Make Vlasta Great Again

[Ostheim]

Forgive the name, I couldn't resist.

Anyway, I think we all like Vlasta at least in concept; it's got a lot of potential and neat dungeons close by that I know I've been biting at the heel to see. The problem is that, as a place to hang your hat, it's fiendishly unreliable for both consistent roleplay and procurement of basic supplies and selling potential.

Now, let me defend that last bit; I've heard a lot of grumbling that we shouldn't be so focused on making a profit, on selling things, or buying things, or doing all that standard adventurer happy-crappy that's focused on buying / selling for maximum value or whatever. We don't do this, though, because we're greedy and want to just stack money in our mansions; we do this because we want to keep adventuring, and it's the easiest to keep flush with supplies and the tools you need to survive in a dungeon and exploring closer to Sarshel, where you can easily get things for affordable prices. This leads to people doing the same reliable dungeons closer to Sarshel, because they're both safe and guarantee a good profit.

I don't like this. I want to do things far away, but it's hard to do it when it's such a time investment. Time spent getting there, time spent coming back to Sarshel (where you can sell the most stuff and buy the most supplies so, again, you can keep adventuring), everything is very far away from one another. Most people don't bother selling things in Vlasta - or buying - because for some reason the prices are way worse and you get barely any bang for your buck. Maybe this makes sense realism wise, but for a game about mostly wanting to go into dungeons and continuing to do that, to explore and go on adventures, it's not ideal.

The long and short is that Vlasta is not a viable hub right now, despite a lot of enthusiasm for this to be the case in places like the Skype chat. It lacks storage (a point Snow made in another thread that hasn't been replied to), it lacks reliable merchants, and it lacks a way to reach it easily from the main hub, which is Sarshel. Getting there is a pain, leaving is a pain. Why don't we change this?

1. Make it easier to reach. Put a caravan that goes from Sarshel to Vlasta. Make it obvious, perhaps in dialogue or in an OOC warning, that Vlasta's surroundings are not for low-level PCs.
2. Add some more amenities to Vlasta. Storage, better merchants. Perhaps a merchant caravan outside the town has set up shop for basic selling needs, so we don't feel the need to schlep all the way back to Sarshel after each dungeon. Add sellers of basic healing and potion supplies, the herbalist in Vlasta isn't sufficient for long-term adventuring for your bog-standard PC.
3. Add more inn rooms.
4. MVGA

[Silver Snow]

Concur with all the points. There's been bitter defense of keeping Vlasta a useless little outpost, but in practice it has never worked. It, as it stands, cuts short player visits, discourages roleplay and staying there. There are some that do, stubbornly, and plenty that just can't afford the trip back and forth in their playtime. On top of everything else, we simply do not have a large playerbase, we can't afford to be splitting them so easily.
I did make a thread to offer a reasonable, at least halfway solution of storage for allowing more time to be spent in Vlasta, and yet, that didn't even get a response. Horses are no replacement for that, they're a buggy hot mess. For as many IC reasons one can make up to explain Vlasta as it is, there are a dozen others that can explain the presence of more merchants, of storage, of the sort of amenities mentioned above.

So far, I have heard only "IC" reasonings as to why Vlasta should remain as it is, and would like to stress that we sidestep "IC" with every in game interaction we have in a multitude of ways in favor of convenience, fun, and generally positive player experience. Vlasta, as it stands, is not a very positive player experience.

[Kilaana]

If the merchant in Vlasta traded goods for a better value but still somewhat lower than the city, would you still sell?

I'm anticipating the answer to be "No".

If you want a one-stop solution to all your trading needs, what's the point in having different shops and traders? Why not just remove every trader out there and have everyone take a bullet train to Sarshel anyway?

More importantly, the team isn't resistant to improvements IC... The question is are players willing to help that potential be realised IC? Instead of simply having the build team serving it up on a spoon.

[Ostheim]

This is far less about loot and selling than it is about simply making Vlasta a viable place to spend a few days. I really, really, *really* do not care if there's a slight difference in prices between Vlasta and Sarshel, so long as I can sustain myself there. That's all. Sadly none of my PCs are interested in the IC Vlasta Restoration Project, and even if they were, I imagine the process would be a lengthy one. All I'm asking is for a few minor changes to help support adventure and spending time in that region, cause people sure seem to be interested in it.

