*GOLD SINK IDEA* DAoC House Deed Lease Concept

Gwen

gay said:

Or here is an idea.

Pay 12.95$ for another account, and place a house anywhere there is a spot. Shards aren't dead because people don't have the option to place a house, shards are dead because there are too many servers online for the amount of players left playing the game.

it's not rocket science, and the solution is not only simple, but the foundation for it has been being laid for the last few years now.

Shards are dead because you cannot live on low-populated ones. Nothing for sale at all. No powerscrolls, no weapon, even 0  wands to train a mage. 
It will be awesome if we will be able to sell stuff at cost of bank items. We have 125 -150 slots in the bank.  Let me use them.  This way people who come to farm PS will be able to sell ftuff for noobs. 

Kaz

keven2002 said:

For what it's worth, you don't even need to pay the $13 a month every month to keep the house; just pay once every 3 months if you need to keep the slow selling house from falling. Pulse when you pay for the accounts to create a run on property (ie create the supply/demand). Only thing will be picking the right shard to do this on since there are so many. This is basically what the idea is suggesting; just on a single account level versus multi account level (cheaper for whoever is selling houses).

This is part of a different problem though - the 3 month game.

But to Nails suggestion on the small house - gold sink idea - I like it.  Yeah there are logistics and details to work out.  I especially like the tent idea, I could see small encampments here and there of tents (gypsy style).  Little bit of extra storage, maybe allow a vendor (so people sell on their off-shards rather than bringing everything back to ATL).

McDougle

Kaz said:

keven2002 said:

For what it's worth, you don't even need to pay the $13 a month every month to keep the house; just pay once every 3 months if you need to keep the slow selling house from falling. Pulse when you pay for the accounts to create a run on property (ie create the supply/demand). Only thing will be picking the right shard to do this on since there are so many. This is basically what the idea is suggesting; just on a single account level versus multi account level (cheaper for whoever is selling houses).

This is part of a different problem though - the 3 month game.

But to Nails suggestion on the small house - gold sink idea - I like it.  Yeah there are logistics and details to work out.  I especially like the tent idea, I could see small encampments here and there of tents (gypsy style).  Little bit of extra storage, maybe allow a vendor (so people sell on their off-shards rather than bringing everything back to ATL).

Every time 10 paying customers pitch tents together they get a new city like feature..

keven2002

Kaz said:

keven2002 said:

For what it's worth, you don't even need to pay the $13 a month every month to keep the house; just pay once every 3 months if you need to keep the slow selling house from falling. Pulse when you pay for the accounts to create a run on property (ie create the supply/demand). Only thing will be picking the right shard to do this on since there are so many. This is basically what the idea is suggesting; just on a single account level versus multi account level (cheaper for whoever is selling houses).

This is part of a different problem though - the 3 month game.

But to Nails suggestion on the small house - gold sink idea - I like it.  Yeah there are logistics and details to work out.  I especially like the tent idea, I could see small encampments here and there of tents (gypsy style).  Little bit of extra storage, maybe allow a vendor (so people sell on their off-shards rather than bringing everything back to ATL).

I don't think it's really a "gold sink" idea if players are going to be placing vendors to make money on other shards; nor do I think it's really a gold sink if certain real estate tycoons are going to suck up all the land and then sell it off to the highest bidder. Let's call that what it is, which is self enriching to those few individuals. 

That said, I'm all for vendors on other shards which is what I think that's what the New Mag bazaar should be modified for. You can bid to place vendors now but those are more or less for commodities. I think they should keep the same thing in place (ie limited spaces and you must bid to keep the spot) but allow regular vendors so things like powerscrolls or artifacts can also be bought/sold. Using the bazaar style bidding would ensure that people don't simply stock their vendor once when they finally get a spot and then just leave it empty for the next 5 months. This would be more of a gold sink than allowing 1 account to place several houses (which inevitably would just be sold or used for vendors) because it opens up the possibility of a bidding war happening with the gold from that war going into the game; not the bank of X player.

Seth

keven2002 said:

Kaz said:

keven2002 said:

For what it's worth, you don't even need to pay the $13 a month every month to keep the house; just pay once every 3 months if you need to keep the slow selling house from falling. Pulse when you pay for the accounts to create a run on property (ie create the supply/demand). Only thing will be picking the right shard to do this on since there are so many. This is basically what the idea is suggesting; just on a single account level versus multi account level (cheaper for whoever is selling houses).

