Why Are Assets Limited to Chargen?

[Puciek]

You'll be at Excellent if it's a public flagged room, not all RP can take place realistically in public rooms.

I am quite sure that if you will do the complete combo, with hemote and think (+ have cnote/mood bonus ofc), you will get to excellent in a private room, happy to re-test that or be proven wrong though, will need to get my non-freeman out.

[Voxumo]

You'll be at Excellent if it's a public flagged room, not all RP can take place realistically in public rooms.

Amen to that. Alot of my most meaningful scenes took place behind closed doors or in secretive locations. Call me crazy but I value quality over quantity. Sure I could throw out a random think, a random hemote just to get the most out of my rpxp gain, but that feels cheap.

I really do wish there was a bonus for poses over a certain length, as I feel those who pose longer should benefit more than those who release quickfire emotes.


Also as for the house thing, I may be misremembering. It's been awhile since I bought a pre-made homes since I haven't exactly made any new characters recently. Nonetheless buying pre-made homes with history out of chargen is often expensive. I think everyone can agree to that,

[Puciek]

You'll be at Excellent if it's a public flagged room, not all RP can take place realistically in public rooms.

Amen to that. Alot of my most meaningful scenes took place behind closed doors or in secretive locations. Call me crazy but I value quality over quantity. Sure I could throw out a random think, a random hemote just to get the most out of my rpxp gain, but that feels cheap.

I really do wish there was a bonus for poses over a certain length, as I feel those who pose longer should benefit more than those who release quickfire emotes.


Also as for the house thing, I may be misremembering. It's been awhile since I bought a pre-made homes since I haven't exactly made any new characters recently. Nonetheless buying pre-made homes with history out of chargen is often expensive. I think everyone can agree to that,

I am there with you as the vast majority of my rp is behind closed doors and with whererp off, but I will have to re-test with a no Freeman to see if that still gets to excellent when all markers are in place. But even if that is a result of the freeman bonus, then it will take 6-10 hours more to get the 50k exp at the most.

I just looked at ic boards, and by a quick count, pre-made are still cheaper than re-creating it so yep. And there is the added bonus of history.

[Temi]

Pre-made homes are cheaper than buying from scratch, though admittedly, you can't buy pre-made homes one room at a time as you have the money. Huge estates are not an expected things, but instead a stretch goal and something to work towards over a longer period of time. We do make the free one-room phome available to everyone as something suitable to your class, which should be able to fulfill the expected needs of housing.

I'll add the affects of differing returns for wealth on freeman/gentry onto the staff discussion points list. Most of our focus was on the impact of moving this to chargen, and understanding that that huge outlay of rpxp is not accessible in one big lump to most new characters.

We do want gentry to feel enough value to money that it's meaningful when they throw it around. Tossing a gold coin to beggars willy-nilly should feel impinged upon, because that can imbalance the freeman struggle for money. Making it so there isn't enough money shouldn't reduce the desire to show off and the need for money, but should instead increase the impact of when money is used to show off. We want it to be rewarding and fun. Are we at the right balance now? Probably not. We'll want to continue to look at this and continue iterating until everything is awesome, but we do want to keep working towards it.

[chronodbu]

This does not benefit newbies and I am confused how that conclusion was come to. If the idea was "this is too expensive for a newbie" how does this resolve that? By making it significantly more expensive and less accessible? What?

This unbalances Freemen in terms of potential starting money and furthers the already big gap between newbies and oldbies.

Ignore skills for both templates for a minute. A Freeman, who pays nothing in XP for their template, can now be wealthier than Gentry by actual system design, because they have a larger bank of XP to start with and will be able to use it in chargen. The only gentry characters who will be capable of starting on even ground with a Freeman wealth-wise are finalized as oldbie players.

I'm confused about staff's determination to remove access to anything but piddly amounts of silver from players. I say players, but I mean new players. Old players already have a bank of it and they are less likely to spend it now that it's impossible without years of OOC play to get where they are again.

