Mining and Legions

Shirszae

I believe @Sarapis shot down that idea already

Greys

The idea is for permanent loss. I did suggest being able to merge a squad into one of the same or lower lvl as a means of keeping in the spirit of this goal.

Taraus

Aha, I didn't think of it from the loss aspect, that makes sense. I only thought of it from the aspect of seeing a 17-man squad making my left eye want to twitch (I dislike odd numbers unless they're increments of 5).

Dochitha

Can we tune up the coal, there are so much raws now the coal is not catching up...

Rangor

Gonna have to start leaving nodes alone until you get a lucky coal to refine with.:p

Skye

I'd like more coal as well,  but this is now forcing people to evaluate what they want to dig up instead of blindly picking up every and any lode.

Morthif

Sounds like it's close to where @Sarapis wants it then.

Greys

Part of the design I imagine is that there is abundance and scarcity. So far, I don't see any raw mined materials going for a loss on Delos.

Bronislav

@SARAPIS! @TECTON! COME HERE! :chuffed: 

No, seriously, this is just silly. Coal isn't this valuable.

Also, apparently, it costs more to get miners/guards from level 6 to level 7 than it does to get from level 1 to level 5. Is this intentional? Maybe? Kinda? :frown: 

Ruth

It is intentional.

Greys

@Bronislav Heh if you don't think coal is that valuable then time to sell it and only it.

Sasiya

I'm not a miner myself, but I'd like to sort out that realism isn't always the same as fun. It might be more realistic that miners end up with way more raw materials than they can use (due to lack of coal or whatever), but then you're essentially making people participate in a system where they're spending time doing nothing that contributes to making the game itself a better, more fun and enjoyable place to be in. Naturally, I expect some degree of tedium (this is essentially a gold earning mechanism and there needs to be a time vs investment ratio), but please don't forget that this is a game.

I basically just learned of mining a few days ago and thought it sounded super awesome and it looked like the sort of thing I'd want to have in all muds I've played, but as soon as I realized that the cost is probably going to bigger than the payoff, I instantly lost interest. I don't mind spending several hours a day doing engaging in reptitive behaviour (bashing, forging, etc) because I know I'll have something to show for my effort. I guess it's a bit selfish of me, but I sort of want new, shiny, fancy things to be available and beneficial to anyone that wants to participate. Like, I want to be able to tell my RL friends who never played a mud about how cool this new mining feature is, and if they wanted to, they could do it too. I might be under a huge misconception in the regards to the risk factor of mining (I just read the helpfiles that said some people will earn money while others will lose it, and then I read about the lack of coal here), but just wanted to offer my thoughts anyway.

Part of me wishes the system was a bit more intuitive too; what the hell legions this is mining I don't even.

I'm planning on actually giving this a try when I'm not so swamped with RL and I guess I'll offer some more opinions after I've participated.

Tael

Regarding th ecoal issue - I think the solution is to stop mining if you're ending up with more raw materials than you can profit from. I think that's very much intentional. The intent was never supposed to be that every lode would be desirable every time and this is just the system finally getting adjusted in such a way that that's become the reality. It's not that it's realistic that miners end up with more raw materials than they can use, it's that a lot of people are making questionable decisions about what to mine right now.

As for participation, I think there's a lot to be said for systems that are open to everyone, but have competition for scarce rewards.

You have a design problem if someone is discouraged because they feel like it's impossible, regardless of the work they put in and how smart they are about it, for them to ever be the biggest, baddest dude who ever lived.
You don't have a design problem if it's impossible for everyone to be the biggest, baddest dude who ever lived at the same time.

And I think a lot of people are overlooking what mining adds to the game even without everyone being able to profitably participate in it at once. Having characters who are actually legitimate mining magnates offers interesting RP. Put another way, having someone like Jhui around with the staff and all that is good for the game. Having larger than life characters who are more successful than you, who you can look up to, and who you can dream of one day becoming if that's your bag, is good. Problems only arise when you look at Jhui and for some reason it feels so thoroughly impossible that you can't even dream about it. And even then, having those larger-than-life characters still probably enriches the game. The fact that not everyone can earn the staff at the same time is not a design flaw, it's a feature!

