If it had been at $10 from the beginning I would have thought it made complete sense. For me personally, I didn’t fully commit to the $100 because I was fairly certain it would change before the end of season.
Having said that, we also thought @RexXxuS and @Jascha were geniuses for finding an excellent way to rebalance the economy in the game and perhaps its worth keeping it at the $100 level. Let me explain:
- Many of the veteran players have commented many times about the smaller size of the economy this season. Veterans had an advantage since they have reserves/wealth from previous seasons where it was easier to acquire.
- Rather than a permanent buff to the economy the 100/block would inject a ton of new money into the game economy without creating a permanent advantage to the more powerful factions. Even smaller factions or single players could start next season with millions of credits where they would otherwise not have that ability. (This is much more beneficial at lower levels than higher ones because of the huge step up in costs for OCDs/Banks)
- Veteran players have had to think about trading out their immense reserve of resources in their OCD for the Carbon. This would have had the net effect of lowering the reserves of tactical/combat resources and will encourage more mining/trading in the future. This would bring the veteran players/factions closer to the smaller ones in terms of combat resource reserves which could help level the playing field a bit.
- An injection into the economy would encourage more market trading which will bring more fun to people who enjoy working the market. It would also make it so players could have the choice NOT to mine in order to acquire resources for a while as they spend their temporary money pile.
- It makes carbon actually valuable next season. Everyone is burning through their reserves of Wood/Stone. Yes - Its super easy to get these things but still it helps with resetting the value of carbon going into the “Age of diamonds.”
- It creates a buffer for everyone to learn/make mistakes quickly with the new game mechanics. Since its going to be an adjustment period, increasing everyone’s cash reserves a bit makes it so a lost ship or bad design early on isn’t as big of a deal since the materials can be replaced quickly and easily.
- It creates potential revenue at the end of next season to support the server. Not everyone will choose to spend all of the money and some will invest it wisely into bank levels, etc. At the end of the next season if some of that money is still on hand many a few more people will choose to keep credits. This supports the server we’ve all invested all this time into. =D
- Mid level players who joined recently and are heavily invested in the game have a chance to achieve one of the really difficult goals like OCD 7+ which otherwise takes months. Its like the server was giving a small step up/reward to players like that. This is also a benefit for the veterans as they get a boost to their money but its the least valuable for veterans because money becomes less valuable per bank level and you need significantly more than the $100 carbon can provide at any OCD level.
Other reasons to keep it at 100:
- It was announced and people relied on the announcement. I do think its fair to say that when an official statement comes out that players should be able to rely on what is said.
- @Jascha I don’t think its fair you spoke negatively about the players for making more of the carbon. For many of us, the pursuit we are enjoying and playing in the game is to build up money in order to build up our Bank/OCD/Recycle/Scan/Etc. We love the features your team has added to the game and when an official announcement comes out that says filling our OCDs with something is worth 100s of millions of credits, OF COURSE that is what people are going to do. You should not be surprised at all because you should consider the possible outcomes of your announcements before they come out. In this case, its players reading official announcements and then just playing the game to achieve their goals. Its not an exploit to manufacture carbon if its worth $100 per item, its an obvious decision to make. (I am speaking on behalf of the players who did this, I didn’t really think this was going to stay at 100 so I don’t have any Carbon in my OCD currently but did manufacture a small amount just in case from resources I already had).
Reasons to set it back to 10:
- Maybe I’m completely wrong on all this and Rexxxus and Jascha weren’t trying to do all these things or I am wrong about how they would play out.
- Carbon/Trees/Stone is some of the LEAST valuable stuff in the game up to this point. 1 Log makes 1000 carbon blocks so a single log turns into $100,000 in game (not counting the stone).
- It restores the market economy to what players had been expecting all season. The economy goes through a cycle each season and the end of season is all about prepping for wipe which has a huge impact on the price of materials, especially gold. Gold mining for significant quantities takes significant time. Many people spent countless hours this season mining thinking that the end of season economy would be somewhat in line with how past seasons have worked. Money that can’t be carried over and isn’t going to be kept with a purchase gets converted to gold via purchases on the market. Buyers need to preserve value into next season via gold and sellers are looking to make their final money for the season (or final upgrade). The $100 carbon has thrown the market economy into a very different direction.
- It mostly negates the value of “keep” purchases this season and makes it so you may not need to buy one if you were planning on it. Put simply - Why buy a keep credit purchase when you can fill your OCD with hundreds of millions of credits worth of carbon? If you wanted to start next season with a couple hundred mil, just OCD carbon and let your extra credits wipe.
Well - I could be wrong on all of these points. I just wanted to provide my thoughts so far. Either way, I’ll support the final decision and move on to the next season and continue to pursue my goals in the game. And don’t worry guys, I OCD’d TONS of Pentaxid so you can buy from me next season! =D
EDIT This took me forever to type out so Rexxxus got his new pricing announcement in before I posted. Its now set to $50 per the previous comment.