What the fuss?
Wait, people are actually upset that you can buy stuff with money? What stuff, a vanity pet? How much money, 10 bucks?
Clearly I’m simply coming from a different background. To me this is barely a blip on the radar as I’ve played games in the past that cost significant amounts of money for all manner of game-changing products.
I refer to Achaea, a text-based MUD.
Achaea is free to play and allows the purchase of credits that can be used to purchase items in game. In fact, you can sell credits to other players for in-game gold currency meaning that essentially, you can buy gold. The horror!
The catalog of items you can buy with credits, and only with credits mind you, in Achaea is quite expansive. You can buy items that boost experience gain (very handy as any death carries a steep experience cost and few players ever even reach level cap, let alone stay there), boost statistics, increase damage and make you invisible. There are other items that serve a less direct purpose like the flowerpot that grows a small handful of flowers every 24 hours.
So what does it all cost? Here’s a link to Achaea’s credit-purchasing page. You’ll note that you can buy credits in variously sized bundles from 15 to 2000. You can of course buy more but you’ll need to get in touch with the administration to work out the details.
Now look at the cost.
I know right!?
Nearly 600 US dollars for 2000 credits. Ok but surely that will buy a whole hell of a lot of stuff right? Let’s look at some of the items for sale.
Robes of the Magi: 1000 credits
– Cuts your mana usage by 1/3. This does not apply to every case
where you use mana, but almost all. Draining of mana by demons
or runes is not affected. Transmutation is also not affected.Staff of Illusion: 500 credits
– Cast an illusion in your room. Takes a 2 second equilibrium.Bracelets: (increase max health & mana. Only one bracelet works at a time.)
Mayan bracelet: 350 credits (increases by 5%)
Ceylonese bracelet: 700 credits (increases by 10%)
Logosian bracelet: 1400 credits (increases by 15%)Veil of the Sphinx OR Hood of the Sphinx: 2000 credits
– Hides you from many mortal abilities that can pinpoint your location…Sashes: (to increase intelligence)
Epicurean Sash: 500 credits (+1 intelligence)
Sash of Wisdom: 1250 credits (+2 intelligence)
Sash of Caymus: 2500 credits (+3 intelligence)
There’s a lot more you can buy but this gives you an idea of the value of credits. See that Staff of Illusion up there? That allows you to generate a few lines of text visible to anyone in your same room. Its not really able to be used in combat because it uses your equilibrium which essentially locks you out of using other abilities until your equilibrium comes back a few seconds later. There is of course, an item that reduces the time it takes to recover equilibrium but you’ll need more than a few hundred credits to get it.
Make no mistake, people buy a lot of credits. If you want to be competitive at all in pvp, you’re going to need to pony up some cash. I’ve known several individuals who have spent tens of thousands of dollars on credits, loads more who have spent thousands and yet more people who have spent hundreds.
That flowerpot I mentioned that serves no purpose other than growing five flowers that have no particular function? It costs 200 credits. The flowers can be sold for about 50g and a single credit can be sold for anywhere between 6000 and 9000g.
I think I’ve not only made my point but also beaten it senseless and buried it in a shallow grave in the public park but yeah, after playing games like Achaea I just can’t see what the fuss is all about with $10 vanity pets.
One of the frustrating parts about Achaea’s massive credit-enriched economy was the fact that if you ever wanted to truly succeed in the game you HAD to pony up the cash, like you said. It kind of felt like they tricked you into playing what you thought was a free game, but in reality wasn’t.
I can see why some people might show concern over $10 vanity pets simply because of what it might mean in the future. But, really, even in Achaea, it isn’t mandatory to ever spend money in order to play (aside from the subscription fee). In Achaea, if succeeding meant that much to you, the money was worth it (if that makes sense). It won’t be any different with WoW, even if it does escalate.
Reading this post made me annoyed at credits all over again, though. ;-) If I had endless money, I would have had a kitty.
[Reply]
Shayzani Reply:
November 6th, 2009 at 5:39 pm
A kitty? I dunno. It’d have to really be something special to compete against Scarlatti’s paint-splattered kitty cat.
