Iron Elite Membership Updates!

Urnhlug

I personally met numerous people over the past year+ that were new and never seen again, and a few explicitly mentioned how confused they were about the credit system/pricing (wait, ONE simple artefact costs, like, as much as Cyberpunk 2077 is going to..? Uhhh...)

I've been around for a decade+ now coming and going with numerous alts, mostly just to see where the game's at RP wise. This character is one I finally decided to bash to Dragon (which I have a lot of hilarious gripes with as well, Manara was the best XP/hr I could find solo, bar none), I've never spent much, maybe a couple hundred total across all those years, but the entire reason is that the value is horse shit. If artefacts were in the realm of $5-$10, like I'm sure most normal functioning adults would expect, I'd have been playing all these years and probably spent thousands to customize/personalize my character/home/store/etc.

This idea that the game should function on whales is burning the game to the ground. It's unfortunate these "higher ups" are so blind to it, and that whales continue to pay them.

Vhaith

Jumpy said:

There is just no way we can give away more stuff. The membership is the best deal in the game, more than the no-brainer packages.

Achaea is probably the most populated IRE game at the moment, while most (not sure about Starmourn) of the other games have gone 'fully free to play'. 
IRE likely makes a fair bit of money from Achaea. Even though the other games, arguably, have more 'fun' stuff. (You can customise so much of yourself in Imperian, for example).

So, I'm not sure why you're saying that the game that makes you the most money, is the one game you can't afford to reward your player-base a little more, for their continued support and loyalty.

Imperian has the same Elite bonuses as Achaea, with two tokens every month. For the same price.
Lusternia has the same Elite bonuses as Achaea, with a wondercrystal every month. For the same price.
Aetolia has the same Elite bonuses as Achaea, with 20 Iron Coins every month. For the same price.

I don't think everyone is asking for the extra items to be given to every character they have, just to ONE would be nice. 

I don't think it's gonna kill the economy and break the game into a million pieces if you add a talisman cache, or a Mayan Crown, or a sleeve each month to your promotion.

Vhaith

Urnhlug said:

I personally met numerous people over the past year+ that were new and never seen again, and a few explicitly mentioned how confused they were about the credit system/pricing (wait, ONE simple artefact costs, like, as much as Cyberpunk 2077 is going to..? Uhhh...)

I've been around for a decade+ now coming and going with numerous alts, mostly just to see where the game's at RP wise. This character is one I finally decided to bash to Dragon (which I have a lot of hilarious gripes with as well, Manara was the best XP/hr I could find solo, bar none), I've never spent much, maybe a couple hundred total across all those years, but the entire reason is that the value is horse shit. If artefacts were in the realm of $5-$10, like I'm sure most normal functioning adults would expect, I'd have been playing all these years and probably spent thousands to customize/personalize my character/home/store/etc.

This idea that the game should function on whales is burning the game to the ground. It's unfortunate these "higher ups" are so blind to it, and that whales continue to pay them.

Even some of the whales are leaving now too.

Relying on new players, or whales, is a bad strategy. Listen to the people currently playing, and wanting to stick around.

Pyori

Vhaith said:

I don't think it's gonna kill the economy and break the game into a million pieces if you add a talisman cache, or a Mayan Crown, or a sleeve each month to your promotion.

Or just. I don't know... Make the sub price more reasonable. Even AAA games don't cost more than $10-15 a month (if they have a sub model). Not even BDO or Archeage which are the two major p2w wins. The ones that have a sub model, but are f2p/b2p (bdo and ESO come to mind), also give a hell of a lot more for the sub than Achaea does.

The whole 'you get more credits!!' argument kinda falls flat, when the credits are bound off the bat.

Rackham

So I'm not super well versed on these things, but here's my stance on it...

I pay for iron elite because, yes, comparable expenditure on straight credits isn't as directly rewarding. It's already been mentioned that buying that months promo for somebody in exchange for unbound credits is a better deal, so I won't rehash that in depth. I've done it once or twice, and yeah, that's the way to be.

I don't pay for subscriptions for other games. Little surprised that WOW is 15/month, so that's ummm....something to discuss there.

I've even been pulled round to the camp that says 'arties aren't necessary'. Short of some odd outliers (I've heard DWB arties open up kill paths you can't normally do) I'd say you can be functional in any class without them.

