It's actually counterproductive for Cryptic/Perfect World to let it get to the peak, especially if it stays there for a while. See, every Zen on there, save for maybe that earned by Lifetime subs with their stipends, is bought with real money. Who pays that real money shouldn't matter one bit to those who receive it. But, if the exchange goes to max level, and especially if it stays there for a while, those who would buy Zen to sell on the exchange would likely feel that they're not getting their actual money's worth in doing so, since it has reached price control levels. Likely any amount lost in those sales will not be covered by the people who already weren't buying Zen directly, and Cryptic/Perfect World will start to lose money in net Zen sales.
And then we'll have a Dil Exchange version of the 1920s "Black Friday" and the market will reset.
Zen bankers diving off the top of ESD and the Klingon Shipyards?
8k / 500 = 16 z a day. 16 z x 30 days = 480 z.
480 z x 12 months = 5760 z p/year.
compared: 300 dil.
8k / 300 = 26.6 z a day. 26.6 z x 30 days = 798 z.
798 z x 12 months = 9576 z p/year.
compared: 150 dil.
8k / 150 = 53.3 z a day. 53.3 z x 30 days= 1599 z.
1599 z x 12 months = 19188 z p/year.
the current rate of 500 has wiped off a considerably amount of profit anyone can make. if there is not a sink soon and this says at 500 for a long while, it would be worthless being on the dil market for any real reason unless you plan to spent most of the year trying to get a t6 ship at 5k zen.
the current market is oppressive.
So? You're talking a a difference from high to low of a little over US$130 per year here. that's approximately US$0.38 per day. Both are slave wages in the first place, just one is a slightly higher slave wage.
and what is your point other than confirming what i already wrote?
T6 Miranda Hero Ship FTW. Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
Raising the cap doesn't make sense. It will just make the economy worse. The Zen Sellers won't be able to sell if people are unwilling to buy their Zen. The higher the price, the LESS likely people will buy because it wouldn't be worth it.
Really? Tell that to all the people buying Zen at these prices. If the Zen sellers weren't able to sell their Zen at a particular high price, the prices would fall. The fact that the price is shooting up so quickly means that the current prices are severely undervaluing Zen. As the general model is "undercut the lowest price to make sure your commodity sells first," the current situation means that people are spending their dil on Zen faster than it's getting posted.
The problem isn't an unwillingness to buy Zen due to it not being worth the dil cost - it's the opposite. It makes sense, too - dil is used to do things like build starbases, many of which are already complete, and upgrade item loadouts, many of which are already gold, while Zen is used to buy all the cool new items that get added to the game. We're lucky anyone still wants to trade their Zen for worthless dil at all.
The way I see it there's probably several things going on right now:
1) fleets have pretty much filled every project so dilithium is no longer required for them. So there's surplus dilithium here.
2) most older players have upgrades finished for their preferred builds, meaning more surplus dilithium here as well.
3) the game has litteraly flooded players with ore since last October. There's so much pouring in it impossible not to get a backlog of ore even with taking days out of earning it. Massive excess here.
4) a lot of desirable c-store and lockbox/lobi goodies recently has put desire for zen up high. Also these are almost the only things worth spending dilithium on once you reach top tier and end game.
5) so a large proportion of the players are exchanging for zen simply because they've nothing else to spend it on. I also think there's a lot if casual players who gave no knowledge of the historical lows in the markets and so have no idea how bad a deal they may be getting. Hence why there are still people exchanging despite the unfavourable conditions.
It's actually counterproductive for Cryptic/Perfect World to let it get to the peak, especially if it stays there for a while. See, every Zen on there, save for maybe that earned by Lifetime subs with their stipends, is bought with real money. Who pays that real money shouldn't matter one bit to those who receive it. But, if the exchange goes to max level, and especially if it stays there for a while, those who would buy Zen to sell on the exchange would likely feel that they're not getting their actual money's worth in doing so, since it has reached price control levels. Likely any amount lost in those sales will not be covered by the people who already weren't buying Zen directly, and Cryptic/Perfect World will start to lose money in net Zen sales.
And then we'll have a Dil Exchange version of the 1920s "Black Friday" and the market will reset.
Zen bankers diving off the top of ESD and the Klingon Shipyards?
