Confirtmed - Swirling Shadows no longer no rent

[Threlcour]

I suppose we should just be 100% happy with the change and not borrow worry.

Yep, agreed.

[Zachton Soulstriker]

As a smith with a crappy phoneline who can be on for hours then suddenly get droped, unable to get back on for 3 or so hours or till the next day, I love the change.

[Bennan]

Actually Zachton, thats a benefit I was also going to mention. I know that when I start to get even over 20 shadows I start to worry about being disconnected myself.

I am starting to like this change more and more now.

[brildayr]

The ONLY thing this will change for the casual gamer is that he'll now have to buy the swirling shadows in the bazaar as it WILL be farmed. Name me any place where a needed component drops in Norrath that ISN'T farmed and perma-camped.

I personally believe this was the best method for the casual gamer. Now you'll have to spend all the time you saved and then some, from camping the shadows to farming cash some other way to afford the swirling shadows which will be sold in the bazaar and the spawns perma-camped once a price has been established in the eq economy.

As far as the "casual" gamer, that needs to be defined. Farming an item for about an hour a night constitutes casual imho. And that is all you have to do to get a stack of the swirling shadows out of Twilight Sea.

The best part about the no rent was that the power gamers had a harder time farming them. Because once you farmed them, you had to use them. So it limited the amount of time a person would farm them. That is from personal experience. I only ran into one person in 4 months of constant farming (about an hour to 1 1/2 hr an eq session) where someone "perma-camped" (6 hours seems to be the long period as I looked thru the posts in this thread) that island. It tended to keep them form farming long sessions because you have to allow time to use them.

Sure the power gamers could make a corpse, but you can only lose so much exp before you stop doing that. So much for the corpse parking of no rent items in this thread. Just way too many needed, a person would lose way too much exp that way doing it on a constant basis.

The WORST part of them removing the no rent status imho, is that they will be farmed and you'll have to buy them. So much for and the end of a cheap (even if slower method) method to skill up in smithing.

I personally believe this is a bad thing. I believe it is going to ruin a decent way for anyone to level up in smithing without having to spend outrageous sums of plat to max smithing.

[Aanna]

You don't lose exp if you die in a duel or in the Arena. I'm pretty sure this is the standard method of corpse parking things.

-Aanna

[Bennan]

Corpse locking, normally involves a duel. Hence no loss of xp. When I did it, I never lost any xp.

I don't know about perma-farm, on Tarrew Marr, the once I checked on T.S nobody was camping the Shadows, and I have been to Shadeweavers Thicket 2 times and nobody was camping the shades either. The bonus for me was I bought 8 Shadows from a vendor.

Has anyone noticed that the Shadows and or Shades are being actually perma-camped now ?

[Flix_Flax]

My observations

well. I have just finished with SS (for the time being) doing it to 192 (thank you 15% hamma) I did the TS shades today and had 0 compition also not ONE person was selling them in the bazaar for the couple of days i looked. I really dont think this is gonna really affect the Smithing market (unless its by a Smith who knows that people would pay 500pp a stack for them) if its the avrage schmoo thou I doubt that anybody will really farm them. hmm... maybe I will :P

Flix Flax
MT Tradeskiller and COTH ho

250 Tailor
250 Brewer
250 JC
250 Potter
250 Fletcher
250 Baker
200 Fisher
192 Smith (*and soon to be 250 as soon as i can pry myself from my guild)

[Palarran]

Swirling shadows drop from Xi Vius and Xi Xaui in Maiden's Eye as well, with a pretty high drop rate (averaging one every two kills? maybe one per kill? I forget)

Before PoP, I used to duo with a cleric there for exp. The cleric would bring me a train of around 10 mobs on average, and we'd park and slaughter all of them with a charmed, hasted ravenous beast. Between the two of us I would guess we'd get around 2-3 stacks of swirling shadows an hour. We weren't even focusing on the Xi Vius/Xi Xaui mobs either, just pulling everything.

[Meirril]

I realy can't belive that people are worried about swirling shadows being farmed (or there being too many GM smiths!).
First, farming usualy requires that there be a ready market. The only people I know doing SS are people who can't afford to do something faster. I can't say that farming Hollowshade for 6 hours, spending an hour to switch camps, and then farming for 6 more hours, then farming swirling shadows for another 6 hours to do 40 combines is fast. Even if you could buy the 80 swirling shadows you'd need for the 40 combines, that's still 12 hours of farming greens! If you could afford it, you'd do something else. SS armor trades time for plat. If I as a farmer were looking into farming up stuff for 6 hours, I could either hunt up 4 stacks of swirling shadow, or sit at Halas and hunt up...6-8 stacks of low quality hides, about 10-20 high quality bear hides, and maybe 12 stacks of spiderling silk, and 2 stacks of bone chips. Hmm...I don't know what you'd sell swirling shadows for but I can't imagine anyone paying 20pp for one. Ok, lets say you found someone that was insaine and would pay 50pp each for them. Thats...4k. Not bad. 6 stacks of leather padding at 20pp each is 2400pp. 10 high quality bear hides at 30pp each is 300pp. 6 stacks of spiderling silk at 3pp per silks are 360pp. 2 stacks of bone chips at 5gp per chip are 10pp.
So, either you find a rich nutter thats willing to pay 100pp per combine (in which case, why isn't he making something else?) or you could make slightly less selling stuff you can get from level 5 or less mobs and get 1k less plat.
Lets kick it up a notch. You go to EK and hunt spiders there, you can average 8 stacks of silk per hour (assuming there are only 2 of you farming there), and another 2 stacks per hour of other low to high quality pelts from wolves and cats there. 6 hours, turning the raw silk into swatches for storage/transport/higher sales means 24 stacks of swatches, or 480 swatches selling at roughly 10pp each (give or take 5pp per swatch). That's 4800pp in the same amount of time with a very reliable market. Also, you have the hides which you can still sell.
And finaly, if you can farm the island full of shadows in TS, I don't see why you couldn't farm rockhoppers in DS. In 6 hours you should be able to get 2 stacks of superb rockhopper hides (usualy sell for 150-200pp EACH), 2 stacks of flawless rockhopper hides (usualy sell for 100-200pp each, yes they sell for less), 2 stacks of high quality hides, and about 3 stacks of low to medium quality rockhopper hides. So in the same amount of time you could farm about 6k worth of rockhopper hides (and since this actualy allows the tailor to make a proffit, these will probably sell relativly quickly), and still have the high to low quality hides to make into stuff (sell the HQ for about 25-30pp each, make the rest into padding for 20pp each. Another 2400pp extra proffit).
So...who wants to farm swirling shadows for me? I'd ask ya to farm rockhopper hides for me, but I can't afford it. ops:

