Fuel Depots

Discussion in 'Tradeskills' started by Guiscard, Jan 2, 2014.

  1. Malfaer Member

    The benefit is pretty straightforward...convenience for those who have multiple crafters or who want to have a tradeskill house that can support visitors.

    If guilds would be fine if this change were made, and obviously individuals would be fine...I'm just trying to figure out what the actual, discernible negative consequences are supposed to be.
    suka likes this.
  2. Meirril Well-Known Member

    First paragraph: fluff with no argument or defense given. Obviously Kurogo's entire argument about the history of guilds and depots is just smoke and mirrors.

    Second paragraph: I'm in the 6th guild founded on AB. The whole status decay for guilds was dropped way before losing status for losing a member. I think it was dropped during beta but its been a while and this is such a tangential argument I don't think its important enough to dig through archived patch notes.

    Third: That is an interesting change to status merchants. Did the patch notes also mention removing the guild requirements for purchasing certain houses and mounts? Were you aware that there are things that you need to be in a certain level guild that aren't on a merchant?

    Fourth: I'm well aware of that attempt. The major argument has been to make personal depots big enough that there are no drawbacks to using them. If there are no drawbacks to using a personal depot, how is double the size of no drawback a benefit? Double the size of perfect isn't any better than perfect. That is what breaks the design philosophy behind the depots. Stressing this line doesn't make the case for increasing the size of the depots, all it does is bring up the underlying issue of why dev would be resistant to the idea.

    Fifth: Raids require organization and members. Guilds are the easiest way to get both. Modern EQ2 is about shrinking guilds and trying to gain new members. Raiding aliances are gaining in popularity because you can get people that refuse to leave their dying guilds who can't manage a raid anymore.

    sixth: Personal depots are furniture, not amenities. Amenities belong to guildhalls, and they increase the rent in exchange for adding new functionality. I'd be fine if people wanted Home Depots to be treated exactly like Guild Hall Amenities. Paying 5000 status and 1p a month per depot doesn't sound unreasonable to me at all. I'd be willing to overlook the initial 100,000 status and 50p for placing one in the first place since these are crafted pieces of furniture. Lots of other people hate this idea.
  3. Meirril Well-Known Member

    There aren't any negative consequences. What this thread has become (because it didn't start this way) is an attempt to get dev to break its design principle on personal depots. The argument so far has been "because it will be more convenient" and "it won't hurt anybody".

    Now look at the other depots and you'll see a trend. Guilds get a working model that can reasonably hold enough different items that it is useful. The tinkered model is half that size. There are exceptions (just like with every other decision), but there are arguments that make them special exceptions. Fuel depots actually are one of those exceptions.

    As Deveryn has pointed out in this thread, he made the argument that carpenters need 3 different fuel types. That got the personal fuel depot expanded from 20 to 50 slots. That is the power of a solid argument. There hasn't been a solid argument in this thread.

    Actually in a way the only argument in this thread hurts the cause of expanding fuel depots. There is an argument that not expanding the fuel depot will encourage people to set up crafting houses for every toon (and further exploit the Housing Leaderboard system. Really that kind of talk is just begging for a nerf). EQ2 makes a profit from selling player housing. More people setting up more houses means more potential for the sales of a prestige house, SC furniture, more playtime spent (which in a perverse way increases the longevity of EQ2), and in the worst case scenario no harm to the health of EQ2 from not changing the fuel depot.

    And the best thing for dev in this case is...it requires no developer time to make no change. That time can be spent on other things that will have a larger impact on the game. Like maybe creating the missing MC belts?
    Deveryn likes this.
  4. Deveryn Well-Known Member

    The first EQ2 insider is my source. Unfortunately, it's the one that wasn't saved. There was commentary on one of the Bristlebane Day quests or achievements and Kaitheel enthusiastically said the best way to get it done is to group with others. Someone out there could confirm.

