It sounds like it's there to force trading, so that one person cannot be completely self-sufficient. I don't know how the whole lot thing works, but in real-world economic terms, generally specializing in one or few things and trading is much more profitable than building many things.
Yeah, that's the theory. There needs to be a limit to encourage trading. Works pretty well in LOTRO for example. However, 10 lots seems just insane. I have a level 9 char who I have played all of a couple hours and and I have 10 producing lots. You could get your limit in 2-3 hours if you knew what you're doing and don't read the quest descriptions.
Does anyone who has played past level 20-30 or so have any comments?
Edit: And after playing 2-3 hours not only would your char have his max but no other alt on that server could build any at all. It would be like if in WoW you could pick 2 professions PER ACCOUNT instead of per character.
Further edit: And this is really important to the game as the interesting economy is really all it has going for it. The on-foot bits are very simple. Even more so than WoW or LOTRO. The ship combat is interesting but no more so than many single player games that have been available for years (eg: Port Royale 2 which you can get for 4 bucks in a bargain bin).
In fact Port Royale 2 also has a similar production system, except it has more depth and no stupid fucking artificial limits.
I really think I wasted 50 bucks here
Did you expect to make everything yourself? Comparing this game's economy to WoW's made me laugh. A lot.
The flow of goods is kinda the whole point of game. If each person could make as many shops as they wanted then there wouldn't be an economy. It would be a bunch of closed loops where prices would just be dictated by production costs. My hull making business took about 60k to put together (3 accounts worth of shops, Me, Gf, and a friend of mine). The reason why they made it so easy to get set up, is so that you can try other things without getting crushed.
Giving everyone an unlimited amount of lot spaces would make the economy too easy, it's already really easy as it is with generated labor time and a lack of quality variables.
I just got into a heavy snow last night after being in my noob ship for 15 levels (RIP Pinata of the Sea). Man, things changed dramatically for me at that point. I strongarm through most of the missions now and having lots of fun.
The ship to ship battles are the bread and butter of the game. I haven't been in any pvp battles yet, but if its anything like the missions it will be awesome.
Missions are repeditive, but are a viable alternative to just hunting npc ships. They are also an easy source of cash. But like someone said earlier, all MMO's have repeditive missions.
This game is basically Sid Meier's Pirates! MMO without the land battles and with a player economy.
Just thought I would add something cool that happened on Antigua.
I was getting worried that the spanish (I have a spanish character there) was getting too powerful. They won a port really quickly earlier last week and things were looking bad for the english, seeing how they couldn't take Port of Spain.
All of a sudden all of the ammo from Sisal and Campeche (the two main producing ports for the Spanish) disappeared. The average price was an insanely low 75db per crate. So the ammo just got mass purchased right before two of the port battles that day (Belise and Turtingly Bay). When everyone went to get armed up for the port battles, they found no ammo available. Everyone scrambled to make a ton of ammo but because of a lack of Free Trader support, they were not able to move the large amount of ammo required for the battle.
Basically, the English bought all the ammo and moved to the ports that they were defending that day.
This left the Spanish exposed, and they lost both of the port battles that day.
Economic Warfare on paper? Check.
Economc Warfare executed? Check.
Really loving this game, can't wait to see what happens when a nation loses a vital port.
Looked into the economy side of the game a bit more over the last couple days. I still think the 10 lot limit is far too low but it is not a killer for two reasons.
Note that while both of these are currently true, less than a month after launch, if either eventually becomes untrue it will be basicially crippling for the fun of PotBS.
1) It is possible to earn enough off of 10 lots to replace losses in PvP without spending a lot of time in grinding. This is vital as just grinding in this game is really bad. As in even worse than WoW. But that's not an issue as things stand and hopefully that will continue.
2) Finished goods are, right now, worth at least slightly more than the raw materiels from which they are made. I should point out that while this makes sense in the "real world" it is virtually unknown in an MMO. Certainly in every MMO I've played every time you process a raw materiel it loses value (usually with a very few exceptions). Right now, and this is could change fast as value is almost entirely determined by the players and is difficult to control by the devs, you can make a profit (very small in some cases) by buying raw materiels and selling refined goods. Again, this is very very weird for an MMO economy.
This is what at first made the 10 lot limit seem so insane. If, like every other MMO, refined goods become a losing proposition it means to actually make useful stuff you would need to spend a lot of time grinding cash to make up the defecit.
And again grinding for cash is slow and incredibly lame in PotBS. Now right now you don't need to grind for cash. But only because of points 1 and 2 above. And both of those could change. Hopefully they won't. But especially if a long term good imbalance arises which makes most refined goods less valuable than their components it could easily turn into a horrible grind-fest.
