So, my convenience store down the corner have started to sell these Miso Soup packages, which I find super convenient – I guess that’s why it’s called a “convenience store”.
It’s a bag which only have two items in it – two long line of bags with perforations between each “portion”, one containing the stock, and one with the garnish, and all you do is dump everything into a bowl and pour boiling water on them. Along with some rice noodles – since I’m gluten intolerant – this is just great! I put everything into one massive bowl and pour boiling water on it, stir and wait until it’s cold enough to let me put it into my mouth, and then I eat. From preparation to finished with eating, it’s about fifteen minutes, and that’s perfect for me, and all I’m left with is one bowl and two chopsticks to clean.
I guess I know what I’m putting my food budget towards this month, eating it non-stop until I get sick of it.
Speaking of “until I get sick of it”, New World is kind of on the back-burner now. The content drought is pretty severe, and the end date of this season have had three different dates now. Let’s hope it doesn’t get to a fourth.. Weirdest part is, that the end date shifted a third time, but that was a “shadow-move” – as no announcement from AGS have been made. We just found out by looking at the Seasonal Screen ingame and seeing that they added a week to it, and some datamining was apparently done to find that out as well. That is… disappointing. But somehow not surprising.
As for what content is there.. it’s the same as usual. However, with the last season, a huge change was made with how you aquired some Sandwurm loot, and while I do see the reasoning behind it, I still kind of disagree with it. Once every week, you get the loot as well as some crafting materia, and before you could use that materia to craft jewelry and weapons, but not armor. And it was the armor people wanted. After two weeks of materia, you had enough to craft one of these things, and people were even paying for carries to get through and get the loot.
Some people were simply not interested in playing the worm and just wanted the loot.
Some people were just not interested in putting in the effort to learn, nor the time to gear up for it.
Some people were just “rich enough to do it” as a way to quickly get a team, because they didn’t want to play with randoms.
These were mostly the players who was intended to be the customers for these carry services.
Carry services were never meant to be a “gatekeeping” thing – anyone who wanted to play the worm and didn’t want to pay for it, could do it the old fashion way; Gear up, learn it and play it with friends, PUG’s or community runs.
Most of the buyers who bought carry runs were also PvP-players, who got so much gold infused to them by either PvP-track – which they repeatedly gained progress on by simply playing the content they wanted – or by being in a “war-company”. War companies play war – a PvP-mode – in order to determine who “owns” settlements, and everyone pays taxes to them when using either the Tradepost, refining or crafting stations or pay their rents in those settlements. Being in a company that owns these settlements when Payout is due.. is really lucrative. The War-players were often rich, and were the main base of customers for these carries – they didn’t care about PvE-game modes like the Sandworm or Gorgon-raid, they just wanted the rewards for the clears, without having to re-gear, re-learn or play with randoms, who, let’s face it, often failed in their endeavours to clear it. For them, it made sense to buy carries, because it often ended up being cheaper for them, than to spend money gearing up, and the timeloss from learning said game modes are time they stop earning money, so that’s technically also a income loss.
However, with the recent Seasons change, it wasn’t just jewelry and weapons that was crafted with materia anymore – now even the armor was craftable. Which in turn.. means that “the average player” now feels it’s within their grasp to get their hands on said gear, all they need to do now is to buy the worm carry twice over two weeks, and they can now craft any Sandworm equipment they want. Which means… the average player now feels like they’re entitled to getting a carry. It’s not that they want to just find any group to make an attempt with, no, they feel entitled to get a carry with the Carry Service Groups.
And I get it, the price in the beginning was around 200’000g for one carry of the Sandworm – but the thing is, each group consisted of 20 players for the Sandworm, and each of them spent lots of time figuring the content out, and then also spend lots and lots and lots of money into their gear to figuring out which items it was that they needed to succeed. They all spend a lot of effort and time and money into this – and now they decided to partially make some of that gold back, and to give back to the people who desperately wanted to get the rewards as well. And between them all, they made about 10’000g each per carry – the nineteen doing the carry, as well as that one person from the twenty-player strong premade group who stepped out in order to leave room for the one carried.
