Iron, Noobs, and Raiders.

[burgingham]

Since the devs never got into the discussion of mines being to rare (and believe me this is not the first one, nor will it be the last), I guess things don't look that bad. Unsatisfied folks tend to cry the loudest.

For my "common mistake", I am well aware that a game should attract new players and therefor their opinion is important, but we were talking about a complicated, economic game mechanic where experience with this game has a lot to do with your knowledge for this discussion. The "This game will die" faction on the other hand always was a very loud one in this game, and has been proven wrong time after time. PvP and metal have been their favourite targets for months now and yet the game keeps on growing pretty fast.

[Elirian]

Since the devs never got into the discussion of mines being to rare (and believe me this is not the first one, nor will it be the last), I guess things don't look that bad. Unsatisfied folks tend to cry the loudest.

I'm not saying they are too rare. I am saying that players need to have the opportunity to be equally rewarded for their time always open if you want them to stick around. Examples: more rare goods (seems to be the chosen path with the introduction of pearls), or mines requiring less initial infrastructure investment, running out faster, and then another mine spawning at a random map location. Sure you're going to end up with the same guys always controlling the mines, but players without mines have a reasonable chance to gain those rewards. That's off the top of my head, there's a million others.

The issue is that you guys seem to be arguing both a) players receiving less opportunity is fine and they will stick around anyway, and b) they get equal rewards anyway, because of all the negatives associated with owning a mine. Point b is disproven by the fact that everyone wants a mine I think. Even if the rewards are equal, players obviously don't see it that way. Point a is something the devs can decide if they want to check out, by looking at their retention numbers. If the game was a microtransaction game, it could even be beneficial to have a clear divide between miners and non miners. I don't know if they care about retaining non miners or want to look after their 'hardcore' base more, or anything like that. I'm simply stating you'll lose players if they don't see any opportunity to get equal reward for playing. Unless, as i was saying in the microtransaction example, the players receiving less reward are playing for free, while the players getting more are paying for it, even indirectly by purchasing advantages to shortcut them to controlling mines, rather than purchasing mines outright. Anyway, it's not a microtransaction game so that's all just way OT

For my "common mistake", I am well aware that a game should attract new players and therefor their opinion is important, but we were talking about a complicated, economic game mechanic where experience with this game has a lot to do with your knowledge for this discussion. The "This game will die" faction on the other hand always was a very loud one in this game, and has been proven wrong time after time. PvP and metal have been their favourite targets for months now and yet the game keeps on growing pretty fast.

I'm pretty sure I was talking about basic human psychology, and using only the numbers miners gave me about the kind of rewards people are seeing. In fact, I don't even need numbers for this case, all I need is the fact that everyone wants to own a mine, so clearly the rewards for those who own a mine are perceived as greater than the rewards for those who do not.

I'm certainly not one of the 'this game will die' faction by the way. I think I'm one of the 'this game is awesome' faction That's not going to stop me pointing out things that could be hurting it that the devs may or may not be aware of. Particularly when it's something that the more hardcore players, who are also the most active on game forums everywhere, have a vested interest in leaving as is. Whether they are acting/commenting due to that interest or not is irrelevant, it exists. Since they introduced pearls, I'm going to go ahead and hazard a guess that they already think there could be a problem anyway.

I will say this though: If you think this game is growing fast now.... you need to consider that I found it through a google search for 'sandbox mmo' coming up with a link to the mortal online forums. I had never heard of it before. This and wurm are the only decent sandboxes out there, and wurms lack of animations just kills me. It's in a pretty good place, if there were a slightly more educational newbie experience, rather than hunting through the forums and wiki to learn how to feed yourself, and there was a little more word of mouth around (a wikipedia page would be a start, even though I hate that people use wikipedia for advertising ).... numbers would go berserk. Not that that is probably a good thing just at the moment with the server stability 'under development'

Anyway, I'm not trying to get you guys to agree with me, simply taking the opportunity to highlight some things. I tried to bow out until a certain someone started calling me dense repeatedly, which is just trolling No matter how strongly you believe that's what I am, of course you're going to get a negative reaction when you say so!

[sabinati]

since chak isn't around, i'll say it: stfu nub

[Elirian]

since chak isn't around, i'll say it: stfu nub

You know what, it's nothing to be ashamed of if you can't keep up.

[burgingham]

Just a quick last reply. You think everyone is complaining about metal, while in fact it is only a very, very small percentage of the playerbase. As I pointed out earlier, the ones complaining are usually a lot louder than the ones content with the game as it is (not that the game really is perfect, many things to improve here). Most players seem to be ok with just having their little harvest moon farm. No need for expansion, no need for metal.
Those who want metal try to trade for it and if they are smart enough to not let others rip them off, they get it to quite fair rates. As Potjeh pointed out earlier the demand for metal will go down (and goes down already), prizes drop and with Constantinople and other efforts to create central trading hubs in game there is more competition in offers of metal too. So as usual in this game, things regulate themselves pretty well.

