Goldmining is causing the lag, and must stop

[Kayliee]

It seems I am the only one, who would be perfectly fine with having goldmining permanently disabled and no new options added to earn gold. I

I'm also not against removing adult gold without any new ways to earn gold. We already get pretty significant gold from interacting in Forums, but I also wouldn't be against other ways for the people who would be interested in it.

[Syndicate]

Fitting within the MS lore, I think a new quest line that leads to potion crafting/selling potions could be a fun idea.

This idea involves a quest line to introduce the “Potion Master” and herb collecting with Magi being able to craft various potions with a mix-and-discover system. Economic balance could be maintained through daily caps on crafting and selling. Engagement would be increased with the Gardens through interactive activities. Read on for more!


Snippet from MS lore (Keep):
“In the kitchens of the keep, herb lore and potion making are taught”

Quest Line:

Spoiler

In order to access herb collecting and potion making, a new quest line must be completed.

The quest line could introduce a new NPC or adapt an existing one, into the “Potion Master”.

The purpose of the quest line is to introduce the Potion Master, herbs and the potion making process.

During the quest line, some base recipes should be learnt.

Completing the quest line should open the ability for magi to access a new area within the world, such as the “Keep Gardens or Herb Gardens” (Or even tailoring it to suit the existing gardens mentioned in places like Xoctol-Hon)

The end of the quest should also lead on to the Potion Master noting a requirement for needing more potions such as - that they are always in need of more potions to teach new potion students etc.

Post Quest Line:

Spoiler

From the Gardens, Magi can collect herbs and craft these into potions, which can either be used on their own creatures or sold back to the Potions Master.

Searching the gardens could be similar to searching the forest, or perhaps even as an interactive mini-map.

Potion Crafting:

Spoiler

Crafting potions should follow the existing process for crafting creatures.

I personally think it would be cool to have a “mix-and-discover” system to discover new potion recipes.

Perhaps the Quest Line could give a couple of base recipes, and then the rest you have to mix ingredients and find the right cocktail for yourself.

Mixing the incorrect combination should still consume the items, but give a “bad potion” that can still be sold back to the potions master, but for less gold.

Potion Ideas:

Spoiler

- Growth Potion (equivalent of the choc box)
- Amnesia Potion (Causes a named creature to forget its name and become “unnamed”)
- Unfreezing Potion (Unfreezes a creature, attuned to your element)
- Lucky Potions (Increases your chances of finding Koi Pond creatures, could even be attuned to specific creatures / As a separate idea this potion could also give the ability to find random amounts of gold on any MS page for “X” amount of time)
- Extra Egg Slot Potions (Increases Regular egg slot by a maximum of one, for “X” amount of time)

Keeping the balance:

Spoiler

- Crafting potions should be capped at “X”per day (perhaps even a potion specific limit should be imposed)
- Collecting herbs should not be capped
- Selling potions should be capped at “X” per day
- You could purchase missing herbs from the potion master capped at “X” herbs per day at an overpriced price causing it to be non profitable to sell back the potion made (targeting wealthier magi who want to use potions on creatures without having to collect the ingredients)
- The herbs available in the garden should rotate on a roster such as 2 different herbs daily (mimicking seasonality and encouraging magi to interact daily)

Selling back to the Potion Master

Spoiler

- Selling prices should be variable based on the value of the individual potion.
- Selling prices should increase if you sell in multiples e.g 500g for one potion or 1.1k for 2 etc
- You should be able to sell extra herbs back to the Potions Master for 1g each with a maximum of “X” per day

Optionally, taking creatures with herb/garden abilities (such as Xand Bears or Farir) with you to search could give an increase in probability of herbs being found.

As a seperate idea and also fitting with MS lore, we could utilise the “Last Stop Inn” to sell extra inventory items (non potion/crafting related items)

Another seperate idea fitting in with the lore would be a visit to Alasre Mountains. The Silver/Gold Alicantos mention that the Alasre mountains are rich in silver and gold. Perhaps a daily search of a cave in the Alasre Mountains could turn over a random sum of gold?

[Windi1]

I also want to mention, please spread the word about this to any and all players, because IP bans that occur may be done without warning. Rosehill can see internally when a particular IP is hogging up all the site's resources, and bans may happen from there without the user being notified or warned beforehand.

This should be warning enough without to have to give warning for a second time. People like me only click on a single egg and it brings up the group of eggs to be clicked. Clicking on a hatchling only brings up that hatchling. This is something I wish to do and have done since being a member. I'm not tech savvy enough to do mass clicking and never will. Those who do need to stop.

