Goldmining is causing the lag, and must stop

[LunatheDragoness]

Rosehill said that all 'gold' discussions should be in this thread, so I'm going to try to state my case here where it's allowed.

I joined the site 7 months after it started, so I think I can say that I've been here for quite some time and probably know or remember most of what has happened over the years. Other than a couple of short hiatuses, I've been active for most of that time. I just copied this tidbit of info from the main forum page...

In total there are 136 users online :: 11 registered, 1 hidden and 124 guests (based on users active over the past 5 minutes)
Most users ever online was 1197 on Wed Apr 11, 2012 1:08 pm

As is usual for these times, the guests/bots outnumber the actual players. We used to have LOTS of active players, these days not so much. That being said, I think the game is in need of more than just cosmetic updates. Maybe it's time to rethink some basic game mechanics and look at the game from a more realistic place.

In the beginning, I was not able to purchase shards so I was only able to collect creatures that were free or bought with gold. However, gold was (and still is) very hard to come by. Buying from the shops was easy when there were only a couple of shops, and each shop only had a few creatures. Today there are 3 permanent shops.. 3 that you can join thru quests.. plus the Black Market and the occasional seasonal shops during events. Not counting the Donation Shop there are 125 creatures in the permanent shops/Black Market alone, plus the 301 event creatures, some of which came from seasonal shops. That's a lot of creatures to spend gold on.

Now, how many ways can we earn gold..
5 gold when you click an egg
1 gold when you click a hatchling or adult
a random amount, but no more than 250g when you make a post

This is a long post, so I'll earn 250g for it
I have 5 eggs, so that will earn 25g
Not counting eggs I have 21,285 creatures, so if I clicked every creature in my Keep, I would earn 21, 285g.. IF they were all clickable.

That's 21k+/- gold; not very much considering the prices of creatures today..
1 Arcanum Serpaen from the Dark shop costs 11,000g.
Want a streamborn creature from Master Belmos?...

All streamborn creatures: 200 gold each*
* Except for the newest creatures, they cost 1,000 gold each until 6 months after release-date:

What about a past eventborn from another player? Caramel Gryphon 25K (that's a random creature from a random member shop. That's more than I can earn in a day of clicking/posting.

I can also earn gold clicking on other peoples creatures, BUT this is goldmining and that's the current BIG issue...
Not to mention that removing the gold from clicking adults might be going away.

Currently I have 1,549,393g.. but there are other players with 10mil plus. I just sold ONE creature.. a past eventborn.. for 500k. Buying/selling creatures from other players is the only way to make enough gold to enjoy the game.

HOW? WHY? Because the mechanics of the game are BROKEN!!!!!

More ways to earn gold is essential
Lowering prices in the shops is essential
Making retired creatures available in the shops is essential

The attitude saying to too much gold will break the game is totally WRONG!!! The game is already broken and fixing the gold problem is what has to happen.

The days of there being over 1k active players are long gone.. we're lucky if there are 100 daily players. BUT we have LOTS of awesome creatures.. interesting things to do like breeding and quests (all of which really should be reapeatable).. and even more creatures added on a regular basis. As long as there ARE active players, the game isn't dying.. but it is broken and it's up to management to fix it. So please consider what needs to work NOW and not what used to work.

Exclusivity is NOT what we need.. Equality is the answer. The old days of "Neener, neener, I've got something you don't have! And if you want it, you'll have to pay me MILLIONS" needs to end. We don't have the playerbase we used to have and many of the old players who contributed to the gold problem are no longer here.. but their bad habits still are. I no longer have a shop.. I don't breed on request very much anymore either, because no one is asking, but I still give things away and trade army creatures with a few other players.. that recent creature sale is the only one I've made in months. Most of what I do these days are personal projects, achievements and trying to breed for the variants I don't have for my collection. I've never been chatty, so I don't earn a lot from posting.. and with current creature prices, I don't buy many things either.

Do I still love the game? YES, very much so.. it's the only collecting game I still play and I don't want to see it disappear like so many others. Management here is still active and listening which is awesome. So please, keep fixing the hardware/software issues; BUT think about fixing the mindset and actual gameplay issues too.

HOW? WHY? Because the mechanics of the game are BROKEN!!!!!
^^^^^^This right here^^^^^^
Gamification! For the love of Pete, apply gamification and user suggestion to make Magistream better.

