Luck Earrings

Kinsess

After this current story arc is over, can we get the Luck earrings as an item for sale in the uostore? High demand you would make a killing.

Fortis

they dont put any items we farm in game on the store and they should continue this way...

Kinsess

Fortis said:

they dont put any items we farm in game on the store and they should continue this way...

Several of the dyes for sale in the uostore could be farmed in game at one time. That’s just off the top of my head. I’m sure there are other items that were available in game before being placed for sale in the uostore. 

Placing the the Luck Earrings for sale in the store makes sense. There aren’t many earring options to begin with. It’s a highly desired item that would generate revenue for the game.

 

Seth

Its highly desirable indeed. So every active player should be hunting for them now. The dev said this event could last until October at least. That is alot of time to hunt and collect extras to sell to others in future. 

MissE

Every time they add an item to the store that SHOULD BE A REWARD IN GAME it is just that one step closer to me closing accounts.  I intend to permanently shut down 2 this month.  I can no longer justify 5 accounts when for the past 6mths  the ONLY new item worth getting that was 'in game' are the earrings on the current event, and even getting them is the worst grind imaginable. 

I am over paying a subscription game where they are nickle and diming you for all the decent deco items.  Have a look at what has been made available in the 'store' and what has been made available in 'game'.  Ya know the thing we pay a subscription for.   I do not consider the 7/8 junk items in this new event to be decent 'deco'.  

Enough is Enough. 

Kinsess

I myself have 5 active accounts even though I only really have time on the weekends to play. It’s not like I haven’t tried getting the Luck Earrings. I have done the quest 53 times( I know this because the deco rewards are placed in a separate bag and it currently reads 53 items) and never got the earrings. I’ve tried melee toons, magic toons, no luck, high luck. Yesterday I did the quest 8 times in a row with a toon that has 2400 luck and still nothing. I’ve gotten every other reward multiple times but not one set of luck earrings. I understand that it’s a rare drop but this is overboard.

Also I would disagree that the luck earrings are the only good in game item that’s has been added. There were some pretty sweet items added to the black market recently. Hook Shield is a must have for mage IMO 

Yoshi

Kinsess said:

I myself have 5 active accounts even though I only really have time on the weekends to play. It’s not like I haven’t tried getting the Luck Earrings. I have done the quest 53 times( I know this because the deco rewards are placed in a separate bag and it currently reads 53 items) and never got the earrings. I’ve tried melee toons, magic toons, no luck, high luck. Yesterday I did the quest 8 times in a row with a toon that has 2400 luck and still nothing. I’ve gotten every other reward multiple times but not one set of luck earrings. I understand that it’s a rare drop but this is overboard.

Also I would disagree that the luck earrings are the only good in game item that’s has been added. There were some pretty sweet items added to the black market recently. Hook Shield is a must have for mage IMO 

"i received an excess of earrings to other rewards, a guildmate done the quest 15 times and didn't get any so i donated a pair to him, perhaps some of your friends have had better luck?"

Arnold7

Seems to be no rhyme or reason as to what is sold in the UO store.  Would like to see an area selling items newer players, that is players that have been playing several years and that don’t have 175 million gold in their accounts, could use.  Instead policy appears to be to promote the the businesses of third party vendors selling those items.  Think at least one was selling the earrings for $80 a set a couple of weeks ago.

Pawain

Arnold7 said:

Seems to be no rhyme or reason as to what is sold in the UO store.  

They do not sell items with properties in the store.

You know you can look at the items and see that.
There is a reason and a rhyme.

We won't get the stats we wanna.
Play to win is against the wishes of Mesanna.

Jepeth

But they do?

The Virtue Shield, Quiver of Infinity, the various Earrings of Protection, etc.

Kinsess

There are literally tons of items for sale in the uo store that have properties. There is established precedent of items once available in game, now for sale in the uo store. If any one was against “pay to win” the uo store wouldn’t exist. The uo store is there for a reason, another revenue stream to keep the game going and profitable. 

