The World of Layonara
NWN Discussions and Suggestions => NWN Ideas, Suggestions, Requests => Topic started by: Hellblazer on July 19, 2008, 07:51:03 PM
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I don't know if such a system has been proposed before, but it is rather annoying that as of late, I and many other persons, have no way of selling the junk they acquire on their trips. (ie armor, weapons of low values etc)
What I'm proposing is this.
A pawnshop would only buy for a certain amount per RL day from a character. This means that if the character sells to the pawnshop and reach that pawnshop limit, the next character to come would still be able to sell his things until he reaches his own limit.
Of course that means that players would have to abide by the rules of mauling, and not give things to an other character to sell and ask for the money in return.
But this system would allow for every one to be able to get rid of the things they need to sell, without suffering the excess of a few people who drains the system.
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The other side of this coin (no pun intended) is that would effectively raise the amount of gold being put into the economy without another means to remove it. The over-abundance of gold is in fact one of the problems in the economy right now.
One could always donate or throw way the extra "junk" one gets while adventuring...or simply leave the "junk" on the corpse if clutter is the problem.
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Without offering an opinion on the idea, I have two quick suggestions that players can try that might help alleviate some of the problem:
1) Stop picking up everything. A lot of stuff that drops is, indeed, of low value - no one in the group needs it, no one they know needs it, it's unlikely to sell to any other PC, and/or it won't fetch much from a pawner. It's not really worth hauling it anywhere to get the few gp a pawner would give.
While stuff on the ground can contribute to lag, the clean-up script will take care of it in a minute or two. Besides, stuff in inventories causes lag, too.
2) Try another pawner. Seriously. I've had a few things I've wanted to pawn away for a couple of coins before and the Hemp pawner always seems to be broke, but simply going to the next nearest pawner usually solves the problem. I don't mean to paint with a broad brush, but there is a sort of laziness among people regarding the pawning of stuff. It seems to be too much trouble to spend two minutes going to the next nearest pawner to sell things. Though I'm sure it can happen, I have never, ever been unable to sell things to a pawner outside the main traffic/gathering points (like Port Hempstead now or pre-V3 Hlint). Be willing to walk a little, or even keep in mind the often-penniless pawners and take a detour to a less frequented one on the way back from wherever you went.
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Would it be possible to have the pawn shops with a split amount of money, say half for low levels 1 thru 10 and the rest for the higher level folks. That way the low levels who have more of a need for picking up little bitty things would be able to sell them without being impacted when a higher level cleans out the pawn shop by dropping 20 suits of platinum chainmail.
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Try sailing to places off the beaten path, Like Stort, Rodelm's Isles and the like. Some of those big hidden cities had a decent pawn rate.
And the problem isnt too much gold, Dorg. It's too many items being dropped without a crafter ever needing to put a time investment to craft them. If Mithral and adamantium and Iron weapons found were only made by those people who could craft them, and not found shooting out every oriface of the monsters we fought, then the price of said items would rise, and people who start having to PAY for them, instead of jogging for half an hour. ;)
The very fact that finished CNR good are considered "junk" is the root of the problem!
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Maybe that character shouldn't be making 20 platinum chainmail armors or atleast not stockpiling them until he can hit the pawnshop for a large take in trues. Same could be said for gemcrafter who polishes 50 stack gems to just in turn sell them to the pawnshops and rake in trues that way.
I think if players learned restraint and didn't go to the pawnshop to break it then this situation would rarely occur.
And donating is a good idea. Boost your church's donations and if you don't have a god you could always give praise to Dorand and donate to him.
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Yeah, I'd like for every person who claims there is too much gold to donate as much of a percentage of their net wealth as Bjorn does. You should see how fat those wee little orphans are getting!
I'll just leave it at that...
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Without offering an opinion on the idea, I have two quick suggestions that players can try that might help alleviate some of the problem:
1) Stop picking up everything. A lot of stuff that drops is, indeed, of low value - no one in the group needs it, no one they know needs it, it's unlikely to sell to any other PC, and/or it won't fetch much from a pawner. It's not really worth hauling it anywhere to get the few gp a pawner would give.
While stuff on the ground can contribute to lag, the clean-up script will take care of it in a minute or two. Besides, stuff in inventories causes lag, too.
2) Try another pawner. Seriously. I've had a few things I've wanted to pawn away for a couple of coins before and the Hemp pawner always seems to be broke, but simply going to the next nearest pawner usually solves the problem. I don't mean to paint with a broad brush, but there is a sort of laziness among people regarding the pawning of stuff. It seems to be too much trouble to spend two minutes going to the next nearest pawner to sell things. Though I'm sure it can happen, I have never, ever been unable to sell things to a pawner outside the main traffic/gathering points (like Port Hempstead now or pre-V3 Hlint). Be willing to walk a little, or even keep in mind the often-penniless pawners and take a detour to a less frequented one on the way back from wherever you went.
on both points. I do agree that most things like bronze and under should not be picked, up and well I don't pick them up. Unfortunatly, it took me a good round about both servers last week to sell what I had and even then I was stuck with a whole lot left that I effectively dropped as credit in a guild.
Giving things as donations is good, if your character believes in that. Which the one I travel the most with, doesn't. which leaves churches, again, if your char is not following a god, he wouldn't donate.
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If the pawn shop is out of money people that don't follow gods should donate their stuff to the nearest trashcan.
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Giving things as donations is good, if your character believes in that. Which the one I travel the most with, doesn't. which leaves churches, again, if your char is not following a god, he wouldn't donate.
While these are legitimate reasons for a character not to donate it, I still think its fair to have the limit there. The reason being as Dorganath puts it in his post. The world is not always fair, and things happen. Likewise the world is not designed to accomodate things to allow characters to sell things appropriately.
If our characters have chosen the path -not- to donate then that is their choice and the world economics or anything else for that matter should not change because of it.
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Rather than letting pawnshops reserve a set amount per player/character I would propose the following:
1. Pawnshops would only purchase certain items it does not have in stock allready (not sure if this create a scripting nighmare). So the pawnshop will only buy one platinum full plate and not twenty. The basic concept is the pawnshop is not a dumping ground but rather a succesful business venture where the owner would only buy what he can resell.
2. In that same mindset the pawnshop should then be able to sell his acquired goods at a profit to others who would like to buy them (likely at a higher price than a crafter would sell it). So if one platinum full plate is in stock another player/character could buy it and therefore opening another spot for someone to sell another one to the owner.
No idea if something like that would be possible, but then we would be in a true pawn environment.
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Another option would be :
1 : get rid off the split pawnshops and create three or four stores that buy in items that can be resold for an amount off time ( 24-48 hours RL ) , after that a clean-up script removes everything in that global inventory .
2 : Remove items from the drops and replace them with the amount of coins that they would bring in with the pawnshop , excluding things that cant be made by crafters or are real prices to find ( higher material using items ) .
Just my 2 copper .
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Keeping items in the inventory of pawns will produce lag. Few of you were around to remember the player merchant NPCs...a place where people could dump items to sell on consignment, even if they weren't around, to other characters. As cool as the system was, it created a significant amount of lag.
