GMs giving up on silvers?

[Tgo01]

Have the GMs just completely given up on stabilizing the value of silvers in favor of paid for currency or what?

Feels like we have given them so many good ideas over the years to give silver more value but they don't want to hear any of it.

The event boxes were a good idea, but some event boxes are so overpriced that it seems most people skip them, and the ones that are worth the value only come around like every month or two.

Seems they are blinded by profit now over long term stability of the game.

[Palcron]

I am a bit surprised by the quality of some of the for-silver trove prizes. Of course, you still have to buy in with cash to access the trove…

[Tgo01]

Of course, you still have to buy in with cash to access the trove…

lol

Why am I not surprised?

[Realk]

the silver market vrs the event boxes specifically this ebon gate.. i've seen lots of folks exhanging them for more than cost.

[Tgo01]

I think a big problem is the GMs are focusing on draining billions of silvers from a few players.

Why not also target people who don't have billions of silvers and make silvers more useful even if players only have a few million?

Maybe I'm just crazy.

[Tgo01]

the silver market vrs the event boxes specifically this ebon gate.. i've seen lots of folks exhanging them for more than cost.

Yeah I was a bit surprised by this. Really the only thing I want out of event boxes are the experience orbs but for past event boxes I would have had to sell the contents for way less than I paid for them and the experience orbs just aren't worth it for me for that price.

This EG I found someone who bought all of my event boxes for cost, which obviously makes free experience orbs worth the cost.

[beldannon5]

Wyrom made it clear he wants to get rid of the middle man period. Silvers cash etc when he added the adventurer guy. Seriously wyrom should just go away.

[Tgo01]

Wyrom made it clear he wants to get rid of the middle man period. Silvers cash etc when he added the adventurer guy. Seriously wyrom should just go away.

Getting rid of the middleman is a good way to kill this game faster.

[Flap]

HEADLINE: Guy who runs 1000 accounts 23.5 hours a day constantly generating silver surprised by low silvers prices!

It's free money from a video game, by making this post you are losing all rights to call anyone entitled ever again.

[Tgo01]

HEADLINE: Guy who runs 1000 accounts 23.5 hours a day constantly generating silver surprised by low silvers prices!

Hey I only play 22 hours a day.

And I barely break even paying for those 1000 accounts.

If GMs would rather me cash out and stop paying for my 1000 accounts that is fine by me. But something tells me Stillfront doesn't want that.

[drumpel]

I get the event boxes if they have a violet orb in them, other wise I just skip them because they're not worth it to me.

[Tgo01]

I get the event boxes if they have a violet orb in them, other wise I just skip them because they're not worth it to me.

Yeah they could do so much more with event boxes. Have a weekly event box with a violet orb and like 100 bounty vouchers or a violet orb and 5 gifts of the gods for like 5m or something. Just cycle through daily login rewards and a violet orb.

They could even keep increasing/decreasing the price every week until they find the sweet spot of what most people are willing to pay for this type of event box so they can drain the maximum amount of silvers every week.

[Ramrod]

Have the GMs just completely given up on stabilizing the value of silvers in favor of paid for currency or what?

Feels like we have given them so many good ideas over the years to give silver more value but they don't want to hear any of it.

The event boxes were a good idea, but some event boxes are so overpriced that it seems most people skip them, and the ones that are worth the value only come around like every month or two.

Seems they are blinded by profit now over long term stability of the game.

Everything they've done to "drain silvers" is just code for pushing players towards P2W. We're almost 3 years into the loot cap, but things like WPS prices haven't dropped. At this point the silver drain should have made a noticeable impact and resulted in lower prices, but nah. The bottom line is that the goal behind draining silvers is to push P2W currencies. Any other line from staff is pure bullshit.

The secondary market is never going away and the P2W profit is declining. Rumor is that RoL spending this year was down big and that's allegedly the most profitable event. You can see by the cost cutting (office move, staff layoffs) that the profit is down. I get that a lot of that staff was for Whatley's trainwreck shooter, but not all of it.

The willful ignorance on the staff's part is just fucking the silver economy as well as the profit. There's some simple things they could do to increase profit and some easy wins on the silver side, but the truth is the staff just doesn't give a fuck about the player base. It's all about profit and they can't even get that right. They've created/reinforced their Discord echo chamber and have convinced themselves they're doing an excellent job despite all measurable evidence saying otherwise.

[Palcron]

I think a bigger problem is that they’re at a point where stabilizing the silver market might not make any difference at all since it’s a supply and demand issue, and there might just not be any demand left. All of the events for improving gear have shifted to P2W, so there’s no real incentive to spend or buy silvers. If they set up the WPS wagon permanently and removed any alt-currency options, maybe, but the fact that that wagon comes around a few times a year for alt currency pretty much makes silvers pointless.

[Ramrod]

I think a bigger problem is that they’re at a point where stabilizing the silver market might not make any difference at all since it’s a supply and demand issue, and there might just not be any demand left. All of the events for improving gear have shifted to P2W, so there’s no real incentive to spend or buy silvers. If they set up the WPS wagon permanently and removed any alt-currency options, maybe, but the fact that that wagon comes around a few times a year for alt currency pretty much makes silvers pointless.

You can pretty much buy anything you want in the game for silvers. If the silver market goes away completely then what's the point in hunting? Slow, slow grind and no loot? The loot cap already does enough damage to player engagement. 16m soft loot cap, lol.

[Methais]

I think a bigger problem is that they’re at a point where stabilizing the silver market might not make any difference at all since it’s a supply and demand issue, and there might just not be any demand left. All of the events for improving gear have shifted to P2W, so there’s no real incentive to spend or buy silvers. If they set up the WPS wagon permanently and removed any alt-currency options, maybe, but the fact that that wagon comes around a few times a year for alt currency pretty much makes silvers pointless.

I've been trying to figure out what people are spending silvers on for years, even when coins sold in minutes.

I'm pretty sure Simu doesn't even have a real mid to long term plan laid out, probably just winging it like usual.



You can pretty much buy anything you want in the game for silvers. If the silver market goes away completely then what's the point in hunting? Slow, slow grind and no loot? The loot cap already does enough damage to player engagement. 16m soft loot cap, lol.

This might not be so much the case going forward, since a lot of people who accepted silvers for high end stuff did so because they could convert the silvers to cash pretty quick and easily. Unloading silvers now is like trying to pull teeth with chopsticks.

[Ramrod]

I've been trying to figure out what people are spending silvers on for years, even when coins sold in minutes.

I'm pretty sure Simu doesn't even have a real mid to long term plan laid out, probably just winging it like usual.


100% It's completely reactionary with no long-term plan or goals.




This might not be so much the case going forward, since a lot of people who accepted silvers for high end stuff did so because they could convert the silvers to cash pretty quick and easily. Unloading silvers now is like trying to pull teeth with chopsticks.

Yeah, true. The loot system is in a shit place as it is now. It will only get shittier.

[drumpel]

I'm sure I could have pulled in a billion silvers or more from just selling service stuff from my characters over the past 4-5 years, but I find the grind to maxing them out to be tedious and I really don't have the patience to meet up with someone, exchange silver, add services to an item and have them be on their way. I've dumped enough grit into my own items that I've taken multiple weapons to 6 or 7 CER for crit weighting and I've even dumped enough grit to move one item to 15 CER damage & 7 CER crit.

Seeing as I really find no way to benefit from silvers in game because it seems like 99% of in game events require you to spend actual money to participate in and earn alt currencies to spend on items. Aside from buying things from playershops that I find interesting or the odd event box, I don't feel the need to bank up silvers. Maybe I'm just odd.

[Winter]

I've been trying to figure out what people are spending silvers on for years, even when coins sold in minutes.

Player services, WPS, event boxes, a conduit between alt currencies, alchemy potions, gems, it's the primary currency for the player shops which there now 550 active ones, all the usual NPC shops and services and then there are auctions. As far as I know auctions were slated for every 6 months but I don't think they managed to fix the NPC auctioneer, I'm not sure what's happening there.

[Sean]

There's also just too much base and mid tier stuff in the game. In the past even simple things like decent enhancive had a market but now if it's less than like +10 it might as well be pawn shop fodder. I found a 5x shield hunting today but there's no market for that anymore either so I'll either give it away or pawn it because anything 7x and under isn't hard to get a hold of.

So people can either hold onto silvers to try and get something elite or they might as well sell them because anything really doesn't have a cost.