I’ve heard players in game and on this forum complaining about the drop rate of the earrings. I’ve done this quest newly 60 times now and never got the one set of the earrings. I’ve put the work in, I’ve slaughtered so many kappa that I’m starting to feel like Anakin at the Tusken Raider camp.  I made a suggestion that once this arc is over to have the Luck earrings for sale in the uo store because I believe the overall player base would support the idea. I also believe the luck earrings in the uo store would be highly profitable for the game. 

loop

Kinsess said:

There are literally tons of items for sale in the uo store that have properties. There is established precedent of items once available in game, now for sale in the uo store. If any one was against “pay to win” the uo store wouldn’t exist. The uo store is there for a reason, another revenue stream to keep the game going and profitable. 

I’ve heard players in game and on this forum complaining about the drop rate of the earrings. I’ve done this quest newly 60 times now and never got the one set of the earrings. I’ve put the work in, I’ve slaughtered so many kappa that I’m starting to feel like Anakin at the Tusken Raider camp.  I made a suggestion that once this arc is over to have the Luck earrings for sale in the uo store because I believe the overall player base would support the idea. I also believe the luck earrings in the uo store would be highly profitable for the game. 

Purchasing from the UO Store doesn't necessarily equate to an endorsement of its unfortunate function as a virtual IKEA. It may provide additional revenue, but it does so at the risk of damaging the integrity of the game and encouraging poor design.

It's setting a precedent, you're right, but it's lazy by design: Instead of introducing items that are well-considered -- that can be obtained via crafting or actual content, for example -- the store circumvents actually playing the game.

Your point about the current quest is valid: The content is not engaging enough to warrant the rarity of the only useful reward. Instead of encouraging the developers to go about the laziest way imaginable of double dipping even more with the store, we can ask ourselves:

1. What content would be engaging enough to encourage players to do over and over again? 
2. If we can't design content that is engaging enough, for lack of resources or whatever, what do the players get as rewards, and how often do they get them?

The first is more nuanced. The second speaks more directly to your interest in the earrings themselves, which could be solved by making the rewards more frequent, more (or even less!) useful, or weighted. This would be more well-considered than just putting items on the store.

Victim_Of_Siege

Jepeth said:

But they do?

The Virtue Shield, Quiver of Infinity, the various Earrings of Protection, etc.

Don't forget the journeyman armor that comes with the Deluxe starter pack.

Kinsess

loop said:

Kinsess said:

There are literally tons of items for sale in the uo store that have properties. There is established precedent of items once available in game, now for sale in the uo store. If any one was against “pay to win” the uo store wouldn’t exist. The uo store is there for a reason, another revenue stream to keep the game going and profitable. 

I’ve heard players in game and on this forum complaining about the drop rate of the earrings. I’ve done this quest newly 60 times now and never got the one set of the earrings. I’ve put the work in, I’ve slaughtered so many kappa that I’m starting to feel like Anakin at the Tusken Raider camp.  I made a suggestion that once this arc is over to have the Luck earrings for sale in the uo store because I believe the overall player base would support the idea. I also believe the luck earrings in the uo store would be highly profitable for the game. 

Purchasing from the UO Store doesn't necessarily equate to an endorsement of its unfortunate function as a virtual IKEA. It may provide additional revenue, but it does so at the risk of damaging the integrity of the game and encouraging poor design.

It's setting a precedent, you're right, but it's lazy by design: Instead of introducing items that are well-considered -- that can be obtained via crafting or actual content, for example -- the store circumvents actually playing the game.

Your point about the current quest is valid: The content is not engaging enough to warrant the rarity of the only useful reward. Instead of encouraging the developers to go about the laziest way imaginable of double dipping even more with the store, we can ask ourselves:

1. What content would be engaging enough to encourage players to do over and over again? 
2. If we can't design content that is engaging enough, for lack of resources or whatever, what do the players get as rewards, and how often do they get them?

The first is more nuanced. The second speaks more directly to your interest in the earrings themselves, which could be solved by making the rewards more frequent, more (or even less!) useful, or weighted. This would be more well-considered than just putting items on the store.

