Arelith

The ongoing prices for larger quarters, especially guild quarters, absolutely needs to go up. It currently exists that factions with a small number of members own multiple guild houses, with all but one of those quarters seeing minimal use, and in extreme cases the characters have owned the quarters for 10+ months.

Noone wants rental prices to be a replica of the real world, but the guild quarters should have ongoing costs high enough that it's bordering infeasible for an individual to afford, a moderate amount of effort for very few people to afford and barely any effort for a large, active faction to maintain. What the ongoing amount for quarters would be has to be identified, but it needs to be high enough that it's not affordable for an individual who isn't working hard to afford it.

Higher ongoing costs would have the benefits of consolidating factions to fewer properties (as they can't afford or justify the cost for as many), which raises the probability or RP within the quarter (more characters to each guild quarter). Higher costs give the perception that something has to be used in order to make the cost worth it, so leaders in factions were encourage people to make the most of the more costly property. RP angles like.. temples actively asking for donations from attendents, costs to attend higher end functions and exclusive clubs could all come into play. On the flip side more accessible places (due to higher patronage / more faction members) could offer similar functions with lower costs.

Oh, and with guilds more consolidated in fewer properties you'd see more guilds in each location, leading to more dynamic RP and interaction in those locations.

TLDR: It shouldn't be feasible for a faction of 3 members to own 3 guild quarters for most of a year, so raise the cost on guild quarters which will require the effort of many characters to easily afford. Higher cost will see leaders pushing that cost to be justified and the quarters more actively used, which is compounded by the greater number of characters per quarter.

Make shops cheap to acquire but somewhat costly to maintain. They should represent sustainable business, but have a low entry cost. With a low or next to nothing entry cost, the gold.being saved can be used for the first couple higher maintenance cost payments.

Could make the larger houses for factions only, The tavern rooms and vaults can be used by
all players.
The Nobles can have the castles and mansions

The same could be done with shops

This way the rule regarding owning more than one house & shop may apply to the factions them selves

I think NPC Logger more or less nailed it from the get go.

Adjusting prices up won't really affect the intended target, or at the least it will only after a long time, but it will absolutely affect the unintended target (everyone else) immediately.

Thus I think that, going forward, any solutions to turnover probably can't be monetary and will need to be something outside the box.

There's some good ideas here though, such as encouraging people to 'move in together,' or, and I'm assuming it's either impossible or too distant of a future - instance based residences. For shops I have little idea what a solution could be, other than shops simply and blatantly timing out if they don't produce X money over a year or something (which would be easily exploitable.)

If Arelith plans for unlimited growth, or at least lots more growth, then I think really there's only that one solution for residence through instance. Given the value of material wealth it will be an absolute doozy to tackle alongside storage.

Since the crafting system won't be getting any less bloated the need for storage will only ever increase.

I like for IC economy to emerge IC. I think that it is hard to "enforce" Western European medieval economy artificially (it seems to me that is the setting Arelith is "trying" to mimic), unless you recreate the same conditions IC. And even then, over time, it will evolve.

With that said, letting IC economy evolve on its own also means that to some extent the Admin team needs to respond to the changes IC. For example, right now, having 1 million gold coin in the bank does not make a character exceptionally rich (political influence/buying power). However, the fact that citizenship costs only 10,000 gp (something that a character can collect in about an IC month) shows this discrepancy.

This could mean the increase in quarter taxes/maintenance. It could be something else. Also, it may be exceptionally important to keep updating/developing gold sinks to prevent devaluation of coin (not an economist, so I'm only guessing). However, this is time and resource intensive.

Maybe this needs an automated script that increases quarter/shop base prices based on current amount of gold coin out there in characters' bank accounts? Perhaps somebody with background in Economy could aid the team maintain the setting they would like to see on Arelith?

Disclosure: I like to play Arelith on hard mode, which also includes suffering shortage of quarters and shops, which makes it more meaningful for me when RP'ing my characters. I don't mind players hogging quarters "too much." I'm more interested in overarching economy issues, and how that impacts my ability to RP certain kinds of characters. For example, I personally haven't been able to find an angle to play a beggar on Arelith (other than a monk that rejects worldly possessions years ago) because it is hard to be one when one can collect couple of thousands of gold coins in a single pass through any of the low-level dungeons.


Edit: And yes, I'd love to see a system where it takes an insane amount of gold per IC month/year from multiple characters to maintain a guild house or a castle.