Edit: In response to the above, yes I did "expect to be able to build everything myself". At least in theory, with enough time and investment. The reason being that I thought, based on experience in a number of other MMOs, that it would be nescessary to support ones own crafting as much as possible. If refined goods were worth less than their components (eg: ore vs. blacksmithed goods in WoW) then you would have to choose between using your 10 lots for "gathering" (producing materiels) OR making goods and spending an ungodly amount of time grinding for cash.
The major difference to the WoW economy is that in WoW you don't need anything produces by blacksmithing or any of the other crafting professions because there will always be drops that are just as good if not better then anything they produce. So prices for products are low.
In PotBS if you want a good ship with good outfittings they have to be player made. So with demand higher prices should also be higher.
Once people start PvPing the economy will be solid I think. If you are a good PvPer you will probably profit on fighting and even if you take a couple losses you can quickly grind some money back to buy another ship. (Although you will probably have a spare ready anyway).
Yeah, PvPing will see more of a life once people get higher levels and have more ships to throw around. As of right now it's casual PvP. Still, didn't stop me and a fleet of 3 other pirates to blockade Irish Point and sink anyone flagged.
Yeah, PvPing will see more of a life once people get higher levels and have more ships to throw around. As of right now it's casual PvP. Still, didn't stop me and a fleet of 3 other pirates to blockade Irish Point and sink anyone flagged.
It will help when the pop spreads out from pirate a bit also. Its kinda intimidating right now when there are gangs of 4-6 pirate players jumping on any singles out around.
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WulfDisciple of TzeentchThe Void... (New Jersey)Registered Userregular
edited January 2008
Yarrr, I be lookin for a friend code to try me luck as a scurvy dog!
The major difference to the WoW economy is that in WoW you don't need anything produces by blacksmithing or any of the other crafting professions because there will always be drops that are just as good if not better then anything they produce. So prices for products are low.
In PotBS if you want a good ship with good outfittings they have to be player made. So with demand higher prices should also be higher.
But in LOTRO the crafted stuff is always better than drops until the very end of the current end game content (and its close until then). Yet LOTRO has the same issue of WoW of raw resources nearly always being worth more than refined goods.
RiemannLives on
Attacked by tweeeeeeees!
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UnbrokenEvaHIGH ON THE WIREBUT I WON'T TRIP ITRegistered Userregular
The major difference to the WoW economy is that in WoW you don't need anything produces by blacksmithing or any of the other crafting professions because there will always be drops that are just as good if not better then anything they produce. So prices for products are low.
In PotBS if you want a good ship with good outfittings they have to be player made. So with demand higher prices should also be higher.
But in LOTRO the crafted stuff is always better than drops until the very end of the current end game content (and its close until then). Yet LOTRO has the same issue of WoW of raw resources nearly always being worth more than refined goods.
As I understand it (haven't played since the beta, before they switched to SoE's account system), it's not just that the crafted stuff is "better". It is, but by a large order of magnitude. The NPC vendor ships were largely just temporary crap ships to use while you're in between real ships. It's player made or nothing.
you can compare the economy better with Eve, where the raw materials are actually worth less than products. In Eve, there is a large time commitment and effort involved with becoming a production/industrial character. Its also difficult for vertical integration: that is controlling resource gathering (mining) and production. How does that compare to PotBS? Can one person get all the raw materials necessary and easily make products? I find that if one person can do it all, then there will be people willing to do this at very little profit as long as it is 100% safe from any kind of risk (pvp).
If one person cannot do it all, then people will expect to make money off their efforts whether it is resource gathering or production.
British, Spanish and French have access to specialized classes.
Pirates have access to the Pirate class (and only the Pirate class) which allows them to steal ships and engage in pirate PvP.
I think they decided that it's too much of a hassle to continuously balance factions. Which is the kind of thing that effects the game very little in the end (most of the time) but players tend to be very vocal about.
you mean, other than the geography? pirates get -80% on loot, and that hurts.
One thing I noticed was that [captured] deeds are so much cheaper than the ones for British. You can buy 5 deeds for much less than a 5 durability deed would cost on another faction. IF that makes sense.
you mean, other than the geography? pirates get -80% on loot, and that hurts.
It's a more complicated balance equation though.
Pirates get less cash on killing NPCs.
But, they can steal any ship they have the level for. But stealing class-specific ships perma-PvP flags them.