[Ramrod]

There's also just too much base and mid tier stuff in the game. In the past even simple things like decent enhancive had a market but now if it's less than like +10 it might as well be pawn shop fodder. I found a 5x shield hunting today but there's no market for that anymore either so I'll either give it away or pawn it because anything 7x and under isn't hard to get a hold of.

So people can either hold onto silvers to try and get something elite or they might as well sell them because anything really doesn't have a cost.

They could make WPS permanent and get rid of the windows/discount for silvers. They could just sell RPA orbs for silver off the shelf. There's smaller things at pay events like enhancive permanence that could just get sold for silver off the shelf. They could expand the premium travel system to all players with an adjusted pricing system. I'm sure there's a lot of ideas out there that don't lower event spending.

If they wanted to boost profit, they could re-examine the subscription plans. Have silver, gold, platinum tiered plans that include various amounts of Simucoins each month. Premium really doesn't add much in the way of benefits these days. If they really want to affect the secondary market, they have to speed up progression. Character sales are a huge chunk of the market.

At the end of the day, there's no long-term strategy or plan and they just keep going back to the same well.

[Sean]

They could make WPS permanent and get rid of the windows/discount for silvers. They could just sell RPA orbs for silver off the shelf. There's smaller things at pay events like enhancive permanence that could just get sold for silver off the shelf. They could expand the premium travel system to all players with an adjusted pricing system. I'm sure there's a lot of ideas out there that don't lower event spending.

If they wanted to boost profit, they could re-examine the subscription plans. Have silver, gold, platinum tiered plans that include various amounts of Simucoins each month. Premium really doesn't add much in the way of benefits these days. If they really want to affect the secondary market, they have to speed up progression. Character sales are a huge chunk of the market.

At the end of the day, there's no long-term strategy or plan and they just keep going back to the same well.

No argument here, there's plenty they could do outside of 300-400m event items to try and pull silver. There is just a the vast amount of shit in the game and that has killed the market on equipment below the elite levels so no one is buying anything at the bottom really. Correlating the increase in stuff from the hopper and events over 30 years and the decrease in players needing stuff it's also done damage the market. Basically people can spend 350m+ on an extra room for their house because there isn't anything worth buying.

[Tgo01]

There's also just too much base and mid tier stuff in the game. In the past even simple things like decent enhancive had a market but now if it's less than like +10 it might as well be pawn shop fodder. I found a 5x shield hunting today but there's no market for that anymore either so I'll either give it away or pawn it because anything 7x and under isn't hard to get a hold of.

Yeah I think a big issue with the game is it's really lopsided when it comes to high level characters compared to low level characters.

I mean I have no data, but if I were to guess it's probably 80-90%+ of players have at least one character that is level 90+. Most low level characters are probably a capped character's alt.

Very rarely I meet someone who is legit a brand new player to the game.

[gilchristr]

What were you expecting? I mean, the GMs get paid based on how popular the project they released is right? So they are going to work on scripts for new weapons at an event.

I mean, there isnt much more to it than that. They are not going to carefully work on changes that finely balance the game economy, thats way to long term of a goal. They are more like, shit the even is in 2 weeks, crap!

Nothing would be different had there not been layoffs, either. This is they way they have been working for a while now

[Winter]

In the past even simple things like decent enhancive had a market but now if it's less than like +10 it might as well be pawn shop fodder.

Na they still sell but you need to have shop and price them fairly, all the enhancives I put for sale in my shop eventually sell, if you want to get rid of them quickly you're going to have to auction them individually but that comes with the usual ball ache of being a massive time sink.

[Ramrod]

What were you expecting? I mean, the GMs get paid based on how popular the project they released is right? So they are going to work on scripts for new weapons at an event.

I mean, there isnt much more to it than that. They are not going to carefully work on changes that finely balance the game economy, thats way to long term of a goal. They are more like, shit the even is in 2 weeks, crap!


If anyone on staff (not including permanent staff such as Wyrom) is doing it for the pay, then they're fucking stupid. I'm sure getting a bonus check is nice, but there are way, way better ways to make money on the side than being a Simu GM.

Assuming for a minute they ARE doing it for the pay, balancing the economy and increasing profit via long-term goals is beneficial to them. It doesn't need to be a 5 year plan requiring thousands of dev hours to do some simple shit like remodeling the subscription plans, redoing the Simucoin discounts (they don't make sense), adding more Simucoin tiers, etc. They could also just add RPA orbs to the Simu store for straight purchase. Add RPA orbs or update the gear in Reim to make it more enticing. Add permanent mini-games for Simucoins. Those are pretty simple things that would increase profit and thus staff pay.



Nothing would be different had there not been layoffs, either. This is they way they have been working for a while now

I never said things would be different. I was making the point that layoffs are an indication of profit being down.

[Methais]

If anyone on staff (not including permanent staff such as Wyrom) is doing it for the pay, then they're fucking stupid.

Wyrom mentioned at some point I think last year in Discord that some of the P2W GMs actually make more money than he does.

That's the super paraphrased version, but the point is still that some P2W GMs make more than the game's Product Manager.


EDIT: Here it is

https://i.imgur.com/lyQh2Qy.png
https://discord.com/channels/226045346399256576/1083204538267344926/1083478613648744479


My favorite part is how they wanted him to work that full time for a measly $12k a year. That's the most Simutronics thing I've read all day.

[Anebriated]

Wyrom mentioned at some point I think last year in Discord that some of the P2W GMs actually make more money than he does.

That's the super paraphrased version, but the point is still that some P2W GMs make more than the game's Product Manager.

I have employees that make more than me too. But they bust their ass and work a ton of overtime and I am salaried. Doesn’t mean I’m getting the short end of the stick, my pay is guaranteed and I work a lot less hours.

[Methais]

I have employees that make more than me too. But they bust their ass and work a ton of overtime and I am salaried. Doesn’t mean I’m getting the short end of the stick, my pay is guaranteed and I work a lot less hours.

I don't disagree. I'm just saying that P2W GMs can make a killing from the sound of it, and not really "beer and pizza" money like what used to be the case.

I edited the previous post to include Wyrom's Discord post after I found it.

[Anebriated]

Fair enough. I didn’t read enough of the conversation for the context.

[Realk]

They should just make more gowns and pets and shit.. Girls pay way to much to that crap.

[Tgo01]

For years the Simu response to people asking for a full time paid coder to work on the game has been "But that wouldn't be fair to the GMs! They don't get paid!"

Now GMs are apparently better paid than actual paid employees of Simu. So what is their excuse now for not hiring a full time paid coder to work on the game? Like, just straight work on the game, not put off shit because they don't feel like it, not only work on their pet projects, not get pulled away every damn month to work on yet another paid event.

They have no excuse, but the player base seems to be okay with the current state of work being done on the game I guess.

[Ramrod]

I don't disagree. I'm just saying that P2W GMs can make a killing from the sound of it, and not really "beer and pizza" money like what used to be the case.

I edited the previous post to include Wyrom's Discord post after I found it.


I have no clue what Wyrom makes. It's more than an entry level math instructor at a college. 4% raises most years is barely more than a cost of living adjustment. Over the last 10 years, the average cost of living adjustment for Social Security has worked out to 2.75% per year. That's Social Security adjustments so on the lower end. I'm guessing Wyrom's "raises" work out to about the same and he's making the same amount as he did year 1 when you factor in cost of living.

My god. He's in charge of balancing the economy.

So my bad, maybe? I don't know how many hours the GM's work that make more than Wyrom pulls in or what their various skillsets are. I'm sure most programming jobs pay better than what a staff GM at Simu is making. Also, Wyrom is probably counting the lockdown year in that statement where profit was unreasonably high.

[Neveragain]

For years the Simu response to people asking for a full time paid coder to work on the game has been "But that wouldn't be fair to the GMs! They don't get paid!"

Now GMs are apparently better paid than actual paid employees of Simu. So what is their excuse now for not hiring a full time paid coder to work on the game? Like, just straight work on the game, not put off shit because they don't feel like it, not only work on their pet projects, not get pulled away every damn month to work on yet another paid event.

They have no excuse, but the player base seems to be okay with the current state of work being done on the game I guess.

Honest question. If you owned Microsoft, would you still hire coders to make updates to Windows 3.1?

Also

If you were a coder would you waste your time going to work writing code for a no-name text based game or Activision?

The first comment I get from people when I link them to GSIV is "Jesus, this homepage looks like it's from the 90's"

It was over when SIMU lost the race in 2005.

[Tgo01]

Honest question. If you owned Microsoft, would you still hire coders to make updates to Windows 3.1?

