Sad State of Siege Economy

[WhiteWitch]

Bo, out of interest, forgetting artefacts for a moment, as an organised PvP system, don't you think VvV is an improvement over factions?

 

[Val'lyn De'ana]

Thank you to everyone last night. Quite a few people in Luna and Rico helped me get my newbie wear.

 

[Bo Bo]

Bo, out of interest, forgetting artefacts for a moment, as an organised PvP system, don't you think VvV is an improvement over factions?

Both systems really lack something to fight for. Sure you can steal sigils and return them but that gets boring pretty quick. There is no real reason to be in either. They had a chance to tie the governorship into one of these systems, or even add a reason to hold a town.
The only good thing about VvV is that it turns alot of people orange, and they dont even know it. That is also a big problem with it. (great for the Bo, but bad for the people this happens too). Why waste Bo's time holding a town for 20 minutes for 1/25 of the points needed for a piece of deco? hahaha
Factions was seriously no better at the end. Both systems are seriously flawed and lack a reason to be in them. Bo would say factions was better simply cause Bo thinks the Devs really missed to boat on this one. They didnt take into consideration a low population shard. Guess what devs every shard cept Atl is low population. If this is the best VvV gets than they could have spent there time on better things. Hell give people more deco **** and crap to pvm against.

 

[SpyderBite]

I'm a little confused. Back in 2001-2005 all the PvP was overland and at champs. Factions were little more than a hobby for most guilds.

So what changed that made factions the end all be all of PvP?

I'd really like to know what happened since I left that caused people to cease fighting each other because it was fun. And now only fight if there is some sort of reward involved?

 

[Freelsy]

You are totally missing Bo's point. It wasnt the faction gear that made the people good. Some people are just better than others. Bo went non factions when all you people here where crying bout faction gear and guess what. Bo killed just as many people with the gear as without it. Getting rid of the gear and having no replacement is going to hurt the shard. How many people did the new VvV draw to the server? NONE! Its a pvp system without any sort of rhyme or reason on Siege.

Four years later and it's still the same complaints. Bo, I don't know why you're still fighting this uphill battle. Look what the trammies did to this shard. They ran off the all the PvPers and with them all trade/economy dwindled. All that's left are resource gatherers and hand holding guildies. I've logged on multiple times during this month and it's the same thing every time. I run all around the mainland and see 2 or 3 players... THAT'S IT! I'm a naked red character and have not been attacked yet.

 

[WhiteWitch]

I'm a little confused. Back in 2001-2005 all the PvP was overland and at champs. Factions were little more than a hobby for most guilds.

So what changed that made factions the end all be all of PvP?

I'd really like to know what happened since I left that caused people to cease fighting each other because it was fun. And now only fight if there is some sort of reward involved?

I do VvV because I enjoy the fights, before VvV it wasn't that easy to get good fights apart from asking for duels, now you can have instant PvP, I think its a great improvement.

I may be reading some posts wrongly here but it seems some are suggesting that a "PvPer" means a Red, we still seem to have a fair number of PvPers, just less are red maybe

 

[TheScoundrelRico]

Look what the trammies did to this shard. They ran off the all the PvPers and with them all trade/economy dwindled.

Who is the real trammy then? Scared off by a bunch of guard hugging blues, stealth tamers and crafters? LOL, I thought the "real" PvPers had a thicker skin than that...la

 

[SpyderBite]

I do VvV because I enjoy the fights, before VvV it wasn't that easy to get good fights apart from asking for duels, now you can have instant PvP, I think its a great improvement.

I may be reading some posts wrongly here but it seems some are suggesting that a "PvPer" means a Red, we still seem to have a fair number of PvPers, just less are red maybe

Meh. While I'm happy that VvV has introduced a little pvp; it's still a bit pathetic that a milkbone has to be tossed out there to encourage it.

Years ago, if an innocent was attacked, a squad of KSS knights would be scouring the land. Their reward was valor and honor.

VmP left wooden sigils marking the place of their latest kill.

Dagashi held up an entire establishment single handedly until the taxes were paid.

BBQ was the hottest chicken in Malas.

Kelmo defended a town with the support of his townees when raiders descended upon the small hamlet of Iantown.

But I guess a red horse is cool too.

 

[TheScoundrelRico]

I have to admit, I've had mixed emotions while running around the shard the past few weeks.

