Why Are Assets Limited to Chargen?

[Voxumo]

To expand on what StarStarfish said, the whole generation thing, while true, doesn't work for the game. If alt 1 dies, and you could have alt 2 be a direct descendant of alt 1, then I could see the whole generational wealth argument making sense. But all the wealth from your dead alt often just... disappears. It doesn't go back into the game in anyway, unless you specifically set it up to, but that often doesn't happen. You can't even set it up to have alt 2 directly benefit in anyway from alt 1's death.

And Puciek... I get where are coming from, and I do believe characters should work for what they want. But there is a fact I think most forget.

This is a game. It's not meant to be a real life simulator. 1 ooc year equals 4 ic years. By your standards, a player wishing to accomplish anything grand should have to spend 3+ years playing the same character. That doesn't work for a game as small as this, where we are constantly trying to bring in new people, and constantly losing veteran players. The game's focus should be on Player retention, not on "Realism" as it's strongly taking that route. A vast majority of people don't play games to simulate real life, or even if they do, such games typically make it so that that "Real Life" is sped up to such a degree that it's enjoyable.

Yes there are players who have characters who are several ooc years old, but that's a rarity, not the standard. People have lives outside of this game, and not everyone can be an addict as many of the most actives players seem to be, spending unreasonable amounts of time on the game daily. We shouldn't be punishing the casual player as hard as we are nowadays, as like it or not, the casual player is what keeps this game alive. We should be focusing on keeping what players we have interested in the game, instead of constantly making it harder to play the game.

[Puciek]

To expand on what StarStarfish said, the whole generation thing, while true, doesn't work for the game. If alt 1 dies, and you could have alt 2 be a direct descendant of alt 1, then I could see the whole generational wealth argument making sense. But all the wealth from your dead alt often just... disappears. It doesn't go back into the game in anyway, unless you specifically set it up to, but that often doesn't happen. You can't even set it up to have alt 2 directly benefit in anyway from alt 1's death.

And Puciek... I get where are coming from, and I do believe characters should work for what they want. But there is a fact I think most forget.

This is a game. It's not meant to be a real life simulator. 1 ooc year equals 4 ic years. By your standards, a player wishing to accomplish anything grand should have to spend 3+ years playing the same character. That doesn't work for a game as small as this, where we are constantly trying to bring in new people, and constantly losing veteran players. The game's focus should be on Player retention, not on "Realism" as it's strongly taking that route. A vast majority of people don't play games to simulate real life, or even if they do, such games typically make it so that that "Real Life" is sped up to such a degree that it's enjoyable.

Yes there are players who have characters who are several ooc years old, but that's a rarity, not the standard. People have lives outside of this game, and not everyone can be an addict as many of the most actives players are, spending unreasonable amounts of time on the game. We shouldn't be punishing the casual player as hard as we are nowadays, as like it or not, the casual player is what keeps this game alive. We should focusing on keeping what players we have interested in the game, instead of constantly making it harder to play the game.

That is why you can spend the XP from random Freeman character on your new gentry to create the fake lineage with massive wealth, to make up for the fact that this is a game. Play a priest actively for few months, once that keels over (or not even that as priests can be run on a 0exp budget), you will have plenty of XP and QP for any concept you want.

And I am not negating that this is a game, but this is a game about roleplaying, and the goal never was to have the biggest estate or maxed skills, but the story to be told. And raising a character creates as good, if not better, stories than just maxing and chasing down mages. Quite the opposite, as maxing brings stagnation, boredom and that leads to weird RP avenues for many people. We had plenty of examples of that on OOC meetings in last few months. And less silver doesn't make RP any harder, it makes maxing out harder.

[Starstarfish]

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.

How is that money going to "trickle" down? If people know that their money is finite, they will be even more stringy with it than they are already. You already have people who have concepts that can't be supported with the in game economy.

We should focusing on keeping what players we have interested in the game, instead of constantly making it harder to play the game.

This also punishes those most active players as people who play more like to buy more stuff (eating, drinking, clothes) etc and as stands there is no relationship between activity and asset production on a current character. And yes, there's ways around that like only drinking from fountains, etc, but that's so cheap. There's also RPing virtual items, but that feels like gaming the system. There is no boost to your assets for being in the top 10 or for being that active. You get the same amount in your asset for being the bare level of active - which purchase wealth or purchase silver did the opposite. It made sure the most active people (who thus had the most RPXP) had the ability to have money to continue to be active.

