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Author Topic: Giving Gifts/Items  (Read 992 times)

LordCove

Giving Gifts/Items
« on: March 11, 2008, 03:14:23 am »
This actually came up twice in one day, and so here it is....

Can we please use common-sense in regards to the giving of gifts and items to Friends/Guild Members/Partners.

Level Requirement, rareness, and difficulty to both obtain and create the item should be considered before giving the item to anyone below your level.
If it is being given in exchange for coin or trade, please ensure the amount requested from the person is reflective of the items worth.

Amulet's of Shield, now uncraftable, should be considered rare and expensive. These seem to be passed frequently to lower level characters with little to no trading involved.

Anything Emerald or Acid or Mithril related really shouln't be being passed to anyone below level 17.. since level requirement for use and to venture to places these are obtainable at are set at 17+. If your charachter is not of the set level, then they really should be paying the standard price ( ie. a fortune!) for it. A box or two of Bodak Teeth or FireOpals really doesn't cut it.

In essence, this is muling. A higher level gathering and providing something at minimum cost that the recipient could never gather. It may not be XP... but its still something they could not have done themselves.

Simply passing these items on because we ( the higher level) no longer have need of it, or have found something better,  is basically damaging the trade of the crafters who venture to these difficult places to gather said items, and spend hours upon hours garning Crafting XP so that they might make the said items.

Although it might seem great to be able to pass a friend a really cool item that you know he is going to blink at and say "Oh yes! Brilliant! I want to have your kids!" , it is also damaging.
The recipient is happy... because of course he just earned himself a new item for minimal work or cost.

But the dozens of crafters who lost DT's in pursuit of Emeralds and Mithril, and who spent months honing their crafting skills to be capable of making fine weapons and rings...
... now find their items sit uselessly in a chest with no buyers, because everyone simply "passes" things on.


Anyway... just a little point.
As always... feel free to point out if Im wrong.  :)

akata

Re: Giving Gifts/Items
« Reply #1 on: March 11, 2008, 04:04:23 am »
I couldn't agree more :) but as always it comes down to common sense.

handing over gifts to a person that didn't earn it is not only wrong its against the spirit of layonara

http://forums.layonara.com/faq.php?faq=layonara_rules#faq_rules_muling
 

Krell Himmler

Re: Giving Gifts/Items
« Reply #2 on: March 11, 2008, 04:16:38 am »
I strongly disagree with random gift giving, that is, hey low level guy, have my old stuff....

But I'm somewhat partial to legitimate gift giving...say another character is your wife/gf/bf/husband in game....I doubt you'd charge them but in such cases I would *assume* there's some level of sharing? Correct me if I'm wrong or if this is illegal, I've yet to have opportinity even to partake in it :P. I kind of believed that RP would dictate what makes sense the most...within reason?

I have to agree that I get the feeling there is far too much illegitimate sharing where someone gifts an expensive item to a nobody.....or someone they don't really know in game.

You also have to remember, the new crafters too, I mean everyone. I am quite certain MANY higher level characters make everything for one another for free and never pay a cent, so it isn't just the higher levels being shafted by a lack of buyers, but they are part of the ones doing the shafting themselves perhaps...I think that the hammer needs to fall across the board, in the sense of people waking up and changing how they do things....I have no proof, but I suspect much of the free trading is happening up top, far more than it is being passed down the bottom.

I also would like to remind you that pretty much no one down bottom has much gold really, none of them could afford your fancy wares and items to be honest, least most of the lower downs I talked to laughed about the prices and how they could most likely never afford em, not to mention the futility of crafting at a new player, even IF you get up high everyone buys from the old man, so you're kinda screwed for cash.
 

Dorganath

Re: Giving Gifts/Items
« Reply #3 on: March 11, 2008, 09:12:57 am »
Legitimate gift-giving is fine if it's not out of step with the spirit of this world and the level requirements of the items given versus the current level of the recipient.

To use an example in the original post...The highest-level weapon enhancements (regardless of whether they're Acid or anything else) have a level requirement of 18 for one to be able to apply them to a weapon.  It's rather dishonest for a higher-level character to apply such a thing to a weapon and then hand the enhanced weapon (which probably has a lower level requirement) to the a character who could not apply it himself/herself.  It's also rather suspect to just give them the enhancement for later use when they clearly cannot use it for quite some time.

