PLer toxicity discussion

Curious do you buy those 6 Krono a month from DB or players?

Because you're biased to how YOU do things - I socialize with tons of players inside and outside of the kronolord space. Kronolords? Yea, they burn krono constantly. Normals? Not so much. (that's not to say normals don't use ANY, but typically it's a "Well, I'll burn one this month" situation, while subbing the other 10 months of the year or similar - but nothing like the rate of kronolords - and even the "light krono use" normals are uncommon)

Add to that that kronolords tend to play more time (since time = in game stuff to recycle into krono, and they're added liability when it comes to resources. They had done a big breakdown of it, and while they didn't say it outright, it was clear to a number of people in the discussion that if they could unring the bell on kronos they would.

They make far more profit with less hassle for real subs, and they've said as much.

Depends on what you consider buying. I six box, so I easily make enough plat early on in the life of a TLP to buy enough krono to let me play until the end. I also don't care about things like illusions, so when I get something like the Guise of the Deceiver early on, I sell it for a krono. Another good early krono camp are Juggs in Sebilis for spells. Later on it becomes almost impossible to earn enough platinum to buy a krono, so I settle for just raiding and then selling an item here and there that I get in the group game. Interestingly, the prices of krono have blown up this time, which is odd. I don't know why they are so high but it almost feels like there is some kind of exploit or something.

Unfortunately, the changing nature of TLPs have made my group selection more rigid. Now if you want to hold a camp for a rare item you almost have to have an SK as your tank. Take cleric epic. I always have a cleric in my group and the cleric epic is amazing. Sadly, if you want to hold the camp now against people trying to farm it to sell, you almost have to have an SK. Even then you have to hope they don't have an SK or that they aren't automated and able to click the mob super fast.

They could easily unring the bell on krono. All they have to do is remove them from the store.

A. You buy your Krono with real life money from the DB store
B. You use plat earned in the game to buy Krono off someone else.
C. You use money to buy a Krono off a NON db store.

Not as easy as you would think, you're thinking shallowly...

1) Players that refuse to pay real money for EQ would walk soon after.
2) The presumed price increase that it would open up would of course cause it's own drama with some folks deciding that $10/mo annually going to $12.50/mo annually (or whatever) is a step too far.

Each change would bleed some players, maybe not substantially for each stage, but death by a million cuts could quite possibly occur.

IF they were to do such, the best plan of attack would likely be to set an expiration on the existing ones of something like 2 years, possibly even with an updated version (or more correctly, updated pricing) coming out just before the expiration. But even that would likely cause a degree of bleed.

Price setting and fixing are not trivial matters when you're at a large scale with hundreds of thousands of customer.

You are going to need to make up your mind. Either 10 out of 11 krono currently in the game are all from a decade ago as you said earlier, or people are regularly buying krono from the store now.

If 10 out of 11 krono are from a decade ago, then ending the ability to buy krono in the store wouldn't cause immediate loss of players. Honestly, if over 90% of current krono in the game now are from over a decade ago, that means that in 10 years, less than 10% of original krono has been used for subscriptions or been on players who were permanently banned. I really can't believe that.

Personally, I think the reason for all of the aoe changes hasn't been to stop people from doing aoe, but to make it hurt them in their pocket (thus putting more $ in DPGs coffers) or to clear up some krono from the system. They went from people doing aoe with 6 characters to 12, and now I see people using 18 regularly. Heck, I noticed one guy doing it with what looked like 30 characters. He had a row of what looked like mages just standing there for some reason.

Well, I explained where my krono come from.

TBH, if krono had never came about, I for sure wouldn't be six boxing. I probably wouldn't even be playing. I like to be able to raid when I want and group when I want. Without the ability to log in my own group, I wouldn't even play. Sure, I could pay subs on 6 accounts, but then the S/O aggro would go too high. It can already get high enough when your hobby takes up so much time as it is.

At what point did I say immediate. I said it would start a bleed - bleeds take time.

Not a jab was just curious, I used to buy them from the db store for the first couple months of boxing but than had enough plat to just buy them in general chat when available (Thou getting harder to find atm). Of the small circle of people I asked none get them from the DB store its all from general chat, so was curious how many actual new Kronos make it into the game.

I buy

Well to chime in I buy 5 Krono with every new TLP I start on, which is every 3-4 years. Last serious TLP for me was Yelinak. I am on Teek now. I goof around here and there in-between but maybe use 1 or 2 Krono for plat. Because I like to make all my own starting gear on a new server I buy a 5 pack from the DB store, then sell them over the time for plat infusions for my team (I box 3-5 chars all on subs).

I find it hard to believe that 1 in 10 Krono are more or less from year 1, that's hard to believe that for every monthly account Krono used 9 were bought to be cycled as in/out game currency. Now I am 1 player with a dozen friends that play, and none are "Kronolords" but we all buy Krono from DB from time to time as plat infusions. I play very casually, thus I spend my time playing rather than plat grinding, but again I am but a single example.