This is part of a different problem though - the 3 month game.

But to Nails suggestion on the small house - gold sink idea - I like it.  Yeah there are logistics and details to work out.  I especially like the tent idea, I could see small encampments here and there of tents (gypsy style).  Little bit of extra storage, maybe allow a vendor (so people sell on their off-shards rather than bringing everything back to ATL).

I don't think it's really a "gold sink" idea if players are going to be placing vendors to make money on other shards; nor do I think it's really a gold sink if certain real estate tycoons are going to suck up all the land and then sell it off to the highest bidder. Let's call that what it is, which is self enriching to those few individuals. 

That said, I'm all for vendors on other shards which is what I think that's what the New Mag bazaar should be modified for. You can bid to place vendors now but those are more or less for commodities. I think they should keep the same thing in place (ie limited spaces and you must bid to keep the spot) but allow regular vendors so things like powerscrolls or artifacts can also be bought/sold. Using the bazaar style bidding would ensure that people don't simply stock their vendor once when they finally get a spot and then just leave it empty for the next 5 months. This would be more of a gold sink than allowing 1 account to place several houses (which inevitably would just be sold or used for vendors) because it opens up the possibility of a bidding war happening with the gold from that war going into the game; not the bank of X player.

Yup, how about allowing us to lock down the shard's shard shield inside the bazaar.

Once the shard shield is locked in the bazaar it becomes a Trading post. We can then transfer items from our primary shard house to that Trading post to sell items there, and without physically flying a character over. 

So in this way, Shard A can sell an item directly to a player on Shard B... instead of both Shard A and B meet at Atlantic to trade. Hopefully this will reduce the server load on vendor search, lag, etc on Atlantic. 

The following is ideal but should be difficult to work:
1) To have Trading posts on all shards,
2) All Trading posts to showcase the same items on my primary shard vendor.
3) Once the item is sold off on any shard, it's removed everywhere else. 

--- 
The gold sink works only if there is more gain than the gold lost. 

I don't think the smaller houses or plots will work as a gold sink. The real gold sink should just normal second house on any shard, but cost say 120mil a month. Ofcourse, the player can choose to pay $12.95 per month. It all depends if he has more real life money or too much gold - which is what a gold sink is for. 

keven2002

Why do you need to lock down a shard shield? Why wouldn't you just carry a few xfer tokens in your pack or bank?

It sounds like you essentially are suggesting a free / immediate cross shard trading post to instantly transfer items without going through the whole process of xfering and waiting 24 hours to be able to xfer again? So in your example; I want something transferred over from ATL to Origin I can put it on the vendor for whatever and then use my char (or account) on the other shard to grab it within the amount of time it takes to populate on vendor search. There is no way that should be allowed, it's way too easy to be abused. 

I disagree with your definition of a gold sink. You seem to be defining a business plan (ie you need to make a profit) whereas I'm defining an actual gold sink which you are paying for convenience with a potential for no monetary return on investment. People can justify dropping 30mil a month into a "sink" that goes down the drain if they are getting enjoyment or convenience out of it regardless if they actually make more money from that exact thing.

That said, I do feel like this idea is purely as you are eluding to which is a business plan. It's someone's idea to enrich their own pockets while disguising it as a gold sink. I think people would 100% buy up houses risking 30-50-100mil in a given month at the chance of making 300m+ on flipping those houses all while only using 1 account as not to hurt their real life pockets. Think about it. If each house cost them 1 million goal to upkeep they could have an account with 50 houses on a shard (50M "investment") and just need to sell 1 house for that much gold to be in the profit. As opposed to now that would be at least $10/month x 50 accounts - $500 real life cash on the line to make a few plat? That doesn;t make sense (from a business plan) so that's why you don't see it happening but I bet if they allowed accounts to own multiple houses for gold that would change.

McDougle

keven2002 said:

Why do you need to lock down a shard shield? Why wouldn't you just carry a few xfer tokens in your pack or bank?

It sounds like you essentially are suggesting a free / immediate cross shard trading post to instantly transfer items without going through the whole process of xfering and waiting 24 hours to be able to xfer again? So in your example; I want something transferred over from ATL to Origin I can put it on the vendor for whatever and then use my char (or account) on the other shard to grab it within the amount of time it takes to populate on vendor search. There is no way that should be allowed, it's way too easy to be abused. 

