I hate to break it to you but we don’t have a lot of help. There is only 4 of us handling ALL the portals. Every time we tried getting someone to help, they went greedy on us and caused more trouble then they were worth.
Serenity, Rileylove, Diego, and Hashmalash. That is all the people who handle ALL of Ultima Hub. Every gateway, every single portal.
Here, let me step in and bring some of my own observations and knowledge, as limited as it is. Ahem.
As I like to point out, players like to play certain ways. Not everyone likes to do everything in the game. This includes the Quests. Next to Footfall tho, Quests are the only way to generate new money. Understand so far?
Here’s the biggest difference between those that started 2 weeks early, compared to those that started 2 weeks late.
For one thing, the 2 week early starters are dedicated long time fans of the game, they aren’t casuals, and I bet no matter how worse the game gets, their going to continue to play, all dead, every day, till they find a much better game, or this game finally shuts down.
So in those 2 weeks, what did they do? They did a lot of quests, collected a lot of resources, went right to end game, got all the gems, and with Gems and Power, was able to create the Portal Condiuts to be able to make the portal hubs. Then they created said Portal Hubs, not on just 1 or two planets, but on EVERY planet in the game, and with no other compatition, became the Capital of every planet for a while too. (Till everyone else could get in and start making dedicated cities on each world.)
Doing all the quests, for each person in the guild, they generated a LOT of money just by themselves, let alone all together. Whats more, to keep all the portals running, all the time, before the game started, and the first few weeks when people weren’t able to get to End game and farm the Oort Shards, meaning they had to fund everything themselves. <— Make a note of that.
Now, we start the game for everyone else. And what do all the players see? Portals to any and every planet they want. So, are players going to stick to lvl 1 worlds, craft Totem Warp Augments, and explore randomly through the night? Heck no, they are going to go to the Portal Hubs, giving the Head Start Players Footfall, a LOT of Footfall, since EVERY player uses the Portal Hubs.
Next, that note I told you to remember earlier. It’s brand new still, no one had Rough Oort Stones to sell. So of course, the Early Starters are going to have to go out farming themselves. Which they did. Daily. And making a whole lot of money off people using the Portal System.
Then comes the Request Baskets, asking people to donate Rough Oort Stones, and for so cheap too! Only 100c each, while they themselves are making hundreds of thousands of coin from Footfall, on top of all the thousands of coins from Quests. But remember what was said earlier:
I’ll disect the rest of that for later, but first, I want to use one section of it.
Not every player that uses these hubs are donating Oortstone or Rough Oort in exchange for coin.
This is very much true. I myself don’t farm or get Rough Oort at all, so I can’t donate any. But even if I did, I need them to fuel my own portal to my shop, for as long as I can.
Now this is where the post by @crypticworlds straight up lies.
A lot of these portal hub owners and guilds are running shops to offset the cost of maintain the portal hubs and networks
In all of my weeks of playing, there is only 1 item in the game you very, VERY rarely ever see in a store. Rough Oort. Next to no one ever sells Rough Oort, because they are using it themselves to fund their portals. I’ve only ever seen 2 shops sell Oort Stones, Krafter for 300, and a second shop I won’t mention so I can keep buying shards from them.
Either way tho, Rough Oorts are VERY RARELY sold, and it’s only a VERY TINY ammount.
So all that money from shops? That isn’t going to maintaining the costs of Hubs or Networks. All that money is extra. They already farm the Rough Oorts themselves to maintain the ports, whats more most portals on a hub are run by the players themselves, the Portal Hub owners are only maintaining 1-2 portals on each world, linking back to the Hub world.
For this example, I’ll use Portal Seekers as the ‘Hub Group’.
Look at this picture, it shows all the worlds the Portal Seekers are connecting. But here’s the thing. See those white lines connecting planets? Each one is 2 portal, going back and forth. However, you only have to maintain 1 of them, for them both to work. So basically, each line is 1 portal to maintain. Lets count them.
1, 4, 12. I counted 42. (Guess 42 really is the answer to everything! Ha!). Anyways, that’s only 42 Portals they have to Maintain. That sounds like a lot, and it is, till you realize that most people only run 1 or 2 portals each. So depending on how big Portal Seekers is, and I’ve seen videos with Vii mentioning he doesn’t have permission on all the Portal Hubs, each portal hub could be run by a different player, each only having to maintain 1-2 portals each. Which is much more managable. That 1 player alone, can go out and easily Farm Meteors to fund his 1-2 portals.
