No more credits?

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  • Achaea was my first foray into text MUDs. When I first started I was greatly enthused with the game, but once the level and lesson gains started slowing down, I started looking at the credit prices and felt discouraged enough to give up for several RL years. I'd made up my mind that in game success was sold to the highest bidders who were paying thousands of dollars for the privilege. I was much more amenable to the idea of a monthly subscription. Eventually, I did return and came to the realization that in game success depends far more on what you do in the game, than what you spend. I made a few small credit purchases and purchased in game city credits to trans my main skills, but it was really the advent of Iron Elite membership that has helped me acquire some artifacts and trans other skills.

    @Sarapis, I'm sure that if there were a lower grade variant of the Iron Elite membership it would be attractive to those who can't quite manage (or aren't quite ready to commit to) the Iron Elite monthly subscription cost. I think if a $10-15/mth subscription had been available when I first started I would never have left. Food for thought (I'm sure you guys mull over these things all the time).

  • edited March 2013
    Ognog said:
    Achaea was my first foray into text MUDs. When I first started I was greatly enthused with the game, but once the level and lesson gains started slowing down, I started looking at the credit prices and felt discouraged enough to give up for several RL years. I'd made up my mind that in game success was sold to the highest bidders who were paying thousands of dollars for the privilege. I was much more amenable to the idea of a monthly subscription. Eventually, I did return and came to the realization that in game success depends far more on what you do in the game, than what you spend. I made a few small credit purchases and purchased in game city credits to trans my main skills, but it was really the advent of Iron Elite membership that has helped me acquire some artifacts and trans other skills.

    @Sarapis, I'm sure that if there were a lower grade variant of the Iron Elite membership it would be attractive to those who can't quite manage (or aren't quite ready to commit to) the Iron Elite monthly subscription cost. I think if a $10-15/mth subscription had been available when I first started I would never have left. Food for thought (I'm sure you guys mull over these things all the time).
    @Sarapis: as an alternative, maybe make Elite a bit more customizable for flexibility. I was thinking let people emphasize XP, lessons, or credits. I am not sure how to make this balanced so people can't min/max the settings, but I am thinking if someone is currently needing lessons, let Elite give those at a higher than normal rate, but the XP and the credits for that setting are lower; and the gain of lessons is more advantageous than getting the credits and spending that on lessons. But as a price for this, there would be far less credits gained that month, if any. Or, one could get like 175 credits at cap rather than 150, but the XP gain would be lower and no lessons would be gained.

    It's very late so I can't really think of a balanced approach, but being able to customize Elite would probably make a lot of people very happy.
  • @Sarapis: I plan on it, if I ever get bored of Nim!

  • Well, I was introduced to Achaea when players chatting in a kdice lobby thought I was neat and told me I should try it.

    They said it was a MUD. And me being... let's say "young" at the time, I had no idea what that was. My previous online game addictions include:
    KingsOfChaos/RuinsOfChaos
    TribalWars
    brief stints on RuneScape
    kdice

    So I had my hands in text-based games before, but Achaea was different. Although thinking back, I think somebody made a terrible Eragon-based MUD that I had the misfortune of trying. But I only got through any of it with guiding help from the people who invited me to Achaea. And even then it was disorienting and hard to grasp (me being an exceptionally quick learner).

    I only kept logging on for about 2 weeks before I quit. I don't remember what made me go back, but what really made me stay was the people I met in Minia and afterward. I explored my skills more thoroughly and had guiding class help from an experienced Magi, worked my way up to firelash and finally had the guts to leave Minia at like age 26 or something. The world is huge and impossible for someone new to MUDs, so I took people's advice and clung to my portals and easy newbie gold for dear life.

    Honestly the toughest part was struggling my way up the skills in Elementalism and trying to reach Trans with only the available game lessons and some city credit sales.
    I finally buckled one day and bought a small credit package I think, something like 50 credits. After the rush of learning those quick 300 lessons plus conversion lessons, I think I bought either a 300 or 400 package, allowing me to trans most of what I needed.
    Didn't make lots of investments on that first character, but over time you realize that Achaean credits are like Pringles:
    Once you purchase, the fun don't... sturchase.

