When we were sold the WPS stuff, we were also told that merchants offering these services would be pretty frequent. As far as I'm aware, we've only seen a few instances of this being offered outside of DR, and it was in pretty limited numbers.

What happened?

~ Methais

>My expectation, based on the roll out, was that WPS would be about as common as the offering flares. So far, Felthrop hasn't added it to his regular offerings. I think Methias, we are missing the behind the scenes discussion about how best to monetize more frequent offerings.

Ah, the classic bait & switch.

Oh you, Simu.

https://i.imgur.com/ikrnfXa.gif

~ Methais

There was also someone at the Festival of the Fallen, though I think they only spun once or twice for a limited number of people.

- Overlord EK

>You now regard Eorgina with a warm demeanor.

>It was at Duskruin, with the roll-out event. It was at Ebon Gate, the very next event.
>So they were at 100% presence, through the first two.

If I'm remembering right, it was presented to us as being about as commonly available as GALD services, and not just confined to pay events. I wanna say it was also implied that overall it would be available more often outside of pay events than at pay events.

Did I misread/misremember something? Or did Simu misdo something?

~ Methais

I'm with Methais on this one. I was just complaining about this on a Discord the other night. I was completely under the impression that this would be MUCH more regularly available to EVERYONE. That the limiting factor was the exponentiation of the cost when you go beyond a certain number of services in a 60 day window. Based on how this was presented to us, cost exponentiation was to be the limiter. It was supposed to be a common service. The way this has panned out has been anything but the way it described.

The fact the this service was limited to a handful of people via raffle at the last two places it was offered is complete crap, in my opinion. Anyone who was still in the 60 day window either (a) wouldn't have used an automated NPC to get more services anyway (because of the exponentiated cost), or (b) would have paid so many silvers to so so via the exponentiation that the reduction in silvers to the economy would have been worth it.

Count me in the highly disappointed category.

>I didn't see anything about "as common as GALD", just "more commonly" (to include automated NPCs) at events (and 'most' of those).

Fair enough, I couldn't remember the exact wording, but I was still in the right ball park.

That said, have they really lived up to this so far?

>Moving to the above rescale allows W/P/S services to be offered more commonly at events, and even through automated NPCs. W/P/S offerings will be at most events, big or small, free or otherwise. Wandering merchants may also offer the service on occasion. While it is debuting at Duskruin as a bloodscrip service, it will be offered for silvers at most other venues. The system is built to replace the randomness of limited raffle wins and reward consistent progression." -- Zissu's announcement #65 on 26-Aug-2017, emphasis mine

Does WPS services being offered like 3 or so times since DR fall under "most events" big or small, free or otherwise?

Does doing 3 spins for 75 people at a pay event like EG "replace the randomness of limited raffle wins and reward consistent progression."?

~ Methais

>Methais' posts

Yeah, all that.

DR has a high barrier for services and was limited to 25. Since then, we had FOTF with 5 services per spin offered for a very small group of people and EG with a hard maximum of 10 services for any person/item (except the big raffle win). Why put even put in a scaling price system if you hard cap the number of services anyone can reasonably run into.

Not to mention, all three events fell inside exactly the same window with nothing after it. There is no way to reset the timer outside of being selected, so the odds of the next two major offerings overlapping also seems high. One stated reason for 2 months over 1 was that you did not want people feeling they always had to try and get work done. The longer window is doing exactly that by making the cost for missing one so high. Every day after the close of the window without work makes the odds of the next two "big" chances overlapping higher. 6 major events a year, two month window, statistics alone suggest half of those will be less than 60 days apart (as they rarely start on the same day of the month).

At the very least it should just be a calendar setup of resetting every 2 months like clockwork or else give us some way to reset it. Heck, make a shop in town that lets you do 1 service on anything not in a service window. It wouldn't result in uber gear being made every day, and at least the darn window wouldn't be so insulting.

While I am good with the concept of WPS, the implementation to this point has not made me a fan. It has so far failed to live up to Wyrom's hype at simucon or even to the expectations it would be a fully realized system.

Sweet is the sound of the pouring rain,
And the stream that falls from the hill to plain.
Better than rain or rippling brook,
Is a mug of beer inside this Took.

>I didn't see anything about "as common as GALD", just "more commonly" (to include automated NPCs) at events (and 'most' of those).

>Fair enough, I couldn't remember the exact wording, but I was still in the right ball park.

It should be noted that "more common than before" (which was two or three times per year for maybe a dozen or two people in total) is a fair cry from "GALD" level (which can occur daily). And, yes, it is quite a bit more commonly available than it was, as I have approved it to occur for every single event that it has been requested for. These events have been Duskruin (automated), Festival of the Fallen, EG, and the New Year's Day event. I'd approve it for more too but, alas, it appears that you guys are going to have to lean on the CE merchant GMs to request it more often. Much like with the new merchant enchant unlock service from earlier this year, the GMs that put out the various services need a little bit of a push to start doing it a bit more regularly.