Also keep in mind the cost of these items.  If one does trade gathering or goods for other things, keep the reward in line with the effort.  To continue the example, the lens price for a Rod IV is over 40,000.  Just something to keep in mind.

Keep things in the realm of common sense, please.
 

major6

Re: Giving Gifts/Items
« Reply #4 on: March 11, 2008, 10:45:47 am »
I must start off this post with saying I totally agree with what Sallaron is saying.  Although I do not understand why one can not buy a weapon enchantment and have it put on by another as part of buying as I have seen it so many times from others it seems a common practice.

I am writting this as what Sall wrote about refers to my character Trith and a discussion they had.  I do not take this personally but have to reply due to the fact that alot of people who play this game sometimes forget something that in real life we can use our intuitions to ferrit out.

Our characters are a creation of our minds.  We can make them just about anything we want them to be.  Well Trith if you had not met him is one who not only seeks reassurances but wants to and draws upon the reactions of others to him.  So sometimes in order to impress his friends he may just stretch the truth or make statements that don't tell the whole story.

In the instance with Sall, the case was that Trith was exageratting.  He wanted to impress his friend and show he was doing well for himself.  I am sure that there are instances where others may take advantage of a very good situation but as was said, as long as the taker is giving his value worth of items in exchange for what he gets then all is acceptable.

If you made it this far, good for you and I hope you now see at least the major point of this post, our character can and will not only stretch the truth but they can lie, cheat and exhaggerate and still be a good person :)

Trith/Marty
 

Script Wrecked

Re: Giving Gifts/Items
« Reply #5 on: March 11, 2008, 11:54:43 am »
In response to the second part of the original post:

Quote from: LordCove
Simply passing these items on because we ( the higher level) no longer have need of it, or have found something better, is basically damaging the trade of the crafters who venture to these difficult places to gather said items, and spend hours upon hours garning Crafting XP so that they might make the said items.

Although it might seem great to be able to pass a friend a really cool item that you know he is going to blink at and say "Oh yes! Brilliant! I want to have your kids!" , it is also damaging.
The recipient is happy... because of course he just earned himself a new item for minimal work or cost.

But the dozens of crafters who lost DT's in pursuit of Emeralds and Mithril, and who spent months honing their crafting skills to be capable of making fine weapons and rings...
... now find their items sit uselessly in a chest with no buyers, because everyone simply "passes" things on.


Whether the owner gives the item away, or sells it for its fair price, the crafter still loses a customer.

// That is the crux of my reply. The next part is where I go in-depth and off-topic a bit to follow a thought, that has probably been said before in other threads, to its conclusion. :) //

Quote
As soon as the crafter sells the item, the item becomes competition to the crafter. A new customer can either get a new item from the crafter, or get an existing item from someone who doesn't want it anymore. This is why crafters have no customers.

The "problem" is the item retains its value. The owner can charge just as much for the item as what they paid the crafter (because the item still does what the owner paid the crafter for), getting their original investment back. It essence, the owner loans the seller the money, then when they are done, they get their money back (obviously not from the original seller). Only the current owner has "paid for" the item, all the prior owners have had free use. This is why there is no money to be made in making items, the customer gets their money back.

If my longsword lasts forever, I never need to buy one again. All the weaponsmiths would starve if this was the case. And this is the case. In a solo player game, this works, because the game itself is transitory, and you are not around long enough to see those effects. However, in a persistent world, you see the cracks.

If my longsword lasts forever, the only reason to get a new one is to upgrade. This is the market in a persistent-world-based-on-a-solo-player game (which in turn leads to the Constantly Lifted Level Cap paradigm). This is why everyone is shelling out huge amounts for copper dragon armor; they're upgrading.

If my longsword starts with ten charges, and I'm selling it, the buyer will see that, and pay in proportion to the remaining charges (probably a bit less). The buyer has the option of buying a used sword at a discount, or a new sword from the crafter; the crafter now has something unique to offer, a new sword. And at some point, the sword will run out of charges, and need to be replaced with a new one.

You can't have an economy unless there is consumerism; viz the item is "consumed". Unfortunately, magic items are always envisaged as lasting through the ages, being passed from one generation to the next, in essence, being permanent. Maybe this is why Sauron only ever made twenty rings... ;)


Hope this helps.

