Preemptive Topic Split - GS

markusdark said:
Now it's my turn to do the logical next step scenario. And I too apologize ahead of time if anyone takes offense in it.

So then, there is nothing wrong with a chapter creating a following gobbie reward system within its own game:

Character Iron Man Training:

For the following monetary donation, you can advance your character in levels:

Level 1-5 characters - $50 per level until level 6
Level 6-10 characters - $100 per level until level 11
Level 11-15 characters - $175 per level until level 16
Level 16-20 characters - $275 per level until level 21
Level 21+ characters - $400 per level

Starting Specials!

Starting a new character? Don't want to start all the way back at the beginning? Then here's some specials so you don't have to:

Level 5 - $225
Level 10 - $600
Level 15 - $1150
Level 20 - $1800
Level 25 - $2500

For higher levels, contact staff.

In addition, due to plot regional effect within the game, further discounts may apply if you choose a specific race and/or race&build combination. Again, contact staff for more info


Now granted, you'd need to do all of the proper 'goblin point' conversions, adjust my numbers accordingly and this and that to keep it legal according to the rules.

As it's been argued against my more restrictive spending system, nothing more is happening than a PC's build/level is being affected by donations, albeit at a faster pace than gobbies. However, if someone was to simply keep on pumping minimal amounts of money into the game over time, they would just walk into the game at X level suddenly as far as all of the other players would notice. In fact, this way, you don't have to worry about said player using gobbies to create specific magic items or purchasing other things that could lend towards the power bloat curve.

In addition, the chapter receives much needed funding for various items up front instead of having to save up to buy that expensive shower system (whose donation, I would guess, didn't depend upon him getting $4,000-6,000 gobbies in return for it).

Just curious as to when does artificial character advancement become more important than the dollar - if ever.

I do have to admit that if a system were put into place that allowed a player to buy a character at L25 like you suggest I would use it. In fact, I would probably buy 3 L25 characters (that would be +$7500 to that chapter).

Granted, I could actually do that right now, one character at a time, for slightly less cost (assuming 3GS:$1 ratio, 4 weekends and 1 monthly per month = $90 / month, which translates to $1080 / year). It would just take time and coordination to coordinate with all of the chapters to donate for Goblin Stamps, ask to back blanket events every few months, etc., etc. over the course of 2 or 3 years or so. But, I would shell out the money for the convenience of not having to do all that coordination and waiting.
 
markusdark said:
Unless, as I've said, I'm not reading something right in the rules.

It's an Alliance Logistics Policy that blankets may only be acquired for Current Month - 3 Months (i.e. It is now May, you can back blanket Feb, Mar, Apr, and May). Going outside that window requires Alliance Chair approval.
 
Alavatar said:
markusdark said:
Unless, as I've said, I'm not reading something right in the rules.

It's an Alliance Logistics Policy that blankets may only be acquired for Current Month - 3 Months (i.e. It is now May, you can back blanket Feb, Mar, Apr, and May). Going outside that window requires Alliance Chair approval.

Also, you as a player can not blanket more than one event for the same time frame even if it is for different characters. i.e. 2 chapters have an event the same weekend you can only blanket one of the chapters events. Only one monthly blanket per character/per chapter. You can not blanket an event until after it has happened, or a month until that month arrives.

So, yes while you are trading money for gobbies and gobbies for experience there is a limiting factor on how quickly it can happen versus your money to instant character suggestion. There is also a lot of time and effort put into creating that character through blankets because you have to keep track of which chapters you have gobbies with, how many you have there, all of the event dates for the entire Alliance so you know you are not doubling up or missing any. Coordinate with all those chapters on a monthly to tri-monthly basis to make sure everything is credited correctly. It is a lot of hassle, enough to put some people off from doing it while others are more than willing. To each his own!
 
