The Case for 1 Million Gold Cheques

[GalenKnighthawke]

Anyone notice from the HoC that it seems like eliminating cheques, or at least eliminating 1 million gold cheques, has gotten consideration?

I think this is a bad idea.

1 million gold cheques were a way of UO recognizing that it had grown, that people were out hunting monsters bringing gold in, and that most trade had become between players, not between players and NPCs. When players trade among themselves, the gold stays in the economy, and the game mechanics must reflect this.

To eliminate 1 million gold cheques would mostly hurt honest players who worked hard for their money. Cheaters will, I guarantee you, find a way, and prices will remain high. You would merely have put items even further out of the reach of honest players. (If you doubt me on this, remember the illegally made super-cheques from several years back.)

To eliminate 1 million gold cheques would be as bad an idea as to put in cheques valued over 1 million gold. At present it's possible to become quite wealthy, and do it honestly to boot, but there are physical limits on how wealthy you can be. To me, that sounds about right.

Taxes; gold sinks; property taxes; tithes to the Crown......All of these are much better ideas than trying to go back where we've already been, and hurting honest players in the process. And leave the basics as is.

Look at it this way...How much sense does it make to simultaneously try and further limit how much gold you can have, and talk about increasing the amount of gold on monsters?

-Galen's player

PS: Apologies for this post lacking my normal final proofread/reconsideration. I really need to go, but wanted to put this out there.

 

[Derium of ls]

the main reason I want to see checks go (even though I like them) is because when a player quits or gets banned, then their gold goes away with them. Instead of falling with their IDOC and just going right back into the flood of gold.

 

[phantus]

I don't recall any of that being discussed. I remember Cal opening his mouth about gold being kept in a number format instead of a physical one and Mesanna hushing him. There is no way 1 mil checks are going to be eliminating without a better replacement. No team is that dense.

 

[RaDian FlGith]

My take, as the last poster put it, wasn't the elimination of 1 million gold checks per se, but rather doing what many other MMOs have done and simply convert the gold into a monetary amount that travels with you.

If you ask me, it's also a very wise idea.

First, it will eliminate the duplication of a physical gold check, second, it would allow for monetary transactions above the present 125mil limit (not that those are often, but they do happen), and third, it would eliminate any of the potential bugs that have existed that allowed for pretending the right amount of money is present.

In short: eliminating gold physicality is a good thing, IMO.

 

[Freelsy]

My take, as the last poster put it, wasn't the elimination of 1 million gold checks per se, but rather doing what many other MMOs have done and simply convert the gold into a monetary amount that travels with you.

If you ask me, it's also a very wise idea.

First, it will eliminate the duplication of a physical gold check, second, it would allow for monetary transactions above the present 125mil limit (not that those are often, but they do happen), and third, it would eliminate any of the potential bugs that have existed that allowed for pretending the right amount of money is present.

In short: eliminating gold physicality is a good thing, IMO.

Completely agree. Gold is check form is good, but there have been so many damn exploits, dupes that is has been ruined. If anything increase the check increments or go to a ticker format like Diablo. Either way, you keep your same amount of gold and never have to worry about getting jipped out of a trade cause you had to put half up front because of a legacy system.



Down with the checks!!

 

[BluDjinn]

Cheques ?.... Who uses cheques ?

I want a debit card .

uh ... over draft and cash advance would be nice.

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

My take, as the last poster put it, wasn't the elimination of 1 million gold checks per se, but rather doing what many other MMOs have done and simply convert the gold into a monetary amount that travels with you.

If you ask me, it's also a very wise idea.

First, it will eliminate the duplication of a physical gold check, second, it would allow for monetary transactions above the present 125mil limit (not that those are often, but they do happen), and third, it would eliminate any of the potential bugs that have existed that allowed for pretending the right amount of money is present.

In short: eliminating gold physicality is a good thing, IMO.

If you and Phantus are right I misunderstood them near-totally and I apologize.

Such a system never would've occurred to me; and I have no immediate thoughts on it.

I assumed they meant the thing some people keep asking for where they'd go back to all gold pieces, and either cheques of like 100k each or no cheques at all. You see that on Stratics periodically; usually around the same time that you see someone asking for cheques of over 1 million.

If you and Phantus are right then what they actually intend is nearly opposite of that.

-Galen's player

 

[Nails]

no more looting gold... bamm right into your bank balance.

reminds me of the bard's tales days!

one bank balance and the addition of vendor balances.

 

[JC the Builder]

My take, as the last poster put it, wasn't the elimination of 1 million gold checks per se, but rather doing what many other MMOs have done and simply convert the gold into a monetary amount that travels with you.

If you ask me, it's also a very wise idea.

In short: eliminating gold physicality is a good thing, IMO.

I also like this idea but I don't want to see gold removed from the game entirely. Just remove the check portion and revert the weight of gold back to what it used to be.

