I was just on vacation. It takes some effort to read these threads in a way that I understand, usually too much energy and then that means other things get postponed, but I am still warming up my brain so maybe we can finally figure this out.
There were several similar threads, I think I locked 2 of them. Well a passer by can see these threads and think that there is just too much drama on this shard, but there needs to be a way to discuss these things. Otherwise it would all still be there, just buried. And it would start oozing out at random spots.
Seventh Stone, you were able to tell your opinion to Dirtybook, and it's good he was able to read it. These are all subjective things, opinions, so there's no precise science to tell what's right. But with telling our opinions and then reading what others have to say, we move forward.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qG2jRRCqkk0&t=109s
The traffic jams of old New York were a public forum for the free interchange of opinion.
(Car Horns Blaring)
I don't know Lachian enough to judge whether he's using donations and his in-game wealth to get people to like him. Though I can share one opinion - this was back in December when he started playing. Well, technically resumed, because he played for a while twice before in the past. I noticed a very enthusiastic player come back, and I've seen this before with others... every now and then a very enthusiastic player joins (or returns after several years), submits a ton of ideas, is active in chat and all that, but then after a few weeks they are no where to be seen. So at first glance back in December, I thought it's like that, but then he kept on playing, and remained active, announcing champs and helping newbies and chatting in the public chat.
Lachian, through all these discussions, I can summarize that the drama isn't about you buying so much stuff at auctions, but it's about the attitude (maybe seems like arrogance). I remember right after the grand auction on February 1st, you wrote a forum post about how you've been offended and now you won't let anyone else buy anything at auctions. Or maybe later you said that you won't come to auctions again.
So I'm guessing, even if you bought the priciest item plus one or two of the lesser things, and didn't react to the haters, then at next auction bought another thing or two, and so on over the months, you'd simply fade into the background noise of the auction logs.
Btw, just an opinion: I think you are overpaying for these auction items. I think it's the same thing as anywhere else, if you want it done quick it will cost extra. So, you can get it for the "regular price" if you go to a few auctions and monitor the prices and then try to win an item when it's favorable. But if you want to buy everything right now, then you'll have to outbid several other players and that comes to a much higher price.
I also think about how these auctions would play out if you bought everything all the time. All other players would keep accumulating their gold, and never get to spend it, so the prices would just keep increasing.
Well, referring back to the first paragraph about civil discussion about our opinions, and that this thread is going quite well, the text in this post could be reworded:
Lach wrote: Wed Jun 12, 2024 4:15 am
Yeah you would kiss anyone's arse that will agree with you and it's not that they like you your just starting drama about me that's all your about is drama. I could care less about any of you or your feelings, maybe +C will give you another participation award to shut you up Johnny that's all your shirt is. Why don't you go sell some gold farming scripts Muolke and farm some more that way till +C has to nerf it like balrons....... I have helped more people in 6 months than yall have in 15 years get off my back lol lil irrelevant veterans
. I had actually stopped donating but yall wana push me so why should I care.
I wrote in another topic that your efforts here are appreciated, both the donations and your activities with new players and your guild. It's just that posts like this almost undo all the reputation that you've built up. For example, those special shirts are kind of like medals on this shard and have quite a bit of weight, and the "lol lil irrelevant veterans"... So in absence of such words, i think you've have a much better reputation.
A substantial part of this push-back is the suspicion that Lachian bought a bunch of end-game items for real money, I think it was 6 relayered titans hammers. Basically, Lion has just given/gifted Lachian the 6 titans hammers, which seems suspicious. Though, I have investigated it and concluded that this was not the case. However, the "hive mind" isn't convinced.
Here are the arguments for this suspicion:
- He was offering to buy items from another player for real money, the player wouldn't have accepted the deal anyway though.
- There seems to be an overall opinion that he'd just want to buy anything, without much regard for the rules or who might be affected by it.
However, arguments against this suspicion:
- Lachian and Lion have known eachother a long time prior to the transfer of items, and have also chatted and been to dungeons in the weeks prior.
- All the items were transfered together. The estimated value of the items would be somewhere around $2000, so if this was actually sold, there must have been a huge trust between them to do this all in one go. It means that either Lachian has sent the money to Lion and then hoped that Lion would fulfil his part of the deal, or that Lion had given Lachian so much gear and then hope that Lachian would really send the money. If it was a trade for real money, I'd expect the items to be transfered one by one, or at least maybe first the one and then the rest soon after.
