All my hard work done for nothing

[Vahrokh]

I like this game because I can play a dragon and craft fine armors that give me some odd satisfaction when others use them and tell me they are great.

But now, while the dragon part stays the same (at 100/100 I am topped)at least the craft part is changing for the worse.

I spent a total of 15.5 hard earned gold (done with selling 0 exp bars and briks [:|]) in buying techs to make spells ad scales and guess what?

All want plain stuff now. Not because they are nuts, but because they don't create gold out of thin air. The few who were rich now buy me scales or spells1 - 2 at a time and then go farm their ar.se off pawn for the entire subsequent days. No help comes from me asking just what in the end is 8% of the reagents price.
So why don't they just go off and hunt the mobs for reagents? Even 5 x level 100 people too? (and notice how these things are tier V, that is meant for level 80 people too)?

All the techs I used till now are evilly devised so that you must kill "human" mobs like wolves or beetles of fyakkis and then one of the insane lagdeath sathyr isle mobs.

One... well one thousand would be more appropriate.

Having to kill grouped mobs or even boss mobs + group for a dragon or even a "little just 100 levels biped" is just not feasible since those on the sathyr isles (and the WA in general) are a death trap that bores you after 1 hour and 20 dps and perhaps 1 drop. I managed to keep within3 kills vs 1 death point by sharpshooting the straying mobs from the insta-repop big groupstaking hours but... it's not my concept of game (notice I talk of WA. Of couse fyakkis and spiders areinane so all hunt exclusively those now).

So in the end even the biggest and pure adventurers stick with fyakkis 120 (90% of the adventurers seems to powerlevel their 6th level 100 only there and spiders) and then buy reagents from Vielo. Me too, now that I finally made 1 + 1 and understood that by the time I killed so many mobs that I got

2 + 2 (reagents x tech) * 3 techs a scale * 10 scales * 6 equipments = 720! reagents [:S]

Horizons will be so old that it will be just me in game and the mobs.

In the end the game becomes just this:2 - 3 days you pawn to get 1g-1.3g then the next day you bore the crafter to death asking for silly page long reagent lists, then you go to Vielo and spend it all in reagents. Then you go to the crafter and discover that you bought 20 x flame and not fire or fiery or firey (place here 10 soundex certified almost exactly wordings fordifferent things) regular | winther | snow | ice | lava | forest wolf | oastics | beetles fangs | carapaces etc. and so you have to toss 25 * 20 = 500 silver again at Vielos.

A really, really "original" concept of game fun.

Almost pure NPC to NPC. What a LIVELY game. No mob spawning (even sitting down like a ***** for minutes - not because of masochism but because I just need _that_ kind of drop) AND few players to sell stuff toAND insane prices due to inexistant tech V drop plus tech mongers plus exploiters plus undercutters plus forced buying at vielos plus forced grouping to go grab reagents for me. Like I can really go to 10 people and say "hey dudes let's go get a couple dps and spend an afternoon and evening to get me 5 of my 40 needed reagents.

It's not really hard to understand why so many got fed of perma-grinding without any objective (expecially dragons level 100/100) nor prize nor drop nor reward, perma-pawning, perma spitting golds over golds for anything starting from a tech and ending to a postcard sized new plot, perma-waiting for mobs to pop, perma-interacting with NPCs thatnowadays seem to befar more numeros that the online players and best of all the porting memory leakage deteriorated so much (notice that in EU we still have enlarged vaults so we are not already in the even worse NA situation) that 1 month ago I could play 18 consecutive hours with no problem an now with the same setup with not a comma changed I have to relog every 2 hours with 2 Gigabyte of RAM.
And last but not least GN seems to be completely dead (Luca included).

Is all of this working as intended? SOE agrees and thanks the careful picking of the best players for them. Blizzard is next.

[Seranthor]

2 + 2 (reagents x tech) * 3 techs a scale * 10 scales * 6 equipments = 720! reagents

vs.

