Roma Victor

  The verm, as it stands, is a waste of money.  It dosent last nearly as long as it should for spending $10 a month, and thats only playing about 1/4 of the month.(actualy playing)

  Hopefully they will balance it so that if you spend $10 a month and only play average times you will be comfortable and still be able to maintain your gear and keep your skills trained.   And if you spend $39 a month and play the same ammount of time you will be building up a large ammount of wealth even after you buy all you need and want.

 That is after all, why Verm looked so promising in the first place you pay for what you actualy play, instead of a constant monthly fee even when you could barely play at all that month.

  Reguardless of how angry I get with this game at times I still have high hopes that they will get it balanced and fun for average players.  As they have gone off and broke the traditional MMO mold, I must give them props, but it has to be balance for the average player or it is never gonna have the size community it needs.

Originally posted by siredmond
Your problem is not that verm isn't balanced. Is your attitude to spending to now end. its the difference of making 4k a month and spending it like you make 10k a month.

No.  I have no problem with people earning money in game to support themselves when they cannot afford IRL to verm, thats why their is verm, so when you cant afford it you dont have to.  But if you can and do verm, for the game to be so unbalanced that it makes your verm investment pointless is just stupid. How can they expect you or anyone to want to keep verming?  They cant and you will do like you said and earn it in game and never verm and thats real good for the game huh?

  I decided to be a fighter so how do I earn a living??? Rome is not paying last time I checked...(altho they should)  so I have to verm for a living since I find crafting far too time consuming.  But ses just goes too fast, way too fast.  And that was buying the max ammount of verm.  I bought all the gear I would need for fighting the way I wanted him set up, then I thought wow, I am gonna have to buy x# of those helms and weapons just to get trained up and thats a small fortune, plus once I am able to get into the action I randomly lose one item, that has to be replaced.... then I realized that that would be a continuous cycle that is just completly unacceptable.  Especialy for players that cant afford it.   It was then I realized why the community was so dam small and getting smaller.

  Not to mention that they expect you to pay all that and put that much time in to a game thats nowhere near finished and all buggy.

I'm curious about one thing.  How much do you think a month's supply of sest should buy?  Would you mind providing an itemized list of what you feel you should be able to afford?  It seems to me like most people get by ok without tons of VERM, but maybe if you can illustrate the problem it will be clearer.

 I will list a few, but since you are still playing, you can look arround and post some if you are really concerned and not just trying to be smart and say I dont know what I am talking about.

1. Helms:  I bought many, most from augir, since his shop is right there at the arena, many players were buying and the price was 2500ses=$10 usd.

2. Hamatta: Yet to actualy buy one because of the prices, last I checked that med to high QL one in the merchant was at 20k ses=$88 usd.

3. Swords: Seen a few cheap ones but descent ones were about 1000+ ses=$7-8 bucks.

4. Sheild: Average was about 500ses for a good one but with the new ones was a little more, have to check again on that probably 1000ses again.

 Now I will give the benefit, will say 2k for the helm, 10k for a good hamatta, 500 for the sword and 500 for a good shield.

Thats 13k nowhere near what it would really cost now.... = about $42 usd (if you are not a crafter, wasting hours of your life to make one thing...) 

  Now imagine actualy useing that gear and getting in fights on the regular like most want to do in a game....  can you imagine how many times you would die with some good battles happening?  And replacing the gear you lost after each death ... how many full replacements would you go through in a months time? Now calculate that by the low number of $42 usd per replacement and you have an unacceptable # IMO.  And thats not counting wear and tear on everything from training and fighting, just loss from death.

  How can they expect the average player to even compete?  Many could, but like I said whats the point? The community will never be large enough to support the game at this rate, the majority of players cannot afford it... So any money invested is just a waste currently, unless you are just trying to get a monopolly going before the rush of players (that we hope) comes in.

  A few of those prices may be off now since I havent logged in a month or so, but I can't imagine them being that much better, please tell me if I am wrong and let me(and everyone else) know the current prices.

