Gold Crowns of the Obsidians

I am all in for a somewhat predictable income for the DEVs.

But not with the current COTO repair your stuff design.

 

For the record, I have not yet repaired my crafted set of armor with a COTO, nor have I bought an extra cheap set to use when grinding. I have not purchased a potion yet.

Not sure when the sky is supposed to fall..

 

After sleeping on it, I decided to come back to this thread. The statements made yesterday by @Baron Drocis Fondorlatos and others really made me think about this, and I might have even changed my mind/opinion slightly because of those responses to my posts in this thread.

1. I suppose a freemium currency is inevitable, but simply unfortunate that Portalarium had to make this call. In my mind, it's truly disappointing, and I stand by my statements that I believe other things could have been done earlier (specifically, the "trimming the fat" statement, and offering less deliverables at release).
   1. Alas, if it's inevitable, let's make the most out of it. Let's help the devs find ways to use this situation in a way that benefits everyone, and lets help keep them from making terrible mistakes with it.
2. There does need to be a balance of time and money, and currently, that scale is tipped towards the time side, very significantly. Those with extreme amounts of available time to play the game should not have an extreme advantage over those without said time. Perhaps a slight advantage, because, frankly, if they want to put in their time... throw 'em a bone. Those of us with jobs, kids, and "busy" lifestyles... we have effectively chosen that lifestyle over [the proverbial] living in our mom's basement. Yes, I know there's the other end of the yardstick where someone who's retired and/or disabled might find themselves with copious amounts of time, too, so don't jump down my throat, please.
   1. On the flipside, it's important to understand that those with tons of spare money should obviously not have any extreme advantage over those without. The moment such a sin occurs, we'll see flames of "omg, this game is just P2W like every other free-to-play game. This is stupid."
   2. @Baron Drocis Fondorlatos, I used to be one of "those" players that had copious amounts of free time. Playing UO in high school, I would literally be "awake" for days on end (if you could call it "awake" - very much zombie-like when you get into the extremes), playing UO. I'd have to play on multiple shards, so that I could play during server downtimes. We're talking 72hr+ sprints being behind the keyboard/mouse, milking my subscription dollars (paper route money) for every penny - it was rather unhealthy. Therefore, I respect and understand your statements about the player with too much time, and no money.
   3. These days, I'm now finding myself to have a bit more money than time. And, so, thinking about it now, I guess I'd be okay with the option of paying a little bit of cash to help with convenience in-game. It's funny, because 10, even 5 years ago, I couldn't imagine ever saying something like this. Ever.
3. I've played too many subscription-based games that suddenly went "free-to-play" (or, "free to pay", as I'd call it). I hated it. And all too often, the devs have the best intentions of "Oh, but let us assure you, there's no mechanical benefit to any of this stuff, and we will certainly never make it Pay-to-Win!" .... and yet, they find themselves eating those words, because someone screws up somewhere, and then it's too late to take any of it back. Congratulations, game, you're now P2W. *deletes game*

So, yeah... I guess I went into this thread with prior stigma of an old mentality that I once had. Wow, that last sentence sounds redundant, but it's probably the best way I can express what I'm saying. Now that the balance has shifted for me, I truly should be looking at this from both sides of the time-vs-money fence.

However, there's still the little part of me that wants to lash out, and exclaim how this will inevitably lead down the road of P2W - even if that road is paved with best intentions.

So, thank you @Baron Drocis Fondorlatos and @KuBaTRiZeS and others in this thread that took the time to humor my inner child for a few posts. I think I've learned something about myself today.

----------

Okay, and now to address the idea of subscriptions. I would imagine that topic has been beaten to death, but I have to comment that subscriptions are probably a bad idea. Only a year ago, I might have said otherwise (see above - I was a huge fan of subs!). But realistically, the market has changed. Most of us posting in this thread come from a different era of MMO gaming, it's true. And now look at all the mobile games out there. How many of those have subs? Yet how many millions upon millions of players do they have, and how successful are those games? Quite. It's the way of the future for MMO games, and we need to get used to it.

So, let's bury the subscription topic for now. Best I can tell, this game was never intended to be subscription-based, and it would appear there's no intention to ever go that direction. As a final point here, look at the Ultima games and SOTA's Single-Player mode. Enough said.

----------

"Thank you for your time."

 

Lore for Crowns of the Obsidians and their use in the repair of Maximum Durability in items:

The Obsidians, a magical race, once ruled the lands... They had a mighty civilization and like any such minted their own currency. They imbued their coins with subtle magics that served the purpose of marking officially minted coins as such. It also served to preserve the coins from wear and the ravages of time. In more recent times, men have discovered that these coins and this subtle magic could be tapped in the repair of worn items to restore them to a like-new state.

