Pub 86 - Traders Quest

[Dot_Warner]

There have been Trade Ministers in Felucca since that bit was added to the city loyalty system two(?) years ago.

However, it makes NO SENSE for them to be part of the Trade Orders system for the simple fact that it allows super easy completion of the quest in Fel due to the availability of moongates. This defeats the purpose of making it "hard" to begin with. This also makes taking them to Slim far easier (forged pardon mill anyone?) This also further harms the intent of the system to funnel funds to the city stones.

The governor system makes (as it is) no sense in Fel, as its mostly ruled by Minax since Lord British tucked tail and ran away. Blackthorn has no say there. I seriously doubt that the EMs would want to take on the role of Minax for yet another monthly meeting with abysmal attendance anywhere but Atl. Could the system be adapted? Sure... Warlords instead of Governors... No formal alliance between them, thus no meetings... I just doubt it will happen.

 

[FrejaSP]

Maybe the Virtue vs Vice system will bind it all together, maybe it's more than just a PvP system. Right now, there seem to be some loose ends.

 

[Promathia]

This also makes taking them to Slim far easier (forged pardon mill anyone?) This also further harms the intent of the system to funnel funds to the city stones.

How does it make it EASIER for Slim? The fact you can take a trade order in fel?

I'm surprised none of you even knew that lol

I never took this quest as supposed to be "hard". The "Good" option is easy if you choose the risk of entering Fel. The Slim version is still a PITA.

First you guys pancake that you think NOONE will do the good side becuase its hard and long, and everyone will just go to Slim instead. Now you find out the "good" one is actually quite easy , which means easier gold to your trade stones, and you are complaining about THAT now?

Yall need to make up your mind

 

[Dot_Warner]

Yall need to make up your mind

I think you're trying desperately to read between lines that don't exist.

I'd forgotten that there were Trade Ministers in Fel since there was no reason to bother with them. Aside from around election time, most people rarely use them on either facet.

I don't believe we've changed our tune, at least I haven't. With Fel ministers in play, the issue of people going to Slim still exists. Why take them to a city when he has the best rewards? Books and signs will get old quickly, while SoTs and pardons will always be desirable. (Regarding the signs... There needs to be a way to get a sign hanger, as currently there isn't aside from rather rare pieces of rubble.)

If people do the orders in Fel, say from Fel Britain to Fel Trinsic, does Tram Britain get gold (once issue of which city (sender/receiver) actually receives the gold is fixed)? Logically, Tram Britain should have nothing to do with such a transaction. If the player got an order in Tram Britain and then delivered in Fel Trinsic, then it would make sense for Tram Britain to receive gold. We'll have to test this when the gold receiving issue is fixed. Or @Kyronix could tell us I have no problem with a Fel to Fel giving delivery gold to the Tram city since it will negate this as an issue. Currently, when you deliver in Fel (from Fel) you get the same 'X gold has been deposited into the City treasury' message as you do in Tram, even though such a treasury doesn't exist.

Delivering in Fel is definitely the way this system becomes easy. Its super easy if you're doing a Fel to Fel, or a Tram to Fel, delivery since you have a completely functional moongate menu. But why make delivering to Fel soooo much easier? If this is a way to get more sheep for non-con PvP...I'm at a loss for printable words regarding how poorly I view that.

So really, it all depends on where the gold goes from the deliveries. Will it always go to the governor city where the order originated, regardless of the facet? Does the gold from a Fel to Fel delivery just go poof?

Slim is still the biggest issue since NO gold goes to a city when you fence and his rewards are FAR more desirable. A friend with a marginally decent rune book can keep you easily appraised of where he is and you can quickly sail to him from the Moonglow or New Magincia gates. Path of least resistance (because you can use the Fel gates) + the best rewards = what most people will do. (Regardless of scary, scary Fel)

EDIT: Tested with a friend... A Tram to Fel delivery: Gold went to the Tram stone. A Fel to Fel Delivery: Gold went to the Tram Stone.

 

[Aurelius]

With the bizarre way trade deals are working between Trammel and Fel, we seem to be going further down an already way too long slope.

A lot of us like the game world to be fictionally consistent. This is just the latest in a chain of inconsistensies. We keep getting fiction, or places in-game, or systems, that make no sense at all for the supposed 'story' of the world - usually it's because as a programming idea they are really neat and do cool stuff - but the cumulative result is what was originally a living, if flawed, world, becomes a mashed up collection of of mutually inconsistent minigames.

The new stuff is clever, and fun - but it always falls short of being 'believeable' in the game world. Years back, the excuse for truly inconsistent and random plot events or items in fantasy fiction, RPGs and novels, was 'a wizard did it' as a catchall to get around all the work needed to make something consistent or logical and immersive. UO can't even claim THAT level of storytelling now...

The most blatant recent example is Blackthorn should surely be going APE that the Exodus things he spent years escaping from are present in the cellar of his own new castle, never mind the ton of other stuff down there - but he ignores it. His bizarre new ability to make mini-dimensions and divert endless numbers of Minax raiders into them, whilst also making a previously unknown form of 'barrier' that means the city is safe from them escaping (but all the other mionsters are fine, since they are on the other side of the barrier already?), after instantly curing an unknown disease of the gargoyles all 'explained' away by 'well he learned some stuff somewhere'..... And don't get me started on all the tons of things out there that's half completed, abandoned storylines that have some in game fiction and scenery but simply stop dead when people moved on to designing the next new shiny toys......

Now, it seems, Blackthorn has no power over anything in Fel - except he can collect taxes to fund his Trammel cities? A shortage of something in Moonglow Trammel is solved and rewards earned by delivering the materials to Moonglow Felucca? What the hell is going on here??

Yes, the new content can be fun - the items are popular, the fights are challenging - but it could be so much more if there was actually a consistent story and world for it all to be taking place in, not some poorly written, dashed off and half-brained 'explanations' that amount to nothing more reasoned than 'a wizard did it'.....

