You had old Astral though.

Prices right now are just fine considering the size of the playerbase. Economy of scale wouldn't work on Lusternia - not enough scale.

Whines about credit prices should be moved to idiots forum.

Anyway. No one forces you to spend money on creds. I transed almost 5 skills and reached a high rank in many others without spending a single buck on Lusternia. My skills would be higher if I didn't change guilds/specialisations, and buy a reincarnation dagger for 100 credits.

Economic situation in Lusternia (from an OOC view) is good. You have three options:
I. You are a school kid who doesn't earn cash yet, but has plenty of time - can buy credits ICly.
II. You are a working person, and therefore can afford credits OOCly (come on, in my country 500 bucks a month is an above average salary - and I would still have money for Lusty if I earned even that little!).
(Ranty option: III. You are too busy to find time to earn credits (either by having a job to get money, or by spending time in Lusternia) - in that case, you shouldn't play the game at all, but rather focus on what is so time-consuming for you.)

Anyway, here's my point: ranting that credits are too expensive is pointless. They are not. If you think you are too poor to afford them then you are wrong - anyone who can afford a computer with internet connection isn't poor.

And IRE would go broke if Richter makes them pay him back

Actually, it's only up here in Canada that there seems to be a difference between a credit card and a debit card. It's a very messed up system down there, and I don't exactly understand how it works. Probably need an accounting degree to make sense of it.




Maestro is a specific network for accessing accouns in other parts of the world. To my understanding, it doesn't allow for credit though. You have to have an actual Mastercard for that.

For Credit Cards and Debit cards:

Credit card companys have added debit cards to the credit card, basically you have 1 card but you have 2 options of payment: credit or debt. Kind of simplifies things but meh that's my opinion.

Ah, thanks. eesh, I have to use that third party that's offered at the Creditpage. Oh well, I hope it's faster than using my own bank. Nothing beats waiting for credits for about a month and having to pay 25% more. -.-

the McDonalds I sometimes go to has a panel just for the dollar menu

Hm, all the ones around here took their panels down.

You got that right. It's what's called a "leader" item. It is sold at a loss with the hope that you will return and/or purchase more products. Another good example of a "leader" item would be xBox's, Gamecubes, and PS2's. All of those are sold at a loss. Microsoft/Nintendo/Sony lose a ton of money on the systems. However, it is sold at a loss because they know they need a market base to sell more games, since that's where the real money comes from. Manufacturing a game disk costs about $0.05 cents but sells for $50+ (not counting developing costs). It's simple basic economics.



Well, McDonalds is a franchise (as in a third party owns the right to operate a McDonalds restaurant under certain guidelines), so owner to owner there can be some slight variations.

My card is a debit card which just happens to have a visa picture thingy on it. Means Visa recognises it as a credit card, but there is absolutely no credit arrangement happening. Works brilliantly, I only spend money I have.

I'm making about $1200 Australian a month working three days a week, and I have relatively low costs for living ($50 a week rent/board, $50 a month for internet, plus random other odd necessities) which means I can easily buy several hundred credits a week. I often do, actually, but by no stretch of imagination would anyone call me rich.

I was, however, perfectly happy playing IRE games for years without spending a cent. I just enjoy doing it this way now I can afford to.

Just to clear this up
Credit Card- When you buy something with a credit card, the credit card company pays the place you are buying from, and you pay the company back at a later time.

Debit Card- When you buy something with a debit card, you are drawing from money you already have in a bank account or something similar. In other words, you are paying with your own money the whole time, as opposed to a credit card in which the credit company pays the person selling whatever and then you pay the company.

Actually, there's a post on the Imperian boards that details how many credits you could easily purchase by simply removing simple things from your every day life. For instance, a Dr. Pepper you buy at the machine is $1. Buying a 2 liter is the same price, so bring your own Dr. Pepper each day you'd be able to save $4 a week equating to $20 a month. Next, you go buy lunch at Mc Donalds for $6 whereas you could have purchased enough sandwich materials for the next 5 lunches for a similar price. That's $24 a week or about $100 a month through your simple substitution. It's entirely up to you what playing the game is worth to you. Personally I'd much rather have trans skills than eat at McDonalds versus a ham sandwich. Life is a choice, that's the beauty of it and you DO have a choice if you want to afford said credits.

not to mention it'd probably be a lot healthier....

I don't like the idea of changing lifestyle specifically to be able to afford spending money on a game. I'd rather use those methods to get some extra savings, and buy credits from that. Which is really the same thing when you think about it, but I like the way I describe it better

Has everyone forgotten Aesyra?

Omnitrans, gobs of artifacts, she only spent about 20-30 dollars on credits, and that just to keep her character from being ever autodeleted.

There are plenty of credits on the credit market and plenty of ways IC to get gold to buy them. (I need to remind you all that the only reason there is a credit market, or guild/national credit is because people DO buy ooc credits, and it trickles down in many forms to others.)

The admin also provide nice ways that you can get credits, like bardic/artisinal; as well as having nice prolonged 15% sales at times.(note: they don't lower their prices, but they do increase the amount gained for said price as a reward in that case *hint, this is going on right now*)

Don't have money OOC, you don't need it. Don't have some time to hunt, you don't need it. Don't have some skill in contests/maps/drawing/writing, you don't need it. If you don't have any of the three, and have never tried then you're asking to much.

However, Aesyra had the run of old Astral, where you could hunt 24/7 without insanity, and rake in hundreds of thousands of gold sovereigns.

Also, Aesyra was demigod with an insane amount of essence, which means she bashed for a RIDICULOUSLY LONG TIME.

Yeah, she's an incredibly bad example. It's happened in the other games though. If you have the time, it's doable.

Credits are depressing
The contests are always won by the same people, and an average person like me who could do anything interesting for her life, won't be able to get a thing. and moneys out of the question, I have to use nearly every dollar to stay living in my apartment... and to eat :| And I'm horrible at making coin IC