Why Are Assets Limited to Chargen?

[Starstarfish]

- Purchasing wealth is a larger version of in-game purchase silver. Purchase wealth to be flattened to 10k xp for 1k silver regardless of class, multiple purchases fine, in chargen only.

That seems like really big decision. Especially now that it is not tied to class in any way. That means that people especially older PCs with a lot of death XP could roll up a Freeman who is rolling in money when thematically that makes literally zero sense. There is not currently enough movement with assets or people making enough money with assets where if you take away purchase wealth, a lot of character concepts of earning money ICly I can see fizzling. With the end of the jobs to make money and assets not being increased for play times, that means that being a more active roleplayer who thus wants to do things like ... buy food etc to support their roleplay is going to be in a rougher spot than a brand new character.

[Voxumo]

- Purchasing wealth is a larger version of in-game purchase silver. Purchase wealth to be flattened to 10k xp for 1k silver regardless of class, multiple purchases fine, in chargen only.

That seems like really big decision. Especially now that it is not tied to class in any way. That means that people especially older PCs with a lot of death XP could roll up a Freeman who is rolling in money when thematically that makes literally zero sense. There is not currently enough movement with assets or people making enough money with assets where if you take away purchase wealth, a lot of character concepts of earning money ICly I can see fizzling. With the end of the jobs to make money and assets not being increased for play times, that means that being a more active roleplayer who thus wants to do things like ... buy food etc to support their roleplay is going to be in a rougher spot than a brand new character.

I do have to agree that I find this an incredibly.... unneeded change. Firstly it makes purchasing wealth, and the benefits that come with having purchased wealth, far more accessible, which shouldn't be the situation. Secondly it severely punishes players who like to keep their characters around. You can't use it outside of chargen anymore, which means characters who basically don't want to raise pointless skills have nothing to use their xp on. Staff is just taking away any use xp had outside of raising skills. The option shouldn't be "Raise more skills than what you had intended, or really want, or just let it pile up for the eventuality your character dies.."

Let's not even mention the unwillingness to reduce the costs of items all around to reflect how limited staff are making silver. I purchased wealth twice when I created Vicannia, and that was from the result of Rhea's death, which left me quite a hefty death xp from a character I played for TWO years. You know where a large portion of that wealth went? Purchasing Vicannia's estate, to help build up her backstory. That estate cost 370 gold, rounded down a bit. Given the current system, such a purchase would be impossible for the average player, in a REASONABLE timeframe, if they had to simply depend on assets. Of course one could argue why not play a merchant, but I argue why that should always be the goto answer? Powerful merchants in real life often did not actually "make" the products they sold, so why should a gentry's only answer to playing a proper gentry, be to play a merchant who crafts their own goods?

I mean I just checked the real estate board, and I looked at the first listing I saw that sounded "Expensive" guess how much it was? 19125 silver. Good luck ever getting rid of that estate given the current system. IE the current prices, even merchant made things, are based on a system where people could buy silver more readily, the prices aren't suited for this very different change.

This is one of the most... short-sighted changes I have seen in a long time. It feels like staff don't want people to play gentry anymore, they don't want characters with concepts that involve the character being wealthy.

I think perhaps one of the only ways to counter this change would be to also lower the amount of xp it costs to purchase gentry class at creation. That might help offset such a drastic change, as this is really one less benefit to playing gentry now.

[Taunya]

That doesn't really change much for Freemen actually, it was already 5,000 silver for 50,000 Rpxp. Though I don't think it was limited to only one purchase outside of chargen previously.
I am a little disappointed that it's capped to the same for Gentry and Nobility though. As a working freeman merchant/mercenary, I counted on most of my silver coming from them, and now they'll be much more tight with their purses I think.

[Starstarfish]

How is anyone going to able to afford a shop to be a Merchant?

[Taunya]

Merchant guild rents out shops for just the price of taxes, for one.
IC loans are also available.

But overall, I think this change will cause the economy to stagnate.

[Puciek]

How is anyone going to able to afford a shop to be a Merchant?

You don't need shop as a merchant, quite the opposite as short of weapons, and maybe food, they are a silver sink, not the silver maker.

Merchant guild rents out shops for just the price of taxes, for one.
IC loans are also available.

But overall, I think this change will cause the economy to stagnate.

Good.

This isn't the world where you were able to work your way to riches in few years, and yet this is what most PCs been able to do. You were either born to a rich family, or you most likely were poor all your life. Just like players also should not be able to save up for an estate in few years, those things were ridiculously expensive and usually built-up over generations.

