Pricing/claiming discussion

[Ankh Morpork]

People actually laughed at me when I was second to pick and I picked a cheap item...but I picked it cos I wanted it im not greedy!

/Ankh

[Xcerus]

Plac good for you, people who come to a raid should read raid rules and imo by turning up they automatically agree to be the raid leaders gimp till they leave the raid.

[Caestar]

i think peeps get wound up when anyone claims an arti/item just to sell it.
You may need the money to finish your ranger template but peeps need the cloak to finish their template so by claiming just to sell they feel worse than they would have done if they had just lost the item by a roll. Also most people at the last stages of getting the last piece to the template would also be poor so participating in an auction would be the last thing they could do.

You havent done anything wrong but in the past people have suddenly told people they have claimed items and took an item just to sell it so i would assume this could be just past betrayals which is making people feel worse than they should in this instance.

Word !!!

[Norcott]

simple really..
Insist that on sign up the raid leader says what item he/she is going to claim as payment/reward for running the raid.. then if you wanted that item you dont sign up for it rather than attend and be disapointed with going through the raid only to have the item claimed.. (i can see that could be frustrating to say the least).

[Cryn]

Sure it is!!!! Its not that big difference from claiming an Item!

/Ankh

Ahh, yes, I see what you mean. My comment kinda assumed the leader wasn't claiming, but I agree that a leader who claims probably feels more obligation to the raid.

Anytime you leave things such as this up to an individual's sense of honour, I think you'll find yourself disappointed when your sense of honour isn't the same as that of the person who beat you at the /random.

Bear in mind that the arti hunt was leaving all non-arti drops to an honour system. I originally ran it for 8 or 10 months and during that time had almost no problems. Essentially during all of that time people were on their honour, and maybe I am viewing it in a biased light but I thought people demonstrated they could be trusted.

Yes thats what I am driving at. It is a personal decision to decide when your being greedy and therefore it is a fundamental error to make it a community rule.

I guess this comes down to Fin's point too. You guys think people don't know when they are being greedy - or more precisely that people's definition of being greedy varies so much that it would be useless to try to use a subjective measurement for lootsplits.

I feel that people's values are probably more like a bell curve. Yes, our community includes rare examples of extremely giving people and extremely greedy people but most of us fall somewhere close together.

Of course, I can't substantiate my belief with anything worthwhile so I suppose it's all just so much hot air from me

[Finolin]

I originally ran it for 8 or 10 months and during that time had almost no problems. Essentially during all of that time people were on their honour, and maybe I am viewing it in a biased light but I thought people demonstrated they could be trusted.

Correct me if I'm wrong (which I am known to be) but it seems you are suggesting that the people on your raids are a representative sample of our realm. I think two things suggest otherwise. First, your raids were sign-up in that people had to accept possibly several raid before getting the artifacts they were after. (Yes, I know you're talking about people after general loot.) Second, the raids were run by you, and frankly you are well known as being honourable. Frankly that tends to discourage dishonourable people from participating. So I would suggest (perhaps not accurately) that people who are not of the same philosophy with regard to honour as you are might not choose to join your raids, which might lead you to form a world view with regard to the realm that wasn't representative.

[Cryn]

You could be right, but actually I don't think I was well known when I started running them. Thandruil, Rainbow and me had to work quite hard to get people interested initially.

But maybe you are right. Maybe arti hunts is special case or just a specific group of nice people.

[Lairiodd]

A right to claim the item to use, not to sell. Raid leaders who do that will tend to find that their raids will have a lack of attendees after a while.

Need before greed, that's always been what people claim the 'system' is on Hib/Prydwen.

It hasn't been that for ages tbh . In any case, what would you prefer a) raid run with leader claiming or b) no raid run ? Remember, that you don't have the option c) raid leader runs it and lottos everything

In any case, what is the difference between rolling for an item that you can trade for the one you need and rolling for the item you need directly ? This is the question that needs to be answered.

If you allow people to trade, then you end up with a larger pool of people willing to group actually do the encounter. People who don't need that exact arti, can roll and then trade for the one they do. Also, remember selling for plats is equivalent to trading, it is just more efficient and is the reason that money was invented in the first place.

