Cryptic has stated more than once on the forum that they do not put commodity into the Dilithium Exchange. That is all player-driven.
STO is about my Liberated Borg Federation Captain with his Breen 1st Officer, Jem'Hadar Tactical Officer, Liberated Borg Engineering Officer, Android Ops Officer, Photonic Science Officer, Gorn Science Officer, and Reman Medical Officer jumping into their Jem'Hadar Carrier and flying off to do missions for the new Romulan Empire. But for some players allowing a T5 Connie to be used breaks the canon in the game.
We seem to have gotten off onto a tangent about LTS and stipends again, which isn't really the point. At the very least, the Zen in the stipend has value to PWE, and they are giving that value to you. If your position is that you are sticking it to the man by continuing to play and collect your stipend past the break even point of your LTS, then yes, you are. That's not the point of the thread though, it's just about Zen to dilithium conversion in general.
If all that matters to you is whether or not you had to pay money to get something, that's fine. This thread is not directed at you. Just don't think you're getting a laugh at PWE by getting something free out of them. They got paid.
As has been said, the Peanut Labs surveys are not free either. Peanut Labs surely pays PWE the value of those Zen in exchange for your information.
Your time always has value, even your leisure time. The most basic way of looking at it is that your time is worth whatever your hourly pay rate at work is. More generally, your time has missed opportunity costs. By doing one thing, you give up doing another. If you spend time grinding dilithium or filling out surveys, that's time you didn't spend playing something else, cleaning your house, enriching yourself, etc. It's only fair you be compensated for it, though considering a full daily load of 8k dil is only worth about 86? US, I don't find that to be much compensation.
I also just realized a single Mk XII Romulan space weapon effectively costs $3.10. That's a little disturbing.
Your time always has value, even your leisure time. The most basic way of looking at it is that your time is worth whatever your hourly pay rate at work is. More generally, your time has missed opportunity costs. By doing one thing, you give up doing another. If you spend time grinding dilithium or filling out surveys, that's time you didn't spend playing something else, cleaning your house, enriching yourself, etc. It's only fair you be compensated for it, though considering a full daily load of 8k dil is only worth about 86? US, I don't find that to be much compensation.
So how many dollars did you lose by making, reading, and replying to this thread? After all, it wasn't done on free time. It was done on your hourly rate time via missed opportunity costs.
STO is about my Liberated Borg Federation Captain with his Breen 1st Officer, Jem'Hadar Tactical Officer, Liberated Borg Engineering Officer, Android Ops Officer, Photonic Science Officer, Gorn Science Officer, and Reman Medical Officer jumping into their Jem'Hadar Carrier and flying off to do missions for the new Romulan Empire. But for some players allowing a T5 Connie to be used breaks the canon in the game.
So how many dollars did you lose by making, reading, and replying to this thread? After all, it wasn't done on free time. It was done on your hourly rate time via missed opportunity costs.
Your time always has value, even your leisure time. The most basic way of looking at it is that your time is worth whatever your hourly pay rate at work is. More generally, your time has missed opportunity costs.
I wouldn't necessarily set the value of a person's leisure time to be the person's hourly pay at work, but other than that I agree.
My time has value, at least to me. I exchange that time at work in order to get money to exchange for other things I want (or, as I called it back when I played Everquest, "camping my paycheck"). When I play a game, I expect value returned in the form of entertainment. When I clean my apartment, I expect value returned in the form of more pleasant living conditions. When I sleep in on Saturdays, I expect value returned in the form of the hedonistic pleasure of being lazy.
If I take a "free zen" questionnaire, I am exchanging my time for the zen which someone else has purchased with money, just as if I buy zen on the exchange I'm exchanging the time I spent gaining that dilithium for zen someone else has bought.
And, as further anecdotal evidence... if leisure time indeed had no value, then how come every MMO I've ever played has had forums and chat channels debating if a certain build or item is "worth it"? Worth what?