Except serpents...

I'm not one, never been one, the serpent combat doesn't appeal to me. BUT. I've been told repeatedly that the class is nearly unusable without artefacts. I'd like some people to weigh in on this, because I VEHEMENTLY deny these claims every chance I get, stating that a class can't be unusable without artefacts. That's a stupid mechanical oversight if that's truly the case. And yet, damn near everybody I talk to says the class is useless without an artefacted dirk. So in that case, having people tell a novice (who likely took serpent for the aesthetic alone) that they are useless without a SIZEABLE drop on an artefact, outside class and mini skills, doesn't bode well for that novice sticking around. "Pick another class, because the one you wanted is expensive to play".

Whether this means that certain artefacts need their price reduced, credits need to be cheaper, or the monthly subscription needs to be more rewarding, I can't really say. But SOMETHING needs to be rehashed, imho.

Vhaith

Pyori said:

Vhaith said:

I don't think it's gonna kill the economy and break the game into a million pieces if you add a talisman cache, or a Mayan Crown, or a sleeve each month to your promotion.

Or just. I don't know... Make the sub price more reasonable. Even AAA games don't cost more than $10-15 a month (if they have a sub model). Not even BDO or Archeage which are the two major p2w wins. The ones that have a sub model, but are f2p/b2p (bdo and ESO come to mind), also give a hell of a lot more for the sub than Achaea does.

The whole 'you get more credits!!' argument kinda falls flat, when the credits are bound off the bat.

Agreed. I was just trying to be logical and square them up with the other IRE games, instead of comparing them to MMO's and stuff. 

You can't really use the logic 'We can't do this cause it's already super cheap', when you're literally doing the exact same thing in every other game you own, for the same price. Well, I mean... you can. Cause they just tried to. But.. y'know. You shouldn't.

Milabar

What happens when the whales die?  We've been at this for two decades now, the whales are getting older, and frankly the numbers of new people are not equating into what it was even a decade ago before the upper management decided to kill off half the population by killing off half the Gods.

Mila has a reasonable amount of artefacts, I've likely spent close to the 20-30k or so mark in money for it, but I still don't get why we can't get the perks the other games get.

I understand it's inventive to try those games since they are basically ghost towns compared to achaea, but your whales are getting older, and sooner or later the revenue will drop cause they can't sustain the game anymore.

Getting more "bang for your buck" will possibly increase not only revenue currently, but possibly increase not only new player interests but retention.

Just my thoughts by someone most consider a "whale" that doesn't have elite since it provides absolutely nothing for me.

(Give me a way to get more room credits easier and I'd resubscribe)

Vhaith

Yeah. I was building a house and then calculated it was going to cost like, 1.5 million gold per room (one door added) and just gave up the entire thing.

BUT if I had a house, then I'd likely look at buying fun house stuff, which adds more to the IRE coffers, since I'd likely have to buy credits and such. So, y'know. There's perks to giving people a little more when they support your game.

Pyori

Rackham said:

I don't pay for subscriptions for other games. Little surprised that WOW is 15/month, so that's ummm....something to discuss there.

WoW is 15/month, but has reducing costs depending how many months you buy at a time. (Also bonus rewards for certain packages).

1 month: $14.99/month
3 months: $13.99/month. Save $12.00 per year.
6-Month & Squeakers (a pet): $12.99/month. Save $24.00 per year.

FF14 has two different subs.

Membership Tier	Subscription Length	Monthly Price
Entry	30 days	€10.95 / $12.99  --1 character per server, instead of 8
Standard	30 days	€12.95 / $14.99
Standard	90 days	€11.95 / $13.99
Standard	180 days	€10.95 / $12.99

Warframe Prime Access is $50 but it's in 3-month cycles, so it's essentially the sameish price. Also gives a lot more value.

ESO is a bit long... So I'll just paste the URL. I'll just say that the added crowns, costs more than the sub itself. And the crafting storage is invaluable if you plan to actually play the game.

BDO's value pack is worth significantly more than $15, if you plan to actually play the game frequently. The weight and storage alone is like $40. Free unlimited customisations is another ~$30 per month. (Also value packs can be bought with in-game currency).

Archeage scrapped theirs for Unchained, their normal version still has it though.