  Ohh, and IMO if you spend $39 usd to get 10k ses(as it is now)  that 10k ses should last you for a month and cover all replacement gear you get, plus some.  Most average MMO gamers will be paying $15-$20 usd about 5k ses,that should last one month exactly (like they said the ammount you start with would)and be somewhat tight.(need to conserve best you can)

  If you cannot afford to verm you could play, what verm was for so the community could be large enough to support itself, but you would have to spend a bit of time working for others (that do verm) to get your gear and other needs.

  I am not pulling this stuff out my arse, this is how they said verm would be , all I want, is for it to actualy be that way.

  And here ya go in their own words....

What are Sesterces worth?

At the current rate £1 GBP is equivalent to 500 Sesterces. A managed VERM ensures that most people should find that £5's worth of Sesterces would allow them to enjoy life to the full in Roma Victor for at least a month. By supplementing their virtual bank balance with in-game activities, players could be able to survive comfortably on £5's worth of Sesterces for perhaps as much as two or three months. Some players may even be able to continue to play beyond that period without purchasing any more Sesterces at all. And some players may wish to live in greater luxury and comfort and could happily spend over £10 a month just on enjoying the game to the full! But for most players we expect the on-going costs of playing Roma Victor to add up to significantly less than a comparable subscription-based MMORPG. In essence the monthly costs are set by you. You decide how much you pay and how much you play. All we have to do is make sure that you're getting a fair deal. If you don't feel that you are, then all you have to do is stop buying Sesterces. And of course unlike most subscription-based MMORPG's if you do stop playing for a while, your account will remain active without requiring a further regular monthly payment from you.

  And they are saying that that little bit should last way longer than I am saying... lol, how did they get this far off track?

Especialy when KFR said they can keep it balanced...

With the VERM in place, we'll be able to monitor and manage the economy and the exchange rate dynamically. If people ever feel that they're not getting good value from their experience then they don't even have to stop playing - they simply have to stop paying. That's not something that you'll hear many Managing Directors offering their potential customers.


-KFR

P.S. VERM and Roma Victor are registered trademarks, all rights reserved, etc. etc.

  Why havent they been managing the economy and changing that rate dynamically?   Especialy when they saw the player base stop verming then start dropping off like flies.... 

Another thing to look at...

   Seems like they set prices and craft times, then later the verm value but only tested it with players that werent useing RL money and had lots of free time, so it was all good since they were playing free and told the verm(and probably times) would be adjusted as needed.  But since the craft times are so long (currently) even if they up the verm value the players will just up the price so they cant win, it will keep escalating out of control...(they forgot to factor in the value people put on their time...)  

I'll admit that I don't really have a normal perspective, since I'm not a fighter or crafter, so I'll abstain from taking a position on whether crafting times should be tweaked.  I do however think that the massive overhauls you propose are unnecessary.  This is just my opinion, there are others who may have a better perspective on the issues.

You provided the prices of some things, illustrating what a player can afford now.  What I asked, and what is really the relevant question is what a player SHOULD be able to afford. 

For the most part, currency in this game is just currency, a unit of exchange.  There are a couple of things you absolutely need it for, but for the most part the only value it has is that players give it.  Those hamata are only expensive because they're rare and hard to build.  There are only a certain amount in the game, and somehow it needs to be decided who gets them.  Yes it's true that lowering the crafting times would make them more common and therefore cheaper, but the question is is every player entitled to the best weapons and armour in the game as soon as they log in?

A price cap would not create more wealth.  It would just take it from the crafters and give it to the VERMers.  If crafted goods stopped being worth the time and materials it took to make them, the game would be ruined for crafters.  I recall you had some complex idea about towns where everything is cheap and safe and frontiers people go to to make money, but that would remove the economy from the hands of the players.  To me, that is not acceptable.

The economy is at least balanced.  If you have trouble affording a hamata, so does your enemy.  It's not all that unrealistic.  Not every Roman slave and Celtic villager could afford the best weapons and armour out there. 

I believe things will get cheaper as the economy develops and more tools are provided to crafters.  Some of the items on your list are overvalued because of the difficulty with animal parts, for instance.  However, I believe there is also such thing as things being TOO cheap.  I do not want to see the countryside turned into a big mass of private villas, aqueducts, and colliseums.  The question is where to draw the line.

So I ask you again, to please share a list of what you think $10 worth of sesterces should buy.