I was going to leave this be, because - despite your negativity and mischaracterization above, it does appear that you seem to understand my viewpoint. But then... oh no you DI'IN'T!!!!! Frankly, trash barreling the BODs in existence (or having some kind of turn-in system where you get a random new one under the new system) would resolve my objections. And please don't call me a "jealous hater". The system you propose is extensive and would presumably take a long time to be built. By that time, I too would be in a position to gain a considerable amount from such a patch. Your mistake is assuming I only care about your (plural) wealth, when in fact I'd gain a considerable amount from such a change as well. I try to keep in mind new players to shards whenever I make suggestions or consider ideas. This is especially easy because I am still somewhat new here. The reason I left the last shard I was playing on (and frankly the reason I think its new player growth has slowed) was because the early adopter advantage was so obscene. I would rather that not happen here at all, than be a part of those early adopters gaining an advantage like this.
Basically, what Gideon said. I think for someone not currently active in high end smithing bods to weigh in here might be a little suspect. How many people are collecting smithing bods? I have 1 GM smith and two 70s. I get 6 a day. I bet there are less than 10 people collecting the same or more. The option to trade and complete under the current system.. I just don't see it. What are the chances of finding another player with a double valorite plate piece to trade for your double valorite place piece? (currently experiencing this with spined mask dye bods) In terms of this benefiting older players.. most all shard changes result in this. I am planning on premaking my bod collectors for Carpentry long before it is rolled out. Will it be fair to the person who joins next year? Zero money and three bod system to join? It isn't about being fair.. that person should start collecting ASAP and start his UOR journey! If the bod system changes and becomes more attractive to you, don't criticize those sitting on old bods.. Be thankful for new content and go create a smith! Enjoy the fact that this ancient game gets a breath of fresh air. I started around the time Basoosh did. I will never have a house that looks like Gideons, I wasn't here for those events. You can bet your ass I won't miss this year's Halloween.
A great example of how the benefit to older players is par for the course.. Pre patch sandals. Look at Blaise's screen shot of 10000 priceless no longer craftables. I want his deleted, or my own in my bank by 5pm EST.
I think for someone currently active in high end smithing bods to weigh in here might be a little suspect. Goes both ways, sir.
Oh, I didn't mean suspect in a self-serving way. Just that you might not have the experience with the system to make a correct judgement on the current BoD drop rates.
Hah, apologies for my cynical assumptions about your meaning. You can see, given this thread's course, why I may be defensive and assume people are calling me names and ascribing bad intentions on me As I mentioned... I would certainly profit from a change to the BOD system as proposed in this thread... but new longterm players are the lifeblood of freeshards, so when in doubt I try to look at things from their perspective. It's hard enough as it is to be the new guy on a new shard... I tend to support things that make it easier for such folks, not harder.
The answer is actually, no one at all. Anyone who's actually completed a large iron plate BoD either didn't realize they were wasting their time, or did it just to say they did it. The proposed changes in here could result in a fair profit for those who've been at this a long while, certainly. Saying something shouldn't happen because people stand to make a lot of gold, is just silly. You can make a lot of gold in dozens of ways on this shard. The fact that a newbie smith would look at the system and think (even as it stands) "Holy shit it's going to take me forever to get to that level" and make that kind of money, is wholly appropriate for UO. Look at any long time tamer here and you'll see straight up mils. Gold comes easy to those who put in the work to make it. Same should be said for a diligent crafter toiling away for hours on end. The resources and time involved should be worth it, which is the entire point here, I thought anyway. Don't worry, no one's going to friggen retire on their stack of large shit plate bods. They still have to spend countless resources and time filling them all out and in the long run, the ROI on the low end would not possibly make anyone infinitely wealthy. For the record, I was opposed to the removal of leather dye being used on sandals and when we heard that patch was coming, the whole shard was chattering about it and buying up every Leather Dye Tub they could get their hands on. Same with the runebook dye tubs that, at the time, only a handful of people could come close to affording. We started pooling platinum in the guild to get on board with that to get some soon-to-be-removed hues on some books. Yes, those who have been here longer have a greater store of unobtainium. That is UO. The fact that I'm not hoarding it for life and actually offer these items up for sale this soon after creating them was cut off, should be a testament to my concern for the new folks who want a taste of that. Platinum and gold will always be around and will only keep flowing into the economy, and subsequently, my bank box because I'm the kind of person to sell things instead of keep them just to keep them.
