New vendor buy back values. Prepare to leek plat from every orfice.

[Lothay]

Exactly how do you want Sony to "punish" people?

No court in the land will hear a suit from SoE against Joe-15-year-old because he used an exploit. Sure, SoE can ban him from the game, but since anyone can open an account with a game card and realtively little personal information, no really stays banned.

No, they take the only real option available to them. They change the dymanics of the game to prevent future damage to the game.

Sony has stated numerous times that they don't intend for anyone to make money just by plugging a couple of items together and selling back to a merchant. Yes, they still make it possilbe, by mistake, but it's not part of the plan.

Asking them not to consider the overall health of the game's psuedo economy because it makes you personally unhappy is somewhat unreasonable.

EQ is a game about player-interaction. It's a social experience. It's fun. It's not about accumulating the most "plat" or the "uberest gear." Those are merely the means for interaction. Sony wants you to interact with other players as well as the enviornment. They build a framework and tweak it when it's not doing what they desired, expected, or designed. When it's not working like they want, it's broken. If they change something, and you don't like it, use /feedback or the feedback e-mail address.

No one at SoE is "out to get you" or to "make you quit" on purpose. No one there personally hates {insert class here} or {insert specific tradeskill here}. They're just trying to make a game that people will play and love enough to keep paying for it. Seen in that light, I don't think anything should feel like "punishment."

[Lilosh]

Originally posted by Lothay
EQ is a game about player-interaction. It's a social experience. It's fun. It's not about accumulating the most "plat" or the "uberest gear." Those are merely the means for interaction.

With all due respect, that is what EQ is about to *YOU*.

Personally, if *MY* idea of fun is to gather 600 million plat in my bank, I fail to see how I am playing the game wrong.

If I want to have the best gear, It's nobody's place to tell me that I'm having fun the wrong way.


At least,that's the way I see it. YMMV, FWIW. IMNSHO.

Oh, and as far as how to punish them? Ban that account key , and the credit card number. Will it stop them? Nope. Will it make it more difficult? You bet. They'll have to spend $30 for evolutions again, and LDoN, and then buy another game card.

Yes, I know they don't want to lose money. But if they want to enforce the bans, this is the way. If they start banning with a venegence anyone they can reasonably prove is macroing, then maybe the rest of us can catch a frelling break.

-Lilosh

[KyrosKrane]

If I may point out ... there is another aspect to all this that is rarely discussed. It's true that macroing can get you loads of plat, and it's true that it can have a detrimental effect on the in-game economy ...

But the kicker is that the in-game plat can EASILY be changed into real-life cash. Just head to your favorite plat trader, and sell your plat for real-life cash. That macroing that Joe_Macroer_00 is doing overnight? He's not just getting plat to buy Uber_Item_01 from Uber_Guild_Trader_02. He's gonna take that plat, sell it to Plat_Broker_03 and get real-life dollars for it.

I get the impression that Sony distinctly does NOT want EQ and RL mixing in this way. There's no in-game reason that this should be prevented (plat sales, that is), but it does open up a Pandora's box of legal issues IRL.

Between the ease of making plat through macroing and the ease of transferring that plat into cash, you have a viable business model, and Sony is not happy about that for legal reasons.

I suppose it could even be profitable. If you buy Evolutions for $30 and a game card for $40, you've spent $70. If you can make enough plat to sell for cash to cover that $70, anything you make above that is pure profit. Sony bans your account? No problem, another copy of Evolutions and another Game Card -- you'll make the cash cost back, plus a profit from the macroing and plat sales.

This is why "punishing the macroers" isn't really an option. You'll catch / ban / irritate Bob_Teenager_04, who really didn't know any better. He'll go squawk on message boards and make a stink that lowers people's esteem for Sony, making them look like the bad guys. Joe_Macroer_00, though, is effectively unbannable because he will simply open another account and get cracking again within 24 hours of being banned, if not sooner.

Sorry about the length of this post, but I hope this gives folks an idea of why macroing is so feared by Sony, why it's so prevalent, and why it has to be fixed by changing the source of the plat rather than focusing on specific offenders.

