Posts made by Alexian

@GamerSeuss said in Roadmap To Fall Alpha 2021:

@Farlander Time will tell

However, you are probably right. Hardcore Gankers will be disappointed by the fact that the Demon World will be so scarcely populated by easy pushover prey. They will try to go to Syndesia, and if the Devs aren't careful with balancing how much PvP is available on Syndesia, how rewarding it is, etc...then they will take over Syndesia and forget totally about the Demonworld.

Good sportsmanlike PvPers will on the other hand appreciate the PvP world for what it is, a place where they can challenge each other and leave the PvEers mostly alone. I really think, for the most part, heavy PvP in Syndesia should be reserved for like a Guild War that is challenged, accepted, and declared.

This is precisely why I so strongly advocate for a system that permits but heavily deters ganking/griefing.

@Prometheus's recent Discord conversation with @Nekrage helped clarify the issue with respect to alignment IMO. Whereas a ruthless guild warlord would be considered Neutral, Dynamight regards an Evil character as a ganker or griefer.

I hope Fractured helps bring about a resurgence of roleplaying found in the late '90s sandboxes like Ultima and Wurm. So for that reason I want players to have the option to be bandits, brigands, highwaymen, and all other manner of asshole. Believe it or not, there's content and fun to be had because of those types of players. What would Game of Thrones be like without Bron or Walder Frey or Ramsay Bolton or Joffrey? Pretty damn boring.

That said... systems must be imposed on Syndesia that strongly deter excessive Evil behavior. MMO history has consistently proven that griefers can't be trusted to curb their own excesses and that other players can't be relied on to keep the griefers in check.

The bounty/prison system has so much potential there IMO; gameplay loops galore. Griefers grief; their victims can post a bounty at a local prison; players can take the contract and hunt down the griefer. The griefer may never be caught, might be caught but escape by killing the bounty hunter, or might lose and be imprisoned. But the prison is prohibitively expensive in terms of character gold and player time. Make it hurt.

@GamerSeuss Respectfully, I think the more probable and costly risk to Dynamight and Fractured is the flipside.

In MMOs with PvE and PvP content, PvE-focused players tend to radically outnumber their PvP counterparts. History is littered with examples of dead or dying MMOs that don't meaningfully constrain griefing. Griefers can't be trusted to curb their own excesses.

To avoid that fate, Dynamight must prevent widespread griefing on Syndesia by imposing systemic constraints. For these constraints to work, the consequences for captured/jailed/defeated griefers must be meaningful. In a game where you respawn after death or can log into an alt, the only meaningful consequences I can think of are (1) restricting player time and (2) prohibitive financial cost.

Yes, captured/jailed/defeated griefers might rage!quit as a result of these consequences... but the number of people who might rage!quit if griefers aren't hemmed in is much greater IMO.

@FLeaLoD said in Roadmap To Fall Alpha 2021:

Thank you for the update.

A penalty for a PK on death or capture might include all or some of the following (I realize some are already implemented):

• Jail time and its cost

Thanks,
FLea

Agreed on the jail time and costs. I've been a vocal supporter of prohibitively expensive jail time for captured criminals on Syndesia.

Conceptually, the bounty system is a really cool form of content creation. I love the idea of brigands, highwaymen, bandits, and all other range of criminal scum having the means to conduct nefarious business on Syndesia... but there should be meaningful consequences that deter rampant, widespread criminal griefing behavior.

Since bounties have to be posted, accepted, and successfully achieved (i.e. you have to find the target and subdue them), there's a lot of effort and cost that goes into neutralizing criminals. Consequently, the time and bail cost should be prohibitively expensive so that criminals think twice or thrice about engaging in their misdeeds.

@Kazzier said in Meridian's Spring 2021 Alpha test feedback - OPEN DISCUSSION ENCOURAGED!:

I know it's already been discussed but I would still like to chime in:

Glad you did!

Resources REALLY need to be more scarce or have higher demand. I'm personally aiming to be a local merchant, and everything I have gathered, nobody is interested in buying because all resources are too easily available / uncontested. This is probably partly due to low population with it being an Alpha, but if you need food for example, it's literally everywhere, so there is never a need to "stock up". So for new players, or someone wanting to play casually, that's a whole system that isn't worth engaging with. Or if they do try to engage with it, it yields no profit.