EA/Broadsword got the intellectual rights to the world - long past time some 'intellect' got applied to it beyond a cleverly designed mini-game being grafted on every few months. You need a fiction overseer as well as the developers, to make it all hang together, or it just becomes less interesting to the players who want a proper 'alternate world' to play in. People can make up any numbers they like to claim thats's a minority, majority or anything in between, but they are there, in some significant numbers, and keep seeing what they look for eroded out of the game year by year. Please, get a grip on this, it's not a case of 'do not make the content', we all want that to continue - but the 'cost' of thoughtfully making it consistent with the world it's meant to be in is not THAT much, but it does require someone with the right skills to do it and be listened to by the developers....

 

[Aurelius]

Path of least resistance (because you can use the Fel gates) + the best rewards = what most people will do. (Regardless of scary, scary Fel)

Actually, far from being 'scary', it'll make Fel mildly laughable .... if you want the rare crafting resources, take a character with no equipment, so no insurance money for people to get, use stealth, and (other than when they may be battle zones, depending on exactly how the Vice/Virtue things work) do the quests between Skara and Jhelom, you may need to only walk as many as 50 or 60 yards in total outside a guard zone....

 

[Dot_Warner]

A lot of us like the game world to be fictionally consistent. This is just the latest in a chain of inconsistensies. We keep getting fiction, or places in-game, or systems, that make no sense at all for the supposed 'story' of the world - usually it's because as a programming idea they are really neat and do cool stuff - but the cumulative result is what was originally a living, if flawed, world, becomes a mashed up collection of of mutually inconsistent minigames.

I completely gave up on expecting consistent fiction after the Blackthorn retcon and the temporal paradox that is the Ararat encounter (ie Enchantment of the Royal Sea pt. 1...where is part two? I hope it has the long soliloquy from the Timelord in it as to how and why the Shadowlords are suddenly back...)

There are so many dangling, tangled plot threads...

 

[Dot_Warner]

Actually, far from being 'scary', it'll make Fel mildly laughable

Calling it scary, scary Fel was total sarcasm on my part. Most players avoid Fel because they don't understand its pretty much a lifeless wasteland anywhere that isn't a champ spawn or Yew gate. Personally, I just view all the carrots and incentives to get Trammelites go there and play sheep for the enjoyment of a vanishing minority as waste of resources. (Making certain desirable items only spawn there is an awesome way to screw an economy!) Sure, make PvP systems better and more robust, but don't try to lure people there with shinies so Mr. Kewldewd can feel like a big man for a few seconds in gen chat. (ie make the systems fun and fair so people want to try PvP, but don't continue trying to force them to PvP simply because they want something that only spawns there. Fourteen years later, you'd think they'd have noticed that tact never worked.)

But then I pretty much left Fel with everyone else in 2000. Fortunately my houses there are so remote that I don't even feel a twinge of apprehension.
Not that this system will really be impacted by PvPers, getting to and from the free to use Fel moongates will only inconvenience the uninitiated. Even thieves camping Slim will probably be an unlikely occurrence a few weeks after publish.

/threadjack

 

[Riyana]

We've been told time and again that the Tram and Fel cities are totally separate. This was supposedly the reason that the Fel side couldn't get the city buffs. It has been emphasized many times, which is why many of us didn't immediately think to turn in the city quests in Fel.

But it doesn't matter. The rewards are still wildly incongruous, and since everyone will be doing it in Fel you can't even say the risk is terribly different. You have to sail a little bit. Whatever. (Though I can't WAIT to see the massive ship blockades!)

Because many of the Slim rewards are consumable and in high demand, what we will see is people running 3 clients at a time, one to each location, to guarantee they won't have to chase him down. I'm don't know scripts, but if this is scriptable it will be heavily scripted after the initial flurry of interest dies down. (And I would imagine that scripting Slim would be easier than scripting the cities since you could start and end in the same few places more easily.)

But why make delivering to Fel soooo much easier? If this is a way to get more sheep for non-con PvP...I'm at a loss for printable words regarding how poorly I view that.

Exactly. I'm not sure why they are so determined to get crafters and questers into Fel. Let the PvP crowd fight and quit treating the rest of us like special treats for them.

TL;DR of everything I've written in this thread: If you can use the moongate to get to the Fel cities you should be able to in Tram as well, the city rewards need to be scaled up to be more appealing/comparable, turning in city quests to Fel makes no sense, and your character's personal city loyalty should be a factor. Also, the Buc's Den gate is missing. Thank you.

 

[FrejaSP]

What are the real issue with the forged pardon being much easier to get?

Your guys do not want to allow reds in Trammel, not even if they had to follow the Trammel rules in Trammel.

So now we do it in a different way, we allow them to stay blue and still kill in Felucca, they just need to take some quests in Felucca and fence them to Slim the Fence to get the forged pardon they need to go blue.

Fine you think, they are now blue and you do not get to see red in Trammel. You just forget one thing, they will also be blue when they attack you in Felucca and you will end up being a lot more scared from going to Felucca.

It would had been a lot better to allow reds to go to Trammel but keep their red color. We tried it once, there you become blue after 8 hours. It gave mega problems as blue did not trust blue.

After this, you won't have a chance to know, if the blue guy, who invite you to hunt in Fel are going to kill you. Had it been a red guy in Trammel, who invited you, you would know the risk.

Now I think I heard, VvV will end up working in Trammel zone too, so before we know, we have a kind of PvP switch.

I like the direction UO have now

 

[Kyronix]

The rewards from both Slim and the City Trade ministers will have a balance pass before we hit production.

 

[Riyana]

What are the real issue with the forged pardon being much easier to get?

Your guys do not want to allow reds in Trammel, not even if they had to follow the Trammel rules in Trammel.