I personally think it is great... As I am back in the game, and needing to upgrade all my items from Mk12 I can spend a little Zen and get back some good Dill... - and I need a LOT of Dill :-(
Seems only the Dill farmers are moaning about the Dill price.
I don't think you understand. Raising the cap on the DL Exchange won't solve anything. Lets say the Exchange hits 500/1. Now... divide a full day's worth of Dilithium (8000) by that 500. Result: 16 Zen for 8000 Dilithium.
If Cryptic does as you suggest and raise the Exchange cap to 600 and they DON'T do anything to counter the rise in Zen prices on said Exchange, that 16 Zen will become 13 Zen for a full day's worth of Dilithium, and we'd be right back to having this discussion. What will the solution be then? Raise it to 700/1? Now we're only earning 11 Zen per 8000 DL.
The only people who could make any reasonable amount of Zen via the DL Exchange then would be Altoholics who can mitigate that steep price with sheer numbers. Everyone else would be priced out of the C-Store entirely.
The DL Exchange doesn't generate Zen. Zen doesn't become more or less valuable in terms of what's in the C-Store. Dilithium prices for things like Fleet Consoles/Weapons doesn't change. The percieved value based on in game events is what changes. Fluctuates based on supply and demand. And right now Zen Demand AND Dilithium Supply are so high that it takes MORE Dilithium to get 1 Zen. The higher the price, the LONGER it takes to get a ship. And those months you mentioned turn into YEARS. That is not worth the effort for so little reward.
Yup, the only way to sort it is Cryptic either need to stop producing stuff to buy.
Not going to happen.
Cryptic needs to actually produce very heavy Dilithium sinks, like making an entirely new 5 stage fleet addition.
Possible, but a lot of work.
Or lower the max level cap from the current 500 to 300.
I don't think that is going to happen any time soon.
Chose are your choices, so Cryptic just needs to pick a couple of them together, and the market should level out.
416 currently, come one! you can do better than that fortunately I stopped to use the dil exchange since the price has exceeded 200. (150 was a good price)
Implement an dilithium upkeep for fleets, pro rated to size of fleets/armada's. Larger size fleets have a larger upkeep fee due to more wear and tear on the facilities and equipment. Implement npc attacks on fleet/armada facilities that require dilithium, ec, and RnD materials to repair.
so dilithium is no longer required for them. So there's surplus dilithium here.
Yeah, and that's exactly why dilithium is among the last resources filled in all those fleet provision projects if you don't have a bunch of dedicated dilithium farmers on your roster. (Together with holding-specific provisions - these give you nothing for your contribution while requiring fleet credits).
The REAL problem here is that donating dilithium to fleet projects is severely underrated in terms of payout. So even people with lots of surplus dilithium don't bother with it.
the game has literally flooded players with ore since last October.
While it may be true for older players - it is not so much for newer players or new alts. Or for the people with unstable and/or limited online time.
For those categories of players the current situation with dilithium is a blessing because it lifts off the necessity for wasting time specifically for dilithium farming, allowing to do something more fun at that time instead. And this in turn increases the attractiveness of the game for them and makes more likely that they'll spend real money on it.
And in my view, people here on the forum tend to overestimate the role of older players with loads of surplus in the overall game online numbers.
Moreover, I strongly suspect that the importance of the current Dilithium exchange prices is blown out of proportion in terms of its impact on the game. Dilithium exchange has any meaning for those, who:
a) know about it all - not every average STO player really does as it is hidden in the depth of game's interface
b) can generate surplus dilithium to actually post it to buy Zen (and to use it just as a proxy for transferring dilithium between alts).
I would make an educated guess that this is a) a rather limited (if not to say, small) percentage of the game's playerbase; b) mostly f2p-gamers, who don't really influence the game bottom line.
Yeah, but there are players who are unwilling or unable to afford to open their wallets. It's the nature of a F2P game. So for those players the Dil Exchange is the only way to Zen. There is a way to eventually get free Zen by logging into Arc, but I have not done so myself so I do not know the specifics.
I turned in some Dil last night at 407:1 to get some Zen to offset cost of buying the T6 Eternal science ship. It may not be a faction specific ship, but at least my KDF and RR science captains can finally get a T6 science ship from the C-Store.
