Server Restart: Possible Training Cost Change

[Psychyn]

I get that, but this is a roleplaying server. If people want to grind, go to retail. I mean catering to the ooc aspect shouldn't mateer here.

It's more then just a RP server, it's a community as well where you meet new people, make friends and have a good time. People can't always pay for retail, nor should CotH solely be restricted to RP. Yes, it's an RP server and yes RP is the main thing that happens here, but there are no rules the rest is forbidden.

If you bring good RP to the server, have a awesome time.. What's the bad thing about going OOC and doing something else on the server once in a while? That's what I don't get. It's not like you bother folks that are actually RPing by doing quests right in their view, or doing dailies or leveling your profession up in the town their in.. Or anything of that. The only OOC chatter I tend to see is on GMI, so CotH is still more of an RP server then other places will ever be.

The admins themselves said the server was aimed to be retail like, grinding is part of that.

[ImagenAshyun]

Am I the only one who bothers using my money to get IC for OOC stuff? It could be just the fact that I only have two approved characters (thus 6000 total) out of what was about 12 total toons, but I still ended up scraping for pennies to 1.) Buy bronze tokens 2.) Get gear so I wouldn't be murdered in Outland and Northrend 3.) Get training so I wouldn't be stuck with Rank 1 attacks 4.) Buy my mounts 5.) Level my professions for RP (Kapre's jewelcrafting is part of his business, and I want Pulla and Bastos to get engineering so they can make their respective bikes).

Yes, I am one of those "if it's not for RP, you don't need it" people. However, as I learned when going to Ashenvale for RP going through Blackrock Depths, my level 50 characters -still- get murdered by the level 20 mobs because 1.) they're in RP gear and 2.) They have Rank 1 attacks. For me, gold is a matter of survival. And still, I don't do my dailies nor am I rushing to get my characters approved because I simply don't have that time, and whatever time I do have is focused on RP.

Still, I don't want to restrict my RP to cities and towns. If I wanna RP in Ashenvale, we're gonna go there. If I want Nagrand, I'll go there. I can't beg for GMs to phase me everytime I go someplace that will kill me on sight.


I do advocate less costs for training. However, reducing the reward of an approved character may encourage more grinding if one wants to get money for things like bronze tokens. As for the availability for statted gear, I'd like them to be available for survival when going in high-levelled areas, but I do understand the concern for OOC raiding and stuff. But that is something we may just have to deal.

[Reigen]

Remember everyone, skills out be free so would riding training, but mounts are not free. Thus you'd just be under-geared but with your skills up to proper rank, Immy.

My main point was that people who want these things are going to OOC more rather than RP. We might have more people running around to farm mats rather than join in on event A or random RP B, which is contributing to the problem.

I admit, sometimes I like to actually play the game and not RP all the time. I have 'moods' to RP in and sometimes I'm not in those moods. I enjoy the COTH community to cheer up, so I watch over barrens while doing my OOC things. Sometimes, while doing these OOC shenanigans, I get sudden inspiration to RP, thus I hearth back to GMI and see if anyone wants too. I can't afford to sink 15 dollars a month into retail, nor do I want to download a 'herpderpderp' server for my OOC wants. Should I just stay off COTH because I might not be in the mood to RP at that moment in time? If I'm offline because I'm not in the mood at that moment, I might not see event A that might inspire me for RP, thus makes one or two or more lacking in attendance because they wanted to OOC at the time they logged on, rather than RP at that moment.

As said before, COTH is more than an RP medium, it's a community that I wish to stay connected with, but I can't do that while offline. Being able to do stuff like professions, rep grinding and dailies is better than sitting around on GMI listening to people complain about how there's no RP.

But now I'm getting off subject!

.. I honestly would not bother myself to roll an alt (and go through the entire approval process) just for that 1000g. It's easily earned within a few hours doing dailies, dungeons and quests

Remember! People tend to be lazy. Hours of grinding or a half-arsed profile that will get accepted because it has all the lore it needs to have? Writing a cookie cutter profile might seem easier than doing the work to get that 1k gold. Not saying that I'd do that. In the time it would take me to get 3k gold on dailies, I would have maybe half a profile done. It takes me longer with profiles than it does to grind the gold, heh.

