Changes to Mining/Lumberjacking veins

[azure]

I played on a shard that was like this before. At first I really liked it, but after about a month it became frustrating trying to fill bods and never having the right ore.

[+Colibri]

I will probably run this poll again in some time, because I've noticed that there's much misinterpretation, for example some understand that it will be changed to a random vein mining, that if you tried to dig a spot for 30 times you'd get all sorts of ores out of it. This is not how it would be.

If you were to map a spot, and you would be the only one to know it, it would provide you with ore for some time, but eventually it would dry out. Combined with the use of forensics, I could also script that you would be able to see when was the last time someone mined that spot, so that you would know if you're the only one at it.

If this would come into effect, the spots would stay the same, but as they are mined out, they would eventually be replaced by others, slowly outdating the rules and maps. A crude method to do that is that they would simply change completely every 3 months, but I'm against such a plain method.

One could still rail-mine and get all sorts of ores, fill their stock and use that for BODs.




Another misconception is that I consider mapping the caves as an exploit. That's also not the case. The exploit is that with the use of the code below, you can very easily find which spots have good ore and which have bad ore.
Someone without the use of this program will have to mine all the caves and mark all the spots individually. While someone who knows how to install this script, will already know exactly where to get any ore they want, in a second. This practically makes looking for ore obsolete, at least for some.



I also saw people telling others for example: "Go to the forum, under polls, and vote no for mining change!". Well that's how democracy works, but I just hope everybody who voted knew what it was about.


Here's the code... I might take an hour or two to write this script and export a part of one map into a .bmp file so that you can see how cool mining can be for someone with the proper coding skills. I think it would be a very good thing, but I don't play here so all I can do is to convince you it's a good thing

Code: Select all

public HarvestVein GetVeinAt( Map map, int x, int y )
		{
			if ( m_Veins.Length == 1 )
				return m_Veins[0];

			Random random = new Random( (x*17)+(y*11)+(map.MapID * 3) );
			double randomValue = random.NextDouble() * 100;

			for ( int i = 0; i < m_Veins.Length; ++i )
			{
				if ( randomValue <= m_Veins[i].VeinChance )
					return m_Veins[i];

				randomValue -= m_Veins[i].VeinChance;
			}

			return null;
		}

[BlaZe]

[quote="+Colibri"]..export a part of one map into a .bmp file so that you can see how cool mining can be for someone with the proper coding skills.[/quote]

.JPG, but.. meh.


If it would mean not changing the system, I'd post all the veins of Sosaria on here. :'(

I just hate to think that the 6+ hours we spent making the hundreds of benches for the runebook 'stacks' (and the week or so of testing the script) will all be in vein.

..no pun intended.

[lancelot]

And this is why I am taking a VERY long (possibly permanent) leave from the shard. The changes are only beginning, and they are not making the game more enjoyable.

[+Colibri]

The felucca recalling + functionality of the summoning ball, and the mining problem, are the only two big changes that have come up. The felucca thing was on my plate since around June 09, and this mining thing for a month or two now. Due to the response I got with the felucca change, i've made a poll about the mining to see what's the favor of the players.


This is *not* the start of a great shard reformatting, as these two issues might have indicated.
Besides the felucca recall, and mining change, there's nothing else on my list but bug fixes and minor additions

And well also a ton of ideas from the forums, but I don't know when we'll get to that.

If there's a need for any larger change, I will post a poll about it. It will stir up a ton of comments, and complaints, but I believe the majority of the votes will be against any change, so there's nothing to worry about.

[Penny]

If it went to random veins, I might actually get back to mining :)

Right now it's just plain boring doing the same macro over and over, so I buy my ingots,
for example, 30k gold for 1k gold ingots isn't that much, less tedious to kill a few balrons
than mining the ore.

I wish people would see the good sides of this..

[Orbit Storm]

There are good and bad sides to the whole situation, just like any change a shard undergoes..

The thing of it is.. only more harm than good can come of this whole hoorah..

Lets look at what BlaZe posted about.. there are people who have invested countless DAYS.. and WEEKS getting these spots marked, and then HOURS just to set up some sort of rune library.. making this change may not make these runes useless immediately, but as Colibri stated, it would in effect, make them useless over time.

