Rich or poor?

Phillio - Archosaur

So there's a lot of talk about people spending the game to death. I'm not sure that's true but I figured I'd start a little discussion.

First of all I'm not judging anyone. If you have the money and want to spend it on the game you should do exactly as you like. If you either don't have the money or just don't think it's worth it that's cool too. I know some people in my faction don't spend a lot and still get a lot done by pure wit and creativity. I've actually learned a lot from them already.
I personally could probably afford to spend more but I've limited myself to buying about 5000 zen every month or so. I spend it on things that are on sale or stuff I need like charms, guardian scrolls, tisha stones and monkey smilies (yes I NEED those lol).

I will spend slightly more on occasion (when starting a new alt that needs a starter kit or something). I only open 20 packs (whichever ones have sales at that time if any) every two weeks.
For example this week I went with the dragon's fire pack sale to see if I could get lucky and get the 12x one. If by chance I get an expensive item I'll auction it and won't have to spend irl money for the packs two weeks later.

So how much zen does everyone buy a month and what do you spend it on and why? Also, do you think being rich or poor creates a really unfair balance to the game on a pve srv? I do think creating a faction base for instance is ridiculously expensive. Right now my faction is saving up but it's slow going. Then again I think it will be more satisfying to get it grinding and farming rather then just dumping cash into the game and buying it. I also think that getting to a high level fast spending a lot of irl money isn't that much fun because you end up learning nothing about your class and how to play. But if that's you're kind of thing, again I'm not judging. You should do what you think is fun.

Does anyone have tips on getting things cheaper (like using tokens and combining to get imm. chards for a lot less then buying them in the auction or cat shops, a tip I got from my fearless faction leader ) ?

Looking forward to seeing some nice rants

truekossy

This topic probably won't end well regardless of intentions unless heavily moderated.

That said, I don't burn money on this game. Especially when I can get several other ones for the price of anything decent here.

Cbean - Harshlands

Phillio - Archosaur wrote: »

So there's a lot of talk about people spending the game to death. I'm not sure that's true but I figured I'd start a little discussion.

First of all I'm not judging anyone. If you have the money and want to spend it on the game you should do exactly as you like. If you either don't have the money or just don't think it's worth it that's cool too. I personally could probably afford to spend more but I've limited myself to buying about 5000 zen every month or so. I spend it on things that are on sale or stuff I need like charms, guardian scrolls and monkey smilies (yes I NEED those). I do spend slightly more on occasion (when starting a new alt that needs a starter kit or something). I only open 20 packs (whichever ones have sales at that time if any) every two weeks. For example this week I went with the dragon's fire packs to see if I could get lucky and get the 12x one. If by chance I get an expensive item I'll auction it and won't have to spend irl money for the packs two weeks later.

So how much zen does everyone buy a month and what do you spend it on and why? Also, do you think being rich or poor creates a really unfair balance to the game on a pve srv?

Looking forward to seeing some nice rants

im kinda curious about results, personaly i dont spend anything, and i dont care who knows

Phillio - Archosaur

truekossy wrote: »

This topic probably won't end well regardless of intentions unless heavily moderated.

.

Really, that controversial? I thought it would be kind of interesting to find out how much money ppl spend on the game and why. Not trying or wanting to offend anyone. If I did offend I sincerely apologize. People, I said I was looking forwards to some good rants, but please do keep it clean!!

thx.

Sirrobert - Dreamweaver

Regarding the base, they are really not that expencive.

Bases are mostly aimed at higher end factions (the trials for example need lvl 80 to enter, and are really not fun unles you have atleast 1 full squad of near end game people)


For a full faction (like 150 people), it's only like 1,5mil a person. That's pritty easy

MistaBwanden - Sanctuary

I guess none. I've only ever charged $10, and that was a few years ago when I REALLY wanted fashion.