There is a way to eventually get free Zen by logging into Arc, but I have not done so myself so I do not know the specifics.
Yeah, there are Arc quests. At the bottom of the window there's a scroll-looking button. Click it and it gives you three choices. Usually Play X game for Y number of days. Or play X number of games, or log into Arc on X number of days. You can discard any of the three choices and get a new one. But sometimes it can take a few days to get a choice you can do. They all reward different amounts of experience, depending on what it wants you to do. I've only just started doing them myself and got a window to pop saying to log onto Arc on 8 different days for 300 exp.
Now a LTS and loving it.
Just because you spend money on this game, it does not entitle you to be a jerk if things don't go your way.
I have come to the conclusion that I have a memory like Etch-A-Sketch. I shake my head and forget everything.
Keep in mind there is winners and losers in everything
Folks that exclusively buy zen with cash LOVE a 500 exchange rate.
Great for them.
Folks who grind dil instead...500 is horrible.
so keep in mind WHY some folks like it, some don't
Oh, that's a given. Dil is so devalued right now that it isn't a very good bargain to trade it on the exchange. I get more use out of it for upgrades/rep projects than trading it for zen.
The greedy zen traders is what's keeping the dil so devalued. And the dil traders who settle for tiny crumbs.
Now a LTS and loving it.
Just because you spend money on this game, it does not entitle you to be a jerk if things don't go your way.
I have come to the conclusion that I have a memory like Etch-A-Sketch. I shake my head and forget everything.
While there are some players that have no discretionary income (and I feel for those), the game is playable with what is free, and the game offers short grinds for current level ships twice a year, and the events offer a bulk of dil to do with whatever they wish.
Zen items are a luxury for this game, and the game does give all players a zero dollar option to acquire them through the exchange but the amount of players wanting Zen for free , far outweigh the players who are willing to supply that free Zen. Now if some players that right kow are wanting Zen for free, and can pay a few bucks for it (even to reduce the amount they need to trade for) do so, the demand will normalize, and the exchange rate will drop.
Now, here is the kicker, this game actually has sales on Zen, so the shrewd player will buy some Zen when it goes sale, and wait for the item they want to go on sale (both sales are frequent BTW), its very easy to increase a dollars buying power by as much as 40%, so a Zen store item, bought at thte right time is a little bit more than world recognized ecomonic cost of living monitor of the "Big Mac Meal".
Oddly enough some of the Dilithium sinks are working against me using my zeni to buy dilithium... The only thing I'd consistently do with it is accelerate the rate I'm gaining crafting XP and the Dil sink for that is SO STEEP I've just ignored it. ~18 k to buy one day of progress? MEH!
Once dil went over 300 i stopped trading, i now use it for upgrades only, even when i dont have something to upgrade i go get a piece of useless rubish, and upgrade it to sell on the ec exchange.
Id rather turn my dill to EC then trade it for zen, the cost is way to high and no sign of lowering anytime soon, some are willing to sit on their dil , some are willing to use it for upgrades.
But there is a sucker born everyday and for the people that sit on it or refuse to trade, there are thousands more dumb enough to buy zen for that amount.
In business theres two things that go hand in hand "Greed and Stupidity" , people so greedy they sell for an insane price, and people who are stupid enough to buy for an insane price.
In business theres two things that go hand in hand "Greed and Stupidity" , people so greedy they sell for an insane price, and people who are stupid enough to buy for an insane price.
QFT.
There are always sheeple who will settle for crumbs, no matter the price.
Now a LTS and loving it.
Just because you spend money on this game, it does not entitle you to be a jerk if things don't go your way.
I have come to the conclusion that I have a memory like Etch-A-Sketch. I shake my head and forget everything.
I saw the prices and thought, hey there is an upgrade weekend late next month time to secure enough dili to trick out a few more ships. I bought $20 of zen and they sold super fast at 414 refined dili per zen. I'm happy. Apparently players seeking zen are happy as they bought my stuff and fast.
I think the complaints here are from those that want something for nothing. If my capacity to buy refined dili is at prices too low for me I'll just grind my own.
This is all a trade. Don't like today's rate, wait it out. Prices too exorbitant, pony up with some real money for your zen or just do without whatever it was you wanted zen for.
If Cryptic can't raise revenue we all lose. Stop being so cheap.