100% agreed and I'm glad you've publicly identified yourself as one of those niche local merchants.

Meridian will definitely want to do business with you so as to encourage you and other folks like you.

Harbours - Personally I am totally against fast travel, as it reduces the immersion of the game and I've seen it damage the open world in many other MMO's. That said, if it's here to stay, then whatever. The only true plus side to this is the "money sink" aspect. And I honestly think it should be extremely expensive to fast travel around the world, as otherwise the value of rare/locational items because eroded. Someone on the very south of the map should have a very very hard time attaining resources from the very north of the map, which in turn increases their value. Over-accessibility = no value or sense of achievement for acquiring it.
Long story short - resources across the land need way more value.

Again, 100% agreed.

Long story short - resources across the land need way more value.
Thanks for reading. Hope this helps

We appreciate your contributions and hope others like you speak up!

@Prometheus said in Meridian's Spring 2021 Alpha test feedback - OPEN DISCUSSION ENCOURAGED!:

@Alexian great feedback! A proper answer would take me a day to write eheh, I'll try to limit it to the most important points

Thanks for taking the time to respond, Prometheus.

@Bardikens and the rest of Meridian, including myself, are excited about Fractured's potential and your willingness to radically rework systems to make them work better.

• Lack of city specialization: it's going to be largely reworked in the next test. We're indeed going to allow ("force") cities to unlock all the basic buildings first, then the tree is going to split into a few branches, each featuring several nodes, to have real specialization.

Sounds promising!

• Lack of trading: we're going to give more control to cities on resource extraction, make differences on food production between territories much wider (like they used to be), and make food consumed on rank up (instead of just stored). Trading will be back!

Excellent. Our Master of Trade, @idioticmaddog will be very pleased to hear that.

• Immediate residential disintegration: it only takes a couple hours to farm the 1000 units of gold needed for weekly maintenance, it's fair that if you don't even play for a couple hours for 1 week you lose the claim. Sadly we had a devastating bug the first days where when you claimed a plot of land it would tick weekly from the moment the claim was created (the launch of the Spring Alpha - March 31), instead of 7 days after being claimed. This meant that, for instance, if someone claimed the plot on April 5, the maintenance was due on April 7 instead of April 12. This is what has caused the loss of so many claims

To clarify, we don't have an issue at all with the loss of residences, we just wish there was a decay function so that a house wasn't literally zapped out of existence upon failure to pay. Maybe a 24 hour grace period as the house visibly crumbles?

• Harbors: I know you really don't like them, but I'm afraid they're going to stay They've been a very effective money sink and they're an absolute need for players who don't have the time to spend on long gaming sessions. It's true they've been too cheap though - the fee should have grown more steeply with inventory weight / cart load. The fact ingots and planks are bugged and weight 1kg instead of 10kg and 5kg respectively surely hasn't helped...

Understood, though reluctantly. Our fear doesn't really concern harbors strictly as a tool used by players looking to group up with their friends to grind mobs, but as a mechanic that can be abused for trading and sieges and warfare.

What steps is DynaMight prepared to take to make sure harbors aren't weaponized to undercut logistics for trade, sieges, and warfare?

Have a look at the roadmap to the summer alpha when it's out, we're going to explain everything more in detail

I'm excited to see it! Any ETA on the roadmap?

After reflecting on the suggestions in this thread for the last 24 hours or so, I suppose my overall thesis is that Fractured really needs to devote the vast majority of its focus on making the game a kingdom builder. The meat and potatoes of the game should be on trade and politics and warfare, with the standard MMO mechanics being the salt and pepper. Idk if the world bosses, dungeons, mobs, etc. will ever be so engaging as to keep the majority of players' interest.

@OlivePit said in Meridian's Spring 2021 Alpha test feedback - OPEN DISCUSSION ENCOURAGED!:

Oh and something needs to change with chests and crop stacking...
A large chest has 45 slots. Grain/beans/meat stack to 100. So you can put 4500 into one chest. That is 225 bags.
Meanwhile a warehouse holds 192 bags.
So a single large chest can hold more (potential) bags of grain/beans/meat than a warehouse.

Damn, those are some unjustifiably ridiculous numbers. Thanks for pointing them out.

