https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/crowfall/crowfall-throne-war-pc-mmo/posts/1172383 most recent update about the eternal kingdoms land/parcel system. kinda implies we'll be able to use our own parcels in areas of land granted to us in somebody else's kingdom, and we would be able to pull those parcels back up if we decided to move later (back to our own or another kingdom) later. I like where this takes the idea of a guild kingdom. also I'm kinda hoping i'll be able to upgrade my pledge at some point after the kickstarter is over... 5 parcels might just not be enough...
agreed, i'm really impressed by the system. having land that is "your own" that you could place in the guild's kingdom or off in your own little corner seems immersive, useful, and fun. i just want a sweet little cottage by a lake also really dig the idea of being able to "design" what kind of kingdom you'll rule regarding mountains/lakes/forests, etc but i really hope the system they're designing ends up creating worlds that feel natural. as an immersion junkie i would be a sad panda if things were set up in such a way that everybody but the RP'ers followed some meta min-maxed kingdom grid of contortioned tetris where you put your stones quarries all shoved into this corner and forests down over there, etc.
So regarding character classes and balance - some speculation. I'm betting/hoping they use a similar stealth balance system as they had in Shadowbane, based on the creative director's history and what we have so far for the class descriptions (and selection for that matter).... that system was basically you had assassin stealth types (which also actually included some magic using assassins) who could stealth and fairly easily gank anything that wasn't heavy tanky. one of the skills most stealthers could cultivate to SOME degree was to see other stealthers when stealthed, but really only one class could get high enough in the "see stealth" skill to be able to see a stealther that maxed out the "stealth" skill, and that was the Scout - who could also stealth, and be only visible to other scouts with maxed out see stealth skills... I'm guessing the "Stalker" archetype will end up being very similar to Shadowbane's scout class. The scout was a stealth bow class with lower dps than other bow classes and certainly lower dps than the assassin/rogue types - but could pop the assassin's sneaking up on friends from range and had kiting skills. that was by far the most fun class for me to play in that game, and few people really did it all that much.
I hope it's a little better than Shadowbane, the problem with that particular system became the simplest, scouts weren't all that useful except for their ability to perceive other stealthers, they -could- be, but generally speaking, they were not the most fun class to play, like playing a healer when everyone blames you when the tank goes down and really it's because the tank is crap. Effectively if you played a scout, it became your sole purpose in the game to hunt down other stealthers, and, having found them, pray someone else is available to help you kill them because you're not the most powerful stealther, you're simply the one who can force other stealthers out of stealth. Take this with a grain of salt of course, it's been years since I played Shadowbane, and I never personally played a scout (or any other stealth class for that matter) but that's how I perceived it from my end, usually you ended up plagued by assassins until some wandering scout happened by and then you rolled them up (or in our case, assassins showed up we called one of our scouts and ate them alive, with a dash of pepper) Stealth is a difficult mechanic to balance in a PvP environment, I'd love to see a system do it right and well, keeping it useful without making it overpowered, but I always cross my fingers when I say this because generally speaking stealth players tend to devolve into gankers trolls and griefers and I dislike that type of player vehemently.
as somebody who played scout extensively, i found them extremely fun to play. everything was providing situational intelligence to your side and providing harassment to enemy stealthers and non-stealthers alike. you basically were the one class that couldn't be ganked if you were playing smart and yes, you had to play as part of a team.
ok... i'm in... though its prolly not to the level some of you have pledged....i restricted myself to the copper pledge.. 60 USD...
i went in for the $60 level, got mah horse. the next tiers don't seem to be that attrative to me until you hit the $250 amber level it's hard to know how advantageous a couple extra character slots will be. but damn, at the $250 level the 6 years of paid monthly VIP is amazing. assuming $15/mo for that time period that'd work out to $900 which makes it a steal. wish i knew right now if it'll be a game most folks will actually be able to spend 6 years playing, haha...
hey with the new stretch goal announced today, you get some tax free plots even at lower tiers than amber - nice! as to character slots, i doubt i'll end up using all that i have available at the amber level unless it gets to be a thing where i would have 2 of the same class so i could abandon a campaign that was going horribly on one realm and switch to a new one with my same favored class... also might be nice to have the extra slots for the more "daring" class builds with a lot of major weaknesses built in for other benefits.
