Why Verthedge Forest cannot be the Saving Grace of Fartown
Posted by: Cerberus on 2006-06-04
Category: Gameplay
My response to Ben's query in this Thread.
Such a change may change game play patterns of a few players but will not be significant enough to cause more people to start using Fartown as a tie spot/service town/hang out spot for a few reasons:
1) Verthedge is a near end-game area. Levels 38, 39 and maybe a few farmers are the only ones that use Verthedge, and there are fewer players who reach those character levels than there ever will be sitting around Milltown/Dundee. Those who do level that high, even if they began using Fartown, would find lil' reason other than tying there to hang around the town.
People seen in the Inns/Towns are usually low levels, some of that can be attributed to RP'ers gaming less and some of that can be attributed to simply the existance of more low level characters in DG. At any rate, those who've been around longer would seem to be more determined in what they're doing... if they're farming, they go to where they farm. If they're RP'ing they go to where RP'ers are. You can build the game to influence this and that, but players still tend to stick to what they feel is in their best interest.
2) Haggie. He's perhaps the biggest pull to Branishor, bringing players from all over to the city for selling. If I picked up a pack full of Crystals/Drops in Verthedge and had to pick between Branishor and Fartown, I'm headed to Branishor for selling.
3) Ferries, this was mentioned in my lil' essay, but again, Branishor has a ferry to Dundee/Milltown. Basically these 3 cities combined get you anywhere in Trinald you want to go. It's just the way the game got built, mostly around Dundee to start when the playerbase was small, and then the other 2 cities are geographical central to everything else. Players would still use Branishor more.
4) The N'rolav Desert and UW Quest Changes. Back when BrCGs were level 38, Verthedge was crawling with levelers/farmers trying to stir them up to get some Brown Crystals. The UW was gotten at level 39, so players might be even seen there at level 40 hunting for experience and BrCGs.
After BrCGs advanced in power and skill (42'ish now), the min UW level was raised (I'm not even sure what it is now, but I think it's 50+), and BrCGs were added to the N'rolav Desert, Verthedge use dropped significantly. Basically, (1) it's difficult to kill the BrCGs while hunting in Verthedge for Experience, you need help or retreat luck. (2) There's no immediate, haunting desire for a Brown Crystal at level 38, 39, 40 now to keep players hunting in Verthedge. And, (3) there is a much more platinum to be had in the N'rolav Desert than in Verthedge while farming for Brown Crystals.
One other thing to note... not only does N'rolav Desert draw farming traffic from the Verthedge Forest but also from the Tall Grasslands Major (the 38 to 40 areas). When I first came back to DG, that was perhaps the best farming spot I'd heard of in the game until one reached level 53... save for the trouble of the Grass Stalkers mixing in with the High Plat Drop Spiders. But, now just a couple levels later, the N'rolav Desert offers even higher drops mixed with BrCGs which can get you WP & Golden Age Crystals.
Players have and will continue to sit at a level and stock up on Plat, WP, or Crystals. There's really no way to stop that, than to program Plat Drops and Market Prices based on a mathematical function based on level and then spread crystals and WP around everywhere players hunt (at least not any others that I can think of... besides a variation on this). Once one area and one set of levels become known as good places to farm, more players will take note and play that level and hang around that area and thusly, the adjacent town.
So, now Fartown doesn't service any high use farming locales anymore. If we think about Caernivale, it gets a lot more traffic these days because of Midnight Beach. Take the Ravenous Sharks out of Midnight Beach, and Corwin might be making a thread "Caernivale's dull! Spice it up!" a couple days later (well he might make it anyways, given his rate of suggestions). But, the Ravenous sharks and Caernivale bring me to one more point...
5) The Golden Age Knowledge Machine. When this was implemented, there finally become a set of tradable goods in DG that would never be exhausted in demand: Weapon and Character enchancement scrolls. These few items are the only true remaining Plat Sink for Ascended Characters in DG. I've discussed this a little Here., but am rewriting that article.
Anyways, when these were introduced, it didn't take long for them to gain huge values in Platinum on the market. Since they're gotten with Golden Age Crystals, any area where players can get these Crystals immediately started getting more noticed and more farming traffic... Midnight Beach and the Ice Cavern most notably. Fartown doesn't support any high use farming crystal location. Verthedge Forest? Yes, but we've already noted that is disused in favor of the N'rolav Desert.
In general, which I neglected from my little essay, I think a town's support of farming areas is more important than its support of leveling areas. Plat & Items drive more in the game than Experience does. In that, I mean to say, Plat & Items can be traded, sold, bought, and interacted between players upon. Experience cannot. There is only so much leveling one can do before they're ascended and then they've only farming left to toil away their time with.