Oakwynd - First TLP to dip to medium population within first week of launch?

Hatred of free trade servers because I suggest that you can catch up on a non free trade server? You seem to have a hatred of anything that isn't a free trade server.

Sure you need gear to be useful in a group but it isn't like you are not going to get gear as you level up or that you have the means to buy all your gear as soon as you create a character on a free trade server. No matter what server type you start on you are going to need to do something to get your initial gear. Either you are grouping on both servers and picking up drops, buying krono to purchase your gear or getting lucky and having someone hand you your gear.

This isn't anything bad about free trade servers just that you don't need them in order to catch up to others.

It happens more then you make it out has happening and the lack of gear isn't what makes catching up hard.

I've already provided information from SoF that proves this isn't very hard to do. With each expansion thereafter it just gets easier to, 'catch up' gear-wise.

Thankfully, that's a matter of opinion and one that many disagree with.

You simply said "group gear exists" that doesn't mean it's easier to get.

Still no logical argument has been to prove there are any negatives associated with a free trade server.

Still waiting.....

You are doing all types of mental gymnastics to try and find something negative about free trade and you still fail.

You are the one who hates free trade.

I gave my reasons why and they are valid.

You and someone else simply saying that "group gear exists" doesn't mean anything.

It's still harder to get geared on a non free trade server.

This is a fact that you and others seem to just want to deny forever.

Heirloom>>>>>>free trade.

well for non-RMTers anyways

You don't need to get a full raid of people or even a full group of people to get group gear. You also don't need to buy multiple krono in order to buy your raid gear as you likely would on a free trade server.

The ability to buy raid gear buy purchasing krono on a free trade server might be a positive to you but that isn't the case for eveyrone.

When did I ever say I was trying to show anything negative about free trade? I am just stating that you don't need free trade or raid loot in order to start from scratch and catch up. You are perfectly capable of catching up on a non free trade server with group gear.

That is only true for characters on the same account and heirloom is meaningless for people who box multiple toons.

the fact is people spend krono on no drop loot rights on regular servers for raid gear too… free trade servers make it cheaper because people can sell old gear creating a bigger supply making prices more competitive for buyers.

Again, that wasn't the point of my posts. The fact remains is you can catch up to raiding on a non free trade server just as you can on a free trade server. You are going to need the help of others regardless of having free trade or not and the only way you can get all the gear you need on a free trade server without spending lots of time on it is likely going to be with krono.

You don't need to purchase older raid gear or any gear at all and can catch up by grouping and looting group gear.

I’m just pointing out that gear is bought on both types of servers, but it’s statistically cheaper in time or money on free trade

And I never stated that it wasn't. The only reason I brought up buying of gear was the repeated claims that you need the help of others to gear up on a non free trade server but you don't on a free trade server. The only way you won't need the assistance of others or spend a lot of time getting caught up is if you purchase your gear. No matter how you go about it you will need the assistance of others on any server to catch up.

wow , this thread derailed off topic to the extreme.

So getting this back on track ! 6/10/23 at 540 AM status High

What are you talking about? Of course it's easy to get - it's tiered for a reason. Have you even played beyond Omens of War? You can literally see the ease of obtaining group gear as the expansions roll out.

In SoF, I stated you can buy T1 group gear off the bazaar midway through the expansion (it sells for several hundred platinum). Even before the tiered group gear you could easily outfit yourself in cheap defiant armor. Another route would be cultural armor if you're into tradeskills.

After SoF they stick co-signed versions of T1 group gear on a vendor and you can buy it using the in-era currency or buy the original stuff off the bazaar for cheap.

You have many easy avenues for catch up gear.

Bruh, what don't you understand about this topic being subjective? No one is going to entertain responding to you on this as it would be a waste of time.

EQ started as a free trade game, mostly, then switched to no drop item. Most MMORPG after that followed this pratice. If you arent trolling and really cant see why games do this, i am sure you could find what is behind this with a little google search.