This isn't about making money. It's about time spent doing enjoyable things.

[Feronius]

If the merchant in Vlasta traded goods for a better value but still somewhat lower than the city, would you still sell?

Absolutely. Unless I was planning to immediately head back to Sarshel anyway.

You would essentially be trading 30-45 minutes of playtime (or time spend doing far less menial RP) for a tiny bit of profit.

[OldBear]

To me the biggest draw back is not the low price for selling items, at least as a fighter. The issue is you cannot buy any but the lowest healing potion and bandages. Now bandages have their use, but one also needs the better quality healing potions.

[Hagra]

I'd simply like an OOC portal option to jump to Vlasta and use it whenever there is a server reset.

I have sold many items in Vlasta while adventuring out there myself - at least those that can be sold - and have no issue with the value I receive in return.

[Xanthas]

Personally I'm fine with Vlasta the way it is, I like the feeling of it being a long trek out to a backwater town and whatever swamp ruin or mountain temple your trying to find. I realize for some people they don't have that time though and that's unfortunate, a caravan of the sort that goes to Sarshel from Vlasta going the other way seems like one solution though from what I'm gathering the idea is to make it easier to stay in Vlasta for a longer periods? The caravan really only seems to encourage going back and forth between the two more frequently if it goes both ways.

I don't really see any need for more inn rooms, storage, or for the most part better traders, a profit can be made selling in Vlasta even if its not the amount you'd get selling in Sarshel unless things go horribly wrong in whatever dungeon you are doing and the dungeons there have more lucrative loot to compensate some for the lower profits as I understand it. The storage really only seems to be wanted to hold items so that they can all be carried back to Sarshel later to be sold and to me at least doesn't seem to be something Vlasta would have to offer but perhaps I'm wrong about that. From what I can tell the inn room is meant to show that its not an inn but a tavern with one room to occasionally rent out to travelers and you can have as many people in there as you can fit I think.

Making the tavern a full inn, adding storage and more and/or better merchants seems like it would make Vlasta an entirely different sort of town than it is now, which if its an IC change for some reason I'm not opposed but suddenly changing all that would be very jarring IC and take away Vlasta's charm as a backwater town, however that's just my view on it. Someone selling some potions is really the only thing that I think keeps people from being able to stay there for extended periods of time as it is, I'd say better than whats there but weaker than the best offered in Sarshel if it was added but the point is that the only thing I see as needed for people to stay for weeks at a time is potions and as long as the profit in Vlasta is enough to let you keep buying those potions I don't see any reason for it to change personally.

[Feronius]

Apart from the suggestion to have storages, which I am indifferent towards, I agree with the suggestions from the original post.
I do agree that storage in Vlasta is unnecessary, though I do not believe it would detract from Vlasta's atmosphere in any way.

The caravan is a great idea. I would also really like it if the caravan ride was a little faster. I am unsure how much time it takes exactly, but I think you can get to Sarshel almost as fast (or faster?) by walking. And if you decide to run there, you end up easily outrunning it.

[Kilaana]

Regarding caravan rides. They were created to facilitate roleplay, while providing a means of transport between areas other than walking/running. It's true that by this comparison, the caravan seems slower, but they were never meant to replace travel on foot, lest PCs missed out the sights along the way. If you run to Vlasta, you can get there faster than a caravan ride, but walking there is roughly the same time if not slightly quicker.

We can look into adding travel from Sarshel to Vlasta, but the caravan system will remain as it is for the reasons described above. Insta-travel is not a concept we support. Adding Vlasta as an OOC spawn in option may be viable, but only restricted to those who have visited Vlasta before. To do otherwise sort of invalidates the whole travel system. We can look into adding more healing supplies available for PCs, but we are not going to compromise our vision of Vlasta as what it was intended to be without some IC initiatives to move it in that direction. I do not see any issues with storage, given there are storage trunks in the Drunk Carp (these may be bugged at the moment but a kind soul could always post a bug report as a reminder).