-stick- wrote: Sun Nov 01, 2020 2:27 pm Could make the larger houses for factions only, The tavern rooms and vaults can be used by
all players.

It's possible to have a one character faction

I would be all for making things easier for roommates/couples/factions to share a single quarter if storage was somehow multiplied per person moving in. It honestly has way more benefits than downsides, especially for those who are crafters. I wonder about only an increase of 10 however.
Is giving up your ability to have your own place and 20 slots worth the perks of sharing and losing half your storage? And yes, the settlement can allow up to 12 extra slots but most people are so used to it now they use their 20+12.

As for shops? The suggestion of a faction shop being given more room to place items is great! That, I think, could hover around 10 and be fine. Most people who have a very good shop can fill it but also sell regularly enough that they are frequently at 15 items each.

With the want of shops seeming higher than the want of housing, but not by much, it would be nice if the settlements enforced a minimum allowed to be held by one group if the server itself does not. Yes, I know that is not easy, and again yes, I have been part of the group trying to enforce good shops/limits/turnover. It can be done though it is a lot of work and very very thankless.

andthenthatwasthat wrote: Sun Nov 01, 2020 3:51 pm I think that it is hard to "enforce" Western European medieval economy artificially (it seems to me that is the setting Arelith is "trying" to mimic), unless you recreate the same conditions IC. And even then, over time, it will evolve.

I think you're also saying that Arelith isn't a Western European Middle Age economy. Which would be correct. It isn't. Private property, widespread mercantilism, unquestionable value in currency, etc., have Arelith actually more in the Early Modern era (circa 1600) than anything else.

"Medievalism" is nothing more than a fetish among fantasy roleplayers, born out of 1970s nostalgia and a skewed perception of history.

And all of this is a part of the reason why Arelith suffers some degree of crisis when it comes to issue of quarters and guildhouses. I think the only impregnable places on the server should be the castles (like a proper Middle Age society), instead, Joe Schmoe has his hovel in the Cordorian Commons that is as fortified than Darrowdeep.

If we want quarters and guildhouses to become more fluid or ubiquotous, they need to be simultaneously more vulnerable.

Here are some crazy ideas:

a. You cannot own any piece of property for longer than 3 RL months. Once 3 months is up, you get booted, and have to purchase a different quarter. If you actually have a network of roleplay, this'll be no problem for you to keep properties among friends / factions.

b. Any member of a -faction cannot own personal property (only guildhouses and storage chests)

c. Open Lock DC is capped at 100. Change the Theft rule to: "You cannot steal anything from quarters, ever." Make DMs enforce this heavily.

d. Lower bank limits to 2-3 million. Anything beyond that points to the absurdity of Arelith's economy / the absurdity of PCs having more gold than settlements.

e. Centralize all shops in settlements. Have OOC market days where temp stalls spawn. Make shopping less some weird treasure hunt of going to that farm outside of Bendir and actually make trade and commerce centralized.

I strongly agree with the suggestion above to centralize shop locations.

Some shops are highly valuable based on their location, while others are almost completely useless. I have owned what I would call Tier 1, Tier 2, and Tier 3 shops at various points on multiple characters and this is a real thing.

Seven Sons of Sin wrote: Mon Nov 02, 2020 2:44 pm Here are some crazy ideas:

a. You cannot own any piece of property for longer than 3 RL months. Once 3 months is up, you get booted, and have to purchase a different quarter. If you actually have a network of roleplay, this'll be no problem for you to keep properties among friends / factions.

b. Any member of a -faction cannot own personal property (only guildhouses and storage chests)

c. Open Lock DC is capped at 100. Change the Theft rule to: "You cannot steal anything from quarters, ever." Make DMs enforce this heavily.

d. Lower bank limits to 2-3 million. Anything beyond that points to the absurdity of Arelith's economy / the absurdity of PCs having more gold than settlements.

e. Centralize all shops in settlements. Have OOC market days where temp stalls spawn. Make shopping less some weird treasure hunt of going to that farm outside of Bendir and actually make trade and commerce centralized.

f. No fun allowed.

