Ack, why remove Prosperity tools? (questions)

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by bdo7, Oct 18, 2014.

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  1. Jatvardur

    Jatvardur Avatar

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    Starter pack is upgradeable... but anyhow... circular debates are circular.
     
  2. Drocis the Devious

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    I didn't realize that. You can upgrade a starter pack to a prosperity item? That's great news, I'll dump my prosperity items then and just upgrade what I thought were a bunch of tools that will be sitting in my "garage".

    When did we find this out?
     
  3. Jatvardur

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    I only found that out in this thread (assuming I understood the earlier post correctly):

    https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...prosperity-tools-questions.15468/#post-253538

    The wording isn't quite crystal clear but I think they upgrade comment refers to the starter tools. Note that Deliverance believes the starter tools can be upgraded too (couple posts down).
     
  4. Drocis the Devious

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    Wish I knew what I was buying. :)
     
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  5. smack

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    You talking about the tools or the game? :D
     
  6. Drocis the Devious

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    The tools. Clearly the game is a single player multiplayer, housing, crafting, pvp, non-pvp, play online play single player offline, MMO-like but not an MMO, spiritual successor to the Ultima Series and Ultima Online but neither a sequel nor a companion to, game. Or as the cool kids like to call it an SPMHCPNPONOFFMMOLSSG.
     
  7. Jatvardur

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    I think I have a better impression of the ga... oh wait... nope. :eek:



    :p
     
  8. Karrolanth

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    Thanks for clearing that up! Can we quote this at the new folks who come in from now on asking "Is this going to be UO2?"...? ;)

    Edit: Actually, the full acronym might be SPMHCPNPONOFFMMOLSSGDLMB... ;)

    And I'm still really no wiser as to whether I should buy Prosperity tools or stick with the ones I'm going to get with my pledge. *sigh*
     
  9. Gabriel Nightshadow

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    Yes, the starter tools can be upgraded, but DarkStarr did not indicate how many levels o_O Presumably, not up to the level of Prosperity tools, which are expert level (second highest level). A clarification would definitely help...:rolleyes:
     
  10. Drocis the Devious

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    Ok, so you're saying that you believe based on what's been said so far that it works like this?

    Starter
    Next Level
    Prosperity (Expert)
    Master

    Is that about right?

    And we don't really know if 1) Prosperity Tools can be upgraded? 2) If Stater Tools can be upgraded to Prosperity and Beyong?
     
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  11. Beli

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    Sounds like a good question for the Firelotus Q&A. I was thinking there was only 3 levels. artisan, expert and Master, but yes would be nice for some clarification.
     
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  12. mikeaw1101

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    They will probably expand those to include "Grandmaster" and above eventually if the game really becomes popular. Probably would be better for balance if they thought that out fully now...
     
  13. Gabriel Nightshadow

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    Something like that... They've never really been clear exactly how many levels there are...
     
  14. Logain

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    The answer should be quite simple. If you have/can easily spare the money, buy them. You're going to purchase a 'rare', which likely increases value over time and help to support the game. Every in game benefit is already a bonus there ;)
    To be more concrete though, it all depends on how fast you want to reach a certain stage and how much comfort you desire. As the prosperity tools grant quality and quantity bonus without breaking right away, you're going to have a great economic and comfort advantage early in game (no need to carry multiple tools helps with encumbrance and saves you multiple trips, no need to repair keeps your cost low and added quality and quantity increase your profit even further compared to starter tools). Later in the game, you're most likely going to have better alternatives, but you'd still have some 'rare' items.
     
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  15. Spoon

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    Me, I'm thinking that even the devs don't know the specifics yet. So even under if we tickled (or licked?) them they couldn't tell us. I think Starr has a pretty good guess which one would be better, though he is used to being tickled and licked so might prove tougher....
    Then we have the whole factor of "things might change" which shouldn't be trifled with. If they make too clear statements "prosperity is better than artisan" but then closer to release it turns out not to be the case any more due to necessary choices. Then instead of confused players, like they have now, they will have mighty angry players, like they get every now and then, and that might lead to torches and pitchforks...
    So there is little incentive and much to lose from making too specific statements in a changing environment.

    Now to me I simply used some spare blackfriday credit that was lying around waiting to be used, so 'locking' it in. Then closer to release when the crafting enhancement system gets some love, I will check out the details and make an informed decision, and then I might melt them back to credits if I don't like how it looks then and use it to upgrade the pledge or buy something else I fancy.
     
  16. Drocis the Devious

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    This is not a complicated design decision, and they're selling both starter and prosperity tools for real money. So I don' think it's too much to ask of them to say "This is what these things do and don't do in comparison to one another". There may be balancing issues they still need to iron out. But simply saying one is better or worse than the other. One can be upgraded and the other can't. Stuff like that doesn't seem like a tough call to make to me.
     
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  17. Balec Fares deCani

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    Did the devs ever describe the tools as having levels (e.g. expert)? I only remember levels being used to describe the crafting stations. My impression was that these tools just gave a bonus as mentioned:
     
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  18. Gabriel Nightshadow

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    Yes, DarkStarr did :)
     
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  19. Spoon

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    From a player perspective I fully agree with you Drocis, me, I would like to get much more info on all items in the AddOn store.
    Floorplans for the houses, for one thing, number of rooms isn't nearly enough info if you don't know if it has a door or anything. Preferably with a link to a unity mini-instance with only the house/basement, it is relatively easy to set up and would drive sales. See how our Melchior and Mad Hermit have such stuff. (And that way we could discover gfx bugs pre-releases).
    Same thing for the tools, I would like to have specifications to see how "good" these things are and how long it will take before I can buy better stuff ingame. It's not like they can be used as decoration if they turn out to be useless after a weeks crafting.
    Etc.

    But from Portalarium's perspective they are trying the very american tradition of limiting damage and liability. This so that IF they have to change anything it can't be held against them.
    The developers have been burned before and are a bit shy of the fire elemental.

    So sorry that I was a bit unclear - I'm not advocating the current state of affairs, I would like to see it change. (Me - I'd make a major overhaul of their web presence and AddOn store strategy to make it much more user friendly and sales enabling. I've made several topics on the subject - que crickets etc).

    Instead I'm just speculating on the reasons behind them being consistently elusive when it comes to topics like this.
     
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  20. Duke William of Serenite

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    Please keep in mind these items are available in game but they do have decay and need repair.
     
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