Trade Deals only last a week....

[Shakkara]

This is UO, we give you the toys to play with in the sandbox, and you do with them what you will. (...) By limiting the autonomy of the system and allowing the EMs (I realize some shards are currently lacking, Mesanna is actively working on that) to foster communication the possibilities are limitless. The idea is to put the creativity in your hands. If you want something, petition the King for it.

This is contradictionary.

THERE AREN'T ANY TOYS TO PLAY WITH.

I'm a governor, and I can't do anything. You first say there is a sandbox, and then you say the autonomy is limited, so basically it is NOT a sandbox. Sandbox means that everything is in the hands of the players and they the tools to shape the world as they see fit. What we currently have is a system where some semi-official, non-player 'god-people' have the tools to play in the sandbox, and we have to beg with these 'gods' to give us what we want. That is NOT a sandbox, as we, the players, are not the ones moving any of the sand around. We're just the little playthings to entertain the gods. These aren't even neutral, omnipresent gods that appear whenever we need them, no. We're talking about Greek gods, the almost-human ones with their own whims, bias and susceptability to favoritism!

Right now, the system has NOTHING that we as players and roleplayers couldn't do before! In the past, we could simply set up a guild and put up a ballot box and declare whoever wins the vote chief of X and give him a fancy title. We could write to the EM's before and petition for stuff built in the world, which actually happened quite frequently, nothing new there either. Well, not entirely true, we now have a new system to give out a buff, which costs crazy amounts of gold and is a terrible pain in the back for the players to claim benefit of as they need to know it is there in the first place (hardly anyone knows because shard is near-death and remaining people are in luna), even if they find the city stone they need citizenship (hidden in some convulted menus), and then get sufficient loyalty (how do you get loyalty, noone seems know) and then they need to SINGLE CLICK the stone (hardly anyone knows there is a single click menu) with even more convulted and unintuitively-named options, most of which shouldn't even be visible to non-governors...

UO has done something like this in the past, something how this should be. UO did player-owned, customizable and non-instanced housing! THAT is a massive sandbox feature right there! World shaping directly by the players, without any whimsy godpeople interfering!

If only governors had the power to set their city on fire. At least then the voting would be interesting and meaningful!

 

[cazador]

I don't see the weekly as an issue..most people who play with a guild it isn't hard to collect 2m from even a small guild of 5-10 and for some of the "baller" status players even easier obviously..and if you're worried about losing your buff and building a suit around it..elect a governor that is for majority and not himself or playstyle.. You won't have an issue..and with that said dont be a dunce have a backup in case it does..just like real politics folks, if the governor doesn't apply the buff that majority wants..don't re elect him..and of you're in the minority of that town move to the town where your the majority again..seeing as how there is like 2-3 useful buffs shouldn't be extremely hard

 

[Shakkara]

That, and EMs shouldn't be there just to interact with 9 people, elected or not. They are there to run events for everyone on the shard!

Even IF we ever get EMs on Europa, I can personally give them enough stuff to do for my city alone to occupy a full-time job. And I wouldn't be happy if they just spend 1 hour on Trinsic every month as it wouldn't be enough to organize and produce all the things I want. That's why this whole system should NEVER depend on EMs, it should be the PLAYERS that have the tools/powers and whatever to organize and produce content for the cities and sink all their time into it!

 

[Aurelius]

I'd actually not assumed it was a 'gold sink' given how it operates, was just answering the thought put forwards that it was - and the 'if you've got the gold' may be fair enough IF that had been made clear at the start - something that's 'indefinite' does not only last a week!

The main goal of the system was to provide an enhanced role-play experience for those who wish to participate in it, and also provide a streamlined way for representatives of each city to obtain an open line of communication to the Crown. By limiting the autonomy of the system and allowing the EMs (I realize some shards are currently lacking, Mesanna is actively working on that) to foster communication the possibilities are limitless. The idea is to put the creativity in your hands. If you want something, petition the King for it. In another post somewhere I read about a player asking for a Stables in Vesper - that is exactly the type of request that could be channeled in through Blackthorn's Council.

As far as the City Treasury, step 1 was actually setting it up. The intent is utilize this feature for future content to enhance it's appeal as a gold sink.

We've never done anything like this in UO before, and with continued feedback will make tweaks where necessary. Thanks for your feedback.

