Bo, out of interest, forgetting artefacts for a moment, as an organised PvP system, don't you think VvV is an improvement over factions?
Both systems really lack something to fight for. Sure you can steal sigils and return them but that gets boring pretty quick. There is no real reason to be in either. They had a chance to tie the governorship into one of these systems, or even add a reason to hold a town.Bo, out of interest, forgetting artefacts for a moment, as an organised PvP system, don't you think VvV is an improvement over factions?
Four years later and it's still the same complaints. Bo, I don't know why you're still fighting this uphill battle. Look what the trammies did to this shard. They ran off the all the PvPers and with them all trade/economy dwindled. All that's left are resource gatherers and hand holding guildies. I've logged on multiple times during this month and it's the same thing every time. I run all around the mainland and see 2 or 3 players... THAT'S IT! I'm a naked red character and have not been attacked yet.You are totally missing Bo's point. It wasnt the faction gear that made the people good. Some people are just better than others. Bo went non factions when all you people here where crying bout faction gear and guess what. Bo killed just as many people with the gear as without it. Getting rid of the gear and having no replacement is going to hurt the shard. How many people did the new VvV draw to the server? NONE! Its a pvp system without any sort of rhyme or reason on Siege.
I do VvV because I enjoy the fights, before VvV it wasn't that easy to get good fights apart from asking for duels, now you can have instant PvP, I think its a great improvement.I'm a little confused. Back in 2001-2005 all the PvP was overland and at champs. Factions were little more than a hobby for most guilds.
So what changed that made factions the end all be all of PvP?
I'd really like to know what happened since I left that caused people to cease fighting each other because it was fun. And now only fight if there is some sort of reward involved?
Who is the real trammy then? Scared off by a bunch of guard hugging blues, stealth tamers and crafters? LOL, I thought the "real" PvPers had a thicker skin than that...laLook what the trammies did to this shard. They ran off the all the PvPers and with them all trade/economy dwindled.
Meh. While I'm happy that VvV has introduced a little pvp; it's still a bit pathetic that a milkbone has to be tossed out there to encourage it.I do VvV because I enjoy the fights, before VvV it wasn't that easy to get good fights apart from asking for duels, now you can have instant PvP, I think its a great improvement.
I may be reading some posts wrongly here but it seems some are suggesting that a "PvPer" means a Red, we still seem to have a fair number of PvPers, just less are red maybe
no...no... You missed the point completely. They (the blue player base) wanted very strict rules on how everyone could acquire gear. The following example is the mindset that pushed most real PvP'ers away from Siege. Faction artifacts came out and opened up cheaper build options with powerful gear options. The blue player base didn't like the original silver cost because it allowed players to equip to easily. What did they end up doing? They complained and got it raised to x5 the original amount. This led to hours of farming silver for each suit. This had one of two effects across all players. A) it pigeonholed the non faction players into specific less capable builds due to not having the benefits of powerful items and B) it created an even greater separation between those that did have the gear and those that didn't...thus the endless cycle of the have and have nots. Ultimately, this trickled down into what we have now... A dead shard filled with crafters and role players.Who is the real trammy then? Scared off by a bunch of guard hugging blues, stealth tamers and crafters? LOL, I thought the "real" PvPers had a thicker skin than that...la
Just off the top of my head I can think of quite a few that used to play EVERY NIGHT...lets see how many I can remember (it's been a while)So how many people actually left this shard, that caused it to go from the Glory of Old, to its present state ? 20 ? 50 ? 3 ?
It's not that bad almost everything rare is under 10m and most stuff is under 5m. There are just a few items I see regularly going for more than 10m.It's pretty sad to see that inflation has really hit this shard hard. It used to be the one shard that had it's economy in control.
The last time I played (6 years ago) big ticket items were 1 million (and even at that price alot of people balked). So what happened?
How did the economy inflate so much? Is there a way to transfer gold and character to Siege now and cash from the prodo shards has made it's way here? I know there are brokers (they seem to always be around) have they figured out a way to get gold here?