So that brings in the question. If there actually aren’t that many portals to maintain, and they are easily managed and farmed by 1-2 people per hub to run it, and no one is selling Oort Stones, either in a shop or in the request Baskets, Where are the 20k+, per day Footfall, and all the money from “A lot of these portal hub owners and guilds are running shops” Going?
Because it’s a flat out lie that the stuff is maintaining the Portals.
Either way tho, no one is going to actually answer that with the truth, but it does bring up a point. Namely, the Portal Hubs are actually very easy to manage, especially with a guild of just 40 people, or even cut that in half to 20 people if people are in control of more than 1 hub, and working together by giving extras to those that need it. But they are still making lots and lots of money from Footfall.
And while there have been players trying to make other Portal Hubs, like Ultima HQ and the Aqua Hub, they are both A, not up to snuff as Portal Seekers who had a massive headstart, and B, work from a central position built in the middle of a city, instead of smaller hubs around the different planets like Portal Seekers, so players and shops have to pay a lot more to go to those hubs, while Portal Seekers was there first, and has portals ready on each planet that is cheap for all shops and players already there.
Aqua and Ultima HQ look bigger, because they are focused in a city, but Portal Seekers see many more people walking around, exploring, and traveling, because they already ‘colonized’ all the planets first with their Hubs, so they see much more Footfall every single day because they were there first, and created their hubs first, and planned everything first.
No one else, Ultima, Aqua, and other little hubs don’t stand a chance, because people will constantly use Portal Seekers, since they have a hub of every planet, and every shop and city and make a portal to those hubs.
Clearly, Portal Seekers have an advantage, clearly they can also fund themselves easily just by farming like they did before the game came out for every player. So what do you know, the people with a head start? They have lots and lots of extra free money, to do anythign and everything they ever wanted. And all they need to do, is spend about 30 minutes looking around for Meteors with all their Gem forged gear they already made, then could easily buy and craft themselves.
The 1% gets better, because they were there first, while everyone else tries to catch up, but they can’t, because people like what is already there, and what works, over something new created by a new group that they can’t even make cheap 1x2 or 2x2 portals to.
For the “us vs. them” conspiracy theorists: Portal Seekers have less collective guild wealth generated from portal hubs than the top players possess in their /personal/ coffers right now. We have 12 million “extra” (read: “remaining after oort cost”) coin generated for a hub system that has been running since the 3rd day after early access began. If the guild of “just 40 people” decided to take a cut equally, we’d all get less than 300,000 coin right now for over four weeks of footfall generation. I can make that amount in my shop in 1 day using items I can farm with stone and copper tools, combined with a not-even-prime portal connection to the Portal Seekers Grovidias Te hub. I can’t even begin to tell you how not-worth-it a portal hub is to run for someone seeking a profit vs. someone who can gather or mine materials.
If you want to know the secret to the success of hub groups like PS, Ultima and Aqua, it’s dedication to the craft, and the selfless, cooperative effort of guild members and leadership. Specifically regarding the Portal Seekers: only the oort stone is bought with coin. Ever think about who crafts portal conduits? Signs? Refined stone? Brick? None of the materials are bought with guild coin, but if they were, I bet their hubs would be a bit more lavish, eh?
And giving away the entire guild budget is scary. We really don’t know what kind of new balances could be implemented in terms of cost, but our group of people is dedicated to hurdling the challenge. It’s like… our thing. We’re hosting a community event to give away our “free money,” too. Right here, if anyone fancies themselves the artist 
🏆 12 Million Coin - 2D Art Competition! Sponsored by Portal Seekers!
For one thing, I was using Portal Seekers as an example, not actually calling them out. Portal Seekers has always been helpful, helping every player and city. But you have to admit, if you didn’t get a portal hub up first, designed in the way you did from experience gained before the game released fully for everyplayer, you wouldn’t be as big or ‘rich’ as you were. Even if every member getting a cut is small, that’s still a lot of money all together.
(Plus that 300k is NOT small, I’ve gained total, after weeks of playing, maybe a total of around 20k, all spent buying tools, getting a portal up and running, and buying shop stands and request baskets. If you think 300k is so small, how about you give that to me for free?)
