deficit of reagents

[Downs]

player solution is to block the afk macroers recall spots, and blow them up with purple potions...... stop crying and get creative

[chumbucket]

Honestly, I can't see the problem. This is a matter of policy not mechanical accuracy. Staff thinks, and rightly I think, that it isn't a huge detriment to gameplay, for the reasons others have mentioned, i.e., that people would buy them up regardless. Moreover, reagents are easily available through player vendors. So new players are going to be forced to player vendors, and AFK bought reagents are going to be cheaper than non-AFK bought ones. (No one will give you that labor for free.)

And there is no true resource gathering here, but an exchange of gold for goods, i.e., resources are not being created AFK but only acquired through the main gold sink in the game. The economy is better off because people spend huge amounts of gold at the mages AND they pay vendors to sell them.

[Faust]

I agree that reagent buying macro/scripts should be illegal but despite the original posters comnents about it being better for the economy is completely untrue. The macros/scripts are actually more beneficial for the econony as is anything such that removes gold from the game. There are very few gold sinks in the t2a era and buying regs was one of them. I suspect this is the reason that the staff turns a blind eye to this issue. I can understand the frustration of other players that are buying reagents while these macros/script users are happening.

[Grifty McGrift]

Doesn't the profit earned from selling the regs offset the gold sink from purchasing them? It isn't truely a gold sink unless the gold is removed from the economy entirely, right?

[Pirul]

Doesn't the profit earned from selling the regs offset the gold sink from purchasing them? It isn't truely a gold sink unless the gold is removed from the economy entirely, right?

The thing is that it is in fact removed. It is ultimately removed from the buyer's bank when they buy from the player vendors. That gold goes to the seller/afk buyer, who in turn dumps it into the NPC vendors. You have to also consider vendor fees, inventory, etc. When you add it all up, a TON of gold is being dumped into NPC's.

[fooka03]

Damnit Pirul, and here I had a lovely witty post to respond to Grifty So instead I will respond to chum

Honestly, I can't see the problem. This is a matter of policy not mechanical accuracy. Staff thinks, and rightly I think, that it isn't a huge detriment to gameplay, for the reasons others have mentioned, i.e., that people would buy them up regardless. Moreover, reagents are easily available through player vendors. So new players are going to be forced to player vendors, and AFK bought reagents are going to be cheaper than non-AFK bought ones. (No one will give you that labor for free.)

And there is no true resource gathering here, but an exchange of gold for goods, i.e., resources are not being created AFK but only acquired through the main gold sink in the game. The economy is better off because people spend huge amounts of gold at the mages AND they pay vendors to sell them.

Yes chum, you are correct on most of your points. I will however argue that while AFK gathered resources are cheaper, you are hurting gameplay in a couple of key ways.

1) As evidenced by the start of this thread, it annoys newbies, that's bad for shard health. Generally I would say the noobs should toughen up, but as you point out this is policy not mechanics. Somewhere down the line policy seems to have shifted from no afk gathering anything to no afk resource gathering. Either the rules are wrong and need to be updated to reflect this, or the enforcement is wrong and needs to be adjusted. Better communication up front will help avoid these types of threads.

2) The users out there that do try to manually stock their vendors/crafters/mages/etc are left at a severe disadvantage. I am always against policies that end up hurting the players that try to play the game normally. These tend to be the people that maintain their interest longer and do more to grow the shard than the get rich quick'ers. More targets for chumboxes(tm) at the end of the day.

As an aside, regs are a resource used to create scrolls and potions, they just happen to be usable in raw form as well. This apparently makes them a special case in regards to the rules. The gold sink effect doesn't go away if people are buying them manually (or attended macroing) so I don't see why they should be an exception.

[chumbucket]

Damnit Pirul, and here I had a lovely witty post to respond to Grifty So instead I will respond to chum

Honestly, I can't see the problem. This is a matter of policy not mechanical accuracy. Staff thinks, and rightly I think, that it isn't a huge detriment to gameplay, for the reasons others have mentioned, i.e., that people would buy them up regardless. Moreover, reagents are easily available through player vendors. So new players are going to be forced to player vendors, and AFK bought reagents are going to be cheaper than non-AFK bought ones. (No one will give you that labor for free.)

And there is no true resource gathering here, but an exchange of gold for goods, i.e., resources are not being created AFK but only acquired through the main gold sink in the game. The economy is better off because people spend huge amounts of gold at the mages AND they pay vendors to sell them.

Yes chum, you are correct on most of your points. I will however argue that while AFK gathered resources are cheaper, you are hurting gameplay in a couple of key ways.