So now we do it in a different way, we allow them to stay blue and still kill in Felucca, they just need to take some quests in Felucca and fence them to Slim the Fence to get the forged pardon they need to go blue.

Fine you think, they are now blue and you do not get to see red in Trammel. You just forget one thing, they will also be blue when they attack you in Felucca and you will end up being a lot more scared from going to Felucca.

It would had been a lot better to allow reds to go to Trammel but keep their red color. We tried it once, there you become blue after 8 hours. It gave mega problems as blue did not trust blue.

After this, you won't have a chance to know, if the blue guy, who invite you to hunt in Fel are going to kill you. Had it been a red guy in Trammel, who invited you, you would know the risk.

Now I think I heard, VvV will end up working in Trammel zone too, so before we know, we have a kind of PvP switch.

I like the direction UO have now

It's not just the forged pardons... though those are certainly valuable to sell even if one doesn't use them them oneself. It's also the SoTs (always useful and valuable) and Slim's other unique loot that makes fencing the goods more appealing.

None of this has anything to do with red vs. blue. If you're in Fel you shouldn't trust anyone you don't know no matter what color their name is. (Actually, that is true for Tram too--it's just less risky if you misjudge.)

VvV is supposed to be Tram as well? I don't recall seeing that and I hope you're mistaken. I'm sure the governors will love trying to hold events around PvP battles...

 

[Speranza]

The rewards from both Slim and the City Trade ministers will have a balance pass before we hit production.

It's kinda selfish, but I'd love to see my "Pardon from $City" added to the mix if we are leaving them in. Although I'd lower the possibility of getting them like FrejaSP expanded upon earlier.

Either way, I look forward to a new reward list!

 

[Promathia]

This thread is honestly such a joke.

"No one will do the trade quest for my city because its too long and hard"
"Now that I found out you can go to Fel, Its too easy and doesn't follow lore!"

Mind you, it makes perfect sense why trade deals go to Fel. Felucca is being torn apart by constant war with VvV. The factions gone, every man for himself, each city being constantly bombarded. You all know very well, War makes for quite the profit.

So we are sending supplies to the Felucca cities as a relief effort, if you choose to go down that path. Everyone gets to participate, you guys get your trade deals funded, the game Devs have their content played.

If you go to Fel, you run the risk of it being in the middle of battle, hence no GZ. If not, you can go the long way in Trammel. For anyone who wants the Slim rewards, they have that option available, but its a bigger PITA than people in here seem willing to admit. Not sure why the excuse is "People will just use 3 accounts to watch each location". OF COURSE people with multiple accounts would have an easier time, that's true for anything in the game.

 

[Promathia]

Why should a Trammel City send supplies to a Fel City? Oh I don't know, maybe the same reason the USA sends relief efforts to other countries?

RP your Governor that wants no part of Felucca, refuse to send relief to the war torn land. Others, I am sure, can RP they want to help, hence you send supplies from Trammel to Felucca.

It really isn't hard.

 

[Storm]

OK so I managed to get my tamer on and picked up a order in brit to go to Skara I make it all the way to the scara crossing and it will not let me cross?
So I realize I need boat from bank...start to run back and boom there are 5 attacking me so 20 min later my GD finally has one on the run and boom another group appears then another on the docks and I run and another appears when I gave up I had 20 attacking me and none dead yet an ogre down to 4% !!

yep needs toned down a little!

 

[Matthias O'Hare]

Alright... I played some over the weekend with my bard and have summed my thoughts in a pro/cons/suggestions.

Positives

• This looks like it could address the funding issue on the smaller shards. I can't say I am totally happy about the lore trouble with Felucca trade ministers, but if we have to suck that down to get effective funding, I consider that a fair compromise.
• I like that you can't recall/gate/moongate anywhere in Trammel and are forced to do the deal on mount/foot/boat. This was my biggest concern when I heard the Trade Order quest mentioned in the Gov forum.
• Because of the above, I can imagine caravans of ten or so people being organized to deliver the goods along the long roads of Britannia. At the Governor's Mixer, we wanted to organize a couple on TC to test, but the monsters are so overpowered right now we couldn't (see negatives )
• I like deco, and the housing signs are nice (see further in suggestions).
• I like the way monsters ambush you. This pretty much how I had it pictured in my head if I were in charge of designing it.

Negatives

• The ambushes are overpowered. -This appears to already be on the issue list to be addressed
• Randomness of the city you have to deliver to.
• Can't use the ferry between Skara Brae Farms and main Skara Brae island.
• Items can be bought in the city you are delivering to and then put in crate. This seems... dumb.
• My pack horse dies way too easily. I usually can get an invisibility off in time, but it only takes one hit.
• Crafters aren't really encouraged in any sort of way to participate in a quest with the word "TRADE" in it.
• Can use gates to Felucca.

Suggestions

• Crafters need to be a part of this. I'd either suggest removing crafting skills from the scaling of the monsters, or my more preferred, a bonus added to the city coffers and a slightly better chance for a nice drop for filling the box with exceptional items.
• I should be able to choose my destination. I get to choose where I leave from, why can't I choose where to go? Players have been organizing caravans across Britannia for over a decade. Just when you are about to give them the perfect tool to increase participation and entertainment, you go and make it random. Sure, we can have people stand there and accept/decline over and over until we are all on the same, but that just seems like unnecessary bureaucracy and regulation on the player. This issue is why I wish Kyronix had discussed with the Gov Forum a little before pushing it to TC.
• I'm with Dot Warner and Riyana on this one, if someone suggested making Felucca a zone you can use public gates in order to lure lambs for the slaughter, I am appalled. This argument is over, it was decided when Trammel became an option. It was the fall of Saigon with people literally jumping off the roof to the last helicopter because they wanted out of Felucca. Trying to lure people back there to be lambs is only going to piss off the people you lure there and drive them away from the game. Trammel's no gate rules for the trade quests should apply in Felucca as well.
• Skara Brae ferry should be usable.
• EDIT: Forgot to add that we need sign hangers if there are going to be signs. The few available from rubble won't do. We need some actual wooden and metal sign post hangers. Maybe make them a crafting recipe reward (another way to involve crafters!) drops so that crafters can make them.