While it was fun reminiscing when visiting the locations of old player towns...it was sad to see how many of those areas are pretty vacant. Iantown, Yew forest, the orc fort, etc...la

 

[SpyderBite]

Yup. Took that tour myself. When I hit Wintermoor I'd had enough and placed a house there. Couldn't stand seeing it vacant with the exception of Ottos home.

If Patty, Sean, Spree and others placed homes on Malas where Iantown used to be I'd be right behind them.

 

[GarthGrey]

So how many people actually left this shard, that caused it to go from the Glory of Old, to its present state ? 20 ? 50 ? 3 ?

 

[Freelsy]

Who is the real trammy then? Scared off by a bunch of guard hugging blues, stealth tamers and crafters? LOL, I thought the "real" PvPers had a thicker skin than that...la

no...no... You missed the point completely. They (the blue player base) wanted very strict rules on how everyone could acquire gear. The following example is the mindset that pushed most real PvP'ers away from Siege. Faction artifacts came out and opened up cheaper build options with powerful gear options. The blue player base didn't like the original silver cost because it allowed players to equip to easily. What did they end up doing? They complained and got it raised to x5 the original amount. This led to hours of farming silver for each suit. This had one of two effects across all players. A) it pigeonholed the non faction players into specific less capable builds due to not having the benefits of powerful items and B) it created an even greater separation between those that did have the gear and those that didn't...thus the endless cycle of the have and have nots. Ultimately, this trickled down into what we have now... A dead shard filled with crafters and role players.

According to what I've read in this thread so far, it seems that VvV arties followed the same path that faction artifacts did... people complained and got them removed. Again, all this does is hurt the less fortunate player base by restricting their gear choices. The players that can afford it will continue to run maximum suits, yet those that are new or not as well off will continue to get smashed because they can't compete... You've only perpetuated the cycle.

 

[Freelsy]

So how many people actually left this shard, that caused it to go from the Glory of Old, to its present state ? 20 ? 50 ? 3 ?

Just off the top of my head I can think of quite a few that used to play EVERY NIGHT...lets see how many I can remember (it's been a while)

From my guild...
Astynax (myself)
Tek
Hef
Death
Myaku
Gujek
Dante
Loki
Chrono
Tiberius

Other guilds that I don't see/hear are around anymore...
Kage
Forsaken
Sunchicken
HaHa
Enigma
Scuzzle
Speedy
Mono
Puffy
Wyrm
Shakaja
Fudd
Goodguy
Goron
Sir Daniel
Krystal
Righty
Verum
Calibretto
Cash
Neo
Soul Weaver (on and off all the time)

There are more I know I'm missing, but I just don't remember. That right there is a list of 31 players that heavily PvP'd. Also, those players came from three primary guilds. TO/LOW, KOC/BFF and TNT (the only guild to keep the same name ) If we factor in characters that weren't heavily into the PvP scene, we could easily add another 15 players. Again, these were daily players that could be found almost anywhere in the game.

 

[GarthGrey]

Was that a Mass Exodus or did it occur over time ? And what was the root cause ?

 

[Uvtha]

It's pretty sad to see that inflation has really hit this shard hard. It used to be the one shard that had it's economy in control.

The last time I played (6 years ago) big ticket items were 1 million (and even at that price alot of people balked). So what happened?

How did the economy inflate so much? Is there a way to transfer gold and character to Siege now and cash from the prodo shards has made it's way here? I know there are brokers (they seem to always be around) have they figured out a way to get gold here?

Just wondering since I saw a 1 year reward sell for 5 million? LOL...la

It's not that bad almost everything rare is under 10m and most stuff is under 5m. There are just a few items I see regularly going for more than 10m.

Anyway, inflation isnt a big deal, it's just relative. The only difference is that instead of farming gold you farm stuff to sell, and its been that way since at least Stygian Abyss.

Now the economy IS much worse than it used to be, but thats beacause there are just fewer people selling stuff, cause fewer peeps are playing. The real measure of a non-necessity economy is the range of items being sold and the range of relative price levels. It doesn't really matter what the price ranges are, just so that there are different levels. There are, but the number of shops is tiny, so the economy kinda sucks in that regard.