No, my beef generally is with Ultima Hub HQ, who like I mentioned, is hosted only in 1 city. And even if you lived on that same planet, the portals they make towns and shops have are massive, which takes a lot of resources too keep going.
And it doesn’t help they are double dipping, not only with forcing everyone through one central location, unlike Portal Seekers which is spread out across every planet, The shops in Ultima HQ right across the path to the Portal Network are all overpriced in what they sell, while undercutting massive in their request baskets. And being right next to the Hub, also making lots of Footfall too, and luring in new players that use their Hub.
It’s so sickening, compared to how Portal Seekers runs and does business.
Edit:
PS. I didn’t mention it, because it was implied, but I’ll flat out say it. Portal Seekers would generate less Footfall over all, because they are split all around to every planet. Some planets would get more traffic than others. But Hubs like Aqua and Ultima HQ are all centralized, Every portal leads back to the Main Hub, every player has to go to the main hub to go to anywhere else. So the main hub is making a LOT of Footfall, every day, from every single player that uses any of their portals for any reason.
Please then, tell me the secret of how I can make 300k in ONE day with just stone and copper tools.
No public portal network is not a doomsday in my eyes. Why is it in yours?
I’m getting almost no footfall. But I also don’t have any public portal. Hub network like Aquarius or PS one, cost many, many oort shards an hour. If the shards spend wont generate money to buy more, there wouldn’t be no portals, or they would be mostly offline. Anyway, you may not read any of my previous statement in different topics, so I write it again: I don’t care for money, I don’t use it, I accumulate it from a tiny bit of footfall, and journal task, but have nothing to spend them on. I play it like other most MMO’s… almost exclusively in single player mode. I advocate dropping footfall altogether, because that would make game much more interesting for me, like for example the extinction of public portals networks.
Where did you get idea anyone wanted a FAIR start? Devs actually wanted easier start for the general public, with portal hubs on planets, and economy started already. So new people could buy things at all, instead of gathering all by themselves. You still don’t seem to understand that in grander scheme the coin is almost totally irrelevant. Well… it would be if there would be no footfall, because then there would be too little income from the dailies and journal task, and too much going out of economy from the money sinks.
They stated long before early start when wipe will happen, and that there will be no after that. They just kept their word.
To make portal you need diamonds, for the workbench coils… so why do you compare “stone and copper tools” to “having portal conduits” one? Does not make any sense…
You don’t want any discussion. You just want to shout out loud, “EA is unfair” and disregard anyone who does not agree. You simply don’t have any counterargument, because you refuse to look at this problem of yours from a broader perspective.
Not to mention that you failed to answer most important question. What does this lead, this advantage really gives you? It’s the biggest mystery of your posts.
It is you and your tunnel vision are the ones not deserving response. This will be last post to any of yours. Hope you’re happy.
Thank you for your post @Janna55, because it makes sense. I disagree with the price gouging point, because this is free market, and anyone has the freedom to put any price they want on any item they have. If you don’t like the price then don’t buy it. No one is forcing anyone to buy it. Also please take into consideration that if you visit a shop, or just a plot of anyone else, you are not robbed or anything, beside maybe your time. You loose nothing when plot owner get footfall. He/she get it for free. Also please remember that there is nothing stopping you from making your own hub and attract players to use it. Also placing for example nice bridges (over 10K prestige) in strategic places can really net you a really good coin, and when you build it… you don’t have to do anything else, and still get many coins.
@Jirodyne I agree with most what you wrote, but one thing. Ultima Aqua Hub was there from day one too, i was there for a while, so I even remember how they expanded early days. But your post also proves one major thing. What makes PS unique is how do they build their hubs, and how they manage layouts and connections. If anyone would came up with better network starting now, people would probably move to their network.
Anyway, i’m tired of this this topic, it’s weekend, I need a break, and when I get back there will be too much posts to read 
For these…
I don’t make that much every day, but I do some days. I gather stuff and have spots bookmarked. It’s positively correlated with the amount of time I spend gathering, of course. 
I maintain low portal overhead by farming my own oort stones at hunts, keeping my shop on the same planet as the hub I’m connecting to, and I only connect to one hub due to my shop’s small size.