[Draggar]

Originally posted by kiztent
Does legitimate tradeskiller mean having all 250s on you character? I say NO. Does it mean you do it for money? I say NO. I say it means someone who tradeskills BECAUSE THEY LOVE TO BY GOD.

That's one of the reasons I got into TSing. I discovered it, and enjoyed it.

My skills were never (and probabaly for the most part) high enough to make the combines, then turn over a huge profit (the only one I exploited was fish fillets, oh the memories running from WFP to EC, combine, sell, then back to WFP, combine and sell etc..).

I've found a new joy in TradeSkills now. Most of my skills are around 140-150 (JC & poison lower, while fletching and baking are higher). A friend of mine sends me a tell,

"Draggar, I have 5 stacks of silk swatches, some heady kiolas, plans (or whatever else is needed) would you mind making me some raw silk / cured silk / Wu's for a (insert relevant class here) I'm starting? You can kepe the leftover silk."

"Draggar, we're hitting (insert raid zone here). Would you mind making a few stacks of (insert stats) arrows, and a quiver for my ranger? I'll reimburse you for your expenses and time"

Not only that, I love going to Kelthin area, or the Qeynos area and selling basic bows, 3 stacks of arrows, and a quiver for 5PP. Great start for a newbie ranger for almost nothing, even though there isn't much of a profit for me (I farm the HQ cat pelts whenever I"m in EK (Stonebrunt is too out of the way)). But its nice to help out newbies. (Twinks usualy throw insults at me when I offer that stuff for them (Dood, I gotz a nightmare compound bow with shadow arrowz!)).

Now, back to the basics, are we in it for the money? I'd be lying if I said no. From making banded armor for a low level smither, to mass quantites of arrows for a fletcher, we've all seen and done it, some items to pull a small profit, while others are just a platinum disposal system (acrylica masks, anyone?).

I enjoy helping out my guildmates and friends, that is the #1 reason why I did tradeskills (#1.5 was money). Just for that reason, I always keep 3-5 stacks of silk swatches, 1-2 stacks of threads, 1 stack of each quality (LQ, MQ, HQ) of cat and bear pelts, 2-4 stacks of heady kiolas, 1-2 stacks of oak bark tannin, 2 backpacks full of Misty sub combines (and components) plus a few other random odds and ends (pixie dusts for baking etc..).

The economics in EQ have become a lot like RL economics. If you get into the TS business expecting to do what everyone else is doing, then don't expect to make a killing (few exceptions, pelts, silks etc..) , but if you can find that little hole that needs to be filled, then you can pull a bit of a profit for a little while, but the most enjoyable is when yo uhelp out your friends and family.

[Twistagain]

Originally posted by Lothay
Sony has stated numerous times that they don't intend for anyone to make money just by plugging a couple of items together and selling back to a merchant. Yes, they still make it possilbe, by mistake, but it's not part of the plan.

While this is, in my opinion, a bad way to view things...I understand it BECAUSE of the existance of macroers.

What I don't understand, however, is why they feel the need to make the combination sell back for a MUCH LOWER value than the cost of the materials.

If a Cog costs 1p and a Sprocket costs 15p, and the two can be combined to make a Thingamabob...why does the Thingamabob have to sell back to the vendor for 3g?? Why not 13p? or 10p?

Obviously, there is a large variety of markdowns...some recipes lose very little, while some lose a huge amount. Would it really be that difficult to do a comparison of recipes and make the result sell back for, say, 80% of the sell price of the components? Am I missing something that would cause that to be exploitable...or even just bad?

[GraemeFaelban]

Star Ruby Encrusted Steins, pre nerf, about 30pp per from a merchant, a loss of 38pp on the star ruby alone, not counting other ingredients, post nerf, sell back is under 1 plat. Thank you oh so very much SoE.

Obviously, this was a situation that could not be tolerated, a loss of a mere 40ish pp per combine. Why, heck, if you farmed the star rubies, you could probably make a profit on it even. Mind you, less of a profit than just selling the star rubies.

Ah well, I have two characters just about filled up with the steins slowly selling them off in the bazaar.

[Sanna]

Great. So a program can play the game.

