No more credits?

Nim

The problem with saying that you can make 40-60k an hour is that, if we're assuming that the overall problem is that it takes too long for newbies to get situated in the game, you're talking about newbies who don't know how to make that much money.

(case in point... how the heck do you even get that much? I'm lucky if I get 40k over 4-6 hours of concentrated effort, and that's when no one's around to provide competition!)

Nellaundra

I just spent like the past six hours straight hunting and only got about 40k.

Sena

Nim said:

The problem with saying that you can make 40-60k an hour is that, if we're assuming that the overall problem is that it takes too long for newbies to get situated in the game, you're talking about newbies who don't know how to make that much money.

This is true, but people are also arguing that you don't need trans skills immediately.

I didn't bring up the potential gold income to argue that newbies can get gold just fine, but rather to point out that eventually, once you get settled into the game and learn your way around, it's entirely reasonable to trans skills without spending money, even if it looks like it will take forever when you're a newbie.

Nim

@Sena: They're saying that here, but the moment you say you want to PVP, general consensus changes to "oh, you need quadtrans." Not even tritrans, literally all three class skills + survival at minimum.

Which isn't true either, but it's still a discouraging combination for a newbie that wants to get into combat. Reaching level 70 is like, oh... that's... it, no more free lessons. And then you look and find out it'll still take hundreds of lessons to trans your first class skill (assuming you're in a class that can afford to have focused on just one skill to begin with). And it's all just so discouraging.

That's my personal actual issue with it all.

Averi

@Nim or pentatrans with weaponry! >.<

Nim

@Averi: That's true. I forget that BMs only need Weaponry for its low-end abilities, while other classes legitimately "need" to trans it. So, 4-5 skills.

Averi

@Nim when I started combatting, I was told to get tri-trans and envenom and then we could start talking about offense. I needed monotrans just to stop missing when bashing so like after a year of sucking at my class, i gave up and bought credits. 

But in short, some classes have way higher upkeep than others. My monk and druid for example, can bash perfectly fine without any trans. And I can even offense on the monk without transing tekura!

Iocun

Nim said:

@Sena: They're saying that here, but the moment you say you want to PVP, general consensus changes to "oh, you need quadtrans." Not even tritrans, literally all three class skills + survival at minimum.

Well, actually, many classes only need one or two transed class skills, so "tritrans" actually often rather means "two class skills and survival". True enough, to compete at the very top tier you'll likely need more than that (unless you're a dragon), but it's a rather gradual thing there. What you truly need is your main class abilities and certain survival ones.

Darklyre

Nim said:

@Sena: They're saying that here, but the moment you say you want to PVP, general consensus changes to "oh, you need quadtrans." Not even tritrans, literally all three class skills + survival at minimum.

Which isn't true either, but it's still a discouraging combination for a newbie that wants to get into combat. Reaching level 70 is like, oh... that's... it, no more free lessons. And then you look and find out it'll still take hundreds of lessons to trans your first class skill (assuming you're in a class that can afford to have focused on just one skill to begin with). And it's all just so discouraging.

That's my personal actual issue with it all.

It's somewhat true for most classes. A Blademaster won't get too far without at least trans Two Arts and a hefty amount of Striking (because of how absolutely necessary Broken Star is), and Occultists need Supercharge and a hefty amount of Occultism and Domination to be anything more than an annoyance one on one. One on one, Serpents practically have to be at least dual or tri-trans.

Some classes, though, can get by with just one or two trans skills. A mono-trans Tekura monk is perfectly viable, for instance. Classes with tradeskills can go without (Magi don't need Enchantment, especially if rogue, and while Concoctions and Transmutation are nice and handy they're not necessary). Knights can go without fullplate (though the cost of rapiers is probably somewhat equal, credit-wise, to transing Forging), and Weaponry's most relevant skills are duplicated in Chivalry. Serpents that don't care about one on one can just go trans subterfuge and killsteal all day long.

Edit: Ugh, my quotes suddenly aren't working right anymore...

