Would it be possible to include something in the game that allows you to gain additional lessions beyond what you get for levels besides buying credits? (if the answer is no then feel free to respond to what will probably be a too-long post with a simple no.)

The reason I ask is that while I don't mind the idea of spending money to support this game I would just feel kinda dirty buying credits with actual money. I know it's not cheating, but it feels like it. Sure for a few bucks I could jump to transcendent in a couple skills, but then I didn't earn it, and it'd feel hollow.

Perhaps something along the lines of lessons (but not credits) being purchasable from trainers, or being able to train a skill even if you don't have the lessons for it if you pay a great sum. So purchasing credits would hopefully remain an attractive way to gain the unique credit only items that can be acquired or grabbing a bunch of gold fast.

In fact, I'd pay money for access to a stable market for lessons.

...Is this idea just completly nuts, or what?

Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but aren't you proposing the same thing? Buying lessons, buying credits, there isn't a great deal of difference.

You can already pay great sums of money to learn higher in a skill, that is half the function of credits.

I know what you're saying, but you can consider working with your tradeskill, or hunting, or begging to be the effort that you put in to afford to raise your skills (via credits). These in-character means already exist.

And there's no need to feel bad about being rewarded for supporting a wonderful virtual world.

Ah, well what I'm really getting at is that it would be good for there to be access to something stable, because if I should be in the practice of using in-game money to buy credits, and the price shoots to 10K, I'm going to be frustrated as all hell.

So if a lesson ran you 700 gold or so, It'd still be expensive, but it would be a sort of safety net that would prevent you from collapsing trying to buy a ludicrously expensive credit, and if someone wanted to produce a lot of gold very quickly they could put credits up on the market for than than the equivalent in lessons and the lesson-buyers would, if they knew what was good for them, switch to rapidly buying up those credits.

So if demand was strong enough credits could climb up into the 7K to 8K range without strangling people buying them with gold to advance their character...

...this probably stems from some sort of complex on my part.

I think what he is suggesting is that the game sets a stardard. For example, 10 lessons costs 10,000 gold. (just to make the math simple) This would put a market ceiling on credit prices, thus making it more profitable for a person to spend IC gold on Credits rather than on lessons... blah blah blah.


Pah, Ninjad by the poster. atleast I was reading his post properly!

An upper limit on credits cannot factor for a player run economy. This becomes dangerous if an unstable element is introduced. Let's say in a year's time there are more characters and more hunting going on. Vast amounts of gold are flowing into the virtual economy. The credit limit is reached, but instead of the price scaling with the worth of a credit, it becomes under-valued, and ooc purchases dry up in favour of the ease of getting them in game. Those that do purchase out of game have little incentive to sell their credits for less than they are worth, and the credit market disappears.

If you mean taking the lesson-gain function away from credits, this also has its problems. I think the fact credits are destroyed for lessons is a balancing mechanism on the credit market. If you take away that sink then you are left only with artifact or manse artifact outlets for credit removal.

Credit prices would drop drastically as their usefulness is undercut for the broader community of players, and artifacts would become far more commonplace. Lusternia's income would drop as it becomes more sensible to purchase artifacts in game than with real money.

I'm no economist, but that is my (probably crazy) idea of possible problems.

Okay, what about something more like a half and half system, some sort of setup where you can buy credits with real money at a discounted rate but once you've purchased them you need to spend additional gold in game to be able to touch them.

Or perhaps just sell lessons directly (and not credits, so it can't directly wash over into the credits system) in a similar fashion. Something along the lines of a lesson costs 5 cents and 500 gold. (5 cents a lesson is actually what it works out to if you buy 2000 credits at a time, so it's not an *incredible* discount)

Of course, there'd be a minimum purchase amount, since it costs more than 5 cents to process the transaction.

So you're basically paying 30 cents and 3,000 gold for a neocredit?

Overall, these ideas fall under a similar catagory: buying credits without paying RL. While it can make sense, the credit system is how Lusternia earns it's money, both in people buying credits for personal use and to sell on the credit market.

Thus, there realy can't be a way to gain as many lessons as you want without somewhere down the line RL money being exchanged, that is unless they bring a different way of earning money.

In the end, Lusternia is a 'pay' mud: you can avoid paying if someone else has and wants something in exchange, but SOMEONE will need to.

Sure.

Since, theoretically a group of players (or even one player with a lot of disposable income) could get credits at that price anyway, and it would create for me the illusion that I'm advancing my character through in-game activities and not OOC purchases.

...I guess I could alway buy credits every other month or so, donate them to my guild, and then buy them back, but that would feel silly.

If it cost you 10,000 gold for 10 lessons, thats 6K a credit.

I think the main difference is pychologicl, in a Time/Money ratio if Credits are more than 3K its better to buy credits ooc than it is to spend the time making that gold yourself.


Don't forget, the real credit expense gets to be in artifacts.

It may very well be quicker in theory to earn credits OOC.

Earning credits in-game, however, is more FUN.

And that's just it. I want I way to earn extra lessons in game, but I don't mind devoting some real life money to this game, because I understand even if it was non-profit, money makes the world and MUDs go round.

So I'd love to see some sort of half-and-half system where I'm able to earn additional credits in game with some reasonable effort, and then pay real money for the ability to do that.

No way in hell am I going to buy credits OOC if I have to hunt the gold to pay for them also. My gold income is maybe 1k a day, unless I really try for more. And why should I have to pay extra for something I already spent $100+ on?

I'm not suggesting regular credit purchases no long be available, just that an alternate system could exist.

Not if you don't have the time to bash and prefer the PK and RP system over the monotnous bashing system.

I can't bash for more than an hour before I turn on the TV and stop looking at the screen.

*nods to Daganev* If I go out on my own bashing in Lusternia is honestly very, very boring after a little while. But hey, I don't mind so much because the rewards for doing so are actually pretty awesome... such as selling the bodies.

Nonetheless, I too, after around 2 hours, grow bored. I want more power a lot more quickly, which is why I have purchased credits OOC. $25 bucks worth, and lemme tell you, it was worth it.

I see what he means though, and honestly I think the game would benefit by tweaking the amount of lessons you get simply by leveling. While this is incentive to buy credits for Lusternia, I think there could be more done to allow those that have no funds to have a 'decent' amount of power.

heh, bashing is the ONLY way I can get more powerful so I agree with carnagefiend there.

I think that if you were able to get 1 trans skill and 2 skills up to expert just based on leveling, it would create more combat able people and therefor incourage more people to buy credits by wanting to become better combat able people.

Currently you get rougly just under 200 credits worth of lessons.


Do to the lack of miniskills, and the increased amount of skillsets I think this would increase the Lusternia playerbase, and might even increase the amount of alts a heavy credit buyer will have.

Well instead of starting a whole new system, couldn't we just alter the credit market so the maximum you can put new credits up for is 20% Higher or Lower then the Lowest one currently? It'd keep credit prices lowish, well hopefully.