Archaos

I dont think insurance covers the cost of guns, it hardly covers the cost of the ship.

But when you have 5 DLC ships the no play time is reduced, and in future when they release more DLC ships it will reduce even more. If you lose 5 ships in one days play then you are unlucky or you are just throwing them away.

And to use the counter argument, when the crafters and the haulers choose not to play then you will just end up with a DLC vs DLC player game. You really have to choose which way you want to go and stick with it, you either have a game that is pure PvP which may as well just be a lobby game or an OW game which caters to differing tastes but has something for everyone. The ideal is to create some interdependancy so that all professions are catered for. The traders haul the goods and make doubloons, the crafters craft the ships and repairs etc and sell them to the PvP'ers, The PvP'ers buy the ships and carry out the RvR and protect the traders. You read the stastics and bring out comments like 11000 battles and 3000 pvp kills, but what were the figures before DLC ships were introduced? What were the figures before fine woods and limitation to crafting? Even staunch PvP players like Jodgi reacted positively to my post because all he wants is readily available ships to buy which can be achieved by a proper ships market place. There was a time in game where certain ships were being sold dirt cheap in LT because someone was crafting loads in an attempt to get gold ships, you were able to buy Bellonas at close to cost price if not below that in some cases. Why was this? It was because there were few restrictions on obtaining materials and permits. Restricting building only restricts PvP and forces people into buying DLC, which you have said yourself you decided not to make the DLC permit only because the PvP crowd would not accept that they would have to still build them.

So you play a sub game because its good and you enjoy it, so the question has to be, would you pay a sub to play NA? You admit that WoT costs much more than NA in terms of DLC but yet it hooks you because of the PvP on demand, but NA is not the sort of game that lends itself well to PvP on demand (NAL was that way) and efforts to introduce PvP on demand by means of the PZ's has been a bit hit and miss, with lots of complaints about the RoE and ganking, and the ones where cheap store bought ships can be used being more popular that the others.

The problem is you have not created the correct market place for ships, as crafters we cannot put on sale unlimited ships in multiple ports, there is no system where someone can place an order for a ship in a certain port that can be seen by everyone in nation no matter which port they are in. Even if someone had the materials and dock space to craft that ship but they already had all their ship sale slots full it would cost them money to remove a ship from sale. Also the problem with building a ship off spec is that due to the multiple wood choices you may not craft the ship they require, if I am looking for a Teak/White Oak Cerberus I am not going to consider a Live Oak/White Oak one. Create the marketplace and ship crafting will become a useful profession in the game. But in order to do that you have to open up the availability of crafting permits for the ships that people want so the crafters can make them. Currently you are killing crafting by increasing DLC ships, hiding permits behind RNG PVP activities and restricting the availability of the preferred woods.

You may be right, but look out there now and compare it to the nineties and tell me how many games are released now that are F2P P2W cash grabs that only last a year or two as compared to the nineties which had titles like FFXI and WOW which are still running today even with subscription models. The average young player nowadays is looking for the quick fix before they move on to the next hyped release, but this game appeals to a more mature client base who play the game because they love the genre. This game would never work as a F2P with cash shop as it will never attract the numbers required to make it feasible, the game is too slow to interest many younger players, it will always be a niche game for people who love the genre and for that I am sure you could have a subscription model.

and that is a game I do not play for that reason.

The thing that concerns me about this approach is that all your DLC are one off purchases, so how does that equate to an income stream to keep the game and servers going? Are you just going to release a new DLC ship every time you need more cash? Because if that is so it will make the game appear very expensive for any new player joining. As someone already pointed out the game with all DLC not counting those you plan to add next week is already costing £98.23, so someone looking at the game on Steam seeing a price for the whole bundle at around £130 is likely to be put off, I know there are a few games on Steam like this that has put me off purchasing them. I understand you do not need all the DLC to play but to me why have a game if you cannot experience all parts, or if you start playing and like it you know you will have to get those extras. I think your economic model is flawed and will only serve to drive players away from the game. I love the game but dislike how you have decided to fund it. Personally I would prefer a reasonable priced subscription, but maybe I am just old fashioned in that respect, I paid a subscription to play Final Fantasy XI for 10 years even though I probably only actively played for about 6 of those years. Yes it worked out that I paid more in the long run and also had to pay for expansions, but I felt that I was constantly getting new content. With this I feel like I'm being fleeced every time you need more money to keep the servers running.

When the Brits held Bermuda there were constant calls for there to be a freeport in that area, but since the Russians have had it this is the first time I have seen anyone ask for it.

Sorry it no longer is, it was overtaken by Singapore and they were overtaken by Shanghai.

You buy it from the admiralty for 200 doubloons.

And what do they do when the trader tool gets removed?

Well you have to explore to find out which ports have the clan resources. I have found 21 ports so far and I even found a port that has 2 clan resource missions supplying Bermuda Cedar and Sabicu logs.

Main source of doubloons now is delivery missions, I haven't bothered with traders for a while. With the missions you can work out in advance what you will get rather than the RNG of traders.

I believe the doubloon pricing is loosely based on the price the NPC will buy doubloons at, and that is 4 Reals per doubloon. It works out as 10 doubloons each for the rarer logs like White and Live oak, making them 40 Reals each. Even at a price of 20 Reals per doubloon it still works out at 200 Reals per log, which is what a lot of people were paying for them anyway pre patch. You have to bear in mind that getting doubloons now is much easier with the delivery missions which cost nothing but time.