[Veranda]

Whoa, I just came back after a 12 years long break and I'm starting to remember stuff. Yeah, gold mining was big back then, but I don't remember that many ways to spend the gold except Remy's Inn, Trading Post and guild shops (but I was not very active at the forums, so maybe I'm wrong). So there was less clicks needed to get the gold needed - hundreds or thousands, not hundreds OF thousands... And the strain on the servers was that smaller as well.
I 100% agree clicking adults should not get gold. When you click on eggs or hatchlings, you make them grow and you're paid with gold for your help. But clicking on adults does nothing for the owner, only gives you free gold. Why should you be paid for nothing?
Daily gold from loging in is ok, but not with "streak" system when you're rewarded more for loging in every day. Imagine loosing 99 days streak because your internet is down on the entire 100th day... The login bonus should be either constant every day, or constant for every day of the week, with amounts changing each day (eg. on Mondays you get 100g, on Tuesday 200g etc.).
But Magistream was always about the quests, so small daily quests, bigger weekly quests and big monthly quests would be a great idea. It could be presented like in some RPG games, where you have a radiant quest board outside the inn or the town hall, or the innkeeper gives you quests based on the rumors he heard. I like the idea Glacial proposed:

I’d like to second the idea of having daily/weekly/monthly quests, and especially having a daily quests involve clicks. There could be a constant, everyday “help 30 creatures grow (click 30 eggs/hatchies)” as well as rotating “study 5 koi (click 5 koi)” / “gather info on 5 water creatures (click 5 creatures of the water element)” / etc. types.

With the small adjustment that the quests could also ask you to raise certain creatures, as long as there would be different creatures for everyone, to prevent difficulties in catching certain eggs from the stream. Some are already hard to get without the quests prompting everyone to hunt them
I think those would fit the existing design pretty well.

[WWECornSerpent]

I'm not much of a gold miner. I rarely click anything in the click sites due to time restraints and poor eyesight to manually click those tiny dots. Yes, I've set up my window to magnify that page to make image-free clicking much easier for me, but it's still one at a time. Do I click adults? Yes, in my own Keep but usually only those on my Main tab which tend to be currently released creatures. Most of my gold mining outside of my own Keep is done by clicking eggs in signatures on the Forums as well as going to other players' Keeps and clicking eggs and hatchies there (if there is no mention of not wanting them clicked). After reading this thread, I will now be checking out the click threads, which until now, I didn't know were there. I do suggest that adding "Click threads" to the Reindeer Games description would be immensely helpful to newer players (plus some older ones).

I'm not much of a quester so am not too sure about how I would like daily/weekly/monthly quests, although I would probably give them a try just to earn some gold. Another of the games I play has two daily ways to earn extra money. One is having a Career, in which you simply click it daily to get your salary. You also have 2 Bonus chances where you get either a positive reward or a negative reward of money. There is supposed to be ways of advancement in your chosen career, but that part hasn't been set up yet.

The other way is through mini-games. One is a Community Lottery (which I don't play), another is High or Low where the player can place bids on if the missing card is higher or lower than the one shown. There is a maximum amount you can bid at a time. I don't play that game either (not a gambler). The one game that I do play is Snake-Lizard-Tortoise, that game's version of rock-paper-scissors. There is a limit of 10 tries per day and you don't lose anything if you chose wrong on any try.

That game also has a way to sell things only to NPCs for creatures that just don't sell to other players. The NPCs don't like to pay much, but it's better than nothing.

[dreamsandlove]

I think one of the main problems is the out-of-control economy in the market. I’m sure this is a very unpopular opinion, but I think why so many people are so desperate for gold that they resort to stuff like gold-mining IFN is that it takes thousands/millions of gold to buy even one creature, but we’re supposed to click thousands/millions of links to get that gold. ....

I whole-heartedly second this. It feels kind of ridiculous that even the NPC Shops easily charge up over 10.000 gold for 1 item (Jaktus Dragon Egg - 10k at Remy's, Serpaen Egg - 11k at Dark Shop, Plushie Bear and Flaming Comet Eggs each at over 8k at Preservationists,... ) when clicking a creature gives us a whopping whole 1 gold for it. With the economy as it currently is in Magistream, the only way to ever buy anything is to either spam the forum just to get gold from posting or to goldmine in some form or another, which is just less than ideal. (Or you can be like me and just give up on any content that has to do with in game money in general.)

It makes sense that donis that are paid with real money should be worth much, but do we really need to mindlessly put strain on the site over a thousand times just to be able to get anything? Crudely put, a lot of this issue feels home-made, so maybe thinking about ways to better balance the established cost of things vs what can be realistically be done by players might be a better starting point than trying to establish more and more ways to indirectly mine for gold. Raising the payout for clicking eggs to help them grow and/or deleting some 0's at the end of the shop prices (Remy's, Trading Post,....) might help because it tackles the reason for people goldmining like crazy, rather than trying to lessen the symptoms that already spring up.

That's just my 2 cent, though.

[kunigund]

I don't mind that shop creatures are priced as they currently are. I always saw them as rare creatures and not a daily shopping event (I do not goldmine).

when clicking a creature gives us a whopping whole 1 gold for it.