Well it helps to know some of the thinking behind what's going on, even if it's after and not before and during the launch of such a major system - but it's still awfully clunky, not particularly intuitive,and VERY expensive, for someone to become involved in. Fostering communications is great in principle, but this rather lacks any way to do that. Even a chat channel for the citizens of a town would be progress, since there's no way for people to actually communicate with a majority of those they are 'campaigning' to lead - though to really work, again, that needs us to be able to be in more than one channel at once, a fairly long-standing request. Encouraging us to 'communicate' without the tools for effective communications isn't too helpful. You of all people know that forums and such don't reach anything like a majority of the playerbase, and even system messages over the in-game tools are frequently not read, so the existing chat channels won't help either (and since young player are only able to access the help channel, even general is of little use for the 'whole' community).

Ironically, if it's so massively expensive, the devoted RPers are amongst those most likely NOT to want to throw money at it because mainly they've not been collecting huge piles of money. Developing the system later so it does include a gold sink seems slightly odd too, maybe it'll work it being both a RP enhancer and a cash total reducer but it seems a tricky combination to pull off - I fear we're heading for a 'huge amounts of gold gives access to the goodies' process, again. May reflect reality, but in a game that's to some degree escaping from reality, fairer processes are needed.

Helps to have some indication what, exactly, the Governors could be reasonably asking the King to do - even though, on my main shard, we don't have one to ask. Again though, that really needed to be clear from the start, to inspire people to get involved. Will there be future systems to allow town populations to participate in, say, 'wars' against dungeons or creature types that benefit the town treasury, or be things crafters can do to build the town? Yes, we can try sort out story based things similar to those for ourselves - but in reality, player run things are not significantly attended, and this sort of 'towns and governors' idea needs a lot of support from you folks to work, and lot of interaction and discussion with the players to get it running well. There's a huge potential, but what are the plans for it to be developed and supported? Some of us doing what we can won't make it anything like as powerful and important a tool as it could be, so we need some leads from you folks what is actually possible and practicable - and saying 'shard EM' isn't really good enough when shards will almost all be down to one EM at best, and so if that one person leaves or is absent for any reason, it all goes up in the air again....

I do wince at this though " This is UO, we give you the toys to play with in the sandbox, and you do with them what you will." Please, start by giving us toys that work as intended, with clear instructions HOW they work. A lot of this annoyance could have been avoided by just clear, accurate communications early in the process, not an internally contradictory note at the last minute before it went live. 'Creativity in our hands' can often end up, in UO, as 'us players working out a way around a system that doesn't do what we want', or even worse the systems you spend so much time working on being ignored, under used or actively avoided because people don't enjoy them. Please don't let this one go the same way.

 

[The Zog historian]

Personally I don't want this to be a gold sink at all...that means only the rich will be able to use it. Even having the governors pay for it assumes all the governors should be rich.

"Who" finances it doesn't matter, whether one or a few wealthy players, or a large guild. Remember that anyone merely declaring city loyalty can vote, and anybody Respected or higher in city loyalty can use a buff without having to contribute. (In economics this is called the free rider problem.)

 

[The Zog historian]

Building an expensive suit around something that depends on other people repeatedly making a key component available sounds a rather silly idea in the first place, to me...

And someone didn't believe me last week when I tried telling him this! A FC+1 buff is nice, but one had better have backups...

 

[Frarc]

(hardly anyone knows because shard is near-death and remaining people are in luna), even if they find the city stone they need citizenship (hidden in some convulted menus), and then get sufficient loyalty (how do you get loyalty, noone seems know) and then they need to SINGLE CLICK the stone (hardly anyone knows there is a single click menu) with even more convulted and unintuitively-named options, most of which shouldn't even be visible to non-governors...

So many lies in this part. On Drachenfels we often starts our many events in Britain.

Another lie is no one know how to get Loyalty.

Another lie is that no one know how to use context menu. Most people are smarer then you give them credit for!


Maybe you don't know how it all works , so let me give you a link that can help you.

http://uo2.stratics.com/essays-and-guides/in-game-systems/britannia-loyalty-councils

http://uo2.stratics.com/posts/32417

See , its all there!


BTW, hows your game coming long? i thought you promissed me to show it a few months ago but ... i'm still waiting.