The thing is it is not mainly afk sailing to make that much, you have to visit many ports and decide your route for delivery, keeping notes on what you find along the way, where clan resources are, which ports have large stocks of items, not everyone's cup of tea I know, but I enjoy it. Well at the end of the day the game cannot be made just to satisfy people who do not have the time to play, there are not many MMO's out there that you can just play for a few minutes at a time. This is one of those games that for a play session you have to be ready to devote at least 2 hours at a time to play. Log in and allow 30 minutes to find and sail to a battle and then allow 1.5 hours for the battle in case it lasts that long.

Although I agree in principle with the split clan resources idea in terms of making the resources more readily accessible to small clans and solo players, the plan as proposed would defeat part of the idea of having clan resources in the first place. Clan resources are a way for a nation to control the accessibility of rare resources. With the old system the ports dropped the goods and anyone could bid for them in the auction including alts from other nations, so really there was no limiting the accessibility of the resources to other nations. If you now allow part of the clan resources to be available to all the nation the alts and alt clans will have access again thus negating the need to RvR for access. The problem I see with the clan resources at the moment is that solo players and small clans cannot get access unless they are on the friend list of the port owning clan and the list has a limited number of slots. So I think the solution is to increase the number of friend slots and allow individual players to be added to the access list. This way the clan can vet the people who have access and thus exclude alts and alt clans and other persons and clans that do not assist in capturing and defending ports.

It is not that hard to farm those quantities, it just takes a little time. I started out at KPR last night and did a run to the gulf of Mexico picking up delivery orders on the way, I am now back out of the Gulf of Mexico and heading back to KPR with 30k doubloons and still around 10k to be delivered to ports around KPR. So in total I will get around 40k doubloons for around 5 hours sailing, and that is without really trying.

But why should I be restricted to carrying it in a bigger single ship, why do the resources not just drop into my warehouse and let me sort it out from there if I want to spread it among my fleet or trade it straight away? Great that you are working on new features, but some of these simple issues create frustration, please just let the reward drop into the warehouse space in the port. Regarding the comment "not let you take the mission in the first place" well it is logical if I cannot collect the reward in a port that I do not have an outpost in then I should not be able to take the mission in that port in the first place. I ended up wasting time moving doubloons there, waiting the 24 hours for the resources, getting ships there to take the resources only to find that I cannot collect it, so now I have to move my ships back to an outpost empty, rejig my outposts so I can open an outpost in that port and then move my ships back to pick up the goods. Its all right saying "Resources are safe waiting for you. Waiting for the bigger ships." but that means that I now have reduced mission slots because one is taken up with that mission, and even 10 mission slots is not enough if you want to do economy. PvE and PvP missions.

I placed a clan resource order in a port where I did not have an outpost and 24 hours later when I came to pick up the resources it will not allow me collect them as it states my ship will be overloaded. It does not seem to consider that I may have ships in fleet or someone else that I will trade the resources to in that port after I receive them. Basically this means that you cannot do a clan resource mission in a port where you do not have an outpost as all the resource missions give 5k of the resource and the largest hold size you can have is 4.8k. If this was the intention then it should not let you take the mission in the first place. I have just wasted my time getting my ship there to collect the resources and bringing doubloons there to place another order only to find I cannot. I have F11'ed it but again I hope this is fixed soon or we are given more outpost slots so we can setup outposts to pick up these clan resources.

I am begining to suspect it is only certain ports this affects or that for some reason members of the port owning clan are unable to generate the missions as I have been able to do another mission in another clans port where my clan is on the friend list. So 3 times I have done missions in other clans ports but none where my own clan owns the port. Maybe someone else could confirm if they have been able to do the mission if their clan are the port owners?

I get the message "Unable to Generate Quest" when trying to take a clan resource quest. I have previously completed clan resource quests a couple of times in a port where my clan was on the friend list but when I tried to take a quest for clan resources in a port owned by my clan I get the message "unable to Generate Quest" even though I have sufficient doubloons, I am in the owning clan am onboard a ship and have spare mission slots. I have seen others report similar difficulties and I am not sure whether the issue is the fact that I am in the port owning clan rather than on the friend list. I have F11'ed it as well, but this problem needs urgent looking into as rare resources are currently scarce and people need to get their crafting up and running again.

This reminds me very much of some of the suggestions I put forward a while back in the below thread

I think this change is a welcome one and if done correctly should bring more interest in port management. I hope also that a change will be considered to port upkeep fees and that instead of just a daily payment of Reals taken from the clan bank that ports required various trade goods for their upkeep. Stock items for every port such as grain, meats etc. and more luxury items for more developed ports, Items like the trade woods and Lancashire iron for shipbuilding towns. This would mean the owning clan would have to source and supply the town with these items to keep it going. If unable to supply then maybe the effectiveness of the ship building would reduce or there would not be enough garrison to man the forts or the production reduces. This would also allow economic sabotage by an enemy nation blockading a port to prevent traders entering with the supplies it would also help tie in many of the existing trade goods into a functioning economy as port owners could post contracts for items they need and are not able to transport themselves.

They should allow the forts be manned by players and the forts to also have the ability to mount mortars. That way the fort could choose its target at the direction of the port battle commander and also be able to hit back at the mortar brigs.