Runes of Magic US / AU

@Kakita, hmmm. I think you have unwittingly become the new poster kid for what this thread was supposed to combat, so apparently I fail at communication skillz.

However, I honestly don't care if you still hate one of the two parties in question as long as you do agree that we need to work together to decrease costs, because that's the most important thing. And it's healthy to have your posts challenged, so thanks for that. I do come across, and admittedly so, more sympathetic to free to play than pay to play, which is ironic, since the vast vast majority of my 4+ years here I was pay to play, and even a dia seller.

But if it came across as a paean to the free to play, I'm sorry, because that wasn't my intention. I wanted to show how each and every person who plays RoM contributes something. In this case, it's obvious what the pay to play contribute, but it's less obvious what the free to play contribute, so I had to spend more time on it, and that could easily be interpreted as going overboard. But it isn't kissing up- I don't have a motivation to kiss up to anyone but dia sellers actually, since the camp I am in is the free to play endgamer.

@Zid. Ziddy. I know Mandrakes did some not-nice things, and he is a good example of an exception to the "players aren't the problem" thesis. But he was the exception, and one heck of an exceptional exception, not at all the rule.

So, while I agree that Mandrakes and other speculators like him are a problem, they can't wreak half as much havoc on our economy as GameForge can just by scheduling a sale too early or too late. Or raising prices on +16 jewels. Or releasing +20 jewels, if in fact they do so.

@Pushpop, I am a she. And thanks

@Stickingit, I understand how you feel. Defeated. Sickened. Tired. Past the point of giving a flying sheet. I felt that way myself pretty recently, and it's probably really dumb to stop feeling that way now, and it was probably even dumber to come back to this game at all.

But, and this also goes out @thread, it's important to remember that whether we use them for good or evil, GF does actually pay attention to what we write in here, and sometimes they actually do change things based on feedback from the forums (RIP Iceblade, anyone?). We do have some nebulous power. It's not great power, but, to misquote Uncle Ben, with even a little power comes a little responsibility.

If we even have a ghost of a chance of pushing them in the right direction, we may as well try. And we can't try until me and Kakita and Zid and Ruisen and the rest of the regulars make a conscious choice to cry truce and work together for something all parties want.

So even if I am a windbag with sheet for brains, if we can agree that we all want them to fix the cost of the game, let's try?

That was actually a pretty fair and balanced response from you, DK.

I was a diamond seller when dias were 30k, but I played on Palenque, where the economy was bad, but not that upside down at the time, so I didn't have the experience you had, and couldn't write the thread then. That was when the whole "we want your mage feedback" thing started here, too, so all my words were spent on that. Honestly, why didn't you start that thread, DK?

I would also argue that if the market actually bore that, and by that, I mean if people were actually willing to sell dias for 30k, and willing to pay 60 mil- then something from outside, aka, a mechanic from FA/RW was behind it. Why did people want the gear so badly? Given the 30k price point you mentioned, probably RT diamond. That gear was such a MASSIVE upgrade over everything else at the time, and the weapons were SO FREAKING GOOD- that's pure supply and demand. And, there was a crazy backlash against it when the scales flipped the other way right when +16's came out and dias went to 100k overnight.

If, as a seller, you don't feel like you're getting your money's worth, you shouldn't sell. If, as a buyer, you don't feel like you're getting your money's worth, you shouldn't buy. That's just common sense. But the thing is, sometimes we all don't listen to that, me included! because we perceive a need for things that's out of proportion to reality, and RT and +16 gems were a good example of that on both dia sellers and gear sellers. And considering just how much of an improvement that those two things actually give in terms of added power, you could make the counterargument that it isn't foolish to pay a stupid amount for them because of the advantage they provide.

And I would also argue that one of the things that exacerbates this is the fact that RoM can feel like a zero-sum game for both parties; ie, if you do not have the gear to go farm instances, you end up feeling forced to buy. If you don't or literally can't buy diamonds (or can't afford enough dias), you are forced to pay whatever. In this case, things like shells and mems and eoj all try and mitigate that pain for both parties, but there are absolute marks you have to hit before you reach any kind of equilibrium, and as soon as you finish, a new instance come out and both parties are forced onto the treadmill again.

So yeah, I do completely understand your pain, DK.

The thing is, regardless of who we are, dia seller or dia buyer, the cost to play RoM is too high. We all use the item shop, and prices are too high on too many things. Putting some items only on sale at certain times, like abls, causes spikes in the market when they go on sale. The last thing our shitty market needs is spikes, and without dias in the AH, there's no way to mitigate the spikage. It also makes things hard on the people who work and can't be on 24/7. These are things that affect all of us, and we should be able to get behind asking for change.

So, DK, thank you for that well thought out post.

