Player-built Large Scale Infrastructure

(Still pretty new to these forums and I originally posted this over in the Feedback & Suggestions forum but later realized that's apparently only feedback for the site or something? Iunno, anyway not sure where the right place is to move this too but there seems to be a lot of suggestions being posted here so here goes~)

The other night I was thinking about the lack of the rapid transit in the game (don't worry, this won't be a rant about no chocobos or airships) and I was also thinking about how reluctant players are to group up, let alone speak to each other (Maybe its just my server, I'm not sure) And I had a spark of creativity: We want new outposts, new transportation, just new things in general... Why don't we actually make them ourselves?

I thought of the example of a railroad (this is just an example I don't expect to see a thousand pound locomotive doing laps around Gridania anytime soon) and say at the end of an update there were NPC workers standing around between the ferry docks to Limsa Lominsa and Gridania and explained how they have been recruited to build a railroad but had no supplies. This is where the players would come in. There could be special new mines filled with monsters players would need to group up and kill for SP and at the end there would be a plethora of mining points. As players would mine up raw materials and deliver them to the NPCs they would receive rewards for their help. Lumber would be donated for ties and Ores for the rails.

Then, the Disciples of the Hand could come and receive leve-like portions of materials in the "bank" and synthesize them into the desired final products (Lumber into railroad ties and Ores into ingots and rails) and as the players put more and more effort into this server-wide effort the whole project would slowly complete and at the end the entire server could enjoy a railroad connecting points A and B! The Lodestone could even post updates on each server's progress at a certain task to stir up some server vs server competition.

If big projects like this were regularly implemented into the game every few months it would add a new feeling of satisfaction to the players who helped create them and add a much needed sense of accomplishment to one's efforts within the game. How would you feel if in 2-3 years you're talking with a newer player on an airship and you can say to them "You know, back when this game was still young, I helped build these very airships"? It would also give the player base as a whole something to do while they waited for the next patch (Instead of "Okay, here are your airships. Please wait some months while we make something new" it would be "Here is the plans for the airships and airship docks, lend a helping hand to your fellow adventurers so you can enjoy rapid transit!" And then players would be so busy working on the airships and docks that they don't notice (as much) the wait for the next update).

Just a thought I wanted to throw it out there, I'm interested to see what the rest of you all think of a system similar to what was outlined above. Maybe if everyone loves the idea SE will consider something like it?

I like the idea, but what happens 3 years down the road. We have all these epic buildings, and always building more.

Perhaps if the buildings would break down over time, and players would have to fix them if they wanted to keep them up. Orrr perhaps there could be like.. player run farms. Say each month a LS is chosen to run the local choco farm. If the Ls keeps the farm up, then the choco stables stay full ect. If not.. well you get my point :)

i like this, I just cannot think of a way that it would be implemented.
If i could build stuff, id level more doh

Yeah this would be just fantastic, EQ2 had the griffon built and airship docks (I think?) built with player events, so fun and makes you feel like part of the living world. It'd be nice if they did this for housing too.

They'd have to build a massive amount of assets for this to work. Not worth it in large-scale.

Hi Razor,

Great idea. :) I think a few other forum goers posted up similar ideas (one was a group project where everyone could help work and pave the roads of Eorzea).

I think it'd be great if players could contribute resources and use DOH, DOL or DOW/DOM classes to help build an actual Airship Port, or Chocobo Stables, etc. to then enable real mass transit across Eorzea.

It'd be nice if you got enough players to contribute, that form of transportation / structure would finish / open sooner than if your server didn't do anything.

And it's a good way to get to know players you've never met before. ;)

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Originally Posted by Cendres

Yeah this would be just fantastic, EQ2 had the griffon built and airship docks (I think?) built with player events, so fun and makes you feel like part of the living world. It'd be nice if they did this for housing too.

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I think once they have developed the format it could be applied to a lot of different things. Depending on what they have planned for Linkshells it would be cool to let Linkshells (Companies?) build their assets. (Like the ships Companies are supposed to be able to get). Overall though yeah, part of my vision for this was to bring together people from all across the server and to cooperate together since for some reason people are incredibly shy.

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Originally Posted by Betelgeuzah

They'd have to build a massive amount of assets for this to work. Not worth it in large-scale.

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From a programming aspect I don't think it would be too much extra work. 95% of the work would be developing what the actual end result would be (as in, designing the mechanics behind the structure/machine in question). To add an overlaying large scale quest system that determines when the server gets access to it would not be hard. SE has done similar mechanics before in XI: You could do Campaign Ops to add resources to various Outposts that players could then draw from to acquire temporary items. (This was much more subtle, but the foundation is the same).

Completely agree. I wrote a thread on this about letting us built our own houses. Houses, other large structures; I'm on board. The success of Minecraft should clue Yoshi-P in to the upcoming trend in online games. Would be a shame for a world like Eorzea to miss the wave.

*imagines some geek building a house that is an exact to scale model of the starship enterprise*

We need more sandbox elements. SE should use their power to try and realise the ambition of small companies like those behind Mortal Online and Dawntide, companies which dont have the power to bring such ideas to fruition. NPC-approved structures don't really seem very fun to me.

ArcheAge is implementing something like player-made structures, but so far it's only housing I've seen. But even though it's small structures, players can build them almost anywhere they desire. That's true freedom.

SE likes to stay in absolute control over everything, so giving players power to change the landscape is something they probably won't do.