Sort of the flip side of the last post when I was wondering what we should commit ourselves to crafting as a group. What do you think you is worth some money in the Station Cash Store? What should we consider buying?
There are some choices.
The Categories
Appearance Items – A matter of taste I suppose. Not sure I need a giant mushroom hat or a cosmetic pet. But I did buy the bunny hat.
Bags – 44 slot bags are 550 to 750 SC and they actually show up on you character as backpacks. Interesting if you want that look. Standard bags are 50 SC for 16 slots to 150 SC for 24 slots. A 24 slot bag is 4 gold on the broker at the moment, so I would probably buy from the broker.
Character Packs – If you want to play one of the races outside of humans, half-elves, barbarians, or erudites. While I have played a dwarf, I generally go half-elf or barbarian. And having a gold account at the moment, all the classes are open to me.
Consumables – Exp buffs, ability buffs, and the dreaded Wand of Obliteration. Only 50 SC for that.
One shot, one kill
Expansions – If I want the Velious expansion, it is 4300 SC, or 9700 SC for the collector’s edition. Seems a bit pricey, but I am a long way from needing that content, and if I wait long enough they might give me a free level 90 character.
Housing – Real money for virtual decor. I’ll stick with in-game carpenters.
Legends of Norrath – I’ve never gotten into the game, so no draw there for me.
Mounts – I actually considered buying a fast mount for Station Case… until I saw them. I do not feel the need to have a mount that screams “Everybody look at me!” I’ll save up for a plain horse.
Services – Well, the guild charter came from there. Not sure I’ll need the name/race change stuff any time soon.
Tradeskill Components – Buy a stack of 200 common harvestables for 50 SC or 5 rares for 250 SC. I suppose, in a pinch.
Equipment – Saved for last, since these are the items that compete with trade skills.
A weapon is a possibility. I wouldn’t invest at lower levels, where you might out grow it fast.
Sword for Sale - $1.00
But at high levels a master crafted sword for 100 SC might seem like a deal. Shields run in the same price range, but for some reason I am not as enthusiastic about paying a buck for an in-game shield.
Armor is a little more expensive, 250 SC to 750 SC depending on the level, but again it is master crafted.
A selection of armor
And then there are arrows. 50 SC will get you 5 stacks of vendor quality arrows.
Crap arrows for you!
I’d level up a woodworker before I’d bother spending Station Cash on those.
On which items would you spend Station Cash? Or would you spend any at all?
The Ancient Gaming Noob 
Not sure about EQ2EX, but in DDO I saved my points for permanent stuff. I bought the quest packs and account options I wanted. Currently I can play DDO for as long as the servers are up until I get bored to death with the content. I have enough points saved up from doing quests that I have enough to buy a few more options or quest packs when they come around.
So, if I were you, I’d save up for an expansion. But, I’m cheap like that. :) But, this is the reason why, as a player, I like free to play games. I can spend my money smart and get a lot more than I would out of a subscription.
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*Tips* – I put this at the end, until I realised I’d written so much you might have nodded off before you got to it, so I moved it to the top :P
1. You can get 500 free SC just for registering Free Realms on the same account. Might need to be Subbed/Gold though, can’t recall if it works for Siliver or Bronze.
2. If you have a Sub you get 5 free LoN card packs every month. All you have to do is log into LoN on that account and claim them. They can have nice in-game items inside. If you’ve never claimed any yet, you’ll have all the ones you’ve ever been entitled to still waiting.
This works on EQ2X if you are playing there on the Gold version of your Live account, but you have to enable LoN in the EQ2X launcher and let it download the files first. It’s free.
Now my reply:
I’ve got quite a bit of SC saved up. I got some free at various times and I bought some while it was half-price. I bought the Silver account, the Ratonga/Iksar race pack for that account and a guild charter all on the first day EQ2X started. Since then I’ve hardly spent anything.
The services obviously speak for themselves. Upgrading to Silver is money you’ll never regret spending if you carry on playing the game at all. The guild charter is obviously required if you want to start a guild. Other services like character transfers, renaming and so forth are stuff you’d have to pay real money for even if you had a subscription.
Leaving those aside, I’m not sure I’d buy anything. It has never even occured to me spend SC on any kind of Mastercrafted item. That just seems pointless. If you’re not interested in crafting for yourself, a couple of calls in the crafting or trade or general channels will usually find a crafter not just willing but eager to make you whatever you need. And they work for cost plus a small tip! Why waste real money on that?