Sasiya

Re: Tael

I am sorry but I do not really understand your analogy there. The similarities between the mining system and the staff are pretty much non-existant in my eyes (as in, two completely different things) and I do not see how one is relevant to the importance of the other. And unless you're spending 10+ hours per day doing one specific thing, there's probably going to be someone out there who is more successful than you, who you can look up to, and who you can dream of one day becoming. We already have master bashers, master PK'ers, master fishers/sailers, master crafters, master rp'ers, and so on, and mining will most likely be no different. And frankly, anything can be interesting RP if you choose to make it an important aspect of your character, and have a talent in engaging and immersing people in your character's personality/doings. So, yeah, I have sincere doubts about the RP argument in particular. Of the current top five miners - the initial legitimate mining magnates that you so eloquently put it - who have so far embraced the roles of genuine industrial moguls and shown the world how important their mining imperiums have made them?

Moving on.

It would be possible to have a system where time invested always earned a steady flow of commodities at profitable rates. You spend 60-80 gold per steel bar you obtain, the question is just how many pieces of commodites you would get out of a mining operation per hour invested it. You could have real, physical actual permanent mines in the mountains (and otherwhere) where people went with a pickaxe and chipped away. There could be veins of varying degrees of purity; low quality ore earns less commodities, while superb quality ore earns more. Troops could be stationed outside of mines, protecting them from bandits/enemies/whatever (I honestly can't think of any famous battle that actually took place inside of a mine, because, well, mines aren't exactly good for making warfare in). Logistics, refining, etcetera could be real things, instead of raw commodities automagically being transported to your inventory. Wouldn't it be cool with ore caravans moving from the mountains back home to your city? Also, how cool wouldn't it be with gem mines? Diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and so on and so forth.

I get that Sarapis wanted an exclusive system, I just personally don't really agree with that sort of approach to something as cool and awesome as commodity generation. Again, if anyone could participate at any level (with varying degrees of success, naturally), then you would have one of the most interesting systems I'd ever seen in MUDs. I want to be able to tell people everywhere about how interesting mining is, but if only a handful of people are making money out of it, then it's not interesting anymore. At least not to me, and probably not to anyone else that isn't playing Achaea yet either. "You're probably going to lose money doing this" is a really tough sell when describing awesome game features to outsiders. I can see why it appeals to some people and that's fine to me. We all have different tastes and wants different things from the games we're playing.

The main argument for not making an inclusive system, one where everyone can participate, seems to be the risk of flooding the market with commodities. To that, I have a perfect solution: if supply becomes too high, increase demand. Make stuff cost commodities. Reduce the gold cost for ships, but make people have to hand in a set amount of wood, cloth, iron, and steel to get them built. Put in commodity sinks into the game. Want to create a legion? Well, hiring the men and paying their salaries costs gold, now you need steel, iron, and cloth to outfit them. The list could really be as long as you want it to be, assuming you want to experiment with an economy that is not only based on gold and credits.

EDIT:
Sorry for the lengthy response. I just feel passionately about the MUDs I play and I get a bit carried away when they implement awesome, interesting, special features that only a small percentage of the playerbase will benefit from. In a year from now, 10-15 people running the mining business largely on their own won't have made Achaea a better and more interesting game to play. It just means some people earns a lot of money providing commodities that were previously automatically generated. In a year from now, 50-80 people running the mining business would be something really good for the game. That's the main point I was getting at.

Skye

Without reading any of these tl/dr posts, I'll just say here as someone who actually is mining...

50-80 people would make up around half the game's populace at almost any given time. That does not make mining an industry and an investment heavy project. It just puts it on the same level as the tradeskills, which totally defeats the purpose of presenting mining in this fashion.

At the current rate of stone lodes, there are actually lodes that people are now reluctant to touch, making them excellent starter lodes for mines. Nobody's going to attack a new miner over a stone lode (that isn't huge/massive) at this point unless they really don't like your face/city.

Because of this, I'd say that mining at this point is only really prohibitive in so far as the startup costs and eventual maintenance.

Everything else is a matter of how much time you're willing to put into searching for lodes.

Ruth

I would attack a new miner who has a stone lode that isn't huge/massive. >_> I simply have a love relationship with stone because I am aggressively expanding my estate.

Skye

dude there's so much stone right now that you wouldn't have to attack anyone for it if you catch the relode. People were like, shunning lodes. I've never seen that happen before.

Sasiya

50-80 people in total, not 50-80 people logged on at the same time. How many different people log on to Achaea over the course of a month? 300? 500? 1000?

Draekar

As of this minute for a new miner to buy the commodities from the delos market to build their first large mine (lets be realistic that their only chance of survival is to build a large mine) it will set you back about 115,000 add to that the 24,000 for your squads and then the 1,200-2,000 per hour in mining costs for half to three rl days your mine runs.

