I don't understand this change to gold weight

[JC the Builder]

So now gold is 3x lighter. A pile of 60,000 gold weighs 400 stones (150 gold weighs 1 stone). In addition to this change they are reverting the Bag of Sending back to its original function. So you can now send 60,000 per charge instead of ~20,000 it used to be. Gold collection is going to skyrocket.

This appears to be a complete change in direction from the position that too much gold was being created when Bag of Sending was nerfed.

Unless there is supposed to be some sort of other part to this, this would increase inflation by 3x.

 

[Tina Small]

Unless there is supposed to be some sort of other part to this, this would increase inflation by 3x.

Interesting thought, JC. You know, that Casca's a sly one. Maybe he's getting into the insurance business and plans to send premiums skyrocketing. Or perhaps he has got big tax-and-spend plans. Has anyone checked insurance costs NPC vendor pricing yet to see if they're still the same?

 

[TheScoundrelRico]

I'm tellin ya, make those bags stealable and the thief population will make sure that they stay out of the packs of the gold farmers...at least in Felucca...la

 

[Snakeman]

If UO needs Subs....... what better way to do it

I say keep it as it was, lighter is only going to hurt & the newer players it will impact the most.

 

[BajaElladan]

Since you cannot insure such bags, they are already stealable. Just kill the carrier, loot the bag.

 

[Connor_Graham]

150 gold weighs 1 stone

100 gold weighs 1 stone. 150 would weigh 2. I just tested this not 5 minutes ago. Besides, what does it matter? Old weight or new, the only thing that will change is the number of BoS charges you'll use. The amount of gold farmed won't be any different.

 

[Kayhynn]

They're changing the BOS back to the old way Connor...so they'd be using 1 charge to send gold no matter amount or weight.

Someone on ORigin mentioned they are able to carry a stack of 60,000gp and not go overweight.

 

[TheScoundrelRico]

Since you cannot insure such bags, they are already stealable. Just kill the carrier, loot the bag.

Many thieves do not run templates that allow them to kill a mark, which means...since they are still tagged as containers...they cannot be stolen...la

 

[Turdnugget]

I wish they'd change the weight of wood/leather and make it comparable to ingots... kinda silly that I can carry 4k+ ingots and only a few hundred leather, or a couple hundred boards w/out becomming overweight...keep it constant please.

I didn't know that gold weighed so little...Is this just recent? I remember carrying 15k and becomming overweight (with other items in bag).

 

[Vexxed]

If I remember correctly when they fixed BoS they also fixed the spawn rates of monsters in certain dungeons... I believe they said something about any dungeon that the harrower could spawn in was causing creatures to spawn up to 8x faster than they were supposed to.... They may have made gold alot lighter & put BoS back to the old way they functioned but the spawn rates that allowed for crazy amounts of gold farming aren't there anymore...

 

[Viquire]

These and the facts that people can no longer farm on a free acct.

Just an observation on economy. I sure haven't noticed the price of top tier PS or artifact drops lowering significantly. The mostly undesirables yes. Cincture, Totem and the like, not so much.

So why suddenly should we see them rise, when they never seemed to be affected by a scarcity of gold?

 

[Connor_Graham]

They're changing the BOS back to the old way Connor...so they'd be using 1 charge to send gold no matter amount or weight.

Someone on ORigin mentioned they are able to carry a stack of 60,000gp and not go overweight.

I understand that, but it still doesn't change the simple fact that only so much gold can be obtained. How much a person can hold only affects the number of BoS charges used, not the amount of gold that can be obtained.

 

[Ravahan]

They're changing the BOS back to the old way Connor...so they'd be using 1 charge to send gold no matter amount or weight.

Someone on ORigin mentioned they are able to carry a stack of 60,000gp and not go overweight.

If its a 100:1 ratio for weight, that's impossible 'cause your pack won't hold anything past like 590 no matter what. Discovered that mining. But yes, the gold change was totally unexpected, and I'm smacking myself right now for not blowing all my gold in items rather than keeping it cash because that cash is going to be worthless in about a month.... Well, more worthless.

Unless they really slowed the spawn times down, like one of the other posters said... that might do it. Not just the delay, but the amount of people farming gold. Lets face it, waiting on mobs to spawn is BORING! hehe

 

[Crysta]

Its kinda obvious... they think that getting rid of the trial accounts will let them remove the restritctions that were placed years ago because of scripters... they just don't seem to realize the number of legitimate players that will take just as much advantage of it without doing anything illegal.

