Player Agreement: Rule Change at the DS Camp

[berbax]

Originally Posted by Toxigen [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

EQ isn't fair. Sorry you don't got Drusella solo artist kill.

Consider Quarm I heard they do a lot of hand-holding and equitable things there.

Hi Toxigen, I solo'd DS on 06/28, you can watch that in the video provided in the original post. Thank you again!

[magicfest2]

This discussion seems to be a bit stuck due to a similar issue to what I mentioned in passing earlier — you seem quite good at completely ignoring things that are explained in great detail, or else mentioning them and then redirecting discussion away immediately as if they were resolved.

1) Even if I thought change was a good idea, /list isn’t it. List is actually so much worse than even the status quo — the list system is probably *the single most toxic system on p99* and the most detrimental to player health that you claim to be concerned with. Instead of allowing for people to swap out and help each other, one single character must be online and active for the entire camp period, which is absolutely insane. I did the list for Summon Corpse when ST tried to lock it down before Sky opening, and I was literally playing 12h/day and swapping out with an IRL friend for the other 12, and maintained our spot on the list for TWO FULL WEEKS. I still wake up sometimes in sweats thinking I missed an afk check. No person should be subjected to that kind of trauma. As you can see too, all it did was advantage guilds that had shared credentials for bots they could pass out and share the effort. Since the item in both cases is essentially free to trade (or MQ) there is no problem just using any random shared bot for this. Continuing to mention /list as a viable alternative makes it impossible for me to take your posts seriously.

2) Multiple people have tried to explain some Economics 101 concepts but you still appear to not get it. The supply is fixed. The demand is larger than supply. Changing who gets the item does not affect the price. Maybe with an example it would be easier:

* Players A, B, C are a farm crew.
* Players D-Z want urns for SWC.


In the case where players A/B/C each get an urn over the course of a week:

* 3 Urns are sold with 23 prospective buyers.

In the case where players A/B/C don’t even play, and D/E/F get urns there are multiple outcomes as well:

* D/E/F all use their urns for SWC. Zero urns are sold this week. Players G-Z are buying but the market supply is empty.
* D uses urn and E/F sell. 2 urns are available for 21 prospective buyers.

In either case, there are still a ton of buyers and very limited availability. Thus in both cases, the price is actually likely to go up since the urn:buyer ratio gets worse!
Unless you think the drop rate of urns matches the number of prospective buyers, the price will not drop significantly or possibly at all. This example still works even if we limit the interested parties down to D-M or something, it really doesn’t matter unless the supply meets or exceeds demand.

3. Random is bad for all the reasons people have mentioned, which it hurts me to repeat, but in summary:

* there are no enforceable prerequisites to roll
* the drop is not guaranteed, in fact statistically from our large sample set it seems closer to 20-25% — even if I was rolling against 10-20 people like at ring 8, winning for a 25% chance is dumb, it’s random on top of random
* it would need something like the scout/angry agreement that everyone rolling must help with the kill, which is difficult to enforce (I see people /q at both every time already) and if you’ve done scout much, you can see how hilariously badly it can go even in a relatively safe environment, while DS is train central and can be an exceedingly difficult recovery

In conclusion: my opinion is that the only rational option for change would be an equity based system like URN, which is very similar actually to how my current group operates, just with more open membership. I’d probably be fine with that. However, I don’t ACTUALLY think anything needs to change other than having the current player agreement clarified and more consistently enforced. Sure, Castle is holding it now, but I say this as their direct competition: good for them! They organized well and they’re doing something impressive as a group in an MMO. Eventually they’ll get tired or slip up or realize that very few people ever actually camped there for more than 12 hours and it will go back to trading hands on the regular. And hey, it seems like a bunch of them are getting urns to use for their quest (not resale), so literally the only thing that would change if you got your way is which people got their SWC, to random people instead of people putting in effort. We care about this… why?

[sajbert]

Originally Posted by PatChapp [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

The price is driven by supply,which would be largely unaffected unless they also increased the drop rate.
Urn prices won't be changed much,if at all.
Right not there is lots of demand and none for sale, next urn on the market could easily hit 300.

P99 economics aren't as simple as supply and demand.

Urn simply being available to more people who want to put in the effort means less would be inclined to pay 250k for one.

The small amount of players farming urns more or less has a monopoly and could dictate whatever price they wanted. Once a price expectation is established it tends to stay there unless there's any large mismatch of supply and demand and multiple sellers pressed to sell.

[7thGate]

This could change the price. The urns are not being awarded to the people who value them the most in platinum right now, they're being awarded to the people who are most willing to help hold the camp 24/7 with friends. Plenty of people getting urns likely would not be willing to pay 250k for one.