And, Pirates can Salvage ships, which generates loot they can sell. I've heard this can be quite lucrative. This likely more than makes up for the -80% cash thing.
Also, Pirates cannot capture Ports. They can only hold them for 3 days.
But, the Pirate PvP zone is larger around Ports and is created first. So they can more easily generate places to PvP.
Does Spain get better in a certain trade or anything.
Anything that makes them distinct other than names
Port locations, and Port resources are different. Like the English and Spanish do not start with the ability to produce Wine. They have to get it from EuroTraders. Fertile Fields (Grapes) are owned by Pirates and French.
There's probably other things like that. But there is no inherent advantages between the Nations.
Now, I've been playing this game a couple months but I've never actually been on three days after the pirates take a port. Does it really just flip back to the previous owner automatically?
Does Spain get better in a certain trade or anything.
Anything that makes them distinct other than names.
Hey Zen, the difference between the nations are only clear during the begining of the game when the ports are at the default configuration. There are no gameplay advantages for each of the nations, just production capability.
In the begining the Spanish are the best at making hulls. They have easy iron and oak production, and one of their most powerful mid map ports, Havana gives access to large shipyards.
The French are the only ones that get grapes, which is a major component for making provisions. They also get the all the general plantations they need to further their provision making capabilities.
The British, I don't know anything about so I will keep my mouth shut on that one.
But, the point is, once everyone has all the ports that they need, the nations are essentially the same, which is lame, but I rather have it this way, rather than a constant flame war of "OMG British Shamans are too powerful! WAhhhhh"
But, the point is, once everyone has all the ports that they need, the nations are essentially the same, which is lame, but I rather have it this way, rather than a constant flame war of "OMG British Shamans are too powerful! WAhhhhh"
Haha, at first I read that as "British Seamen."
And then I pictured a bunch of Brits in sailor suits throwing frost shocks off the side of the ship.
It doesn't matter, Pirates are getting Shaman next patch.
Is anyone else having a hard time downloading the installer? I've got a trial code from a friend but I can't get the damn app! My download just stops anywhere from 8% to 50% of the way through
Also, it seems that their single file installer link and the executable file link for the multi-file installer point to the same file so I can't even break it down into smaller chunks.
Posts
Did you expect to make everything yourself? Comparing this game's economy to WoW's made me laugh. A lot.
The flow of goods is kinda the whole point of game. If each person could make as many shops as they wanted then there wouldn't be an economy. It would be a bunch of closed loops where prices would just be dictated by production costs. My hull making business took about 60k to put together (3 accounts worth of shops, Me, Gf, and a friend of mine). The reason why they made it so easy to get set up, is so that you can try other things without getting crushed.
Giving everyone an unlimited amount of lot spaces would make the economy too easy, it's already really easy as it is with generated labor time and a lack of quality variables.
The ship to ship battles are the bread and butter of the game. I haven't been in any pvp battles yet, but if its anything like the missions it will be awesome.
Missions are repeditive, but are a viable alternative to just hunting npc ships. They are also an easy source of cash. But like someone said earlier, all MMO's have repeditive missions.
This game is basically Sid Meier's Pirates! MMO without the land battles and with a player economy.
I was getting worried that the spanish (I have a spanish character there) was getting too powerful. They won a port really quickly earlier last week and things were looking bad for the english, seeing how they couldn't take Port of Spain.
All of a sudden all of the ammo from Sisal and Campeche (the two main producing ports for the Spanish) disappeared. The average price was an insanely low 75db per crate. So the ammo just got mass purchased right before two of the port battles that day (Belise and Turtingly Bay). When everyone went to get armed up for the port battles, they found no ammo available. Everyone scrambled to make a ton of ammo but because of a lack of Free Trader support, they were not able to move the large amount of ammo required for the battle.
Basically, the English bought all the ammo and moved to the ports that they were defending that day.
This left the Spanish exposed, and they lost both of the port battles that day.
Economic Warfare on paper? Check.
Economc Warfare executed? Check.
Really loving this game, can't wait to see what happens when a nation loses a vital port.
Note that while both of these are currently true, less than a month after launch, if either eventually becomes untrue it will be basicially crippling for the fun of PotBS.
1) It is possible to earn enough off of 10 lots to replace losses in PvP without spending a lot of time in grinding. This is vital as just grinding in this game is really bad. As in even worse than WoW. But that's not an issue as things stand and hopefully that will continue.
