Xenthos:

... how the heck is that null? Your argument is, from the ground up, a completely different scenario than that present in Lusternia.

You're taking a real-world technology industry, where production changes on a daily basis and new components are developed almost as fast. Older televisions have less demand, and their components are easier to produce, so their price goes down-- whereas a new television that takes its place may actually cost more. There's a constant lifecycle of new products taking over from old ones, of innovation and change driving forward. Heck, the real-life market is actually built around convincing you that your 1-year-old television is now junk and needs to be replaced with a brand-new one!

If you can give me a legitimate argument that has a static pricing scheme with no such market forces coming to bear on it being equal to a fluctuating scheme driven entirely by market forces, you might have a point-- but there isn't one. Unless, of course, your argument is that you feel credit prices should be fluctuating based on the stock market or some such (though that means they should be a whole lot higher right now, not lower).

You can't just arbitrarily change prices in a virtual world and say it's equivalent to real world-processes. At a fundamental level there is an infinite potential quantity of the virtual good...

By what you're saying, it sounds as if the real-world economy would have the price lowered by now. The TV is way out of date, being plasma and only 46". LCD, LED, LED-3D are the new hotnesses, but this TV still competes on a price it was years ago. What does this mean? Stable value. Credits should have less of a stable value because they're an endless virtual commodity? I think not. If that were true a credit price drop could have occured years ago, and certainly not at the behest of players. IRE makes sound financial decisions, evident of their success as a pioneer in a gaming community that they are in.

Let's think realistically, though. IRE prices there credits generally somewhere between 29cents and 40cents a piece? Something like that. That's low. That's extremely low. Hell, how much lower do you want them? It still costs them money for salaries, servers, and r&d for new games/technology/future agendas. A big problem our economy faces is how much companies outsource and do away with their own employees. It's more cost effective, but we as players lose out. I'm happy they charge what they do, happy they keep employees who enjoy what we enjoy, and happy with where their gaming community is headed - at least in Lusternia.

By what you're saying, it sounds as if the real-world economy would have the price lowered by now. The TV is way out of date, being plasma and only 46". LCD, LED, LED-3D are the new hotnesses, but this TV still competes on a price it was years ago. What does this mean? Stable value. Credits should have less of a stable value because they're an endless virtual commodity? I think not. If that were true a credit price drop could have occured years ago, and certainly not at the behest of players. IRE makes sound financial decisions, evident of their success as a pioneer in a gaming community that they are in.

Let's think realistically, though. IRE prices there credits generally somewhere between 29cents and 40cents a piece? Something like that. That's low. That's extremely low. Hell, how much lower do you want them? It still costs them money for salaries, servers, and r&d for new games/technology/future agendas. A big problem our economy faces is how much companies outsource and do away with their own employees. It's more cost effective, but we as players lose out. I'm happy they charge what they do, happy they keep employees who enjoy what we enjoy, and happy with where their gaming community is headed - at least in Lusternia.

My entire argument has been that it is better for IRE to keep credit prices the way they are because there are not similar market pressures that there are in the real world; without similar pressures, there is no real justification for adjusting prices without compensation. Are you now agreeing with that basic premise, or..?

I'm also not understanding the television that has dropped in price but has also remained stable at the same time.

Nice back and forth going on here but I just wanted to re-emphasize that the poll was started with the intention of seeing whether or not players would buy MORE credits if they were priced or valued differently. The intention was not to argue that IRE makes too much money. Completely the opposite. It's more interesting to find out whether they could potentially be bringing in more, in any of the ways that have been suggested by the players.

Some of us feel that the prices are too high or just right, but none of us are qualified to say that with absolute certainty. If the prices/value of credits were changed, would some of us buy credits? Most likely. Enough to make it worthwhile? Impossible to determine with such little information (though I've taken up a position that it is). We're also representing an extremely biased group here, so I'd weigh all the opinions (including mine I suppose) very carefully.

I'm not really sure what else to add - I just really want to figure out how we can make the games grow and thrive. I do think money is a very big part of it, and there are different ways to approach it. Right now we're doing fine maintaining the status quo I guess - certainly from this thread we can see that a number of people are content. But I'm pretty sure we could do better.

I was thinking about it some, an interesting thing to try would be shorter lived promotionals the way steam does it. Maybe for one or two days, X artifact goes on sale (purchasable with real $$, not credits), but massively discounted. Moreso than the normal monthly promotionals. For instance buy an artifact vial off the website for just $3-5.

I know steam's "daily deals" of 50%+ off have ended with me getting games I never even play, because hey why not spend $5. It would be interesting to see how something similar on artifacts would work. Wouldn't hurt for them to try it out once, and if it sells more to make it more common. The only way to make it viable from a business perspective is to have it only cash purchases, not massive discounts usable from ICly gotten credits.

I've spent a great deal on credits in the past, but don't plan on spending any more beyond the membership.

I have a lot less money to throw around these days because of new expenses, and as much as I want the 1800 credits to finish runing my axe, I could never justify the $ cost of those credits purchasing them outright. The benefits of the ones I want are just so marginal for the massive price tag. Somewhere between $80-$100 to upgrade one of my weapon stat runes from level 2 to level 3, when the change is so small?

