Nethergoat

I found it interesting that the base community shared my off the cuff opinion that the inf>prestige exchange rate is too steep to be worthwhile.

Fulmens' quest for knowledge has driven him to bravely go where no marketeer has gone before.

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Wow I can't believe this nonsense got to such a huge thread.

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Welcome to the internet!

I find your prose stylings superior to 95% of everything else on these forums, keep up the good work.

your incoherence intrigues me!

did my good deed for the week by telling someone stranded in Cap about the Black Helicopter express route to Mercy.

Also gave 5 million inf to a newbie at the black market who wanted to try out IOs.

I found it highly entertaining.

he was aptly named.

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There's no need for an end-game. What does "end-game" mean, anyway?

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That's the same conclusion I landed on.

I've been here for 5-ish years, I have a rotating cast of 20-odd characters 'in play' at any time, from level 1 to level 50.

My "end game" is playing whoever strikes my fancy when I log in, doing whatever looks like fun.

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ouch, that's a bad one.

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Depends on which end you are on.

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true!

ouch, that's a bad one.

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But in the MA the line between leveraging your characters' valid strengths and exploiting unintended behaviors is pretty blurry. I'm almost at the point of saying that instead of punishing people who create imbalanced maps or scenarios, the devs should reward it, and take steps to ensure that they can deal quickly with the information that surfaces.

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This is a fantastic idea, Keep.
Much more constructive and less player-hostile than their current stance.

The carrot is more effective than the stick, especially when you refuse to explain which actions trigger the beatings.

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The rich get richer, the poor get poorer, blah blah blah.

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nonsense.

the market is excellent at spreading wealth around.

My experimental stalker has 30 million at level 30, doing nothing but selling drops and crafting the occasional IO recipe drop.

You don't need an economics degree to sell drops.

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Please explain "twitchy".

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You'll know it when you see it...

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Bwaaaaah!

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What content is there in cox that is considered end-game and what purpose does it serve?

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the end game is what you make it.
ideally, it serves to keep you entertained.

I don't think of a clearly defined 'end game', the game is just the game to me. Sometimes I log in a 50 and farm, or help friends out with missions. Sometimes I roll up a new character to try out. Sometimes I just log in to mess around on the market.

it's all 'end game', I suppose, after you hit 50 the first time.

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The "I know it when I see it" is a joke to me.

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It's a joke to anyone with critical thinking faculties beyond the protozoic stage.


If the devs want to set up rules, that's fine- it's their game, they can do whatever they want.

If they want to gravely punish players for breaking those rules, that's fine too- it's their game, they can do whatever they want.

If they want to punish players for breaking implied, nebulous and undefined rules, that's ridiculous and they can catch the next express handbasket down to the fiery 9th circle, and take their legion of prissy apologists along for the ride.

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Based on your arguments alone I'm positive you of all people don't actually need a verbatim definition. You're well and above smart enough to know.


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I'm not psychic.

If the devs have standards they want us to follow, they can voice them publicly, or they can get stuffed.

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This is the only end game content I've got left. Don't ruin the mystery.

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post of the month.

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Hrmph. You know it's abuse. You're going out of your way to be abusive of the system and to make a point of it. You know that too.


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how?
where's the definition for players to follow?

if they don't like it, they can step in. Absent a useful definition preventing 'abuse' is their job, not ours. Since they're the only ones who know where the boundaries are.

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Maybe we should ask the base builders if they use it?

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that's a fine idea!

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I just nocied recently that you can buy Prestige with Inf. That seems like a pretty solid inf sink to me....

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The exchange rate is so atrocious not many folk are tempted by it.
Also, their price-slashing on base items and letting people earn inf and prestige at the higher levels instead of it being either/or mean less motivation to do it.

But yeah, we need more opportunities to 'destroy' inf along those lines.

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1) Do you think that we have, truly, inflation? Most of the "middle class valuables" (Detonation Acc/Dam, to pull an example out of the air) are about the same price they were a month after issue 9 hit. Those may be priced at "round up to a nickel" levels, however. Recently I've seen people rounding up to the nearest 100K for common IO's, and lots of them.

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Dunno- I'll leave this to the people who understand 'real' economics. I'm only an expert on the game.

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2) Do you think that inflation [should it exist] is a problem?

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Nah.
If for no other reason than recent history suggests we'll have big shakeups and changes with each new issue creating it's own 'new normal'.

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3) What tools are there for fighting inflation of this sort?

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One think WoW does that I like is letting people "buy" reputation with this or that faction by plying them with marketable goods (cloth, wool, pelts, whatever). It serves the dual purpose of sucking up stuff that used to be junk and making it worth something, and also destroying currency.

Basically, we could use some inf sinks that JUST destroy currency without also increasing the supply of random other goods.

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a) Increase the Wentworth's fee to 12.5% . Money only lasts through 8 "spendings" instead of 10, cutting the effective supply by 25%. I think.

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I don't like this because it isn't fun.
I mean it'd work, but I'd prefer something that worked and was also fun.

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b) Add new services and/or new fees. A guaranteed inf transfer for 12%, for instance, or a influence-to-infamy (and vice versa) transfer for 15% or 20%. There are individuals offering this service now, but a feature of the game would be used by more people, and be more convenient.

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I'd love a variation of the 'email stuff to yourself' system in WoW. It'd make a lot of things a lot simpler, and I'd be happy to pay a fee/% in return for the convinience.

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c) This one I'm not sure about... but a graduated Wentworth's fee would be an interesting idea. 8% for small transactions, 12% over 1 million, 16% over 10 million and 20% over 100 million. It would have the advantage that it would destroy the inf where it existed, rather than hitting "the casual player [sic]"

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Not fun = no vote from me.

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d) This one is kinda wacky... 10 million, or 100 million inf = NCSoft donating $1 to a real charity. If someone dumps 20 billion into that at 100-million-to-1, that's $200. If a trillion [there are trillions out there] gets dumped, that's $10,000 which seems like a financial hit that NCSoft could take. I know, I'm spending other people's money with a fine and generous hand.

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Great idea, but I can't see NC letting us trade our play money for their real stuff.

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Ideas? Opinions?

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How about badges you can buy with inf.

100 million for a badge, 500 million for a badge, 1 billion for a badge.

You know people would do it.

How about making Icon a real store where you can buy stuff off those models they have. Like costume pack stuff, only bought with inf instead of cash. This new cool headband, 1 million inf, etc etc.
I doubt they have the stomach for this option given their swift and complete surrender on the issue of costume drops, but it makes a lot of sense.

just a couple off the top of my head..

there's nothing rach can't be wrong about, is there.

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They need to learn the basics.. Like where the train is, what city zones they can get to from which train line...

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Why?
If they're just using the MA building learning to navigate is wasted energy.
When/if the leave they can figure that stuff out organically, just like the anyone else.

And bad players doing dumb things and getting their teammates killed have been a 'feature' of the game since day one.

MA didn't invent them, they've always been around.

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While it doesn't make any sense, and I can't imagine street sweeping having anything to do with it, we have seen power level related nerfs enough times in the past to not completely throw out the theory. Those all seemed to be aimed at farming though and not any other form of power leveling and certainly not street sweeping which I can't imaging anyone calling powerlevling (though I'm sure some people do).

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It has nothing to do with farming, it has to do with players who seek the limits of their characters and the boundaries of the rewards available in the content.

As games will always have these types of limit-exploring players discovering powerful builds and finding efficient reward paths, it's stupid to blame it on 'farmers' or 'PL'ers' or whoever.

Somebody will always expose weak content, and the devs will then reinforce it. It's as predictable as the sun rising in the east.

The whole "If it wasn't for those meddling farmers!" mindset is ridiculous and childish.

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And really, it's not even about RP....near as I can tell in my 5 years here, the devs just want people to enjoy the content (the enemies, the stories in the missions, the environments, the gameplay) that they've worked to put in, and to stay subscribed as long as possible.

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This is their sole purpose- everything they do is in service to this fundamental motivation.