 

[Aurelius]

"Who" finances it doesn't matter, whether one or a few wealthy players, or a large guild. Remember that anyone merely declaring city loyalty can vote, and anybody Respected or higher in city loyalty can use a buff without having to contribute. (In economics this is called the free rider problem.)

As a pure economic model, may not matter - selecting a trade deal buff as a major plank of your 'electoral platform' when standing for Governor matters considerably more if you want the election to have meaning. The ability to, say, tie your standing as candidate to a particular trade buff that is unique to you might be a start, so those not participating entirely for the RP aspect can at least see some differentials between candidates. Six candidates all on the same 'platform' for the same trade deal is silly, although it's arguably no sillier what's happened on shards where the majority of towns ended up doing a deal with the Assassin's Guild.... could make some sort of sense in Fel, I suppose

 

[Winter]

And someone didn't believe me last week when I tried telling him this! A FC+1 buff is nice, but one had better have backups...

Does the FC+1 work even for non-med armor?

 

[Kyronix]

I'd actually not assumed it was a 'gold sink' given how it operates, was just answering the thought put forwards that it was - and the 'if you've got the gold' may be fair enough IF that had been made clear at the start - something that's 'indefinite' does not only last a week!

Well it helps to know some of the thinking behind what's going on, even if it's after and not before and during the launch of such a major system - but it's still awfully clunky, not particularly intuitive,and VERY expensive, for someone to become involved in. Fostering communications is great in principle, but this rather lacks any way to do that. Even a chat channel for the citizens of a town would be progress, since there's no way for people to actually communicate with a majority of those they are 'campaigning' to lead - though to really work, again, that needs us to be able to be in more than one channel at once, a fairly long-standing request. Encouraging us to 'communicate' without the tools for effective communications isn't too helpful. You of all people know that forums and such don't reach anything like a majority of the playerbase, and even system messages over the in-game tools are frequently not read, so the existing chat channels won't help either (and since young player are only able to access the help channel, even general is of little use for the 'whole' community).

Ironically, if it's so massively expensive, the devoted RPers are amongst those most likely NOT to want to throw money at it because mainly they've not been collecting huge piles of money. Developing the system later so it does include a gold sink seems slightly odd too, maybe it'll work it being both a RP enhancer and a cash total reducer but it seems a tricky combination to pull off - I fear we're heading for a 'huge amounts of gold gives access to the goodies' process, again. May reflect reality, but in a game that's to some degree escaping from reality, fairer processes are needed.

Helps to have some indication what, exactly, the Governors could be reasonably asking the King to do - even though, on my main shard, we don't have one to ask. Again though, that really needed to be clear from the start, to inspire people to get involved. Will there be future systems to allow town populations to participate in, say, 'wars' against dungeons or creature types that benefit the town treasury, or be things crafters can do to build the town? Yes, we can try sort out story based things similar to those for ourselves - but in reality, player run things are not significantly attended, and this sort of 'towns and governors' idea needs a lot of support from you folks to work, and lot of interaction and discussion with the players to get it running well. There's a huge potential, but what are the plans for it to be developed and supported? Some of us doing what we can won't make it anything like as powerful and important a tool as it could be, so we need some leads from you folks what is actually possible and practicable - and saying 'shard EM' isn't really good enough when shards will almost all be down to one EM at best, and so if that one person leaves or is absent for any reason, it all goes up in the air again....

I do wince at this though " This is UO, we give you the toys to play with in the sandbox, and you do with them what you will." Please, start by giving us toys that work as intended, with clear instructions HOW they work. A lot of this annoyance could have been avoided by just clear, accurate communications early in the process, not an internally contradictory note at the last minute before it went live. 'Creativity in our hands' can often end up, in UO, as 'us players working out a way around a system that doesn't do what we want', or even worse the systems you spend so much time working on being ignored, under used or actively avoided because people don't enjoy them. Please don't let this one go the same way.

As far as communication is concerned, I would suggest setting up chat channels within the currently existing global chat system for each city. If this, combined with other popularly utilized methods of communication aren't enough to allow you to keep in touch with the citizenry we can investigate adding additional features.

So, what can you do? Can sure you participate in wars against dungeons or creature types that benefit the town treasury? Or can things crafters can do to benefit the town? Sure, why not? The point is we intentionally left this open ended so you can begin to shape what happens in a way that you wish. It is extraordinarily difficult to fulfill requests when there are multiple conflicting requests at any given point. By allowing the citizens of a town to elect a common representative our hope is that it will streamline the process by which we can give you what you want.