Loop, I agree with every thing you said 100%

If they added the earrings to the black market as a top tier reward, I’d be good with that too

Pawain

DJepeth said:

But they do?

The Virtue Shield, Quiver of Infinity, the various Earrings of Protection, etc.

Quiver of infinity is part of a choice from a token.

I have never seen the shield on someone playing UO unless they are gaining honor or whatever.

Ya you got me on +2 resist earrings.

That is definatly a pay to win item.
Such a hard decision to wear those or the new ones.

Pawain

Now dexxers need earrings. Something with night sight and 10SSI.

Jepeth

Pawain said:

DJepeth said:

But they do?

The Virtue Shield, Quiver of Infinity, the various Earrings of Protection, etc.

Quiver of infinity is part of a choice from a token.

I have never seen the shield on someone playing UO unless they are gaining honor or whatever.

Ya you got me on +2 resist earrings.

That is definatly a pay to win item.
Such a hard decision to wear those or the new ones.

Token or not it still has properties? As do the rest. And as far as the shield goes, look beyond your shard. Besides, it doesn't matter how good the items and their properties are. You said this:

Pawain said:

Arnold7 said:

Seems to be no rhyme or reason as to what is sold in the UO store.  

They do not sell items with properties in the store.

You know you can look at the items and see that.
There is a reason and a rhyme.

We won't get the stats we wanna.
Play to win is against the wishes of Mesanna.

And we've established that's not the case. There is pay-to-win in the UOStore. 

Besides, how are the character tokens themselves not also considered pay-to-win?

Arnold7

With almost all items, except for the shard shields, being available from unlicensed and mostly unidentified third party vendors why does the UO store continue it’s policy of biasing the game against newer players.  There are already items, like the talisman of the fey ninjas use, that can be purchased from in game vendors, third party vendors and the Ultima Store.  Not saying the UO store should sell everything the game creates but that it should sell basic items that allow newer players that are serious about playing the game to be more on par with other players.  

Pawain

 7uuuArnold7 said:

With almost all items, except for the shard shields, being available from unlicensed and mostly unidentified third party vendors why does the UO store continue it’s policy of biasing the game against newer players.  There are already items, like the talisman of the fey ninjas use, that can be purchased from in game vendors, third party vendors and the Ultima Store.  Not saying the UO store should sell everything the game creates but that it should sell basic items that allow newer players that are serious about playing the game to be more on par with other players.  

That would mean selling gold in the store. But there are too many that have multiple plats and many that have just millions.   
If they started selling gold I fear prices would go up insanely.

I don't think selling content rewards in the store is a good idea.

Seth

I still do not see any reason why the earring needs to be added to the UO store after the event ends. Yes it’s highly desirable but you can still buy from others who has better luck and accumulate more than a dozen within less than a month. And there are 4 more months to go at this point.

I am not strongly against it, pls go ahead. But if they do so then I want to ask if they can add all other super hard to get items in the store too? Seriously things like Crimson belt, Blaze Cu Sidhe, Despicable Quiver, specific slayer Cameo, etc. Their chance to get are worse than 1 in 60, even more than 1/200 in some cases. 

Then the talk about “pay to win” according to Wiki:
In general a game is considered pay-to-win when a player can gain any gameplay advantage over their non-paying peers.

I think all of us paid subscribers are already “pay to win” according to that def. but that is meant for free to play, pay to win game system. With so much restrictions for EJ... I don’t want derail this topic with another major discussion.

Before I return to UO for the 3rd time, I was in fact playing mobile games, competing every weekend event for top 10 ranking so as to get rare rewards. In order to win, some players can pay like $125 for some abilities to have a clear edge over other players who did not buy those. That is clearly “pay to win”.

So does the earring or +2 resist give me an edge in EM event for a rare drop. I don’t think so. I cannot see any item in store that really helps me pay to win another non paying player (not paying for this "ability").

