Good news everyone! I've discovered how to repair our shattered economy!
So monster hunting is worthless, gold isn't worth looting, everything costs ridiculous amounts, blah blah blah, I don't really need to make this case in a game with a separate currency for billions, do I? Right, so what do we do about it? We're past the point where gold sinks will make any real difference, unless you want to put up a vendor with one-of-a-kind rares for like 1k platinum or something gonzo like that, which actually sounds like a good idea to me. Anyway, that's not what this is about.
Okay so here's what we do.
We add the totally optional option to optionally display your money in the form of a new currency. I'll call it doubloons right now, but in reality it should be called something better. Anyway, a doubloon is worth 1000 gold. So if the "display as doubloons" box is checked or whatever...
100,867,325g
Becomes...
100,867d (325g)
Basically you have 100k and the gold is just pocket change.
"Dude how is this actually helping anything?"
Hold on, hold on, I'm getting there. Okay so we let people get used to this for a while, right? We make it show doubloons by default and just let people opt out. Now here's where it gets crazy. You're gonna want to crap your pants, but stay with me, okay?
All right, so once everyone is used to this, we make monsters drop doubloons instead of gold. If a mongbat used to drop 30 gold, now it drops 30 doubloons. Stuff like that.
"You want to make mongbats drop the equivalent of 30k each? Are you insane? That's like the opposite of helping!"
No but see we also make all the NPC vendors take an equal amount of doubloons instead of gold too. Why? Because look, if you just divided everyone's gold by a factor of 1000 it would accomplish the same thing, but everyone would riot and then quit the game. This is all a psychological ruse. Instead of making everyone's money smaller, we just make everything else bigger. The whole doubloon thing is just an excuse to chop a bunch of pointless zeroes off of all the numbers and keep us all from going overweight the first time we loot anything.
Think about it. Your purchasing power relative to other players hasn't changed. Nothing about the player-to-player economy has actually changed. A rare that used to cost 100m gold now costs 100k doubloons. You can uncheck a box and still see all your gold if you want and you really like superfluous zeroes.
The only real difference is now someone who kills monsters has an actual chance to catch up to the guy who's been sitting on a pile of billions of gold for years. Now "millionaires" are actually rich. And gold sellers? They completely take it in the rump. Their existing currency stocks are worth less than ever compared to monster hunting, and now there are no checks to dupe to build a new stock.
TLDR: Instead of de-bigulating everyone's money, we re-bigulate prices and loot so that the money is smaller in comparison.
Okay so here's what we do.
We add the totally optional option to optionally display your money in the form of a new currency. I'll call it doubloons right now, but in reality it should be called something better. Anyway, a doubloon is worth 1000 gold. So if the "display as doubloons" box is checked or whatever...
100,867,325g
Becomes...
100,867d (325g)
Basically you have 100k and the gold is just pocket change.
"Dude how is this actually helping anything?"
Hold on, hold on, I'm getting there. Okay so we let people get used to this for a while, right? We make it show doubloons by default and just let people opt out. Now here's where it gets crazy. You're gonna want to crap your pants, but stay with me, okay?
All right, so once everyone is used to this, we make monsters drop doubloons instead of gold. If a mongbat used to drop 30 gold, now it drops 30 doubloons. Stuff like that.
"You want to make mongbats drop the equivalent of 30k each? Are you insane? That's like the opposite of helping!"
No but see we also make all the NPC vendors take an equal amount of doubloons instead of gold too. Why? Because look, if you just divided everyone's gold by a factor of 1000 it would accomplish the same thing, but everyone would riot and then quit the game. This is all a psychological ruse. Instead of making everyone's money smaller, we just make everything else bigger. The whole doubloon thing is just an excuse to chop a bunch of pointless zeroes off of all the numbers and keep us all from going overweight the first time we loot anything.
Think about it. Your purchasing power relative to other players hasn't changed. Nothing about the player-to-player economy has actually changed. A rare that used to cost 100m gold now costs 100k doubloons. You can uncheck a box and still see all your gold if you want and you really like superfluous zeroes.
The only real difference is now someone who kills monsters has an actual chance to catch up to the guy who's been sitting on a pile of billions of gold for years. Now "millionaires" are actually rich. And gold sellers? They completely take it in the rump. Their existing currency stocks are worth less than ever compared to monster hunting, and now there are no checks to dupe to build a new stock.
TLDR: Instead of de-bigulating everyone's money, we re-bigulate prices and loot so that the money is smaller in comparison.
