Economic improvements?

[Asmodean]

Things seem to be getting cheaper and cheaper. I had a couple ideas that would require +Colibri's and possibly other staff intervention, but Id like to get some discussion going on what we could do to improve things.

Firstly, it is my personal opinion that there are way too many unused power-scrolls floating about. I would propose removing all 120 power-scrolls from champion drop tables, and making the only way to get them through power-scroll bags. I don't have a bag myself, so please don't flame me for trying to control the market. I think this would help rid the shard of what i would call 'useless' scrolls by requiring their use to make 120's. This would help the economy as a whole, as it would create a newer market for 110s and 115s and get 120s back up to a reasonable price. While i wouldn't say make the bags available commonly, there has to be enough around so 1-2 people don't completely control the entire market. If people have multiples - give them a week to sell, and then make them all account bound on first use or something. Or make a rule where any one account can only have 1 at any given time, with some sort of check to verify it.

Secondly, if we could create more uses for items that aren't overly difficult to farm. I'm not sure exactly what's possible here, but collect X of something, turn it in to somebody, to give you something else that you use somewhere else. With the right incentives new economies can spring up for just about any item out there. It would give people new and old new things to farm/do for the all important gold coin.

I had a radical idea for the crafting system, but I don't think it would go over well. My suggestion would be making crafted items viable again. Step 1) remove runic tools from elemental's or make them REALLY RARE like 2% - you already get a ton of ore from them, so they are good to farm. Now, since they are rare, you could remove the penalty from leveling them with deeds, and give them 5 per level, or maybe 4, if you still wanted to give the edge to looted. All of a sudden, crafting is awesome again! I think by making the runic tools rare, it would remove the possibility to just farm elemental's for an hour, and craft 1000 X to get what you want. I think this would also stimulate the resources market again, if more people got into crafting. Also i would think maybe a quest to turn in say 10 charges of some runic, to get 1 charge of the next higher runic, to use up all these lesser bod rewards.

Also, if useless bod rewards could be altered/removed that would be awesome too. Smithers protector, Tailors protector... Why do we need these here, since there is no skill cap, we can all fight in a very short amount of time. These were awesome when you couldn't train everything up to 120, but on a shard like this, just take up space. Also, being a fairly high end reward, its pretty disappointing to receive.

Please constructive criticism, or suggestions. If you don't like what i have to say, tell us why in a meaningful way instead of a flame war.

Thank you.

[FunkSlaveTrade]

FLAME WAR!!!!! j/k

[+Nyx]

FLAME WAR!!!!! j/k

[FunkSlaveTrade]

lol, look at that face. without the ability to speak, it tells me "ain't none of that going on son"

[Asmodean]

See, gotta play nice Surprised nobody has commented in favor of or against this.

[Melkor]

I think +Colibri likes the prices low. Back when prices were high, they started the raffles to drain good. Also, they started selling Ed's for good on exex. It was said to combat the crazy high price of ED at the time. Also they have always held auctions to sink gold too. To me I'd say the gold is suffeciently sunk for now. But the gold sink measure remain. Just a guess but I'd say +Colibri likes it this way.

I find 120 ps actually climbing back up from an all time now.

I only skimmed your other ideas because, as a general rule of thumb, if an idea involves a lot of scripting, you can just about forget it happening. (other than staff events or quests, which are the exception)

As for bods, a guy re-did the carpentry rewards, I think he even got the green light from staff to do it, but they never got implemented. He was going to redo several of them I think.