Another option would be simply to reduce the chance of creatures dropping an item, thereby reducing the chance of getting loot that people would find need to pawn. ;)
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Another option would be simply to reduce the chance of creatures dropping an item, thereby reducing the chance of getting loot that people would find need to pawn. ;)
I like this idea actually... even though I know Dorg's kind of teasing with it.
But I'd prefer "craftable" items be removed from the Drops... and not the uncraftables.
Although Im biased a little... it was pretty annoying to find Yew Hunter Longbows dropping from creatures like petty coins. It takes a "lot" of crafting to make this item, and a whole list of hard to get crafting items just to make it ( Dusts of appearance, a dozen sight essences, Clairvoyance... blah blah ).
On one trip we actually found three of them. Three on one run. This item is Yew ( +3, basically Mithril)... and a speciality item to boot.
Of course, I didn't complain when my Mithy Longsword dropped.... which would be equally hard to get the CNR and make for Weaponsmiths... so I'll shut up now. ;)
But yes... remove a certain percentage of "Craftable items" from drops. Make craftable item drops a "rarity".
This free's up all the "junk" people would normally pick up and collect, hence reducing whats sold at the Pawnbrokers, giving Crafters a little more selling power and allowing Pawnbrokers to actually have the coin to buy the "junky uncraftable items" that are found.
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I like this idea actually... even though I know Dorg's kind of teasing with it.
But I'd prefer "craftable" items be removed from the Drops... and not the uncraftables.
Although Im biased a little... it was pretty annoying to find Yew Hunter Longbows dropping from creatures like petty coins. It takes a "lot" of crafting to make this item, and a whole list of hard to get crafting items just to make it ( Dusts of appearance, a dozen sight essences, Clairvoyance... blah blah ).
On one trip we actually found three of them. Three on one run. This item is Yew ( +3, basically Mithril)... and a speciality item to boot.
Of course, I didn't complain when my Mithy Longsword dropped.... which would be equally hard to get the CNR and make for Weaponsmiths... so I'll shut up now. ;)
But yes... remove a certain percentage of "Craftable items" from drops. Make craftable item drops a "rarity".
This free's up all the "junk" people would normally pick up and collect, hence reducing whats sold at the Pawnbrokers, giving Crafters a little more selling power and allowing Pawnbrokers to actually have the coin to buy the "junky uncraftable items" that are found.
I completely agree!! I think all craftable items should be removed. Jewelry, clothing, weapons etc.
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I completely agree!! I think all craftable items should be removed. Jewelry, clothing, weapons etc.
And replaced with various-stage CNR.
Instead of an Emerald set in a Silver Ring, some emerald dust and maybe a mangled ingot of silver.
Iron longsword? Mangled iron ore.
Scrolls galore? Raw scroll of oak.
Wooden weapons? Shaft of Mahogany wood. Oak sandpaper.
If anything, this would encourage crafters to get together, despite the fact that they'd be picking up more mid-process goods... As those mid-process goods still need to be put together to make something nifty.
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One aspect of this discussion that I'd like to bring up is the impact of penniless pawn shops on low-level players who are new to Layonara. When you're just starting out (Levels 1-4) and you want to buy yourself the basic copper armor/weapons at the merchant, I think it would be quite frustrating to find nowhere you can sell your low-level loot for coins.
Is there any chance that the pawn merchants in the starting towns of Hempstead and Vehl could be restricted to buying ONLY from low-level PC's? It might inconvenience the rest of us a little, but we can travel to all those other pawn shops if we want, while folks brand-new to Layo cannot.
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I think Kirbiana has a very valid point. It is one thing for higher levels to sell things at the pawn shops, that's just the way the game is played. However, lower level players (and especially Layo newbies) get completely slammed by the need for coins. Veteran players have an advantage, of course, because they know how the game is played. I would highly encourage the team to prop up the lower levels more than is apparent now in the MMO. (eg. A broken pickaxe is just a nuisance to a 10th level; it is a true hardship to a lower level. The constant mantra of "but it's a gold drain" is weak.) Perhaps pawn shops should -only- buy things from 9th and lower levels?
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Restricting them to 9th level and below would make the pawns on Belinara and Dregar generally completely useless, yet they do serve a purpose. Consider someone above 9th level who got stranded on one of those continents without a boat ticket and not enough gold to buy one. I know this has happened to several people over the years, and in every one of these cases the character was not of a build that was conducive to soloing the available creatures to swipe a few coins. But, they just might have a few things in their inventory they could trade for a few coins.
High-level does not equate to "rich" or the ability to obtain gold at any moment just because they know how to play the game.
The real "fix" is changing player behavior. Mid-to-high level characters who dump all their junk in Port Hempstead and run out the pawns are indeed being inconsiderate to other characters and their players.
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As an entrepreneur, you never never can rely on "changing customer behavior." If that is in your business plan, rethink it.
The real "fix" is to make the game reward the behavior you want. The game rewards crafters that sell their makings to pawn shops. The game rewards looters that sell their loot. Nothing wrong with that. However, the lower levels are impacted to a degree that is not pleasant.
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Although Im biased a little... it was pretty annoying to find Yew Hunter Longbows dropping from creatures like petty coins. It takes a "lot" of crafting to make this item, and a whole list of hard to get crafting items just to make it ( Dusts of appearance, a dozen sight essences, Clairvoyance... blah blah ).
On one trip we actually found three of them. Three on one run. This item is Yew ( +3, basically Mithril)... and a speciality item to boot.
Of course, I didn't complain when my Mithy Longsword dropped.... which would be equally hard to get the CNR and make for Weaponsmiths... so I'll shut up now. ;)
EGADS! Yes I remember with Farros he quickly found a longbow that was even better than Yew, like the grandpappy of flights of fancy. Man, I remember the days when two 20th levellers going to getyew used to cause a ruckus. And now better than yew finished items are dropping like flies. And we still admonish our players for selling more than one mithral or yew item per month!
*blinks* Guess people of a certain level are technically forced to stockpile to some extent. You'd be INSANE to throw yew or mithral into a trashbin, and even to donate it. But if you sell it off for a fair price at a quick enough interval as you find them, you're a bad bad man.
Does the 1 yew/mithral item per month guideline apply to guilds? or just the lower to middle class and independant crafters?
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As an entrepreneur, you never never can rely on "changing customer behavior." If that is in your business plan, rethink it.
The real "fix" is to make the game reward the behavior you want. The game rewards crafters that sell their makings to pawn shops. The game rewards looters that sell their loot. Nothing wrong with that. However, the lower levels are impacted to a degree that is not pleasant.
I'm not in complete disagreement, but "legislating by mechanics" is invariably inflexible, as special cases do always exist, and is terribly time-consuming. For every attempt we've made and all the hundreds of man-hours we've spent over the years to "encourage" the behavior we've wanted, one element or the other has found away around our encouragement, making us spend even more time to counteract the actions of of a few who invariably ruin the experience for the masses.
Further, we have rules here on the server that are specifically aimed at "changing customer behavior". There are rules against swearing and cursing, as well as rules against the explicit RP of sex in-game regardless of location. Griefing, muling...all of these things we have asked players to not do, because we all know that left in an unstructured, uncontrolled environment, the behavior of people will degrade. The rules and mechanics do not reward anyone for not doing these things. There is only admonishment and penalty if one does them.
