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Woodsman
Guest
Or just slow down the amount of money coming into the economy by reducing what NPCs will pay players, and reducing the amount of gold in monster loot, and being very aggressive with the dupers and scripters.
That would be a better solution all around, but it's also a long-term solution that would help new players, so I'm sure there would be resistance to it
That would be a better solution all around, but it's also a long-term solution that would help new players, so I'm sure there would be resistance to it
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All doing either a money roll or checks would do is allow for even HIGHER inflation.
What needs to happen is that the influx of gold be reduced significantly (well ALL monster loot really) and the removal of existing gold be increased significantly so that the existing level of gold can be brought back down to a reasonable level (over time of course).
All doing either a money roll or checks would do is allow for even HIGHER inflation.
What needs to happen is that the influx of gold be reduced significantly (well ALL monster loot really) and the removal of existing gold be increased significantly so that the existing level of gold can be brought back down to a reasonable level (over time of course).
1. How would that help new players at all?Or just slow down the amount of money coming into the economy by reducing what NPCs will pay players, #1and reducing the amount of gold in monster loot, #2and being very aggressive with the dupers and scripters.
That would be a better solution all around, but it's also a long-term solution that would help new players, so I'm sure there would be resistance to it
2. Duping is not an issue anymore any items that do get copied get deleted at server up the next day or the person gets caught just after the fact and quietly gets banned. mass resource gathering via scripting is less than 1/10th what it was a year ago.
How so? Many people store mass amounts of gold on vendors these days and, failing that, you can store something like 7 billion gold in a castle.
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1. It wouldn't at first. Over time, the economy, outside of speific rare items, would repair itself. But it has to be done on both ends, the faucet needs to be turned down and the sink needs to be significantly widened with the sink portion geared towards the "higher end" players.
1. It wouldn't at first. Over time, the economy, outside of speific rare items, would repair itself. But it has to be done on both ends, the faucet needs to be turned down and the sink needs to be significantly widened with the sink portion geared towards the "higher end" players.
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How would it increase inflation? The same way inflation exploded when they introduced checks in the first place.
A 125 item conmtainer pre-checks could hold 7,500,000 gold.
A 125 item container AFTER checks can hold 125,000,000 gold, a 1667% increase.
A 125 item container with 10 Mill checks would hold 1,250,000,000 gold
We should be aiming to push the economy more towards the first listing than the last.
Yes, vendors can hold a lot, but if people want a more balanced economy, the last thing we need to do is keep pushing the numbers bigger and bigger.
How would it increase inflation? The same way inflation exploded when they introduced checks in the first place.
A 125 item conmtainer pre-checks could hold 7,500,000 gold.
A 125 item container AFTER checks can hold 125,000,000 gold, a 1667% increase.
A 125 item container with 10 Mill checks would hold 1,250,000,000 gold
We should be aiming to push the economy more towards the first listing than the last.
Yes, vendors can hold a lot, but if people want a more balanced economy, the last thing we need to do is keep pushing the numbers bigger and bigger.
Over time I could see that, but I dont buy anything off NPC vendors and at the rate I go through insurance funds, it would take me 3 years to go through 1 mil.
The real issue is there is 1/5 the amount of active subscribers around compared to its peak. Alot of those accounts were bought and parted out via "power users"
I have yet to hear an idea for a gold sink that is even worth mentioning.
Inflation exploded with the introduction of checks because of a series of dupes that no longer work. The most famous of these was the vesper chest dupe, and that hasnt worked in years. Also getting an honorable mention are things that could be farmed(create food anyone?) and sold to vendors. Nothing from this method is plausible anymore.
The last time I witnessed somebody duping checks, they went *poof* after about 3 seconds.
In the almost 18 months since I came back, I managed to earn a billion gold legitimately. Combined with what I had from before, I cant hold all my gold between all the chars on my 2 active accounts.
The real issue is the rich keep getting richer, and the poor are too lazy to make the gold for themselves, and I guess people don`t like that.
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Here's where I stand, I'm against lopping off a zero to "fix" the UO economy and I'm against adding a zero to "fix" the economy because NEITHER of those actions fix anything.
Usually I'm against item mod caps, but I think that 100% LRC was a complete mistake as like it or not, reagents WERE a good gold sink.
Let's see, a couple of ideas/thoughts off the top of my head:
1. House redesign: Anything above a 3 tile change in the course of an hour should rescind any refund on the removal of a house tile (so for example, you build your house and need to change a few tiles real quick, there'd be no cost change as it is now, but if you wanted to redo the whole floor, it would cost the gold necessary as if you were doing the floor from scratch).
2. Crafting: Should crafting certain items require an additional ingredient obtained ONLY via NPC vendors?
Here's where I stand, I'm against lopping off a zero to "fix" the UO economy and I'm against adding a zero to "fix" the economy because NEITHER of those actions fix anything.