- Lion says he gave these items to Lachian because he's taking a long break from the game, and it's true that Lion is no longer seen online (however, an explanation is also that Lion was going to quit anyway, and this was just a good exit strategy).
But anyway, based on the statements I got, the items in a way are still owned by Lion, but in use by Lachian. So I expect that if Lion comes back, Lachian will return the items to him.
Main point about auctions
"Don't shoot the messenger".
Like that line from the Movie matrix: "You are the eventuality of an anomaly".
https://youtu.be/cHZl2naX1Xk?t=81
Someone happens to be the one who spends the most. Then after some time, it's someone else.
Some were dominating because of intense farming, some with donations, some with a combination of it. John Warren made a nice list of big auction names there.
Here's an auction log from one of the early auctions, where Cosima bought most of it.
- 2006-06-10 auction.png (288.5 KiB) Viewed 9438 times
It's how the system is set up, and it's flawed, but in a way it also works.
I remember that I was kinda concerned when Muolke was dominating. I remember him coming in with a smirk, buying the few top items, then leaving victoriously. So I don't know whether I should be frustrated or amused - now that his dominion has been taken over by someone else - I now perceive Muolke as an underdog. Maybe we should wait another few months or years, and then someone even richer than Lachian will come in, and Lachian will then start voting for the other party. Or maybe a guild will poll their gold together and try to buy everything, or come up with some new strategy.
Purpose of auctions:
- to sink a lot of gold,
- and also to make new, very rare, or unique things available somehow, with dynamic pricing.
Changes planned for auctions:
- limiting items in terms of per-year/per-player. E.g. 1 totem slot per player per year. The current tight supply is also to prevent 1 person to buy too much of something, and after we have such a restriction, we can start selling much more of it. This requires items (or the bonuses that are applied) to be account bound, otherwise there it will all just be bought through proxies.
- a portion of the items might be made available at special raffle stones: the tickets with have a ramping cost, e.g. each ticket costs 1% more than the previous one, to tilt the scales a bit more in favor of the general population. And this also makes items easier available to those who can't come to the auction physically.
Regarding the special shirts, too bad I don't have records what each shirt was about. This new system of inter-linked documents should help with keeping all these notes and then also be able to find the notes as the years pass and things get buried. Anyway, overall I'm not very generous with giving out these shirts, so those who have it, it means something.
Regarding putting the auction items on vendorstones at fixed prices: the auctions achieve dynamic pricing, as there is also dynamic farming. It could be on a vendorstone, but there would also have to be some formula for dynamic pricing, and that would also be frustrating to see prices just go up all the time. But with fixed prices, check out the gold vendorstone at the Trinsic bank - the Invisiblity Shroud is still priced at 500k gold, same as back when 500k was considered to be quite a lot more than it means now.
Regarding hunting newbies for sport, agree 100%!
Btw, yeah if you give a newbie too much help, you take away the exploration and the thrills that makes this a fun game for them. There's no rule against that but i guess it's something to keep in mind. I could even say that if you want to hurt a shard, go farm the most profitable places 24/7, and then give the gold to the newbies to ruin their game.
I have ruined the game for others twice:
- A friend came to play to this shard, this was way back in the early years. He explored the dungeons, did a bit of farming, and slowly built up to 100k gold and some half-decent gear. Then I came by to visit, and dropped a 1 mil gold check on him. (all officially obtained as a player through gameplay). And he lost interest... because those 100k meant something to him, and he was looking forward to slowly building up better gear and everything. Then i just squashed all of it with dumping that 1 mil.
- We were playing a game called "Pet Society" on facebook. The best items were considered to be Jukeboxes, which cost 10k coins. And we were happily farming the coins every day and looking forward to buying all sorts of deco, and maybe someday a jukebox. There was also a golden wristwatch which was very expensive. But I hacked the game with a mem-editor and got 99 jukeboxes, 99 being the inventory limit. So I wanted to make my girlfriend happy, so I sent her 99 jukeboxes by the in-game mail system. She was happy for a moment but then lost all interest in the game.
(Sorry for typos and gramarific errors, it's too late for me to proofread)
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