Regards,

Script Wrecked.
 

lonnarin

Re: Giving Gifts/Items
« Reply #6 on: March 11, 2008, 12:13:33 pm »
Agreed.  I for one would like to see an entire accurate accounting for all those regenerating guards in Prantz immune to everything with huge glowing mithral gear ubiquotously attached to them.  Do they have receipts?  Have they paid their taxes?  If the gear is general issue per standard Prantz army-man, fine... then point me to the recruiting office and tell me where to sign!

And I hear that mithral is almost impossible to mine and yet there's a magic mountain where dead monsters explode into mithral weapons like candy pinatas.  THAT is the source of your crafter's recession, my friend... not gift giving.

And sure we could say "donate all your extra items to charity event X", but after 2 million plus of my own items to the Church of Dorand and nothing to show for it, not even a thank you card or statue, I have to parrot a million other voices here and ask, "What's the point?"  You set a price tag of a million gold on a new temple... you donate 2 million worth, and are still a stranger to them.

So while I agree with the spirit of the initial suggestion, seeing that mithral gear is being supersaturated at the top crew of lvl 20-30 characters, that all my midlevel characters are still broke as can be and scrounging every twig herb or mineral for another box of healing kits, and that about half the character populace is now related via blood or marraige, the practicality of the suggestion is much less than decreasing all mithral drops on candy island, and any other place where lenspriced goods clocking 60k+ drop at regular intervals.  Hindring the craft learning curve actually goes the opposite diection from this goal, as adding tougher spawns and new components to the mix just further frustrate crafters and encourage teams of "drop-scavengers" who pay zero of their own coin.  

So in conclusion, if you want stimulus to the crafter's side of the economy, reduce production costs for the crafter in both risk aquiring CNR and buying trade market goods, decrease the amount of drops which cut off his market, and untie his hands with all these restrictions on what he can sell things for.  Only then will you see this system of buddy-buddy mercantilism subside.  As for those giving the gifts, we know who they are.  Mithral neither mined nor smelted doesnt just pop up out of nowhere, but from a handful of spawns and those handful of people high enough level to hunt there.  That's the focus group.

As for me, I am happy to say I charge all my close friends and family members out the wazoo. ;)

As a hungry weapons obsessivist, Earl would buy at least another pair of iron sais, katars, doubleswords etc every month, but the problem is I hunt down these "starving crafters" to commision a custom job... and they're too busy!  They offer to sell me the longswords, shortswords, axes and junk they FOUND, but when it comes to a good pair of cold sais, wee little exotic daggers that take all of 2-3 ingots and a single mold each, they dont have the time!  They're too busy running off to Mithral Island and gathering their wares like everybody else... why bother mining?  Seems to me that they starve more out of convenience than for hard work and determination's sake.
 

Dorganath

Re: Giving Gifts/Items
« Reply #7 on: March 11, 2008, 01:53:02 pm »
Folks, keep in mind the initial suggestion and my statement had nothing to do with the economy or the guards in Prantz or any other anecdotes that can be brought to bear here.  It had to do with gifts that are inappropriate for the level of the recipient, in value, power and quantity.

A group of 20+ level characters coming back with some high level items isn't really the issue.  I think you all know this.

Whether or not the incident that sparked the original post was the result of an IC exaggeration, the point about who should have what gear and using some common sense and judgment about giving gifts, even if one has to use an OOC measure like level, still stands.
 

lonnarin

Re: Giving Gifts/Items
« Reply #8 on: March 11, 2008, 03:18:36 pm »
Of course!  I wholley support not handing stuff out like candy to friends.  Like I said, I charge friends and family out the wazoo.  And like you said... use common sense!  I'm not disagreeing with the policy, just pointing out all sides of the arguments.  And to not discuss economy as a whole while examining one part of it is just scraping the surface of the underlying issues.

But if you want to address the root of the problem, then realize that it's not just gifting, but an issue of RE-gifting.  Right now the drops are handing out monty-haul gifts like a broken slot machine and those extra items are trickling down into the friends of friends who found them.  Common sense says that if you have a big room with 20 chests full of mithral items, then they have less value to somebody that has to find somebody who can make them, sell them for a fair price... etc.  ESPECIALLY when that same person with 20 something mithral items can only legally sell one per month.  When one finds 2-3 a month, where else would all those other items go?

