implemented the way I think they should be, there would be no need to create an sg and base just for storage alone, and be a lot less likely to create supergroups of their own that they solo run like mine, and therefore be more likely to actually join another supergroup for all the other benefits that supergroups should provide. If creating a supergroup had stringent requirements that needed to be met your idea might be tenable, and it is a good idea. But its too easily circumnavigated, and the solution to it would be to just go back to what is already available, create your own sg, something this thread was meant to suggest ways of avoiding in the first place.
Regardless of whether every toon actually has their own sg, which we know they dont, every toon has the abiliy to start one. So whats the difference with a PEAR? If most of my toons had their PEAR and storage, along with the fascility to transfer items safely across to other toons, there would not be a need for me to start my own sg, just for some glorified cupboard space. I might still create one, but it would be more likely because I was actually interested in devoting some time in game to building up and bringing together a group of like minded players for the fun stuff supergroups and bases can be used for. There would be no viable reason for solo supergroups, although there's none so queer as folk, so you might still get the odd player, who just wants a solo supergroup because he "just does".
Its very easy now for any player to own their own solo supergroup, with maximum storage. But it doesn't make sense in game. Why would anyone call themselves a seperate name on top of their hero/villain nickname just because they wanted a cupboard? You'd just buy/build somewhere, stick a cupboard in there and get on with it. No need to make a drama out of it. But at the moment, we create a name for a "supegroup" of one toon so that we can create a base, so that we can add a cupboard. Its just not consistent.
Yes, a PEAR might be extra info to be stored server side, but they have already given every toon the ability to create their own supergroup and base as well. Again, if you dont want a PEAR for every toon, same as with supergroups and bases, you dont have to have them. But if you do want the functionality of a PEAR with storage, only having supergroup bases as an option is overkill, both as an option to transfer items and store them. If you have a PEAR you are much less likely to need a supergroup, bases provide lots of storage because they need to for lots of characters/toons, a PEAR wouldn't have to. I'd say total of 60ish enhancement slots of storage, so at any one time you'd have storage for one respec's worth of sets. That should be more than enough I think, but others may disagree.
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If it is just transfer of items you want from it surely an easier method of doing that would be to implement some sort of mail system similar to WoW, you'd get all the functionality without the additional over heads, plus you can then establish a trading interface bypassing the AH and its associated costs.
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Could do, agreed. No reason that cant be done from within a PEAR or anywhere else if its a "clicky/glowie" type item that has that functionailty, but if the devs simply made it part of the existing "email" (used tongue in cheek) system then it would at least be an improvement over what we have currently. Its always nicer though when functionality can be mixed/included with game content though, like the AH and Ivention tables, in a way that doesn't break game immersion. But for the record, a method to transfer items is not all I want, its just one of the items on the list.
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It comes down in a way to how you plot your characters. Most of my Defiant heroes are close personal friends, they share their equipment, they share everything... including beds in one case. They would if given the chance set up a single house for themselves, after all they aren't all going to be there at once so why not? In that context storage that is in the house would be far more sensible to be shared than if each had their own house and couldn't share without their next door neighbour holding onto stuff for them.
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Then a supergroup base would make sense for that sort of toon concept. As you said to Evangel earlier ("You have the absolute right to play your alts as you like"), its up to you how you envisage your toons interacting with each other. You already have an option for shared storage. Your toons might very well set up a group together and therefore a base (or comfy shared flat if thats how you want to design it), or not. Currently you only have the choice of a supergroup base, there is no other choice for a toon that doesn't want to setup a supergroup, which I would not envisage a lot of my toons doing, but for item security and storage options there is no other choice. My suggestion does not prevent you from having the shared space you envisage your toons having, and helps toons that just want storage and their own place, no sharing, no supergroup. If sharing is wanted, I go back to the "fascility" of being able to transfer items from one toon to another. Yes, it could be done via email (already discussed here ) with very little difficulty, that would be utterly boring, but maybe the easiest way to implement it, I dont actually know. it could also be done via the wormhole/pocket dimension/gizmo type idea I came up with earlier. Or you could have a seperate storage item for "shared" storage account wide. Either way, there is merit in the idea for PEARS alone, with storage of whatever type inside. You advocate only account wide storage, and I understand your reasons for that, but I dont think that will address sufficiently the issues that drive players to create solo sg's along with the handicaps that entails, which was one of the bugbears that started this thread in the first place. I really do think we will have to agree to disagree.