Just wondering since I saw a 1 year reward sell for 5 million? LOL...la
That's just moving wealth, not creating it. The gold still has to be created here. Gold can only be "hoarded" so much because unlike in the real world no one has needs and there is no limit to the amount of gold an individual can create except time. You can't really control wealth in a scenario like that.I"ll tell you what happened, we got an influx of Atl players with billions there who came here, and then Sieges richest folks took their 8-1 ration gold trade and made them all instant Siege Rich. Hell we had an auction recently where someone I've never even heard of won an item for around 30 mil because no one else could afford that for 1 item. All of which was handed over to them on their first day for 8-1 atl gold. And that's still happening because we don't really have a truly committed Siege population. We still have a ton of vets that log in here once in a while and pretend they're Siege Community leaders, when in fact they spend more time on their prodo shard farming so they can continue they're 8-1 gold swap. I"m not hoarding gold on vendors and chests and in the corners of my house. I'm hoarding resources from sinking ships and stuff. Mainly because it doesn't sell worth a damn. And somewhere along the way I've forgotten what I'm ranting about
Cept that trade deals reduced the need for such donations drastically as once you get up to the 5 line quests one person could fund the town fairly easily as the base per trip is 50k, and it can get well over 100k per trip if you kill stuff and the town is far away.As stated, the trade deals is a good gold sink for us.
X active governors times 2 Mil is taken out of the economy each week. Not much in the larger picture at the moment but a step in the right direction...
I agree with all of this, except the notion that some clique of vets can "lock down" the shard, especially at low economic levels. They can make it difficult to get into the rare deco trade, but that is how it is anywhere and you cant stop that. There will always be relatively more valuable items so long as there are differing levels of rarity of items.No offense, but many of you are as ignorant of SP economy as you are of RL economy. Here are a few simple lessons that everybody should know.
1. The developers do NOT control nor influence the economy.
Because all economic systems are driven by producer-consumer supply & demand. So which goods are in high and low demand on SP? Which goods are over stocked? These questions and answers are relatively simple. Very rare gears, weapons, armors, decorations, items, are always in high demand. So these will have the greatest prices. The shard is old. So reg prices, lumber, ingots, raw materials are all very, very low. Because they've been stockpiled over the years. Furthermore there is no NEED nor DEMAND to stockpile resources, since crafting professions are nearly useless.
2. Inflation/Deflation
Inflation is a natural occurrence of EVERY economic system, whether on a video game or in real life. Inflation occurs by the printing of money, or in the circumstance of SP, the hoarding of gold collected from monsters. UO gold is accumulated by killing monsters which introduce gold into the economy. Player-to-player transactions DO NOT AFFECT inflation/deflation. Why not? Because the gold is circulated, not destroyed. The only time deflation occurs in SP and UO is when a wealthy player quits the game without giving any goods away. This rarely happens because houses get looted during IDOCs. So wealth doesn't disappear. Gold sinks also cause deflation. But with a long running economy and game like ultima online, deflation is a moot point. The only players deflation would help, is new players to the shard. But this is negligible, because GIL and other wealthy players give newbies 1 mil gold frequently. So there's no actual need for deflation. A better thing to do for the game and shard, would be to make crafting or resource gathering profitable for new players. But that solution is actually very complicated, and so will probably not ever be accomplished. Therefore inflation will stay the norm. It's not a big deal.
3. Economic Stagnancy
This is the REAL PROBLEM here, not inflation, and not the developers. The real problem with SP is that trading has all but ceased. Because there simply is no reason to trade, buy, and sell. What is being bought and sold, and between whom? It's already been mentioned in this thread, but new players are averse to vet players. Vet players control the economy, and intentionally lock it and keep it stagnant. Therefore it is the veteran players' fault, only, nobody else, who is responsible for the main economic woe of SP. Veteran players are to blame.