EDIT: Perhaps you could create an NPC to max someone's professions? Y/N?

Do want.

[Djura]

While making skills free seems ohsoawesome, lowering the gold reward from the level 80 quest does not. Sure, I have 5 characters capable of absolutely smashing through dailies, but then I feel like I'm back on retail. I do not want to feel that. It makes me feel like a nub. And it takes some time, time some people might not have.

(And what's so wrong with keeping the 3k gold and making the skills free?)

[Psychyn]

People tend to be lazy. Hours of grinding or a half-arsed profile that will get accepted because it has all the lore it needs to have?

Then it's up to the staff to filter these half-arsed profiles out no? :3 Not saying that you guys don't do a good job, but I think most profiles are easily spotted from serious profiles / non-serious ones. And I guess there are always people who try just for that lousy 1000g.

Perhaps you could create an NPC to max someone's professions? Y/N?

Then why not simply make everything and all free? Remove gold entirely, as there's clearly not a thing to spend it on any more. I don't think I'd like that at all, but I'm sure I'll be disagreed upon by this. There's nothing wrong with some grinding to actually 'achieve' that highest profession level.

Iunno, I guess I'm just irked by turning things into an all free and lazyness encouraging playground, while I'd rather have the game to resemble Retail as much as possible apart from the RP. I come here for a retail game, with 'good' RP. That's the way I just enjoy it. *Shrug* Hey, we all got our likes and dislikes though.

[Stormgald]

Tl;dr about all of the comments just yet. But I'm in a rush so I wanted to post really quick.

I believe that gold should be something that players on CotH should not have to worry about. I'm a strong believer in that there should be zero farming required. We should focus on RP and RP only.

I realize, Kretol, that you do not want to promote laziness, but, to do so with gold will only hinder RP.

The reason I say this is because people often spend a lot of time farming or working on professions, albeit RP is/was more often, but still.

That's just my opinion though.

[Psychyn]

We should focus on RP and RP only.

See, the thing with this is (From my perspective, and perhaps I am truly wrong about this but) ; I think this will scare a good amount of casual RPers off the server. If the focus lies solely on RP, and logging into the server means you are going to RP, people will stop bother logging in at some point.

Why? Rp turns stale. Standing and chatting from an virtual persona turns boring after a while. I am one of these casual RPers, I log into CotH for many things and one of those things, is RP. No matter how grand your event is, no matter how much time you've spend setting it up.. It's still staring at a few pixels on your screen that either chat, be part of an event or are fighting another through emotes.

(Yes, I love those pixels but imagine seeing solely that when logging into CotH. For some it may be heaven, for others it's hell.)

Am I the only one believing that the server should house more then RP? That no matter what events, what grand RPness shows up on CotH, that RP still gets pretty boring after a while? I'm starting to think I've been hit with the curse of realisation that it ain't all about RP, because I truly believe that WoW (or CotH for that matter) isn't solely about RP. The community is about having fun, socializing and being able to log in without the annoyances of retail. Yes the main goal of the server is to RP, but look at GMI, look at the corpses.. People are getting tired of solely RPing, but they stay online for the community. Sure some are waiting for their RP buddy to pop up, but you can't say that for everyone. I still think RP on CotH has the upper hand, as it should be without a doubt, but some effort and grinding really won't kill anyone.

.. Should the place just turn into a strict RP environment, where everything is granted and no actual effort is needed any more to pull something off, or to accomplish something.. Man, I think I won't bother with logging in at all. I actually like working for some things and putting effort into it. You can say that RP requires effort, and to a part I agree. But I think a lot of people would quit caring if it's all about RP. I may be wrong, but I figured I'd toss out my fear here.

With that said, I do believe I'm running out of writing material for the thread so.. I'll leave it at that. Maybe I am wrong, I honestly do not know and I'd like to hear some thoughts whether I am or not, but I don't think my fear is that unrealistic for CotH.