Coase

>I'd approve it for more too but, alas, it appears that you guys are going to have to lean on the CE merchant GMs to request it more often.

/facepalm

>Okay, yeah, we'll just blame the other GMs.

Its not about blaming anyone. We had one one system of padding/weighting for over 20 years. Most of our GMs have been GMing for 5-10 years or more and have it solidly set in their mind. Events are also often planned in advance. It takes a bit of time and pushing to swap from one solidly entrenched system to a brand new one. Its is not "lies" that we're trying to make this more available (and we have), but we're also not at the end point of this system transition either.

>My take from the wps changes was that I would be able to obtain it at anytime barring the ever increasing costs.

That is not entirely what we have in mind, no. If you're expecting to be able to plan for 15.8 services per month to hit a goal value in exactly 40 months, then that is a level of precision that we are -not- aiming for. However, we are aiming for you to be able to make measurable progress with your item based on how much effort you put into attending merchants and quest events, which we do want to have consistently (but not constantly or permanently) available.

Coase

>That is not entirely what we have in mind, no. If you're expecting to be able to plan for 15.8 services per month to hit a goal value in exactly 40 months, then that is a level of precision that we are -not- aiming for. However, we are aiming for you to be able to make measurable progress with your item based on how much effort you put into attending merchants and quest events, which we do want to have consistently (but not constantly or permanently) available.

Fair enough. Is there a plan yet to "replace the randomness of limited raffle wins and reward consistent progression." though? Because if I'm not mistaken, all WPS services offered so far have been random/luck based via spinners and whatnot, which is the opposite of "replace the randomness of limited raffle wins."

~ Methais

And access to the automated NPC was via randomization.

I think the biggest mistake in terms of the service availability was not resetting the items that were done at Duskruin so that they could be serviced at EG. The only reason they could not be serviced for the most part was because the system was released too late, not because players were dilly dallying. Also not having a permanent item estimator available. You have it already coded, just put it out permanently.

<EG Merchant week ended on Friday the 20 @ 9:00pm.
There is probably NO coincidence about that timing.
>

EG merchant week ended 10/27, but the last WPS service was 10/22 (50 that day in 2 sesssions).

https://gswiki.play.net/Ebon_Gate_2017/services


Regardless, I very much doubt WPS services for EG were scheduled to the day already in August (not the MO).

And yet there are people who DO have that many millions of silver, or casually pass around similar numbers.
Or can afford to pick it up through out-of-game means for what is--to them--a trivial amount of real-world cash.

Gee, look: No-one standing in the line! I'll take advantage and step right up to get work done...

(I'm not saying it would be me, because I'm pretty much always silvers-poor, but there are folks who couldn't care less about an expense measured in a mere 9 digits of silvers.)

Imagine if you will Bill Gates or Warren Buffet playing, and discovering that, hey, JohnQ's character over there has 'lebenty squillion million silver, that he's willing to sell for less than ten bucks each. (Or if that's too extreme: a successful attorney, or doctor, who come here to de-stress after a tough week; or someone who made a successful stock trade; or someone who bought BitCoin at the beginning of the year and cashed them all out at in early December at 1000% return [10x] (i.e. before they dropped >20% of value mid-month)...)
Do you seriously think someone like that would have a problem picking up several hundred million, simply because that's chump change for him at the moment?

And I'm still espousing something weird (like a 53-day cycle), so that it shifts around through the month rather than pretty much always being "around the same week".

.

That said, not everyone would be priced out, even then. Only someone wanting work on a repeat item.
Start a NEW item, you're at base cost, every time.
(And, now you have two different windows that you can potentially use, depending on when services become available.)

<beam!>

I am loving it with my little Monk (even though he just passed 20th a little bit ago). It's like every headful of experience is multiple training points, as opposed to the older ones where it's multiple headsful per point.
But yeah, I liked it even more two months ago, where it was "every pulse" == a training point.

.

.

My point, though, was that if your weapon is still in the 60-day expensive period, work on your armor (and start a new window). Or your backup weapon (in case you are Disarmed, as I hear spellcasters complain about all the time) (and start a new window). Or pay the cash and suck it up.

That's three different options, none of which include "You Cannot Get Work Done" (which is what an absolute prohibition would be).

Eventually, people are going to have multiple items on multiple timers ("this one is at T3 Ensorcel while I wait on that Sorcerer, day 9 of temper #4 towards a 6x Enchant, day17 of a weighting session, <whatever new system happens>, while that item over THERE is...").
(And hell, the people who found multiple Smithy invites at Duskruin can already be in that 'eventually' category.)