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
But I do like the idea of a middle currency between gold and platinum, like how Warcraft has copper/silver/gold. I mean right now we have two demoninations, a one dollar bill and a billion dollar bill, you know?
I'm not as rich as many because I play the game mostly, and don't attempt to gain gold so much, but I have everything I'd ever need. I would also like parts of the game to have more meaning, crafting, gathering, etc. I also don't mind if we all restart from the beginning, and give new players an even playing field.
I'm not convinced by this idea to be honest.
I personally have found Siege Perilous a great place to play (the economy is not broken there), it helps keep me sane for when I play on Production. I now enjoy playing in 2 versions of UO. Today I got an event drop, and 2 first aid belts on Europa, tomorrow I'll farm bandages on Siege, or items to unravel to train Imbuing, where it feels like my hunts have meaning, so I get fulfilment.
Other suggestions of mine, take or leave them, I understand that many are contentious (but I believe in them), some may not be so much.
1. Take all Loot out of Trammel rulesets, there is no risk v reward there, no inbuilt game checks or balances. For example, I've been doing Khaldun farming in Felucca, and got myself PK'd enough times (have to wear weak pvm gear to farm, so I die...). Trammel should be a Housing, Crafting, Socialising place only. OR.
2. Do a complete gold and resources wipe - start again. And put Resources on a 1 Month Timer, so you cannot stockpile forever. OR.
3. Completely change the whole currency unit, and resource units to start again. OR
4. Fix Duping - this seems to be where much of it is happening (past and present). It appears for so long they ignored this - at the games peril, I don't know if they can physically fix this, or if they just ignored it, but it has destroyed so much. I do think the Devs have really stepped up their game in recent months to combat such activities, and the release of figures against Duping, Scripting, and Multi-Boxing have actively deterred many players to the point we really don't see so much ingame right now, as players are more wary. OR.
5. Fix Scripting. Again Scripting for resources has not helped, it created huge stockpiles that made most gathering styles pointless. Again one of my suggestions for fixing scripting, was to take everything out of Trammel, and put it in Felucca only, scripters can be PK'd in Felucca. OR;
6. Create a Massive Gold Sink. Find something that is really useful ingame, that players would really want, but is not game unbalancing. Price it at 10 Platinum from an NPC. {Maybe a Tool of Armour Style customisation for 1 account only}. Any item that is useful, desired, but cannot affect the game, that can be shown or used as a Vanity item also. 10 Plat these days, is like 10 million in the old days, when Ornament of the Magician was the must have item we saved up for. I don't have 10 Plat, many do, but I could save for it if I really wanted it. Burn this gold out of the game. OR;
7. Create new Crafting Items, with new resources, that haven't been duped yet. My problem with this, is this means Devs have to keep creating new stuff, and old stuff becomes obsolete, I hate that, I wish they could fix and enhance what we have. OR;
8. Get rid of IDOCS. When an account and house goes down - take all those items out of the game. I believe most damage is done, when Dupers houses go down, and all those items find their way into the economy. OR.
9. Just Devalue the Currency. Divide all gold amounts in accounts by 1,000.
Any other ideas welcome.
That would stimulate a lot of things.
Put a progressive sales tax system in place. Before any NPC or private transaction completes check the balances of each party. The richer you are the more tax you pay.
Or, people just continue to play the game as they want. Either way, I'm glad UO exists and I can get my go do stuff in a fantasy world after I get off work, and try to explain this to co workers the next day and get laughed at.
Given that premise I would suggest
- Gold from "Boss Monster" encounters be removed or cut way back. Make doing them about possible getting top items. If I'm trying for Hawkwind's Robe or that Legendary Arti. I need, the gold is just a bonus that is hurting the game. And yes I am saying do away with the gold shower at the end.
- Encounters that do give gold should be scaled to the difficulty for that player. A new player with a 50 point swordsman should get a lot more gold for a given encounter then my legendary one. As a mater of fact I think an encounter that I have no chance of losing should not generate any gold. Think swatting mongbats.
- If point 2 is possible, how about separate and appropriately themed top encounters for just gold? That would make it possible to still quickly generate gold for that special purchase but give the developers tighter control and warning about the influx of gold. If too much gold is flowing into the game the encounter is not available.
I would be willing to bet that with Khal Ankur going almost constantly this month more gold has been enter into the game then has been duped in the last year. I'm guessing at least a quarter million each round just in the gold fountain at the end.As for the suggestion that all reward encounters be moved to Fel. NO. If I and apparently the majority of players wanted to play PVP we would. Any attempt to ... oh hell just read any of the other thread about this fight.
