2fps

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.