CP sale, with inclusion of other incoherent rambling.

[Arokh]

Well the end of SGA, and after relatively hardcore hunting with fairly good odds, what did I get? Suffice to say theres less SGA items in my inventory than property deeds in a hobos pocket. Surprise, surprise, yet another event passes where no items appear in my loot window. Honestly, all I wanted was like Pixie shins, or a FAP5 SGA. Something to say 'hey look, your avatar DOES have the ability to loot event items!'

However I'm not really that disheartened, since instead of an item, I got a 1.5K HoF that allowed the purchase of them. So... that kind of counts.

Being a strong believer in individual avatar luck / loot modifiers, part of me is really considering chipping out and transferring everything to a new avatar. At the moment I'm calculating the cost, figuring out where I'd stand with 10% skill loss... and if it would be worth it in the end. Would be gutted if it didn't work. Then again it's all down to risk. It's a 50-50 chance, pretty good odds... but so was SGA, and I know how well that turned out.

Now the sale of CP, err... gratz to Buzz I suppose. I mostly remain indifferent on the subject really, since:
1) It at least didn't sell to some unknown avatar who may just quit, thus leaving CP to die a slow death.
2) I rarely hunt there anyway.
3) Given the usual masses of decay there, a small tax ain't gonna make the world of difference. Seems to me at CP you either win big or lose big.

But what I will say is that MA have hit a new level of apathy.

I mean selling CP is just bone-idle lazy. It's the same sort of laziness that stems from buying mail-order clothes on a daily basis, then throwing away dirty ones 'cos you can't be bothered with doing laundry. I know MindArk have been busy this year and everything, fair enough. Instead of selling CP, why not set one or two people aside to create another awesome property? Perhaps even... now this is a crazy idea... get proper advertisements out there if you need players? Or maybe wait until there is a little free time for a couple of designers to work on something else to sell? You know so when publicity of the sale starts, newbies don't enter into a game thats only mostly functional?

But no. "Sod it!" they said, "sell CP. It'll do."

To me it comes across as if they suddenly realised they needed money or more players, and once again went for a quick fix. As I said in the CP thread, it reminds me of how when you're low on PEDs you dig through storage to find junk to sell. Only in MindArks storage there's CP, rather than a few decayed (L) guns and some animal skins.

Although I suppose with the easy sale at least MindArk can focus on other things - like developing support to play via neural interface. Or creating a weapon that fires papplons.

 

[Oracle]

I don't believe that certain avatars are created more 'lucky' than others.

I think this is just one of the many EU myths that have sprung up to try to explain how why some avatars seem to loot more items and get more uber hofs than others.

Another theory I've heard is that avatars who log in often and spend a lot of time online get more 'karma' (with respect to potential loot) than do other highly skilled avatars who don't log in so often.

But I think that I believe in some kind of personal loot modifier system.

This is based upon different loot patterns I've seen amongst various avatars I've seen hunting kingfishers when I've been camping them as well as patterns to my own loot.

The 'personal loot modifier' factor, if it exists, could be some combination of gear + skills + ammo/decay over a specific period of time.

And the above modifier would interact with your ongoing decay (ammo used + gear decay) such that you'd get higher loots or loot more often in proportion to how much decay you're putting in the system (possibly in a specific and limited time period).

For uber hofs above a certain amount though I'd say these could be just random and that anyone might loot the 20k uber (though just like nice items these are more likely to go to avatars who i) have done their research and know which mobs are due to uber or drop something nice and/or ii) hunt much, much more than the average person spending a lot more time and ammo/decay peds than would you or I).

However I may well be wrong on all the above, it's just my 'best guess' of how it all works.

I do think though Arokh that if you sell out and make a new avatar and then hit an uber or nice item it would be something to do with the above factors (eg you might have more peds to hunt more aggressively putting more decay through the system quicker) rather than any inherent luck that your new avatar might be born with.

And equally I recognise that if that happens you would naturally think that it helped to support your theory and that there would be no way of knowing if either you or I were correct.

But good luck with it whatever you decide to do!

Kev

 

[Arokh]

Thanks for the reply! You're absolutely right, it could also be any one of those other theories that you mentioned. Shame there's no way to test to be absolutely certain which one it is. :/ As you say making a new avatar and seeing different results could be accredited to any one of them. Theres no guarantee a new avatar (essentially a new dice roll in character creation) will get the desired improved results. It could end up worse... now that would be a bit of a bugger.

Personally in guessing how things work I try and see it from a designers point of view - "How would *I* make the system to function as it is now?". But that said, I'm notoriously bad for scripting/programming things... so there's a flaw already!

 

[Oracle]

Interesting point about seeing game issues from a designer's view.

I wonder if designers also think about the consequences in respect to what would happen if a part of a game concerned with 'loot rules' were to be either discovered or partially revealed and if this would make game designers think twice about doing anything that might upset their gamer customers?

So I guess we're doing a kind of 'thought experiment' into trying to reverse-engineer the way the loot system might work.

If I were designing such a game there is no way I would risk incorporating any kind of 'bias' (or luck or some random effect when avatars are made or special treatment to certain uber avatars) that might favour one particular avatar more than any other (simply because to me it seems to be easily discoverable and guaranteed to piss off the majority of players playing my game).

And I think this applies in triplicate to the EU Community!

As a designer though are you qualified and clever enough to get a job working for MindArk because if so when you've found out how the loot system works maybe you'll let me know?