And, as further anecdotal evidence... if leisure time indeed had no value, then how come every MMO I've ever played has had forums and chat channels debating if a certain build or item is "worth it"? Worth what?
The cost of purchasing a Respect to implement the build.
STO is about my Liberated Borg Federation Captain with his Breen 1st Officer, Jem'Hadar Tactical Officer, Liberated Borg Engineering Officer, Android Ops Officer, Photonic Science Officer, Gorn Science Officer, and Reman Medical Officer jumping into their Jem'Hadar Carrier and flying off to do missions for the new Romulan Empire. But for some players allowing a T5 Connie to be used breaks the canon in the game.
If you are having fun playing the game, why not at least buy 5 bucks worth of zen from time to time eh? Support your game!
If you can afford the interwebs bill per month to play said game, you can afford 5 bucks..
Some of you people I swear *shakes head*
I really enjoy myself on STO, so from time to time I throw 10 bucks at it. But.....to each their own right?
I wouldn't necessarily set the value of a person's leisure time to be the person's hourly pay at work, but other than that I agree.
The hourly rate thing is just a simple example of a missed opportunity. An hour you spend doing something else is an hour you could've spent working and earning money. Of course in reality, your job does not generally offer unlimited hours that you can work at will. It's just sometimes helpful to think of time in terms of "were I at work, I could've earned X amount of money in this time". Helps keep things in perspective.
Which is why I don't really grind for dilithium anymore. Cryptic has thankfully diversified the way you earn it, many of which are repeatable. STFs, Foundry, Fleet Actions, PvP. Sometimes a daily wrapper will make some content a better deal than others. But, I really just play whatever I feel like playing. I haven't wasted time grinding a fixed set of daily content in a long time. If there's something I really need dilithium for, and I'm coming up short... well there are plenty of folks willing to sell me the fruits of their hard work for a couple bucks.
The hourly rate thing is just a simple example of a missed opportunity. An hour you spend doing something else is an hour you could've spent working and earning money. Of course in reality, your job does not generally offer unlimited hours that you can work at will. It's just sometimes helpful to think of time in terms of "were I at work, I could've earned X amount of money in this time". Helps keep things in perspective.
Sometimes. Taking it too far leads to this. Assess your enjoyment of how you spend your time in the game... if it feels like a chore rather than a game, then by all means, stop playing... there's more profitable chores out there. If you're enjoying the game, then there's nothing wrong in getting a couple cents a day back.
If someone bought one when there was no stipend being offered, how can you claim that they paid for it? They paid X for Y, where in this case Y is lifetime membership. It's not like they charged people after the fact for that Stipend. They also don't offer a stipend free version for less money.
So no matter how you try to slice it, you are getting Y and Z for the same price as you did for just Y.
Lifetimers paid to receive the benefits of a monthly subscription. When the monthly subscription was changed after F2P, the lifetime benefits changed as well. It is like buying a lifetime membership in an organization. The benefits of affiliation may change over time.
Lifetimers most certainly paid for the stipend regardless of whether it was a benefit offered at the time.
Lifetimers paid to receive the benefits of a monthly subscription. When the monthly subscription was changed after F2P, the lifetime benefits changed as well. It is like buying a lifetime membership in an organization. The benefits of affiliation may change over time.
Lifetimers most certainly paid for the stipend regardless of whether it was a benefit offered at the time.
Not necessarily. My day-1 LTS paid for the monthly subscription fee, and paid itself off before the game went F2P ($240 pre-order, $15 per month saved, 16 months to break even). For a few months I was playing for free, then F2P hit and they began to pay me back. I usually spend around $20 a month on Zen anyway so I am not the most stellar example of a person who is fully taking advantage of the transition, but there are people like me out there who are literally being paid a stipend above what they paid to play the game - and not just a few of them. There were quite a few LTS' sold during the pre-order discount period.
Of course, now the only reasons to get a LTS is to get the rewards and unlimited access to the foundry - a $5 a month return will take an awfully long time to pay back, even when they go on sale for $200.