Usually I'm against item mod caps, but I think that 100% LRC was a complete mistake as like it or not, reagents WERE a good gold sink.
Let's see, a couple of ideas/thoughts off the top of my head:
1. House redesign: Anything above a 3 tile change in the course of an hour should rescind any refund on the removal of a house tile (so for example, you build your house and need to change a few tiles real quick, there'd be no cost change as it is now, but if you wanted to redo the whole floor, it would cost the gold necessary as if you were doing the floor from scratch).
2. Crafting: Should crafting certain items require an additional ingredient obtained ONLY via NPC vendors?
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The real issue is the rich keep getting richer, and the poor are too lazy to make the gold for themselves, and I guess people don`t like that.
You won;t hear that from me. I have no problem with the rich getting richer, I'm probably the biggest free market poster on this board.
The issue is "how do you bring the eocnomy back to a place where people don't think you have to have 100+ MILLION gold just to get started?"
The real issue is the rich keep getting richer, and the poor are too lazy to make the gold for themselves, and I guess people don`t like that.
You won;t hear that from me. I have no problem with the rich getting richer, I'm probably the biggest free market poster on this board.
The issue is "how do you bring the eocnomy back to a place where people don't think you have to have 100+ MILLION gold just to get started?"
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Woodsman
Guest
Reducing the amount of gold coming into the game would lower costs all around. There are only two legal ways gold enters the game - NPCs buying from players, and monster loot. If somebody can spend $0.50 out of game for a million, that's really screwy, and it does affect new players. It also encourages people to buy outside of the game, which makes the problem even worse, since it encourages the scripters to go wild if the demand is there.
I'm not suggesting a Siege Perilous solution of stopping NPCs from buying from players, just reducing the amount paid or amount bought by the NPCs, as well as monster loot.
I question it, but I'll take your word for it - even if the duping thing has been solved, it's very easy for the scripters to generate large amounts of gold at will, as long as the NPCs buy such resources for current prices.
They don't need to gather resources now because there are so few players. Get an influx of players and I guarantee the scripters/gold resellers will do what they need to do to keep up with demand.
If you cut down on the amount of gold that the scripters/gold resellers can easily generate, which also cuts down in general on the amount of gold coming into the game, then you're working towards a long-term solution of making gold worth something.
Siege is the extreme with it's lack of NPCs buying from players, but pre-Tram there were restrictions put in place by the players/pkers. While there was certainly scripting/AFK, it was a lot harder since they could easily wind up dead. Remove the risk, and they can do it to their heart's content.
The two things I propose a lot - reduce the prices NPCs pay players, and reduce the monster loot, are formula tweaks, and to me that's a better solution, because it's simple. People talk about taxes or elaborate gold sinks, but those are complex and would take a lot more to implement, and they really wouldn't affect the people who are a part of the problem, since those people would just farm a little more.
aarg
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Also Pre-Tram (and I forget when EXACTLY the change happened), NPC vendor would only buy FIVE items at a time and then would have a sliding scale that they would pay based on their inventory and if their inventory became "full", they would not buy that item anymore for a certain amount of time.
Used to be you could buy spools of thread, make them into bolts of cloth, turn those into fancy shirts and make a decent profit. That was slowed down due to the system mentioned above. So while you would have several people doing this in the NPC shop, noone would be a scriptor and the crowd would in effect balance each other out in the process.
Since then, they've LOOSENED the ability to obtain gold by:
- Adding checks
- Removing the 5 item limit (now it's 500 of a stacked item)
- Removing the "vendor gold cap"
- Removing the "Supply/Demand" logic
- Making gold much lighter than it was
Because of that, they had to change how the vendors bought back crafted goods so that players could no longer make a profit (since the changes to how vendors handled buying from players).
Also Pre-Tram (and I forget when EXACTLY the change happened), NPC vendor would only buy FIVE items at a time and then would have a sliding scale that they would pay based on their inventory and if their inventory became "full", they would not buy that item anymore for a certain amount of time.
Used to be you could buy spools of thread, make them into bolts of cloth, turn those into fancy shirts and make a decent profit. That was slowed down due to the system mentioned above. So while you would have several people doing this in the NPC shop, noone would be a scriptor and the crowd would in effect balance each other out in the process.
Since then, they've LOOSENED the ability to obtain gold by:
- Adding checks
- Removing the 5 item limit (now it's 500 of a stacked item)
- Removing the "vendor gold cap"
- Removing the "Supply/Demand" logic
- Making gold much lighter than it was
Because of that, they had to change how the vendors bought back crafted goods so that players could no longer make a profit (since the changes to how vendors handled buying from players).
I am not saying script farming isnt gone but it is alot easier to get caught these days.
