Architect Archive
Thread: A Miners Message: Sent To Thunderheart
ThothTheWise wrote:
With the Holo Grind ending with Pub-9...will the Natural Laws of Supply and demand make this something the devs even need to continue to consider?
Giamai wrote:
if asked to make a choice right this minute for how to eliminate cross-server trades, i would go with eliminating administration rights on harvesters. ok so now the people who share lots have some chores to do which is not fun and i have to make sure to log on my alts more often then i would otherwise but really it is not so high a price to pay compared with choking my business efforts by limiting my lot numbers to levels where i am no longer able to keep resource stocks in high enough quantitiesto remain functional.
my 2 credits worth...i now return you to the arts
While I agree with many of your points (I had stated most in different wording earlier :-) ), I have to disagree here.
Let's say that I rent 8 lots from one of my guildmates on a saturday. I tell him that I'll need the lots for one week, and that I'll pay him half the rental fee now, and half when he redeeds and delivers the resources to me (since obviously I wouldn't have access to the hopper). I put enough maint in to last 2 weeks, which is a generous overestimation. So a week passes. Then two, then three. My guildmate had real life issues going on and just didn't have time to log in. He feels bad, and I can't fault him for having real-life obligations (since it happens to everyone), but I'm still out all the resources and my harvester. This problem is doubled if a customer of mine had an order for that resource. If I make a commitment to deliver a resource at a promised price ahead of time and then fail to deliver, is that customer going to come back to me for business again? I think not. And likely his friends won't either, since I am now an unreliable resource dealer.
Again, I ask, why should someone who's never done a cross-server lot trade be penalized for running a successful business? Why turn the only remaining bit of "fun" that this game provides away from us resource dealers?
Why does cross-server lot trading need to be addressed when it will be eliminatednaturally when hologrinding is done? (People will not be willing to dump millions of credits into fields of static harvesters in the hopes that the exact resource they need will spawn under it)
I feel like I'm on a treadmill with this game already, running to just stay in the same place. Why does every change seem to be just an increase in the speed of that treadmill?
--Iaan K'Vork
Velisimner wrote:
im just gonna shut up now. its apparent that the devs only listen to the majority which fromalot of points is the best thing to do.all i can really do it adapt my play to whatever the devs implement. do i agree that something must be done when it comes tocross-server lot trades, yes. do i have an idea for a change, not really.
I feel like everything I say is falling on deaf ears (or blind eyes, perhaps?). Nothing needs to be done regarding cross-server lot trades. They will cease to exist after the next publish. Hologrinding is gone, therefore static harvester fields are economically unviable. Players will not be willing to dump millions of credits into harvesters just in the hopes that something good will spawn under them.
Currently I've been running roughly 100 static harvesters, rented from guildmates (organized into 3 seperate fields, all on the same planet). During the past 5 or so months that I have been mining, there have been many great resources that have come along, sometimes 2 or 3 per week. Of these, exactly 1 has spawned under one of my fields (and it only sells for 2 cpu above grind prices, and rarely sells at all since it's Chromium Aluminum). The other two fields have had no good concentrations of anything worthwhile, so they've been pulling up grind quality stuff. Clearly this does not provide any advantage to me, since 99 percent of the good resources that spawn, I still have to survey to find spots, find renters within my guild, etc.
I'm beginning to question whether or not cross-server trades are the real issue at hand. My gut instinct is telling me that some people are just angry at resource miners who have the capacity to drop 40 harvesters on any given spawn because they are out there surveying at all hours of the day (resources do shift on a timer). People are tired of finding a good spot for a resource and seeing it already heavily camped, only a day after it spawns. If this is the case, perhaps these people should take their complaints (which result from their own gameplay style) out of this discussion. I don't tell crafters how to run their business, what right do they have telling me how to run mine (especially when I'm not "exploiting the system" by engaging in cross-server lot trades).