Lifetimers most certainly paid for the stipend regardless of whether it was a benefit offered at the time.
I see, so they paid for something that didn't even exist at the time... *shrugs* if that's the way you want to look at it, I simply don't care. But no matter what you say, you are making a semantic argument at best.
Not to mention you're dredging up thread 2-3 days old to continue a pointless argument that's over 5-6 days old...
2. Cryptic does not want to raise the dilithium refinement cap, or increase dilithium ore rewards, because they would lose money from people buying dilithium with Zen.
FALSE
Not quite. How easy dilithium is to get will affect Cryptic's bottom line. If dilithium is too easy to get, less people will spend Zen to get it, and instead choose to get all the dilithium they want through playing the game.
Ie, if I could get 100K refined dilithium in 20 minutes of game play, I would not be likely to buy dilithium with real money, because I can get all the dilithium I need by playing the game for a little bit.
If it is too difficult to get dilithium, more people will be reluctant to sell dilithium. More zen will be needed to get any meaningful amount of dilithium, and less people will buy dilithium with zen.
Ie, if it takes me $100.00 to get 100 dilithium, I would be unlikely to buy dilithium with real money because it takes too much money to get an amount of dilithium that I could use to actually buy something.
The best ratio for Cryptic is obviously somewhere in between these extremes, and I am sure they are too a certain extent trying to figure out what that ratio is.
Also, keep in mind that the best ratio may not be constant because price fluctuations may encourage people to spend the most.
Lastly, it is likely that the best ratio for Cryptic's bottom line is close to if not the same as the best ratio for the most fun game play.
Something that's been annoying me for a while as I read through the forums is people's misconceptions about how the Dilithium exchange works and what it means. A lot of people are basing their behavior and opinions on notions that are just outright false. I'd like to try to correct that.
What is the dilithium exchange?
The dilithium exchange is a market in which players trade dilithium for Zen and vice versa. All transactions on the exchange are directly between players. Cryptic/PWE is uninvolved except that while the dilithium or Zen is on the exchange, it is held in a sort of escrow. You cannot access your dilithium or Zen until you cancel your offer. Prices are determined by the offers players have made. Most people just take the current best offer, get what they wanted, and leave. Others set offers based on what they think the dilithium or Zen may be worth, and hope the offers below them get bought out until theirs is the best. These people are playing the market just like in a real currency exchange.
There are two common misconceptions people have about the dilithium exchange:
1. When you use dilithium to purchase Zen and buy something from the C-Store, you are "sticking it to the man" because you got something "free".
FALSE
The basic economic principle of "there's no such thing as a free lunch" is in full effect here. You did not pay any real money for the item, but somebody did. They bought Zen, with real money. They then sold that Zen to you in exchange for your dilithium. Then finally you used the Zen to buy your item. What happened was, in effect, you were paid to farm in game currency for somebody else. PWE is not stupid, and they are not giving away cash shop items for in game currency. They got paid for it.
2. Cryptic does not want to raise the dilithium refinement cap, or increase dilithium ore rewards, because they would lose money from people buying dilithium with Zen.
FALSE
This is the flip side of what happens above. When you are rich on Zen and short on dilithium, you can get some fast dilithium by buying it with Zen. However, you are not buying the dilithium from PWE. You are buying it from other players, who themselves had to grind in game content to get it. The overall amount of dilithium in the game is still the same. Again, no such thing as a free lunch. Even though you saved yourself days of grinding time, somebody else just had to do it in your place.
The gist of all this is that PWE doesn't get richer or poorer regardless of what the dilithium exchange does. People want things from the cash shop. Zen must be purchased to get them. Whether you buy the Zen directly, or buy it from another player in exchange for your hard earned dilithium, doesn't matter. Somebody still bought the Zen, and it still ultimately gets used to buy something from the cash shop.
Hopefully this cuts down on the wildly misguided claims about Robin Hood-esque heroics and the evil corporation manipulating the Zen to dilithium price. Thanks for reading.