In the past couple of years it has shifted to mostly gathering resources that are sold to players for gold or RMT. Script mining is too easy to get caught doing and besides, most of them have a HUGE supply of stuff to sell already. The big thing right now is 2 or 3 ppl who have a few thousand plants that are automatically tended to in there house. Seeds of Renewal are big business.
lol I remember that, it used to aggravate me to no end when I had a good amount of gems on me to sell.
They need to change the currency in UO. The currency in DaoC is 100 copper = 1 silver, 100 silver = 1 gold, 1000 gold = 1 platinum, 1000 platinum = 1 mythril. (Although mythril is a denomination of currency, you cannot have a mythril on any one character; the amount of coin will not go beyond 200 platinum.).
In UO since it has an abundance of gold it should be the lowest currency. Silver is already for factions and should stay in factions. I would suggest Zinc to replace the use of silver ( only use in factions) in the regular game economy. 100 gold = 1 Zinc, 100 Zinc = 1 Copper, 100 Copper = 1 Titanium, and 100 Titanium = 1 Platinum. Add taxes to houses as a gold sink, tax anything you buy in the game off of vendors, tax NPC services, and make players loyal to a city and have to pay taxes to the city they choose to be loyal to.
In UO since it has an abundance of gold it should be the lowest currency. Silver is already for factions and should stay in factions. I would suggest Zinc to replace the use of silver ( only use in factions) in the regular game economy. 100 gold = 1 Zinc, 100 Zinc = 1 Copper, 100 Copper = 1 Titanium, and 100 Titanium = 1 Platinum. Add taxes to houses as a gold sink, tax anything you buy in the game off of vendors, tax NPC services, and make players loyal to a city and have to pay taxes to the city they choose to be loyal to.
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Woodsman
Guest
That's because they would just encourage people to buy more gold from gold resellers, who would then farm more gold. It would also encourage people to be bitter towards EA for making the game seem more like work.
I saw one person a while back on another website pushing for some kind of crazy house tax of $10 million a month.
The first problem with that, was that your fundamentally altering a part of the game that has always contributed to what made UO, UO. You're also making it very difficult on the people who don't play a lot - after all, they are paying the same amount of money as anybody else. There certainly isn't a housing shortage, and it would definitely impact people with multiple accounts, who might then close some of those accounts, which hurts all UO players, since less money for EA means bad things for UO. A large of players engage in pursuits in-game that do not generate a lot of gold.
Which then leads to this problem: A lot of players will not spend 20 or 30 hours or more a month working to make the $10 million a month for the tax to keep their houses. They are going to say screw this, I'm spending $5 on a gold reseller, and I'm just going to consider it a price increase for paying the game.
Net result: Players are extremely annoyed, then spend more real-life money, which the gold resellers get and EA doesn't get, and the gold resellers are encouraged to generate even more gold through scripting/etc.
That's one example, but just about every gold sink that is tossed around, still boils down to a lot of players will spend $5 out of game for a 30-second transaction with a gold reseller, rather than spend a dozen or more hours in-game to get the gold, especially those players who aren't playing several hours every day doing things that generate a lot of gold.
Gold sinks also address the problem after the fact, and they don't actually deal with the root of the problem - the ease in which gold enters the game.
Until you deal with the amount of gold entering the game, you're not really dealing with the problem. It's the equivalent of seeing a crack in a dam and getting out a bucket and a mop.
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They need to change the currency in UO. The currency in...
The difference between UO and other games is that UO has a base currency while others have a graduated currency. All the graduated system does is hide the numbers.
You'd be surprised how close newer games are to UO in terms of economic numbers when you break everything down to the base currency (usually copper for graudated systems).
They need to change the currency in UO. The currency in...
The difference between UO and other games is that UO has a base currency while others have a graduated currency. All the graduated system does is hide the numbers.
You'd be surprised how close newer games are to UO in terms of economic numbers when you break everything down to the base currency (usually copper for graudated systems).
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Woodsman
Guest
You've just fundamentally altered a major system of the game that makes UO unique, you've turned UO into a chore for a lot of people, you've pissed off a lot of people, you're nudging people into a playstyle (gold farming) that they may not want to engage in, you're nudging people towards closing extra accounts, and last, and certainly not least, you've just driven people into the arms of the gold resellers.
You've basically knocked down one wall of the sandbox we call UO - you would be forcing many people to have to play the game to make X amount of gold every month, when in fact many people do not play with an eye on making X amount of gold every month.
That's assuming that people would be willing to do that - as much as I loathe gold resellers and how much of UO they have ruined, I'm not going to spend X amount of hours in-game working on some tax to keep my house - I'm going to spend $5 on a 30-second transaction for 10 million in gold or whatever, and be done with it, and I'd probably close an account or two.
It's so much simpler and less invasive if you just tweak the formulas on what NPCs buy and pay and the gold that monsters drop - as Dermott point out, things used to be held in check by the players, with limits on the NPC actions. Now you have things like NPCs buying 500 at a time of one item, and also things like LRC suits hurting the economy.
