Map voting announced

AnOldFart

So map voting has now been announced, info taken from slapshots post in a different thread since I know its correct at the time of me posting.

—————————————————————

Here is the info from the Dev Journal:

World Generation is no small task, and is something we've been working on continuously for the better part of the project. But with pre-Alpha once again visible in the distance, and Map Voting and Domain & Settlement Selection rapidly approaching, our need to procedurally create the continents, settlements, buildings, and points of interest has never been higher. So in Release 0.5.0 myself, Souzou, and Raevantiel will be finishing a significant portion of the procedural world-building mechanics in preparation for the launch of Map Voting.

And when is Map Voting, you may ask? Well, as promised in the Release 0.4.0 completion blog, the release of Map Voting is just around the corner. While the news and announcement post containing the final rules and information on the map voting process will be published a few days ahead of it on the 18th, Map Voting itself will begin the 22nd... of October. So, you know, soon™.

But elsewhere Caspien has stated that:

Caspian09/29/2018

OK. RE: Map voting. Official rules will be posted when it's ready. That said, we've locked in the rules, etc. and are very happy with where it is now, as it's simple, straight forward, and logical. 1. Your votes are weighted by influence, divided by your total number of votes. So if you vote once, it's worth 100% of your influence. If you vote twice, each vote is worth 50%, etc. The more you vote, the less each vote is worth. 2. Voting will be done in a couple rounds. Round 1 will be all the servers except OCE voting on a pool of 20 maps to determine which 5 maps will be voted on for their server. 3. Round two will be all servers,and will be for each server to decide which map they want of the 5 available. That's it. Simple. At the end of Round 2, each server will know which map will be theirs. Note that round 1 is open results. So you'll be able to see how each map is fairing on each server. Round 2 is closed results, and the results of the vote won't be shown until the round ends. As for people who received a package during searing plague but have no influence, you can vote, but if you truly have 0 influence the vote won't count for much, if anything. Sorry, but that's the way it is. You get to play the game, and have all the benefits of being able to play, but with no influence, your vote doesn't count for much.

Caspian09/29/2018

There's plenty of questions that can arise from what I just said, but in all cases, the answer should be what you expect. For example: Q. Doesn't that mean people with 10,000 influence are weighted 10x as much as someone with just 1,000 influence? A. Yes.

————————————————————————

AnOldFart

My point, I am looking forward to being able to vote on the map that my server will have (if CoE is released).

Saying that, the EU Kingdoms are planning on voting as one once discussions are complete, this upsets me because it sort of stops a democratic process in favour of an oligarch style system based on some of the top voters.

So on that point I will vote on the map I would like to play on the most not what I'm instructed to play on. 

Scot

So those with more "influence" decide what maps are used? Well at least you are not being asked to pay to avoid a more difficult map.

Dakeru

AnOldFart said:

That's it. Simple. 

I only skipped over the explanation but it reminded me of a scene from Roger Rabbit where he tries to explain something with this fingers and ultimately ends up with his rubbery arms being knotted together in his confusion.

I am entertained. Are you not entertained?

Torrsk

I was excited for map voting, but since reading it's rules, assuming they don't change. Doubtful I will even bother now. I'm apart of the OCE community. It's naturally small. Knowing those with higher IP gets way more say. The kings/dukes will be the ones picking. Which honestly makes zero sense to me. I would rather everyone with a package gets one vote. Of course, then if a whole kingdom picks together. You would just have the biggest kingdom picking. 

Not that I really care overall what map I end up with. Since there supposedly isn't any "bad" maps. Just another thing in the way before domain selection happens.

Kyleran

Scot said:

So those with more "influence" decide what maps are used? Well at least you are not being asked to pay to avoid a more difficult map.

Actually it appears you are as those with the greatest influence are likely able to decide what the maps will be, and I suspect how much someone has paid is the greatest determinat of how much influence they have.

Galadourn

Kyleran said:

Scot said:

So those with more "influence" decide what maps are used? Well at least you are not being asked to pay to avoid a more difficult map.

Actually it appears you are as those with the greatest influence are likely able to decide what the maps will be, and I suspect how much someone has paid is the greatest determinat of how much influence they have.

I was just thinking the same thing, I'm sure influence is somehow determined by the amount of cash you have spent on the game so far.

