The Price Of Microtransactions: Runes of Magic
Filed under: Opinion
“The Price of Microtransactions” column attempts to discover the cost, if any, of free-to-play (F2P) titles. Most F2P titles are just that, free-to-play, but they offer objects for players to purchase. Often these items are purely cosmetic, such as extra costumes, character customization options or non-stat armor modifications. However, there are items that are more than cosmetic or “convenient” to own in today’s MMORPGs. Especially for those who want to be in the title’s upper echelon. The cost of those useful items are why we are here.
In a pre-launch Runewaker interview the founders of the company stated something along the lines of ‘you’ll never be able to purchase an uber sword’ in Runes of Magic (the interview was taken down when GetBuffed.com went into “database mode”). And that is entirely true. Runes of Magic’s Item Shop, called a Diamond Shop after the real-money transaction (RMT) currency, contains no weapons of mass destruction. True to the founders’ point, the Diamond Shop offers few must need items for the average user, except the pricey permanent mounts.
The case can be made that there are numerous other items that are required for endgame participation outside of a stead, which itself isn’t cheap by any means. Additional rune sockets (gear upgrades from Weapon, Armor and Accessory Drillers) are a must have to maximize a characters innate abilities for instancing. As are the various jewels (Star, Moon and Sun Jewels – Wishes) that raise an object’s level.
Nearly as important as maxing one’s statistics is being able to hold on to everything you need. Storage, and lots of it, is often an important “statistic.” Be it multiple sets of gear for different purposes, items needed for crafting or your collection of Auction House purchases for later resale, everything needs a place to reside or it’s lost income. In Runes of Magic new characters start off with a seemingly large supply of bag space, 120 slots. That’s only when you compare it to a pay-to-play title though. The less than intelligent quest design, item stacking and the parade of junk handed out fills one’s coffers quickly. And that’s just the early levels. It’ll become readily apparent to any player that bag and bank space are a premium, as it is for all other MMOGs. Unfortunately Frogster doesn’t offer any permanent solution for space. Sure, you can muster a additional slots by filling up your player house with small trunks, but on your person, or in your bank, the best you can do is rent additional space. For the collectible nature of the gamers, and MMORPGs in general, this equates to subscription fee. Albeit a petite one.
Here’s a breakdown on how much you can expect to pay if you want to be hardcore in Runes of Magic (1 Diamond ~ $.033). This is admittedly the extreme case, but only applies to a single character, mind you. Additional toons cost you extra:
Transportation:
- 199 Diamonds for a generic permanent mount or
- 395 Diamonds for a fancy permanent mount (ignored for total due to its aesthetic nature)
Item modification:
- 712 Diamonds on Expert Weapon Drillers for ranged and melee weapon (1068 for dual wielders of melee weapons)
- 1760 Diamonds on Expert Armor Drillers for all eight gear slots
- 1100 Diamonds on Expert Accessory Drillers for all five slots
- 95 Diamonds on Star Jewel – Wishes for weapon enhancements, with no guarantee to reach max stats of +6 (143 Diamonds for dual wielders of melee weapons)
- 188 Diamonds on Moon Jewel – Wishes for armor enhancements, with no guarantee to reach max stats of +6
- 117 Diamonds on Sun Jewel – Wishes for accessory enhancements, with no guarantee to reach max stats of +6
Storage space:
- 440 Diamonds for full bag space – 180 day lease
- 440 Diamonds for full bank space – 180 day lease
That’s 4171 Diamonds on upgrades alone! God forbid you replace your gear often, as each replacement will cost you additional Diamonds for new rune slots and enchantments, or the less costly route of transferring your old gears stats to a new item. When converted to real money, the upgrades alone will cost a tidy sum, $139.02. I would also include the 880 additional carbon chains that will creep up every 6 months. That creates a “subscription rate” of $4.88 per month for the hardcore player.
Then there are the numerous items that can enable one to reach the level caps faster. This collection of consumables, experience/mount/loot/skill potions and encyclopedias for crafts, to name a few, are truly matters of (time saving) convenience. Thus they are not required to be the best you can be.
It’s definitely worth noting that the major costs will only creep up on a player if they enjoy the game thoroughly. Till that point there’s almost no reason to spend obtuse amounts of money on Diamonds. Even if you do come to absolutely adore the title, there isn’t much reason to modify one’s equipment until you reach the level cap and begin collection level 50 gear. Therefore, even hardcore players won’t spend much real money on Runes until later in the game.
Runes of Magic costs $140+ for the hardcore, but that’s only a small subset of Taborea’s population. The vast majority of players will only purchase a mount (~$10), and perhaps a collection of potions and additional storage space to make leveling more efficient. Outside those minute purchases, which can easily stay under the price of a retail MMORPG, Runes of Magic can truly remain free-to-play.