Nellaundra

Nim and I were killing each other without even monotrans way back when.  It was only possible -because- we had similar levels of skill (both out of game skill at the system and skills gained ingame)


To add to that, I was really only -able- to learn what I did because I had a regular sparring partner who was around my skill level.  If I had just ended up throwing myself against the piles of penta-trans and artied people like most newbies do, I would've just given up a looooong time ago.

Iocun

One-and-a-half trans serpent (subterfuge, some medium hypnosis level) is perfectly viable, as long as you also have survival on top of that. Single-trans monk, however, I'm quite doubtful about. You pretty much need kaido to survive damage classes and to defeat tankier/riding opponents.

Nim

Yeah. Don't feel like you have to correct me - I've been PVPing since probably before I could even impale as a Blademaster. Definitely before blade twist though. I've tried to make only having up to neck strike work against mounted opponents. I've tried to kill a monk with clotting before learning impale slash. It's all very challenging, but not necessarily impossible.

It left me feeling, though, that if you're a newbie who wants to get into combat, you should just get into combat anyway, and ignore anyone who tells you to "wait until you trans this skill." The thing is, either way is still discouraging. You're either going to lose a lot (I can personally handle it - trying to win unwinnable battles is something I enjoy, but not everyone can handle that), or you're basically told that you can't do it yet, and it'll take potentially months before you can.

Teg

Mishgul said:

I tri trans my proteges out of my own pocket if they ever progress far enough and look like they are going to stay, otherwise as HL i syphon house credits to them.

Dammit carms there were times when I would have gone any city/house for this

Teg

Daeir said:

Penwize said:

Sena said:

@Daeir With less than 2 hours per RL day (which is admittedly still a lot more time than some people have), you can be tri-trans in around 2 months. Faster if you have access to house/city credit sales or there's a promotion going that gives lessons/credits. That is a long time compared to most games, but it doesn't seem "prohibitively difficult" to me.

I'm actually not sure that's so long compared to most games.  To those of you who have played MMOs (WoW, EQ, etc), how long did your first max level character take you, if you were only able to play a few hours a day?  Tri-transing is sort of like getting max level, since you finally have access to all of your class abilities then (like hitting max level in an MMO!).  Could it be made quicker? Sure, but if you compare it fairly to levelling systems of other games, it's pretty comparable. 

Also, don't forget that Achaea has the bonus lessons on binding credits for the first ... what is it, 1000?  I don't remember, but it's a fair bonus to get people started when they convert credits.  Getting those credits IG might seem insurmountable when you're making 6k/hour, but 6k/hour is really low even for a lowbie.  Ask your house or city to help you learn how to make more!

124 hours of playtime on a single char is IMMENSE compared to other MMO. I am by no means a hardcore player and I was able to get a max-level, optimally geared Death Knight in WoW in under 60hrs /played time. Even for slower more traditional MMOs like Wurm Online, Mortal Online and Darkfall, 124 hours is more than enough to obtain endgame level status with lots of room to spare. It's simply not compatible man, I have wasted so much of my life on standard MMOs to know the general curve they follow in regards to class skill learning, and Achaea astonished me at how slowly you obtain skills through normal play with its lesson system. It's just slow. Not really up for debate. 124hrs is 5 days worth of dedicated playtime for one transcendent skill. Nearly a week of completely uninterrupted bashing.

The binding credit bonus is for the first 1300 or 1600, I believe, which is not an insignificant amount, as you say. It still isn't enough. Perhaps that bonus could be extended to 3cr extra instead of 1.5 and be extended to cover enough bonus lessons for 2 trans skills (aka 2500+) instead of what it is currently.

@Sylvance: Reread "a few hundred pounds" over in your head a few times and visualize what you could purchase physically with those "few hundred pounds". Visualize it in food if you like, or video game cartridges, or whatever you like buying. Reread it a couple of times and then realize that much money is going towards increasing a number in a videogame so that you can play it more effectively. Other MMOs may shaft you for gear, novelty items or with subscription fees. The way Achaea is run promotes payment for simple access to core class mechanics if you don't feel like having to grind it excessively, and then on top of that, demands further investment on artifacts or non-class skills in order to be competitive in a combat environment with some classes, all the while offering a subscription which would give you "increased value" on credit purchases and a flat experience boost per month as you keep it active.