:\

 

[Tina Small]

Maybe we're getting some snazzy new gold sinks.

 

[Storm]

I like the new changes before I could cary 11k gold and would take most of my charges to send to bank now I can farm over 30k gold and uses one charge I like it not to mention now I can farm arrows with my cu and not have to leave to bank

 

[Endrik]

I love this change. Now the majority of my time can be spent playing instead of transporting. And I can actually keep the gold from the things I kill instead of just leaving it. I hope this stays!!! There is nothing wrong with being able to farm gold. As long as your legit and actually doing it yourself and not having a script do it for you you should be able to make a decent living killing monsters. Now more people can make good money, not just those who deal in high end rares and whatnot.

 

[Vyrquenox]

You don't understand macro-economics JC, and neither did they. The price of gold for sale dropped after the BOS nerf, because suddenly the demand went up. counter-intuitively, none of this was much but a fork in the road for scripters, and they all ran to fill the demand for people who didn't want to haul gold around, and people could buy gold for a dollar or even less sometimes, so the actual amount of gold in the game went UP, because people would rather just pay 10 bucks than spend their 3 or 4 hours of game time running 15 or 20k back and forth, back and forth. If everyone has their own ability to collect their own gold more, the demand will go down on the scripters, people will actually be willing to put a bit of effort into collecting it themselves more, and the actual result will be there will be less gold because the value of an actual dollar bill will go up vrs the value of a million gold, and although that sounds like that would make gold cheaper, its fake money versus real money, and so people will be more likely to keep their dollar bill and not buy gold because it's not a commodity, less people will script, simply because the time spent to get the gold will be less, so less people will script or buy gold. What we're worried about here is real business activity outside the company of people who can could and did easily still farm gold on multiple computers with macros going and have alarms go off if anyone came around to say something or their macroes stopped working. The price of gold will go up now, because real people won't be encouraged to buy it as much. Gold will actually be worth more. Don't be a fool. If a real player can go farm his own gold while he's really there, that is really playing and he really won't be as encouraged to buy it, and the supply of people bothering to supply it will go down, and yes, like i said, the price online will go up, because then the ones who have it think it's worth more, because it is to them, because they need a profit, will need to rely and have to rely on the people who will pay triple the price anyway because they are well off. If you have 1000 people who will pay 3 dollars a million but if you can get 9000 people who will pay 1 dollar a million, if you add 4000 people ot the 1000, you lower it to 1 dollar. if its down to just 1500 with the other 1000 at 3 dollars of people who will pay one dollar a million you raise the price back up to where the 1000 people who will 3 dollars are, you stand to make more money that way then. The numbers are just examples not based on any stats of people buying gold. But it shows how a lowering of demand can raise a price. If I didn't explain it right, this means eventually your gold will be worth more. It's textbook.

 

[4gregu]

You don't understand macro-economics JC, and neither did they. The price of gold for sale dropped after the BOS nerf, because suddenly the demand went up.

I guess I don't understand "macro-economics" either... you’re saying it’s the exact opposite of supply and demand?

 

[Endrik]

You don't understand macro-economics JC, and neither did they. The price of gold for sale dropped after the BOS nerf, because suddenly the demand went up.

so the actual amount of gold in the game went UP

The price of gold will go up now, because real people won't be encouraged to buy it as much.

Wow. Lol, just wow. Have you ever taken a single econ class? Please... if your looking for a job IRL right now let me know where... because I would LOVE to be the guy that gets interviewed right after you.

 

[SwordBlaze]

Wow. Lol, just wow. Have you ever taken a single econ class? Please... if your looking for a job IRL right now let me know where... because I would LOVE to be the guy that gets interviewed right after you.

Actually his post makes a lot of sense. At least the part about the gold in the first half. My attention span failed me after that.

 

[DVI]

It was a bit convoluted but I think I understand what he's trying to say. the problem is that in UO the economy tends not to work the way described. When there's an excess of gold versus demand, the price drops, when there's a shortage versus demand it rises.

This is the way its been in game for years. When people first began selling gold and a million was a lot of money, it sold for $20 or more. When duping occurred 2 years ago and checks were replicated the price fell, when 15 trillion gold was subsequently banned the price rose by roughly 400-500%.