Other less popular MMOs with similar things as well, won't go through those, though.

Keorin

Rackham said:

I'm not one, never been one, the serpent combat doesn't appeal to me. BUT. I've been told repeatedly that the class is nearly unusable without artefacts. I'd like some people to weigh in on this, because I VEHEMENTLY deny these claims every chance I get, stating that a class can't be unusable without artefacts. That's a stupid mechanical oversight if that's truly the case. And yet, damn near everybody I talk to says the class is useless without an artefacted dirk. So in that case, having people tell a novice (who likely took serpent for the aesthetic alone) that they are useless without a SIZEABLE drop on an artefact, outside class and mini skills, doesn't bode well for that novice sticking around. "Pick another class, because the one you wanted is expensive to play".

Newer classes tend to be much better in this regard, but there's a few classes that -really- need artefacts to do well.

Serpent, bard, sentinel all want at least a level 1-2 weapon to have a reasonable affliction speed. Mind Sythe for monk, while not totally necessary for basic combat, is a fairly big part of their offense, and is only available with a diadem. Occie aff speed scales pretty heavily on int/diadem, not sure how it is unartied, though.

Paux

Kinda wish pvp felt more doable from an earlier level. 

Back when I joined serpents and knights were encouraged to fight as early as envenom. Monks when you got scorpion kic, bards when they left Minia, Priests, while you were still in Minia (if you were troll) and 50% spirituality if you weren't.

I don't know if that was because so many were forced into combat, but before arties gated kill strategies, the seemed to be a lot more pk involvement. 

Now it seems more of their world (pk) vs our world. 

But I think it came from there getting so many low level players around that were interested. Low level characters now seem to be mostly alts. 

Edit: Forgot where this thought originated. Please lower credit prices so we can keep our young people. Pay2Win has a bad reputation and this isn't helping. 

Minifie

Valuing credits at 16.6c based off the website for bound credits is odd, too, considering I can usually turn unbound into bound at 1.5-2x value. The game has a myriad of pieces that already exist to ensure sudden-cheap character power bloat is controlled (level 2-3 arties are a steep incline).

you have:
unbounds are a currency, bound are utility
talismans, cards, tome pages
auctions (some broken AF items still in the game)
items timegated based on promos (hello silvery tank)

“You can play and be fine without artefacts”
true, but you are going to HEAVILY constrain the minimum purchasers or f2p base in what they can do. Putting heaps and heaps of time in can bridge this gap, but it depends on which thing you are focusing on. I’m sure some newbie dragon, just starting to hunt for elder seein me waltz into tir and clear most of it while they sit on 3 mobs is disheartening, same as someone looking for their first fight, take a bounty on some lowbie who is actually a retiree, and oops they died before the leg break. 

I could stomach the current price point if playing the game was MORE consistently rewarding to players on that level. I DON’T NEED MORE REWARDS, I am very content and don’t want more things added players like I could exploit. I would much prefer to see:

More IG ways to earn artefacts (the most visible form of character progression)

the renown system already shows that there is ability to offer items, that have 0 impact on the economy (unless “they got a level 1 scimitar for free LOST us money”, in which case you should probably just stop, hang your head in shame and accept you are far, FAR behind the times)

You can add long, time gated quest chains, where players have to start small, and build up towards their reward through an actual push for their character. Want a 0 cr value SoA? Prepare for a daily grind for a month, that requires corpses, gold, exploration, claiming a part of a hellions remnants from a detonated tank, a fragment of a despoiled shrine etc etc. 

Why, still, can you not purchase capped lessons per IG year for gold? Hell, make them lessons that don’t work on tradeskills, but this alone would fix a number of issues (making them worse than normal lessons won’t affect cfs, though at this rate just nuke that from orbit). Gold is still so plentiful in the system, and there are enough paths to bring gold in, but there are still less than perhaps 2-3 legitimate sinks (and ships are barely a sink because there are enough in the game. Hunting for a second hand ship is so much wiser than commisioning a crappy cutter and building from scratch).

The current war set is showing glimpses of taking positive steps forward, however, it has the added drawback of talisman bloat, that the system will end up with a dearth of remainsblood and warcloudbondings that players have to sit on forever. Valuing the completed talismans so cheaply works, but probably let Q be redeemable since they can’t be infinitely spawned.