We just put up with it because we like the game and are willing to deal with that. Any other game that tried such a model would be plastered across the wall in little dripping bits as soon as they mentioned such a ridiculous payment model.

You can refute this all you like with "you don't have to pay for it" and that's a perfectly viable argument. You really don't have to pay for it, if you feel like spending 15 days worth of playtime just to unlock a class' full ability set by normal means. If you like doing that, awesome! I don't, and I don't imagine a lot of new players who realize this do either. We'd have a lot more people playing the game if the lesson issue was amended somewhat. That is what the thread is about after all, is it not?

I fully support any effort to reduce the time/money cost in lesson investment whilst retaining the costs required for artefacts. Spending credits on artefacts is perfectly justifiable. Spending money/inordinate amounts of time to unlock the full abilities of your class is really not, no matter how you attempt to word it.

There is no such thing as overcharging for any non-essential items (and by that I mean non-essential items irl), IRE charges $300 for tri-transing a char because people are willing to pay for it. Ultimately value is subjective and the collective aggregated opinion of the people who do pay for credits is that access to core class mechanics without having to grind is apparently worth $300 because otherwise there wouldn't be people paying for it. You can argue that -you- personally don't find it to be worth it because, such as the case that other MMOs which don't demand as much time/money, but then there's the question of why you don't just switch to those other MMOs if you think they are more fairly priced. Ultimately you are a consumer is given the choice between purchasing $300 of Achaea or $15/month of WoW....well not everyone is going for the latter so there is probably something to the former.

And "you don't have to pay" extends to beyond just "you can grind", you don't have to play Achaea period.

Tael

Disclaimer: I read the first page of this thread before I couldn't stomach any more of the entitled bullshit.

I've been playing this game for a literal decade. There are always things to do and the admin are always working on things. They have the best relationships with the players I have ever seen in any game. If I had more money to give them, I would give it to them. Hell, I would give them money even if it weren't earning me anything in-game or if I weren't even playing the game anymore just to support what they're doing. They are doing something absolutely incredible that few if any other people are doing and I have never once regretted a single cent I've given them or a single cent they've asked of me for something. And my income isn't particularly large nor do I have a particularly limited range of interests outside of Achaea.

You can cry that this is sycophantic nonsense all you want, but that changes nothing. I guess you can be unhappy that it is putatively "free" but that there are typically costs associated with many parts of it, but that's some serious naivity. I don't in any way think that it's reasonable to jump on the "you can get it all for free" bandwagon because, for the average person, it isn't reasonable to put in the effort needed to get many things in the game for free. But that's fine, because the average person can afford to fork over some limited amount of cash and, feelings of entitlement based on the "free" monicker aside, I don't see absolutely anything wrong with that.

This is a great game run by great people. If you can't afford to support it, that's unfortunate, but hey - there are mechanisms in place (albeit worse mechanisms) to allow you to eventually experience most if not all of the same things with some more effort. It's not an ideal solution, but it's the best you can do since, if it were easier to do things for free, there would be little incentive for players who can afford it to give any money. But, as I suspect is true in most cases, if you can afford it, but simply don't think you should be expected to support the game, I don't think you deserve any sympathy.

Teg

Sena said:

Nyboe said:

So after we reach this point in the game becomes either pay to progress your skills or live in a basement bashing/ratting/questing for gold at 6-7k an hour.

You can get far more than 6-7k an hour. Casual questing can get you 20-25k gold per hour, serious questing can get you more than 40k in an hour if you don't have much competition for the quests. High level bashing also gives a lot of gold.

Blujixapug said:

By the time you reach level 70, due to the increasingly steep curve of exp required to level, it starts to become easier to acquire gold from hunting/questing and buy credits from the credit market, city sales, or House sales than it does to level up.

This is also a good point. It's true that the free bound credits stop at level 70 (for a total of 100), but you're actually getting more credits per level after 70 even without the automatic rewards, and the credits/level ratio continues to rise pretty quickly.