If Windows 3.1 still made money I would. I get that GS is a dinosaur, but it's a dinosaur that is still pulling in millions of dollars a year, or whatever the amount is.

[Methais]

I have no clue what Wyrom makes. It's more than an entry level math instructor at a college. 4% raises most years is barely more than a cost of living adjustment. Over the last 10 years, the average cost of living adjustment for Social Security has worked out to 2.75% per year. That's Social Security adjustments so on the lower end. I'm guessing Wyrom's "raises" work out to about the same and he's making the same amount as he did year 1 when you factor in cost of living.

My god. He's in charge of balancing the economy.

So my bad, maybe? I don't know how many hours the GM's work that make more than Wyrom pulls in or what their various skillsets are. I'm sure most programming jobs pay better than what a staff GM at Simu is making. Also, Wyrom is probably counting the lockdown year in that statement where profit was unreasonably high.

I have no clue either, I'd guess 50-70k per year give or take, but that's just a wild guess that's not based on anything at all.

Probably safe to say it's at least 12k though.

[Tgo01]

If they offered Wyrom 12k a year it really makes me wonder how much Solomon got paid, because I seem to recall he bitched about his pay and how shitty he was treated after he was fired/quit/whatever happened to him.

[Sean]

But back then people generally looked at GH/GMing as like a supplemental income type "job" playing a game that you loved. I'm not so sure it's that anymore but 12k a year to someone you know has a family they're trying to support is pretty nuts even 10 years ago

[Methais]

But back then people generally looked at GH/GMing as like a supplemental income type "job" playing a game that you loved. I'm not so sure it's that anymore but 12k a year to someone you know has a family they're trying to support is pretty nuts even 10 years ago

10 years ago you could make more than that just farming silver. I think 2017 was the last time I remember silvers going for $10 per. I could pull in 100m a month just solo farming the Confluence around that time.

[Sean]

10 years ago you could make more than that just farming silver. I think 2017 was the last time I remember silvers going for $10 per. I could pull in 100m a month just solo farming the Confluence around that time.

To be fair you could make that working at McDonalds too

[Ramrod]

But back then people generally looked at GH/GMing as like a supplemental income type "job" playing a game that you loved. I'm not so sure it's that anymore but 12k a year to someone you know has a family they're trying to support is pretty nuts even 10 years ago

Yeah, they should really differentiate between GM and Staff. GM's should be the equivalent of D&D DM's doing it for the enjoyment with some bonus money here and there. Staff should be paid salary and working on an actual roadmap.

The real takeaway from the Wyrom post is that GM's are splitting up 33% of GROSS profit. That means there is absolutely enough money in the budget to add a coder to staff.

[Ramrod]

Honest question. If you owned Microsoft, would you still hire coders to make updates to Windows 3.1?



That's not a real comparison as MS quit selling and supporting 3.1 more than 20 years ago. Simu still actively supports and sells GSIV. 3.1 would compare to GSIII, which Simu no longer sells nor supports.



If you were a coder would you waste your time going to work writing code for a no-name text based game or Activision?

If I lived in St. Louis and wanted to have game development on my resume, I would absolutely take a job with Simu. No one is saying Simu should try to compete with FAANG companies for talent. We're talking about an entry-level programming job here.



The first comment I get from people when I link them to GSIV is "Jesus, this homepage looks like it's from the 90's"

It was over when SIMU lost the race in 2005.

It's over because Simu still has the same mindset they had in 1995, which was a shit mindset then and even shittier now. D&D is massively popular right now. The Twitch leaks showed that the highest payout was to Critical Role. There is absolutely a market for a game like GSIV right now. It is the perfect work from home game, to be honest.

[Methais]

To be fair you could make that working at McDonalds too

True, but you can't farm silvers at the same time you're working at McDonald's. My desk job is super GS friendly, so that worked out in my favor pretty nicely.

[Anebriated]

It is the perfect work from home game, to be honest.

I can attest to that. The only reason I'm back is because my work went remote and I can easily watch bigshot while on work calls.

[Methais]

I can attest to that. The only reason I'm back is because my work went remote and I can easily watch bigshot while on work calls.

Fun fact: If you look away for longer than 3 seconds, some weird open roll bullshit that never happens will happen and be really annoying.

Every time. 60% of the time.

[Anebriated]

Fun fact: If you look away for longer than 3 seconds, some weird open roll bullshit that never happens will happen and be really annoying.

Every time. 60% of the time.

99% of my deaths are exactly that. Also found out that sorcs make the best rescuers.

earlier today...

The champion's face hardens in concentration, and she starts moving faster than seems possible.
An Ithzir champion swings a gleaming crystal-edged broadsword at you!
AS: +475 vs DS: +485 with AvD: +25 + d100 roll: +89 = +104
... and hits for 1 point of damage!
Glancing blow to your right leg!
The scintillating silver light surrounding the broadsword fades some.

An Ithzir champion's crystal-edged broadsword emits a searing bolt of lightning!
... 30 points of damage!
Electric blast goes right to the heart! You'll miss that steady beat.
You feel the tension in your skin ease and notice that your complexion returns to normal.
Like sand through an hourglass, your visions of the future slip away and fade from your mind.
You feel the extra courage wane.
The deep blue glow leaves you.
The scales covering your hands turn brittle and flake away.

[Methais]

99% of my deaths are exactly that. Also found out that sorcs make the best rescuers.

earlier today...

The champion's face hardens in concentration, and she starts moving faster than seems possible.
An Ithzir champion swings a gleaming crystal-edged broadsword at you!
AS: +475 vs DS: +485 with AvD: +25 + d100 roll: +89 = +104
... and hits for 1 point of damage!
Glancing blow to your right leg!
The scintillating silver light surrounding the broadsword fades some.

An Ithzir champion's crystal-edged broadsword emits a searing bolt of lightning!
... 30 points of damage!
Electric blast goes right to the heart! You'll miss that steady beat.
You feel the tension in your skin ease and notice that your complexion returns to normal.
Like sand through an hourglass, your visions of the future slip away and fade from your mind.
You feel the extra courage wane.
The deep blue glow leaves you.
The scales covering your hands turn brittle and flake away.

Followed by the obligatory

https://media.tenor.com/WHTddiul5LIAAAAC/weird-photos.gif

[Tgo01]

Decided to post this here instead of creating a new thread.

So apparently the GMs are planning to move the invoker to FWI so it would be a paid premium perk. Which isn't the end of the world, might as well give premium people some more perks.

But apparently they are also going to create some sort of pills that basically do what the invoker does, which is give the person every shareable spell in the game, oh yeah and these will be available in the SimuCoin store.

[Methais]

Decided to post this here instead of creating a new thread.

So apparently the GMs are planning to move the invoker to FWI so it would be a paid premium perk. Which isn't the end of the world, might as well give premium people some more perks.

But apparently they are also going to create some sort of pills that basically do what the invoker does, which is give the person every shareable spell in the game, oh yeah and these will be available in the SimuCoin store.

That's an indirect buff to Dreavenings.

[drumpel]

Decided to post this here instead of creating a new thread.

So apparently the GMs are planning to move the invoker to FWI so it would be a paid premium perk. Which isn't the end of the world, might as well give premium people some more perks.

But apparently they are also going to create some sort of pills that basically do what the invoker does, which is give the person every shareable spell in the game, oh yeah and these will be available in the SimuCoin store.

Bet they're hoping to see an influx of accounts jumping to a premium sub once this takes place.

[Ramrod]

Bet they're hoping to see an influx of accounts jumping to a premium sub once this takes place.

Do people really go out of their way for the invoker? With spell burst/sever it doesn't seem to make much difference.

[SonoftheNorth]

Do people really go out of their way for the invoker? With spell burst/sever it doesn't seem to make much difference.

Yes plenty of people survive off full invoker OSA.

[Methais]

Do people really go out of their way for the invoker? With spell burst/sever it doesn't seem to make much difference.

I'm not sure how, but a lot of people just die 984832709423x a day if they don't have every spell in the game stacked on them at all times.

A lot of people are bad at the easiest game ever made.

[Mobius1]

I guess this is actually a good thing for some people, since you don't have to be in Landing to get buffs.

[Sean]

I'm not sure how, but a lot of people just die 984832709423x a day if they don't have every spell in the game stacked on them at all times.

A lot of people are bad at the easiest game ever made.

I'm hoping its more bored capped players with a younger mutant build that were happy they didn't have to bring their main to the landing to spell up

[Tgo01]

The value of silvers continues to drop.