The death’s call is a nice talisman, love having it, but adding more forays, and solo player ones that have a cooldown would be -amazing-. The culling of Thera, a basic dragon level foray that is done alone, has nornal tir murann and theran mobs. Complete it for 5 bound credits, resets once per day. 

Achaea doesn’t exactly have the devs to make wide, sweeping content addition changes on a whim, but supplementing minor changes that all players can take advantage of, but especially newbies ( lessons for gold ) would take a helluva lot of the sting from the current monetization out, while adding in more rewarding but time gated content will also help.

Getting feedback, even ill-tempered, insulting or frustrating is still good. Painful to the ego, yes, and callous, but people getting emotional means investment, and that’s what the game thrives off of. Having players be apathetic, even in things that are shit, is the first step towards disengagement. ENGAGE us, not our wallets, and for christ’s sake, ignore the bottom line and focus on, “if we were a minimum spender or 0 spend, would I commit to achaea?” People are more inclined than ever to throw a game away without playing it specifically because of monetization practices, and more power to them for it.

I’ve rambled enough, but there is a MASSIVE divide not between devs and players, but executives and the rest. Time to stop being market wallowers and move back to market leaders IMO.

Skye

Long time player here (circa 2001/2002). I'm looking through my paypal automatic payment notices on my email and the breakdown is as follows:

I started my Iron Elite at least around 2013, discontinuing for a period of May 2014 - February 2015 due to unemployment and/or dormancy. Barring that I continued to make membership payments despite the occasional bouts of dormancy sometimes lasting more than a couple of months. 

The cost of Iron Elite Membership is 24.99 USD, with the exchange rate, that's about 35 SGD give or take a dollar. Paypal doesn't always detail the exchange rate, but from what info I have available, the lowest I paid was 34.01 SGD and the highest was in Jan 2016 at 37.35 SGD. Unlike Steam or other game services, there is no reprieve for being in a different region or the exchange rate whatsoever. 

In total I have made about 70 membership payments to IRE, making for an approximate total of 2450 SGD (not including any other additional credit or promo purchases I've made over the years). My last payment was in December 2019 after which I terminated the automatic payment. 

To be honest, when I was actively playing and doing stuff like bashing for dragon, the membership felt pretty worthwhile if only for the XP bonus. But post dragon and many years on, I've felt like not only did the membership depreciate due to no longer meeting my player needs, but the bonuses have just generally become pretty irrelevant financially.

With the exception of the occasional 'get this for every 100 credits purchased' promos, they don't synergise with the majority of promotions we now have which are all separate purchases. At 5 free lessons per day, you're going to find yourself hardpressed to accumulate any meaningful amount of lessons for multiclass learning. The credits are also bound, which is not a fluid currency that you can use for anything but personal upgrades so your character is basically asset rich but cash poor.

You have 413 Credit(s) left.

You have 713 Bound Credit(s) left.

You have 1625 Membership Credit(s) left.

Which, shockingly, actually isn't that much at all in the scheme of things for an established player. If I decided to buy artefact armour those credits would disappear in a puff of smoke. 413 unbound credits also doesn't pay for very much of anything to meet my actual playing needs. It's not going to buy me a shop (it would have like... when I first started playing but now I'd need closer to at least 5 or 6 times the amount), for example. 

Couple this with external factors like the dozens of other services I could be paying for with $35 instead. Players/customers are simply overwhelmed with choices. Which was ultimately my main reason for cancelling the subscription. Like most other people I have a Netflix account (and I'm pretty sure I spend more time watching Netflix than I do actually playing these days) and eventually plan to subscribe to the local Disney plus (this is the way).

Plus, I'll be 35 year (and 500 IG happy birthday me!), that's actually a pretty late age for people to start rethink their financials, though I'm single so I'm not really having to worry about kids or anything. Still, I'm 35 and an extra $420 a year makes a big difference in savings or just flat out treating yourself to a short weekend vacation. 

I think that if not for all those other factors, I would've been okay to just sit on the subscription. At the end of the day, I don't think I'm really so much complaining as reflecting... and I don't think I am the only long term / older player who feels this way. 

-----

As an aside, one suggestion I can make:

The artefact promos (like the current one) always jump from nearly 10 USD for just one item and then to 45 or 50 USD. Which is not only ridiculously expensive but a huge step to take. 