I feel like there needs to be ways for active people (like the jobs system that was removed) to make coin by nature of being interested and around. Otherwise it's the same thing you see in a lot of games. The same things are always for sale in shops, literally forever - because no one can afford to buy them and the crafter can't afford to buy more materials to make something else until that sells. And with this change, I see that getting worse not better.

Quite the opposite, as maxing brings stagnation, boredom and that leads to weird RP avenues for many people.

That's a mindset with certain folks that taking away silver isn't going to fix. If you are someone who likes to min-max skills, this isn't going to stop that. Skills and silver are not directly related.

[Puciek]

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.

How is that money going to "trickle" down? If people know that their money is finite, they will be even more stringy with it than they are already. You already have people who have concepts that can't be supported with the in game economy.

Which is exactly how many nobles lived, constantly borrowing money, owing money, and eventually having to marry a gentry to bring them out of financial rot while Gentry then gains the ever coveted title. Though right now Gentry is really not caring about cash at all, just takes some xp to be very rich again, this will hopefully make them stingy, and stop the current flow of silver.

We should focusing on keeping what players we have interested in the game, instead of constantly making it harder to play the game.

This also punishes those most active players as people who play more like to buy more stuff (eating, drinking, clothes) etc and as stands there is no relationship between activity and asset production on a current character. And yes, there's ways around that like only drinking from fountains, etc, but that's so cheap. There's also RPing virtual items, but that feels like gaming the system. There is no boost to your assets for being in the top 10 or for being that active. You get the same amount in your asset for being the bare level of active - which purchase wealth or purchase silver did the opposite. It made sure the most active people (who thus had the most RPXP) had the ability to have money to continue to be active.

I feel like there needs to be ways for active people (like the jobs system that was removed) to make coin by nature of being interested and around. Otherwise it's the same thing you see in a lot of games. The same things are always for sale in shops, literally forever - because no one can afford to buy them and the crafter can't afford to buy more materials to make something else until that sells. And with this change, I see that getting worse not better.

There are ways to capitalize on being top on activity list right now, you get 1-2QP/week for that, you get QP for getting/giving recs, and you can forage/hunt in the best areas when others are not around (among many other things). You can also ICly spend more time doing whatever you to do make money of people, like teaching combat skill, hawking wares etc. And slower economy will actually open market for sub-par/stolen items, something right now that just really isn't utilized as everyone just go right for steel weapons because they are so cheap.

Quite the opposite, as maxing brings stagnation, boredom and that leads to weird RP avenues for many people.

That's a mindset with certain folks that taking away silver isn't going to fix. If you are someone who likes to min-max skills, this isn't going to stop that. Skills and silver are not directly related.

Actually they are, as you need silver to max almost all skills, from combat to trade. Only a few you can just spam around to get them maxed out, and raising combat/trade skills is ridiculously expensive.

[Voxumo]

That is why you can spend the XP from random Freeman character on your new gentry to create the fake lineage with massive wealth, to make up for the fact that this is a game. Play a priest actively for few months, once that keels over (or not even that as priests can be run on a 0exp budget), you will have plenty of XP and QP for any concept you want.

And I am not negating that this is a game, but this is a game about roleplaying, and the goal never was to have the biggest estate or maxed skills, but the story to be told. And raising a character creates as good, if not better, stories than just maxing and chasing down mages. Quite the opposite, as maxing brings stagnation, boredom and that leads to weird RP avenues for many people. We had plenty of examples of that on OOC meetings in last few months. And less silver doesn't make RP any harder, it makes maxing out harder.

Your whole argument Puciek relies alot on "Maybes". Maybe your fellow player will be generous with their recommends, or maybe your fellow player won't. Maybe you'll manage to play a priest that everyone doesn't run away from, or maybe everyone will avoid your character because they are a priest? Maybes are fine and dandy, but they are not fact. There is no guarantee that if you play a random freeman that your characters death will substantiate to anything, since death xp is kind of reliant on other people recommending you.

Again, I do get where you are coming, as I played misune much the way you are describing. He started as a freeman, worked his way up to Earl Marshall and gentry, saved up his paychecks, lived in the keep or more correctly his office, and was eventually able to spend 100 gold on a house he built from the group up. I've done the grind, it took misune ten ic years to get to where he was, only for a certain playing to bring that all crashing down because of a grudge.