    Anyway, increasing the initial lesson amounts would help retain people who want to try their neater skills without buying anything. More lessons per level in the higher levels or something. Getting to enjoy things like Stormhammer or Holocaust are as much incentive to trans a second skill as anything, resulting in that purchase burst somewhere down the line.
    I like my steak like I like my Magic cards: mythic rare.
  • If I really had one complaint with the game, it would be that people in ah... (no offense) lower class countries have a lot less of an ability to buy credits. I truly believe (though I'm sure it would not happen) that IRE should allow and adjust for certain amounts of inflation, population, exchange rate, and the like. Asking a lot of the smaller countries in Asia to pay in USD at current conversion is completely ridiculous. What you're asking for a hunters belt is practically a month's paycheck for them.

    Where I see this as a problem is proxy servers and the like, and people being general @$$hats and using the system to get more CR for their buck. I know all this is general economy, but I would like to see some general understanding for the countries with lower exchange rates.

    It's a long shot.. but hey. This isn't how the world works. Nowhere makes exceptions for exchange rates. But maybe.. just maybe..
    Replies the scorpion: "It's my nature..."
  • @Sarapis - would it be out of the question to create a one-time-only-per-character lesson package at a very favourable rate, based on the number of lessons needed to make up the shortfall between credits gained from levelling/newbie tasks, and the lessons needed to dual-Trans? I'm talking a package that a teenager could save up for after flipping burgers for a month.
    Tvistor: If that was a troll, it was masterful.
    I take my hat off to you.
  • AchillesAchilles Los Angeles
    Aepas said:
    If I really had one complaint with the game, it would be that people in ah... (no offense) lower class countries have a lot less of an ability to buy credits. I truly believe (though I'm sure it would not happen) that IRE should allow and adjust for certain amounts of inflation, population, exchange rate, and the like. Asking a lot of the smaller countries in Asia to pay in USD at current conversion is completely ridiculous. What you're asking for a hunters belt is practically a month's paycheck for them.

    Where I see this as a problem is proxy servers and the like, and people being general @$$hats and using the system to get more CR for their buck. I know all this is general economy, but I would like to see some general understanding for the countries with lower exchange rates.

    It's a long shot.. but hey. This isn't how the world works. Nowhere makes exceptions for exchange rates. But maybe.. just maybe..
    Couldn't people in less developed nations literally buy credits off CFS and sell them via paypal to players in wealthier countries?  $2.00/hr  is actually higher than alot of incomes around the world, some people live off $2.00 per day.  Granted IRE would have to intervene if this actually became a common issue as it would deflate their credit sales.
    image
  • Achilles said:
    Aepas said:
    If I really had one complaint with the game, it would be that people in ah... (no offense) lower class countries have a lot less of an ability to buy credits. I truly believe (though I'm sure it would not happen) that IRE should allow and adjust for certain amounts of inflation, population, exchange rate, and the like. Asking a lot of the smaller countries in Asia to pay in USD at current conversion is completely ridiculous. What you're asking for a hunters belt is practically a month's paycheck for them.

    Where I see this as a problem is proxy servers and the like, and people being general @$$hats and using the system to get more CR for their buck. I know all this is general economy, but I would like to see some general understanding for the countries with lower exchange rates.

    It's a long shot.. but hey. This isn't how the world works. Nowhere makes exceptions for exchange rates. But maybe.. just maybe..
    Couldn't people in less developed nations literally buy credits off CFS and sell them via paypal to players in wealthier countries?  $2.00/hr  is actually higher than alot of incomes around the world, some people live off $2.00 per day.  Granted IRE would have to intervene if this actually became a common issue as it would deflate their credit sales.
    I know. I really do understand that the system would quickly be taken advantage of. I simply feel bad for those in the less developed countries that can't really purchase credits, ever.
    Replies the scorpion: "It's my nature..."
  • SherazadSherazad Planef Urth
    edited March 2013
    I don't mind newbiesh chars getting a few more credits for levels. I don't understand though how people can get angry at how expensive IRE stuff can be. I mean, I absolutely can't buy OOC credits (no credit card, whatev, and I'd rather spend on necessities), but while I think the amount people spend on this game would shock me and my ancestors xD, I also think it's fine if people wanna spend the way they want to (except when they're prioritising this before more important things).