I disagree with your definition of a gold sink. You seem to be defining a business plan (ie you need to make a profit) whereas I'm defining an actual gold sink which you are paying for convenience with a potential for no monetary return on investment. People can justify dropping 30mil a month into a "sink" that goes down the drain if they are getting enjoyment or convenience out of it regardless if they actually make more money from that exact thing.

That said, I do feel like this idea is purely as you are eluding to which is a business plan. It's someone's idea to enrich their own pockets while disguising it as a gold sink. I think people would 100% buy up houses risking 30-50-100mil in a given month at the chance of making 300m+ on flipping those houses all while only using 1 account as not to hurt their real life pockets. Think about it. If each house cost them 1 million goal to upkeep they could have an account with 50 houses on a shard (50M "investment") and just need to sell 1 house for that much gold to be in the profit. As opposed to now that would be at least $10/month x 50 accounts - $500 real life cash on the line to make a few plat? That doesn;t make sense (from a business plan) so that's why you don't see it happening but I bet if they allowed accounts to own multiple houses for gold that would change.

If I recall the houses suggested where non customized and non transferable 

McDougle

Let's say this you get a wagon 50 item storage. Can be placed in little area of each town God knows umbra can use some love. 10 paying customers get together they obtain village status which creates a small new mag type market as long as they are charged 100 million a month i see no harm 

gay

All of this can already be done.

Check here, https://accounts.eamythic.com/

Why should we profit at Broadsword's expense? Want a house on a dead server? Buy another account and place it. If you can't be bothered to pay for your housing needs, then why should Broadsword support your financial endeavors when you don't support theirs?

You can dress this topic up as many different ways as you want, but the simple reality of it is that it only serves to benefit a very small percentage of the population and won't actually do anything to benefit the current state of the game.

You want trade on other servers? Nothing is stopping you from paying for another account to place a plot, setup vendors and stock them from Atl.

Nails_Warstein

So many great ideas here, and like anything they might add into the game, it may only benefit or attract a few.  This is true, how many of us have bought every single store item?  Not me.  Yet they keep adding more and more.  Its a process.  As long as it could help and not hurt the UO economy, I am for it.  Of course I wouldn't want the Devs wasting time on any idea that would be too time consuming and not very useful.  This is why we have these conversation.  Bounce ideas off each other.  Share comradery and express our passion for the game.  For all the naysayers, I appreciate your point of view.  Its made me think on it.  My mind is not yet changed.  I am still curious to see where this goes.

We do have these Britannian ships, and they sell the ships in the UO store, and they add storage to the game on any shard.  This idea isn't all that different.  Whether it be a lease in sovereigns, or gold for a nice gypsy wagon theme park, or traveling carnival tent town.  I can get on board with this.  It was not my original intention, but I can imagine promoting a role player event with this concept for farmer markets, a shard to shard trade show, or my personal favorite a Rares Festival where Mesanna doesn't even have to place houses, we just set up for these festivals and trade our rares.  Thank you all for indulging me in my flights of fancy.

McDougle

A traveling market caravan you can buy a vendor slot on it and it travels to each shard for a week... xxx real dollars to do each week..

Seth

I feel the issue with UO is the population which is why its a sunset game. Asking existing players to pay for extra house on another shard to provide our services for free... someone just said why make this another job? Why bother to make vendor on low pop shard when new players can't pay, when vets can make millions selling rewards, or high end stuff to larger pop at Atlantic.

Why bother to pay another $10 a month to rent a new house on a low pop shard just to trade items that cost peanuts to help new players.

If really want to help, we are talking about 20 over shards.

Nails_Warstein

I don't know this idea would benefit gold selling players if the Devs implemented this in a way that only benefits the game, like making it only available through purchasing sovereigns.  Doesn't remove the gold to make things more affordable in the game to new and returning players, but its a novel idea regardless.

The game is in desperate need of gold sinks so that players don't feel they need to buy gold just so they can afford to play.  I am personally running out of gold all the time making scrolled bard tamers, gearing them with 10 mana increase armor, and taming Cus to scroll them.  Power scrolls are very expensive.  The average returning player has no hope of making enough gold or acquiring the necessary items on their own quickly enough to enjoy the higher instances within the game proficiently.  I theorize this is exactly why they are making New Legacy, because it evens that playing field.  Everyone starts new and fresh.  Meanwhile the out of control inflation on the original version of the game burdens us all.