Shrug, just requoting dev statements during roughly COVID era - which was also a bit ago as well, ratio in 3-4 years could've shifted. But even for your own numbers - you're talking about buying 5 every 36-48 months - which is just shy of 1:8 to 1:10 FYI - assuming whomever you sold them to actually ended up using them, or trading them to someone that used, since.

It's also not impossible, since I'm trying to recall back that far that the 1:10 ratio isn't labeled correctly, the 1:10 ratio is absolutely a thing that they had quoted though. (Perhaps the number of accts that are subbed by Krono? But logically you can draw the same "about 10% of their net revenue OR LESS" is from Krono sales from that [it could be more frontloaded due to the nature, but would even out to that over the time])

Also my memory wasn't "Year 1" so let's not warp my memory into something it's not - it was "early years" in the quote. Being that it was at the mark of 10+ years of Krono, anywhere up to Year 5 or so probably was included if that dated memory had no flaws in it.

Fair enough, but it does seem out of sync. But anything is possible and assuming they track their electronic items properly they would be able pump out a report on this very easily. However you are correct one one point, once I have sold my Krono, I have zero insight on where/what/when it is used or traded to another account.

/sigh double post.

Dude, he didn't say it was 1 in 10, he said it was 10 to 1. As in, out of every 11 krono, 10 are from year one.

My quote was "first couple of years" - which I am one of those that uses "couple" in the "a handful" not 2 context per https://www.britannica.com/dictionary/eb/qa/a-couple-of-more-minutes#:~:text=The quantifier a couple of,a couple of more minutes

So the strawmanning of "Year one" needs to stop, because it's blatantly incorrect - even if you disbelieve my use of "couple" being the informal use (although I'm sure if you searched you'd find an exemplar of it, because it IS my application outside of referring to literal romantic couples) it would cover twice the years you've been falsely implying.

Additionally that was a snapshot in time relayed 3-4 years ago, so the ratio quite possibly has shifted since then - again, something I even said in the original statement - a ratio of 10:1 3-4 years ago might be a ratio of 5:1 today or something, without another statement (and they've stopped making statements on Krono particularly, besides JChan's vague one of her feeling they were a mistake - with no other elaboration) we can only speculate on recent ratios.

And it's not exactly shocking if you think of the price raises that had happened a number of times JUST BEFORE KRONO WERE RELEASED - EQ originally was $9.89 for something around 5 years, then $12.99 for a few, then $14.99 since, then Krono were released soon after the $14.99 raise - if you see something raising every couple years and something else that is fixed cost (with some added flexibility) priced only slightly higher, you have a potential savings - or long-term investment to resell when they're eventually costing less than what they replace for a huge windfall. (Part of why you, as an admitted Kronolord relish the idea of them stopping new sales and sub price increasing - it would just increase the "porfolio" value overnight drastically - while on the otherhand, expiration with a new version of the token likely scares you to death)

Do you think that "buy low, sell high" thinking didn't strike anyone seeing the consistent price raises to EQ subs? Sure in retrospect we can see they halted sub increases besides voluntary things that ARE NOT INCLUDED WITH KRONO USE - but those at the time couldn't predict that future. (and frankly, discourage Krono use for those that want them, since while they do work with Kronos, the methodology to use Krono + perks is extra annoying)

Personally with the old data point and the years since, I'd expect something closer to 5-7:1 if we got an updated figure - and that's assuming I didn't goof WHAT the ratio was with my memory. As stated to him, it could've been how many people sub vs. use Krono or something similar, which would trend similarly but be fuzzier for exact translation to sales.

Friendly reminder that it is not hard to sit wizards and these groups to shut them down.

this is true but wouldn't it be easier if the game breaking mechanics were not in the game to begin with?

Please, no one tell Demetri the Kronolords probably are not holding onto that Krono long term, overconfident that his plans to slay them are all in vain.

How many lvl 60 wizards do you need? If you don't have one (or two or three), have fun spending 50-60+ hours leveling. (Or do you go full irony and pay for a PL?) Then you get to spend your time in EQ following PL groups around. They'll pick hop so you'll have to pick hop around trying to find them. And be willing to be in constant conflict fighting the PvE cold war on top of DPS racing. And once the instant evac AA unlocks (Luclin?) you can pretty much hang it up because they can just evac their groups and laugh as you get instakilled.

"Not hard" is a bit reductionist. Sure, it's easy to KS a pull if you have the firepower. But in the long run it's not worth it - most of us would rather just go spend our time doing something else. Which is why the PL situation will remain a problem on this server for a while.

I would love to see some in-game wizard police force form up that goes around shutting down these groups though.