People do not build up Platinums from Mob gold. The above will solve nothing.
The 140K from Boss drops is a microscopic amount.
If you don't like gold....
Give it away give it away give it away now
Give it away give it away give it away now
Greedy little people in a sea of distress
Keep your more to receive your less
Unimpressed by material excess
Love is free love me say hell yes
I know you and many players don't like this suggestion, but this is how the Universe has been maintaining balance for billions of years.
In nature there is a natural order, a cycle, there is balance, life and death.
There is always a problem when an apex predator gets so powerful it is unopposed. It breeds and swamps its environment, unbalancing and destroying it, which has a feedback loop of destroying the apex predator, then nature papers over the cracks.
Mankind in real life has forgotten this, and we are currently destroying our planet at a billion miles per hour. We are using all the resources, and keeping nothing in balance. Mankind has removed itself so far away from the natural order, we have forgotten that much of our daily food comes from killing things. These attitudes have filtered down to our games, and our thought processes.
We may be living in a sanitized world right now, but if we don't wake up, and fix things, we are in for a rude awakening.
Moving all reward encounters to Fel would be an excellent idea to kill UO for good.
So i vote NO on that one.
I'm doing him an average of 3 times a night at least 3 nights a week
140,000 X 3 X 3 = 1,260,000 a week for one event
for this argument a better number would be 5 times a night 7 days a week
140,000 X 5 X 7 = 4,900,000 almost 5 mill a week from one encounter
So no I don't think its a microscopic amount even using your number of 140k which I think is low. I can also see soon complaints that the gold return isn't keeping up with the rest of the returns and needs to be bumped up. Pumping unlimited money into any system is not good. In real life the amount of money a counterfeiter pumps into the economy is really small potatoes but try telling the judge that. One of my favourite political quotes is A Billion here a Billion there and soon your talking real money.
Also are you saying all those Platinums came from cheats or hacks?
- Only source of Power Scrolls
- Double resources
- Automatic 1000 extra luck so loot is at top end of scale
Still the majority of player don't want to play there.When UO first came out it was Fel only and a total failure. Moving the all the rewards to Fel would kill the game.
I remember it being a complete success, it's funny how so many people have created a perverse and incorrect history.
I bet there were more players then than there are now. I also bet many Vets who come back, come back with a nostalgic memory of those times. I also bet that many youngsters today, would prefer the original style - as demonstrated by the popularity of todays PvP games. You guys have just got too old, comfortable and sanitized in your outlook on life.
This wasn't really a Tram v Fel thing, I think that was only mentioned in 2 of my 9 suggestions.
Whether you like it or not though, you have to admit the logic is pretty sound for how I got to those points. Those 2 points should always be considered in any reasonable discussion on this topic without everyone going off on a kneejerk reaction. Ultimately, Players would adapt back, and the game, and the players would be better off for it.
Do a vendor search for 120 pet scrolls and see how long it will take to buy a set.
The gold is already in the game. What we pick up is nothing.
5M a week is nothing. I have to pay that much to be a governer it seems. And if you are doing this all the time, why do you not know if 140k is correct? My toon can hold 55K. How do you get the gold to the bank? Nobody else is there? You killed Khal alone?
I do take gold from spawns. You do not get rich from that. You vendor things that are useful to every player. Or you find things that are worth a lot.
Fel/Siege/Tram/Ilsh.. of all of these I'd say Ilsh is my least favorite to deal with. And mostly because paragons. Doesn't matter who or what's killing you to me, I used to get emo about getting flamed in gen chat because I sucked at pvp or whatever else, but I can /ignore those people and just pick it up and roll on.
I can't stand getting smoked like a sausage by a paragon greater dragon while i'm farming barbed hides or whatever and trying to rez and instantly getting pancaked again. then got to go find a wandering healer or navigate a 2nd character down to that spot and get decimated again on that character lol. I suppose if they just left everything alone or whatever or increased loot somewhere I'll still dislike Ilsh the most.I used to like Ilsh.. My tastes change from time to time.