What is Simu's end game with this? Do they really think once silvers become worthless that new people are going to start spending thousands of dollars on their already expensive alt currencies?

I was just thinking about this the other day: why don't they silver-monetize more things in game?

Want to increase your capped player services juice beyond 200k? Spend 1 million silvers and you can increase your capped juice by 1k.

Create a system similar to ascension but with silvers. 10 million silvers and you can increase any stat or skill by 1 point, with a cap of +10 to any stat/skill from this system.

Create some sort of charm system and you can buy various charms that give you different abilities. 25 million silvers allows you to buy a charm so you won't trip on any ice patches if you have at least 150 ranks of survival. 10 million silvers allows you to buy a charm that gives you slightly better loot.

Literally A-N-Y-T-H-I-N-G. They can setup NPCs to automate this shit and everything. Give silvers a purpose and value.

But that would require them to care about the in game currency. They have to make more items for people to spend tens of thousands of dollars on for the next DR.

It's like they came up with the idea of event boxes which drain a whole 3-7 million silvers per account every couple of months, patted themselves on the back, and said "Nailed it!" Don't get me wrong; it was a great start, but why did they stop with that?

[Methais]

The value of silvers continues to drop.

What is Simu's end game with this? Do they really think once silvers become worthless that new people are going to start spending thousands of dollars on their already expensive alt currencies?

I was just thinking about this the other day: why don't they silver-monetize more things in game?

Want to increase your capped player services juice beyond 200k? Spend 1 million silvers and you can increase your capped juice by 1k.

Create a system similar to ascension but with silvers. 10 million silvers and you can increase any stat or skill by 1 point, with a cap of +10 to any stat/skill from this system.

Create some sort of charm system and you can buy various charms that give you different abilities. 25 million silvers allows you to buy a charm so you won't trip on any ice patches if you have at least 150 ranks of survival. 10 million silvers allows you to buy a charm that gives you slightly better loot.

Literally A-N-Y-T-H-I-N-G. They can setup NPCs to automate this shit and everything. Give silvers a purpose and value.

But that would require them to care about the in game currency. They have to make more items for people to spend tens of thousands of dollars on for the next DR.

It's like they came up with the idea of event boxes which drain a whole 3-7 million silvers per account every couple of months, patted themselves on the back, and said "Nailed it!" Don't get me wrong; it was a great start, but why did they stop with that?

I bet Simu would respond to those ideas with, "We can't do that because people could just buy silvers to max out XYZ and that would give them an unfair advantage over other players."

[Tgo01]

I bet Simu would respond to those ideas with, "We can't do that because people could just buy silvers to max out XYZ and that would give them an unfair advantage over other players."

They'll say that then 6 months later they will sell those services for SimuCoins.

[Flap]

OH FUCK I CAN'T PAY MY CAR NOTE BY SELLING MONEY I "EARNED" BY TYPING EBOUNTY WHEN I WAKE UP AND VAGUELY WATCHING OUT OF THE CORNER OF MY EYE FOR BIG BLOCKS OF MONSTERBOLD

What if it were actually a *good* thing for the game if all the people that play it to make money left?

Also, you do realize that the biggest spenders are people that have a lot of disposable income without needing to eke out the largest profit margin on selling Monopoly money, right?

[Tgo01]

What if it were actually a *good* thing for the game if all the people that play it to make money left?

I guess we'll find out soon enough.

Surely fewer paying customers is a good thing for a business, right?

[Suppressed Poet]

Methais and Tgo01, I know you guys occasionally make a few bucks in profit here and there. Over the course of time since you started playing Gemstone, would you say that you have made more money than the sum of what you paid to Simu? Think I know the answer but I won’t assume.

My opinion is the game would collapse without OG super players like y’all holding it up. Just a hunch. Simutronics should be kissing your collective asses.

[Tgo01]

Methais and Tgo01, I know you guys occasionally make a few bucks in profit here and there. Over the course of time since you started playing Gemstone, would you say that you have made more money than the sum of what you paid to Simu? Think I know the answer but I won’t assume.

With the number of accounts I have these days I just barely break even. I mostly just enjoy building characters and pushing what I can do with my group via scripting and also writing scripts.

Sure I still enjoy the game because of the things I just mentioned, but it's not worth how much money I put into this game. I would probably drop my number of accounts down to 1 or 2 if the GMs manage to succeed in their apparent quest to make silvers totally worthless.

[Suppressed Poet]

With the number of accounts I have these days I just barely break even. I mostly just enjoy building characters and pushing what I can do with my group via scripting and also writing scripts.

Sure I still enjoy the game because of the things I just mentioned, but it's not worth how much money I put into this game. I would probably drop my number of accounts down to 1 or 2 if the GMs manage to succeed in their apparent quest to make silvers totally worthless.

As suspected, Simu should be kissing your ass.

Does David Whatley still own and run the company? I never met him. Maybe I don’t know all the ins and outs of running a MUDD, but it occurs to me with minimal effort & virtually 0 effort things could improve the game. Just sounds like there is little leadership from the top & some uninspired middle management type must be running things now. They didn’t really listen to the player base all that much when I was actively playing not that long ago & it sounds like it’s much worse now.

[Methais]

Methais and Tgo01, I know you guys occasionally make a few bucks in profit here and there. Over the course of time since you started playing Gemstone, would you say that you have made more money than the sum of what you paid to Simu? Think I know the answer but I won’t assume.

My opinion is the game would collapse without OG super players like y’all holding it up. Just a hunch. Simutronics should be kissing your collective asses.

I've made 945732890403x more from GS than I've paid into it. It's a fraction of what it used to be, but it's still there.

That said, I'd be totally ok with making $0 off of silvers if there was anything interesting to spend them on in game, and things like adding a few more points of padding/weighting aren't it.

But there isn't, for me anyway, so not selling them would just be dumb.

Half the time I don't even bother trying to sell wizard/cleric/bard services, which would add up to a decent pile of silvers on its own each month, because I'm too lazy being afk 99% of the time when I'm not out hunting. I'm an afk rester.

[Methais]

As suspected, Simu should be kissing your ass.

Does David Whatley still own and run the company? I never met him. Maybe I don’t know all the ins and outs of running a MUDD, but it occurs to me with minimal effort & virtually 0 effort things could improve the game. Just sounds like there is little leadership from the top & some uninspired middle management type must be running things now. They didn’t really listen to the player base all that much when I was actively playing not that long ago & it sounds like it’s much worse now.

I think Whatley's been gone for at least a year or two. I forgot what the deal was, but I'm pretty sure it's been years and years and years since he's done anything meaningful anyway.

I don't know much of shit about how things work behind the scenes, but I'd imagine it's a complete train wreck.

[Tgo01]

I think Simu is getting fat on a few whales who spend thousands of dollars at each event so they don't even seem to care about monthly subs anymore, which is all kinds of wrong in a type of business such as this.

Probably doesn't help that GMs get a slice of the pie at paid events, but as far as I'm aware they don't get a slice of the pie of monthly subs, so it just gives GMs even more incentive to focus on the whales and not the regular folk who just pay a monthly sub and that's it.

And the top dog who bought Simu probably only looks at dollar figures and looks at the chart with the arrow going up and thinking "Yup, this works. Great job!" If the numbers ever start going down the GMs probably just release more event shit, or shit like full spell up pills at the SimuCoin store.

The only reason they probably do event boxes anymore is not to give silvers a value, but because it gives away entries for "free" (free as in not real world money) and gets people into the idea of doing paid events which will in turn make them spend real life money for more entries.

[Suppressed Poet]

I've made 945732890403x more from GS than I've paid into it. It's a fraction of what it used to be, but it's still there.

That said, I'd be totally ok with making $0 off of silvers if there was anything interesting to spend them on in game, and things like adding a few more points of padding/weighting aren't it.

But there isn't, for me anyway, so not selling them would just be dumb.

Half the time I don't even bother trying to sell wizard/cleric/bard services, which would add up to a decent pile of silvers on its own each month, because I'm too lazy being afk 99% of the time when I'm not out hunting. I'm an afk rester.

That’s impressive over the long haul you made more from your services, silver collection, etc, than what you have paid Simu in subscription fees, events, etc. I wouldn’t have guessed that. I say good for you and hell yeah. The only way that happens is because you provide some sort of valuable service to the player community as evidenced by their willingness to pay you for it.

May I ask are your profit margins enough to provide a livable wage, even if it’s like the equivalent of Seran’s government EBT deposits? Or is the time/effort to profit ration like Diablo II item farming dominated by poor Asian countries, because the profits are only sustainable as a business if you live in 3rd world country with little economic opportunity?

