Baronies

Miraleth node baronies illustration.

In the region around each node, there are parcels of land that are reserved specifically for the Freehold and Guildhall systems which we call Baronies. A Barony is a predetermined area of land near a node, or in that node’s vassal structure. It can be helpful to think about these Baronies as counties where many Freeholds will be placed. These Baronies may contain a single Guildhall which are similar to Freeholds, but may only be obtained by Guilds. Within each Barony, several Estates exist that may be bid on by individual players. After you’ve successfully bid on an Estate, your Freehold Deed will be available to place within the boundary of the successfully purchased Estate. Once the Deed has been placed, this will start your Freehold, and gives you access to the shed. Bringing materials to your Freehold can be stored in your shed as you prepare to build your home and other buildings.

Baronies are large designated swaths of land in the ZOI of a Village (fase 3) or above node, including the ZOI of any of its vassal nodes.

• Baronies contain parcels of land, called estates, that are reserved specifically for the freehold and guild hall systems.
  • A barony can only have a single guild hall. The number of baronies that can have an active guild hall is determined by the node's stage.
  • Guild halls are not able to impose any taxes on freeholds within a barony.
  • Guild halls owned by partron guilds may have the ability to confer benefits to surrounding estates by speccing into passives in their guild skill tree and carrying out a lengthy quest line.

Each zone of influence in the world has designated large swaths of land that act as these parcels that can be catered to specific points of interest or thematically relevant; and you might want to bid on that almost county-sized area, where you then get to place your freehold. And once you have bid on that area at the node, then you can acquire the freehold plot and you go out into that zone- that section that you have bid on and acquired, and you place your freehold footprint, which previously we had set the freehold size to about a half an acre; however recently that's changed, well not recently a while ago that changed, to be one and a half acres or roughly 100 by 60. – Steven Sharif

• Players obtain freehold deeds by completing a quest then winning a freehold auction at the parent node. These deeds enable the player to claim a freehold plot in a specific estate.

Imagine the parcel as more like a county that exists around the node; and so if you have a node in the center and you have its zone of influence around it, that's a mass group of land. And then, if you were to take a county line marker and create counties around essentially the node, that is what you would be bidding on. And then once you've achieved the parcel's certificate for that county, then you go out with your... footprint of your freehold, and you get to place the freehold within that county wherever you want- that's not obstructed by some other, road, or POI, or very large feature terrain. – Steven Sharif

• Placement of the freehold plot is enabled by using an unplaced freehold deed item from the player's inventory to get a top-down view of the estate, then selecting the desired location for the plot.

• There is a minimum distance between Baronies in addition to the minimum distance between freehold plots.

• Baronies don't impose any appearance restrictions on freehold buildings.

List of baronies

Barony	Node
Dankwood Forest	Miraleth
Serenity Springs	Miraleth
Silverbanks	Miraleth
Three Rivers	Miraleth
Willowmoore	Miraleth
Wuthering Heath	Miraleth

Freehold auctions

A node's freehold estates (parcels of land) become available to be bid for at auction on a regular cadence.

Bidding on an Estate is done through an auction system. Nodes have a limited number of Freehold Deeds available based on that node’s level. A player may only bid on an Estate if they own an unplaced Freehold Deed. Once you have successfully acquired your Estate, the next step is choosing a location within that Estate to lay down your Freehold Deed’s footprint.

• Some estates will require node-type-specific bound currencies, others will auction for gold.
  • This is intended to cater to players with different playstyles, who are progressing through alternate systems.
  • Node-type-specific currencies will be tested during Alpha-2.

The most common denominator of availability for freeholds through the auction is going to be through gold. However, there will be a sub select of freehold options that are available in each node, based on the node type, that will correspond to one of those bound currencies in addition to gold. So what we do there is we spread out the availability of freeholds to different playstyles and different focuses so the player that might rush to level 50- they might have an advantage when bidding on gold-based freeholds, but they may not have the advantage of the Favor player or the Honor player, who is going to be progressing within those playstyles. – Steven Sharif

• The cadence of freehold auctions is system-driven and can't be affected by mayors or other players.
  • Estates will also be recycled as a result of node sieges and atrophy.

