Trophy Turn in System / Event Updates

[Sandro]

In some senses, you're right, but only because I find it's much less stressful to live life with that attitude.

On the other hand, if I'm looking at strict fairness, you're incorrect. Silver has a value, and it competes with things I have earned that have value. Clyde outbid me on some items in the trade forum the other day. He is a leetpvper who wins silver at tournaments. Despite my best efforts at being as good at killing gazers and mining ingots as I can be - things that are era-accurate - he can get more value from inaccurate things like these tournaments than I can get from accurate methods of wealth acquisition (accurate methods like... playing the game itself). So that is a fairness issue in my eyes. It ceases to be 1999 UO and becomes the sort of mish-mash game like all of the other RunUO shards.

Clyde has a 7x tamer that he uses to farm gold. Winning tournaments has nothing to do with having gold and/or the ability to obtain gold. Bad argument.

[Mikel123]

Clyde has a 7x tamer that he uses to farm gold. Winning tournaments has nothing to do with having gold and/or the ability to obtain gold. Bad argument.

Well, no. If he sells that silver for gold, it clearly does have something to do with the ability to obtain gold. If he trades it for a CBD which he sells for gold, it has plenty to do with obtaining gold. If he trades the silver for a tower he otherwise would have purchased with gold... you get the point.

I actually don't care if you can make gold-equivalent at a higher or lower rate in the tournaments. The fact that it's a non-zero amount, that you get in an era-inaccurate world and bring to our era-accurate world is what bugs me. For what it's worth, I also think the CTF, Last Man Standing, and all the rest of those tournaments are equally crappy.

We really may as well have a weekly paperdoll dressing tournament, and a weekly house decoration tournament too, with silver prizes (free use of course... I shouldn't have to make more than 1 table, ball of cotton, pile of cloth, etc). That would at least be some attempt to offer prizes to other playstyles in an equally inaccurate manner.

I think it's cool to give out trophies for events. That is accurate... there's tons of memorabilia in production shards from events. And if someone wants to pay gold for a trophy that says "mikel123 winner of CTF 10/14/10", well whatever I guess. The problem is, we have set up a system wherein these trophies are *always* backed by items that are indistinguishable from actual items obtainable in the actual game. To my knowledge, you can't tell the difference between a pile of rocks rare that I stole from some lockbox versus the pile of rocks I turned in my Trammel Trophies for. That's a problem.

[nightshark]

you can make about the same amount of gold farmining elder gazers with a tamer as you can from winning a tournament... except you can farm gazers whenever you want, tournaments happen 3x a week? with no guarantee of winning anything.

i think the argument against events doesn't lay in the silver rewards.

[nightshark]

you can make about the same amount of gold farmining elder gazers with a tamer as you can from winning a tournament, in the same amount of time or less... except you can farm gazers whenever you want, tournaments happen 3x a week? with no guarantee of winning anything.

i think the argument against events doesn't lay in the silver rewards.

[wgensel]

I don't think he's calling into question the speed at which you can farm the things, but the fact that the PvP rewards are completely zero risk. Sure, if you lose the tourney you don't get your pretty piece of silver, but did you lose all your regs and your gold and magic weps? No, I don't think so, it's not quite the same.

These tournaments aren't "in the field." Take for example the cove invasion. I don't remember clicking a moonstone to go to Cove where there were no one could attack me, loot me, and there was zero use of items.

[nightshark]

so maybe alter events so you can loot? with an exception of games like CTF where that simply wouldn't work

[BobDobbs]

Comparing tournaments to PvM farming is totally apples and oranges. As nightshark stated, you can PvM farm at any time. Tournaments only happen at specific times, and there is no rule stating that someone can't participate in both tournaments and PvM farming. I also think the risk involved in PvM is far, far overblown in this thread. A tournament has a guaranteed loser who wins nothing, there is no guarantee that you will be killed by PKs when you PvM.

So, from where I sit no one has an advantage over the other in terms of access to silver. Nothing is unfair.