[Suppressed Poet]

I think Whatley's been gone for at least a year or two. I forgot what the deal was, but I'm pretty sure it's been years and years and years since he's done anything meaningful anyway.

I don't know much of shit about how things work behind the scenes, but I'd imagine it's a complete train wreck.

I looked it up and found that a Swedish company called Stillfront Group purchased a 55% majority ownership stake in Simutronics back in 2016. It’s unclear who owns the other 45%.

Without going into details, I came across some money from an inheritance. I’ve parked it into a sensible low risk investment, but I’ve began to think…what if I took that money, used it for collateral to get a sizable loan, and started a business that I truly love & that could replace my current career? I keep thinking about that guy Cletus McFarland that put every cent he had into buying a dilapidated race track in 2020 & made something out of it. What would be my passion if I chose to do the same? Problem is I haven’t quite figured that out yet.

Or I could just continue the safe route of working a 9-5, put all my kids through college, and maybe be able to retire slightly early. Still undecided.

[Tgo01]

Want to increase your capped player services juice beyond 200k? Spend 1 million silvers and you can increase your capped juice by 1k.

Create a system similar to ascension but with silvers. 10 million silvers and you can increase any stat or skill by 1 point, with a cap of +10 to any stat/skill from this system.

Create some sort of charm system and you can buy various charms that give you different abilities. 25 million silvers allows you to buy a charm so you won't trip on any ice patches if you have at least 150 ranks of survival. 10 million silvers allows you to buy a charm that gives you slightly better loot.

Thinking about this some more, because I love to hear myself talk. The craziest thing is how easy it would be to implement this.

Just make all of this some sort of charm system. It doesn't even have to be a physical item, the charm is just part of your character description that you can customize (more way to drain silvers!) or even hide if you don't want it to show up on your character.

And stuff like the ascension system but for silvers I mentioned? The ascension system already exists, it wouldn't be too difficult to duplicate that code and have it use silvers instead of ascension experience.

Adding more total juice your character can have? The system already exists for character juice, it's just capped at 200k. Should be easy enough to code it so the game does 200,000 + (number of charm ranks * 1000). Bam. Done. Can even do this for weekly juice, but maybe make it cost more since this would speed up how fast players can perform services. And again this would be easy enough to code.

Slipping on ice patches? Simple. Have the code check if the current room has an ice patch, if yes then check if the person has at least 150 ranks of survival and if they have the no-slipping charm, if yes then the person doesn't slip, if not then check the current code for the formula on slipping or not.

This is such simple stuff. The GMs either A) Just don't give a shit or B) Don't want to give players more ways to advance their characters via silvers, and let's face it, it's probably B because they don't want these systems to potentially interfere with their paid events services.

[Realk]

Just make all of this some sort of charm system.


they just made the bards have the luck thing.. that would mess that up a little bit.


The promise of a game wide prize if enough accounts bought event boxes seemed lazy, as we've all seen with everyone buying them from other folks. That's not a silver drain it's a silver shuffle.

[Tgo01]

they just made the bards have the luck thing.. that would mess that up a little bit.

Well they could make it whatever system they wanted.


The promise of a game wide prize if enough accounts bought event boxes seemed lazy, as we've all seen with everyone buying them from other folks. That's not a silver drain it's a silver shuffle.

I saw people on Discord talking about how more people needed to buy event boxes but didn't know why, but this is what it was all about? Some sort of prize if enough people bought event boxes?

I just don't even know what to say anymore. If the event boxes were truly the GM's way of draining silvers and giving silvers value, they could do so much more with the system to attain both goals. Instead this is what they do?

[Woodchuck]

My brother in christ, your mass farming and the mass farming of others like you is 100% to blame for the decrease in silver cost. It is so goofy for someone who has over 20 accounts to complain that the value of silvers they've been farming to hell aren't worth as much. Zero self-awareness or accountability, just pointing the finger at others without acknowledging any responsibility at all.

I think they saw people making money off gemstone and making dozens of accounts to make money off gemstone without really caring about how much it would destroy the economy or game design, and decided if people were going to spend all this money on gemstone it should be to simutronics, not the people trashing the spirit of the game by turning it from an RPG into a spreadsheet to generate income.

[Tgo01]

My brother in christ, your mass farming and the mass farming of others like you is 100% to blame for the decrease in silver cost. It is so goofy for someone who has over 20 accounts to complain that the value of silvers they've been farming to hell aren't worth as much. Zero self-awareness or accountability, just pointing the finger at others without acknowledging any responsibility at all.

I think they saw people making money off gemstone and making dozens of accounts to make money off gemstone without really caring about how much it would destroy the economy or game design, and decided if people were going to spend all this money on gemstone it should be to simutronics, not the people trashing the spirit of the game by turning it from an RPG into a spreadsheet to generate income.

This makes absolutely no sense. Other than the WPS wagon, and to a much lesser extent ship combat, what have the GMs introduced into the game that provides a constant and real value for silvers?

The answer is nothing. And even the two things I mentioned aren't even a constant value for silvers. You buy your ship and you're done. You might upgrade it at some point but then that's it. The WPS wagon isn't even around all of the time.

Meanwhile the GMs have put a hard limit on the amount of silvers that an account can farm (which has already pushed a lot of silver farmers into quitting) and yet the value of silvers continues to plummet, while at the same time they introduced arenas which pumped a metric shit ton of silvers into the in game economy.

I don't know why people like you and the others who hang out on Discord all of the time think I'm complaining because I'm "making less money", I'm just making an observation that the GMs seem to be moving away from even having an in game economy to instead moving to a strictly real world based economy and largely people don't seem to care, probably because they hang out on Discord all of the time telling the GMs how great everything they do is. The GMs don't seem to want to give players an in game/game economy way of advancing their characters anymore because it would eat into their profits of providing a real money way of advancing characters.

Like I've said numerous times: if the value of silvers continues to drop I'll just start closing accounts because for me this game isn't anywhere near entertaining enough for what I pay for it every month. And if people like you and the GMs want to see fewer paying customers because you somehow think it would be a net benefit for the game to have fewer players and it would somehow give silvers value, well I just don't know what to tell you, because neither of those things is true.

Oh yeah, the idea that the GMs saw people making money off of GS and decided to do something about it? Please. Capped characters used to sell for thousands of dollars each, nothing special about the character, just capped. Silvers use to sell for like 15+ dollars a million. BS used to sell for like 10 dollars per 1k and people were making thousands of dollars a week during every DR just running arenas and selling the BS. And now you think suddenly the GMs have a problem with people making money off of the game? They don't. They could have done something about these real world money sales a long time ago but chose not to because it's bad for business.

The GMs don't care about people making tens of thousands of dollars off of this game, but they care because I run 50 accounts, mind my own business, write scripts used by a large portion of the community, but sell some silvers to pay for my monthly fees? Again, please. Give me a break.

You people don't have to like me, but you can both not like me and recognize that the GMs really don't seem to give a shit about the in game economy because they want to push more people into using the real world economy they have built up.

[Woodchuck]

This makes absolutely no sense. Other than the WPS wagon, and to a much lesser extent ship combat, what have the GMs introduced into the game that provides a constant and real value for silvers?

The answer is nothing. And even the two things I mentioned aren't even a constant value for silvers. You buy your ship and you're done. You might upgrade it at some point but then that's it. The WPS wagon isn't even around all of the time.

Meanwhile the GMs have put a hard limit on the amount of silvers that an account can farm (which has already pushed a lot of silver farmers into quitting) and yet the value of silvers continues to plummet, while at the same time they introduced arenas which pumped a metric shit ton of silvers into the in game economy.

I don't know why people like you and the others who hang out on Discord all of the time think I'm complaining because I'm "making less money", I'm just making an observation that the GMs seem to be moving away from even having an in game economy to instead moving to a strictly real world based economy and largely people don't seem to care, probably because they hang out on Discord all of the time telling the GMs how great everything they do is. The GMs don't seem to want to give players an in game/game economy way of advancing their characters anymore because it would eat into their profits of providing a real money way of advancing characters.

Like I've said numerous times: if the value of silvers continues to drop I'll just start closing accounts because for me this game isn't anywhere near entertaining enough for what I pay for it every month. And if people like you and the GMs want to see fewer paying customers because you somehow think it would be a net benefit for the game to have fewer players and it would somehow give silvers value, well I just don't know what to tell you, because neither of those things is true.

