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With the change to the cash shop, aka The Marketplace, we have removed the Real Money Transaction (RMT) element from it and replaced it with in-game currency known as "Ancient Sigils." What we don't have in place is a means for players to earn Ancient Sigils (AS).

Before I go on, if you actually check the marketplace, you'll see that we've removed a lot of the items that were once available. The flying mounts are gone. Any items that were "pay to win" are gone. The things like boats and houses, and other items that basically made crafters unneeded are gone. We are not here to make money, we are here to preserve a game we all loved. So we don't want these items in our Marketplace. So this topic is not about the items in the Marketplace but about how players can earn the "AS" to buy things off the Marketplace. Also keep in mind that AS is per character, NOT per account.

Here's some ideas we were spitballing in Discord that I don't want to forget.

Adventuring:

In live, it used to be that certain named mobs would drop "Ancient Plat Coins" that players would farm in a way that I think will be similar to AS. Except we don't want this. Players in Live VG would camp dungeon named and interrupt legitimate dungeon-running groups to farm the named mobs (Some of which are needed for quests). We must avoid these situations.

Suggestions:
Ancient Sigil Society NPCs that are around every dungeon. The are part of the "Ancient Sigil Society" and they have various reasons for hanging around the dungeons. Probably archaeological research. So they will offer quests related to the dungeon that will let players earn AS while in the dungeon. These quests will be repeatable. But they should also be tedious so they take some time to complete. In addition, you can only get them if you're at the proper level range and can get XP from the mobs within the dungeon. In other words, higher level players will need to mentor to take them.

By itself this doesn't seem like much, but it would give players more encouragement to do the dungeon - which would hopefully encourage them to group with people who also want to do the dungeon. This might also encourage players to do some of the lesser used dungeons (Which might be poorly optimized or whatever). Anything that gets players grouping and running the content is a win for us.

Missives: Missives are repeatable, common quests in certain areas. Their tasks aren't really that difficult, and the rewards are usually crap. We don't want to give an AS on every missive, so what we should do is have AS on the MIssive loot table. When you turn in missives, you get an item that you can then turn in for random crap in that city. We can put the AS on it, so they have a chance of getting AS when doing missives.

Crafting: Coming Soon. Crafting and Diplo both need a lot of questlines added. We can also put them in Work Orders loot tables so they have a chance at getting AS when doing WO Grinding.

Diplo: Coming Soon. Crafting and Diplo both need a lot of questlines added. Could have a crafting "supply kit" style drop for grinding civics that has AS in the loot table.

In Live, if players pledged themselves to a noble house, they could get "taxes' from certain lands after working their way up the faction ladder for that house. Maybe instead of giving them a measly 75S, we can give them AS from there. It would give new life to a mostly unused system and give a way for diplomats to earn AS.

The AS system is a great idea imho and I'm looking forward to it. The following are some suggestions for incorporating them into the game:

1) Random, Rare+ world drop from all mobs except named mobs. This adds more incentive to grinding and doing other kill quests throughout Telon.

2) Daily Login Rewards similar to what you might find in BDO or ESO. Every 24 hours a character can log in and receive a set amount (like 5 or 10 AS) with every 15th, consecutive login yielding a bonus of some sort. This gives incentive for people to log in and play more frequently.

3) Weekly Dungeon Kill Quests: (Ancient Sigil Society) Once per week a character can accept a quest in one of several dungeons that historically went underutilized such as Xennumet, Rakshasa Citadel, Graystone, Dargun's Tomb, etc. Kill every named mob in the dungeon to complete the quest to get XP, Coin, Faction and a large bundle of AS (20+).

4) Add AS to major quest lines such as mount quests, APW quests, POTA quests, Hunter's League, etc.

5) Weekly Kill Quests in all adventuring areas. Example: Kill 500 denizens of CIS, PoA, Flordiel, etc. to get a reward including 20+ AS.

6) Add AS to Fishing rewards.

7) Add a set of items to world loot tables, ex: Ancient Idol, Ancient Manuscript, Ancient Monocle, etc. that can be sold/traded to specific NPC's in all major cities for 5 or 10 AS each.

8) APW AS Drop Buff Item Quest: A new quest line that involves the player looting an Ancient Stylus from each Major Named mob in APW and assembling them in an Ancient Stylus Case to produce Ancient Philosopher's Stylus: usable from inventory it provides a buff that increases AS drop rate from trash mobs by 10%.

That's all for now. Thanks for reading!
Graivelyte

great ideas!