Fuel Depots

We'll just have to agree to disagree about whether those players that play multiple crafters comprise a significant portion of the player base. And although there was, obviously, a some thought put into the depots, I do question whether second or third order impacts were addressed. Some of the possible first-order impacts were addressed with the guild depots. For example, that the guild leadership might wish to restrict the types of items that go into the depots, that they might wish to control who could deposit into the depot, they might wish to control who could withdraw or craft from the depot, etc. However, the second order impacts - for example, that guild members might want to let anyone use the common resources (including visitors, if the guild is that generous), but also restrict the use of Legendary resources to members with at least friend access to the guild hall and Rare resources to members with at least Trustee access - weren't really addressed.

Many folks that started using the personal harvest depots did so (among other reasons) because they wanted to keep other people from using the rares (and in some cases the Legendary and common resources) that they (a) spent the time to harvest, (b) spent the time to acquire the funds to purchase, or (c) received* from their personal tradeskill apprentices, gathering goblins, or pack ponies. Given the ability to store their own resources, people naturally requested the ability to store other things that are used in the crafting process (i.e. fuels). Although it is possible that there were posts requesting them that slipped under my radar, I don't recall anyone actually requesting a fuel depot as a guild amenity. During the same time frame (i.e. between the introduction of the personal harvest depots and the introduction of the guild fuel depots), I did see quite a few posts (and tbh several threads) requesting a personal fuel depot.

That is especially understandable given that the max carrying capacity (with the exception of the Really Big Bags that were only offered for a limited time and the one high-capacity bag available on the loyalty merchant- and that one has a lore tag) has been 48 slots (or less) per bag for a while, and probably won't increase with the next expansion - regardless whether they return to the 10-level-cap-increase-every-other-expansion paradigm after that one. (I'm not saying that my bags are filled to the brim - they aren't - but I would be lying if I said that I'd mind having more bag space available.) I wouldn't be surprised if many others share this viewpoint.

Regardless, I understand and respect your position, even if I don't happen to agree with it.

* Obviously this latter reason occurred a considerable amount of time after the personal harvest depots were introduced.

I think he was refering to the devs as the ones who most likely only run 1 crafter, not the player base. In this case it really is a shame, as having a dev that could devote more, if not most, of their time to crafting would probably smooth out a number of inconsistencies in this area of the game.

If we're referring to that time, let's remember the fact that a person with any sanity would really only have one crafter. A fuel depot would have only had enough room for 5 or 6 tiers (whatever it was back then). So, it would have maybe 10 slots to allow for some growth.

I'd like to refer once again to the original number on the fuel depot. We were given 20 slots. This was actually sufficient for most of the classes to work on their own. What got them to push the number beyond that was the fact I presented to them, which was carpenters were going to be screwed by this. It wasn't enough room to hold all the fuels that class would use. On top of that, holiday event items would call for other fuels. The box was ultimately adjusted to accommodate a decorator.

If you're following my highlights, I'm coming to the point of their intent in the design, which has been with the single player in mind. That's pretty much how everything else in the game is designed. Those who choose to play more than one class have their little hoops to jump through, whether it's moving stuff through the shared bank or moving to another house.

Yes, that is what I was referring to. There's really nothing to be gained by having someone play more than 1 or more than 9 crafters. That's not what the average player is going to do. There's nothing to be learned or smoothed out. It's not like adventuring, where each class has their little nuances and people playing different classes would be of some benefit.

The only people playing one class back then were those that originally chose an alchy. It didn't take long before many made a second toon just to produce their own WORTs. So multiple crafters has been around for the average crafter since close to launch. Since the crafting overhaul made it easier to craft, it also made it easier for people to multicraft. Now that it's possible for someone to max out a crafter in a day or two, it's becoming the norm. I don't see why SOE wouldn't accomodate that.

They've been accommodating through use of the heirloom tag and the xp bonus. Beyond that they really shouldn't have to be responsible for anything else. The only time they consider people with multiple crafters is when they have to decide on rewards for quests because it's generally so easy to gain them. They're already designing single player; 6,12 and 24 player content. Expecting them to make some of these changes that greatly favor the one player with multiple characters is a bit much. No one does that.