Having No Trade limits what gear is in use and sets a rarity bar with the expectation some of those drops will go unused or after being used they will be 'retired' and not passed on to another. Encounters are tuned around the availability of mitigation. Items that are rarer have better stats because the intent is that only a few will have them.

With Free Trade, you remove a significant factor in the limitation of items entering -and- leaving the game. The concept of rarity is removed. Among players, there becomes an expectation that everyone will have the items and/or needs to have the items even if they have to use out-of-game money to obtain them. Every single one of Critt's posts in the discussion of what gear is required to "catch up" underscores that. Buying loot rights doesn't bring as many items into the game as Free Trade, but only Free Trade keeps those items in the game destroying both sides of the rarity. It also erodes the concept of tiered items to deal with tiered content because the items from the highest tiers are available to those entering the lowest.

The increase of "rare" items with higher stats in the system means that encounters have to be tuned around the availability to keep them challenging. With a Free Trade system, to keep encounters challenging, they have to be tuned with the expectation everyone has them because they can easily get them. Even the prevalence of buying loot rights affects encounter tuning. Both definitely affect player expectation of what is "required" for encounters.

As to the supply vs demand argument, in EQ, oddly, just because there is the potential for more items to be in the system because they can be sold after use, doesn't always translate to lower prices in the bazaar. Expressly because it is possible to sell used items as new, it ratchets up the economy with items being sold increasing the movement of plat between players coupled with too many ways for more money and items to enter the system and the elimination, because of Free Trade and to a lesser extent, to "sink" either (as in, metaphorically the items/money leave the game via a drain in a sink).

As a example, the concept of T1 to T2 armor. On a non-FT server, when a character gets the drop item for T1 (not sure if it's tradable on non FT servers, I think the group bits are), they have to buy an emblem and ore to combine with the drop item to make a piece of No Trade armor. Then when that character gets the drop item for T2 and makes it with the 2 plat bought items, the previous armor piece is discarded, drops out of the system. On a Free Trade server, that first made piece now can be sold on or traded to another player. The plat for the emblem and the ore only have to be bought from the in-game vendor once no matter how many times the item is used by other characters. Even if it's only re-used 1 more time, the plat that would have been spent (and left the system) to make a new piece instead stays in the system (further inflating the economy because this can be repeated ad infinitum). It is, yes, easier to obtain those items, either the drop item or the already made, on a Free Trade server but at what cost to the health of the whole game? There is an expectation, underscored by the points made by Critt, that characters are able to fully equip with T1 to T2 gear immediately upon reaching the minimum level to do so. With an expansion without a level increase the expectation is even higher that the previous expansion's gear should be immediately equipped. The only effort to do so is paying plat some of which is replenished from selling on the previous made armor and items. And, if you don't have the plat from in-game activities, there is increased pressure to pay out-of-game money to obtain it. Players who have been in the game longer have more plat because the sinks are broken on Free trade leading to even more pressure on new players or returning players to use their out-of-game resources to "keep up". Whether this starts with the purchase of a Krono from Daybreak at their fixed price or buying a Krono for less from a 3rd party broker or from TLP Krono "mining" or even directly paying a 3rd party broker out-of-game money for plat or items is immaterial.

If you can't understand why all this is bad for the health of the game, your vision is very myopic.

Free Trade actually increases the bar to entry for new players and for exactly every point Critt is making about why it's "good".

Interesting thought process, but your semantics haven’t changed my opinion that the game economy is just a microcosm of capitalism and supply and demand reigns.. the more supply the lower the cost in either time or money meaning you’re wrong.

Let me bring you songs about my wood
To make you feel much better than you could know
Dust you down from tip to toe
Show you how the garden grows

Hold you steady as you go
Join the chorus if you can
Just please nerf chanters while you can...

You miss a key component, the more money there is in a system, the higher prices go. This is also why, in the real world, it is very very very bad for governements to think they just need to print more money to pay their debts. Putting more money in a system deflates the value of that money and in turn inflates the prices in the economy.