One thing I want to stress is that this needs to be an open discussion, if there is something you want or need, by all means bring it up. Will we be able to do everything that is asked? No, but at least it provides us with a means to give you want you want. Continued contribution on what is achievable is beneficial to the overall process.

 

[Aurelius]

As far as communication is concerned, I would suggest setting up chat channels within the currently existing global chat system for each city. If this, combined with other popularly utilized methods of communication aren't enough to allow you to keep in touch with the citizenry we can investigate adding additional features.

General is often the most useful, other people stay in Help because thats the only one young players can use..... really, for that to be effective, we need the ability to be in more than one chat channel. Plus, since we can't police channels, anyone can make a Trinsic, City of Trinsic, Tr1nsic and so on and so on....

Tying access to the citizen status, as works with guild and alliance chat channels, is a much better method if possible.

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

As far as communication is concerned, I would suggest setting up chat channels within the currently existing global chat system for each city. If this, combined with other popularly utilized methods of communication aren't enough to allow you to keep in touch with the citizenry we can investigate adding additional features.

So, what can you do? Can sure you participate in wars against dungeons or creature types that benefit the town treasury? Or can things crafters can do to benefit the town? Sure, why not? The point is we intentionally left this open ended so you can begin to shape what happens in a way that you wish. It is extraordinarily difficult to fulfill requests when there are multiple conflicting requests at any given point. By allowing the citizens of a town to elect a common representative our hope is that it will streamline the process by which we can give you what you want.

One thing I want to stress is that this needs to be an open discussion, if there is something you want or need, by all means bring it up. Will we be able to do everything that is asked? No, but at least it provides us with a means to give you want you want. Continued contribution on what is achievable is beneficial to the overall process.

Empirical question: Is it intended that the buff cost 2 million gold per week (as opposed to 2 million gold and lasting until it's switched out) or is that a bug?

-Galen's player

 

[Kyronix]

Empirical question: Is it intended that the buff cost 2 million gold per week (as opposed to 2 million gold and lasting until it's switched out) or is that a bug?

-Galen's player

It's 2 million to re-up it every time it expires 1 week after it is purchased. I realize the patch notes indicated the deal would persist indefinitely, and apologize for the confusion.

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

It's 2 million to re-up it every time it expires 1 week after it is purchased. I realize the patch notes indicated the deal would persist indefinitely, and apologize for the confusion.

Thank you for the clarification.

-Galen's player

 

[Winter]

It's 2 million to re-up it every time it expires 1 week after it is purchased. I realize the patch notes indicated the deal would persist indefinitely, and apologize for the confusion.

I think you should reconsider this, because the buffs just aren't worth the cost on most shards. There just aren't enough people to cover the on-going upkeep for most shards. Two months down the road all shards but one or two will have only one city with active trade deals.

 

[The Zog historian]

As a pure economic model, may not matter - selecting a trade deal buff as a major plank of your 'electoral platform' when standing for Governor matters considerably more if you want the election to have meaning. The ability to, say, tie your standing as candidate to a particular trade buff that is unique to you might be a start, so those not participating entirely for the RP aspect can at least see some differentials between candidates. Six candidates all on the same 'platform' for the same trade deal is silly, although it's arguably no sillier what's happened on shards where the majority of towns ended up doing a deal with the Assassin's Guild.... could make some sort of sense in Fel, I suppose

Three trade deals are considerably desirable above the rest, so for the most part, there were no issues or differences to campaign on. As it turned out, most elections came down to who had the most friends, guildmates, and in some cases, logrollers from other shards.

Even if the trade deals were an issue, they're considerably different than real-life elections. They're truly voluntary "contributions" to city treasuries, instead of the mindset "Tax the other guy but not me."

 

[The Zog historian]

Does the FC+1 work even for non-med armor?

Sure, why wouldn't it?