I’m only interjecting when I see hub guilds getting a bad rap because people think they’re all rich. None of the guild funds for hub owners in PS go to hub owners’ pockets, so every once in a while we have to remind the forums that this remains guild policy. 
And maybe PS does make less footfall, but I’m sure you already know that for us it’s more about striking an efficient balance of administrative hassle, server limitations, and fuel efficiency in order to keep the system running. We’re always open to questions/comments/suggestions, btw. That doesn’t mean a nice suggestion will always work within the guild parameters, but anyone is welcome to pop into discord and have a chat. I’m pretty sure some of our really boring snoozefest guild meetings are posted somewhere, too. Some of these suggestions make it into the meeting!
no further comment needed…
looks like u trash on something, and when it starts to hit back u just change the target and continue. clearly one of the worst kind of whataboutism ive seen
If you think shops in Ultima hub are sickening you really haven’t travelled much.
I’ll just say 2 things.
Listen, personally I don’t gaf what someone sells theirs goods for or how they make money, there’s no law against it, but you claiming (or insuating) the ultima guys are raking it in at the expense of new players or whatever is a giant crock of you know what. From every convo i’ve caught, it seems they have some care for how their guild, shops and network is perceived.
Btw i’ve seen plenty of players selling their oorts to the hub baskets, i’m one of them.
/Seriously, if this upsets you so much, do something. Put together a guild of concerned Oorts and make a huge shopping complex that is dirt cheap and run a portal network that runs on charitable donations and you can donate every footfall coin to the “Save a Wildstock Foundation”
I said my beef generally was with Ultima HQ, I didn’t say All. I still feel that Portal Seekers got an unfair advantage, which is why I used them in the example, but I pointed out that they aren’t too bad either. I still feel no other Hub is going to work out well against them without a LOT of effort from the other people, while Portal Seekers have less effort since they are so spread out first.
Both systems have their strength and faults. Portal Seekers don’t get as much centralized Foodfall, since some planets are visted less than other. So someone visiting just Biitula only for shopping for example, would only see them giving Footfall once, to the Biitula Hub. The same with all the players, each giving their footfall to the different owners in the different planets.
But Ultima HQ’s Portal system has all the planets linked back to Finata at their hub. So it doesn’t matter where the player lives, if they use the Ultima HQ, every single one has to go through their Hub, every single one gives Footfall onto the Hub Beacon.
But the other ‘Issue’ is that Portal Seekers don’t have a ‘Main Hub’ that all the Portals link to, the portals are only linked to the planets around them, and one might lead to the HQ. But the Portal Hubs by Portal Seekers are just that. Portal Hubs. Not Cities, not towns, not market places.
Ultima HQ, is a massive city condensed around the Portal Hub, with the 2 shops literally not even 50 blocks away also have a Portal in the Portal Hub, and even Krafter having it’s own Portal Hub inside of the shop, with 2 of it’s walls being portals to other locations and shops too.
Lol, I have traveled far, been to many shops across many planets. There might be a few minor dead shops with worse prices, sure. But they were all far, out of the way, and most of them dead with no players around. But the Shops in Ultima Hub? They are constantly bursting with players. Every time I visit, morning, evening, and even in the middle of the night, there are people looking around the shops all the time.
Yes, there might be other worse shops, but they are hidden and out of the way. But these shops are right next to the Hub, they are seen by all players. Both old and new. And I have seen many, MANY more shops that have better prices than them. But again they are out of the way, small shops found only through Portal Seekers on planets people might not visit as often.
Not everyone like making a massive shopping mall to sell things, some people might not even like selling many different kinds of things. Me for example I generally try to only sell Iron Tools. A little bit of Copper, some Refine Stone stored and uses if no one buys it first. And as far as I’ve seen, I’ve only ever seen 2 shops with cheaper prices than me.
But being out of the way, my shop isn’t visited much, and those that visit don’t buy anything very often, because they most likely bough the stuff already much more expencively somewhere else.
There is also the system of convenious. Humans are Lazy beings. Why spend an hour+ looking through shops, where there is a shop right next to the hub. Sure the items are more expencive, but you save time. So you buy there. It’s your choice, but it’s a choice the shop is exploited for money. The same with selling to their request baskets.