2 + 2 (reagents x tech) * 3 techsper piece of armor/weapon *14 armor/weapon slots * 6 equipments = 1008! reagents not counting any jewelry or cargo gear.

I might remind you of all the times you have slammed so many ppl that have brought up points that you didn't like, didn't agree with, etc and so my response is fair, civil and very blunt.

Things are tough all over, I flipping wish I had 15.5 gold to blow, so all I have to say is 4 words for you, Vahrokh.


CRY ME A RIVER.

[Joolara]

Indeed, it is a challenge to get all your gear teched. Possibly it will take months. I am using unteched nature spells at the moment, and have other gaps in my equipment. My funds are limited, so I am not going to any more auctions, that is for sure!

The up side is that I really do value the items that are triple teched with V techs :)

BTW - it might be that there are other dragon crafters out there undercutting you, if indeed you are charging 8% of the comp costs. That would be around 1.7g for a full set of scales, on top of the potential 21.6g in comp costs (if all comps were bought).

[Amerelium]

...u seem to take this too seriously - the way you play seem more like work..[;)]

[Vahrokh]

I might remind you of all the times you have slammed so many ppl that have brought up points that you didn't like, didn't agree with, etc and so my response is fair, civil and very blunt.

Things are tough all over, I flipping wish I had 15.5 gold to blow, so all I have to say is 4 words for you, Vahrokh.


CRY ME A RIVER.

Typical jaded response that shows little understanding of the programatic mechanisms of a game yet forever uncontained bitterness from the past.

Let's see the 101 of a game that works on players feedback:

- Developers create or remove a feature. Specifically they removed crafting machines on the fields because they were providing an unbalancing for the overall game life too rapid crafting level increment.
In fact one thing this game does not lack are crafters with multiple 100s levels.
That move has been caused by another factor: the complete shuffling around of resources with the addition of new ones and all in more or less the same area as before made for higher resource concentration near the cities.
Leaving machinery in the field would have made levels and bank accounts skyrocket. Even with the measures in place and the added time sink of multiple porting to let you waste more time and dilute gains we still see huge inflation.
To see what happens with easy and near machines look at what happened with the enlarged vaults of the recent past. They nullified travel and time sink so many harvested millions bulk of ore to work in bars and then pawnables. That created artificial loads of gold and experience.

So, agree or disagree with the developers, the basic machines removal has been a planned move and an healthy one.
Few weeks of having that mechanism short cirquited by enlarged vaults brought more bad than good.

So in that case was good that they ignored the requests to restore a past situation in a world that was not the one of the past any more.

If that makes you mad at the developers and to who simply bothered to read their explanations and agrees with them it's not my fault.


- Developers "create" new bugs, like the health bar bug in the blighted areas or they leave open to exploiting or at least taking fast advantage of a temporary situation or leave holes in the basics of the game like the spawn lack or overcompensate some parameters so an unintended behavior spreads and dents into the game mechanics (too generous pawns are competing with player made work unfairly with unlimited cash off them):

It's feedback to post that such stuff does not work good or downrights sucks.


You and some others apparently don't discern the difference between blindly approving everything a developer does or approving what makes the game playable and disapproving the obvious bugs, limits, unintended short cirquits in the economy.

The field machines were removed and an easy to understand reason posted: I cannot agree more. Even if it makes the game harder even for me that I craft a lot.
The mobs were made harder following months of complaints of them being too easy: I cannot agree more. It's silly that a single guy could kill 6 marrows at a time. It is just right that now I risk dying to a similar level mob.
The mobs got the hp bar bug: I complain. Or you'd prefer I'd say it's ok so I'd follow your idea you have of me? I am not that plain to follow or understand or be cathegorized and placed in one of the two digitally "allowed" fences (fanbois / slambois). Sorry. Cathegorizing me is an awful job because I disregard and fly over in happy anarchy and freedom every fence.
The mobs like fyakki and spiders drop a lot and are overly easy while the WA drop little and are tightly grouped so you spend X with reward Y at easy mob A and you spend 100 X with reward 1/10 Y at hard mob B: this needs balance as none is touching the latter mobs making their drops impossible to find on market or consigners (while there are tens of Fyakki and spider drops sold for a pittance).
The mob bosses are really hard to kill but drop next to nothing: I complain because people will just stop following the intended game course (killing for drops) and mass switch to Vielo shopping. Complaining now could lead to developers increasing the drop rate. Not complaning will let them free to later take drastic measures and i.e. raise the price of a Vexator Fringe to 300s a pop to FORCE people following the game mechanics. I try to avoid that measures because that move would make people angry and quit. So it's a justified complaint.