10’000 might sound a lot, but the thing is, it’s not really. You still spend your time doing this content for someone else, and the only reward you’ll get is that monetary one – as the weekly loot for killing the Sandworm is already gone. And the time it took in the beginning to do one carry meant that roughly 20’000 an hour could be made doing carries, and yeah, it’s alot for an hourly income in the game. Most people made about half that an hour if they really put their “back into it”. But mind you, it wasn’t just a greed, or a way to make up the gold spent to make it possible – it was a luxury service. It was “getting the endgame loot without having to do anything”.
Over time, yeah, it has been made easier to gear up for it, and cheaper, and the tactics have evolved – even with the buff to the Sandworm to specifically make it harder, it’s now easier than ever to clear it, and yet, the average player and PUG’runners simply cannot do it. The Carry-fee have also been smaller, from 200’000 down to 100’000, which, again, spread over the people who do the carry is still only about 5’000g each – but now, even the way carry services have changed, so there’s not just a twenty-player group doing it, but a lot more people capable of doing it, so each carry-seller is now “recruiting” carriers for their group, so in the end there’s only the people doing the actual carry getting a cut – the people “stepping out” is simply not there anymore. That means you’d think that each person carrying was now getting 1/19th of these 100’000, or 1/18th of these 2×100’000 if they were doing a “2-buyer run”, but nope, most people still only got 5’000g each – now instead, there was a “finders fee” involved – whoever brought the buyers in, got an entire cut just for that. Everyone involved was fine with this, as it incentivized people finding buyers, and even just showing up to do carries without having to do the hassle of finding buyers still got a decent chunk of money.
And yes, I am involved in this Carry Service, for three different groups to boot. I did do my gearing up. I did my time learning the fights, and I can do several different roles on a quality enough to warrant being paid for it – not to mention, I am involved with speedrunning these things, so I have both the gear and knowledge to do it. It’s not that I consider my “expertise” invaluable, I can easily be replaced by others, some who are even better geared – but that’s rare – and some who simply are better at it than me. But as far as Carriers go, I’m probably one of the better ones – definitively three of the four best teams on Nysa, the game server I play on, and that is provided that one group, the Ninjas, are even selling, which I don’t think they are anymore. If they aren’t, then yeah, all three groups I play for are, without a doubt, the best three Carry groups on the entire server, both in terms of quality, time, accuracy and honor – none who bought have been getting scammed.
Sure, I know, people argue that “buying a carry” is scam. That’s an opinion they certainly are allowed to have, and I can kind of see it – they want the service too, because they don’t know how to gear, they don’t know how the fights go, they don’t know any people to run with, and PUG’s attempting these things usually hit a brick wall and disband. In their eyes, we, the people who can do it with ease, are “gatekeeping”, because instead of running these things and bringing someone along with us to “show them the ropes”, we require a fee to do it, one that is “astronomical” to the average player.
For reference, last year, AGS came out with metrics that showed that up until then, the median amount of gold any player had was about 36’000 gold.
Compare that to the price of a Sandworm-Carry of, at the time, 200’000 gold.. yeah, that was kind of astronomical, but still, the service wasn’t meant for the average player, it was meant for the ones that could afford it – the PvP’ers who got their gold from owning Settlements, making literally millions per week. Since those metrics, the last thing we heard was that the metrics almost doubled, meaning the median was between 70’000 and 75’000 gold to the average player – and the cost of a Carry went down to 100’000 at that time. Still, not quite there in price for an average player to buy one, but again, it wasn’t a service meant for them to buy – at this point in time, there was lots of community servers on Discord running community runs, the tactics had been refined to the point it should’ve been possible with a minimal amount of effort into gear, etc, but it was still not enough. People still didnt want to spend the few thousands it meant for them to get the gear ready to any standards – they wanted to go in there with minimal preparation, sometimes without even trophies or consumables that buffed their damages, or with weapons that made literally no sense at all. They still wanted to treat the Sandworm as yet another open world content that “should just be cleared with whatever chaos they brought in with them”, and when they were then rejected from these community runs as well… they cried “Gatekeeping!”
They were literally asking for, what amounted to, a “free carry”. They didn’t want to spend their money gearing up properly to be able to tackle it, and they didn’t want to spend the time necessary to learn – they just wanted to go in, join up, get a clear and leave. They wanted the luxury of getting a Carry, but without having to pay anything for it, essentially using others time and effort to get things handed to them for free, and when they refused, they were complaining that it was instead “gatekeeping”.
