honesty

[AA0]

Connies do have stack limits placed on them, just not bulk limits, which is where the problem lies.

[Steelclaw]

Anyone can perch ... is that ok ?

I am just wondering where you draw the line, then next question is how you decide where it is drawn ?

What do you mean by "perch"?

I perch on the travel gates on Bristugo all the time, I don't see a problem with that.

If by perching you mean the sort of afk macroing going on, yes, it doesnt quite constitute an 'unfair advantage' -- as you pointed out, anyone can do it. However it does destroy the reward/player-time ratio (player-time = 0, afk macro, remember?). So, that is something I'd be willing to consider as an exploit.

Where do -I- draw the line? Read carefully and follow my reasoning. Your interpretation of my previous post is not quite what I meant.

First I consider whether the practice contradicts /any/ of the 3 qualities in my previous post. If I can't convince myself of at least one contradiction, then the concern stops there.

Lets say it does. Then the location of the "line" depends on the context.

The remaining decision depends on the degree of the contradiction (Does it save 2 minutes off of a 30 minute task or does it make a 30 day task take 2 minutes?) as well as how it affects other players (Will it hinder their gameplay?). One other consideration is how the mechanics and practice itself affects the rest of the game. Maybe the game mechanic or facility permitting that practice exists for some reason and removing it will cause a problem that is even worse. Maybe related tasks were balanced with that practice in mind. Maybe it was left in as a work-around for a design shortcoming. Maybe it has no effect at all.

Deciding that an unorthodox activity is /not/ an exploit is simple. Deciding that one is an exploit is difficult.* They are not trivial, nor should deciding them be as trivial as going down a rule list and saying "Yup! That thar is an exploit all right!".

If the only argument you can come up with is "That's not how it is used!", then it's not an exploit.

* So, it looks like I'm contradicting myself here. You say "If it's not-not an exploit, then it is!". Consider that there is another choice between yes and no that embodies "unknown", "maybe, maybe not", "I don't have enough information yet!" and "It doesn't matter.". Instead of asking where I draw the line, you should ask yourself how wide your middle ground is. ^_^

[IndyMan]

Thanks for explaining your POV.

As long as people realize that not everyone abides by the unwritten rule of not buying items off public connies (priced at 1c) then there should be no surprise when items dont make it to overfill their bank, or be there for them to use later.

I would image that more would grab that 1c item than people realize, they just wont admit it for fear of reprisal.

If I see it on a public consignor it means it has items for sale and I will buy them IF the mood strikes me. Players should put items on a private one if they want to be more certain it will be there later.

[Zachyattacky]

I was angry when i wrote that first post becuase of how the person who lost the bars felt. Perhaps steal was a poor chioce of words,yes we know of the risk placing on an open consigner and maybe it was done in innocence ,who knows.So i am sorry for jumping to accusations.But if the person who took them knew i will not call them a thief , only mean and inconsiderate.Have a great day in Istaria,Hannabal.

[Jayne]

This has been discussed in the past and personally happened to me. If the connie is not private then no one can complain. I mean its still sad that it happened, but a public connie is risky.

As far as game mechanics, exploits or whatever one calls them. And I've thought long and hard about this and have my personal feelings about. BUT if the owner of the game doesn't fix them then all are free to do them. Wether its the mushroom xp, trophy drops, invisi healing, etc. Its your decision if you chose to participate in that or not.

[Garfonso]

Its your decision if you chose to participate in that or not.

That's right.
And it's my decision if I buy items for 1c from a consigner I may access...
Just like it's my decision if I buff an invisible healer, which will make him visible and quite certainly will cause his death...

Call it exploit, call it no exploit, I don't care. For me this is an abuse of the game, just like the invisible healing is.

Ah, and with mithril you gain a real advantage. It saves you ca 2/3 of the way to the next teleporter, not considering the way from the arriving pad to your plot or other ports. So it really really cut's down the travel times, when working with mitrhil, for most other ressources it's not as bad. (At least I think so).
After all there must be some advantage, otherwise the majority of the people wouldn't do it..

