Jump to content
Eternal Lands Official Forums

Llywar

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Content count

    157

  • Joined

  • Last visited

Posts posted by Llywar

  2. Posted · Report reply

    The real issue isn't the price of the EFEs, but the cost of them relative to what you can do with them. If people are willing to pay 7k for an EFE it is obviously because they have something useful they can do with them. The real impact is on items that can't be sold for profit at those EFE costs.

     

    For example - suppose an EFE is an incidental ingredient to a 70k item. Maybe a sword that takes a few hydro bars and an EFE. The price of that item is really dictated by the hydro and not so much by the EFE, so a little fluctuation in EFE prices doesn't impact them much. People will still pay a few more k for the EFE since there is still a profit. However, that raises the cost of EFEs, which then impacts the price of low-cost items which use a single EFE that drives the entire cost of the item (such as iron armor).

     

    Another example would be EMEs and the saving stone. A saving stone is in theory worth up to the price of the most expensive thing you can make (to whoever makes it). The only rare ingredient in its manufacture is the EME (granted the other ingreds are tedious but completely harvestable). If I have the bazillion flowers it takes to make a saving stone and they cost me 30k to harvest, and I need to make a CoL, then I'd be willing to pay up to 15k each in theory for the two EMEs I need to make the stone (ok, in reality all this gets adjusted for fail rates). If you need those EMEs for something else with not nearly as much profit attached then you're going to be annoyed with me bidding 15k on them.

     

    The only way to prevent the kinds of effects would be to use ingreds for either low-value, medium-value, or high-value items, and not mix them. So, no thread or mere EFEs in a 125k piece of armor. That will avoid putting newbies or med-level characters into bidding wars with uber-level players.

     

    On the other hand the way things are currently is more like the real world. The price a homeowner pays for electricity is in part impacted by the demand for electricity by some aluminum smelter 50 miles away (who uses more power than a city). Try to buy a place to live in the suburbs if you are on a poverty level income - you're bidding against two-income middle-class families. Then again, this is a game so we don't want it to be completely realistic either. I "grind" all day at work so why would I want to do that in a game?

     

    As far as bots-being-to-blame goes - I don't buy it. If anything bots keep selling prices down and buying prices up. If I saw that an item sold on market for 3k I'd probably have my bot buy it for 2.8k and sell it for 3.2k. People will sell to a bot for LESS than they would to a person, because the bot saves them all the trouble of finding somebody to sell it to. And ultimately bots work for their owners. If they didn't exist their owners would be charging the same prices themselves. Bots can't charge arbitrary prices either - if they buy for too much they lose money on every purchase. However, it might be the case that the bot owner has a more profitable use for an item than you do, so they can charge more.

  3. Posted · Report reply

    I'm trying to create a gentoo ebuild for the latest update (btw, thanks for tagging 1.5!). During compilation I'm getting some errors that appear to be the result of an unresolved opengl symbol:

     

    In file included from 2d_objects.c:9:
load_gl_extensions.h:281: error: expected '=', ',', ';', 'asm' or '__attribute__
' before 'ELglUniformMatrix2x3fv'

     

    Here is the relevant portion of load_gl_extensions.h:

     

    /*	  GL_VERSION_2_1		  */
extern PFNGLUNIFORMMATRIX2X3FVPROC ELglUniformMatrix2x3fv;
extern PFNGLUNIFORMMATRIX2X4FVPROC ELglUniformMatrix2x4fv;
extern PFNGLUNIFORMMATRIX3X2FVPROC ELglUniformMatrix3x2fv;
extern PFNGLUNIFORMMATRIX3X4FVPROC ELglUniformMatrix3x4fv;
extern PFNGLUNIFORMMATRIX4X2FVPROC ELglUniformMatrix4x2fv;
extern PFNGLUNIFORMMATRIX4X3FVPROC ELglUniformMatrix4x3fv;
/*	  GL_VERSION_2_1		  */

     

    I greped some other symbols in that file and found that they are defined in /usr/include/SDL/SDL_opengl.h. I can't find these symbols defined in even the most recent stable release of libsdl (1.2.12). Is there a new dependency for this release? I'll admit to knowing virtually nothing about opengl programming which obviously doesn't help!