    The rest of the post is wrong as well, but it's late and I would be going off-topic anyway.
  5. Kurogo Active Member

    To say that this source is disappointing is a major understatement. I didn't watch that twitch stream, so will take your word that this is what was said. Being that the case, your assumption that devs want players to generally play together is based on this statement makes me question whether you are trolling or just trying really hard to skew dev posts in your favor. This is wildly out of context for the discussion of this thread, as one quest for a holiday being easier to do with a group has nothing to do with any of what we have discussed to this point.
    suka likes this.
  6. Malfaer Member

    So? You admit there wouldn't be any negative consequences, so what's so bad about asking for conveniences? Even a grain of sand will tip the scales if there's nothing on the other side.

    "Breaking design principle" sounds like an overdramatic way of saying "changing their minds." It wouldn't be the first time, and there's nothing inherently bad about it. They can't foresee every twist and turn the market and culture will take.
    suka and Kurogo like this.
  7. Kurogo Active Member

    #1: I call out your misinformation and fabricated percentages, and your response is that it's 'fluff' and 'smoke and mirrors'? You claim that my arguments had a 'logical fallacy' and yet start arguing about claims I never made. In the same breath, you make an assumption about what 90% of guilds do without any basis.

    #2: Congratulations on being in a guild that old, it doesn't necessarily mean you were around when the guild formed. I created what was probably to 100th guild on Kithicor, it was no where near a day 1 guild, and at the time we dealt with guild status decay. Here are some links of people discussing this topic:
    From November 30th, 2004
    From December 1st, 2004
    As you can see, 4 weeks after game launch, people are talking about it.

    #3:
    Straight from the update notes found here. It's pretty self explanatory.

    #4: You spout off about logical fallacy, and yet fall victim to your own failure here. There is a drawback right now, the fuel and L&L depots don't hold everything they are made for. Doubling the size would eliminate that drawback, and doubling the guilds depot stack limits for these depots would still maintain their advantage over personal depots. This doesn't break design philosphy, but your argument breaks logic.

    #5: I'm pretty sure modern EQ2 is about a whole lot more than shrinking guilds and trying to get more members, as we are illustrating here. Solo adventure content far outweighs group and raid content combined, and that's without including decorating or crafting. You forgot to mention that raiding alliances can also provide players who don't want to be guilded at all.

    Last but not least #6: This doesn't make any sense. I mean, yes, what you are saying about furniture and amenities is true. But my point was that making amenities available to player houses is not as difficult is you believe. Nothing you say here addresses that.
    To sum it all up, you have no credibility anymore.
    suka likes this.
  8. Meirril Well-Known Member

    Wow. Hardcore trolling. Ok, lets do this.

    1: Ok, lets ask the expert then. How many guilds do you see loading up a fuel depot with fuels for the express purpose of giving their members free fuel to craft? So far I've herd antidotal evidence of one. Saying 90% is a kindness giving a 10% margin of error. Even then the express purpose is to help new players that can't afford the fuel increase when writs enter a new tier. A gift of 10p would actually be more effective because there is a chance that the depot could be emptied before our new player reaches a specific tier.

    2: Since you were there you should know the only time you actually see the message that tells you which number guild your in is when it is formed. You would have to be one of the 6 people to form a guild to see the number. Not only was I there, I paid the 60 silver myself.

    Now the bigger issue. So what? Trying to say that status being moved to an individual reward instead of a guild member only doesn't mean that everything that guilds receive should be moved to individuals, and an even greater streach of individual housing. The link to fuel depots is extremely tenuous.

    3: Yes yes, the status merchant. And notice that there is no mention of housing being changed nor of mounts being changed. That could be an oversight from dev but the fact is that there is still guild based housing and mounts. Really, you didn't need to repeat yourself.

    And it has nothing to do with Fuel Depots.

    4: Thank you for explaining how you fail to get the gist of the argument. The current size of the guild depot is large enough that you could halve its size and there wouldn't be any change to its functionality. Doubling its current size wouldn't add any additional benefit. The only way it could gain more functionality is if a bunch of new holiday fuels are added which would make the situation with a personal fuel depot much, much worse. My mistake for loosing sight of the guild depot and focusing so much on the personal depot that I failed to focus the argument on the right depot.