Of course I insert some "romance and drama" in my posts (I admit I am a bad writer tho') instead of permanently posting dry suggestions on adjusting parameter X so it is congruent with Y in matrix Z as a programmer could and maybe should do, but I doubt that those post would be catching or involving like the ones I write down now.

[DeathTiny]

Agree with Vahrokh here ... we had an old (beta and release) player here the last days and with level 5x he run arround and could not find something to kill that was spawning in larger numbers to stick on or does have healthbar-freeze or other problems.
He was asking if we got "blind" while playing because there is nothing out there in the empty world but plots here andthereand not much else to go for.
Only craft and getting rating/class xyz adv while fighting masses of stupid mobs or "farming" comps for a new equip for days (cash or drops)can´t be enough...

He is right!
Sad but true this will not hold most of the players in HZ.
But i will stick with this game as long as there is somewhere a place to have fun ingame and i got billed for an additional month today. Stupid maybe .... but as there are no games "live" worth giving a try i will be here.
HZ after 12 months still needs an engine a complete world model better DB-interface item decay and somekind of loot for creating "unic" equip ... via crystals blighted drops or whateverand now you can finally add mobs to the list as there are so many placeswhere maybe 1 mob is left .. and pplwantto play a game andfind mobs they can hunt not sit and wait and pray that the server will see the player(s) and spawn some more mobs over time of 2-30 minutes. In 30 minutes those players have logged out and into the next game!

Solo i can´t "activate"the wispspawn near Feladan ... maximum that did spawn 2 nights agoif youperma-kill deers and wisps is 3deers+3wisps ... if you need tainted thats just crap.A friend of mine came into the same region and ... taataaaaa ... more spawn ... 6-7 wisps and deersshow up after some minutes .. but solo the spot is "dead" .. nice routine killing even the solo"fun" with too few mobs.

[Robert Quicksilver]

Interesting points

A. Dragons can't multiclass
B. You can buy tophies from Vielo instead of wasting your time hunting items.
C. Horizons is getting old (already?)
D. Spawn rate is borked, WISP spawn rate is awful here was me thinking residues would help.
E. Forced grouping on satyr isle mobs (shocking blast V + nature range V = the badgers nadgers)
F. there is no "goal", so we've waited 12 months for dynamic blight have we?
G. Memory leak or is that accumulation?
H. GN seem to be dead. (and so does their hamster, *chuckle*)
I. Most people are looking to EQ2 and WoW. If they are not there already.
J. Economy is borked.

Did I miss anything?

I'd add to Seranthor point by saying

BUILD YOURSELF A BRIDGE (bipeds only!)
CRY YOURSELF A RIVER
AND GET OVER IT! (fly if you can)

Oh can I just add having an auction is not an event and us citizens in EU haven't had Halloween event yet. BTW shard status is still showing offline when you click on a news item, but its ok otherwise. Hamsters are very healthy, but their population is low.

[IndyMan]

Vahrokh the problem seems to be that if the issue is not important to you, you trivialize it or back the devs plan

if it is important to you, you speak out

that may be why some are not so receptive to your desires /shrug

[Korial]

2 + 2 (reagents x tech) * 3 techs a scale * 10 scales * 6 equipments = 720! reagents

vs.