I'd honestly take the trade quest system getting pushed to next patch if it meant some of the player suggestions on this forum were taken into account.

 

[Kyronix]

Alright... I played some over the weekend with my bard and have summed my thoughts in a pro/cons/suggestions.

Positives

• This looks like it could address the funding issue on the smaller shards. I can't say I am totally happy about the lore trouble with Felucca trade ministers, but if we have to suck that down to get effective funding, I consider that a fair compromise.
• I like that you can't recall/gate/moongate anywhere in Trammel and are forced to do the deal on mount/foot/boat. This was my biggest concern when I heard the Trade Order quest mentioned in the Gov forum.
• Because of the above, I can imagine caravans of ten or so people being organized to deliver the goods along the long roads of Britannia. At the Governor's Mixer, we wanted to organize a couple on TC to test, but the monsters are so overpowered right now we couldn't (see negatives )
• I like deco, and the housing signs are nice (see further in suggestions).
• I like the way monsters ambush you. This pretty much how I had it pictured in my head if I were in charge of designing it.

Negatives

• The ambushes are overpowered. -This appears to already be on the issue list to be addressed
• Randomness of the city you have to deliver to.
• Can't use the ferry between Skara Brae Farms and main Skara Brae island.
• Items can be bought in the city you are delivering to and then put in crate. This seems... dumb.
• My pack horse dies way too easily. I usually can get an invisibility off in time, but it only takes one hit.
• Crafters aren't really encouraged in any sort of way to participate in a quest with the word "TRADE" in it.
• Can use gates to Felucca.

Suggestions

• Crafters need to be a part of this. I'd either suggest removing crafting skills from the scaling of the monsters, or my more preferred, a bonus added to the city coffers and a slightly better chance for a nice drop for filling the box with exceptional items.
• I should be able to choose my destination. I get to choose where I leave from, why can't I choose where to go? Players have been organizing caravans across Britannia for over a decade. Just when you are about to give them the perfect tool to increase participation and entertainment, you go and make it random. Sure, we can have people stand there and accept/decline over and over until we are all on the same, but that just seems like unnecessary bureaucracy and regulation on the player. This issue is why I wish Kyronix had discussed with the Gov Forum a little before pushing it to TC.
• I'm with Dot Warner and Riyana on this one, if someone suggested making Felucca a zone you can use public gates in order to lure lambs for the slaughter, I am appalled. This argument is over, it was decided when Trammel became an option. It was the fall of Saigon with people literally jumping off the roof to the last helicopter because they wanted out of Felucca. Trying to lure people back there to be lambs is only going to piss off the people you lure there and drive them away from the game. Trammel's no gate rules for the trade quests should apply in Felucca as well.
• Skara Brae ferry should be usable.
• EDIT: Forgot to add that we need sign hangers if there are going to be signs. The few available from rubble won't do. We need some actual wooden and metal sign post hangers. Maybe make them a crafting recipe reward (another way to involve crafters!) drops so that crafters can make them.

I'd honestly take the trade quest system getting pushed to next patch if it meant some of the player suggestions on this forum were taken into account.

Great feedback, and thank you for the suggestions!

Getting crafters involved at this stage is a little late given the scope. I think crafting is a great center stage for the next city update, and given the recent discussion about BoDs and such, it makes it more so. We'll keep this one in the back pocket. City Shields anyone? (I can feel Onifrk's gaze upon me now....hehe)

The destination is random because you get a nice bonus for trade orders that cover a greater distance, if you could just pick which one people would always pick the furthest destination and there wouldn't be any variety.

Nobody suggested the Felucca moongate allowance to lure people to slaughter, nor is that the intent. That allowance is in place because in order to visit Slim you need to be able to go to Felucca, since that's where he's hanging out. There are trade ministers in Felucca anyway, since we needed them there for Siege/Mugen as well as to give Feluccans an opportunity to make trade donations as well (No we aren't adding a governor-style council to Felucca). If you want to use the convenience of the moongate, the trade off is having to enter a non-consensual PvP area, although doing the trade quests without killing ambushers will greatly reduce the deposit to the city treasury, but that's entirely up to the person doing the quest.

I'm looking into making the Skara Brae ferry a usuable teleporter, no promises though as teleportation is a delicate system to deal with.

Sign hangers sound great for future rewards

Again, thanks for the feedback!

 

[Dot_Warner]

although doing the trade quests without killing ambushers will greatly reduce the deposit to the city treasury, but that's entirely up to the person doing the quest.

I've done several quests without running into any monsters... In fact, the only time I did spawn any was on a Yew to Britain quest and the mobs spawned within the city limits (just west of the Warrior's Guild (the one south of LB's castle) and a guard appeared and killed one of them.

I'm really hoping we get to test the mobs with proper scaling before this goes live, as what spawned for me would have taken a decent sized group quite a while to kill. 14hp energy bolts using the proper specific-type slayer on a powerful mage was discouraging to say the least. X5 and it just wasn't worth my time. Also, please remember for scaling that the damage disparity between a mage and a dexer is dramatic; dexers may use multiple slayers (weapon, talisman, EoO, Honor) plus multiple weapons/skill specials that put Word of Death to shame in the long run. They can get 300% DI easily, while mages can get ~120 SDI if they spend a lot of gold and sacrifice other stats.

A few mobs of greater dragon type difficulty would probably be powerful enough to be challenging, without making it absurdly difficult. The chances of people repeatedly doing these as a group, in the long term, is low.