There... a reason that there are so many surviving coins, and why they can be used to restore maximum durability.

 

I suppose their shirt buttons were magical also?

 

Do Obsidian Shirt Buttons drop in-game? Have they been added to the Add-On Store?

 

Nah, not the point.

I am looking forward to seeing what lore the devs have in mind. I just don't find 'Obsidians were magical, so their coins were magical' to be that compelling. Maybe a good start...

 

Years ago when I was following Shadowbane, I first heard of some game (may have even been Guild Wars) offering players the ability to pre-order for a larger amount and get extra power ups and micro-transaction rewards at the very start. I think it probably cost like $75 more or something, I can't remember exactly. I just know it was one of the very first games to do that. Everyone was in an uproar. The sky was falling.

I remember feeling extremely uncomfortable with that direction thinking there was no way that I would ever pay more than the initial price of a game, not ever. "Past me" really meant it too. Of course I was already working and going to school and I really didn't have that kind of time to play games anymore, but I didn't want to pay extra for them either. Fast forward about 16 years later and I have considerably more money and considerably less time than I did back then. But my passion for multiplayer roleplaying is still as strong as it ever was.

I think your tale of caution is important for the developers to hear. The game might be successful if it moves to a p2w structure in the future, but it will be without me. I'm with you, I really hope that never happens. I'm comfortable for now though.

Thanks for the measured and thoughtful reply.

 

Uh, lore is already coming.

So hey, we will find out how they were (are?) made, and possibly even be able to quest for them!

 

Instead of, "Oh, and by the way, the coins are magical!"... perhaps we could come up with some more lore about how the Obsidians used magic to repair worn weapons/armor, etc. and summadat magic is still found in the coins, yada yada.... I' not good with this story stuff, but I do know that I don't like the cop-out of "It's magic. Deal with it."

 

Cool. I still had fun.

 

Let's hope it's just as good as the lore that this team is known for!

 

Didn't intend for my little explanation to be anything more than an example of how it could easily be done... There are folk, folk On the Team, that are far far better than I at this sort of thing. I'll leave 'reality' to them... That was simply an example, admittedly shallow, of how it might be explained in lore.

I had no intention of my bit of fluff becoming a thing.

 

Fair enough, friend.

 

I can't wait to hear the lore backstory on things - and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this magic maybe becomes a part of a master craftsman after so much exposure and is no longer needed from crowns to restore (or increase) max durability... would be an awesome path to walk - and one worth pursuing no matter how difficult it would be to achieve.

 

Here an example of why the potions I believe are overpowered/P2W:


The 25% durability reduction for weapons and armor is 200 levels in those skills. What I mean by this is if I use the potion I get a 25% reduction in weapon and armor durability loss instantly. If I were to train up those skills I would have to get them to level 100 in both of them and maintain it. With the skill decay rate is a lot of experience to earn and maintain.


Another thing that should be noted is that the game is still in pre-alpha which means that if we buy the crowns we are paying to test and help balance the game.

Edit:
Lets see what the devs say about this during the hangout.

 

I'm not sure how the modifier is applied, are you? 25% Durability Reduction, dependent on where the .25 multiplier lies in the formula could be large, or not. I simply don't know.
What I do know is that it's a balance issue that can be changed so that it's not a significant advantage, which is @Chris' stated intention. I trust that he knows where the modified is applied, what the effect will be, and whether or not he deems it significant or not. The same applies to the other modifiers granted by the potions... When I hear "25%" I know very little more than I did before, it all depends on how that modifier is applied.

Any that you buy now will be made available for you to claim in game, or melt prior to logging in on the 28th of July.

I await this with great anticipation... Unfortunately, I will need to watch the recording as I've an Ops meeting at 3. No Prizes for me!

 

I think if it turns out it was really easy for Obsidian magicians to create gold or silver, that magical elements in the coins would be a way to give them value beyond that. Its like in Star Trek, where you have replicators, Ferrengi use gold pressed latinum, because latinum can't be replicated.

And it could just be that they're alloys made with Obsidian -- using an Obsidian forge -- so that they naturally have magical properties.

 

But to be objective, that 25% via potion is now worth several million XP, regardless of how effective the skill is in practice. The potion replaces all the effort & time it takes to get those millions of XP.

 

To know that you would need to know the formula and how that 25% is applied. Do you? I don't. How are you calculating your several million XP and how do you know your method is an accurate reflection of reality?
To be true, you would need to be able to collect 'several million'/.25 XP in a week... Is that possible?