GOA on a RAMPAGE

[Shike]

I think the first bit was, and the second bit is more aimed at people in general.

maybe

 

[lairiodd]

however when i used to play ultimaonline aaaages back you couldnt actually place a house anywhere within the game because all the ebaying bastards bought up nearly every available slot and the only way you could get a house was to buy it from the internet.

The problem there was that there wasn't enough housing slots, not that the ebaying bastards took them all. No matter what happened, if there wasn't enough housing slots, there wasn't enough housing slots. A massive shortage will always push up prices, in this case it pushed them higher than people could afford with in game case. This is a game design problem not an ebayers problem.

Going back to a daoc example and two ways of doing artis

a) Current system, the mob pops once every 12+ hours, first person to kill it gets the arti.

This system means that a farmer can perma camp the spot and completely control the supply of artis (it's actually harder to do than that as if you sell all your artis, you aren't actually benefiting from monopoly prices). In this system, artis prices will be high as there is a massive shortage of artis, the fact that farmers are perma camping is not as significant as that. If you pay 40p for an arti, 39p (or more) of that price is due to the vast shortage.

Also, farmers actually help with arti issues. If they kill the mob as soon as it pops, there will be more artis and less cost per arti.

People whine about farmers and shun them, so they stop farming, so there is fewer artis available, and then whine about the shortage of artis which is caused by fewer farmers.

The one big disadvantage of this system is for people who want to actually play the game and get their own arti, can't. However, the reason they can't is not cos of the evil farmers, but because of the low pop rate. If *everyone* who didn't want/need the arti didn't attack them mob (except when helping someone who did need it get it), then there still would be a shortage. Firstly, less people would do the mob (it wouldn't be insta killed) and secondly getting a group to help you would be harder. Even then, the mob would be down alot when you try to kill it.

b) You do a solo (or duoable) quest that takes lots of hours, you then get an item that allows you to insta spawn the arti mob (and also lock it so only you can attack it). If you die (or the arti doesn't drop), you have to re-do the quest to get the mob to spawn again.

This way is much better than the previous system. Artis still are hard to get as you have to do a long quest, however, it prevents people from stopping you from actually doing the arti mob. The length of the quest would have to be choosen so that the artis are still just as hard to get.

This means that you can skip the quest and buy the arti (expensive) or do the quest and get the arti. Artis will stil be expensive (think 5-10 part quest with 1-2 hours per step), but at least people can do the quest instead. Atm, they only have 1 choice.

The issue is that under this system people would see that it is a game design decision (very long quest), that is making the artis expensive, so there would be anger at Mythic directly to shorten the quests. In the previous system, the anger is directed at the farmers, even though the reason that they are expensive is also due to a design decision (long re-pop timers).


Hmm, anyway, my point is that the problems with people paying RL cash are often game related. If you set up the rules of the game better, then it is harder for farming companies to operate. My understanding is that in Lineage 2, the problem is that merchants sell everything for cash and items have little to no level restrictions. This meant that a newbie could wear high level stuff. This system meant that having lots of money greatly boosted your char. In daoc, OTOH, having SC-ed armour does make a difference to your char when you are leveling an alt, but doesn't make such a massive difference that you would be completely useless if you had bad armour. This reduces the need to buy game money with RL money.

It doesn't matter what the CoC says...the servers belong to GOA; if they wanted to ban you for dressing your char like a hamster..they could.

In that case why have the CoC in the first place if it doesn't really matter?, and GoA can do what they want anyway.

It makes a mockery out of the CoC.

The COC is a GOA stating their position on lots of stuff. It is easier to say "dont trade plats for RL money", than it is to get people to stop doing it by saying nothing and just banning accounts of those who do it without warning. It is good PR to state your general policy even if you are not technically legally required to follow it yourself. If you don't break the rules as stated, it is unlikely that Goa will take any action against you. Also, even if the COC is not binding to GOA, it is binding to the players.

Well, there is simply too much gold on the servers atm, since the game is getting old. There isnt much that can be done about that really, but buying gold for irl money only makes it worse. Only real solution would be if GOA deiced to remove say 9/10ths of all gold from all accounts, to make gold valuable again - i.e. if the average oldtime player has 50plat and the average new player has 5plat and both can make 1plat/week (just an example) then removing 9/10 would mean they had 5p/500g respectively and after 10 weeks 15p/5.5p which isnt as large a differnce.

An alternative (and erm, one likely to have less people cancelling , would be to just increase money sinks in the game. There is an arguement that that is what the new arti dur repair system is for. When crafting gear was uber, that was a great money sink. People would pay 5-10p for crafted stuff and probably 3-6p of that was materials, so the money went to npcs and left the game. This was usually enough to bleed off a chars entire surplus of gold generated by leveling to 50.

Maybe, they could start charging con recovery for rvr death, say there is a 50% chance of losing 1 point of con due to rvr death. Then boost the cost of healers. In fact, there should be a multiplier for all npcs. This would allow the prices of everything to be increased by say 20%. Keep increasing it until the gold supply drops to reasonable levels.

However, fundamentally, the problem is that gold is to easy to get and people get gold for doing stuff which isn't related to getting gold. One solution would be to nerf gold drops except in one dungeon. In that dungeon, there would be no exp/items or anything, but it would be the best place to get gold. Npcs would slowly bleed gold out of the economy and the gold mine would be nearly deserted. Suddenly, the value of gold would have risen to the point where people would raid the gold mine to replenish their gold supply. This would hold the value of gold more stable. You could have something like the boss mob of the gold mine would drop lots of diamond seals ... erm I mean gold .

 

[Bonelamencer]

its like renting a flat....you only pay to use the service they provide.

only thing nowadays is the flats got rats and no heating but the landlord aka goa/mythic whomever it is wont repair this (fix classes+bugs) but you continue to live there.

Well said Bahu ! Moreover you pay fines if you try to improve it by investing ur own money uke:

 

[DirtyDiana]

When it comes to artis and stuff ... using the old age example i tryed doing golm during last week. I logged on over aperiod of 3 days when i could. Might just be coinsidence but their was a dude their that was AFK during the day, and on his char at night. GOLM is probably the easiest enchounter to complete but yet it costs a bom on ME. Yes most people will /invite so you can get credit but you then have to purchase the artifact. Scrolls are a different matter as they are available at many camps and can be farmed, cos not every mob in TOA is camped.

Instance artifact enchounters, that way everyone has the same oppotunity to get them, not just the people who can spend their day ona island and not have to work or feed their children. You wont stop the illegal transactions unless you stop the farmer. I bet all my plats that these people who sell in game currency are those who camp the artifacts 24/7.

It is quiet obvious that people have been around for a few years saw the economic change with TOA. I personaly like the idea of artifacts and scrolls. But i beleive that casual players and people without lives should have the same oppotunity.

Instances were created in classic DAOC .. Corruscating mine ect. It wont be hard to impliment it for Artifacts in TOA.

This has come up numours times on this forum and in game, it would be a idea if GOA and Mythic listend to their subscribers and their whines.

 

[Deepflame]

I'm all for adding new money sinks, (Housing anyone?), however I'm against increasing the current money sinks. I don't have that much plat to spare. (I think all the money of the game is on like, 2, 3 guys! (Conspiring against the world, ofcourse!)) I would hate having to pay those dastardly healers more than they already charge. It would just make me get a GoLM for every one of my characters.

Nice money sinks I wouldn't mind seeing added would be better configurable houses, different shapes too. Also, I wouldn't mind new armors either. Current skins are getting kinda same-same.

I bet the new Darkness Rising horses are going to be a money sink deluxe.