The value of gold in UO is primarily determined by two factors. How many people are buying it and the supply that individuals selling it have. There are generally plenty of people buying gold, but right now the supply has exceeded the demand many times over. This had the result of brokers dropping prices to compete for customers, in turn the smaller brokers who sell gold casually drop their prices even further to either sell to larger brokers or to leech customers here and there.

In my opinion more effective gold sinks should be instituted as soon as possible, and the supply of gold coming from killing mobs, t-maps etc should be significantly reduced. Yes that does have the result of making it more difficult for new players or poor players to acquire wealth, and leaves the rich players even richer. But, if the gold sinks are created correctly it should help alleviate some of that problem. Theoretically of course.

Regardless of what you view as the problem with the economy or the solution you think is best, I believe we can all agree there is a problem and it needs to be corrected sooner rather than later.

 

[Millie]

The price of gold will go up now, because real people won't be encouraged to buy it as much.

Real Players won't buy gold at all.. Trial account wont be able to sit and farm gold unattended now and if a reg. account does farm gold unattended your real account can get banned along with all your accounts. The only problem I see is that the people selling gold are going to lose their butts.

The lighter gold is a + also for it will help newer players in the game to be able to gather more gold. Heck it will be nice on my fighter not to have to make 5 trips to a champ to pick up the gold left on ground.

I'm sure some people will abuse it but for the most part it will help most of us.

 

[Gawin]

one word

THIEF

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

Vyrquenox is basically right. He took a little while to get it out, but here's the simplified version:

If its easy enough to just gather your own gold, why buy it from scripters? Player A can spend 2 hours, and make a million gold while actually playing the game...so he or she would be less likely to need to buy gold to afford some of the outrageously overpriced crap in the game.

 

[Mairut]

I love this change. Now the majority of my time can be spent playing instead of transporting. And I can actually keep the gold from the things I kill instead of just leaving it. I hope this stays!!! There is nothing wrong with being able to farm gold. As long as your legit and actually doing it yourself and not having a script do it for you you should be able to make a decent living killing monsters. Now more people can make good money, not just those who deal in high end rares and whatnot.

Agreed. I absolutely love this change, I was able to stay in despise longer today getting skill gains (because I had to change my template around) instead of leaving when I reached my carry limit, and I was able to carry out more in one trip
I'll also probably be spending more time in dungeons now, instead of maybe 1-2 hours every day.

I'll let you all worry about the macro-economics, I'ma get some gold
^.^

My questions:
1. When was this changed, because I only noticed it today b/c I've not done a lot of hunting lately and
2. Is this permanent?

 

[FrejaSP]

I like this changes to gold, it was to heavy.

I remember back in old days, where you would hit bank when you had around 3k, so the PK's not got them. Now the lose of 3-6k not really matter.
Also with some monsters dropping around 1k gold, you get to heavy very fast.

This changes was needed. Sure the PK's and the thieves will love it too

Now we just need leather, hide, board, logs and ore to be 1/3 weight too

 

[JC the Builder]

[lots of words]

I don't really see what the price of gold has to do with this topic. I am more concerned about how the game economy is going to be affected. IE: prices of items going up.

Gold is only removed from the economy through:

- Insurance when killed by monsters
- It decays (extremely unlikely)
- Accounts closing and gold left in bank (of which many people give their items away when they quit)

Besides insurance, there is no real method of gold getting removed from the game. Now these changes are going to ramp up gold collection 300% plus however much it was lowered when they nerfed the bag of sending. It may be going up 1000% or more.

 

[gjohnson5]

IMHO if gold is devalued in terms of real world exchange rates ($1 per million Uo gold) , then the purchasing of gold with real world cash will evaporate. Everyone will have enough to buy what they need though their play. IMHO this is EXACTLY what the game needs. The real world profit for selling gold and other items needs to be eliminated

Unfortunately if you read any reputable economics textbook , most of the complaints about a "debt based economy" and "fiat currency" are generally not included because these things are seen as conspiracy theories. Increases in the supply of money does not necessarily cause prices to increase. Excessive spending however does. IMHO due to the cost of armor (from duped valorite hammers) many people cannot afford to spend 60-70mil on a pair of leggings or or other armor. I play 10 characters on GL. This means I need 70mil * 6 body parts * 10 characters. The idea that most people are packing 4.2 billion in the bank completely from PvM loot it lunacy to me.