When it comes to storing something to transfer between characters, I would say it's not too clever to use a consigner, but for me that would be ok...
I don't like people to abuse the consiger->vault drop for transportation. Ok, it takes 7 days, but you have unlimited storage, so you can gather all the ressources you'd need for a plot/lair in that 7 days, let them be dumped in your vault and construct everything asap. It cut's the playtime, because you don't spend time in game dragging your disk to a porter and to a silo and so on...
I don't know what you call an advantage, but instant transport to every location in istaria combined with unlimited storage is a really unfair advantage in my eyes...

[Jayne]

14 days actually....................

[Kerech]

This business of "unwritten rules" bothers me. I played during beta and a few months after release. Then I took a 2 year break and came back this summer. How am I supposed to know what the unwritten rules of the server are? Especially seeing as how this is not my original server (Shadow got merged during my absence).

Whether or not the person in question bought these deliberately or not I have no idea. And I have no idea where the particular consigner in question is as I'm not high enough to work Mithril yet. But a few weeks back I bought 84 bronze lodestones for 2c each from the consigner in Bristugo. Was that someone's personal storage? How am I, as a player, to know? I don't know the going rate for bronze lodestones, but I know 2c is a good deal. I saw them on a public consigner and I needed some at the time, so I bought them. Now I feel like I may be a criminal! And I've done nothing wrong.

I'm sure if the person who bought these mithril bars is reading this thread, and they bought them without knowledge of the "1c = personal storage" rule, then they feel the same way.

I feel bad for the person who lost the mithril bars, but if it's a public consigner, it's fair game, so that's the risk you take in my opinion.

[Aaelefein]

That's right.
I don't know what you call an advantage, but instant transport to every location in istaria combined with unlimited storage is a really unfair advantage in my eyes...

How can it be an advantage when:
1) Everyone in the game can do it, and
2) 2-Weeks sure doesn't imply 'instant' in my book.

This does not imply you have to follow suit and enjoy a minimal game mechanic (I do not see this as an advantage or exploit), just like if everyone else is jumping off the bridge doesn't mean you or I would follow.

This business of "unwritten rules" bothers me. I played during beta and a few months after release. Then I took a 2 year break and came back this summer. How am I supposed to know what the unwritten rules of the server are? Especially seeing as how this is not my original server (Shadow got merged during my absence).

I agree with you here, to a point...
---------------------------------------------------------------------
The way I see things (I know I'm not the only one that shares these opinions):

PUBLIC Consigner = Aughundel, Feladan, Dalimond, etc...Non-Player owned Consignment shops (Though I might consider the Consigner next to the Bristugo Gate System an exception)

PRIVATE Consigner = Player built consignment shop, whether open to the public or not.

1c RESOURCES = Temporary Storage, if placed in a PUBLIC (see above) Consigner, I would ask player before buying

PRICING: If I see resources in a PUBLIC Consigner for significantly less than a PUBLIC Pawn Broker would pay (T1=3c, T2=6c, T3=12c, T4=24c, T5=48c) I again would inquire from the seller before buying them...especially if I was taking them all instead of just enough to finish crafting a spell, piece of armor, or a weapon, etc.

In the end, it comes down to the Golden Rule...Do unto others as you would want to be treated.

Of late, common sense, politeness, comraderie, and cooperation seem to have been completely dispensed with. While this is a role-playing game, it is sad to see more and more of real-life attitudes and actions intruding into this world. To much gimmie-gimmie, screw the little guy, I got mine so who cares about the new guy, etc and ad nauseum.

That should about cover things.

[Sunuke]

I think some people just can't resist seeing 35k mithril knowing how much work getting that is and how easy pulling them of a connie is. Thinking, "Hey, they are cheating so it doesn't matter if i take them cause I would be doing the game a favour cause I'm doing something against a cheater/exploiter"

That kind of action is only trying to give you some excuse to do something you already know i's something that isn't good.

When someone walks up to you and tells you to take a suitcase thru customs at the airport and gives you $50.000 directly with the promise of another $50.000, then you already know that something is too good to be thru and there is no need to know some kind of unwritten rule.

