Curios and Pricing

XenthosXenthos Shadow Lord
edited November 2013 in Common Grounds
ANNOUNCE NEWS #2257
Date: 11/4/2013 at 20:42
From: Estarra the Eternal
To  : Everyone
Subj: Curio Rubs

Because we believe we've actually harmed ourselves by being so free with Czigany coins, they will no longer be available by rubbing them. Apologies for those who this impacts but we need to look at the game as a whole.

Otherwise, if you rub a curio from a collection, there is now a much larger chance that you'll receive a random curio from the same collection.
 
Penned by My hand on the 24th of Urlachmar, in the year 368 CE.

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I personally think that this is an excellent change on the whole; this completely removes the ability to "melt" a character down to generate thousands of credits and dingbats and oodles of gold.  This is something that has been needed for ages.

However, I do have a concern; curio packs are priced with being able to rub-for-coins in mind.  Now, there really isn't a whole lot you can do with your excess curios except make a little bit of coin.  You can't just keep turning them into wheel spins, more curios, and other rewards (such as presents).

Now you've got piles of very highly priced curio packages whose worth has just gone down pretty dramatically.  Would it be possible to review their pricing?  There is no need to be concerned about people who bought these packs at the higher price, because pretty much all of us who did melted them down to get the rewards (which more than makes up for any perceived "loss").

A reduction in pricing would also help encourage people to continue to buy them and spur on trading, which I think has been sadly lacking for most of the types!  With reduced reward, a reduced cost would be a lovely incentive. :)

PS: Also please look into reducing the cost of Ikons!
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Comments

  • ShaddusShaddus , the Leper Messiah Outside your window.
    We might also look into simply selling Czigany Coins for credits or dingbats again, albeit at a higher price and hopefully a better rate of prizes. WTB way to sell four IRL years of crit bonuses, please.
    Everiine said: The reason population is low isn't because there are too many orgs. It's because so many facets of the game are outright broken and protected by those who benefit from it being that way. An overabundance of gimmicks (including game-breaking ones), artifacts that destroy any concept of balance, blatant pay-to-win features, and an obsession with convenience that makes few things actually worthwhile all contribute to the game's sad decline.
  • Looks like my treasure map just got a whole lot more useful. \o/
    I'm Lucidian. If I don't get pedantic every so often, I might explode.
  • Yah, raging wheel spins were sad. Rubbing made transferring assets between gold, credits, dingbats and lessons fairly liquid.

    With that fixed, could allow selling curio pieces again to help trading.

    (Has 546 pieces, so anyone looking, try me.)
  • Liquidating your character hasn't been removed, by the way. You can still forget all your skills, turn your lesson pool lessons into curios, and rub all of them into gold... then spray them in every direction. You just don't get the lucrative things like credits and dingbats to "give away" (and feel like a god) for those five minutes (or hours that you spend doing the conversion/rubbing) anymore, though giving away gold is pretty much the same thing, just less valuable.

  • XenthosXenthos Shadow Lord
    Lerad said:
    Liquidating your character hasn't been removed, by the way. You can still forget all your skills, turn your lesson pool lessons into curios, and rub all of them into gold... then spray them in every direction. You just don't get the lucrative things like credits and dingbats to "give away" (and feel like a god) for those five minutes (or hours that you spend doing the conversion/rubbing) anymore, though giving away gold is pretty much the same thing, just less valuable.
    You could also just forget all your skills, transfer everything to the base pool, learn in groups of 100 and repeat until all the lessons are destroyed.

    It's not gone but it's far less enticing.  And, if you do it, it's not going to break the game's dingbat/credit economy.
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  • DaraiusDaraius Shevat The juror's taco spot
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    I used to make cakes.

    Estarra the Eternal says, "Give Shevat the floor please."
  • FYI, I've lowered the price on curios (and ikons).

    I'm considering removing curios-for-lessons.
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  • I like having curios for lessons still, or at least something. Otherwise lessons eventually just sit there, unused and unusable! 
  • I honestly have mixed feelings. While I love lowering the costs of the curio packages, I'm not sure if people will be willing to buy them even at this lower price.

    Then again, I didn't think people would buy 30k credits either, and... well, that happened.
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  • KarlachKarlach God of Kittens.
    Do curios still rub out for gold? If so it doesn't quite end the problem, you can make far too much cash just converting lessons to curios and rubbing them out till you have nothing but money, and comfortably afford what are otherwise overpriced credits.

    The divine voice of Avechna, the Avenger reverberates powerfully, "Congratulations, Morkarion, you are the Bringer of Death indeed."

    You see Estarra the Eternal shout, "Morkarion is no more! Mourn the mortal! But welcome True Ascendant Karlach, of the Realm of Death!


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  • You'd get better gold bashing than rubbing curios, so that should be fine. Also need an out or you could keep rubbing any curio till you got what you wanted.
  • edited November 2013
    Estarra said:
    FYI, I've lowered the price on curios (and ikons).

    I'm considering removing curios-for-lessons.
    I'd expect something-for-lessons to be introduced since many people who have Elite (and only one character) get 5 lessons a day that are a complete waste.

    At least, I can't think of anything else lessons are used for so maybe I'm forgetting something.