 

[Kyronix]

I've done several quests without running into any monsters... In fact, the only time I did spawn any was on a Yew to Britain quest and the mobs spawned within the city limits (just west of the Warrior's Guild (the one south of LB's castle) and a guard appeared and killed one of them.

I'm really hoping we get to test the mobs with proper scaling before this goes live, as what spawned for me would have taken a decent sized group quite a while to kill. 14hp energy bolts using the proper specific-type slayer on a powerful mage was discouraging to say the least. X5 and it just wasn't worth my time. Also, please remember for scaling that the damage disparity between a mage and a dexer is dramatic; dexers may use multiple slayers (weapon, talisman, EoO, Honor) plus multiple weapons/skill specials that put Word of Death to shame in the long run. They can get 300% DI easily, while mages can get ~120 SDI if they spend a lot of gold and sacrifice other stats.

A few mobs of greater dragon type difficulty would probably be powerful enough to be challenging, without making it absurdly difficult. The chances of people repeatedly doing these as a group, in the long term, is low.

You absolutely will have the opportunity to test everything on test center again before we go to production.

 

[archiv]

...
If you want to use the convenience of the moongate, the trade off is having to enter a non-consensual PvP area, although doing the trade quests without killing ambushers will greatly reduce the deposit to the city treasury, but that's entirely up to the person doing the quest.
...

This actually makes me sad for this quest. If you're going to allow quick travel turn in's in Fel because the player will get to chose if he wants to take that path, may as well leave magic travel available i Tram as well. After all, let the player decide right? Or put a Slim twin in Tram, let the players decide if they want to make the trip to Fel or sail the oceans Blue (see what i did there??).
I was intrigued by this quest as it forced non-magic travel, the possibility of being ambushed by some beasts after your cargo, relearning the city locations...However if it's just a matter of gating to Fel for a short cut instead, well as I said, just remove the magic travel restrictions all together and see how the players decide to handle the tasks.

 

[Dot_Warner]

City Shields anyone? (I can feel Onifrk's gaze upon me now....hehe)

How about shields AND cloaks?

Though I'd like to see these as appliques/patches, not discrete new items. People earn the patch in whatever manner is chosen, then an NPC can apply them to a supplied cloak or shield and changes the graphic only, not the name or stats. Thus, someone could have their city patch applied to a hephaestus, a ranger's cloak of augmentation, etc. Just a visual thing. (cloaks would require an art change that probably only the EC could adequately accommodate, since the CC's avatar art assets were lost)

 

[Jerec KTM]

This actually makes me sad for this quest. If you're going to allow quick travel turn in's in Fel because the player will get to chose if he wants to take that path, may as well leave magic travel available i Tram as well. After all, let the player decide right? Or put a Slim twin in Tram, let the players decide if they want to make the trip to Fel or sail the oceans Blue (see what i did there??).
I was intrigued by this quest as it forced non-magic travel, the possibility of being ambushed by some beasts after your cargo, relearning the city locations...However if it's just a matter of gating to Fel for a short cut instead, well as I said, just remove the magic travel restrictions all together and see how the players decide to handle the tasks.

While I think the cities need the funds that will be generated by this system. I agree, the ease of which it will be able to be done by doing it in fel is depressing. There needs to be *some* challenge to it. On most shards, fel is completely empty and no matter how much we may wish for the success of UO for VvV to bring back fel PvPrs, it isn't going to happen. Let us also not forget several cities have moongates within a five second run or even less in Skara Brae & Jhelom.

 

[Kyronix]

How about shields AND cloaks?

Though I'd like to see these as appliques/patches, not discrete new items. People earn the patch in whatever manner is chosen, then an NPC can apply them to a supplied cloak or shield and changes the graphic only, not the name or stats. Thus, someone could have their city patch applied to a hephaestus, a ranger's cloak of augmentation, etc. Just a visual thing. (cloaks would require an art change that probably only the EC could adequately accommodate, since the CC's avatar art assets were lost)

What if you double clicked on the sash (or whatever) and it opened up a gump that was essentially a magnified view showing all your patches on it?

 

[Dot_Warner]

What if you double clicked on the sash (or whatever) and it opened up a gump that was essentially a magnified view showing all your patches on it?

A sash? That could work, though might want to make sure it layers on top of everything else. Are you thinking of this for a future badge system? Or instead of a sash, maybe make it a part of the paper doll gump (since many people use sashes with properties)?

I'm all for new clothes though

 

[Kyronix]

A sash? That could work, though might want to make sure it layers on top of everything else. Are you thinking of this for a future badge system? Or instead of a sash, maybe make it a part of the paper doll gump (since many people use sashes with properties)?

I'm all for new clothes though

Well just thinking out loud...would be tough to show the detail of a badge on the paperdoll art itself, I think it'd be better if you could see a blown up version of your badges to really appreciate the beauty of the art and admire your accomplishments. Layering is as it as now, getting a sash on top of a robe per say would be...delicate. Definitely some food for thought!

 

[FrejaSP]

I'm very pleased with this quest so far.
I like the fact, that you have to traveling via mount and boat.
I do hope money will go to the town you start in.
I look forward to see a doable monster spawn
I look forward to see a few more rewards for turning in the packed to the trade in minister.
The Slim the Fence and the shortcut to turn in to Fel towns gives the quest a nice twist. I really love that.
I look forward to see changes to BoDs, thanks for listen Yes I know, it won't be in this public
Now the big question, when will it hit my shard? I can't wait for this and the new loot

 

[Aurelius]

Nobody suggested the Felucca moongate allowance to lure people to slaughter, nor is that the intent. That allowance is in place because in order to visit Slim you need to be able to go to Felucca, since that's where he's hanging out. There are trade ministers in Felucca anyway, since we needed them there for Siege/Mugen as well as to give Feluccans an opportunity to make trade donations as well (No we aren't adding a governor-style council to Felucca). If you want to use the convenience of the moongate, the trade off is having to enter a non-consensual PvP area, although doing the trade quests without killing ambushers will greatly reduce the deposit to the city treasury, but that's entirely up to the person doing the quest.