The issue for me is not about pay to win, but if the earring can get into the store, I would like to ask for other ingame items as well. I need more Morphius Epaulettes too since they are shard bound and prices are ... priceless or on auction.

MissE

How about we just get RID of the UO store and put all those items that are currently there as permanent content in the game for either boss drops or quest chain collections or whatever.  For the first what,   15 or so years we never had to PAY extra for content.   That is why we pay a subscription.  

As I said above, the fact that all the decent deco, by that I mean the wedding sets and all other 'sets' they have put in are pay only.   Chucking in a bonzai that brings up text when you click it is NOT decent deco.  Not one of those 'new' items in this last chain of events is decent.   They are all just token junk to make it seem like we are getting a reward.   The fact that people want them to stack or to have CLEAN UP POINTS shows exactly how desirable they are.    And yeah there will always be the 'fan' who jumps up and says they are happy with them but frankly you are in the minority.  I have not found a single player who is glad to get a broken power crystal or a flipping silly looking abacus that tells you how to add 4 and 5 together.  What are we 4 year olds?   Now if  you got one 'bit' of those sets so that they were collectible with various bits being rarer than the others it would of been fine, but what we got was just tokenism. 

The second they put stable slot increases into the store it became a downward slope.  A request for that had been around for donkey's years and it should of been standard game content but they saw a way to gouge those who played tamers and they did it. 

Seth

Ref. above, we should ask Dev to provide other means to acquire the item after current event ends. The first place to consider, as a player, should not be the store. 

For example, they brought back the Fellowship Medallion via the Black Market. I have asked for the pumpkin cannons too but was shot down (fine). Let the store be their decision, not our proposal. As an existing paying subscriber, let us play the game to get the item. 

Add: pls don't make it so hard like 1/100 chance...

Another example are those replicas in Blackthorn.

ForeverFun

"Pay-to-win" logic, if being used to water down items like the head-slot transmog potion seem very flawed.

Consider two very obvious examples:

1. The enchantress cameo, one of the best items in game.  You can only equip it if you've paid for time of legends.  There is a raft of other equipment and loot that require the same.
2. The forged metal of artifacts tool - a store item.  This is the only way to get 190+ luck on various items, and the only real way to get SSI50 on items such as archery equipment.

It's possible broadsword has been spooked or is being swayed by various litigation around "lootboxes".  See this link as well as the associated "pay to win" articles.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loot_box

Sometimes it requires some out of box thinking to avoid running into these issues.

Pawain

Ya especially when some cost hundreds of dollars and the gamers are younger than teens.

I do not know how many teens and younger play UO.

Arnold7

I would guess just the ones that play with their parents or grand parents.  Just a guess.  To be honest would guess this game appeals more to adults and more than to teens and preteens.  Some of the games available to younger players are fantastic. This is more of a social game.  Like playing with players closer to my age, but sometimes wish I could still play the game’s  the kids play.

Arnold7

Should read  more to adults than teens and preteens. Sorry.

keven2002

MissE said:

How about we just get RID of the UO store and put all those items that are currently there as permanent content in the game for either boss drops or quest chain collections or whatever.  For the first what,   15 or so years we never had to PAY extra for content.   That is why we pay a subscription.  

As I said above, the fact that all the decent deco, by that I mean the wedding sets and all other 'sets' they have put in are pay only.   Chucking in a bonzai that brings up text when you click it is NOT decent deco.  Not one of those 'new' items in this last chain of events is decent.   They are all just token junk to make it seem like we are getting a reward.   The fact that people want them to stack or to have CLEAN UP POINTS shows exactly how desirable they are.    And yeah there will always be the 'fan' who jumps up and says they are happy with them but frankly you are in the minority.  I have not found a single player who is glad to get a broken power crystal or a flipping silly looking abacus that tells you how to add 4 and 5 together.  What are we 4 year olds?   Now if  you got one 'bit' of those sets so that they were collectible with various bits being rarer than the others it would of been fine, but what we got was just tokenism. 