Meridian's official participation in the 2021 Spring Alpha test is now concluded; thanks to all those who made it and Zenith a fun and successful enterprise.

Please see our official feedback thread for our take on this test; open debate and discussion are encouraged!

Additionally, I've reworked this thread to better convey @Bardikens' vision for Meridian and Zenith.

Meridian's official participation in the 2021 Spring Alpha test is now concluded; thanks to all those who made it a fun and successful enterprise.

Please see our official feedback thread for our take on this test; open debate and discussion are encouraged!

Additionally, I've reworked this thread to better convey @Bardikens' vision for Meridian.

Solo players, small groups, and individual guilds who wish to join Meridian and our capital, Zenith, should read this thread and take a look at Zenith's own.

@StormBug said in Meridian's Spring 2021 Alpha test feedback - OPEN DISCUSSION ENCOURAGED!:

Oh yes. In fact, I would be more than willing to pay a bit of gold to use an Inn to restore just health while out in the wild. Those grey ticks are murder. Our guild has an unwritten policy of three ticks down and we head home. Would sure be nice to get to stay out just a bit longer.

Then let's try it.

Worst case scenario, if it doesn't motivate folks to use crossroads inns, we can always enhance their amenities and features.

@OlivePit said in Meridian's Spring 2021 Alpha test feedback - OPEN DISCUSSION ENCOURAGED!:

One good money sink would be brining back it as a upkeep cost for cities.
This can mostly be mitigated by the cut cities get from residence upkeep costs, but still results in more gold going away.
The game could also impose a small use fee for each crafting station or market transaction. -slightly frustrating but manageable-

Anyone have any thoughts about this? Some intriguing possibilities there.

Albion charges fees/taxes for public crafting stations and the like.

@spoletta said in Meridian's Spring 2021 Alpha test feedback - OPEN DISCUSSION ENCOURAGED!:

Money sinks are currently fine, it's the money flow which has issues.

The player incurs into a fine amount of sinks to play. Weekly taxes on the plot, harbors, taxes to use crafting stations, taxes on the marketplace, jail bailing.

This is only from the point of view of the single player though, because a lot of that money is actually going to the city, which would be fine if having fat city coffers would have a purpose. Unfortunately it doesn't. Having gold on the player is necessary, but money in the city coffers are used only for upgrading. This is a big issue. There is no incentive for guilds/governors to try and get as much income as possible.

We saw what happened with the tech/resident system. It worked wonderfully. In the previous test the guilds would estabilish a city and then keep it for themselves. Now that having residents is beneficial, every time that someone asks in global chat for a city to join, he gets multiple offers. We are actively competing on attracting residents, and that's wonderful.

Problem is that we are not competing in actually making our cities rich, because there is no purpose to that. I don't know if any player has ever payed taxes for crafting, and many have had their plot gifted. Some times with multiple weeks of taxes already paid. That's because there is nothing else to do with city money, so you may as well use it to attract new residents. The marketplace or the prison techs too have no reason to exist if money isn't important for the city. Your residents shouldn't be only another piece of tech, they should be a source of income for the city. Every governor should have to strike a balance between being attractive to new residents, while profiting enough from the existing ones.

In short, we need a use for city money. Be it a tax depending on city rank or on number of citiziens. Be it donations to the temple to give buffs to the fields or to the citiziens... There are many possibilities, but what matters is that governors should be going after money with the same zeal that they are actually going after residents.

Excellent point that hasn't been adequately covered. What is the point of cities/regions accruing a surplus of resources? What's the point of wealth in this game?

@Rife said in Meridian's Spring 2021 Alpha test feedback - OPEN DISCUSSION ENCOURAGED!:

I agree with most of the points said except a few like :

Jails with playtime sentences : I dont think playtime should ever be a sentence because it's similar to a soft ban. Hell, any remotely smart criminal will just always keep 6k gold in their wallet so that they don't get punished by playtime, unless those who prefer to just sit out the game and play something else or another character when they get jailed, just to save money. We should levy heavier bail instead when your karma is really low, in fact, I don't understand why there is a negative karma cap. I think if someone goes -100k karma for example, he should be ready to pay a HUGE fine if he gets caught, due to the massive amount of "evil" deeds he has been doing. ( I've talked about a system where criminals are forced to pay the bail or get friends to pay the bail instead, where they get something similar to young player status and can only remove it once they've paid their bail ).