However, the subscription on its own proves that many people are willing to fork out or write off 24.99 USD. So why not offer an in-between promo package (maybe a one time purchase special like the no brainers) at the same price? Even though I have cancelled my subscription, if the promo is particularly interesting, I would not mind dabbling in a one time purchase. 

Alternatively you could even offer it as an alternative to the bound CR by letting subscribers toggle between the bound CR or the promo package. 

Cooper

Jumpy's response is pretty telling of how the top of IRE views the playerbase.

Remember that when you're deciding where to spend your dollar votes. You can play Achaea entirely for free, might be time to prove to Jumpy and Sarapis that we won't accept being treated like cash cows any longer.

Archaeon

Viva la revolućion

Archaeon

Jumpy said:

As I said, we cannot give more bang for the buck. The buck is maxed. We could really only give more bang if we increased the buck.

"I cannot decrease the cost of imaginary currency."

Vhaith

Cooper said:

Jumpy's response is pretty telling of how the top of IRE views the playerbase.

Remember that when you're deciding where to spend your dollar votes. You can play Achaea entirely for free, might be time to prove to Jumpy and Sarapis that we won't accept being treated like cash cows any longer.

They'll just throw in some new shiny thing, that people can't resist buying because 'new and shiny, must have', and this whole thing will be forgotten. Much like so many other things that have caused frustration and a drop in players.

Dragonknight

I mean, what do you expect from the people that removed me from HELP NAMECHANGE.

Yes, I still hold a grudge. Jerks.

Rakdos

Vhaith said:

Cooper said:

Jumpy's response is pretty telling of how the top of IRE views the playerbase.

Remember that when you're deciding where to spend your dollar votes. You can play Achaea entirely for free, might be time to prove to Jumpy and Sarapis that we won't accept being treated like cash cows any longer.

They'll just throw in some new shiny thing, that people can't resist buying because 'new and shiny, must have', and this whole thing will be forgotten. Much like so many other things that have caused frustration and a drop in players.

Aye, I cancelled my elite and just not spending a £1 more on Achaea, just so tired and frustrated, as every single little thing is just too expensive.

It's stupid things, like skills even being gated by credits... I mean seriously, why don't these scale with your level, or obtained in game, like evey other game in existence? That is before actual artifacts, which are just ridiculous, even for L1s.

Vakvyr

Thought some more and yeah, sub dropped. I was fine with everything up until the "Heh." For some reason that tilted me harder than losing to the whales that are keeping the game afloat.

I was content to let the membership ping me every month even if it wasn't that stellar for me as a player. I enjoy Achaea. I don't play as often as I used to or as often as I want to. I had done all the mental gymnastics to justify dropping the ridiculous amount of money I had (although my spending is absolutely trivial next to some). I don't regret spending the money, but I can't continue to give to people that treat their players like this. Shit, "cannot give more bang for buck" even though the less populated games owned by the same company can and do? Fuck off with that shit.

Sidenote: It is super fucking depressing trying to not tell a newbie interested in solo combat that they'll probably need to drop at least $100 to get started. Yeah yeah, they can do x, y, and z to get to blah tier and then--fuck off. It's a significant investment in either time or money - usually both. And for some newbies it just absolutely kills their motivation when they realize it.

Rakdos

But I agree with @Vhaith though, like Oracle (Anyone worked with these?), they tried to min/max profits on every little thing and bleed existing customers dry through licensing for so long, people finally thought screw this and moved onto cloud/open source/other databases that are much, much cheaper.

Unless we actually act and stop giving them insane amounts of money this is going continue as the top down try and find ways to exploit our addictive personalities.

Think this has been raised so many times in the past, but nothing actually happens, sadly as words go on deaf ears.

Krizal

Like Keorin said, we wouldn't be playing if we didn't enjoy Achaea and didn't want to see it succeed and continue to provide us with entertainment long into the future. Making this into "admins vs players" does no one any favours here.

Every player who sticks around makes the world feel more alive. And the longer they play, the more likely they make at least a small purchase here and there. And even if they don't, I'm pretty sure having non-paying players doesn't detract from the experience of those who pay. We play Achaea for entertainment and social interactions, and having more players, paying or no, increases both of those. Giving players a rewarding game-play experience makes them more likely to stick around (duh), to return, and to recommend the game to their friends. Little credit rewards here and there, the PERCEPTION that we can earn everything in-game by working on it, but without having to play for a decade to accomplish it, all make it easier to justify sticking around and maybe even paying for Achaea, rather than going to play some other game.