But, how big of a problem is this really? Speaking for myself, I don't mind the stagnant economy. Because I only want to buy, sell, and trade rare house decos. Everything else is secondary to me. But a stagnant economy makes it very difficult for new players to come in and stay on SP. What should be done about this? Other than a major overhaul of game mechanics, including crafting and gathering, and pvp (VvV), new players just need to follow through and fight the uphill battle. New players should realize that longtime vets are NOT on your side. They're not here to help you, truly. You have to do it all yourself. Because the Vet players are inclusive and form little petty popularity cliques, like sitting at this or that table during high school. You don't want to play popularity games, do you? Then you have to rise up and go against the vets.
The vets will lock you out of the economy, and shard, if you don't "play their game". So just do it all yourself. That's my recommendation and suggestion. Go against the grain.
Here's my best question. How long should it take before a new player becomes viable on SP? 1 year? 2 or 3 years??? This is a serious question. How long before a new player can compete against 10 year vet players??? I believe that given a year, the average new player should be able to compete toe to toe against all vet players with a minor disadvantage. After 2 or 3 years, the medium length player should be "equal" in most terms to vet players. As it stands right now, newbies really cannot compete against vet players, even after 2 or 3 years. So yes, this does dissuade and turn a lot of new players away from SP.
I only stayed as long as I have, because I'm stubborn and like challenges. Although I have almost no time to play SP since I rejoined. I have like 10 hours per month that I can spend in game.
So until I have more time, I really can't do much at all.
I agree that gear a problem, especially for pvpers who I can only imagine die/lose gear more often than non pvpers. Gear has just become very specialized with imbuing and the recent super ease of getting relic fragments, everyone has a near maxed imbued suit. Its not hard to get the stuff to make a suit, but it can get costly, and is time consuming.Do you really need buffed up gear to fight on Siege? If everyone is playing on the same field...should it matter if gear isn't included?...la
If my memory serves me right, the draw down took about a year and some odd months. It was mostly due to faction artifacts being expensive and costly (silver/time) and people hording other peoples gear..etc etc. I remember most of my guild all left at the same time. I continued playing for a while but most of the players left around 2011 which is when I sold my Abyss house (now Kelmos) and gave most of my stuff away... it just wasn't worth the uphill fight of trying to get buybacks and having to farm silver on a nightly basis.Was that a Mass Exodus or did it occur over time ? And what was the root cause ?
If I´m not mistaken it was this thread that led to increased silver cost for the faction arties:no...no... You missed the point completely. They (the blue player base) wanted very strict rules on how everyone could acquire gear. The following example is the mindset that pushed most real PvP'ers away from Siege. Faction artifacts came out and opened up cheaper build options with powerful gear options. The blue player base didn't like the original silver cost because it allowed players to equip to easily. What did they end up doing? They complained and got it raised to x5 the original amount. This led to hours of farming silver for each suit.
That shouldn't be an issue anymore. Yesterday or the day before, they flushed out the vendor search database. Since then my vendors have been selling stuff that's been sitting there for a month like crazy.I know one thing what's wrong. The other day when Vendor search was down, I opened a new vendor, and priced some minor arties at what I thought were fair, newbie attainable prices. Go ahead and vendor search Heart of the Lion, I dare you....
Sadly that's about 10x what they cost on Atlantic lol....Okay, I shoulda been less vague. Theres one for 500k. A minor arty for 500k.... what the hell people?
I gotcha. We're on the same page now. Yah. That's pretty pathetic. However, there is a CBD on one vendor for 4.5mil.Okay, I shoulda been less vague. Theres one for 500k. A minor arty for 500k.... what the hell people?
If it really were the population that affects the economy, then the shard will never grow. As long as prices are high, players may come to Siege to check it out, but realize they aren't getting away from the production shard inflation as they thought they might and either go back to their home shard or quit altogether.
If people stopped paying the ridiculous prices being asked...the economy would get better because merchandise would move much quicker, giving more people to actually sell things...la
Inflation is DRASTICALLY lower on siege... by like 100x or more in many cases. Rares go for literal billions of gp on some prodo shards. If something here reaches over 10m its fairly uncommon and exceptionally rare to hit over 50m.If it really were the population that affects the economy, then the shard will never grow. As long as prices are high, players may come to Siege to check it out, but realize they aren't getting away from the production shard inflation as they thought they might and either go back to their home shard or quit altogether.