[ThePharaoh]

I dunno there are hundreds of private servers that are blizzlike. People who like blizzlike servers should go there in my opinion. There are probably only like 20 - 60 people active at a time where 2 or 3 or grinding or raiding, 6 - 10 people may be in closed RP and a good 8+ people are OOCing at GMI. I like the community but not enough to log on for hours just to lulz on an avatar at GMI. You can't tell people what to do but....It is an RP server. I'd rather have a player base of people whose focus was all RP than more people that were divided. I feel some should either go to retail, go to other servers, or talk to their friends on MSN.

( granted, I just read your post half way through typing this. It's not at you specifically or anyone else just my opinion from my perspective )

I'd vote for 2k at least, or make everything free. So people can just get to the RP. Which is the only reason some of us are here. I don't find World of Warcraft a game worth paying for, nor one that doesn't get brain numbingly repetitive. BUT! Not everyone feels that way so the option should be open, as I thought maybe one of the days everyone would rather be OOC in GMI to level a char the real way just to see some of the storylines in the zones which are supposed to be interesting.

Tl:dr

RP should be man focus, and whatever makes that easier I will always support. Because to me RP should trump everything else since...I thought that' why we're here. Meaning no offense if this came off as callous.

[Wuvvums]

I thought I'd point out some things.

Taking away the need to grind does not take away the ability to grind.

Making roleplay mandatory as part of being in the server does not mean every moment must be spent roleplaying. This just means that the roleplay is not optional. You're still allowed your breaks and OOC activity but you can't come to the server and not participate in the rp ever ever ever.

I don't see why catering to the rp entirely would make things less casual. We aren't militant and you're still allowed to visit instances and bum on GMI. This wouldn't change.

[Anski]

I feel as if the gold given should drop in amount, especially concurrent to the recently posted changes to both the profession system and the mount system. While we as a server do not strictly enforce that everyone RP's 24/7 or stays logged off, this is still considered a 'hardcore' RP server in the sense of the terminology that the entire world, save GMI, is specifically in character for the consistency across Azeroth. We do not stop anyone from raiding, grinding, doing quests or professions. However, everyone is not like you, Psychyn. I for one do not wish to work for things to further my RP because I already play retail and already do that without getting any RP benefit from such thing. If you are bored of RP on the server, that is your problem, not the servers problem. Like it or not, this server is a consistent RP server.

The reason we handed out 3000 gold to begin with was not because we changed it due to all the recent updates, but because it had been the same way for a very long time. I know not if you were here for the reason we gave out 3k gold, but that reason was because once, long ago, we had Silver Tokens and such costed a great deal of money. Anyone on the server who wanted any sort of item, usually outfits to further RP, had to spend a Silver Token on it, which if I recall correctly, cost 500 gold. There were no free items, no free much of anything. You may feel as if this could possibly be a good thing, to get players to get up from their chairs and go out and grind or do dungeons to get the stuff they want, but from first hand experience, myself and the veterans of both the staff and the server, (especially those who were once staff before) will tell you that this is not the case. It hindered everyone's capability to RP and do as they pleased. Just like you want people to be more hardcore about getting up and doing something, not everyone wants to be that way. Some people come here to casually RP instead of RP some of the time and raid/dungeon/quest the rest. I for one have only such limited time to RP now, I have -no- time to be grinding for stuff that I need. Because of this, we as the staff keep this venue open to both the hardcore and the casual players. We do not stop you from raiding, dungeoning and questing to get the -actual- items, where as we keep the possibility open to casual players who do not wish to do so by giving them items, which are stateless mind you, and a spot of free gold as well as free riding and boosted professions. If your major intent on the server is to work your way through the dirty work and RP on the side, we give that capability to you. If you want it to be the only venue, this may not be the server and or droids you're looking for.

[Psychyn]

That is something I realized after a chat on the Minecraft world as well, though I will express the utmost love that just by expressing a fear and my thoughts, I've already been told twice to find another server. That's just a really lovely attitude. I think I've been here for a long enough time to know that I enjoy the server, enjoy it's RP and that I deem myself fit to be on here. (If that was deemed to be the opposite, I wouldn't be here which is quite logical to me.)