I guess I'm just old fashioned. I've blanketed rarely, and usually only because I couldn't get to my local chapter due to unforeseen or annoying circumstance. (though I am trying the gold membership at CT this year)

I guess I'm just coming at this from an old, tabletop point of view. I don't want to Powerlevel my character MMORPG style, because I lose out on PLAYING his rise to power. I lose out on the struggle, and would gain abilities far faster then I could use them effectively.

I've played on mods with folks who were 10+ levels ahead of me, and yet had not memorized their spell incants or really learned how to use them effectively. but then, I think power should be earned, so you can grow with it.

The concept of outright buying levels is, to me, a step WAY to far. and frankly, disturbs and saddens me a bit. The Game should be about play, not pay.

If you have a weird concept that's hard to do low level (say Orc Celestial Templar) Donate your time as an NPC. make stuff to make the game better. donate props, time and effort. Just outright paying for a level seems kind of ....well, dirty to me.
 
I say we do away with pay no play, gobbies and blankets and double the required experience per level. WHO'S WITH ME!?
 
Pay no Play makes no sense and is just a left over from that crappy N-word game.. When people used to ask about HQ's policy toward it, I explained that if they wanted to throw away their money, feel free, but we also offer them the option to donate for gobbies and let us blanket instead. Once I educated them on how gobbies worked, they all took that route.
 
markusdark said:
So then, there is nothing wrong with a chapter creating a following gobbie reward system within its own game.

Yes, there is something wrong with your proposed system. As Christina pointed out, it can't be done within the confines of the current policies, which exist, in part, to ensure limits and prevent a policy like yours from happening. These policies have grown over the years in response to attempts to imbalance the sytem. For example: I knew a player who once tried to back-blanket several years worth of events, rocketing his character through the levels. This would have been what you're essentially suggesting we allow. It was decided that such a system would be unreasonable, and imbalancing, and therefore the 3 month buy back was instituted.

Additionally, within the current system, as I stated above, you can advance your character at an accelerated rate even if you have very few fiscal resources, but are willing to work; I have seen this done many times. However, whether through strait up cash, hard work, or some combo of the two, there are limits to how fast your character can rise up through the levels, and those limits are crucial. You are proposing an essentially unregulated system in which the wealthy can explode their character levels, thus dramatically marginalizing the non-fiscal contributions made by characters without such resources. Our limits have been developed through observations, judgement calls, patterns and norms that your proposed system does not take into account.

markusdark said:
Just curious as to when does artificial character advancement become more important than the dollar - if ever.

Somewhere in between the current system and your proposal, I imagine.
 
The current systems are in place as they are to allow anyone to be able to donate whatever it is they have. Time, goods, money, ideas, skills, etc., and to define exactly how quickly those rewards can be translated into game wide rewards.

LCO awards are exactly that and can be done however the local chapter wants.

Rewards that can travel across the system are regulated just like treasure is.

You will likely never see a pay $5k get a 40th level guy, because that is not what this game is focusing on. Yes, you can slowly bleed whatever resource you have into the game and get a slightly inflated progress rate.

Is it a perfect system.. no, and it never will be. It is however a working system that is really not going to change much.

markusdark said:
If multiple chapters can honestly say that they are receiving hundreds of dollars worth of donations on a regular basis from people whom they've never seen at their games, then I'll do what many people wish they could have done and shut myself up ;).

Thousands actually. (so shut up)
 
As Dave's numbers above demonstrated, I would hardly call a ~400% exp gain 'slightly inflated'.
 
Given that its actually possible to physically attend over 30 events in a year without much effort, you are not talking about a 400% inflation due to goblin stamps.

Also it would require that there is an event every weekend to goblin stamp, which has yet to happen in any year.
 
Sure, you could attend that many events. But you also wouldn't have much chance of coming out of that without at least one in the bag.
 