When you see mithril bars which are tier 5 resources that are already processed for 1c then anyone with a decent brain knows that it's too good to be true and isn't for sales. It's common sense

Sure if you buy 84 bronze lodestones for 2c the crafter won't be mad, it's something that can happen. I think that if someone would have bought 100 of these mithril bars that the person who placed them wouldn't have minded it either.

*edited myself before Peaches had to do it*

[Justa Mirage]

Well if the owners would get off of their pixelated rumpuses, they could add some simple coding that would keep a log / journal of who purchased your stuff from the Connie and when you log in, you would get a readout of what was purchased, how much money you got, and who purchased them.

Then you can point the finger at someone for being the "uneducated one" about the "unwritten rule" that should be "common sense"

[Aaelefein]

Well if the owners would get off of their pixelated rumpuses, they could add some simple coding that would keep a log / journal of who purchased your stuff from the Connie and when you log in, you would get a readout of what was purchased, how much money you got, and who purchased them.

Then you can point the finger at someone for being the "uneducated one" about the "unwritten rule" that should be "common sense"

Actually...if I remember correctly, that use to be the case. I remember logging in and in the introduction chat window, it would tell me not just was was returned to my vault, but my 'sales' while off-line.

I too would like to have seen that return because it is how I use to send tanks to those that bought my consigned items.

[Algernon]

I think that this entire long thread is an obvious indication that there is something wrong with the game. Gathering resources is tedious enough imho without adding the need to haul the stuff about the place.

I thought that the system used in UO made utter sense. Gather a bunch of resources and put them into your bank (vault) and go get a commodity deed from a banker and drag the resource onto the deed to encapsulate it as a tradable resource that can be stuffed into your pack. You can cash the deed at any bank when you need it. You can also place the deed for sale on a vendor without the need for someone to physically haul the goods from the place of purchase. If you think about it this, it is much closer to the way that things work in the real world. Imagine trading commodities by hauling the goods to the stock exchange. It just wouldn't work.

Why not add some npc's (standing beside a silo or huge cart, in locations that would make commercial sense to operate, like nearby large fields) that will exchange your resources for a commodity deed. There could be a reasonable profit margin involved to maintain immersion.

If you took this a step further than they did in UO you could perhaps add to gameplay by making the commodity traders operate with varying rates paid to people depending upon demand and availability. Set a high rate for a particular resource if nobody is farming/producing it. If in actual fact there aren't any resources (or very few) of a particular type in the system then the price paid and charged by the traders could become particularly high. This would allow people to watch the market and go hunt (mine whatever) resources that will return a decent profit. Maybe players could operate their own traders.

Should prices be regional? Would it be fun to haul resources across the world for profit? Get a contract with a deposit fee (paid by the player and lost if the contract if forfeited) for eg: 3000 elm to be delivered before 7 days for an above market rate profit?

There's an obvious need for Nadia **boo** in the game *wonders if she's still in the game because he hasn't logged in for a while* and adding this type of trading could make her fun. When there were thousands of players logging on in the early days (may they come again) the ecconomy seemed to work well with just players providing required resources. Now it would be nice to be able to acquire resources from a central market at a market price that doesn't detract from any player's gameplay. This would also give management a powerful tool to participate in the ecconomy if things need a bit of adjustment. Chinese gold farming sweatshops could be controlled nicely by market forces.

What do you reckon? Have any ideas, or are things perfect the way they are?

Algernon
Daleks of God
Order

[Garfonso]

You've got unlimited storage. Please re-read: unlimited storage.
So you buy a plot, plan everything, then put on your working dress and can do ALL the ressources for the plot. That will take some days, but about half the days, because you don't need to travel, you hardly go any further than the shop.

After these hard work, you have earned some holydays of 14 days. So maybe you do some RL stuff or just go to hunt or what you want.

When these 14 days are over, you spend at most a day in building your whole plot up at once. While other people would be fiddling all that 14 days with transporting and needing silos or builder schools to put that things in directly and so on... but you can just take a holyday. Maybe their plot can be ready a few days earlier, but with much harder work (and no holyday of 14 days).

