Magister_Returns

Eureka!, Part One

Twenty-six thousand four hundred twenty. That’s how many logs I chopped this weekend.

This number is personally significant to me, as it represents two days of casual weekend gaming. On Sunday, I had the “Eureka” moment: After chopping wood consistently since Mondain’s Legacy was released, I found my first Frostwood - ever.

Twenty whole logs. The math-inclined individuals in the audience have probably already calculated my percentage: 7.5700227100681302043906131718395e-2

For the casual gamers (of which I am one) that translates to 0.075% of this weekend’s haul. Granted, there are some other wood colors in there, most notably 2000+ heartwood (thank you, magic tree), but there is far too little Frostwood for this to be appealing to anyone who is not known as ‘The Man of La Mancha.’ For the record, included in my grand total were 60 bloodwood, or 0.225%.

Since the developers are already discussing negative perceptions of the resource system, allow me to weigh in with the following ‘Impressions of the casual gamer:’

1) The spawning system is borked. (I misspelled ‘broken’ there, then decided that ‘borked’ was a better descriptor.) There is a tree in Malas that never, ever changes from Yew. It has given ~240 Yew per spawn since day one of Mondain’s Legacy. I visit this tree regularly. I love this tree. This tree defiantly ignores resource randomization, and I admire its anarchist sentiment.

This tree tells me that the resource randomization code does not work.

2) The spawning system only helps scripters. I made finding Frostwood my personal mission. It has taken me several years to get 20 logs. This is ‘working as intended?’ I have gotten more Crimson Cinctures than I have gotten Frostwood swings with my axe. By rights, my 20 Frostwood should sell for multiple-millions of gold apiece, based on the amount of time it took me to find them. Instead, I can go to Luna and buy Frostwood for 100gp each from vendors with hundreds of thousands of icy blue boards for sale.

This tells me that resource randomization has made the rarest commodities too rare, and that scripters, not players, benefit.

Part Two of this post will detail a few potential fixes to make the system less burdensome for casual players.

~M

Magister_Returns

Eureka!, Part Two

Alternate title: How to improve resource availability for the average player, without flooding the market.

The fixes are easy and they can be flavorful and add texture and substance to the shards of the world gem. Unfortunately, I doubt this issue is high on the list of priorities.

Stream-of-consciousness on:

1) Add colored wood as loot to Dryads, Treefellows and Reapers. Alternatively, create monsters similar to Ore elementals for these creatures (A Bloodwood Reaper, an Oak Treefellow, etc). Ten logs or boards apiece, and it spices up the monster menu. Why do these beasts only have normal resources? You would think magical creatures tied to the forest would take a childlike delight in collecting shiny, colored wood. Paragon versions of these creatures should always have colored wood, at least, plus the chance to spawn bonus boards.

A more amusing implementation, but more difficult to code, would allow lumberjacks to harvest random colored wood each swing as they melee these creatures.

2) Add crafter quests. Oh no! Mayor McCleough’s daughter was killed by a Reaper [Paragon] in Ilshenar, and now he’s offering a 250-colored board commodity deed to anyone who brings back proof that they’ve killed ten of the foul, golden-hued monsters. Interestingly, the deed has a random chance of spawning a given rare board type. Boring, but effective.

Oh no! Little Suzie McCleough fell through a moongate! She’s lost somewhere in Ilshenar...scour the land until you find her and bring her safely home!

Oh no! The King of the Treefellows is trying to redeem his evil Reaper brethren, but he needs a sample of their sap…

3) Add a crafter tool. I envision a Talisman that constantly scans the resource grid and reports the type of wood and/or ore that the region will produce. I should be able to pick the resource, much like you can use context menus to choose Ore or Stone when mining. As I run around Sosaria, a tiny voice whispers, “Perhaps you will find Frostwood to the North.” “..to the Northeast” “…here.”

Alternatively, create a Prospector’s Tool for Lumberjacks.

