Gold Crowns of the Obsidians

In theory they probably should have a small value. I wouldn't be surprised to see them change that.

 

Because a good game is about allowing players to weigh 'dumb' choices for themselves.

Could selling crowns to a vendor be a dumb choice? You bet. But sometimes initial dumb choices lead to greater things...

For example, what if I had a choice to either 1) wait by my vendor for days to sell a crown and miss a big guild raid, or 2) sell the crown to an NPC vendor now at a discount so that I could get a great weapon to join the raid? And what if I made the latter 'dumb choice' to sell the crown at a discount, but then used that weapon I bought with the gold to slay something that netted far more than the crown was ever worth? Would the choice still have been dumb?

First order decisions sometimes involve sacrifices that lead to better second and third order results. The game has to allow players to make these choices.

 

When obsidian coins appeared in r29 I understood it as a rare relic which can be, in a very rare circumstances, found in the world. And there are people in the world (NPCs) who are keen to give you a very good reward if you bring them such relic (obsidian coin). A powerful potion for a coin. I did find one, by a rare chance, and I did take a powerfull potion as a reward. I was extremely happy and extremely lucky at the same time. I was considering if to use it or to save it for a better timing. There happenned to be a better timinig soon and with a major help of the potion I was able to harvest something hard to harvest in a necessary amount in a very short time. It did happen. The buf of the potion made a huge difference even it last only for some 7 days of real time. All the myth of obsidian coins as relic in a perfect way fit into the game story and game mechanics.
In r30 the cover story is destroyed as well as the appropriate part of game mechanics, when you think of it you can buy several gold coins for a real money, exchange them for very rare coins and exchange them for powerfull potions and your avatar is ready within minutes to go powerfully buffed for harvest in your fully recovered precious armor set. I tested this use case, it works, it's easy to achieve and no uniqness, no joy in it.
I cannot get rid of a strong feeling that there is a major bending and twisting of a space of game mechanics by introducing this new feature fully unconsistent with a current mechanics :-(. It might be accepted and reasoned as a small change but as I look at it from whatever side it is a huge break into the game mechanics with a potential major effect on game playing. Only one was addressed in this entry but more were described withi this thread. And only one (and I'm not sure if the most important one) was unfortunately addressed by a developer in this thread.
I was very happy to find this game on February this year, extremely happy with a mechanics I was waiting for years for. But this very non-systematic feature introduced recently shakes my enthusiasm very much. It's like changing a set of base vectors of hypothesis when a vast reasoning has been done based on it. I don't know, I feel very sad and disenchanted by the deep of the change and the way it's been presented ...

 

If this doesn't happen... If there is no game set baseline, it quickly builds a barrier to new players coming into the game who start with nothing.

 

No one said that - it was a poorly worded comment on my part. What I should have said would be something leaning towards allowing learned/earned skills in-game determine a players ability to repair/rebuild an items durability.

 

No, it really is not. There will be standing purchase orders for gold crowns paying multiples of the vendor rate.

Chris said it himself, that's a rate of 25k gold for 100 USD. How many hundreds of dollars do you think a taxable row lot should cost?

Someone selling gold crowns for that amount either made a mistake, is spending money for the hell of it... Or is just outright stupid.

 

Sell more Crowns

 

@autodeath hmmm I was going to quote you and I agree with what your saying but after I seen your nick & post number I just couldn't quote your post.

 

I agree with your points except for the one thing I think is critical. At this point in time the accelerated destruction of gear that takes so much diligence to acquire/create necessitates the acquisition of gold crowns one way or another. I can do without a set of chairs and it will not affect my play, same goes for all the other deco that can be traded. In this case the preservation of your ability to enter certain areas and continue to participate at accustomed levels is at risk unless you fork over some cash. Now I said "at this point in time". That is critical because the situation could be fixed if the drop rate of crowns is such that I can reasonably expect to obtain them from play fast enough to keep my gear up. The player sales of crowns could be a suitable option too. However with very rare drops, prices for crowns with in game gold will be extremely high, forcing one to buy crowns from the store. This is pay to win or at least pay to keep playing satisfactorily. Hopefully the drop rate will be properly matched to our gameplay and I will not be upset with the situation.

