Excelsior

Why has there not been a post on the last 2 patches? Also a guild mate lost a bio (forgot to feed and went wild) and was informed there was a change in the rule about retrieving them 2 weeks ago. Used to be able to get a bio back once without charge, now it costs 100 ED to get a bio back even though it is the first time to lose? Why aren't we being informed as to what changes are taking place anymore? Is it the thought process we can't complain about changes if we don't know what they are? If that is the reason, it's sad. I know I'm not alone in thinking us mere players should have at least a chance to voice our opinions on some of the changes that take place. Even though I know it's not a democracy and Coli always has the ultimate say in all changes, but still... tyranny has never gone over well in history. I don't see why it would in a pixel world either.

Another new thing... Oaks still spawns once per week; even though there is 3 of them now, only one drops the skull. but the Harrower drops half the gold. What the hell? That is another change that makes no sense. WTG!!!!

I had noticed that as well....the oaks thing was loosely posted about in global chat but one of the players had to pull it out of the logs to post it here for others to see (I think it was Lust?).

I don't know, I mean, I love this server, but I definitely have seen some trends lately with regards to changes. I know there is a huge disparity in the amount of gold holdings between new players and vets now, but I don't think these changes are helping much. The reason being that the changes (aside from Oaks, which is more of a vet thing anyway) affect everyone, not just the vets, and newbies still have the same starting stats and equipment. I can't imagine that it is as easy for a newbie to get started these days as it was for me back when. PS prices have more than doubled in the last year, and with more and more new players there is more and more demand for them. GoC prices went through the roof with the new changes, and there is no way a newbie is going to be able to kill Paroxysmus, Ice Wyrm, or even Netopir, so we can't say they should make their own to avoid spending the money. I understand that Coli is trying to reduce the inflation of the economy....but what we (am I old enough yet to be called a vet? if not THEY) need as vets is something to sink our money into that appeals to us. Deco is great, and if we had auctions every coule of weeks that might solve the problem, but there are large amounts of time between them for people to generate more gold.

Removing the ways for all players to earn gold will not solve the problem. Finding ways to suck gold out of the richest people...that will. I'm not saying taxes, because then it would be too much like the real world...but...there's gotta be something. The raffle stones I think have been pretty successful when a good item is up there. I don't know the numbers, not being staff, but I imagine each good raffle (house sink, mountain house, etc) has generated a huge amount of ticket sales. Maybe instead of the casino with horrible odds, or in addition to it, we could have an item casino where people could go play slots or what-have-you for EDs, the new service deeds the staff has been diligently programming, and other stuff (deco?). Veritas' new equips have been selling for pretty high prices, but honestly I'm not sure how much of them are worth what they're going for and I think the price will drop as more people go to that dungeon and get them. But yeah....this is just my thoughts on the matter. As always, feel free to take them with several grains of salt...even though I prefer hot peppers

Some things I would choose as my highest gripes, for the record...

1. PS changes. My guild pooled a large amount of money to buy a PS bag, and immediately after it it became twice as hard to get PSs. I mean, it doesn't negate the fact that we have a PS bag, but it kind of defeats the purpose of getting it (to make the money back plus more).

2. Mage Quest Shield. I heard from a little fairy that the Arcanist's Protection used to come with Spell Channeling (which makes sense, since it's a mage quest). Now it comes with Mage Armor, which is completely pointless on a shield, and which requires me to pay ED to get a channeling deed. That doesn't make any sense whatsoever to me.

3. Oaks changes. While I do appreciate the changes to avoid having the same guild get the skull every week, I think the staff should also have reduced the spawn time on Oaks. Right before the staff took him offline for a while, I had finally narrowed down his spawn time so I would have a shot at getting a skull next time. With the new changes, even if I know when he spawns, there's still a smaller chance of me getting the skull. Before the chance was 1 in X where X = How many people are there. Now it's 1/3 in X, with X = How many people are at my spawn. So my chance was reduced by 66%. I think he should be on a two- to three-day timer.

4. GoC changes. I had never had the ability to do GoC bosses until recently, because I didn't have the equips/pets. These changes were put in place months ago to stop the declining value of GoCs, and while I totally have no problem with individual Gems being account restricted (Gem of Blight, Gem of Sanc, etc), I don't like that I now have to take over three weeks to build a GoC myself. It's a challenge to do it even if there is no time restriction. You have to camp the bosses, sometimes killing them many times to get the items, and that already takes a lot of time. I don't see the need for this part of the change to have been implemented. I also heard that in the future possibly all items except the GoC itself will be restricted. If that happens, I don't see how the price of the GoC won't hit 20 million or more. Moreover, it will mean the loss of another way for newbies to make money. Any newbie around a month of age can take some mules or what-have-you into Sanc and farm up some magic stones or spanish doubloons and sell them for good money to people who don't want to sit there and camp the monsters for them.

Once again, just my two cents. So that's four cents total.

just wanna start by saying i agree 100%

BUT

in regards tot he mage inqusistion quest...my understanding is that its not intended for newbies and its intended to be hard, needless to say i didnt even attempt it till i was at least 2 months old (and even then because i had gatherd the necasery skills and stats to 'not loose my cool' when i died)

heck when i first started (mearly 129 days ago) i farmed the living hell outa that rat quest and earned about 2 mill in oints, i think the biggest problem for people joining now is learning how to pace yourself, know that you cant do everything at once, and things take time (including the stability of the econemy)

anyway i digress, calans point is bang on, if there are changs, how are we supposta know about them (for example, custom house placments are no longer part of the donation rewards anymore)

thats my oppinion, take it or leave it. but please dont flame me (lol) its just an oppinion!

Kaiana wrote:Some things I would choose as my highest gripes, for the record...

1. PS changes. My guild pooled a large amount of money to buy a PS bag, and immediately after it it became twice as hard to get PSs. I mean, it doesn't negate the fact that we have a PS bag, but it kind of defeats the purpose of getting it (to make the money back plus more).

I agree. We pay millions(16 million on my part) for them. Only to be rewarded for it by lessening the amount of PS we get from a champ to utilize the PS bag.

Kaiana wrote: 2. Mage Quest Shield. I heard from a little fairy that the Arcanist's Protection used to come with Spell Channeling (which makes sense, since it's a mage quest). Now it comes with Mage Armor, which is completely pointless on a shield, and which requires me to pay ED to get a channeling deed. That doesn't make any sense whatsoever to me.

The shield did use to come with SC. For some reason it was decided that the "Arcanist Protection" from the "Mage Inquisition" quest wasn't meant to have spell channeling. Although they did decide SC could be added with buying the deed with ED and paging staff (you can't add it alone with the SC deed). I think it was just another way to get people to spend ED.

Kaiana wrote: 3. Oaks changes. While I do appreciate the changes to avoid having the same guild get the skull every week, I think the staff should also have reduced the spawn time on Oaks. Right before the staff took him offline for a while, I had finally narrowed down his spawn time so I would have a shot at getting a skull next time. With the new changes, even if I know when he spawns, there's still a smaller chance of me getting the skull. Before the chance was 1 in X where X = How many people are there. Now it's 1/3 in X, with X = How many people are at my spawn. So my chance was reduced by 66%. I think he should be on a two- to three-day timer.

While I also appreciate having Oaks back... I think the current system only leaves doubt to which one gives the skull and thus leaves it open for liars and cheats to "Steal" the skull when more than 1 guild is present at any of the 3 spawns. I would have rather seen 20 possible alters in the Fel lost lands that would randomly spawn Oaks. I think there would be a lesser chance that more than 1 guild would find it and it would be all but impossible for 1 guild to dominate Oaks.

Kaiana wrote: 4. GoC changes. I had never had the ability to do GoC bosses until recently, because I didn't have the equips/pets. These changes were put in place months ago to stop the declining value of GoCs, and while I totally have no problem with individual Gems being account restricted (Gem of Blight, Gem of Sanc, etc), I don't like that I now have to take over three weeks to build a GoC myself. It's a challenge to do it even if there is no time restriction. You have to camp the bosses, sometimes killing them many times to get the items, and that already takes a lot of time. I don't see the need for this part of the change to have been implemented. I also heard that in the future possibly all items except the GoC itself will be restricted. If that happens, I don't see how the price of the GoC won't hit 20 million or more. Moreover, it will mean the loss of another way for newbies to make money. Any newbie around a month of age can take some mules or what-have-you into Sanc and farm up some magic stones or spanish doubloons and sell them for good money to people who don't want to sit there and camp the monsters for them.