1) As evidenced by the start of this thread, it annoys newbies, that's bad for shard health. Generally I would say the noobs should toughen up, but as you point out this is policy not mechanics. Somewhere down the line policy seems to have shifted from no afk gathering anything to no afk resource gathering. Either the rules are wrong and need to be updated to reflect this, or the enforcement is wrong and needs to be adjusted. Better communication up front will help avoid these types of threads.

2) The users out there that do try to manually stock their vendors/crafters/mages/etc are left at a severe disadvantage. I am always against policies that end up hurting the players that try to play the game normally. These tend to be the people that maintain their interest longer and do more to grow the shard than the get rich quick'ers. More targets for chumboxes(tm) at the end of the day.

As an aside, regs are a resource used to create scrolls and potions, they just happen to be usable in raw form as well. This apparently makes them a special case in regards to the rules. The gold sink effect doesn't go away if people are buying them manually (or attended macroing) so I don't see why they should be an exception.

What makes them different from iron, wool, and timber is they are not created by player actions, but are instead generated by NPCs and only acquired through destroying gold. Also, new player recruitment seems way up.

[Blaise]

If the people buying reagents AFK would offer up piles of 100/each more often than piles of 1000 or more, perhaps there would be less to balk at.
You want to support new(er) players on the shard(or maybe you don't), but shit on them because it's era-accurate.
I don't see any veteran here posting up a link to their player vendor with bags of 100/each reagent.
Oh right, that macro would be more complicated and they might actually have to play the game a bit to generate the same or less profit.

Oh well.

Three cheers for the motto of the hardened veterans...."stop crying and get creative".

Yes, of course new players have the accounts and resources to block all the recall spots and purple pot the buyers. Shit, easy peasy, why didn't the OP think of that?

Buy reagents manually.....from the NPC....WTF were they thinking this was? UO?

[Pirul]

Blaise, I think you're missing the point.

In the past 3 months I have not once bought regs from a player vendor. All my reg needs have been bought from NPC's. And trust me, I've run through a ton of regs. It is not about getting ingenious, blocking recall spots, purple potting...simply recall around to all vendors, spend 10 minutes in one or two of them waiting for them to respawn, etc. Put your back into it. Buying regs in OSI wasn't easy either.

[applejack]

Regs are not hard to buy. A little slower to acquire now with the recent changes, but still easy to acquire thousand(s) of each. Make a runebook of mage shops, recall to all, buy. If first don't succeed, try again later. It really is that simple.

EDIT: didn't see Pirul's post before I submitted. Agree with him 100%.

[Blaise]

I'm not missing the point at all. The point is that this clearly does not impact the wealthy veterans at all. It negatively impacts new players without the reagents to recall around to the shops, let alone the runebook/runes to support that action.

Basically, if you are new, go farm on a warrior with bandages you got from shearing sheep until you can afford to buy reagents like a real player.

Please, someone who hasn't been here more than three months post and let us all know how 'easy' it is to get the reagents you need.

[Downs]

my comments werefor the established veterans who are crying in this thread.

It's not that hard to buy regs from an NPC. And if people are impatient because the regs aren't there on demand, there are plenty of player run vendors around the yew Bank that sell stack of 100. Some of you guys are just complaining to complain.

[Blaise]

Yeah, there are two vendors with sacks of 100/each. I suppose that's plentiful enough.

[Pirul]

It negatively impacts new players without the reagents to recall around to the shops, let alone the runebook/runes to support that action.

Maybe being an Elder in NEW, living in that IRC channel, and hearing what real new players say in guild chat might not be enough exposure to what new players to the shard think, but from all of that, the only thing I've heard is that it's inconvinient, but I have yet to hear of one player quitting because of it....and it is not even often that new players complain about it.

[Whitley]

Please, someone who hasn't been here more than three months post and let us all know how 'easy' it is to get the reagents you need.

I'm not going to help your case much, despite the fact that in principle I am on your side in this.

My char is nearing two weeks of age, or thereabouts. I went the bard/provo route because crafting doesn't interest me much.

In that time, despite enduring being PK'ed numerous times, suffering looters and thieves, and just now getting to where I can recall and mark my own runes, I have managed to amass about 4k of each reg. I spend ALL my gold on regs though, as I am able, and have made a concerted effort to check the reg shops a couple of times per day.

As I recall, it was quite difficult under OSI to purchase regs. Black pearl in particular was nigh impossible to find on LS. That said, I'm in violent agreement with doing away with AFK reg buying. My one significant reservation to this shard (and free shards in general) is they seem to be AFK character factories, with very few people actually *playing the game*, despite client counts and other metrics.

My $0.02.