Also, as I said in the last thread, it really does take just a couple of hours to have any crafter into the 30s. Depends how far your group gets, but if you are going at the pace of your slowest member and he only plays that one Saturday night, you are never going to have any problems staying ahead of your adventuring levels in crafts. Crafting is **MUCH** easier than adventuring in EQ2.
I might buy the crafting materials for SC, though. Some are dirt cheap on the Broker but others are relatively expensive and while I love gathering it does take a lot of time. If you’re trying to keep a whole group in MC/Experts you may find the packs of rare-quality crafting materials quite appealing at mid-high levels.
Bags I would only buy for the look, which is impressive. Since they completely removed weight from the game you can all run around with the largest carpenter-made boxes in all inventory slots. If you want to have the biggest bags right from the get-go, then maybe the ones on the broker might look a bit expensive, but as soon as you have characters in the 50s (which takes maybe a week at a push if you are trying to level), you can make the money to buy a very large box in a few minutes by doing the repeatable quests in Sinking Sands.
The expansion is obviously a good deal, when you need it. It costs real money anyway and if you got your SC cheap/free then that’s basically a discount. You won’t need it for a long time, though, if ever.
Other than that, serious interior decorators buy loads of furniture in the Store because it’s very good. Casual decorators are already spoiled for choice with the standard range, though. Lots of the appearance gear and pets is great, if you’re into public display. Lots of people are. I have bought a couple of things when they were on offer.
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The thought of spending anything on Sony ScrewCash is deplorable and insulting. I pay a subscription to the company — a fairly substantial fee if you look at it on an annual basis, and for them to turn around and make me “buy” anything else is a slap in the face.
Certainly games that cater to kids that do not have credit cards or think they are getting something for FREE (which there is nothing in life that is FREE), then I can see tricking people into microtransactions. However, EQ II is not one of those games.
I have never bought SonyCash nor will I ever buy SonyCash. The day that the game makes me buy it because that is the only way to get a type of service will be the end of my association with it.
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@Troy
That’s fine, but you’re missing the point that lots of people *like* buying things. I don’t spend a lot of money in the SC store, but I enjoy it when I do.
In the non-virtual world it’s completely commonplace to pay a membership fee to belong to an organisation and still spend a lot more money on top of that. Or an entrance fee to get in and then more fees for the activities you want to take part in.
MMO companies made a basic error of judgment when they went for the “all-inclusive” model in the first place, an error they are only now beginning to correct.
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@Bhagpuss – I had forgotten about registering for FreeRealms. I did that just to get the 500 SC. I am sure a lot of people did. Yet one more thing that makes me dubious when they trot out their number of total registered users.
Same with LoN. I always forget about that. I have 60 booster packs waiting for me to open. Took me a minute to figure out how to get the loot. They appear to be in with all my other stuff in the /claim window.
And once I figured out that crafting writs were where the now departed “first pristine” bonus experience got routed, Campell is already up to 25 as a jeweler. In tier 3, one writ seems to be worth about a level of crafting exp, plus status.
@Troy – I understand where you are coming from. I am interested in what people might be willing to pay SC for, as it may influence what trade skills we choose. I am pretty sure nobody will go weaponsmith at this point. The alternative SC item is cheap enough that I am sure demand is depressed even more than it used to be for the trade.
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So far, I’ve spent Station Cash on 1 extra character slot and Destiny of Velious expansion. I bought my SC during one of the half price sales so I got my copy of Destiny of Velious at approximately 50% off. I’ll probably spend the remainder of my SC an extra character and the next expansion.
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@Zygwen – I totally forgot about character slots in the services section. If they had had that option back in 2004 I would have been a lot happier.
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Oh, and don’t forget the Unlockers too. You won’t need those at Gold, but they are pretty useful at Bronze or Silver when you get to a level where you’re getting gear/spell drops that you expect to last you a while.
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@Bhagpuss – Yes, one of my questions for further research is “Which heritage quest rewards are worth unlocking for Bronze/Silver?” JBoots would make the list I think.
But unlocking equipment in general since SOE changed things so that when you out-level equipment it loses all benefits makes the potential list pretty short.
There are a couple of master skills that might be worth unlocking at later levels.
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