Almost no weapons anymore at Trasoks and others: Probably the worst idea ever

[Mordraugion]

Theres an auction channel IG one could always ask in there too or even just ask around ICly as for an out of game market place its not going to happen.

[Zwenze]

Well, here are my 2 tria on this. I like it. Here is why.

Recently a new player contacted me and asked me how to get daggers. I looted him a pair of basic daggers. That helped us to learn each other. If he could buy the daggers from harnquist he would have made a few mouse clicks more, but we never would have talked to each other.

Sure, you cannot go and make a few mouse clicks to obtain those weapons. You have to talk to people. But weapons are all still lootable. If you need weapons, go into the arena and talk to people. You might find a nice guy who gifts you some weapons. Unlike the /introduce 'feature' this one really promotes roleplaying. But while doing so beware the pvp pit. Its a room full with dlayo gladiators. In that room each player can attack another one without challanging.

Players who kill and loot npcs at the arena (and other spots to) loot weapons. Most of them are not that intresting to them as they only give them a hand full of tria. Go there and roleplay you lost your weapons. They got stolen or broke or what ever. Talk to people and make friends there. Thats more important then getting a basic weapons with a few mouse clicks and a hand full of tria.

[Xillix Queen of Fools]

Advocating for a "short term" replacement of weapons is essentially saying "go back to the status quo." If we do this the market will never develop. I am more interested in what people thing about what peeg had to say and how we might alleviate that concern. Peeg if you have good enough Ideas perhaps you can come work for me. It is a track to get into crafting development and testing.

[Zan]

There is an easy solution to Peeg's problem.

Start by asking yourself, what should determine the value of something?

Answer: The availability.

From there it's easy to see the problem with platinum or gold. They're both easily available in unlimited quantities. Sure the lower your mining skill the longer it takes but even someone with a low mining skill can mine platinum. I tested it out. My mining skill was four and I got five ores in fifteen minutes, which is good for some three thousand tria.

Now the solution to the problem.

1) Decrease the value drastically.

I was hoping that this solution was brought into the economy with the new client. It was said that the more often something was sold, the less NPCs pay for it but I haven't noticed anything regarding that. Make it so that after a hundred platinum ores being sold to an NPC, they'll be overstocked and pay you half of it's former price for a week. A hundred more, cut the number in half again. If NPCs could actually sell what they had in stock, even better. NPCs would be completely depend on players for the goods they can sell. Then the price can depend on the real stock, not a set time period. (the numbers are examples but you catch the drift.) With a system like this any item's price will even out automatically. Things that are hard to come by or only a few people can produce/gather will be more expensive.

or

2) Decrease the availability drastically.

Make platinum and gold resources that are only available in limited quantities. A mine can be 'dry' after somewhere between 200 and 500 ores. When it is, there is no more platinum there for anyone. A new mine could spawn somewhere else now, waiting to be discovered and exploited again. Resources that should be less rare can have bigger mine yields and/or more mines of the same type available at a time. It's also possible to make permanent and unlimited mines for things like iron, coal, copper, ... and only have the rare resources spawn in limited quantities.

or

3) Make commonly available items commonly available again.

I like this option the least since it's not a real solution, like Xillix said. It is the easiest to implement though and that is making common resources like iron, coal, etc. available through NPCs.

[Prolix]

I'll bite Xilly. It seems extremely odd to me that knowing the problems gold mining has caused they went ahead and put platinum back in the game so soon. There is a use for gold that is other than just to get rich and that is in shield(?) manufacture and that is also odd. The precious metals really have little place in weapon/armor crafting except perhaps in ornamentation. They are too soft to be of use by themselves. Since there is little use for them their enhanced value seems out of context, perhaps when jewelry making is available there will be a reason for their value. There is a problem with that too and that is the limits put on the amount of jewelry that you can wear. Why is it we are limited to two rings and one necklace? I can stick three or four rings on one finger and have ten fingers, I can wear rings on my toes, hanging from my ears through my nose. I can wear any number of things around my neck, and a lot of bracelets on my arms and legs. Limiting the amount of jewelry one can wear limits the amount that can be sold. I understand that only so much can be displayed on the avatar but multiple items could be listed in the description automatically.

The npc's should not buy useless stuff for a premium unless they are going to keep it in stock to try to resell it. They should not buy it for more than they can sell it for either. It is just common sense.

[Under the moon]

I question why master smiths such as 'Trasok and others' would be making 'common' cheap weapons in the first place when they could be making high quality items for a premium price. You know, sort of like players do.

A smith's work is his calling card and advertisement. No self-respecting smith would make and sell less than his best. I think it was a mistake to have the smiths sell (or buy) sub-par items in the first place, and this starts to correct that.

[eldoth_terevan]

I am sure Trasok would get mad if you inferred that his basic weapons were cheap. He would say they were the best. Any smith would be turning out basic weapons and implements more than special ones, as they would be staple items. Like basic daggers or swords, but they would not be cheap or necessarily low-quality.

[Mrokii]

I have a merchant character who sells weapons and glyphs regularly.

When i first discovered the limited availability of weapons from npc's, i thought it was great. I stocked up on low level looted weapons and even made a deal with a crafter to provide lower specification crafties. However the sad fact is i have not been asked once for any of the basic weapons, players still want the best they can get. I still sell plenty weapons, but the vast majority are high specification weapons.

So from what i've experienced there is little demand for these weapons sadly. I will continue to hold a small stock of them however Just in case.

I think the problem is not that there is no demand, but more that people do not know you sell them. And that is one thing that makes this change so frustrating. They limited the possibility to buy weapons but did not provide something else for it. What they *have* to do (imho) is to provide players (or better guilds as a whole) shops where they can sell weapons on a regular basis. And this should be done as soon as possible.

