Sam on Maui

Cryptic’s newest game, Neverwinter, is currently in open beta. Based on Dungeons & Dragons, it takes place in a fantastic fantasy world, with an action-based combat system, a mix of overworld and instancing, and is currently diverting my gameplay time away from Star Trek Online. One of the similarities between Neverwinter and its siblings is that it has a time-based currency that can be bought and sold with Zen. Much like Questionite and Dilithium, Astral Diamonds are awarded in-game and can be used to purchase things, including Zen. Of course, right now the economy is just starting, there’s precious little in the shop, and the number of people playing is relatively low.

The Market has been dramatic as of late! The Top 10 offers have dropped again, and the Z:D Exchange Rate is going back up. Now, that’s not necessarily a bad thing; the rate is still overall pro-Dilithium, but people buying Dilithium with Zen are getting a little more for their money. Why the relatively sudden change? I’m not sure. I’ve never been able to really figure out a correlation between the Z:D rate and offer volume.

Last October I posted a blog on buying Zen via Energy Credits . Well, since then the Z:D rate has changed dramatically, and I wasn’t sure how the requisite bits were being priced on the Exchange. Now, both of these factors are constantly in motion, so it was, and is, a snapshot at best. So, time for another snapshot.

EDIT: I got the date wrong. How did I think it was 11/21 when it was 11/29? *sigh* Its almost the end of the month! Practically the end of the month, really. And, what a month its been! Without further ado… Now, this is two graphs in one. The Blue area is the Zen|Dilithium Exchange as normal. The other lines are just a snapshot of the volumes of Zen being offered/traded on the Exchange, using the Buying and Selling pools. While this does not measure total amount of traffic throughout the day, nor does it show successful transactions, hopefully it’ll still be able to offer us some insight. Important dates include: November 13th (Season 7 launched), and November 23th (first set of adjustments to increase Dilithium availability). Next week, we’ll want to keep an eye on how November 30th as there’ll be another adjustment. Now, for the rest.

Overall History With Season 7: New Romulus having launched on Tuesday, looks like we’ve got movement again! Obviously, its too soon to tell if it because of the new update (although that’s definitely a factor), or a return to weekends being a low price period. Just off the top of my head, however, I’m wondering if the relatively flat period represents people taking a break until the new update. Certainly, when I played City of Heroes, there was something called “the mid-issue blues” (or “blahs”). If you haven’t read the patch notes, now would be a great time to do so . One of the changes since test was they removed the Refined Dilithium requirements from the Reputation system. Previously, it would serve as another Dilithium sink, which made it unattractive to casual and alt-heavy players. I’m not sure how they compensated for that, as one of the purposes of that was to slow down the speed at which players could progress through the system. While the Reputation system was made to el...

Not quite the 11th hour, but late, and I do apologize!     FMonday Tuesday Wed Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday 8/27/2012     160 165 161 156 158 9/3/2012 157 157 157 156 153 152 153 9/10/2012 154 153 154 154 154 154 154 9/17/2012 155 156 155 155 155 154 155 9/24/2012 154 155 159 165 163 158 160 10/1/2012 161 159 160 159 156 157 157 10/8/2012 157 157 158 159 158 158 158 10/15/2012 160 159 160 160 159 158 158 10/22/2012 158 158 158 158 158 158 157 10/29/2012 157 158 157 157         Finally! Some more movement!     I shan’t pontificate to much this go ‘round. I’m personally wondering if uncertainties over what changes Season 7 will bring has people less willing to participate in the exchange right now. We’ll see. It could also be Dilithium buyers are not quite as willing to pay the same premiums as before.

Well, its been an interesting week in STO land. A lot of it centers around the Task Force Omega Reputation system ; they’re streamlining rewards, expanding them in some cases, lowering them in others, and more. As such, its making me wonder if the current Z:D prices are more from people keeping more Dilithium to themselves, “just in case.” Dan Stahl has been a very busy bee, so its really worth your time to go looking through what he and the other devs have posted . I’ll get some highlights up later, though. Again, knowing what’s coming will help you decide how you want to progress. Overall, I like the changes, but that’s my opinion based on how I play; your mileage may vary.

Let me present the USS Messing!

From now until November 12th, you can get a Lifetime Subscription for $199.00! At that price, you'll only need play 14 months to break even versus having a subscription (normally it'd take 20 months). Don't forget you'll also be getting 500 Zen as a monthly stipend; useful for buying all sorts of goodies, including things you can sell on the Exchange like Master Keys and Fleet Modules. And don't forget Dilithium. Buy goodies, save it up, or buy Energy Credits, whatever you like ^_^ Additionally, Lifetime Subscribers get access to all Veteran's Rewards, regardless of how long they've had their Lifetime sub. So, someone buying a new sub today will have access to the 1,000 Veteran Reward ships . These ships look pretty nice (not as nice as my Atrox, but whatever), and might be a lot of fun to play, so we'll see! I think this is a nice move on Cryptic's part. Its a good perk, but not overwhelmingly amazing. Its not "must have" from a prac...

Well, its now been 4 weeks tracked! My first month! And, as such, I’m finally getting a view of the “bigger” picture. It was rather nice to get up, log on, and see the 64 Zen I placed for sale at 1:165 had sold, leaving me with a nice sum of over 10,000 Dilithium. Knowing that when rates go back down I’ll be able to make a small profit on that is even better. I know, I know, you want charts, don’t you?

