Artefact Auctions

Vadimuses

To be fair the admins here haven't opened the door for suggesting auction items, and the IDEA system is a black hole

Nellaundra

I gotta ask, what the hell did the box even -do-?  It was before my time here, so I legitimately don't know.

Triak

Nellaundra said:

I gotta ask, what the hell did the box even -do-?  It was before my time here, so I legitimately don't know.

Only the owner could remove items from it.  Profit would just secret it to you then make you put things in it.  It was billed as the ultimate anti theft device, turns out it was the opposite.

Achilles

Nellaundra said:

I gotta ask, what the hell did the box even -do-?  It was before my time here, so I legitimately don't know.

It was a container only Profit could open so he could secret you the box then make you put stuff in the box and close it I believe. After he robbed most of Achaea they gave him a level 2 veil to replace it or so I heard.

Nellaundra

That is legitimately funny as hell to me.  +1.

Namino

Like I said in my OP, the ridiculous acceleration of bid prices makes me really uncomfortable with auctions.

Maybe Achaea attracts more bemonocled tycoons than I was aware of, but I always thought the general playerbase here was composed of young adults -- something that this thread has cemented for me. 79% of us haven't seen our thirtieth birthday yet. Maybe a lot more of us than I realized are threatening the Forbes 'richest under thirty' list, but my assumption is that very, very few of us can reasonably drop five grand at the drop of a hat.

The italicized word is important. Achaea makes people unreasonable, and IRE knows it. It makes people unreasonable to varying degrees. Computers have been thrown out of windows ( @Cain , how you doing, buddy?). Photobucket accounts have been pilfered for the ever coveted 'nudez' of fellow Achaeans (I'd @ you, but you know who you are). Documentation has been forged in attempts to manipulate people ( @Denex , how you doing, buddy?).

I'm not immune to this. I've spent ~ 500 dollars on Achaea. A lot of what Namino has is from IC credit gains, but some of it isn't. I regret that. There are marks on the wall of my bedroom at my folk's place (I started playing when I was a dependant) from Achaearage, and I regret those too. My point is that Achaea can induce a tunnelvision stupidity that makes it really hard to keep perspective.

These auctions are IRE attempting to induce that stupidity for capital gains. I can't decide if that's immoral or not. I won't touch it.

What I am pretty sure of, is in a few years someone is going to shake off the cloud of Achaea tunnel vision and realize they spent the effective price of what it would take to send their kid to a private school on a blip of code and want to vomit.

C'est la vie.

Delphinus

Vadimuses said:

To be fair the admins here haven't opened the door for suggesting auction items, and the IDEA system is a black hole

Well, my idea for a Shop of Wonders item (posted by Peak) was used for an auction item. So it does happen, but not always in a straightforward way.

Jules

Yeah, I think a fair few of the people who blow the kind of cash you see on auctions, and on Achaea in general, aren't even close to being able to really "afford" it - the demographic alone points to that, as you mention.  This is also why I think the Elite membership was a huge step in a better direction for both game and players (I'll probably get one myself, but still sitting on a small pile of credits and have more arties than any noncom could ever need).   

Achilles

@namino - well hello capitalism. Everyone is different some people never plan to have children or are born into money. Some people live in super expensive places like Hong Kong where a studio apartment is over a million dollars while some players live in countries where eagle wings is a months salary for the average worker. For me I view it as a cheaper source of entertainment than going out to a bar. If all I do is cut one bar visit a month from Achaea then I more than recover my $25 monthly membership.

Valden

@Namino It's a case of looking at how much money you spend on entertainment in general. If you spend $3000 on Achaea but that's your entire "happiness" budget for the year  then it's not really that terrible. It's when people start spending money they don't have that it becomes problematic.

That said, those auction prices are insane.

Katzchen

@Namino I think you underestimate the cost of private school these days. I've looked into some here, and you're looking upwards of $10,000 a year. I doubt anyone has spent $130,000 on achaea. As hobbies go, there are a lot more expensive ones out there.

Also I think a lot of people who have those kind of credits sitting around - Penwize for example, has probably hunted all that gold, and hoarded it, plus iron elite accumulating.

Sarapis

Fairly ironically to those of you complaining, Achaea would likely not be a going concern today had the first auctions I ran for the game in the 90s not been successful and allowed me to price our items such that it was possible to actually build a businesss rather than just a hobby out of it. 