The problem is not just mithral items either, but lesser ones like +1 jewelry and iron gear.  How many people here have a closet with at least 10 assorted pairs of blue suede shoes, militias boots and ascender's marches?  How many bloody lashes can one own before its enough?  Anybody else have a full bag on them at all times with every type of +1 jewelry in stock?  I can say that about both my characters lvl 18 and 19.  These aren't even high-level drops, nor are the ubiqoutous everflowing stream of iron gear in dregar, and they severely stifle the economy.  They make such a surplus that to not be charitable would be odd.

Policy is, if you have mithral or yew items in stock, dont sell them for profit more than once a month, dont give them away, and if you donate them to your church they wont even say thanks.   That is the root of the problem.  You have all this excess wealth and no legal way to move it, so of course the black market handme-downs will flourish.  They have no proper outlet for greed, and thus to clear their crates without wasting such nice items to the void, they resort to charity.  This upper-level regulation has totally destroyed any desire to work metal until you make a mithral item since A) they're plentiful via spontaneous generation and B) you can't even sell them when you make them.  The same could easily be said for Iron items of all make, last night we found about 4 and just idly pawned them all for about 130gp a pop.

Then there is another issue regarding gifting... when is it a gift and when is it a donation?  Nobody bats an eye or complains if somebody donates a crate full of adamantium or mithral weapons to their church, but if you equip a fellow clergyman priest with a fullplate its suddenly muling.  Why?  At least the player character is out there, actively spreading the word and doing great deeds in the name of his faith.  At least that priest says thanks and remembers you, ventures by your side and raises you when you die... the church just grabs your cash and grunts.

If you're married, most laws dictate that your spouse owns half your stuff already.  If your wife sees something she likes and you say no, you sleep on the couch.  If you have a son or a nephew who's starting out adventuring in your footsteps and you have a crate of +1 jewelry gathering dust, would any but the really evil characters really charge him full price?  If your daddy makes adamantium blades in his sleep, wouldn't you at least get an iron one for your birthday?

What I would suggest though is not to freely mule using RP facts (not excuses, because fact is, Bildo never charged Frodo for a mithral chain shirt or magic shortsword, Wulfgar didn't weild a copper hammer) but rather to at least demand appropriate labor in return for something, or favors as need be.  Sure Wulfgar got a mithral hammer, but he had to WORK every day busting his back in the forge and learn some mithral smelting himself, Frodo was being sent on a mission of doom that was technically Bildo's responsibility for being the ring-bearer, etc.  Just as many RP facts support that there must be SOME tangible debt accrued for accepting such an item without the appropriate funds.  

I understand that for many many MANY people here in the mid-levels are DIRT BROKE, and that at a certain tier around 14-20+ lvls they strike it rich like each of them had won the lottery.  Don't do the hand-me-down tango though! make those poor little peasants work!  The least most of these crafters should be doing is hiring middlemen to peddle their wares in the streets, who better than customers with debt?  Come up with creative ways to repay eachother, because gold is meaningless compared to labor and services, especially to somebody with 20 crates of finished mithral.   Those I think would be appropriate solutions to not muling.

I'll say one thing though... if all those excess mithral and iron weapons could be recycled, even for just one ingot a pop, there'd be FAR less of them gathering dust, gifted without thought and lots of rich, happy crafters, and broke folks with no more handmedowns!  Just an idea. ;)  

This might be off-topic if it weren't the very source of the topic's existence.

Charity trickles down from surplus, and surplus is the result of too much supply and a circumvented demand.  People are handing out these pixellated magic items because to them, they are worthless.  Put someplace where they can consume these items and they will be valuable again.

So while one the one hand I agree we shouldn't mule, on the other I wonder why we continue to set the stage for it.  Sorry for the lengthy essay, but work is slow today. ;)
 

Krell Himmler

Re: Giving Gifts/Items
« Reply #9 on: March 11, 2008, 09:15:58 pm »
Quote from: lonnarin
Agreed.  I for one would like to see an entire accurate accounting for all those regenerating guards in Prantz immune to everything with huge glowing mithral gear ubiquotously attached to them.  Do they have receipts?  Have they paid their taxes?  If the gear is general issue per standard Prantz army-man, fine... then point me to the recruiting office and tell me where to sign!