 

[Merus]

The main goal was never to implement a gold sink, it was just an add on feature that was nice since we were doing elections anyway, and that required setting up the City Stones. The purpose of the buffs is to provide a bonus to those who wish to pursue them, if you've got the gold - go for it. If you don't like the particular buff, tell the Governor - they won't change it? Run against them in the next election. This is UO, we give you the toys to play with in the sandbox, and you do with them what you will. The main goal of the system was to provide an enhanced role-play experience for those who wish to participate in it, and also provide a streamlined way for representatives of each city to obtain an open line of communication to the Crown. By limiting the autonomy of the system and allowing the EMs (I realize some shards are currently lacking, Mesanna is actively working on that) to foster communication the possibilities are limitless. The idea is to put the creativity in your hands. If you want something, petition the King for it. In another post somewhere I read about a player asking for a Stables in Vesper - that is exactly the type of request that could be channeled in through Blackthorn's Council.

As far as the City Treasury, step 1 was actually setting it up. The intent is utilize this feature for future content to enhance it's appeal as a gold sink.

We've never done anything like this in UO before, and with continued feedback will make tweaks where necessary. Thanks for your feedback.

So "persist indefinitely" was what? Someone who wrote the notes wasn't sure what indefinitely means?

 

[Frarc]

The trade deals 2 million cost is not the problem for me. Its the 5% city maintenance that go off the donations every day. If that was less or removed, we could rebuild slowly up the city treasure till we have 2 million again to activate the town buff.

 

[The Zog historian]

So "persist indefinitely" was what? Someone who wrote the notes wasn't sure what indefinitely means?

It was probably someone who didn't think to be clear on the "one week" part. Still, we can make the obvious joke.

 

[Winter]

Sure, why wouldn't it?

I'm sorry... got that confused with meditation.

What I should have asked is if you benefit from the FC+1 trade buff if you have protection on, or if it can go over the current caps for FC.

 

[Aurelius]

I'm sorry... got that confused with meditation.

What I should have asked is if you benefit from the FC+1 trade buff if you have protection on, or if it can go over the current caps for FC.

Not tested it, but the Publish note says you can't go over caps with trade deal buffs.

 

[Melchior1]

The trade deals 2 million cost is not the problem for me. Its the 5% city maintenance that go off the donations every day. If that was less or removed, we could rebuild slowly up the city treasure till we have 2 million again to activate the town buff.

"...not a problem for me..." Let's chop that one up a bit. We have basically 3 classes of ingame life. The poor, the trying to make it but not as poor, and the stinking rich. This should be for people who don't have much. They need to bring down the price period!!!!!!!! I'm well off but by no means a billionaire. So I don't like the loose use of words because it's not about you, it's about the people.

 

[Tanieran]

Hello! I’m the current governor of the City of Jhelom on the Great Lakes shard. I’ve been watching the conversation about the city stones, and the price of trade deal renewals with interest, and some concerns.
Jhelom on Great Lakes isn’t one of the larger, well-populated cities (I ran uncontested), and I can sympathize with the smaller population shards and their concerns about the feasibility of the Trade Deal Buffs given their current pricing and rate of renewal.

One of the biggest issues I am having currently is learning which Great Lakes players are citizens of Jhelom and figuring out how to communicate with them. I have no idea which trade deal they would prefer, how much they can donate towards weekly Trade Deal Buffs, or what concerns they want brought forward to King Blackthorn.

For me, the question of how expensive the Trade Deal Buffs are, and how often that needs to be paid, is a moot point if none of the citizens can communicate to me which one they want.

I have been very lucky to know and be allied with two other City Governors. One of those governors is Willa, the Governor of Yew, and she has been kind enough to create a community center in her NW Luna house, where we have put up bulletin boards for each city and have been allowed to lock down runes to our in-game mailboxes.

Something that would really help us communicate would be a system similar to Aurielius’ suggestion, which is to have a means to communicate in either a City Chat Channel similar to the General Chat Channel (assuming we would be allowed to be in more than one chat channel at the same time); or a communications channel that works similarly to the /Alliance and /Guild chat systems. Something that would work even better to facilitate communications with the citizens of each city would be an in-game city bulletin board system.


If we had a means to communicate with the citizens, then the two million a week Trade Deal Buff price might be workable. It would be even more workable if the time of the Trade Deal could be extended to two or three weeks instead of one. Having Trade Deals last longer, gives the governors more time to find and communicate with their city’s citizens and find out what they want. It might also give part-time players and low-population shard players more time to work up the needed donations for the Trade Deals.