So what I take from all that is that the Dil Exchange is a gambling process?
People pay real money for ZEN, put an offer on the Dil Echange for a large amount of Dilithium, and wait for whenever/if the exchange rate ever goes down in the future, exchange all that Dil, and come out with more ZEN.
So what I take from all that is that the Dil Exchange is a gambling process?
People pay real money for ZEN, put an offer on the Dil Echange for a large amount of Dilithium, and wait for whenever/if the exchange rate ever goes down in the future, exchange all that Dil, and come out with more ZEN.
You must not have much experience with gambling because what you described is not gambling.
Gambling is based around the principal that you have X commodity and that you risk losing your X commodity to gain X+Y commodity. The Dilithium Exchange is a free-trade system. Establishing a value for your commodity is what every business in the world does every single day. Whether that's 1 business selling an iPhone for $325 and another selling it for $299. The consumer has the option of buying the $325 or the $299 version. There is no gamble because you are gaining X by selling Y.
And don't assume that just because the items you purchase have no physical value that they have no intrinsic value. We live in a society based around buying items that have no physical value: aps, music, software, etc. So the person willing to buy Dilithium is buying something that has intrinsic value to him.
---post above is thecosmic1's---
EDIT: Closed for necroing an old thread. Remember, if a thread has been inactive for 30 days, you should not post to it. Feel free to create a new thread on the subject if you would like to discuss further ~BranFlakes
STO is about my Liberated Borg Federation Captain with his Breen 1st Officer, Jem'Hadar Tactical Officer, Liberated Borg Engineering Officer, Android Ops Officer, Photonic Science Officer, Gorn Science Officer, and Reman Medical Officer jumping into their Jem'Hadar Carrier and flying off to do missions for the new Romulan Empire. But for some players allowing a T5 Connie to be used breaks the canon in the game.
Comments
If all that matters to you is whether or not you had to pay money to get something, that's fine. This thread is not directed at you. Just don't think you're getting a laugh at PWE by getting something free out of them. They got paid.
As has been said, the Peanut Labs surveys are not free either. Peanut Labs surely pays PWE the value of those Zen in exchange for your information.
Your time always has value, even your leisure time. The most basic way of looking at it is that your time is worth whatever your hourly pay rate at work is. More generally, your time has missed opportunity costs. By doing one thing, you give up doing another. If you spend time grinding dilithium or filling out surveys, that's time you didn't spend playing something else, cleaning your house, enriching yourself, etc. It's only fair you be compensated for it, though considering a full daily load of 8k dil is only worth about 86? US, I don't find that to be much compensation.
I also just realized a single Mk XII Romulan space weapon effectively costs $3.10. That's a little disturbing.
I'm considering it a public service
Rest in Peace Brothers
My time has value, at least to me. I exchange that time at work in order to get money to exchange for other things I want (or, as I called it back when I played Everquest, "camping my paycheck"). When I play a game, I expect value returned in the form of entertainment. When I clean my apartment, I expect value returned in the form of more pleasant living conditions. When I sleep in on Saturdays, I expect value returned in the form of the hedonistic pleasure of being lazy.
If I take a "free zen" questionnaire, I am exchanging my time for the zen which someone else has purchased with money, just as if I buy zen on the exchange I'm exchanging the time I spent gaining that dilithium for zen someone else has bought.
And, as further anecdotal evidence... if leisure time indeed had no value, then how come every MMO I've ever played has had forums and chat channels debating if a certain build or item is "worth it"? Worth what?
If you can afford the interwebs bill per month to play said game, you can afford 5 bucks..
Some of you people I swear *shakes head*
I really enjoy myself on STO, so from time to time I throw 10 bucks at it. But.....to each their own right?
The hourly rate thing is just a simple example of a missed opportunity. An hour you spend doing something else is an hour you could've spent working and earning money. Of course in reality, your job does not generally offer unlimited hours that you can work at will. It's just sometimes helpful to think of time in terms of "were I at work, I could've earned X amount of money in this time". Helps keep things in perspective.
