Totems and potions of glorious fortune

McDougle

But UO will never be pay to win...

Pawain

Your green rabbit can do a spawn faster than my blue on?

dvvid

Explain how these equate to “pay to win”.

Seth

Pay to win is for contest. Its a term started from mobile gaming, basically you can win the weekly rewards and contest by paying... So the winner is the one who is stupid enough to pay more than others to win a crappy, virtual reward. 

It's like an auction in disguise. Top payer get no. 1 rank. 

Certain UO items are sold at fixed prize to save time, and not to win in any contest. It also cost much less. 

EM event is a contest but whether u get a reward is entirely your real life luck and skills to manage your toon

Whitewolf

UO is pay to win but has nothing to do with the UO store, has to more to do with the fact they refuse to do anything about the gold sellers.

Archangel

No amount of gold can make you win, .. and win what or against what? You could buy the most expensive suit pieces but if you're a bad pvper, you won't win. Same for PVM, if you don't know how to use your toon's build, youre toast. Win the EM rewards? hmmm u have to do much more than have an uberexpensive template&gear to pull that off... and getting rares is hardly to win...

The only win I consider is against numbers and formulas.. building a good template with good pieces that match, when none really fit perfectly together, that achievement is made by lots of thinking and datasheets, and at best you can copy what something did.. so feeling good about your toon is a win. Liking how your house/castle looks is a win. Feeling competitive is a win. getting lost  for hours doing  something you liked or that challenged you is a win... its a sandbox after all, the wins are internal since there's no end-line.

So, in a game with no final goal, there is no WIN, there's either enjoying it or suffering it. Each's own call.

Seth

Sigh, as said, the "win" in pay to win is about those weekly mobile game contest... where team leaders cheer team members to play the game 24/7 for the team to win. And some really pay money to win the contest.

Its not just buying a regular item from reseller or uo store that can use like a game asset, e.g. Cameo.

If you ever played any hot mobile games like dragon mania, etc will know what I mean. Some guys can pay like say $1000 a week just to win, that is the truly pay to win.

$1000 can buy you alot of stuff from UO resellers or uo store probably for a few years.

KHAN

@Mesanna @Bleak @Kyronix @Misk Mesanna, you need to either start banning the known gold sellers/scripters OR come out and say it's OK for EVERYONE to do so. To allow the gold/item sellers to operate in violation of the rules is a slap in the face of every honest player. The ONLY fair thing to do is to make a decision, one way or the other. Let everyone operate under the same set of rules! 

McDougle

How many of the rare rabbits were caught without a totem? 

Archangel

McDougle said:

How many of the rare rabbits were caught without a totem? 

wit a totem I got a white one... next day just collecting eggs I srumbled upon the orage one, all by itself!    Blues pinks and yellows are a dime a dozen in the wild

ForeverFun

If there is "pay to win", examples are already called out here:
https://forum.uo.com/discussion/comment/66619/#Comment_66619

Not sure what the objective of this new thread is.

A alternate question is why doesn't the pet coloring totem works for Cu's?  I wouldn't use it myself, but I'm sure that would bring in more funds for the game. 

Having the UO team eliminate gold sellers sounds a bit like waiting for the police to put-away all the illegal drugs dealers.  Folks can always choose to stop buying those drugs, right?  Furthermore, would you rather the UO team focus on fixing bugs (there are many I'd like to see fixed), or would you prefer to have them play whack-a-mole?

Pawain

On the second day, a player on LS got the Green Bunny in Malas without using a Totem.

Posters complain because they do not have time to play all day so they make items that you can buy to allow some content to happen faster.

@McDougle ; you are against that?  Or just bored and want to complain.

Arnold7

KHAN said:

@ Mesanna @ Bleak @ Kyronix @ Misk Mesanna, you need to either start banning the known gold sellers/scripters OR come out and say it's OK for EVERYONE to do so. To allow the gold/item sellers to operate in violation of the rules is a slap in the face of every honest player. The ONLY fair thing to do is to make a decision, one way or the other. Let everyone operate under the same set of rules! 

Agree don’t think third party vendor issue has ever been defined in a way that players know what they can legally buy from third party vendors, if anything.  No way new players earn enough gold in game to buy what they need, assuming they can figure that out, to create a top of the line player.  Also, assume some of the legitimate vendors, assuming a third party vendor can be legitimate, have so many accounts UO cannot afford to lose them.  I find UO’s lack of clarity on this issue to be one of the most frustrating aspects of this game.

McDougle

Pawain said:

On the second day, a player on LS got the Green Bunny in Malas without using a Totem.

Posters complain because they do not have time to play all day so they make items that you can buy to allow some content to happen faster.

@ McDougle  you are against that?  Or just bored and want to complain.

Not at all but the difference between using these items and not is huge IMO too huge. But the fact that @Mesanna has justified not having other things available in the UO  store because she doesn't want pay to win makes these items paradoxical ..

Jepeth

Yep, it is almost as if things are never as absolute as they are claimed to be. Always gradations and complexity. Who'da thunk?

Pawain

I for one am glad we have flexible leadership.

@McDougle ; maybe she should remove the Mythic tokens from the store.

Notice we can not buy pets that go to 5 slots from the store, or current artifact level armor or weapons.

Just QoL items.

dvvid

You can get all of the different rabbits without the totem. No payment needed. 

Not sure how getting each rabbit color using a totem means you won UO. 

Seth

dvvid said:

You can get all of the different rabbits without the totem. No payment needed. 

Not sure how getting each rabbit color using a totem means you won UO. 

Exactly +1. 

McDougle

 one portion of the event was created only to drive sales of a store item does this make it clearer?

Pawain

McDougle said:

 one portion of the event was created only to drive sales of a store item does this make it clearer?