 

[Frarc]

"...not a problem for me..." Let's chop that one up a bit. We have basically 3 classes of ingame life. The poor, the trying to make it but not as poor, and the stinking rich. This should be for people who don't have much. They need to bring down the price period!!!!!!!! I'm well off but by no means a billionaire. So I don't like the loose use of words because it's not about you, it's about the people.

I think you understand me wrong. I don't have millions of gold. Ask around on Drachenfels, i usualy give everything away what people want. I have enough for small things and insurance. Gold has no meaning to me.

I don't have a problem with 2 million gold for a trade deal if they give us a chance to to slowly work up the donation . With the 5% tax a day it eats from the donation fast. That makes it very hard to gather 2 million gold with all citizens of a town without rushing it.

I would love to work on all kinds of events to gather gold for the towns treasury to be able to pay for the trade deal. But not at a rate that we have to work so hard that our daily work go into the 5% Tax.

Thats what i mean.

So next time, before you responds about that you think i'm stinking rich and i can afford it , you should read everything on a posted message not the parts of i don't have a problem paying 2 million. Everything!

 

[Winter]

... I don't have a problem with 2 million gold for a trade deal if they give us a chance to to slowly work up the donation . With the 5% tax a day it eats from the donation fast. That makes it very hard to gather 2 million gold with all citizens of a town without rushing it...

Okay, I am missing something here. Isn't the 5% tax just 10,000 gold per day? That's 70,000 gold per week... a mere pittance compared to the initial 2 million.

 

[Shakkara]

Okay, I am missing something here. Isn't the 5% tax just 10,000 gold per day? That's 70,000 gold per week... a mere pittance compared to the initial 2 million.

No, it's something like "If the treasury has more than 10,000 GP, multiply the treasury by 0.95", every day. So if the governor just bought a trade deal, and the citizens donate 2 million the same afternoon, it will be a week till the governor can renew the trade deal and use the donated cash. After a week, there will have been 6 downtimes, so the money the treasury has left will be 1.47 million...

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

So "persist indefinitely" was what? Someone who wrote the notes wasn't sure what indefinitely means?

One guess is that they meant as opposed to timing out after a few hours or something (like the Ankh shrine prayer buffs).

They should definitely have been clearer. Basically everyone I know read the notes the same way, that you only had to pay again if you switched buffs.

-Galen's player

 

[Shakkara]

So many lies in this part.

How childish of you.

On Drachenfels we often starts our many events in Britain.

On Europa, we haven't had an EM event since the election stuff was introduced because we don't have EMs anymore. However, we have two main publish player run events, a weekly auction in Malas and a Carybdis hunt at the Magincia docks every month or so.

Another lie is no one know how to get Loyalty.

Right, that must be why I had to explain it to at least 20 people.

Another lie is that no one know how to use context menu. Most people are smarer then you give them credit for!

Right, that must be why I had to explain it to at least 20 people.

Maybe you don't know how it all works , so let me give you a link that can help you.

http://uo2.stratics.com/essays-and-guides/in-game-systems/britannia-loyalty-councils

http://uo2.stratics.com/posts/32417

See , its all there!

Not that I dont' appreciate what you do, but why should a game be so unintuitive that it heavily relies on 3rd party instructions for people to have an idea how systems work?

BTW, hows your game coming long? i thought you promissed me to show it a few months ago but ... i'm still waiting.

Has 5 people working on it as we speak.

 

[Frarc]

Okay, I am missing something here. Isn't the 5% tax just 10,000 gold per day? That's 70,000 gold per week... a mere pittance compared to the initial 2 million.

I wish that was true, but i had one day more then 2 million gold on the stone and 55K or so went of it.

 

[Winter]

No, it's something like "If the treasury has more than 10,000 GP, multiply the treasury by 0.95", every day. So if the governor just bought a trade deal, and the citizens donate 2 million the same afternoon, it will be a week till the governor can renew the trade deal and use the donated cash. After a week, there will have been 6 downtimes, so the money the treasury has left will be 1.47 million...

so, roughly +/-2.5 mil per week depending on when funds were donated. Why can't players game this system and not donate until the end of the week?

Sorry, but this system doesn't make a lot of sense to me at all... unless you are from Cyprus where your bank balance is taxed.

 

[Winter]

I wish that was true, but i had one day more then 2 million gold on the stone and 55K or so went of it.

Yeah, I kind of understand now.