And I hear that mithral is almost impossible to mine and yet there's a magic mountain where dead monsters explode into mithral weapons like candy pinatas.  THAT is the source of your crafter's recession, my friend... not gift giving.

And sure we could say "donate all your extra items to charity event X", but after 2 million plus of my own items to the Church of Dorand and nothing to show for it, not even a thank you card or statue, I have to parrot a million other voices here and ask, "What's the point?"  You set a price tag of a million gold on a new temple... you donate 2 million worth, and are still a stranger to them.

So while I agree with the spirit of the initial suggestion, seeing that mithral gear is being supersaturated at the top crew of lvl 20-30 characters, that all my midlevel characters are still broke as can be and scrounging every twig herb or mineral for another box of healing kits, and that about half the character populace is now related via blood or marraige, the practicality of the suggestion is much less than decreasing all mithral drops on candy island, and any other place where lenspriced goods clocking 60k+ drop at regular intervals.  Hindring the craft learning curve actually goes the opposite diection from this goal, as adding tougher spawns and new components to the mix just further frustrate crafters and encourage teams of "drop-scavengers" who pay zero of their own coin.  

So in conclusion, if you want stimulus to the crafter's side of the economy, reduce production costs for the crafter in both risk aquiring CNR and buying trade market goods, decrease the amount of drops which cut off his market, and untie his hands with all these restrictions on what he can sell things for.  Only then will you see this system of buddy-buddy mercantilism subside.  As for those giving the gifts, we know who they are.  Mithral neither mined nor smelted doesnt just pop up out of nowhere, but from a handful of spawns and those handful of people high enough level to hunt there.  That's the focus group.

As for me, I am happy to say I charge all my close friends and family members out the wazoo. ;)

As a hungry weapons obsessivist, Earl would buy at least another pair of iron sais, katars, doubleswords etc every month, but the problem is I hunt down these "starving crafters" to commision a custom job... and they're too busy!  They offer to sell me the longswords, shortswords, axes and junk they FOUND, but when it comes to a good pair of cold sais, wee little exotic daggers that take all of 2-3 ingots and a single mold each, they dont have the time!  They're too busy running off to Mithral Island and gathering their wares like everybody else... why bother mining?  Seems to me that they starve more out of convenience than for hard work and determination's sake.


I did at one point try and get a bunch of things made, generally speaking it took so long I gave up...to make a point I asked for them a month ago and it's still a worth in progress, apparently....Translate that to game time and it's a long wait, would you wait that long for a purchase....I daresay I know of quite a few groups who all have the best equipment money can buy due to being chummy with one another, problem is most of the epics are all good buddies so they seem to equip one another with cool items, problem is, the only ones able to afford all of those emeralds ARE the epics....

Personally, reffering to the posts below, weapons like Mithril armour/weapons should only be able to be mined....the drops should be incredibly rare, if at all if you want it balanced....

Just curious, if you do donate say, 1 million gp to your church, will there be any benefits, to you as a character? (to Dorganath)
 

Dorganath

Re: Giving Gifts/Items
« Reply #10 on: March 11, 2008, 09:31:16 pm »
Eh...it's not really a matter of equipping each other, and I hear a lot of assumptions in your comments.  

It's a matter of that a lot of the Epics have been here a very long time, have worked themselves up as crafters and yes...adventure in the high- and epic-level areas, where the greatest amounts of gold and high-end loot drop. So yes, this translates into more gold and better items among many (not all) Epics, but then they're supposed to have the better equipment, aren't they?  Also, most (not all, sadly) Epics understand that "equipping each other" is not really what we want here and this gets back to the whole "gifting" issue brought up above.  

Also...for the most part, Emerald-based items (and other high-level and heavily-coveted items) aren't even usable by characters before 17th or 18th level (or more), so that Epics are the only ones who can afford them isn't really a problem...more like...the way it's supposed to be.

And for what it's worth, my Epic can't afford much at all, so what some may think of as universal truths....aren't.
 

Dorganath

Re: Giving Gifts/Items
« Reply #11 on: March 11, 2008, 09:35:40 pm »
Quote from: Krell Himmler
Personally, reffering to the posts below, weapons like Mithril armour/weapons should only be able to be mined....the drops should be incredibly rare, if at all if you want it balanced....

