Gracie has thoughts – Page 21

Farewell to Blaugust!

August 31, 2015 by Grace

Blaugust 2015, Day 31

It’s finally here, the day we’ve all been waiting for since August 1. Blaugust is ending today, and whether you’re a Blaugust “winner,” participant, or just a regular reader who’s been following me through this month, I wanted to say thank you. Some days were difficult but being part of this huge community of bloggers and readers has made it totally worthwhile.

So how did I do? Well I managed a post for each day so I guess I “win” Blaugust! I’ve had a regular readership of a few dozen loyal folks, with a few days where I got some extra attention. The day of my double post was my best, but there’s no way I will be attempting to post that frequently in the future. Honestly the only way I managed to get through the whole month with daily posts was by making a plan ahead of time with topics, writing prompts, and regular features like Screenie Saturday.

Writing the Shiphand Buddy series in particular was rewarding but also added quite a lot of work since I needed to research and run all of those missions many times in order to write the guides. All that hard work paid off though, since they were featured on WildStar Core!

Time for the money

At the beginning of the month I tried to take stock of my cash savings in WildStar and track it for the month. Unfortunately I got pretty lax about spending money midway through the month. Based on a couple high-cost items I bought, I’m guessing I made a total of around 150-200 plat over the course of the month. Sadly my cash-on-hand is only about 10p. The market has shifted dramatically since the beginning of August with the anticipation of F2P. On the flip side CREDD has gone up a bit in price over this month. Most of my money-making avenues are still functional but are just bringing in far less profit than they used to. Hopefully when the drop lands the combination of lots of new players and changes to gear will help me start churning out the plat again.

Some other game I play when I’m not being a space zombie

I set up my “What I’m Playing” posts in part to have an easy topic for the weekends, but also to try to encourage me to play more games. I succeeded at the first part but not so much at the second, since as the month progressed I played fewer and fewer. Partially that has been due to fatigue and stress, which make me want to stick with easy, familiar games. I may actually try to keep this feature, since it has been fun for me personally to be able to look back and see the record of what I’ve been up to all month.

Blaugust was also a nice experiment in adding some commentary about games other than WildStar here on Moonshine Mansion. I suspect I will continue this. The main focus of this blog will stay WildStar for certain, but I will happily sprinkle in posts about other games once in a while. With F2P coming soon I doubt I will be lacking for WildStar content to talk about for a long time.

At the beginning of the month, I said that all I hoped to get out of Blaugust was to get in the habit of posting more frequently. Since I managed a post every day I guess that was definitely a success. I absolutely do not plan to keep up the daily schedule moving forward, but I do have a lot more respect for the folks that post that often. My new goal is 2 posts per week, which is much more reasonable for my schedule. Thank you all again for taking this silly journey with me. And a very special thank you to Bel for all his hard work organizing this event, wrangling bloggers, tallying votes, and figuring out prizes.

Here’s to a very peaceful and relaxed September!

Screenie Saturday: Ephemeral Beauty

August 29, 2015 by Grace

Blaugust 2015, Day 29

Rainbow!

The end of Blaugust is only a few days away, and as far as I’m concerned that’s cause for celebration and a little sadness. It also got me thinking about some moments in MMOs that are really cool or pretty but also fleeting.

The top pic in this post is from Idyllshire in FFXIV. That game has so many amazing details that I keep discovering new ones. I was standing around chatting and it was raining. Suddenly the rain started to taper off and this beautiful rainbow appeared. Just like in the real world, it only lasted for a minute or two before the sky fully cleared and the sun came out.

Fireworks!

This one was taken near our free company house in the Mists during the summer event. We get treated to the fireworks display from the capital city, viewed over the ocean. It was another moment where I was going about my business when I suddenly realized something beautiful was quietly happening around me.

Everstar Grove

Last I wanted to add this one from WildStar. It’s from Everstar Grove, the default starter zone for Aurins and Mordesh. I chose this one because it is so pretty, but also because as you play through the zone you see it and its inhabitants destroyed by the war between the Dominion and Exiles. At least I can always go back and experience it again on a new character!

Lazy Reset Day

August 26, 2015 by Grace

Blaugust 2015, Day 26

Another super quick post today because I’m completely running out of things to say. Blaugust has just a few more days left and I know I can finish but it is not going to be easy.

Last night was a classic case of having way too many things to do on reset day and only feeling motivated to do the “wrong” one. I hopped into FFXIV exactly long enough to do my daily expert roulette and quickly ran away. I still really love that game but there’s way too many other shiny things stealing my attention right now.