XWesley_ - Raging Tide

Ok, i have a few different opinions... so bear with me plz. and none of you are my Judge, so... w/e.
1st of all, yes i do spend my money, but it's when i know i have the xtra to put into it and when there is something i need, i.e.( orbs on sale, packs on sale, ((getting closer to that end game weap so, trying to get some xtra attack lvl and high lvl HP stones)) rep on sale and so on... also i look at what are on bids, as i try to surprise my wife (if and when i can) with nice dyes or a specific flyer for mystics. Much like you i put in 2000- 5000 every other month or less often if it isn't there... MODERATION, PPL.
2nd, I have spent RL money on one char to lvl her up... an assasin... because i played one once and just eff'd it all up. After reading how a ssin is normally played i made another one and dumped a fifty into her to get her lvl'd, (again i played it before and deleted the char after I got stats all wrong) i know... i shoulda spent a few dollars on reset note(s) but i didn't know too much about those then either. Also, the majority of that money was for good blades and FC heads... oh, and putting +'s on her gear.
Finally, I want to add that i am currently trying to learn how to make use of all the idle time i currently find on the game and I'm learning how and where to grind. VERY IMPORTANT... for all of you who A). Never spent a dime and refuse to. or Those of us who spent hundreds and still are not the most awesome solo FC'er out there.... if we want the ppl running this thing to put some epic shnyt on the boutique... we truely need to learn to grind and work for the coinage without spending our coins... then the things we get with it are awesome and maybe, MAYBE, the game will improve and "they" will spend less time at bank and more time on improvements. I J S. ty for your time and letting me "rant".

Desdi - Sanctuary

I used to charge like 25euro per month, more or less but I stopped since summer 2011. I'd probably continue charging zen here and there but right now all my money go for my university needs.

Extrii - Archosaur

I don't usually spend money on the game, but I have spent a bit. If I have the money, I'd put in $20 or so for the month.
But, in the ~2 years I've been playing, I'd say the amount of money I put into this game is only around $100-$200, and most of that was spent on extra things such as flyers and fashion.
Style before gear. b:laugh

However, I have been saving up my money for a little while now, for the purpose of adding it all to PWI at once and hopefully get a little extra from the bonus', so I'll likely have another $200 on on the game from all my saving. Hopefully that can get me out of the rut of boredom I'm in.

Phillio - Archosaur

XWesley_ - Raging Tide wrote: »

if we want the ppl running this thing to put some epic shnyt on the boutique... we truely need to learn to grind and work for the coinage without spending our coins... then the things we get with it are awesome and maybe, MAYBE, the game will improve and "they" will spend less time at bank and more time on improvements. I J S. ty for your time and letting me "rant".

That's actually a REALLY good point. If we don't spend lots of irl money it might prompt pwi to put more effort in other ways to keep it interesting. I agree 100 percent.

D_u_s_t_y - Archosaur

i WISH i had money to spend in the 1st place

krisnda

truekossy wrote: »

This topic probably won't end well regardless of intentions unless heavily moderated.

That said, I don't burn money on this game. Especially when I can get several other ones for the price of anything decent here.

Well, so far there's no reason to close it. But *points at sig*.

Carry on .

(Personally, I don't buy zen on here, I try and earn it through the offers, but those suck nowaways :<)

truekossy

Phillio - Archosaur wrote: »

That's actually a REALLY good point. If we don't spend lots of irl money it might prompt pwi to put more effort in other ways to keep it interesting. I agree 100 percent.

Unfortunately for us, it's more likely that they'd pull the plug due to a lack of income. That's how the parent company seems to operate.

Krisnda wrote: »

Well, so far there's no reason to close it. But *points at sig*.

Carry on .

(Personally, I don't buy zen on here, I try and earn it through the offers, but those suck nowaways :<)

Stop staring in my window! b:shocked

Cotillion - Dreamweaver

I used to spend $20 here and there.....but haven't even done that in so long I can't remember the last time I did....probably a year or so?
Got merchanting off the ground quite some time ago and never felt the need to charge anything again.

iexze

I spend anywhere from 500 to the most I have bought was 13,000 in a month, I haven't bought any gold since April but my job pays enough to buy it along with going out and doing other things, PW is just a hobby .

When next time I will buy Gold will be around Christmas most likely, and that would be to go towards rank 9

_Skai_ - Raging Tide

Stopped csing after I learned how to merch. It's slower than charging zen, that's for sure, but it's also free xD.

powergroth

Is this a joke? You know I'm sure most people who do cs spend like $ 50 to 100 a month How does your poll choices make any sense? Yea totally people send over 100k a month...b:chuckle

iexze

powergroth wrote: »

Is this a joke? You know I'm sure most people who do cs spend like $ 50 to 100 a month How does your poll choices make any sense? Yea totally people send over 100k a month...b:chuckle

Is your post a joke? It's how much ZEN you buy not how much $ you spend, so jokes on you b:pleased

powergroth

The poll doesn't specify that.

iexze

powergroth wrote: »

The poll doesn't specify that.