--Iaan K'Vork
Scoooter wrote:
EdOWar wrote:
I'm not clear: why is cross-server lot swapping wrong? And how is it an abuse of the game mechanics? It's not exploiting or cheating. It doesn't hurt you (or at least, you haven't explained how it hurts you). How is it any different from renting or borrowinglots from other people on the server?
I don't use cross-server lots, mainly because it sounds like a tremendous hassle, and I generally only trust people I know. But I don't have a problem with other people doing it, if they so choose.
I've noticed a tendency, across all professions (and generally mirrored in real life as well), for people to complain when others are doing better then they are. Instead of creditingother's success to hard work, it's attributed instead to cheating/exploiting and a call goes out for the Devs to "do something!". I've seen in it in calls to stop cross-server lot trading; I've seen it in calls to cerftify harvestors; I've seen it in calls to restrict buffing to Master Doctors only; and in many other ways. Unless someone is using a real exploit, instead of worrying about what others are doing, just worry about what you are doing. Their success takes nothing away from you.
Slim Vargo, Corbantis
Real easy why cross server lot swapping is wrong.
The intention would be that lots would be a limiting factor. Usually when people lot swap accross servers they are not developing that character oin that server and that character is not a real part of the entire server economy. In a lot swap that character is bringing resouce in and taking nothing out. Also player cities falsly made larger because of lot swapping has been an issue so it's not only mining that this affects.
Now one thing that is clear is that in server lot rental/loaning was intended.
I still don't get why it's wrong. You state an opinion that you think it's wrong because of the effect (whether positive or negative) cross-server lot trading has on the economy. It's within the mechanics of the game. We're not talking aboutexploiting bugs to get more lots than intended, or people using exploits to dupe resources. Just because the devs didn't foresee the possibility of lot trading doesn't make it wrong. I suppose, though, that if the devs decide it's bad for the game they'll do something about it. So far, they haven't, and I haven't read anything from a dev/csr stating that lot trading is wrong orsome kind of exploit.
The devs did do something about lot-swapping for player cities. I believe a couple of months ago they made it so that anyone who hadn't logged into the server in the past six weeks or so was automatically removed as a citizen of the city. Clearly, the devs felt that lot swapping was a problem for player cities, and they did something to try to discourage the activity. But lot-trading for harvestors has been going on for much, much longer and they've made no moves to stop it.
Slim Vargo, Corbantis
masselin wrote:
"it enables him to drive down thecost of acquiring resources which in turn enables wealthy crafters to corner their marketand producehuge numbers of the highest quality goods at very low prices...."
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i made an error when i wrote the above.... i said that miners reduce the cost of acquiring resources by mining in huge amounts.... my thought, which was not consistent with what i wrote, wasthat miners who mine in huge amounts are willing to offer those resources at a much lower cost than would be expectedconsidering the quality of the resources. this happened recently on my server, when one guy put 8 million units of the best intrusive ore for armorsmiths to spawn on our server up for sale on his vendor and on the forums for 3 cpu when everyone else was offering it in chunks of a few hundred k for 6 or 7 cpu. now there are several wealthy armorsmiths who don't have to concern themselves with mining for intrusive ore for many months to come because they were able to stockpile more resources than the game is designed to allow them to do. up and coming armorsmiths won't be able to compete with these guys. but i don't care anymore i just swapped 20 lots... dropped mineral harvs and a vendor and am gonna sell everything i mine at like 1 cpu to make a profit like everyone else. if you can't beat em... become them.
joined42904 wrote:
Halaster,
I think the rental of lots is at least questionable. I consider it not to be legitimate, but I also realize that certain professions such as architect feel that this is a needed practice.
Removing admin entirely from harvesters is a good thing. Because it will make folks take the same amount of time and work per harvester (roughly) regardless of how many accounts they have. If someone with 4 accounts can manage 40 harvs in only 150% the time that it takes a person with one account to manage 10 harvs, that's unfair. Making each account operate its own harvs still lets folks have multiple accounts but eliminates economies of scale that function to the detriment of folks with solitary accounts.
