The Clan Lord Sentinel

This price increase is more hurtful to those with less money or those who can't earn money independently.

What's the current cost range?

Gloria, find a mystic.

IIRC, my very first SS cost over 1k. (This was on my healer prior to Foggy being exiled) I learned about the same time, that Mystics can charge and recharge SSs.

I worked my butt off as that healer, running rescues, setting up aid station in the south forest hospital for fur farmers. I recall how satisfying it was to finally get "on the air".

See Kisa's sketchbook for a relevant cartoon.

11-12k is way too much, but I'm not sure how it got to that level. If it happened through the normal mechanism -- the price rises after each sale and drops back down slowly -- then I'm OK with it. But have there really been an unusual number of sunstone sales recently? Maybe there is a bug.

I was going to say that people these days don't know that sunstones used to cost 1-2k back in my day, but I think something is terribly wrong when they cost ten times that.

Either something is wrong or someone found a way to grief the price up to 11k.

Phroon wrote:I was going to say that people these days don't know that sunstones used to cost 1-2k back in my day, but I think something is terribly wrong when they cost ten times that.

Either something is wrong or someone found a way to grief the price up to 11k.

Only thing I can think is someone with deep IC pockets invited a slew of folks to play the game and gifted them all SSs.

11-12k? OY.

Fogtripper wrote:

Phroon wrote:I was going to say that people these days don't know that sunstones used to cost 1-2k back in my day, but I think something is terribly wrong when they cost ten times that.

Either something is wrong or someone found a way to grief the price up to 11k.

Only thing I can think is someone with deep IC pockets invited a slew of folks to play the game and gifted them all SSs.

11-12k? OY.

I believe that if you bump Elendil and don't buy a sunstone, he increases his price by a few coins. It might be possible to do this until the price reaches 11k.

I'm pretty sure that they were set to this level, no one has "cornered" the sunstone market. If you look at the NPC sunstone tuners, their prices are now extremely high as well.

Now.... I don't think this is such an awful thing. It forces people to be more reliant upon mystics for tuning, a skill that was rarely used for them because it was often almost just as cheap to go to an NPC, so why bother with a person? With the new free-play option, we've been seeing more FMs around, so the problem with finding someone to tune your sunstone is not nearly as bad. Also, this gives exile merchants another thing to deal in, for those time zones where FMs are far and few between.

Keep 'em high. It's the only way we'll get a player market for these things.

Stuenora says, "Oh. I'm sorry, Gloria, you cannot afford 5943 coins to tune your sunstone."

from what i recall mystics base their prices on what the npcs say

xepel wrote:I'm pretty sure that they were set to this level, no one has "cornered" the sunstone market. If you look at the NPC sunstone tuners, their prices are now extremely high as well.

Now.... I don't think this is such an awful thing. It forces people to be more reliant upon mystics for tuning, a skill that was rarely used for them because it was often almost just as cheap to go to an NPC, so why bother with a person? With the new free-play option, we've been seeing more FMs around, so the problem with finding someone to tune your sunstone is not nearly as bad. Also, this gives exile merchants another thing to deal in, for those time zones where FMs are far and few between.

Keep 'em high. It's the only way we'll get a player market for these things.

If the prices are going to stay at retard high levels, why even have the fucking NPCs there? No one will ever for any reason pay 12 fucking thousand coins for an SS.

Speaking of retard high, the cost for mystics to train in SS skills falls into the same classification. I remember just how much Zorton spent, its fucking insane. If the cost was anything near reasonable we would have a lot more mystics that could do it. With what Zorton spent, he would never make a profit on tuning SSes if he did it for 100 years.

SSes are nothing more than an antiquated mechanic anyway. Nubletts are practically handed one the second they walk into town anymore anyway. Its time to remove SSes and make the ability to send messages and broadcasts an ability that everyone has. Think of it as a way of giving everyone +1 inventory space for very little work.

I am also of the opinion that they should work while fallen too. Given how much people rely on ICQ and now Vent to communicate, its not really going to change things that much anyway. It would be nice for fallens off alone to be able to ask for help without having to either know someone who is on or play the toggle game. If you want CL to be more newbie friendly, this would be a big step.

Michael wrote:Its time to remove SSes and make the ability to send messages and broadcasts an ability that everyone has. Think of it as a way of giving everyone +1 inventory space for very little work.

/signed

The fact that the community provides fotb's a sunstone is a plus for the sunstone mechanic. The whole point of many of these "irritating" mechanics is for exiles to figure out ways to compensate for them. In some cases they resort to OOC tools. Not everyone does, even of those who have them available.

By "optimizing" these features out of the game, you remove some of the support structure for the social fabric.

Michael wrote:If the prices are going to stay at retard high levels, why even have the fucking NPCs there? No one will ever for any reason pay 12 fucking thousand coins for an SS.

The NPCs are to provide an "escape valve" if something goes wrong with getting Sunstones the normal way, such as if all the FMs suddenly explode, or you need a SS *right that second* and don't care that it's over 10k, or something like that. It's designed to be only used as a very last resort.

Now, I think the prices are a little bit excessive (and could be cut by a factor of 2 or 3 and *still* be expensive enough that no one would use the NPCs), but I think the goal is a good one.

If the availability of sunstones becomes a problem, then we can change something.

xepel wrote: If the availability of sunstones becomes a problem, then we can change something.

Its simply something that should never be an issue. SSes add nothing to the game anymore. Other MMOs caught on a long time ago that limiting communication simply drove players to use out of game means to pass messages. Even Shadowbane got this part right, by allowing you to message anyone.

Yes I am sure there are still 3 idiots out there who dont use ICQ, hooray for them. Lets move the game into the current century for the rest of us. MMOs should never be static, and need to evolve with the times if they plan to attract new players or even keep the ones they have. Limiting tedium needs to be one of the major focuses for CLs future if there is any plans to get more people playing.