Follow-up post! If you've watched the show at all, you know they can do a whole lot with their replicators. Need a meal? A hot drink? Feline food supplement? Go to the replicator, tell it what you want, and off you go! Sure, it can't making living things, and it seems they tone some stuff down (synth-ale doesn't seem to be the "good stuff"), but it seems it can make just about anything. Star Trek Online's crafting system has two unique crafting materials that bear examining: Common and Uncommon Unreplicatable Materials. Costing 10 and 1,000 Dilithium each, they represent something that can't simply be ordered up on demand. As such, they represent an obstacle to crafters because the players must earn Dilithium to buy them, buy Dilithium with Zen to buy them, or have someone else get it for them.

Three weeks of tracking! :D This has been a pretty big week for me, though. The Tholian Lock Boxes are coming to an end, but Cryptic is bringing back the Ferengi and Cardassian Boxes for a limited time. But, what’s even bigger, and better, than that is they’ve put the Master Keys on sale for 15% off! As a result, I’ve managed to buy a few extra keys and sold them on the Exchange. Right now I’ve got over 14 million Energy Credits stashed away, which is nice considering I started with well under 100,000 not that long ago. Tracking chart after the break!

Today, Cryptic/Perfect World announced the return of Ferengi and Cardassian lock boxes . Not only have they improved the box winnings overall, there’s a chance that D’Kora Marauders and Cardassian Galor Cruisers will be cheaper on the exchange should their availability increase. The flip side of this would be that Master Keys are a bit more popular in the Exchange right now! When I took a look, there were a lot of keys being offered for 5 million Energy Credits on the first page alone, with a handful being available under 2 million. The Master Keys I had on the market were practically steals compared to the others. I sold one at 1.6 million, and three at 1.4 million. So, 500 Zen (a subscriber’s or lifetimer’s monthly stipend) got me 5.8 million Energy Credits! But, I didn’t buy those keys with my stipend! I bought them with Zen bought with Dilithium :D ~77,000 Refined Dilithium, converted at 1:154 rate or better, bought 500 Zen which then bought 5.8 million Energy Credits. Yes, i...

Not everyone is into crazy Z:D currency exchange shenanigans, and its easy to understand why. I can be boring, it’s a slow process, and you really have no control over it. However, if you buy Zen at all, and have any left over, its worth looking at. Why? The Dilithium Store.

Another week has come and gone, and here we are again! So far prices have been pretty stable, so I’m not sure why the prices during the week of August 27 were so high. How has the past week fared? Tracking is after the break...

So, since I’ve started trying to make Zen through the Dilithium Exchange in Star Trek Online , a simple Excel file has been incredibly useful for me. The old adage, “buy low, sell high” is very useful and easy in this situation. Care to see? Tracking after the break.

MMO players are no doubt familiar with spammers running around their game of choice, spewing forth ads offering "g0ld 4 cheep! vizit our dubious website!" Players, often with more money than time, support this business. And the desire is understandable - many online games require tremendous amounts of time which many adults have in short supply. Sadly, when they do buy gold, armor, and other in-game assets, they not only put their credit card and account at risk to theft/fraud, they encourage even more spammers to get into the game since there's a buying market.

Compiled Experience has come up with a handy new app for Windows Phone 7 called Left to Spend . I’ve been using it for the past week and find that its something well worth trying out. Starting the app takes you right to totals page. While the app looks very well Metro, there’s no other pages to swipe to, and that really speaks of how to the point it is. At the top will be your current, remaining total of spending money and how often its replenished. Below that it’ll show the period of time it spans, date-wise, and the purchases entered are listed below. Clicking on the gear icon on the bottom will bring up the settings screen. Here you can set how much you’re giving yourself and how often. For instance, you do like I do and set it for every paycheck to receive $x in spending money (my entertainment budget). Because you can set the amount and choose between daily, weekly, fortnightly (every two weeks) or monthly, you can really use it in the most practical means for you. The last op...

A few days ago I was having to decide between buying my Myoplex locally from GNC versus buying online for $10 less. Well, I made my choice, and went locally. I had a quick stop to Queen Ka’ahumanu Shopping Center, walked to GNC, presented my Gold card, and got the $50 box for just under $42, including tax. That’s a work-month worth of meals at about $2.10 per serving, which isn’t too bad. Having thought about it a bit more, I did think of some other benefits to having bought it locally. By spending it here, I paid local sales tax. The business itself pays local taxes. The employees will get more money (I’ve heard GNC has commissions), so that’s income tax plus them spending money, which will be sales tax. With tourism still recovering plus the expectation that Japanese visitors will be declining in number while they rebuild, that’s important right now. The state and county definitely need the money. While I’m not a fan of everything the government does (federal, state or local),...

One of the things I've been trying to do over the past few years is, when I can, to buy stuff locally. Even if I buy something from a national retail chain, I know that some of that money stays here and contributes towards the local economy. There are exceptions to this, of course, but overall I've tried to keep to that. Right now I've got a case where I need to choose, though. The local GNC sells EAS' Myoplex Lite for $50. After my Gold Card discount that'll be $40 plus tax, so $41.67 total. At 20 packets/meals a box (enough for four working weeks), I'm paying $2.09 per shake. But if I went through Amazon and subscribe to it (ie, they will automatically ship me more every month), I can get it for $30. They claim no shipping, so if that's true? That'll be $1.50 per shake and over a $11 per box. Over the course of a year I'd save close to $150. So, the question is, what is that difference in price buying me? Like everyone else, I'm wanting t...