     

    Anybody who can build elc should be able to look at what their include directories are during compilation, and grep for one of those symbols above (such as "PFNGLUNIFORMMATRIX2X3FVPROC") to find what file it is included in. Then use whatever tool is appropriate on your distro to find out where that file came from.

     

    Thanks in advance. Once I get this working I'll submit the ebuild for inclusion in gentoo.

  8. Posted · Report reply

    Ok, I need bear furs, and I'm not 100% sure on market price.

     

    So - I'll offer 10k gc, and folks can bid on how many furs they want to sell me for that price.

     

    I'll start the bidding at 300 furs - or 33gc each. If my offering 20kgc will get me a better price let me know and I might make the pot bigger...

     

    Most furs offered gets the sale...

  14. Posted · Report reply

    Wish I hadn't missed it - I never participate in invasions since I'm only around 40 a/d. However, gargs would be fair game for me (as long as it isn't multi-combat 1-on-10), and it would be fun to try one out. Just give the high-level chars something else to do so they don't wipe out the gargs in 3 seconds...

  15. Posted · Report reply

    I'm still a bit torn on this update. I think it is a great idea because it makes the game a little less deterministic: No longer does the person with the better stats always end up on top at all times. Everybody has good and bad days, and even Kasparov loses the occasional game.

     

    However, I'm a bit concerned about one aspect of the system - the predictability. I've been gathering data with the goal of reverse-engineering the system. I've already done some preliminary curve fits and once I have data for a few more days I'll probably have enough to predict stats out quite a ways (the technique is inherently error-prone though and will need occasional feedback to recalibrate it for drift).

     

    From a personal challenge standpoint I like it - I'm into math. I'm not sure I like it from a gameplay standpoint though. Why make people pull out spreadsheets to figure out what their stats are that day? Why give people a huge advantage just because they've taken the time to work out the equations and keep it to themselves (I'm guessing Entropy doesn't want the algorithm publicized and might change it if it gets out). Maintaining a spreadsheet doesn't really add any game enjoyment for me, and I don't really want to create a stats-prediction service for hire in-game (although that is an obvious source of potential revenue).

     

    I think I'd actually prefer it if the numbers were kept completely secret, and stones might just give you a hint ("you feel like you might get lucky harvesting today", etc). The stones might even be wrong some percentage of the time. The equation parameters for the stat modifiers would be tweaked on occasion to prevent reverse-engineering. The random factor would basically just add a little variety to gameplay so that some days you end up being better as a figher/mixer/harvester/whatever than others.

     

    That gets rid of the advantage of creating spreadsheets, and consequently gets rid of the work of creating them in the first place. I already feel like I spend a little too much time calculating emu/ingredient ratios before making mining trips. A little less precision in-game might be a good thing.

     

    (Another suggestion would be to get rid of reporting exact emu levels - just give things approximate weights and then vary people's carrying capacities over time - maybe on the return trip from the mine you might be able to carry a little more than on the outward journey, or vice-versa. The goal wouldn't be to carry every last possible piece of ore.)

     

    I have a minor in math and have no trouble at all working out exactly how many boars I can summon taking into account starting mana, free emu, need for SRs and their weight, effect of arena/cloak, expected fail rate, etc. But, that isn't really a medevil-fantasy game to me - I can't picture Llywar the elf calculating exactly how many snake skins can be rammed into a backpack 50 x 100 x 40 cm in size, with the weight of boots and a necklace taken into account. It is a bit out-of-character, even if my ability to work the numbers gives me a minor advantage over those who just wing it. It just doesn't feel like a fantasy game - more like pre-calculating fuel load on a flight simulator or something like that...