The second they put stable slot increases into the store it became a downward slope.  A request for that had been around for donkey's years and it should of been standard game content but they saw a way to gouge those who played tamers and they did it. 

I do agree with the first and third part of this where I can remember a time where there wasn't a UO store and everything was fine. That said, it's a revenue source so I don't see it going anywhere. 

The second part about Deco though is going to be purely subjective to each player. I personally have never and will never buy decorations from the store but that's because I want functionality not decoration. I know I'm in the minority there though because I see people post all the time about decorating their homes. To me the new items are just relics to help with the story line; again not my thing but there are plenty of people that like the lore of the game.

MissE

keven2002 said:

MissE said:

How about we just get RID of the UO store and put all those items that are currently there as permanent content in the game for either boss drops or quest chain collections or whatever.  For the first what,   15 or so years we never had to PAY extra for content.   That is why we pay a subscription.  

As I said above, the fact that all the decent deco, by that I mean the wedding sets and all other 'sets' they have put in are pay only.   Chucking in a bonzai that brings up text when you click it is NOT decent deco.  Not one of those 'new' items in this last chain of events is decent.   They are all just token junk to make it seem like we are getting a reward.   The fact that people want them to stack or to have CLEAN UP POINTS shows exactly how desirable they are.    And yeah there will always be the 'fan' who jumps up and says they are happy with them but frankly you are in the minority.  I have not found a single player who is glad to get a broken power crystal or a flipping silly looking abacus that tells you how to add 4 and 5 together.  What are we 4 year olds?   Now if  you got one 'bit' of those sets so that they were collectible with various bits being rarer than the others it would of been fine, but what we got was just tokenism. 

The second they put stable slot increases into the store it became a downward slope.  A request for that had been around for donkey's years and it should of been standard game content but they saw a way to gouge those who played tamers and they did it. 

I do agree with the first and third part of this where I can remember a time where there wasn't a UO store and everything was fine. That said, it's a revenue source so I don't see it going anywhere. 

The second part about Deco though is going to be purely subjective to each player. I personally have never and will never buy decorations from the store but that's because I want functionality not decoration. I know I'm in the minority there though because I see people post all the time about decorating their homes. To me the new items are just relics to help with the story line; again not my thing but there are plenty of people that like the lore of the game.

I refuse to buy anything from the store unless it is for game play only.  Even then I hate it, but have been left no choice if you want those particular items.   The ONLY things I have purchased are stable slots (much to my disgust at the time), a few soul stones when I was playing on siege as I had none there, a couple of hitching posts, and garden beds.   Can't think of anything else. 

I will NEVER buy deco items, ever.  That is just ripping off the player base.  It is why my love of UO has been getting to the point where a divorce is likely.  New Legacy is the final straw for me, as it is aimed solely at the USA and everyone else can just go hang unless they want to have to pay for speed boosters.  Not me.

I would not have such a bad taste in my mouth if the game content was equal to what was now going in the store.  It isn't.   The trash deco we get in game in no way equals the deco going into the store.  I PAY a subscription.  Deco was a huge part of UO, even if not everyones bag.  

 

I have been investigating other games to play and right now 7 days to die, which costs a one time payment of $30 bucks AU is winning by miles. I have been playing it solidly for the past month or so and only logged into UO to get earrings, that done haven't logged in again for close to two weeks.  Have no desire to either as there is nothing new to do.   Killing existing mobs over and over and over is not my idea of fun, and everything else that came with the last publish was just buying from the store or selecting from vet rewards.  No new content at all other than an item drop.  

loop

MissE said:

keven2002 said:

MissE said:

How about we just get RID of the UO store and put all those items that are currently there as permanent content in the game for either boss drops or quest chain collections or whatever.  For the first what,   15 or so years we never had to PAY extra for content.   That is why we pay a subscription.  