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The devs have already said that they don't want to increase our personal storage as they fear that too many people would hoard stuff and kill the AH. If you increase every characters storage space across the board that would be entirely what you are doing. If however you only increased each characters storage by a tiny amount that on its own is of little use then you don't run that risk. Adding the tiny additions together to make a large collective pool for several characters would then be a sensible option.
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Another good point, but one which I dont think holds enough water, for already stated reasons, but first things first. I was not aware of the devs statement regarding extra storage so that is good to know, going forward. Out of interest, do you have a linky to that statement? No worries if not, it sounds plausible and is not meant as a challenge. It would just be good to see the whole topic's ins and outs as it were.
Secondly, every toon already has the ability to create its own maxed out storage base. But in order to do so it has to create a supergroup. This should not be necessary. The motivation to create your own supergroup will not be there if PEAR's are properly implemented (personal storage and account wide item transfers), and supergroups will more than likely become what they always should be, groups of players with some of their toons maybe in one group, maybe some in another, and maybe some in none, just content with their own PEAR and whatever it contains. Solo supergroups are in most cases there not because players want a single toon/player group, but because something is missing from the games functionality or content in terms of security (asking mules to hold your stuff), capacity (not enough existing storage without a base) or creativity (i cant own a living space in keeping with my toons concept, without forming a supergroup, scrabbling for prestige and making a base). Your suggestion does not adequately solve, if at all, those problems imo.
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The other thing that I think should be thought about is server data storage, the more complicated the solution, in the sense of adding more stuff per character the more data that will have to be stored and transmitted. One house per account might take up 100k of data (no idea how much it really takes) if you then say you have all character slots open on an account they still only take up 100k. If you say that each house is individual to the character with all slots open your looking at 3Mb or more of storage/transfer.
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Not sure what your reasoning is here. Using your game client you only ever access one toon/area combo instance at a time. You, whoever is in your team and the area you are in. When you access your PEAR it would be the information for that area instance only you would be accessing from the server, same as if you were accessing your supergroup base (which can hold a fairly huge amount, 10,000+ items, in it already)
I have always said that PEAR's should be scaled down compared to bases. Yes, PEAR's would take up extra server side storage, but so would extra content of any sort. We ARE proposing extra content. Thats always been a given to me. Anything extra, content wise, will most likely increase the storage required for the game on the server side. The client also has been increasing since I first started playing about 3 years ago. I dont know the numbers, and am not going to pretend to, I am making a suggestion alone. Its up to the devs to prioritise based on feasability and merit. I am not going to keep quiet about a potentially good idea because of the possibility it may be an extra 100KB or 1MB of extra info.
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Not even to sell stuff? If so, that's a bit like saying "if you're a nudist, you can keep a lot of tools in your wardrobe". Sure, but it doesn't tell the average Joe much.
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No not even to sell stuff. I have one or two characters per account I use for selling, buying and being repositories for most of my cash. I also tend to do all my crafting on one character too.
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I'm advocating a personal base that would work like an account/side wide house for your characters. So each server/side would have a separate one
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Me, I don't see that it shouldn't cross servers, since the AH does.
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I'm not actually against it, just don't really see a need for it, but that could be because I only play on one server.
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It would be free space, but the facilities could cost influence. Also, you don't earn your first 300,000 prestige of SG base (but see below).
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It's effectively free either way, you don't have to be part of a SG to access it, and you get one regardless of what SG you're in. The fact that it costs cash wasn't what I'm trying to say.
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The data storage requirement is laughably tiny.
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At a generous estimate, the cost of backed-up racked good quality disc in a server facility is ten times the cost of just buying a disc. Right now, a terabyte goes for about 60 quid (no serious effort made to find the cheapest possible). So that 3Mb of backed-up etc storage will cost about 1/5 of a penny.
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Assuming that every current subscriber decides that they want an APPLE for their character, and assuming that each has four servers full of characters (12 per server). Assume that the current subscribers is 30k. Using my figures and I'll restate I don't actually know the size of these things I get about 144,000,000k data storage and the bandwidth to go with it.
In reality while many people would only have one for a single character or only a few, some people who have significantly more characters than 48 would have one for each and push the associated costs up.