Red_Wharf wrote: Mon Nov 02, 2020 4:05 pm

Seven Sons of Sin wrote: Mon Nov 02, 2020 2:44 pm Here are some crazy ideas:

a. You cannot own any piece of property for longer than 3 RL months. Once 3 months is up, you get booted, and have to purchase a different quarter. If you actually have a network of roleplay, this'll be no problem for you to keep properties among friends / factions.

b. Any member of a -faction cannot own personal property (only guildhouses and storage chests)

c. Open Lock DC is capped at 100. Change the Theft rule to: "You cannot steal anything from quarters, ever." Make DMs enforce this heavily.

d. Lower bank limits to 2-3 million. Anything beyond that points to the absurdity of Arelith's economy / the absurdity of PCs having more gold than settlements.

e. Centralize all shops in settlements. Have OOC market days where temp stalls spawn. Make shopping less some weird treasure hunt of going to that farm outside of Bendir and actually make trade and commerce centralized.

f. No fun allowed.

Also if you think someone having more than 2-3 million coin in a personal account is 'absurd' you might want to experience the economy a bit more widely. Some established characters have tens of millions stashed away in faction accounts in excess of their 20 mil personal limit.

It's relatively easy as a rogue for instance to make over 1 mil an IRL month with high search and lore and a few hours a day adventuring past lvl 18. On top of their expenses.

Seven Sons of Sin wrote: Mon Nov 02, 2020 2:44 pm Here are some crazy ideas:

a. You cannot own any piece of property for longer than 3 RL months. Once 3 months is up, you get booted, and have to purchase a different quarter. If you actually have a network of roleplay, this'll be no problem for you to keep properties among friends / factions.

b. Any member of a -faction cannot own personal property (only guildhouses and storage chests)

c. Open Lock DC is capped at 100. Change the Theft rule to: "You cannot steal anything from quarters, ever." Make DMs enforce this heavily.

d. Lower bank limits to 2-3 million. Anything beyond that points to the absurdity of Arelith's economy / the absurdity of PCs having more gold than settlements.

e. Centralize all shops in settlements. Have OOC market days where temp stalls spawn. Make shopping less some weird treasure hunt of going to that farm outside of Bendir and actually make trade and commerce centralized.

I love C, and I love the market day idea of E. Maybe settlements could choose what days to hold them? Could then make a whole event out of it.

A would result in people losing all their stuff because they lost track of time and were away from their computer for a day or two when their three months was up, so that's no bueno.

B is a horrible penalty on small factions. For instance, Kels is a member of the Soulhaven Librarians. Why would they have a guildhouse?

D just results in people storing money in other ways - staters, faction accounts, etc.

Sounds awful. This server already has enough side rules, fiddly mechanics, timers, and general "second job stuff" that it doesn't need more for a problem mostly solved by, like, a little more dm attention.

It is absurd and way too much gold. No one needs to horde that much and actively damages the economy.

3 Months is plenty to hold a place for and the faction rule would be if you're in a faction that owns a faction guildhouse other members can't own property.

Add in halfing all shop space to 10 and doubling the number of shops, and we're sitting much better place

Xerah wrote: Mon Nov 02, 2020 5:00 pm
Add in halfing all shop space to 10 and doubling the number of shops, and we're sitting much better place

I think something like this is a good start, though in my mind, we could keep the shop #s as they are, or better yet...centralize them all into a large merchant hub.

I am all for more people having access to shops and even had at one point 4-5 people on my last character's shop, though it meant each only had few spaces to work with.

What I would like to see though is some way for each additional person in a faction who has access to a shop be allowed 10 places. It could be something like how the bank storage is, where only your character can access it (this would prevent one person from making a faction with a few OOC friends and suddenly having 40 spaces to work with).

That way a single faction could own a massive shop or turn it into a conglomerate which many people could contribute to, whilst allowing the other shops to be open for others to use or make their own "organized faction shop".

And then every item from every character could be displayed and purchased by prospective customers.

Extra special cookies if there is a way so that items sold for each person could go into individual accounts.

This thread is very distressing to read. I take longer than 3 months to set up and do things. I really dislike how fast paced this server is, like if you don't live and breathe Arelith you are penalized for it.

Centralizing shops into markets would be nice. The temp shops in Hub center are examples.

Having multiple long and temp shops forming a market also puts many PCs into a single place, promoting RP opportunities, gossip, and pickpocket elements.

Storage-wise perhaps upon taking the contract with the agency being given a personal/not droppable bag of holding, that can accept any non-container type item and dropping its weight to 0. With a FOIG NPCs that could expand the limit slightly at a very high/scaling price/materials. While dropping the storage in properties substantially.

Storage in property and robbery.
Houses door DC could be lowered down while making storage locked (opened by the owner, or anyone having the property key). The storage could have DC of the house door +X or be leveled and paid for separately (This way if you pickpocket a key you can also access the storage).

