[CF-Devel] Money issues

[Todd Mitchell]

>
     
      Bringing up an old (unresolved?) discussion...
     
     >
     
     
     >
     
      Where do people stand on this?
     
     >
     
     
     >
     
      Should the price of the more common and useful stuff get lowered?
     
     >
     
     
     >
     
      How about reducing the cost of detect magic and detect curse altars?
     
     >
     
     
     >
     
      Judging by the number of times I see questions on IRC and other places
     
     >
     
      people aren't aware of cursed items and their effects, accidently wear
     
     >
     
      equipment or can't afford the detect curse price.
     
     
This isn't what you want to hear but I am of a different opinion on this:

I'm all for raising prices on a lot of stuff, I don't know about lowering
it.  When I see level 12 characters spending a million platinum in an item
auction on something he doesn't quite know what it is, I don't think that
the prices are too high for scrolls and altars.  I do think that the prices
of skill scrolls and spell books are too low.  I guess it all depends on how
long you expect to play to get to what would be considered a high level.
Then again if there weren't gobs of treasure lying around and a silver
actually meant something, then you would be right in wanting lower prices.
The whole thing is currently borked if you ask me.  More quests and less non
maintenance type items (potions of healing , life, food, someday lanterns
and torches,  and identify scrolls being maintenance type items) in shops -
that is always a safe answer.  Spell books should be a bit harder to find or
more expensive.

I think the answer to the cursed item issue is to put up a message in the
newbie area saying 'hey there are a lot of cursed items out there - don't
try out an item until you have gotten it identified or you'll regret it.'

>
     
      > I don't think it's unreasonable to expect a warrior, to be able to get
     
     himself
>
     
      > a decent set of armor, and a nice stick to wave around, to start out
     
     with.
>
     
      > When he finishes the newbie training ground.. he should be able to
     
     afford a
>
     
      > full set of armor, and quite possibly a +1 sword.
     
     
kinda raises the bar on what us a useful item if +1 swords are a penny a
pop. You need a +12 god biter just to get a smile out of people anymore.  I
mean the level life of some types of monsters like orcs and gnolls is
already so short as to make them pretty well worthless.  Give every level 3
player a full set of magic goodies and they will now even be worth while as
spacers anymore.  How about if it took a good week of semi regular play to
get a +1 sword, then you would see some tension and reward back in the game.

>
     
      > Perhaps the price to identify should be dropped as well.  I mean
     
     really.. who
>
     
      > uses those beyond like level 5?
     
     
If it were harder to get identify spells and you had to find someone to
identify stuff or use one of your few identify scrolls (instead of everyone
being a one man band with a mountain of scolls for every occasion) then the
identify altars would be pretty useful again and worth every penny.
If a sword is to mean something then a magic sword should be pretty special.