As to why, time passes, fewer pks, more land all make it easier to farm gold, lack of gold sinks... it just piles up. Slower than regular shards, but still happens.

 

[Uvtha]

I"ll tell you what happened, we got an influx of Atl players with billions there who came here, and then Sieges richest folks took their 8-1 ration gold trade and made them all instant Siege Rich. Hell we had an auction recently where someone I've never even heard of won an item for around 30 mil because no one else could afford that for 1 item. All of which was handed over to them on their first day for 8-1 atl gold. And that's still happening because we don't really have a truly committed Siege population. We still have a ton of vets that log in here once in a while and pretend they're Siege Community leaders, when in fact they spend more time on their prodo shard farming so they can continue they're 8-1 gold swap. I"m not hoarding gold on vendors and chests and in the corners of my house. I'm hoarding resources from sinking ships and stuff. Mainly because it doesn't sell worth a damn. And somewhere along the way I've forgotten what I'm ranting about

That's just moving wealth, not creating it. The gold still has to be created here. Gold can only be "hoarded" so much because unlike in the real world no one has needs and there is no limit to the amount of gold an individual can create except time. You can't really control wealth in a scenario like that.

 

[Uvtha]

As stated, the trade deals is a good gold sink for us.
X active governors times 2 Mil is taken out of the economy each week. Not much in the larger picture at the moment but a step in the right direction...

Cept that trade deals reduced the need for such donations drastically as once you get up to the 5 line quests one person could fund the town fairly easily as the base per trip is 50k, and it can get well over 100k per trip if you kill stuff and the town is far away.

 

[Uvtha]

No offense, but many of you are as ignorant of SP economy as you are of RL economy. Here are a few simple lessons that everybody should know.


1. The developers do NOT control nor influence the economy.

Because all economic systems are driven by producer-consumer supply & demand. So which goods are in high and low demand on SP? Which goods are over stocked? These questions and answers are relatively simple. Very rare gears, weapons, armors, decorations, items, are always in high demand. So these will have the greatest prices. The shard is old. So reg prices, lumber, ingots, raw materials are all very, very low. Because they've been stockpiled over the years. Furthermore there is no NEED nor DEMAND to stockpile resources, since crafting professions are nearly useless.


2. Inflation/Deflation

Inflation is a natural occurrence of EVERY economic system, whether on a video game or in real life. Inflation occurs by the printing of money, or in the circumstance of SP, the hoarding of gold collected from monsters. UO gold is accumulated by killing monsters which introduce gold into the economy. Player-to-player transactions DO NOT AFFECT inflation/deflation. Why not? Because the gold is circulated, not destroyed. The only time deflation occurs in SP and UO is when a wealthy player quits the game without giving any goods away. This rarely happens because houses get looted during IDOCs. So wealth doesn't disappear. Gold sinks also cause deflation. But with a long running economy and game like ultima online, deflation is a moot point. The only players deflation would help, is new players to the shard. But this is negligible, because GIL and other wealthy players give newbies 1 mil gold frequently. So there's no actual need for deflation. A better thing to do for the game and shard, would be to make crafting or resource gathering profitable for new players. But that solution is actually very complicated, and so will probably not ever be accomplished. Therefore inflation will stay the norm. It's not a big deal.


3. Economic Stagnancy

This is the REAL PROBLEM here, not inflation, and not the developers. The real problem with SP is that trading has all but ceased. Because there simply is no reason to trade, buy, and sell. What is being bought and sold, and between whom? It's already been mentioned in this thread, but new players are averse to vet players. Vet players control the economy, and intentionally lock it and keep it stagnant. Therefore it is the veteran players' fault, only, nobody else, who is responsible for the main economic woe of SP. Veteran players are to blame.

But, how big of a problem is this really? Speaking for myself, I don't mind the stagnant economy. Because I only want to buy, sell, and trade rare house decos. Everything else is secondary to me. But a stagnant economy makes it very difficult for new players to come in and stay on SP. What should be done about this? Other than a major overhaul of game mechanics, including crafting and gathering, and pvp (VvV), new players just need to follow through and fight the uphill battle. New players should realize that longtime vets are NOT on your side. They're not here to help you, truly. You have to do it all yourself. Because the Vet players are inclusive and form little petty popularity cliques, like sitting at this or that table during high school. You don't want to play popularity games, do you? Then you have to rise up and go against the vets.

