Balgra - I agree with everything you said mate - well except it allows me to play the game less. Life makes me stay away at times. I cant be here 24/7 like some seem to be because I work away a lot - what the gems allow me to do is basically play very little during the week but have the island sustain itself - I do log in but often on a 3g modem so I basically just maintain friends buffs and chat. Also everyone talks about the mines being £75 for me they cost £40 with 5,000 gems extra (see below).
I don't disagree that gems may be over-priced in terms of real-life money cost but I do think the goods that can be purchased reflect a reasonable gem price - its already been mentioned that you cant maintain a self sustaining weapons economy with only 3 unlimited recyclers but you can with say 3 unlimited copper mines. AND remember BB is interested in creating a 2-Tier community to keep the bigger gem players content to stay and invest.
What I was trying to show is that if BB made the copper mine even a 5k gem purchase it would be very cheap and maybe lots of people would snap it up. This could destroy the trade culture that requires many people to 'hang around' the game which creates the chat community which keeps people interested and returning.
Many that are now buying gems do so with starter packs - they can be good value (never bought one) but they don't allow you to pick up the 50% bonus sometimes on offer which has been a huge boost.
Re my island (and its cost) - sure its been an expensive journey but one that I have enjoyed tremendously. I am fortunate in that I have been able to buy the goods but I also appreciate that not everyone has the same ability or desire for that matter. The point is, I doubt BB have a business plan that says lots of people will buy all the high value items. They probably have a plan that says 5% will pay on average £10 a month for gems, 1.5% will pay £25 - £50 per month and less than 0.001% will buy all available items.
I used to be a big gem player (many may remember my cheap pricing) - but I stopped buying gems many months ago as there was no value in it for me as like you say - I have the silos and watermills.
Its because I have previously spent a lot that I bought a £200 pack at the football event (50% bonus gave me 105k gems) which I immediately invested in 5 gem pits (you missed one mate). I did this because the pits (at 100K gems) will give me 200K gems over 12 months.
This is equivalent to 16.6k per month. In the shop £50 will give you 13k gems so in effect I have bought 4 months gems up front (at £50 per month) but instead of receiving 52k gems over 4 months, I receive 205k gems over 12 months so I am getting 153k gems free.
On the gold mines - they have been static for months - I have 3 in s2 around the 10k mark and 5 in s9 around 1k - I haven't used them as they was providing very little gold coin - again to slow for me and I had a large coin stack from the previous gem selling.
My coin stack has dwindled from sending out my scouts and so I kicked the gold coinage into play again - this was mainly driven by the football event - Me and a friend must have bought thousands of footballs and bought as many hotdog snacks as we could. Friend buffed these are a X4 buff for 36 hours meaning a Level 5 coinage can produce 1,800 gold coin in 36 hours - a bargain when the hotdog may have cost between 500 and 750 gold coin - thats over 1,000 coin profit in 1.5 days with no real effort required
Thanks for listening
fishslice
P.S.
I do object to the buy gems by SMS feature.
It shouldn't be encouraged that young children with a mobile can pay for goods without the consent knowledge of their parents. This is a PEGI 7 game after all.
Originally Posted by Tierarzt