Personally I never could afford the armor I needed , now atleast through PvM I can get some good armor / power scroll / stat scroll / crimy / snake skin boots simply by playing the game.

As Connor said the amount of gold you collect will not change. It is just more convienent in PvM to collect it

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

Now these changes are going to ramp up gold collection 300% plus however much it was lowered when they nerfed the bag of sending. It may be going up 1000% or more.

I think these changes are going to change who is collecting the gold, more so than how much is collected.

Preventing trial account scripting, combined with making it easier for players to collect their own gold, will cause a shift that is, in my opinion, positive for legit players...bad for cheaters.

That's a good thing in my book.

 

[JC the Builder]

I think these changes are going to change who is collecting the gold, more so than how much is collected.

Yeah, those piles of gold we now leave behind at champion spawns will be scooped up. Instead of just farming for magic items you can now have a Bag of Sending and get the gold too.

Before this change a 30 charge Bag of Sending could bank about 600,000 gold.

Now it can bank 1,800,000 gold.

 

[Flutter]

Now it can bank 1,800,000 gold.

Good maybe the regular folks can keep up with the dupers and fencers now.

 

[Black Tom]

With the BoS change, the weight of gold is basically an irrelevant issue. The only real effect it will have is in how much powder you will be using. Lighter gold = fewer times you have to use the BoS.

The amount of gold you get will still be dependant on how fast you kill/loot monsters or pick it up at champ spawns.

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

This has the feel of a bug.

Total guess here, but it's a reasonable one:
I think that they had 2 ideas on how to proceed....Make gold lighter, OR restore bags of sending. They coded both, decided on the latter, then forgot to take out the former.

Official comment is quite necessary here.



-Galen's player

 

[Connor_Graham]

With the BoS change, the weight of gold is basically an irrelevant issue. The only real effect it will have is in how much powder you will be using. Lighter gold = fewer times you have to use the BoS.

The amount of gold you get will still be dependant on how fast you kill/loot monsters or pick it up at champ spawns.

I've said this twice already and JC still isn't getting it....

 

[Draconi]

This has the feel of a bug.

Total guess here, but it's a reasonable one:
I think that they had 2 ideas on how to proceed....Make gold lighter, OR restore bags of sending. They coded both, decided on the latter, then forgot to take out the former.

Official comment is quite necessary here.



-Galen's player

It's intentional, for many of the reasons already cited above, and I'd recommend you enjoy the gold drops now before we rebalance the loot!

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

It's intentional, for many of the reasons already cited above, and I'd recommend you enjoy the gold drops now before we rebalance the loot!

Thank you for the clarification. I won't be able to get much gold farming in today....Oh well. Maybe the change will be left in for awhile before you do said re-balancing.

Which brings me to.....re-balance the loot? I know I've heard/read you all talking about monster loot, making it more useful.

But are you basically telling us you're changing gold drops too?

-Galen's player

 

[Draconi]

Thank you for the clarification. I won't be able to get much gold farming in today....Oh well. Maybe the change will be left in for awhile before you do said re-balancing.

Which brings me to.....re-balance the loot? I know I've heard/read you all talking about monster loot, making it more useful.

But are you basically telling us you're changing gold drops too?

-Galen's player

Yes

 

[Mairut]

100 gold weighs 1 stone. 150 would weigh 2. I just tested this not 5 minutes ago. Besides, what does it matter? Old weight or new, the only thing that will change is the number of BoS charges you'll use. The amount of gold farmed won't be any different.

Depends on your style. If I walk in once a day and say I'm going to leave as soon as I reach my carry limit in gold and jewels:
Now, I can make around 60k.
Before this, I could make 15-20 depending on str spell and str potions.

So, yes, I did just make more (and I don't use BoS so there's another difference...)

It sounds like you're saying "i'm going to farm x amount of gold each day"...which no, in that case this wouldn't make a difference on the amount of gold YOU make.

 

[JC the Builder]

I've said this twice already and JC still isn't getting it....

Weight of gold is definitely an issue. Players are much more likely to loot gold now that it weighs so little. I normally leave it because it will weigh me down (even before the Bag of Sending change).