While there are some players that have no discretionary income (and I feel for those), the game is playable with what is free, and the game offers short grinds for current level ships twice a year, and the events offer a bulk of dil to do with whatever they wish.
Zen items are a luxury for this game, and the game does give all players a zero dollar option to acquire them through the exchange but the amount of players wanting Zen for free , far outweigh the players who are willing to supply that free Zen. Now if some players that right kow are wanting Zen for free, and can pay a few bucks for it (even to reduce the amount they need to trade for) do so, the demand will normalize, and the exchange rate will drop.
Now, here is the kicker, this game actually has sales on Zen, so the shrewd player will buy some Zen when it goes sale, and wait for the item they want to go on sale (both sales are frequent BTW), its very easy to increase a dollars buying power by as much as 40%, so a Zen store item, bought at thte right time is a little bit more than world recognized ecomonic cost of living monitor of the "Big Mac Meal".
I did not say that all players need to have Zen in order to play the game. I just stated that for those player who could not afford to / are unwilling to purchase Zen, then they need to rely on the Dil Exchange in order to get Zen for "free". And of course there are the Arc Quests that echatty stated.
I agree that STO is absolutely playable without spending real money. I created a secondary STO account for the purpose of testing some privacy settings on my main account, but I decided to use it to play STO absolutely free from time to time. I currently have a level 60 KDF captain and a Romulan captain that I eventually managed to get up to level 50 just before the Crystalline Catastrophe event.
I have not gotten to the Delta Rising content yet on my max level KDF captain but so far I have been able to handle all the story missions. I am currently in the middle of the Cardassian Struggle story arc and played the featured missions Time & Tide and The Temporal Front in the Future Proof story arc. My free T5 Vor'cha battlecruiser has a mix of rare and very rare Mk XII gear that can be purchased from the Exchange. Thanks to AFKers in CCA, I actually took 1st place 3 times last week. Usually I can manage to get 3rd place.
We go through this every time there's a new anything that encourages people to spend Zen. I'm honestly not sure what these threads are about anymore, it's the same old song and dance regarding increasing the dilithium cap (which is there in order to make dilithium valuable - an artificial stopgap is required for this, otherwise dilithium would depreciate in value and things would end up having to be even MORE expensive for dilithium to offset the refinement cap increase), conspiracy theories that Cryptic somehow manages to have people on payroll to spend 24/7 manipulating the dilithium exchange, and how a very small minority of the STO playerbase on the forums need to "unite" to make the dilithium-to-zen exchange rate "reasonable" (the definition of which varies from person to person).
Yeah, but there are players who are unwilling or unable to afford to open their wallets. It's the nature of a F2P game. So for those players the Dil Exchange is the only way to Zen. There is a way to eventually get free Zen by logging into Arc, but I have not done so myself so I do not know the specifics.
Here's the cold, hard, blunt, truth. If you are unwilling or unable to open your wallet, then its not Cryptic's problem. Most f2p games do not have a market like the Dilithium Exchange, and its use is not some virtual "right" that broke/lazy people have. If the Dil sellers get buyers at obscene ratios of exchange then they will sell it at those rates and it will keep climbing until they get no more buyers. Cryptic couldn't care less past the part that someone spent $$ to get the zen you're buying. I say all this as one seriously broke TRIBBLE, so don't think I'm some hyper spending whale or something.
Cryptic used to care until around February 2015. At that point they clearly said #$@% it. They want all this dil - let it go to 500. Since then we have seen an inexorable climb which has wildly accelerated over the last 6 months. People talk of fluctuations. BS. Look at the price chart - very stable with fluctuations based on Cryptic caused events until February 2015. Since then Cryptic has done nothing to bring it down. In fact every single upgrade weekend for the past 6 months or longer has been accompanied by some sort of sale to make sure it doesn't go down even a single point.
Personally, I could care less. There's nothing I need. Have plenty zen and enough dil for the rest of the game. But part of the fun for me - in fact much of the game is seeing how much I can earn through the exchange system. That game is over.
People will pay 500. And they will be paying it within a months time. Mark my words.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: "We think we've come so far. Torture of heretics, burning of witches, it's all ancient history. Then - before you can blink an eye - suddenly it threatens to start all over again."