    5: And yet solo content is by use a waste of time for development. Solo quests get run once. Overland zones are by and large only used by questers and harvesters. Harvesters are very infrequent since the introduction of harvesting NPCs. Group content, while it isn't the majority of the content developed, gets used by more players more frequently than solo content. It isn't to say nobody runs solo instances, but rather the group instances are more popular. Also more and more of the long term subscribers turn to raiding. Considering that the subscribers are generating the majority of revenue (both from subscriptions and SC purchases) the focus really has to be on converting F2P players from soloers to raiders.

    And all of this has nothing to do with Fuel Depots, or even guild amenities.

    6: What you said was a jumbled mess with no coherent point. Something about making any house a guild hall and I went through and addressed that. Maybe you'd like to go back and clarify what you meant so we can have a meaningful discussion?

    Now if your talking about making a furniture item and giving it the same attributes as a guild amenity then yes that is mostly possible. The call to guild hall would need to be reworked. There might be a few others that would also need to be redone. The major question is why would dev want to?

    Also, this goes way beyond the scope of Fuel Depots, personal or guild.

    And last point: Keep it professional unless you want the mods to shut this thread down.
  9. Kurogo Active Member

    Again with the accusations, you were the one trying unsuccessfully to point out the 'logical fallacy', and then again unsuccessfully accuse me of the 'fluff' and 'smoke and mirrors'. If you don't want any trolling on this thread, I'd suggest you start by discontinuing your posts. You want it to remain professional, stop making up figures and bringing up irrelevant questions.

    Now to address your points:

    1. I don't, because just like you, that information isn't available to me. There could be hundreds, there could only be one. It's pure speculation without any evidence to suggest one way or the other how popularly it gets used. I'm not going to try to make up any figures simply to try to add weight to my argument; and when you do I'm going to call you out on it.

    2. You make no point here. I used guild degradation as one of the examples of how guilds function differently now than they did at launch. You made the misinformed claim that guild degradation didn't exist. I proved you wrong. This has nothing to do with that.

    3. Another example I used on how guilds function differently now than they did at launch. They used to be the only way to get items from the status merchant, now they aren't. You thought some status items still required a guild, then started bringing up irrelevent questions, so I simply gave you a quote, and a link so you could go see for yourself.

    4. I understood what you were saying, but your argument still made no sense. There are 2 aspects to the size of a depot, how many slots it holds and how large the stacks in each of those slots are allowed. Both depots have a stack limit of 200 iirc. The only difference is that the guild depot has twice as many slots. If the personal depot was given more slots, and the guild depot had it's stack size increased to just 400, it would still be superior. It would add a benefit of being able to hold more of each kind of fuel. It's been explained twice already, and yet you still try to use convoluted logic to try to point out a fault in this suggestion. There isn't one.

    5. More misguided opinions here. Solo content is a staple for this game, it's the reason it's still around. If you'd like to see evidence of this simply go through the archives and look at how many times group content was changed to small group and solo content. Nearly all overland content was changed from some of it being group oriented, to nearly all of it being soloable. Dungeons went from being the primary group content, to also providing solos, advanced solos, and I'll even throw in the challenge duo versions. Again you try to use unsubstantiated claims about what gets used more without any information available, and yet the changes to the game and new content being released increasingly allow for solo content along side group and raid content.

    6. It was pretty easy to read, the points were fluid, and the spelling was even correct. If it appeared to be a jumbled mess then it's a problem on your end. Here is the final line from that point, putting it clearly how I felt:

    Why does this matter?

    Because some people, like Deveryn, have the misconception that self-suffieciency is going to be the death of guilds in EQ2. My points are that the benefits they provided long ago have slowly been opened up to the casual unguilded player. This doesn't mean that players won't still join guilds, just that the guilds' roles have changed to less of an influence over game content.
    suka likes this.
  10. suka Well-Known Member

    hmm- ok i think i know what you are doing- maybe. you are a bit confusing. but from reading all your posts- this is what i get:
    1. you are not against having bigger depots
    2. you are wanting people to come up with a good reason to get the change
    3 you are playing devil's advocate to try to get people to think of what they are asking for and good reasons of why they should have it.
    4. in your mind, there have so far been no good reasons given because they are all from a crafter's point of view.