Quite simply (in the past) the use of 'need' was for those people who wanted the item and wouldn't be selling it.

And, you might note, that most of the regular organised raids have always had the raid leader having a rule similar to "if I see or find out that someone sells and item they won on one of my raids they will be banned from all future raids I do".

Yeah, it's fine saying "if you don't like it, don't attend" or "if you don't like it lead your own raids". I don't and I did. If everyone was to run raids just so that they could claim loot to sell then there would be a severe lack of attendees on raids due to the fact they will be trying to run their own raids so they can make an easy 50plat.

Answer the question, what is the difference between rolling to get an item so you can trade for the item you want and rolling directly ?

Also, if everyone ran a raid, then raid leaders would likely end up starting to say they weren't going to claim anything to bump up attendance (it would go from "I will claim any item I want" to "I will claim 1 item" to "If a specific item drops, I claim it" to "I get +x on my roll" to "I get no bonus").. Also, "named" raid leaders would still get high attendance as everyone would want someone who could get high attendance.

It's a valid point, and one which I think Sharkith mentioned in another thread a while back. The trouble is, people can always convince themselves they "need" money, so if you allow that way of looking at it, everyone will roll for everything.

On the face of it, that's fair enough but in reality you'll get some problems, including:

- Some people will accumulate cash, always on the verge of "spending it for their next template" but for all practical senses just hoarding. Translation - they went for greed but rationalised it as need.

You don't "need" the last item for your template either. If the person wants cash, then so be it. They are putting the same effort into the raid as you and if they want cash rather than an arti then what is the problem ?

- Some people will never win a roll (through bad luck) and will not generate the cash they need. Whereas if they performed the roll of (for example) much needed bard on a raid where no other bards turned up, they would get their item.

... or they could be unlucky and the bard item doesn't drop. If the group is attempting a bard arti specifically, then why are the others in the group helping? If the bard allows the rest of the group to roll, at least he gets credit and they have a chance at trading their arti for another.

The alternative is something like a set group that does 8 artis and luck is beside the point there. I think this was a good idea as you clearly indicated the cost of getting an arti.

- We all become accountants (in attitude). Since we all think in hard currency and have allowed ourselves a loophole out of considering whether someone on the raid could use a drop, generosity will take a nose dive. The mercenary attitude people dislike now will go through the roof.

- We all become merchants, seeing every piece of loot as a part of our own template. We say it's need, but really everyone will be thinking in terms of greed. Noone will see an item and think "I don't need that". They will only think "I could sell that for X amount"

The point is that by trade an arti that is no good can be converted into one that is good, so it is not that they think they can use the arti, it is that they can.

I have always thought the loot distribution system in daoc was useless. My favorite would be something like you get credit points for artis for completing the encounter. Once you get enough points you can get one from an npc. Having said that, this is nearly equivalent to just letting the market handle it. The plat price is just the number of "points" you need to get an arti.

Another alternative is that the raid leader can set it as loot -> auction mode. All loot is put up for auction and the proceeds are shared between the entire raid. They can then buy what ever they need from another auction.

I've always wondered why people dont use the old Legend of Mir System... granted it wouldnt really work on huge BG raids, but for artifact raids, things with only 1-2 fgs or something it could be quite effective

This is another way of achieving the effect. What people need to realise is that if an encounter drops one item and 8 people are in the group, then you are going to need to do that encounter 8 times on average.

If you pay a raid leader he moves from being a well-meaning free agent to being your employee (in a sense). Don't think that's a good move ]

No, you just become his customer.

an amercican auction?
elaberate [/QUOTE


He did .

Basically the seller says he wants to sell the item for say 100p and every day he reduces it by 10p. The first person to buy gets the item.

So it would go something like:

100p

-> no buyer

90p

-> no buyer

80p

-> no buyer

70p

-> two people bid, the first bidder gets it at 70p

[Cryn]

You don't "need" the last item for your template either. If the person wants cash, then so be it. They are putting the same effort into the raid as you and if they want cash rather than an arti then what is the problem ?