Oh yeah, the idea that the GMs saw people making money off of GS and decided to do something about it? Please. Capped characters used to sell for thousands of dollars each, nothing special about the character, just capped. Silvers use to sell for like 15+ dollars a million. BS used to sell for like 10 dollars per 1k and people were making thousands of dollars a week during every DR just running arenas and selling the BS. And now you think suddenly the GMs have a problem with people making money off of the game? They don't. They could have done something about these real world money sales a long time ago but chose not to because it's bad for business.

The GMs don't care about people making tens of thousands of dollars off of this game, but they care because I run 50 accounts, mind my own business, write scripts used by a large portion of the community, but sell some silvers to pay for my monthly fees? Again, please. Give me a break.

You people don't have to like me, but you can both not like me and recognize that the GMs really don't seem to give a shit about the in game economy because they want to push more people into using the real world economy they have built up.

look, you're a smart guy. You know how supply and demand works. You know if there are a handful of people with dozens of accounts farming silver and putting hundreds of millions of silver into the economy a month, the value of silver is going to go down because that is a lot of silver to move with such a small player base. You're not wrong about everything else, they are pushing towards a simucoin centered economy, but the fact y'all flooded the market with too many silvers and drove the value down is not exactly simutronics fault.

[Tgo01]

but the fact y'all flooded the market with too many silvers and drove the value down is not exactly simutronics fault.

The value of silvers were going to drop regardless because there isn't anything new that the GMs are introducing into the game to give them value.

The WPS wagon is about it, and not everyone even uses it.

In game silvers aren't like real life dollars; a silver created can be removed from circulation completely by NPCs who take the silvers and permanently remove them from the game. There are a few ways silvers are drained from the in game economy, but apparently not enough ways because even the GMs admit there is something like 100 billion silvers out there.

Give people more ways to spend silvers. Doesn't even have to be huge ways like I mentioned, can be on the cheaper side and people would use on a constant basis that would still give them in game advantages.

[drumpel]

My brother in christ, your mass farming and the mass farming of others like you is 100% to blame for the decrease in silver cost. It is so goofy for someone who has over 20 accounts to complain that the value of silvers they've been farming to hell aren't worth as much. Zero self-awareness or accountability, just pointing the finger at others without acknowledging any responsibility at all.

I think they saw people making money off gemstone and making dozens of accounts to make money off gemstone without really caring about how much it would destroy the economy or game design, and decided if people were going to spend all this money on gemstone it should be to simutronics, not the people trashing the spirit of the game by turning it from an RPG into a spreadsheet to generate income.

Ever since the introduction of alt currencies the whole idea of silvers has gone on the backburner....a back burner that I don't even think has a pilot light lit for anymore. I made an outcry about this issue years and years ago once the GMs decided to go the route of alt currencies and all the retarded people laughed and said I was complaining about nothing. All of you people are clearly fucking retarded as what I complained about has come true and it's nothing to do with outside sales of silvers.

Silvers used to actually be used for services and buying merchandise from vendors. I remember years and years ago it took me work to save up 8-10 million silvers for the Spitfire or Juggernaut or paying cash to get a ticket to attend an Event Box (like the Wave Dancer or Dhu Gillywack) and working my butt off to save up silvers to buy stuff.

These days I can work my butt off to earn silvers (which I actually find easier to do nowadays due to less people playing and some areas not being hunted or rarely hunted that treasure in them is high) and what can I spend them on? Pretty much not a fucking thing. The only things I find to spend silvers on is items in the player shops and that's even kind of rare these days since I'm not really in need of anything they offer.

Now the only thing I really put silvers towards the event boxes they sell for silvers as long as they have a worthwhile RPA orb. I've only sold silvers twice in my whole time of playing because I get to a point where I'm sitting on 150-200 million that I have nothing to put silvers towards, so I dump 100 mil. Even after indulging in the last event boxes I dropped 42 million silver and I'm still sitting on 60 million+.

Silvers just aren't important to the GMs because it's not extra revenue. Plain and simple. The in-game treasure system is basically just a joke. It's not used for services outside of rare situations and you pretty much can't use them to buy anything worthwhile from events. It's a fucking joke and if you think people that want to use silvers just so they can make extra money off selling them....only a small handful of people were on that train. Others that actually play would love to have some kind of avenue to go down for spending silvers that they earn in game. Get the fuck off your high horse, stop licking the assholes of the GMs and wake the fuck up.

[Orthin]

If there was a silver purchaseable Sadie scroll vendor I would go bananas on that bitch

[Ramrod]

look, you're a smart guy. You know how supply and demand works. You know if there are a handful of people with dozens of accounts farming silver and putting hundreds of millions of silver into the economy a month, the value of silver is going to go down because that is a lot of silver to move with such a small player base. You're not wrong about everything else, they are pushing towards a simucoin centered economy, but the fact y'all flooded the market with too many silvers and drove the value down is not exactly simutronics fault.

Supply and demand? We're on year 3 of loot cap, which means the supply has been cut drastically. If the prices are the lowest ever and the supply is the lowest ever then the obvious conclusion is that there's just not real demand.

We all know there's no demand because there's nothing to spend silvers on. The things people spend large amounts of silvers on are either event boxes or things someone else originally bought for cash. You don't save up 100m and then head to a shop and spend it because that just doesn't exist in the game. You either sell that 100m for cash or exchange it for something someone else bought for cash. Every now and then you can spend that 100m on an event box instead of buying those items in the box for cash.

In the end, everything in the IG marketplace takes cash.

Simu should just drop the pretense and lean into what they've created - A P2W Idle game.

Any other claim about this being an RPG or not being P2W is just bullshit. Given that they're feeding these lines to 10+ year customers, I don't know why they bother. We all know what the game is.

[Tgo01]

If the silver market goes away completely then what's the point in hunting?

This is a very good point that I missed earlier.

If silvers become worthless, which seems to either be the end goal of the GMs or they simply don't care if silvers become worthless, then what is the point of hunting?

Slog through another 10+ hours of hunting to get that next ascension point, and you need 5 ascension points to get the next point of strength you're working on, so 50 hours to get that strength up one point?

Meanwhile skinning becomes useless. Collecting gems becomes useless. Picking up anything from critters (other than the few times you need to finish a bounty) become useless. Why pick up those heavy boxes?

If boxes become useless then why are people spending all kinds of money on encumbrance potions and strength buffs?

Games like this typically have two main ways to buff your character: experience and treasure (and treasure includes money so you can buy upgrades for your character.)

Take away one of those carrots and you're effectively removing half of the character growth of the game, and the only one left is experience and GS is notorious for having the slowest growth in any RPG I'm aware of.

[Methais]

That’s impressive over the long haul you made more from your services, silver collection, etc, than what you have paid Simu in subscription fees, events, etc. I wouldn’t have guessed that. I say good for you and hell yeah. The only way that happens is because you provide some sort of valuable service to the player community as evidenced by their willingness to pay you for it.

May I ask are your profit margins enough to provide a livable wage, even if it’s like the equivalent of Seran’s government EBT deposits? Or is the time/effort to profit ration like Diablo II item farming dominated by poor Asian countries, because the profits are only sustainable as a business if you live in 3rd world country with little economic opportunity?

It used to be pretty nice back when silvers were like $10 per. Easy $1k+ a month just farming solo, 99% of which was done while at work at my desk. That number would have been way more if I dragged my alts around with me at the time for the increased spawn rates. Which I ended up doing anyway ever since the loot cap went in, as that effectively increases my loot cap.

I don't keep track of my numbers at all though. Once I have 100m or so in the bank, I post it for sale. Sometimes it sells right away, sometimes it takes a bit.

I rarely play when I'm not at work, and I don't run full auto scripts (my script is intentionally left flawed to where it needs to be restarted regularly. If I go full afk it'll eventually bug out and I'll just stand there and die, decay, run out again, die, decay x infinity).

TLDR: I probably average 100m a month. Probably a little less actually, since I'm not hitting hard loot cap on any of my characters.

TLDR 2: These days it's not worth it unless you're already doing something else (i.e. at work). But I also like the combat system overall, so hunting is actually fun for me still, at least until Simu gets around to destroying wizards and making them less fun than a sword & board non-ambushing rogue.

[Methais]

look, you're a smart guy. You know how supply and demand works. You know if there are a handful of people with dozens of accounts farming silver and putting hundreds of millions of silver into the economy a month, the value of silver is going to go down because that is a lot of silver to move with such a small player base. You're not wrong about everything else, they are pushing towards a simucoin centered economy, but the fact y'all flooded the market with too many silvers and drove the value down is not exactly simutronics fault.