As I said above, the fact that all the decent deco, by that I mean the wedding sets and all other 'sets' they have put in are pay only.   Chucking in a bonzai that brings up text when you click it is NOT decent deco.  Not one of those 'new' items in this last chain of events is decent.   They are all just token junk to make it seem like we are getting a reward.   The fact that people want them to stack or to have CLEAN UP POINTS shows exactly how desirable they are.    And yeah there will always be the 'fan' who jumps up and says they are happy with them but frankly you are in the minority.  I have not found a single player who is glad to get a broken power crystal or a flipping silly looking abacus that tells you how to add 4 and 5 together.  What are we 4 year olds?   Now if  you got one 'bit' of those sets so that they were collectible with various bits being rarer than the others it would of been fine, but what we got was just tokenism. 

The second they put stable slot increases into the store it became a downward slope.  A request for that had been around for donkey's years and it should of been standard game content but they saw a way to gouge those who played tamers and they did it. 

I do agree with the first and third part of this where I can remember a time where there wasn't a UO store and everything was fine. That said, it's a revenue source so I don't see it going anywhere. 

The second part about Deco though is going to be purely subjective to each player. I personally have never and will never buy decorations from the store but that's because I want functionality not decoration. I know I'm in the minority there though because I see people post all the time about decorating their homes. To me the new items are just relics to help with the story line; again not my thing but there are plenty of people that like the lore of the game.

I refuse to buy anything from the store unless it is for game play only.  Even then I hate it, but have been left no choice if you want those particular items.   The ONLY things I have purchased are stable slots (much to my disgust at the time), a few soul stones when I was playing on siege as I had none there, a couple of hitching posts, and garden beds.   Can't think of anything else. 

I will NEVER buy deco items, ever.  That is just ripping off the player base.  It is why my love of UO has been getting to the point where a divorce is likely.  New Legacy is the final straw for me, as it is aimed solely at the USA and everyone else can just go hang unless they want to have to pay for speed boosters.  Not me.

I would not have such a bad taste in my mouth if the game content was equal to what was now going in the store.  It isn't.   The trash deco we get in game in no way equals the deco going into the store.  I PAY a subscription.  Deco was a huge part of UO, even if not everyones bag.  

 

I have been investigating other games to play and right now 7 days to die, which costs a one time payment of $30 bucks AU is winning by miles. I have been playing it solidly for the past month or so and only logged into UO to get earrings, that done haven't logged in again for close to two weeks.  Have no desire to either as there is nothing new to do.   Killing existing mobs over and over and over is not my idea of fun, and everything else that came with the last publish was just buying from the store or selecting from vet rewards.  No new content at all other than an item drop.  

You make a really good point about decorative items for sale on the store, which hadn't occurred to me. Many players today will concede that it's acceptable to make cosmetic items available via direct purchase, but with UO there's a larger history of a player-driven marketplace where almost everything was available in game. Cosmetic items, in particular, had a very special place in that economy.

For every item that's on the store there's a missed opportunity to make it craftable or make it available by actually playing the game, and UO takes one step closer to crossing an ethical line with its business model into mobile game territory. Good, quality art will be monetized, where once it was just a normal part of the game.

Bringing the conservation back to the current event, it seems to me that the developers underestimate a player's masochistic willingness to subject themselves to repetitive content for random rewards. This says to me that this use case wasn't what they were catering toward. Instead they had a more casual use case in mind: Given a player with only a certain amount of time to play, doing the quest casually over the course of several months, you can reasonably expect that player to get the single most useful reward.

The content needs to designed in such a way that feeds both use cases. In this case, the rewards are too random, the earrings are too powerful, and the content not engaging enough to really feed the first use case. If the earrings had been less powerful and more well-considered, players might be content to just get one. If the content were engaging enough, players wouldn't have a problem doing it over and over again.

As it stands, the current design violates a pretty basic psychological principle. When a player expends the same amount of effort per quest run, they are going to expect a reward in proportion to that effort. The same effort is involved with getting the earrings versus any of the other rewards, so naturally the player will be resentful.

MissE

@loop you totally get what I mean.  

McDougle

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say anyone who finds this frustrating unfair or hard has never done the fishmonger quest...you can do 90% of this without leaving a boat...