[anarchy]

I had a radical idea for the crafting system, but I don't think it would go over well. My suggestion would be making crafted items viable again. Step 1) remove runic tools from elemental's or make them REALLY RARE like 2% - you already get a ton of ore from them, so they are good to farm. Now, since they are rare, you could remove the penalty from leveling them with deeds, and give them 5 per level, or maybe 4, if you still wanted to give the edge to looted. All of a sudden, crafting is awesome again! I think by making the runic tools rare, it would remove the possibility to just farm elemental's for an hour, and craft 1000 X to get what you want. I think this would also stimulate the resources market again, if more people got into crafting. Also i would think maybe a quest to turn in say 10 charges of some runic, to get 1 charge of the next higher runic, to use up all these lesser bod rewards.

love this idea. i always thought crafting was really weak. takes the fun out of half the reason ultima online was created.

prices being too low:
I worked too hard to bring down prices. so everything was more afford-able and the 1% didn't have everything. :O i flooded the market with ointments. brought bio's down to be affordable and not insanely high (10 mil + per bio), and tinkered with the price of organics (200-250 per now 150-200 per). i had friends flood the market with ps. i've even taken a loss in all of those areas (spent over 100 mil reimbursing people). cheaper is always better. it gives everyone the right and fun to have everything without breaking them. i've given away blaze of death's around to people, and gloves of the pug. i've tried to set a lower price for sot's and jackal's. i've made nobles more cheaper (not mule's they pain in the rear). it's been my goal to do so and it's taken about 2 years to do it. :S manipulating a world market is not the easiest thing in this game to do.

[FunkSlaveTrade]

lol, and as this discussion goes on, most of the prices on exex have continued to rise

[Asmodean]

I worked too hard to bring down prices. so everything was more afford-able and the 1% didn't have everything. :O i flooded the market with ointments. brought bio's down to be affordable and not insanely high (10 mil + per bio), and tinkered with the price of organics (200-250 per now 150-200 per). i had friends flood the market with ps. i've even taken a loss in all of those areas (spent over 100 mil reimbursing people). cheaper is always better. it gives everyone the right and fun to have everything without breaking them. i've given away blaze of death's around to people, and gloves of the pug. i've tried to set a lower price for sot's and jackal's. i've made nobles more cheaper (not mule's they pain in the rear). it's been my goal to do so and it's taken about 2 years to do it. :S manipulating a world market is not the easiest thing in this game to do.

I understand your point of view on this, and agree that affordable things makes everybody happy. We seem to differ a bit though, in that not every newbie should have a bio, or 5 imps, or all 120s by the time their 21 days trial is over. Yes, this is an over-exaggeration. But if people don't have goals, and things they need to work for, it becomes boring really quick. 10 mil a bio is a lot yes, but it accomplishes 2 things. Gives a player a long-term goal to keep them playing so they get that sense of accomplishment, and keeps donations rolling in for the boss man. If something is too expensive, you have 3 choices. 1) Work for it, slowly but surely. 2) Donate for it, and be done. 3) Give up the goal / play somewhere else.

Also, pricing is all relative for the things you are talking about. If you sell 1 ps for 1 mil, and buy a bio at 10 mil, you need to sell 10 to get that bio. If you sell a PS for 600k, and a bio is 6 mil, you need to still sell 10 of them to get a bio.

The difference comes in with prices that are static, compared to other prices that fluctuate. It doesn't matter if a power scroll is 100k, or 500k, the price of a re-layer is 500ED. (so a relative static price of ~50k is great here too!) So, while lowering prices to make everything affordable is awesome in one sense (bio's, imp's, dropped gear), its hurts the longer-term players by making the re-layers, house deeds, extra pet slots, etc more difficult (cost prohibitive) to get. So, you end up helping the newbie's at the expense of the long term player base.

Yes i understand, that once you have the good stuff there's more you can do, and it's easier to make money, however If i had to choose between helping someone that was going to stick around a month, vs someone that was going to stick around for years, id choose the 2nd person hands down every time.

I don't know how to accomplish a best of both worlds situation, which is of course, the ultimate goal. Affordable goodies for the newbies, and sustained profitability on items and goods for the players that stick around longer.

[FunkSlaveTrade]

[quote="Asmodean"][quote] Yes i understand, that once you have the good stuff there's more you can do, and it's easier to make money, however If i had to choose between helping someone that was going to stick around a month, vs someone that was going to stick around for years, id choose the 2nd person hands down every time.