If all the Urns hit the market, it would cause the demand curve to drop some because you instead allocate the urns more to the people willing to bid up the price in plat, which then takes them out of the bidding and exposes the lower valued part of the demand curve. The loss would be that it would no longer be possible to guarantee an urn without spending plat in a fixed amount of time.

Regardless, the actual win here would be that a roll based system means you don't have to waste everyone's time holding a camp nonstop, you just show up for 5 minutes 100 times or so until you get your urn. The total amount of work necessary from everyone involved to get the same amount of urns go down a lot.

[berbax]

Originally Posted by magicfest2 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

This discussion seems to be a bit stuck due to a similar issue to what I mentioned in passing earlier — you seem quite good at completely ignoring things that are explained in great detail, or else mentioning them and then redirecting discussion away immediately as if they were resolved.

1) Even if I thought change was a good idea, /list isn’t it. List is actually so much worse than even the status quo — the list system is probably *the single most toxic system on p99* and the most detrimental to player health that you claim to be concerned with. Instead of allowing for people to swap out and help each other, one single character must be online and active for the entire camp period, which is absolutely insane. I did the list for Summon Corpse when ST tried to lock it down before Sky opening, and I was literally playing 12h/day and swapping out with an IRL friend for the other 12, and maintained our spot on the list for TWO FULL WEEKS. I still wake up sometimes in sweats thinking I missed an afk check. No person should be subjected to that kind of trauma. As you can see too, all it did was advantage guilds that had shared credentials for bots they could pass out and share the effort. Since the item in both cases is essentially free to trade (or MQ) there is no problem just using any random shared bot for this. Continuing to mention /list as a viable alternative makes it impossible for me to take your posts seriously.

2) Multiple people have tried to explain some Economics 101 concepts but you still appear to not get it. The supply is fixed. The demand is larger than supply. Changing who gets the item does not affect the price. Maybe with an example it would be easier:

* Players A, B, C are a farm crew.
* Players D-Z want urns for SWC.


In the case where players A/B/C each get an urn over the course of a week:

* 3 Urns are sold with 23 prospective buyers.

In the case where players A/B/C don’t even play, and D/E/F get urns there are multiple outcomes as well:

* D/E/F all use their urns for SWC. Zero urns are sold this week. Players G-Z are buying but the market supply is empty.
* D uses urn and E/F sell. 2 urns are available for 21 prospective buyers.

In either case, there are still a ton of buyers and very limited availability. Thus in both cases, the price is actually likely to go up since the urn:buyer ratio gets worse!
Unless you think the drop rate of urns matches the number of prospective buyers, the price will not drop significantly or possibly at all. This example still works even if we limit the interested parties down to D-M or something, it really doesn’t matter unless the supply meets or exceeds demand.

3. Random is bad for all the reasons people have mentioned, which it hurts me to repeat, but in summary:

* there are no enforceable prerequisites to roll
* the drop is not guaranteed, in fact statistically from our large sample set it seems closer to 20-25% — even if I was rolling against 10-20 people like at ring 8, winning for a 25% chance is dumb, it’s random on top of random
* it would need something like the scout/angry agreement that everyone rolling must help with the kill, which is difficult to enforce (I see people /q at both every time already) and if you’ve done scout much, you can see how hilariously badly it can go even in a relatively safe environment, while DS is train central and can be an exceedingly difficult recovery

In conclusion: my opinion is that the only rational option for change would be an equity based system like URN, which is very similar actually to how my current group operates, just with more open membership. I’d probably be fine with that. However, I don’t ACTUALLY think anything needs to change other than having the current player agreement clarified and more consistently enforced. Sure, Castle is holding it now, but I say this as their direct competition: good for them! They organized well and they’re doing something impressive as a group in an MMO. Eventually they’ll get tired or slip up or realize that very few people ever actually camped there for more than 12 hours and it will go back to trading hands on the regular. And hey, it seems like a bunch of them are getting urns to use for their quest (not resale), so literally the only thing that would change if you got your way is which people got their SWC, to random people instead of people putting in effort. We care about this… why?

I have not been ignoring key details; I’ve been trying to address the main issues raised, so I'll go ahead and continue with yours.

List System Concerns:
I understand your concerns about the list system's toxicity. However, the current system also promotes unhealthy behavior by encouraging 24/7 camping. A well-designed roll or list system with proper breaks and shared efforts can mitigate these issues. It’s about finding a balanced solution. As already mentioned many times, random has be implemented for other parts of the quest chain.