Every time you place gold in your bank box it is transferred to your account. You can also withdrawn it by saying withdraw x at the bank to have it placed in your backpack. This keeps the balance of having to loot gold from monsters and will prevent scripters from having a field day in monster hunting.

 

[Nexus]

I don't recall any of that being discussed. I remember Cal opening his mouth about gold being kept in a number format instead of a physical one and Mesanna hushing him. There is no way 1 mil checks are going to be eliminating without a better replacement. No team is that dense.

Actually that would be the best solution... convert all gold to a virtual instead of an item. Most MMO's have done this already.

The benefits are self apparent.

1. Reduces Item Count
2. Money stay with a character when they leave the game
3. Facilitates all Trade

Seriously money held as a variable on your character is a great solution, No more running around for Checks at player auctions, you simply pay the cashier like now and at the end instead of waiting for checks to be made up, you get paid. Buying a couple of apples from an NPC for to bond a pet, no need to withdraw the paltry amount from the bank first.

Even high amount trades would benefit, I was once offered 700mil for my house, I turned it down but how could I honestly conduct such a trade without risking being scammed? Sure there are brokers, but erm.. how can you trust them as well?

The only real negative to something like this is character to character transfer of money, unless they put in a mail system like other games, and it almost sounds like that is on the way as well...

 

[Derium of ls]

I think they should convert Gold into something else then (like how other games have copper, silver, gold, plat). have a conversion chart for it so when you 'load' the gold checks onto yourself it converts automatically. then you can up the gold drop on mobs like they want, AND at the same time we are working with much smaller numbers. it would be annoying to see that you have 500000000g on you.

could dupers go nuts? yeah now they have an unlimited amount they can dupe, but Hell, they can already do a billion at a time as it is.

 

[UOKaiser]

Eliminate checks lol. That would be the worst move in the history of games of this type. Hell I can see a full layof of all who worked on this idea and doors shutting on them from any competing similar game development if other companies where to find out. Lucky if they get to stay on in the customer service department being pointed at and laughed all day long.

 

[RaDian FlGith]

I assumed they meant the thing some people keep asking for where they'd go back to all gold pieces, and either cheques of like 100k each or no cheques at all. You see that on Stratics periodically; usually around the same time that you see someone asking for cheques of over 1 million.

Let me just chime in to say that if this happens to be the case -- and given that they weren't exactly what anyone would call specific with the vague mention -- then it's a bad idea. I completely agree that removing checks, or dropping them down to 100k, or anything else that reduces the system already in place would be horrific.

As it is, selling something for 100 million is a nightmare. I can't imagine what it would be like being 10 fold. And given the statement that (and, IMO, rightfully so) there's a need to increase the base gold on monsters so that starter players can catch up quicker, it would be strange to move the bottom end up and the upper end down.

Let's pray that they mean something more dynamic.

 

[RaDian FlGith]

I also like this idea but I don't want to see gold removed from the game entirely. Just remove the check portion and revert the weight of gold back to what it used to be.

Every time you place gold in your bank box it is transferred to your account. You can also withdrawn it by saying withdraw x at the bank to have it placed in your backpack. This keeps the balance of having to loot gold from monsters and will prevent scripters from having a field day in monster hunting.

Programming the game for scripting is probably not the best way to go about it though. The issue with gold still having a physicality is that it would remain exploitable. Personally, I'd rather have a double-click the corpse, gold goes into your bank system... I know it breaks some of the "gather" of the game, but it would also let people focus on more important aspects of gathering than the gold aspect.

I don't know... if they put in a system as you suggest, I think there'd still be no need for withdrawal, and I'd probably suggest making gold itself no-trade/no-drop so that you put it in your backpack, and you put it in your bank (which then puts it into your sum total). All other gold transactions would become virtual.

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

Ok, this is the link to Part 1 of watchertoo's video of the HoC

YouTube - Ultima Online - Stratics House of Commons 3/1/11, Part 1 - TGN

What I was reacting to starts at 7:10.

• Questioner: Is there going to be a fix on the gold situation in the game.
  
• Cal: Ah. That's a really open-ended question. The answer is, um, yes, we are working on a system that is currently in development that will address that specifically.
  
• Mesanna: We are continuously looking at systems that will address the massive amounts of gold in our game. How about that?
  
• Cal: Either way you want to say it so. We have, we are looking at it, and we have some stuff we are working on, and that's all you need to know.

Looking at this exchange my interpretation was pretty far out there; I apologize for that.

I immediately linked the exchange to the stuff said on Stratics sometimes about how cheques should be eliminated; I hope I am wrong in how I interpreted it. Even if I was right though, it was quite a leap to make from what they actually said.

Again, sorry for that.....There's so much irrationality on these boards the idea that I may have accidentally contributed to it makes me want to immediately delete Galen and start fresh.

On second thought, nah. But I do apologize.

-Galen's player

 

[phantus]

no more looting gold... bamm right into your bank balance.

reminds me of the bard's tales days!

one bank balance and the addition of vendor balances.