[Mochipet]

I agree with all the above. Unfortunately, Rosehill said on another thread that gold prices are unlikely to change so- I guess the only hope is to have ways to earn gold that is balanced/appropriate to how much everything costs.

If the game was set up without the intention of gold mining, then I think everyone is struggling to understand how everything is impossibly expensive.

Example:
One of the quests requires at least 10k. Plus you have to buy at least 2 ice Pheonixes to breed out the other 8- the pair is 12k (6k each).

So one quest costs 22k minimum.

The amount of possible daily gold was already calculated above. Now the fox prism quest and alicanto do help some but it costs gold to get access to the heart.

That is a single quest. Soft mining with snap links on the reindeer threads and IFN yields at best 1k to 3k gold max if lucky because it's contingent on how many users are actively posting creatures.

And when most quests are costing at least 10k gold each to complete on top of all the different shops, the math just isn't balancing out between cost vs earning capacity.

I hope some of the ideas that have been thrown around in this thread ultimately help out. The community really cares for this game and I know it's just a matter of patience at the end of the day.

[Rosehill]

Okay, people.

We KNOW the gold thing is an issue. We KNOW it's broken. We KNOW game mechanics need to change. We KNOW we need new things (not just for getting gold but for the whole site). We have stuff planned (many of the things have also been suggested by users after we've already decided to do something, so that's also a good sign), we are brainstorming. That's one of the main things the team is battling with: how and what to do to these precise issues. You literally don't hear us saying anywhere "there are no issues and we'll continue just as we've always done", or us denying that e.g. the gold and economy thing is a mess. That's also precisely why we are asking for your input as well. For the moment it's mostly for the gold issue, since that one popped up along the gold mining.


This year is dedicated for fixing things after the summer's maintenance. We KNOW you're all eager to get better mechanics but in order to put any of those in place I need to stabilize the site first. Next year is the year that we will concentrate on new improvements and such, as long as the base of the site is okay so that we can build upon it.


All in all what I'm trying to say is that we hear you, we see you. We're doing a lot behind the scenes. I get that we could and probably should be more transparent about that even when we're not yet completely sure what way we're going and what's going to happen. That said I would appreciate it if you (general you) would also at least try to see that. We are not trying to make an unplayable or unenjoyable game. We are not trying to make y'all's life and game experience harder. We genuinely want to make a game that you all can enjoy. We are not against you! This is still an attitude I feel like getting from time to time, and I'd really like to see it go. If we make a mistake, call us out on it, we're more than happy to fix it. If something's intentional, we're more than happy to give the reasons behind it. We're not scheming or plotting to make you all miserable, so at least personally I'm getting a bit tired and frustrated on being treated from the perspective that everything the team does is of malicious intent.

Also, this isn't to say y'all also aren't very supportive and appreciative, as you are, and we're really grateful for you all sticking with us through all the years and breaks and stuff! And this also isn't meant as a "first they ask for ideas and then they take offence when given them". No. We love your ideas, keep them coming! Just keep in mind that as we too have been playing this game pretty much from the beginning, we are also very aware of the issues the site has. Also be prepared that even if you present a great idea, it may not get implemented, or at least not precisely the way you've presented it.

[CinnaminDraconna]

Thank you Rosehill !!!

If I came across as hostile, it wasn't intentional and I apologize. I think the transparency thing may be an issue, and the update (and the Newsletter) is MUCHLY appreciated. 'Not knowing' things has always irritated me, and sometimes I get upset about it, so again, my apologies.

I look forward to the updates and new events/creatures in the pipeline.

[Anhsang]

There are two VP games that come into mind while playing this game. One which I've had an account on for a long time Sylestia you can go through a person's hord by clicking forward and back buttons making it easier to Mine for "gold" they also have a search where you can bring up every pet that is owned and plp click through the search opening and closing windows unlike this site it is more of a mass hording egg/pet game( the limit is dependent on how much stable space I bought/have) . The second game is a new game I just started, xanji. They have a exhibition hall making not easy and fast to click through all the pets to earn gold. Plp have to voluntarily put their pets into the hall to get clicks to grow/lvl up their pets. Maybe these suggestions may help.