Thanks for the feedback, Rife!

As I mentioned to you and @Harleyyelrah before here and elsewhere, while I'm open to less stringent methods to constrain griefing/ganking than playtime sentences, I'm just not persuaded that anything less will do the trick.

If, in the next test, bail is prohibitively expensive and bounty hunters are effective enough at their job that the average player need not live in abject terror of being ganked or griefed, then personally I'm fine with ditching playtime sentences.

If that doesn't work, however...

I think the problem in this game is inflation. It is just so easy to get gold, and the amount of gold in game just increases drastically that the current gold sinks won't be able to keep up with. I propose that all gold sinks i.e, bail costs, harbor teleportation costs ( which should be more expensive ), house upkeep should all adjust their prices according to inflation rates. I.e, if the amount of gold in the world increases, then the costs of all these things should increase too.

Agreed. @Bardikens and I are both staunch opponents of inflation.

I also don't agree with the tweaked bounty system, I think the proposed change here is easily abusable by taking up bounties against your own guild mates, etc. I also think there should be a sink in total gold, right now 50% gets paid to the bounty hunter and 50% goes to the city, I think it should instead be something like 25% goes to city and 25% goes to bounty hunter, and 50% is lost. I also firmly believe that criminals should be allowed to be bounty hunters too, because honestly, the best pvp'ers right now are all criminals and will remain to be criminals just for the fact that criminals are exposed to so much more pvp than Sheriffs, so Sheriffs on average will not be as skilled as the average Criminal.

I'm definitely open to mechanics that delete gold from the game as well as reward the bounty hunter and the sponsor city of the bounty contract.

Personally, I'm also happy to let criminals be bounty hunters or contract killers of some type. It's another form of content/game loop and I think it would be cool for people to hire brigands or cutthroats to assassinate their enemies.

iv) Residential plots near city should be reserved to citizens and can be lost during siege

Yeah, I meant to emphasize this point in the OP but forgot: city residents who live outside the walls should have skin in the game during sieges. The notion that residents would just sit out a siege because there is no personal consequence to them regardless of the outcome is ludicrous.

@StormBug Love the idea of noticeboards in general. It has a nice, old-timey feel that encourages citizens, residents, and other city participants to explore their cities and check things out. Noticeboards in major crafting stations as well as a town crier/town announcements board outside city hall for general announcements would be a great addition.

@StormBug said in Meridian's Spring 2021 Alpha test feedback - OPEN DISCUSSION ENCOURAGED!:

I could agree with it but only if the hearth was limited to allowing you to regain your health. It should not include skill memorization or anything else. It would help compensate for those PVE folks that stick it out in the wild until they have a mostly grey bar and are trying to limp home. They can get rid of the grey bar and have enough health to make it home in a PVP world. No other perks should be provided though; it just makes it too easy.

Personally, I'm open to that, but are you confident that mere health restoration and poison mitigation would be enough for folks to use inns?

@StormBug said in Meridian's Spring 2021 Alpha test feedback - OPEN DISCUSSION ENCOURAGED!:

• Ports
  Instead of ports being fast travel, reduce the cost and make ports safe travel. Travel by port could take as long, or perhaps half the time, as travel by horse would take, but you are safe from harm (like you are now) You would need to remain logged in to the character though, logging out while in transit would send your character back to the port of departure.

An interesting concept, but if you're reducing the costs and the travel time compared to standard travel, wouldn't everyone or most people employ this option?

And thus you'd almost certainly starve content for non-consensual PvP/raids/highwaymen.

• Inns and Homesteads
  I do love this idea I am just not sure about the implementation or its effect on the game as a whole. I think if the distances where greater that it might be more feasible.

When the alternative is traveling to cities that allow open PvP or might kill you once you get near their gate, I think the utility of inns as travel waypoints and rest stops reveals itself.

• Warehouses and Storage Buildings
  These building make a city feel so much more like a city. Unfortunately at the moment the make it feel like a decaying city because they are empty. I agree that the storage space and ease of use needs seeing to; it must be easier and a wagon should not compare in space. It is awful seeing all of these wagons piled up everywhere.