Party in the forest at midnight wrote: Mon Nov 02, 2020 5:13 pm This thread is very distressing to read. I take longer than 3 months to set up and do things. I really dislike how fast paced this server is, like if you don't live and breathe Arelith you are penalized for it.

I really find any suggestion tailored for 8 hour daily login sessions and those with infinite free time to be super weird and distasteful.

I don't have 8h to play in a day and get a few times per week and still support limits and such. So, that's a narrative you can drop.

Drowboy wrote: Mon Nov 02, 2020 5:22 pm

Party in the forest at midnight wrote: Mon Nov 02, 2020 5:13 pm This thread is very distressing to read. I take longer than 3 months to set up and do things. I really dislike how fast paced this server is, like if you don't live and breathe Arelith you are penalized for it.

I really find any suggestion tailored for 8 hour daily login sessions and those with infinite free time to be super weird and distasteful.

While I do agree with the above sentiments, it might be also good to appreciate the other side of the argument here - why does a character that's around only for about 3-4 hours per week need a quarter or a guild house? At that point them having it only serves to keep said quarter from the rest of the player base for an overwhelming majority of the server's run time. They're literally gatekeeping selected server areas from everyone else with a permanently locked door.

IMO quarters and especially guild houses represent a great source of prestige an can further help with the social stratification of characters. They can also be a wonderful McGuffin that triggers more RP plots. This all only requires from players around them to be active and/or allow other active players to bring the areas to life.

Unfortunately, the fact that quarters (and especially guild houses) also contain vast amounts of convenient storage space (a very valuable "resource") only strongly incentivizes players to keep IG property for as long as possible and even when they aren't very active.


So that's how I would identify the matter at hand: quarters = prestige and storage
Less active characters are relinquishing prestige by simply not being around as important IG events unfold - it can't be helped, so that's that.
This would then leave storage as a form of valuable resource tied to quarters. Which brings up an interesting question - "does it need to be a valuable resource?"
IMO a viable solution to this problem might be a drastic increase in citizenship storage. I believe that if players could store, say 50 items in the bank, they would not be so clingy with their houses containing some extra 20-60 item slot storage space.
Right now extra storage is one of the primary features of all quarters, turning it into a niche perk might result players being more inclined to release the property to someone else who'd put it to better use.

Hey everyone,
I am not a fan of many of the suggestions here and think it would push us in a worse direction.

. I think the idea that increasing the monthly costs of quarters will help is ill-founded. This is especially true if you combine it with the idea that faction members cannot have a personal quarter. I've run a large merchant faction with over 30 members that operated primarily from Cordor. That shapes some of my reasoning below.

1) Those who lead large factions are often not able to go out and grind mobs for extended periods of time. It's often the case that the larger your faction gets and the more roleplaying that you are trying to promote the less time you get to go out and "farm." It was very~ normal to login and wait about 5 minutes till I would hear a knocking on my guild quarter door and then I would have roleplay encounters and meetings with people for as many hours as I had to spend in-game. It is a lot~ easier to make money by farming mobs than it is by creating interesting roleplay encounters for lots of people. If you make the price too high then you are encouraging the grind.

2) If we combine the above statement with the inability of people to own their own personal quarters, people will stop wanting to join factions. You already have to convince people to join a faction but if this went though you would need to tell them that they have to sell their quarters and start paying money towards the faction account. That's a pretty tough sales pitch and something lots of people will opt-out of.

3) Small factions will die out. If the only way for faction members to have quarters is to buy a guildhall then small factions will stop existing and there would only be larger factions.

4) 3 million is not a ton and discourages mercantile type factions.

I_Am_King_Midas wrote: Mon Nov 02, 2020 6:31 pm Hey everyone,
I am not a fan of many of the suggestions here and think it would push us in a worse direction.

. I think the idea that increasing the monthly costs of quarters will help is ill-founded. This is especially true if you combine it with the idea that faction members cannot have a personal quarter. I've run a large merchant faction with over 30 members that operated primarily from Cordor. That shapes some of my reasoning below.

1) Those who lead large factions are often not able to go out and grind mobs for extended periods of time. It's often the case that the larger your faction gets and the more roleplaying that you are trying to promote the less time you get to go out and "farm." It was very~ normal to login and wait about 5 minutes till I would hear a knocking on my guild quarter door and then I would have roleplay encounters and meetings with people for as many hours as I had to spend in-game. It is a lot~ easier to make money by farming mobs than it is by creating interesting roleplay encounters for lots of people. If you make the price too high then you are encouraging the grind.

