gem drops

[compulsion]

Originally Posted by Nirgon [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Must have been nice just handing out all those diamonds and blue diamonds like candy for your Vox raids.

In Gates of Discord or whatever expansion you were on when that was happening.

6k posts and can't read. The SZ release was during Velious. Not Discord or whatever other expansion you want to name drop to make yourself feel old school. Every bit of evidence and personal experience that has been referenced was classic, Kunark, or Velious. The gems had dropped during Hate and Vox raids, and were common enough that a handful of the highest level players on the team at the time were being outfitted from guild bank in order to continue progression.

"Its a random drop of several high level creatures in several zones. Best chances to get one of these are the planes or old sebilis. Good luck."

^ is the highest rated comment on allakhazam under diamond from Oct 2001. Again, I would like to find solid information from 1999 or 2000, but have not.

On this server, gems do not drop from "several high level creatures in several zones." They drop from a very few specific creatures in basically 2 zones. The drops from planes are so rare that it isn't even a factor, and I have yet to see a drop at Chardok bridge, which is probably just rumor anyhow.

Once again, evidence strongly suggests that during the first 3 expansions, on live, gems were far more available as a normal part of progression than they are here. On a server where every other player in unrest is wearing a fungi tunic, it is still 10k for a raw gem. That is pretty much the exact opposite as on live. Gem values here are inflated with only 80 people playing, imagine how much they would have cost on live with 2000 players bidding.

Think about how relatively rarely you see gems for sale on here, then imagine the population increasing 25x. And yet on live you could pick up a resist set in east commons anytime. I still remember PK looting es arms or my first tcrown, because they were "check this shit out moments", but I can't remember ever getting excited over a diamond or jacinth ring.

[mendan]

wts black sapphires and jacinths. 2.5k each. hit me up.

gem drops are fine... if jc cap was raised to 250, there would be alot more diamond rings floating around.

[Kaino]

they are much more rare then they should be, couple that with resist being less forgiving then live and it's easy to understand why half the server is playing druid/wiz

[mendan]

Originally Posted by Kaino [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

they are much more rare then they should be, couple that with resist being less forgiving then live and it's easy to understand why half the server is playing druid/wiz

sounds convincing...

[compulsion]

Originally Posted by mendan [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

gem drops are fine...

And this conclusion is based on what?

Era specific posts indicate that many high level mobs dropped gems. The fact that this is not true on this server, actually suggests that gem drops are not fine.

Is there some post or patch note of which I am unaware that is leading you to conclude that gem drops are fine? Or is it just a personal opinion, no more important than your favorite color?

Economic logic as well indicates that gem drops are dramatically reduced from the rates on live. This server has maybe 5-7% of the population that a live server had. In the case of every other rare item, a huge % of the population has that item when compared to live. Class set gear is just vendor trash here, while it held value on live. Fungi tunics were incredibly rare on live, while on here, I would guess than over 30%(possibly more) of the population has one. FBCR would sell instantly on live, yet Boner tried to sell his for weeks and would have even taken blue plat for it.

Gems on the other hand, are the exact opposite. Any diamonds or blue diamonds that appear are bought instantly. If this server's drop rates are correct, then the exact same supply of gems would be in demand to a group 18-20x the size, and should have a value exponentially higher as well. Since the only significant source of gems is Seb, and it is farmed almost 24/7, the supply to r99, pop. 105, and live, pop. 1900 would be very similar.

Rare drops here are in low supply, but also have low demand, so they are stuck with a low to mediocre value. Gem drops here are in low supply, but have significant demand, so they have a high value. Now, if the drop rates here are the same, live gem drops would be in the same low supply, with incredible(18-20x higher) demand, and would have had astronomical value. Now, since gems were never of incredible value on live, it is only reasonable to assume that the supply was significantly higher.

The exception to all of this of course is RMT economics, which is simply to remove certain items of value from the in-game economy completely in order to force players into accepting out-of-game economic transactions. For example:

http://www.project1999.org/forums/sh...ad.php?t=89212

The value of that item was never intended to be 450k. No sane person would farm 450k PP. It's just an arbitrary number that happens to be high enough to push a reasonable person into pursuing the same transaction in an alternative, more highly valued currency.

This is all just economic theory of course. I wouldn't presume to know for sure why some people would expend so much time and energy only to exclude in-game items from the in-game economy. That's not my business. I just want to demonstrate with evidence that gem drops were higher in live EQ during this era.

[Jenni D]

srs just do bugs in seb for like 2 hrs at a quiet time of day. ez.

[Dullah]

Gem drops aren't even close to the same.

As of now, you only see gems in Sebilis with any frequency and then its only off bugs and rarely a golem. Seb on live was like a gem pinata. They were always dropping and my friend who had a rogue said he'd pick pocket stacks of them (you can't even pick pocket gems off bugs in seb here). On live, I had tons of gems sitting in the bank, and plat diamond/jacinth gear from just leveling up. Not at all the case here.

[Kaino]

Exactly what dullah said, plus the CC spells landing with 130 Mr is just compounding the problem

[compulsion]

Originally Posted by Jenni D [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

srs just do bugs in seb for like 2 hrs at a quiet time of day. ez.

I actually have a set for my main that I will finish out once 250 JC goes in. If I decided to specifically set aside time from all of the rest of the more interesting stuff to do in the game, in order to farm bugs for gems for an alt, it would probably take about 6 uninterrupted hours as a duo to get a reasonable collection. Most people seem to agree that the drop rates were decreased shortly after the Kunark release. As it stands now, it probably averages 2 full clears or more per single drop.

I am attempting to point out what I believe is a flaw in drop rates that dramatically decreases progression(and for most, the fun of the game) from what you would have seen on live. This isn't blue where I am happy just because I get to cyber an elf on the beaches of Ro. If people came here to re-live the unique experience of red server PvP, I don't see why they should have to endure unjustified code inaccuracies which instead make this server completely unlike live.

Everyone who has posted with their experience from live has agreed that drops were more common. Every bit of factual or logical evidence presented has suggested that gem drops were more common.

On the other side, we have someone saying "drops are fine, buy from me" and another saying "farm more".

[Kaino]

Jenni only longs in around 6 AM EST and farms when no one else is logged in and pvp is non existant.

That's not an option for all of us