Erm yes it does? In the title "View Poll Results: How much zen do you buy a month? (Votes are not public)"

Extrii - Archosaur

powergroth wrote: »

The poll doesn't specify that.

It's in the title. o.o

Jaabg - Sanctuary

powergroth wrote: »

The poll doesn't specify that.

How much zen do you buy a month?

To OP, i used to play Evony before this game. My cities were maxed out, for me to improve further would have required money. I grew up "poor" my whole life, money was for food and education only, not spending it on entertainment. So i quit Evony and gave my account to someone in the guild.

When i started PWI, the very first day i saw the price discrimination and I knew this game was F2P, so like D2 it would take time, but possible. I never charged money, even though i could have. I learnt all the different things about this game that i could. That allows me to merchant to great heights. If the game is around for another 1~3 years, i should have enough merchanting funds to r8~r9 the alts i want. But my main focus is on my BM and getting the new r9 gear, +12 it and put josd in it and be bankrupt b:dirty.

PWI is like most things in life, tt99~r8 = average gear, with some work everyone can get it. R9 = a bit more dedication required. R9 recast = Have to spend great amount of effort. Being at the top of each new gear release = extreme effort that only a few will ever do. Most people don't want things badly in this life, similar in game as well. They may like to have it, but there is no urge, fire, drive in the vast majority of the players. For the people who are truly dedicated, passionate about their work will find success and immense rewards and those people are far and few, same applied for the people in this game b:chuckle.

What truekossy was alluding to was, people who think they should be entitled to the best gear but not really working for it, will spam this thread with their complaints and suggestions how the game is dead, boring, is P2P only, is unfair.....

fawye

I myself don't put any money on any game anymore. I've played other free to play MMOs and I've spent money (not a lot but still) on them just to find out it's not worth it for me. That's mostly because I can't stick to only one game, I guess, so no matter what it always ends up feeling like a waste of money to me. If I could stick to something I'd probably just play a pay to play game but since I can't I'd rather spend my money on other short term hobbies (like concerts, booze, trips and so on).

Note: I'm not trying to tell anyone to "stop wasting your money and go get a life", I'm just saying that, to me, it's not pleasing, in a long term, to spend money on a game. If it is to you and you can afford it then that's what matters.

About the rich x poor thing on PvE servers: there will always be rich people and poor people on free to play games 'cause that's how it works. It can be very frustrating for people who choose not to spend money to see cash shoppers getting stuff easily (I'm my own example, lol) but this is a free to play game. If you choose to invest on the game then I think it's pretty obvious and only fair that you get something extra. There are a lot of ways of playing and making money (you can grind, you can offer services, you can cash shop etc) and they're all valid. Not charging Zen doesn't mean you have to be poor in game.

truekossy wrote:

Phillio - Archosaur wrote:

That's actually a REALLY good point. If we don't spend lots of irl money it might prompt pwi to put more effort in other ways to keep it interesting. I agree 100 percent.

Unfortunately for us, it's more likely that they'd pull the plug due to a lack of income. That's how the parent company seems to operate.

Most likely indeed. I've seen it happen at least.

crystalpink

I don't typically buy ZEN every month.
I only buy it when there's ZEN sale, and I use my ZEN to buy fashions, flyers and mounts for each of my character.
Maybe, if I play one character only, I won't buy as much ZEN as I did.
Alas, I can't stick to one character only lolz

mogwai

From the start of this version i purchased $80-120 U.S.D. via. Game Cards from Target retailers & then do free offers when i really need stuff.

Despite being in-game for 10-16hours/day (i did leave twice total: 1.4yrs away) & playing for next to nothing i have had what i call "generations" of players pass my lv, out gear me at almost every turn, become "experts" at certain instances which i always wanted to do but out lvl'd them early on, so when i was ready for them only very few knew what/how to do them, where all the others weren't yet interested.
For the heavy CS'ers (in nearly any game), i cannot fathom what would present any challenges for them but in PvP vs. someone else who spent exactly equal amounts. They are the ones who breeze through & leave game relatively quickly. They are not playing the same game as freeloaders, not even remotely close, anyone who thinks otherwise is delusional.
I believe my gaming experience is/was diminished extensively by not moderately CS'ing.

Feel my pain! b:cry

On the other side, PWI needs freeloaders as they are often (not always, lol )...
-the ones who are more knowledgeable about in-game stuff out of necessity & long term exposure.
-are most helpful. see above.
-how would heavy CS'ers make ANY coins without freeloaders?
-who would heavy CS'ers PK to make themselves feel better?