You keep talking about supply and demand while ignoring the part where Simu does nothing meaningful to create a silver demand. They talk about doing it all the time, but after years of that, nothing meaningful has happened yet. WPS and event boxes are pretty much it. Which is at least something, but they need to expand on stuff like that and introduce similar things that aren't tied to P2W events, so that there will be year round silver drains instead of a spike every few months.

[Methais]

You can pretty much buy anything you want in the game for silvers. If the silver market goes away completely then what's the point in hunting?

IF I FARM UP ANOTHER 500K EXP I CAN ADD ANOTHER +1 TO MY CS OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Fleur-de-me]

I love LOOTCAP!

[Fleur-de-me]

My brother in christ, your mass farming and the mass farming of others like you is 100% to blame for the decrease in silver cost. It is so goofy for someone who has over 20 accounts to complain that the value of silvers they've been farming to hell aren't worth as much. Zero self-awareness or accountability, just pointing the finger at others without acknowledging any responsibility at all.

I think they saw people making money off gemstone and making dozens of accounts to make money off gemstone without really caring about how much it would destroy the economy or game design, and decided if people were going to spend all this money on gemstone it should be to simutronics, not the people trashing the spirit of the game by turning it from an RPG into a spreadsheet to generate income.

Who cares?! If someone wants to spend 15-20 hours a day scripting 20 gemstone accounts to make a few bucks, when they coulda mowed a lawn for $20 in a single hour, but who are you to judge? I've never once wondered or cared one iota about what someone's reason is for playing gemstone, it just doesn't matter one bit.

[Woodchuck]

Who cares?! If someone wants to spend 15-20 hours a day scripting 20 gemstone accounts to make a few bucks, when they coulda mowed a lawn for $20 in a single hour, but who are you to judge? I've never once wondered or cared one iota about what someone's reason is for playing gemstone, it just doesn't matter one bit.


Dreaven is crying about silver value going down while also flooding the market with hundreds of millions of silvers per month with his 26 accounts that he runs 16 hours a day. I don't care what anyone does, but crying about something you're a direct cause of and not acknowledging your role in it is stupid. I'm judging him for being a stupid crybaby, not for what he does in gemstone.

[Woodchuck]

You keep talking about supply and demand while ignoring the part where Simu does nothing meaningful to create a silver demand. They talk about doing it all the time, but after years of that, nothing meaningful has happened yet. WPS and event boxes are pretty much it. Which is at least something, but they need to expand on stuff like that and introduce similar things that aren't tied to P2W events, so that there will be year round silver drains instead of a spike every few months.

simutronics halp!!!1!!# Im trying to make money playing a video game like a fucking loser and i ruined the economy, now YOU HAVE TO FIX IT!!!@#21!!

i hope this game dies, lol

[Tgo01]

i hope this game dies, lol

Crazy thing is, this is probably the type of person the GMs listen to these days.

"Dreaven is a bad bad man for selling silvers! I hope this game dies! He's the one ruining the game!"

Also can you at least acknowledge that the GMs are ruining the silver market?

Sure, blame me for "flooding the market" with silvers (never mind the fact that there were people supposedly pumping out 500+ million silvers a month, I don't even come close to that today and back then I was lucky if I farmed 100 million a month), but as you noted it's a "supply" and "DEMAND" issue. Let's blame the GMs for not creating enough demand.

[drumpel]

Dreaven is crying about silver value going down while also flooding the market with hundreds of millions of silvers per month with his 26 accounts that he runs 16 hours a day. I don't care what anyone does, but crying about something you're a direct cause of and not acknowledging your role in it is stupid. I'm judging him for being a stupid crybaby, not for what he does in gemstone.

And yet here you are crying about what he's doing.

If Dreaven is on here crying about silver prices and you don't care about what he's doing, then why are you in here crying about him crying about silver prices?

If Dreaven is in here telling you that the sky is green, based on what you've already been doing, you'd be in here crying about Dreaven telling everyone the sky is green and how he shouldn't be crying about it.

So, tell us more about how you don't care what he's doing so we can know how much you "don't care" what he is doing.

[Ramrod]

simutronics halp!!!1!!# Im trying to make money playing a video game like a fucking loser and i ruined the economy, now YOU HAVE TO FIX IT!!!@#21!!

The silver economy is shot because Simu moved everything to cash instead of silvers. Simu cut the shit out of the silver supply 3 years ago (loot cap) and the prices continue to tank due to lack of demand.


i hope this game dies, lol

When/If the game dies, it will be because the handful of whales pumping tens of thousands of dollars into the game each year moved on. I don't necessarily agree with Dreaven's play style, but I at least recognize it's the handful of players like him that are keeping my little hobby going.

[Fleur-de-me]

Dreaven is crying about silver value going down while also flooding the market with hundreds of millions of silvers per month with his 26 accounts that he runs 16 hours a day. I don't care what anyone does, but crying about something you're a direct cause of and not acknowledging your role in it is stupid. I'm judging him for being a stupid crybaby, not for what he does in gemstone.

UMM They can't flood the market, there's a cap on the loot any one character can earn, again who cares how many subs he runs, if he run 100 it wouldnt affect the price of silvers one tenth as much as the lack of demand has driven down the price.

[Fleur-de-me]

If they GM's cared about the value of silvers, there are simple things they could do like prioritize and release the enhancive rerolling for silvers ect. The inaction on their part to me shows a clear preference to eliminate the secondary market and funnel cash sales to themselves. Plain and simple. Occam's Razor, really.

[Mobius1]

I don't understand why people say the silver economy is shot. All player services are purchased with silvers, all playershop items are purchased with silvers. Pretty much anything that a player sells can be bought with silvers.

I guess people are playing a different game than me?

[Tgo01]

All player services are purchased with silvers, all playershop items are purchased with silvers. Pretty much anything that a player sells can be bought with silvers.

For now. At this rate it won't be long until people move to bs or straight up dollar bills as the preferred currency.

[Methais]

simutronics halp!!!1!!# Im trying to make money playing a video game like a fucking loser and i ruined the economy, now YOU HAVE TO FIX IT!!!@#21!!

i hope this game dies, lol

Ah yes...


I've made 945732890403x more from GS than I've paid into it. It's a fraction of what it used to be, but it's still there.

That said, I'd be totally ok with making $0 off of silvers if there was anything interesting to spend them on in game, and things like adding a few more points of padding/weighting aren't it.

But there isn't, for me anyway, so not selling them would just be dumb.

Half the time I don't even bother trying to sell wizard/cleric/bard services, which would add up to a decent pile of silvers on its own each month, because I'm too lazy being afk 99% of the time when I'm not out hunting. I'm an afk rester.


https://reactiongifs.me/cdn-cgi/imagedelivery/S36QsAbHn6yI9seDZ7V8aA/c215e62d-303b-4b7a-cd7e-50bc5b40d000/w=400


Thanks for showcasing your lack of reading comprehension for our entertainment.

Loser. :rofl:

[Methais]

I don't understand why people say the silver economy is shot. All player services are purchased with silvers, all playershop items are purchased with silvers. Pretty much anything that a player sells can be bought with silvers.

I guess people are playing a different game than me?

None of those things drain silvers from the game, they just shuffle silvers from one player to another, all while Simu cries 24/7 about there being too many silvers in the game while doing nothing meaningful to remove silvers from circulation.

The steady decline of the price of silvers is a pretty clear indicator as to the state of the silver economy and its supply/demand issues that Simu pretends to care about.

[Mobius1]

Well, I remember when silvers were like $8 per million, sure.

But I also think the decrease in silver prices can be attributed more to just silvers in the economy. I feel like silvers have been holding pretty steady for a long ass time. Like, $2.50ish per million for several years. Sure, they dropped to 2.30, but that's because of DR.

We have alternate currencies, and the ability for people to spend cash directly with Simutronics instead of needing to use silvers with players. This is probably at least in part, the reason why silver value dropped. But I could only throw out wild ass guesses, because I don't have crap to go by but my armchair speculations.

But I can say there are more silver drains now than ever before, and we have the loot cap. I feel like silvers just aren't as big a deal as people are making of it here. I've been spending crap tons and getting really good stuff - which is the whole point of silvers. Seems to be working?

Granted, don't think I am kissing Simu's ass on things. I definitely have huge beefs with all the pay to win. But I've beat that horse enough, and Pandora is already out of the box anyways.