100% agreed!

@GamerSeuss said in Meridian's Spring 2021 Alpha test feedback - OPEN DISCUSSION ENCOURAGED!:

I know I've been a rather vocal advocate for the game keeping in several of their more tedious, click intensive routines in game,

Glad to know we're not the only ones!

@PeachMcD Yes, the Tip Jar idea was one I put forth in another thread, and I still agree with its concept. If you do something like set your house near a danger zone and set your hearth and such to usable by others, keep a chest with some basics in it for those in wayward need, etc... a TipJar is a fine way to show gratitutde to the keeper of said homestead for the roadside hospitality.

If crossroad inns or homesteads out in the wild were more common, a set gold fee to use their amenities as a respawn point or to use the hearth would also help supply the maintenance cost. Inns are a business, afterall.

@OlivePit said in Meridian's Spring 2021 Alpha test feedback - OPEN DISCUSSION ENCOURAGED!:

I have concerns about the use of warehouses. They take up a significant amount of space, hold not all that much, and are tedious to load or unload. In contrast the marketplace has a huge capacity and is very easy to load and unload from. Further the City hall has infinite storage space and is very easy to load into. The fact that carts cannot be stolen in town and that they hold more bags per square foot than warehouses, and are mobile, and tradeable (via giving another permissions) makes them far far superior to warehouses in every regard other than that warehouses are open to all citizens. If warehouses are to be a necessary aspect of the game they need to hold a lot more, have added functionality, or something. I have built 4 warehouses in our city and the process of having to load a cart from the bagging station, move the cart, and unload the cart at the warehouse is just too ridiculous, why do the second step at all? At this moment I see absolutely no reason to build a warehouse when instead you can have a field of carts loaded and ready to trade or just pile it all in the marketplace.

Yup, and this is why wagons and marketplaces and the town hall need to be reworked.

Storage buildings and warehouses should not be superfluous and should serve a necessary function. Otherwise, folks will min-max to save space and just cram things into a fleet of wagons or carts or in their marketplace or into the city hall space.

@PeachMcD said in Meridian's Spring 2021 Alpha test feedback - OPEN DISCUSSION ENCOURAGED!:

So many great points in this post, @Alexian! Thanks for taking the time to put it together. I agree with most of what you lay down here - with the @GamerSeuss proviso about harbors/boat travel being used for intercontinental travel, and at a certain level of risk.

You're welcome! And agreed.

Wanted to highlight that last suggestion and amplify. In tests so far, I've found there is almost always a dwelling constructed near the entrance to combat hot spots, with a hearth sometimes set to 'public' use. Those kindly souls deserve recompense, imo.

My house, this test, had a public hearth and even a public chest - with food, bandages, herbal remedy, rope and old gear available to any stranger wandering in nekkid cuz they got mobbed or ganked or whatever.

I saw a post (was it GamerSuess?) about a 'tip jar' feature some other games have coded in - adding that to my home, or to one of the hot spot 'recharge' dwellings - would be a sweet way to enable & reward generosity without putting a price tag on everything.

Thanks for adding a personal anecdote to emphasize the importance of this recommendation.

As we know, many Fractured players advocate for gameplay loops that aren't overly attached to cities and guilds. And though I believe that cities and regions and the content they generate are the most important/endgame content in Fractured, I think it would be nice to offer solo players and small groups the option to claim and run homesteads/taverns/farms outside cities throughout the land as waystations, rest stops, and points of interest.

Perhaps they would still owe some sort of tax or maintenance fee to their region/reigning city, but allow for quasi-independence.

Thanks again to everyone putting in their two bits to improve an already cool game.

Agreed! Thanks, all. Keep it coming!

@GamerSeuss said in Meridian's Spring 2021 Alpha test feedback - OPEN DISCUSSION ENCOURAGED!:

I agree with most of this as well. Unlike spoletta, I'm even on board as to making harbors and other forms of continental fast travel a no-go. Harbors in my opinion should really only be for moving from one continent to another, and that's it. As each planet will have 3 continents, there does need to be a good in-game method of transcontinental travel, but coastal travel shouldn't be included, unless they actually have to take the voyage on a schedule, and the ship can be attacked by Sea Trolls and Kraken and things like that. Make it risky in its own regard or leave it out.