Kyleran

Galadourn said:

Kyleran said:

Scot said:

So those with more "influence" decide what maps are used? Well at least you are not being asked to pay to avoid a more difficult map.

Actually it appears you are as those with the greatest influence are likely able to decide what the maps will be, and I suspect how much someone has paid is the greatest determinat of how much influence they have.

I was just thinking the same thing, I'm sure influence is somehow determined by the amount of cash you have spent on the game so far.

Definitely a significant component but can't tell by how much.

They took down the influence chart on the website at some point to make things like map voting more equitable or so it says.

Kyleran

In order to ensure some variety if I was running things each of the 20 maps would  be limited to say 3 uses.  

Top 3 server with the most votes would get to chose them and other servers would have to pick from the remaining.

"But Kyle, that wouldn't be very fair to everyone."

If you are still looking for fair, this isn't your game.

Wellspring

Kyleran said:

In order to ensure some variety if I was running things each of the 20 maps would  be limited to say 3 uses.  

Top 3 server with the most votes would get to chose them and other servers would have to pick from the remaining.

"But Kyle, that wouldn't be very fair to everyone."

If you are still looking for fair, this isn't your game.

I think CoE is only going to have like 4 or 5 servers. So 3 of the 5 servers could have the same map?

I bet SBS would like that as they'd only have to create 3 maps instead of 5. Kind of like how they don't have to make the plague biome anymore because Cure won the event.

Wellspring

How are people going to decide which map is the best one to vote for anyways? Will they reveal detailed information about the map, like biomes and resource locations and existing kingdom borders? 

Or is it just going to be geographic concept art, where you pick the land mass that looks the prettiest?

Slapshot1188

Wellspring said:

How are people going to decide which map is the best one to vote for anyways? Will they reveal detailed information about the map, like biomes and resource locations and existing kingdom borders? 

Or is it just going to be geographic concept art, where you pick the land mass that looks the prettiest?

https://chroniclesofelyria.com/blog/28843/Adventure-Completion-From-Pre-to-Alpha#image-2
https://chroniclesofelyria.com/blog/28843/Adventure-Completion-From-Pre-to-Alpha#image-3

So my fundamental issue with this is the fact that once again, it's giving people that pay a lot of money a ridiculous percent of the vote.   If you are just a commoner with the basic package you will have 1/1000 (maybe even 1/10000) the voting power of some of these folks.  This is a game with maybe... 20,000 people.     

This isn't some in game role playing event... this is the player, the customer... not the character.

Mendel

I think that having different maps on different servers *might* be interesting for the players, but it's likely to create numerous Customer Service complaints.  "I fell through the map"  "What map?" "I don't know, can you get me out?" "Let me look into that".

Not only is this likely to cause issues for first-line CS staff, tracking incidents on a specific map and applying patches in a consistent manner might be difficult. 

Why do I feel that they are digging their own graves here?

Torrsk

Wellspring said:

Kyleran said:

In order to ensure some variety if I was running things each of the 20 maps would  be limited to say 3 uses.  

Top 3 server with the most votes would get to chose them and other servers would have to pick from the remaining.

"But Kyle, that wouldn't be very fair to everyone."

If you are still looking for fair, this isn't your game.

I think CoE is only going to have like 4 or 5 servers. So 3 of the 5 servers could have the same map?

I bet SBS would like that as they'd only have to create 3 maps instead of 5. Kind of like how they don't have to make the plague biome anymore because Cure won the event.

Each server will have different maps. If two servers happen to vote on the same map as their favourite. Whichever server had the highest votes would win it. But from what we have been shown and talked about, doubtful they would look all that different anyway.

Besides OCE, cause that's aiming to be a archipelago. Since it has a way smaller population. Which from what I know. Could have many islands or only a few. Seems the more interesting one. Yet the group I'm with, seem to mostly want as few islands as possible. I think it be cool to have duchy size islands. Easier to break away from a failing kingdom. While can see the rise of the pirate nations.

Galadourn

each server will not have different maps, because I doubt CoE will be able to ship with even ONE map, let alone design different maps for each server. This is just kicking the can down the road to keep the followers busy...

Torrsk

Galadourn said:

each server will not have different maps, because I doubt CoE will be able to ship with even ONE map, let alone design different maps for each server. This is just kicking the can down the road to keep the followers busy...

Not like they are hand crafting them though. Just be procedural generation. Can't see what is so hard about all that. Wouldn't it just be on the same level as No Man's Sky worlds? While you could say each world is different, it's not really at the same time.