When Champion Spawns were introduced there was a big concern among players that too much gold could be looted due to the speed of the spawn. Developers dismissed it because you could only carry so much gold and people were apt to leave it on the corpse. This is now reversed due to the weight change.

I could see changing either the Bag of Sending or reducing the weight, but not both at the same time.

Also gold weights 150 per stone. I just double-checked on Atlantic again.

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

Yeah, those piles of gold we now leave behind at champion spawns will be scooped up. Instead of just farming for magic items you can now have a Bag of Sending and get the gold too.

Before this change a 30 charge Bag of Sending could bank about 600,000 gold.

Now it can bank 1,800,000 gold.

Right. So there is less need for you to buy it from scripters...which will reduce the overall demand for script farmed gold.

 

[Old Man of UO]

It's intentional, for many of the reasons already cited above, and I'd recommend you enjoy the gold drops now before we rebalance the loot!

I guess EA got tired me me sending in FOF questions about "When are you going to rebalance the loot?"

It could be good or bad, but mostly good I think. My first thought on changing the gold drop is how that will affect new players who start with nothing in a world that takes millions to PvP or get high end armor and weapons for PvM.

 

[JC the Builder]

Right. So there is less need for you to buy it from scripters...which will reduce the overall demand for script farmed gold.

And raise the cost of items sold by players.

 

[Maplestone]

It's intentional, for many of the reasons already cited above, and I'd recommend you enjoy the gold drops now before we rebalance the loot!

hmmm ... *looks suspiciously at the royal mint for signs of new activity*

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

And raise the cost of items sold by players.

See, I disagree with you on that, because I don't think this is going to affect inflation, because there will likely be a net drop in the amount of gold collected when measured shard wide. Scripters will have less incentive, and thanks to the new limits on trial accounts , they have less ability to farm gold.

So while players are gathering more gold, scrpiters will gather less.

I could be wrong, I guess we will have to wait and see...but I would bet my 7th character slot that is exactly why they lightened gold and restored BOSs.

 

[Viquire]

Thank you for the clarification. I won't be able to get much gold farming in today....Oh well. Maybe the change will be left in for awhile before you do said re-balancing.

Which brings me to.....re-balance the loot? I know I've heard/read you all talking about monster loot, making it more useful.

But are you basically telling us you're changing gold drops too?

-Galen's player

Yes

Erm, hmmmm.
*arches eyebrow*
Interesting Captain.

Can't wait to see what this is all about. Sounds exciting.

 

[DVI]

Right. So there is less need for you to buy it from scripters...which will reduce the overall demand for script farmed gold.

wishful thinking. ppl on here complain about uo needing to be easier bc items are to expensive. no one is gonna grind away to make 200m for a good set of gear. theyll buy it as they always have.

 

[Viquire]

And raise the cost of items sold by players.

See, I disagree with you on that, because I don't think this is going to affect inflation, because there will likely be a net drop in the amount of gold collected when measured shard wide. Scripters will have less incentive, and thanks to the new limits on trial accounts , they have less ability to farm gold.

So while players are gathering more gold, scrpiters will gather less.

I could be wrong, I guess we will have to wait and see...but I would bet my 7th character slot that is exactly why they lightened gold and restored BOSs.

While agree completely on your stance that out of game gold sales will drop a lot, After some reflection the net effect could be an overall raising of prices on in-game goods. Like for example, if you are vendoring a totem marty at a million, now unless you just have exceptional luck, um or a friend that dupes*frowns*, you are not going to be restocking this item daily.

Where as Joe Shmo player can now collect the million daily if they play like rabid hyenas. But then again its always the new stuff that commands attention. Three year old marties probably wont command a price increase like new champ spawn additions would.

 

[Viquire]

wishful thinking. ppl on here complain about uo needing to be easier bc items are to expensive. no one is gonna grind away to make 200m for a good set of gear. theyll buy it as they always have.

You don't need to have nearly 200 mil to put together a very very workable suit anymore.

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

wishful thinking. ppl on here complain about uo needing to be easier bc items are to expensive. no one is gonna grind away to make 200m for a good set of gear. theyll buy it as they always have.

I am sure you are right, there will still be demand for script farmed gold...but I think these changes make it at least possible for players that don't wish to support cheaters to earn enough gold to be competitive.