2 + 2 (reagents x tech) * 3 techsper piece of armor/weapon *14 armor/weapon slots * 6 equipments = 1008! reagents not counting any jewelry or cargo gear.

Oh so true.

And we'll ignore the fact that a biped crafter who intends to provide teched items to other bipeds needs many many more techniques than a dragon. Why shall we ignore it? Because Vahrokh will, because it's a point that goes to show, for once, dragons have it slightly easier.

[gopher65]

I may well simply get non-teched armor/spells/jewlery now. I checked out the spawns, and there is no way I can get the tech comps. Or buy them (I am poor).

However, I think this is a good thing. Magic (teched in other words) armor SHOULD BE RARE! Every tom ******** (EDIT: LOL is there anprofanity filter inhere? I neverknew)and harry shouldn't have it. It was a broken game mechanism before that it was far to easy to get double (or triple) teched armor.

I was actually considering deleting my double teched cobalt ringmail. Because it was simply so easy to get more that there was no point in keeping it. I bought all the components for it (when they were at their max priceon the conniesI might add) and it still only cost me 100s to get double teched tier 4 armor. That's outrageously cheap for magic armor don't you think?

Normal people should have normal armor. Those who are very rich, or have a great deal of time on their hands, should have triple teched armor. But it should be rare. I agree that it is frustrating not to be GIVEN my armor on a silver plater like last time I bought it, but it shouldn't be easy to get.

I never did play EQ, but as I understand it all the best armor was dropped ready-made off of very difficult boss mobs. Is that correct? And now we have the same thing in HZ. Except it is the comps that you are hunting, not the actual armor. And they don't just drop off of one mob, so you don't need to camp like in EQ.

I really am failing to see the problem here. It seems to be that you are all complaining because you had it too easy before! and now that the problems have been fixed you are angry that you have to work for a good item. Good luck arguing that one to the devs[:|]

[Neon]

2 + 2 (reagents x tech) * 3 techs a scale * 10 scales * 6 equipments = 720! reagents

vs.

2 + 2 (reagents x tech) * 3 techsper piece of armor/weapon *14 armor/weapon slots * 6 equipments = 1008! reagents not counting any jewelry or cargo gear.

What is all this "times 6 equipments" stuff? You don't need 6 different sets of armor! You may WANT 6 different sets of armor, scales, jewelry, whatever .. but its definitely NOT necessary. I went to 100 monk on T4 jewelry (T3 techs) and Level 61 (barely T3) armor.

If I was going to stay I'd get me some padded ironsilk with armor tech, and use that for any class I wanted to level, but I'm not, so it doesn't matter. I used to defend this game to the death, but I have finally reached my tolerance (which is insanely high), and I'm on to better things. Good luck to those of you who stay.

[Ikfel]

- Developers create or remove a feature. Specifically they removed crafting machines on the fields because they were providing an unbalancing for the overall game life too rapid crafting level increment.


In fact one thing this game does not lack are crafters with multiple 100s levels.
That move has been caused by another factor: the complete shuffling around of resources with the addition of new ones and all in more or less the same area as before made for higher resource concentration near the cities.
Leaving machinery in the field would have made levels and bank accounts skyrocket. Even with the measures in place and the added time sink of multiple porting to let you waste more time and dilute gains we still see huge inflation.
To see what happens with easy and near machines look at what happened with the enlarged vaults of the recent past. They nullified travel and time sink so many harvested millions bulk of ore to work in bars and then pawnables. That created artificial loads of gold and experience.

The only machines in the field were at tier 1 and 2 fields. Removing one type of machinery slowed down leveling for tiers 1 and 2. This hurt beginning crafters only. Machinery was actually added to the higher tier fields, since they used to have nothing.

Before the merge tiers 3 & 4 had no machinery near by and were quite a run. In order to do obsidian you had to run way out of Morning Light and recall with raw slabs to be processed back in town. After the merge it was quite different. Well, obsidian was still a pain (at least until they relented and put in an easy field south of Dralk). Now there was marble with a stone cutter fairly close by. It is a good deal easier to recall with a pack of bricks than slabs. So this so called "machine removal" didn't hurt higher level crafting at all and generally meant additional machinery there.