Ahhh... Bard's Tale days... *hums the bringaround ballad*

Good times

 

[Kasumi_Chan]

How would you move gold from one character to another on the same account then?

 

[WildWobble]

Wow some of you are so.... anyhow revamping gold would be the best move they could make! Keep gold as gold and when it gets deposited into the bank it becomes a $ balance not a check you can then withdraw as needed for npc quests and vendors and also be able to hold more gold / items in your bank since there would just be a balance avalible and not 1-175 checks cluttering up things. In a real bank situation they would pool cash and use it for investments and allow you to withdraw up to your balance and then some with overdraft's and loans ext but the idea of a $ balance over item checks is a much better system. Also they could keep checks in play by letting you still make them to use as trade simular to how it is now except when you place the check into your bank box it will then melt away and become apart of your balance, Also letting silver become its own balance would be handy. To the ones who are all uptight about removeing checks I think your the problem with the game allways stuck in the past and never looking to the future probably all the same people are the ones crying for a classic shard you would never acctually play on.

 

[Derium of ls]

How would you move gold from one character to another on the same account then?

maybe make an account bound bank box for it? hrrm, or allow bankers to 'hold' gold for you? so you can pick it up on a different character.

 

[RaDian FlGith]

How would you move gold from one character to another on the same account then?

That is definitely a valid question... my solution would be to implement a "Transfer Gold To..." menu that listed the characters on your account in the same order they appear on your login screen.

Maybe not eloquent, but a solution nonetheless.

With the requisite "Are you sure?" gumps as well.

As for transferring between accounts owned by the same person, well, I dunno... I'd just open two copies of UO as I presently do (or one on my PC and one on my laptop as I did before support for multiple UO instances).

Perhaps, additionally, there could be a "House Bank" feature that allowed you to transfer money into a house account accessible by co-owners... thus allowing you to transfer money between co-owners of your house?

I mean... the obvious solution would be in-game mail, but since we're unlikely to ever see unique naming, and the one attempt at in-game mail left because for some reason there was concern over us seeing each others' unique character/item IDs, I doubt we'll see that back in play.

I will admit, it's definitely something to ponder though.

 

[popps]

My take, as the last poster put it, wasn't the elimination of 1 million gold checks per se, but rather doing what many other MMOs have done and simply convert the gold into a monetary amount that travels with you.

If you ask me, it's also a very wise idea.

First, it will eliminate the duplication of a physical gold check, second, it would allow for monetary transactions above the present 125mil limit (not that those are often, but they do happen), and third, it would eliminate any of the potential bugs that have existed that allowed for pretending the right amount of money is present.

In short: eliminating gold physicality is a good thing, IMO.

The problem is, "if" it will be like in the example described, this "monetary amount that travels with the character" will be account related OR character related ??

The difference is rather important because as of now, within one's own 7 characters in a given account, they can share the gold with each other.

"If" the new system (assuming it will be as imagined....) will not be account related but character related, then in order to transfer gold from one character to another one would need someone else as a middle character to transfer the gold.

That is to transfer gold from character A to character C of the same account, one would need :

Step 1 - Account 1 character A transfers X gold to Account 2 character B,
Step 2 - Account 2 character B transfers X gold to Account 1 character C

So, 2 accounts which means for most players to have to rely on someone else to give their gold to just to transfer it to another character of their same one account........

Also, should the new system for gold be as imagined, will this mean that no longer there will be gold as loot on monsters' corpses ?

That is, upon the kill it will be automatically credited ??

If so, since often now players leave gold on corpses (especially for the minor kills or when farming for items...), I would imagine this will actually increase the amount of gold in the game and thus, inflation..........

 

[RaDian FlGith]

The problem is, "if" it will be like in the example described... transfer it to another character of their same one account...

Actually, there's been some conjecture/suggestion/et cetera on this later on in the thread (well, okay, earlier from this point, but you get the idea... hehe). I definitely agree it's something to be considered though.

Also, should the new system for gold be as imagined, will this mean that no longer there will be gold as loot on monsters' corpses ?

That is, upon the kill it will be automatically credited ??

Actually, I imagine it would be a system whereby you would actually have to double-click the corpse, which would then instantiate the "loot" mechanic to credit your account. Even in games like WoW, you have to actually loot the creature in order to get the money (you don't have to take everything, mind you, but you do have to open its corpse).

If so, since often now players leave gold on corpses (especially for the minor kills or when farming for items...), I would imagine this will actually increase the amount of gold in the game and thus, inflation...

"Inflation" in a video game is sort of a pointless debate, IMO, because there is never a "real" economy going on inside of a game even when there's a better simulation in one game than another. Still, I definitely get your point that gold would suddenly increase because of the number of people who don't bother to loot (this may change in and of itself if they actually made looting some creatures actually worth looting again... most of the time, they're not looted because even though 1,000 creatures with 28 gold would be 28,000 gold, the time spent looting them wouldn't be worth whatever it is they're mass killing for in the first place).