Let me put it in this light. You roll a nobility, who owns a whole domain, whose meant to be this figure that is feared and respected... Who also lives in a one room building. Sure one could argue "Well they have a massive sprawling estate back in their home domain." yeah, that's true, but considering the coded limitations of our grid, that amounts to squat. Awesome events like Eirians, with locations players normally wouldn't get to look at... impossible within a reasonable time. Instead events would likely all take place at the same old locations, which gets incredibly boring. The world around your character means just as much to roleplay as the character themselves. If it didn't, we wouldn't have the grid we do.

My argument basically is, your whole view of the game works fine and dandy for freemen, but doesn't work that well for gentry or nobility starting off, as gentry and nobility are expected to have some semblance of wealth, of substance, otherwise they wouldn't be gentry or nobility.



Also I don't know about you, but 50,000 xp doesn't come frequently. You make it sound like people were purchasing wealth on a daily basis. The only three times I was able to afford to purchase wealth, was when I had Rhea and Misune die... Two characters who I played for over 2 years each. Well technically rhea was a month shy of two years. Yes I may not have purchased wealth often, but it was always nice to know it was there should I ever be lucky enough to get such a substantial amount of xp.

[Puciek]

That is why you can spend the XP from random Freeman character on your new gentry to create the fake lineage with massive wealth, to make up for the fact that this is a game. Play a priest actively for few months, once that keels over (or not even that as priests can be run on a 0exp budget), you will have plenty of XP and QP for any concept you want.

And I am not negating that this is a game, but this is a game about roleplaying, and the goal never was to have the biggest estate or maxed skills, but the story to be told. And raising a character creates as good, if not better, stories than just maxing and chasing down mages. Quite the opposite, as maxing brings stagnation, boredom and that leads to weird RP avenues for many people. We had plenty of examples of that on OOC meetings in last few months. And less silver doesn't make RP any harder, it makes maxing out harder.

Your whole argument Puciek relies alot on "Maybes". Maybe your fellow player will be generous with their recommends, or maybe your fellow player won't. Maybe you'll manage to play a priest that everyone doesn't run away from, or maybe everyone will avoid your character because they are a priest? Maybes are fine and dandy, but they are not fact. There is no guarantee that if you play a random freeman that your characters death will substantiate to anything, since death xp is kind of reliant on other people recommending you.

Again, I do get where you are coming, as I played misune much the way you are describing. He started as a freeman, worked his way up to Earl Marshall and gentry, saved up his paychecks, lived in the keep or more correctly his office, and was eventually able to spend 100 gold on a house he built from the group up. I've done the grind, it took misune ten ic years to get to where he was, only for a certain playing to bring that all crashing down because of a grudge.

Let me put it in this light. You roll a nobility, who owns a whole domain, whose meant to be this figure that is feared and respected... Who also lives in a one room building. Sure one could argue "Well they have a massive sprawling estate back in their home domain." yeah, that's true, but considering the coded limitations of our grid, that amounts to squat. Awesome events like Eirians, with locations players normally wouldn't get to look at... impossible within a reasonable time. Instead events would likely all take place at the same old locations, which gets incredibly boring. The world around your character means just as much to roleplay as the character themselves. If it didn't, we wouldn't have the grid we do.

My argument basically is, your whole view of the game works fine and dandy for freemen, but doesn't work that well for gentry or nobility starting off, as gentry and nobility are expected to have some semblance of wealth, of substance, otherwise they wouldn't be gentry or nobility.

One important point of note - Nobles do not have to be rich and it's very thematical to have a broke noble who lives in remnants of old fame and fortune, holding only to his title as only valuable asset left.

While they hold titles, the upkeep on the presence, house, estate, army levies usually will consume most if not all of it (and then bad heirs just kill whatever is left). Historically many kings lived in large castles which were internally bolted down as they couldn't afford to keep all but one or two main rooms heated up during winter times. The glamours of being a king, while the better town merchants lived in well staffed and well maintained/heated houses. That is why quite a few nobles then caved in and married those merchants because sitting in a cold castle is not fun when you could be rich.

Now if a gentry with maxes assets cannot maintain a sizeable estate (and I will yield to not having done math on it; + the cost of buying said estate can be covered by purchase wealth in chargen) then that needs to be revisited and adjusted, as they should be the ones with money. Assuming that they have XP for the concept, to begin with.

As for the freeman xp/recommends. As freeman you get RPXP bonus, not a big one, but over time it actually accumulates nicely. Whether you get recommends depends really on what do you rp and with whom - if you did something worth recommending then don't fear to ask "hey, is there something not right with the way we rp? I mean we had a lot of great scenes, but just not a recommend came out of it so was wondering if you do not enjoy it etc.". But ultimately the success of any character lies with the player himself, not the others, regardless of concept or class. And as you've done the grind you know how hard it is, but now also Misune could become gentrified for this amount of gold (though as she was old knight, she was automatically classed as Gentry).