What I don't understand...

Why the hell would you want to be Governor?

 

[Shakkara]

so, roughly +/-2.5 mil per week depending on when funds were donated. Why can't players game this system and not donate until the end of the week?

Exactly, although we don't really have good in-game communication for donators to communicate with the governor. If the governor is unavailable and doesn't log in on the same day to renew the trade deal (which must be done manually), the city stone will nomnomnom another 5%...

Sorry, but this system doesn't make a lot of sense to me at all... unless you are from Cyprus where your bank balance is taxed.

Agreed, lol.

 

[Mithryl Elves]

Ok so say for instance you build a suit that is dependent on the 5 SSI buff. You claim loyalty to the town that has the 5 SSI buff but the Governor changes that buff weekly. You now have a character that you cannot use for 7 days until you can leave and join a new town.

I see a serious flaw here. If this is going to work and be utilized as a real gold sink people are going to want stability. They are going to want the ability to use that buff and it be there for them. Allowing the Governor the power to change this at all is an issue unless the character also has the ability to leave a town to join another one when the buff is removed. The 7 day delay on a character claiming loyalty to another town should be set to instant. It is going to be unfair for players to have to wait 7 days to use the buff they need. This is a great concept that allows more options and versatility but it needs to work properly and be simplified if its ever going to work as a real gold sink.

Not sure who or why my thread was merged here when it is entirely two different topics but whatever.

My topic is based on game mechanics while this thread is based off of people who think the buff costs too much.
I DO NOT think the buff costs too much but totally see flaws in the mechanics of it. People shouldn't be forced to not play for 7 days if they end up building a suit around a buff and the Governor changes the buff weekly.

 

[cazador]

Each Govenor make a chat for your citizens simple..

Advertise in general chat and help chat to get into that chat

Have a government setup of people within the city to "help, organize city hunts"

Hell get people in vent

Hold player ran city events (crafting,Pvm,fishing,pvp) whatever

 

[Aurelius]

Each Govenor make a chat for your citizens simple..

Advertise in general chat and help chat to get into that chat

Have a government setup of people within the city to "help, organize city hunts"

Hell get people in vent

Hold player ran city events (crafting,Pvm,fishing,pvp) whatever

Several folks have been trying that. Success is very, very limited.... maybe on a very busy shard at the right times, it would do better, but on what's supposedly one of the more populated shards, Europa, getting people is far from easy.

 

[cazador]

Several folks have been trying that. Success is very, very limited.... maybe on a very busy shard at the right times, it would do better, but on what's supposedly one of the more populated shards, Europa, getting people is far from easy.

They are tacking it as an Roleplaying system..that's the issue there is no benefit for ALL players to join it..just a few the Roleplaying community is really small if say maybe 1%-3% per shard..but yet they create a system with that in mind? Really? Then you read from kryonix that it's going to be a way to funnel information on changes for things..but you're polling a super small percentage of the game and expect results that the majority would like? Doesn't make alot of sense to me..maybe I'm narrow sighted I don't know

 

[The Zog historian]

Yeah, I kind of understand now.

What I don't understand...

Why the hell would you want to be Governor?

It's the latest quest for Legendary Banksitting!

 

[Wenchkin]

What about this...

Rather than a cost which doesn't take into account the population of a shard/city, we replace it with a formula that does?

Instead of a flat 2 mil fee, base it on x amount per player loyal to that city who is eligible to receive the benefit. So a small low population city on a quiet shard isn't having to pay as much as one where they have a much higher population.

I know that's probably harder to code but it seems a bit fairer for the quiet cities. If the idea is to encourage RP then surely you want a system where players choose the city their character is loyal to, not merely following everyone into the richest one because the leaders there have all the trade agreements set up.

Wenchy

 

[Winter]

It's the latest quest for Legendary Banksitting!

 

[cazador]

Why not instead of just gold you can donate to accumulate enough "gold value" say 100k boards=50,000 gold

So a miner could donate 1000 ingots and contribute to his city..

Things like that..

 

[Winter]

Why not instead of just gold you can donate to accumulate enough "gold value" say 100k boards=50,000 gold

So a miner could donate 1000 ingots and contribute to his city..

Things like that..

You would still have the same problem with taxes and account balance decay.