The vets will lock you out of the economy, and shard, if you don't "play their game". So just do it all yourself. That's my recommendation and suggestion. Go against the grain.

Here's my best question. How long should it take before a new player becomes viable on SP? 1 year? 2 or 3 years??? This is a serious question. How long before a new player can compete against 10 year vet players??? I believe that given a year, the average new player should be able to compete toe to toe against all vet players with a minor disadvantage. After 2 or 3 years, the medium length player should be "equal" in most terms to vet players. As it stands right now, newbies really cannot compete against vet players, even after 2 or 3 years. So yes, this does dissuade and turn a lot of new players away from SP.

I only stayed as long as I have, because I'm stubborn and like challenges. Although I have almost no time to play SP since I rejoined. I have like 10 hours per month that I can spend in game.

So until I have more time, I really can't do much at all.

I agree with all of this, except the notion that some clique of vets can "lock down" the shard, especially at low economic levels. They can make it difficult to get into the rare deco trade, but that is how it is anywhere and you cant stop that. There will always be relatively more valuable items so long as there are differing levels of rarity of items.

Every shard has a 1%, thats how capitalism works, wealth accumulates/concentrates.

Of course in UO where there are no needs and no restrictions on earning wealth and the technical equality between the various actors in the system (all characters have same unfettered access to skill/stat/etc) the barriers keeping people out of the top levels are much weaker.

Like others have said, the only thing wrong with the siege economy is lack of population. That's not a siege problem, its a UO problem, and that problems is simply time. Game just keeps getting more and more outdated and getting more and more modern competition. Just the slow death throes of the game if you ask me.

 

[Uvtha]

Do you really need buffed up gear to fight on Siege? If everyone is playing on the same field...should it matter if gear isn't included?...la

I agree that gear a problem, especially for pvpers who I can only imagine die/lose gear more often than non pvpers. Gear has just become very specialized with imbuing and the recent super ease of getting relic fragments, everyone has a near maxed imbued suit. Its not hard to get the stuff to make a suit, but it can get costly, and is time consuming.

As I have lamented before in other threads this is a problem on siege because these system were all designed with no item loss in mind. They don't work well on a shard without insurance. This has always been a MAJOR problem with siege, its all bleed over and we are just forced to do the best with what we get, but its clearly not ideal, and causes a lot of problems and makes the shard more difficult to play than it had ought to be, especially for certain playstyles.

 

[Freelsy]

Was that a Mass Exodus or did it occur over time ? And what was the root cause ?

If my memory serves me right, the draw down took about a year and some odd months. It was mostly due to faction artifacts being expensive and costly (silver/time) and people hording other peoples gear..etc etc. I remember most of my guild all left at the same time. I continued playing for a while but most of the players left around 2011 which is when I sold my Abyss house (now Kelmos) and gave most of my stuff away... it just wasn't worth the uphill fight of trying to get buybacks and having to farm silver on a nightly basis.

 

[Tjalle]

no...no... You missed the point completely. They (the blue player base) wanted very strict rules on how everyone could acquire gear. The following example is the mindset that pushed most real PvP'ers away from Siege. Faction artifacts came out and opened up cheaper build options with powerful gear options. The blue player base didn't like the original silver cost because it allowed players to equip to easily. What did they end up doing? They complained and got it raised to x5 the original amount. This led to hours of farming silver for each suit.

If I´m not mistaken it was this thread that led to increased silver cost for the faction arties:

http://community.stratics.com/threa...-need-to-cost-more-silver.110305/#post-945324

Created by GoodGuy - a PvPer/(PK?).

 

[Spiffykeen]

I know one thing what's wrong. The other day when Vendor search was down, I opened a new vendor, and priced some minor arties at what I thought were fair, newbie attainable prices. Go ahead and vendor search Heart of the Lion, I dare you....

 

[SpyderBite]

I know one thing what's wrong. The other day when Vendor search was down, I opened a new vendor, and priced some minor arties at what I thought were fair, newbie attainable prices. Go ahead and vendor search Heart of the Lion, I dare you....

That shouldn't be an issue anymore. Yesterday or the day before, they flushed out the vendor search database. Since then my vendors have been selling stuff that's been sitting there for a month like crazy.