I understand what you are saying, and in fact none of us "needs" anything in DAoC. However, in this context there is a relevant underlying distinction between cash and items.

When I say someone might "need" an item, I mean an item has dropped that is in the template of one of the chars they intend to play. On receiving the item they would equip it.

This compares to cash, which is an abstract system of mathematically increasing values. When you get the item, you would price it, sell it and then the cash would go into your pool and you may or may not at some point in the future use some or all of it to purchase an item you will equip.

In the first scenario, it is very unlikely that honest people will end up rolling for items they do not end equipping, so they won't take more out of the system than they use. Whereas in the second scenario, the very abstactness of the currency system means people will just attempt to accumulate as much as they can. They cannot at any given time assign even a ballpark figure to their need, because the market is too large, complex and fluctuating for them to be able to know the cost of all the items they need. Hence they have no choice but to just accumulate as much as they can and hope it covers their costs (and if it turns out once they have all their items they have money left over, that money remains with them).

This means one system boils down to "rolling for what you will equip" and the other "accumulate as much as you can." Surely the latter is verging on the very essence of greed?

In addition to this, you will find over time that the underlying reason for rolling (i.e. you need cash to finish your template) will get lost and would in any case be impossible to debate during a lootsplit. People will instead perceive the convention as "everyone always rolls for everything" so even people with no characters having unfinished templates and no intention of creating characters will roll for everything.

No, you just become his customer.

I think you missed my point, which is the same in employer-employee relationship as customer-supplier. If I do you a favour, at any point where I think things are going beyond what I wanted to do - or even if RL intrudes and changes my plans for example - I have the option of apologising and doing something else. Once you pay me to do it and it becomes a transaction, there is an onus on me to follow through, and even some leverage at your end to determine the WAY I follow through.

[Lairiodd]

This compares to cash, which is an abstract system of mathematically increasing values. When you get the item, you would price it, sell it and then the cash would go into your pool and you may or may not at some point in the future use some or all of it to purchase an item you will equip.

In the first scenario, it is very unlikely that honest people will end up rolling for items they do not end equipping, so they won't take more out of the system than they use. Whereas in the second scenario, the very abstactness of the currency system means people will just attempt to accumulate as much as they can. They cannot at any given time assign even a ballpark figure to their need, because the market is too large, complex and fluctuating for them to be able to know the cost of all the items they need. Hence they have no choice but to just accumulate as much as they can and hope it covers their costs (and if it turns out once they have all their items they have money left over, that money remains with them).

However, if you allow people to roll on all items that drop, there are more raids run and thus more items in the game. Also, if someone does in fact just sell everything, they are in effect giving the items they won to someone and not actually taking an item back in return. This actually benefits everyone else as it pushes down the price of everything.

This means one system boils down to "rolling for what you will equip" and the other "accumulate as much as you can." Surely the latter is verging on the very essence of greed?

Well "greed" in this context causes people to go out and get the drops, so maybe its not so bad. It also has the side effect of pushing down the prices of artis.

In addition to this, you will find over time that the underlying reason for rolling (i.e. you need cash to finish your template) will get lost and would in any case be impossible to debate during a lootsplit. People will instead perceive the convention as "everyone always rolls for everything" so even people with no characters having unfinished templates and no intention of creating characters will roll for everything.

Right, I don't see any problem with people who want to accumulate cash as their goal in the game. If one person is a player who wants the loot to rvr and another just wants to see if he can cap out all his chars plat numbers, then both are equally entitled to the item. This assumes that they both participated in the raid to get it. (and complied with the raid leader's rules)

I think you missed my point, which is the same in employer-employee relationship as customer-supplier. If I do you a favour, at any point where I think things are going beyond what I wanted to do - or even if RL intrudes and changes my plans for example - I have the option of apologising and doing something else. Once you pay me to do it and it becomes a transaction, there is an onus on me to follow through, and even some leverage at your end to determine the WAY I follow through.

Good point, but even if you are just doing the raid for everyone's benefit, there is still some pressure not to leave.