No one expects them to favor multiple characters, or no one has multiple characters? We've already established that the latter is incorrect, so I'm going to assume you mean the first part. In regards to that, we aren't asking them to favor multiple characters, we're asking them to account for them. Giving us a larger fuel depot wouldn't give us an edge over any other single character, player, or guild. It would simply allow us to store all fuels in one zone. The benefits to this have already been illustrated to exceed that of a single player. Multiple players would gain from one person that was able to have this. Entire guilds could benefit from one person being able to have this. And with a trend of providing more flexibility on where a guild can call home, the entire game would benefit from players being able to have this.
SOE already benefits from people creating multiple characters through the availability of purchasing extra character slots and providing more character slots for All-Access members. So I find it hard to believe they wouldn't want to encourage this way of playing.

'No one (no developer) favors the one player with multiple characters the way you're hoping they will' is what I was saying. They do take multiple characters into account (obviously), but not to this extent. You talk about entire guilds benefiting from a fuel depot? That's a pretty weak argument, considering many hundreds of guilds have been successful without them for a good 8 years prior. Even folks like myself have made a solo effort without the aid of a depot.

Yes. SOE benefits from people creating multiple characters, but encouraging the creation of a redundant, mindless array of characters is not something they're looking to do. Again, they would rather people play with others, not build up massive halls all on their own.

Most of those hundreds of guilds also aren't crafter oriented, or even RP oriented. I'm curious how many even bother decorating guild halls. These are not exclusive features for guilds to be successful, so your argument doesn't really apply. However, thousands of guilds have crumbled due to lack of players. If you are going to assume what SOE wants, and that is what your last statement is, then it would be reasonable to assume that SOE wants to keep its players and attract more regardless of their playstyle. More players = more money for SOE, they don't really make much of a profit whether they are guilded or not. But with more players, guilds have a bigger pool to draw members from; or at the least, with more consistent players guilds add longevity to their survival. This and flexibility are neither weak. Now I ask, how is having multiple crafters of different professions redundant?

So can anyone who is against this change give any actual reasons as to why this would be bad? How it would negatively affect you in any noticeable way?

Because all I've heard so far is a vague insinuation that guild fuel depots and personal fuel depots should not be equal. If that's it, then why is that such a big deal? Why would that be so horrible, and why has the huge capacity of the personal harvest and collectible depots not already brought about whatever apocalypse you are seeing on the horizon?

I strongly agree with this. I am only a casual crafter, so it won't really affect me either way. But if it would improve a player's joy in the game without hurting anyone else's - WTF is the problem?????

Deveryn - I have news for you - the hard core crafter is likely not going to be interested in grouping with you to do group content and raids irrespective of whether there are fuel depots or not. Punishing them by making crafting more inconvenient is not going to magically convert them to raiders. The beauty of a game as large and rich as EQ2 is that there are many ways to play it.

Yep. It won't help or hurt me either way, I don't have a ton of crafters. But I know people that do, and this would make their lives a bit simpler in game, so I'm all for it. I can't see a downside.

My last statement is not an assumption. It's something they've stated and continue to allude to in their designs. It's what this game was built on and what keeps this game running. Guilds have crumbled because people can be very fickle or they get upset when they don't get what they want or there's a new game that catches their eye. None of what you've said about guilds really has anything to do with the fuel depot, which was one of my points in the last post. You're talking about more players, but more players has nothing to do with this either.

"But with more players, guilds have a bigger pool to draw members from; or at the least, with more consistent players guilds add longevity to their survival"
This is the most interesting part. With more players, who I'll refer to as crafters, how does that give a bigger pool of members to draw from, when a lot of them are huddling themselves up in their own halls or houses, not really interacting with anyone because they have all they need? If we're talking about adventurers, then those folks would indeed contribute to the health of the guild and the game, as they need other players to achieve their goals.

"Now I ask, how is having multiple crafters of different professions redundant?"
Once you've made more than one crafter, the core gameplay has not changed. You might make different items, but there are already others out there making those items. Certainly, once you get past the number 9, it becomes a repetition of what you already have. Every character goes through the same simple process of hitting the same six buttons they learn to hit at level 1. That's why I call it mindless. It's not something that's going to generate more players, because it's generally not the most engaging process.