    I'd also like to point out that... as far as I know, the whole "liquidating your character" was nerfed to shit a long time ago. 8/10 (...not accurate, but the ratio is HIGH) wheel spins seem to be TFs or Lucky Clovers, so I don't see the logic in what any of you are saying. I just disagree with this change.
  • DaraiusDaraius Shevat The juror's taco spot
    Skillflexing is the only other thing that comes to mind.
    I used to make cakes.

    Estarra the Eternal says, "Give Shevat the floor please."
  • I suppose I could learn a few more trades now that I have my cord.
  • ShaddusShaddus , the Leper Messiah Outside your window.
    Quick, Xenthos! Make a thread suggesting that the admin start selling Czigany (set one and set two) curio pieces!
    Everiine said: The reason population is low isn't because there are too many orgs. It's because so many facets of the game are outright broken and protected by those who benefit from it being that way. An overabundance of gimmicks (including game-breaking ones), artifacts that destroy any concept of balance, blatant pay-to-win features, and an obsession with convenience that makes few things actually worthwhile all contribute to the game's sad decline.
  • XenthosXenthos Shadow Lord
    I almost posted an ur'trap thread this morning but decided not to just yet (I am going to try selling cookies before I consider it a total loss).

    What are the new prices like?

    PS: Thank you for listening, Estarra!
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  • KagatoKagato Auckland, New Zealand
    edited November 2013
    Xenthos said:
    I almost posted an ur'trap thread this morning but decided not to just yet (I am going to try selling cookies before I consider it a total loss). What are the new prices like? PS: Thank you for listening, Estarra!
          package79532: a package containing one magic item cur      100       3cr
          package78981: a package containing five magic item cu      100      15cr
          package79607: a package containing ten magic item cur      100      30cr
          package79935: a package containing twenty-five magic       100      70cr
          package80157: a package containing fifty magic item c      100     115cr
          package82976: a package containing one-hundred magic       100     200cr

    EDIT: Travel curios could use a little more tweaking IMO- Credits would have to be worth 30,000 gold a piece to match with the current prices (6 million gold / 30,000 gold = 200 "credits") - should perhaps be lowered to 5mil for 100 curios - still works out to 25,000 per "credit"
    Never put passion before principle.  Even if you win, you lose.

    If olive oil comes from olives, where does baby oil come from?

    If vegetarians eat vegetables, what do humanitarians eat?
  • ShuyinShuyin The pug life chose me.
    I agree, allow multiclassing so we can use up extra lessons now.
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  • EveriineEveriine Wise Old Swordsbird / Brontaur Indianapolis, IN, USA
    You hush Shuyin. Shoo! Shoo!
    Everiine is a man, and is very manly. This MAN before you is so manly you might as well just gender bend right now, cause he's the manliest man that you ever did see. His manly shape has spurned many women and girlyer men to boughs of fainting. He stands before you in a manly manerific typical man-like outfit which is covered in his manly motto: "I am a man!"

    Daraius said: You gotta risk it for the biscuit.

    Pony power all the way, yo. The more Brontaurs the better.
  • Sharing tests:

    I rubbed 67 common curios and 37 turned to gold (55%), 19 to same type (28%) and 11 to other curios (16%).

    The 95% confidence interval for the gold rate is 49% to 61%. Average gold value was 3,800.

    Also rubbed 8 rares, 6 turned to gold (suspect this is above average), with average value 7,900 - looks double common value.
  • So in other words, rubbing is still gonna be an awful way to generate missing pieces.
    Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.
  • EnyalidaEnyalida Nasty Woman, Sockpuppeteer to the Gods
    edited November 2013
    Gold on rubs should be removed entirely. If you want to limit people rubbing to gain their entire set (which they should be able to purchase complete at this point), limit the number of rubs on any given piece per IG month. That way, if no one else becomes available to trade the pieces you need - which, for some of the older sets, is probably pretty likely), you will eventually be able to gain what you paid for, without the risk of it turning into a valueless pile of gold.
  • Not sure how I feel about this change, as someone who just finished his Vernal set. Mindlessly grinding the same quests over and over again to gather pieces was already bad enough, but I could at least justify it by getting wheel spins out of the pieces I didn't need / couldn't find someone to trade to. I was contemplating attempting to do the Soulless set as well, but with a 50'sh percent chance for a rubbed curio to turn into a (lets face it) worthless amount of gold I feel much, much less inclined to take it on. 

    If the problem is people buying curios and/or rubbing away an entire character perhaps a limit on rubs would be a much better solution. This would allow you to either up the gold portion and/or return the coin drops (at a lower percent) while preventing it from punishing people who are legitimately just trying to collect curios.
  • Make rubbing only turn curios into other curios please!

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  • That would make all curios effectively into two just types, common and rare. Everything else would just be a matter of keeping on rubbing.

    (Except quest curios / others you can't get from rubs.)
  • EnyalidaEnyalida Nasty Woman, Sockpuppeteer to the Gods
    Sounds like  plan.
  • KagatoKagato Auckland, New Zealand
    Personally, I think common curios should retain the chance to give gold (inherent risk of rubbing), but rare curio pieces should either only rub into other rare curios or should give substantially more gold - 8000 gold feels like an almost insultingly low amount considering how difficult they can be to get for some of the quest-related curios.
    Never put passion before principle.  Even if you win, you lose.

    If olive oil comes from olives, where does baby oil come from?

    If vegetarians eat vegetables, what do humanitarians eat?
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