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Unpopular, but....
Lerxst
Posts: 111Member Trainee
I know it's an unpopular view around here, but... I hate "alts". It's not just the immersion factor that they kill - seeing a bunch of brain-dead zombies mindlessly following their leader - it's that this game has already been abused by mechanics that publishers introduced, but if that weren't enough, players also take advantage of it using alts.
For one, the extra cargo space in ships that cut the amount of times people need to be on the seas, by 1/2 - 1/3. Whether you acknowledge it or not, this factor alone destroys the economy over time. Not only does it mean you sell 2-3 times as much in one shot, but it takes people off the seas. The less often people travel on the sea, the few options for piracy. The less piracy, the more imbalanced the economy becomes.
It's no wonder PvP has been re-buffed because of this, but there would be no need for it to be, if people just. spent. more. time. sailing. Remember ESTB's? The reason they were fast-track to tanking the economy was because... they took people off the seas.
Another related factor is power-leveling, especially Trade skills. If you sell 3x as much, your skill goes up that much faster. Giving you access to bigger and better boats, that much faster. Which then skyrockets your wealth, that much faster. Which allows you access to bigger and better things to help level your other skills, that much faster.
There's no way to kill a game faster, than power-leveling to the end of it, then complaining about nothing to do and leaving. Figure, what's the purpose of making more money if there's nothing left to spend it on until other people catch up to you and then start charging more for the crafted goods... which tanks the economy and removes all the new players form the game. Welcome back to the same, dead UWO you were all playing under OGP.
Not to mention other ways of abusing the system, such as pirates idling an alt they can use to "spy" on traders leaving a safe port, while their main stays just outside of safe waters along the route.
It's also not in PP's best interest to allow this, since it cuts into the cash shop items they can and do offer. Extra storage? Who needs it if you have 3x the room? If they can't make money off the game, what do you think the end result will be?
Fine... if you want the "constructive"" feedback portion of this post: Make alts legitimate characters allowed online via the same account on the same screen without any OS or game-launcher manipulation. The catch? Only allow alts to fleet together if they are within 1 +/- levels of each 3 skills of the main. If you want to play an alt for the purpose of exploiting the economy, you should have to pay for that alt and spend just as much time leveling each of them, as you do your main toon. IE - If you accidentally level your main in any of the other two, non-trade skills, you then have to level your alt to match before they can rejoin your fleet. You would also have to take the time and split the profits on trade runs, between all 3 characters to ensure they level at the same pace.
That alone, would solve the most severe impact alts have on the game; people would need to spend more time at sea, making more trade runs, being the much more susceptible to pirates stealing their cargo, requiring that much more time at sea.
and 1 other.
Comments
Regardless of what OP's view is, a lot of people prefer solo rather than team work. They have the rl money but not time therefore cannot depend on others for activities like adventure, production and even spice / nanban trade. They will always look like mindless zombies to OP coz there is no need to socialize with OP unless OP is interested in buying or selling what they need or have.
Shall we force those beo-soloist to abandon their playstyle? Probably not! Because they do puchase premium contents (probably for the sake of pay2win on every aspect) and therefore valuable to this server.
Let's take a look at what you get in UWO:
For Dock storage, you get 4 additional slots for about $50 total
Captain's bag twice gives you 10 more slots for about $35 total
Binder you can only use once and gives you 5 more slots for about $12 total
Vault you can only use once and gives you 5 more slots for about $18 total
Skills expansion you can only use once and it gives you 3 more slots for about $36 total (though I won't include this in the final amount)
Inventory you can increase 60 times by 1 each for about $930 total
So for roughly $1045 you can get 84 additional permanent item slots. That is ridiculous. There is no way that it should cost that much. Even with a strongbox permit and both long term storage permits, you don't get near as much for your money as you do in Runescape.
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