Now I'm not saying that this is insurmountable, as I don't honestly know. But I do know that the devs have said in the past that they'd rather not give people more storage for various things due to data storage and bandwidth. So its something to think on. We're more likely to get one ORANGE per account than one TANGERINE per character.
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Now here's the core of the problem. Here, I'm talking only about "could PEARS remove the incentive to have a personal SG that means that few people join other SGs". I realise there are other reasons why PEARS might be interesting.
Right now, a personal SG base can easily store 270 invention salvage items. (I'm going to talk about invention salvage because that's the capacity that is hardest to get - inspiration and enhancement racks are huge by comparison). With work you can increase that to 540, but all you need to get 270 is to borrow a friend for ten minutes, get 12 copies of yourself in the SG, and slap down a workshop and nine storage racks.
But as long as that's true, it doesn't matter how good PEARS are. If PEARS are much worse than a personal SG - say, I have to pay real money for significant storage - I'll just have the personal SG. But if PEARS are as good as a personal SG - and right now that means "can store 270 salvage items for little or no effort" - whoops, I'll have a personal SG _as well_, and we've just doubled everyone's personal storage which is a no-no.
The only way this could be made to work is if SGs gained that 20,000 prestige per member on a per account basis, with multiple alts not counting. I can't see that being a popular decision.
Summary - I don't think PEARS can solve the original problem, that of people using personal SGs and not joining SGs with other players, because personal SGs are just too good, and will stay that good regardless of how good PEARS are.
The only thing I can see that might work is to make PEARS as good as personal SGs - maybe with one or two chrome features like tailor access, but if you have a PEARS then your toons can only count once in an SG for the 15-member prestige awards. So if I've got a personal SG, I can go right on using it (so no cries of NERF DOOM etc); if I prefer a PEARS, I can't get two lots of free storage.
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I agree, at least in part. Two things I think you overlook though. One creating a personal SG, inviting your extra 14 characters (bonus prestige is for first 15 members), bearing in mind if you only have one account you potentially have to have a stranger invite you and your alts into the SG in the first place. True once you've gone to the point its mostly plain sailing. However it is a lot of hassle, it does require some forethought. And two if you are in a personal SG you aren't in a SG with all your friends. Yes you might be able to get round that by coalitioning with them so you get shared chat and ability to use their teleporters until you can afford the prestige to setup your own. But ultimately you're on your own.
A personal space that also includes account wide storage I call it APSTAIAWS it doesn't trip of the tongue quite like Kumquat but hey... Personal housing will do all that, allow you to transfer easily with little or no setup between characters and allow you to remain in your existing SG where you may or may not have the ability to store stuff. And it'll be secure because that lowbie you invited to your SG a week ago can't rip you off.
I don't want it to replace SGs, or SG bases in any way shape nor form. I want it to coexist with them offering something that they don't and allowing them to offer something that APSTAIAWSs don't.
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Assuming that every current subscriber decides that they want an APPLE for their character, and assuming that each has four servers full of characters (12 per server). Assume that the current subscribers is 30k. Using my figures and I'll restate I don't actually know the size of these things I get about 144,000,000k data storage and the bandwidth to go with it.
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144Gb of disc is, what, about a tenner? So that would be a hundred quid for 144Gb of backed-up quality disc in a server facility. That's a hundred quid total to serve every subscriber. The data storage costs are, I reiterate, laughably small.
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But I do know that the devs have said in the past that they'd rather not give people more storage for various things due to data storage and bandwidth.
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I think the "effect on the AH" explanation is far more plausible, inasmuch as it actually makes any sense.
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I agree, at least in part. Two things I think you overlook though. One creating a personal SG, inviting your extra 14 characters (bonus prestige is for first 15 members)
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I'm well aware of that, but if you look at the actual costs of warehouse rooms and racks you will see that 12 members gets you 270 salvage slots and 15 members gets you exactly no additional salvage slots. That is why I produced "12 members, 270 slots" as the no-effort figure.
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bearing in mind if you only have one account you potentially have to have a stranger invite you and your alts into the SG in the first place.
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It doesn't matter that they're a stranger (you don't have any storage to steal from until after you're finished with the stranger) and it takes maybe five minutes at a busy time to round someone up who'll do it (and six more minutes relogging) so I don't see this as a serious issue.