    in all seriousness though, if adventurers have very little interest in crafters, then why should it matter that it comes from a crafter's point of view? after all, we ware the ones it benefits, not adventurers. is it that, in your mind and therefore you assume also in the dev's minds, that those who are crafters but not adventurers are somehow second class citizens who should not be taken seriously? yeah you craft, but you also adventure and are this big proponent of grouping and raiding- something a serious crafter is not the least bit interested in. and why should we be? after all, that is a totally different playstyle.

    so what it comes down to is whose playstyle is the most desirable? in your mind- yours is. and the rest of us therefore don't count. I have news for you. to the devs, we do count. they just don't always understand us.
    Alenna likes this.
  11. suka Well-Known Member

    the only way to bring in something similar to prestige homes as a guild hall is to create guild hall packages to be sold for station cash the way they did in eq1. over there, however, all of the amenities come automatically with the hall. the reason it can be done in eq1 is because there is no status, no guild level, no status items. the guild there is a completely different form.

    creating prestige guild halls can be done, but there are some issues that would have to be addressed. like the system of charging status for the amenities. if they do away with charging for the amenities, then the entire system would need to be readdressed. personally, i like the current system where people actually have to work to accomplish things like levels for their guild. to take that away will make the eq2 guilds like any other game. there is a lot to be said for the current system.

    however, increasing the personal depots will in no way hurt a guild. personal depots are exactly that- personal. they are a way to have access to fuels while i craft in my home.

    Most guilds i know don't bother with more than a harvest depot. although i do have a fuel depot in my hall, there are times when it has caused more problems than it was worth and i don't see any guild really wanting to give away fuel to people who turn around and sell their crafted items without contributing to the fuel depot. there is no way to prevent that from happening or even know who uses it. for that reason we mostly keep the lower level fuels in ours and throw in our excess to help the low level crafter who is struggling.

    the main reason guilds don't keep a full depot is for the same reason they don't pay for repairs. they don't have deep pockets and even if they do, they prefer to offer a hand up, not a hand out.
  12. suka Well-Known Member

    the only way his "no" matters is if he is the one responsible for making the decision. what is important is that people get their opinions into the thread so that the devs can see how many want it and why. they won't be fooled by anyone's massive attempts to take over a thread by rebutting everything that is said either for or against. so don't take his opinions so personally. opinions are like a lot of unmentionable things- everyone has one.

    what we really need to do is say we want it, say why we want it, and insist that our playstyle be taken seriously. to not take us seriously is to say we don't have merit.

    meanwhile, we have given several good reasons for making the fuel depot larger.

    there are always work-arounds to every problem. in the past, that hasn't kept devs from doing something that enough people asked for. so saying that there are work-arounds is not enough of a reason to say the request doesn't have merit.

    if we are to give sincere reasons for wanting this, then those opposed need to give sincere and real reasons of why not. saying that they are simply opposed to change or that there are workarounds is not addressing the issue.
    Malfaer likes this.
  13. suka Well-Known Member

    the only reason to increase a guild fuel depot is to maintain that illusionary relationship. there is really no reason for such a relationship and no reason that guild depots should be larger than house depots by any measure. plain and simple. at this time there are x amount of fuels. all fuel depots should accommodate that and should automatically grow when new fuels come into the game.

    by the same token. all other depots should hold everything they are meant to hold. ever notice that the lore and legend depot is so small that you constantly run out of room to store stuff? no one needs 999999 of anything - they need the ability to have at least 200 of everything.
  14. suka Well-Known Member

    not only did status merchants have guild requirement removed, but the guild requirement on some housing was dropped from 30 to 10. you can still have only the lower end housing- like inns - if you are not in a guild. i think those may be dropped in time because so many people simply go from a tiny inn to a prestige house and other housing is suffering.
  15. suka Well-Known Member

    we'll start with third since the first two sound more like a personal argument.

    he was correct in saying status merchants. actually it is only city status merchants.

    the horse merchants still demand a certain guild level- although you won't see them if your guild is already above that level.

    i did notice in freeport that the house i bought required a level 10 guild. this was the 6 room house for 250k status that i thought needed a level 30 guild to purchase. i was surprised that it said level 10. but that may have been a bug that corrected itself because i went back later and it said level 30.

