Patch Message for Thursday 13 March 2003

[Buchalter]

Ok - I'll be the first to say it... no one is disappointed about the change to the vendor buy-back on Silvered Weapons?

Granted, I'm not overly surprised by it. I've been looking for this in every patch message for months now. Especially after the "change" they made a while back to the vendor buy-back on Darkwood Compound Bows.

In case you're not aware, Silvered Long Swords *used* to be an excellent way to make money. With the help of an enchanter to enchant your Ore and Silver, you could make a SLS for roughly 50pp (give or take with good faction and CHA) and resell it for roughly 150pp. It's trivial at 110 smithing, so you had to put in a little effort to be able to do it, but not much.

I was doing this quite a bit to make money to continue skilling up in Smithing. I'd make a couple batches of swords, which would yeild me about 5-6kpp, then turn around and spend it on more smithing materials to skill up with. I've worked my way to 140 in this manner, and was hoping to make it to 188.

But alas, now I'll have to spend hours farming Hill Giants or something equally boring to make money to fund my smithing. Or, much like my fletching which is now eternally stuck at 205 thanks to one of Sony's little "changes", I'll probably just give up smithing altogether. :?

[HoshiAdam]

I was starting to wonder why there were silvered longswords on every merchant near a forge.

[Nimphe Wildwood]

Bah! Sir0die is not going to be at table all by himself... *scoots a chair to the table and orders a round of drinks*

Smithers Unite!

And one more thing, raise your hand if you actually knew about this...

The pylons on the end of the pier in Timorous deep no longer rotate like doors when you left click them.

*raises hand*

[Boleslav]

You can expect a change to any recipe that allows you to make a profit off of tradeskill items by selling them to a vendor. No one is surprised by this change, and SOE's policy on this type of thing is so clear that few people are likely to mention they are disappointed with it.

The idea that someone could make 5-6k off of this recipe without selling to players is exactly why the pricing was changed. Regardless of the amount of work involved. I remember being surprised when my Iksar smith was making money while skilling up. Must have made at least 10k on Cabilis Scale Armor back in the day, got his smithing all the way to 202 at a profit. But in my heart-of-hearts I knew it was wrong. I was not surprised when that was changed either.

Boleslav Forgehammer
Paladin of Brell in his 60th Campaign
E'ci - Destiny Awaits

[lonewylfe]

I actually knew about the TD thing, sat there one day for about 10 minutes giggling and clicking

[Nimphe Wildwood]

!!! *hugs Lonewylfe*

Glad I'm not the only one who thinks the lil things in the game are quite amusing.

[Buchalter]

You can expect a change to any recipe that allows you to make a profit off of tradeskill items by selling them to a vendor. No one is surprised by this change, and SOE's policy on this type of thing is so clear that few people are likely to mention they are disappointed with it.

The idea that someone could make 5-6k off of this recipe without selling to players is exactly why the pricing was changed...

As I stated, I was not at all surprised by the change, infact I had been anticipating it for a while now. I was just disappointed. I had hoped that maybe SOE would leave it alone, since I had not heard any rumors that people were expoliting this advantage through the use of macros, the way the Darkwood Compound Bows had been abused.

Personally, I don't see why they take the position that you should not be able to profit from tradeskills. (aside from selling to other players) After all, you take useless raw materials and combine them to make a useful product, which in a real life situation would have a greater value than the raw materials you began with.

I'm not saying it should be a 100pp profit on an item as simple to make as a Silvered Long Sword. But perhaps a few silver or gold on beginning items which trivial at low skill levels, and increasing to the range of 25-50pp profit for items at higher skill levels. IMHO it would create a greater incentive for people to persue tradeskills.

I imagine there might be vast economic implications to something like this, such as allowing players who invest large amounts of time tradeskilling to amass a "Bill Gates-ian" amount of plat. And of course it would hurt the market value of player-made goods overall. But then I'm not an economist, so I can't say for sure what impact it would have.

[Quinner Sparrowhawk]

The problem with allowing any profit, even as little as 1cp, by selling goods to a vendor will be enough incentive for some annoying schmendrick to write a bot program to endlessly produce and sell the item to vendors to amass large ammounts of plat to sell for real cash.

:evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: and if I were to ever meet one of these shysters I would be tempted to cause them serious bodily harm. I hope there is a special place in Hell reserved for them because they ruin all the fun for the rest of us!

[sir0die]

Don't reserve a table for me...I'll just dance on Sirodie's!

No rent Shadows, Preist Research Spells...Tunare loves me, she REALLY loves me!!!

make it a lapdance and i'll tip ya a few plat. :P

[Wolfkind]

Personally, I don't see why they take the position that you should not be able to profit from tradeskills. (aside from selling to other players) After all, you take useless raw materials and combine them to make a useful product, which in a real life situation would have a greater value than the raw materials you began with.

I'm not saying it should be a 100pp profit on an item as simple to make as a Silvered Long Sword. But perhaps a few silver or gold on beginning items which trivial at low skill levels, and increasing to the range of 25-50pp profit for items at higher skill levels. IMHO it would create a greater incentive for people to persue tradeskills.

I imagine there might be vast economic implications to something like this, such as allowing players who invest large amounts of time tradeskilling to amass a "Bill Gates-ian" amount of plat. And of course it would hurt the market value of player-made goods overall. But then I'm not an economist, so I can't say for sure what impact it would have.

Once it became known that plat could be made at this scale, there would be a huge run on the forges, leading to big arguments over who was entitled to use them at any particular moment.

Later, after everyone had amassed millions of plat, it would cease to have any real value, and would only be useful for getting "free" stuff from merchants, or those foolish enough to sell in the bazaar, the only items that would be kept would be special gear that players would use to barter with, and all other stuff would be destroyed, or simply left to rot on mobs.

Exploits like that one, are useful only when few people know about them, and that's hardly fair to everyone else.

[Lilosh]

Later, after everyone had amassed millions of plat, it would cease to have any real value, and would only be useful for getting "free" stuff from merchants, or those foolish enough to sell in the bazaar, the only items that would be kept would be special gear that players would use to barter with, and all other stuff would be destroyed, or simply left to rot on mobs.

Ahhh, another Diablo 2 Veteran, I see.

Sounds like old times.


-Lilosh

[Wolfkind]

Ahhh, another Diablo 2 Veteran, I see.

Sounds like old times.

Haven't played a lot of D2, I was just extrapolating the idea of SoE leaving vendor buyback as a viable method of generating plat. (especially at the level of 100pp per combine /boggle)