Can't prove it, but I suspect a significant percentage of platinum miners are alts digging mindlessly for their mains as effectively slave workers. They just dig and dig and hand it all over when they get a full load, given just enough tria to train the next mining level or relevant stats needed to increase production of the machine. The mains are out doing their fun things like hunting, crafting, even RP, burning through the cash from the platinum mine to support their other activities. I'm confident the server logs all transactions and I would think a review of all transactions involving platinum would bear this theory out. I've also sold a bit of platinum to a few collector drones, so I know they are out there. These are parked someplace, overburdened, loaded with tria, and buy from anyone who walks up to it without a word. It's like pouring aluminum cans into an automated recycler that spits out money by weight of what is fed into it. Whoever is running them is off someplace with their main and just answering trades and firing off auctions to buy in the other window.
I think there should be a minimum skill to do the higher ores like silver/gold/platinum but once attained, productivity should be on par across the board. What I mean is that an L5 miner should have about the same success rate with iron and coal as an L25 miner has with platinum, but the L5 miner should have near zero success at silver or gold or platinum. Once a miner has invested the time and training and practice to be able to get these higher value ores, they should be rewarded better (they've earned it because it should take weeks to get there instead of days IMHO). Should miners have to deal with rogues and creatures crawling out of the rocks and ground where they dig? Personally I think that would be fun to have them randomly occur, adding a bit of surprise and risk to the job. Would warriors be interested in protecting the miners from these random spawnings. I think so, because spawn camping gets boring, but reacting to these can be a bit more exciting in running after them to catch and kill them. Would miners have to pay them? Not if the "take" is sufficient in loot and experience I wouldn't think. Imagine having your dig interrupted because you disturb a creature in the ground that is quite angry over it. Miner backs off and warrior steps in for the engagement, kills, loots, waves, and the miner resumes. Such could keep warriors quite busy and I just think that would be fun. Mine Games...how many crawly creatures can you bag in an hour: for this you need miners to dig and trigger the creatures and a team of warriors to get after them. Winner buys the beer because he gets the most loot. Band of rogues spawns in some random place behind a building and executes a little raid...Warriors dash to defend the place out of loyalty, and for the loot. Since we already have player grouping, warriors in a mine area could form an ad-hoc defense squad that works together and they all share in the take. Low-end ores like Iron and Coal might have little creatures that most miners could dispatch themselves with less frequent raids or occurrence of harder mobs, while higher value mines like silver/gold/platinum would toss out progressively harder creatures. My point is that with a bit of help from random spawns and some cooperation the whole mining thing could be made fun and interesting instead of the mindless grind that it is today.
And why don't rock picks wear down or the handles occasionally break? Why is there no risk of injury to hands and feet while mining? How is it that we can acquire a better rock pick but we cannot make one? Such might have no bearing on mining success, but should last longer than a regular one. Tool sharpening kits anyone? Quality Degradation? Condition repairs by crafters?
I fully agree with Donari...take the NPC's out of the buying side of the equation, allowing a player-based economy to settle itself out. NPC's should still buy things, but at such a low price as to be a desperation choice for the seller. For this, there needs to be a correlation between goods and needs. We can cook, but no one is hungry. We can dig silver, gold, platinum, and lumium, but these are cash crops...nothing is made from any of them except a golden shield that has no defensive value. In case some of you haven't noticed, NPC's pay very little for iron and coal, yet because it is valuable in crafting that market segment has settled prices very well and the players in the trade have done that. There is sufficient reward for miners of those ores to be worthwhile, while allowing smelters and crafters to enjoy a reasonably predictable supply and cost of materials. There are plenty of crafters, but with weapons that last forever the demand is just not there. If weapons degraded and broke, crafters could turn up production and actually make a living at it. As a merchant, I've lost count of how many times I've had to tell young crafters to go and mine silver or gold or platinum for cash and/or to just go find something else to do until their weapons sell...the market just will not support the production they are capable of. Some may fear that suddenly having to buy a new set of weapons every week would drastically increase the cost of living for a warrior...before you go all extreme, that wasn't the suggestion, and 'every week' would be way off target in degrade rate even if one were to swing on mobs non-stop 24/7...relax. Would the increased demand for replacement weapons drive up weapons prices from crafters? Doubtful, because such demand doesn't change the cost basis of the weapons (materials, labor, training, etc.), combined with the fact that crafters are currently producing well under their collective capacity due to lack of demand. Prices may go up if the at some point demand exceeds the ramped up capacity, but at the moment we are very far from that point, and degrade rate can be adjusted to moderate that over time.
Perhaps use of a weapon would reduce the slash value (dulling), field repairs with kits would recover that slash value (sharpening), and from use the weapon would be damaged and require a craftsman to work on it in the forge with a hammer and the anvil to recover the condition of the weapon. We already have condition and quality represented as "nnn / nnn" respectively. Condition already reduces with use, but quality should reduce also (but at a slower rate). That quality reduction rate would need some trial and error to find the right target, but should be feasible. Repairs by crafters of condition would be limited to the weapons current quality, and eventually the weapon degrades to the point that there just isn't any value in working on it anymore and it is replaced, as the quality can not be increased by any means (even destroying the weapon by disassembly to make a new one from the parts should not render a better weapon because the parts would now be of a lesser quality). This would give crafters something else to do for income besides new weapon production, while allowing them to stay within their line of work. In keeping balance with this, a low-level crafter should not be able to improve the condition of high-grade weapons...to recover condition on a 290-quality weapon should require someone of sufficient skill to make such a weapon.
I think much of the concepts in the preceding paragraph could and should apply to armor too, as crafted armor is implemented in the future. I think these concepts would reduce the incidence of new players getting themselves into the nearest fighter guild and being handed a set of Q300 weapons on their third day in game because in addition to lacking the skill to wield them effectively, they would lack the financial means to maintain such weapons, making such acts of philanthropy to be costly and wasteful.
And for those of you who say the prices of high-end weapons are too high, I submit that you have no idea the real-time months of dedicated investment in time, training, and tria that high-level crafters have put forth to reach that point of mastering their craft. They have seriously paid their dues. Does that mean that I think the cost of training is too high? No, it does not. Too-cheap training only furthers the "do-everything" mentality. Low level training is fast and cheap already, with it getting progressively harder and more expensive at each next level, and I think that's how it should be, allowing dabblers to dabble and requiring dedication from those who wish to pursue the higher calling of excellence. Such dedication will have progressively better rewards in compensation for the things they produce and/or the services they are able to perform. Could the reward of experience be adjusted up in certain areas to make it a little easier for a character to grow and have success in their chosen pursuits? Perhaps, but I've wandered far enough from the question as it is.
Finally, I realize that some of these involve code work, some may already be available and just not quite ready to be implemented yet, and could come along in good time, but I think a lot can be done without, and some can be done by the community, if it is so inclined.
MrG
Poll