In any case, mechanically limiting who can pawn where doesn't reward anyone, it simply ridgidly enforces that which we want people to do anyway. And if people would be considerate, then we could spend our time on improving the experience for everyone as well as on making the next game far better than we can make it in NWN.
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Does the 1 yew/mithral item per month guideline apply to guilds? or just the lower to middle class and independant crafters?
This request applies to everyone. Guilds included.
But I have to tell you, dont be fooled, not like these items sell frequently.
I think in Raven Trade we might have sold five yew items in total and I not sure about the mithril, but I dont think we sold much of that either.
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Thought I would bump this to re-visit.
One aspect of this discussion that I'd like to bring up is the impact of penniless pawn shops on low-level players who are new to Layonara. When you're just starting out (Levels 1-4) and you want to buy yourself the basic copper armor/weapons at the merchant, I think it would be quite frustrating to find nowhere you can sell your low-level loot for coins.
Most of the older players that create new PC's know someone IG or know the system to sell CNR and what not to get coins. What about the new players that do not know the system yet. They are trying to get coin and see a pawn shop. They try to sell whatever they can to get just a little coin, but the pawnshops are out of money.
After the last couple of server resets, I hopped around looking at pawnshops. Within 30 minutes, there were pawnshops expended.
The real "fix" is changing player behavior. Mid-to-high level characters who dump all their junk in Port Hempstead and run out the pawns are indeed being inconsiderate to other characters and their players.
And if people would be considerate, then we could spend our time on improving the experience for everyone as well as on making the next game far better than we can make it in NWN.
Apparently doesn't work as easy as just asking and relying on people to govern themselves.
I propose (select all that apply):
- 1) A system similar to the chests where it shows who sold what.
- 2) The pawns shop only buys a limit to an item. (Max. 10 polished fire opals)
Maybe that character shouldn't be making 20 platinum chainmail armors or atleast not stockpiling them until he can hit the pawnshop for a large take in trues. Same could be said for gemcrafter who polishes 50 stack gems to just in turn sell them to the pawnshops and rake in trues that way.
- 3) Pawnshops only used for PCs under level 10. Over this level, they know enough to how to get coins without the pawn shop. (Maybe Mistone under lvl 10, Dregar lvl 11-20, and Belinara lvl 21+)
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Pawn shops are a pain in the rear and frustrating. The argument that more gold would deteriorate or collapse the layo economy is sound when based on RL economic principles, but we have to admit this is not RL. Perhaps we should exercise a controlled experiment in order to collect some data in order to make a more informed decision, and I am assuming this has not been done before as I have only been playing since 2006... If the experiment fails, it would be easily corrected within a month or so by restricting the pawnshops to previous levels and natural depletion of reserves.
Lets raise the coin thresholds on all pawnshops by 500%. After 30 days take a look at the state of things via player surveys. What is the player satisfaction levels? What is the assessment of flow of goods by crafters? Are there significant increases in donations to causes and religions? Has the level of RP between players increased due to exchange of coin for info and missions? Have players been rat holing their money? Has there been changes in frustration levels? The data from these multiple surveys can be analyzed and graphed and we would have concrete data instead of argument one and argument two supported by assumptions that both seem logical at face value...
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The other side of this coin (no pun intended) is that would effectively raise the amount of gold being put into the economy without another means to remove it. The over-abundance of gold is in fact one of the problems in the economy right now.
I certainly wish I had that "problem". None of my characters have over 20k in the bank right now, and two of them are lvl 20. And considering landmarks cost 1 million true, +3 jewelry costs 100,000+ true and mithral weapons cost 70,000+ true, that puts me in the rugged "craft yer own" crowd.
Maybe if players who were interested in opening guild-halls and the like could open their own charity. Siphon off all those iron items into something that helps further the goals of themselves and their friends, rather than the imaginary NPCs who seem to get mysteriously struck my invasions and natural disasters every time there's noticeable economic inflation.
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Well the thing is, sure you can donate. Bjorn, Ozy and Goldwin donated MILLIONS of true worth that Dorand's temple holds in his coffers. But what exactly does that get you? No new temples, no new crafthalls, no new anything I have noticed sice we were donating furiously. And so we quit donating.
If you want people to donate, there must be discernible and visible rewards for such behavior. Otherwise it's just tossing items in a trashcan that has a value above it. Perhaps if receipts totaling 1 million true worth of donations would yield sainthood in the faith, or some form of special recognition. Maybe every 5 million true in the pot, it gets deducted and a new temple appears, or at least a few new cleric NPCs in locations appropriate to the deity .
In any case, it would also be interesting to split the pawnshops a bit. Make one for armor/weapons, another for gems and another for miscellaneous items. I'm guessing that the gems pawnshop will be constantly empty, and everybody else will be happy. ;)
Perhaps as an alternative to pawning gems, some Berylite cleric NPC could put a bounty on them and trade players xp, good pts, healing kits and potions? Kind of like how you can trade the scrap metal in Fallout 3 to various NPCs for useful items back. Have a Voraxian cleric NPC who trades iron or bronze weapons for healing supplies, have a Lucindite who trades fro spell scrolls, etc. Then at least when the pawn shops were broke, there could be other places to siphon all of that "junk" to. I'd definitely enjoy trading items for kits! They make up at least 70% of my expenditures as it is.
We could also disallow cut and polished gems and their dusts from being pawned. Pawn shops only accepting finished products like jewelry. THAT would solve 90% of the broke pawnshop problem. Metal ingots as well. Make people sell these items to the crafters instead of leaching the pawn system dry every 5 minutes after the reboot. Mark all unfinished CNR goods as stolen. Doesn't take all that much time and coding, just a click of the applicable properties box in the item database. We can politely ask the playerbase again and again not to rush the pawnshops with gems till we're blue in the face, and 99% may even obey that standard. But it's the 1% who rushes the pawnshop every reboot who ruins it for the other 99%.
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As for the time old saying "there's too much gold in the player economy..."
Central: Players Online: 19 • Uptime: 07:08:31 • Level Average: 24
West: Players Online: 5 • Uptime: 07:08:31 • Level Average: 20
I would dare say that we should rethink that a bit. With so many super-epics running around, they really SHOULD have a lot of gold. A LOT of gold. How many of these players have +3 jewelry? They've been able to wear it since the high teens, but it's not available very often, and when it is, it's usually priced at over 100,000 true. So of course they're going to hoard their gold. Just in the off-chance that a bidding war will ensue in the Tradehall and they can finally get that nice item they've been pining for for years of Real Time.
When I think of Epic, I think of somebody sitting in a tower, Lordship over a small realm and leading an army. But that simply is not the case. A lot of us out there are living hand-to-mouth (or hand to healkit, rather) I have 2 lvl 20s with less than 25,000 true in the bank right now. Who are all these people with "too much gold" that I keep hearing about? How does one define "too much gold" per level, in a monetary amount? Could it possibly be that the people who claim there is too much gold out there are simply looking at their own bank accounts and making presumptions about the wealth of the others?
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A few quick comments...
Most of the older players that create new PC's know someone IG or know the system to sell CNR and what not to get coins. What about the new players that do not know the system yet. They are trying to get coin and see a pawn shop. They try to sell whatever they can to get just a little coin, but the pawnshops are out of money.