Again, a game play mechanic devoid of ANY sense in the story and fiction of the world wins.....

So disappointing, you can have sensible and logical world development AND systems exacrtly like the trade deals, but again we get something where the 'game' is outwitting the structure of the programmed task, and consistency of fiction and world don't matter at all. The 'RPG' bit implies at the very least there should be enough sense in the game world to allow playing a character in it, not just some token caricature that runs about doing the most efficient system to get the reward. You're settling for designing bigger and harder mazes for the rats to wander around.

 

[FrejaSP]

To the ones, who are unhappy with the trade in to Slim the Fence or to Trade In Ministers in Felucca towns.
Not only do you risk to get killed, when you leave the moongate , are sailing . or hit a town with VvV wars . There are one more risk

I'm sure the thieves will be present at the Trade In Ministers and at Slim the Fences Taverns

Can't wait to see this on the shards, special Siege.

 

[The Old Man]

Might be nice if you gained a few Loyalty Points for turning in at the city and lost a few for fencing it ??

 

[archiv]

To the ones, who are unhappy with the trade in to Slim the Fence or to Trade In Ministers in Felucca towns.
Not only do you risk to get killed, when you leave the moongate , are sailing . or hit a town with VvV wars . There are one more risk

I'm sure the thieves will be present at the Trade In Ministers and at Slim the Fences Taverns

Can't wait to see this on the shards, special Siege.

You also risk being killed by ambush spawn in Tram (non Siege shards of course). I look forward to it being on Siege as well even though it will be my crafter speeding across the countryside on his trusty beetle. Unfortunately with Siege there cant be a separation of Fel and Tram so the quick travel per gate has to be there. Which for a shard with no other options is a necessary, however for all the prodo shards which are split giving this short cut for normal turn-ins negates the entire 'non-magic travel' aspect of it, so why bother restricting magic travel at all? If you want to claim there's more risk delivering to Fel ministers, then why have Slim at all? why not change the loot table for the Fel ministers to match those of Slim and Tram stay the same? I'm not against Slim turn-ins, I dont like how he moves so fast. I now understand why he cant be locked down but it would be nicer if he had a timer and maybe a random location in each town for the duration of the timer rather than just 3 towns, 3 bars. That would help keep the multi-account campers from watching each location.
I imagine it's too late in the game to change any of this as it seems like this topic is the one that's not being acknowledged. But it is disappointing none the less.

 

[FrejaSP]

I don't think we need quick traveling per gate on Siege, a good mount and a good boat will do. The ambush spawn is slow, you can easy run from that.
Yes the quest may be a little harder to do on Siege, but it is an advanced shard, so that's ok.

 

[Uvtha]

I don't think we need quick traveling per gate on Siege, a good mount and a good boat will do. The ambush spawn is slow, you can easy run from that.
Yes the quest may be a little harder to do on Siege, but it is an advanced shard, so that's ok.

Sadly the gate travel thing WILL be on siege, since siege is "fel", so I wouldn't expect many people to finish these quests out on the highways unless they were doing it for the gold, which at 200k per trip for the top reward is substantial for siege, though it will take people a while to get that high.

 

[FrejaSP]

Easy to fix, don't allow to traveling to Felucca on Siege, when doing the quest

 

[Riyana]

What if you double clicked on the sash (or whatever) and it opened up a gump that was essentially a magnified view showing all your patches on it?

In another thread not long ago another player insisted that the appeal of EM events before the loot change was testing his maxed out character, and I suggested he promote something like this. This needn't be limited to the city loyalty system. I recommend researching WoW's achievement system--sometime like that would give players ongoing in game goals to pursue. I don't think it should be a piece of clothing that people already use though (either something new that layers over everything or just a gump in the paperdoll or a context menu option that anyone can view.)

On a related note, since we're apparently throwing tangential suggestions out here, I also suggested expanding the arena system to let players keep dps, top damage/healing, etc. scores and maybe even design and fight monsters (with no loot). Could be a great training, RP, and general bragging rights tool. Could have some nice achievements for the sash/gump/whatever.

Back to the topic, though...

The destination is random because you get a nice bonus for trade orders that cover a greater distance, if you could just pick which one people would always pick the furthest destination and there wouldn't be any variety.

You can pick by accepting and quitting over and over, it's just annoying. As far as I can tell there is no penalty for quitting a quest to pick up one you like better. Is there such a penalty?

Nobody suggested the Felucca moongate allowance to lure people to slaughter, nor is that the intent. That allowance is in place because in order to visit Slim you need to be able to go to Felucca, since that's where he's hanging out.

This makes sense, but since you can turn in the city rewards there too it creates a lopsided system that heavily advantages the Fel side and skirts right up to forcing players into Fel while leaving the "option" to run all over the world for the same reward (but with city bonus! 'cause that's totally a huge selling point for most people...).

If you want to use the convenience of the moongate, the trade off is having to enter a non-consensual PvP area, although doing the trade quests without killing ambushers will greatly reduce the deposit to the city treasury, but that's entirely up to the person doing the quest.

Sorry, but that IS luring people to potential slaughter regardless of the intent. I just don't see the point of making your options be either a) enter a non-consensual PvP area (that may have active VvV battles and no guards!) or b) run or sail across the entire map. Those aren't equal alternatives. This makes the Fel side a little riskier, but the Tram side much, much more time consuming. Even the staunchest Trammy will give up on that before long. The argument for Slim's superior rewards seems to be the increased effort, but running between the cities in Tram is much more effort than hopping between the moongates in Fel. Just let the Tram side gate work too... if the reward for walking it is only increased city deposit, then there's no point splitting it between Fel and Tram so weirdly. Don't punish players with extra tedium for the same quest just for not wanting to PvP.