  16. Posted · Report reply

    I think that once I understand the pattern and can predict where I'm at (assuming #da goes away), I'll be able to cope with the changes. However, it could get painful at times. For example - I might be +6 a/d - a great time to try a new monster out. However, maybe my magic is so low that I can't even cast restoration any longer.

     

    I'm also the sort of person who plays EL from time to time when I have a chance to - I pretty-much NEVER sign onto EL at a particular time for any particular reason dictated by the game (so I don't get to participate much in big events / etc). That means that if I can predict that at some time I'll be the uber-stats-lord in EL it won't do me much good. At best I can really just figure out the best use for my time at the moment that I sign on.

     

    I like the fact that this adds variety to the game, and it looks like given a few more days data I should have the algorithm reverse-engineered. However, in spite of all this I might just end up taking that perk in the long-run. The fact is that with the frequency that I play I'll probably never be more than bait on PK maps so getting a +20 net a/d/acc/hit/dmg/etc bonus against the top-10 PKers list isn't really going to make much of a difference. Maybe if the difference were +50/-50 I'd have a chance... :icon13:

     

    However, I'm sure that longer-term the algorithm will be public and it won't really give any net-advantage to anybody in PK - people will just go out in KF on their best days, looking for people who are weak, but mostly finding people who are strong and the occasional mercury harvester... :P

  18. Posted · Report reply

    I'd be the first to agree that as items are added to the game there will tend to be a need for more storage space, but I don't think we're in a crisis currently. I think that storage limits are just like emu limits or any other type of limit - they encourage creative play. I don't think you need a day planner to do this (and Tirum - a day timer is just a particular brand of day planner...). If you want to make saving stones you don't need to have 40k of every ingredient on hand - buy extracts from lower-level potters and then you cut out half of the ingreds. Or just make a few extracts at a time until they're stocked up, then make the stones from there. From the prices people are discussing for saving stones I think you could afford to buy some of the ingreds when you need them...

     

    As far as classed/classless goes - I agree with a previous post that EL certainly meets the definition of a classless game as-is. In a typical classed game you pick a character class at the beginning, and that greatly limits the direction your character can take. It might be an all-arounder-type class, but then it will progress slowly. It might be an uber-fighter, and it might not even be able to cast healing spells, or only cast them at a sacrifice to fighting power. EL is more classless than it is classed, although the use of PPs does allow for character individualization. If you wanted a purely classless game you might get rid of PPs and just look at skill levels and OA level - with all attributes/perks/nexus/etc being based on OA levels - two different chars with the same OA would have the EXACT same attributes (except maybe for skill levels). Personally, I like the hybrid approach that EL takes.

     

    Compared to PPs the storage slot limits are an almost trivial barrier to all-arounders. If you can manage to live with having to sink so many points into nexus had having low emu as a result, you certainly can live with not being able to store every item in the game. Just don't try to do EVERYTHING in a one-hour period - even if you switch skills once per day the storage limits aren't going to be a big deal.

     

    I agree that storing books for in-guild use/etc is a bit of a limitation. If a book isn't very rare you could just sell it on-market I suppose and then buy it back when needed. For rare books obviously you'll want to hang onto them, but from what I've seen most guilds aren't giving away these books left and right anyway. And hyper bags are a reasonable solution to the book problem (it might be nice if the game tracked them for you, so that you don't need a ton of records outside the game for this - a hyper-bag mapwalking feature might be nice as well (perhaps a possible source of macro-abuse though)). My suggestion on hyper-bags wasn't directed at an all-arounder so much as at somebody's comment in this discussion that they are trying to keep one of every item they've ever made in store - hyperbags would be a fine solution for that (if you absolutely must save things just for the sake of saving them).

     

    I don't think this discussion has really turned up anything new in the last few rounds - obviously there are some who take both sides in this debate. For me a game is just a construct designed to make things fun - the rules/limitations serve to make the game non-trivial/boring like tic-tac-toe. Removing any and all barriers to massive levelling so that everybody can make every item in game after a month of play will just leave everybody bored. While it might be annoying at times I like the fact that I can't just do anything and everything in-game - that is the whole point of the game.