Cooper

@Namino - none of that is really relevant, even the bit about 'can Achaeans really drop X dollars and be okay?'

The entire world is based around people spending money. A lot of the time time it is money that they do not have. Every single business in the world is guilty of knowing accepting money/credit from people they know cannot afford it - grocery stores, Wal-Mart, Target, banks, check cashing places, and pretty much every single other business ever opened.

To say that Achaea is bad or wrong for accepting that money is incredibly hilarious to me when I know that if they hadn't spent that money there they would have just spent it on something else. Nothing wrong with IRE's business practices at all.

Namino

@katzchen

A year at a private school here is 4,200$. If you'd like a different comparison, that's two semesters for me now, plus change. On a line of code.

And @Sarapis... I don't think that's ironic. I think it's fairly ironic that someone who had to eek together the means by which to go into business for himself is attempting to portray a 4,500USD expenditure on a non-necessary object in a game with no graphics is a sensible use of money. Though knowing that Achaea exists because someone took advantage of someone elses' absolute stupidity is a metaphor for the entire game at this point. So, touche'.

As an aside..

6   WON    945/945      Ship weapon overhaul           Qwindor            0

7   WON    945/945      Ship weapon overhaul           Qwindor            0

8   WON    950/950      Ship weapon overhaul           Qwindor            0

Your ship shall be the fanciest in the land.

Cooper

Wow, a year of private school is 4200 for you? It's at least 30,000 a year for good private schools around my area.

Jules

I think people are mostly entertained/bemused/enthralled by the auctions - and people's bidding in them.  That's how I feel about it.  It's probably good, because we all can't stop yammering about it

Ruth

I knew it was Qwindor on those weapons in the end. He was the only one whom I could think would want it.

.. Though he only has a Windcutter, I believe. Wonder where the other two will go to.

Katzchen

I'm going to assume Qwindor bought all those for a ship that will be used for Hashani naval purposes, and also to keep them out of the hands of pirates, enemy, etc.

Cahin

Achaea is a feel-like-a-badass simulator for rich people stocked with volunteer destitutes and college students to play the support roles.

It is something you grow to embrace.  It's so American it brings a tear to my eye.

Delphinus

Jules said:

I think people are mostly entertained/bemused/enthralled by the auctions - and people's bidding in them.  That's how I feel about it.  It's probably good, because we all can't stop yammering about it

It sort of increased the feeling of hopelessness for me, although I was fine with it a few days before it ended. Different strokes, I guess.

Sarapis

@Namino I didn't say it was sensible or insensible. That's up to the person making the purchase. I'm not your daddy. If I sold Mercedes, I wouldn't ask people coming in, "Are you sure you want to spend $50,000 more than you actually have to in order to get a vehicle that will get you from point A to point B?" 

And, as someone who spent thousands of dollars on MUDs when I was in my early 20s, I also can identify with the entertainment value that comes from it. Even before I started Achaea, I never regretted spending the money. It was definitely cheaper than going out in downtown Chicago every weekend, which is what I would have done otherwise, but that also had nothing to do with it. I didn't have a lot of money, but I had no credit card debt, paid my rent on time, etc and playing MUDs was my major passion, so why not? Nobody gives golfers grief over how much their hobby costs.

Zeon

Namino said:

@katzchen

A year at a private school here is 4,200$. If you'd like a different comparison, that's two semesters for me now, plus change. On a line of code.

And @Sarapis... I don't think that's ironic. I think it's fairly ironic that someone who had to eek together the means by which to go into business for himself is attempting to portray a 4,500USD expenditure on a non-necessary object in a game with no graphics is a sensible use of money. Though knowing that Achaea exists because someone took advantage of someone elses' absolute stupidity is a metaphor for the entire game at this point. So, touche'.

As an aside..

6   WON    945/945      Ship weapon overhaul           Qwindor            0

7   WON    945/945      Ship weapon overhaul           Qwindor            0

8   WON    950/950      Ship weapon overhaul           Qwindor            0

Your ship shall be the fanciest in the land.

The fact that it is completely non-necessary is what makes it fine. Some people do have money like that to spend on a hobby, auctions aren't something that everyone can compete in (at least not easily). I don't expect to really partake in auctions and I'm fine with that. 