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
I don't know about anyone else, but for me, the harder it is to get zen with in game currency, the less likely I am to buy it with cash. Also, the less valuable dil gets, the less likely I am to log on so that I can farm it. Will I ever buy zen at 499 dil to 1 (or worse)? Maybe once I've really stockpiled a lot of it. Even then, I will hardly be a regular customer. Until zen prices get back to what I think is reasonable, I will be trying to play this game without it.
Comments
and what is your point other than confirming what i already wrote?
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
Really? Tell that to all the people buying Zen at these prices. If the Zen sellers weren't able to sell their Zen at a particular high price, the prices would fall. The fact that the price is shooting up so quickly means that the current prices are severely undervaluing Zen. As the general model is "undercut the lowest price to make sure your commodity sells first," the current situation means that people are spending their dil on Zen faster than it's getting posted.
The problem isn't an unwillingness to buy Zen due to it not being worth the dil cost - it's the opposite. It makes sense, too - dil is used to do things like build starbases, many of which are already complete, and upgrade item loadouts, many of which are already gold, while Zen is used to buy all the cool new items that get added to the game. We're lucky anyone still wants to trade their Zen for worthless dil at all.
1) fleets have pretty much filled every project so dilithium is no longer required for them. So there's surplus dilithium here.
2) most older players have upgrades finished for their preferred builds, meaning more surplus dilithium here as well.
3) the game has litteraly flooded players with ore since last October. There's so much pouring in it impossible not to get a backlog of ore even with taking days out of earning it. Massive excess here.
4) a lot of desirable c-store and lockbox/lobi goodies recently has put desire for zen up high. Also these are almost the only things worth spending dilithium on once you reach top tier and end game.
5) so a large proportion of the players are exchanging for zen simply because they've nothing else to spend it on. I also think there's a lot if casual players who gave no knowledge of the historical lows in the markets and so have no idea how bad a deal they may be getting.
Hence why there are still people exchanging despite the unfavourable conditions.
I think we have next years new risa event!
Seems only the Dill farmers are moaning about the Dill price.
Yup, the only way to sort it is Cryptic either need to stop producing stuff to buy.
Not going to happen.
Cryptic needs to actually produce very heavy Dilithium sinks, like making an entirely new 5 stage fleet addition.
Possible, but a lot of work.
Or lower the max level cap from the current 500 to 300.
I don't think that is going to happen any time soon.
Chose are your choices, so Cryptic just needs to pick a couple of them together, and the market should level out.
Cirran
The REAL problem here is that donating dilithium to fleet projects is severely underrated in terms of payout. So even people with lots of surplus dilithium don't bother with it.
While it may be true for older players - it is not so much for newer players or new alts. Or for the people with unstable and/or limited online time.
For those categories of players the current situation with dilithium is a blessing because it lifts off the necessity for wasting time specifically for dilithium farming, allowing to do something more fun at that time instead. And this in turn increases the attractiveness of the game for them and makes more likely that they'll spend real money on it.
And in my view, people here on the forum tend to overestimate the role of older players with loads of surplus in the overall game online numbers.
Moreover, I strongly suspect that the importance of the current Dilithium exchange prices is blown out of proportion in terms of its impact on the game. Dilithium exchange has any meaning for those, who:
a) know about it all - not every average STO player really does as it is hidden in the depth of game's interface
b) can generate surplus dilithium to actually post it to buy Zen (and to use it just as a proxy for transferring dilithium between alts).
I would make an educated guess that this is a) a rather limited (if not to say, small) percentage of the game's playerbase; b) mostly f2p-gamers, who don't really influence the game bottom line.
Yeah, but there are players who are unwilling or unable to afford to open their wallets. It's the nature of a F2P game. So for those players the Dil Exchange is the only way to Zen. There is a way to eventually get free Zen by logging into Arc, but I have not done so myself so I do not know the specifics.
I turned in some Dil last night at 407:1 to get some Zen to offset cost of buying the T6 Eternal science ship. It may not be a faction specific ship, but at least my KDF and RR science captains can finally get a T6 science ship from the C-Store.