Economics of Supply and Demand:
Your economic argument misses the impact of monopolization. When a single guild controls the camp, they manipulate supply to keep prices high. By democratizing access, we reduce monopolistic control, which can help stabilize prices. This isn’t about basic supply and demand; it’s about addressing artificial scarcity created by monopolization.

Random Roll:
Enforceability and drop rates are valid concerns, but they can be managed with community agreements and GM support, as seen in other successful camps. The goal is to ensure fair participation without creating chaos.

Regarding the insult about not understanding economics, I’m well aware of supply and demand principles. My argument focuses on how monopolization distorts these principles, leading to artificially high prices. A fairer system would address this distortion. If you feel you'd like a response to anything further feel free to let me know. I see you already voted "No", so if any of this changes your decision that would be great, if not then thanks for you feedback.

[magicfest2]

“A well designed list system with proper breaks and shared efforts” is absolutely not “/list” so if you mean a player run list please be careful to differentiate it from /list which is a specific code-implemented feature of the server. I’m going to assume from here on that you DO NOT mean /list when you refer to lists. Hopefully that’s correct.

As far as the current Castle camp, they aren’t monopolizing the supply to drive up prices — they’re literally the ones using the urns in most cases. It isn’t a conspiracy to make prices go up. It’s just a normal reduction of supply, whether it’s Castle doing it or the server as a whole, the difference is just which players get them, at which point it is a question of whether it is effort based or RNG based. I gave an example before which may have seemed abstract but is based directly on months of observation. Essentially the second case happened when my group originally took over and had the camp for a great deal of a three month period. That’s when you saw prices go up to 250k — because the first 20 or so urns we got were almost exclusively not for resale, so the supply for several months almost completely dried up. That is what happens. When more resellers are camping it, the prices go down. I’m sure you are correct that there are different mindsets when it comes to buying or camping — some players likely will camp instead of buy (I’m an example of this, because I literally was dead broke 100% of the time, so helped form a group for this), but a lot of people really would likely still just pay instead of trying to figure it out or put in the rather large time commitment as there are much easier ways to make money over the long term with lower effort. I understand that just like real world economics, there are so many factors that even the best economists are honestly right about as often as wrong. I’m pretty confident from having watched an actual example of this play out though, so we can revisit in a year of you manage to get a change (assuming we’re both still around) and one of us can say “I told you so”. XD

[berbax]

Originally Posted by magicfest2 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

“A well designed list system with proper breaks and shared efforts” is absolutely not “/list” so if you mean a player run list please be careful to differentiate it from /list which is a specific code-implemented feature of the server. I’m going to assume from here on that you DO NOT mean /list when you refer to lists. Hopefully that’s correct.

As far as the current Castle camp, they aren’t monopolizing the supply to drive up prices — they’re literally the ones using the urns in most cases. It isn’t a conspiracy to make prices go up. It’s just a normal reduction of supply, whether it’s Castle doing it or the server as a whole, the difference is just which players get them, at which point it is a question of whether it is effort based or RNG based. I gave an example before which may have seemed abstract but is based directly on months of observation. Essentially the second case happened when my group originally took over and had the camp for a great deal of a three month period. That’s when you saw prices go up to 250k — because the first 20 or so urns we got were almost exclusively not for resale, so the supply for several months almost completely dried up. That is what happens. When more resellers are camping it, the prices go down. I’m sure you are correct that there are different mindsets when it comes to buying or camping — some players likely will camp instead of buy (I’m an example of this, because I literally was dead broke 100% of the time, so helped form a group for this), but a lot of people really would likely still just pay instead of trying to figure it out or put in the rather large time commitment as there are much easier ways to make money over the long term with lower effort. I understand that just like real world economics, there are so many factors that even the best economists are honestly right about as often as wrong. I’m pretty confident from having watched an actual example of this play out though, so we can revisit in a year of you manage to get a change (assuming we’re both still around) and one of us can say “I told you so”. XD

Your response essentially proves my point about monopolization: whether the intent is to use or sell, the outcome is the same - restricted access for the broader player base, leading to scarcity and high prices.

The fact that urn prices increased to 250k when your group held the camp for several months, primarily using urns rather than selling them, illustrates the impact of limited access on the market. When fewer urns are available for resale, prices naturally increase due to scarcity, regardless of the intent behind the monopolization. It also shows that it’s not "the server as a whole" creating this scarcity, but rather a minority of individual groups. Therefore, the "normal reduction of supply" is actually not normal; it’s a result of monopolization by specific groups.