Why should I keep playing? If the Mean and Bad People cause Sony to take actions to curtail their actions, but Sony's actions make my game play less enjoyable...

Why should I keep playing?


I said I wanted money... heh, I could be $24/month richer...

-- Sanna

[KyrosKrane]

Now here's a change that has me utterly bemused. Why were both the buying and selling prices of Water Flasks reduced to 5cp? They both used to be 1sp each.

I must admit I'm rather befuddled at this change.

[Renjah]

probably an error they will perma kill all water vendors tomorrow...

[Traska]

Kyros...

It's water. The stuff falls out the sky. It flows in lakes and rivers. It *should* be a few copper. It's not like Evian has a bottling plant in South Qeynos...

[sumamael]

Bye bye 1750 clubs. Bye Bye making money farming items on trade skills products. Bye Bye being a legitimate trade skiller. Level up camp everything sell it and burn the plat. I'm thinking this change affected alot of stuff.

Ugh, I guess I was never a legitimate trade skiller because I didn't sell stuff back to merchants but sold it in the bazaar.

Please post more crap like that about my achivements, makes me feel so good.

[Draggar]

Originally posted by Sanna
Great. So a program can play the game.

Just like Attack of the Clones,

"oh my, what is this world coming to? Machines building machines!"

[Ngreth Thergn]

Arg. Why do people ahve to take so much PERSONALLY!!!!

arg!

Angry Ogre.

[Sanna]

*is slightly afraid to enter on the heels of an angry ogre...*


I agree with the sentiment that was voiced ... somewhere around here....

Abstract version of my post: If I have cultivated a skill or three, why shouldn't I be rewarded for it?


Longer version:
Why kill sellback prices entirely? At the very least, make an item sell back for less than cost to make it, but still allowing the maker to recoup SOME cost.

IE, Cultural Needles no longer sell for any plat at all. Kinda badly miffed about that, especially since I just today found my stack of hoarded cinnimon sticks. A Metal Bit costs, what, a gold if you buy from the store, maybe less if you convert rusty weapons. A CE is either 1.5p storebought or 1g if your farm your own components. The zone essense, if you can forage yourself is just the cost of water, and now that's 5c, not even 1s. And what was the other thing? the needle? That can't be more than a gold.

At most it's a 2p combine, at least, something like a 6g combine. And to get it that cheap takes time, forethought, and farming (AKA, patience). You put it all together and not just randomly, but with skill (to do it all yourself, you need smithing and brewing), and boom, you get a Cultural Needle. Only fair that all that Patience is not put to waste, by having to turn around and say, 'BALEETED!'

It does not seem to make the greatest amount of 'fair' sense to say, 'these must now sell for nothing.' I could understand a decrease from 9p to 2p, but 'nothing' seems more than just slightly extreme.

And the swatches. At least this semi-fits the idea above. Either you buy a component for anywhere from 2p to 10p (Words of the Ethereal are 10.499p at max cha), or farm your own drops, and apply a skill... not just even a learned skill, but a level capped one... and don't 'get anything back' for your time and effort?

This is why people are taking things 'personally'. While there is such a thing as taking something too far personally, whether you intended to or not, there is also such a thing as 'logical balance'. If there was a problem with macroers making money from Cultural Needles and swatches, don't completely kill the sell-back price; you hurt the legit people too. Yeah, no profit off the swatches sucks, and sometimes I wonder something along the lines of "how do they expect us to make plat?" If the only way is to go out and kill mobs, that takes half the fun out of tradeskills. Yes, I enjoy sitting in front of an oven and making MTPs as much as the next person (honest ^_^), but still... there is a balance to be had.


Maybe some of us go out of balance in reaction to the lack of balance already being displayed to us. Yes, there's a right way to do things, and a wrong way to do things, and I think the feeling of 'being personally attacked' shows up when the wrong way to have done something was so blatantly taken.


-- Sanna

[eniamn]

why cant things sell for exactly the cost to make? macroers make no money and every fail they lose some. if you vendor buy the stuff at least. now merchants can and will obviously charge more than cost for finished product but at least let us sell at sme price. we just did the work for these guys after all.