Which is why I don't really grind for dilithium anymore. Cryptic has thankfully diversified the way you earn it, many of which are repeatable. STFs, Foundry, Fleet Actions, PvP. Sometimes a daily wrapper will make some content a better deal than others. But, I really just play whatever I feel like playing. I haven't wasted time grinding a fixed set of daily content in a long time. If there's something I really need dilithium for, and I'm coming up short... well there are plenty of folks willing to sell me the fruits of their hard work for a couple bucks.
But you can't buy respect, you have to earn it.
Lifetimers paid to receive the benefits of a monthly subscription. When the monthly subscription was changed after F2P, the lifetime benefits changed as well. It is like buying a lifetime membership in an organization. The benefits of affiliation may change over time.
Lifetimers most certainly paid for the stipend regardless of whether it was a benefit offered at the time.
Not necessarily. My day-1 LTS paid for the monthly subscription fee, and paid itself off before the game went F2P ($240 pre-order, $15 per month saved, 16 months to break even). For a few months I was playing for free, then F2P hit and they began to pay me back. I usually spend around $20 a month on Zen anyway so I am not the most stellar example of a person who is fully taking advantage of the transition, but there are people like me out there who are literally being paid a stipend above what they paid to play the game - and not just a few of them. There were quite a few LTS' sold during the pre-order discount period.
Of course, now the only reasons to get a LTS is to get the rewards and unlimited access to the foundry - a $5 a month return will take an awfully long time to pay back, even when they go on sale for $200.
I see, so they paid for something that didn't even exist at the time... *shrugs* if that's the way you want to look at it, I simply don't care. But no matter what you say, you are making a semantic argument at best.
Not to mention you're dredging up thread 2-3 days old to continue a pointless argument that's over 5-6 days old...
Not quite. How easy dilithium is to get will affect Cryptic's bottom line. If dilithium is too easy to get, less people will spend Zen to get it, and instead choose to get all the dilithium they want through playing the game.
Ie, if I could get 100K refined dilithium in 20 minutes of game play, I would not be likely to buy dilithium with real money, because I can get all the dilithium I need by playing the game for a little bit.
If it is too difficult to get dilithium, more people will be reluctant to sell dilithium. More zen will be needed to get any meaningful amount of dilithium, and less people will buy dilithium with zen.
Ie, if it takes me $100.00 to get 100 dilithium, I would be unlikely to buy dilithium with real money because it takes too much money to get an amount of dilithium that I could use to actually buy something.
The best ratio for Cryptic is obviously somewhere in between these extremes, and I am sure they are too a certain extent trying to figure out what that ratio is.
Also, keep in mind that the best ratio may not be constant because price fluctuations may encourage people to spend the most.
Lastly, it is likely that the best ratio for Cryptic's bottom line is close to if not the same as the best ratio for the most fun game play.
So what I take from all that is that the Dil Exchange is a gambling process?
People pay real money for ZEN, put an offer on the Dil Echange for a large amount of Dilithium, and wait for whenever/if the exchange rate ever goes down in the future, exchange all that Dil, and come out with more ZEN.
Gambling is based around the principal that you have X commodity and that you risk losing your X commodity to gain X+Y commodity. The Dilithium Exchange is a free-trade system. Establishing a value for your commodity is what every business in the world does every single day. Whether that's 1 business selling an iPhone for $325 and another selling it for $299. The consumer has the option of buying the $325 or the $299 version. There is no gamble because you are gaining X by selling Y.
And don't assume that just because the items you purchase have no physical value that they have no intrinsic value. We live in a society based around buying items that have no physical value: aps, music, software, etc. So the person willing to buy Dilithium is buying something that has intrinsic value to him.
---post above is thecosmic1's---
EDIT: Closed for necroing an old thread. Remember, if a thread has been inactive for 30 days, you should not post to it. Feel free to create a new thread on the subject if you would like to discuss further