How is that not custom content when you can see people in different armor in-game? You still have to program game emulator to show that armor, where the toggle is located doesnt matter at all at this point (probably to make that in-game is harder, that on web, but this is not a discussion about that, it is about final result - visual effect), it could be build in facebook apps or anywhere else, but if you can see the result in Lordaeron realm, then that is a custom content.
How do anyone from community could possibly know that Lordaeron is not getting enough donations to maintain its costs? There is no official information about this..and you can not just simply say - we receive not enough money. If there is no transparency where the money is going, why would community give their money at all? Not to mention that the whole Warmane project legally speaking is "charity project", because you receive donations, you are holding this project because you like it, and it is only bonus that someone sends you donations, this is legally speaking. In reality ofc it is a business, and all people know that in business there is not always the best intentions. Maybe you are lying that Lord can not maintain itself, you could be Hermes v2.0 in this Lordaeron project simple as that.
In you recent posts, you constantly are whining about not enough donations to Lord realm, I mean cmon - you can shut people down for asking RFD, ok it was in design from the start, but when people are pointing to you, that you brought things to realm, that you said will never come to light - this is fine for you...
Some smart people from community told at the very beginning that Lord will not receive enough donation, because why would you donate, if after few month the gear will be outdated. You can not expect the level of donations like it is on DW or Ragnaros, not right now. I dont know how your project managers couldnt see that.
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Member
Edited: February 24, 2016
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Moderator
If you can't see the difference, I'm not the one who will explain to you. Live a happy life calling it custom content.
"How do anyone from community could possibly know that Lordaeron is not getting enough donations to maintain its costs?"
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"Some smart people from community told at the very beginning that Lord will not receive enough donation"
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I don't even have to bother when you contradict yourself in the same post. But pushing the blame is commonplace here, so I'm not even surprised about your complaining that "we broke promises."
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Member
I think we are just playing some meaningless word game.. the point is to express myself the way, so you could understand what I meant - transmog in WOTLK, you can call it custom feature or custom content, it doesnt matter, what I wanted to say - it is not how it was originally designed to be. It is not that I dont want to see transmog in-game, it is exactly opposite, and making it for donations only, in my opinion, is very good way to raise funds. A lot of people will be happy about this feature/content whatever (people could only dream about transmog in WOTLK) + server will receive more money, and thats exactly you need. The question is - do your team wants to get into this. As I saw a lot of very good community suggestions and they all got denied, I think the answer is no. Dont blame me for being so pessimistic in the staff (like I said the trust is broken, at least fo me, adn that means a lot for me) I suggest you listen more to community, there are thousands of people dreaming about transmog in WOTLK, what possible harm could it do?
And about Lord not funding itself right now - people predicted that, it was not set in stone, it is not contradiction if someone is talking about predictions/not knowing the situation entirely, the real situation right now is still clouded, community will never know if Warmane have funding problems (with actual proof).
I am sorry to lead this thread to discussion away form original post.
My suggestion, if you want to raise funds for Lord, then get an idea and make a poll but this time allow to vote only people who donated, so you could see what the real funders of the maintenance costs needs.
Just make a poll about transmog, like a test poll, include only people who donated (donated min 100$ maybe, idk). I am sure it will take you no more than few minutes, and what could possibly go wrong with that. Bold out that it is poll just for opinion not for actual release ingame. You can always make another poll, if you really decide it to be implemented ingame.
I feel this conversation is a bit heated up, so I wont post anything else, I want the same thing you want - to keep this project alive (server funding is only a port from being alive, community satisfaction at the end means something as well). I just pointed out that releasing things, that was said never gonna see light, is not the best way to handle problems and for many people, people like me, it can break the trust. This realm is SLOW by design, I and many more people just can not afford to play as much anymore, to see in the end all of this was a big lie.Edited: February 24, 2016
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Member
Great post taralej however here are a few points that i'd like to make.
1. Suggestion : We could also go the way blizz went by purchasing in game sub. Warmane could allow player to buy coins at a good amount (read very high) and allow them to purchase queue skip / gear through it . However the price of the same will not be same as the coins brought through regular money.
Eg. If a staff costs 54 coins to a normal guy who donates real money, it should cost about 60-70 coins for a guy who buys those special coins via in game money.
In my opinion this would be a great way to drain money out from the server.
2. The problem with a scheduled gold drain is that the market would tank on the notice of it, people will jump at the very outset of purchasing materials and hoarding them until such drain has been conducted. I'm relatively sure that as soon as such an announcement will be made, gold collectors would jump at the auction house and when there is excess demand there will be excess of inflation in the realm and something which will hurt regular players A LOT until such gold drain is conducted and finally prices are stable again.
3. I also like the idea of transmog and I'm pretty sure this will work wonders. Bring the transmog vendor in game and 10x the price to transmog each gear piece as it would have been normally. In essence what it would do is that ; let players who like swag and like to show off, pay an appropriate amount for it.