This is true, largely because all the older players who know the system get there as soon as they can and deplete all shops. It's interesting to note that the bulk of complaints I've heard about pawn shops are from older players with newer characters.
After the last couple of server resets, I hopped around looking at pawnshops. Within 30 minutes, there were pawnshops expended.
- 3) Pawnshops only used for PCs under level 10. Over this level, they know enough to how to get coins without the pawn shop. (Maybe Mistone under lvl 10, Dregar lvl 11-20, and Belinara lvl 21+)
This is possibly the most reasonable and workable suggestion I've heard so far.
Well the thing is, sure you can donate. Bjorn, Ozy and Goldwin donated MILLIONS of true worth that Dorand's temple holds in his coffers. But what exactly does that get you? No new temples, no new crafthalls, no new anything I have noticed sice we were donating furiously. And so we quit donating.
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The fallacy here is that donations alone do not imply an automatic result. The cost of Toran's citadel in Huangjin came from the millions of True in donations and the efforts of Michaelis Draego. There's no magic threshold of donations where we go "DING! Dorand gets a new temple!" However, if that is an end you want to pursue, it's a worthy CDQ goal once the funds are available in some way.
I believe there are two such initiatives in progress right now, in fact.
But it's the 1% who rushes the pawnshop every reboot who ruins it for the other 99%.
Absolutely true. That 1% is also likely not reading this thread.
As for the time old saying "there's too much gold in the player economy..."
Central: Players Online: 19 • Uptime: 07:08:31 • Level Average: 24
West: Players Online: 5 • Uptime: 07:08:31 • Level Average: 20
I would dare say that we should rethink that a bit.
Perhaps you're right. Let's say then that there is too much gold distributed among a very few, who have then contributed to inflated prices because "someone" will pay them.
With so many super-epics running around, they really SHOULD have a lot of gold. A LOT of gold.
Also true, but the reality is that there are plenty "super-epics" who don't, and that some of the wealthiest 100 active characters on the server are in fact less than 20th level.
When I think of Epic, I think of somebody sitting in a tower, Lordship over a small realm and leading an army. But that simply is not the case. A lot of us out there are living hand-to-mouth (or hand to healkit, rather) I have 2 lvl 20s with less than 25,000 true in the bank right now. Who are all these people with "too much gold" that I keep hearing about?[/quote]Again, it is kept among a relative few, but it is also the engine that perpetuates an inflated value of some items, driving a greater seeking of gold.
How does one define "too much gold" per level, in a monetary amount? Could it possibly be that the people who claim there is too much gold out there are simply looking at their own bank accounts and making presumptions about the wealth of the others?
At least in my case, I'm making informed conclusions based on the database of bank balances and just general observations. Among the group that knows "how to play the game" and can seem to generate gold very readily, there's a false assumption that sums like 10k, 50k, even 100K are within reach of anyone of mid level or above. While perhaps technically true, it also makes assumptions about play style, available time, etc.
Maybe I'm a product of the "old days" in which there seemed a lot more trading of goods-for-goods or goods-for-gold among characters rather than the wholesale depletion of free and easy sources of gold like pawn shops.
Admittedly, there is one other dynamic at work here than there was just a few years ago, and that is the fact that our servers now stay up for a week (or more) at a time as a matter of course rather than getting reset (due to need or crash) every 6-12 hours. But even so and even as the servers got to the point of stability over several days, no one was dumping polished gems on pawn shops in such insane numbers as to deplete them in mere minutes. This is a relatively recent phenomenon (last RL year or so).
Anyway, with the dynamic of the servers being up longer, I am going to try and come up with a simple and reasonable system (reasonable in terms of development effort and imposed rstrictions) that will extend the lifespan of pawn shops, or at least of their coffers. That system, however, will not simply be increasing the amount of gold available to the pawn shops.
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Having different shops for different types of items (or just a different counter), is not going to solve the problem - the same people will rush the "gem" merchant, and make a lot of true, and leave it bankrupt for the rest.
It may sound counter-intuitive, but the reason that gem-pawning is lucrative is because they aren't terribly valuable... that is, their pawn value is less than the single item cap, and they are cheap and easy to obtain in volume. And, of course, they can be split out of their stacks. I've heard of people pawning gold ingots, and (since the crafting change) arrows, for similar reasons.
Most crafts either produce items that are grossly undervalued by the lens compared to the effort to make them, and so worthless to pawn (heal potions, infused wands), or they produce items that are so expensive that the single item cap is exceeded by a lot, and so the effort to craft is also wasted because so little of the value can be extracted form the pawner (Drexia regularly makes items that have a lens value of over 100k, but it's still only 1000 true, even at the good pawners).
So, if its possible, my personal recommendation would be to adjust the single item cap, and maybe even the percentage true return for different types of items. For gems, maybe something in the 50-100 true range, for armors, maybe 2500-5000, maybe potions get double the true percentage of other things, and so on...
I think this would strike a better balance, so that gem crafting wouldn't be quite so lucrative at the pawners, and give a little love to other crafts...
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Now, I personally believe that it should be possible to make true from crafting, and so long as try to avoid the pawners around the new characters starting cities, I don't see a problem with pawning gems, or saving some dropped items to make true so long as its done in moderation.
There are other ways to make true, sure... some of them relatively easy, if boring. But, just like many other things in the game, the designers can't make it "fair" for everyone - characters who can solo easily will be able to make true more easily, players who have friends or family OOC they play with regularly will make true more easily, players who have more time to play will make true more easily, etc...
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I think all craftable items should be removed. Jewelry, clothing, weapons etc.
And, of course, the pawn shops don't exist in an economic vacuum. In my opinion, this would help a lot.
Edit:
Let's say then that there is too much gold distributed among a very few, who have then contributed to inflated prices because "someone" will pay them.
I find it interesting that you note inflated prices... certainly some items, notably high level drops and some exceptional items sometimes sell for a ton. Sometimes, I've seen the same item sell for 50k and 5k, only weeks apart; the consistency of prices I think has changed in the last couple years. Overall though, it seems to me that prices are depressed for the bulk of goods. Drexia's prices used to be on the low-average end of merchants. I can think of one or two people who undersold her when I started... I've adjusted a few things since then, mostly downward, but if you look around, most prices have gone down relative to hers. I've even had players in the last year tell me that I really overprice things. I've had other merchants tell me they've seen the same things in other crafts...
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I don't know if this is feasible in the script for the game, but would it be possible for the pawnshops gold coffers to get filled by purchases to the other shops of the given town?
for example, Lue goes to the craft merchant and spends 128 on enchanting oil, would it be possible for that 128 gold to be transferred to the pawnshops gold supply?
the reason the pawnshops are "broken" is because due to lag issues they are effectively only half a shop and they function in no way like an actual pawn shop would. I understand that we can't have the pawnshops hang on to their inventory, because this would constantly crash the server as their inventories fill up with pages upon pages of junk that people sell. however due to this constraint we have merchants who give money out, and never take any money in.
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I don't know if this is feasible in the script for the game, but would it be possible for the pawnshops gold coffers to get filled by purchases to the other shops of the given town?
for example, Lue goes to the craft merchant and spends 128 on enchanting oil, would it be possible for that 128 gold to be transferred to the pawnshops gold supply?