I think the 10 mil a month housing gold sink is insane, but what if it was 1gp per tile per house per day?
Back to the duping. At some point it became pretty obvious to me that some of the methods were in there intentionally. On a certain shards, it was just so simple that "you put 1 in, you get 2 out". Others included incredibly simple packet manipulation. I used to say among friends that somebody on the dev team or a GM HAD to put that stuff in.
I play the newer games. I see the gold spammers in GC in these games like crazy. The economy is out of control in most games. Granted with these tiered currency it controls it to a point but still needs fixed.
The only other solution to really fix the game economy is to lower the amount of gold on anything you can loot or on quests and wipe the shards of all its gold. They also could just make gold worthless and add new currency and level of monsters depend on what currency you get. Make gold a rare
Hell I dont know what you can do to really fix it. New players will still have issues to compete in todays in game economy. A new player shouldnt be forced to buy gold from a site just to buy things when they start out. They already are paying a sub fee on top of it. Then if they give a new player 1 million gold as it was posted as an idea in another topic, then you have gold farming accounts being made. Its a mess.
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People are NOT going to want to spend just to maintain the status quo. They will want something for the gold they spend.
Besides, the problem with "house tax"es is that you either set them high enough to make a difference, in which case the players are going to be forced to gold farm, buy from gold sellers, or quit, or you set them too low to make a difference in the first place.
Had a "house tax" system been in place from day one, it probably wouldn't be an issue, however it was NOT put in because houses used to be VERY insecure. There were no secure containers, no lockdowns, and "ownership" was determined simply by who held a house key. By the time they added in actual ownership and security, it was FAAAR too late to bring in a house tax/maintenence system (they floated the idea prior to UO:R and a possible part of UO:R and it was ROUNDLY shot down by the players).
People are NOT going to want to spend just to maintain the status quo. They will want something for the gold they spend.
Besides, the problem with "house tax"es is that you either set them high enough to make a difference, in which case the players are going to be forced to gold farm, buy from gold sellers, or quit, or you set them too low to make a difference in the first place.
Had a "house tax" system been in place from day one, it probably wouldn't be an issue, however it was NOT put in because houses used to be VERY insecure. There were no secure containers, no lockdowns, and "ownership" was determined simply by who held a house key. By the time they added in actual ownership and security, it was FAAAR too late to bring in a house tax/maintenence system (they floated the idea prior to UO:R and a possible part of UO:R and it was ROUNDLY shot down by the players).
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The only other solution to really fix the game economy is to lower the amount of gold on anything you can loot or on quests and wipe the shards of all its gold. They also could just make gold worthless and add new currency and level of monsters depend on what currency you get. Make gold a rare
This is the "lessening the influx" I was talking about originally. Also I have nothing against the graduated monetary systems of other games, I was just pointing out that all they do is hide the actual numbers whereas UO does not.
Hell I dont know what you can do to really fix it. New players will still have issues to compete in todays in game economy. A new player shouldnt be forced to buy gold from a site just to buy things when they start out. They already are paying a sub fee on top of it. Then if they give a new player 1 million gold as it was posted as an idea in another topic, then you have gold farming accounts being made. Its a mess.
No argument from me on that.
The only other solution to really fix the game economy is to lower the amount of gold on anything you can loot or on quests and wipe the shards of all its gold. They also could just make gold worthless and add new currency and level of monsters depend on what currency you get. Make gold a rare
This is the "lessening the influx" I was talking about originally. Also I have nothing against the graduated monetary systems of other games, I was just pointing out that all they do is hide the actual numbers whereas UO does not.
Hell I dont know what you can do to really fix it. New players will still have issues to compete in todays in game economy. A new player shouldnt be forced to buy gold from a site just to buy things when they start out. They already are paying a sub fee on top of it. Then if they give a new player 1 million gold as it was posted as an idea in another topic, then you have gold farming accounts being made. Its a mess.
No argument from me on that.
It was a suggestion. UO's sandbox was used as a cat's litter box over time. Those clumps of sand are not sand. What UO was yesterday and is today, is not the same UO. At one time 1 million meant something in the game but today 1 million is like chump change. Why do players even have to play the game when they can buy everything from a site get everything they need. Get all the leet stuff they need to compete and they are already at the endgame without even experiencing a 1/3 of what UO offers. They will eventually get bored and go play zenga or something.
Well, if you're all that rich, I could use some millions. *Giggles*
Take care
-Anira-
Take care
-Anira-
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Woodsman
Guest
If you make it so small as to be insignificant, then you've expended a lot of development resources on something that's essentially useless and that does nothing but **** off people.
You have also done absolutely nothing to actually address the amount of gold coming into UO. Nothing. Any gold spent on any hypothetical house taxes will quickly be generated by somebody farming monsters or playing the NPC game.