     

    Sure, anything that could get rid of the grind would be good. However, I think the grind is more a matter of player psychology than anything else. Maybe having lots of creative content would help lower the grind-rate, but that isn't practical for the game creators. I'm not sure anything could make a game seem less like work for those absolutely determined to make it more like work (just think how much worse this would be if you COULD make money IRL from the game!)...

  19. Posted · Report reply

    I wouldn't call the concern about nobody interacting a matter of "paranoia". However, it is certainly a concern. People complain about the EL economy, and then they complain that it is hard to do everything on their own. Well, the economy is nothing more than the interactions between characters - so anything that encourages trade furthers the economy.

     

    You can still do everything on your own in EL, but you can get ahead faster if you work well with others. This is good for the game.

     

    I still have something around 75 storage slots free - I'm not really sure what people are doing to fill so many slots. Sure, if you want to literally collect items/armors/etc then that is a problem. But use hyperbags if you just need lots of slots and don't care about convenience - stick them behind some tree in the middle of nowhere and nobody will find them.

     

    Lots of stuff in-game would become easier without any limits. Do you need a day-timer to plan a mining run so as to have the right ratio of food/ingreds/free space? Do you need a day-timer to plan a hydro run so as to have all the stuff you need on-hand as well as enough S2Es to make the trip worth it? Do you need a day-timer to plan a day of training so that you have enough spares/potions/essences/rings with space for loot? Why not just get rid of emu limits entirely and then nobody has to think about such things?

     

    Sure, as the number of items increases a few more storage slots would probably be good. However, I don't think there is a big problem with the game as-is. If you're getting full just type #sto, copy/paste into a market post, and have a storage sale...

  20. Posted · Report reply

    Well, if nothing else people will start offering EMEs and a pile of gold in trade. Some crafter will be willing to take only a modest sum if they're being handed everything on a silver platter. And if crafters really do succeed in getting the price up to 75k then people will refuse to sell EMEs for less than about 40k. They'll be worth more than that as ransom for the crafters.

     

    It all works out in the end - if you even have 5 crafters able to make the product I doubt that the price could be kept high no matter what trusts get created...

  21. Posted · Report reply

    Ah, the beauty of the market. Who sets the price - buyer or seller? The answer of course is BOTH! Without one of each no sales take place.

     

    I have every confidence it will all work itself out. If nobody can agree on a price then it probably means the ingreds are too expensive and nobody will make the stones. In that case Ent would be advised to change the ingreds - but probably only after waiting a while to see how things work out.

     

    Since one of the goals of the saving stone is to create demand for high-level potion items I'd focus on making the potioning ingreds the more expensive part of the final product. Adding too many EMEs/etc to the formula raises the prices which puts downward pressure on the potion components - since those prices are more flexible.

  22. Posted · Report reply

    I think that the general concept of drops when dying is important - otherwise there is no real "cost to dying".

     

    However, the 40% drop rate that currently exists might be a bit high. Or maybe not...

     

    And having a no-drop PK arena might be a good idea - that is more about sport than gameplay in any case. However, most areas of the game should be normal drop rate.

  23. Posted · Report reply

    I don't think multiplay will solve ANY of these problems. All it will do is give people a ton of free emu and effective free PPs (they can have 5 specialists). They'll advance in levels MUCH faster as a result. Then they'll hit the same barriers they're hitting now. The only difference is that we'll be complainging about how it is 100M xp between levels instead of 10M, and how you can't make a profit on anything because iron ore costs 0.1gc each while everything made from it costs 0.05gc/ore.

     

    The issue is the grind - people want xp, and they're willing to suffer a loss of gc to get it. You can't have 2k players in EL and have 2/3rds of them want to make 30 suits of armor a day. At least, not unless we make armor fall apart on every other hit (and guess what that will do to the prices!). The only way to have that kind of volume of production is to have NPCs buy items for more than cost. And that can create a gc surplus if one isn't careful.