    @Aepas: Don't worry, we'll live. :D
    Bleh, work ate my gaming life.
    내가 제일 잘 나가!!!111!!1


  • @Aepas is obviously talking about me because my money was spent singing songs to serenade him.
  • @Secos

    That number seems pretty low for that level. I can generally make 15-20k without doing any quests. You might need to try a couple some harder things for a better gold payout. It also sounds like you are also asking the wrong people about quests. Most Housemates are more than willing to help out on minor quests such as turning in corpses for gold. The honours quests are the only ones that are usually kept quiet. How have you been phrasing your questions about them?

  • edited March 2013
    Secos said:
    I don't know where you guys are getting making 40k gold an hour.
    40k gold an hour is more than most players can manage. That requires knowing several areas/methods of getting gold, and moving quickly and efficiently so there's very little downtime at any point (you should basically never be just waiting for something to respawn). If you walk manually and don't have any travel abilities, it can be very hard to actually make that much.

    20k an hour is more reasonable, and I've given explicit examples of how/where plenty of times.

    Secos said:
    I get 5-10k gold an hour bashing at lvl 79 tops.
    I have no idea how to make anywhere near that much gold from just bashing at level 80. I barely get enough to cover the tonics/balms/minerals used.

    Secos said:
    Quests are impossible to decipher and to make that kind of money from questing you would need to be around for a really long time and know the ends and outs of everything.
    Most of the good places for gold are easy to learn. I learned the quests in Ilyrean in about twenty minutes, someone taught me the quests in Inbhir Ness in about 10 minutes, and the quests in Ulangi took me a day or two to learn as an actual newbie who'd been playing the game for less than a month. I learned most of the quests on Mysia in about half an hour, and accidentally stumbled onto the rest later without actually looking for them. All of these give a lot of gold, and are very easy to learn, mostly just finding/killing things and giving them to denizens who might want them, and occasionally greeting a denizen.

    Secos said:
    Not to mention if I were to even ask existing players how to make this kind of money or do these quests they would simply give me very vague answers...essentially telling me to teach myself.
    I've never had a problem getting help from city/guild/house-mates, and I've taught the few novices who've asked how to better earn gold.

    Edit: In general, I do agree that making it more viable for new players to learn quests is a good idea. One of the biggest problems is probably not knowing that the quests exist in the first place, and thus not knowing whether you're failing to find something or there's just nothing to find. And in some cases, you don't even know when you've finished a quest, since it's not obvious whether or not there's more that can be done.
  • edited March 2013
    @Sena and @Secos :

    Most rl world matters are decided along the lines of exchanging time for money. For example, you might argue that going to a restaurant to eat is more expensive than eating at home. If, however, you are a senior Microsoft executive, spending 1-2 hours more at work and eating in a restaurant actually makes you more money than it would to spend those 1-2 hours cooking. I saw this argument plastered in a major restaurant, it's not my argument but I personally agree with it.