If people stopped paying the ridiculous prices being asked...the economy would get better because merchandise would move much quicker, giving more people to actually sell things...la
People always payed top dollar for new or "exciting" items such as rares. It's simple economics of supply and demand. This will ALWAYS happen, it cannot be stopped in an open capitalistic setting. People are really just getting hung up on the numbers here, not the value behind them. :/People will continue to pay ridiculous prices because of that gaming instinct embedded in to their heads during the conception of their character that demands that "they must win at any cost". The side effect is that those of us who refuse to pay outrageous prices are smacked down and ridiculed for having no talent.
Meh. I really miss the days when GM leather was a luxury.
Good question. Are there any regular resource gatherers around? Anyone know?What's the current market for resources these days? With the lack of new players (and LRC suits and IDOC loot), I'd bet resource gatherers have stopped selling as much as they used to...la
Just out of curiosity how do you feel unattended script mining impacts the economy? Secret Malas locations aren't all that secretPrices are high because of greed, plain and simple. If I had 600 mil sitting on my vendors covering fees, then I too would put a whetstone on my vendor for 8 mil and simply wait until it sells, or do a search, find all of the other ones for sale lower, go out and buy them till they're all gone. Then put one on my vendor holding tons of mils , price it high and wait. There are several vendors that do this very thing, not calling any name out in particular, but the truth is the truth. Our economy is out of whack because of greed, period.
I wish there were more players looking for scripters to make them see grey. You'd think that with general chat if the word was sent out, a scripter's day could be ruined in a few minutes of the call to action...laJust out of curiosity how do you feel unattended script mining impacts the economy? Secret Malas locations aren't all that secret
First off, comparing inflation of Siege to production shards is silly. We've always had a different economy for soooo many reasons.Inflation is DRASTICALLY lower on siege... by like 100x or more in many cases. Rares go for literal billions of gp on some prodo shards. If something here reaches over 10m its fairly uncommon and exceptionally rare to hit over 50m.
As for refusing to pay high prices... that's just not how it works. The inflation of currency is a reality you can't just sidestep. Like it or not, a million gold is just no longer a relatively high amount.
I don't think it's silly. If you want to talk about daunting inflation comparing what we have to what prodo shards have is a relevant comparison, and in that comparison we come out looking drastically, drastically better. I know we have always had a different economy, but the only real difference currency wise (which is what this topic is about) is that we can't farm gold as fast because 1) no tram and 2) lower population. I know believe me, the economy was the #1 reason I play here. Or it was when there were enough players to sustain a robust trade.First off, comparing inflation of Siege to production shards is silly. We've always had a different economy for soooo many reasons.
The thing is prices are NOT especially high. People don't balk at the prices as you and spyder (both recently returning after many years absence) seem to, because those of us who have been around during those years adapted naturally to the rate of inflation. You guys also naturally are suffering from 5+ year sticker shock, but in reality the prices are the same, it's just the numbers that have changed.In regards to high prices...if consumers are willing to press, sellers will either drop their prices or hold onto a lot of stuff that won't sell for the prices the want. Because this is an online game that isn't based on reality...it's easy for the consumer to hold out until prices drop. Nothing in-game has to be had. Sure there are items that are wanted...but nothing is needed...la
Just give players a better chance to find/spot stealthers, don't nerf the skill as such so that pvm stealthing isn't affected.I rather saw Stealth removed from Siege or nerfed so it only was useful for moving very slow and careful when hidden
At GM Tracking and perhaps Detect Hidden, sure. If somebody is going to be able to take pot shots at me with the 200 points I have invested.. They better have allocated some skill points into non-combative skills as well.Just give players a better chance to find/spot stealthers, don't nerf the skill as such so that pvm stealthing isn't affected.