 

Ok... ive had a chance to think about this.

Im not going to adress the people lying or bait and switch complaints. I dont really know much about those to have an opinion.

What I will adress is how is this good for a already very poor crafting system. Its good for portalaruim to a point because people will be paying them to repair the gear. The issue I see is that what is lost is volume you can milk the few but this will keep the masses out of the game. The ones that try it wont play for long because crafting will continue to be broken. The crafters wont be happy because people still wont be buying new gear. Portalrium wont be happy because they will have a steady cash flow but from the few willing to pay for repairs.

 

this is what i fear will take place here with these coins, i think your underestimating peoples greed and drive to 'win' and the negative effect it's going to have on your user base.

 

With each pladge you get limited amount of rewards that you can use or sell. Addon items will dissapear soon and they have purely cosmetic function.

Anyways, only taxfree property deeds and prosperity items has real ingame value.

Situation with crowns is different. They are kind of rare, but purchasable in unlimited amounts for real money.
That's where P2W scenario comes in.

Btw, good luck with selling grayhound pet for $50

 

To add other options to my post above for correcting the "at this point in time" situation: 1) we could make the skills armor preservation and weapon preservation adequate at high levels to make people happy. 2) we could use rare ores to produce equipment more resistant to durability decay (I know meteoric is in this direction but not powerful enough). Perhaps Titanium deposits will be discovered. With any of these balance mechanics, I think the sale of crowns will just turn into a convenience instead of a necessity. Win win.

 

Indeed and some rewards are quire desirable......and of course the higher the pledge, the rarer the items attached.

And rare collectors love expired items

Not really......there are loads, tax free vendors, greenhouses, crowns, royal orbs, royal sceptre, expert crafting stations ....and that's just off the top of my head

It is highly unlikely they will be rare as that is determined by the number available. The drop ingame might be rare, the item isn't.

As it is with every other item sold on the addon store........oh and of course the rare hats....cost $0 and are probably worth something like $20-$30 each. Think I have about 150 so of them if you want to buy one

Expired item a long time ago, they do actually sell for around that value. In the same way the white rabbit sells for a lot. Rare collectors love it.

 

I am pretty sure my post will be unread because of the sheer reaction to COTO

Me I am for them I do not see them as game breaking in their current implementation
10% bonus of nothing is nothing
Now the ability to sell a 1 dollar item for 1500 gold in game to a vendor then allows non pledge folks to get properties without playing the game which I thought land was going to be heavily controlled by prolatarium ... it seems this is not true but that is another discussion.

What I want to post here and in feedback forums is how I find these items behaving. They are not that big a boon if you look at the math, which I hope to show in the video below.

Again the store credit to in game gold is another issue IMHO

MIght be off topic from rage of the forums but my 2 cents

 

And why would your 2 cents be any less valuable to the discussion?



We're all in this together

 

Exactly, those pixel collectors are really rare
And if somebody is selling it doesn't mean that there is huge demand for rare dogs or bunnies for such prices.

We have to wait for episode 1 to see how much those pixels will cost in real economy environment.
As you have stated before, If game will not succeed, all these items will have 0$ value.

That's why I said that Crowns are "kind of rare".
Crowns gives you boosts , repairs or aftermarket gold and they are available in unlimited amounts.
I see huge problem here.

 

Not as rare as you might think.

The market finds the price (the spotted rabbits do and have sold $30-40 and I know the plain ones have sold higher), you can keep up to date with this kind of stuff by following the marketplace.

Yup

Crowns are not rare, in-game drops of crowns are rare. Big difference.

Key part is gold can give you anything, anything can be sold for gold (including crowns). Crowns are just the scapegoat for the ridiculous because the "look like gold".

 

Do you really think that I don't see the difference or you don't get irony of "kind of rare" crowns?

Crowns gives you advantage over the others if you have enough money to burn, that's PAY TO WIN