4. Lottery while prima facie sounds like a good idea but will lead to a mass community outrage over the winnings . I've seen this happen in other gaming communities where people buy a lot of "tickets" to increase their chances to win and someone with 1% or something chance wins it. This will lead to mass community outrage and something which the moderators and warmane staff as a whole does not require.
5. Coming to the point of gold drain again, if it comes to it a certain slabs shall be made with that respect in form of a progressive taxing system which makes a lot of sense and also will lead to a good control over the economy.
Anyways, my two cents. :)
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Member
Taxes. Everyone loves taxes. Hard progressive :)
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Moderator
No, it isn't just a meaningless word game. You're jumbling together different things. The only way you can call this "custom content" is if you also consider the patches to use Mists models on previous expansions as "custom content," which is ridiculous. Nothing on the server itself is changed, no new content is included in it, it would be something managed fully on the web. All that would change in-game is what the people who opt-in see, exactly the same way as people who use the new models vs. people who don't.
The fact it will be a complete "extra," coded in the web, to provide something Wrath of the Lich King didn't have, so people can use different appearances if they so choose, is why I personally say this likely will be a coin-based service. Not the "opting-in," but getting items to unlock for appearance changing. It's also something that I would only see not happening if some huge technical barrier is reached, so it isn't really something that depends on voting. It would also be something that would only affect those who wanted to use it, so those who don't can simply never activate the alternate appearances.
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Member
What Broken promises?
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Banned
Well, I think that's exactly what he means by "custom content". The MoP models on WotLK are something nice that we're getting when we're not supposed to at this expansion. The same goes with the transmog. I have nothing against these, because neither of them affects gameplay and they're both just nice eye candy, which took tremendous effort to implement into WotLK.
I thank everyone from the players and Obnoxious for the discussion here so far. From what I see, gold draining is seen as a no-go, since it can easily bring more harm than help, driving rich players to invest in goods prior to the drain, which will only raise prices further and hurt "middle class" players. It will also lead to goods-trading switching from selling to bartering, due to the instability of the currency. I can also remember a fine example of this when the currency on Ragnaros switched from gold to primordial saronite. Nowadays even that doesn't happen because the price of primordials is incredibly low (3-4k) compared to what it was at ICC progression (25k, dropping to a steady 15k later on).
So all in all, the transmog will be coin based and the gold-based lottery is still unclear in terms of design and payment, and there are no other applicable measures so far - is this the bottom line?Edited: February 25, 2016
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Banned
Can someone remind me WHY gold inflation is a problem, by the way ?
I just don't understand what's so problematic about it, that would require such lengthy discussions and drastic measures. Pardon my ignorance.
I also think it could help everyone if we could pinpoint what the exact problem is, firstly so everyone is on the same page, and secondly because we could start thinking about additional solutions, directly linked to what inflation is going to hurt.
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Banned
When money supply increases faster than goods supply, the prices of goods increase as an answer of the high demand and low supply. When there is less of a specific product, people would be willing to pay more for it. When money supply and prices increase, this also reduces the purchasing power of money. With the same amount of money you can buy less.
Gold supply in WoW increases constantly because people get gold from questing and looting, which is "created" and enters the realm's economy. This is offset by prices of services, such as talent respeccing, training cost, mount cost, reagents, auction commissions, mailbox fees, or even haircuts - any type of gold spent which doesn't reach another player 1 for 1 is a way to reduce this constant gold increase. However, on such a high population realm few people can actually get their hands on materials as there is huge competition - players flying around, camping for mining nodes or picking herbs. This causes reduced goods supply and increased demand, and that causes inflation. Before you know it the prices of normal goods go up significantly higher than what their normal price should be, only because they're nowhere to be found. A good example is fel iron ore, which is very rare in Outland, so its price is very high. However, fel iron ore is not a part of the average player's goods basket, so people simply push through it and then forget about it. The problem comes when this happens at 80lvl. Imagine all the people with mining online at peak times trying to get their hands on some saronite. Now imagine all the people with mining-related professions eating out saronite bars as if they were chocolate bars as soon as they enter the auction house. It's OK when this only happens now and then, but it's not OK when such a situation becomes the norm, which is exactly what happens in Lordaeron. The supply for saronite won't magically go up simply because people are already farming it to its max. The demand, however, increases with the more players. This causes the price on one of the major 80lvl goods to increase and can lead to inflation if it happens to other goods.
There are three main reasons for inflation on Warmane:
1) People doing quests and looting - getting gold from the game. This is totally normal and increases with the more people playing the game.
2) The huge population, which drives to higher demand from everyone who wants to buy stuff. This is not an issue which can be handled easily, as players will get frustrated the less purchase power they have.
3) Again, the huge population, which doesn't allow all people with professions to farm effectively, which drives to lower supply.