Sure, but as we have seen in this thread, we have q pretty solid consensus that rewarding the folks who volunteer to entertain us by making sure their pc keeps up with their peers is not a sticking point. I do think we need to find a better method than item picks to offer incentive to npc, but that is a balance nightmare, given how wildly items can skew our scaling compared to exp.
 
Let's all be honest with each other for a moment.

This entire discussion is theoretical.

We have nothing aside from anecdotal data to demonstrate the ACTUAL impact of this policy on our game as a whole.

Sure, everyone "knows a guy" who went crazy and blanketed the entire Alliance for 6 years to skyrocket in level. But, I'll bet we all know the same guy (or group of guys). For all that we KNOW (and by know I mean "can prove using published factual data") the majority of the game goes to one chapter and MAYBE buys most of their monthly blankets.

I know of 2 players on my team who aggressively blanket out of nearly 14. I can think of maybe 5-6 other players who I *THINK* blanket aggressively. But, I have no idea what they do or how much. I can say for a FACT that there are people who encourage aggressive blanketing that do NOT do so. (I present myself and Hammerfist as two examples.)

What about this hypothetical: What if only 5% of the playerbase "aggressively" blankets? What if it's 10%? Buying a ton of blankets doesn't guarantee a 50th level character right away. One of the most aggressive blanketers I know is lower level than I am. Will he catch me? Yes. But, is he a "scaling problem" on his own? No.

I am advocating (slowly) for information to be compiled in a way that we can crunch numbers and do these sorts of analyisis. But, until then, let's keep the fact that this is a purely theoretical discussion (on both sides) in mind.

Stephen
 
I have to agree with Stephen, I've discussed with people the idea of doing pay-no-play in several chapters and setting up recurring blankets and having to attain the goblin stamps in each chapter through donations to do so and realistically, I lack the motivation and funds to do so and so do most of the people I have spoken to about it. In theory it's a great idea but in practice, it's a hell of a lot of work which I can't really see being worth it. To some people maybe it is and all they live for and devote their time to is getting their character that much bigger that much faster. For me, it just seems like it would turn this game into a job where my only compensation is a stronger fictional character.
 
At one point, I really hated that people could "buy levels," but now I don't really care.

Some people enjoy the game only when they are playing powerful characters. If that is what they enjoy, as long as they aren't being player bashers or plot bashers, I am fine with that. Personally, I think the game is about the journey, not the destination. And, that money that people give for all those levels makes the journey that much cooler (better props, better facilities, food, etc.).

So, if National wants to implement a policy where someone can spend insane money to create a high level character, that is fine by me. If Bill Gates wants a level 100 Scholar and is willing to donate $1,000,000 for it, I consider that a perfectly fair trade. I will still play and enjoy my game, which will be all the better for the two story, heated and air conditioned NPC lodge with a jacuzzi.

-MS
 
I know that I said I wasn't going to post but I just had to comment on this:

Sunnfire said:
markusdark said:
If multiple chapters can honestly say that they are receiving hundreds of dollars worth of donations on a regular basis from people whom they've never seen at their games, then I'll do what many people wish they could have done and shut myself up ;).

Thousands actually. (so shut up)

Thousands of dollars on a regular basis from people who have never been to one of your games?

Wow. I give them props (pun intended).
 
Personally, I have no problem with people paying their way to extra build.

Just limit the amount per month/year and have no qualms about those players having increased risk to go with their increased levels. Higher levels should be the gateway to greater levels of danger, not greater levels of easymode adventuring. To me, that's always been the flaw in people being able to boost their character's levels so much. The odds of them finding the graveyard don't go up to reflect their new status in the world.
 
Quick question. Do Goblin stamp blankets apply at the beginning or the end of the month?
 
Monthly blankets may be applied at any time during the month. Event blankets must be applied after the event has passed. You may not blanket a Monthly or Event in a month more than 3 prior to the current month.

So right now in May, you can get anything from Apr, Mar, or Feb; but on Jun 1st, you can no longer get blankets for anything in Feb.
 
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