Perhaps it needs a double flush? XD

 

[Spiffykeen]

Okay, I shoulda been less vague. Theres one for 500k. A minor arty for 500k.... what the hell people?

 

[Captn Norrington]

Okay, I shoulda been less vague. Theres one for 500k. A minor arty for 500k.... what the hell people?

Sadly that's about 10x what they cost on Atlantic lol....

 

[SpyderBite]

Okay, I shoulda been less vague. Theres one for 500k. A minor arty for 500k.... what the hell people?

I gotcha. We're on the same page now. Yah. That's pretty pathetic. However, there is a CBD on one vendor for 4.5mil.

 

[TheScoundrelRico]

If it really were the population that affects the economy, then the shard will never grow. As long as prices are high, players may come to Siege to check it out, but realize they aren't getting away from the production shard inflation as they thought they might and either go back to their home shard or quit altogether.

If people stopped paying the ridiculous prices being asked...the economy would get better because merchandise would move much quicker, giving more people to actually sell things...la

 

[SpyderBite]

People will continue to pay ridiculous prices because of that gaming instinct embedded in to their heads during the conception of their character that demands that "they must win at any cost". The side effect is that those of us who refuse to pay outrageous prices are smacked down and ridiculed for having no talent.

Meh. I really miss the days when GM leather was a luxury.

 

[TheScoundrelRico]

How true. Because of the pricing, I'll probably end up buying a few soul stones and train up some crafting skills so I can avoid paying high for items I need/want. What's the current market for resources these days? With the lack of new players (and LRC suits and IDOC loot), I'd bet resource gatherers have stopped selling as much as they used to...la

 

[Klapauc]

Best template for the itemless playstyle is a 4x120 bard. You only need your blessed instrument, just equip what you find.That playstyle is basically bulletproof to pking and griefing since there is no real loss of items involved.
As a bonus, most people like to have a bard in the group since the masteries are so op, especially under siege ruleset.
But since good gm made armor does cost quite a bit in material price alone if its plate or stone, you can imbue it as well for better survivability. Running a gm made valorite suit is just asking to get killed imho.

Agra-Lem

 

[WhiteWitch]

If it really were the population that affects the economy, then the shard will never grow. As long as prices are high, players may come to Siege to check it out, but realize they aren't getting away from the production shard inflation as they thought they might and either go back to their home shard or quit altogether.

If people stopped paying the ridiculous prices being asked...the economy would get better because merchandise would move much quicker, giving more people to actually sell things...la

Just because things are on vendors for stupid money it doesn't mean they will sell.

I'm always semi-skint, the most I've ever had on Siege is 5 mil as I have a barbed runic and seed of renewal habit, I'm not sure what these things are that are greatly overpriced, I imagine they are not what most would class as "essentials".

The people on Siege are a good bunch and it seems most of the trading is done over main chat between players, most recent examples for me were 120 fencing scroll I needed and pads of cu sidhe which I had been looking for in vendor search for ages, when I asked on main Morgan sold me a pair he had for a very good price.
I see lots of deals like this in main chat and everyone seems to be pretty reasonable in their prices, I think the "economy" of siege is just less vendor based than regular shards because demand isn't enough to justify paying a vendor for weeks on end for very few sales.

 

[Uvtha]

If it really were the population that affects the economy, then the shard will never grow. As long as prices are high, players may come to Siege to check it out, but realize they aren't getting away from the production shard inflation as they thought they might and either go back to their home shard or quit altogether.

If people stopped paying the ridiculous prices being asked...the economy would get better because merchandise would move much quicker, giving more people to actually sell things...la

Inflation is DRASTICALLY lower on siege... by like 100x or more in many cases. Rares go for literal billions of gp on some prodo shards. If something here reaches over 10m its fairly uncommon and exceptionally rare to hit over 50m.

As for refusing to pay high prices... that's just not how it works. The inflation of currency is a reality you can't just sidestep. Like it or not, a million gold is just no longer a relatively high amount.
There would be no incentive to sell items if the return in currency wasn't a relatively equal value. It's like saying car prices irl would drop to 5k if people just stopped paying 10k for cars. That wouldn't happen, instead companies would just stop making cars, because the return is not worth the investment.
If people didn't pay prices that were inline with the value of currency the economy wouldn't get better, it would just grind to a halt.
Of course the investment in UO isn't capital, but time, but it's the same deal. If the return is not worth the time invested to get a particular item, then no one will try to get it, or sell it if they have it. Why would they? It would be more advantageous to keep it, or trade it for other equally scarce/in demand items.