And again, if the only incentive for running and sailing all over Britannia is that the city treasury will get more money, we are better off spending a comparable amount of time hunting and donating what we earn. Is there some other incentive for running it and fighting the monsters? Kinda hard to say right now since they are almost impossible to fight. I did kill one giant spider and it had regular spider loot. (I didn't bother with the rest of the spawn because if it takes my sampire with her Navrey weapon that long to kill a giant spider...)

 

[Storm]

Might be nice if you gained a few Loyalty Points for turning in at the city and lost a few for fencing it ??

I like that idea

 

[Riyana]

Hopefully someone will find this useful.

So I did the city trade quest today many times and spreadsheeted my results. My character was loyal to New Magincia, so I started in NM (Tram) every time. NM was an interesting place to start because it was pretty much guaranteed I would be using the gate to the Fel destination city--I didn't much feel like sailing all over the universe today. I'll see if I can sail a few later this week and compare results.

I accepted and completed every trade offered to me until the 5 "rejected" ones. I did not kill any spawned monsters (though later I did get a few guardwhacked.) Here's what I concluded from what I did:

1. There is a base amount the city gets for each trade order. It is the same every time when delivering from and to the same city. (From NM to Vesper was consistently 25K for example. A single test in the other direction, Vesper to NM (not shown on spreadsheet) yielded the same results.)

1a. HOWEVER, getting monsters guardwhacked slightly increased the amount given to the city. I guess guardwhacking counts as killing them?

2. There is a base amount of reward item the player gets for each trade order. It is the same every time when delivering from and to the same city. (From NM to Vesper was consistently 80 of any resource except rare resources.)

2a. Getting monsters guardwhacked did not seem to have an effect on the player's reward.

3. Rare gems and other special resources have a much lower reward rate than other resources.

4. Cancelling trade orders does not seem to affect future rewards. Therefore you CAN choose your destination, but it's a pain.

5. I got two of the rarer rewards almost immediately, then never again. I ran the quest a total of 31 times and cancelled it 5 times.

6. At this sample size, there did not seem to be a correlation between items requested and reward given. I never got a order that asked for more than one item.

7. It took a while to get a Britain order, and I never got a Yew order.

8. NM was seriously easy because the tailor was the only NPC the orders seemed to draw from and she's only a couple screens away from the trade minister. Other cities will require much more running around to get to the right vendor.

9. I made a total of 853K for the destination cities. When this is switched to starting city it will be better, but I still would like the character's loyalty to mean something too.

I am still concerned that in the long run, Slim will be the much preferred, overwhelmingly more chosen path because his rewards are consumable and always in demand. There will definitely be an initial surge of cash into the city stones from this side though.

I threw the resources on the ground (didn't want to run to bank every time and they were heavy) and just banked the rare rewards, of which I only got 2.

Compare and contrast this reward list to the one here for the Slim version.

I really like the book. These should make a nice collection. Some writable ones like this would be very nice RP items indeed! They are much more readable than the old style books.

I'm still not sure what I'm going to do with a pile of signs (and no sign hangers), but they are kinda neat.

I'll be interested to see what the higher tiers yield. I got a little bit of a lot of different resources, but not enough to rely on by a longshot. That's good--I would not want to see the gathering skills rendered obsolete.

 

[Jerec KTM]

I really like the book. These should make a nice collection. Some writable ones like this would be very nice RP items indeed! They are much more readable than the old style books.

Good thinking. Would be nice for players to set out a book like this that they could compose a short story or introduction in.

I'll be interested to see what the higher tiers yield. I got a little bit of a lot of different resources, but not enough to rely on by a longshot. That's good--I would not want to see the gathering skills rendered obsolete.

I wouldn't want them made obsolete either, but I hope by Tier 5 the amount of resources is maybe kicked up to 200-250 per... but then again.. this is where I could see the fel gating really causing abuse in farming resources when finally at Tier 5. *sigh*

 

[Great DC]

Hopefully someone will find this useful.


1a. HOWEVER, getting monsters guardwhacked slightly increased the amount given to the city. I guess guardwhacking counts as killing them?

So whats to stop someone from exploiting this? Just run around in a town for 30 minutes Whack like ten to fifteen mobs and up your gold output.

 

[archiv]

So whats to stop someone from exploiting this? Just run around in a town for 30 minutes Whack like ten to fifteen mobs and up your gold output.

From what I noticed, may have been pure coincidence, but the ambushes don't seem to spawn in towns. not that this would prevent anyone from luring them in to be whacked, but since Fel gating seems to be here to stay it would make more sense to just power run a couple runs in the same time frame to make as much or more.

 

[Dot_Warner]

From what I noticed, may have been pure coincidence, but the ambushes don't seem to spawn in towns. not that this would prevent anyone from luring them in to be whacked, but since Fel gating seems to be here to stay it would make more sense to just power run a couple runs in the same time frame to make as much or more.

They only time ambushers spawned for me was within the town of Britain, just west of the Warrior's Guild (the one south of LB's castle).

 

[Riyana]

So whats to stop someone from exploiting this? Just run around in a town for 30 minutes Whack like ten to fifteen mobs and up your gold output.

They didn't spawn in town for me. Since I was using the moongate I was never terribly far from a guard zone. They spawned outside of town and followed me in.

The money increase ONLY goes to the city. My character's reward did not change. Call me cynical but I very much doubt anyone will go out of their way for a slight increase in a reward they don't get tthemselves.

 

[archiv]

They only time ambushers spawned for me was within the town of Britain, just west of the Warrior's Guild (the one south of LB's castle).