As for this having long lasting negative effects on someone, Achaea isn't forcing people into making detrimental life choices, there aren't any Achaeans turning tricks to buy credits, as addicting as it might be. Even if people are spending money that they really should be saving, it's not for you to decide. You can't and shouldn't protect people from making decisions, even if the decisions they make aren't necessarily the right ones to be making.

Edit: As a side note, I've heard Sarapis bring up the original Achaean auctions before and I find that really interesting. If I recall correctly, Achaea was using a microtransaction business model long before it became common place in the game industry. It's not always easy to talk to friends about Achaea, especially if they don't have an interest in committing to an mmo (let alone a MUD), but I've always found it easy to talk about Achaea from a historic context, usually talking about their business/combat model which both really seem ahead of their time.

I've talked to friends that work in the video game industry about some of the ideas expressed here and they're pretty common place within Triple A games, which I always found impressive considering how dated that essay is.

Achilles

Regarding artefacts ive never been a fan of premium items that can alter the balance of power however there are a few encouraging things to gain from this auction 1) Achaean must be financially stable. The high auction prices means people are still engaged in the game. If the game went out of business we would all lose our earlier investments into our characters. 2) I like the customizable flavor type items as they provide some thing unique to the buyer while not impacting the playerbase as a whole. There does need to be a restriction on some items and said restrictions should be clearly disclosed before the auctions. Having your own personal clouds is great but a huge factional advantage if others are given access to it. Also there needs to be more temporary artefacts quests like Yudhihisthiras wings so people can gain access ICly through in game efforts over the convenience of always having of atavian wings. Just an example the temporary artefacts could be far more reaching than just wings.

Ruth

Katzchen said:

I'm going to assume Qwindor bought all those for a ship that will be used for Hashani naval purposes, and also to keep them out of the hands of pirates, enemy, etc.

Likely. I should have pushed them up further.

Texel

@Sarapis I want more orbs, or at least let me sell the trait reset.

Kyrra

I'd rather be at home playing Achaea than out at clubs, getting drunk, having promiscuous sex and catching every STD under the sun because condoms are a foreign concept to most people.

I will admit that what I earn weekly, let alone monthly, seems to be a lot higher than what people in other countries might earn but it's pretty well balanced for where I live. For every cheque that I put in the bank every week, 3/5s of that goes toward rent in most suburbs here. I live in a tourist town. Food and fuel are expensive, they've just jacked up power and water to cover the cost of a new substation. I don't think I'm any better or worse off, as I'm just on a different scale with the same things eating into what I earn.

Even when I quit playing five years ago and thought I'd never come back, I never had regrets about spending money on Achaea. It's something I enjoy spending time on and I am aware that the money I put into the game for a couple lines of code pays for servers and admin to keep the game running. And for all the shit that some Gods get in game and on the forums, they are people willing to sacrifice their time for a game they enjoy, so others can enjoy it too.

tl;dr Auctions are a part of the game and Achaea is worth giving back to.

Achilles

Kyrra said:

I'd rather be at home playing Achaea than out at clubs, getting drunk, having promiscuous sex and catching every STD under the sun because condoms are a foreign concept to most people.

Just when I thought we were getting along you have to start judging

Horatio

I'd drop $4500 worth of credits on stuff in Achaea if I had that kind of disposable income. I also wouldn't fault Mr. Mihaly for having the conscience to offer a few lines of code that players deem worth that kind of money. He's not my financial advisor (though any advice would be welcome ;;) ), he's a businessman. It's not up to him to decide to how we should spend our money. If you're stupid enough to jeopardize your own financial well-being by purchasing credits when you can't really afford to, that's your problem.

Frik, ninja'd by lots of people

Kyrra

Achilles said:

Kyrra said:

I'd rather be at home playing Achaea than out at clubs, getting drunk, having promiscuous sex and catching every STD under the sun because condoms are a foreign concept to most people.

Just when I thought we were getting along you have to start judging

Sorry bb. I have nothing against people that enjoy doing that, just not what I fancy for myself. We only get along when we barely speak

Sarapis

Calling it a few lines of code is really pretty incorrect, to be honest. It takes all of Achaea's code to run Achaea, and the only way that virtual item exists is within Achaea. The reason we can sell items is because of the gigantic amount of work that's gone into Achaea, not because we wrote a few lines of code for this specific auction.

The incremental cost for producing an individual auction item is fairly low, but the cost to produce the foundation that item sits on is very high (15 years of development).