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And two if you are in a personal SG you aren't in a SG with all your friends.
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That is true, but we _started_ with the observation that many people prefer 270 salvage slots to an SG with their friends.
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I don't want it to replace SGs, or SG bases in any way shape nor form. I want it to coexist with them offering something that they don't and allowing them to offer something that APSTAIAWSs don't.
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I think that's misguided, not that PEARS with non-SG-base features couldn't be interesting. The original motivation was to encourage people to join multiple-player SGs rather than using personal SGs by, rather than nerfing personal SGs, provide the functionality some other way. That can only work if PEARS _do_ actually provide the functionality of a personal SG base!
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It seems to me that your advocating more a sort of generic warehouse for all account wide storage (lets leave definitions of "account wide" for now, I think we are agreed "account wide" is over stating it somewhat). You would have a player based extra "cupboard" that would be personal to the player not the players individual toons. You are free to suggest that, but if we have PEAR's as well, it makes more sense for that storage to be somehow included in that, game immersion being fairly important to me.
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That is precisely waht I am suggesting, though I do see it as a proper 'house' for my characters to live in. Yes they would have storage there, there should be no reason why they wouldn't. To then suggest that even though they work together, play together, sleep together and in several cases have the same parents. That storage is completely separate and one cannot loan or give something that another needs. Would to me make the whole point of personal accommodation pointless. And while I can understand that you don't play the game this way, while my suggestion would break the immersion for you. Yours would equally break it for me.
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Otherwise again you are straitjacketing a PEAR in the same way as an sg base. You would have to choose the storage that one toon over all the others needed, and that storage would have to appear in every other toons PEAR whether it was wanted or not, to the same degree or not.[ QUOTE ]
One of the reasons why I don't want a tiny storage allocation. But I think if you do it like this people won't just hoard everything, because if you have say twenty characters using one 'house' there won't be enough storage for all their gear, so some will have to be sold, or at least stored in a more socially acceptable way.
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I think you make a good point there, but I dont think it holds enough water so to speak. Yes, your suggestion here is a nice tidy solution to hoarding, if the player had no alternative. Which they do. They could create their own sg, along with base and storage, something this suggestion was made to avoid in the first place. Each player, can already create their own sg along with base if they require or want to.
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So how would you stop that? Remove all storage from Personal Housing? Either you allow people to have both or make one so limited that only the die hard RPers would even bother.
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Regardless of whether every toon actually has their own sg, which we know they dont, every toon has the abiliy to start one. So whats the difference with a PEAR? If most of my toons had their PEAR and storage, along with the facility to transfer items safely across to other toons, there would not be a need for me to start my own sg, just for some glorified cupboard space. I might still create one, but it would be more likely because I was actually interested in devoting some time in game to building up and bringing together a group of like minded players for the fun stuff supergroups and bases can be used for. There would be no viable reason for solo supergroups, although there's none so queer as folk, so you might still get the odd player, who just wants a solo supergroup because he "just does".
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As long as you see SG bases as glorified cupboard space you won't see the point though. As I have said before I'm in a SG, I created and now I wrested the reins away from an evil usurper I retain sole control over it. I do have quite a bit of storage in there, but most of the base is as it is to give me easy access to the different zones (I have two large teleport rooms), missions (I have an Orubos crystal) and a medibay (some zones are easy to return through the base than the hospital).
If I had access to personal housing, if said housing could be used to transfer between characters then I could use the SG base more as it was intended from the start, for a SG.
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Its very easy now for any player to own their own solo supergroup, with maximum storage. But it doesn't make sense in game. Why would anyone call themselves a seperate name on top of their hero/villain nickname just because they wanted a cupboard? You'd just buy/build somewhere, stick a cupboard in there and get on with it. No need to make a drama out of it. But at the moment, we create a name for a "supegroup" of one toon so that we can create a base, so that we can add a cupboard. Its just not consistent.
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It depends on how you RP your game, and for me a personal SG is personal to my self not a single character or account. Yes each and everyone of my characters could have their own SG, and I could even come up with plots and stories as to why the game never sees their compatriots.
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Again, if you dont want a PEAR for every toon, same as with supergroups and bases, you dont have to have them. But if you do want the functionality of a PEAR with storage, only having supergroup bases as an option is overkill, both as an option to transfer items and store them.