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August 12th, 2009 at 4:42 pm
I’ve been a bit skeptical about this pricing model. But it seems a lot more miz than I originally anticipated. I play to win. And I don’t want that to have to cost $140+.
August 12th, 2009 at 5:51 pm
Nice read
August 12th, 2009 at 10:48 pm
Please note that diamonds can be traded and a lot of people trade in-game items for diamonds, never having to spend a penny.
August 13th, 2009 at 2:19 am
While that is true, the price varies by server, and can be incredibly expensive. It’s not a feasible endeavor to pay for all those materials with gold transferred to diamonds.
August 13th, 2009 at 5:17 am
$4.88 for a hard core gamer… per month… that’s a pretty cheap deal really… If you were a veteran WoW player just grinding reps/honour/tokens/indignia you’d get more fresh entertainment out of RoM for that level of cash than for the monthly subscription to dowdy old WoW.
August 13th, 2009 at 4:01 pm
What about the dye system dyeing a suit of clothing alone can take up to 80+ diamonds then you will most likely have to trade it out for better gear in a few hours or days. In a gear and lvl based game it should cost ingame gold and the price should verry on item lvl not diamonds.
August 14th, 2009 at 10:56 am
There are a ton misconceptions about what you need to spend money on in Runes of Magic.
I think iTZKooPA came to a pretty good estimate by purchasing all the wrong things. If you want to check out a similar estimate of the cost of RoM from a player who actually has a level 50/50 in game you can check out my blog.
August 15th, 2009 at 11:32 am
@Tim it seems to me that you came to about the same conclusion, but used one of the various other methods possible. Perhaps that is part of the issue, you can arrive at the same setup in different ways, so the costs can vary for the same basic setup. Or am I being a bit naive – newish player.
At any rate those are the items I am looking to purchase with the Diamonds I just got, I am just trying to figure out what is more important. As you and iTZKooPA both noted, you only go all out on gear once you have a great set, and I think that is where the major cost would come in, as noted in this post. If you aren’t that hardcore, then the game should be far cheaper.
The hidden monthly fee for bag/bank space really annoys me though. I had no idea it actually would cost me that much per month, a true eye opener.
August 15th, 2009 at 8:15 pm
The nice thing is that you don’t pay a dime until you realize that you actually enjoy the game. I hate buying MMOs only to quit DURING my free 30days (SWG), let alone because they aren’t strong enough to suck me into a subscription (Tabula Rasa’s lack of endgame).
Makes me feel like I wasted $50 every time.
August 16th, 2009 at 1:14 pm
@Ryan M. – When you think about the overall cost of the game, $140 isn’t terrible, assuming there aren’t upgrades to be bought every other week. As a casual gamer, I don’t think that this pricing will directly affect me.
August 17th, 2009 at 11:06 am
Factor in your time being worth an average of $15/hour and this price model makes a lot of sense!
August 18th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
While it may work out to be cheaper in the long run than a traditional pricing model, I think the fact that so much of the cost is loaded at once would be a turn off for a lot of people.
August 18th, 2009 at 2:26 pm
I still don’t think I would spend any money if I wasn’t paying anything per month. Paying monthly gives you unlimited upgrades per month at the same cost. FTP provides a ton of temptation items/upgrades which, if purchasing all of them, may cost you more than the average monthly fee. So in essence, they’re restricting content for those who wish to pay a higher monthly fee. Still not down with that.
August 18th, 2009 at 6:18 pm
First of all, you really, truly, do not need to spend money on the game if you don’t want to. I have a friend with a level 50 who is now leveling his Cooking abilities who enjoys the game a lot, but has absolutely no desire to spend money on it.
Even if you love the game and want to participate in most of the end-game content you still do not have to pay any diamonds at all. It is entirely possible to upgrade your gear enough by using in game gold and phirius tokens from daily quests.
In fact anything that can be done with diamonds can also be done without diamonds. However, it is just going to take you a lot longer.
@GeeSigh iTZKooPA and I arrived at similar numbers by spending diamonds on different things. It’s important to understand that you can do both. There is almost no limit to how much you can spend on your gear. But putting rune slots on your gear is not the most effective way of improving your gear. You would only want to do those as a slight bonsus after you do what I suggested.
Just to get an idea of how much gear matters…If you’re a newly minted level 50 and wear only non-modded gear from quests and random drops you find through soloing I would bet you would have around 1800-2200 hit points. Compare that to the Mages I see walking around the Abandoned Fortress that have over 10,000 hit points.
Some of the bosses in the high level areas of the game will have AoEs (with huge range) that will do 4-5 damage.
August 18th, 2009 at 6:19 pm
Edit. The last sentence above should read:
Some of the bosses in the high level areas of the game will have AoEs (with huge range) that will do 4,000-5,000 damage.