I never said it was balanced before shard shields. The economy in UO has been messed up for years. It will always be messed up. It is also not like a real economy (and that is a specious comparison--you can't go outside, kill a mongbat, and collect your $15).
Even if a shard economy is not balanced, to say that shard shields are "unbalancing" is to assert that they make a shard less balanced than before, which I have pointed out is not true.
UO
is like a real economy in the only sense that matters: people desire, produce and consume. No, we don't go out and kill mongbats, but we trade with other people. We find lower-cost ways of mutual exchange with people farther and farther away if we think we can make a better profit.
So my comparison is hardly "specious," and I caution you to take a little more polite tone unless your intent is to make this thread degenerate.
What I'm saying is that shard shields have turned all shards but Atlantic into gold farm ghettos, and that is a stupid way to run a game with multiple shards with long-standing communities and individual character on each one.
And what's wrong with that? People can do what they like in the game without having to compete with others for the same dungeon or spawn. If someone wants to farm resources, that's how he gets to play the game, and you nor I have any standing to judge that. Every so often, a guild comes to Sonoma to brag that they've taken over the spawns. I sit back and laugh, because it's not like anyone had been working it anyway.
I won't even get into your absurd insult that my home, and others' homes, are "ghettos" just because they're quiet and people come here to play. I
like that others come. Were it not for relatively easy transfers, we might have had forced shard mergers by now, impacting those who didn't want to give up their long-time homes.
For years I've heard excuses similar to "long-standing communities and individual character" from the zoning boards of smaller towns and villages, whose small-minded politicians don't want to enter the 21st century. They don't want to let residents live peacefully as they would, in this myopic belief they can preserve what they think is the best stage of the town's history. Times change, towns and cities change, and any shard's "communities" and "character" have long since changed many times. Not only is Sonoma completely different after 16½ years, it's completely different in just the last few years.
Was it a loss of "individual character" when certain Appalachian towns turned from farming to coal, Pittsburgh turned from a small village into an industrial giant, or lower Manhattan farms (and swamps) disappeared in favor of commercial buildings? You lament "loss of character," but I point out that it happened because people wanted something different. The same applies to any UO shard. I laugh at the occasional cries to preserve this or that building, because it's not like most current players on that shard would have any idea of the history, or would care.
There have been recent articles about the death of Little Italy, but the writers ignore that it had already been happening since before Joe Gallo was done in. It's been 30 years since I saw the house my dad grew up in, and it's now gone. That's life, both in the real world
and UO. People move in, people move out, businesses close for whatever reason, a new shop opens. How many RP establishments and towns have you seen come and go? How many names can you remember not having seen in 10 or more years?
People consistently buying shields in the Origin store are putting way more money into the game than long-term veteran subscriptions. So why give vets shields at all? I know one guy who's probably put a couple thousand into shard shields in the past year. If monetary contribution and support to the game is the standard by which we judge player accounts then shouldn't he get a "vet" shield? He's put more money in than lots of vets who do have them by now.
I have a hard time believing they spend anywhere close, or that that guy spent anything like that. Do you realize how many transfers those are? That's a round trip every week. No, I don't believe it for a second.
And then there I am, needing two vet rewards to get one trip every month, for having sunk many more hundreds into my oldest accounts than the typical player. That's actually far from "unbalancing" when any old player can do the same without having to wait as I do for a "free" transfer, or pay . So perhaps you shouldn't have brought up this point...
As Storm, I and others have pointed out, it's the money, and also that people stuck with the game when it needed us the most. That seems to be why UO hasn't set up a multi-year pre-pay system to get vet status, which I have supported
And if they keep slapping down free-to-play, why have a micro-transaction item like a shard shield that gives such a big advantage? That's a free-to-play dynamic.
Because UO's business model is to sell such items as a complement to UO's subscriptions, not as the basis of most revenue. I much prefer the status quo, because I can buy forged tools, upgrade an account as I need, without having to stop every night to pay for this or that. I've played more than a few F2P games, and none could hold my interest for more than a few months. Every F2P game I've tried was about pure level play: go here, go there when you're stronger, pay a little more for more money to get armor, buy this on the special weekend sale, and so on.
You don't have to be an economics expert. UO isn't a real world economy. I can go to Atlantic, I can go back to my home shard, and I can see the disparity. I can run my auction on my shard and I can attend auctions on shards other than Atlantic and watch great stuff get bought low and turn up on Atlantic for ten times the price the next day. There is little incentive to engage in high-end commerce on your home shard unless you live on Atlantic. That is a stupid way to run a game.
There are far more elements of a "real" economy in UO that you and others don't realize. Considering all the bad economics that UHall routinely sees, I'm thankful it was my field of study so that I can expose the fallacies that crop up now and then.
What is your example of "ten times the price the next day"? How often does it happen? Are you talking about one rare item that a duper on Atlantic will pay as much as he can make? Do you realize that if it's a legitimate Atlantic player who will pay 50 million for something versus someone's 5 million on a "ghetto" shard, then that's his right? I would be happy for him that he got what he wanted. You should be too.
From what I and others have pointed out, Atlantic prices are hardly that much higher. A quick use of a certain "illegal" site, just now, shows that the most common price for PoF on Atlantic is not much higher than on Legends. There are 120 swords scrolls that are cheaper on Atlantic than on Sonoma. What is your explanation? I have mine.
Once upon a time each shard had its own economy. Now we are all running on an Atlantic exchange rate, and not everyone can equally participate. We all pay the same monthly fee, but we aren't all playing the same game. Everyone talks about wanting to bring new and returning players back to UO, but this dynamic is a major deterrent because it's so hard to catch up. I don't know how you can visit any shard but Atlantic and claim that shard shields have "balanced" the economy. If having every shard but Atlantic function like a third-world sweatshop is balance, then clearly our definitions of "balance" are rather different.
Of course "we aren't all playing the same game," because
that's the beauty of UO. We all have our different playstyle. Someone might get his fun by going to a quiet shard, getting a bunch of resources to sell back "home." Who are you, who is anyone else, to tell him that isn't proper? Do you think the Devs that instituted shard transfer didn't think about cross-shard trade?
Shard transfers have little, if anything, to do with attracting returning players. It's content and game graphics, not resources. And what is your nonsense about "a third-world sweatshop" anywhere but Atlantic? Is that really your view of the game?
Once upon a time, a New York neighborhood had its own economy. Then it became a borough had its own economy, the city had its own economy, the lower part of the state had its own economy, and so on. Trade is good, and it's better when people can do it regardless of distance. I already laid out how things
are equalized -- "balanced" -- between shards. Shall I repeat myself?
this was from the devs her being the producer, and not a dev anymore. she didn't have to be a part of this or even speak. So thank you Mesanna for taking the time for us.