When I say "the system", I mean the BOD system as a whole. Making money in this game takes time and effort. If you want to add millions to those in this system because it's inequitable to the time and effort needed to gain millions taming/farming, that's fine, we can debate that. Changing a system overnight in a way that provides a ton of money to folks for zero incremental effort is something I don't personally support. And yes, I know that there is an advantage to first-movers on a shard, and I'm fine with that. But I also know it can dissuade new people from joining, so I want to do whatever I can to suggest that we avoid increasing this first-movers advantage.
I have a smith but I have only collected some BODs and have not completed any smith BODs yet. I have played here over 1 year and I think I need to jump on the band wagon and make a ton of gold, sitting safe and secure, flippin off the people that walk outside my fortress window.
I'm in Wulver's boat. I've collected a lot of BoDs but have only completed enough to keep a couple empty BoD books. Personally, I don't feel like I have a stake in any of this discussion, though. I don't keep track of what I've collected nor do I have a very good idea of what I'd need to fill an order worth doing.
Gideon, thanks for putting in the time to build that matrix; this really ought to be the framework for discussion. As it stands, the relative rarity of the high-end seems fine, it's the low and middle that need adjusting. On the low end, the fix ought to be on the gold payout rather than the items. Every BOD ought to have some small positive value when completed. This is simple enough to calculate using a fixed price for ingots and the success chance. On the mid to high end, I'd like to see a broader range of items, including more decorative items besides the brazier and shield. Part of the difficulty with the smith BOD system is that it gets unfairly compared to tailoring BODs. A new player can have a functioning, profitable tailor BOD filler in a week, with almost no expense. A profitable smith BOD filler is only possible by ignoring a large fraction of the collected BODs, plus it takes a substantial investment to build the character and a long time to build up an inventory of BODs which can be filled. Also, gathering resources is also far different. One can buy cloth/plain leather and work tailor BODs for a profit. Smith BODs really require collecting your own ingots simply because of the volume required and the relatively low gold payout.
I agree with Gideon that the system needs to be more fun. If you look at how a mask dye sells for more than a server birth, you'll realize how out of whack our system is. I'd like to see more rewards given out because it'll put more things for sale in the trade forums (it'd be nice to have enough items and etc that we're getting a lot of trade posts, that's one of the things that's fun about UO is shopping) I'd keep things like runic hammers and phoenix armor super rare, but add a lot more rewards (a lot for variety and increased rarity of mid and low end drops) and it'll put more stuff of value out there for me to steal! I've seen your packs, rares and eye candy here are few and the drops are very rare. If we had a bunch of easier to obtain items, it would fill that gap between junk and super rare. I might not be phrasing myself well, but back in the day, part of the fun was you could run around and shop at vendors finding rares and etc and you could go on a stealing spree and find people with rares in their packs sometimes. Our server seems to gravitate towards the hardcore gamer with items, but adding in a variety of basically deco stuff and dress items that aren't hard to obtain wouldn't ruin the game for those people who play 24/7. in conclusion, The bod system is annoying and sucks, farm bods forever, finally get good deed, farm forever to get smalls, find ore spot, mine forever to get enough ore, then fail making stuff til they are filled = 0 fun and blaise smells like old pickles and stale dead hooker
So profound....so astute...SO IMPRESS!!! Honestly, the BoD system doesn't suck. It is friggen awesome, but needs some tweaking and adjustment to be 'perfect' as can be seen by all the discussion. I'd like to see the addition of Ranger Armor pieces in the Tailor BoDs. I know you can just dye your studded armor but it's a nostalgic thing for a lot of folks. PS: Jack is annoying and sucks.
DIsagree with Gideon's proposed changes. You cannot get rid of weapons Bods You cannot make highend bods more frequent You cannot have everyone running around with Bronze, Gold, Aga, Ver, Val runic hammers.... It will screw tmappers over... No one will need magic weapons... Finally its not even close to resembling the bod system of old after u do all that I think the solution is to just add some rewards to the matrix
I'm gonna have to go with Mutombo on this one. Just expand the reward matrix and give incentive to complete the large weapon bods, which in turn will make weapon small bods somewhat desirable. I would personally like to see this type of input and effort by folks put into helping the staff move forward with a carpentry bod system. Long story short....MOAR PIXELS!!
I really like the items Mutombo pointed out! Especially the wall torches. Why not make use of all the items available to us?