Oh caught your update, so updating:

Also I don't know about you, but 50,000 xp doesn't come frequently. You make it sound like people were purchasing wealth on a daily basis. The only three times I was able to afford to purchase wealth, was when I had Rhea and Misune die... Two characters who I played for over 2 years each. Well technically rhea was a month shy of two years. Yes I may not have purchased wealth often, but it was always nice to know it was there should I ever be lucky enough to get such a substantial amount of xp.

50k exp, when you have no more skills to raise or simply focus on wealth, is about 70-80 RP hours, if you RP 10 hours a week, you can do it once every 2 months, and the amount of gold brought through it was massive, enough to buy estate and leave some for taxes.

[Lei]

50k exp, when you have no more skills to raise or simply focus on wealth, is about 70-80 RP hours, if you RP 10 hours a week, you can do it once every 2 months, and the amount of gold brought through it was massive, enough to buy estate and leave some for taxes.

Just wanna note that 10 hours a week is 2 hours every weeknight, with the weekends off. I don't think that's casual player acivity. With rare exceptions, my schedule certainly doesn't allow for that much playtime. Also, you have to pad those hours with the time spent waiting around for messengers to go through, or while you're waiting for an RP partner to show up. You might spend 10 hours on the game over a week, but only get 7 hours of RPXP.

[Voxumo]

Now if a gentry with maxes assets cannot maintain a sizeable estate (and I will yield to not having done math on it; + the cost of buying said estate can be covered by purchase wealth in chargen) then that needs to be revisited and adjusted, as they should be the ones with money. Assuming that they have XP for the concept, to begin with.

To get the same amount of silver wealth used to give as gentry, with the current system, it would take 250,000 xp. Even on my two year old characters, I don't think I ever was close to that amount of xp in terms of death xp. The higher class estates cost over 100 gold often. And I'll be honest, I'd rather purchase a pre-made estate any day because A) I suck at room descriptions. Architecture is not my fortay. and B) I'd rather not bother staff with creating more rooms on grid when I can just make use of rooms that already exist. Why build up when you can purchase exactly what you are wanting? Not to mention many homes have a history, and that history can be a fun thing to rp. Yes buying a pre-made home costs a bit more, but it saves everyone time and effort in the long run, and has more potential than a newly made home.

for the freeman xp/recommends. As freeman you get RPXP bonus, not a big one, but over time it actually accumulates nicely. Whether you get recommends depends really on what do you rp and with whom - if you did something worth recommending then don't fear to ask "hey, is there something not right with the way we rp? I mean we had a lot of great scenes, but just not a recommend came out of it so was wondering if you do not enjoy it etc.". But ultimately the success of any character lies with the player himself, not the others, regardless of concept or class. And as you've done the grind you know how hard it is, but now also Misune could become gentrified for this amount of gold (though as she was old knight, she was automatically classed as Gentry).

I am very disturbed with this notion. To me recommends should be something one gives of their own will, not because another begged or guilted them into giving it. And what you are describing is very much guilting another player into giving you a recommend. "Oh you didn't recommend me, I guess you don't like our rp then." I'm fairly certain that even used to be against policy in some regard, though I admittedly cannot find the helpfile where such an action would fall under. But nonetheless one should not be forced to beg for recommends.

Also Misune was a guy. Not pertinent to the conversation, but thought I should clarify.

50k exp, when you have no more skills to raise or simply focus on wealth, is about 70-80 RP hours, if you RP 10 hours a week, you can do it once every 2 months, and the amount of gold brought through it was massive, enough to buy estate and leave some for taxes.

I very much doubt that math, as I used to play daily, and was often on the top of the activity list, back when I first started playing. Then again there were alot less ways to boost rpxp gain. Though your math also seems to rely heavily on the type of scene and the amount of rpxp maintained through the scene. As someone who typically is involved in small scenes with long waits between poses because everyone's posing substantial poses, I don't think that gain is quite so high.

[Puciek]

50k exp, when you have no more skills to raise or simply focus on wealth, is about 70-80 RP hours, if you RP 10 hours a week, you can do it once every 2 months, and the amount of gold brought through it was massive, enough to buy estate and leave some for taxes.