I think you are wrong about the vaults too. Huge vaults didn't have that much of an effect on leveling (except maybe for cobalt or multi resource schools). By the time you get the resources to the vault there is generally also machinery available to process it immediately, no real reason to stuff it in your vault except for some psychological desire to process huge stacks at once. Huge vaults were mainly a boon to builders in transporting their work to the job site. Most building schools could still level faster by making tools.

To make money from the pawn one needs to have a high level resource field close to machinery and a pawn. If there is a player build workshop and pawn next to the field then you're all set. A large vault doesn't come into it.

[Senkeleron Fell]

Yes, your formula for finding the number of components is off by a factor of 6...

Try (2+2) x 3 x 10 = 120

and

(2+2) x 3 x 14 = 168

The problem may be bad, but don't make it worse by bad math.

[Frons Von Frik]

I am wondering why you made pre-made gear in the first place.... everyone has their likes and dislikes.. it just didnt seem like a good idea to me..

[DeathTiny]

First techs were too easy and for everyone .. they were common and everyone does run arround in teched equip ... > ppl looking for something special leaving the game because there is nothing arround ..

Then they changed the droprates (golem-frags etc) far below they were before > ppl leaving because it was a nerv and they don´t want to camp a plot with xxx other players for hours to get maybe those few drops needed.

Finally they bring in a vielo with all components and no one has to hunt for them (basically good because the mobspawns and numbers are far below what would be needed on a server and some mobs are still missing or near non exist) but noweveryone with enough money can buy them instand without killing mobs ifthey have the money.
Again a goal (hunt for tech-drops) gone .. and that was one of the last ones as there is near nothing else to do.

Goals needed .. thats the problem .. and AE does not have a clue about or does not have the dev-powerto dosomething for all non crafting players.

And @ gopher65: the problem is not fixed ..some pplcan cash in(refinance) a complete armor in 1 or 2 sessions hunting mobs if they would buy all things needed at the vielos and others would need much more time.
The vielo does only exist because the mobspawns can not be balanced for the number of players even if there are not that much left arround.

AE should check how manypure adv. players arround without 1-xx craftclasses in the mix too .. they will find next to none .. and this is an index that the adv.-part in the game is running badly!

[Vahrokh]

Vahrokh the problem seems to be that if the issue is not important to you, you trivialize it or back the devs plan

if it is important to you, you speak out

that may be why some are not so receptive to your desires /shrug

I am not exactly trivializing or underlining stuff.

I just stated what the developers said and their motivations. Being a programmer myself I tend to look behind the scenes to understand why they do some apparently weird things.
The other observations are not even mine. Just browse the posts of the last days to find general agreement about them, for some of the points the developers even officially admitted that stuff is not working as intended - it's not a my "interest or desire".

Oh so true.

And we'll ignore the fact that a biped crafter who intends to provide teched items to other bipeds needs many many more techniques than a dragon. Why shall we ignore it? Because Vahrokh will, because it's a point that goes to show, for once, dragons have it slightly easier

What to say...

- this post was not showing any special "dragon impair vs biped uberness" since it was very generalistic.
It's not like a Vexator drops less to me than to a non dragon. The Vexator does not drop period.
The pawns are (broken) pawns for all. Same for digging mithril or the hp bar bug or the fact that any class could be very hammered doing a WA boss mob. Did I miss something?
Similarly the followup answer had no implications regarding dragons but mechanics of the game.

Well, it shows once more the attitude that Vesuvius and Pharcellus detected and talked about in other, unrelated posts.
A dragon player posts. Whatever the topic or the post content he will be flamed just because.
There won't be anytime soon the "repacification" Tigris talked about until me or others as they write something it is proactively classified as "dragon whining and wanting more" and flames on.