    I totally get that most of us are not senior Microsoft executives, but the concept still applies. A lot of people tell me they don't have the money for 25 dollars of Elite, and I totally get that too. But, some of them then spend hours and hours and hours trying to gain virtual currency by hunting and questing for that time period. Some of them get tired, stressed out and frustrated, kinda like working a job. Elite gives you 150 cr a rl month, 5 lessons per rl day, (so 150 lessons a rl month,) and a 25% experience bonus for 25 a rl month. To me at least, it is logical that working some job for a few extra hours, even part time, will get you the 25 dollars for Elite, and all of its benefits, easier than attempting to get those same benefits by hunting or questing. I am not saying this applies to the 2000 cr package on the site, but in my opinion working a job -- any job -- with some of those in-game hours to get 25 bucks to save countless hours of grinding will make the game easier and more enjoyable... and also free up all those hours for other in-game tasks that perhaps are more enjoyable than getting elixir/balm/tonic money. 25 for a month of Elite is something that can be gotten in one day in a minimum wage job, the virtual currency equivalents to what Elite gives cannot be gotten in one day in the game itself.

    I am not sure if everybody (or even anybody) will agree with this stance, but it's served me in the past, personally.
  • “Being rich is having money; being wealthy is having time”
    Margaret Bonnano
  • I mostly bash phereklos, nuskuwe, moghedu and dun swamp right now.  Maybe I'm bashing the wrong areas?  I only know of one quest that involves tree branches and that is in dun swamp.  I had a hard time getting help getting into dun swamp and getting someone to educate me on how to get past the vines.

    I suppose I haven't asked too many people that many questions about quests.  When I have they just tell me to great everyone and/or pick up objects on the ground.  Noone has said, here is a good method to make some money, let me break it down for you.  Learning this game is such a daunting task.  I try to break out my questions between people and only ask what is necessary.
  • Silvarien - I see your point and agree to it to a certain extent.  However, you still didn't address the glaring problem, which is...

     Achaea in general is more expensive when compared  to most other on-line games.  Also, the game requires either a significant time investment or money investment or both to even get to be moderately viable.  Now let that sink in.  I'm saying moderately viable not overpowered.  Most games on the market you can be reasonably competitive with little to no money investment.  

    Now me, I have the funds, I like the game and I'm a sucker.  However, the expensiveness of the game in itself turns away most players because most players aren't like me.  

    Now granted that is just one of the issues Achaea has in attracting and retaining new members.  The others are complexity, it being a mud, and others.
  • @Sena I get 5-10k gold an hour.  That is just what goes into my inventory.  After pots, balms, moss, etc, I barely make anything.
  • SherazadSherazad Planef Urth
    There are many ways to enjoy Achaea. When I was playing as a true newbie, I had fun interacting with people, and learning about the world. I'm pretty sure that didn't require credits or gold. I can safely say I can make around 20k gold an hour but I'm lazy and even with that, I still can earn enough from what I manage to do with my limited time. 

    That said, house credits and city credits helped lots the first time around that I've tritrans a character with no FB credits or GH credits. 

    I'm not necessarily disagreeing with people who are having issues with the credits that can be earned with levels, just giving another point of view wherein the Achaean credit system isn't being too unreasonable. 
    Bleh, work ate my gaming life.
    내가 제일 잘 나가!!!111!!1


  • Sylvance said:
    @Sarapis - would it be out of the question to create a one-time-only-per-character lesson package at a very favourable rate, based on the number of lessons needed to make up the shortfall between credits gained from levelling/newbie tasks, and the lessons needed to dual-Trans? I'm talking a package that a teenager could save up for after flipping burgers for a month.
    Well, the lesson sales that run occasionally are pretty much that. If it's 1 per character, might as well just increase base character lessons by ig means.

    I mean if you put all your lessons into forging or enchantment or transmutations or concoctions, you could potentially build up your wealth faster and take maximum advantage of credit sales. But that's not a newbie-friendly route.

    Bi-trans = 3472
    IG lessons up to level 70 = 1120

    I'd suggest nearly triple as many lessons now that I think about it. Namely because to not get simple venom locked, you need Trans survival, an irritating fact I'm reminded of which each alt I build up for combat testing.
    Functional is considered quad-trans to actually be fully capable in classes that require more than 1 or 2 skillsets.
    You can currently get 65% of 1 skillset. You need to get nearer to 4 skillsets (not including vision, tattoos, weaponry, other conveniences).