They are quite rare in drops, actually...though there was an unfortunate time when our drops were terribly out of balance due to a coding error that went both undetected and unreported (surprise, surprise) for too long, flooding a lot of mithril goods into the market.  It's sad, but it happened, but rates have been balanced to an acceptable level.

Quote
Just curious, if you do donate say, 1 million gp to your church, will there be any benefits, to you as a character? (to Dorganath)

You mean besides the pride of donating to a "worthy cause"?  Not really.

Your name is recorded though with every donation in our database and we can see how much is donated by person, by church, etc.  No in-game status is given to your character as a result.
 

Halfwit Genious

Re: Giving Gifts/Items
« Reply #12 on: March 11, 2008, 09:39:05 pm »
I agree with Krell on many points here. I know that there is a lot of passing around that goes on among epics sometimes. There are alos a lot of almost cliques among higher levels simply because they've known eachother for so long. However, it is almost a part of Layonara as a society, a pattern if you will. Not the giving of things between epics, but the fact that everyone who is an epic and has a lot of nice items worked hard to get there in one way or another and they used to be the low levels at some point. There are generations almost in Layonara, and yes the epics are supposed to help the lower levels to an extent in their development, but they're not supposed to reach down and say "Here, let me carry you until your involved enough and have enough friends to make a group of your own and do cool things with them." The lower levels can get together and help eachother out and build their own circles of friends. This is not to imply high and low levels should not hang out at all, but just to say that everything there is to be gotten in the game can be gotten by anyone with enough work put into it. If they don't have enough gold or no one will sell them an item they can invest time in being able to make it for themselves. How do you think the first of any kind of craftable item was created? It wasn't sold for some obscene amount of gold, It was worked for and crafted.

Disclaimer: I speak on the behalf of no one but myself. These are just things I have observed during my years here with multiple different characters. :)
 

merlin34baseball

Re: Giving Gifts/Items
« Reply #13 on: March 11, 2008, 11:10:35 pm »
on a totally random point...

Don't we all share with our friends?

If we have a case of really good beer don't we call our friends, invite then over and have a drink?

If I have two of a really cool t shirt, wouldn't I give one to a friend?

When I'm fly fishing and have the absolute best fly for the river wouldn't I share it?

If I know the answers for a test... don't I tell my friends?

Dunno... just food for thought.
 

ycleption

Re: Giving Gifts/Items
« Reply #14 on: March 11, 2008, 11:19:53 pm »
Merlin, yes of course we do... and sometimes it can be difficult to come up with RP reasons why not to give away items to people, especially if you play a generous character (which many people do).
But for all the reasons that have been stated above, it's not good for the game. So, use a little imagination and come up with those reasons. If you have to, come up with them in advance so you can spring them when a situation comes up in game, but also send a tell to players, saying "I'm sorry, I would love to shower gifts upon you but I don't want to harm the market."

Also, remember gifts to other characters don't have to be in-game items. If you want to show some character you are so devoted to them you are willing to spend vast amounts of true on them, you can RP it without having a mechanical representation.
 

Acacea

Re: Giving Gifts/Items
« Reply #15 on: March 12, 2008, 12:15:51 am »
Yes, there are acceptable means of gift giving. Certainly, moreso among friends and yes, some overly generous hearted characters may feel that way even about strangers, though I think anyone with a decent wisdom score would have well in mind the "give a man a fish vs teach a man to fish" ingrained in his head.

However, while I think there are plenty of acceptable situations where something is made with no monetary or even item cost between characters (my own doesn't have a full emerald set and didn't even purchase her diamonds and both her oak and yew short bows were made by different crafters specifically for her for things other than just gold, which some crafters with limited play time find much less valuable for their time), RP reasons quickly become thin "RP excuses" of convenience that really don't hold up on close inspection.

For example, the whole "give a friend a beer" thing is not even remotely comparable to "giving a friend a set of mithril full plate." Using such an example to defend a point really doesn't do justice to a position because they're so different. Would you buy your buddy a house? Mithril costs more...heh.

Besides that, there are some really basic things people should consider when they are about to fall back on "I'm just roleplaying my character" and other such things. For example, is it really roleplaying?