A 100,000 in gold leaving the game through taxes, only to be replaced with a 100,000 in gold being generated through monster loot or selling things to NPCs leaves you right back at square one.
If you slow down the amount of gold coming into the game, if you follow Dermott's lead about players keeping each other in check with the NPC system of old, then you just need to sit back and wait a bit and the economy will adjust accordingly. It would also be a lot more simple to actually implement - it's not some new complex system being laid on top of UO.
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Just thinking about it now... people in the past have mentioned a devaluation of basically "dropping a zero" off of everyone's gold holdings (mind you this would not work due to the outcry if they did it without prior warning and that people would simply buy out certain commodities and resources if it was announced in advance).
However instead of doing this to players, just do this to mid to higher end creatures (adjust lower end creatures by a lesser amount). As it is, most higher end (not counting special creatures like Champions, Peerless, Renowned and so on) have a Slayer weapon that a maxxed out player can render them killable in three hits or less anyway.
A monster that is killable in two or three hits should NOT drop 1000+ gold and a slew of items. If it does, drop it to 100-150 gold and the number of "magic" items from 5-10 down to 1 - 3.
Just thinking about it now... people in the past have mentioned a devaluation of basically "dropping a zero" off of everyone's gold holdings (mind you this would not work due to the outcry if they did it without prior warning and that people would simply buy out certain commodities and resources if it was announced in advance).
However instead of doing this to players, just do this to mid to higher end creatures (adjust lower end creatures by a lesser amount). As it is, most higher end (not counting special creatures like Champions, Peerless, Renowned and so on) have a Slayer weapon that a maxxed out player can render them killable in three hits or less anyway.
A monster that is killable in two or three hits should NOT drop 1000+ gold and a slew of items. If it does, drop it to 100-150 gold and the number of "magic" items from 5-10 down to 1 - 3.
i agree with this. 100% lrc killed a great gold sink. they should reintroduce it in some form. like if you have 100% lrc, you don't have to have the regs on you, but just get charged gold for usage
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Woodsman
Guest
Siege is obviously the extreme, but with Siege NPCs not buying from players among some of the other differences with a normal shard, it really changes the dynamics, along with NPCs charging 3 times or 4 times as much as on normal shards. It gives a lot of value to gold, since gold only enters through monster loot. The one-character restriction REALLY makes things different, but what you ultimately had was a player-driven economy that was a lot more realistic.
Things like ringmail tunics from orcs actually had value - that is something that could be turned into ingots and sold to other players. Thanks to no item insurance and the one character slot, there was a solid demand for craftspeople and there was a solid demand for newer players to go out and gather resources for the craftspeople, etc. A lot more player interaction. People who would wear cheaper, player-made armor, etc.
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Woodsman
Guest
I remember how heated some of those discussions got - people were seriously flaming whichever dev it was that initially brought it up, I want to say on the UO.com forums. Given that gold was worth a lot more then, the flames were vicious.
I think people saw that it was floated as one of a number of ideas to deal with the lack of housing. Maybe the thought was that it would drive away players who didn't play much out of the game since gold prices out of the game were a lot higher, but that made no sense. You don't want to drive paying players away, especially players who don't use much resources if they aren't playing much. Maybe it would drive some players to live out of their bank boxes.
One person kept bringing up the fact that in real life, a tax implies that you are receiving something - a road, fire and police protection, parks, etc., and they kept pushing the idea that if there was going to be a tax, what additional benefits would they get in addition to the $10 we were paying every month, and that was a pretty good argument. It wasn't going to fix the housing issues we had, that was for sure.
The lady had a good idea though - she felt that if there was to be a tax, then treat it like a real life tax and not just another burden on players, and allow players to get something in return, such as more content for player-run towns - roads, stables, etc. These days it would be pointless - you'd have a rush of players heading to the gold resellers if they could pay to have stuff added to the land around their houses. You'd probably get an increase in subscriptions though, from people paying for extra accounts to build their own little towns that actually resembled towns and not just a collection of houses in the woods.
They could add house add ons that are at a fair price for a gold sink. Say if you wanted to buy a variety of special garden tiles ( like the rugs you can buy in SA after the quest.) that you could place in or on your house and it would grow any seeds you would plant. You would have to water it and take care of it just like you would doing reg plants in pots.
Just throwing out a random price say they range around 50k a tile and had a 30 day timer on them. After 30 days the tiles disappear and you would have to buy them again. So people could build any size garden they want and would have to continue to buy the tiles if they wanted them.
The devs could add more pixels ( decorations, house add ons, special cool mounts) to the game and have the player base to choose if they want to buy them or not. Have some items be timed uses( garden tiles, special mounts) for like 30 days at a set price. Players that are pixel addicted could buy these items over and over and a reasonable way to have a gold sink.
How many people would like to ride the old silver steed, a mini dragon, a special big wolf, hell hounds in the game. It's just a mount that cant be used in battle or be killed. Its just a status symbol. Purchased by player gold and has a 30 day use. There are ways to add extra pixels in the game and have gold sinks.