[Wren]

If the dev team are dead-set on keeping this, then the players probably need to start putting our heads together to find ways to connect potential buyers with potential sellers.  And in a competitive atmosphere!   Seriously, prices won't go down to a reasonable level until people start trying to undercut each other   Regular market days, perhaps?  My character's been talking about arranging a festival in Xiosia's honor, I'm tempted to work some "come and sell your stuff" aspects in.

But yeah, I'm definitely not a fan of the logic behind this decision.  As a way of encouraging RP it's heavy-handed, and as a way of trying to fix the economy it's just passing the buck from crafters unable to sell their beginner efforts at good prices to players (largely newbies, at that) having to play blind man's bluff to get basic items.   It can be worked with, but it's still silly.

[Xillix Queen of Fools]

"Too much money in the economy"

"Not enough money in the economy"

"Too easy to get gold"

"Too expensive to train"

"Bring back platinum!!"

"Crafters are getting shafted by looted weapons"

"No one is buying crafted weapons because npcs sell them"

"Crafting is destroying RP"

This and more I have directly made efforts to fix AND efforts to explain the changes. There will always be more changes and I always listen to the players. I am beginning to experience diminishing returns from the process. If in the end no one will ever be satisfied the idea of putting forth so much effort to hear what players have to say is losing some of its luster.

Sorry to say, these last 5 months or so of polling and pushing devs to try to get "the people" what they wanted has not proved to have the impact on the player base I would have Imagined. It seems even "listening to the players" is a doomed approach because while many players have ideas, not many seem to have the patience to let those ideas play out without raising a fuss over even the most minor of changes.

I will be doing what I can to absorb the thoughts people have forwarded.

I agree with some of what Zan had to say but I think we need more thoughts on the topic, I am not going to deal with the headache removing gold and platinum will cause.

wren, I see what you are saying but I disagree categorically with your initial post.

I think that players getting organized to make regular player merchant venues is the best case scenario for the game.

As to your categorization of the a move toward a more player based economy as "silly," well that is a silly thing to say

[Liadan]

this probably isn't the best time to ask this, but how about instead of posting ideas of what you (the player) would like to see in the game, why not post ideas of what would contribute overall to the development of the game and NOT give the developer headaches when you go split personality on them?

[Indygo]

I think this release has been one of the best yet Xillix!  Don't let the complaints of a few speak for all.  I think if you polled players as a whole you would get more positive than negative comments.

The fact of the matter is this, when things change it affects people.  Some benefit, some may not.  I wonder why update at all if everytime they do all it brings is "woe is me..."  You cannot expect the developers / GMs to hold your hand through every little hardship, the game is about virtual life.  Just like real life there is going to be challenges, changes, trials, and triumphs.  As far as weapons goes there are other sources of weapons other than NPCs.  Some player interaction will have to take place in order to gain those weapons.  This gives us the opportunity to be creative and find a solution to place those weapons with the people in need at a price that both sides feel is fair and things will balance out.

[Vornne]

For the record, Xillix, I liked this change and still do

It seems you only get yelled at, because the players that like the change just play the game. You mostly get only part of the story on a given issue - the reasons people don't like it. Let's give it a bit of time, and see if the player base adjusts.

[Zan]

Moon, selling a lot of generic items can be more profitable than selling a few high quality ones.

Xillix, don't listen to everything people say you. There will always be some who want it this way and others who want it changed. Everything you do will disappoint someone ... but that's where you count on your own brain to make decisions. Don't get me wrong, I think it's great that you listen to players, a group can always see more possibilities than one or two people .. but you still have to be selective to what you do. Don't just do it to make players happy, do it if it makes sense.

As for the game economy, one extra note. We now have a gigantic infinite inflow of cash: mining precious metals and looting weaponry to a lesser degree  .. and we have a gigantic outflow of cash: training. Unless you can tune those two to cancel eachother out, you'll always have a hard time stabilizing the economy.

[Janner]

4. On one hand you talk about "individuality" in Planeshift and how every player should develop a unique personality. But on the other hand you do nothing at all to reward those that do. Even worse, for the reasons I stated above, I think you force players to be generalists that are good at everything at the same time! One should be good at digging to get Tria, have to be a good fighter too (to get some experience points now and then) and now one should also invest precious time into crafting! Ha! So much for individuality!

I have always done things my way, So yes you can be a Individual, every member of my guild did it his or her way, not my way, that was what it was all about.

Now let us give a quick mention as to why this is not quite working as planed YET. The answer is a simple one, and sham on you all for not even giving it a thought, Monsters They do not fight back, so why would a new player buy a weapon, he/she can just go kill to get what they want. So give these changes a chance to work when they figure out the problem with Monsters.

 Also worth a mention here is the true player that will help a person for no gain to themselves, you know of who I talk about, Plenty of guilds out there help new as well.
I have herd the crafters voice in game, various cry of come buy my wears, Just give a thought to settings when selling.

Sample Prices

The following samples of the purchasing power of Trias will give you a better understanding of the currency:

Object to Buy   Trias   Hexas   Octas   Circles
a pint of good beer   2 tria   -   -   -
a lunch in a tavern   5 tria   -   -   -
leather pants and shirt   25 tria   2 hexa, 5 tria   -   -
a good steel sword   350 tria   35 hexas   7 octas   1 circle, 2 octas
farmer's one month salary   250 tria   25 hexas   5 octas   1 circle
healthy, trained pterosaur   45,000 tria   4,500 hexas   2,400 octas   180 circles