Inflation is not a big deal. In a fictional world its pretty much just a cosmetic issue. It doesn't stop people from buying and selling, or amassing wealth. They just can't become "rich" very easily picking up gold off of monster corpses, and that's fine. Even though, as I have mentioned in the past, it's really not THAT hard to make a million looting monsters alone. You could easily do it in a week with JUST monster gold, and much quicker if you had the time, patience, and inclination. Of course there are many easier ways to make a million.

It may look nicer to see something sell for 100k than 1m, but the value is exactly the same, relatively.

 

[Uvtha]

People will continue to pay ridiculous prices because of that gaming instinct embedded in to their heads during the conception of their character that demands that "they must win at any cost". The side effect is that those of us who refuse to pay outrageous prices are smacked down and ridiculed for having no talent.

Meh. I really miss the days when GM leather was a luxury.

People always payed top dollar for new or "exciting" items such as rares. It's simple economics of supply and demand. This will ALWAYS happen, it cannot be stopped in an open capitalistic setting. People are really just getting hung up on the numbers here, not the value behind them. :/

The only **** that sells for stupid prices anyway are 99% deco or soulstones, gametime, etc, so who cares.

If we are talking about pvp gear here, just make an imbuer. There is nothing, or very, very, very little out there, outside of maybe splintering weps which you can farm yourself with little issue, that is sooo much better than an imbued item that it makes any real noticeable difference. It's less "pay to win" now than it has ever been in modern (post AoS) UO.
Really all an "uber" piece will do for you is make your suit a bit more flexible. Not a real game changer.

As for GM being a luxury... when was that, 15, 16 years ago?? I cannot remember using anything lower than GM past 99, and only on siege at the very beginning because no one had the skill, and RoT was consssssiiiderrrabbllly more harsh back then, so it took a few months for GM to pop up. And I am, and always have been poor as ****.

I mean, no, you can't run GM stuff anymore. The game has changed. You can though gear up just fine without spending that much, other than the time to train the skill, or gather the resources for a friend to imbue you something.

 

[Uvtha]

What's the current market for resources these days? With the lack of new players (and LRC suits and IDOC loot), I'd bet resource gatherers have stopped selling as much as they used to...la

Good question. Are there any regular resource gatherers around? Anyone know?

 

[Revvo]

Prices are high because of greed, plain and simple. If I had 600 mil sitting on my vendors covering fees, then I too would put a whetstone on my vendor for 8 mil and simply wait until it sells, or do a search, find all of the other ones for sale lower, go out and buy them till they're all gone. Then put one on my vendor holding tons of mils , price it high and wait. There are several vendors that do this very thing, not calling any name out in particular, but the truth is the truth. Our economy is out of whack because of greed, period.

Just out of curiosity how do you feel unattended script mining impacts the economy? Secret Malas locations aren't all that secret

 

[TheScoundrelRico]

Just out of curiosity how do you feel unattended script mining impacts the economy? Secret Malas locations aren't all that secret

I wish there were more players looking for scripters to make them see grey. You'd think that with general chat if the word was sent out, a scripter's day could be ruined in a few minutes of the call to action...la

 

[TheScoundrelRico]

Inflation is DRASTICALLY lower on siege... by like 100x or more in many cases. Rares go for literal billions of gp on some prodo shards. If something here reaches over 10m its fairly uncommon and exceptionally rare to hit over 50m.

As for refusing to pay high prices... that's just not how it works. The inflation of currency is a reality you can't just sidestep. Like it or not, a million gold is just no longer a relatively high amount.

First off, comparing inflation of Siege to production shards is silly. We've always had a different economy for soooo many reasons.

In regards to high prices...if consumers are willing to press, sellers will either drop their prices or hold onto a lot of stuff that won't sell for the prices the want. Because this is an online game that isn't based on reality...it's easy for the consumer to hold out until prices drop. Nothing in-game has to be had. Sure there are items that are wanted...but nothing is needed...la

 

[Kat]

Just adding some daily PvP/Factioners to the Asty's list:

Tairon/Noriat
RP McMurphy/Virgil Starkwell
Elvis
Nixon [His main character name escapes me atm, but he was in JSV for a long time, then joined TnT].
Tide
Savage and all his multiple characters - EA lost a ton of montly $$$ when he left!
Hattori
Liquid Poison
Kael

I even left at some point in 2011 for about 2 years, not that could pvp worth a crap, but my main character was a faction thief/tamer/archer.

