Artisan Archive

If the forthcoming NPC vendor fee proposal goes through, I call upon all players to help Merchants "Nert the database".

This fee would be tied to the value of items listed for sale on the vendor and is not economically feasible for crafters or general merchants.

This fee will BREAK the economy and the way you have been currently playing. Even if you are able to find vendors, they will have limited content.

Architects will not be able to afford to have high value items (factories, medium and large houses) listed on their vendors.

Tailors and Chefs - with a wide variety of products - will not be able to offer the range of their products because their low margins will not support having a large inventory of items for sale.

I could go on with more examples, but you should get the idea.

The general consensus, and implied by posts from Sony reps in the forum, are that this vendor fee (or "money sink", as they refer to it) is merely a misguided method to try and control the size and performance of a poorly designed database system.

Fine - if they want to break our game - we can help them.

If this goes through, I call upon every single person in this game to max out their offerings on the bazaar. Find a worthless knife drop on a dead evil hermit? Pick it up and list it for sale for 1 credit on the bazaar.

Is your bank not full, take that stack of 20 copper and split it into 20 stacks of 1 - please don't sit there with your bank at 10/100. They (the devs) gave you 100 spaces in your safe deposit box - go ahead an use it all.

If you have Business 3 or higher, load up your vendor with worthless items too. Craft some carbosyrups (they only take 6 flora resources to make) and put them up for sale at 1 credit.

If they want to nerf us, we can nerf right back.

(for background on this issue, please see the Merchants Profession forum - there is a thread there with several hundred posts)

Wow, what a great idea! Lets threaten the Devs because we don't like one of their proposed changes! In fact, lets threaten all the players too! Let's intentionally try to crash the game market because we are twelve years old and still think that throwing temper tantrums is how to get what we want!

Now, I know that this idea has no chance of succeeding, first because I doubt that a concerted player effort could actually crash the databases, but mostly because I doubt there is anyone else stupid enough to even try. Imagine though if it did work - why would you want to screw every person who plays this game? What would that accomplish?

Making threats like this is stupid, childish, and above all counterproductive. I know that if I was a developer and saw this post, my gut reaction would be to jack up the vendor pricing just to screw with you.

(For the record, I don't necessarily think that the new fee schedule is a good idea, I just think that making threats like this is really, really dumb)

Thank you.

There is another term for this; it's called "Denial of Service"

If you participate and it succeededs in crashing the server you could be legally liable, by current laws in the US it's a criminal offense. If you participate in bringing down the server, not only will you be angry about the gameplay issue, you'll have to angry from your jail cell.

If the changes to vendors are as bad as advocated, then the repercussions in game will be a stonger motivator for the devs to change things then any petty plot to bring down the database.

Well we see were all you sheep and you hope for the best bleating has got us. Lost my deed vendor in the surprise patch. Its ok, ill make another...On another note, see me for cheap fireworks...at one credit per, they are a deal...Sadly they dont stack...but dont worry about me running out of stock, the storerooms are crammed full.

As I said in a previous post.....

"Nerfing" the database with loads of garbage at 1cr per will not get our opinions taken seriously. They can get you banned however, if you do so and it can be proven that you did so with malicious intent (such as posting that you were going to do it in the forums, for example).

We have to be adult about this. Simply stop using vendors except to bark how to contact you to make a purchase. Make known not only your displeasure but your suggestions as to what should be implemented. Be grown up, even if you normally aren't.

Nerfing the database will also hurt other players, people who may not have any involvement in this issue (yet). We have no right to hurt their gaming experience because we got the Nerf.

Play nice.

My views are mine alone. The opinions expressed in the above post are.

It's always been a dream of mine to set up 5 equipment factories pumping out little 5 resource items titled "High quality factory parts", I should have enough money to keep the factories running for at least 6 months, how many high quality items do you think I could put on my vendor at 1 credit per?? I love low prices because it makes my customers happy, that's all. I think 200,000 items will fill the demand for them. maybe.

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daver wrote:

we, as players, have far less power and influence than many of us seem to believe. We only have one true "weapon" for change -- money.

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Point taken. But cancelling an account in protest of a universally unpopular game change, unless done in large numbers, will not necessarily count for anything. Large corporations, like Sony, are always willing to piss off and LOSE a percentage of their customers if they think it will save them money in the bottomline i.e. not investing in additional hardware to solve the database issue.

Besides, social disobedience in MMORPG's is not new. Anyone remember the Red Shirt protest on one of the UO servers, maybe 5 years ago? It was in response to some similar extreme nerf, can't remember what, but hundreds and hundreds of people donned red shirts and all congregated in one city. The lag soon became massive, and the server went down. Not for long, but we did make a point. The nerf was "unnerfed" within a couple days.

And guess who was running the show in UO at that time. That's right, our buddy Ralph Koster.

Read my post on page 30 of the Devs Hair brain idea post. I will cancel my account.. So what if they delete the character. If more people cancel maybe they will get the point. Complaining here gets nothing. All they want is your $15 a month. Iike someone said about this is a business. If the money stops rolling in questions are asked. Until then they can change the game to where its useless if hucks keep paying them.

Why tax merchants for using their skills and not fighters? If this thing goes through it would cost me 23582 credits a day to maintain what I have on my vendor. Yeah thats the greatest idea ever.. IDIOTS!

Anyone remember the Red Shirt protest on one of the UO servers, maybe 5 years ago?

Yes, I remember the protest! It was great! I, too, forget why we were protesting. But, it was a big issue.

Apparently, Raph hasn't learned yet.