Also for a new person looking at the quests they seem a bit confusing and daunting. Maybe having certain quests new plp can do open while others are locked until a certain quests is done. Tbh I didn't even read through half the lore that was written trying to skip to the parts that was necessary for information of what I needed but then I figured i don't even know where to look for the things their asking or how to go about it. In short too much unusable information for my knat brain, And not enough important information that is useful.

[Unleashthekracken]

I have a suggestion for a new way to get gold, but I don’t know if mine will get any recollection or gain any interest, but how about something like a spot to mass sell your unwanted frozen eggs? Like, you could have a place to get rid of them at, and maybe get like five gold for every ten eggs deposited? Just a suggestion.

[Munin]

I have a suggestion for a new way to get gold, but I don’t know if mine will get any recollection or gain any interest, but how about something like a spot to mass sell your unwanted frozen eggs? Like, you could have a place to get rid of them at, and maybe get like five gold for every ten eggs deposited? Just a suggestion.

Apart from the goldmining causing lag, the possibility to basically gain unlimited gold also wrecked havoc on the economy. Selling frozen eggs would maybe mitigate the first problem but would leave the option of unlimited gold earnings

[vipor]

I have a suggestion for a new way to get gold, but I don’t know if mine will get any recollection or gain any interest, but how about something like a spot to mass sell your unwanted frozen eggs? Like, you could have a place to get rid of them at, and maybe get like five gold for every ten eggs deposited? Just a suggestion.

People will just endlessly catch, freeze and sell eggs to said npc if there is no limit.


Question, about the whole high creature prices and limited creatures.

Using the system you can see how many shopborns there are right?

Please bare with me.

Lower the shop prices of each creature above 5K with either 2.5K, 5K or 7.5K.
Every user owning a shopborn creature (aka parentless for those that don't know) gets a 'insert name here' coin. 1 coin per 2.5K. Say the 11K jacktus dragon becomes 3.5K, the owner of a jacktus dragon gets 3 coins per dragon.

This would happen for each shopborn that get their price lowered. Then people don't get to complain about spending more last week than they would have to pay next week. For this I would advice locking all shops (minus the doni shop) as the announcement of it happening goes live, and turning off trades. To keep people from trying to game the system.

Next to put an halt to the increasing prices of the limited pets.
Two types of stores.

Shop 1, is a shop for giftborn creatures, like the coal/tinsel wyrm, chain/bell elk, ectr ectr.
Here people can buy these critters again using the 'insert name here' coins.
Of course these creatures aren't added directly after release. I would say after at least a year, maybe 5 years that the creatures get added there.

These coins will be earned with events (earn the profile token in a gifting event and get 5 coins on creature unpacking day) Events like snowball toss can earn you an amount after the event is over. This way the thresholds to each earn level can be decided on when the level of participation.

Shop 2, the seasonal shop/ black market. More of a minor revamp.
This is less of a big change and more of a building amount. Again after a certain amount of years the creatures of the event get added to the shop.
Personally I would even want to suggest keeping the seasonal shops open for the entire month the event is in, to keep the pressure low.

For the black market pick a few months where there are no events which become the black market month.
When two events share a month, have one seasonal shop open in the month before/after and the other on the month itself. This way there is something going on every single month and eventually, if you wait long enough, any limited creature can be attained in a way without having to rely of other players. I would say have the limited event pets have a price around 10K each. Yes they would be on the expensive side, but that would be the price of missing the release event.

[Unleashthekracken]

Noted. Ok thanks

[Unleashthekracken]

Then I have one more suggestion, I don’t know how it will work with an adoptable site, but Something I have seen from one of my other sites, how about if we can, ( and I’m only saying we because I can’t think of a better word to use.) but how about eliminating getting gold from clicking eggs and hatchlings, and instead create a like a mini game area where you can earn gold from completing the games? Again I have only recently gotten back into the site and I don’t know if you have already tried this before but I just have this as my final suggestion. And if you do do this: I also have a use for the heart too, but again it’s up to you, and I’m just doing this as a suggestion. But why not instead for the people who do have it, let it give you a point five percent increase of whatever you earned? Again all this is just my last suggestion, and is just the last thing I thought of. I completely understand if it won’t work, but I just wanted to put it out there. Sorry and thanks