100% agreed. The only way I'd personally be willing to accept transcontinental fast travel in any form is if it's risky and unreliable.

City size definitely needs to be bigger, potentially, but I feel that some of it should be 'roped off' in game until a city makes sufficient rank to expand that far.

I'm open to that. @Bardikens, thoughts?

As far as Food Scarcity goes, I think it is important to remember that Crop Rotation is part of the agricultural aspect of the game. If you plant a batch of let's say Wheat at 150% potential yield, every time that patch gets below 50% irrigation, that percentage should go down, AND once harvested, that plot should barely be able to sustain Wheat until a rotation crop has been planted there. Each crop type should have 1-2 crops that it rotates with, and even something like Clover, that doesn't give you anything, could be used to reinvigorate the soil.

Honestly, I can't say much with respect to the specifics of crop management and rotation.

But our Master of TradeFields, @OlivePit, might be able to weigh in on this specifically.

I wholeheartedly agree with regards to Marketplaces and Global Wallets. Marketplaces should be a starter building, and Global Wallets should at most encompass a Nation and it's allies' banking system, not the whole continent/world/galaxy

Though I'd be much happier with global wallets that are confined to nations, I'd honestly prefer not even that. One of my constant refrains is that game players, if given the option, will always seek the path of least resistance.

If global wallets are eligible for nations, I think it will inspire the proliferation of nations and thus undermine the political dynamism of Syndesia and the game as a whole.

This would be a bad thing and something that is a frequent killer of other sandbox MMOs; it adds further incentive for consolidation and suddenly, instead of continents being a diverse patchwork of various nations, states, and empires, it becomes hegemonic or duopolic.

Thanks for the feedback so far, everyone. Looking forward to discussing these points at length with many of you!

@spoletta said in Meridian's Spring 2021 Alpha test feedback - OPEN DISCUSSION ENCOURAGED!:

I agree with almost every point. The only one where I disagree is on the fast travel. Harbors are very important and should be kept. What can go away though, is being able to transfer a cart with them.

For discussion purposes, could you expound on why you regard harbors as important and why you'd like to keep them?

On a related note, one of the fears I had for this test has indeed manifested. With ingots and boards becoming light items, trading them has become too easy. You no longer need a cart. This was supposed to be countered by making them weight a lot, so you couldn't carry a lot of them, but currently they are 1kg each. They should be at least 15kg each.

Yes, this was one of my concerns about the test as well, before it launched.

One of the aspects of Fractured that positively distinguishes it from a game like Albion Online is that the system takes the size and volume of most materials into consideration and won't let you pack 7 metric tons of material in your invisible backpack.

By making ingots and boards light items, it is indeed too easy to gather, transport, and trade them, which undercuts the deliberative and complex nature of trading.

After consulting with our members and our leadership Council, @Bardikens and I drafted the feedback below regarding the Spring 2021 Alpha.

If there are things you selectively agree with, please be sure to identify them and co-sign. If there are things you disagree with, please let us know what and why.

We admit we don't have all the answers and are looking forward to open discussion and spirited debate from those who agree or disagree.

What we like and why

• The tech tree: it provides more to city management than just sheer maintenance; you may select a "direction" of your city - e.g. banking and commerce by selecting banks and marketplaces, a crafting hub by selecting blacksmithing and engineering, or walls. We like that there are more branches in the tree than there are tech points to unlock them. We also like that the layers mean that cities can't plop down and erect all available blueprints in a matter of hours as was the case in previous tests; this encourages more longevity.

• Storehouses: provides in-world place to store goods that isn't a wagon or chest; it is purposeful, immersive, and helps occupy space in the city instead of cramming resources in a hundred scattered carts.

• Walls: they looked cool, added a sense of security by erecting a defined border, and required many resources.

• Cities as capitals of entire regions: this is a step in the right direction towards setting up cities as political hubs instead of randomly placed congregations in the middle of the wilderness.

• Reduced number of claimable cities: in previous tests, cities were too common and too easily claimed, thus significantly reducing the inherent value of owning one. In this test, cities felt more valuable and impressive.

• Knowledge sharing system (once fixed): it allows players to party up without being penalized.