Yes, the silver system is era inaccurate. This has been established and is known by both proponents and opponents of said system. This, like unattended macroing, is covered by shard policy and is a totally moot point.

[wgensel]

I wasn't comparing tourney's to PvM farming, I was comparing it to town invasions. How many times a week were the tourney's 3x? I'm not sure how long it usually lasts, but so far I think there was been one town invasion total, right?

If you want to compare to PvM farming, then compare it to PvPing or PKing, which you can also do at any time. Also, as you say at PvM there is no guarantee you will be killed by PKs, but if you want to make the PvM event fair then it should be free-use no loot PvM farming.

In the tournaments, perhaps you don't win anything, but you will not lose anything either. That is Trammel.

In PvM are quite likely to gain, but your chances are always greater than zero that you will lose something.

I want to note that I am NOT asking that the PvM events be free-use, no loot, no outside interference blah blah blah. Actually, I think its quite interesting for those who like PvP that they have a place they can go practice without risk (which they can do in their tower anyway, but this is more organized I guess). It's the fact that a no risk contest is rewarded and rewarded consistently. I really don't see how you're not getting the comparisons here.

[BobDobbs]

I'm not really interested in this circular reasoning.

The issue of era inaccuracy is covered. The only issue left is whether or not the existence of the tournament system gives players access to a reward that is not available to you.

Can you show that it does?

[wgensel]

But that is not the issue we are arguing against. sigh

[Pirul]

Just to clarify another misconception. There are not 3 tournaments per week, try more like 10...plus 3 CTF's, 2 Survivals and a DD. 16 events a week. 2+ per day.

Thursday
4:00am CTF Game (Urban)
10:00am Capture the Flag (cave)
5:30pm 1v1 non-Free Use Tournament
Friday
2:00am 1v1 Crafted,Pots&Poisons Tourney
9:30am Survival Game
Saturday
11:30am 1v1 Magic,Pots&Poisons Tourney [non-free-use]
11:30am 1v1 non-Free Use Tournament
Sunday
6:00am Double Domination
5:30pm 1v1 Magic,Pots&Poisons Tourney [non-free-use]
5:30pm 4v4 PvP Tournament
Monday
2:00pm 2v2 Magics,Pots&Poisons Tourney [non-free-use]
7:00pm 3v3 PvP Tournament
Tuesday
12:00pm Survival Game
7:30pm 2v2 PvP Tournament
Wednesday
12:30am 1v1 PvP Tournament
11:00pm Capture The Flag (4 teams)

And yes, the issue is not if Clyde can farm 60k+ per hour (something that people here always claim, but I've never seen done), but that he is in fact bringing items from an outside source into the actual game economy, while taking his playing time from inside the actual game to another instance.

[BobDobbs]

The issue of era inaccuracy is moot. There are things on UOSA that make it more enjoyable for players that are not era accurate, such as the freedom to macro unattended right out in the open at a bank. This is covered by shard policy. The tournaments are no different in this context.

[wgensel]

That doesn't make it a moot point though. People complained enough originally so OSI made Trammel. Maybe if we complain enough Derrik will un-make the PvP Trammel that exists right now.


I think the majority of era-innacurate features do not significantly disturb normal gameplay, but the reward system seems to disrupt the economy.

Why does the staff go out of the way to make player towns as a gold sink of sorts, but then throw out the very valuable silver many many times a week? Make the free-use tourneys free to enter, but no non-Trammel prizes are others have suggested. If you want to win some silver, make people front some cash. That's an alternative, but I would prefer scrapping it completely.

[BobDobbs]

I think the majority of era-innacurate features do not significantly disturb normal gameplay, but the reward system seems to disrupt the economy.

"Seems" to disrupt the economy and "does" disrupt the economy are two very different things. Sandro already illustrated the problem with this particular perception.

[wgensel]

Ok, does disrupt the economy then. It doesn't matter that he can farm and get more money faster, it matters that Trammel instances exist where there is no risk and high reward.

Fairness would be PvM trammel events. I don't want fairness, I want something closer to accuracy.