     

    In some sense I guess this is like real life - there are a lot more people making $8/hr than $45/hr, although if people could play "Real Life - the game" they wouldn't be specializing in burger-flipping. Likewise in EL we'd all like to sit down and make 25 CoLs every day for mega-profit, but the game just can't support that (at least not without making the CoL such a commonplace item that nobody would want to bother making it any longer).

     

    I'd love to see fixes for some of the economic problems EL has, but I'm not sure what they would be. I don't think that multiplaying will solve anything though. You'll just have lots of lag as armies of drones walk across the maps hauling stuff. Why not just give everybody 1000 more emu for free, or drop the weight of every item by a factor of 10 and lower all the recommended levels? That will make the game "easier" in some sense, but then we'll all complain about how there is nothing to strive for.

     

    I like the fact that there are tons of items in the game that I can't make - it gives me something to work towards.

  24. Posted · Report reply

    I'm afraid I disagree with Tirun... :)

     

    I think that it SHOULD be a tradeoff when you spend PPs on one thing or another. EL may be classless, but that doesn't mean that all characters in the game should be identical. The goal of the game isn't to make everybody self-sufficient so that nobody needs to work together at all. In my opinion part of the value of the game is when people have to work together - otherwise it is just a single-player game with other people running around being annoying by competing for spawns...

     

    To me the point of EL isn't being #1 in every skill at the same time. It isn't even being #1 in ANY skill (I don't play nearly often enough and I'm so far behind from the start that this isn't remotely achievable for me anyway). To me the game is a framework for having fun.

     

    I think that if you choose to be an all-arounder that should be a compromise. If you choose to sink so many PPs into nexuses so that you can summon/alch/harvest/manufacture/craft every item in the game then you should end up with low emu/p/c/etc as a result. Then you'll end up buying tons of stuff from harvesters who have more emu (and who in turn depend on you to mix everything for them).

     

    I think that the game should be structured so that somebody who has chosen one specialty and has played for 3 years can team up with somebody who has played for only 6 months but with a different specialty - so that both can benefit. Players who have been around for a long time shouldn't be SO far ahead in EVERY aspect of the game that they're essentially independant.

     

    I like the fact that EL is classless, but that doesn't mean that it should be free from any and all decisions. There is always #reset or stones if you make a mistake (and I'm all for having perk-removal stones as well - as long as obvious potential abuses are prevented). If there is some item I need that it just doesn't make sense for me to make then I can always pay somebody else to make it for me. If somebody has chosen to sink a bunch of PPs into an unpopular or less beneficial nexus they can charge a premium when people need something that they can make.

     

    I for one don't think that EL is getting "too hard" - it is just that as you hit higher levels you get into diminishing returns. Maybe for me it takes forever to get from OA 68-69, and for you that pain doesn't come until OA 119 - either way at some point everybody starts hitting the max they can rapidly achieve with a given time investment. That is just part of the game. It only seems painful if your only satisfaction is in getting levels. Instead you might be better off investing in newbies and team activities (and EL would benefit from there being more opportunities here).

     

    I like antisocial and multiplaying just the way they are now. I like to potion and manufacture quite a bit and not having Trik or the vial seller would be a major pain - so I don't take antisocial. That gives me a 10PP penalty, but it gives me other advantages. If somebody is willing to give up the NPCs they can get 10 levels ahead of me "for free", but there is a price. And if you get tired of it there is always #reset if you want a complete career change.

     

    Personally, I like being an all-arounder - I like to vary things from time to time. But in no way do I expect to have the same advantages of a specialist - I'll never have the p/c, or the emu of a specialist. On the other hand, I can make many medium-level items completely from scratch and save a lot of cost. Maybe I'll reset and change my mind some day, or use stones. But I don't think that EL needs to start handing out free PPs just so that I can get an emu boost. (And it would be annoying if EVERYBODY essentially had to get antisocial and leave an alt parked next to the various NPCs just to be competitive - why not just skip the perk and just give everybody free PPs instead?)

×