Thanks for supporting our servers & one shotting my best efforts for so long.

But finally when freeloaders do get their lv goal(s) & eventually gear up well, they become a true threat that legends are made of. b:victory

i dont know how any of this helps but thar ya go

p.s. i wrote this while waiting for the "earn zen" offers to refresh & as a distraction to raking the leaves

miyukiamayachi1

The reason I put so much into the game is because I want to support the game developers. This game is free so it requires people to buy zen, kind of like optional donation based running. The more money I can put in, the more I feel I have done my part to keep the game running month to month. Imagine how much this game costs to run. Well this wonderful website, decent speeds so the game doesn't lag horribly, somewhere to run the server and off of. Im sure the electric bill is outrageousness. Let people complain people who buy zen ruin the game, the supporters keep the game partly alive.

Baby_pho - Heavens Tear

I dont charge per month. but if there is a sale that I need the items from i would charge up to 100$ that happened once. more than 2 years ago. just looked at my history the past 12 months, i charged 300 so $25 per month if that evens out. more half of the money i spent was on packs which i regret. cos i didnt get anything good out of opening packs.

AdiLynnRose - Raging Tide

Depends on what's on sale but rarely more then $40/month.

MANray_ - Sanctuary

Yeah, I don't think the term "freeloader" to be appropiate... F2p players do play an important role and make up a key sector of a sever's economy. In terms of community I believe all of us to be equal.

On topic, someone does have to pay the bills. I moderately charge zen, meaning I try to keep to under $15 a month, as this is pretty much the industry standard for p2p MMO gaming. I do this for sanity reasons and it has nothing to do with what disposable income I may have available. Also, while I'll admit I may have overindulged in the past few weeks, I try to keep my play time (ideally this also includes forums) to around 8 hours a week, 12 hours tops when I get some extra time or lazy weekends. When discussing resources I do believe time to be a much more important factor than money, as someone putting in over 8 hours a day for a period of months is probably paying a much greater price than the guy who's spending on r9 what some of us would much rather use for a European vacation. Not that these guys are getting off the hook in terms of irl costs.

Yes, I do respect everyone's right to do what they will with their time and money but I do have good reasons to doubt that those with six figure incomes constitute any significant proprotion of the player base, and that really is, in my opinion, the kind of income you would need in order to claim you're responsable about gaming if you're sinking several hundreds of dollars into this. There may very well be a few people out there under exceptional circumstances but I don't believe them to be any more numerous than millionaires...

I'll likely get flamed for this but do keep in mind I'm expressing a personal opinion. This is not a casual friendly game and the real challenge is it takes an enormous amount of organization to manage limited resources. Another cost that is often overlooked, however negligible it may seem, is environmental. Keeping 2-3 rigs dedicated to gaming 24-7 is not exactly eco-friendly.

Finally, on merchanting, this is often a more time intensive activity than it may seem and is not one in which ultimately the majority of players will truly be succesful in. It may seem otherwise if you don't actually factor in all resources going in, and the matter is complicated by pricing schemes close to scams almost everywhere. It is very common to find gold TT mats going for prices higher than what you could get at mysterious merchant and items that can be made from tokens are only as an exception sold at competitive prices. And then you get cartel tactics, buyoffs, dumping, hoarding, price fixing, monopolies, etc. Ofc just realizing this means an investment in time.

All I'm advocating for here is that you consider the means and resources you use.

VenusArmani - Dreamweaver

I've spent about 150 dollars total in the entire three years I've played this game. I bought an account stash for two accounts and the rest of money was 10 dollars here and there when I just absolutely had to have the latest fash on sale. And was unwilling to wait.

So I'm not a totally f2p player. But I'm not exactly a cash shopper either.

Oh and 10 dollars of that didn't even go to me. It went towards a Christmas Contest I held in the forum last year. Winner got 10 million coins.

Kirissana - Sanctuary

I spend a little -- maybe up to $20 or $25 a month when I'm playing this game.

I think that if I enjoy a game, I should pay at least a little for it, just like I would pay to see a movie or whatever. If nobody paid, there would be no game to play.

Mostly, I buy storage, an occasional reset note if I screwed up on stats, maybe one of the lower priced flyers and a few fashions. And if I have a few gold or silvers left, I might buy a handful of packs -- it'd be nice to get one of the rare items from the packs, but actually I get a few for the tokens. You can get cupboard and wardrobe stones cheaper with tokens than with gold in the boutique.