Just wanna note that 10 hours a week is 2 hours every weeknight, with the weekends off. I don't think that's casual player acivity. With rare exceptions, my schedule certainly doesn't allow for that much playtime. Also, you have to pad those hours with the time spent waiting around for messengers to go through, or while you're waiting for an RP partner to show up. You might spend 10 hours on the game over a week, but only get 7 hours of RPXP.

I took the number from activity list, where we have an average of 9 RPH across the player base, so I simply rounded a number of hours up for easier math while picking the lower end of average RPXP to even it out. Of course, it's still a big commitment of hours, but it's attainable if wealth is your goal - just that it may take a while.

Now if a gentry with maxes assets cannot maintain a sizeable estate (and I will yield to not having done math on it; + the cost of buying said estate can be covered by purchase wealth in chargen) then that needs to be revisited and adjusted, as they should be the ones with money. Assuming that they have XP for the concept, to begin with.

To get the same amount of silver wealth used to give as gentry, with the current system, it would take 250,000 xp. Even on my two year old characters, I don't think I ever was close to that amount of xp in terms of death xp. The higher class estates cost over 100 gold often. And I'll be honest, I'd rather purchase a pre-made estate any day because A) I suck at room descriptions. Architecture is not my fortay. and B) I'd rather not bother staff with creating more rooms on grid when I can just make use of rooms that already exist. Why build up when you can purchase exactly what you are wanting? Not to mention many homes have a history, and that history can be a fun thing to rp. Yes buying a pre-made home costs a bit more, but it saves everyone time and effort in the long run, and has more potential than a newly made home.

Pre-made homes should be cheaper, not more expensive unless something changed in that regard recently and I've missed it. I can't comment on your characters specifically, but a combat char, close to being maxed, will cost you easily 500-600k exp, so even at 40% return that will yield 200k+ on death (before death bonus etc). Add some magery on top of that and you are running into insane territories because of increased death XP bonus + even more skills to max out.

for the freeman xp/recommends. As freeman you get RPXP bonus, not a big one, but over time it actually accumulates nicely. Whether you get recommends depends really on what do you rp and with whom - if you did something worth recommending then don't fear to ask "hey, is there something not right with the way we rp? I mean we had a lot of great scenes, but just not a recommend came out of it so was wondering if you do not enjoy it etc.". But ultimately the success of any character lies with the player himself, not the others, regardless of concept or class. And as you've done the grind you know how hard it is, but now also Misune could become gentrified for this amount of gold (though as she was old knight, she was automatically classed as Gentry).

I am very disturbed with this notion. To me recommends should be something one gives of their own will, not because another begged or guilted them into giving it. And what you are describing is very much guilting another player into giving you a recommend. "Oh you didn't recommend me, I guess you don't like our rp then." I'm fairly certain that even used to be against policy in some regard, though I admittedly cannot find the helpfile where such a action would fall under. But nonetheless one should not be forced to beg for recommends.

Also Misune was a guy. Not pertinent to the conversation, but thought I should clarify.

Ah, my apologies for the gender, I remember him from the grid but memory doesn't serve me well for such details.

Asking once for a recommend is not against policy, quite the opposite, and what I usually found out was what I've mentioned above - that people either don't know when to recommend (new players) or live by the old recommends system, where indeed recommends were rare but also yielded much higher rewards. And if you constantly drive meaningful/conflict RP for that person, but they don't recommend you, I always find it worthwhile to ask if they like the experience because if they do not, why would you continue doing it? This is a game to be enjoyed, and recommends are the best way to show appreciations to fellow roleplayers and let them know that you enjoy what they are doing.

50k exp, when you have no more skills to raise or simply focus on wealth, is about 70-80 RP hours, if you RP 10 hours a week, you can do it once every 2 months, and the amount of gold brought through it was massive, enough to buy estate and leave some for taxes.

I very much doubt that math, as I used to play daily, and was often on the top of the activity list, back when I first started playing. Then again there were alot less ways to boost rpxp gain. Though your math also seems to rely heavily on the type of scene and the amount of rpxp maintained through the scene. As someone who typically is involved in small scenes with long waits between poses because everyone's posing substantial poses, I don't that gain is quite so high.

Two people, with no bonuses, who use think+emote+hemote+mood once every 30 minutes will be at excellent, which will yield if memory serves ~650 RP/H (will have to recount on next scene just to see if that still holds), so 70-80 hours will get you there. But of course if along the way you train skills, that will go away as quickly as it comes.

[Starstarfish]

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