Extreme Rares

Bowen Bloodgood, I like this idea. MMOs need money dumps to keep their economies from taking a dive. Extreme rares could drop as rarely as you state. every 30,000 tries or so. Selling rares on NPC vendors on occasion can be used by the Devs when they see a need to tweak the economy, recirculate all that gold. On occasion, rares could also drop on low-level monsters and during resource gathering giving the poor player a chance to increase his wealth and relieve the rich guy of some of his.

Lord Blake Blackstone, I like your idea too. (Had a good laugh envisioning the biggest worm mounted and proudly displayed on the poor man's wall. OMG ) UO has implemented something similar to your idea, a hunting challenge. You visit a huntmaster, buy a license for 5k each to hunt certain animals, (their trophies are on display where the licenses can be bought), and you go into the world hunting down the animal, such as a grizzly bear. You use the license on it to see if it has the top weight. If not, you move on to the next grizzly. The licenses can only be used once; the next grizzly you kill will cost you another 5k to see if it's a winner. On the first day of the next month the winners and those that tied with them have a short list of prizes from which to chose. The top animals are extremely rare. The animals are not automatically turned into trophies; they remain in a license deed state until a carpenter buys a trophy kit for 250k for each winner to turn it into a mounted trophy.

This system can be good for our economy if the Devs stay smart and change out the animals we can hunt once in a while and the prizes we win encouraging us to keep trying. I personally have spent about 5 mil of my hard earned trying to get the top weights, lengths and wingspan. True, my money didn't end up in the hands of a new or poor player but 5 mil was taken out of the game's economy. Add to that the 250k each my carpenter will spend turning the winners I have into trophies so I can display them.

Another way to keep the economy in check: Limit the number of characters we can have per account. I'll use my UO accounts as an example. I have 2 accounts, and because of upgrades I have on each account, 7 characters, fourteen characters in all...I want for nothing. I have all the crafting skills, (the main ones on almost every character and fighting skills). What I buy are items I don't win in dungeons such as rare armor and weapons. Other then that, I just sit back and make gold on my two vendors. I'm getting ready to get rid of one account due to real world money constraints, (alright, who just shouted, "Can I have your stuff?" ), but even 7 characters are enough to keep me independent.

We need to be put in a place where we depend on each other and what the other guy has to offer is valuable to us. Having too many characters detracts from this.

 

Nothing wrong with a good sized money dump in my eyes, as long as it only provides visual/cosmetic benefits rather than making someone rich more powerful than others.

One of the problems with money build up in any MMO economy is both cycling it around the masses AND getting it back out of the economy.

In the earlier example of the rare pink diamond perhaps a ring could be crafted that created a faint pink glow around hand of whoever wore it - to move money around the economy it would have a high trade value to players, but to also remove some money from the economy (this is equally important to stem inflation of rares) a setting would be required by whoever made the ring of high quality and cost that had to be purchased from an NPC, therefore removing some of the wealth used to obtain the item.

This could work really well - take the following scenario...

Some lucky miner who had little in the way of cash found it - suddenly he would have a chunk of money towards his house by selling the diamond (when that's built he would be another mass consumer feeding the economy while decorating his new home), the crafter might buy the gem and high quality setting thus removing a chunk of wealth from the economy and some rich player may then buy the ring from the crafter making the rich player that bit less rich, making him think twice about upping the stakes next time a rare comes under the hammer.

I think if rare items can be found while gathering they should be VERY rare and have some multi-stage use to form a really desirable end product as outlined above, rather than just every 1000 ore mined you get bright blue ore for a neon blue sword and after a while everyone has one (*cough* neon hair and sandals *cough*).

 

OMG, seems we've both played UO way to long. I managed to avoid neon hair but my characters all together look like a circus act. I think these things are inevitable when a game hangs around as long as UO has. Content must be added to make it fresh and keep people playing. Look at the mounts we have now...I wonder how many people have always wanted to ride a polar bear in rl? And we have been spoiled, we sit around waiting for the "gifts" we get during the holidays, sometimes useful, sometimes decorative. But mostly just more stuff to take up room in our houses and banks.

 

I really like this idea, sometimes when I go in game depending on what mood im in id like to have a variety of things to do.

For example I might not fancy PVP, I might be too busy eating or watching TV to want to quest, but if there was something that doesn't take a lot of thinking where I can potentially strike it rich at the end of it, even if unlikely, it would give me something to spend my time doing rather than stand around in town!

Reminds me of world of warcraft, when they implemented Archaeology, a very strange thing, but I really liked the idea of being able to have potential to find unique items without much thought when I just wanted to chill.

This sort of thing could also use areas and certain places, like you have to travel far into the deserts to mine in this certain region to have a chance of finding so and so.. with that exploration is also a benefit, I really enjoyed Archaeology because it forced me to travel to different regions of the world, and I enjoyed the views more than anything!

The location of said rares could also be extended into books or something, so people would have to do research, some maybe true, some false, but it would make the game a lot more interesting!

The money aspect to, to me I don't seem it to be too big an issue, people putting in the time to get something rare is rewarded if found. I think it brings good diversity to the game, just in real life some people are lucky and might find something rare in a shop, on a walk, lottery, bingo.. it happens, if a level 10 found a rare item and became rich, good... id much prefer seeing him doing well for himself then him wearing the exact same armour as every other level 10, with the same generic sword, with the same helmet... it gives variety, and that to me is realistic!

 

Well now how can I not do a shameless plug when the subject of archeology is brought up?

Indiana Jones & Regional Collectables

An oldie but a goodie.. at least for me. Plus it's not entirely off topic.