People have earned thousands of credits in the game, without "living in a basement" and grinding 24/7.

Wow, 25k-40k sounds like a pretty high number but since I haven't played in a long time I assume it's because the game really changed over the years.

Arlanda

Nim said:

The problem with saying that you can make 40-60k an hour is that, if we're assuming that the overall problem is that it takes too long for newbies to get situated in the game, you're talking about newbies who don't know how to make that much money.

(case in point... how the heck do you even get that much? I'm lucky if I get 40k over 4-6 hours of concentrated effort, and that's when no one's around to provide competition!)

Ha. Even if they can do it of course they won't tell you how! Otherwise they won't be able to achieve that in future

Nyboe

Tael said:

Disclaimer: I read the first page of this thread before I couldn't stomach any more of the entitled bullshit.

I've been playing this game for a literal decade. There are always things to do and the admin are always working on things. They have the best relationships with the players I have ever seen in any game. If I had more money to give them, I would give it to them. Hell, I would give them money even if it weren't earning me anything in-game or if I weren't even playing the game anymore just to support what they're doing. They are doing something absolutely incredible that few if any other people are doing and I have never once regretted a single cent I've given them or a single cent they've asked of me for something. And my income isn't particularly large nor do I have a particularly limited range of interests outside of Achaea.

You can cry that this is sycophantic nonsense all you want, but that changes nothing. I guess you can be unhappy that it is putatively "free" but that there are typically costs associated with many parts of it, but that's some serious naivity. I don't in any way think that it's reasonable to jump on the "you can get it all for free" bandwagon because, for the average person, it isn't reasonable to put in the effort needed to get many things in the game for free. But that's fine, because the average person can afford to fork over some limited amount of cash and, feelings of entitlement based on the "free" monicker aside, I don't see absolutely anything wrong with that.

This is a great game run by great people. If you can't afford to support it, that's unfortunate, but hey - there are mechanisms in place (albeit worse mechanisms) to allow you to eventually experience most if not all of the same things with some more effort. It's not an ideal solution, but it's the best you can do since, if it were easier to do things for free, there would be little incentive for players who can afford it to give any money. But, as I suspect is true in most cases, if you can afford it, but simply don't think you should be expected to support the game, I don't think you deserve any sympathy.

The admins can still charge players for artefacts and people will still pay for those. But why charge money for something that is a main feature of a game(lessons)?

We are all humans with lives. The admins shouldn't have to torture people into doing mindless repetitive boring tasks for hours and hours for some gold.  Making it so that people have to pay for lessons is just stepping it way too far.

I believe Achaea has many new players who quit every day due to frustration of not being able to progress their character quick enough.

Penwize

Arlanda said:

The problem with saying that you can make 40-60k an hour is that, if we're assuming that the overall problem is that it takes too long for newbies to get situated in the game, you're talking about newbies who don't know how to make that much money.

(case in point... how the heck do you even get that much? I'm lucky if I get 40k over 4-6 hours of concentrated effort, and that's when no one's around to provide competition!)

Ha. Even if they can do it of course they won't tell you how! Otherwise they won't be able to achieve that in future

I don't mind telling you how I do it.  Find an area that you can kill quickly without hit and run.  Emphasis on quickly and without hit and run.  Now, learn what quests apply to that area.  Is there a denizen that takes their corpses maybe, and pays for them?  There's usually something for every bashing are that I've seen.  Find it, and use it.  Now, kill that area quickly.  You will have probably made a decent chunk of change.

Shirszae

They do it simply because people are willing to pay. The funny thing is, then they wonder why so many new players leave. Because on top of this being a text game, which by itself is enough to scare most people away, it is quite expensive to even begin to be competent.

Drauka

It's a niche market and IRE seems to be doing well with it and have for quite a while.

It's all speculation about why people that join the game leave, we just don't have that data. It could be for any number of reasons, and if I had to guess, it would be for reasons we can't easily say because we are already invested in the game and playing it (typing the commands, knowing how everything works [mostly], and it being second nature to us). Who knows? IRE would need to try to poll these people, and even then it'll only be of the ones that chose to respond.