Back when Achaea was launched, it didn't have the kind of competition in terms of MMORPGs as today, which are arguably much easier to get into than Achaea and don't require nearly the same investment to be "good" at. Achaea's pricing hasn't changed since it was first put in, and while you can argue inflation has naturally decreased the prices, that doesn't take into account the fact that there are no limits to the entertainment options for people outside Achaea, that cost way less than Achaea does. Achaea already suffers in that it's 100% in text, there are a ton of commands to learn just to navigate the basics, you practically NEED a system to be able to PK even with serverside curing, not to mention the time investment to learn how to use your class and counter other classes. On top of that, you can't even transcend your class skills without RL investment or a lot of grinding. Then add artefacts and talismans on top of all that, and the fact that a far larger portion of combatants today have what would've been considered whale-level artefacts in the past, simply because they've accumulated them over time. That's a lot for a newbie to take in, and try to compete with.

On the topic of Iron Elite, a simple solution to making credits more available through IG methods would be to make elite credits unbound, so they could be traded to other players in-game. Sure, maybe those other players would then not need to buy credits with real money. But let's think about the benefits of doing this.

1. Someone ALREADY paid for those credits. The only loss of revenue is the difference in price between iron elite and regular credits. How many people regularly buy (100-150) credits straight up though? Maybe there are a lot of these people, I don't know. I know I'd rather buy into Elite or promos, the RL currency to credit conversion rate is just not appealing, and credits are boring compared to promos.

2. Unbound credits are more valuable. You've instantly improved the value of Iron Elite and thus more people are likely to buy into it.

3. Some of those credits would no doubt go to CFS, thus lowering the gold price. How many of the people who became regular, long-time players, started playing back when the price per credit on CFS was half or less than the current price? How many stuck around because even if they couldn't pay with RL money, they could still learn skills and buy artes entirely through IG means? Of course, it's still entirely possible to earn IG... but the gold price for credits has doubled or tripled, gold generation is capped, gold quests have been nerfed, the big players of the game have had over a decade of time to accumulate artefacts, tons of new artefacts and talismans have been added, and the "level playing field" is simply further away than ever before for someone who starts playing Achaea today.

Telinus

There are so many changes I would love to see for Achaea.

1 - level 1 artefacts are now purchasable in your city for a gold cost - they decay - or even offer a slightly lesser return for con/sip/travel etc. E.G - 50000 gold gets you a 7% sip ring for 10 months or something, a pair of wings that takes you to clouds that has a 3 second wind up and a 1 minute cooldown for 100k that lasts Y months. A level 1 con belt that lasts 10 months for 75k or something, just something so that newbies don't feel completely gimped.

2 - your first class you pickup should be FREE. It should not cost you credits, it should transcend at level 80. You should get credits/lessons as you do at present when leveling. When you drop that class to switch, Now you pay for the new class as the normal price model.

3 - You should be able to TRIAL a class. This should let you become that class for a month - tri trans - this should only be doable once every RL month or some other cost associated. Should cost 25cr - affordable in game, lets you make an informed and real decision on if you want to change.

4 - Talismans and Legenddecks should be purchasable in game using one of the 7 billion currencies that are added and ignored - achievable by multiple means - delosian eagles, renown, momentos, whatever else has been added as a currency.

5 - IRE Elite should start at 150cr/25% XP bonus and 5 lessons, and should include 1 free promo item from the months deal (e.g. 1 globe, 1 arrow(lol), 1 token etc.)

Would most of these benefit me now? Maybe the legenddeck/talismans and the IRE elite promo item - but I'm not massively fussed on those - would the first few make new players stick around cause they are tri-trans with option to "rent" level 1 arties from their city at a goldsink/commodity cost to city? Sure - maybe- idk. It would make me less embarassed to talk about the game to friends, that's for sure.