I like that idea....
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3) Pawnshops only used for PCs under level 10. Over this level, they know enough to how to get coins without the pawn shop. (Maybe Mistone under lvl 10, Dregar lvl 11-20, and Belinara lvl 21+)
I like this idea.
I don't know if this is feasible in the script for the game, but would it be possible for the pawnshops gold coffers to get filled by purchases to the other shops of the given town?
for example, Lue goes to the craft merchant and spends 128 on enchanting oil, would it be possible for that 128 gold to be transferred to the pawnshops gold supply?
While this is a neat idea, I'd alter it to be, for example, 32 gold (25% of that which was spent), so that it works as a drain on the economy. The problem is largely consumables; other than heal kits and crafting items, adventurers don't tend to "use things up" - particularly big-ticket items like fancy weapons/armour (barring a rust monster). As every monster seems to drop gold, that (in addition to the pawn shops) constantly infuses gold into the economy. Some means has to be provided to take it out, and if money spent at the merchants was kept in a reservoir for the pawn shops, yet another way for money to leave the economy would be closed off.
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Lets raise the coin thresholds on all pawnshops by 500%. After 30 days take a look at the state of things via player surveys.
the problem with this is adding more gold to the pawn shops will not solve the problem. the problem is not that the pawn shops run out of money, it's that they have no means of refilling their supply of money
if you increase the amount of gold the pawn shops carry then it'll only mean they have gold for an extra few minutes.
the problem is that the people who drain all the money from the pawn shops by selling various items, actually carry more of these items then they can sell to the pawn shops.
for example, lets say the item being sold is a type of arrow (i don't know if CNR arrows sell well, I'm just saying for the sake of argument) since the pawn shops have been out of money for 3 days the character in question has been stocking up on these arrows for 3 days, now when the server resets he rushes to the nearest pawn shop (typically Hampstead or vehl) and sells his items for 1000 gold until the shop has less then 1000 gold, he still has items left, but the shop doesn't have enough money to pay for it so he moves on to the next shop. increasing the ammount of money that the shops hold doesn't really make the gold last longer, it just means the character spends and extra 30 to 40 seconds selling items to that pawn merchant before moving on
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Never read this thread before now. Incentivizing non-pawnshop gold sinks (which I think Pen N Popper suggested waaa-aaay back there) I think is a solution, at least in part. The discounts in a temple that a PC can now receive based upon the level of their donation is a nifty little feature that doesn't get much recognition but I think is a good example of the much requested tangible benefit-for-donation that we have all been screaming about for a long time. I'd love to see more and similar! Cheers.
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the problem with this is adding more gold to the pawn shops will not solve the problem. the problem is not that the pawn shops run out of money, it's that they have no means of refilling their supply of money
Hmm.. Point taken.
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I think the problem is that it only seems, and I might be wrong, but that the pawnshops do not reset enough. I just started playing a new character and have traveled the entire continent of Mistone looking to sell stuff with all (or at least most, and always the ones who pay a good price are broke) of them being broke for I think the last three weeks, granted we only play one or two days a week with our new characters.
It seems that some know when the reset is (is it only after a server reset?) and instantly run from shop to shop selling stuff. I have very limited playtime, and so does my son who gets to play once a week. He asked me how come he has to carry around so much stuff for weeks on end because the shops will never buy it from him. All I can tell him is, well, that's how it is.
Being low level again means we need every single true we can get to buy equipment. But when we go three weeks and can't sell anything???
Seems odd to me,
Merlin34
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I was thinking about this as a suggestion for refilling the pawn shop monies for lower level folks, without unbalancing the game by bringing too much money into the system.
Use an entry tax to the city to replenish the pawn shop cash, it could be fairly low and increase by level, so say 2gp / Level each time you enter port hempstead, sort of like having to speak to the master of entry at Prantz.. "That'll be 16 true to enter the city sir.. but ye look as though ye'd be able to afford that easy enough...".
That would refill the coffers enough that a low level pc could sell some of the things that they find, most of which only go for less than 50gp, whilst not being enough to allow the higher levels to dump off their excess crafting stocks - by the time it would have gone up enough to allow the sale of a stack of fire opals, I would imagine that a the lower level folks will have drained it down.
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I like the idea there, the only thing is in two folds. either always have money on you.. or.. have the tolls access directly your bank account. Just in those small instances where you die and find yourself with no cash on you.
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Or, (again, not knowing what possible with the coding) to simply have different "banks" for differently priced items. So maybe the pawn shop has infinite funds to buy things that pawn for 1 true (so the new characters can pawn barley grains to their hearts content), a large but limited bank for things that pawn for 2-25 true, another for the 25-100 range, and so on...
I don't know enough to propose certain values for those banks, but something like that would ensure that pawn shops can pay out for those small values that are important to new characters, while still limiting the larger item payout that inflates the economy.
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Just to throw in another bit of perspective...
In towns like Port Hempstead, the store limit is 35,000 True. Smaller towns have stores with lower limits, but I think this serves to illustrate what has been said about the store limits, how they're milked without regard to other players, etc.
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it makes some sense to though (the limit, that is).
Jared in Vehl must get robbed often though....
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All I can think of is decrease the amount of gold that gems can be sold for. You can easily go to the forest giant cave in the Forest of Fog for half a bag of fire opals and then cut/polish them all. Then, you can cut the the stacks of 10 fire opals into stacks of three and sell those for 855 coins each! Totaling up to about 3000 coins for a stack of ten, and then maybe 6000 coins for a decent fire opal trip.
But since gem crafting is probably the highest-gold-earning profession, why not just cut the amount of gold that gems can be sold for? In the past couple of months, there would probably be thousands of fire opals floating around just in Hempstead, Vehl, Mariner's Hold and Prantz that the pawners probably wouldn't buy them anyway. Why not cut prices down on the most common items sold?
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Just to throw in another bit of perspective...
In towns like Port Hempstead, the store limit is 35,000 True. Smaller towns have stores with lower limits, but I think this serves to illustrate what has been said about the store limits, how they're milked without regard to other players, etc.
Is this something about which you (the coders?) can pull out more detailed information?
Maybe the prospect of being named and shamed might encourage a little bit of consideration from those who, thus far, seem disinclined to think of (a) what is realistic RP and (b) what is fair for all members of the community.
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Yeah, we could if we wanted. From my perspective though, that's an awful lot of time and energy spent for the purpose of shaming a few people. Besides seeming a misappropriation of precious development resources, it also seems rather mean.
Not that I haven't thought about something like that, but yeah...
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Yeah, we could if we wanted. From my perspective though, that's an awful lot of time and energy spent for the purpose of shaming a few people. Besides seeming a misappropriation of precious development resources, it also seems rather mean.
Not that I haven't thought about something like that, but yeah...
As I used to say to my mother, "Yeah, but he started it!"
Anyways, for what it's worth, I too agree with OsX's post (http://forums.layonara.com/1028122-post9.html) and also Twidget's post (http://forums.layonara.com/1369172-post24.html) - being a modified version of PnP's only-open-to-certain-levels idea.
