Fallaciously Fabulous
(?)Community Member
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- Posted: Sun, 06 Sep 2009 12:07:40 +0000
While in a thread yesterday about the potential of a ring trading system to prevent people being unable to play after salvaging their only attack ring, an idea dawned on me.
Their suggestion was as most are..."Make it possible to trade rings within the game so they stay soulbound, but people can get the rings they want." Those of us who know the way soulbinding works and the way people are sneaky will tell you that this will simply lead to people making "off the book" trades. Trade for the ring they want in game, but then completing a gold trade out of game to get the rings they want and give the other user their payment.
Now, here's my solution. Create a "Ring Pool."
The concept is simple, take the users out of the trading equation. Create a system to allow users to donate their unwanted rings to the "Ring Pool" and then let other users who are looking for a certain ring be given the chance to obtain it semi-randomly.
It would work this way. User approaches the NPC who monitors the "Barton Town Ring Pool" and the conversation will continue:
"Would you like to choose a ring?" Click Yes.
"Which type of ring would you like to receive?" Choose from one of ring types, Close Range Attack, Crowd Control, etc. This user selects Ranged Attack Ring.
"You reach your hand into the Ranged Attack Ring bucket and grab hold of a ring."
You have received a new Heavy Water Balloon Ring.
All rings would be CL 1 to prevent people using the pool to get rings to salvage for orbs. There would also be at least a 2 week time limit to prevent over use of the system. Also, there would be a quest in Barton Town to introduce you to the ring pool and its concept early in the game. Lastly, and this is where things got tricky in brainstorming within the thread mentioned above, is the advantages and disadvantages of adding rings to the pool vs. not. One suggestion was to create incentive by reducing the wait time by a day or two if you donate rings to the system. Another was to increase wait times for those who do not donate. 2 months of no donations increases your wait time to 3 weeks, another month makes it 4 weeks, etc.
There was also a suggestion of using orbs as payment to be able to "reach into the bucket" for a ring.
Great idea by The Crowned Empress:
I do like the idea of not being time limited, but by number. With 2 or 3 "free" choices in game and then an incentive to donate your rings to the pool rather than salvaging by increasing the number of rings you can remove there would always be a surplus of rings within the pool.
Their suggestion was as most are..."Make it possible to trade rings within the game so they stay soulbound, but people can get the rings they want." Those of us who know the way soulbinding works and the way people are sneaky will tell you that this will simply lead to people making "off the book" trades. Trade for the ring they want in game, but then completing a gold trade out of game to get the rings they want and give the other user their payment.
Now, here's my solution. Create a "Ring Pool."
The concept is simple, take the users out of the trading equation. Create a system to allow users to donate their unwanted rings to the "Ring Pool" and then let other users who are looking for a certain ring be given the chance to obtain it semi-randomly.
It would work this way. User approaches the NPC who monitors the "Barton Town Ring Pool" and the conversation will continue:
"Would you like to choose a ring?" Click Yes.
"Which type of ring would you like to receive?" Choose from one of ring types, Close Range Attack, Crowd Control, etc. This user selects Ranged Attack Ring.
"You reach your hand into the Ranged Attack Ring bucket and grab hold of a ring."
You have received a new Heavy Water Balloon Ring.
All rings would be CL 1 to prevent people using the pool to get rings to salvage for orbs. There would also be at least a 2 week time limit to prevent over use of the system. Also, there would be a quest in Barton Town to introduce you to the ring pool and its concept early in the game. Lastly, and this is where things got tricky in brainstorming within the thread mentioned above, is the advantages and disadvantages of adding rings to the pool vs. not. One suggestion was to create incentive by reducing the wait time by a day or two if you donate rings to the system. Another was to increase wait times for those who do not donate. 2 months of no donations increases your wait time to 3 weeks, another month makes it 4 weeks, etc.
There was also a suggestion of using orbs as payment to be able to "reach into the bucket" for a ring.
Great idea by The Crowned Empress:
The Crowned Empress
I wouldn't limit this by time, I would limit this to number. Say you only get five chances to reach into the ring pool before you can't anymore.
Five is generous. Maybe three, if that. I don't know why people would donate their unwanted rings when they could just salvage them, so if you relied only on that, there wouldn't be many rings in the pool at all to begin with. There wouldn't be much of a chance to get the ring you wanted if no one is donating. See my point?
Maybe this idea should be turned into something more of a Lost and Found. Where an NPC, Like nicolae...this would be right up his alley..."finds" some rings, but he will only let you take three if you don't already have a ring of that kind in your inventory.
Five is generous. Maybe three, if that. I don't know why people would donate their unwanted rings when they could just salvage them, so if you relied only on that, there wouldn't be many rings in the pool at all to begin with. There wouldn't be much of a chance to get the ring you wanted if no one is donating. See my point?
Maybe this idea should be turned into something more of a Lost and Found. Where an NPC, Like nicolae...this would be right up his alley..."finds" some rings, but he will only let you take three if you don't already have a ring of that kind in your inventory.
I do like the idea of not being time limited, but by number. With 2 or 3 "free" choices in game and then an incentive to donate your rings to the pool rather than salvaging by increasing the number of rings you can remove there would always be a surplus of rings within the pool.