The main new shiny is the new patch for Diablo 3. That’s where I really wanted to spend my evening, even though it is a bit of a waste of time right this second. If you’re not familiar with D3, they’ve added “seasons” where you have the option of starting over from scratch without the money and resources you’ve gathered over the years. Completing objectives during the season can earn you cosmetic rewards like transmog and new name plates. Right now season 3 has just ended but season 4 won’t start ’til the weekend, so it feels a little silly putting in much effort knowing that I’ll be starting over from scratch in a few days. Still, it is fun checking out the new stuff, and hopefully I’ll be a little more prepared once the new season starts.

I wanted nothing more than to just chill out with Diablo all night but figured I’d check in to WildStar just to get things started after the weekly reset. One thing led to another and I ended up raiding for the rest of the night. I had a really fun time so I don’t regret it, but now I’m really itching for some more D3!

What Buys Loyalty?

August 19, 2015 by Grace

Bonus post today because there’s news and I am an opinionated space zombie!

On Wednesday the “Cosmic Rewards” or loyalty program for WildStar’s F2P conversion was explained in detail. Overall I’m very excited. I’ve played a little on the PTR and seen some of the cosmetic rewards, and they are glorious. That house that they had a preview of in that announcement? Amazing!

How awesome does this new reward dye make me look?

Down below all the lists of cool shiny rewards, they explain the details of how exactly you earn these cosmic reward points. For the most part it seems pretty generous. It looks like you get might get points for purchasing NCoin, and for spending NCoin in the shop. That’s great! It also rewards folks who have purchased the game, paid account services, or a subscription in the past. That’s why my bags were so full of cool stuff when I copied my character to the PTR.

How else can you get these rewards? You earn 3000 points per month for having a subscription to “signature service.” You also earn 4000 points for purchasing a CREDD with real money. Hey that’s great! It may encourage people to spend the $20 to get in-game cash, and keep the CREDD market supplied. Now we get to the part where I start to have some issues with this system.

I’m pretty sure this guy is sick of seeing me.

Here’s where I tell you that I’ve been subbed continuously since launch. Via CREDD. I have a 3 month subscription plan on my account, and it has never been billed. Everybody wins from this setup. I get my subscription for “free”. The cool folks who bought CREDD with real money have gotten a large amount of platinum to spend in-game on whatever their hearts desire. Finally Carbine has gotten extra cash, about $75 so far. Since CREDD is more expensive than a month’s subscription, every time I pay with CREDD they’re getting an extra $5. Yes, someone other than me gave them that money. I’m not “directly contributing” to the bottom line. But if I and folks like me stopped buying CREDD in-game then there would be no market for it, and nobody would pay $20 real money to get a pittance of in-game currency. The system works in everyone’s favor because all the pieces are necessary and interdependent.

Now let’s look at the loyalty reward system. It gives 4000 points to someone who buys a CREDD with real money, 3000 to a credit card subscriber, and only 1000 points to someone like me who uses CREDD to pay for their subscription. Ouch that stings. I understand incentivizing multi-month subscriptions. I have no issues with those bonuses. Carbine wants people on a long-term recurring plan so that they have financial stability. But one month of subscription is worth the same credit whether you pay via one-use time card or recurring credit card. Just not CREDD.

One of the great things about the CREDD system was that, other than the loud noises it makes when you redeem it, nobody can tell whether you’re using it or real money to play the game. I was 100% equal to anyone else playing. Or I thought I was. Turns out I was being less “loyal” that whole time. While I was playing extra hours to earn plat so I could pay for my subscription. While I was blogging, podcasting, and singing the game’s praises on social media. While I was contributing to a system that earned Carbine more than a regular month’s subscription fee. That’s all worth less than someone who subbed for 4 months and then got bored and wandered away. Ouch.

Maybe I need to relax a bit, and like Syp just be happy to be getting a pile of free stuff when F2P happens. But I wonder if this might undermine the CREDD market in the long run. It suddenly seems a lot less appealing to me to spend tons of time earning plat to subscribe with CREDD. I could just buy game time cards when I’m playing a lot, and let my sub lapse (and still play for free!) when I’m not. The rewards for me are way better that way, and I get to spend the extra plat on cool stuff for myself. I wonder how many others might feel the same way? How many will it take to make the CREDD market unstable? I love this game and I dearly want it to succeed in the long term. I don’t even want this post come across as overly harsh because overall I think WildStar’s F2P system is incredibly generous and fair compared with other F2P MMOs. I want to keep playing this game until, hopefully many years from now, they shut down the servers and chase me out. I just wish I got the same credit for that as everyone else.