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While that works one way what if you want to share houses? What if it makes total sense to you to have a brother and sister; husband and wife; uncle and nephew live together and share their rewards?
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It comes down in a way to how you plot your characters. Most of my Defiant heroes are close personal friends, they share their equipment, they share everything... including beds in one case.
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Then a supergroup base would make sense for that sort of toon concept. As you said to Evangel earlier ("You have the absolute right to play your alts as you like"), its up to you how you envisage your toons interacting with each other. You already have an option for shared storage. Your toons might very well set up a group together and therefore a base (or comfy shared flat if thats how you want to design it), or not.
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Yet here is what I'm having issue with understanding, I want housing that everyone can use in the way that they want, I don't think having it ona per/character basis is needed or sensible but I can understand where you come from when you say it is. Yes I can make a SG base to perform as my housing, why should I have to? You don't want to have to make singleton bases for your characters because you don't feel it fits them. Why should I be forced to have my characters live alone?
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You advocate only account wide storage, and I understand your reasons for that, but I dont think that will address sufficiently the issues that drive players to create solo sg's along with the handicaps that entails, which was one of the bugbears that started this thread in the first place. I really do think we will have to agree to disagree.
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No actually you miss my point again. I want most of the stuff you have already mentioned. I disagree on the limits of storage, but that is something that the devs would decide anyway. I do think some form of account wide storage should be available even if you don't use it. But I am vehemently opposed to this idea that because there are SG bases that can be used now for non-singletons. Non-singletons don't need a fruity house.
So a compromise. Make the house that you create accessible by all your characters by default. On entry you would get the option to create a new house if the current character had no personal house, they can then create their own house that is separate from the first. But with less in the way of features than a house that belongs to many characters. Much as several people buying a house together with their combined incomes can buy a better house in a better area than those singletons who can only afford a poky little flat.
So those of us who RP their characters as one big happy family can do and those who don't wo0n't be forced into doing so.
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144Gb of disc is, what, about a tenner? So that would be a hundred quid for 144Gb of backed-up quality disc in a server facility. That's a hundred quid total to serve every subscriber. The data storage costs are, I reiterate, laughably small.
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And the data transmission costs?
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If you're currently in an SG base there is already a similar type of data transmission going on. So why worry about the data transmission associated with something people do instead of SG bases?
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And the back ups?
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I believe I have mentioned backups every time I have mentioned the rule of thumb that proper storage costs ten times what buying a disc does.
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And the extra work needed to make sure the integrity is kept?
And the work put in my support for those people who lose stuff from their houses?
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This is mounting rather a distraction from asking about the cost of storage. Presently, however, this work is done for SG bases. If people are instead using something which uses the SG base code with a different hat on, it's hard to speculate that there would be more work. Indeed, the current situation implies a lot of petitions and work when shared SG bases are stolen from. If people who belong to shared SG bases don't have to keep all their storage there, that annoyance should be diminished.
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Sure it might be laughably small, it might be so small that adding hdd wouldn't be needed. But TBH neither of us knows that do we?
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Feel free to explain what is wrong with my reasoning.
First of all, your example *is* overexaggerated, to the point of ridiculousness. Firstly, there are no IOs which make that much difference to a character, and secondly it's perfectly possible to IO out a character quite respectably for the amounts of inf anyone can make. I do it regularly.
And it is pretty easy to make money in the game. F'rex, I started a new character villainside. I couldn't help him out, as both I and my duo partner were new redside. By the time I got him up to mid levels, he had well over 50 million inf. Not by serious marketeering or especially lucky drops, but by crafting and selling the drops I got, and by getting a handful of the crafting badges and spending a few minutes every day crafting and selling common IOs. It isn't hard, and it certainly isn't dependent on being a vet. Even the odd very shiny IO is pretty easy to get. When I wanted a +stealth IO (which are rarer than rocking-hore droppings redside - they're aren't just expensive, they're flat-out unavailable) I saved up merits and bought one.
If you want to help new player get enough inf for shiny things, point them towards the market and give them a few tips.
And, WHEEEEEEEEEE! FLYIIIIIIIING! :-)
Arc#314490: Zombie Ninja Pirates!
Defiant @Grouchybeast
Death is part of my attack chain.