Now, that worked just great. Why don't level some builder schools and make a business out of it? (If there is to make any money in crafting these days, then it is building) Remember, you have unlimited storage.
Just gather ressources and put them into your unlimited-storage-vault. How much? As much as you can... everything you want to build in. It's unlimited.. so just go on, whenever you have time and are in the right mood..
Let the first thousands of ressources drop into your vault.. then go to market channel and advertise, or whatever, and now you can instantly transfer your ressources to nearly everywhere.. No need to think about ressource fields, or silos and transport ways and such nasty things... just let the vault do everything for you.

That's what I meant, when talking about "instant transfer".
I don't know if people are using the system in this second way, I don't think so, because you can get rich much faster when hunting... But that's not the point... you can gain some real unfair advantages here. Just like you can gain, when invisible healing yourself in the middle of the elite blights and so on...
It's just the same....

If you don't see an advantage, then honestly, why are you doing it and risking to be an "exploiter"? If there truely was no advantage, then no one would do it... So there has to be, and all you people going this way know it.



As for the different system form UO: It sounds interesting, but I don't think that it would work out... there is too less business going on today, most people don't want to pay for crafting and most crafters don't want to be payed, either...

[Amerelium]

Ok, this is how I do to avoid losing stuff in cons storage...:

1 - Find a cons that is rarely used; there's plenty of those around.
2 - Do NOT enter items at 1c; get some funds, and overprice them, massively

And remember, always: Bite, THEN think...

[Jayne]

Would you put a misty peridot on a connie for 1c???? I think not.

And this arguement about this unwritten rule. I never crafted till almost two years later. I never heard of this rule till that time, so please don't assume everyone knows this rule.

The one thing that kinda astounds me is that some run around looking in other people structures. Silos and connies. I never even look in other structures unless I was told by that person that they are available. If it was ment for me I assume someone will tell me.

[Krystine]

The 1c connie use has been very common during community builds. Haulers would drop the items there so they could be bought and applied when a skilled builder was present at site. Folks have also opened silos for such use. The high quality of people playing Horizons kept the risk of losing the materials to a minimum.

[Valornyx]

If we were talking about a T1 connie I would accept the "I did not know" arguement .. but we're not..

Anyone able to work mithril has been around long enough to know that items stored on a connie for 1c are for storage - not for sale ..

Now you can argue all you like about game mechanics and whether it is an exploit to build a connie to help your fellow players by providing storage that they would otherwise not have - but the truth is that any player who is able to use T5 resources knows exactly what they are doing when they buy mithril bars at 1c per..

Is it a cheat against the game - no .. is it a cheat agasinst the players who play the game and want everybody else to treat their items with respect - yes

I have 2 connies that I leave open to the public to help other people with their crafting .. could I make them guild only - yes easily - do I want to - no .. until recently the hz community has shown itself to be generally honest and community minded .. if a few selfish *edited* ruin that - well then we are no better than any other game pleyed by 12 year old idiots

[Rocinante]

Honesty? Honesty? You can't handle the Honesty!

Honestly youre going to tell the community that you didn't know that using a popular public connie to store items at 1c was at your own risk?

Honestly you didn't think there were players in the game who would buy your valuable items for 1c?

Honestly you never of heard of this happening before, and you Honestly thought that what it could never happen to You?

Give me a break here people. Use some common sense.

Roc

[Katscratch]

Anybody who has been using the WP plot in the last few weeks has also seen me there, knows that a guildmate owns the plot and that I am working out of the silos on the plot. What I have noticed ppl doing on the coni I don't consider it an exploit they are using the coni as temporary storage in the same way I am using silos as temporary storage, they are merely using storage to hold materials while they gather enough resources to make enough items to transport more economically both in terms of coin and time spent, they are merely postponing transportation. I haven't seen anybody who is letting items drop into vault. I see this as players trying to be as efficient as possible within game rules to cut down their travel time and reduce the amount of lag buildup they will have.