    4th- i am at a loss to understand why a ratio needs to be maintained between guild and personal depots. don't make any sense to me.

    5th. i don't raid so i won't comment.

    6th. as you said, personal depots are furniture, not amenities. most guild halls don't want more than a harvest depot. the rest are a waste of status and not really relevant to a guild. the reason harvest depots are relevant is because we want that status from those crafting writs so keep the harvests coming in so people will do them. the reason for an amenity is because it is a convenience and should also be because that convenience benefits the guild. however, we can't control what people put into the guild harvest depot and we can't control what they use out of it. we do ask them to put their rares in their personal depot and when they become a member of our guild we make one for them. we encourage them to put fuels they have outgrown and have too much of into the fuel depot. however we don't keep it stocked (tried that, didn't work too well) and don't see it as necessary to guild function.

    since it is more beneficial to put the fuel in your personal depot, then why shouldn't it accommodate all of it? you say your sage carries his fuel on him, then i guess your level 95 toons don't do the weekly tradeskill quests that requires incense? and do you do the dailies that require filament or sandpaper or coal? if not, then you really don't need your fuel depot, right? so how is your argument relevant.

    in fact, what, if any, stake do you have in this matter and how is it going to harm you if we get what we ask for? if it would not hurt you, then i guess you are one of those sticks in the mud that stand in the way of progress or anyone else getting something they will use and enjoy? if that is the case, isn't that rather small and selfish of you?
    Naramsin likes this.
  16. Rotherian Well-Known Member

    If you are talking about the Guild Fuel Depot, halving its unique item capacity would indeed change its functionality.

    As you can see in the following screenshot (taken at my guild hall - T3 Antonica Guild Hall Forgotten Abyss of Unrest - if you want to verify it for yourself), the Guild Fuel Depot has a unique item capacity of 100, with 60 of those slots filled. Those sixty slots represent the basic fuels - not the other things that are found on the fuel vendor, such as dough, aerated mineral water, cocoa, etc., but basic fuels (6 kinds of fuel for each of the 10 tiers):

    [IMG]

    Halving the unique item capacity of the guild fuel depot would bring the max item capacity down to 50. 50 is 10 slots less than the amount required to contain all basic fuels. Thus, reducing the guild hall fuel depot to 50 would place it in the position of not being able to support the entire range of basic fuels. That is one reason that I advocate having large stack size increases for the guild depots. They could limit the personal depots to a stack size that is half of the guild depot. This would allow the guild to amass greater resources than a personal depot, while still allowing the personal depot to have enough unique item capacity to hold at least the basic fuels. The guild would still be able to to retain a substantial advantage - provided that guild members make reasonable efforts to fill up the available stack capacity. Doubling the stack capacity of the guild depot would make it more advantageous for members to do their writs and other crafting work in the guild hall, since they would have found that they didn't need to carry any unnecessary fuels in their bags.
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  17. suka Well-Known Member

    ok now you lost me completely. where do you get that long time players become raiders? i played eq1 for years. i raided once- and vowed never to do so again. i can assure you that no matter how long i play this game, i will never become a raider. most crafters agree with me. you are totally missing the big picture here. crafters are exactly that- crafters. we craft, most of us decorate, and we do content to further our crafting- not the other way around. to say we should drop what brings us happiness to conform to your idea of what a game should be is condescending and arrogant.

    obviously you are not a dedicated crafter. i say that anyone who doesn't enjoy the playstyle that uses and needs the depots should exit the conversation. it doesn't affect you, isn't about you, and you should have no opinion on it. after all, it is not your playstyle. you are a raider, by your own definition, and not a crafter. this doesn't concern you nor does it affect you in any way.
    Naramsin likes this.
  18. Deveryn Well-Known Member

    So far, so good. All correct.