I see where Colibri is trying to prevent the exploit. But the simple fact of the matter is, is that it all boils down to the inability of staff to discern who is exploiting and who isn't. But really, if you watch someone's toon close enough, you'll quickly realize the difference between a script and someone actually mining legitimately. I don't know many people who'd want to watch a script run over and over.. so why not just ban usage of scripts for resource gathering all together? Change the skill gains on resource related skills so that no complaints are made about how long it takes..

I mean.. afk resource gathering is against the rules.. thus the afk captcha script... use of a script doesn't get you around that, but still.. theres other ways..

Just like there are a number of other ways staff could handle this.. Just up and changing the script because staff isn't on enough to be able to check in on suspected exploiters, just doesn't make sense..

I'm not trying to sound disrespectful.. but most of these new changes being brought about all boil down to one thing: staff being "laissez faire"... hands off..

Hire people who can be available at the hours the rest of the shard is.. before changing a script that players have grown accustomed to, and invested a crap load of time into..

I vote no..

[+Colibri]

Well the shard is a member of the SACTS consortium, Shards against carpal-tunnel syndrome When it comes to mining ore by hand, any larger amount of mining cant be done without a macro. So i wouldn't make macros illegal. And it's also possible to just have a macro and set it to play very slowly, so that it appears as if you're mining by hand.

[Rune]

i actuly dont like to go mine or lumbering but i have to vote NO to this simple because

i dont like changes that punish peoples hard work ,i could understand it if said spots were kept private but fact is they arent and several ppl make their spots public or even loan new ppl their books to copy

saying yes to this is like saying yes to a kick in the famely jewels :P

[Penny]

Well miners certainly aren't getting the pay they deserve for their work, they cant raise the ingot
prices because then people would just go mine the 500 ingots themselves, since it is so easy: just need
a runebook and play a script.

As I said before, this change would make mining a profession, plus with the other things coli mentioned,
mining might be fun: Go hunting for veins, if you find a plat vein, mark a rune there and mine it while it
lasts. I like the forensics idea :)

Right now it's all so easy that it's plain boring. Sure plat would become much much more rare, but isn't
that the way it's supposed to be? Now only ingots worth crafting with are plat and gold.. And what is
the value of platinum platemail armor? About zero?

I too spent days making those runebooks, and wrote a couple thousand lines of script for runebook mining.
I'll gladly throw them away, if it means helping the shard economy grow.

[Rune]

i see what you mean Penny but i think making veins/wood spawn randomly will only make more ppl make scripts because it will be hard(nearly impossible )to find what you need)
i see this as being good mining/lumbering buisness but same time many that like mining/lumbering will also dislike it alot

[Penny]

Since one vein would have 500 of the said ore, it's not so bad as totally random.

And harder to mine means that the ingot prices go up and miners get the pay
they deserve. Which is faster to get now, 3 oints or 1000 gold ingots? 'cause they
cost the same..

[amadman]

The more i think about this the more i like the sound of it.

It does makes sense that veins would run out after being heavily mined. I like the idea of it having a limited amount of ore in a vein. But not the idea of a random or timed ore change.

More people would actually have to do the work themselves to find their spots. Not that many people are giving out their plat locations now :)

It would give even more reason to go to the out of the way mines. Since they would change less often than the popular mines.

The changes would actually require you to continue actively seeking out new spots(which to me is part of the appeal of mining). While still allowing you to spot mine the nonemptied veins you have found.

So yeah... it would be a pain losing our known spots. But alot of the fun was finding them. Actually mining them is work :)

[amadman]

Oh.. and if this was to happen then it would be nice if it could start off with all the spots starting the same as they are now.

That way all of the known spots would gradually empty at their own pace instead of all in one fell swoop.

[Tael]

I've sold many millions of ingots on this shard, so I'm very familiar with mining -- and the funny thing is that when I first came here, the easiest thing for me would've been random ore since my euo script was already set up for that -- but I voted no on changing to random. I think mining should include a rite of passage that requires you to go out and find the ore spots. The solid, right-minded newbies should be given the option to play this way, to carve their own path through sweat and discovery, which is satisfying.

I don't think most people will care that there is some obscure way to know where particular ore is found. I for one couldn't care less. Finding where the ore is located will only take you a few days, anyway, if you're competent enough to map ore spots. Less if you join a guild that offers you a rune library for mining. The real trick of high-volume mining, as everyone should know, is putting in the time.

An exploit that shows resource spots is nothing much, really. An exploit that gives you ingots without costing you time and effort, on the other hand, would be something -- but that's not what we're talking about.

So I think this is a non-issue, and I'm not in favor of changing to random ore.