Edit: I want to reiterate that the intent of my responses is not to argue about market economics, but to show how it’s not providing a fair and healthy environment for the community, which is why the agreement is being proposed.

[Ruien]

Originally Posted by berbax [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Edit: I want to reiterate that the intent of my responses is not to argue about market economics, but to show how it’s not providing a fair and healthy environment for the community, which is why the agreement is being proposed.

I think this is where the disconnect is coming from. You are equating "lower price" with "fairer, more accessible Urn for the general community".

There are definitely people who are able to spend more time than platinum, and (even at a reduced price) would be locked out of an Urn if you require them to pay for it. So, while it increases the availability for some people, it reduces availability for others. There's no free lunch here.

An equity-based system like URN breaks the monopoly without locking out these people.

Finally, there seems to be a running assumption by yourself and others (like 7thGate) that holding the camp is a waste of time, and that everyone would be better off without it. But actually you are removing gameplay - this is EQ, and I think we can all agree that camping items with friends is core gameplay. It's /random that's foreign and unnatural. Maybe people who want /random really just want to be playing a different game, because they don't seem to enjoy p99 as it is currently implemented. Some of us actually enjoy the DS camp and would prefer that you don't attempt to destroy gameplay and replace it with 50-100 alts that log in once per day and /q afterward.

[berbax]

Originally Posted by Ruien [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I think this is where the disconnect is coming from. You are equating "lower price" with "fairer, more accessible Urn for the general community".

There are definitely people who are able to spend more time than platinum, and (even at a reduced price) would be locked out of an Urn if you require them to pay for it. So, while it increases the availability for some people, it reduces availability for others. There's no free lunch here.

An equity-based system like URN breaks the monopoly without locking out these people.

Finally, there seems to be a running assumption by yourself and others (like 7thGate) that holding the camp is a waste of time, and that everyone would be better off without it. But actually you are removing gameplay - this is EQ, and I think we can all agree that camping items is core gameplay. It's /random that's foreign and unnatural. Maybe people who want /random really just want to be playing a different game, because they don't seem to enjoy p99 as it is currently implemented. Some of us actually enjoy the DS camp and would prefer that you don't attempt to destroy gameplay and replace it with 50-100 alts that log in once per day and /q afterward.

Ruien, I appreciate your perspective, but there are a points and misconceptions to fix. The goal isn’t just to lower prices but to ensure fair access. Monopolization restricts access and creates unfair conditions where only those with excessive time can benefit. Fairness means everyone, regardless of their available time or money, has a chance.

An equity-based system like URN might break the monopoly, but it still doesn’t address the core issue of restricted access, or high prices (from what I understand). A roll or list system democratizes access, giving more players a fair shot without excluding anyone based on their time or wealth. Again, I'm not an expert on what you guys are advocating, but it appears to be met with mixed reviews. Even the poll image posted in a previous comment highlights that.

This isn’t about removing camping from the game. It’s about making the process healthier and more accessible. Fair systems enhance gameplay by allowing more players to participate meaningfully without promoting unhealthy behavior.

Lastly, random rolls aren’t foreign to EQ. They’ve been used successfully in other camps to ensure fairness and reduce toxic behavior. This discussion is about creating a fair and healthy environment, not just about item prices.

[Ruien]

Originally Posted by berbax [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Ruien, I appreciate your perspective, but there are a points and misconceptions to fix. The goal isn’t just to lower prices but to ensure fair access. Monopolization restricts access and creates unfair conditions where only those with excessive time can benefit. Fairness means everyone, regardless of their available time or money, has a chance.

An equity-based system like URN might break the monopoly, but it still doesn’t address the core issue of restricted access, or high prices (from what I understand). A roll or list system democratizes access, giving more players a fair shot without excluding anyone based on their time or wealth. Again, I'm not an expert on what you guys are advocating, but it appears to be met with mixed reviews. Even the poll image posted in a previous comment highlights that.

This isn’t about removing camping from the game. It’s about making the process healthier and more accessible. Fair systems enhance gameplay by allowing more players to participate meaningfully without promoting unhealthy behavior.

Lastly, random rolls aren’t foreign to EQ. They’ve been used successfully in other camps to ensure fairness and reduce toxic behavior. This discussion is about creating a fair and healthy environment, not just about item prices.

Hold on - I just don't get this point. What do you mean that URN doesn't address the core issue of restricted access?

I'm talking about URN network as literally free for anyone to join, who can log hours on their own schedule, and over a few months of camping with friends you will eventually be able to loot an Urn, and that urn can be either used or sold per your preference. How does that prevent participation?