Here's the thing about the collectible and harvest depots. They were made to handle items that are actually difficult to store. Fuel is an infinite resource and really doesn't need as much storage. (Frostfell fuel is the obvious exception.) It's readily available in whatever zone is adjacent to your house.

As I've said many times, I'm not even against the idea of raising the fuel depot storage. I would benefit from the change, though that benefit is minimal, as I barely have need of my sage and he has enough room to carry a few fuels around. I just happen to be able to see why this change hasn't gone through and I can live with that. I'm still thrilled to simply have the depot.

You ask a lot of questions of why this and why that? I have to ask why must people be so inflexible and fuss over something that has so many simple workarounds? Personal Depot storage is only limited to the number of houses your many characters can have, making it nearly infinite, where guilds are limited to the one location. Would it truly cause death if you were to have a split arrangement or have a sage lugging around a few fuels. I spent the better part of 4 years carrying around at least 27 different fuels on my main, who also adventures and I'm still alive today with all my marbles.

I love how you keep crying punishment from something that was rewarded to you. It's been a case of perpetual ungratefulness from the moment the feature was introduced. *insert analogy of child receiving gift and throwing a fit because it's not the latest version*. That's been your side of the argument with a few exceptions. This great offense has been committed and it has so mortally wounded your soul. That's a fine way to try and get what you want. I encourage you to do better than that and you chastise me and label me the villain. Change the tone and show some better reasons to get this change and it might happen is all I'm saying.

Once again: the initial discussion. Note the numbers thrown out there and what actually stuck as the change. Everyone wanted to have enough for all the fuels and then some. The devs went with the number that accommodated the decorator.

So that's the answer? "In my day, uphill both ways, etc."? No harm would be done in any way to anyone but the answer's still no because you don't personally think it's important? And we're the ones being inflexible?

That pretty much sums up the thread.

The arguments above make several logical fallacies.

First, guild halls don't NEED fuel depots. Guild halls have always been able to have a fuel vendor which is much more useful than a depot. The only use the guild depot has is to allow the guild to give its members free fuel or to hold holiday fuels. Most guilds (over 90%) would only use the depot to hold holiday fuels, kinda like most guilds don't give their members free repairs.

Other than the harvest depot, all other depots introduced for guilds were introduced for home use with a tinkered version that had half the capacity of the guild version. I'm not sure what status items your talking about but I believe several items exist that still require you belong to a guild of a certain level. Guilds never lost status over time, they use to loose status when a member left but that was removed fairly early after launch. Guild membership has never been a raid requirement. Vague comments about guild useage no longer applying is just an assertion of "fact", not an argument. Guild hall amenities are working just like they did when introduced. They increase the rent of a guild hall and provide benefits to the members (and visitors of the hall depending on the generosity of the leadership). Guild halls are seen by dev as a carrot and stick system where a group of players struggle with the various system that produce status to build up their guild and the members sacrifice personal assets (in the form of coin and status) to maintain a guild hall. The more elaborate the guild hall the more rent is charged. Houses were originally of a similar design, charging rent in a mixture of coin and status, but over time the idea of prestige house that were either purchased or rewarded came into the game. It was felt that these special houses shouldn't have rent since they were not purchased in-game. Also home depots don't generate additional rent costs like guild amenities do, which is a significant advantage over guild depots that is completely overlooked by the people arguing in favor of improving the personal depots.

SoE has been chasing alternative revenue streams. Player housing has been one of their most successful. Upping the size and item count of the houses makes them much more attractive. Confusing that with guild hall design seems a bit naïve. While it would be nice to use any prestige home as a guild hall (indeed, there are some houses that are much larger than guild halls without "jail breaking") I believe that would require a huge amount of work on devs part. There would also be some very significant decisions to be made. The first and foremost is how does a guild purchase a prestige house? There would have to be a way to transfer SC from one player to another (with free SC for gold members, I don't see this happening), or a guild leader would have to purchase the house and relinquish ownership of the house permanently. But what about "free" houses such as the Mistmoor Estates? Or even older in-game housing? What if someone wanted to use a Qeynos 5 room house as a guild hall? Just because you want to have all the benefits of a guild hall in any home doesn't mean it will happen. A lot of work would have to go into it. If this happens, a lot of other things will have to not happen to make room for the dev time used.