They also could add a costume slots to the paper doll. So you can wear your regular armor,robes and stuff but these costume slots are for special costumes that you can buy to make your char look the way you want and wear over your current suit. A person may want to look like a knight in shining armor, pirate, a bar wench, a gypsy and ect ect. These costumes has no special abilties or properties. They just make your character look the way you want but hides what you are wearing underneath with all the other stuff that character would wear. Say I want to be a pirate so I am wearing all my current armor and stuff and buy these costuimes and put them on. It hides all my stuff and here I am looking like a pirate for others to see.
If they can create the halloween costumes to make you look like a pixie and stuff by holding the wand then they can most likely add a feature like this into the game eventually. Make the costumes range from 2 mill to 10 million depending on the style and type of costume. Plus they can always add in new costumes over time.
Just throwing out a random price say they range around 50k a tile and had a 30 day timer on them. After 30 days the tiles disappear and you would have to buy them again. So people could build any size garden they want and would have to continue to buy the tiles if they wanted them.
The devs could add more pixels ( decorations, house add ons, special cool mounts) to the game and have the player base to choose if they want to buy them or not. Have some items be timed uses( garden tiles, special mounts) for like 30 days at a set price. Players that are pixel addicted could buy these items over and over and a reasonable way to have a gold sink.
How many people would like to ride the old silver steed, a mini dragon, a special big wolf, hell hounds in the game. It's just a mount that cant be used in battle or be killed. Its just a status symbol. Purchased by player gold and has a 30 day use. There are ways to add extra pixels in the game and have gold sinks.
They also could add a costume slots to the paper doll. So you can wear your regular armor,robes and stuff but these costume slots are for special costumes that you can buy to make your char look the way you want and wear over your current suit. A person may want to look like a knight in shining armor, pirate, a bar wench, a gypsy and ect ect. These costumes has no special abilties or properties. They just make your character look the way you want but hides what you are wearing underneath with all the other stuff that character would wear. Say I want to be a pirate so I am wearing all my current armor and stuff and buy these costuimes and put them on. It hides all my stuff and here I am looking like a pirate for others to see.
If they can create the halloween costumes to make you look like a pixie and stuff by holding the wand then they can most likely add a feature like this into the game eventually. Make the costumes range from 2 mill to 10 million depending on the style and type of costume. Plus they can always add in new costumes over time.
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Woodsman
Guest
All you've done is annoy and inconvenience players and/or driven them into the arms of the gold sellers.
The only people who would benefit from some kind of mandatory gold sinks/taxes are the gold resellers, because demand for their product will shoot up.
You have not slowed down the amount of gold coming in - if anything you've sped it up since there will be an increase in the amount of gold farming to cover the cost.
Really? How am I annoying the players? How is it my fault that EA/Bioware allow these sites to sell gold? Oh blame me for being annoying when the mess that the game economy is by giving ideas for gold to be sinked into NPC items?. LOL... get real. How would timed items that would be resold be any use to anybody except that account that bought them? Oh lets see, should I buy this timed mount I have that has 20 days left for 5 bucks when a player can pay 500k to 2 million gold for 30 days? I'd rather go kill mongbats and make it then spend 5 dollars for 20 days left when I can get it for 30 days.
The bought gold gets passed around to player to player about 99% of the time. I need a crimmy so I go to a vendor pay 15 mil and its still in the economy because its in another players hand. The bought gold just doesnt disappear because its in the players hands. Passed around from player to player in an oversaturated in game economy. My ideas with any item I mentioned , even with gold bought from these sites, are bought from NPC's in the game. Which in a way the gold, either bought at a site or worked hard by any player, would disappear out of players hand and back to a NPC.
You cant buy gold from an NPC, so the gold bought and used from resellers sites to buy the items NPC would sell, would be gone from the game economy. So if they lower the amount of gold looted on monsters and having some form of gold sink that is not being passed back out into the game economy so easily then gold would not be so abundance over time. Lowering the amount of gold looted makes it harder for resellers to farm tons of gold as it is anyway.
Even if the gold resellers bought these items they would sell them on their sites for real money as most of their items are. If they sell it in the game for gold they would still have to sell it cheaper then what the NPC would sell it as. They would lose gold just trying to resell it for gold. Limted time items does not do a reseller any good. They spend 500 mil game gold on timed items and try to resell it for cash. Nobody buys it quick enough and they lose time on that item. Who in their right mind would pay real life cash for an item when you buy it has only 10 days left on it? Now that gives players a choice. Pay for it on a site or work for the gold to buy it.
As long as players continue to buy from sites then might as well say there is no fix. EA/Bioware doesnt care if you buy it. The players and community should. Want to fix the game economy then its up to the community to fix it or not.