I would definitely say that the stop-gap there is "you must open the corpse" in order to be credited with the loot. It would, of course, also work with instanced corpses... you loot the corpse and get your share. Yes, it does mean that whomever opens a "decaying" corpse (meaning one that is outside of the 2 minute instanced timer, and free for all to loot) would get whatever money was left behind, but, IMO, no biggie, because someone else left it there in the first place.

 

[Aurelius]

I'd be inclined to keep the option 'physical gold' as loot on the monsters (which will convert into the 'virtual gold' when you deposit in a bank), but alongside that change the 'qualities' of the coin, particularly the weight.

If possible, I'd also 'scale' when looting is in cash, and when in virtual coin - if your bank balance is, say, over 1m (just a random number for example!) any more loot from monsters is automatically 'virtual' into your running total bank account. Below that, you get to toggle if you want 'cash or credit'.

Would mean you could carry 'cash' if you wanted, which works for RP, but you still need to actually loot the bodies for the gold. You won't be bothered if it weighs a lot more than now, since you'd only need to carry small amounts of coin.

Autolooting is part of the way scripted gold-gathering works, but keeping the physical object (and at the same time increasing it's weight a lot) makes such gathering at least a little more difficult than would be if all gold was 'virtual' - combine that with proper prevention of afk macro/script looting and you can start cutting back the influx of huge amounts of gold into the 'economy'. Won't solve the problem on it's own, but can be part of a solution...

As for cheques - can't see any reason not to allow them being made from your virtual bank balance, that way if you want them, you get them, but with the very minor inconvenience of them being one more 'item' in your pack or house.

 

[JC the Builder]

Programming the game for scripting is probably not the best way to go about it though. The issue with gold still having a physicality is that it would remain exploitable. Personally, I'd rather have a double-click the corpse, gold goes into your bank system... I know it breaks some of the "gather" of the game, but it would also let people focus on more important aspects of gathering than the gold aspect.

Virtually every dupe in UO's history involves items in your character's backpack. Before you could only fit about 20,000 gold in there. Duping gold is not worth it in coin form.

Allowing gold to be instantly deposited into your bank account would break the game entirely. People would setup characters AFK all over the place to farm gold. Killing monsters is the only real method of gold creation in UO and it used to be the reason you went hunting.

 

[[JD]]

[*]Mesanna: We are continuously looking at systems that will address the massive amounts of gold in our game. How about that?

This could mean anything... it could mean they're working on more gold sinks.

convert the gold into a monetary amount that travels with you.

Simply eliminating 1 mil checks would be a disasterous fail idea of EPIC proportions. The fact someone would even suggest this without thinking it through is really quite scary. You simply could not carry enough gold to have any player interaction/purchase. All purchases over what a player can carry (50k-70k) would need to be done via vendor. Eliminating player interactions is Not the direction UO would want to go, nor does it ring with the idea of getting back to the "heart" of what UO was...

I do like the idea of converting gold into a bank balance that is just with you always. Many games have non-physical money. You should have the option to transfer gold, be it to your own account or other acounts, and engage in secure player trading. And as stated by someone when your house falls your gold doesn't get added to someone else's bank. Frankly though I don't know who would opt to keep 1 mil checks in their house over a vendor. Is there a reason to keep checks in the house, adding to your house item count?

Realy the only concern here is scripters, money being physical is a small deterrant to them... they need bags of sending and powder on them. I am sure their scripts get around it just fine. If GMs would be more responsive when people paged, people could get rid of the unattended scripters.

 

[Sevin0oo0]

Why not have 1mil checks stackable?

 

[MalagAste]

As a lover of deco and design I've already suffered... They have somehow screwed up how Silver stacks in the EC so now a stack looks like a small pile of silver until it is over 1,000 coins..... so now my piles of sliver look like tiny little stack in my design.

Eliminating "physical" gold in the game would ruin deco even more. Case in point:

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

This could mean anything... it could mean they're working on more gold sinks.

Absolutely true. I should not have made the jump I did, let alone made a thread about it. But as soon as I heard those words I remembered the "eliminate cheques" or "eliminate 1m cheques" posts here on Stratics and my mind made the leap.

Again, I apologize for that.

-Galen's player

 

[old gypsy]

Would the gold be tied to the account, or to the character?

 

[canary]

Would the gold be tied to the account, or to the character?

Can't lie, would be awesome if gold were account bound.

Re: Malag's deco. Maybe all pre existing gold could just be turned into deco, like a guild stone.

 

[phantus]

Can't lie, would be awesome if gold were account bound.

Re: Malag's deco. Maybe all pre existing gold could just be turned into deco, like a guild stone.

I don't see why it has to be an either or kind of thing. Just keep the 60k limit in place and allow for physical gold to exist. In quantities over 60k it would be in numeric form. Don't have to give up anything unless they really want to.