- you try to show off how you poor creatures need to get so many more reagents. Of course you don't point out that you need so many more reagents because you CAN wear so many more things and they give impressive enhancements (else why bothering spending golds in reagents...).
Teched V armor, teched V jewelry, teched V tools and weapons are surely a big expense. But a single tier V armor piece gives 150+ armor, not 50. And non dragons can wear so many pieces. And compound them with jewelry.
Guess what... I'd happily would like to exchange my few scales that need so little reagents with half of the stuff a non dragon can use.

- if we really have to be precise and since we are in vein of polemics I'd say that the regular dragon is really poor.
Just open the Unity market channel for a day and look for the "WTB dex V str V... armor for level XX" requests.
Rare, just few a day yet still 100% only, exclusively, always, solely from non dragons.

I know many of the big dragons in my shard. And having most techs V I am often asked by them... to make a scale.

Yes, they can afford no more than 1 - 3 scales at a time.

On the contrary yesterday I sold my first full 10 scale equipment order.
Guess who is the customer? A BIPED!!! (and a cool one indeed. One that does not hide problems behind an interested finger).
He bought it at once. My first full dragon equipment has been sold to a non dragon.
It is as a kind gift to a dragon but still the truth does not change.

Meanwhile my friends who are level 100/100 since before the merge have to order me scales one or two at a time.

In my desperation now I sell even single scales with payments or trading scales for grudge work for me.

So in the end... of course we have less reagents to buy because we can use less stuff in the first time. But most of us don't have even the money to get them.

Don't compare the other dragons to me that am / were wealthy (after some hundred of thousands bricks that require a determination and patience not many have).
They are really that broke.

Normal people should have normal armor.

I agree with most of your post but not on this point. We are not normal. We are Gifted. Unless you think being immortal and able to carry tons a typical attribute of regular folks.

And the actual nature of men will even overcome any difficulty thrown at them.
People won't stay with unteched equipment because "it's right so". They will gather dust grain after dust grain until they will be able to get it.
Those who will snap before will remember that they are playing not real life but a game and will quit.
EQ2 will give seriously much more reward for the patient. An item dropped off a mob that is so valuable it can be sold for real money on eBay.
I doubt a full teched tier V or even VI armor will be sold on eBay. Any crafter and with the same quality and probability can create the best one after all. It just takes time.

What is all this "times 6 equipments" stuff? You don't need 6 different sets of armor! You may WANT 6 different sets of armor, scales, jewelry, whatever .. but its definitely NOT necessary. I went to 100 monk on T4 jewelry (T3 techs) and Level 61 (barely T3) armor.

If I was going to stay I'd get me some padded ironsilk with armor tech, and use that for any class I wanted to level, but I'm not, so it doesn't matter. I used to defend this game to the death, but I have finally reached my tolerance (which is insanely high), and I'm on to better things. Good luck to those of you who stay.

I am a full time crafter (yet I need armor too). Of course having low stats in crafting I cannot achieve 2:1 on tier V materials I need for my work.

So I planned several equipments (i.e. armor, essence harvesting and shaping, spellcrafting and gemworking, mining / quarrying / scalecrafting etc. etc.).
I need them, I'll make them.

After all I am level 100/100, digging my hoard up to the cap and then I have nothing to do but craft my equipment.

What is all this "times 6 equipments" stuff? You don't need 6 different sets of armor! You may WANT 6 different sets of armor, scales, jewelry, whatever .. but its definitely NOT necessary. I went to 100 monk on T4 jewelry (T3 techs) and Level 61 (barely T3) armor.

If I was going to stay I'd get me some padded ironsilk with armor tech, and use that for any class I wanted to level, but I'm not, so it doesn't matter. I used to defend this game to the death, but I have finally reached my tolerance (which is insanely high), and I'm on to better things. Good luck to those of you who stay.

I am a full time crafter (yet I need armor too). Of course having low stats in crafting I cannot achieve 2:1 on tier V materials I need for my work.