Yeah, I can't believe I said that either, but that's the whole point of this thread, so yay!

@Zid, if DK and you did at the time, I'm sorry, I missed it- #mageblinders.

I think the phrase "FtW" needs to be explored a little. @Jo, you have to understand that some free to play players do make it to the very top tiers of the game. Mind you, most of those people started back in beta or chapter 1, when it was a lot easier for the ftp to compete with the ptp, and both parties needed to spend a lot less to compete.

So, Free to Win. A lot of these people have recognizable names. Kanuunchou. Bleedingblak. Shinryuh. Racerx. Tienkeem. Saela. Borella. Pazuzzu. Greenthing. I could go on, and I know that isn't even a teeny sampling of the most well-known. To the best of my knowledge, all of those people started playing in beta or Chapter 1, and they are all insanely skilled players. Or they're Borella, and healers are cheap to play.

My point is, the so called "free to win" people, for the most part, have two advantages over the rest of us nubs. Most of them started earlier then we did and have been able to use the leverage of being endgame for 5 years successfully. Secondly, they are seriously ungodly skilled. Why on earth should we look down on people who were smart enough to get in early and have some seniority? Secondly, why on earth should we look down on people who are flat out good at playing the game?

Honestly, most of the people who object to "Free to Win" would look at that list and not feel anything but admiration for those people on a case by case basis. Who doesn't kinda look up to Kanu? Jeebus, he annoys the ever-loving snot out of me, but I do admire him a ton for being a kid and still being able to run a guild as successfully and efficiently as he does, and playing his toon as skillfully as he does. Even if you don't like him personally, and he's actually pretty likable, how can you not at least admit he's kinda a genius freak of nature?

Same with Racer and Shin and and and the list goes on.

So it seems to me that the whole "I hate FtW" thing is a red herring. It's more like "I hate one particular person or two and it colors my feelings about a whole group of people, most of whom I actually either don't know or like, but I don't think about them being in that group."

So-called free to win players are the backbone of the game.

@Dar. DARRRRRR. It's a trap. *sigh*

How on earth can it be wrong to buy dias in the AH? That would be like saying "That guy spent so much money on diamonds, I just think it's wrong."

Zid, please make that make sense. It's not like anyone got diamonds off the AH unless they had the gold to pay for it, for heaven's sake. How is that exploitative at all? It's not even like those were the people speculating on dias by buying and reselling- to the best of my knowledge, every single dia the two player I listed that we both know got were used on their gear.

It would be insanity to complain that someone spent too much money on diamonds from GF, so why would you complain that someone spent too much gold in the AH??

I iz confuzed.

And why on earth is it a sin to be "free to win"? It's not considered a sin to be "pay to win" so why would we look down on people smart and skilled enough to do it the other way round? Jeebus, the "free to win" need you, GF needs you, RW needs you. And it works the other way round, too. You need the "ftw", GF does, and so does RW. We all buy each other's stuff.

As to running with people out of guild, there's no rule that says we can't do it. Usually it's just practicality, Zid. If you're starting a run and you have 12 guildies that want to go, you take your guildies before you pug people in. If you have space, and you need more bodies, you pug. More often then not, we're in situation #1, but when we are in situation #2, we do pug people in.

So, it's not some kind of endgamer conspiracy to keep people out Zid, it's just putting guildies first, which is something all good guilds do, including Disturbed.

But the two people on Reni that we both know that I named, Racer and Tien, Zid- neither one of them did that. Only complete morons speculated on diamonds if they were ftp, because its in the best interest of ftp players to keep dia prices low. And complete morons don't get to be ftw. It made perfect sense for dia sellers to speculate on dias, but that's because it was in their best interest to keep the dia prices going higher and higher. In their best short-term interest, that is.

So the bad guys in that case were more than likely dia sellers, Zid. Not ftp at all. Or ftp morons.

Iunno, there would be more mixed groups if VVV and Heretic were smaller guilds. But we aren't, and that means we have full parties. And people can nub it up in Beth, but Grotto requires a burn party to run, so there are limited spaces for low-dps. Well, ok ok, Grotto doesn't actually require a burn party, it's just that it's too much bother otherwise. Diminishing returns diminish there.

The game needs spendy noobs.

Yes, it's annoying when you are an instance-pusher to see Joe Schmoe walking around in the gear you died for, having plussed it to 20 and full bbq statted it, all from his mommy's credit card, bragging about his crap in world.

There are ptw players more obnoxious than any ftp could ever be- every server has at least one of those noobs.

Regardless, without ptp to buy their stuff, ftp are stuffed, so it's darned good to have them around selling their dias. Long live the ptw!

(and Cammo, you could at least read the thread, sheesh )