paper = headaches

[Ravanta Suffer]

20 times a day people send me links of paper and they are saying:

Want to buy this?
What can you make with this?

Or the extremely annoying:

/auc WTB sooty fine runic vellum, shabby runic vellum.
Noob tells you: hey I have 2 of the sooty fines for you, meet me here?
/tell noob sure, brt.
Noob has offered you Sooty Fine Paper.

So frustrating. Not to mention that the paper is seriously more common than the vellums are in drop tables. When I solo for example, I'm mostly killing mobs that are level 77-78. I've received 12 papers of various origins, and I've received ONE vellum, which was for a 67 spell. Aside from that, I've obtained them from bazaar, raiding, or in a group. Grouping, I've received 2 70 vellums, and unless I missed a few days of logs being on, I've seen over 25 various papers in those same groups.

Wooptydoo.

The entire POINT of the tradeskill tag on items is so people would know if they were FOR TRADESKILLS. The only thing this paper is good for, is to enable someone to combine a solution for a sub 243 skillup when cleaning the paper. It has been stated that they will be for future spell recipes, but what future spell recipes are there?

The only spells we can't research right now are Prophecy of Ro, Dodh, TSS, and the ancients of course. So these future spell combines are obviously meant for those spells, with DoDH being the oldest. Obviously being able to research spells such as Dread Pyre will indeed be cool, but my question to you is this:

WHY ARE THEY DROPPING NOW. They cannot be used.

Just a very bad idea in my opinion, and certainly a detriment to us, as it is quite obvious the mobs are more likely to drop paper than they are vellums.

[Maevenniia]

They are dropping now because they were added in for "completeness", and as a bonus, we tradeskillers get to stockpile em ahead of time (oh my aching bank space, lol)

Just edumacate the noobs, make a hotkey or something, explaining the difference, and explain the "papers" are for recipes in a future expansion, so currently just vendor fodder

[Qaladar Bragollach]

You get all the crappy tells cause you're in the server's uber guild Ravanta.

[Wyora]

They are dropping now because they were added in for "completeness", and as a bonus, we tradeskillers get to stockpile em ahead of time (oh my aching bank space, lol)

Clean them and they'll stack to 100, saving much valuable space.

[Eanelder]

If find it funny that we complain about not having enuf drops for spells... but when were given drops to start stock piling for the future (and avoid the current problem) we complain about that too.

Just be glad that when the recipes for lvl 71 -75 spells are put in game (hopefully Rk.III /glare at Ngreth) youll have plenty of paper to play with.

---------

This is probably off topic from the orignal post ... but this Spell Rank system does mess with research a bit. Since their isnt a huge change between ranks the only value I can see that research provides is for Rk.III spells.

[Ravanta Suffer]

Why would being able to stockpile them in the future be seen as a bonus?

That assumes a lot. It assumes that the skillups possible from them would still be desired. And as it stands now, unless they increase the level cap of tradeskills in the future, I seriously doubt that will have an impact.

The papers drop so commonly now that when new recipes are put in the future, their value won't last longer than a day or two. When TSS launched, for about 2-3 days LDON spells were selling at a pretty good pace, even the lower level ones.

Four days after TSS lauched, and they were no different than dodh researched spells in terms of relative value.

My opinion is pretty strong that the same thing will happen with these papers when they are allowed to exist.

Just how many papers would you be willing to receive, instead of a vellum? As I understand, the papers being on the drop tables as the mobs makes the scenario pretty clear that each time a paper drops, that is effectively removing the ability for a vellum to drop, something that DOES have a purpose.

[Eanelder]

That assumes a lot. It assumes that the skillups possible from them would still be desired. And as it stands now, unless they increase the level cap of tradeskills in the future, I seriously doubt that will have an impact.

Ahh.... from your original post

/auc WTB sooty fine runic vellum, shabby runic vellum.

I didnt realize your motivation for getting Vellum was skillups, given those vellums yeild the biggest profit. Well if your just looking to skill up then yes you could say Papers are taking up a drop space for vellums.

Personally, I wont mind a little profit when papers are given reciepes and if im not maxxed by then im sure going to have a hell of a run with all the papers im getting.

[Qaladar Bragollach]

Somehow I doubt that they will be making Rk. 3's researchable anytime in the near future or even far future. Rk 2's are already for sale for mostly less than 70's sell for on my server... expect that to drop steadily. Rk. 1's are already vendor.

