Changes in Metallurgy

[Enrion]

As many of us became aware in the past hours: the developers have changed the metallurgy levels and the price for gold ingots.

We now need level 30 in metallurgy for producing gold ingots. And the NPCs don't buy'em for round about 600 anymore, they now pay only 240 it.

That's quite unfair. Many of us - or shall I say: all of us? - have spent weeks at the furnaces melting and casting, for reaching level 20 in metallurgy. Level 20 was the central step to wealth in the game. And now it seems that metallurgy above level 5 is a useless skill, except for solving one ore some more quests in which you need gold ingots.

In this thread I don't want to discuss about the fact that these changings came - again - over night without telling the community before or after. We all know this behaviour of the PlaneShift staff and the most of us don't like it to be treated like laboratory rats in these cases.

What I want to discuss is the unfairness in the game now: Players with very high skills and guilds with their own houses. Players and guilds only could afford it because they casted gold ingots and sold'em at high prices to NPCs. Nobody can tell me that he or his guild has earned 6 million trias by killing Rogues.

So, what to do now?

In my opinion the developers are thinking as far as a fat pig jumps. They can't give me the time back I spent at the furnaces. But they can give me the money back I wasted by training metallurgy from level 5 to level 20. And I hope they'll do.

An alternative would be to increase the price NPCs are paying for gold ingots.

[Parallo]

What will you do when all your money and skills are wiped?

[Enrion]

I  would have no problem with it <- I said that before when the money-cheat and what to do with it has been discussed.

[Parallo]

Then stop complaining. It has to be done. The economy is 'whack', so to speak. It needs to be capped somehow and gold is the way.

[neko kyouran]

welcome to alpha testing where stuff is constantly be tweaked, added, removed, od completely overhauled as the game's development progresses.

[bilbous]

Well in case you did not notice, weapon prices have also been reduced from their recent high levels so it looks like there was too much money around altogether. It seems to me your level 20 in metallurgy will do you some good and you might even make more money selling steel stocks. They were being offered for sale yesterday for around 2k tria apiece. You must have known the golden road was only made of yellow bricks before you started down it.

[Rongar Elani]

Eventually jewelry will soon find its way into the game, and gold can be worked into valuable items, such as rings or amulets. I'm quite confident that people would open their wallet widely for a pair of special wedding rings

[Zan]

Excellent choice, Devs ... more power to crafting, less to mining!

If you look at the real world you'll see that the more work is put into an object the larger the price generally. Up until now in PS a simple gold miner/melter could earn way more tria than a skilled blacksmith by using NPCs. I'm very glad that the Devs decided to redo the prices of things and make a more realistic NPC economy.

[Under the moon]

No warning? Odd. Then I wonder what this is? http://hydlaa.com/smf/index.php?topic=30666.0

As for unfairness, such is the way of a game in developement. Every change is going to cause problems for some people and benifit others. No way around it.

[ThomPhoenix]

Ah well, I needed to learn blacksmithing and sword-making anyway.

[Jawn]

i do think the prices went a ~bit~ too, low, but they really did need to drop. How bout tweaking them up just a bit.... not much. Or are uses for the metals come ~really~ soon?

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[Piker]

I actually can't see the point in this. Gold ingots sell for 240 tria, but stocks are still worth 2400+ tria I can see the furnaces getting busy with everyone trying to PL up to level XX just so that they can make stocks and continue making huge tria as before.

Unless the stocks price is to be tweaked too? I sure hope so, the economy needs this.

[yolantha]

I actually can't see the point in this. Gold ingots sell for 240 tria, but stocks are still worth 2400+ tria I can see the furnaces getting busy with everyone trying to PL up to level XX just so that they can make stocks and continue making huge tria as before.

Unless the stocks price is to be tweaked too? I sure hope so, the economy needs this.

But this seems to be ok for me. Now 5 ingots are not worth more than one stock any more.  You need a lot more experience to make gold stock (at least it was like that before), so gaining experience pays off.
By the way, I have the feeling that entropy has entered the metallurgy part of crafting. Re-melting the stock again and again reduces the quality now. Before it was more or less rolling the dice. This will make it much more difficult to get expereince in metallurgy.

*edit*

I actually can't see the point in this. Gold ingots sell for 240 tria, but stocks are still worth 2400+ tria I can see the furnaces getting busy with everyone trying to PL up to level XX just so that they can make stocks and continue making huge tria as before.

Unless the stocks price is to be tweaked too? I sure hope so, the economy needs this.

I rechecked: Prices for ingots now match the prices for stock. So I guess we can close the thread as the gold ingot sells for 488 trias now.

[Ravenguard]

most of us don't like it to be treated like laboratory rats in these cases.

But... we are lab rats.  We're playing a game in development, and the developers are seeing how their community (more specifically, its economy) changes when prices change.  I completely agree that gold was far too worthwhile (though I miss the money).  It was too little effort to make a lot of money.
Steps to make mad money lootz:
1) Make a Kran.
2) Get mining to level 1.
3) Mine gold.
4) Sell gold for 500 a piece, at 20 pieces a trip.  (total of 10,000 tria)
5) Win.

With more crafting coming around, we need more people mining things actually useful to crafting (like iron, coal, etc.) and less on shiny money metals.  Less demand for shiny money metals, plus more demand for normal things, means more personal crafting, more variation, and a better player based economy

[Jawn]

Whatever the case.... the ingot prices were tweaked up..... and the seem to be good, now. looks to be right. 

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