I actually stopped dowing this, and I don't intend to do so for the forseeable future. I'm focusing most of my energy on Imperian, especially after I just got to encounter a nice bug with chopping and then getting balance locked by Tharruk(he spams strike gut, I can't move. period.)

If you want to fight and are not a Knight, you need.. ~7 Transes(Combat, Resilience, Planar, Discipline, Guildskills)

You don't need trans discipline, only fabled, but you need tumble too, so yes, about that. :|

Why do you need planar?

Conglutination and Nexus.

Jerking off waiting for someone to come give you a ride and/or having to pray.. Huge time wasters when it comes to combat.

I don't understand why you are all blaming the "system" when there are several people that have admitted, on these very boards, to mechanically raising the credit market prices as high as they could possibly get them to go.

Both have their part.

I have mentioned that several times.. but no one seems to care. I say Boycott Richter.

The system allowed them to do so, that is my gripe. But, on the other hand, I like an open-ended player-driven system, so meh, you're not going to please me either way .

man.. I so didn't need that visual, Vis.

Oh, and on topic.. It's insane that you -have- to buy credits ooc to trans basicly anything, because my mom is one of those people that hates the computer, so there is no way in hell she's going to let me spend money on it.. and if I did it behind her back she'd murder me.

The credit market is retarded at the moment and I'm not paying more then 5k..but someone needs to keep me away from blackjack, before I bet it all.. I've already lost one.

I'm calling BS on that one. I got by on two trans guild skills, focus mind, fabled illusions, and tumble for a while... heck I didn't even have tumble or statue at one point.

But I won't deny that those skills are vastly helpful and it's considerably more difficult to survive without them.

I'ma agree with Sham.
All of my Nihilist combat was barely BARELY dual trans. Had to bash for lich.

Back in the day, but yea, still don't have FM

This will not change anything - simply drive the gold prices more, as credit owners will want to spend as few credits as possible, while maximizing gold intake. More for less, so to speak.

Sorry if it was already pointed out - bit tired to read everything.

Lusternia is undeniably a black hole for cash - the cost in credits for being a decent mage is quite high - at least, prior to psionics. The need to trans resilience and get most way through combat/discipline were pretty high, with atleast a few afflictions cured only by allheale/focus mind/spirit, or so I'm told. Guardians still aren't as tanky as say a faeling psionics user, but I imagine people will get by.

But, with knight damage as it is now, one does need resilience, combat, most of discipline, tumble, all those fun things - planar transed if you want to participate in off-plane combat actively. Heck, if you're a commune member and want access to said gold-mine, you need nearly trans planar.

The system has been designed, and has repeatedly said, that the Serenwilde/Glomdoring are, by role-play, supposed to stay away from Astral - they're against planar exploration, beyond the Elementals.

Beyond the fact that we have access to an easy gold supply, fewer people are selling credits, for anyone who buys credits, transcends planar and gets their basic defenses (putre, psi-armor or whatever), will have no problem bashing - while the rest of us are left on prime fighting for quests.

That said, the quests are not a bad source of gold either - there are large rewards and often times they are easy, even with the randomization thrown in. Spectre, Stewarts, Delport, and Shanthmark done back to back, with Estelbar on the occasion, can be done nearly continously, with small breaks of nothing, for tons upon tons of gold.

I think the obvious problem is that higher ups don't have any reason to want to sell credits, as they have all the gold they could possibly need. So, the solution is to either lower mechanical gold earning systems, Or, and here's the one I like, people with tradeskills can start costing more. If a full set of herbs and potions and enchantments and such cost considerably more, then those people would probably just sell credits to get the gold, instead of spending time bashing for it.

So, really, the reason why credits are so high in my opinion is the open market system in which anyone can easily make a newbie, trans a tradeskill, and then sell their wares at sub-minimal prices to whomever they want, which means that in no way can prices ever increase. Which means that noone ever needs gold.

I would like to point out that, going simply by the obvious design of Lusternia, which boasts a high demand for credits in order to be a compitent fighter, while employing gold-sinks like manses, Lusternia's administration is enjoying high credit market prices - meaning, people are more likely to buy OOC credits and *KEEP* them, using them as lessons and elsewise, forcing people to either be substandard or buy OOC credits.

And, for the record, Lusternia is a business foremost. I'm sure they love us all, but it is a business. They must make money to continue paying the bills of people like Estarra and Roark and I think Hajamin, and then the server bills, as well as royals to Matt... And more credit purchases, especially with our small player-base, is a necessity. Thankfully, we do have a lot of volunteer divine, which hopefully takes some small burden off of the pockets of Lusternia.

Jesus, Revan gets it. This is the only plausible solution right now. The reason undercutting and the like that we see in tradeskills so often doesn't quite work in the credit market is because people can just leave them up there with no effort and they will eventually sell. If you impose a tax on posting credits to the market (1 credit per 2 month period?) that would for the most part force privatization of the sales, but just removing the market entirely would probably be for the best, even if it was just for a year or so to "test the waters" so to speak. It would be ironic given how hard players lobbied for the market originall (Back in Achaea, when we first implemented credit transfer capabilities between players) but I don't think it's unworthy of experimentation.

Oh, and an edit. The most important aspect of all of this is that it removes the anonymous nature of credit sales. This has the capacity to be either a good thing or a bad thing. On one hand, it reduces the plausible sources of credits that an individual might conceivably be able to buy from, as there are those who won't sell credits or buy credits from their IC enemies. On the other, it allows people to effectively "blacklist" those players who are known resellers trying to push the market sky-high for their own gains. I do not know the degree to which either of these would occur, but they are worth considering.

Actually, Roark had an idea of having people bid for credits rather than (or in addition to) putting them on the market. In other words, people could put up 10k gold (or whatever) for X credits and those with credits can then choose to make the sale.

I actually like this idea. It still flows with what I percieve to be the intent (Allow non-OOC credit-users to still have access to credits, but leave it free for people to have prices as they wish - while still heavily encouraging OOC credit purchases). Although, it seems to me like it would be excessive coding, versus just... removing the credit market. But it would also be more newbie-friendly, who may be leery about approaching people, for fear of being "conned". I for one like the buy-here-and-now, and none of the long-term waiting. I think the "in addition to" would be best.

This is an interesting solution, but isn't this essentially what's happening already, albeit more transparently? I mean, won't we just see a Walmart scenario play out, wherein someone who can afford to undercut or outbid everyone else by larger margins will still be able to control the ebb and flow of the market?