AB Broker Furniture Isn't What I Expected

Discussion in 'Norrathian Homeshow' started by Almee, May 13, 2022.

  1. Almee Well-Known Member

    I bought a slot to create a character on AB because I have heard it has some fabulous houses. I enjoy decorating, especially with all the new tradeskill stuff, so I made my new character and was dismayed, when checking the broker for basic items like a vampiric mirror, that the prices on furnishings is crazy.

    How is a new player supposed to get into the game when low-level items are going for so much plat? I have the benefit of playing for years so I have lots of perks, from veteran rewards to loyalty items, to help me out. New players won't have those benefits.

    I'm sure, once I find a guild, that people will help me acquire items I need for decorating but new players might not want to jump right into a guild. It might feel like a commitment they aren't ready to assume until they learn which guild might be a good fit for them.

    And while a player can make a carpenter and start making furniture fairly quickly, they won't be able to make holiday furniture until that holiday comes around. So if they want orange chairs or loveseat they will have to wait till NoTD. Or if they like the tinkered look, they will have to wait for Tinkerfest. And that is really unfortunate when items from both of those holidays goes so well with the new VoV furnishings, which are affordable on AB's broker.

    If players really want to see new players come into the game, they have got to make it a good experience for the new players. One way to do that is to keep the prices on easy-to-make, generic items, that go with a lot of different styles, readily available and inexpensive to purchase. That is especially true of generic holiday items.

    I hope I will see someone making these items and offering them for sale on the AB broker very soon. For whatever reason, I'm seeing players coming back to the game, or starting the game, on other servers. That is great news for those of us who love the game. We can't easily fix stats or balance classes but we can make our brokers a welcoming source for new players to acquire the things they need to enjoy the game.
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  2. elflover Well-Known Member

    Hate to say it but its not just AB server like this skyfire and md as well. ALL servers have felt the prices rise. Krono goes up everything goes up and with the silver people not able to sell anymore might put even more of a hurt on it as well. I used to sell merchant stuff from areas I got unlocked with faction or finishing timelines. Everyone has gone nuts.
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  3. Sigrdrifa EQ2 Wiki Author

    Be sure to /j Antonia_Bayle.Homeshow so you can easily communicate with the world-wide decorator community.
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  4. elflover Well-Known Member

    Yup with this if you ask more than likely someone can make or easily go buy simple faction things for you. Or pass some of the event tiles if its over and you need some.
  5. draidean Well-Known Member

    It has definitely gotten out of hand and makes me grumpy too. Probably the best way a new player can get what they need is to join the homeshow channel and ask in there. Someone is always happy to provide items for free, that aren't super rare/expensive or anything. No need to join a guild for that.
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  6. draidean Well-Known Member

    I have often (and still do, sometimes) place items on the broker for far far cheaper than the price gougers do, but they just either get bought up quickly for hoarding (I am talking in like stacks of 900!), especially with the new home depots available to chuck it all into, or by the price gougers who then just add them to their ridiculously overpriced stacks on the broker. The latter are the people that seriously piss me off and there is no way anybody can keep up with them.

    I think the only way this is gonna get fixed is if the devs make all the furniture more easily accessible/available. Stop with all the items that require hours of busy work to collect, the daily quest items, recipe books that only make 5 of an item before you have to go quest again (looking at you, The Anchorage), big long questlines and meta collections, holiday grinds like Moonlight, plunders, etc. and so on. Cute ideas and they work if you only have a few of them but there are just so many now it's impossible to keep up with them all to the degree that you would have reasonable access to the pieces and in the quantities you need. I believe this is a big part of why people can farm these items now like anything else and charge crazy prices for them on the broker.

    I'd really like to see this system revamped, as it's truly gotten out of hand. It's a big reason I don't play as much anymore. I have to spend more time doing boring, tedious "furniture gathering" tasks than decorating, which is the fun part and the only thing I do anymore. I realize these grinds are probably designed to keep people busy and in the game, and keep those subs going, but when a game starts being more work than fun then I check out and go play a different game or other use of my spare time that is more enjoyable. So, in my case, they are accomplishing the opposite of what they want. As a Lifetime Member, I no longer have to pay regular subs, but I would still spend more money on the MP, be more involved in the decorating community offering events, contests, and such for them, and encourage others to play more if collecting the items I want to decorate with wasn't such a pita.

