Release Note discussion!

[Seeker]

I'm calling it:  Nilazi. 


Seeker

[roughneck]

Well ya. If it doesn't start with a 'n' and end in a 'z' with 'ila' inbetween, I'm going to be disappointed.

Unless it's something better...

[Dar]

Nah. Its the supper celf. With strength max of a human

[zztri]

Nah. Its the supper celf. With strength max of a human

Supper c-elves are only 1 karma and they come with max skill level limit in skinning, forage and cooking. They don't have any change in attribute ranges.

[mansa]

https://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,49825.msg1029765.html#msg1029765

(Nessalin)
-Shops will now maintain their # of coins between reboots.
  (if a merchant has 50 coins when the game reboots they will have 50 coins when the game comes back up)


This is a Big change to the economy of the game

Question #1
Will the rate of selling items to virtual NPCs be increased?

Question #2
What is the intented change to player habits?

Question #3
Will there be an additional look at removing the limit of selling 5 of the same item to the NPC merchants?  And introducing a reduction in selling price point to the player as the merchant gains more inventory?  Or something similar?

[Namino]

F in chat for the independents, boys.

[Krath]

https://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,49825.msg1029765.html#msg1029765

(Nessalin)
-Shops will now maintain their # of coins between reboots.
  (if a merchant has 50 coins when the game reboots they will have 50 coins when the game comes back up)


This is a Big change to the economy of the game

Question #1
Will the rate of selling items to virtual NPCs be increased?

Question #2
What is the intented change to player habits?

Question #3
Will there be an additional look at removing the limit of selling 5 of the same item to the NPC merchants?  And introducing a reduction in selling price point to the player as the merchant gains more inventory?  Or something similar?

Yeah all of this.

I get trying to make the game realistic, but there has to be a balance. This hurts offpeakers more than anyone.

[Veselka]

Or, possibly helps them.

[Cabooze]

Or, possibly helps them.

No. It doesn't. There's already the epidemic of GMH members selling their clan crafts to every single shopkeeper for ridiculous amounts. I'm talking Kadian crafts made out of sapphire and bone worth three hundred, and similar examples for Salarr and Kurac.. Though I have to be honest, Kadius and Salarr already get the cream of the crop as far as crafts and sale-value. Ludicrously expensive clothing and jewelry, and then ludicrously expensive armor and weapons, and we all know that they are the ones whom flood the shops with their crafts, moreso than independents.

While previously, independents had an opportunity to sell some of their stockpiled things when GMH members were offline or otherwise disposed with mudsex, now, they must compete with people that have been logged out for 5+ IRL hours.

There absolutely must be another update to follow this one up, otherwise it's actually only going to perpetrate the bad economy structure in the game.

I think a good partial fix to this would be, to disallow clanned PCs from selling items, to their clan's shop. While unable to sell things in the traditional sense to the shop, you can still stock the items by giving them to the shopkeep and it will show up in the list (ive not tested this on every single shopkeeper so I don't know if it actually works like that, or if I experienced a fluke or two in the times that I have done it and it has worked).

[valeria]

I think a good partial fix to this would be, to disallow clanned PCs from selling items, to their clan's shop.

This is already the case, unless the rules have drastically changed in the last year or so.

[Cabooze]

I think a good partial fix to this would be, to disallow clanned PCs from selling items, to their clan's shop.

This is already the case, unless the rules have drastically changed in the last year or so.

There's a rule in place to not extort your own shopkeepers, but you can still sell to them for the sake of putting something in the public eye and getting a chunk of coins in exchange (assuming you also kick some of those coins in the direction of your IC boss or the clan's bank account).

The proposed change is to make it so you absolutely CANNOT sell to your clan shopkeeper, even if you tried, and to only be able to give an item to the clan shopkeeper if you want it to be sold by them.

[Namino]

So, merchants already tended to run out of coin VERY quickly even when they got restocked at reboot. Now that they don't, I anticipate a huge wash of NPC poverty, unless the vnpc population starts buying at 20x their current rate.

There's a reason classic RPGs have merchants with infinite coins [Dragon Quest] or ones that restock every 24hrs [Elderscrolls, shoutout to my mudcrab merchant]. Because otherwise the economy isn't viable.

Save for a massive money push from the vnpcs to keep the shopkeeps solvent, this could hypothetically push player to player transaction, but the player numbers aren't what they once were. A player to player model only works in very large games like FFXIV, with thousands of buyers/shoppers concurrentky.

This isn't to mention that the most sought after items in player to player transaction tend to be clan crafts from GMH employees who already have a stable income via collecting their normal pay from paymasters. Those crafts are gated off from the people who rely on selling for their food.

This feels like six steps of playability back for one step of realism forward.

[lostinspace]

Cool changes, I always thought the rush to shops after a reset was ridiculous. I imagine most shops will be running at a low threshold of coins now, which will make selling a few cheaper crafts more profitable than taking losses on big expensive items because they're worth more than the store had on hand.

[Feco]

Cool changes, I always thought the rush to shops after a reset was ridiculous.

[MeTekillot]

Diamond spider nipple piercings caused this

[Derain]

Bad thing is now nobody will be able to afford that 3500 coins scrab shell armor let alone the expensive shit. RIP independents

[Cerelum]

Seems like the coin thing is going to make turning a profit harder for merchant type folks, or at least the indy ones.

Not to mention the hunter characters, but I will give it some time before I grab the pitchfork and torches like the rest of you.

[Namino]

Seems like the coin thing is going to make turning a profit harder for merchant type folks, or at least the indy ones.

Not to mention the hunter characters, but I will give it some time before I grab the pitchfork and torches like the rest of you.