Dryzzid

I picked yes, I like the idea of being able to rent storage space on another shard in general.

I think the idea would be a lot easier to implement if they avoided using space on the map, though, even on lower pop shards.

What about this twist to the idea: Inn Rooms.

Make a 2 or 3 different sizes of interior inn rooms, carve out a sizeable section of black space somewhere in the corner of one of the maps, and copy/paste a bunch of the rooms, and then make them available for rent via a system accessed from innkeepers.

Players setup/get to the rooms via any innkeper and/or a rune (similar to boat runes - get new one from innkeeper).

If rent goes unpaid, contents get auctioned like the safety deposit boxes.

Tim

Is it just me or is most of what being asked for is provided by "Vaults"?

Nails_Warstein

Tim said:

Is it just me or is most of what being asked for is provided by "Vaults"?

That's just storage, so people who object to the idea because of the additional storage, are making a poor argument.  The purpose is for rp, vendor, safe, and add-ons.  All the other benefits of a house.  I also like the Inn idea if you can buy a key for a door, and have access to the room for the same purposes of a house.  Cool.

Pawain

Nails_Warstein said:

Tim said:

Is it just me or is most of what being asked for is provided by "Vaults"?

That's just storage, so people who object to the idea because of the additional storage, are making a poor argument.  The purpose is for rp, vendor, safe, and add-ons.  All the other benefits of a house.  I also like the Inn idea if you can buy a key for a door, and have access to the room for the same purposes of a house.  Cool.

Maybe allow the use of Soul Stones and Power Scroll Books in bank boxes?

The with a vault you can live from a suitcase.

Of_Beasts

you can rent housing and boats from other players possibly.  It seems everyone wants to do things individually instead of involving the community.  Set up housing brokers that rent housing and ships.

Drago

Decent concept and might of helped when the game on the decline years ago... but it won't boost server pop at all.  Game is 25 years old and oldest active MMO (and the first true mmo).  You will never appeal to today's crowd with EC/CC clients. They're just too old.

If they really wanted to attract more subs, being that LostArk has shown major success in  isometric MMO market, they should consider dusting off KR and re-engineer some of the issues (i.e - some art).

Of_Beasts

Remove or severely hinder the ability to play the meta game and make items all shard bound.  This would help the game play and help the communities have items to purchase on their shards.  The cross shard trading is the meta, not the game.  Each shard could have their own economy then instead of every shard having to price according to atlantic prices.  They have to price the items at atlantic prices because if they price them lower, then people just buy them up and transfer them, leaving the shard barren of trade goods and people will not play on shards with no economy or items to find/use/buy.

McDougle

Again I point out the only closed economy in UO is also the only healthy economy...

Seth

Of_Beasts said:

Remove or severely hinder the ability to play the meta game and make items all shard bound.  This would help the game play and help the communities have items to purchase on their shards.  The cross shard trading is the meta, not the game.  Each shard could have their own economy then instead of every shard having to price according to atlantic prices.  They have to price the items at atlantic prices because if they price them lower, then people just buy them up and transfer them, leaving the shard barren of trade goods and people will not play on shards with no economy or items to find/use/buy.

This would apply if uo population is still healthy and shard transfer remain a paid service and not free (vet reward). This argument seems the same as asking to scrap the free shard transfer system? 

To create items, we would then need to rebuild same characters on each shard. Rather than selling our excess from our primary shard.

Then low pop shard will always stay low or worse because the current game are mostly old players. 

Of_Beasts

Seth said:

Of_Beasts said:

Remove or severely hinder the ability to play the meta game and make items all shard bound.  This would help the game play and help the communities have items to purchase on their shards.  The cross shard trading is the meta, not the game.  Each shard could have their own economy then instead of every shard having to price according to atlantic prices.  They have to price the items at atlantic prices because if they price them lower, then people just buy them up and transfer them, leaving the shard barren of trade goods and people will not play on shards with no economy or items to find/use/buy.

This would apply if uo population is still healthy and shard transfer remain a paid service and not free (vet reward). This argument seems the same as asking to scrap the free shard transfer system? 

To create items, we would then need to rebuild same characters on each shard. Rather than selling our excess from our primary shard.