Remember when this was proposed for the house maintenance? You would be taxed in gold/resources and needed to maintain the upkeep to stop your house from decaying. It was a bad idea then... why is it a good idea now? Not just the resources, but the whole tax thingy.

 

[Merus]

What about this...

Rather than a cost which doesn't take into account the population of a shard/city, we replace it with a formula that does?

Instead of a flat 2 mil fee, base it on x amount per player loyal to that city who is eligible to receive the benefit. So a small low population city on a quiet shard isn't having to pay as much as one where they have a much higher population.

I know that's probably harder to code but it seems a bit fairer for the quiet cities. If the idea is to encourage RP then surely you want a system where players choose the city their character is loyal to, not merely following everyone into the richest one because the leaders there have all the trade agreements set up.

Wenchy

How about it is 2 million per governor or change. 8 million per city per shard unless you want to change the trade deal more often than each election. Still a minimum of 72 million per shard per year.

However as governor I would be willing to fund the trade deal each time I am elected personally. I am not willing to do it myself on a weekly basis.

 

[Goldberg-Chessy]

Lol

The buffs are immensely powerful in pvp and a steal at only 100 million per year.

People pay 10x that for similar, one time purchase items with those same mods that then need to be cramped onto suits while replacing other valuable mods.

If you want to compete in pvp at high levels its no big deal at all to pay 100 million per year. If you are simply pvming the buffs are in no way needed so who cares what they cost?

*shakes head*

 

[cazador]

First of all the buffs need to be tweaked before anything goes any further..it should look more like this

Trade Deals Include:

Guild of Arcane Arts: +5% Spell Damage Increase
-5% hit chance increase
Society of Clothiers: -3 Physical Resist +4 Elemental Resist bump to resists(additional resist)
Bardic Collegium: +1 Faster Casting
Order of Engineers: +10 Dexterity Bonus
-5 Int
Guild of Healers: 5% Bandage Healing Bonus
Maritime Guild: +3 Hit Point Regeneration
+5 Hit Point Increase
Merchant’s Association: +5 Mana Regeneration
Mining Cooperative: +10 Strength Bonus 1 hit point regen
League of Rangers: +10 Intelligence Bonus 1 mana regen
Guild of Assassins: +5% Swing Speed Increase
-5% defense chance increase
Warrior’s Guild: +5% Hit Chance Increase

Almost all of those are now useful in some form

 

[Promathia]

Im pretty miffed. I dont care about paying 2m every week, but I , the governor, have to actually OPEN the trade deal again? There was 10m on the stone, so not like the gold wasnt there.

When you say in the patch notes, that the deals persist indefinately, one does not think they have to login to redo the trade deal.

 

[The Zog historian]

You would still have the same problem with taxes and account balance decay.

Remember when this was proposed for the house maintenance? You would be taxed in gold/resources and needed to maintain the upkeep to stop your house from decaying. It was a bad idea then... why is it a good idea now? Not just the resources, but the whole tax thingy.

I have to wonder where that 5% is going. We aren't seeing the potholes filled up, weeds and shrubs pulled up, new stables being built, or other civic improvements. We seem to have quite a number of guards despite drastically reduced crime rates since Trammel, and I wonder just how fat their pension fund is getting. Some of you may remember my (serious) post about being the victim of guard brutality, whacked for no discernable reason.

Additionally, with the ease of laundering gold and checks, I have to worry about the ease that funds can be siphoned to offshore accounts at tax havens, most notably Nujelm and the southern islands. In addition to the governor's office, each city needs a comptroller and an independent team of auditors, appointed by the king himself.

 

[Winter]

I have to wonder where that 5% is going. ...

Bitcoins...

with all the layoffs at EA, the developers found a way to fund their salaries through in-game taxes.

 

[Winter]

When you say in the patch notes, that the deals persist indefinately, one does not think they have to login to redo the trade deal.

One would think that since a developer is aware of the error in the patch notes that it would be corrected...

 

[Rastaboo]

Joe Average Player does not care about...

...getting to see the EM interact with nine random strangers he doesn't know.

...decorations being placed in cities no one ever goes to.

...tiny stat buffs with gold and loyalty grind requirements.

Some rich PVPer will buy a set of buffs in one city for his guild because 2m really isn't anything, but at that point there's no reason for anyone to buy any buffs in a second city. Join the first one, let that one rich guy pay for your buffs.