 

[Kasumi_Chan]

How about the bank balance idea for normal uses such as buying off of vendors. Then to transfer gold to another character (either alternate account or to pay another person for something) you can instead of a "check" you can have the bank draft an "Imperial Stock Certificate" backed by the Royal Bank of Britain for any amount up to say, 100 million. These certificates have a "life" of 1 week of real world time before they are declared void by the bank and become irredeemable, but are otherwise used like current checks. I think this would make a good balance between the two, as the shelf life would prevent players from hoarding large amounts of gold in certificates; and its more Ultima lore friendly.

 

[MalagAste]

I don't see why it has to be an either or kind of thing. Just keep the 60k limit in place and allow for physical gold to exist. In quantities over 60k it would be in numeric form. Don't have to give up anything unless they really want to.

I kinda like that. Also somewhat like Canary's Idea... But I'd sort of like to know BEFORE it's implimented to save enough for deco... or perhaps you could buy "coins".... from say the Banker.

What about Silver?

Would that too go to an electronic way?

Perhaps Gold when you kill a monster will auto go to your account then? And Everything after a point will go the electronic way and you can decide to "add" existing checks to your "fund"..... deleting them forever or keep a few checks around for "looks"... but like the guildstones they would be of limited quantity.

So like say they started on April Fools.... and after April 1st all money gathered ingame will be electronic.... no gold will drop on monsters no checks will be made and all purchases will draw from your electronic fund.... so if you have 90 million in checks you'd have to add them to your electronic fund to buy something after April 1st but once added it would be in your fund and you wouldn't be able to get it back out as a check. But you would be able to go up to someone and in the trade window say Transfer XXX, XXX,XXX amount of gold for item.... and that money would transfer to the other players funds. But no checks would pass...

But if you placed a check in your bankbox and "cashed" it it would become piles of gold still... if under 60k. And you can purchase gold up to 60k.... in a gold pile form from the banker.

How's that?

 

[phantus]

I find it unlikely they would make gold stop dropping off monsters. Scripting would be too easy at that point. It should remain weighted until it's in the bank then it can become a numeric only form. Anything short of that won't really fit the game and will cause too many loopholes. Elimination of checks after a system like that would be a good plan.

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

I feel bad that I started all this speculation....The more I read and think the more likely they are just doing some kind of gold sink.

I didn't mean to start this; just accidentally plugged the devs' statement into preexisting debates here on Stratics.

-Galen's player

 

[Adol]

I'm sorry, but I have to completely disagree yet again with the Dev's perception of the issues facing the game; in this case they don't seem to have any understanding of the market, and how it affects New players at all.

Firstly, a genuinely New player is going to have one economic target, and that is buying their own Home. Having played before Malas when housing was held hostage to the inflation of the market, I know it can be daunting to save gold for a home; my first one cost 8 million for a small tower in Occlo back in 2001. But those days are long gone now. There is plenty of space on most servers for everything up too a Large Tower. Which means you're only paying for the Placement Tool, and the cost of the house. These are both within easy reach of any player now.

But maybe they don't want to grind even this amount of gold? In which case, accelerating the gold gain is going to make the true problem even worse; anyone who doesn't enjoy the game enough to actually have fun playing it is going to power-game, then get bored and quit. Giving them a house faster is only going to send them away from the game faster in turn. Where as EA wants to be nurturing those who genuinely want to invest into Sosaria instead.

However let's say we've got a genuinely interested New Player, who despairs that certain parts of the game are locked off to him due to the apparent cost. Items from a Tangle to a Castle say. The answer however is helping them to understand the market instead, and how to manufacture items that those with the insane gold still need to purchase. And it can be done; the most obvious one is Seeds of Renewal. Currently on Europa these go for 1 million per 10. You can grow those by killing boglings on New Haven, and the kegs cost about 5k per. Don't fancy gardening? Tag along at any EM event where there's a click-for-item at the end. Voila, 5 to 30 million to cross sharders or those who missed the event... How about the Essences and Scrolls of Alacrity from even a Level 1 Treasure Map? The issue here is not that New Players can't catch up, but they may not know how it's possible.

And you solve that not by throwing gold at them, but by making the New Player experience easier to expand from into the game proper... Why for instance do people default to Help and then not be able to see that there's no bugger in there? Why isn't changing Chat windows part of the tutorial, and the groups themselves marked for number of people within them? Newbies would soon swap to General there, and find someone prepared to talk them through the complexities of the game... They'd probably also give them some of their own gold, as well as free armour and weapons too. Have the Dev's actually tried to be a New Player, or just not seen that there are still plenty of decent players left?

Or indeed, plenty of spaces left in Luna for free vendors these days? Do they not even read their own design plans? If you're going to seriously consider Auction House style vending, New Players won't even need to know any of the above; they'll be straight into auctioneering just like they are in WoW etc. And increasing the Gold drops is just going to inflate prices across the board for everyone.