Now that I've defined these three points, I actually came up with two other suggestions: 1) can be handled by reducing gold gain from daily quests; 3) can be handled by reducing respawn timers on nodes, herbs, and mobs overall (adaptable respawn time, just like on Blizzard). Yes, I know both options are cancerous - I'm just pointing them out as possible.Edited: February 26, 2016
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Banned
And that's where you're wrong. Warmane staff reads these forums for a reason. There are moderators here for a reason. I don't actively want to change anything. I am not saying what I want, and I am not saying how Warmane should "fix" it. I am simply giving suggestions on a topic relevant for Lordaeron. This is why I started this topic so I can get some brainstorming about what can be done. It has proven quite successful so far, with some very good ideas and staff replies from Obnoxious. What more could I ask for?
If applying for a dev was that easy, I would've done it long ago - I've thought about it many times, actually. Alas, I don't have the IT knowledge to cover that position. So I just give ideas from a veteran player standpoint. It's been six years since I joined this server and I think I can do at least that. The same way I raised awareness about the post-Moltdown "starter packs" being possibly cancerous, which, sadly, got overlooked and, again sadly, I ended up being correct.Edited: February 26, 2016
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Banned
Firstly, I want to remind you that fel iron is currently bugged, so that's the reason why its price is very high. I don't know about other mats since I'm not in northrend yet but I'll trust you and assume that everything is rare and expensive.
So, if I understand correctly, the real root of your problem lies in the population. And the fact that a lot of players means a lot of demand, and not enough supply because grinding is limited by respawn timers. Right ?
Doesn't that mean that putting money sinks everywhere (like transmog) won't fix anything ? That is, assuming I accurately pointed out what the real problem is. Money sinks won't change the fact that there is more demand than there is supply, and that the prices will be higher than the average expected ones.
What I think your problem is, isn't inflation. It's lack of profession mats, because of too high demand and too low supply.
The reason why some items sell higher than on other servers, is not because a lot of players are generating gold, because, in the same way, a lot of players are eating up gold (with all the money sinks that Blizzard implemented in the game). It is because the profession mats are generated more slowly than they are being used up by players, something which doesn't happen on lesser populated servers.
Also, I want to ask if this is really a problem. This realm is slow, it's its main characteristic, so people who keep playing here shouldn't be put off by the length of time you need to invest in the game to achieve anything. That's true about leveling (skull grinding put aside), that's true about gearing up, and that's true about professions, too. Honestly, I don't think it's my place to answer the question anyway, it should be either decided by the realm designers, or by the community as a whole. So I don't know if it is a problem or not.
But, assuming it is, how should we go about fixing it ? Decreasing the population is out of question, so the only alternative is either increasing the droprate, or increasing the spawn rate. I don't know if there is already a dynamic spawn timer implemented (that makes spawns faster the more people are present in the zone), and I don't know if such a mechanic only works on mobs or if it does on nodes too, but if this doesn't exist, then it would be a good time to add it. What other options do we have ? Gm's could also be putting limited amounts of mats on the ah at an average price and delete the gold from the auctions, as an extreme measure to balance out the amount of mats in circulation & the amount of players, and also prevent inflation (which I don't find problematic, btw), but I don't see this happening.
Tell me what you think about it.
Btw : am I wrong when I say that this is not inflation ? Inflation is the decrease of the value of a gold coin. This is the increase of the value of every profession mats. Isn't this completely different ?Edited: February 26, 2016
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Banned
Brilliant reply, Modinstaller! I love it!
Yes, to a big extent the problem lies in the realm's biggest strength - the high population. The very high demand from the players cannot be satisfied by the static respawn the nodes have on the realm. The fire elementals in Wintergrasp are being camped by dozens of people every evening - it's like a mini-battleground over there, it's just madness. I don't think dynamic respawn has been implemented on any private server, honestly. I remember when I couldn't find a single copper vein in Durotar when I first started and now all the nodes are there when I pass by after an Unstuck.
You are right that gold sinks won't solve the problem though, now that I think of it. They can actually cause more harm. In much the same way negative rates aren't solving the problem in the EU right now and financial advisers are instead barking for a need for boosted economy. That is to say, the realm's economy needs to be boosted and supply needs to be boosted, instead of applying gold sinks and penalizing players for hoarding gold.
I do count it as a problem because players can't level professions and make gold normally the way they can in a normally populated realm, where you go to a zone and you know there will be some nodes.
Dynamic respawn timer would fix this issue outright - farmed beasts, metal nodes, and herbs would respawn faster, according to the number of players and the rate at which these materials are gathered. If it can be implemented, then it would be great. It would fuel the server's economy and keep prices low, satisfying supply. Static respawn reduction, in case dynamic isn't possible, may seem like a good idea at first, but it will require monitoring on the side of GMs because once this deficit subsides dedicated farmers will be able to gather at abnormal rates. GMs posting materials on the AH in order to stabilize prices and provide adequate supply also sounds like a good idea, but it will directly hurt players who make money from selling materials.
In the end, dynamic respawn seems like the best idea so far.
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