Sending system price change: feedback

[Dillusionist]

Ideally, I can see how this new system might encourage people to actually approach groups and make friends in game. But I'm honestly not sure what the intended effect is. It might be a small dent in the purses of people who know the ropes, but I think its really going to cut into the experience and retention of new players.


1) Its fairly simple to hit 5 on EFU in a day or two with cautious questing. Its retaining players who hit level 5-6, but aren't quite experts at questing, that's the challenge. Ideally these players might start breaking off and joining factions once free resting and cheap sendings dry up. Or they might get frustrated and check out once the novelty of the setting wears off, and pushing events suddenly becomes that much harder. You can certainly argue "well we only want the ones who will jump into a faction once the free gold dries up!" - But I think there's a middle ground of easing people into the rhythm of EFU.


2) As much as veterans in discord like to groan about sending wars, Sendings are a big part of what makes EFU great and encourages people to get involved. I've never found a high density of sendings on EFU to be oppressive. They let you know what's going on, and easily coordinate in-game events. Otherwise its pretty easy to miss something going on in the Peerage if you hang around the Open Door all day or vice versa. Its fewer opportunities for the guy whose fallen into a daily rhythm of Anxious Gardener/Puzzlers/Fedex quests to break his routine and engage.


3) Pulling aside a random person and having them make a sending for you sounds like a fun way to involve people. But is it that stage, at level 4, where you're inundated with quests to explore that you need those interactions? Its more around 5-6 when supplies start to dry up that a newbie needs the attention.

[Sneakybeakyivdamke]

Unsure how it'll effect the retention of players. No other servers have sending systems afaik and they seem fine in holding their players. Honestly, if the cost is an issue, charge more for your services. Find an IC solution to this IC problem.

[Knight Of Pentacles]

Kind of further encourages people to coordinate oocly, if anything.  This'll mostly just inconvenience  players who don't have an ooc clique of friends to play with.   Not sure where this anti-sending sentiment came from all of a sudden but it seems really unnecessary.   While sending wars are obnoxious, maybe just punish those who lower the quality of the atmosphere with privilege revocations like in past settings?  If we have to insist on this set up then I think 50gp is way, way too high.   I think 25gp would be enough to stop frivolous sendings given the current economy. 

[I love cats]

I am very much for keeping the prices high!

[Empress of Neon]

I love it and think it should be addressed by angry senders ig.

"Damn it whisperers, listen to us so we can tell you why your prices are too expensive!"

[PinballSorcerer]

Kind of further encourages people to coordinate oocly, if anything.  This'll mostly just inconvenience  players who don't have an ooc clique of friends to play with.   Not sure where this anti-sending sentiment came from all of a sudden but it seems really unnecessary.   While sending wars are obnoxious, maybe just punish those who lower the quality of the atmosphere with privilege revocations like in past settings? 

Other people have said it more eloquently but I agree with this 100%.  This chapter is very hard, which is fine, it is fun, but all this does is encourage people to OOC coordinate more when there is already a very large incentive to do so due to limited supplies.

I can honestly say that in chatting with new players twice recently and trying to be welcoming, they privately expressed frustration at the inability to find quests or stuff to do, one said they "finished" EFU because they could not find groups which I found very troubling.  I gave them some guidance on how to find or make a group but still, I don't feel that is ideal.

This feels like a solution to a problem which does not exist and causes very real problems, making it harder to involve people and encouraging OOC coordination.

I don't understand what the problem this is supposed to be addressing.  Stopping "quest trains"?  They still happen, people just coordinate without sendings, leaving others behind and thus excluding new players.  Stopping "sending wars"?  I think there has to be better ways to do that than making sendings prohibitively expensive.

[Miscellanious]

Since when was 50 gold prohibitively expensive? Within 10 minutes of creating a character with 0 gold, i had 300 gold. Within an hour, i'm sitting at 500. This is with selling nothing, doing no major quests, or anything.


50 gold is not expensive, its only expensive when you make more than one or two sendings in between questing.


Instead of spending 200 gold making a 4 sending announcement... how about have 1 sending announceing that you have a new notice on the public boards?

Instead of declaring that you have created a group, and then listing everything your gorup does... how about use a combination of the group management forums, public boards, and in character (in person) recruiting?

Judt a few tips.

And no, spending 50 gold to announce that you're heading out is not expensive. Unless of course you don't actually head out.

[wundyboy]

The point of the Sending system change is to curate abuse of the system. Instead of hearing twenty sendings as someone is giving a speech, they can now give fifty gold to announce they are giving a speech in an area. Instead of people saying they are going questing over a system (when we currently have 50+ players), it is an incentive to instead go out to the Open Door / Spinning Groat to find people in game and do so. You don't need to announce how charitable you're doing over a sending - you can do that through a forum post on the public boards, putting it in your PCN / EFUSL, or merely going around telling people like 'hey I gave these beggars a hundred coins, instead of wasting it on two sendings telling people I am a charitable person'.

The whole OOC clique stuff is a bit silly to assume - I've made so many PCs in the past settings where I would go around and find people to rally under my banner. The current group I belong to was made through IC interactions, and we still let people who are not in our group tag along if there is space. It's about being loud, in a sense, but also being mechanically proficient enough to have people want to quest with your character. People see that if they do a quest with someone who is a bit proficient and they personally do not want to die, they will flock to these people.

[Howlando]

I continue to welcome feedback, and am happy to consider adjustments.

The origin of this was noticing that in the first few days when the sending system was broken how nice it was for groups to naturally form and be developed through RP rather than the almost OOC mechanic of, "Assemble here for X quest."

Given the foot traffic in Ticker Square and elsewhere, it's difficult for me to imagine that it is hard to find interaction.

I do agree it is important that new players find a way to get involved or develop groups, but I question whether sendings are the best way to do that.

Again, though, this is an experiment. We can always tweak or revert as needed. In fact one change I might make is keep it cheapo sendings through level 5 instead of 4.

[Hollow_Mage]

I like the idea of raising the price.

Could you hire someone to run around and gather a crowd? I'm sure an ambitious player would undercut the sending system.