I've not even gone into the atmospheric reasons this may be a bad idea; because it's personal taste whether having Gold as a solid, tangible object is a good thing or not. I personally think it is; as is the decorative creativity that comes from not just the gold, but also all the associated things like Vendors and backpack art. Suffice to say, can we please have someone on board who really knows what makes the actual game tick?!

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

Remember that we don't know what they have in-mind.

I heard that statement and saw "eliminating cheques! Oh no!" Others saw it and thought "eliminating cheques! Cool!" Others saw it and thought "non-physical gold system!"

We don't know. I realize I over-extrapolated inappropriately.

-Galen's player

I'm sorry, but I have to completely disagree yet again with the Dev's perception of the issues facing the game; in this case they don't seem to have any understanding of the market, and how it affects New players at all.

Firstly, a genuinely New player is going to have one economic target, and that is buying their own Home. Having played before Malas when housing was held hostage to the inflation of the market, I know it can be daunting to save gold for a home; my first one cost 8 million for a small tower in Occlo back in 2001. But those days are long gone now. There is plenty of space on most servers for everything up too a Large Tower. Which means you're only paying for the Placement Tool, and the cost of the house. These are both within easy reach of any player now.

But maybe they don't want to grind even this amount of gold? In which case, accelerating the gold gain is going to make the true problem even worse; anyone who doesn't enjoy the game enough to actually have fun playing it is going to power-game, then get bored and quit. Giving them a house faster is only going to send them away from the game faster in turn. Where as EA wants to be nurturing those who genuinely want to invest into Sosaria instead.

However let's say we've got a genuinely interested New Player, who despairs that certain parts of the game are locked off to him due to the apparent cost. Items from a Tangle to a Castle say. The answer however is helping them to understand the market instead, and how to manufacture items that those with the insane gold still need to purchase. And it can be done; the most obvious one is Seeds of Renewal. Currently on Europa these go for 1 million per 10. You can grow those by killing boglings on New Haven, and the kegs cost about 5k per. Don't fancy gardening? Tag along at any EM event where there's a click-for-item at the end. Voila, 5 to 30 million to cross sharders or those who missed the event... How about the Essences and Scrolls of Alacrity from even a Level 1 Treasure Map? The issue here is not that New Players can't catch up, but they may not know how it's possible.

And you solve that not by throwing gold at them, but by making the New Player experience easier to expand from into the game proper... Why for instance do people default to Help and then not be able to see that there's no bugger in there? Why isn't changing Chat windows part of the tutorial, and the groups themselves marked for number of people within them? Newbies would soon swap to General there, and find someone prepared to talk them through the complexities of the game... They'd probably also give them some of their own gold, as well as free armour and weapons too. Have the Dev's actually tried to be a New Player, or just not seen that there are still plenty of decent players left?

Or indeed, plenty of spaces left in Luna for free vendors these days? Do they not even read their own design plans? If you're going to seriously consider Auction House style vending, New Players won't even need to know any of the above; they'll be straight into auctioneering just like they are in WoW etc. And increasing the Gold drops is just going to inflate prices across the board for everyone.

I've not even gone into the atmospheric reasons this may be a bad idea; because it's personal taste whether having Gold as a solid, tangible object is a good thing or not. I personally think it is; as is the decorative creativity that comes from not just the gold, but also all the associated things like Vendors and backpack art. Suffice to say, can we please have someone on board who really knows what makes the actual game tick?!

 

[RavenWinterHawk]

Anyone notice from the HoC that it seems like eliminating cheques, or at least eliminating 1 million gold cheques, has gotten consideration?

I think this is a bad idea.

1 million gold cheques were a way of UO recognizing that it had grown, that people were out hunting monsters bringing gold in, and that most trade had become between players, not between players and NPCs. When players trade among themselves, the gold stays in the economy, and the game mechanics must reflect this.

To eliminate 1 million gold cheques would mostly hurt honest players who worked hard for their money. Cheaters will, I guarantee you, find a way, and prices will remain high. You would merely have put items even further out of the reach of honest players. (If you doubt me on this, remember the illegally made super-cheques from several years back.)

To eliminate 1 million gold cheques would be as bad an idea as to put in cheques valued over 1 million gold. At present it's possible to become quite wealthy, and do it honestly to boot, but there are physical limits on how wealthy you can be. To me, that sounds about right.

Taxes; gold sinks; property taxes; tithes to the Crown......All of these are much better ideas than trying to go back where we've already been, and hurting honest players in the process. And leave the basics as is.

Look at it this way...How much sense does it make to simultaneously try and further limit how much gold you can have, and talk about increasing the amount of gold on monsters?

-Galen's player

PS: Apologies for this post lacking my normal final proofread/reconsideration. I really need to go, but wanted to put this out there.

Basically Keep checks
Charge 5% for making and breaking checks.
Gold sink.