4) Add a commodity trader in town. Allow boards to be exchanged at the same ratio for which they can be redeemed for points at the cooperative collection: 48 normal boards for one Frostwood board, as an example. As an alternative, make this the initial ratio and allow it to fluctuate based on player activity, in a manner similar to vendor prices.

~M

Stewan Seagull

I like those ideas, being a LumberJane myself on occasion.
Oddly enough i get quite some Frostwood (not loads, mind) but have troubles with Heart- and especially Bloodwood.

I found myself a 16x24 square with dense growth and just keep going round and round. Takes me about as long to empty as it takes the trees to respawn.

Magister_Returns

Update: I have to rescind #1 above, as - for the first time in years - my Yew tree has respawned as something else...Bloodwood!

May it stay bloodwood for as long as it produced Yew.

Also, my two magic trees are now producing Heartwood and Bloodwood. This is an improvement from this weekend's normal and oak start!

I've hit on a new way to find colored wood, although it has a significant drawback: Except for my 'magic trees,' I only harvest from those that give very little wood, less than 100. Why? Because I can empty them faster and spur a respawn sooner - which, theoretically, should give me more chances for frostwood spawn.

Queen Mum

"May it stay bloodwood for as long as it produced Yew."

Warsong of LS

While I applaud your persistence.

And I would like to have some of your ideas at least talked about. Like add in colored wood to some monsters as loot.

the easiest solution would be to revert the ores/wood to the way it was - ie static.

couple this with removing all colored woods/colored ores from the library/museum collections (someone want to donate 800 000 wooden boards to the museum, hey go for it)

The uptick in scripting for these resources was when you could get the items to sell from the collections. Up until then (yes there were scripters) the most scripted item was regular ore (iron) because it is always need for bods. And some scripted for dull/shadow to fill bods for pofs.

I have seen people complain, it was not fair, cause I could not get any resources. That line is/was just bs. Anyone would told me this line was a lazy person that bought a runebook with marked spots that many copies were made.

If the person was a true craftsman, they would have done what many others did. Explore the game on your own. Mark your found spots and do not share them.
While I am not sure that I found spots no one else knew about. I did find several frostwood spots in Fel that I never saw another soul at.

Then the next agruement is the same tree/mountain spot should run out of ore/wood eventually cause you do not find the same wood/ore in the same static places.
Well this argument is bs too. Look at many real life examples. Many tree species are only found in certain geographical areas (the same places everytime you go there) For example California Redwood trees are -gee- get this only found in the pacfic northwest and no other place on earth, barring the occassional botanical garden setting. And as far as a mountain ore spot running out. There are mines all over the earth were there has being continuous mining for several thousand years for the exact same mineral.

Again it was just players too lazy to find their own spots.

Until these resource changes I had a crafting business (wood containers/stoneware items). Since the change I had to stop taking orders for colored wood items. And making stone items, its impossible to get enough colored stone to make even a small table in a decent amount of time. The only reason that I have any colored ingots at all, is because of my stonecrafting shop. I did not need or want the ingots, just wanted the stone. But I keep my ingots and did not sell them, so I am sitting on a few to use for my one blacksmith to make bods with.

Oh and if you can show me a vendor in luna still sell large quantities of ore/wood. I will be there, cause there not a single one left on Lake Superior. Now I see a few in luna with maybe 1000 ingots (various colors) prices have nearly doubled or tripled. And the only board vendors I see only have the display boards left or just normal wood. But this is for the good of the game right? I have never been so angry at EAMythic as I am about the resource changes. I truly thought about becoming a scripter, because that is the only way to gather a decent amount of resources to fill bods. I never used any resources for the collections, cause after I went and look at them, too me both those places just scream to be scripted.

Oh well, let me get off the old soapbox, safe travels.

__________________
Hope is the first step on the road to disappointment

Magister_Returns

Update for those who care: After a week of steady chopping, my formerly-Yew tree in Malas is still producing Bloodwood.

Shh. Don't tell the devs.

=D

~M