I could name tons of people who have left never to return, but most of them left prior to that mass exodus.

 

[TheScoundrelRico]

To be honest, I thin the biggest exodus happened when the old IPY player run shard opened up. Whn PRS offered the old style PvP systems that they missed, the people looked for a way to re-find the excitement PvP used to give them. I remember a time long long ago when the banks in Brit and Del were over run with players. Playing a disarm thief was great.

The PvP battles over the first Champ spawns were pretty awesome. KBG would take on all comers...and there were plenty. The battles near Wrong were pretty epic as well. Why do you think Siege has the arena near Wrong?...la

 

[Uvtha]

First off, comparing inflation of Siege to production shards is silly. We've always had a different economy for soooo many reasons.

I don't think it's silly. If you want to talk about daunting inflation comparing what we have to what prodo shards have is a relevant comparison, and in that comparison we come out looking drastically, drastically better. I know we have always had a different economy, but the only real difference currency wise (which is what this topic is about) is that we can't farm gold as fast because 1) no tram and 2) lower population. I know believe me, the economy was the #1 reason I play here. Or it was when there were enough players to sustain a robust trade.

In regards to high prices...if consumers are willing to press, sellers will either drop their prices or hold onto a lot of stuff that won't sell for the prices the want. Because this is an online game that isn't based on reality...it's easy for the consumer to hold out until prices drop. Nothing in-game has to be had. Sure there are items that are wanted...but nothing is needed...la

The thing is prices are NOT especially high. People don't balk at the prices as you and spyder (both recently returning after many years absence) seem to, because those of us who have been around during those years adapted naturally to the rate of inflation. You guys also naturally are suffering from 5+ year sticker shock, but in reality the prices are the same, it's just the numbers that have changed.
Consumers can press and prices CAN drop, (and I have seen many go up and down), but they aren't going to drop drastically. 1m ticket items are not suddenly going to be sold for 100k or whatever. There's just no percentage. Things might sell for 1.5m rather than 2m, but that's about it.

Obviously no one NEEDS any item, but everyone plays to have a good time, and enjoy what the game has to offer, and the economy even though virtual, is capitalistic, and the free market sorts the prices. Buyers want their toys, sellers want their profit. Really this is the perfect scenario for a thriving and free market, as no lives are on the line so its all just luxury, players have no real influence in the structure of the economy or any other social rules regardless of their net worth, so corruption is impossible (unless you count duping).... But I digress.

Bottom line, inflation happens, and without strict economy controls, that everyone would despise (like taxes ), or an occasional currency turn in (which would accomplish absolutely nothing but cosmetically altering the numbers, everyone would still have the exact same amount of wealth regardless of how much less currency they held) you can only hope to curtail it's rate to some degree with quality currency eaters or whatever, but we haven't got even that much. So, it's just natural, and there's really nothing wrong with it.

The effect inflation has on a virtual economy all but completely cosmetic. The only REAL problem inflation causes is the logistical unpleasantness of too many 1m checks, but that's really a flaw in the banking system more than a problem with inflation. Other than that its just cosmetic.

 

[Viscount Goop]

I rather saw Stealth removed from Siege or nerfed so it only was useful for moving very slow and careful when hidden

Just give players a better chance to find/spot stealthers, don't nerf the skill as such so that pvm stealthing isn't affected.

 

[Donal Mor]

For stealth... I would give tracking the ability to target their mark. So say you track person X... that arrow that comes up and guides you around, allow the tracking player to target that tracking arrow. If they hit, then the stealther is revealed with a penalty to hide again. Think of it as shooting into the bushes.

 

[SpyderBite]

Just give players a better chance to find/spot stealthers, don't nerf the skill as such so that pvm stealthing isn't affected.

At GM Tracking and perhaps Detect Hidden, sure. If somebody is going to be able to take pot shots at me with the 200 points I have invested.. They better have allocated some skill points into non-combative skills as well.