If you're going to claim roleplaying reasons in something that may not be great for a really weird adventurer's economy, you need to make sure it really DOES make sense in character. For example, is it even that character's size? That's right. Size! We don't think about these things mechanically - a halfling and an orc both fight over the same armor, as amusing as it is, just like they both take the same amount of metal to make. But if you're preparing to toss a hand-me-down for free, think about it. Are you half his size? How easy is it to alter? Should you maybe charge some extra material and RP its altering? Chances are it will actually take a great deal of work to fit something to someone else, depending on what it's made of - maybe you should just make them a new one and have them work it off. Certainly full plate armors should not be swapping races. It doesn't make any sense.

If you are a human giving your dagger to a halfling, maybe you should actually give them a short sword instead, because of the difference in a human-sized dagger and a halfling sized one. (I didn't forget that halflings wield longswords and such two-handed, but for some reason was thinking there was another angle to hit that from... maybe I was thinking of brownies. "Have this tailoring needle for your longsword." Either that, or my original purpose was rather weak and only to consider calling weapons based on how you carry them and not what they were for someone else - ie hello, I am a halfling and I use a greatsword...) You see what I'm saying? We ignore these things most of the time, because they don't matter mechanically, and it would be limiting and difficult to justify half the stuff that is looted and equipped. But things like wear and tear, size, and even design should be taken into account when giving potentially harmful hand-me-downs. If it's "all for the RP" then all of its aspects should be RPed, right? No fair just taking the benefits - own up and take in the downsides and limitations, too. If that retiring veteran for whatever insane reason hands down his mithril armor, it should be to someone of roughly the same size (certainly needs to grow into it!), and they should never change the core design again, not to mention it should be a more involved experience than just tossing and leaving. The story should go, too.

I am not totally against gifting or creative charging - that would be so hypocritical it's not even funny. My own level 31 character has always lagged a bit behind in equipment, but she's never had to pay much for it, either. She loves second-hand items - shabby, worn, ill-fitting and all. She has less than a thousand gold and will never purchase prime items, and is a bard that loves 'story items.' She doesn't have many items that can be RPed as new or shiny or exquisite. Most were cobbled together from old things, cleverly altered and dyed, etc, with only a few exceptions.

And just like some lower level characters can really contribute a great deal of roleplay and aid to a party exploring other places, some crafters find that gold and materials are not what they find most valuable in trade.

So yeah, not trying to attack anything, just saying I think one of the reasons it happens so often is that the normal, every day consequences of getting a second-hand item are so absent in our world they are completely unconsidered. They're left strictly to our RPing imaginations. So use 'em, the next time it becomes easy to say "but he's my buddy." There might be more practical reasons to hold off giving/receiving than you thought, not least being that there are more thoughtful gifts than "here is this sweaty armor I wore for ten years." *Coughs*
 

Krell Himmler

Re: Giving Gifts/Items
« Reply #16 on: March 12, 2008, 01:37:04 am »
Quote from: merlin34baseball
on a totally random point...

Don't we all share with our friends?

If we have a case of really good beer don't we call our friends, invite then over and have a drink?

If I have two of a really cool t shirt, wouldn't I give one to a friend?

When I'm fly fishing and have the absolute best fly for the river wouldn't I share it?

If I know the answers for a test... don't I tell my friends?

Dunno... just food for thought.


I understand sharing a beer or a t-shirt....but would you give them a brand new car, there are other ways to "give" things to a player without showering them in wealth and things they would otherwise need to work for, food, small amounts of healing, so on and so forth, whilst these items may have no combat purpose, remember that your character (unless you slipped CE in) is not just a machine of death screaming kill and drinking water and trail rations, so food becomes a good way to RP out friends/lovers/aquantances by being generous and hospitable without handing out armour worth more than a house.

As for telling your friends the answers for the test, I guess that is an ethical problem. Would I tell my friends..? Nope, I think that goes beyond the debate about gifts and as I said, into the realm of ethics.

I think it's all relative of course, with sharing powerful items and weaker ones, where do you draw the line....? I guess in my mind there should be some line drawn which restricts the giving of said gifts so that not everyone has a mithril item or similar, just because they know a powerful jeweller or armourer.

@Dorg, you know I would've reported it ;). When I'm bored inbetween tasks reporting potential bugs keeps me entertained. I'm guessing there is no way to track down said people/bugs/items and remove them(the items) from the system? Which is a shame as I personally believe that the long term ramifications of such a bugged drop would be rather bad for the server, balance, economy and value.
 