"Wait you need to buy how much and spend what to do WHAT?" instead becomes "Oh so I can buy a lesser version with gold? Cool. Wings were really handy, I want to buy a permanent set now"

Cobault

I can attest with my literal hundreds of Lucrescent nuts from the stockings in December:

People will flat out give away double the value in bound credits in exchange for the unbound value. I went out of my way to point out to several people selling to me that the nuts were redeemable for 2 bound credits and people were still more than happy to sell them to me at a rate of 1:1 unbound credits. It's also super common to find people selling talisman pieces for several unbound credits under their redeem value.

I needed the bound directly cus I was buying an artie I wanted. Tbh once I got it I stopped buying Lucrescent nuts 🤷🏻‍♂️ rather have my unbound stash.

Cooper said:

Jumpy's response is pretty telling of how the top of IRE views the playerbase.

Remember that when you're deciding where to spend your dollar votes. You can play Achaea entirely for free, might be time to prove to Jumpy and Sarapis that we won't accept being treated like cash cows any longer.

Only shitty part about if everyone suddenly stopped spending on the game and their profits plummeted - we wouldn't be hurting them at all. I don't doubt they have their nest egg and it'd be naive to think Achaea is the only pie they have their finger in (or I guess say that IRE is the basket they keep all their eggs in.) It'd get taken out on everyone beneath them up to the point Achaea had to either be shut down or managed with a skeleton crew of unpaid people desperate to keep the games on life support.

Pyori

Telinus said:

There are so many changes I would love to see for Achaea.

1 - level 1 artefacts are now purchasable in your city for a gold cost - they decay - or even offer a slightly lesser return for con/sip/travel etc. E.G - 50000 gold gets you a 7% sip ring for 10 months or something, a pair of wings that takes you to clouds that has a 3 second wind up and a 1 minute cooldown for 100k that lasts Y months. A level 1 con belt that lasts 10 months for 75k or something, just something so that newbies don't feel completely gimped.

https://www.aetolia.com/game-help/?id=1062

Wait nvm. Nicola said they "don't copy from lesser games"

Telinus

Pyori said:

Telinus said:

There are so many changes I would love to see for Achaea.

1 - level 1 artefacts are now purchasable in your city for a gold cost - they decay - or even offer a slightly lesser return for con/sip/travel etc. E.G - 50000 gold gets you a 7% sip ring for 10 months or something, a pair of wings that takes you to clouds that has a 3 second wind up and a 1 minute cooldown for 100k that lasts Y months. A level 1 con belt that lasts 10 months for 75k or something, just something so that newbies don't feel completely gimped.

https://www.aetolia.com/game-help/?id=1062

Wait nvm. Nicola said they "don't copy from lesser games"

First time I think I've visited the Aetolia website!

Namino

The simple truth behind this is that @Nicola, @Makarios, nor @Ictinus are in a position where they can affect a change here. Their developmental oversight famously extends to all aspects of Achaea except for the one aspect that we're all bouncing off of the walls over: the pricing. Matt, @Sarapis, is doing this weird pseudo ivory-tower move where he's simultaneously cloistering himself from having to make any public statement or outward show of involvement, while actually being the one responsible for the current issue. He's effectively dodging all obligation to answer for his administrative philosophy and putting the Achaea devs in a tight spot where they can't actually address the largest problem plaguing their game, which is patently unfair to them (and us). He needs to either give up control properly or actually take responsibility for the administrative moves he's pushing. This shadow government thing is tiresome.

I think everyone cancelling their subscriptions/swearing off paying in this thread probably have the only bead on a way to make the man in the high castle notice or care.

So I'm in too:

Ismay

Would be awesome if the community would actually stick together and ignore future promotions/shinies until the problem is satisfactorily fixed, but I have a feeling that not everyone can stick with it. This type of game has a large population of players with slightly addictive personalities. The inability to “stick to your guns” hurts more in the long run in this situation.

Vinzent

I never had a real interest in the membership to begin with but this thread has made me even less interested.

Adrik

Ismay said:

Would be awesome if the community would actually stick together and ignore future promotions/shinies until the problem is satisfactorily fixed, but I have a feeling that not everyone can stick with it. This type of game has a large population of players with slightly addictive personalities. The inability to “stick to your guns” hurts more in the long run in this situation.

I mean. You kind of said it right here. "Addictive Personalities" is entirely what all these gambling promos are. It's awful, and horribly abusive to the people that do have an actual issue with spending.