I mean seriously, I challenge you to go to Krafters, and tell me their prices are fair. For selling the item. For buying with Request baskets. And when you compare the gap between the two.
Just cause it’s something people can do, and it’s something people choose to buy and sell at, doesn’t make it morally right or fair. It’s exploiting people, and profiting off them. Being so close to the Hub, prices should be more fair for items, and requesting with higher pay, because it would be visited by so many people all the time. The profit of 300 items sold at 100c and bought at 90c, is higher than 30 of the same item sold at 150c and bought at 50c.
It’s been proven, that you can make more profit, and move items much more often and more of said items being moved, if it was fair cheap price, instead of a large fat unfair price.
all u do is envy people for their stuff… get over it
hub builder did the same grind, the same hardships that u denounced in several threads and amplify as “impossible” and “unfair” and “boring” and they did a thousand times more effort and time in than u do into ur place.
And u wanna criticize shop owner for their prices or convenient location? u realize that u wouldnt dare to go to ur wal mart at the corner although THEY DO EXACTLY THE SAME. way over 50% of a price of a product takes the retail this is common trade practice everywhere around the world. the people who raise the pig, feed the pig every day, clean the stable: they get 10% of the pork end price. And its for the same reason: convenience. because u are too lazy (and it just wouldnt be feasible in larger scale) that u and everyone around u would travel directly to the farmer to get ur raw products.
Lmfao the activists guild and charity. Guaranteed to not work together unless called out on it
Welcome to life, where behind every dollar, pound or euro somewhere, somehow is human misery or blood.
You have the choice to shop elsewhere and a new player isn’t going to breeze into town on day1 and start buying up the expensive items. New players will start conservatively. Doesn’t take long to realise there are giant signs saying “Shop portals” and you have a lot of choice.
…and just because you see a lot of players running around looking, doesn’t mean they are throwing coin at marked up items. I see stocks sit at the same number for days, sometimes weeks.
I’m confident in saying tho there are big shops with higher prices, I refuse to call them out though bc it’s their business. To hell with moral arguments too…I don’t want to go to rl but if you know social media, certain movements etc…Well they’ve wrought more chaos than they claim to want to solve. I no longer put much stock in people wanting “fairness” It never ends well and usually there’s an ulterior motive linked to an ideology they hold too, and it isn’t the fairness ideology.*
I hope the devs do not listen to you; You’re angling for regulation/price fixing from what I can see and it would ruin what economy there is.
*Heck, in todays world even that sentence could start a flamewar, understand if a mod deletes it.
Its not a donation when you pay almost full market value for buying. These “donations” baskets are simultaneously 25-50c less than the TOP buyers who cant keep up buying at those prices, and 75c more than what most people are willing to buy at
First of all, shame on you Honourless for trying to tell Jirdyne that their opinion doesnt matter. Everyone’s opinions matter and the Dev should try to read as many different opinions as possible.
Secondly, I think there needs to be a set default price (like in every single MMO). Take WoW for example, you can sell cloth linen for like 10copper to the NPCs, but in the AH you can sell it for 5gold each.
Having a baseline default price for most items is a good way to fix the econmey, not mess it up.
i think honourless meant that he hopes the devs doesnt decide in jiros favor (listen to has several meanings and u cherry picked there, just to get the opportunity to scold him
The economy still doesnt need a fix and what does baseline default price fix anyway lol makes not sense at all
I didn’t say the opinion didn’t matter. I said I hope the devs disregard it as it’s dangerous to a player run economy. Read what you quote.
Unless opposing something you think is irrelevant is normal now?
Oh dear we can’t have people wanting fairness in society. Just as well those wanting to keep the status quo don’t have an ‘ulterior motive’ eh.
The status quo that generally works? Yes, think i’d keep that rather than putting the game through a potentially disastrous change when it can ill afford it.
While I don’t personally care, and it’s a complex issue, I don’t think there’s any denying that people who were able to establish large settlements with shops early on have an advantage. They do. It’s just how it is.
The only hope is that over time, those settlements and shops deteriorate and people go looking for new places. Even if folks essentially copied what currently exists, the original places would still be more well known.
I’m not saying it’s good or bad (and frankly, footfall is pretty trivial), but rather, that early players, and those who knew the game before official release, got a jump on the customer base.