Money in the bank

Bill Roper just highlighted  some directions for the economy changes that the people over at Cryptic have in store for the game. It’s interesting to note that the intent of the retcon price is to allow minor changes. I remember reading before that they wanted the resource gained during each level to be equal to retconning 5 things. I really do like the fact that he goes into a bit more depth on the concepts and intentions for what their reasoning is behind the changes their making. Overall, resource intake will be increased, by way of more resources from mob kills, and resale of gear skewed towards whites.

Keeping an eye on the economy of  a game is an important task to the longevity of the game. Even Jeff Hickman acknowledged  it as a weak point in WAR, and an area that has caused them harm. Their attempt to stomp out gold sellers and reduce the reliance on grinding for money had a deleterious effect of removing a good portion of the social aspect of the game itself. To see how important economic forces are to shape player behavior, just look at Eve, which is like an accountants wet-dream. I originally thought that having no discernable economy in WAR was going to be a good thing, and in some ways I was right. I loved not having to worry about money, but it also removed some of the pressure needed to acquiring new things.  Eventually WAR corrected this a bit by introduction of tokens, which is really just another form of currency, but without the benefit of being a currency that can be traded. It was a half step a corrective course, wasn’t enough to bring to the game an economy that the community could get behind.

In any matter, it’s good news for both games, as we can see CO is taking steps to improve the situation, and WAR has recognized the need in theirs. I leaves me hoping for good things in both of my two games.

Gear Grind?

I don’t get it.

I’ve been reading in a few places lately, about people who are upset with the obtaining of gear in WAR. In particular, the obtainment of PvP gear. If you’ll look back over my blogging history, you’ll see that I got my full Annihilator set in less than a month, Sentinel I got shortly after. My Darkpromise/Conqueror took a bit, but that’s not because I was having bad luck with drops, it was my inability to get into a group to do Lost Vale and the fact that my server rarely sees fortress captures. All of this was before the implementation of the token system. So what’s the problem?

Tokens, and Scarabs, and Skeletons, oh my!

As I’m sure we’re all well aware, the Live Event is today in its fourth day after release, and the recent update of 1.2.1 has been out for about a week now, and this is going to be my post going over my impressions of the two systems as a whole. I’ve had time to experience and really digest what the changes from 1.2.1 have made to the game, and I have been all the way through this most recent of live events, so I think I can discuss it without qualm now.

Bought damn time

This.

I don’t know about your server, but on mine, it’s a freakin’ standstill. We’ve had a grand total of 4 city attacks, if my memory serves. I also believe I mentioned before  how the new hotness is to open up a Fortress for attack, and then farm belts. Tokens, as they seem to be getting implemented, are a huge boon to my server, and may bring back life to this game for me. A large portion of my frustration has been an inability to advance in ANY aspect of the end-game. PvE dungeons, RvR campaign, or gear progression. All of these avenues have been blockaded on my road to uber-ness.