Hurry up and buy a goddamn pitchfork and a torch. I need to sell these grebbed stones to the pitchfork-and-torch merchant shopkeep and he's insolvent.

[John]

Cool changes, I always thought the rush to shops after a reset was ridiculous.

+1 for me as well.

[Vex]

Cool changes, I always thought the rush to shops after a reset was ridiculous.

This is relevant.

However, my experience is that npc merchants tend to build up quite a stock of coins, once the initial "sell five razor spears to every npc in the known" rush is over. Once all big ticket sales are complete, the coin nest steadily builds up. It used to VANISH after reboot, and npcs only booted with so many after and it starts over. I think, if they're keeping their current coin through boots, we'll see npcs having more money to support the "sell five" rush crowd, rather than less.

Just my theory, though. I guess, we'll see?

Tbh, all npcs keeping their item stock through reboot would have been better, and only restocking on limited "load on boot" items, so they can't disappear from the game entirely, once bought out.\\

Players feeling poor, and that instinctual desire to have more, would make for a more interesting game world. Everyone being mega rich, as soon as they're competent, means bribes are RIDICULOUS in scope.

If there is LESS money in the game world, peoples of importance (noble, templar) will actually matter. Atm, you don't even need to try to get rich. Even just picking up junk, others leave behind, will get you rich in a hurry. We need players to feel the pinch, and for inflation to come down, so a 300 coin bribe is a big deal when a Templar wants it, worth it when he gets it, instead of templar going full retard and wanting 10k from an indie hunter, because he knows he probably has 50k. Heck, he probably wears more than 10k in gear...

More poverty also means, more people wearing common, lower tier, and pc crafted stuff, rather than HORROR SHELL, EBON RAPTOR HIDE, ULTIMATE MV KURACI SANDCLOTH... ALL THE TIME.

Its no fun to pretend to be poor and desperate, and it's shallow when, you can flash your pcs tits at some hunter, and he'll set you up for life. Make us poor, make 50 or 100 coins a big deal, and make low end equipment more common. An indie merchant offering scrab shell armor at a discount, shouldn't get him laughed at. But, it does. Who wears, plain carru sleeves? Or regular mek hide vest? NOBODY with more than a day played, that's for sure.

I get sick of buying the same desert/scrub camo, or ebon raptor, or jade horror, or whatever, just to be seen as "average". "Oh, they only have vendor armor from the bazaar... must be new to hunting!". It's stupid.

+1 for poverty and desperation, that players and their pcs feel and have to deal with, instead of pretending to be once in a while, for funsies.

[Lizzie]

The downside to the coin-reboot thing, is if the NPC merchant is out of money when the game resets. It'll come back with the NPC still out of money. Some folks carry around their stuff to sell for RL days hoping to sell just -one- of something, to the only merchant who buys that type of thing..that'd be really frustrating to think "hey I might actually have a chance today" and then BOOM - game reset, and the NPC comes back without a single sid, because someone got to him and cleared him out right before the game reset.

[Namino]

The downside to the coin-reboot thing, is if the NPC merchant is out of money when the game resets. It'll come back with the NPC still out of money. Some folks carry around their stuff to sell for RL days hoping to sell just -one- of something, to the only merchant who buys that type of thing..that'd be really frustrating to think "hey I might actually have a chance today" and then BOOM - game reset, and the NPC comes back without a single sid, because someone got to him and cleared him out right before the game reset.

I think it's even worse than that because the NPC will NEVER reset. Which means, let's say you're trying to sell an ankheg shell chair worth 500 obsidian coins.

Someone washed out Tommy the chair buying merchant, so he currently has 0 'sid. vNPCs, with a painful lack of urgency, begin buying chairs back from Tommy and he's getting more and more currency. You bide your time, waiting for the moment he has close to 500 'sid so you can pounce.

Except, every single time Tommy hits 30 'sid, someone sells him a bone stool for 30 'sid and resets him. Because Tommy will NEVER be flush with coins as resets no longer plump his wallet, you'd best get to sitting on your chair, cause you ain't selling*.

*Unless you find another PC who happens to want an ankheg throne.

[John]

However, my experience is that npc merchants tend to build up quite a stock of coins, once the initial "sell five razor spears to every npc in the known" rush is over.

This depends on the NPC (some build up quicker then others), but this is why I think it's possible all of the doom and gloom isn't going to be as bad as initially thought. I expect Allanak will be hard to turn a profit. But that players will be rewarded by traveling to other markets.

Tbh, all npcs keeping their item stock through reboot would have been better, and only restocking on limited "load on boot" items, so they can't disappear from the game entirely, once bought out.

I don't know if "better" is the right word. It would have had a bigger imapct, that's for sure. Either the code wasn't ready to be released or staff are waiting to see how this change pans out first. Either way, assuming the game doesn't shit itself in the next week and become completely unplayable, this will be coming as well.

Atm, you don't even need to try to get rich. Even just picking up junk, others leave behind, will get you rich in a hurry

THis is my hope. At the moment amassing wealth is meaningless because it is seen as "doing nothing" (not a view I've ever had, but it's commonly thrown about as fact). Achievers don't achieve anything by amassing wealth so it's unsatisfying for them. It also goes against theme which upsets people for whom that's important.

[Cerelum]

I would assume they eventually refill with coins as time goes on, from Vnpc sales.

Hopefully that is good enough to keep them stocked with coins where we don't all die of thirst.

[X-D]

VNPC sales only works if they keep before reboot inventory as well. Which would also mean that you need be rid of the five item limit OR change the vnpc sales to target things the npc has at least 5 of.

Though, I have seen most npc merchants building a good pile of coin to vnpc sales myself.

Shrug.