The cost of business. The cost of having the King manage your gold.

 

[Freelsy]

I just don't understand how you say eliminating checks, or extending the cap for checks is abad idea. You say it's going to hurt honest players. How? How in the world does that hurt an honest player?

You seem to be taking into account a lot of other speculative ideas about decreasing gold or increasing gold or some sort of tax or gold sink into the check system. Without any of those speculative ideas, how is going to a simple counter system or making high quantity checks hurting people? If anything it's helps everyone by eliminating the trust factor when doing trades. Lets face it, a LOT of items these days cost 100mill and above. The ability to create 10 million gold checks allows for safe trade and transaction.

Don't give me the "dupe" story either. If it happens it happens. Sucks, but whatever. There hasn't been a dupe in quite some time and I don't expect we'll see another for sometime (wishful thinking).

Of all my experience and everything I've done, I just cannot for the life of me see how eliminating the check system will hurt anyone. If there is something obvious Ia'm missing, please point it out. Explain it to me.

 

[Anira Cuilwen]

Well.. I think if an item costs 100m then there is something wrong. Things should stay affordable.

I think the gold system is fine as it is. Sure money grinders have an issue with it but I don't care about those myself.

If you want a change at all, i'd more like to see it changed to something realistic like gold, silver and copper pennies enabling real prizes with decimals

And stop comparing with other mmos, nearby all of them are just crap or not suitable for role-play

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

Read my post. *shrugs* I don't think it's any great amount of speculation to say that an honest player who's accumulated hundreds of millions in gold through blood, sweat, and tears is going to be disadvantaged relative to a dishonest one who's accumulated billions because he knows some trick or other.

How speculative can it be when it happens? How speculative can it be in a world wherein non-Replica Lieutenant sashes magically appear over night, making the Replica ones harder sales? If anything to say the opposite of what I said is what's speculative.

This has all been rendered moot, however, because others have successfully pointed out or suggested that I was extrapolating way beyond what they actually said anyway.

In brief: Stratics has made me paranoid.

Gee I wonder why.

-Galen's player

I just don't understand how you say eliminating checks, or extending the cap for checks is abad idea. You say it's going to hurt honest players. How? How in the world does that hurt an honest player?

You seem to be taking into account a lot of other speculative ideas about decreasing gold or increasing gold or some sort of tax or gold sink into the check system. Without any of those speculative ideas, how is going to a simple counter system or making high quantity checks hurting people? If anything it's helps everyone by eliminating the trust factor when doing trades. Lets face it, a LOT of items these days cost 100mill and above. The ability to create 10 million gold checks allows for safe trade and transaction.

Don't give me the "dupe" story either. If it happens it happens. Sucks, but whatever. There hasn't been a dupe in quite some time and I don't expect we'll see another for sometime (wishful thinking).

Of all my experience and everything I've done, I just cannot for the life of me see how eliminating the check system will hurt anyone. If there is something obvious Ia'm missing, please point it out. Explain it to me.

 

[RavenWinterHawk]

Well to help. I have 1 billion gold all from vending. Thats it, 10 years of vending. I dont buy high end stuff cause it is risky.

I can tell you this. 125 million for any item can be done via a vendor.

Now once you get past bank box max... there is issue. I guess. I have never been in that range. In fact the most pricey item I have sold is 35-40 million or so.

My point is this. The need for massive checks is for the few. It is dupe risk. It was bad enough having checks duped to the 1 trillion point. Yes trillions. Go read about it.

All checks need to have a cost.
Players that need more then 125 million can trade for items that have value instead of straight gold.

If the game needs higher "checks" create a commodity deed that is track by the game. Name of player that opens it and the name of the player that gets it. The commodity deed can have gold checks drop on it to increase the value. It is blessed in the name of the player that creates it. It becomes blessed in the name of the player that gets its via a trade window. 10% fee for creating it. 10% fee for cashing it in.

It should have a timer on it. When it expires it goes to whatever players bank that is holding it.

Now this elaborate but the point is the DEVS have to create something very secure to manage the massive amounts of gold. If you cant create it, dont do it.

 

[phantus]

Well to help. I have 1 billion gold all from vending. Thats it, 10 years of vending. I dont buy high end stuff cause it is risky.

I can tell you this. 125 million for any item can be done via a vendor.

Now once you get past bank box max... there is issue. I guess. I have never been in that range. In fact the most pricey item I have sold is 35-40 million or so.

My point is this. The need for massive checks is for the few. It is dupe risk. It was bad enough having checks duped to the 1 trillion point. Yes trillions. Go read about it.

All checks need to have a cost.
Players that need more then 125 million can trade for items that have value instead of straight gold.

If the game needs higher "checks" create a commodity deed that is track by the game. Name of player that opens it and the name of the player that gets it. The commodity deed can have gold checks drop on it to increase the value. It is blessed in the name of the player that creates it. It becomes blessed in the name of the player that gets its via a trade window. 10% fee for creating it. 10% fee for cashing it in.