With something like the cubix, it is a huge, noticeable change to the way you play. Extremely expensive, but your experience is palpably different. I've already got a lot of those big ones from a long time ago, and the majority of artifacts remaining for me to get just feel a little too meh to go too far out of pocket on.

The membership is just a lot better deal for the money, as you get more credits than that cash would have bought you, plus the dingbats which you can trade for additional credits if you don't want them for something specific, plus lessons every day, plus the xp bonus perk. It will take me a while to get the few things I'm saving up for with the membership and purchasing some off market here and there, but I'll get there eventually.

Even if the prices of credits dropped the only thing it might get me to do is to cancel membership and buy a set amount each month if I felt it was somehow a better deal. Credits would have to drop down to something like 15cents per (~166cr for $25) or below for the smallish (100-200cr) packages for me to consider it a better deal. That only brings the packages in line with what I consider the value of the membership to be (125cr + 20db), trading the xp and lesson perks for the ability to sell them.

As a complete tangent, I feel that the membership option has destroyed the in game credit market. Everyone gets bound credits now, so there is no supply, driving the price up while there isn't even enough to be bought to actually purchase any artifacts lol. The option I mentioned in the paragraph above would make me a lot happier as a player, since I imagine an increase in unbound credits coming into the game would drop the market price to a more reasonable level, while actually making a supply decent enough for people to purchase stuff. With the credit market where it is, there is a very high barrier to entry for new players. It's either pay cash or suck. At least back in the day you could work your way up with the market, maybe purchase a little if you coud, meet in the middle to get where you wanted to be.

In summation: I have spent large amounts of money on this game, and I would be glad if prices dropped. Not because I would spend more real money, but because I think that'd help the credit market become reasonable again.

I don't think you can blame the Elite Membership for the credit market. Aetolian credit prices remained relatively stable even with the introduction of the membership. They went up somewhat (about 15-20%), but didn't see the inflation spiral Lusternia did.

The gold economy in Lusternia is what is to blame for the credit market. Gold is so common and easy to get, not to mention useless, that most people simply aren't willing to pay ANY amount of real money for the stuff.

foolofsound:

I don't think you can blame the Elite Membership for the credit market. Aetolian credit prices remained relatively stable even with the introduction of the membership. They went up somewhat (about 15-20%), but didn't see the inflation spiral Lusternia did.

The gold economy in Lusternia is what is to blame for the credit market. Gold is so common and easy to get, not to mention useless, that most people simply aren't willing to pay ANY amount of real money for the stuff.

Gold might be flowing for you and you might not care for a manse, but please don't use blanket statements. I care quite a lot for my manse and the time spent into it, and the sheer amount of manses listed seems to go against players not caring about them.

^

I'm working on building my own fleet that will make all bubbles accessible through flashpoints (no more worrying about lack of bubblix!). So far I've poured more than 10mil on manses.

GealbhanBheag:

Gold might be flowing for you and you might not care for a manse, but please don't use blanket statements. I care quite a lot for my manse and the time spent into it, and the sheer amount of manses listed seems to go against players not caring about them.

My statement says MANY players. This is a statement of fact; a substantial portion (I would wager at least a fourth, if not significantly more) players don't have any real plans or desires to obtain a manse.

Further, if you compare the number of player participating in the gold sink (meaning actively buying or expanding manses) to the number of players generating gold through bashing, it's pretty obvious that manses are not an effective way of removing gold from the economy. Why else do you see players sittings on giant piles of the stuff, waiting for something useful (crates,ect.) to buy?

Xenthos:

My entire argument has been that it is better for IRE to keep credit prices the way they are because there are not similar market pressures that there are in the real world; without similar pressures, there is no real justification for adjusting prices without compensation. Are you now agreeing with that basic premise, or..?

I'm also not understanding the television that has dropped in price but has also remained stable at the same time.

I thought something I read earlier you said was you wanted a price drop, and a refund for the now devalued price. O_O I might be retarded, but then we agree prices are fine just how they are.

On the TV, I said I bought it 4ish years ago. A year later price drop by 100$ from 500$ then price stayed at 400$ for the rest of this time. That's stable.

Obviously I don't buy credits when I'm not playing but when I came back a few days ago, I signed up for the Iron Membership again and bought the $20 credit package so I could have some to sell for gold. The credit market sucks for buyers but it sure is lovely for sellers! :lol:

It's always been my habit to buy small packages. The $20 is the most common, to sell for gold and convert for lessons. Very occasioally, I'll do it to supplement the amount of credits I've gotten from Bardi/Artisanals/Iron Membership if I was just a bit short to get some random artifact. But that's not often.I'm a non-combatant though. I've gotten only a handfull of artifats across my entire history of Lusternia characters. A few influence ones, a magic box making one, a tradeskill one, a ledger... That's it basically. The vast majority of my bought credits have gone to gold for manse rooms. So, anyway, the $20 package once a month or so, has always been enough for me.

If the prices went down, I'd probably still get whatever amount of credits $20 would buy, in addition to my Iron Membership.