So with that said, I'd appreciate it if people stop making others feel unwanted by simply telling them the server may not be for them. I'm quite sure everyone can decide for themselves if the server is something for them and if not, the Admins can easily remove those that they deem unfit.

Now, I shall resume back on the topic that I admit to have been perhaps single perceptive. As much as I tried to look it from your view, I did not till the MC session some.. thirty minutes ago. Having decided not to bother to post believing it would simply be waved away as that tends to happen in big threads like these it seems I should have done the opposite.

Regardless, I apologize for that and will now back off out of this thread as I've simply got nothing to write any more. Sorry for solely seeing it from my point of view, and I take the below quote to heart ;

Taking away the need to grind does not take away the ability to grind.

Psy over and out.

[Anski]

I'm not telling you that you're unfit for the server or to leave. I simply said that if you do not find our current status on the server to your exact liking, it may not be the server for you. We're not going to remove you for disagreeing with us. (Unless of course you're disagreeing for the sole sake of disagreeing, which you aren't so all is good.) It is merely a notation for insight.

[Evaszion]

Summary:
Potential training costs changing with the restart? Less monetary reward for getting a character approved/leveled?
Find out more!

What do you folks think?

So.. reducing the cost to ~1,000 gold. Hmm, well, that is interesting.

Here's what I think. On Lithdra I spent a -good- 1500-1800 gold on gear alone, granted I did buy some wrong items on accident. I spent about 750-1000 on training(including riding) So ladies and gents, that brings us down to ~500 gold left over which is around what I had. Yes, I did get Lithdra Engineering, but I did not start that until I was brought back to ~1500. Now, getting from 1-400 Engineering costed me about 1,000 gold on it's own. Which brought me back to the magic number 500.

So, let's go to Ms. Kymu. I spent at least 1000 on her gear and 1500-2000 on training. Now, Kymu I bought all my skills unlike Lithdra where I only bought what I wanted/needed. Which brings us to at least a couple hundred, I believe she had ~200 leftover.

See, if we drop the gold given to 1,000, most people would only get Naxxrammas level gear, which is fine because that's what Kymu has and she's doing fine. So... yeah, most people could get possibly a full set of fresh 80 level gear and then have to daily grind to get anything else. I, honestly, don't care either way. I'll make due, but that's just my little input. I like the idea of a person who bumps your Professions up for you, though! Along with the free trainings.

[CappnRob]

I honestly don't even see why ANYTHING costs money on the server. It's a RP server, not a pvp/pve server, so why not just make all skills, gears, tokens, profession mats, and whatnot free? It's not like our server has any sort of OOC economy, and I'd rather do things like dailies for stuff like rep than because I need a cool 1k gold to blow on skills.

[Kretol]

I believe several posts have implied my own reasoning for why everything isn't free, but I will reiterate it:

I do not want folks to have nothing to accomplish or work for if they're not currently RPing. As has been stated elsewhere, you really don't need anything more than .addrp to get your character looking how you want, and getting a profile approved will bump you to 80 which makes travel a lot safer. Bear in mind that heirlooms are a very cost effective way to start an effective OOC item collection, which includes weapons. By not making everything free, there's still stuff to work for for those that choose to do so. And by being online and OOC while getting gold via however method, you have a greater chance to see callouts for RP that may sound appealing for one of your characters.

What if someone isn't in the mood to RP for the moment, and they don't want to be on GMI? If everything was free and they could add any real item they wanted, they'd have nothing to do. There are enough other private servers out there that grants players most GM commands, but I specifically chose to limit what is attainable by that method. For some it may sound out of place for an RP server, but I choose for this one to also appeal to the PvE (and possible PvP) side of people who want something to do when they may not be RPing for whatever reason. As odd as it may sound, by limiting commands it can also deter some types of the lol-crowd that just want everything immediately and not have to work for anything.

As far as OOC economy goes... while it's probably a topic for another thread, less gold initially given means less people writing profiles for -just- the gold (since it's the same amount of work for less gain) and possibly people valuing their money more which could lead to a bit stronger economy. Of course, there could also be the option to make certain tier gear even cheaper (ie, all tier under Wrath level the same cheap price) and then lessen the prices of some of the Wrath-level tier gear.