If the idea was in the first place to fix TIs economy, the opposite has been accomplished. TIs economy was healthy and satisfying to play within. It moved, it was fluid. It's now dead. Merchant shops operate at a loss or not at all. No one is going to do that long term. Even if a new Merchant gets an olbie to finance them it makes no difference because no one can afford to buy anything from them. Guilds aren't a safety net for anyone because they can't afford to help either. A new cadet is screwed in the Reeves. They can levy fines on players to get money. No one has any money to pay fines and they can't get blood from a stone. Stagnation is already here and the more opportunities are sheared away the more stagnation is coming.

If I'm blunt I'm not interested in playing a game that replicates widespread inescapable poverty. If anyone is here for that I would be surprised. We're here to strap on our armor and fight magery as a Knight (dead concept, no money to train, buy armor, or get weapons, and no smiths willing to operate at a loss to make the stuff begin with), to go out and crack skulls as a Reeve and swell the Queen's coffers (dead concept, no money to train, buy armor, or get weapons, and no one can pay the fines you levy), to become Lithmore's next greatest fashion designer (dead concept, no money to train, buy materials, open a shop, and no one to buy from you if you did), to be a spoiled Gentry "prince" (dead concept, ever increasing list of reasons).

The list of stagnating concepts that should be vital to TI is swelling and nothing has really been gained in return. A realistic depiction of a medieval economy isn't a boon to a game. None of us know what that was really like to begin with, so instead, shouldn't we focus on what's fun to play?

I have played poor characters and it was fun. I have played rich characters and it was fun. There's merit in both. What I don't understand is why anyone would want to scrounge around for virtual cash if they aren't making the conscious choice to play a concept that does so.

I want to be clear that I believe the design choices staff are making are made with good intentions. But it might be time to start listening more closely to the people who dedicatedly play your game. I don't want to play TI in spite of the bad. I want to play it because it's the best game out there.

These kinds of threads go back and forth and many steer clear of getting involved in fighting, which makes it hard to know how players actually feel outside a few, myself included, loud rabble rousers.

Would you consider opening a poll to see where your players stand in terms of happiness with where the game is going, even if the results of the poll don't change things? It could be useful feedback and it could also shut we rabble rousers up if we're dead wrong about how people feel about it.

[Puciek]

I am not sure how an economy with purchase silver was not broken. Getting fined was an absolute joke, because, quite frankly, the scene in which you were fined made you enough XP to pay said fine. The result was simple, no one cared about fines, they didn't deter anyone, and they were rarely levied because, well, who cares.

No one bought less than superior weapons because it takes, at most, few rp hours to get the wicket steel from the top level blacksmith. The result of that was and still is simply - no place for lower tier merchants in many trades. For similar reasons second hand/stolen stuff market is borderline dead because once again getting new stuff made is just too affordable.

Combat difference between characters was also a joke, and newbie just had no chance of competing because, well, guess again - anyone with XP can just buy a big sack of silver and not get out of trainers for 3 days, maxing out all skills. There was no point to think about going into combat without them maxed because you enemy was guaranteed to be. Now? Now it takes some consideration if you can afford it.

Merchant shops were always operating at a loss, with only a few exceptions, because everyone wanted custom made stuff, ignoring the mass produced stuff that was cheaper. Why? Because the extra silver for a custom order was nothing and looked a lot shinier. So every single freeman was walking around with custom steel weapons. Because it takes a bit longer scene to get them.

Silver was pointless, a joke. You could make a freeman whittler, low level one, and in 2 weeks have 30+ gold without even having to string the stuff yourself. And as a result of all other creative ways you could try to use the coin for were gone because silver was meaningless.

But you don't have to run around for virtual cash if that is not your concept. But then your concept also should involve doing expensive stuff, like mastering a trade or mastering combat. This stuff is supposed to be expensive and hard to get and require some IC ways to get there. If everyone can just grind it up to the max, with no effort, what is the value in having this maxed at all? Which makes a nice circle to mentioned before combat skills inflation, where without mastering them, quickly, you just couldn't compete, no matter what your concept was.

[Voxumo]

I have to agree with Chronodbu. I think a poll collecting the general feeling players have towards the game would be smart, especially in light of the many, massive changes staff have been making recently.