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Yeah, we could if we wanted. From my perspective though, that's an awful lot of time and energy spent for the purpose of shaming a few people. Besides seeming a misappropriation of precious development resources, it also seems rather mean.
Not that I haven't thought about something like that, but yeah...
Set CNR items to "stolen". There, no pawning. No new codes. Just gems used for jewelcraft and nothing else.
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There were several great idea's here. Anyway some of them can be implemented?
I personally think that crafted items should not be able to be pawned.
Also love the ideas that certain pawnshops only buy from certain levels or pawnshops will only buy so much from each character.
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There were several great idea's here. Anyway some of them can be implemented?
I personally think that crafted items should not be able to be pawned.
Also love the ideas that certain pawnshops only buy from certain levels or pawnshops will only buy so much from each character.
I actually had some plans for something like this for the last update, but I realized to do it right, I needed more time than I had.
So best I can say is: stay tuned :)
And for those of you who have fabulously rich characters already, stop plundering the pawn shops already! ;)
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Having pawn shops not to buy crafted items, would end up with huge amounts of stored crafted items, and this would cause house repopulations to lag the server humongously. Also player inventories might be full of crafted gems etc.
And it would not be sort of fitting for every character in Layo to think 1 of the 2 lines below:
"Heck, just smithed 10 adamantium helmets, I think I'll just dump them in the trash". <-- not especially likely for say a Dorand-worshipper.
or
"I am a Corathite, but I think I will donate these 100 enchanted gems to the Mistone Defense funds, because I sometimes get this good streak".
The Angels guildhouse, when repopulated early after a server reset tends to lag the server so much, that every player lag-crashes from the server.
I don't think anyone wants this to be the situation for say 50% of the player housing...
Edit: Did not see this on Lonn's post at first 8)
Just gems used for jewelcraft and nothing else.
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I say yes if you do not follow a god or have some cause to donate the goods to then ... trash them. I have trashed many bows with Emie. Amanda donates most of the items she produces and do not use. I have been guilty as well of pawning a few opals to get coins for boat tickets or whatever. But it has not been many times.
I think guilds should not have a problem with trashing crafted items that do not sell. They could even come up with their own cause to donate the items to. ;) I think it would much more difficult for the independent crafter to trash their work. For it is much harder for them to get the cnr to be able to craft. But draining the pawn shops with bows, gems, jewelry etc ruins it for everyone else.
We do not have to hang on to every little thing we find or craft. It is just a waste of space.
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Honestly... these ideas do nothing for the low level character. It boils down to getting the people who have high priced items to stopping selling them.
I'm getting to the point that it's so hard to advance a lower level character that I don't bother to create one. When it costs 10... 20... 30... thousand trues to get equipment for a lower level with NO guild connections... Its BS that the lower levels (and people who can't play every day) can't use the pawn shops.
I'm beginning to play only one PC cause I can't advance any other without spending the one day a week I have to play collecting junk to sell to the guilds so I can afford equiptment since I can't sell what I have to the pawners.
Merlin34.
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Exactly, which is why I said before that people who really don't need the money shouldn't be rushing the pawn shops and depleting their reserves with all the junk they've picked up adventuring or made while crafting since the prior reset.
At least until something is put in place to alleviate the strain, people in the community should keep this in mind as a courtesy to others.
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One suggestion that might help is for the more experienced characters to use the pawn shops that are far away from the start up areas and leave the areas like Vehl, Hempstead, Wayfare, etc. to the lower level characters.
Also, I have a question regarding donating things that's kinda relevant. How much value of items donated will give you a one percent reduction in buying things from that temple? (ie, if you donate 100,000 in value of items you might get a 1% discount on buying healing potions from that temple?)
Thanks
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Honestly... these ideas do nothing for the low level character. It boils down to getting the people who have high priced items to stopping selling them.
I think that some of these things will help stop this. So in the end it will help the lower level characters. I really do not see a need for high levels to use a pawnshop.
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I think that some of these things will help stop this. So in the end it will help the lower level characters. I really do not see a need for high levels to use a pawnshop.
Especially since...
...the party level restrictions have been removed and low level charatcers are making runs for high level CNR.
...multiple PCs from the same player using the guild for credit that another one of their PCs is a member of.
...store credit.
..."gifts".
Just to name a few. The economy system is basically turning up-side-down.
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Exactly, which is why I said before that people who really don't need the money shouldn't be rushing the pawn shops and depleting their reserves with all the junk they've picked up adventuring or made while crafting since the prior reset.
At least until something is put in place to alleviate the strain, people in the community should keep this in mind as a courtesy to others.
This is the best way, self discipline folks. Do you really need 500k+ true in the bank? Sure if you are saving for something but once you have most of what you need (for a time) why try to bank up so much gold?
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The economy system is basically turning up-side-down.
Turning? Heh, it's been "upside-down" for as long as I've played on Layo. But that's another discussion.
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My 2 cents, I like the idea of limiting pawn shops to lower level characters, particularly in the starting areas of Hempstead, Wayfare, Leringard, and Vehl. Low lvl characters are starving for true, its the primary driver why the Angel's policy of bartering finished goods for cnr is so popular.
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My 2 cents, I like the idea of limiting pawn shops to lower level characters, particularly in the starting areas of Hempstead, Wayfare, Leringard, and Vehl. Low lvl characters are starving for true, its the primary driver why the Angel's policy of bartering finished goods for cnr is so popular.
Sure that would be great but if they are serving low levels then they dont have to be the top payment pawn shops as well.
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Actually, that's mostly the point. If lower level characters are the only ones with access to Hemp and Vehl pawnshops and close surrounding ones, those shops shouldn't run out of coin to give for all the low level stuff that is turned in - given a cap of 35k. My understanding from reading this thread is that large amounts of crafted cnr is being turned in for coin, thus draining the pawnshops. I think this solution makes the server more new player friendly and would help alleviate the problem. :)
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Low level CNR generates just as much coin as high level drops. Cut and polished alaxandrite is a gold mine. So maybe the pawn shops should be limited to both Class level and Crafting levels so that once you hit the gemcrafters "money maker" you can no longer use those pawn shops.
Note: By top payment pawn shop I mean the ones that pay 1000 true as the highest price. I think if they are going to be set as low level pawn shops then they should be set down to the lowest payment shops at 350 true as the highest they will pay. And the top payment shops should be moved to more remote locations.
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Low level CNR generates just as much coin as high level drops. Cut and polished alexandrite is a gold mine. So maybe the pawn shops should be limited to both Class level and Crafting levels so that once you hit the gem crafters "money maker" you can no longer use those pawn shops.
I really don't see why this would be a bad thing for 10th lvl characters or lower. They are the ones that need more coin for gear to prepare for higher lvls. Is this really a problem? Or is it higher lvl characters doing this exact thing that drains the pawnshops? I'm curious as to what kinds of data the admins have access to now in regards to who is doing what with the pawnshops. ;)
Note: By top payment pawn shop I mean the ones that pay 1000 true as the highest price. I think if they are going to be set as low level pawn shops then they should be set down to the lowest payment shops at 350 true as the highest they will pay. And the top payment shops should be moved to more remote locations.
Isn't this the same as arguing for a continuation of the status quo?