Conclusion: papers are junk

[greblhad]

My opinion is pretty strong that the same thing will happen with these papers when they are allowed to exist.

Maybe that's what they want. This could be a method to eventually bring spell prices down.

Regards,

[greblhad]

Somehow I doubt that they will be making Rk. 3's anytime in the near future or even far future. Rk 2's are already for sale for mostly less than 70's sell for on my server... expect that to drop steadily. Rk. 1's are already vendor.

Conclusion: papers are junk

If there are no more expansions or if a large number of peeps stay in TSS, then your conclusion is valid. However, I'm banking on 4 expansions down the line there will still be new player/toons and TSS will be largely abandoned for the newer expansions.

Regards,

[Bobaten]

Not to mention that the paper is seriously more common than the vellums are in drop tables. When I solo for example, I'm mostly killing mobs that are level 77-78. I've received 12 papers of various origins, and I've received ONE vellum, which was for a 67 spell.

If you want Vellums, you need to hunt lower level mobs. The stationary drops from the appropriately leveled mobs, so mobs around 61-65 drop parchments, mobs 66-70 drop vellum, and 71+ mobs drop paper. I think each range extends an extra 5 levels or so, so it works out more like 61-70 mobs drop parchments, 66-75 mobs drop vellum, and 71+ mobs drop paper (which matches my experience).

[Ravanta Suffer]

I didnt realize your motivation for getting Vellum was skillups, given those vellums yeild the biggest profit. Well if your just looking to skill up then yes you could say Papers are taking up a drop space for vellums.

Nah, my skill is 300. While I am seeking the Ethereal Quill, I'm no longer buying parchments SPECIFICALLY to skillup. Unless 64/65 parchments are sold in bulk and sold cheaply, it's not worth my time.

What I'm saying is that with recent changes to research such as acids/regia being put onto vendors the only thing a person needs to get to 300 is the appropiate number of parchments. While the number of parchments going from 243 to 300 is rather high, I'm extremely convinced that research is an easier skill to skillup in that it used to be.

As far as the economics of it, I still say that has not changed. Research requires a very significant initial cost to actually get the ball rolling, but at that point it becomes more than self sufficient. And I am not talking about farming your own drops, not in the least.

I'm talking about having a small chunk of change in the bank and going to town skilling up on vendors all the way to 243, and from there buying parchments to make spells. This is one of many reasons why I think research is the best tradeskill out there. What other tradeskiller can say they can make anywhere near as big of a variety of items as us? Not even alchemists can come close. My only regret with research is not doing it sooner.

For these reasons, I think the need for SKILLUPS on paper in a future expansion is significantly overvalued. 300 Researchers as of right now are still very rare, make no mistake. But that will be changing very soon, especially if people keep farming the lost notebook.

[Ysall]

Is noone else but me suspicious about this whole paper thing. Its unprecedented that ingrediants be rolled out so early for future expansions. The whole 'well you can stockpile' suggestion just seems bizarre and fishy to me.

I find myself wondering whether N'Greth has a mid-expansion surprise, or that there are recipies out there already active, but noone has tried to find them yet.

Has anyone tried making viable 71-75 combines with these papers? Just to prove there really are no recipies already active?

[greblhad]

Has anyone tried making viable 71-75 combines with these papers? Just to prove there really are no recipies already active?

I did, unsuccessfully of course, before the comment about there not being any active recipes out there. I agree it does seem odd to have the drops there 4 expansions (or is it 3) before the usual release of recipes. I had earlier theorized, since rk. 2 spells are tradable then the recipes might exist. But that was actively denied by N.

Regards,

[Ravanta Suffer]

I've seen a lot of mention of people researching TSS spells, err, fantasizing.

Those mentions are forgetting DoDH and Prophecy of Ro spells.

It's going to be a very long time before anyone is combining TSS spells, with the current precedent.

Given the low number of new spells from DoDh and Prophecy of Ro, it is my opinion that the next big push to research won't happen until the time comes when we would be able to combining TSS spells. Rank 1's being very cheap on vendors, and rank 2's already being tradable makes me wonder what path will be chosen for research combines at that point. It's my opinion that at that time, we're likely to be able to research rank 3. But that's probably a couple years out.

Will EQ exist then? Will there be more than 4 servers, from merging them together from player attrition? Subscriber base is on the decline..........

I hate to say it, but research has been shown a lot of love in the last couple years. And it was well deserved, given the apparent uselessness it has had for most of EQ's existance. I have to consider the reality that the glory days are finite.