Having someone dump harvs and admin them to you and just leave them static for "x" is not quite but almost the same thing as buying the player's lots. Those lots belong to him. And he should have to be involved in any significant management decision regarding those lots. Lots should be inalienable to the extent that you have to stay involved in managing a lot for that lot to function. If you don't, the harv burns to the ground.
You are right...you don't have the option of paying a player X for dumping harvs in a location and adminning you if you don't have admin on harvs. That's really part of the whole point.
OK, good points. Mostly. I disagree that the guy I rent lots from should have to manage them himself. That would make his gameplay more tedious.
What would be inconvenient for you as you operate 4 accounts is really only making it the same for each of your accounts as it is for one player operating one account on a per-account basis. What you object to is the elimination of your economies of scale.
Incorrect. What I object to is the tedium that would come of this. Games are supposed to be fun, not tedious.
Any practice which would be eliminated by removing admin on harvesters, it seems to me, must at least be questionable if the devs are considering removing admin on them. Your practices seem at least questionable to me and certainly far from "highly" legit as you claim.
Your proposal of tracking ingame time on a per month basis sounds to me like something easy to get around in a cross-lot situation just by logging in once every so often and running a dance macro all night. Heck, folks do that already. And keeping track of that will have a lot more database usage and potentially a lot more problems if something gets bugged in the code than a very simple no-admin solution.
Good point. It could certainly be worked around. Still the no-admin has flaws too.
Your other solution involves a lot of work on the part of CSRs. With that much of a manpower constraint, it seems likely that small cross-lot trades will continue. Indeed, they would all continue unless specifically brought to the attention of a CSR.
Another good point. Current CSR staff is woefully inadequate in both numbers and intelligence. But that's an entirely different thread...
Are you sure you really want to stop cross-lot trades? Your solutions seem unreasonably to facilitate its continuance for someone who sincerely opposes the practice.
Yes. I definitely want to stop cross-server lot trades. Let's don't make assumptions or get accusatory. Instead, let's work together to figure out a solution that works well for everyone except cross-server lot traders.
Pawlin wrote:
TheOxygen wrote:
....Hologrinding is gone, therefore static harvester fields are economically unviable. Players will not be willing to dump millions of credits into harvesters just in the hopes that something good will spawn under them....
I do static mining myself in a small fashion. I figure I get an average of 40% density for minerals.
ON a 40% density a medium BER10 mineral will give you 5700 resources in a day at a cost of about 3000 credits for maintenance and power. Thats only about 0.5 cpu. So static mining is economically viable as long as the cost of grind minerals does not drop below 0.5 cpu.
There will always be a need for grind quality materials.
While that is true, I believe his point he is trying to make is that on the Large scale it will cease to exist. The reason being if all the folks who are currently doing just what you do..say 10 lottraded harvs max....that there will be so many grind resources that the compitition will weed it down to a lvl where indeed it wont be an issue that needs addressing.
Certainly even me who even when NOTHING viable is there can still find a good 20% ore under any of my harvs will not do it. and i could and easily...simply because the RETURN will not be worth the time it tskes to do it.
The days of the LARGE miner is all but over. I will continue till augest just because i'm paid up for that long...but i wont be renewing them. If theres no change by augest i will keep my mediums (about 100) just to gather stuff for space..but it wont be worth much but the first initial grind..after that even those will go. its just not viable anynmore to do it that large.
I really feel this whole thing has more to do with Storeing stuff altogether. What do people stotre the most of? Resources and the stuff those resources allow to be created. So they will probably do a blanket sweep. Harvestors (because this is the beginning..then factories( because next to harvestors this is the larghest thing lottraded, both for use as factories AND store houses) and i believe it would be a waste to do housing...but they may. if they dont people will still Lot Trade some small housing lvl as well as my most popular LotTrade...PA Halls. of all my lottrades..a good 10% of them were just easy PA halls...(i loved those ones )