    One thing I think they could do is provide vendors that sell ALL the items to you for a reasonable price after you have completed whatever requirement there is to get the first one, like some of the book, timeline, and a few other quests do. Another idea would be to gather all of the items from a particular holiday or event and put them into recipe books that we could buy or get rewarded with whenever we had acquired all of the items in it as a final reward. Then we could craft them from there whenever we liked. Or have some kind of universal currency that we could use to buy any of the items with, then at least we could pick the least boring grind to sit in all day and then go buy whatever we wanted with it. And lower the prices on these token items! They could also leave up special vendors all year round where people could buy any holidays' recipes and/or items. I mean there's lots of options I think would benefit the game, but I'm a nobody so they wouldn't listen to me lol
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  7. Morukta The ORIGINAL Micro-Gnome

    This was me - I regularly would craft basic furniture pieces, common & rare gear of lower tiers for appearance and throw them onto the broker for reasonable prices. Some would go fast, others would sit for weeks or months, but eventually sell.
    Now that they have taken away my ability to add items for sale to my broker with Silver, I won't be able to do that anymore. I won't be able to earn ANY more coin in-game (I don't adventure much anymore). Tinkerfest 2021 was a boon, I made almost 10mil Plat selling shiny cogs, adding more as stacks sold off. Won't be doing that his year.

    No more plat coming in = no more plat going out.
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  8. Ocarinah Well-Known Member

    I just don't understand why all players whether free to play, silver or member don't have ability to both buy and sell items. Also send mail. This a required thing to do anything in this game. Members have plenty of other perks there is no need to not allow broker and mail fully usable for ALL people. These are the other things that I think they should do to make things easier on decorators on ALL servers not just the special ones.
    • Ability to buy ALL house items on merchants with a small amount of coin (10 plat the most expensive no matter what tier) not special currency.
    • If it is a must spend time thing, then do it so it is not work. Do quest/questline once per account (not character or server) to unlock the items. I don't have time as it is to do both adventure and tradeskill timelines on one character, how can I do it on all servers. There are a few of us that would like to help fill in for someone that backs out of events no matter what server we are needed on.
    • For collection quests with house items as rewards, make a merchant at entry area of the zone you collect the shinies from so we can buy more of the item including when we are forced to pick one item out of a list of items.
    • If it must be special currency for holiday items (I just don't get why it must be this way), only have it that way first year then regular coins.
    • For Lore and Legend and Heritage Quest items, please have shady merchant in Nek Forest be two merchants. One for selling weapon version of items. One that sells stacks of 900 of the house item versions and make them either tradeable or heirloom. Some of the items need to right click on an item to convert them to house items which requires you to close the merchant window. The item "The Legendary Staff of the Observers" makes awesome silver skinny pole but have to buy one at a time because you cannot have more than one at a time and must convert to get more. If you want to make a custom cage or something that needs like 20 of them, you are in for a painful day of travel and closing/opening windows and converting.
    • Either make it so ALL special holiday currency can be obtained with harvesting ponies during the holiday or just don't have it as special currency anymore. Nobody has that kind of time anymore. New players overwhelmed how much they would have to do to catch up.
    • Make all holiday recipes tradeable. We have a large disabled decorator population. Not all of us can be online during every holiday. Our community likes to help each other so let us do this with holiday recipes.
    • No heirloom or no trade items for 98% of house items not on Marketplace. Again, let us help each other with this as well.
    • Enough with pets! There are plushies out there with options like a pet has (example: Succulent Plushie). How about do that instead. Pets do not stack so cannot put in home depot. Most people don't bother naming them. Not all stay when told to stay. Cannot use anywhere because characters now load first so if try to place on shelf or something like fake floor decorator made way up high in the sky, the pet will fall to the floor sometimes so it cannot be seen at all. If there must be pets, how about make them so we cannot name them so we can stack them and place in depot. Or make it so unnamed pets will stack but as soon as you do name them they no longer stack. You could then do that for signs, player-written book, house actors, mannequins, etc.
    • Enough with lore house items. I get making crafted depots lore so you can make money from the marketplace depots. Other items...why, why can we not have more than one of other items. No other house items need to be lore including "Magic Door to the Guild Hall".
    There are other suggestions, but list is already too long.
  9. draidean Well-Known Member

    Ocarinah!! YES!! So much all of this. Furniture collection has simply become too time consuming. I posted my shorter list over on the wishlist forum too, hoping the devs will see it.
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  10. Sigrdrifa EQ2 Wiki Author

    The point is that Free To Play is supposed to be a trial tryout of the game. After you know you like it, you ought to subscribe.