No, I and many others have colored rabbits and have not used a totem. 
Another answer, so what!  You have 20 more days to get a rabbit of the color you want with or without a Totem.  More choices happier customers.

TimSt

Speaking of the Totem:  Has anyone else noticed that when a Totem is active the over all spawn rate drops?  Three times now I have used a Totem in Isamu Jima near jack rabbit spawning areas that usually spawns 5 jack rabbits at a time. While the Totem is active the spawn rate drops to something like 5 jack rabbits spread out over the 20 minute time period instead of 5 jack rabbits at a time with the next spawn happening after a few minutes.

popps

ForeverFun said:

If there is "pay to win", examples are already called out here:
https://forum.uo.com/discussion/comment/66619/#Comment_66619

Not sure what the objective of this new thread is.

A alternate question is why doesn't the pet coloring totem works for Cu's?  I wouldn't use it myself, but I'm sure that would bring in more funds for the game. 

Having the UO team eliminate gold sellers sounds a bit like waiting for the police to put-away all the illegal drugs dealers.  Folks can always choose to stop buying those drugs, right?  Furthermore, would you rather the UO team focus on fixing bugs (there are many I'd like to see fixed), or would you prefer to have them play whack-a-mole?

Having the UO team eliminate gold sellers sounds a bit like waiting for the police to put-away all the illegal drugs dealers.  Folks can always choose to stop buying those drugs, right?  

Well, it depends on the Design of a given game, I imagine....

Why would the Design of a game matter, to my opinion ?

Because, to some players, TIME is what matters most.... as the saying goes, "Time is money....."

So, "if" the Design of a given game, particularly if that game is an "itemized" game whereas better items provide more power to the players' controlled characters playing that game, makes the getting of high end items particularly "time intensive", that is, requiring hours, days, weeks if not more of time spent in the game grinding over and over to get those items, there "might be" some players who could think that, perhaps, rather then investing countless time in the game to get those items, they could be better off using that time to earn money in real life, and spend a little fraction of that real money that they earned in that same chunk of their time, to purchase those items from fellow players who got them in the game...

So, when considering  the argument of players being open to spend real money to purchase in-game items from fellow players, at least to my opinion, also the issue of the "in-game time" necessary to obtain those items should be looked at....

Bottom line is, at least to my opinion, if one wanted to get rid of Real Money Trades, the first step should be to make those in-game items which players consider spending their real money to purchase, more easy to be obtained in the game, rather then more difficult and time consuming to get.

Such a change in Design, to my opinion, would "dissolve" the perhaps # 1 reason for players to be willing to purchase in-game items with real money which it is, at least to my opinion, the extensive "time" connected to get those items in the game.....

That is at least, the way I personally see it.

Seth

nevermind..

Cinderella

McDougle said:

How many of the rare rabbits were caught without a totem? 

I have tamed 2 pink rabbits (one at Brit farms, the other at New Haven).
They seem to spawn during people doing the Champ Spawn (On Sonoma)

MsScarlett

TimSt said:

Speaking of the Totem:  Has anyone else noticed that when a Totem is active the over all spawn rate drops?  Three times now I have used a Totem in Isamu Jima near jack rabbit spawning areas that usually spawns 5 jack rabbits at a time. While the Totem is active the spawn rate drops to something like 5 jack rabbits spread out over the 20 minute time period instead of 5 jack rabbits at a time with the next spawn happening after a few minutes.

absolutely noticed this

RubyKnight

RNG Blessed me this morning in North Haven. Finally tamed an Orange/Red Rabbit without the use of a totem. So, yes, YOU CAN get it without a totem. I also tamed a Green one in Del last night WITHOUT the use of a totem.

MsScarlett

RubyKnight said:

RNG Blessed me this morning in North Haven. Finally tamed an Orange/Red Rabbit without the use of a totem. So, yes, YOU CAN get it without a totem. I also tamed a Green one in Del last night WITHOUT the use of a totem.

So was the green one a rabbit or jack rabbit?

ForeverFun

Plenty of suggestions have been made in this forum to reduce the time-grind factor.  e.g. things like not requiring the roof rooms to be rekeyed everytime (say valid for 4-8 hours), etc.  Those suggestions have been met with crickets so far.

The time/money tradeoff isn't unlike paying for a car + fuel/electricity, flying, using a private jet, buying an airplane -- rather than walking, etc.

Removing the grind would increase the fun factor.

I personally don't consider anything regarding pet hues to be in the pay-to-win category.

The time of legends expansion (which is not free), is the only way to equip high value items like the enchantress' cameo.  Why do you think those items sell for so much...

This thread is pretty thin on positive suggestions vs. generic, repetitive complaints...

McDougle

I think my stance on this is well documented I'm in favor of anything sold on a RMT site should be sold cheaper in the UO store..

Seth

McDougle said:

I think my stance on this is well documented I'm in favor of anything sold on a RMT site should be sold cheaper in the UO store..

I vote this idea for uo store to sell items that are no longer available and functional from all past, limited-time events, even as far back as early 2000.
- Invasion
- High Seas
- Fellowship
etc.

For the dynamic events, uo store should sell the non-shard bound version. 

It is unfair to penalise us for missing an event because we happen to be busy in real-life work to make money to pay for everything including UO subscriptions. Why should anyone own and wear an item that we can only envy because they happen to have time to play when we don't. 

Pawain

McDougle said:

I think my stance on this is well documented I'm in favor of anything sold on a RMT site should be sold cheaper in the UO store..

I thought this thread was about Totems and Potions sold in the store.  You found out you were wrong so you want to change the subject?

Yes Virginia you can get all the color rabbits without the Totem.  I guess Ruby won UO without paying extra.  Does that make you mad?