Script Wrecked

Re: Giving Gifts/Items
« Reply #17 on: March 12, 2008, 02:10:23 am »
Quote from: Acacea
For example, the whole "give a friend a beer" thing is not even remotely comparable to "giving a friend a set of mithril full plate." Using such an example to defend a point really doesn't do justice to a position because they're so different. Would you buy your buddy a house? Mithril costs more...heh.


In this instance, it is comparable. Going back to Lonnarin's point:

Quote from: lonnarin
They have no proper outlet for greed, and thus to clear their crates without wasting such nice items to the void, they resort to charity.


If you have a dozen houses (or twenty houses, or a hundred houses), and a friend needs somewhere to stay, you'd put them up (lend them the house, if not outright give). Similarly, if you are tripping over suits of mithril armor, you'd think nothing of giving/lending a friend a suit of armor; it doesn't matter what the cost of mithril armor is, if it can't be realised, it has no value, and you are more likely to give it away.

Quote from: Acacea
Certainly full plate armors should not be swapping races. It doesn't make any sense.


No, it doesn't. This is another left over from the single-player game. "Realistically", all armor should be race restricted. However, it hasn't been implemented this way. I have found that using RP to make up the differences is never satisfactory, it creates inconsistencies and problems of its own; after all, the whole point of a CRPG is that it is "what you see is what you get", and everyone gets the same thing.

Quote from: Acacea
If you are a human giving your dagger to a halfling, maybe you should actually give them a short sword instead, because of the difference in a human-sized dagger and a halfling sized one.


This has already been factored in (there is no human sized or halfling sized; a dagger is a dagger is a dagger). A dagger relative to a halfling is a short sword. This is why halflings can't wield the large weapons, and have to wield the medium weapons two handed.

Regards,

Script Wrecked.
 

Desicardo

Re: Giving Gifts/Items
« Reply #18 on: March 12, 2008, 02:13:25 am »
Just a quick note with my take on things.

To me, it would make sense that the economy should be balanced in such a way that when a character attains a certain level, their bank account should be able to afford one item that is appropriate to that level.  In other words, when turning level 10, the character should be able to afford a lvl limit 10 sword or other item for that level.  This is not to say that a person on turning level 12 should be able to buy a complete set of +2 jewelry for every stat, but perhaps a single +2 ring would be appropriate if that is the characters choice.  The choice would be in whether the character would buy a sword, some new armor, jewelry, or whatever would best suit his character.  The problem I see is that when going out in a party, even on Dregar at mid levels, a character will walk away with 200 to 300 gold when divided among the party members.  Most level appropriate items for the mid teen levels run 30,000+ gold to buy so doing the math, that is an incredible amount of time spent adventuring to purchase even one item level appropriate.  So is it any wonder there is a black market trade so to speak for some of these items?  The only way a person can afford to buy even one item level appropriate is to sell either a crafted or drop item, and then he has to find someone else with the gold to buy that item.  I have listed mahogony bows many many times on the forums and can't sell them, so I can't afford to buy things from other crafters.  The rich get richer, the poor stay poor and unless you get lucky and get a good drop that brings wild riches at auction, you can never hope to break the barrier that separates the two cause it sure isn't going to happen by earning it the old fashioned way.  Gee, that sounds a little too much like real life..hehe.
 

Acacea

Re: Giving Gifts/Items
« Reply #19 on: March 12, 2008, 02:19:11 am »
Script Wrecked, I'm not saying everyone should start using these restrictions every day and about everything. I was only introducing them as things we all ignore because we don't need to. People often say "I'm just roleplaying" as excuses to do just about anything. Most of us have a nice middle-ish ground of roleplaying while glossing over obvious flaws, and sometimes sacrificing for the sake of the game and other players. If you're NOT going to do any of that, all for the sake of 'roleplaying' then I feel you should be roleplaying the RP-only downsides as well, which was what I was trying to get across.

Regarding the weapons, I'm not sure what I was thinking about exactly - I was trying to reconstruct a post that made more sense yesterday that I just deleted and left there... and duh, obviously they are wielded differently but there was a point in the original post, I swear! I will give you a set of mithril full plate if you can brainstorm on a similar point I might have been trying to make that made sense and discover what it was...oh wait.

(Maybe I was originally thinking of brownies. I'm not sure, just something on instances where new things were better than old things... I'll get back to you tomorrow with went wrong there...)