2) If we combine the above statement with the inability of people to own their own personal quarters, people will stop wanting to join factions. You already have to convince people to join a faction but if this went though you would need to tell them that they have to sell their quarters and start paying money towards the faction account. That's a pretty tough sales pitch and something lots of people will opt-out of.

3) Small factions will die out. If the only way for faction members to have quarters is to buy a guildhall then small factions will stop existing and there would only be larger factions.

4) 3 million is not a ton and discourages mercantile type factions.

Some of these things you need to look at with the eye of the central idea rather than what is explicitly stated/recommended. For example, not allowing people in factions to not own other quarters is not the goal, but limiting it to people who have membership in factions with large guildhouses is the goal so that they fill the spaces (there are other ways to do this rather than explicitly restricting purchasing which would be a more likely implementation should something like that happen; i.e. can't refresh guild house unless 75% full or exponential growth of rent based on empty space, etc). This doesn't mean it is easy to implement or something that is going to be implemented but another way to look at it.

All of my suggestions were literal hot takes.

I play some of the poorest, quarter-less characters ever.

I don't play Arelith for the accumulation of wealth, because all that often does is make for boredom and boring adventures. And I don't think incentivizing the ownership of propery, hording of gold, or anything of the like, is healthy for the server (see the thread about heal pots).

The over-reaction to my "crazy suggestions" really does highlight the fixation of segments of the playerbase that somehow they need gold and wealth. You log in to Arelith to roleplay. If, as previously stated by Borin, we are becoming such an MMO that the first and primary goal is not shared storytelling then I don't know, we're doing something wrong.

Here are some sentiments I would challenge:

1. Why do you actually need a quarter? What roleplay can be done in a quarter, regularly, by your character, that can't be done elsewhere?

2. Why do you need a guild house? I've never ran a faction with one. Often because they were horded by greedy mindless players. I don't know why they are necessary.

I don't know, guys.

Maybe if you're so attached to Arelith's "stuff", you're doing something wrong. It's not important or necessary, and I know it's all we talk about on the forums which is ironic because we're a roleplaying server not an action server, but you wouldn't know sometimes.

Also, those lore changes.

I know it's been said before but separating storage from quarters might be a simple way to open the many, many quarters that are only hoarded because there's a chest in there and never used for RP. Maybe just add 20 slots to everyone's settlement storage and give some option for storage without citizenship for those who don't belong in town. I think you'd suddenly see a glut of open quarters.

IDK about other stuff. If you're a Cordor Guard or big drow house you'll see six big stories go by in three months, sure. If you're trying to do something off the beaten path like create a new faction from scratch, play a less popular race, start a theatre troupe or something three months may mean you're just ramping up. I feel a shorter time limit is going to be punishing to those on the margins trying to do something creative and different. I don't think I would bother with anything like that again if I knew I'd have to look for somewhere else to base HQ every twelve weeks considering most of the time it's a struggle to get anything going. *Shrugs*

I do love the central market idea.

Having more properties to bid on is a big gold sink. Especially in the UD those things are contested and since no one knows who bid what so fortunes are dumped into it.

The higher rent is kind of interesting. I'd say like whatever mechanic encourages people to play and role play..but it's a delicate balance because if you make things too oppressive then you turn Arelith into a chore rather than something fun.

Honestly, I just wouldn't look too much into it. I think if there were to be changes made I would continue to add sandbox methods of gold sinks just like the current underdark Outpost situation

if you want to burn gold in game then create opportunities for people to influence their surroundings with the gold they have. I think that's natural, and a very role-play-oriented idea. One thing to be aware of though is that people who have vast amounts of wealth may not necessarily be role play oriented so a juggle between that maybe necessary

Edit: disconnecting storage from quarters does seem like a cool idea. because to be honest I think that's what most people end up using those things for anyway besides meeting places that are secure. I like the vaults under the Cordor tavern. It would be kind of cool to have like a proper bank that actually had like storage vaults.

Imagine like a big Bank maybe in like neutral territory. And you had like meeting chambers that you could rent temporarily and it produces a key that maybe lasts like one day in game. Maybe that's something for the Shadovar? a place that can hold immense amount of wealth safely and offer secure meeting places for nefarious deeds or just facilitate meetings between good and evil people which is what occurs in the shadowplane now

I would maybe even connect the assassin's guild to that bank and have it like underneath it or something