It's not that bad.
[adult = 1g]
hatchling (not your element or neutral) = 1g
hatchling (your element) = 2g
egg (not your element or neutral) = 5g
egg (your element) = 10g
posting in the forums: max 200 g (less for short posts and multiple posts in a row)

So, posting 5 x per day in the click threads for 10 days gives you 10,000 g.
Or posting 10 x per day for 5 days gives you also 10,000 g.
Both are not not unrealistic and during events (or the appearance of non-permanent shops) with many users online easily doubled or more.
This does not even include gold from clicking eggs and hatchlings, which is naturally a slower source of gold.

Edit: The list above applies only when you have the Alicanto heart, which increases the gold for clicking. Read this post and the next one for more information.

[Michiyu]

I personally would be happy about a different way to earn gold then only gold mining. It would help with the lag and I think it would be more fun to have dailies to earn gold. I like this idea.

Fitting within the MS lore, I think a new quest line that leads to potion crafting/selling potions could be a fun idea.

This idea involves a quest line to introduce the “Potion Master” and herb collecting with Magi being able to craft various potions with a mix-and-discover system. Economic balance could be maintained through daily caps on crafting and selling. Engagement would be increased with the Gardens through interactive activities. Read on for more!


Snippet from MS lore (Keep):
“In the kitchens of the keep, herb lore and potion making are taught”

Quest Line:

Spoiler

In order to access herb collecting and potion making, a new quest line must be completed.

The quest line could introduce a new NPC or adapt an existing one, into the “Potion Master”.

The purpose of the quest line is to introduce the Potion Master, herbs and the potion making process.

During the quest line, some base recipes should be learnt.

Completing the quest line should open the ability for magi to access a new area within the world, such as the “Keep Gardens or Herb Gardens” (Or even tailoring it to suit the existing gardens mentioned in places like Xoctol-Hon)

The end of the quest should also lead on to the Potion Master noting a requirement for needing more potions such as - that they are always in need of more potions to teach new potion students etc.

Post Quest Line:

Spoiler

From the Gardens, Magi can collect herbs and craft these into potions, which can either be used on their own creatures or sold back to the Potions Master.

Searching the gardens could be similar to searching the forest, or perhaps even as an interactive mini-map.

Potion Crafting:

Spoiler

Crafting potions should follow the existing process for crafting creatures.

I personally think it would be cool to have a “mix-and-discover” system to discover new potion recipes.

Perhaps the Quest Line could give a couple of base recipes, and then the rest you have to mix ingredients and find the right cocktail for yourself.

Mixing the incorrect combination should still consume the items, but give a “bad potion” that can still be sold back to the potions master, but for less gold.

Potion Ideas:

Spoiler

- Growth Potion (equivalent of the choc box)
- Amnesia Potion (Causes a named creature to forget its name and become “unnamed”)
- Unfreezing Potion (Unfreezes a creature, attuned to your element)
- Lucky Potions (Increases your chances of finding Koi Pond creatures, could even be attuned to specific creatures / As a separate idea this potion could also give the ability to find random amounts of gold on any MS page for “X” amount of time)
- Extra Egg Slot Potions (Increases Regular egg slot by a maximum of one, for “X” amount of time)

Keeping the balance:

Spoiler

- Crafting potions should be capped at “X”per day (perhaps even a potion specific limit should be imposed)
- Collecting herbs should not be capped
- Selling potions should be capped at “X” per day
- You could purchase missing herbs from the potion master capped at “X” herbs per day at an overpriced price causing it to be non profitable to sell back the potion made (targeting wealthier magi who want to use potions on creatures without having to collect the ingredients)
- The herbs available in the garden should rotate on a roster such as 2 different herbs daily (mimicking seasonality and encouraging magi to interact daily)

Selling back to the Potion Master

Spoiler

- Selling prices should be variable based on the value of the individual potion.
- Selling prices should increase if you sell in multiples e.g 500g for one potion or 1.1k for 2 etc
- You should be able to sell extra herbs back to the Potions Master for 1g each with a maximum of “X” per day

Optionally, taking creatures with herb/garden abilities (such as Xand Bears or Farir) with you to search could give an increase in probability of herbs being found.

As a seperate idea and also fitting with MS lore, we could utilise the “Last Stop Inn” to sell extra inventory items (non potion/crafting related items)

Another seperate idea fitting in with the lore would be a visit to Alasre Mountains. The Silver/Gold Alicantos mention that the Alasre mountains are rich in silver and gold. Perhaps a daily search of a cave in the Alasre Mountains could turn over a random sum of gold?

[kunigund]

[...] but I also wouldn't be against other ways for the people who would be interested in it.

Neither am I, otherwise I would not have suggested some quest-like options; what I meant is simply that I would be also at peace with no "compensation" at all.

[Pounces]

It's not that bad.
[adult = 1g]
hatchling (not your element or neutral) = 1g
hatchling (your element) = 2g
egg (not your element or neutral) = 5g
egg (your element) = 10g
posting in the forums: max 200 g (less for short posts and multiple posts in a row)

May I ask, what determines your element? Apologies for a newbie question, but I just started really playing a week or so ago and don't know how or where to choose an element, or if it's randomly decided :3

EDIT: Found the info, nevermind