It is a hard subject no doubt, however, how many ppl have stuck around for years. Once that goal is finally accomplished and ur able to save up enough to purchase that item, that one item, r u really willing to wait another year to get one more good item. Most of the people on this shard seem to be of the +21 age group, which means in order to survive, they have to have a job and work during most of the day. The few people that have the time to work for their goals on this game, dont have to work much, or r able to play and work at the same time. The only other option is to donate, or wait a year and hope they can save up enough money playing for a relayer or something of equal value.
One must keep in mind that this is an old game, and most ppl play it because of how deep it is. However, with newer games out there, you have to compete with other games, and lets face it, better graphics, and being overall "new", seem to dominate the new generation of gamers. If most of the good things are out of reach, especially if its going to take u a year while u work most of the time, how many people are we appealing to at that point then.
Not sure there is a good answer to this question because of how many factors play in, and once u have all the really good stuff, r u going to stick around for another couple of years? Most of the people that were high and powerful seem to have left the shard, whether any of these factors played a role or not, i have no idea. But without goals to work towards, it does take away from the game.
I think the more important issue is to balance crafting, its really not worth the time put in to continue to craft. Now if crafting yielded other ps's, such as fighting ps's, or even ointments, u would probably see more interest in it. As of right now, i think its a huge waste of time, unless u love crafting, b/c u can easily make much much more money hunting.

[Asmodean]

It is a hard subject no doubt, however, how many ppl have stuck around for years. Once that goal is finally accomplished and ur able to save up enough to purchase that item, that one item, r u really willing to wait another year to get one more good item.

This is why things selling for their fair market value is better than things selling for much less than they are worth. If my suggestion was implemented, the 110 and 115 power scrolls would not only have a use, they would also be removed from the game nearly as quickly as coming into it. I was doing champs in my first week here i think with pets. Not the most efficient, but I was earning gold, and power scrolls. Its not difficult to do. If these have value, it helps reinforce the fact that you can do things early on, and make money, to earn your <whatever fits your play style>. Doesn't matter if you do champs to pay for a relayer, deco, or a 6th pet slot, you are earning it.

Yes, people DO work, and DO have lives outside UO, which is why it's important for things to sell for what they are worth. Cheap is great, but but if you have to sell 20x or 100x as many of <something you enjoy doing> to get <something you want> is it worth it?

We need some ITEM sinks, to go along with the gold sinks, or everything just becomes more and more worthless the more that exists. If there are profitable ways to remove items from the game, they can retain their long term value, and players have more viable options for earning wealth. Not everyone wants to hunt balrons 24/7, or <insert money making thing here>. The more options available, the better - as long as there is a balance.

[FunkSlaveTrade]

not saying its all bad idea, the lower end scrolls do seem kinda worthless, but u can up them as well. im not exactly good in my opinion of explaining what i mean so ima leave this one alone.

[Larsa]

For the Powerscrolls I would like to see that from a certain time forward players will need to use a 110ps before a 115ps, and a 115ps before a 120ps. This will give some value to the lower ps's. Also, if we intend to keep the ps scroll bag we should double the amount of ps's needed to exchange it for a higher level one. Example.. instead of 5 x 115, bump it to 10 x 115 for 1 x 120.

Tis is my 2 cents...

[Ilsanor]

Don't really have the time to write a long post so just a few comments:
Reducing the number of powerscrolls would be dead easy with increasing the timer on champs spawns. Make them on a 8, 12 or heck, even 24h timer. This would cut the amount of powerscrolls available and thus increase the price.
The "110 before 115 before 120" would be nice, getting rid of the useless lower scrolls. It would also help if the PS bags had greater availability and required *any* greater gem, not diamond specific. It'd make using a PS bag to uptier scrolls a little more affordable.
Increasing the number of scrolls required would have a counter intuitive effect - less people would uptier scrolls since it'd take literally hundreds of 110's to get a single (random!) 120.

[Asmodean]

Great idea Larsa.

Ilsanor, I would like to agree with you also but... . It would have to be at least 2x a day because of time zone difference i would think. Allowing everyone access to at least participate in everything is awesome.

By forcing people to eat the scrolls in order (110 before 115 before 120) would dry up a lot of the old supply and thus would be an alternative to sucking powerscrolls out of the economy, which i think is good.