• Open PvP conceptually: We appreciate the risks associated with playing on Syndesia. Though we hope that the criminal element will be meaningfully constrained in size and activity, we like that actions and movement carry with them the risk of attack or death. This makes player mobility much more thoughtful and meaningful.

• Jails with playtime sentences: we believe that real-time playtime sentences are the only remotely viable way to effectively deter griefing and ganking on Syndesia.

• Distinctions between guild members, citizens, and residents: Untethering cities directly from guilds and adding layers to city participation affords opportunities for cities to be more politically complex and dynamic as opposed to an Albion Online system where cities are owned directly and entirely by guilds and are synonymous.

• Regions are asymmetrical in size and resource wealth: Region asymmetry is realistic and immersive; not all real estate is equally attractive and makes region selection consequential.

• Cart theft: We appreciate the risks associated with carelessly leaving carts around unprotected. This will hopefully discourage attempts to circumvent building storehouses by storing resources in dozens of haphazardly strewn carts.

• City upkeep: Conceptually, we like the idea that cities require constant effort to maintain and aren't perpetual and don't run on autopilot.

What we didn't like and why

• The tech tree: Very basic commodities were hidden behind layers of tech advancement, e.g. the marketplace. This is both unrealistic and delays, if not outright deters, commerce which should be one of the first aspects of any young city. Though the number of possible branches in the tech tree is greater than the possible points achievable, both numbers are close enough that cities aren't really specialized and can effectively be self-sufficient.

• City size: Cities, defined for our purposes as the public space within the four walls, are entirely too small. Dropping from 256x256m2 to 160x160m2 is a drastic reduction. Whereas in previous tests cities felt like thriving communities where citizens lived, worked, and congregated, now they feel the equivalent of gas stations (both in size and function).
  Cities are now places where all citizens go for a specific reason before returning to their homes outside the walls. This may not seem like an important change, but in our estimation it radically altered the feeling of the city.
  Moreover, even if we wanted to place residential plots inside the city, the available real estate was so sparse that it was prohibitively expensive.

• City prestige: Conceptually we like this idea, but its execution hints at future problems. City prestige should involve the construction of buildings with both utility and aesthetics as well as number of citizens and residents. Our fear is that people will cram statues into every available spot to min-max prestige. While this may not be entirely avoidable, steps should be taken to encourage cities to resemble actual cities and not a min-maxing shrine.

• Trade: What trade? The previous test for all its faults had relatively robust commerce. This test did not, except, perhaps at the end when most players stopped playing. Conceptually, we like the idea of untethered resources that can be harvested by enemies or brigands or unaffiliated players. This would also, theoretically, create a market or niche for traveling merchants and harvesters.
  However, these niches never manifested and because resources are now open to the first available claimant, players, small groups, and guilds avoided trade to collect the desired resources themselves; the risks and time investment involved were not prohibitively expensive.
  This, coupled with the fact that food scarcity did not begin to manifest until weeks into the test and the fact that marketplaces weren't immediately available to towns, killed any reason for trade.

• Lack of food scarcity: It was too easy to collect the cereals and meat involved to maintain city ranks even for those cities in infertile regions. Food scarcity seemingly didn't begin to hit cities until weeks into the test and by that point, many of those cities had already climbed high on the rank ladder.

• Immediate residential disintegration: Probably unintended due to decay mechanics not being implemented, but residential plots should not immediately vanish upon failure to pay city maintenance.

• Walls: Though visually impressive and resource-expensive, walls were too predetermined and static. We should be able to sacrifice internal space to add or customize walls.

• Potential abuses of residential mechanic: Regional residential plots as currently designed seem utterly abusable by bad faith actors. Zerg guilds and alliances could, relatively easily, generate the gold needed to disperse their members across the map to become residents of unaffiliated cities, allowing them an unearned foothold/safe zone into that region. That foothold can be used as a way to grief or exploit that city not necessarily due to any elaborate political cunning but by cheesing the mechanics.
  This, in turn, incentivizes another abuse of the system in response: patron guilds claiming all the available residential plots for their members and not encouraging solo players, small groups, or client guilds to take up residence in their cities.
  This may create a system where zerg guilds abuse the residential mechanic in bad faith by leveraging their numbers and wealth and other guilds shoving out a diverse residential population in order to prevent that from happening.