    Honestly, I think it was the wrong decision to allow the Free To Play thing to go beyond a few weeks in the first place.
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  11. draidean Well-Known Member

    Wait I heard in game shortly after the patch that messed up silver accounts that it was a bug and would be fixed. Did that end up not being the case?
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  12. Ocarinah Well-Known Member

    People that had a grandfathered in silver account could both buy and sell items without tokens. I have a friend that has sent me sales logs to show me this was allowed before the bug happened which removed accounts being marked as silver. I purchased 4 silver accounts and mine didn't allow to sell. The only thing they did was remark all the silver accounts as silver which didn't restore the ability to sell items without tokens. Whether selling on grandfathered silver accounts was supposed to be allowed or not, it was available for several years. The part they fixed is now you can buy again and receive mail. It has since been moved to resolved.
  13. draidean Well-Known Member

  14. Ocarinah Well-Known Member

    I don't remember that being the reason why there was free to play at all. There were multiple tiers. There was free trials but that wasn't free to play. They did release it so you could try heroic characters until they level up one level and could unlock them by buying the heroic characters. Planetside 2 also has free to play and there really is no benefit to being member unless you want last weekend of month double xp, discount on marketplace and early access to items which I have only ever seen one item in that category so don't count that. You can go to any map and use any weapons just like everyone else as free to play. I subscribe with 2 of my accounts so I do agree people should subscribe but they came out with free to play so those that cannot afford to subscribe can still play. In order to play new content, they have to buy the expansion. No more allowing people after a certain expansion (think it was the Tranquil Sea one?) to get new stuff for free. There are many ways for them to make money to keep the game going. They have made tons off me that is for dang sure. Why not keep the players currently playing by fixing their accounts to the way they were for the past few years. There are logs that they can look at to see what people have sold and purchases and if they bought those tokens or had a membership. All of that. So they know people are not lying when they say they could sell before the bug.

    But that doesn't really matter what the intent was does it? I respect you giving your opinion about there shouldn't be free to play. It is MY opinion that I think they should allow free to play and silver accounts the ability to sell so they can afford to buy stuff. Everything is too expensive right now and how can people do things in game without the money to buy things they need. If I couldn't buy kronos I couldn't afford to buy house items or gear myself. I have trouble just getting the videos done, judging events, running my own events, trying to participate in deco house swaps, etc so I don't have time to go out and do things that would allow me to make money to do the things I want to do if I couldn't sell things. What is it hurting to have people in community that want to participate but cannot afford a membership? There are less and less of us as it is. I don't know if I am willing to spend money on kronos, marketplace items (besides the free 500 dbc), etc. in future if they decide not to fix it so grandfathered silver accounts can sell again without token. I already have one friend leaving and I know there will most likely be more. If more leave I might as well play the game by myself without paying membership and just decorate with what I have today. I have way too many dang houses as it is for me to finish in my lifetime. It hurts every time another friend leaves the game, and I am dang tired of being hurt. Plus, I could use the money I save to buy real life house items.

    I have tried to help them make as much money as possible. That was point to my player-studio display house, help players, the artists and daybreak to make money. I have bought expansions on 6 accounts and 2 memberships. My husband has a membership. Both of us have or do buy station cash. I buy kronos and the packs with the really big bags and teleporters/paintings/etc. I host events giving away marketplace items and kronos. And my newest project has been putting together share houses for those that organize/host the events so if they have to fill in for someone dropping out of a swap they will have free house items. I can also give out house items to participates too. It is more expensive than anything else I have done. I gave Planetside 2 the idea from their first year to but horns on the marketplace and not just have them beep but play music. Do you know how many horns they have with different music and each vehicle requires the purchase because the horn is not for all vehicles? I am sure that gave them even more ideas of what they could do to customize vehicles and gear and make money on marketplace.

    I want them to make money I truly do, but my opinion is don't turn away people currently playing the game over something caused by a mistake (well two mistakes) they made. I think they need to own it and do the right thing by giving back what was happening for years. It would be in their best interest to give all silver accounts the ability now as well. It is what other types of businesses would do.
  15. draidean Well-Known Member

    I agree Ocarinah. Whatever the intent, they grandfathered these people in and have been giving them those perks for years, and it doesn't make sense to just up and take them from them now. Especially without even a by your leave! I saw all the blindsided the day after. Bad business.
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  16. Uwkete-of-Crushbone Well-Known Member

    Like in WoW? I tried out one character each side, initially (one female Dwarven Pally, one male Tauren Warrior, who became my main toon once I unlocked him), and while I don't remember being timed, we could only get to like level 10 or so before we got forever stranded at that point until we became full members. Considering we had about as much going for us as lowbees in EQ1 (i.e., not much), but with way more tantalizing things, options, etc. juuuuuust out of reach (and not way up in the damn stratosphere like here, but then, we couldn't just buy our way into the highest heights right off the bat legally), it definitely encouraged me to start paying for it. :)

    I don't recall if my newbs could use the Mail system or the Auction House, but I think we could (largely 'cause both sucked so very, very bad, that it was enough of a hardship in the first place for anyone to use, but I did appreciate the ability to mail up to 12 different items at a time), regardless if we were F2P.