Galadourn

Well, VoxElyria was going to be easy to implement; so was SpatialOS. Apparently, they weren't that easy to implement. So I have no idea why procedurally generated graphics will be easier to implement.

Wellspring

Galadourn said:

Well, VoxElyria was going to be easy to implement; so was SpatialOS. Apparently, they weren't that easy to implement. So I have no idea why procedurally generated graphics will be easier to implement.

Gantt charts and rope bridges. That's all it takes and Caspian can do anything!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/soulboundstudios/chronicles-of-elyria-epic-story-mmorpg-with-aging/posts/1589179

"So as we said in the AMA, one of the main reasons we feel like we'll be successful in developing Chronicles of Elyria is by ensuring we prioritize our work carefully, and face the difficult challenges early in the project rather than at the end. This ensures there's fewer surprises, fewer delays, and as we'll have working versions of the systems even before the systems are said to be "complete," we'll be able to get the game in the hands of the players sooner, so you can provide us the valuable feedback we need to make the game as enjoyable as possible."

I for one am glad to see there have been so few surprises and delays.

Torrsk

True enough there Galadourn. Time will tell how much of a time sink this will add on. I find the whole thing cool and pointless at the same time. Choosing a map, is something pretty cool. But seeing as SBS believe most people won't even leave their starting county. How the map overall looks, for most people is utterly pointless then. I doubt most would even care if they pick/made the map either. Well if anything people would be happy. Don't have to waste time setting up all this voting and can work on important things.

Wellspring

Torrsk said:

True enough there Galadourn. Time will tell how much of a time sink this will add on. I find the whole thing cool and pointless at the same time. Choosing a map, is something pretty cool. But seeing as SBS believe most people won't even leave their starting county. How the map overall looks, for most people is utterly pointless then. I doubt most would even care if they pick/made the map either. Well if anything people would be happy. Don't have to waste time setting up all this voting and can work on important things.

It's even more unlikely that people will ever play on one of the servers outside of their own region. Why does it matter if I get a different map from the Oceanic server, if I never will experience that other map anyways?

SBS probably thought this whole "unique procedurally generated map per server" idea would be a big selling point to backers. But in reality, I think most people would simply rather the game be developed faster instead. Or the extra time being put into a single map to make it more interesting and better. In my very limited observation, procedurally generated things require a human pass to keep them from being bland and fix issues.

AnOldFart

Just for a full picture (hope this works I'm on my phone)

Here is my ip earnings. 
As you can see most is from store expenditure.

Wellspring

AnOldFart said:

Just for a full picture (hope this works I'm on my phone)

Here is my ip earnings. 
As you can see most is from store expenditure.

Looks to me like most is from KS, 2nd most is from Store Purchases.

AnOldFart

Exactly, the kickstarter expenditure is still a store purchase no matter what you call it...

I think a referral is worth 50ip too so someone with "hundreds" of hypothetical referrals would have plenty of ip to make an impact.
Otherwise it's pretty much he who spends the most picks the most 

Kyleran

Did they stop giving influence for store purchases recently?

NeutralEvil

I wonder if those last couple of store purchases were made with store credit and that's why no influence?

Scot

Slapshot1188 said:

Wellspring said:

How are people going to decide which map is the best one to vote for anyways? Will they reveal detailed information about the map, like biomes and resource locations and existing kingdom borders? 

Or is it just going to be geographic concept art, where you pick the land mass that looks the prettiest?

https://chroniclesofelyria.com/blog/28843/Adventure-Completion-From-Pre-to-Alpha#image-2
https://chroniclesofelyria.com/blog/28843/Adventure-Completion-From-Pre-to-Alpha#image-3

So my fundamental issue with this is the fact that once again, it's giving people that pay a lot of money a ridiculous percent of the vote.   If you are just a commoner with the basic package you will have 1/1000 (maybe even 1/10000) the voting power of some of these folks.  This is a game with maybe... 20,000 people.     

This isn't some in game role playing event... this is the player, the customer... not the character.

What concerns me is why do this? If it comes from the idea we need to give the whales the idea they are having a big impact when they are not that's fine. So maybe which map is picked really does not matter that much at all. It just gives whales a sense of involvement.

But if they follow through on this what other decisions are going to be left to the whales? That's where P2W could reign. We shall see.