I mean I could sit here and argue back and forth with Puciek, the only person whose spoken up in favor of the change to wealth, but in the end it's just two people. Polls at least allow those who would rather not speak up a chance to give their input.

[Starstarfish]

Tossing a gold coin to beggars willy-nilly should feel impinged upon, because that can imbalance the freeman struggle for money.

But thematically aren't people supposed to be helping the poor etc? How does that part of theme continue if it becomes all but impossible for people to do?

You could make a freeman whittler, low level one, and in 2 weeks have 30+ gold without even having to string the stuff yourself.

I'm curious how this was done? Who was buying this stuff?

This stuff is supposed to be expensive and hard to get and require some IC ways to get there.

The difficulty is that this change doesn't change expense (are coded prices changing) and it only makes it harder for the people currently on grid with characters. It changes nothing for someone new coming in. Which means that again, it puts all the emphasis on rather than wanting to have a longer lived character, seeing people as superfluous to the "better" concept you can get going next time.
Also there's things being hard to get, and things being impossible. There is going to be a gap between what older players who were able to purchase wealth/silver will have and accomplish that others will now never be able to match. And newer players who can do so via chargen. The difficulty is people who fall in the middle.

[Starstarfish]

Also, should Guilds still be paying people (as per IC boards etc) from the money gotten from city metrics or is the expectation now that people's basic asset is meant to represent their job?

Because if they are - at a certain point, do Guilds then start considering turning off applications if/when they don't have enough money to hire any more people? Are metrics adjusted/considered by the number of people on grid or just a set amount regardless?

[Puciek]

Tossing a gold coin to beggars willy-nilly should feel impinged upon, because that can imbalance the freeman struggle for money.

But thematically aren't people supposed to be helping the poor etc? How does that part of theme continue if it becomes all but impossible for people to do?

While the law of caring is there to help people, tossing a gold to a beggar is... Well, one gold is twice typical Freeman two months wage. It's an extraordinary amount to just toss on a beggar, rather than making him earn it. A more practical way for the law of caring is to support them in need, like loaning a Reeve cadet money for a proper weapon, or helping out a physicians student study somehow etc, which also drives to rp. Like that begger could instead get a meal, and have a chance to tell his story.

You could make a freeman whittler, low level one, and in 2 weeks have 30+ gold without even having to string the stuff yourself.

I'm curious how this was done? Who was buying this stuff?

People bought them, old crafting system was an absolute mess, very few people cared to suffer through it, so whatever price you asked - people paid you, within some reasons. And most people were loaded with gold so... yea.

The difficulty is that this change doesn't change expense (are coded prices changing) and it only makes it harder for the people currently on grid with characters. It changes nothing for someone new coming in. Which means that again, it puts all the emphasis on rather than wanting to have a longer lived character, seeing people as superfluous to the "better" concept you can get going next time.
Also there's things being hard to get, and things being impossible. There is going to be a gap between what older players who were able to purchase wealth/silver will have and accomplish that others will now never be able to match. And newer players who can do so via chargen. The difficulty is people who fall in the middle.

Yep, the transition period sucks, it always does. Especially the pay gap now will be visible in what people have available coin wise, and it will take quite a few OOC months for this to stabilize. But there really is no solution for that, and if this was supposed to deter changes then, well, nothing would ever change.

Also, should Guilds still be paying people (as per IC boards etc) from the money gotten from city metrics or is the expectation now that people's basic asset is meant to represent their job?

Because if they are - at a certain point, do Guilds then start considering turning off applications if/when they don't have enough money to hire any more people? Are metrics adjusted/considered by the number of people on grid or just a set amount regardless?

Guild pay always was up to GLs, so they are free to stop paying at any point in time. Or pay based on results. Or activity. Or anyway they want - essentially guild coffers are for GLs to use as they see fit. Of course, it must also balance to keep people interested in the guild, like knights could not pay folk, but pay for training sessions, gear etc instead. Or reward with things for good service. Weekly pay is simply the easiest way to do it.

There are also ways to fundraise as guilds, especially order/knights but I so rarely see RP around that. Why not hit up the wealthy gentry for a set of steel armour or horses for your knights? Can be done in friendly fundraiser way, or more aggressive fashion.