• Harbors, conceptually and as implemented: Fast-travel of any kind undercuts commerce, local markets, and the costs of long-distance power projection. They were supposed to be prohibitively expensive, but are not in practice. It was relatively cheap for @Bardikens to travel from one harbor to another despite approximately 89% encumbrance.

• Global wallet and linked marketplaces: Again, this undercuts the intent behind local markets. This tech should not exist. All markets should always be local and your gold should either be on your person (and thus losable) or in a local bank or chest where it shall remain unless you physically collect and move it.

• Prison system: We don't like that bounty hunters are mechanically referred to as sheriffs and are immediately identifiable via badge like an in-game moderator. We also don't like how bounties are not local and that all a person has to do to be made aware of bounties is to sign up in advance as a sheriff.

What we'd like to see in the next test pertaining to all the above:

• Increased city size: For the reasons we stated above, cities should be closer to previous Alpha iterations in size. Every effort should be taken to make cities hubs for player interaction of all stripes, not merely convenience stations. Unless that is mechanically incentivized, players will spend as little time as possible in cities.

• An improved tech tree: For the reasons we stated above, the promising tech tree should be improved so that cities can't be entirely self-reliant.
  Careful, painful choices about urban development and specialty should be made by Governors and their governments. If it is possible for cities to be autarkies, that is what most, if not all of them, will become in the end.
  Trade and player interaction will only occur on any meaningful scale if mechanically incentivized. Additionally, for this reason, marketplaces should be among the immediately available blueprints.

• Asymmetrical regions: We'd like the next test to maintain region asymmetry with respect to size and resource wealth. This encourages trade, diplomacy, and warfare. Some regions should be more attractive than others, though none should be worthless.

• Food scarcity: This is the second test that failed farming and food scarcity. Region fertility should matter and should matter relatively quickly. It's not enough to implement food scarcity after cities climb to rank 15.
  Those who choose to build cities in infertile regions should have to immediately confront that infertility problem and turn to commercial, diplomatic, or military relationships with more fertile neighbors to address the issue.
  Even moderately fertile regions should struggle to create surplus and not without dropping farm plots inside the city, eating up valuable real estate and a tech point. As an aside, farm plots should be of neutral or slightly negative prestige if dropped inside city limits.

• A tweaked bounty system: Syndesia should be a place where criminals can succeed if they are appropriately cunning and swift. But systems should be created to keep the ganking/griefing element, which has directly contributed to the death of so many sandbox MMORPGs, to a minimum.
  We propose that bounties be local. Victims of crimes should have to create a bounty by going to a local prison and accepting a "do you want to report this crime" snapshot. Those bounties should then have to be directly sought and accepted by bounty hunters. Bounty hunters should not be identifiable with any in-game badge or icon. If you are the target of a bounty, you should not be able to suicide your way out of prison. Bounty hunters should have to investigate and seek out their targets based on the coordinates and name provided by the system-generated snapshot.
  Perhaps Governors and Vice Governors should be able to contribute to a bounty reward from city funds to incentivize bounty hunter activity and lawfulness in their region.

• No fast travel of any kind: Again, this undercuts Fractured's intent as a complex, deliberate, effortful sandbox that requires prioritization of time and cooperation with others. It would help neuter trade, logistics, and warfare by making it easier to cross vast distances, even if only in one direction.

• Claimable plots outside cities such as inns and homesteads: this would be attractive to solo players or small groups who don't want to live inside or attached to a city. Similar to what was in previous tests, you could have scattered plots throughout the continent where homesteads or inns could be created.
  Inns could be safepoints for travelers (valuable in the absence of fast travel) and their hearths could eliminate both fatigue and poisons and enable skill memorization.
  Perhaps these inns could trade with cities or merchants to stock up on certain adventuring supplies like food and mounts and bandages.

@GamerSeuss Agreed.

I appreciate that Fractured is forgoing certain conveniences with respect to city management.

I like that Governors and Vice-Governors have to go to the city hall in order to use the administrative functions of the city and can't access those powers from anywhere else.

Likewise, I like that players have to go to city hall to apply for citizenship or abandon it.

It makes these decisions much more deliberate and impactful if they can't simply be toggled on and off at whim from anywhere.