    If IG lessons were closer to 3360 then, you could nearly get bi-trans by level 70. And make money with your trade skills by putting lessons into them as well. The later perks like trans riding, seafaring, and so on would still have to be funded by extra purchases or extensive hard work.
    But If you put a level 60-something Magi within reach of Retardation without actually giving it to him, you're plenty likely to hook him with that first necessary purchase.

    I see it improving player retention by reducing the frustration with how slow skills can be learned compared with the multitude available.
    But then again, look at RuneScape. The f2p world is like 15% or less of what can be learned, it's much more tedious and uninteresting than Achaea, but still has millions of players and people on their $7/m membership or whatever it is now. So you can reach those "unattainable" facets with Achaea's membership easier, the same way other free-to-play games with memberships work.

    What Achaea has going for it is quality. The steep cost is I think partly to discourage playing the game that way. Everything in Achaea is loftier and more difficult, which is going to dissuade many from continuing to play here, but they're not necessarily the type we're begging to stay, are they?

    Achaea's known for its mechanical complexity for combat and such, which requires credit investment, but as @Sherazad said, there is a lot to do without credits just by interacting with other players, part of the game's real point and what helped it break away from the trends of earlier MUDs.

    Final point: Achaea does not cater much to teenagers, being an adult environment, and so its business model assumes an adult with an adult income. I don't see this detracting from the player pool either. Not to be snooty, but it almost fosters an additional level of responsibility and goal-setting outside the game.
    I like my steak like I like my Magic cards: mythic rare.
  • The bi/tri trans with lessons learned on leveling I think would be sufficient.  I see what you're saying Xith and I kind of agree.  It all depends on how you look at it.  If everything was incredibly easy to obtain it would take away a lot of the magic of the game.  Although if too difficult most players will not stick with the game.  It's a balance that is hard to achieve and I do believe Achaea should always be on the more difficult side.  The question is, is it too difficult currently to become an average player, combatant, etc?  Personally I think with what I've spent so far I can be competent if I had the proper knowledge.  However, I've also spent somewhere around $400 USD on the game.  Should it take someone $400 to be average in achaea?  I personally don't think so and that is where I'm coming from when I say it's too steep.

    Also, I do like Achaea as it's a quality game.  The complexity, the house, city, clan structure.  The pvp raids, complex political and social spheres, 6 cities all vying for their own interest.  The real sense of community.   Heck Achaea has a lot going for it that 100mil+ development MMO's don't.  For me personally that is the draw and what keeps me coming back so far.
  • Aepas said:
    If I really had one complaint with the game, it would be that people in ah... (no offense) lower class countries have a lot less of an ability to buy credits. I truly believe (though I'm sure it would not happen) that IRE should allow and adjust for certain amounts of inflation, population, exchange rate, and the like. Asking a lot of the smaller countries in Asia to pay in USD at current conversion is completely ridiculous. What you're asking for a hunters belt is practically a month's paycheck for them.

    Where I see this as a problem is proxy servers and the like, and people being general @$$hats and using the system to get more CR for their buck. I know all this is general economy, but I would like to see some general understanding for the countries with lower exchange rates.

    It's a long shot.. but hey. This isn't how the world works. Nowhere makes exceptions for exchange rates. But maybe.. just maybe..
    The other problem is of course, that you could just resell the credit at a slight markup to people in America or w/e for a profit.

    Like ultimately you are talking about pretty classical problems with price discrimination, it's to IRE's benefit if they could implement something like this but for a lot of technical reasons you probably just can't. Not to mention it's really, really questionable how many people who live in a developing country would play Achaea (an English-text based MUD). Like obviously they would play something visual based like WoW a lot, but the language level required for Achaea is something else altogether.
  • Achilles said:
    Aepas said:
    If I really had one complaint with the game, it would be that people in ah... (no offense) lower class countries have a lot less of an ability to buy credits. I truly believe (though I'm sure it would not happen) that IRE should allow and adjust for certain amounts of inflation, population, exchange rate, and the like. Asking a lot of the smaller countries in Asia to pay in USD at current conversion is completely ridiculous. What you're asking for a hunters belt is practically a month's paycheck for them.