While I think the sentiment was correct on it, the implementation was off. I was hoping for a change that would prevent people from camping the bottlenecks; preventing people from completing the quest. Rather it is a delay on people completing the quest, raising the cost of the GoC and still allowing people that camp the bottlenecks to make nice profit off killing 1 creature of the total quest. Why are the individual pieces allowed to be sold when the smaller gems aren't?

So to recap... You have to kill the monsters for each item, with some of their crappy drop rates, while competing with the campers at the bottlenecks, only to deal with a 3 day turn in rate per collector... Is any thought given to these changes? Or is this just done on a whim?

I just want to say, i completely agree with what calan stated. I beleive the player base should be informed of changes being made so we know and understand what is going on when we play. I beleive that a good way to productively make changes would be to get a player based opinion on the change or changes that administration wants to make so that admins will have a good idea on what we would like and possibly inter-mingle the ideas of players and theyre own together for an affective and subtle change, so theres none of this going on between players or staff hehe Thats all ive got to say on this topic.

the wiki says there is a player council...i'v not seen any evedence of such a collaboration ingame.

I would image such a group of (not neccaseraly long standing vets) experienced people with the players in mind would be good to relay possible changes and their possible effects on the players to the staff.

I don't believe there is a Player council like the wiki/codex says. If there is I want to know who the top dog is. I have more to say but I can't think of it now

Calan Caitin wrote: While I also appreciate having Oaks back... I think the current system only leaves doubt to which one gives the skull and thus leaves it open for liars and cheats to "Steal" the skull when more than 1 guild is present at any of the 3 spawns. I would have rather seen 20 possible alters in the Fel lost lands that would randomly spawn Oaks. I think there would be a lesser chance that more than 1 guild would find it and it would be all but impossible for 1 guild to dominate Oaks.

Yeah, I agree with you there. The second time Oaks spawned after being put back in, I showed up at one of the locations and helped some people kill it. Whether by not knowing or by intention, after the champ was downed I was told that the skull drops into your pack, which I later found out to be false. Which means the person telling me that could have nabbed the skull and just lied about it. I think it SHOULD fall directly into one participant's pack, because people will definitely lie to get ahead, and when everyone rushes the corpse with their looters turned on there is no way to tell who got the skull or if they're being honest about it. Most players would agree that if a skull drops, all participating parties should get to roll for it. If someone nabs it super quickly with their looter and lies about it, that's not really fair. It's just a revisitation to the old ways of one guild camping the spawn and telling no one when it was up so that no one else would have a chance.

Your idea is nice too, but really they could easily fix the problem by making the skull drop randomly directly to someone's pack. Oh, and making it a two- to three-day spawn.

First of all, i will lock this thread. And i will also reply to the questions when i get to it. I just can't take another "all the things that are wrong with everything".

Replies in order that questions were posted:

1. I haven't yet got to posting the changes but I have a raw list of changes (so I don't forget) that were made in the past which will be posted.

2. Biopets need to be fed, or they run away. For some time there was a suspicion that biopets somehow unstable themselves, but in all the cases that such thing happened there was no indication that this is true. So the free bio retrieval was a temporary thing, there were cases where I didn't have time to investigate so i considered that it really did poof and so I made a free retrieval to make it faster. Since there was a month or two without any reports of a bio poofing, and since there's no indication that this is a bug, I have suspended this temporary thing. I think this is a very minor thing, so i didn't post since this was a temporary thing.
In the case of your friend, the bio was not fed, and it went wild. I didn't personally come there and make it wild, nor was it a server error.

3. When i was placing oaks i forgot to turn up the frequency, i have just done that now. And at the time of implementing the triple-champ system we were aware that skull stealing might occur, but wasn't scripted at the time. I have scripted that and it will be in the next patch. A random participant will be chosen and will get the skull in their pack. And all of the participants will get a message about who that was. But the skull then belongs to the person that got it (theoretically skull should be diced for, basically the server now dices about who will get and keep the skull).