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Jilly Reply:
November 8th, 2009 at 9:31 pm
Scarlatti! I was trying to remember that name the other night and just COULD NOT do it.
[Reply]
Jilly
6 Nov 09 at 1:22 pm
I might very well have been one of the only people that ever stuck around Achaea long enough to become a guild leader without ever having purchased credits. Ratting for 5-8 hour spans every day made a decent substitute. Honestly, though, I can’t imagine having put significant amounts of cash into any game. I understand the appeal of the microtransaction model, both to the developers and the players. But it’s simply not worth it to me.
[Reply]
Jilly Reply:
November 8th, 2009 at 9:30 pm
You made guild leader? Good job! And good lord, did you really rat THAT much?
[Reply]
smakian
6 Nov 09 at 6:49 pm
eff credits.
:( gimme back my moneys, IRE!
latusthegoat´s last blog ..That was quick…
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Shayzani Reply:
November 6th, 2009 at 10:57 pm
It was hard work to not tally up how many credits I’ve purchased over the years while writing this post. x.x
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Jilly Reply:
November 8th, 2009 at 9:33 pm
Weren’t most of yours spent learning things, though? You switched camps a lot, if I recall. And I don’t remember you having any super cool toys.
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Shayzani Reply:
November 8th, 2009 at 10:49 pm
I’m a bit stumped. I don’t think I have any cool toys on Angaril except the magic top hat. Oh I think I got three artifact pipes too. I’ve got more toys in Lusternia but they’re mostly market related, not so much cool and interesting like the top hat.
Jilly Reply:
November 9th, 2009 at 7:12 am
Aw, it stopped letting me reply. I guess your threads only go 4 deep.
Anyway, to the point. YOU HAD A MAGIC TOP HAT? WERE THERE MAGIC MONOCLES?
Shayzani Reply:
November 9th, 2009 at 1:31 pm
There was indeed a monocle but I forget what it did. Or maybe those were spectacles. No, spectacles were definitely in Lusternia.
You know what? I don’t know if there was a monocle.
latusthegoat
6 Nov 09 at 9:17 pm
I think the issue with this (i know *my* issue with this) stems from the fact that with games like Acheea you knew, going in that there would be theese micro-transactions. With wow, there is an experience of the game slipping into greedy money-grubbing cash-cowness.
First you could change server, then from pve to pvp then looks then race then faction now pets. For now you are supporting a charity (yaa nice) but who knows how long that will last? And what will the next step be in Blizz attempt to grind whatever $ they can out of us?
“Avoid the ‘additional servers cannot be launched’ issue with premium instance server premium”? – Thats my bet.
[Reply]
dw-redux
7 Nov 09 at 3:24 am
I played Achaea for quite a long while, and was my only game for that time. Like, WoW is the only one now. I eventually become the guildmaster (called Archdragon) of the Ashuran monks; my name was Shusen.
I still have a soft spot for the game, and about once a year log on to say hi and see if any other old bastards are still about in the city of Ashtan.
I might have spent $500 on artifacts, not sure of total; it was a while ago.
I think Achaea was one of the earliest of the micro-transactions opt-in games, eh?
Likewise, I don’t care if Blizzard can make money from race/faction/gender/name changes, in-game pets or anything superficial like that. It’s just fine.
In Achaea, you bought REAL power: artifacts made you win fights.
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Shayzani Reply:
November 9th, 2009 at 1:28 pm
Ha! That’s great you played Achaea too. Skarash almost had me convinced I should join the Ashura once upon a time but I was too erratic to stay in one place for long and I didn’t want to guildhop from his guild. Even though I’d been a member of every city at one point or another I still consider Ashtan to be home.
[Reply]
Gravity Reply:
November 10th, 2009 at 5:35 am
Skarash is my in-game father :).
Gravity´s last blog ..Five months of pwnwear, 200 blogs since
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Gravity
9 Nov 09 at 11:42 am