[Tgo01]

I've been spending crap tons and getting really good stuff - which is the whole point of silvers. Seems to be working?.

Yes but again that's because silvers still have value. I doubt we'll ever see silvers going for under 1 dollar a million because by then people will have moved to a different currency to act as the default trade and silvers will be pretty much worthless by that time.

And silvers haven't really been steady at all. Just a year ago they were going for over $3.50 per million, at the beginning of this year they were selling for $2.70 per million, and now I see people selling them for $2.20 per million.

That's a pretty big drop in such a short amount of time.

[Methais]

Well, I remember when silvers were like $8 per million, sure.

But I also think the decrease in silver prices can be attributed more to just silvers in the economy. I feel like silvers have been holding pretty steady for a long ass time. Like, $2.50ish per million for several years. Sure, they dropped to 2.30, but that's because of DR.

We have alternate currencies, and the ability for people to spend cash directly with Simutronics instead of needing to use silvers with players. This is probably at least in part, the reason why silver value dropped. But I could only throw out wild ass guesses, because I don't have crap to go by but my armchair speculations.

But I can say there are more silver drains now than ever before, and we have the loot cap. I feel like silvers just aren't as big a deal as people are making of it here. I've been spending crap tons and getting really good stuff - which is the whole point of silvers. Seems to be working?

Granted, don't think I am kissing Simu's ass on things. I definitely have huge beefs with all the pay to win. But I've beat that horse enough, and Pandora is already out of the box anyways.

I don't know what GS you've been playing, but either 2022 or 2023, pretty sure 2023, was the first time silvers went below $3 per.

Saying they went for 2.5 for several years is factually incorrect. Unless you meant to say several months, in which case you'd be correct.

[onurb]

I remember when silver was $12/mil. Anyone remember my old ad :)

https://i.ibb.co/Y2HT4p3/scroll1.png

[Methais]

I remember when silver was $12/mil. Anyone remember my old ad :)

https://i.ibb.co/Y2HT4p3/scroll1.png

I remember this :lol:

Highest price I remember getting was 15 per back in I think 2002-2003. I think when I first started playing in '97 they were going for at least 40 per, which blew my mind after seeing people actually paid cash for text.

[Suppressed Poet]

I remember this :lol:

Highest price I remember getting was 15 per back in I think 2002-2003. I think when I first started playing in '97 they were going for at least 40 per, which blew my mind after seeing people actually paid cash for text.

I remember going to RtCF back in 2013 and buying some. I forgot how much silvers were going for or who I bought from, but that was the only time I bought silvers from another player. At that time I was less financially secure then, and I had to do a bit of explaining to my wife why I’m spending real money to buy a virtual currency in a text game.

[Methais]

I remember going to RtCF back in 2013 and buying some. I forgot how much silvers were going for or who I bought from, but that was the only time I bought silvers from another player. At that time I was less financially secure then, and I had to do a bit of explaining to my wife why I’m spending real money to buy a virtual currency in a text game.

I think $10 per was the rate back then. I want to say it held that price for a good while. If I remember correctly, 2017 was the last time I remember selling for 10 per.

[Tgo01]

I think $10 per was the rate back then. I want to say it held that price for a good while. If I remember correctly, 2017 was the last time I remember selling for 10 per.

Yeah I was kind of surprised at how long silvers retained their value after RtCF.

Either a lot of people didn't get the memo that RtCF was the reason silvers were selling high and it was over, or the GMs succeeded in draining a lot of silvers so the supply was really low for a while.

Almost like the GMs can indeed give silvers value. Strange that.

[Methais]

Yeah I was kind of surprised at how long silvers retained their value after RtCF.

Either a lot of people didn't get the memo that RtCF was the reason silvers were selling high and it was over, or the GMs succeeded in draining a lot of silvers so the supply was really low for a while.

Almost like the GMs can indeed give silvers value. Strange that.

I ignored DR until 2020, but looking back, I'm not really sure how silvers held $10 per even for a couple years after DR came out, which I think DR started in 2015.

Unless farming BS was just a lot slower back then, which I know DR has been nerfed a bunch of times since it came out.

[Tgo01]

Unless farming BS was just a lot slower back then, which I know DR has been nerfed a bunch of times since it came out.

Yeah BS farming was way slower back in the day.

There were only solo runs, no 3 man teams, and 3 mans give more BS on a per entry basis compared to solo runs.

It was relatively easy to die in arenas back in the day, and you either didn't get any BS at all if you died or you got a lot less than you do now.

The amount of BS you got depended on how fast you finished the arena and it wasn't easy to get a perfect run to get the most BS, and as mentioned above even if you did get the most it was still less than you get now. Now you get the full amount no matter how long it takes.

If you died back in the day you had to be raised by a player, you weren't automatically raised by an NPC like now.

If you got wounded back in the day you either had to heal yourself via empath/herbs or have another player heal you, you weren't automatically fully healed like now.

You didn't get your mana or spirit back after every run back in the day either, so if you were someone who hunted with mana, and especially if you were in COL and needed that mana via wracking to finish an arena, you weren't doing back to back runs like you can now.

Also back in the day if you died you lost all of your spells and had to respell, nowadays you don't lose spells when you die in arena.

I think that's why bards were so popular back then, because with 1030 they could plow through most rounds and usually get a perfect run without wasting as much mana as other classes, but I'm sure even bards weren't capable of doing back to back runs like now.

[Methais]

Yeah BS farming was way slower back in the day.

There were only solo runs, no 3 man teams, and 3 mans give more BS on a per entry basis compared to solo runs.

It was relatively easy to die in arenas back in the day, and you either didn't get any BS at all if you died or you got a lot less than you do now.

The amount of BS you got depended on how fast you finished the arena and it wasn't easy to get a perfect run to get the most BS, and as mentioned above even if you did get the most it was still less than you get now. Now you get the full amount no matter how long it takes.

If you died back in the day you had to be raised by a player, you weren't automatically raised by an NPC like now.

If you got wounded back in the day you either had to heal yourself via empath/herbs or have another player heal you, you weren't automatically fully healed like now.

You didn't get your mana or spirit back after every run back in the day either, so if you were someone who hunted with mana, and especially if you were in COL and needed that mana via wracking to finish an arena, you weren't doing back to back runs like you can now.

Also back in the day if you died you lost all of your spells and had to respell, nowadays you don't lose spells when you die in arena.

I think that's why bards were so popular back then, because with 1030 they could plow through most rounds and usually get a perfect run without wasting as much mana as other classes, but I'm sure even bards weren't capable of doing back to back runs like now.

Simu: WHY IS EVERYONE SCRIPTING DUSKRUIN!?!?!?

[Winter]

Yeah BS farming was way slower back in the day.

There were only solo runs, no 3 man teams, and 3 mans give more BS on a per entry basis compared to solo runs.

It was relatively easy to die in arenas back in the day, and you either didn't get any BS at all if you died or you got a lot less than you do now.

The amount of BS you got depended on how fast you finished the arena and it wasn't easy to get a perfect run to get the most BS, and as mentioned above even if you did get the most it was still less than you get now. Now you get the full amount no matter how long it takes.

If you died back in the day you had to be raised by a player, you weren't automatically raised by an NPC like now.

If you got wounded back in the day you either had to heal yourself via empath/herbs or have another player heal you, you weren't automatically fully healed like now.

You didn't get your mana or spirit back after every run back in the day either, so if you were someone who hunted with mana, and especially if you were in COL and needed that mana via wracking to finish an arena, you weren't doing back to back runs like you can now.

Also back in the day if you died you lost all of your spells and had to respell, nowadays you don't lose spells when you die in arena.

I think that's why bards were so popular back then, because with 1030 they could plow through most rounds and usually get a perfect run without wasting as much mana as other classes, but I'm sure even bards weren't capable of doing back to back runs like now.

This is what killed DR arena's appeal for me, it went from nail biting stuff to basically mindless tedium. I suppose the new ascension hunting grounds have filled that void now though. If it were up to me I were me I would scrap the arena altogether but keep the Gladiator with his offerings adjusted, that way you're not wasting people's time and Simu still get their money.

[Tgo01]

Well shoot. Is there some sort of silver event happening soon that I don't know about or something?

I have no silvers at the moment and I've had about 6 or 7 people reach out to me in the past day asking to buy silvers.

[Methais]

Well shoot. Is there some sort of silver event happening soon that I don't know about or something?

I have no silvers at the moment and I've had about 6 or 7 people reach out to me in the past day asking to buy silvers.

In that case, I have like 40m to get rid of right now for 3 per.