There is a learning curve far above just the lessons and credits mumbo-jumbo. I'd be weary of jumping to conclusions about why new players may not stick around. It may just be that it's not for them. 

I started looking at MUDs because my laptop wasn't powerful enough to play graphic-type games, and yet still I wanted a "d&d fix". Heck, my laptop now still can't really play many graphical games, and I don't mind that. I gave my girlfriend my Diablo 3 license and she plays that, while I play this.

Anywho. For all that you get for free, paying a bit if you can doesn't seem like too much to ask. How much do people blow on stupid things or hobbies? Heck, I've spent 300 credits worth at a bar in one night. Pay for what gives you value, it drives the economy.

Sena

Arlanda said:

Ha. Even if they can do it of course they won't tell you how! Otherwise they won't be able to achieve that in future

It's hard to go into too much detail because publicly sharing quest information isn't allowed. My favourite areas (not necessarily the best) for gold though are Ulangi/Mysia, Inbhir Ness, and Ilyrean (if you plan on staying there for long enough for it to be worth the trip, or you can shipreturn there).

Having some sort of autowalker and a good travel ability/artefact will make a huge difference too.

Sarapis

Drauka said:

It's all speculation about why people that join the game leave, we just don't have that data. It could be for any number of reasons, and if I had to guess, it would be for reasons we can't easily say because we are already invested in the game and playing it (typing the commands, knowing how everything works [mostly], and it being second nature to us). Who knows? IRE would need to try to poll these people, and even then it'll only be of the ones that chose to respond.
There is a learning curve far above just the lessons and credits mumbo-jumbo. I'd be weary of jumping to conclusions about why new players may not stick around. It may just be that it's not for them. 

Believe me, on an Iron Realms level, this is our #1 priority currently. I would love it if most new players got turned off by credit prices. That would be a fantastic problem for us to have as it would mean they've gotten far enough into Achaea to even consider buying credits or looking at their prices. Maybe it'd mean we could get enough players that we could afford to lower our prices and make it up via volume.

We've been doing a number of things lately, from watching newbies to playing newbies to logging newbie commands. We've been using testing services to pay psuedo-random people to try our games for 15 minutes while screencasting and narrating so we can see what they're seeing and hear what they're thinking. We've been directly talking to newbies. We also have good tracking in these days, so that we can tell about what % of players we lose at every step along the process of becoming a regular player. We know how many people hit the website, how many of those finish character creation, how many start the newbie intro, how many get to every single 'stage' of the intro, how many finish it, how many get to the first hour of play, and so on and so on. 


 There are no easy answers here, as there's no single problem (unfortunately, as that'd be a lot easier to fix than hundreds of problems). 

The fact is, Achaea was designed for text MUD veterans (not intentionally, but in retrospect, no doubt about it), and most text MUD veterans have already made up their mind about Achaea. Therefore, it's all about getting people new to text MUDs, and let me tell you - that is hard. It's hard to make fundamental changes that might make the game more welcoming to newbies without fundamentally altering the experience for all of you existing players, which we don't want to do obviously. Lots of things are underway IRE-wide (like version 2 of the HTML5 client, which is going to be a massive improvement) as well as in Achaea itself, but we're a tiny company with five worlds we work on.

Drauka

I wonder if the problem is how do you create an immersible experience while at the same time trying to teach a new player the commands, history, and still bait them for some next new thing they're almost at and just within grasp of getting. I think the beginning of creating a new player is pretty awesome (from what I remember), it really brought me in. After all the automation was over, it was really the House members that continued the thing. I was given enough guidance and assistance (especially if I asked), and enough to figure out on my own, to allow me to continue.

If at that point I felt like I was on my own and not hooked, or at least curious enough to give it a shot again, I'd probably find something else to do.

For games like Everquest or WoW, you get immediate visual feedback. You can tell how vast a building is, how far away something is, what those around you look like, all without you doing anything but sitting there. With a MUD, you gotta type commands to get all that information. IRE does seem to do a great job in describing pretty much everything very well.