4. Gold issues.
The main problem here is that, if you want to buy something... well you gather the gold and you then buy it. But as more and more people do this, just gold is created. But the resources still need to be gathered... So as everyone just gathers gold, that just makes more gold in the game. We do our best to sink but while there's so much gold being farmed, this problem will remain (to a lesser extend though due to auctions and raffles, also the deco room and other sinks).
Also don't forget that a game economy is a lot different from the RL world economy. Here money pretty much grows on trees. If in RL, you had an option to either work a regular job for a regular pay (or even a good pay), or an option to squash cockroaches and get $1 for each, then hey you go somewhere with lots of cockroaches (i hear they breed quickly) and you squash 500 a day using a big shoe, and that's it. But if everyone did that, there'd just be a whole lot of gold but there's still the same amount of crops being grown. A loaf of bread would cost $100. And even those who do the things that keep our civilization going wouldn't be able to live on their salary, even if it was a good one, and would start to farm cockroaches to get the money so they could buy things at the enormous prices. Then this god dude would decide you can only get $0.10 from each cockroach, and that they would breed half as fast (reducing the income by x20). It would be a bumpy ride but soon a loaf of bread would go down to $5. (The good thing in the game though is that nobody starves).

5. GoC quest changes. These items were meant as the pretty much best gear you can get, and not something you could trade in wholesale. It's sort of equivalent to a biopet, or a level 100 weapon. The idea was that, after going at it for a few weeks, you would finally be able to obtain this very nice piece of armor.
The problem was that a few players were finishing the quest and getting a GoC about every 1-2 days. I don't really mind that they were able to earn lots with that, the problem was that there's so many of these being generated.

6. The arcanist shield is intended to come with SC, and if you have used a SC deed on it you will be refunded 100ed, this is not yet coded.

7. The council didn't work at the time, well maybe with a larger playerbase it would be different. Nobody was even interested until the elections were announced, and then everyone wanted in. The existing council members were very selective about who they'll let in or not, which is actually how it should work, but it worked too well and very few made in. As for the actual operations, i think there was a proposal being put together but it didn't get to my desk. So there was something going on but based on how it worked, I don't think it's really a solution.

8. In retrospect, the powerscroll bag was a huge mistake. A new element added into the game, making 120 powerscrolls much more abundant, more than they were meant to. So a countermeasure was required. Kaiana i'm sorry that this went in soon after you got yours.

9. Tyranny... the problem here is that there's numerous problems, some more important and some not as much. Also a particular problem might seem very important to one player, but not important to another. Let's take for example, should the imprisoned pets be nerfed? Those that have them, will say "no, what an outrage". Those that don't have the money to buy them, will say "yes definitely we're struggling behind while those vets can kill everything uber fast". If we go by the popular vote on this issue, who knows if the game will actually get better.
Then for each problem, there's also numerous solutions. When 5 of us staffers were discussing the Oaks champ problem, we didn't even intend to brainstorm and already 10 different solutions came up.
- The problem of having hundreds of people to make a decision is that it will just be a big mess and nothing will get decided.
- The problem of having a small group of players or even a single player to decide, is that you don't know if they're not just approving the things they will benefit from.
- The problem of having one person to decide, is that well there's just a whole bunch of stuff going on every day so it's overwhelming. And that I don't get to play much so I don't know everything that I should know, though we the staff consult each other, and when it comes to making a decision it's at least an informed one.

(10. sorta). The way I see it... There was suspicion of a bug. Although I have already proven on numerous occasions that objects in the game don't just disappear without a reason (many of these throughral investigations took an afternoon or the better part of a day), I went to dig deeper with this, and temporarily made it so that biopets are returned. This temporary thing wen't on for a long time, but is finally over. Then because someone didn't feed their pet, this thread emerged, and within a few hours it grew to 9 different issues.
If instead of locking the thread, I would go start writing a reply, by the time i press Submit here there'd be 5 new posts with new opinions, views, solutions, also suggestions and so on. I don't see anything coming out of this.




P.S.: It's a game. It's intended so that you can have a relaxing few hours during your free time (or at work ). If this game is stressful to anyone, they should take a few days off, either try a different game or simply spending time with family or friends. I suggest the latter, it's much more therapeutic.

Other thread here:
http://www.uoex.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=17550#p17550