They never was the intended target customer base for carries in the first place. And yet, they felt entitled to it. All they had to do was to gear up, spend a few hours over one week, and then play as instructed, and they’d be able to join any of these community runs they wanted. But they refused.
This has been a thing ever since the Sandworm came out and was first cleared – ever since the price was 200’000 and the median amount of coin any player had was 36’000, to when the median amount of coin was 75’000 and the price was 100’000.. to today, when the median amount of coin is probably even higher still, and the price of a Carry has plummeted down to 50’000 per run.
Yes, the carriers are now only getting paid about 2’500g per run they do, carrying someone else, and the price of a Carry is now way below the median amount of coin the average player have. Between this, and the fact that any Sandworm item is now craftable with only two weeks worth of materia, has basically made the Sandworm Carry a thing for the average player to buy. It kind of rubs me the wrong way, because this was never meant to be a thing for the average player to buy. The average player were supposed to get friends together and tackle it themselves, not grinding gold enough to be able to purchase a run or two. It was supposed to be something people banded together across companies or factions in order to beat. Now, it’s everyone.
Which brings us to what my biggest issue is. The carriers probably all made back the gold they spent preparing for the roles they can play – I made back the gold I poured into my gear to be able to play all the roles I play a good while back. But each run I gear up for, I use consumables that amount to 350-500 gold. That’s gold I spend in order to be the efficient carrier I can be – it boost the damage, increase survivability, etc. Basically, it’s my base cost, just in order to show up. And currently, I make about 2’500 gold per carry, which after the consumables is just 2’000 actual profit. From signing up to do a carry, to getting ready, team invitations, loading into the arena, preparing, starting the run, doing the run, to getting paid, it’s probably around the ball-park of 30 minutes of my time. Provided we do a two-person carry, I get paid about 5’000 for this, which means my profit is instead around 4’500 for this half hour.
I make so little from this now, that I legitimately make more money by the hour when just running the Island and farming everything in sight, from green wood, to rarer woods, to ores, to herbs, to fibres. The reason I do this, is because I think doing the worm is more fun – I get to hang out with friends in Discord, fooling around with friends during preparation time, I get to play content that is actually fun, all while getting paid roughly similar to what I would be making just grinding gathering.
And this is the case with everyone doing the carry. Almost noone is doing one-person carries anymore, so most of us make roughly 4’500g per run, and if we have back-to-back runs, meaning we have buyers lined up to do one clear, then head back in immediately with a new set of buyers, clear that, etc., we do make a nice profit, yes. But we still need to plan all of this, we still need to use consumables, and they do need to be refreshed once in a while. In the end, unless we’ve got atleast a total of 6-8 buyers lined up to go, we’re not really making a profit that warrants us to actually do Carries. We make more gold by the hour doing other things.
And while each of us only get that amount of gold per carry, that does add up for the buyer, that has to pay each and everyone of us that fee. It’s no different than from anyone buying the crafting service from a crafter, except that it is now not only one crafter you pay – and I saw sometimes that an item that needed 80’000 in materials would have a fee of 100’000 stacked upon it, meaning the fee was 100’000 to one person, while carry services is 200’000, 100’000, 50’000 split among almost 20 people. Yes, I only get paid 2’500 per carry, but they have to pay 50’000. I can still agree that that is a huge chunk of the average players total money, even if they have 75’000 to spend, it’s not something that they might want to spend the majority on for one run – especially not since they still need atleast one more run the next week, just to get the materia they need to craft one item.
Again, it wasn’t meant to be a service for those players. They should’ve joined a community run and geared up – the gear requirements isn’t even that high, and they could’ve spent a small portion of that cost to gear up.
But now.. with how “easy” it is to craft any Sandworm item, how “ease of access” any of these pieces have become, and the fact that a carry now only costs 50’000 and they’ve got roughly the equivalence of “1.5 carries, so almost the amount needed for two carries”, means that the average player have instead become entitled. They dont want to try themselves anymore, and while they see it is within their grasp to afford two carries, they dont want to spend all their money on it, but they crave the carry because “how close that one particular item now is”… they think that they should be given one cheaper, or for free.
The average player who disliked the Carry Services have now gone from openly disliking the Carry Service, trying to discourage people from buying runs, trying to discredit all Carriers as “scammers” and “gatekeepers”, to now wanting one – but they want it either for cheaper or for free.