It should have a timer on it. When it expires it goes to whatever players bank that is holding it.

Now this elaborate but the point is the DEVS have to create something very secure to manage the massive amounts of gold. If you cant create it, dont do it.

People shouldn't be penalized for making a large monetary trade. We starting getting into fees to handle big transactions and I want to see interest on keep my money in the royal coffers. Too complicated. This is a game. Over 60k gold and it should be a number. No checks. Simple enough.

 

[Adora]

Taking away checks and physical gold from the game will remove another part of what makes UO a virtual world. There should be difficulty in moving around massive amounts of gold.

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

Your post appears to think that I am supporting cheques over 1 million.

I was clearly not; I was attempting to defend what we already have, cheques up to and including 1m, against what I perceived to be an idea to take it away.

I was shown, however, that I was going well beyond what they actually said. And I've apologized for it.

I, for one, would quite specifically not defend cheques over 1 million in amount.

-Galen's player

Well to help. I have 1 billion gold all from vending. Thats it, 10 years of vending. I dont buy high end stuff cause it is risky.

I can tell you this. 125 million for any item can be done via a vendor.

Now once you get past bank box max... there is issue. I guess. I have never been in that range. In fact the most pricey item I have sold is 35-40 million or so.

My point is this. The need for massive checks is for the few. It is dupe risk. It was bad enough having checks duped to the 1 trillion point. Yes trillions. Go read about it.

All checks need to have a cost.
Players that need more then 125 million can trade for items that have value instead of straight gold.

If the game needs higher "checks" create a commodity deed that is track by the game. Name of player that opens it and the name of the player that gets it. The commodity deed can have gold checks drop on it to increase the value. It is blessed in the name of the player that creates it. It becomes blessed in the name of the player that gets its via a trade window. 10% fee for creating it. 10% fee for cashing it in.

It should have a timer on it. When it expires it goes to whatever players bank that is holding it.

Now this elaborate but the point is the DEVS have to create something very secure to manage the massive amounts of gold. If you cant create it, dont do it.

 

[Aran]

Taxes in video games are about as wanted as murderers in national parks.

 

[olduofan]

I think they should convert Gold into something else then (like how other games have copper, silver, gold, plat). have a conversion chart for it so when you 'load' the gold checks onto yourself it converts automatically. then you can up the gold drop on mobs like they want, AND at the same time we are working with much smaller numbers. it would be annoying to see that you have 500000000g on you.

could dupers go nuts? yeah now they have an unlimited amount they can dupe, but Hell, they can already do a billion at a time as it is.

I like this idea would make the game more in depth as well

 

[Nexus]

Taking away checks and physical gold from the game will remove another part of what makes UO a virtual world. There should be difficulty in moving around massive amounts of gold.

You mean like when I go online and transfer funds from my savings to my checking account all in under 2 minutes?

 

[Ezekiel Zane]

You mean like when I go online and transfer funds from my savings to my checking account all in under 2 minutes?

You must have a really slow connection. Takes me about 10 seconds.

 

[Ezekiel Zane]

Ok, first off there were two different references in the videos that seem to be confusing some.

In part 1, approx. 7:30 in, they were asked about the massive amount of gold in the game. The answer was that they were aware and working on it. Somewhere in the HoC they also mentioned increasing the amount of gold on mobs to benefit new players.

In part 2, approx. 7:20 in, they were asked about eliminating checks and changing to a gold amount or account, audio was unclear. Answer was, Cal initially didn't want to talk about it but Messana, was "why not", "we've talked about it?"

I've started a few posts, years back, about creating a checkbook within our banks. Ideally it would be linked to all characters on an account, but, if that's much more difficult then simply creating one per character, I'd be fine with it that way at a minimum.

What I think and what I think would impact inflation the least is this;

- create an account within the bank box to deposit gold and checks and creates a monetary number, independent of a physical item slot within the bank box. Ideally tied to all characters on the account. Would suffice though if it was only able to be done for each character.

- DO NOT eliminate gold or checks up to 1 million gold. Honestly, why? What's the point. The ONLY pro for eliminating checks is duping. Stop the duping.

- Place gold from killing mobs directly into backpack. Absolutely DO NOT advocate placing it directly into the bank. Gold has weight and must still be moved, manually, to the bank, either by recalling to the bank or using a bag of sending. The argument against this to combat scripting is old and tired and honestly, I'm sick and tired of suffering the design decisions made over the years to combat and curb scripting. It makes looting gold from mobs with junk loot less tedious but you still have to leave to deposit the gold into your bank.

I don't see any relevance to how much gold is in the game or how much gold individual players have, to installing a virtual gold balance into the game. Who cares if I've played for over 10 years and have 50 million gold or that there are players with billions or barely millions? What does it matter? Overall it simplifies things for everyone. It makes it easier and safer to purchase high value items likes uber rares and house plots and castles.
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