The intent of the auction system is to provide players a non-land rush type system. Auctions will be held for each parcel that allows families to pool together their resources to acquire a deed, and gives some prep time to individuals to prepare their resources to bid as well. – Steven Sharif

Freehold placement

Alpha-2 freehold placement.

There'll be a variety of predetermined parcels of land in each node's zone of influence; and once players acquire their freehold permit they'll be able to lay claim to any available parcel in the issuing node's region so- and by region we mean... the total combined territory of a node and all of its vassal nodes. So, if you acquire a freehold permit in the metropolis of a huge region, almost 20% of the map, you'll be able to lay a claim to an available parcel anywhere within that region. So it gives you a lot of freedom if you're able to acquire the permit from a metropolis. – John Collins

Freehold plots require a bound deed (permit/certificate) from the parent Village (fase 3) or higher node in order to place the plot.

• Freehold deeds are obtained through completion of a Lord's quest to ascertain worthiness for lordship over an estate.
  • The freehold quest's level requirement is 50. The level requirement is subject to change based on testing.
  • There will be more deeds than estates.

That was for a time a lively debate on our design team about whether or not there should be a level gate essentially from even preventing the potential for ownership. The reason why I chose to keep it at level 50 for now is because there are alternate systems that provide access at lower levels through permission setting. So it's one thing to own the home, it's is another thing to access the contents and to continue progression. Let's say, in the processing profession, you might want to gain mastery in: that mastery process leaves the nodes at around level 30 in the leveling experience for a processing profession; and so one of the debates on the design team was whether or not we should reduce the level requirement down to level 30 so that there's a seamless transition from node-based processing progression and the Freehold capability of progression. – Steven Sharif

• Deeds may only be used to place a freehold if the deed holder successfully wins a freehold auction for an estate.
  • Citizens and non-citizens can bid on estates.
  • Bidding for estates within predetermined baronies was not mentioned previously.

You're going to see a little bit of change and this is one of the first ones: that these are predetermined locations that exist around the node or under its vassal structure that you will have the ability to bid on; and to give you a sense there, this allows us to customize a bit of those predetermined parcels, like a Sherwood Forest type of example. – Steven Sharif

• A deed holder who has won an estate auction may then claim the estate from within a barony in that node's ZOI, including the ZOI of any of its vassal nodes. Placement of the plot is enabled by using the deed item in a player's inventory to get a top-down view of the estate, then selecting the desired location for the plot.
  • Players can manipulate the orientation of their freehold plot.
  • Successful placement of a deed gives the player access to their empty freehold plot and shed.

It'll basically be an item in your bag; and once you get to your parcel, you claim that piece of land and then once it's claimed you'll be able to use the item to go into top-down view and layout actually exactly where your freehold will go on that parcel of land. You'll have a lot of freedom, so a lot that will be going through looking at your whole area of land you now own claim to and then deciding where the best spot to put your freehold in there would be. – Kory Rice

• Freehold plots must not be placed in close proximity to any of the following:
  • Pathing routes (Roadways).
  • Dungeon and other points of interest (POIs) regardless of advancement.
  • Event spawn areas.
  • At least ~100m from other freehold plots.
    • Previously this was stated to be ~150m from other freehold plots.
  • Hard terrain features, such as mountainsides or cliffs.

• The more advanced a node is, the more freeholds can be built within its ZOI.
  • Ample space will be available to place freeholds in the ZOI of a village node.

• Collections of freeholds placed in close proximity are still considered part of their parent node and do not become a separate node, other than via roleplay.

• Adjacent freeholds do not share any bonuses with their neighbors, but guild halls owned by partron guilds may confer benefits to surrounding freeholds.

Immagini

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  2023-07-14

See also

• Freeholds
• Guild Halls
• Nodi