Oh I have paid for xfer tokens from a site. Why? They were half the price then what uo gamecodes store had. Timed items, eh I wouldnt waste a penny on when I can earn the gold. Over time when gold isnt so easily put back into the game economy prices will drop if they fixed the gold amount on monsters.
Lets add onto it by saying these items are account bound. You cant trade them or resell them. If these sites have an unlimted amount of gold then Bioware needs to be seeing how they are duping it or making it. I know of one site recently advertising they are buying gold.
May annoy you and whoever else but I never said my idea is perfect. Thats all it is ideas and suggestions. If you got the perfect fix then apply at Bioware and fix it.
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Woodsman
Guest
Being stuck with some arbitrary gold sink or tax that doesn't change the game other than making them have to go farm gold is annoying, because it's grinding, and that's why many come back to UO - because they get tired of grinding-style MMORPGs.
It's not your fault at all - my point was that the idea of a gold sink helps out the gold resellers, especially if it was mandatory.
You're totally missing what I was saying - the point I and Dermott were making was that if you don't reduce gold coming into the game, then nothing has changed.
It's been mentioned a couple of times - cut down on the gold from monsters and go back to the old way when NPCs couldn't buy stacks of 500 items at a time plus reduce the prices they pay.
Those two things are formula tweaks and don't require new artwork or some kind of new system that would have to be tested and vetted. This is not something new - it's a really simple fix, especially if duping is no longer a problem. If duping is no longer a problem, reducing how much an NPC can buy from a player and what they will pay will go a long way towards cutting down on the scripters - it won't be so easy for them to churn out resources and then quickly sell them to NPCs.
Personally, I´d like to see LRC capped at 70 or 80% tops.
But you have a great idea there. Charge for reagents even at full LRC. Good clean gold sink and people still won´t have to hussle with having regs in their packs, just gold in their bank.
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You're totally missing what I was saying - the point I and Dermott were making was that if you don't reduce gold coming into the game, then nothing has changed.
However, Zosimus is also right in that there does need to be some things in game that are available ONLY by the NPC vendors. Gold sellers only move existinggold around, players buying from other players only moves the gold around. Players buying from the NPCs removes gold from the game entirely.
BOTH sides of the equation need to be addressed in and out. Less in, more out.
You're totally missing what I was saying - the point I and Dermott were making was that if you don't reduce gold coming into the game, then nothing has changed.
However, Zosimus is also right in that there does need to be some things in game that are available ONLY by the NPC vendors. Gold sellers only move existinggold around, players buying from other players only moves the gold around. Players buying from the NPCs removes gold from the game entirely.
BOTH sides of the equation need to be addressed in and out. Less in, more out.
Woodsman, you and I have different views on the situation. I respect your view and I totally understand it. You make a strong argument. The issue is the community over all.
Some of people (I included) wanted a classic. It didnt happen and I understand Cal's reasoning. Lots of people wanted UO to move forward and when you push ideas to go back to the old ways (NPCs couldn't buy stacks of 500 items ) some are not going to be happy about it. Its a good idea I wont argue that. I like it really. It's getting others to be ok with it is the issue. Some like the "convenience" of it while others may say 'thats going backwards not forwards.
My idea was more to the pixel addicts that like shiney new stuff. I dont want items that would imbalance the game. Just items to please those that has a pixel addiction. The gold would go straight into a NPC seller and be gone. As long as its a NPC transaction, then its out of other players hands. If I paid 10 mil for a costume to that NPC then thats 10 mil that wont be recirculated in the game economy.
Both our views are good imo. With a diverse player base you cant please them all. Some will quit some will take a break and others will continue on to play no matter what the changes are.
I think we all can agree that something needs to be done. I wish EA/Bioware would take a hard stance on golld resellers. Just ban players who are selling and buying. EA can make up the cash loss by doing their own site easily. Now Im definetly wouldnt want gold to be sold on that site but other items they could. EA/bioware is missing the cash boat. If EA would do their own site it and be very fair on pricing that is adding more money back into UO. As long as they would reinvest it back into UO I think the players would have no issue.
Wasn't it Sony that did something similar with a site like that? I cant remember which game.
Some of people (I included) wanted a classic. It didnt happen and I understand Cal's reasoning. Lots of people wanted UO to move forward and when you push ideas to go back to the old ways (NPCs couldn't buy stacks of 500 items ) some are not going to be happy about it. Its a good idea I wont argue that. I like it really. It's getting others to be ok with it is the issue. Some like the "convenience" of it while others may say 'thats going backwards not forwards.
My idea was more to the pixel addicts that like shiney new stuff. I dont want items that would imbalance the game. Just items to please those that has a pixel addiction. The gold would go straight into a NPC seller and be gone. As long as its a NPC transaction, then its out of other players hands. If I paid 10 mil for a costume to that NPC then thats 10 mil that wont be recirculated in the game economy.