    Where I see this as a problem is proxy servers and the like, and people being general @$$hats and using the system to get more CR for their buck. I know all this is general economy, but I would like to see some general understanding for the countries with lower exchange rates.

    It's a long shot.. but hey. This isn't how the world works. Nowhere makes exceptions for exchange rates. But maybe.. just maybe..
    Couldn't people in less developed nations literally buy credits off CFS and sell them via paypal to players in wealthier countries?  $2.00/hr  is actually higher than alot of incomes around the world, some people live off $2.00 per day.  Granted IRE would have to intervene if this actually became a common issue as it would deflate their credit sales.
    You are better off gold-farming on WoW or Diablo or something than doing it in Achaea then, the customer base would be far larger.
  • TegTeg
    edited March 2013
    Secos said:
    I don't know where you guys are getting making 40k gold an hour.  Most players don't know how to do that.  I barely spend any gold and I have maybe 15k gold to my name.  I get 5-10k gold an hour bashing at lvl 79 tops.  Quests are impossible to decipher and to make that kind of money from questing you would need to be around for a really long time and know the ends and outs of everything.  Not to mention if I were to even ask existing players how to make this kind of money or do these quests they would simply give me very vague answers...essentially telling me to teach myself.
    Are you in a house?

    Because I never had problems with getting guild members telling me where/how I should be farming gold.

    But yeah, seems to me that the given number of 25k-40k/hr questing is greatly exaggerated and is implicitly based on the assumption that nobody else is farming those quests at the same time.


    If you are talking about retaining new players here is what you could do.

    1.  Lower the cost of credits/membership/etc.   It's way overpriced compared to the gaming market in general.
    2.  Let someone get dual or tri transed via in game methods outside of gold.  What would it really hurt if it increased retention?  More competition?  Bruised egos because it took someone 5 years to get there without spending any money? You don't -want- to actively retain too many new players who are non-paying though.

    Like you want to retain enough so things don't get lonely for the paying players, but really, a non-paying player doesn't generate any profit beyond that. Maybe lowering prices will also generate more paying customers but retaining players for the sake of retaining players or at expense of profits make no sense for a business.
  • Teg said:
    But yeah, seems to me that the given number of 25k-40k/hr questing is greatly exaggerated and is implicitly based on the assumption that nobody else is farming those quests at the same time.
    40k/hr was explicitly based on that assumption (the exact quote was "serious questing can get you more than 40k in an hour if you don't have much competition for the quests").
  • Here's a counter argument... if lessons were cheaper, and therefore it was easier to become mono / dual / tri / quad / quin etc trans without buy OOC credits, would the argument not move on to "Why can't we have free credits for artefacts? It's not fair. Wah wah wah"

    Yes the credits cost money. Yes, there's variances in exchange rates / earnings per capita / yadda yadda. It's all optional, and it's for a game. If you want it bad enough, work for it, be it in game for gold, or outside for money to spend on credits.

    Life isn't fair. If it was, it'd be boring.

    I still stand by my idea of 15 lessons for 10k gold though.

    Xli flambe, anyone?
    Hiroma tells you, "I just got to listen to someone complain about your deadly axekick being the bane of their existence."
    Archdragon Mizik Corten, Herald of Ruin says, "Man, that was a big axk."
    Hellrazor Cain de Soulis, Sartan's Hammer says, "Your [sic] a beast."
  • Xli said:
    I still stand by my idea of 15 lessons for 10k gold though.

    That would be interesting if only to see how much of an effect it would have on the credit market.
  • edited March 2013
    Xli said:
    I still stand by my idea of 15 lessons for 10k gold though.
    For a newbie (or anyone who hasn't bound 1000 credits yet), that's equal to 5666 gold per credit. Not really a big difference from the current credit market, and more expensive when the market prices drop.
This discussion has been closed.