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I really don't see why this would be a bad thing for 10th lvl characters or lower. They are the ones that need more coin for gear to prepare for higher lvls. Is this really a problem? Or is it higher lvl characters doing this exact thing that drains the pawnshops? I'm curious as to what kinds of data the admins have access to now in regards to who is doing what with the pawnshops. ;)
We don't log pawn shops, but if the community wants a "campaign of shame" we certainly could. I'm not particularly keen on the idea, but if we must, we must.
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@CB it is really not high level loot drops that are draining the pawnshops. It is crafters and among the crafts gem crafting is by far the best way to gain true from pawn shops (followed closely by infusing).
There really are not enough high level drops to drain the pawnshops everytime the server resets.
I always thought pawn shops were put in place so that unused drops could be taken out of the stream. Maybe unfinshed CNR should not be pawnable.
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I had a thought which I'm sure would likely be horrible to try and script... but could we get it so that..
If lvl 10 or less preserve the cap on what is paid out e.g. 35000 but only count amounts say over 50gp (insert whatever amount) towards that, thereby allowing you to sell all those low level scrolls, star.dusts etc. even when the big money has run out.
For everyone else, just keep it the way it is.
I don't think that would harm the economy too badly, after all when I play my lowest lvl pc Damon, most all of his ready cash gets spent on heal kits, and new equipment. So it would be nice if he knows he can get rid of it, and pick himself up a quick 10 stack of bandages, and not hoard it all until a reset means he can get rid of it.
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I think we're advocating two different things now, Jrizz. :D
I'm talking about limiting the pawn shops in the start areas to low level characters and you are talking about eliminating gem stacks as pawn able items. :p Both may be good ideas, both may be bad ones..Its entirely up to the team to decide.
We don't log pawn shops, but if the community wants a "campaign of shame" we certainly could. I'm not particularly keen on the idea, but if we must, we must.
I'm not either, something of this nature would simply promote individual bad feelings imo whereas a policy change would apply to all. We'd either like it or lump it. O.o
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the only real issue I have with your proposal is that two of the pawn shops you are targeting are the ones that pay the highest amout per item. Furthermore there are at least 10 pawn shops that PCs can get to without any danger. So I am failing to see the issue ;)
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simply put, that there has been time where I went through almost all the known (even the back watered one) pawnshop to find them drained. So imagine the starting players, who needs the money.
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We don't log pawn shops, but if the community wants a "campaign of shame" we certainly could. I'm not particularly keen on the idea, but if we must, we must.
Actually this may not be a bad thing if done in private. I do not think it is a good idea to make in public. If people know that they are being watched and will get a nasty e-mail form the team about questionable pawn shop uses. They just may be smart about how they use the pawn shops.
Now that I think of it the pawn shop limit per character would be less taxing on the team over all. The last thing the team needs is more work.
One thing I have to say is now that this discussion has taken place again the pawn shop have money for longer periods of time. The Hempstead Pawn shop ran out of money yesterday, which is good. I remember when it would be only a few hours after a server reset before it ran out.
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At the risk of getting blasted, I will offer some empirical evidence to suggest that this is really not as big a problem as some may think and definitely not worth the team spending time on.
I thought the recent sever up time made it a good time to test my hypothesis that people are just not looking hard enough if pawning is really an issue. Since the server had been up for ten days straight without a reset I thought surely every pawn shop must be sold out by now and I needed to run around and refamiliarize myself with getting around from place to place anyway. Within a 1 hour period these were my findings.
The pawn shops in Hempstead, Vehl, and Prantz were sold out.
There were 2 large, 1 medium and 5 small pawn shops with money to spare to buy things up to the max item value of each size shop. All of these pawn shops were accessible without doing any fighting and I only looked at places in Mistone or within a portal or ship distance from Mistone. All of these pawn shops that still had money were accessible by characters of any level.
I hope that helps to determine whether or not any time is spent on this issue.
Get out there people! Explore and don't just wait for others to provide every convenience.
Thanks and good hunting.
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Yes what you are saying does make sense. But this does not help the new players that start out.
It could all be solved if people would just stop pawning all of the crafting CNR and then the team wouldn't be bother with it. I rarely use the pawn shops so I had forgot about this until I brought Randi back and her bank account was at $0 and I was trying to get coin for her to buy healing potions and bandages. Some of the pawn shops were empty with in an hour of a reset. That is just extreme. At times even the lowest paying pawnshops were empty.
Why should a few drain them and ruin it for others when there may be a possible solution that would make it fair for everyone?
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Actually Skywatcher, I'm happy that -this- time that hasn`t happened. But only 2 months and some dust ago, when I created Tyillaan, I had exactly the same problem, as i described when I created the thread a year ago. The problem of going to -every- pawnshop I knew about, even the one of kitharen, hlint, vale, north point, north fort, etc, and found them all empty. So this is still a problem.
Some of the pawnshop I went through had me go to loops of dangerous areas, good thing she has invisibility.
But for New characters that have not the same luck, it is a problem that can affect their enjoyment of the game.
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@skywatcher, thank you that hits to my point. If any adjustment should be made it should be to scatter the high paying pawn shops to further away points.
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Keeping items in the inventory of pawns will produce lag. Few of you were around to remember the player merchant NPCs...a place where people could dump items to sell on consignment, even if they weren't around, to other characters. As cool as the system was, it created a significant amount of lag.
Another option would be simply to reduce the chance of creatures dropping an item, thereby reducing the chance of getting loot that people would find need to pawn. ;)
I had a mac-daddy merchant!!! With cotton, barley, some greenstones, some skeleton knuckles...lol Yeah those were some laggy laggy times, but a cool system =)
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Especially since...
...the party level restrictions have been removed and low level charatcers are making runs for high level CNR.
...multiple PCs from the same player using the guild for credit that another one of their PCs is a member of.
...store credit.
..."gifts".
Just to name a few. The economy system is basically turning up-side-down.
Turning? IMO it has always been upside down, since I started here back in 2003. I just don't feel it is as big of an issue as some make it out to be. Gold is easy to get in layo, even for the new players. The new quests can make you 15k to 20k before you ever reach level 10.
Yes the pawn shop thing can be frustrating when you go to one and there is no gold, however like many have stated, just dump the stuff in the trash can if you don't want to hold on to it. This will also help with lag. Get a house or rent a room and use a chest. Chests do not cause lag until opened. Personally I vote to just get rid of the pawnshops all together. Times are tough, the economy is in the tanker, who can afford to buy your junk anyway!!! =)
I would rather have a salvage dealer, who takes my goods and gives me back some CNR junk instead of gold!
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You think with the new servers and stronger pcu of today's systems, that system could be tried out again, at a certain degree? With a limit of item one merchant could carry im thinking.
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Not IMO. We can't handle 40 people logged in with full inventories. I doubt we would be able to handle 400 NPC Merchants with just as much stuff on them as our PCs!
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who said we needed 400?
That's what I meant by "at a certain degree"
Let's say you have one per major city?
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You think with the new servers and stronger pcu of today's systems, that system could be tried out again, at a certain degree? With a limit of item one merchant could carry im thinking.
who said we needed 400?
That's what I meant by "at a certain degree"
Let's say you have one per major city?