So I planned several equipments (i.e. armor, essence harvesting and shaping, spellcrafting and gemworking, mining / quarrying / scalecrafting etc. etc.).
I need them, I'll make them.

After all I am level 100/100, digging my hoard up to the cap and then I have nothing to do but craft my equipment.

The only machines in the field were at tier 1 and 2 fields. Removing one type of machinery slowed down leveling for tiers 1 and 2. This hurt beginning crafters only. Machinery was actually added to the higher tier fields, since they used to have nothing.

The developers stated several times that the newbie island machines shared the same model of those elsewhere.
So removing the finishing machine off them made the newbie ones disappear too.
This does not change what has been told by the AE folks, that is newbies isles will be remade anyway (CFR David Bowman IRC chat of some days ago) and the ideas he's asking about on the dragon subforum for their remade newbie isle.
Since the discussion was about making the game easier to newbies on these new isles is sensible to think that they'll get some special newbie only targetted machinery that will close the gap.
But this is a conjecture, we'll have to wait for the real thing and then doom it. Yes, the speed of execution left people in the cold (actually my several newbie guildies are levelling up craft the same and fast... probably they learned some hidden secret...) but as you surely know AE has its problems with developer numbers vs the tasks ahead.

To make money from the pawn one needs to have a high level resource field close to machinery and a pawn. If there is a player build workshop and pawn next to the field then you're all set. A large vault doesn't come into it.

Sure it comes. Before the machines on the field have been rebuilt (in EU it has been a LONG and troubled matter) the way to pawn stuff was to bind to a city with machines, go to the place, dig, recall, store in vault, repeat at libitum and in the end craft refined stuff to pawn.
On my shard this way of doing big money has been followed a lot.

[Farken]

Tier 5 techs are pretty uber, and thus should behard to get hold of.If you find getting tier 5 tech comps too hard/expensive, then go for tier 4 or even 3. Tier 5 is the current best of the best, so expect to have to work to get them!

[Kulamata]

I do not think that the salient points are whether dragons have it easier or not, or whether armor should be "special" to the point of impossible.

I think the only thing that matters is that the game is enough fun to keep people, and to attract new players.

At the moment it is losing players. New players do not seem to last long, and many old friends have just left.

Making crafting, especially low level crafting, more difficult has not attracted one ******** player. This is not the sort of feature addition one puts in advertisements.

Making teched armor, such as was once available, impossible to acquire has not kept one player.

These games are tread mills, with much repetition. Something needs to be available to casual players as well as to lifers to provide enough reward to offset the treadmill's tedium. Turning up the treadmill difficultyhasn't done that.

[Ikfel]

To make money from the pawn one needs to have a high level resource field close to machinery and a pawn. If there is a player build workshop and pawn next to the field then you're all set. A large vault doesn't come into it.




Sure it comes. Before the machines on the field have been rebuilt (in EU it has been a LONG and troubled matter) the way to pawn stuff was to bind to a city with machines, go to the place, dig, recall, store in vault, repeat at libitum and in the end craft refined stuff to pawn.
On my shard this way of doing big money has been followed a lot.

Yes, I've done that too. Quarried marble, hauled the bricks back to Aug, ran back to the fields. But I think the vault was more a psychological advantage than anything. It meant you could batch all your quarrying and then do the sculpting later. But since I was back in Aug for the vault I could have just about as easily made and pawned the tools right then and there. The large vault's didn't "nullified travel and time sink". I doubt they made pawning much faster at all. It was just more satisfying to create a huge heap of bricks and make the experience and money all at once at the end. It still took me weeks and about a hundred thousand bricks to make the 7 gold I needed to buy a plot.

[Vahrokh]

Well to me it made an huge difference.

I can only make my stuff in Dralk or Chiconis, while the tier V minerals are far off.
So I'd i.e. bind at Aughundell or Parsinia (vault) and then go takeloads of mineral (via Harro if bound to Parsina).

Later in the day I could go to Dralk and then process the stuff.

Sigh whatever I have to do it seems I have to have it harder [:S]