An open letter to management

[van]

ETA: The original post was a bit strident. While I stand behind everything I say below, let me just say how incredibly offensive it is that I'm forced to beg from 9x40s in order to get gems. Particularly, Tuk giving me a Bloodstone as a consolation for not being able to afford his vaulted Rhodochrosites was quite insulting. I'll try some constructive criticism instead, i.e. providing a solution:

1) make runes and gems novault to prevent hoarding
2) significantly increase cost of renting t2 and t3 gems and runes (by which I mean, make them INCREDIBLY expensive to hoard via renting, with the result of sparking greater activity in the gem market
3) greatly increase the poprate of t1 gems, none of which have imbalancing effects
4) allow t3 gems to be bought with drachma, if increased pop rate is not desirable

ORIGINAL MESSAGE:
------------------------
To the imms:

We've had an hour and a half of gem pop turned on (thanks Neptune!), and have cycled Athaeneum during that time, without seeing a single gem. Now, in and of itself, this is RNG, and not indicative. But last week, I hit my highest cumulative weekly total xp without seeing a single gem pop. I led some groups, tanked for others, soloed a moderate amount, and did my best to help new players get xp running low-level xp.

During all those activities, I saw no gem pop. Not one. Nada. Zero. Zilch.

So: the only conclusion is that you've decided gems (even tier1 gems!) should be on par with quest rewards, and therefore the economic playground of 9x40s. People who were around back in the day don't care, as a recent conversation with Calvin (Mirage) has made abundantly clear -- they have their shit, after all. For everyone else, you've effectively removed an entire game element.

Is that really what you're aiming for? I've been asked a few times by newbies how gems work. I tell them, in all honestly, that they shouldn't worry about it. They'll never see them, after all.

If that's how you want it, so be it. But to me, at least, it's incredibly disappointing that forging a Bloodstone Rune -- hell, even POPPING a single Bloodstone gem -- is basically impossible at this point for players engaged in regular activity.

Sincerely,
Van

[*Idjit*]

We need to proceed cautiously, and apply a measure that targets the speculators/hoarders and only the speculators/hoarders.
Some people hang onto one or two runes to have an alternate eq mode for unsocketable 3x40 and drachma eq.
Also legitimate non-hoarders have to wait a long time (even longer under the new repop scheme) to get five tier3's to make a single rune. Going high rent or novault will penalize those people as well as the hoarders.
Something else will need to happen, I'm not sure what.
--Idjit

[van]

Also legitimate non-hoarders have to wait a long time (even longer under the new repop scheme) to get five tier1's to make a single rune.

Fixed that number for you.

[Hung]

If runes forbidden to vault what will happen to absent hoarders? They return one day to find out their vaults are empty of runes? I dont think this is the solution.
I think this problem brings out fundamental conflict beetween creators and players. First get fun from making things, second from consuming them. Now, let's say, a creator doesnt get fun from making a thing, because the thing doesnt work the way it is supposed too. But players do. They pop gems, hoard gems, exchange gems, put them on auction, etc. Players are happy and thankful to creators for implementing this wonderful feature. However the creator is still unhappy. What is the solution? I suggest, the creator should let players have their fun. Who cares that the feature is "wrong" when players are happy?
Of course, I dont know anything. Maybe lowering runes poprate is only one step in something more huge. And in few more steps players will be happy and thankful again. But now many of us feel anger and disappointment. So I think the best solution is just to return old pop rates.

[*Breeze*]

when old machine died, we moved sloth to new machine.
new machine has a different compiler than old machine.
new machine compiler causes gems to pop crazy.
some dishonest people rather than reporting the issue, hoard gems.
special config added to stop gems popping until code is fixed.
code is fixed. we decide to leave gem on/off config in, just in case.

mud rebooted.

someone makes forum post about gems
breeze isn't in the mood to check, but he does it anyways.
breeze sees gems weren't enabled.
breeze enables gems.
breeze doesn't care enough to go into logs to see who turned them off.
breeze emails neptune to tell him how to turn them on and how to check they are on.
breeze goes back to real life

[Hung]

I apologize: I should've ask before pressing charges and stop believing gossips.
Anyway, please, clarify the situation once and for all by answering following questions:
1) When gems are on, do we have same gems poprate as we had before movement to the new server?
2) Are there any plans to change the gems poprate?