Both our views are good imo. With a diverse player base you cant please them all. Some will quit some will take a break and others will continue on to play no matter what the changes are.
I think we all can agree that something needs to be done. I wish EA/Bioware would take a hard stance on golld resellers. Just ban players who are selling and buying. EA can make up the cash loss by doing their own site easily. Now Im definetly wouldnt want gold to be sold on that site but other items they could. EA/bioware is missing the cash boat. If EA would do their own site it and be very fair on pricing that is adding more money back into UO. As long as they would reinvest it back into UO I think the players would have no issue.
Wasn't it Sony that did something similar with a site like that? I cant remember which game.
Thanks I appreciate it
How about being to buy an item without needing a broker or the worry about being scammed. Lets face it there are allot of items out there now that go for 100+M. Another plus would be being able to transfer gold to other shards for items or to have gold for events such as rares fests without needing to burn a few transfer tokens and having packys galore. Lets face the facts the gold problem isnt going away. It just doesnt go as far anymore. The only other sollution would be a gold sink where you could buy no drop/no trade items from npc's. It could be items that would not give players an edge in anyway. Lets say some cool new ethereals stuff like that for example.
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Woodsman
Guest
I would agree with banning the reseller, a swell as EA really missing the boat on selling a lot of pixel crack, in-game or out-of-game. I still can't understand how after all these years they don't have several artists doing nothing but churning out pixel crack for pay - it'd be a nice little addition to the revenue stream.
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The act of gold seeling in and of itself is NOT the problem. The problems are exploits, scripting and duping (REGARDLESS of what the goal in doing so may be. Remember that duping has been around LONGER than gold selling).
Like I said earlier, I'm a free market person and that includes gold selling.
Bringing the point back to the actual topic, the ingame economy needs to be repaired INGAME, not by attempting to get rid of gold selling (because that has worked SOO well anywhere it's tried), but by actually fixing the problems ingame... the faucet and sink rates as well as any and every exploit, dupe, loophole, etc possible.
The act of gold seeling in and of itself is NOT the problem. The problems are exploits, scripting and duping (REGARDLESS of what the goal in doing so may be. Remember that duping has been around LONGER than gold selling).
Like I said earlier, I'm a free market person and that includes gold selling.
Bringing the point back to the actual topic, the ingame economy needs to be repaired INGAME, not by attempting to get rid of gold selling (because that has worked SOO well anywhere it's tried), but by actually fixing the problems ingame... the faucet and sink rates as well as any and every exploit, dupe, loophole, etc possible.
Exactly. It baffles me to no end why they dont. For some reason Mesanna likes to do things in game you think she would like to do something like this. She is the only active DEV that we know comes in the game.
EA basically owns all our pixels in any game you play under them. Funny how they have a TOS but dont mind losing money to these reseller sites. It's just not gold but many items in the games they have. EA can taketh away any players account at anytime because they own our pixels.
Is it fair to the game itself when EA allows money to be lost they could gain it instead if they had their own store. While EA is cutting devs and lay off employees to save money while others benefit from the game at no cost to themselves. Besides the subscritptions and internet cost the reseller is paying which is very minimal compared to EA costs to keep the game running. You think EA would like to take in that extra money even though it may be nothing to them but in todays economy every penny counts.
Anway in 3 years if any monster are carrying insane amounts on checks instead of gold as loot then we all know the game economy went out of control lol. 100k on mongbats, 5 mil on greater dragons, 10 mil on peerless, and you know you are poor if you dont have a billion gold on your account
lolActually I think it is kinda odd that Champs drop like 100k... I mean seriously at least 50k off each champ... People do these all day and just leave the gold there... TONS of money comes into the game from champ spawns alone. Whats the fkin point? They already drop like 10 magic items and I believe the corpses are instanced? Anyways... Ya...
I would love higher increment checks to counter the trust you have to put into people to by anything of great value. If I want a luna house I've got to transfer minimum 500mill before I get the house. That's ridiculous. That's a large ass amount of money to trust someone with in return for a house. Either make a banking system that has a gold counter in it tha tyou can pay with or increase the checks.
Gold farming will always be around. It's players play style. You can't beat it. You lower the amount of gold and the gold farmers will still be at work. Everything is the same, it's just the numbers are lower. What was worth 1million before is now worth 100k. However, that 100k is just as hard to make as that 1 million was. It's all relative.
I just absolutely hate the trust factor. You hear horror stories all the time about someone getting ripped off in high stakes trades. It's ridiculous.
Gold farming will always be around. It's players play style. You can't beat it. You lower the amount of gold and the gold farmers will still be at work. Everything is the same, it's just the numbers are lower. What was worth 1million before is now worth 100k. However, that 100k is just as hard to make as that 1 million was. It's all relative.
I just absolutely hate the trust factor. You hear horror stories all the time about someone getting ripped off in high stakes trades. It's ridiculous.