Protomodules

[quicklite]

Apr 24, 2013 11:30:48 GMT -5 rob said:

Nobody is interested in a super rare item that does nothing. I'm talking about real items.

As for rarity and random drops being no fun, first of all I disagree. Second of all, we are working on plans to make trading much more efficient and less aggravating, so you can trade for whatever you can't seem to make drop. We feel the system we are envisioning (more details in a later post) would eliminate begging, shouting in the nexus and black-market stores. It would actually resemble EVE's item economy in many ways.

Meh, it's fine that you disagree, because a lot of people would agree with you. An opinion's an opinion, and if you've got a plan to do the super-rare thing AND to elimanate begging/shouting/black marketing and whatnot, I'd be really interested to see it, and (I think) so would many other people. What I was suggesting is that you could have super rare items being rare through effort instead of luck. But both my and you opinions have upsides and downsides, and I'm fine with that. But why not both? Maybe have super-rare items through crafting and through random drops? However, if you were already planning this, then....yay :3

The real-world timer we are discussing is not like Evony or Travian or other MMORTS games where someone destroys your city at 3AM. We are not making FarmVille. All we are saying is that when you pick up an item, you have 24 hours to decide whether you want to keep it. It just takes 2 minutes at the end of your session to stick the item in your vault.

Oh. Huh. My bad, then. Thank God

But the concept still confuses me. So, you put it in your vault, and then what? Do you decide to equip it there? Do you get to take it out for another 24 hours and then put it back again? Are these still collectibles that we're talking about here? Or does the item do the thing it does to your tank, well, from the vault?

I was feeling lazy and couldn't be bothered to multiquote, so I just replied in bold in the quote

[hypevosa]

I think you misunderstand what we're trying to say. Go ahead and have random drops. Have some drops be rarer than others. What we're saying is please, for the love of god, don't have insanely rare drops. Don't have anything that is so disparagingly rare that people can see a 15 dollar price tag on the virtual item from a black-market store and go "Yeah, I'll never get that, so I might as well buy it." Trust me when I say that black market will always find a way if you cause enough demand for items without giving some certainty as to supply.

I'm imagining a grand exchange idea like what is in Runescape now - and I love the grand exchange, but realize it's not a foolproof system that will eliminate black market trading.

Example: Quicklite wants my doombow module and offers 10 dollars through paypal, he pays me, but I can't give the item to him directly through trade. So we both go to the Grid Exchange. He puts up common item A he has for my doombow module, no sane person would make that trade in reality, so when I put up the same offer in reverse, he gets my bow.

If you try to counter that by saying currency only, he puts up common item A for 10,000,000 gridshards, something no one would pay for it (and even if they do, he gets the money anyways. I put in that offer to buy, pay the 10,000,000 gridshards, and then put up my doombow module for 10,000,000 gridhsards, he uses the money I just gave him to buy my item, again, we all win.

Limiting item prices to certain ranges just destroys the idea of a free market all together - suddenly all items are being bought up at the highest price by people with insane cash, or no one buys an item because even at its lowest value it's not worth buying.

I've seen ALL these eventualities in the runescape marketplace back when price ranges in the G.E. were limited, and it is not fun, at all.

If you have player trading of any sort, you cannot prevent grey markets of any sort from popping up. The only thing you can do is limit the DEMAND for said grey markets. That is why I feel going the route of uber-rares is folly.

If you're going to make something rare, make it rare because it's hard to accomplish, but can be done, not because the RNG hates you, and there will be far less grey market demand from otherwise legitimate players.

[lordmyron]

I "used" a protomodule and nothing happened?

[Deleted]

...
This thread is almost 2 years old.

Using a protomodule isn't supposed to do anything except create sparkles. It doesn't really matter if it's broken.

[quicklite]

Feb 16, 2015 0:30:32 GMT -5 @cardz said:

...
This thread is almost 2 years old.

Using a protomodule isn't supposed to do anything except create sparkles. It doesn't really matter if it's broken.

Pretty much. I'll also add that protomods aren't really legit 'items' anymore. As you may have guessed by reading through this old thread, rob initially introduced them as a way to test and implement the item system (which was new around this time). They originally did nothing, but rob added the sparkle thing cardz mentioned around a month after their implementation. Basically, protomods are just consumables that create a pretty, non-damaging explosion, and higher level protommods create bigger explosions. However, since protomods were just for testing purposes only, rob removed them from the drop table (to my dismay ) but kept the protomods people already owned. So the protomods on the market, though worthless by nature, are really pricey simply because they are the last protomods that will ever exist in the game (unless hacks/exploits, which will hopefully not happen)

Hope that clears things up for ya ^^

(Man, this thread is kinda nostalgia inducing. I miss having tar and hype around >_<)