[*Breeze*]

1) yes
2) no. Poprate doesn't exist for gems. It's a bit more complicated than that. Read below.

Gems were never meant to be solo.

When Splork added gems into the game he expected people to work together to forge them. Not all the hoarding that's going on.

That's why when I recoded the gem popper a long time ago, I coded it so the bigger the group the better the poprate. Assuming the mob is eligible to pop gems. Pets don't count.

Any lack of gems is probably due to lack of people working together on mobs that challenge them.
ie: 50 people vs a kobold will never pop a gem.

[*Splork*]

Breeze mostly covered the main issue, which is gems are disabled upon reboot. We added a config to enable and disable gems because of the new server stuff. The Gems were disabled upon reboot/crash. When mud reboots/crashes gems need to be turned on by an Immortal. I will fix this as soon as I get home from vacation on Monday. I've been out of town for the past week.

Pop rates are a bit lower, the last I looked gem logs showed probably 6-10 a day and we are perfectly fine with that.

We have only had the new machine for bit over a month. After a few months we will break it down further and see if any changes should be made.

[van]

Well, if it was sincerely a bug, then please accept my apologies for imputing desire where not intended. Does this mean gems have legitimately been NOT on for the full 8 days since reboot?

[DarkArtist]

I think it's funny to attack Tuk because you aren't getting the gem pops you want.

Hoarding? Absurd notion. You got mad at the admin and launched your first salvo against Tuk. Pretty lame. Now that the admin has addressed your concerns perhaps an apology is in order to Tuk for being a hater.

[van]

I think it's funny to attack Tuk because you aren't getting the gem pops you want.

Hoarding? Absurd notion. You got mad at the admin and launched your first salvo against Tuk. Pretty lame. Now that the admin has addressed your concerns perhaps an apology is in order to Tuk for being a hater.

Since when is it an attack to point out that Tuk can be a jerk? I thought this was common mud knowledge. All the mud certainly knows I can be a jerk*.

Tuk's greed was simply something that motivated me to post because I simply couldn't believe the imms would be happy with the recent rate. And lo and behold, there turned out to be a flag not toggled.

But if Tuk does in fact have gems he's not using, and refuses to part with them for non-absurd amounts, then Tuk should look up the definition of hoarding in a dictionary. If Tuk can't handle some mild criticism, perhaps Tuk should not suggest that I spend my available time cycling coins instead of wasting my money on leveling and playing with others, because such behavior is not the way to afford Tuk's gems.

In closing, I'm very sorry Tuk is so sensitive.

Van

* See? Told you I can be a jerk.

[*Breeze*]

Does this mean gems have legitimately been NOT on for the full 8 days since reboot?

Yes that is correct. 3 gem have popped since I enabled them.

I didn't notice the reboot so I didn't turn them back on.
I will ask Neptune to turn on gem pop again for a bit.

I am 2 days away from my PC so I can't log in to do it.

[van]

Yes that is correct

Thanks for confirming, and thanks for fixing the issue. Motivates me to finish the eqlist... I'll try to have something for you to look at when you get back.

[*Breeze*]

a la orden

[Hung]

While we're there, I would like to propose another idea. Add a shop, where one can buy gems for immensive coins prices. Say, 30m for first tier, 10m for 2nd and 5m for third. I understand, it sounds insane. But, please, listen to my reasons.
1) The purpose is to provide another way of obtaining a gem. I understand, gems arent supposed to be solo, while coins are. But still people solo gems. Also, if someone collected 30m, it means he invested a lot of time and effort in the game. Doesnt he deserve a appropriate reward?
2) Unofficialy such shop already exist. But it is complicated. You have to find a person having gem you need. You have to convince him to sale/trade that gem. You have to agree on a price. Implementation of the idea will make things much easier.
3) It wouldn't interfere with the current situation. Hoarders will still have their gems collections lying in the vaults and they wont have to pay a fortune for a rent. And they always can sell it for fair prices at the auction lots, getting rewarded for the work they did.
4) Most importantly, it would greatly reduce(if not destroy at all) "gem gold rush", that penetrates the whole mud.