Then low pop shard will always stay low or worse because the current game are mostly old players. 

well people would migrate from the dead shards and they could eventually be shut off.  But it would work toward progress eventually.  Right now everything will just die.

Seth

Of_Beasts said:

Seth said:

Of_Beasts said:

Remove or severely hinder the ability to play the meta game and make items all shard bound.  This would help the game play and help the communities have items to purchase on their shards.  The cross shard trading is the meta, not the game.  Each shard could have their own economy then instead of every shard having to price according to atlantic prices.  They have to price the items at atlantic prices because if they price them lower, then people just buy them up and transfer them, leaving the shard barren of trade goods and people will not play on shards with no economy or items to find/use/buy.

This would apply if uo population is still healthy and shard transfer remain a paid service and not free (vet reward). This argument seems the same as asking to scrap the free shard transfer system? 

To create items, we would then need to rebuild same characters on each shard. Rather than selling our excess from our primary shard.

Then low pop shard will always stay low or worse because the current game are mostly old players. 

well people would migrate from the dead shards and they could eventually be shut off.  But it would work toward progress eventually.  Right now everything will just die.

Yup, they can also leave the game if there is no shard transfer, instead of rebuilding all the characters.

Of_Beasts

Seth said:

Of_Beasts said:

Seth said:

Of_Beasts said:

Remove or severely hinder the ability to play the meta game and make items all shard bound.  This would help the game play and help the communities have items to purchase on their shards.  The cross shard trading is the meta, not the game.  Each shard could have their own economy then instead of every shard having to price according to atlantic prices.  They have to price the items at atlantic prices because if they price them lower, then people just buy them up and transfer them, leaving the shard barren of trade goods and people will not play on shards with no economy or items to find/use/buy.

This would apply if uo population is still healthy and shard transfer remain a paid service and not free (vet reward). This argument seems the same as asking to scrap the free shard transfer system? 

To create items, we would then need to rebuild same characters on each shard. Rather than selling our excess from our primary shard.

Then low pop shard will always stay low or worse because the current game are mostly old players. 

well people would migrate from the dead shards and they could eventually be shut off.  But it would work toward progress eventually.  Right now everything will just die.

Yup, they can also leave the game if there is no shard transfer, instead of rebuilding all the characters.

that might be true as well, but they are leaving the game anyway now.  Just the people that are playing the meta would leave really, the rest could consolidate onto other shards.  Atlantic might be fun for some, but its way to overcrowded for me.  Other people might feel the same.  As with anything if its broken fix it.  The game is broken.  Lots of stuff needs fixed.  If the shards did consolodate some, less to fix, more players per shard.  RL money might suffer, but the game probably was not ment to be played in the meta, albeit it did happen, and now we have massive gold saturation, gold sellers, house sellers, item sellers all for RL cash.  I guess thats how some people want to play also.  Everything I say is just my opinion.    You have yours also.  also I think you could have shard transfers still, but you would be limited to what you can bring with.  Kind of like seige ruleset, except you cannot transfer on siege.

Seth

Of_Beasts said:

Everything I say is just my opinion.    You have yours also. 

I think we are all facing the same problems:

• Scarcity on low pop shard:

Shard-bound items only make rare (say an event) items even more scarce and rare. Basically, they become extinct on the low pop shards. On Atlantic, if the rewards are worth 200 minor arties, such rewards are sold on auction boxes. If you tell me where to buy the balron armor for much less for a newbie, I will buy up all. 

The majority 99.5% (?) of items in the game are non-shard bound are not even available on the low pop shards, so I don't know why anyone would expect shard-bound will definitely help ensure item availability on the low pop shard. 

• Inflation:

 This is why we have this thread to suggest a possible gold sink for vets who are rich with >14 years account, who have access to all shards via the free vet tokens. 

None of the solutions are perfect as each has good and bad points. And I agree that everyone is entitled to their opinion. 

In my case, I prefer "availability" and a more "open" system to combat scarcity and inflation rather than lock-down to create "rarity", "scarcity" and isolating the shard to prevent cross-shard trading.

We know populations will continue to fall, but one solution will accelerate that, while the other will slow it down albeit it has other side effects. 

It is like those doctor's prescribed pills that could cure sickness and yet comes with side effects. We have to pick the best pill to stay in the game longer because regardless of whichever pill we take, we will all die one day.