I once saw someone wanting to pay no more for a carry, than 10’000 in total. Which basically means that he was generous enough to cover the expenses for us even beginning to run. We’d get roughly 500g for the trouble, when our consumables alone cost that much. We wouldn’t get anything for it – we’d just have him pay for our food, basically.
In what world?
The cake has probably got to be the one that told us he’d give us 5’000 for a carry, because he felt that would be fair, since we made profit long ago to make back the gold it took for us to get where we were, the place where we’d be able to offer carry services. That was 5’000 to share between 19 players, which would’ve been about 250g each.
According to him, it was fair that we literally paid for the privilege to carry him.
Again, in what world?
Which brings us to today. The main content for us now, has changed from doing Weekly runs to get our clears, Carries and Speedruns….
To effectively only be Speedruns. Those gives us the weekly clear on our first Speed during a week, and carries…well, they do happen, but considering that it’s simply not worth the time and effort unless we line up several buyers at once, it kind of only happens during day 1 of any weekly reset.
And considering the entitlement of the average player wanting a cheaper run and thus going to the actual scammers – which sometimes do deliver on their promises, sometimes just walk away with the money – and the ones trying to scam us in turn – meaning they want to buy and when we go in and start preparing, they suddenly want to “pay afterwards”, so that they can get their clear and then bail from payment, which only leads to them getting the boot and not getting a carry at all and getting blacklisted across all the more serious carry groups.. we just dont do that many carries anymore, and in the end, we’ll get just a small portion of what we would’ve made just 4 months ago.
Last week, I did a three hour and fourtyfive minute long session, where we ended up carrying thirty-three buyers, and all I got from that was 33’250 gold. That’s an hourly rate of 8’900, roughly. After expenses – since I still need to use consumables, and refresh them with more consumables over the course of almost 4 hours, that still only ended up being rougly 30’000 in actual profit over the course of these almost 4 hours. That’s a profit of about 8’000 an hour. Which would put me in the position that, yes, if I was actually running around farming ore, wood, herbs, fibres, etc., I would’ve made more than if I was doing carries.
And yet, people feel entitled enough to get even cheaper or even free carries, all while actually not doing anything themselves. They come unprepared, not even interested in learning anything about the fights, not participating – which is fine, that is a carry after all – but now they dont want to compensate us even for the consumables we need to use, or the time we spend carrying them?
No, as much as I dont mind making income by carries, I dont like it. The service was never meant for the average player, and now the average player feels entitled enough to demand lower prices to the point we lose money carrying them. In my opinion, these people are the real scammers – they want a service where they get things with no effort, but they dont want to pay for it? They can go back to PUG’s who wipe over and over until disbandment for all I care.
Either they gear up and do it properly themselves, or they buy a carry for a reasonable price that reflects what they’re getting – Carried.
I just hope Season 10 gives us so much more to do – as much as I like speedrunning with my friends, and as much as I like getting paid for doing the carries, even the small amount that it is, it is really starting to get boring.
Like eating Miso Soup every day for a month; You find it convenient in the beginning, great taste and saturation, but after a month of only that, and it’ll get stale.
I hope S10 brings a new raid, to play for myself, but also a new raid to do carries in, to do speedruns with. I also hope for a new Zone to explore, more PoI’s – Point of Interests – to fight through, more horse-races to do.. I have high hopes of Season 10, after the hype AGS made for it – they did say that S9 would be kind of dry, but “S10, that’s where it’s at!” kind of.
Then again… the June-announcement is still sour in the back of my mouth, and AGS was just as hyped for that – and all it was, was a console release. I mean, I dont mind the game coming to console, and I even picked the game up on my PS5 where I have an alt character already – it’s just a shame there’s no cross-platform save, so I can play all my characters on either platform. But we were in a content drought and sorely needed content to do, and all they gave us was…console players to play with.
I dont think AGS will pull the rug on us the same way this time. But them being hyped for something doesn’t necessarily mean it’s something we, as players, are going to be as hyped up about. But we’ll see during this month, they did say they’ll give us more insight into Season 10 during September.
I just hope that the Miso Soup they’ll have now – fun, good, albeit limiting – doesnt turn out to be a subpar Miso Soup, or just changed into Instant Ramen. I hope for so much better next month.