Yeah, there are Arc quests. At the bottom of the window there's a scroll-looking button. Click it and it gives you three choices. Usually Play X game for Y number of days. Or play X number of games, or log into Arc on X number of days. You can discard any of the three choices and get a new one. But sometimes it can take a few days to get a choice you can do. They all reward different amounts of experience, depending on what it wants you to do. I've only just started doing them myself and got a window to pop saying to log onto Arc on 8 different days for 300 exp.
Folks that exclusively buy zen with cash LOVE a 500 exchange rate.
Great for them.
Folks who grind dil instead...500 is horrible.
so keep in mind WHY some folks like it, some don't
The greedy zen traders is what's keeping the dil so devalued. And the dil traders who settle for tiny crumbs.
While there are some players that have no discretionary income (and I feel for those), the game is playable with what is free, and the game offers short grinds for current level ships twice a year, and the events offer a bulk of dil to do with whatever they wish.
Zen items are a luxury for this game, and the game does give all players a zero dollar option to acquire them through the exchange but the amount of players wanting Zen for free , far outweigh the players who are willing to supply that free Zen. Now if some players that right kow are wanting Zen for free, and can pay a few bucks for it (even to reduce the amount they need to trade for) do so, the demand will normalize, and the exchange rate will drop.
Now, here is the kicker, this game actually has sales on Zen, so the shrewd player will buy some Zen when it goes sale, and wait for the item they want to go on sale (both sales are frequent BTW), its very easy to increase a dollars buying power by as much as 40%, so a Zen store item, bought at thte right time is a little bit more than world recognized ecomonic cost of living monitor of the "Big Mac Meal".
i wonder when you plan on being serious.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
Id rather turn my dill to EC then trade it for zen, the cost is way to high and no sign of lowering anytime soon, some are willing to sit on their dil , some are willing to use it for upgrades.
But there is a sucker born everyday and for the people that sit on it or refuse to trade, there are thousands more dumb enough to buy zen for that amount.
In business theres two things that go hand in hand "Greed and Stupidity" , people so greedy they sell for an insane price, and people who are stupid enough to buy for an insane price.
QFT.
There are always sheeple who will settle for crumbs, no matter the price.
I think the complaints here are from those that want something for nothing. If my capacity to buy refined dili is at prices too low for me I'll just grind my own.
This is all a trade. Don't like today's rate, wait it out. Prices too exorbitant, pony up with some real money for your zen or just do without whatever it was you wanted zen for.
If Cryptic can't raise revenue we all lose. Stop being so cheap.
I did not say that all players need to have Zen in order to play the game. I just stated that for those player who could not afford to / are unwilling to purchase Zen, then they need to rely on the Dil Exchange in order to get Zen for "free". And of course there are the Arc Quests that echatty stated.
I agree that STO is absolutely playable without spending real money. I created a secondary STO account for the purpose of testing some privacy settings on my main account, but I decided to use it to play STO absolutely free from time to time. I currently have a level 60 KDF captain and a Romulan captain that I eventually managed to get up to level 50 just before the Crystalline Catastrophe event.
I have not gotten to the Delta Rising content yet on my max level KDF captain but so far I have been able to handle all the story missions. I am currently in the middle of the Cardassian Struggle story arc and played the featured missions Time & Tide and The Temporal Front in the Future Proof story arc. My free T5 Vor'cha battlecruiser has a mix of rare and very rare Mk XII gear that can be purchased from the Exchange. Thanks to AFKers in CCA, I actually took 1st place 3 times last week. Usually I can manage to get 3rd place.
There are now three topics on this and the 500 cap is coming up soon. Hallelujah.
Here's the cold, hard, blunt, truth. If you are unwilling or unable to open your wallet, then its not Cryptic's problem. Most f2p games do not have a market like the Dilithium Exchange, and its use is not some virtual "right" that broke/lazy people have. If the Dil sellers get buyers at obscene ratios of exchange then they will sell it at those rates and it will keep climbing until they get no more buyers. Cryptic couldn't care less past the part that someone spent $$ to get the zen you're buying. I say all this as one seriously broke TRIBBLE, so don't think I'm some hyper spending whale or something.
Personally, I could care less. There's nothing I need. Have plenty zen and enough dil for the rest of the game. But part of the fun for me - in fact much of the game is seeing how much I can earn through the exchange system. That game is over.
People will pay 500. And they will be paying it within a months time. Mark my words.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."