Oh, and on too many GM smiths...there are LOTS of GM potters out there. Its relativly easy (well, compaired to smithing and tailoring), and yet the market of pottery made goods is still sound. There are brief peroids where the market dips a bit, but all in all pottery made goods still sell for a decent proffit. I don't see why the smithing market should be worse than that.

[Bennan]

I can't say that farming Hollowshade for 6 hours, spending an hour to switch camps, and then farming for 6 more hours, then farming swirling shadows for another 6 hours to do 40 combines is fast.

Thats a total of 18 hours, for 40 combines. I believe my experience is alot less timewise.

An hour farming Shadows in T.S would net me between 20 to 30 Swirling Shadows.

An hour farming H.S for substances would net me between 30 to 40 per hour solo, and 40 to 70 with an AOE partner.

Unless I am the luckiest farmer of S.S parts, I can't believe the times you have quoted is the norm.

Also, I would add as a Dwarven Smith I am doing Shadowscream over Cultral as its (imo) a faster option.

[kiztent]

The ONLY thing this will change for the casual gamer is that he'll now have to buy the swirling shadows in the bazaar as it WILL be farmed. Name me any place where a needed component drops in Norrath that ISN'T farmed and perma-camped.

Nope, TS is not being farmed at all. Ran past there 4 times while selling over the course of a morning camping Katta guards. Was the only person in the zone 3 times.

Hm, places that drop needed components that aren't perma camped.

Let's see:
Shadowmen everywhere (unless someone is doing j boots - I see people not doing j boots camping them about 1 trip in 10, EC only - never seen anyone camping other shadowmen)
Heart spiders in Guk (never seen anyone camping them)
Yetis in DL
East Karana
brownie guards in lfay
Mistmoore
enraged wolves in Kithicor

Ugh. I can't think of a single place where tradeskill components drop that is perma camped to be honest, except for IG in EF.

No one selling swirling shadows in bazaar now, and I've only found 2 swirling shadows on vendors. I find more wind worn stones for Innoruuk's sake (4 this weekend).

[Zeralenn]

Same experience here on Innoruuk. I have found two (count 'em, two) swirling shadows on a vendor. I have seen absolutely none for sale in the Bazaar.

As a dark elf smith I also camp shadowed men frequently for essence of shadow. Only twice have I found the camp I wanted already camped by someone else looking for essence of shadow, and both times it was been WC. I have never found any competition for Lavastorm, despite the fact that both essence and the rapier seem to drop more frequently there than in WC. (The Lavstorm camp is more of a pain because it's on a steep hill, hence its lower popularity). I have had people come by asking to loot a rapier or another part for a quest, but they are generally more than happy to let me kill, loot essence, and let them loot whatever else they want that drops.

I have found the swirling shadows area camped several times in Shadeweaveres, but it is always by other smiths. I have NEVER found anyone there who was just farming for sale. I tend to talk to the people up there; it's fun to connect with other smiths. I know many of the farmers there now and we stay out of one another's way.

I don't think the vast majority of smiths would pay a lot for swirling shadows. Given that the end product isn't that great and sells for so little compared to the amount of work involved, most smiths I talk to are so generally broke by that level that the idea of paying for something that drops off greenies would only work if the price was under 10pp each.

And if the items are that inexpensive, and the drop rates stay as generally abysmal as they are in the lesser shade area of Shadeweavers, I doubt too many people are going to go into the shadows farming business.

For myself, I am REFUSING to buy swirling shadows from players unless it's a very low price. If all smiths band together and refuse to pay a lot for that muffler, the prices will drop to something reasonable.

...Zera

[Kingbobb]

Currentl on E'Ci, there's one swirling shadow in the bazaar, for 100pp. At present, no one's farming them that I can tell, but it's only been a week. Give someone a chance to figure out that they could spend about an hour on the hill in Shadeweavers for a stack, and sell them for 50pp each, and we'll see if there's a market for it. 1000pp an hour a good farming rate? We'll see.

[Perseverence Rewarded]

I found 2 swirlies on a merchant on the plane of tranquility.
Go figure :roll: