Official: Ebon Gate (Microtrans Discussion) w/ @Wyrom

Have we really fallen so far down the micro transaction hole? Now we've gone from telling people that not all events are for everyone, when micro transactions are a concern, to just don't go to any events? I understand the sentiment of "wait for more details" but this makes me worry that I won't like them shen I hear them.

No, but at the end of the day, events are extras that we put on. They don't hinder gameplay. They are 100% optional to go to. If you don't enjoy something, the best way to tell us is by not going. Offer feedback (after the fact). Tell us where to improve.

So let me ask, straight up, can I pay $50 and get thr same level of access to EG this year that I got last year? Keep in mind that included digging and/or games for 8+ hours a day while the event was open. Beyond that are there any plans to continue running at least one yearly event which has a flat access fee to enjoy ALL aspects of the event without any micro transactions present?

Simply put, no. A person doing EG 120 hours during the course of it being opened is on the high side of everything. You represent a group of outliers when we look at the data.

I've said this before and I'll say it again, the all-inclusive event ticket was not helping us grow. We hardly made our targets when it came to those revenue streams.

Whether you care about GM morale or not is up to you, but I will let you know that things are in a better position these days. Look at old posts or even look at the GM roster. We have staff that have been here for years. Turnover is not as high as it use to be. You have experienced staff who are constantly getting better at what they are doing.

Events are also a great way for GMs to earn some extra money.

I'm trying to trust you here because you've always been great. I hope the details you want us to wait for bear that out. It just sounds like every event is turning into a reskinnrd form of Dudkruin and I despise that pricing model. I justify event purchases on an enjoyment hour per dollar basis compared to buying a new console RPG. EG always met that criteria and DR never had.

Ebon Gate is not going to be a reskinned Duskruin. Yes, some of what we've learned from Duskruin is being applied to the new Ebon Gate, but GM Haliste and I had many meetings on Skype and through Google Hangouts on what to do here. I don't feel like I've ever done something to make you (the players) not trust me. You might not have been happy about an update, but I come here to keep the communication open with you.

Bottom line, if we've gone from some events aren't for me to no events are then maybe the game isn't for me anymore. Events are the draw that hooks me back in after a break. without them I'm likely to just fade away.

That's up to you. But we're also doing things that aren't pay events now too.

No offense but this statement really really bugs me. No passive agressivness here. You have said that about a number of events lately. Besides Briarmoon Cove, Ebon Gate was one of the truly fun events. I pay my 50 dollars and go get merchant, neat stuff, and play games for silvers or dig. I like Duskruin as well but that's a simucoin event.

Ebon Gate is going to be a great event. Try not to take offense to the comment. It was genuine when I posted it. We have to modernize our approach though, because doing things like we have been over the years... We have 30 years of data to support that.

If i don't like fluff maybe this one isn't for me. If i don't like this maybe it's not for me. Well I love EBON Gate and want to keep on loving it.

Ebon Gate has always been a venue to debut new stuff. It's not the most powerful event. It's not the most fluff event. It's always been an event where lots of GMs code new things. That's not changing.

DRUMPEL's math

I went to review your specific data after your original post, and I'm not seeing you having much historic data with pay events. But either way, I'll address the math.

Digging/Games have very low odds under silver. Events like Duskruin, DM, etc have much higher odds and always have results that give something of value. YOU might not value it, but we make sure the return is equivalent to the SimuCoin buy in. So while your numbers are accurate, it's not the same. And EG isn't going to be the same as the Duskruin Dig. But digging (and games) didn't ever make up a quarter of the attendees activity. Even the Necropolis was only completed by about 25% of accounts that went. I speak for the majority of the data when I say the numbers.

Ya'll are changing something that has been pretty much the same for a very long time, and in an unsettling direction. I understand that judgement is somewhat premature, but when the PM replies with for all intents and purposes "If you don't like it, go spit!," well...

Yes, we're modernizing the game and trying to grow. Nothing we did prior had growth. Nothing we did prior moved us in a direction other than in a downward spiral over the years. I'm not telling anyone to "go spit" but I'm certainly saying if you don't think you'd enjoy this, no need to go. It's an extra. You're not going to hurt our feelings if you don't want to go.

What I really dislike though, is the introduction of yet another form of currency. You continue to devalue Silvers, by simply not using them. You can say "events don't drain silvers" till you're blue in the face, but what you are doing does indeed have an impact on the economy of the game, and a healthy, robust economy is one of the hallmarks of Gemstone that most games have not been able to replicate. There has to be a use for the silvers we generate by playing the game on a daily basis. Introducing alt currencies takes away from that.

We drained more silver at the 2016 auction than we would have drained in 10 Ebon Gates. So I find it hard to get on that level that we're not draining silver in the same regard. Saying we are devaluing isn't true. This is very anecdotal. We just are balancing pay events differently.

I'll close this post by saying I also think a lot of you are forgetting about the SimuCoin Rewards every month as well. Some of you saving won't even pay a thing outside your subscription cost. It's hard to tell us this model isn't working when we are seeing participation counts that are 1000% higher than ever before. And I'm talking about people going to the event, not how much they bring in.

@Wyrom, PM

Evarin beat you to it.

https://forums.elanthia.online/topic/31/ebon-gate-and-microtransactions

I think we're trying to avoid linking to the PC for discussions. I believe Wyrom will be posting here exclusively.

Wait, are you saying you created this thread because I linked to the PC thread in Evarin's thread?

@mogonis said in Event: Ebon Gate (Microtrans Discussion) w/ @Wyrom:

Wait, are you saying you created this thread because I linked to the PC thread in Evarin's thread?

I didn't read what he posted, and I thought it was an earlier post/response from the officials, not a duplicate of what I posted.

But in general, I don't think it's a good use of this forum to link people to the PC.

People have free will, and there's like 15 years of information on the PC.

Please stop making decisions for others, TIA, also show respect for others and read their posts before trying to take credit for something others did/do.

I've actually spoken to several people that once this forum was up and running I would be moving here. While @Alastir did speak on my behalf, he was also aware of the plan.

As for the thread, I will be responding officially later tonight a bit, since I feel a few things are being taken out of context or mixed with emotions that I am not placing in my posts.

I think people are thrashing. There IS some legit feedback, I agree that another scrip does feel a bit much, at least make it convertible to general if I decide not to spend it all. But there are more constructive ways to provide feedback.

As for the microtrans on games... I have been to the land of cell phone games. Gs4 Microtrans are cheap.

It looks like there are four key issues that are being brought up.

• Moving to SimuCoin purchases. • More currencies. • Silver drains. • My comments earlier on.

I'm going to go through each of those individual.

SimuCoin vs. Box Office

There are a number of reasons for the shift. The biggest reason is this is where we're at now. This is the direction I am told to work. Enormous efforts were put into Box Office events and it pushed the limits for minimal gains. We were running ourselves ragged and not even hitting our targets.

The Box Office also had issues when it came to development. Having to communicate and verify purchases in game always had issues. Anyone who has run some of the quests know the struggle.

Lastly, we didn't have the participation because $30, $50, or $80 was too much for people. A lot of people just want to explore, interact and make smaller purchases. SimuCoins allow us to capture larger audiences. This also seems to be a worrisome point about merchant lines. This is something we can address more before the event, because we want everyone to get a fun experience at these. Not just the 20 people who wait it out in a merchant line.

More Scrip and Currencies

I hear the concerns loud and clear. Let's do a history lesson real quick.

When we ported the TICKET system over from DragonRealms, we had 2 currencies. We bumbled around with it though. We didn't know really what we were going to. It started off as tickets and scrip when we made the system in GemStone IV. Scrip was going to go into our first pay event that would feature it, called Grey Raven. Unfortunately, it was a quest using the old mindset and it never came to be. It burned out 3 GMs trying to bring that up to speed. So just plain "scrip" never happened.

During Troubled Waters, GM Vanah introduced blackscrip, and Ebon Gate started to embark on tickets. During all that, I wanted to do a play off blackscrip and make something called bloodscrip for this small event called Duskruin Arena. At the time, GM Scrimge was lead on it, and I was his support as SGM. We struggled with the idea of the event for months. It was brutal because I had the PM breathing down my back on getting it out. But I kept saying I couldn't come up with a solid plan. I took a lot of heat about the event. And then a few of us started brainstorming a new approach to events. We were getting exhausted from never hitting our goals, and it burned out dozens of GMs. That's when we really honed in on a way to work bloodscrip into the game.

We learned a lot from bloodscrip. It helps us control an event a bit better, it also helps us manage expectations. Yes, I realize because it's tied to SimuCoin purchases it's making silvers feel less valuable, but I'll also get into that in my next bullet point. I also know it's coming with pricing that makes a lot of items unreachable.

We don't plan to offer an abundance of new scrip types. We do need to use what we learned with bloodscrip though, which means starting fresh with Ebon Gate. The former (general) ticket will still have use though. We plan on using it in some ways at Ebon Gate this year. We also plan on using it at other events and venues not tied to just pay events.

The plan is to have tickets, scrip (not used currently), blackscrip, bloodscrip, ethereal scrip, and seashells for right now. We've thrown ideas about swapping scrip types at venues for varying exchange rates. Given everyone's concern, we can try to come up with a solid plan for that sooner than later.

Silver Drains

I mentioned it earlier, but events aren't silver drains. They haven't been in a long time. Large, every day systems are ways to drain silvers. And it's something we talk about from time to time. Do we need to address it more? Yes, but it is more of a touchy subject than you probably can imagine.

I went through some old Ebon Gate numbers that I could find. These are Prime numbers, but EG drained less than 100 billion silver in 2016. The Great Auction of 2016 drained just under 13 trillion silvers. Hopefully that puts things in perspective. We essentially drained more silvers from that auction than Ebon Gate has ever achieved in the 19 years its been running (not including the 2006/2009 auction which were billed as an additional event due to the higher price point). Events like RtCF and CCF also weren't hefty drains. Running those events, we had a lot of resistance to silver pricing because the event price to get in was higher than most our events.

I understand everyone wants more things to spend silvers on. There are a lot of wealthy players, but the majority of players aren't sitting on hundreds of millions. Many players also aren't willing to spend their entire wealth on a single service/item cache. Silvers aren't being pushed aside though. Events will still use silvers. Specifically, Ebon Gate will still have a large silver-based inventory.

Participation

I realize what I said earlier on isn't matching up to how I was applying it. Meaning, if you don't like an event or a direction an event is going, not to go. Context got lost. I realize some of you are saying, "I want to go, but not in this new direction." Well, as I said earlier, this is the direction we're moving. These are the tasks given to me to perform. I can't change that. I do, however, perform my duties. I am a problem solver and I get things done. One way or another. A lot of that drive is because I have a passion for this game. I grew up with it. It's also my livelihood now. I left my career path to do this full time.

The direction aside, assuming how Ebon Gate will run already isn't something you can do. We're trying something new. It's not a Duskruin reskin. I'm sure someone will disagree during the event, but we're doing things in a way that fit both areas where we need to be successful. Will it work? I believe so. I think this year's Ebon Gate is going to be one of our best. I foresee us finally getting more people to enjoy the event than ever before. Anyone saving their SimuCoin Rewards will also get to do it with just their active subscription. These are amazing new moves for us.

My comment was mostly touching on not worrying about it if it's not something you want to do. You can call that unprofessional if you want. It was meant to be a voice of reason. We have a lot of stuff for you to enjoy. Events are only a facet of what GemStone IV is. My comment wasn't a reflection of the game. We remove the events, we still have a great game to play.

It's up to you if you want to take this journey with us, but things are definitely changing. We have a lot of game development these days. We have a lot of fun activities not tied to SimuCoins going on all the time. You have a robust GameMaster roster constantly breathing life into this game. We have several hundred more players than we did in 2016. I hope to keep that momentum going. I hope you (the players) can continue to enjoy the game.

Wyrom, PM

@Wyrom

The plan is to have tickets, scrip (not used currently), blackscrip, bloodscrip, ethereal scrip, and seashells for right now. We’ve thrown ideas about swapping scrip types at venues for varying exchange rates. Given everyone’s concern, we can try to come up with a solid plan for that sooner than later.

For what it's worth, I think scrip conversion is a bad idea and that it will make it harder to control/limit access to items. I may regret saying that when I see something I want being offered and can't afford it, but that's my initial gut reaction to the idea.

I went through some old Ebon Gate numbers that I could find. These are Prime numbers, but EG drained less than 100 billion silver in 2016. The Great Auction of 2016 drained just under 13 trillion silvers. Hopefully that puts things in perspective. We essentially drained more silvers from that auction than Ebon Gate has ever achieved in the 19 years its been running (not including the 2006/2009 auction which were billed as an additional event due to the higher price point). Events like RtCF and CCF also weren't hefty drains. Running those events, we had a lot of resistance to silver pricing because the event price to get in was higher than most our events.

I'm going to assume that you meant 100 million silvers for EG and 13 billion silvers for the auction.

I understand everyone wants more things to spend silvers on. There are a lot of wealthy players, but the majority of players aren't sitting on hundreds of millions. Many players also aren't willing to spend their entire wealth on a single service/item cache. Silvers aren't being pushed aside though. Events will still use silvers. Specifically, Ebon Gate will still have a large silver-based inventory.

As one of those players sitting on hundreds of millions, I feel like I don't have good opportunities to spend my silvers to get something I desire. There are very few things I would be willing to spend my entire savings on, but I would be willing to spend a lot of silvers to obtain services I desire. - Base material changes - Padding/Enchanting/TD - X/day/SK/Unlimited spell access - Private property improvements (Additional nodes, rooms, storage, ambient scripts)

When you speak about large silver-based inventories, it's mostly things I don't need. (New clothing that is heavy, new containers that are heavy with base stats, 4x gear) I may spend less than 1m silvers at EG on new things when I have the potential to spend so much more if it's worth it.

I know you hear this and understand it, so I'll wait to see what options you present.

Just to offer a suggestion: Instead of or in addition to raffling or spinning for a high end item/service -- Offer it up for auction.

Yeah, I corrected the powers of ten issue I posted with drains. And to further explain, that's not counting raffles or on the fly auctions.

When Ebon's Gate was built, there were no such things as micro transactions and the like. Ultimately those that created it just wanted to build a "Halloween based large merchant event that everyone would enjoy". It took hundreds of hours however, from most of the staff at the time. I don't know how many years it ran before it converted to a ticketed event, but I totally get why it needs to have some sort of paid option. Not having done ticketed events (I left before they became the norm), I can't necessarily approach the idea from the "single ticket-unlimited use" historical perspective, but definitely do identify with the micro-transactional model, because many modern games are going this route, and it fits my current lifestyle as a consumer, so I am excited to see what EG will become.

The situation with staff must be so different than dozen or more years ago. Back then turnover was very high, so systems or new areas took even longer to create because people wouldn't stay around long enough to gain the knowledge necessary to be able to build improvements into existing systems or even build new ones. If this model helps increase the potential aggregate intake then by all means I say try it. If it doesn't meet projections, I suspect next year's conversation might be one of "well we're considering all access tickets again...", or similar. Ultimately we want happy staff members who stay around long enough to build meaningful new things, fix things, etc. so that we as players get a better product.

(As an aside... GOOD GOD, how on earth are you people getting so much silver? I thought my meager 2M was a lot.)

I'm just going to put this out here: Simu has new ownership. Gemstone is a relic in the video game world. Anything that brings in more money without overtly ruining the game is fine by me. I'd like this game to still be around in 10 years, and that requires more than just baseline profitability- it needs to grow as a revenue stream.

I do worry about power creep honestly (I've seen it ruin other games), but I think the GMs have done a great job of avoiding falling into the pay-to-win trap. And honestly- this game is better than it's ever been and has more players now than it has in years. I'd say that they're doing something right, so I trust them to keep doing what they do.

Yeah, I don't really get the argument of "please, I know you have a guaranteed model that you know works, but please, instead, plan to fail?"

I'm in the "wait and see" camp. I do like the idea of only having to pay $10 to be able to get into the shops/merchants, though do agree it may make winning a raffle even more impossible.

I was one of those ones who spent a lot of time digging/playing games and I had even bought an unlimited shovel for last EG. It was fun. I definitely could not hope to match that amount of plays/digs with real money/Simucoin purchases. Usually if I wasn't waiting for a merchant, I'd be digging.

I would hope, though, that the payout would increase somewhat with real money entries.

And I am assuming there will be people you can still buy shovels from for silvers if you don't want to buy Simucoins or can't.

With the amount of burnout mentioned in prior years and how much staff effort there was to EG without the relative revenue, it's not surprising it's changing. I'm going to be optimistic and hope for the best.

My only conundrum now is - do I go to Plat EG /and/ Prime EG? Now that I've been sucked into Plat, I'm torn.

And I'm curious how the 'all month' statement will work. Does that mean digging all month? Games all month? Shops all month but merchants specific weeks?

I usually liked the shops-only week to be able to get all my shopping done ahead of time and map the grounds/shops without panicking about missing merchants.

I think people also aren't taking into account the big push for Automation. A raffle for 10 slots of sighting ends up being 2 hours of GM time as they have to validate the weapon etc. A raffle for 10 sighting certificates is far less time.

Once more automation is encouraged, then they can scale prize pools better without committing what amounts to a linear increase in labor.

Also, I'm a fan of the simucoin based pricing... mainly just because we all get free simucoins every month, basically reducing the price of things like EG if we're being frugal with other purchases off of the shop.

the amount of simucoins we get is very minmal compared to what books of tickets and shovels cost.

while the free coins are appreciated it doesn't do a whole lot in this case. Of course this is just my opinion

@beldannon5 The prices for said tickets or shovels isn't even announced yet. Assuming someone is saving their simucoins, which is specifically how Wyrom worded it, how could you possibly know whether the amount of simucoins will be minimal compared to an unknown cost of something?

@viekn said in Event: Ebon Gate (Microtrans Discussion) w/ @Wyrom:

@beldannon5 The prices for said tickets or shovels isn't even announced yet. Assuming someone is saving their simucoins, which is specifically how Wyrom worded it, how could you possibly know whether the amount of simucoins will be minimal compared to an unknown cost of something?

Well the costs for the exact same thing has stayed pretty constant over DR dig and DM. It would be safe to assume the costs for shovels will be very similar if not the same.

I think at some point something must have been severely misunderstood. There have been a lot of accusations thrown out in the thread based on the announcement at SimuCon for Ebon Gate.

One thing I want to say is, we're not milking anyone of anything. At the end of the day, most everyone is enjoying themselves at these events. People are having fun. People are going to these new venues more than ever before. And not everyone is paying a whole lot. There is always the case where someone wants it all. There is always the cases of buyer's remorse. Not everyone feels they got their money's worth. But participation is still quite high.

On top of that, last year we had an immense number of high end items and services available for silvers. We probably did more last year than we have in the last 7 years. Only event that I can think that came remotely close is EG 2009, followed by RtCF/CCF. And those were gated by pricier tickets. The things last year? All non-pay events. Sure, we had pay events as well, but I am strictly talking about everything else. GS also has a very lively secondary market. Everything is basically on sale for silvers in the player market. You don't have to spend a dime at Duskruin, because there are people selling slips and tokens for silver around the clock. I see it every single time.

We are able to do much more with the game. We've conquered huge projects. And we have a great roster of GameMasters who are constantly working on things they both enjoy and make the game prosper. We're also giving back in ways we've never been able to before. We have the SimuCoin Rewards that are monthly extras for all of our subscribers.

Yes, we have a more robust event schedule. We do not plan each event to have the same attendance though. Surprised as you might be, but we have thousands of subscribers. We also have hundreds of active F2P users. We try to make things appeal to all of our players. If events aren't your thing, we have a great base game with plenty to do.

Touching base one last time about Ebon Gate, we haven't really talked much about the event. We will have activities that take silvers. We will have activities that take SimuCoin entries. We will use a mix of currencies. There will be a lot of options available to people. We've been doing a real decent job of balancing this event that appeals to those that felt the $50 was too much for a ticket, as well as those that don't mind spending the former ticket price.

You're definitely free to your opinions. If you're not having fun with GemStone IV, there is nothing stopping you from finding a new source of entertainment. We'll be here though if you want to come back. We'll likely be a bit bigger though (we peaked 700 online the other night for a short while).

Wyrom, PM

http://forums.play.net/forums/GemStone%20IV/Discussions%20with%20Simutronics/The%20Bad,%20and%20the%20Ugly%20(general%20complaints)/view/15695

@Wyrom Are the general tickets not going to be a viable currency for high-ticket items/services? It was mentioned that they could be used in some ways, but not in others, at the upcoming E.G. Any hints on what sort of restrictions we can expect?

@sacru said in Event: Ebon Gate (Microtrans Discussion) w/ @Wyrom:

@Wyrom Are the general tickets not going to be a viable currency for high-ticket items/services? It was mentioned that they could be used in some ways, but not in others, at the upcoming E.G. Any hints on what sort of restrictions we can expect?

Tickets weren't designed for high end services. But tickets will continue to get used.

@wyrom said in Event: Ebon Gate (Microtrans Discussion) w/ @Wyrom:

Tickets weren't designed for high end services. But tickets will continue to get used.

Thanks for clarifying, and glad I didn't stock up.

Honestly, love what you're doing with the microtransactions. Makes a lot of sense. This, and the recently-implemented silver gen "cap". Among other things. Small, economically-sound, group-minded forward/upward moves. In my humble opinion.

Given what tickets replaced (Literal, actual 0 value junk) the fact that they could be traded for anything people would want is a huge step up. I know I came away from the first EG that used them with spell preps, herb kits, etc. While the year before I just came away with lots of trips to a barrel.

Has anyone considered allowing players to use their silvers to buy a form of general ticket currency the way a lot of F2P games do?

Devaluing your in-game currency is actually really bad for business. Players need to feel that their daily activities are actually worth doing. Silvers are essentially the primary reward for playing this game, and yet every year silvers become less valuable.

Many games with alternative currency allow you to convert effort from "grinding" in-game currency into another type that generally let's you buy convenience items. In this game, that would be simucoins. It also effectively sets the conversion rate.

You would want to separate items that are not convenience (tokens for events) from categories that can be purchased for silvers, but making it so you can convert your silvers into simucoins to buy convenience items from the store would actually help keep the game rewarding for players and add inventive to accumulating in-game wealth.

@ashraam-vaneyre said in Event: Ebon Gate (Microtrans Discussion) w/ @Wyrom:

Has anyone considered allowing players to use their silvers to buy a form of general ticket currency the way a lot of F2P games do?

Devaluing your in-game currency is actually really bad for business. Players need to feel that their daily activities are actually worth doing. Silvers are essentially the primary reward for playing this game, and yet every year silvers become less valuable.

Many games with alternative currency allow you to convert effort from "grinding" in-game currency into another type that generally let's you buy convenience items. In this game, that would be simucoins. It also effectively sets the conversion rate.

You would want to separate items that are not convenience (tokens for events) from categories that can be purchased for silvers, but making it so you can convert your silvers into simucoins to buy convenience items from the store would actually help keep the game rewarding for players and add inventive to accumulating in-game wealth.

They already allow conversion to simucoins items. No simucoins items except f2p boosters, are bound. That is how many games handle the conversion, allowing players to trade the items, and many, many players do. Lnet is full of Simucoin item sellers, and people sell hundreds of duskruin books for silvers.

Simu isn't taking direct actions to devalue currency. The hundred silver farming accounts are doing that, and there's more every day. These are accounts that will NEVER go to an event, and will NEVER spend silvers on in game items. Simucoin access events actually give players who would have bought silvers a way to access these events without needing to go through a silver seller. Instead, they buy t directly from Simutronics.

And your in game actions also give you XP, character progression etc. There's other rewards for playing.

Most MMO's, the in game currency is worth close to nothing. Gemstone is amazing that it made it thirty years with the in game being worth anything at all. Compared to dollars, it's still worth one third what it was compared to when it was strongest. Most MMO's I've watched the in game currency drop to one hundredth its value in a few years.

Buying convenience items already exists, though, in a form of in-game currency (bounty points). It might be fairly convoluted, not to mention a lot of effort, to set up some kind of copper simucoin that you can convert to silver vs a gold simucoin that works like the system now -- but surely it wouldn't require too much to just pick up the bounty point merchant, copy him to the back room of the locksmith/guild hall/pawnshop/town hall, and set a silver value on his goods.

edited for Oxford

@ragz said in Event: Ebon Gate (Microtrans Discussion) w/ @Wyrom:

Buying convenience items already exists, though, in a form of in-game currency (bounty points). It might be fairly convoluted, not to mention a lot of effort, to set up some kind of copper simucoin that you can convert to silver vs a gold simucoin that works like the system now -- but surely it wouldn't require too much to just pick up the bounty point merchant, copy him to the back room of the locksmith/guild hall/pawnshop/town hall, and set a silver value on his goods.

edited for Oxford

The bounty merchant can already sell for silvers. They turn on enhance recharging for silvers during Christmas.

@archsenex said in Event: Ebon Gate (Microtrans Discussion) w/ @Wyrom:

They already allow conversion to simucoins items. No simucoins items except f2p boosters, are bound. That is how many games handle the conversion, allowing players to trade the items, and many, many players do. Lnet is full of Simucoin item sellers, and people sell hundreds of duskruin books for silvers.

The point was made that 90% of what players would like to purchase is sold with a different currency than silvers. You spend a great deal of time in game accumulating silvers, and there's no reason to spend them. This ends up with people amassing a lot of silvers - but having no use for the silvers.

Selling them to other players is going to stop being practical very soon if the game continues to move in this direction. What is the point to gaining silvers currently? To buy a handful of 100k items at shops in random festivals?

In other MMO type games, if you gain "gold" - you can use your "gold" to buy items from the company that owns the game. Say you want to convert your "gold" into XP bonuses, more inventory space, cosmetic items and costumes - that is entirely possible. In this game we earn "silvers". There is currently no way for us to drain our own silvers for meaningful rewards.

I created a bunch of F2P accounts to try them out, and all of them were able to accrue more than the 100k silvers limit for F2P, but I had nothing to spend my silvers on! My character earned the reward for playing the game (silvers), and the reward was useless. What do I do with it then?

Let us convert our silvers into something, so we can buy convenience items. Maybe you can trade your silvers for bounty points, or buy bounty point items for silvers directly from the AG? That would be an amazing option to help me drain my silvers.

@ashraam-vaneyre said in Event: Ebon Gate (Microtrans Discussion) w/ @Wyrom:

@archsenex said in Event: Ebon Gate (Microtrans Discussion) w/ @Wyrom:

Let us convert our silvers into something, so we can buy convenience items. Maybe you can trade your silvers for bounty points, or buy bounty point items for silvers directly from the AG? That would be an amazing option to help me drain my silvers.

Suggested multiple times, and @Wyrom claims that it doesn't drain silvers.

I agree that I would like more options available via silvers, but it's been stated that we're not going to receive anything meaningful for them. Silver drains would come in the form of having to pay to retain a weapons enchant or crit weighting, or gate fees. We would get nothing, but it would drain silvers.

Just because @Wyrom mentioned that list doesn't make it the end all be all of the options for silver drains. Silver drains have to provide less than what they cost or the item/service needs to be nontransferable. That doesn't immediately equal stupid shit that other games have tried and failed to implement. Adding ways to acquire rare alchemy ingredients for silvers at crazy rates, new mechanics that are fueled by silvers for marginal returns, but still a benefit in some minor way, additional cosmetic options. The problem then becomes Dev time and dedication/desire.

@ordim said in Event: Ebon Gate (Microtrans Discussion) w/ @Wyrom:

Just because @Wyrom mentioned that list doesn't make it the end all be all of the options for silver drains. Silver drains have to provide less than what they cost or the item/service needs to be nontransferable. That doesn't immediately equal stupid shit that other games have tried and failed to implement. Adding ways to acquire rare alchemy ingredients for silvers at crazy rates, new mechanics that are fueled by silvers for marginal returns, but still a benefit in some minor way, additional cosmetic options. The problem then becomes Dev time and dedication/desire.

They only have so much they can offer. If all the cosmetic things are offered for silvers, what do they have left to offer at events for Simucoins/cash?

The reason we don't see more things for silvers is because they have been moved into the "We can get cash via simucoins for these"

While I'm not entirely in agreement with that statement, it certainly is starting to seem to be the way everything is going.

Private houses (the big wins) upgrades, Premium player house upgrades (storage, more options, more rooms) are all things that players would gobble up and would also help RP and give players more power/choices/impact on the game world while draining silvers, but again, it would cost GM time.

While I never directly commented on it. I'm glad to see the box office going away, but (I'm sure someone else made this point) if you wanted to not be seen as opportunistic and greedy, it would have been two or three simucoin purchases that equaled up to ~$50 = Shop entry, game entry, live games entry. The one time cost lets you into those things and then you spend silvers on the rest. Pick what parts you want.

There was a good thread on possible silver drains on the PC, but I definitely think there's grounds to implement many that wouldn't be seen as too punitive and/or tedious. It's just a question of whether that's a good use of DEVs time.

Are we really having a discussion here on the benefits of an economic ecosystem being crafted for long-term viability in the form of cash infusion to a game that we all love and would like to see grow in more ways than a rising secondary market dollar-to-silver conversion rate? Stuff that costs... actual money? Like marketing and advertising. Even bootstrap/guerilla/viral marketing needs gas.

Honestly, if the shareholders aren't raping the coffers in the form of gratuitous dividends, I'd be apt to pour about as much cash into this game as possible with the expectation of seeing that meat used to feed the engines of marketing, production, and development, which optimally would translate to growth and economic stabilization as a result of said growth.

I've commented on the silver drain concept, which is largely misunderstood. Think about it. When the Grand Auction drains fewer silvers than are generated in a couple of weeks (cannot recall the exact statistics), you're not really talking about an effective solution to the silver problem. Awesome gear? Deffo yes. Economic solution? No.

The only real way for Simu to grab control of the silver market, and to "drain" silver, is to forestall or govern the rate of production in the first place. Steps are being made in this direction, and I see a day within the next 72 months when a hard, or more aggressively-governed, per account cap on silver gen is implemented. But you can't just roll something like that out overnight. It's going to be incremental. Also, just a guess.

The biggest problem with all proposed silver drains is that players just farm more silvers to compensate. Because farming accounts will NEVER buy the drain option, they will just scale up to offset the drain.

Great auction had that happen. People farmed hard leading into it.

So the only drains that work are mandatory, and forced on all accounts, including the farmers. Those suck.

@archsenex said in Event: Ebon Gate (Microtrans Discussion) w/ @Wyrom:

The biggest problem with all proposed silver drains is that players just farm more silvers to compensate. Because farming accounts will NEVER buy the drain option, they will just scale up to offset the drain.

Great auction had that happen. People farmed hard leading into it.

So the only drains that work are mandatory, and forced on all accounts, including the farmers. Those suck.

Agree 100%. But there's got to be an equation that eliminates the possibility of a few black swans ruining the economy for everyone else, without screwing the average player.

In a hypothetical scenario, what would be a "fair" per-account cap that both deters autobot farmers, yet is invisible to the average player, even the über post-cap ones?

Even today, farming silver pays less than a minimum-wage job. The farmers are working themselves right out of an income with the current wild-eyed balls-out approach. And I'm sure that most value the RP and mechanical aspects over silver gen. So... why do I care if some top-hat wearing GS bigwig farming a billion and a half silvers per month gets screwed by a hard per-account limit? Maybe Simu charges simucoins to increase that limit? I don't see how the average player could ever get screwed in this scenario.

Or, perhaps the ultimate goal is to drive down the price of silver to a more attainable rate, draw people in, then close the loop with the Simucoin-driven currencies? Keep events going year-round with newly-acquired staff? Player base and general interest grow? Rinse, wash, repeat?

End of the day, silver gen needs fixing. But I don't think it's really at the top of the list in terms of priorities. Nor is it the focal point of this discussion.

@sacru said in Event: Ebon Gate (Microtrans Discussion) w/ @Wyrom:

@archsenex said in Event: Ebon Gate (Microtrans Discussion) w/ @Wyrom:

The biggest problem with all proposed silver drains is that players just farm more silvers to compensate. Because farming accounts will NEVER buy the drain option, they will just scale up to offset the drain.

In a hypothetical scenario, what would be a "fair" per-account cap that both deters autobot farmers, yet is invisible to the average player, even the über post-cap ones?

You go after those making the most. If someone spends 8 hours a day farming silvers, you script check them every 15 minutes. They will eventually go away or get banned.

@alastir said in Event: Ebon Gate (Microtrans Discussion) w/ @Wyrom:

You go after those making the most. If someone spends 8 hours a day farming silvers, you script check them every 15 minutes. They will eventually go away or get banned.

For starters, I'm not "going after" anyone. I'm utilizing broad association as a rhetorical method. Nothing personal. Also, what we need is a programmatic, algorithmic solution that doesn't eat up valuable GM time with minutiae like script checking.

My view on this whole issue may be statistically skewed. And a per-account limit is not the solution, now that I think harder about it. Embarrassing enough as it is to admit.

I'm not sure what the solution is, but I sure am glad there are smarter people than myself who are currently working on it.

Most games don't solve this problem, they die.

Gemstone is amazingly old. The fact that it hasn't split down the middle is a testament.

2 points:

1. While we often think of the value of silvers in terms of real dollar conversion rate, most sales in silvers are for items: in game silvers buying and selling in game items. I bring this up because it is vitally important to remember that a healthy silver economy is most important for those who do not wish to trade in US dollars, not for those who do. If you're buying/selling stuff for cash, you'll be able to get what you want via one work around or another, but if that whole concept is problematic for you, then the worst thing you can see is an economy with a dead currency.

2. One thing about currency is that value is part nuts and bolts and part perception. While an auction may not drain enough silvers to put a nuts and bolts dent in what people have, it still drains the accounts of a good number of active players, and gives the perception of scarcity, (because on the personal level it has become much more scarce for a number of people). We also see the value of it because we're spending it on something we want. In a make believe world, silvers are not the zero-sum game some would like us to believe it is: accounts close, people buy things with their silvers from NPCs and PCs, etc. It isn't just about draining, it's about having something to spend them on that provides value. This is why we need to be careful about what all gets shifted to alt-currency, as well as why it's important for Wyrom to realize that every time he says "I can't do anything about silver drain!" he's adding to the problem. There are a lot of subtle things that can be done to improve the perceived value of silvers, and declaring the situation difficult, or impossible to improve is not one of them.

@archsenex said in Event: Ebon Gate (Microtrans Discussion) w/ @Wyrom:

Most games don't solve this problem, they die.

Gemstone is amazingly old. The fact that it hasn't split down the middle is a testament.

The only testament I think here is that how much old people are willing to continue dumping into this game, for fear that it would shut down and they'd lose everything invested in it...Financially..

There seems to be two ways to look at this. 1) A silver drain will give silvers worth inside the game because they can be turned in for products or services that hold value, either for enhancing a character in some fashion or providing a service or item of worth to the player. This process has the secondary effect of increasing the third party rate of silvers because they now have more worth inside the game.

2) A silver drain will just directly increase the third party price of silvers, why would I want that when I could get cheaper silvers, ignoring that there isn't that much left to do with them when you get above 1 million or so?

And yes, in the grand scheme of things you need to also work on cutting the flow, but... just because there are less silvers going in doesn't mean you are remove any with any great effect either. So now you've stuck yourself right in the middle, so to speak. Is this where you want to be? Probably at some point yes. Are we anywhere close to that point right now? In my opinion, no. I think you'd need to provide some more outlets in game to spend silvers on. As much as everyone shits on it, Alchemy could benefit from having more options that cost silvers. Adding to existing systems, like adding UAC item creation to cobbling for large amounts of silvers. If you can allow players to make their own UAC item out of materials existing at 0x to start but have it player made and closer to what the player wants without merchant shopping they will pay greater than what that UAC item is worth. If it cost 100k in silvers to an NPC merchant thats a net reduction of silvers in the game because the finalized item is generally sold off of carts and in stores for much less, around 10-20K, if that (number pulled from ass)?

@gizmo said in Event: Ebon Gate (Microtrans Discussion) w/ @Wyrom:

@archsenex said in Event: Ebon Gate (Microtrans Discussion) w/ @Wyrom:

Most games don't solve this problem, they die.

Gemstone is amazingly old. The fact that it hasn't split down the middle is a testament.

The only testament I think here is that how much old people are willing to continue dumping into this game, for fear that it would shut down and they'd lose everything invested in it...Financially..

Pretty sure it goes quite a bit deeper than that. And there couldn't be more than a handful of players in the game who have more than five or six-thousand dollars invested. Maybe I'm wrong. Who knows?

What we need are new (returning) players, and legitimate stimuli for them to come back. A lot of folks who retired over the years did so because "life happened". Time is limited. Oldschool Gemstone? Took me damn near ten minutes to travel from the Landing to Icemule, much less farm millions of silvers with fifteen different accounts (let's just forget about the Myklian skin loophole now, shall we). Now takes seconds, with Lich. The landscape has changed organically in many ways to serve a changing player base. Simple fact of nature, and changing needs over time.

It is my opinion that Simucoin-based purchases allow old players with very limited time to return, and enjoy a full range of experiences, without necessarily having to invest 8-10hrs a day to acquire said experience. And I for one am totally on board with that.

@sacru said in Event: Ebon Gate (Microtrans Discussion) w/ @Wyrom:

@gizmo said in Event: Ebon Gate (Microtrans Discussion) w/ @Wyrom:

@archsenex said in Event: Ebon Gate (Microtrans Discussion) w/ @Wyrom:

Most games don't solve this problem, they die.

Gemstone is amazingly old. The fact that it hasn't split down the middle is a testament.

The only testament I think here is that how much old people are willing to continue dumping into this game, for fear that it would shut down and they'd lose everything invested in it...Financially..

Pretty sure it goes quite a bit deeper than that. And there couldn't be more than a handful of players in the game who have more than five or six-thousand dollars invested. Maybe I'm wrong. Who knows?

What we need are new (returning) players, and legitimate stimuli for them to come back. A lot of folks who retired over the years did so because "life happened". Time is limited. Oldschool Gemstone? Took me damn near ten minutes to travel from the Landing to Icemule, much less farm millions of silvers with fifteen different accounts (let's just forget about the Myklian skin loophole now, shall we). Now takes seconds, with Lich. The landscape has changed organically in many ways to serve a changing player base. Simple fact of nature, and changing needs over time.

It is my opinion that Simucoin-based purchases allow old players with very limited time to return, and enjoy a full range of experiences, without necessarily having to invest 8-10hrs a day to acquire said experience. And I for one am totally on board with that.

The addition of login rewards assists that as well.

@archigeek has it right in regards to silver value - the perception that silver has limited to no value left is the current danger, not so much the generation of silver at this point. If there ever comes a time where the player base believes that new medium to high end items cannot be acquired using silver at all, silver likely goes to zero value as a medium of exchange. Last year's auction helped immensely in this regard, but there will need to be other things.

The auction removed a lot of silvers from the game, but it was barely a dent in the total silvers in the game.

Keep doing auctions though!

EDIT: The auction actually didn't even dent the economy. Wyrom states that trillions have to be removed.

http://forum.gsplayers.com/showthread.php?109701-Ideas-to-Drain-Silvers&p=1952925#post1952925

If you want to think of silver drains, you need to think of numbers in the trillions. Anything under 20 billion silver doesn't do a dent.

@kembal said in Event: Ebon Gate (Microtrans Discussion) w/ @Wyrom: >

...the perception that silver has limited to no value left is the current danger...

^^^

Bold-face added. This cannot be emphasized enough.

That stated, there is an impetus behind said perception, which cannot be blamed solely on the irrational consumers at the ground level. The onus is on Simu to balance that perception by offering more things that consumers perceive as valuable, increasing the desire to acquire and spend their currency. I think they've made a lot of smart moves in offering mostly fluff items with no mechanical benefit, which is what a lot of folks are spending their money on. But we also cannot ignore the much smaller, but also statistically significant, market of individuals who are willing to spend sizable chunks of silver, scrip, Simucoins, time, what have you, in order to acquire the items that they perceive as more valuable than the time and other currency exchanged for it. Making transactions like this more available, while keeping game balance in mind, should also be a topic when discussing such matters especially as we see a parabolic increase in old players returning to the game (which is clearly happening).

@mogonis said in Event: Ebon Gate (Microtrans Discussion) w/ @Wyrom:

Keep doing auctions though!

^^^

The topic of the Grand Auction should honestly not be tied to the silver drain discussion. In my mind these things are in two completely different categories. The Grand Auction is a highly sought-after event that a lot of people get a great deal of enjoyment from. Regardless of the impact it has on silver drain, it is an important event that hundreds of people (myself included) look forward to every year (or two, or three, or whatever cadence we can expect in coming years).

At this point, there are three threads on three forums and a lot of it's back and forth. I haven't got the time to wade through it all. Could someone that has waded through it all possibly let me know what the end verdict is?

Is @Wyrom going to be charging a ticket price and Simucoin purchases on top of that for the same access to the event that has been had in previous years? That's all I'm interested in at the moment.

@flimbo said in Event: Ebon Gate (Microtrans Discussion) w/ @Wyrom:

At this point, there are three threads on three forums and a lot of it's back and forth. I haven't got the time to wade through it all. Could someone that has waded through it all possibly let me know what the end verdict is?

Is @Wyrom going to be charging a ticket price and Simucoin purchases on top of that for the same access to the event that has been had in previous years? That's all I'm interested in at the moment.

It's been quite definitively mentioned that an event/shop ticket will be one price, and games will be a separate price on a Microtrans model. If you play NO games, the price will be much cheaper.

@archsenex This is the part I like. Since I really dislike digging and all other time sink games, I love the fact that I won't be asked to pay for something I won't participate in. I might actually buy a ticket this year if the price is cheap enough, since I don't have the time these days to spend much time there. What I dislike about the general direction, are alt-currencies, not the separation of time sink games from the rest of Gemstone.