Anyhow back on topic, I think to effectively "straighten" the market out would have to deal with the way gold is generated in the first place, and really look into making non-transferable shards.. This will help whatever segment of pvp'ers start over on that shard too, because people will not be going to farm the scrolls at a champ to take to another server or whatever else. Making"Shard bound" powerscrolls is fine and dandy (should have been done ages ago but didn't know such a thing was possible), but it might be a bit out of hand now no matter what you do, make only paying subscribers able to join those shards, and have an active surveillance of the shard(s) that is 24/7.. basically what should be going on on the already there shards.. but it looks like they are trying to have a more active hand in them now anyhow which is good. I'm sure there's a few people that wouldn't mind a fresh start server that can't be transferred to, or from. Just make it a full fledged Tram/Fel/Islh/Ter Mur/Eodon/whatever else server, with all the normal content that should be considered full prodo with the 1 lone altered rule of no transferring. Best thing I think that will appeal to enough people. The Tram/Fel split has bitter feuding that has been there since it happened and might as well consider that part of the baked in magic of UO.
Else join Siege. That's about as close as it's gonna get to a fel only shard, but I have absolutely no objections to a fel only shard that is as up to date as normal prodo shards. Again, please leave that as a non transfer to or from shard with good surveillance also, monitoring for exploits and hacks so people got no excuse to flame eachother for speed hacking or whatever else. Or just throw the flood gates open and let everybody have access to the same exploits/hacks/dupes. I don't even use them and I can tell you the names of some/maybe most of them because people just blabbing about them in game even in gen chat.
Regardless, still enjoying the fantastical experience that is UO.
Make a tamer and use a 5 slot giant Beetle to kill those. Your word will expand quickly.
The devs said the unwanted PvP was the biggest mistake they made. That caused the largest drop in subscriptions. I guess you think they wouldn't know.
It's what put UO into folklore in gaming terms.
They then chickened out, backed up, and listened to the whining cry-babies - this was the biggest mistake they ever made. Their solution to this was the biggest mistake they ever made.
At the end of the day, game developers are only game developers, they are not psychologists, or economists, they have a limited scope into human nature, and are often learning this part as they go along. They have made big mistakes here, outside of pure game development terms - but, they were also in a new industry in terms of the history of mankind, they cannot completely be blamed. On one hand, who knew that if a bug could be found and exploited, many players would, and some wouldn't - except for example, the bible has been teaching us about the negative sides of human nature for 2,000 years (and how to try and overcome them) - we ultimately have not changed one single bit in 2,000 years, even though we'd like to think we have. (And btw, I'm an agnostic atheist, I'm not religious, but I do refer to the bible for reference to human history and human nature, as it's one of the greatest human works out there).
They destroyed the whole soul of an incredible game they had released. They also created easy-mode, and unbalanced the game itself for the long-term.
And Siege, one of the least populated shards in the game, this is your example? Pretty much every unrestricted PvP games ends up the same: 1) Griefers drive away regular players. 2) Griefers realize it's not nearly as much fun to kill each other; 3) A few die hards remain in an empty world.
Is Richard Garriot still relevant today? Nope. Point made, he lost the plot completely, and does not know what he is talking about. Players need to stop quoting him, he got one thing very right (the largest part possibly by accident), then messed it up. (You didn't quote him specifically, but players keep quoting what he said from back in the day, I thought I'd address it).
You've given me the standard response of a Trammie, that has zero facts, it's completely made up in terms of hypothesis. You are like someone who has been brainwashed by your state media and completely bought it.
Would UO have been dead long ago? We don't know, stop saying that one, you don't know, I don't know, my suggestion is they could have done better than the solution they implemented - which completely unbalanced everything. How can you have 2 facets joined, where one is full risk, and the other is no risk, and the no risk side gets all the rewards pretty much - can even you not see how non-sensical that is? Answer me honestly? In the light of that, was this the best solution possible?
Majority of people do not like to be on the receiving end of that relationship? What those players don't realise, is everyone is on that side of the relationship at some point, including me, just some of us know how to deal with it better, and not take it personally. There are ways around it to minimise being on that end of the relationship, it just requires some thought, planning, and decent gameplay, rather than having mindless easy-mode.
Your paragraph about Siege. I'd like to know the facts, I'd like to say Siege is not one of the least populated, and is up there in the middle, but I don't know the facts. I play Atlantic, Europa, and Siege. The rest seem dead, Siege seems to have more population than Drachenfells, or any of the other American shards, but, I admit, I don't know. But again, it's hard for Siege, it's a bit like Felucca, why will players play the game in normal mode, when they can just be given everything for free? I spent 5 minutes on Europa on Tuesday night, and got myself say 200m gold, I farm 12.5k in 5 minutes on Siege. Which do I get more fulfilment on... but that doesn't seem to matter to many players who just want stuff for free.