    It has nothing to do with adventurers vs. crafters. I don't favor one over another. (These days, I don't even have time to do much grouping or raiding.) This is about the altoholic vs. the average player. When any developer works on a game, their focus always has an will be the experience of the player interacting with a single character. They might make some allowances here and there to accommodate the existence of other characters, but to have that drive the design is something they will never do. Everyone supporting the depot change falls into this alt category. You call it dedicated. I don't believe dedication is measured by the number of characters you have. Dedication is measured in time and efforts.

    Who are you to say who belongs in this conversation? That's a poor attitude you're taking there and perhaps you're the one that needs to exit the conversation and take a little time to think things over. Things have been reasonably civil, but now you're starting to get a little personal. The post you were quoting even said "Keep it professional unless you want the mods to shut this thread down." Meirill is a crafter and one who tends to offer more respectable opinions around here.

    Back to my previous point: This isn't about adventurers vs. crafters. That's something people on the crafting side just like to claim a little too often. This is about people who have created a lot of characters and created an environment that can be difficult to manage. They want the devs to change the game more to suit them perfectly. In all honesty, I was being polite when I presented the possibility of an argument that will convince the devs to change their minds. I never really believed it and it's clearly been proven that no one's really going to make an effort. It's always going to go back to myself, Meirill or someone else being questioned on their character or behavior. There's really nothing more to say on this, so I make my own exit.
  19. Kurogo Active Member

    I am a crafter/adventurer/decorator/RPer. I'll raid again on occasion once my new PC is up to specs for it, group up when I'm not busy doing other things, and all 9 of my characters are in one guild or another. I don't really see this topic as crafters vs anybody else, but more appropriately as: it made no sense to cap off the depots (Fuel depot and the L&L depot, specifically) where they did. If the issue was balancing them versus Guild depots, we've already explained a better way in which it could have been done. If the devs continue to make progressive content for the game, where new levels and tiers are added, then eventually they are going to have to address the inadequate depots anyway. Now is as good a time as ever.
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  20. Ahupu Well-Known Member

    Kurogo, if as Deveryn has pointed out the fuel depot specifically was only expanded to accommodate the carpenter requiring 3 different fuels spread across 10 tiers then they have left plenty of room to expand before they need to worry as those 20 extra slots will support a full 6 tiers for a carpenter and 40 slots for 40 tiers for most other crafting classes (weaponsmith also uses multiples as they can use loom or forge depending on the weapon)*.

    Now lest anyone question me as a crafter I have 10 at max with 16 others slowly going through the ranks as crafters and I maintain 3 crafting houses with full sets of tables(one house 1-39 with all four tiers of fuels for all classes, one house 40-69 again all fuels for those three tiers, and one house 70-99 and all fuels) one frostfell house, one house with all my holiday and quest harvests, one with all my purified rares and one with all my unpurified rares (bit OCD hehe) and while I would welcome a fuel depot that would allow me to consolidate down to one house, I can respect the point that they are PERSONAL depots for the characters not the players and as such are intended to be used by single characters meaning no increase would be necessary as regards the fuel depot (assuming a tier gained every two expansion) for a minimum of 14 years (As it won't be until the seventh tier is added that carpenters would need more space) and a maximum of 80 years. If the game is still running at that point THEN they can increase the size.

    Just because we want to take on dozens of toons as crafters does not mean that items intended for a single character's use should be altered to accommodate us. That is a false sense of entitlement and abusive of the gift that the depot is. That is like your family not having a car at all and being given a Ford Escort then complaining that it isn't big enough for all 8 people in your family to ride at once.

    The L&L depot on the other hand IS inadequate, and has no other purpose than serving an army of alts. After all once I have the L&L item I personally no longer need it, therefore it's use is for alts. It should be altered especially give the forthcoming expansion and introduction of new things, but the fuel depots, if annoying for an army of crafters, are more than adequate for their intended purpose.

    In the end a guild depot is intended to support an entire guilds worth of crafters, and as such requires the capacity to hold every type of fuel available, a personal depot on the other hand is intended to support one crafter and as such requires a maximum of 30 slots leaving room for at least a decade of expansions.


    *Though adding the secondary classes of tinkerer or adorner also limits the number of available slots it has no effect on either of the classes that use fuels slots already, and zero effect on two other classes whose fuel is already coal.
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