Trading:
When Rage of Bahamut first came out there were no limitations on trading. Players could trade with anybody they wanted whether they were a random player or team member, and without a two week wait. The results of this was many high level players would look for new players and offer them Treasure High Rares of their alignment for the true High Rares the lowbies pulled.
Players would post in forums offering 2-3HP per Treasure High Rares claiming they were using them to skill up their cards when they were really using them to trade for High Rares worth 20-30HP each.
With no Bazaar players were stuck posting on forums and scouring forums for people who had the card they wanted or even to get the estimated value of cards. Every other post was somebody wondering if X trade or Y trade was fair.
Then players started to offer trades of 150 Rupies for a card somebody was selling for 150HP, and some people who were in a hurry or just not very aware would make the trade only to rage on forums.
Despite random exploitation and people creating 100s of accounts to get LCPs to trade with their main account...card values were steady with the least expensive HR being about 12-15HP and the highest valued ones hitting upwards of 45...65 when Claymore Maid and Apsara were released. For almost half a year the economy was stable despite random exploitation, which when you think about it...is pretty amazing.
Then Rage suffered from rampant server hacking and card theft after which they stopped trading for three weeks and implemented the Bazaar system. Lowbie players were so happy at first and started stammering off how great it was that cards would no longer have their 'inflated' values. And for weeks as prices dropped again and again players claimed they were leveling out to their 'actual values'.
Finally, we've dropped further than even I predicted with pretty much all HR being values at 1HP each. Amazing after months of stability amidst rampant exploitation that the prices could stand steady, but so quickly after Bazaar implementation they could fall so low.
So, After half a year of holding value and community growth, Rage of Bahamut implemented limited trading causing a severe economic collapse.
Raid Events:
I'm not going to address the elimination of CW Quest Events like Tears of the Moon, nor am I going to spend time discussing the changes to Holy War...although we could always rant there.Instead, I'm going to talk about the evolution of the Raid Event:
Early Raid Events: Players Received cards for hitting the boss if he was taken down. Players received points based on their damage done. There were event cards that did additional damage as well as cards that blocked attacks.
Oldest Raid Events: Players could just hit bosses and gain cards for participating and gain HP by proceeding through quests or defeating a certain number of bosses. Players would pool their HP to purchase damage cards for the event bosses.
Old Raid Events: Raid Events stayed the same until after the economy changed. Players were given shards that could be traded in for chances at HP/CW/Cards. Players who had good raider cards could actually gather a lot of shards and profit pretty heavily. Players bought quite a few event cards, shared them with friends, and participated pretty heavily. Hard bosses appeared based on how many points you've accumulated. Overall, virtually the same as the earlier system except with shards that allow people to earn HP and CW instead of just R, HN, and N cards. This was a pretty good time.
Current Raid Events: Rage changed over their events to require players to have three event cards instead of the one most players were gathering. They also changed the system to require a resource that gave three attacks (To offset the 20 single card attacks people were doing). Fewer shards are given out overall. Players need to kill three weak bosses before they unlock the bosses they want. I hate this system. I know some people like it, but to me...it's hard enough to profit off of the event without having to invest in 3 Raider cards as well.
But most importantly...all the events had pretty much a two to three week break between them. It was astounding. We had time to recoup and build before the next event. It was a nice system.
Card Releases:
When Rage released we might get a few new cards a month. It was astoundingly slow actually. Players would spend their time trading for cards like Ifrit and Nightmare knowing they had just enough power. When new cards were released it was normally the result of an event and players tried to get them to help through the event. When Claymore Maid and Apsara was released it was amazing.
Then a couple card packs came out and players were pretty psyched at the options. Then it seemed like a new card pack was coming out weekly...because they were. Now, it seems like every time I log on I have to deal with 30 seconds of load time while Rage tries to get my psyched about cards while I know ten new ones with be out next week.
Either way...card releases used to be special.
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