2) Finished goods are, right now, worth at least slightly more than the raw materiels from which they are made. I should point out that while this makes sense in the "real world" it is virtually unknown in an MMO. Certainly in every MMO I've played every time you process a raw materiel it loses value (usually with a very few exceptions). Right now, and this is could change fast as value is almost entirely determined by the players and is difficult to control by the devs, you can make a profit (very small in some cases) by buying raw materiels and selling refined goods. Again, this is very very weird for an MMO economy.
This is what at first made the 10 lot limit seem so insane. If, like every other MMO, refined goods become a losing proposition it means to actually make useful stuff you would need to spend a lot of time grinding cash to make up the defecit.
And again grinding for cash is slow and incredibly lame in PotBS. Now right now you don't need to grind for cash. But only because of points 1 and 2 above. And both of those could change. Hopefully they won't. But especially if a long term good imbalance arises which makes most refined goods less valuable than their components it could easily turn into a horrible grind-fest.
Edit: In response to the above, yes I did "expect to be able to build everything myself". At least in theory, with enough time and investment. The reason being that I thought, based on experience in a number of other MMOs, that it would be nescessary to support ones own crafting as much as possible. If refined goods were worth less than their components (eg: ore vs. blacksmithed goods in WoW) then you would have to choose between using your 10 lots for "gathering" (producing materiels) OR making goods and spending an ungodly amount of time grinding for cash.
In PotBS if you want a good ship with good outfittings they have to be player made. So with demand higher prices should also be higher.
PAX East Trading Card Organizer | Twitter | Google+
For the wine.
It will help when the pop spreads out from pirate a bit also. Its kinda intimidating right now when there are gangs of 4-6 pirate players jumping on any singles out around.
But in LOTRO the crafted stuff is always better than drops until the very end of the current end game content (and its close until then). Yet LOTRO has the same issue of WoW of raw resources nearly always being worth more than refined goods.
As I understand it (haven't played since the beta, before they switched to SoE's account system), it's not just that the crafted stuff is "better". It is, but by a large order of magnitude. The NPC vendor ships were largely just temporary crap ships to use while you're in between real ships. It's player made or nothing.
If one person cannot do it all, then people will expect to make money off their efforts whether it is resource gathering or production.
Does Spain get better in a certain trade or anything.
Anything that makes them distinct other than names.
Pirates have access to the Pirate class (and only the Pirate class) which allows them to steal ships and engage in pirate PvP.
I think they decided that it's too much of a hassle to continuously balance factions. Which is the kind of thing that effects the game very little in the end (most of the time) but players tend to be very vocal about.
PAX East Trading Card Organizer | Twitter | Google+
One thing I noticed was that [captured] deeds are so much cheaper than the ones for British. You can buy 5 deeds for much less than a 5 durability deed would cost on another faction. IF that makes sense.
PAX East Trading Card Organizer | Twitter | Google+
It's a more complicated balance equation though.
Pirates get less cash on killing NPCs.
But, they can steal any ship they have the level for. But stealing class-specific ships perma-PvP flags them.
And, Pirates can Salvage ships, which generates loot they can sell. I've heard this can be quite lucrative. This likely more than makes up for the -80% cash thing.
Also, Pirates cannot capture Ports. They can only hold them for 3 days.
But, the Pirate PvP zone is larger around Ports and is created first. So they can more easily generate places to PvP.
Port locations, and Port resources are different. Like the English and Spanish do not start with the ability to produce Wine. They have to get it from EuroTraders. Fertile Fields (Grapes) are owned by Pirates and French.
There's probably other things like that. But there is no inherent advantages between the Nations.
PAX East Trading Card Organizer | Twitter | Google+
Hey Zen, the difference between the nations are only clear during the begining of the game when the ports are at the default configuration. There are no gameplay advantages for each of the nations, just production capability.
In the begining the Spanish are the best at making hulls. They have easy iron and oak production, and one of their most powerful mid map ports, Havana gives access to large shipyards.
The French are the only ones that get grapes, which is a major component for making provisions. They also get the all the general plantations they need to further their provision making capabilities.
The British, I don't know anything about so I will keep my mouth shut on that one.
But, the point is, once everyone has all the ports that they need, the nations are essentially the same, which is lame, but I rather have it this way, rather than a constant flame war of "OMG British Shamans are too powerful! WAhhhhh"
Haha, at first I read that as "British Seamen."
And then I pictured a bunch of Brits in sailor suits throwing frost shocks off the side of the ship.
It doesn't matter, Pirates are getting Shaman next patch.
PAX East Trading Card Organizer | Twitter | Google+
Also, it seems that their single file installer link and the executable file link for the multi-file installer point to the same file so I can't even break it down into smaller chunks.