    Uwk
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  17. Uwkete-of-Crushbone Well-Known Member

    Gah...if they want us to buy up Kronos by the ton and sell them for 80 bajillion plat, they ought to make Brokering a thing at any level. Maybe only x amount of times per month, or per toon, or whatever (do they still sell Brokering Tokens on the Marketplace?), limit it somehow, but at least make it a better option than it is currently.

    Again, seems like The Powers are just allergic to making money. :-/

    I think the big mistake they made was in making F2P the default, and then neutering it beyond the level where anyone would think the game was fun that way or had anything much to look forward to as a paid member (or like it was the "poor and wretched" looking in wistfully from the street through the windows of the rich nobles and sighing a lot for something they could never have). :-/ Every other MMO I'd heard of, subscribing was the default, with F2P as an option; maybe SOE did it the way they did to reduce the elitism here ("Oh, you're only on F2P? Aw, poor you... ;) Try not to ruin our game with your presence."), but frankly, with everything else in the game seeming to encourage elitism (I've always thought old, pre-EA Blizzard was Microsoft, SOE was Apple), making F2P the default didn't seem to help cure that. :-/

    Or, it could've been just another SONY error, like with Betamax vs. VHS... ;->

    Uwk
  18. Uwkete-of-Crushbone Well-Known Member

    Absolutely yes. At least a warning should've been given; those folks who could afford to upgrade their Silvers to Golds could've done so without the rug being yoinked out from under them. :-/

    Uwk
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  19. Uwkete-of-Crushbone Well-Known Member

    I rejoiced so very, very hard when we finally got the Currency tab. X-P

    Or maybe make those items as part of the list of things the local merchants in that zone sell? Rather than having to come up with new programming for an NPC? :-/

    One thing I'd love to see in all "big" adventuring zones (not necessarily just "instance" zones, like the suburbs these days :-/), would be a Banker. Everfrost has one, and a General Store sort of merchant, right there when you come in; why not do that for, say, The Thundering Steppes? Or at least have a set of those in the centrally located village... For pity's sake, even Enchanted Lands doesn't have a Banker, which they could put up in the tavern right there. :( I know, I know, the place is in tatters, but lemme tell ya, in 500 years, they would've finally gotten some schmoe just standing there, with pockets that are "bigger on the inside" or some shelf space, to help out all the "visitors from the outer lands" and the local people. Gnomeland Security has a pretty thriving economy that way, after they were refugees fleeing from the ruin of Klak'anon. :-/

    Basically, unlocking the ability. Got it. ;)


    One wonders what the audience for the game is, who has the amount of free time nowadays. School students, K-college? They have homework, and maybe part-time jobs. Regular adults? Full-time jobs. Retirees? I wouldn't be a bit surprised if we're the main group of players now, but even we have RL situations and additional game aspects (like video-graphing, Oaky? :)) to work on.

    Amen. Absolutely. If nothing else, stackable; even if they're left as Heirloom only, we can't modify those books, there's no difference in versions as to how/if they can be "read" like a story's text, so why not make them able to be stacked? With my Horde, the amount of room they take up in the Shared Bank, oy... X-P


    Brilliant! :) I don't bother naming mine when I get saddled with 87 ducks, etc., a lot of which I can't even share with others other than my alts, who may already have their full complement themselves, or even with pets that are No-Trade. I do think some of that holiday pet overload could be reduced or eliminated by just having the old Santa Glug stuff be available on the various Village Merchants (giving the Village yet another purpose, for those that freak out that "the Village isn't important any more now that we can -- sigh -- make stuff all year 'round now...") for regular in-game currency; maybe a new merchant for the old Glug stuff like we have for the other old holiday stuff. Son of Santa Glug or someone like that; a li'l kid gobbo just getting his big start, something. ;-> And have Santa just do new stuff each year (really, unless you're a Hobbit in real life, who wants the same old junk from prior years as "gifties"? And yet, you'd want that stuff freely available, in case a) you missed it the first time, b) you're a new player, or c) you want 87 whatevers from last year, for decorating purposes?).

    I also like the ideas folks have come up with for more Marketplace items that the Powers could sell to us, that would change Pets into Plushies...though I personally would like it to be reversible. ;->

    That last one, I think I can see; it's a portal, of sorts, and having more than one heading to the exact same place in the same house (travel house setup?) could be bad...though if the same house owner was storing stuff in one place for all the alts on that server and some of them were from different Guilds, I could see the ability to park more than one Magic Door would be a good thing; different destination, so it shouldn't be a program-breaker.

    And then I got ahold of it! :D

    Uwk
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