Odds are good too that if a established miner sees a nice new large mine with a zero experience miner at the helm you can kiss that all goodbye.

If you aren't interested in that risk, mining isn't for you.

Just hit up one of the top 20 miners in game and spend your gold directly on mining our rifts

It is a win win for everyone!

Bronislav

Yeah, the price of refined comms are just going to keep rising until we get a hefty coal relode. :frown: 

Tharvis

just did a sweep, no coal lodes literally anywhere

Draekar

Coal has been spawning every month at different times. You don't always notice it because most of them deplete so fast. (a bunch did just spawn 2-3 hours ago)

There isn't nearly enough coal to refine all the other comms spawning each month (not even enough to refine half) but there seems to be plenty of coal to meet needs, just not the wants.

There are a lot of good and bad aspects to this current situation, I am quite interested to see if this is the intended path for mining or if more changes will come.

Watchman

Skye said:

dude there's so much stone right now that you wouldn't have to attack anyone for it if you catch the relode. People were like, shunning lodes. I've never seen that happen before.

It is a great thing for new miners. Whether or not it would/will persist if coal spawn rates were adjusted is another thing entirely though.

Sarapis

Sasiya said:

50-80 people in total, not 50-80 people logged on at the same time. How many different people log on to Achaea over the course of a month? 300? 500? 1000?

I don't actually know offhand in a month, but it's around 800 per rl day.

Sarapis

Sasiya said:

It would be possible to have a system where time invested always earned a steady flow of commodities at profitable rates. You spend 60-80 gold per steel bar you obtain, the question is just how many pieces of commodites you would get out of a mining operation per hour invested it. 

We already have ways to make money like that, where you hit some buttons and get pretty much guaranteed profit. Bashing, for instance.

Not much point in making another system that does the same thing but is far more vulnerable to seconds abuse! (Also, proposing trading gold sinks en masse for comm sinks is the same thing as proposing raising the price of credits on the credit market - is that really what you want?)

Greys

Any way we can get a way to peacefully transfer ownership of a mine? Right now when I want to do it I just have to recall my legions and have the person attack it. It works, just would be nice to have a cleaner method.

Plus, would allow sale of the mines then.

Sasiya

Sarapis said:

Also, proposing trading gold sinks en masse for comm sinks is the same thing as proposing raising the price of credits on the credit market - is that really what you want?

This part here actually confused me. If people need more gold, wouldn't they try to sell credits, which means there would be more credit on the market, which means credit prices would go down? Am I missing something here?

EDIT:
The point of my post was more "creating a deeply complex and interesting commodity system that only a few percent of the playerbase will profit from isn't nearly as awesome as a system where as many people as wanted to could get involved if they desired" than "let's create a new deepsea fishing system for metals". I genuinely believe that including more people than less is the best approach to creating an actual community based around game. I'd rather see a sort of western gold rush thing where lots of people participate and earn profit (ranging from small profits to really good profits) than a mining magnate oligarchy, because I believe the former works better in the sort of multiplayer game that Achaea is while the latter only benefits a select few players.

Tharvis

Sasiya said:

Sarapis said:

Also, proposing trading gold sinks en masse for comm sinks is the same thing as proposing raising the price of credits on the credit market - is that really what you want?

This part here actually confused me. If people need more gold, wouldn't they try to sell credits, which means there would be more credit on the market, which means credit prices would go down? Am I missing something here?

Mostly the part where people are greedy and credits won't drop below 6K per credit regardless of the credit market saturation - and people are currently selling credits 'lower' for quick gold, to buy the commodities. So yes, prices would rise slightly, most likely.

Sasiya

For some reason, I always sort of assumed that more gold in player hands = more credits being bought off the market. I guess economics isn't my strong side.

Sarapis

Tharvis said:

Sasiya said:

Sarapis said:

Also, proposing trading gold sinks en masse for comm sinks is the same thing as proposing raising the price of credits on the credit market - is that really what you want?

This part here actually confused me. If people need more gold, wouldn't they try to sell credits, which means there would be more credit on the market, which means credit prices would go down? Am I missing something here?

Mostly the part where people are greedy and credits won't drop below 6K per credit regardless of the credit market saturation - and people are currently selling credits 'lower' for quick gold, to buy the commodities. So yes, prices would rise slightly, most likely.

That's not greedy, it's just supply and demand. You may as well accuse people who won't pay 8k/credit of being greedy because they won't part with their gold at that price.