This also really benefits the gentry, who can spend the silver to max out assets in chargen and then roll in the silver ICly, at least compared to freemen. Of course, it takes away the handy "purchase wealth, be rich as heck at moments notice" and puts some sensible restraint on it, but that was the reason why purchase silver was taken away in the first place.

[Taunya]

I'd say this hurts gentry the worst, especially ones who haven't been playing long/first-time players.

I know an xp-poor gentry that wasn't able to get more than the standard free tier 1 before the cut-off, and so only makes about 50 silver a week since their metric has been consistently poor. They've been trying to save the 50k xp to purchase wealth to get the gold to purchase some more assets, but I would really hate to be them now if this is implemented. 10k exp for 1,000 silver one time won't help them at all. (Assuming it's even available one time outside of chargen- it's a little hazy there with the commas.)

I think a better solution if the current influx of silver from purchase wealth is too much, is just double the xp cost per current payout to 100k.

[Puciek]

This topic of first-time-gentry was already talked to death with purchase silver removal, and in short, this is by design. Some concepts are expensive, and if you can't afford to front XP for them, well, play a different concept. Staff also made it clear that they want people to pick Gentry for the RP reasons. Just like people who come into the world to be those great fighters, with years of wars, but then it turns out they have combat skills barely at 36 because they didn't have the QP to set the character as an actual great fighter. Why not start as a mediocre fighter in that case, and let the PC grow with time, instead of making those odd excuses through the game later on as he learns skills?

Changing payout to 100k doesn't fix this at all, just makes it even worse for new players, while benefiting long timers vs them even more and continues to put masses of silver into circulation by players who buy it because they have nothing else to do with XP.

[Starstarfish]

Some concepts are expensive, and if you can't afford to front XP for them, well, play a different concept.

We have apps open for roles that the game desperately needs to fulfill IC niches in order for the game world to feel more proper with theme. We allow people to app in to certain concepts. Those concepts require certain support to be realistic.

You were either born to a rich family, or you most likely were poor all your life. Just like players also should not be able to save up for an estate in few years, those things were ridiculously expensive and usually built-up over generations.

Understood, but this is a game. And in a game people want to feel like they can accomplish something over the time they invest. If the answer we are now proposing is ... you can't thematic or not that's a big blow. Also your ability to do these things through chargen is based on subjective things like what other players see as good and recommend worthy RP. Our "generations" are OOC based - but you need nobles and gentry with fancy houses if you want to hire servants. Having a virtual asset based job is just not the same as having an IC one with an IC boss.

[Puciek]

Some concepts are expensive, and if you can't afford to front XP for them, well, play a different concept.

We have apps open for roles that the game desperately needs to fulfill IC niches in order for the game world to feel more proper with theme. We allow people to app in to certain concepts. Those concepts require certain support to be realistic.

As per help application:

Staff do not provide the xp, qp, etc necessary to make a character
concept a player cannot afford (not even a GL character). If you
cannot afford the concept, you can either alter it to fit what you
can afford or hold the character creation until you can afford it.

You can fill in knights without combat skills, say you were transferred from clergy and then learn to fight on the grid, and as all-life clergy can't afford his own weapons and armours. You can be a pauper magnate who got the job through friends and connections etc. There is always more than one way to skin a cat.

You were either born to a rich family, or you most likely were poor all your life. Just like players also should not be able to save up for an estate in few years, those things were ridiculously expensive and usually built-up over generations.

Understood, but this is a game. And in a game people want to feel like they can accomplish something over the time they invest. If the answer we are now proposing is ... you can't thematic or not that's a big blow. Also your ability to do these things through chargen is based on subjective things like what other players see as good and recommend worthy RP. Our "generations" are OOC based - but you need nobles and gentry with fancy houses if you want to hire servants. Having a virtual asset based job is just not the same as having an IC one with an IC boss.

But we are not short on people with large pools of exp at all, that is why they can afford to purchase wealth on the grid right now. The only difference is that now they will have to spend it in chargen by filling all the asset slots and maybe amassing some substantial amount of silver through purchase wealth and then, as a result, even they have to manage their money, not just "top-up" whenever short, with result that silver is still more or less, meaningless, as it trickles down from gentry to rest of the world.

Not sure why would a poor freeman not be able to accomplish his goals. But the difference is in what those goals would be. Some young-in, who doesn't know how to fight, and has no copper to his name, may have a goal to one day become a knight in shiny armour and atop of a horse. This will take a lot of RP, from combat training, through work, through begging people for sponsorship to pay for things a knight in training may need. How is that less of an accomplishment if he can make it?