You're talking about the system of NPC merchants who sell things for PCs, right? The way it worked before was that each character had his own merchant, so if it were reintroduced there would be a merchant for just about every character. And, unlike oxen and horses, they stay put whether the character is logged in or not. That's the point; the merchant is there to sell stuff in lieu of the character even when the player is unavailable.
If it were limited to one per city, how would we choose who gets to place his merchant and in which city? If it is set for a small limit per city, how do we determine who gets the juicy, high-traffic locations?
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Ah thanks for the clarification. I thought he was talking of merchants buying from the pc and selling back to other pcs.
If this was a possibility, lets say you have a reseller. He could hold a max of 200 items, and from those 200 items, no same item could be held more than two times, unless the 200 cap has not been reach. Gives the possibility of a wide variety of what he could sell back to other pcs. A server restart would simply wipe all items from the reseller and we start a new.
Hempstead, Vehl, Mariners hold, Leringard, Prantz, Arnax, Dalanthar, Miritrix, Hilm castle, could be the only place with such vendors.
just a thought beside tweaking the pawnshops. So the higher level drops could be sold at a very very reduce priced to those vendors who then could mark up the pric back to the original lens value.. or something like that.
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You're talking about the system of NPC merchants who sell things for PCs, right? The way it worked before was that each character had his own merchant, so if it were reintroduced there would be a merchant for just about every character. And, unlike oxen and horses, they stay put whether the character is logged in or not. That's the point; the merchant is there to sell stuff in lieu of the character even when the player is unavailable.
If it were limited to one per city, how would we choose who gets to place his merchant and in which city? If it is set for a small limit per city, how do we determine who gets the juicy, high-traffic locations?
The actualisation of inventories seems to create more problems than its worth. How about a (text) list of things for sale? And a quantity and a buy/sell price, a bit like an exchange.
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So the item would only be created if it is picked from the list, and not held into an IG inventory. like?
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Two possible implementations:
- The item is destroyed when added to the list, and recreated when purchased. This is open to abuse by people setting the sell price exorbitantly high, and recouping the item when they need it. This could be counteracting by an immediate selling fee as a percentage of the sell price (whether or not the item is actually sold *ouch*).
- The item is stored in persistent storage, like a chest (like it would be now and the server subject to the benefits of that). The Exchange does not have to actualise the item for it to be viewed from the sell list. When it is bought, it is transfered from the seller's persistent storage to the buyer.
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what if the sale price of an finished good could only be set to ~20-30% up or down of the lens value, wouldn't that prevent the abuse you speak of?
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That depends on how much of a free market you want.
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With the teams limited time to make changes and the volunteer work on the MMO, is this really the issue that we want them to be working on when an alternate solution is just to have people travel a bit further to fine an available pawn shop?
*shrugs*
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I actually had some plans for something like this for the last update, but I realized to do it right, I needed more time than I had.
So best I can say is: stay tuned :)
And for those of you who have fabulously rich characters already, stop plundering the pawn shops already! ;)
With the teams limited time to make changes and the volunteer work on the MMO, is this really the issue that we want them to be working on when an alternate solution is just to have people travel a bit further to fine an available pawn shop?
*shrugs*
With the discussion here I think it wouldn't hurt to have it looked at. If the team decides they do not want to then that is fine and no harm done. :)
If Dorg decides it isn't worth messing with then I'm sure Layo will go will survive. :D
Also if nothing else it has been a good discussion that may help with the MMO.
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You think with the new servers and stronger pcu of today's systems, that system could be tried out again, at a certain degree? With a limit of item one merchant could carry im thinking.
To avoid commenting on everything below this suggestion, let me just reply here:
This most likely isn't going to happen, meaning it is extremely unlikely we'll bring back player merchants in any form.
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NWN Layonara might be a good opportunity to test drive any economy simulations (http://devlog.layonara.com/index.php?op=ViewArticle&articleId=692&blogId=2) for the MMO (this may or may not include a trading (exchange) facility).
Of course, that is heavily dependent on how much effort it would take to retrofit it into NWN.
Code is code, right? ;)
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NWN Layo has a completely different economic model than the MMO....which is to say, we actually have one defined for the MMO and it works into many, many aspects of the game, from more specifically controlled loot drops to crafting and so on. It would be more than just code. It would be a significant change in the way-of-life across the server and throughout many systems, not just the bolt-on of some small portion of it.
I might agree with this back when we were putting v3 into place, but at this point it becomes a bit too much to try and squeeze in.
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You think with the new servers and stronger pcu of today's systems, that system could be tried out again, at a certain degree? With a limit of item one merchant could carry im thinking.
Bear in mind that NWN (neither server nor client) is not optimized in such a fashion that new hardware provides a stunning improvement. Some of the limitations (object creation, etc) cause lag no matter how many cycles per second a CPU is capable of.
Also, sometimes, for no apparent reason, a server will begin taking up cycles until it's running at 100% of CPU capacity. I'm not sure what precisely causes this, but it's indicative of a certain instability in the NWN server that is independent of the ability of the hardware on which it runs.
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Ah thanks for the clarification. I thought he was talking of merchants buying from the pc and selling back to other pcs.
If this was a possibility, lets say you have a reseller. He could hold a max of 200 items, and from those 200 items, no same item could be held more than two times, unless the 200 cap has not been reach. Gives the possibility of a wide variety of what he could sell back to other pcs. A server restart would simply wipe all items from the reseller and we start a new.
Hempstead, Vehl, Mariners hold, Leringard, Prantz, Arnax, Dalanthar, Miritrix, Hilm castle, could be the only place with such vendors.
just a thought beside tweaking the pawnshops. So the higher level drops could be sold at a very very reduce priced to those vendors who then could mark up the pric back to the original lens value.. or something like that.
Just what Gun said. Every PC had the ability to place a merchant and they remained if you were on line or not, meaning you could have tons of merchants causing insane lag.
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That was some evil lag. I remember way back then when I first started here that it was the major turn off for me on this server. Every time somebody walked into the merchant hall, the entire server would lag-hop into a fury of death tokens. Once they got rid of the player merchants, I made this my primary and only server ;)
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Seems to me the easiest and best is still as the name of the thread implies....limit each character to say $1000-2000 at each merchant..period.
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I was digging today on the forums after every pawn shop I saw was broke. :(
I was thinking along these lines of a pawn broker that would re-sell what was sold it them. But im sure the lag and coding wont allow it. Its basically what we had before with the player vendors. Perhaps a pawn broker that wont resell silly things like salt, skelly knuckles and such 1gp junk.
Personally I have had the pawn window open and watched people RUSH to sell things after a reset... and id see things sold....dang! thats cool... wouldnt have minded having that.
G-452
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If people had followed the rules in place. That was and still would be an awesome system. It was the abuse that killed it. selling 327 salts and 211 stirge wings.... please!!!
Im all for in game and in person sales. My character Andraia had a grand time shopping the Angels Guild yesterday.... but that still isnt always possible, to meet when you want something.
We are getting closer though... with the chests that keep track of all going in and out... (love that whomever all did it!)
That was some evil lag. I remember way back then when I first started here that it was the major turn off for me on this server. Every time somebody walked into the merchant hall, the entire server would lag-hop into a fury of death tokens. Once they got rid of the player merchants, I made this my primary and only server ;)