No, not really. What sums up the thread is:

Pro: Let us store all the fuel in the game in a personal home because it doesn't hurt anybody.

Con: That breaks design for the relationship between a personal depot vs. a guild depot.

What's bad about that? Maybe the existing "design" isn't perfect.

Do you think a single person across the entire game would leave their guild or choose not to join one when they otherwise would because of this change? Honestly, would any person or guild experience anything even remotely negative?

Nope, wouldn't think so. Now please explain what that has to do with depots? Or better yet, please explain the *benefit* of increasing the size of a guild fuel depot?

If you have a source for that supposed statement, I'd like to see it, because they are continuing to allude otherwise in their designs. The most recent change in status merchants and dropping the guild requirement for them will be my primary example. The game wasn't built on, nor continues to run because of, guilds. They are fun to have, but were never a requirement to play the game. You've stated that guilds have been successful despite the presence of amenity depots or tinkered depots, which would allude to the possibility that they wouldn't be affected at all if the tinkered depot was changed. Guilds that don't bother crafting or decorating wouldn't be effected, but guilds that center around these aspects or simply include them as substantial themes to the guild would benefit greatly. If you think none of what I said about depots has anything to do with guilds, then you haven't been reading my entire posts. The short version is that it allows guilds more flexibility.

As far as socialization goes, crafters are just as likely to join a guild as any adventurer with a merc. Simply having everything available in your own home isn't going to cause a mass exodus of crafters from all the guilds in Norrath. Again you are jumping to assumption here, and not even a large portion, let alone a majority of the crafting player base would leave or refuse guilds because of this. Also, crafters are capable of contributing more status faster to the guild than any adventurer could in the same amount of time. There is no small margin here. The time it takes to acquire and complete a crafting writ and get a new one is by far a huge advantage over adventure writs.

Sure there are other people making the same items as any chosen crafter could make, but there are other adventurers out there playing to same class as any chosen adventurer would also. So an argument that crafters are repetitious for the game can also be made about adventurers as well. Simply because other players have crafters or adventurers that you pick doesn't mean players shouldn't be able to have multiple characters, or that since players can have multiple characters, that should be accounted for. Sure the crafting process is mindless after your first time through, but this is an added motivation for crafters to socialize, whether in channels while crafting, or in the world of Norrath by taking a crafting break. But even if it's mindless, being able to craft any given item, whether for yourself, for a friend, or to sell and make a profit, is what motivates a lot of crafters. Those that enjoy crafting, or more specifically enjoy being able to craft everything, don't mind this tedium.[/quote][/quote]

First, I've never stated that guilds need depots. I've never stated that guilds need crafters either. But I have stated that they would benefit from crafters, and also benefit from depots. Since the rest of your argument uses inflated made up numbers I'll just stop there.

Second, if you haven't been around since launch, please do some homework before making assumptions. Guilds did have status decay. This was different from players leaving, as a guild that did not consistently earn status would lose it's status over time. It was removed a long time ago along with players leaving a guild taking their status with them.

In the patch notes for last week, the guild requirement for status merchants was removed, I didn't see anywhere where they said some items were still available only if guilded. Again please do some homework here as it saves a lot of time and explaining.

Most personal depots have a lesser capacity than guild depots, earlier in this thread I and others have suggested increasing the capacity of guild depots to allow a bigger personal depot. Both slots avilable and/or stack size of those slots could be altered to allow guild depots to maintain an advantage over personal ones.

Now, you are correct that guild membership was never a raid requirement, but back then: pick up raids were extremely rare and the norm was that guilds ran the raids, with openings for non-members being offered only after members had a chance. Even here, a guild was necessary to run a raid, even if it wasn't your particular guild.

Inflating the amount of effort it would take to make amenities available to player houses isn't helping your case any either. The repurcussions may be significant, but the actual work involved wouldn't. There aren't any complicated mechanics that only allow amenities to function in a guild hall that would otherwise break a player house. Yes, ultimately I think amenities should be available to player houses, but how it would be done is almost an entirely new discussion. Right now we are still on whether it should be done or not, and very specifically about the fuel depot (maybe include the L&L depot as well).