On a personal note for me, it's also hard to turn my back away from time I invest in things. It's very difficult to just turn away.

I wish I had an answer to the million dollar question of "How do we hook new players enough to make them want to come back for more, and then hook them even further... perhaps with them gaining perceived value of investment to return?"

Tasleus

Sarapis said:

Drauka said:

It's all speculation about why people that join the game leave, we just don't have that data. It could be for any number of reasons, and if I had to guess, it would be for reasons we can't easily say because we are already invested in the game and playing it (typing the commands, knowing how everything works [mostly], and it being second nature to us). Who knows? IRE would need to try to poll these people, and even then it'll only be of the ones that chose to respond.
There is a learning curve far above just the lessons and credits mumbo-jumbo. I'd be weary of jumping to conclusions about why new players may not stick around. It may just be that it's not for them. 

Believe me, on an Iron Realms level, this is our #1 priority currently. I would love it if most new players got turned off by credit prices. That would be a fantastic problem for us to have as it would mean they've gotten far enough into Achaea to even consider buying credits or looking at their prices. Maybe it'd mean we could get enough players that we could afford to lower our prices and make it up via volume.

We've been doing a number of things lately, from watching newbies to playing newbies to logging newbie commands. We've been using testing services to pay psuedo-random people to try our games for 15 minutes while screencasting and narrating so we can see what they're seeing and hear what they're thinking. We've been directly talking to newbies. We also have good tracking in these days, so that we can tell about what % of players we lose at every step along the process of becoming a regular player. We know how many people hit the website, how many of those finish character creation, how many start the newbie intro, how many get to every single 'stage' of the intro, how many finish it, how many get to the first hour of play, and so on and so on. 


 There are no easy answers here, as there's no single problem (unfortunately, as that'd be a lot easier to fix than hundreds of problems). 

The fact is, Achaea was designed for text MUD veterans (not intentionally, but in retrospect, no doubt about it), and most text MUD veterans have already made up their mind about Achaea. Therefore, it's all about getting people new to text MUDs, and let me tell you - that is hard. It's hard to make fundamental changes that might make the game more welcoming to newbies without fundamentally altering the experience for all of you existing players, which we don't want to do obviously. Lots of things are underway IRE-wide (like version 2 of the HTML5 client, which is going to be a massive improvement) as well as in Achaea itself, but we're a tiny company with five worlds we work on.

AKA : NOW HIRING

Drauka

Maybe I should keep the newbie channel on.  :-c

Nim

@Tasleus: Don't even joke I would so love to work at IRE. Making a MUD in general would probably alone be a dream come true for me - doing it as a career would be something like a pipe dream!

Silvarien

My two cents about the Elite membership...

I was kinda amazed when it first came out because it so greatly exceeds other promotions. Just the credits, at the max of 150, will give you 1800 cr per rl year for 300 dollars, (not all paid at once,) and 9000 cr for five rl years. I would say that if a player invests wisely, 9000 credits is close to what one needs to be "fully artied," and many Achaea players do stick around for 5 rl years. Considering that Elite also gives lessons and a benefit to xp gained, I think it's the best way to get around not having too much money to spend on credits. I fully agree that blowing like 300 dollars a month is not feasible for many people, but 25 a month, for these benefits, is not too bad. The only thing that is truly needed is patience and a careful plan, from the beginning, on what to buy and when.

For this reason, I personally don't believe this game is "too expensive" for most people to play.

Sarapis

Nim said:

@Tasleus: Don't even joke I would so love to work at IRE. Making a MUD in general would probably alone be a dream come true for me - doing it as a career would be something like a pipe dream!

Best way to get hired by IRE is to start as a volunteer. In the history of our five games, across 16 years, only two people have ever been hired that didn't start out as players and then volunteers on our games.

Xith

Nim said:

Immersion is cool, but I can't see an actual physical event happening as anything other than immersion-breaking. Some introspective message about how you've learned more about the world through your explorations would be cool though.