[Elirian]

Just a quick last reply. You think everyone is complaining about metal, while in fact it is only a very, very small percentage of the playerbase. As I pointed out earlier, the ones complaining are usually a lot louder than the ones content with the game as it is (not that the game really is perfect, many things to improve here). Most players seem to be ok with just having their little harvest moon farm. No need for expansion, no need for metal.
Those who want metal try to trade for it and if they are smart enough to not let others rip them off, they get it to quite fair rates. As Potjeh pointed out earlier the demand for metal will go down (and goes down already), prizes drop and with Constantinople and other efforts to create central trading hubs in game there is more competition in offers of metal too. So as usual in this game, things regulate themselves pretty well.

Oh I don't think everyone is complaining, because as I said, most people who are active on forums already control metal, being that they are typically the more invested players. Plenty of people out there who don't bother complaining.

Oh, and prices have a long way to fall before metal approaches its actual value. Right now a quick scan of the trades forum shows someone asking for 2,000 bricks for what is apparently one hours worth of iron.

[spectacle]

Your main fallacy is thinking that ingame wealth is a reward for time spent playing the game. In reality, you invest time in the game, and is rewarded with entertainment. Everything valuable in the game, from a q10 chantrelles to a q250 thane's ring are just playing pieces, monopoly money. Having them isn't the point, it's acquiring them that forms the challenge of the game, the gameplay if you will. If you're a newb with nothing but a kuksa and a stone axe to your name, then getting hold of metal somehow is the kind of challenge that makes the game fun to play. How much time it takes a miner to produce metal is completely irrelevant to your individual gameplay experience.

tl;dr: It's a game, not work.

[Elirian]

Your main fallacy is thinking that ingame wealth is a reward for time spent playing the game. In reality, you invest time in the game, and is rewarded with entertainment. Everything valuable in the game, from a q10 chantrelles to a q250 thane's ring are just playing pieces, monopoly money. Having them isn't the point, it's acquiring them that forms the challenge of the game, the gameplay if you will. If you're a newb with nothing but a kuksa and a stone axe to your name, then getting hold of metal somehow is the kind of challenge that makes the game fun to play. How much time it takes a miner to produce metal is completely irrelevant to your individual gameplay experience.

tl;dr: It's a game, not work.

Yet the most commercially successful mmo in the world is nothing but a gigantic skinnerbox. People like rewards, MMO players in particular want to be able to get rewards as they spend time in the game. If that was not the case, we wouldn't need LPs and everyone would just play shooters or racing games. You can build a good game that still offers players a reward schedule, you can build a shooter, or you can build a gigantic framework that doesn't really do anything EXCEPT offer a reward schedule and make billions. Breaking news: people like stuff.

It's no good idealising it if it might cost you players. You don't have to build a program designed to produce compulsive behaviour, but you have to face the reality that if you're putting rewards in a game, it's because you know people want them. If they didn't want them in the first place, they wouldn't get the enjoyment of pursuing them.

This is actually a subject I've spent a lot of time thinking about, I used to say exactly the same thing as you're saying. In fact i still think it's possible to design a game where the rewards are purely to customize playstyle, such as in this game spending your LPs on unarmed, melee, marksmanship, or farming. However the rewards in this game are not all about customization, as there is a clear difference between bay12 axe/plate and stoneaxe/leather, or bone saw vs metal saw, etc etc. Some of the rewards are in place as reward mechanisms only.

[Potjeh]

For someone who invokes psychology so often, you sure don't post a lot of peer-reviewed studies supporting your point.

Anyway, here's a thought: maybe chantrelle picking isn't a competitive job?

To draw an analogy to RL, let's say we have two farmers. Farmer A uses a tractor and makes 100 tons of a crop a year, working 8 hours a day. Farmer B uses a shovel and a hoe, and makes 2 tons of the same crop a year. Should the market cater to farmer B, and reward him with 50x what farmer A gets per ton? If yes, who is the poor sap that has to buy farmer B's crops and bear the weight of this inefficiency?

Fact is, chantrelles aren't in particularly high demand. Higher rewards on chantrelle picking would encourage more people to pursue an unneeded occupation, and those labours that are actually needed would suffer for it. Final result is that you have a decrease in global wealth, which results in everyone being poorer.

There are things that are in demand, and they generally give good returns on time investment. Silk, for example, actually nets you more wealth per hour than metalmaking, and everyone can do it.

[sabinati]

making bricks and linen and picking chantrelles and blueberries are low-skill labor (i.e. a day old character can do these tasks and trade them for metal). low-skill labor doesn't pay very well. surprise! the reason you hear a lot about these things being traded for metal is because they are accessible to everyone.

silk, as potjeh said, has a much higher rate of trade to metal, as does cheese and other higher-skill tasks.