Same for me, my first attempt at the quest leaving from Skara. Ran up to the moongate, changed my mind and came back. I didn't realize the ambush had spawned until I saw the guard fighting one of the ubers.
I also agree with Riyana, not many out there would put in time and effort involved waiting for a random spawn, dragging it back into a guard zone, waiting around for another random spawn, repeating. I think in most cases even taking the foot travel method you'd be able to run a few quests in less time than it would take to spawn and lure an appropriate amount of spawn to the guards.

 

[Uvtha]

Easy to fix, don't allow to traveling to Felucca on Siege, when doing the quest

They won't do a change for just siege. What it's like in fel it will be like on siege.

 

[FrejaSP]

They won't do a change for just siege. What it's like in fel it will be like on siege.

I trust they will, we need people to traveling the land on Siege

 

[Veldrane]

Wouldn't a reasonable solution be to add a Slim to Tram and then kill moongate travel all together? I know that lessens the danger of Slim but he's still a PITA to find since he moves around. This would eliminate the short cut option to taking the quest in Tram and turning it in at Fel. To me this sounds viable, but I'm not sure what the intent of making people go to Fel is - I like the idea of a quest that requires going to Fel for greater rewards, I'm just not sure it fits for this one since limiting fast travel seems to be more of a driving factor. Obviously Slim's rewards would have to be toned down a little, but it sounds like a reward tuning pass is coming already.

I don't know, maybe I'm missing some of the thought process behind the functionality of this quest and my thought isn't valid.

 

[FrejaSP]

Wouldn't a reasonable solution be to add a Slim to Tram and then kill moongate travel all together? I know that lessens the danger of Slim but he's still a PITA to find since he moves around.

I do not feel it would make sense to place Slim in Trammel, Lord Blackthorn should not allow that. For Siege, disabling Fel traveling too, should not be that hard to do.

This would eliminate the short cut option to taking the quest in Tram and turning it in at Fel. To me this sounds viable, but I'm not sure what the intent of making people go to Fel is - I like the idea of a quest that requires going to Fel for greater rewards.

Not sure that short cut was indented but it's easier to let it stay that way, than remove the trade in ministers in Fel. Sure it is a short cut but how many trammel players are willing to take the risk? About Slim the Fence, I feel it is fair, if you can kill in Felucca, should also be willing to go there to get your forged pardon to stay blue or do the quest from a Fel town to get your red blue.

I'm just not sure it fits for this one since limiting fast travel seems to be more of a driving factor. Obviously Slim's rewards would have to be toned down a little, but it sounds like a reward tuning pass is coming already.

I think Slim's rewards are fine as long he stay in Felucca.

I don't know, maybe I'm missing some of the thought process behind the functionality of this quest and my thought isn't valid.

Maybe, but Felucca have a very bad reputation and many Trammel players will tell new UO players stories about the evil place called Felucca. Maybe it is good to let them make their own opinion. And we all know, people are lazy so some may take the short cut.
I do agree, the rewards for turning in to trade ministers and not Slim, need to be better. I also like the idea of gain of loyalty or lose of it if you turn in to Slim, that make a lot of sense to me

 

[Veldrane]

I think Slim's rewards are fine as long he stay in Felucca.

I think the reward pool for Slim is fine, but I'd be interested in seeing a data sample of the frequency of the drops. Pardons should be part of his reward profile, but I would hope that they are toward the lower end of probability.

I do agree, the rewards for turning in to trade ministers and not Slim, need to be better. I also like the idea of gain of locality or lose of it if you turn in to Slim, that make a lot of sense to me

Yes, I think the "good" side needs a little reward love, but not a ton. It just needs balanced a little better and perhaps some of those crafting materials that have no use could be cut - I'm looking at you sea serpent scales - to lower some of the randomness. Just for sake of clarity, the trade quest should NOT be a viable alternate way of resource gathering but it also needs to be rewarding enough for people to actually do.

I also think that once the ambush monsters are tuned there should be something to encourage people to kill those - special loot profile on the monster, etc - since as it stands now the only benefit to killing the monsters is to the monies rewarded to the town and no incentive for the player to actually kill the ambush.

City loyalty gain / loss should absolutely be a part of this system. I'm surprised that it wasn't already to be honest.

 

[FrejaSP]

I think the reward pool for Slim is fine, but I'd be interested in seeing a data sample of the frequency of the drops. Pardons should be part of his reward profile, but I would hope that they are toward the lower end of probability.

I believe they want to give players a better chance to stay blue. Players who love to PvP do not want to use hours or days to get a pardon.
I don't really like it done this way, I feel it had been better to let them stay red but let them go to Trammel as red. Letting them kill in Fel and then easy go back to blue do have a bad side effect. We saw that, before we got the long time murderer counts. the reds would macro off the counts over night, then lure someone out town to kill them.
If you let them go to Trammel as red (they can't kill there unless in a warring guild), people at least know to be careful with them, if they ask them to go to Fel with them.

 

[Riyana]

I forgot to mention that a couple times I was given an order for items that were not on the vendor (or not in sufficient quantity) because I'd just filled a similar order. The vendor check didn't update quickly enough? Not sure. I just filled them in the destination city, but it might be a problem at first when everyone and their dog is doing the quest for a while.

If the gates are taken out entirely, the island cities will be at a severe disadvantage for getting that treasury money. It will be a pretty hard sell getting anyone to sail out of New Magincia or Moonglow every. single. time. when they can start in central Britain for a much quicker average run (or any other continental city for that matter). If part of the purpose of this system is to help defray the trade deal cost then it needs to be reasonably equally doable for all the loyalty cities.

I think the gates should be available in Tram too... it won't force anyone into an unwanted PvP situation, people who want to run it and kill the monsters still can (and if we can pick the destination city we can run caravans and that would be fun too), and it won't favor Fel OR continental cities.