Buy a month of game time, get embers

We already know we will get a cosmetic shop after launch, with Embers as “currency.” We will be able to buy those with real money. What about get some when you buy a month of subscription? Intrepid could fix how many you get per month bought, if there’s 3 months, 6 months and 12-month subscription’s plans. The Elder Scrolls Online do something similar with Crowns. A month of game time gives you 1650 Crowns. Also, a month of game time in ESo cost 14.99 the US. Ashes of Creation plans to charge us the same amount of time per month of game time. I don’t see why we couldn’t have some embers with a month of subscription. The only thing I can see that prevent us to do so is Intrepid want us to use our bank account to buy embers for exchange with cosmetics. That how they will make cash.

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Comments

Noaani

I expect to see members offered with multi-month subscriptions.

We havent heard anything to suggest this as yet, but it is so common that I would be surprised if Intrepid dont.

However, I dont expect it at launch - but rather 9 - 12 months after.

AnimusRex

Id be surprised if some embers weren't thrown into various subscription packs. Plus earned in the game and by log ins, if they go that route.

Hinotori

Ashes has a subscription?

ClintHardwood

I'm not particularly interested in cosmetics, so whatever they do with embers is fine with me.

Kilion

Not interested. Player subscription and ingame shop currency should be kept separately in my opinion. And generally I would want the whole cosmetic thing to be fairly limited after launch, but I am biased in that regard to be honest.

Xnate13X

No embers in ANY subscription please. Leave it with pre-order packages only. It just gives more of an excuse to raise prices over time. It's like asking to get a higher minimum wage. It helps no one in the long run, except the government for a short period of time as they collect more money and spend it in a market that will slowly adjust to the inflation. If you want cosmetics bad enough, pay extra. If you don't, don't try to get more for your $ because it will just come back to bite you later.

Noaani

Xnate13X wrote: »

It's like asking to get a higher minimum wage. It helps no one in the long run

This is blatantly untrue, and simply exposes exactly which media bubble you like to inhabit.

Minimum wage needs to go up with inflation at an absolute minimum - otherwise it is going down.

Additionally, if your country/jurisdiction is becoming more wealthy as a whole, minimum wage should increase at a rate above inflation to reflect this.

AnimusRex

Xnate13X wrote: »

No embers in ANY subscription please. Leave it with pre-order packages only. It just gives more of an excuse to raise prices over time. It's like asking to get a higher minimum wage. It helps no one in the long run, except the government for a short period of time as they collect more money and spend it in a market that will slowly adjust to the inflation. If you want cosmetics bad enough, pay extra. If you don't, don't try to get more for your $ because it will just come back to bite you later.

Most falsehoods I've ever seen in a paragraph of this length. Well done.

Kilion

Noaani wrote: »

Xnate13X wrote: »

It's like asking to get a higher minimum wage. It helps no one in the long run

This is blatantly untrue, and simply exposes exactly which media bubble you like to inhabit.

Minimum wage needs to go up with inflation at an absolute minimum - otherwise it is going down.

Additionally, if your country/jurisdiction is becoming more wealthy as a whole, minimum wage should increase at a rate above inflation to reflect this.

I do not doubt the benevolent intention of higher minimum wage but in the long run it has been found to be not as helpful as one would hope, especially since the purchasing power of the currency isn't as flexible on the level we are talking about.

Minimum wage goes up from lets say 7$/h to 15$/h. A worker doing a job that generates the company 12$/h revenue is now being overpaid. So the company owner either has to reduce the profit margin (which is what people commonly hope would happen but most especially small and mid sized business don't have that) to pay that wage, they have to increase the productivity of that worker to "become worth" more than 15$/h if possible or they can find a way to replace that worker with something that costs less than 15$/h like those ordering screens in McDonalds and such.

The consequences often are that

prices go up in businesses that cannot replace workers or increase their productivity
businesses with small profit margins (small and mid size) have to shut down
fewer people are being hired than might actually be needed, so productivity decreases
especially entry level jobs that aren't "worth" that minimum wage (yet) disappear making starting a career more and more difficult

Again, it is not that the people raising minimum wage are evil or anything, it is simply a mechanic that often times doesn't work out in the way we hope it would. And it is often the biggest companies who are the only ones able to adapt to the changes and do so in way we generally don't really like, while their smaller competitors go under because they are not as rich. But there are solutions to the underlying issue that minimum wages tried to fix.

But enough with the economics/politics BS.

It's better to keep embers separate from subscription fees because a lot of people aren't interested cosmetics at all and don't want to see price hikes due to something attached to their subscription they never wanted in the first place. And connecting the two is also work that has to be done, so it would actually save time and resources to leave the system as it is.

Noaani

Kilion wrote: »

Minimum wage goes up from lets say 7$/h to 15$/h

Now, since i said minimum wage should go up with inflation, your situation is assuming inflation of over 100%.

If this is the case, the issues you bring up are not what anyone should be focusing on. There are far more important things to deal with.

If minimum wage is $7, and you have an inflation rate of 10%, then minimum wage should be going up to $7.70, not to $15. However, since historically, inflation is usually around 2 - 3% a year, that $7 minimum wage should be going up to somewhere between $7.14 to $7.21 on an average year.

The problem of larger jumps in minimum wage come the minimum rate isn't increased for a few years, and a large jump is needed to essentially bring things up to where it should be. If it is increased every year literally just by the level of inflation, then there will never be any issues like the ones you speak of.

Your points are all valid for a situation in which a very large increase in minimum wage is needed, but such increases are only ever needed if the rate hasn't been increased for a few years - as such, these large increases should be looked at as a correction.

An increase in minimum wage should never be looked at as an economic tool, it should be looked at as an annual economic responsibility.

Kilion

Noaani wrote: »

Kilion wrote: »

Minimum wage goes up from lets say 7$/h to 15$/h

Now, since i said minimum wage should go up with inflation, your situation is assuming inflation of over 100%.

If this is the case, the issues you bring up are not what anyone should be focusing on. There are far more important things to deal with.

If minimum wage is $7, and you have an inflation rate of 10%, then minimum wage should be going up to $7.70, not to $15. However, since historically, inflation is usually around 2 - 3% a year, that $7 minimum wage should be going up to somewhere between $7.14 to $7.21 on an average year.

The problem of larger jumps in minimum wage come the minimum rate isn't increased for a few years, and a large jump is needed to essentially bring things up to where it should be. If it is increased every year literally just by the level of inflation, then there will never be any issues like the ones you speak of.

Your points are all valid for a situation in which a very large increase in minimum wage is needed, but such increases are only ever needed if the rate hasn't been increased for a few years - as such, these large increases should be looked at as a correction.

An increase in minimum wage should never be looked at as an economic tool, it should be looked at as an annual economic responsibility.

True but now consider that the governments of many nations have changed to way they calculate inflation times and times again, mainly with the result that it is reported lower from then on. There are actually sites that calculate inflation according to older formulas to show how that went.

Again, not saying that minimum wages shouldn't exist or that they are coming from a bad place but enforcing them through government which has a conflict of interest in that regard seems to not work out in the long term.

Noaani

Kilion wrote: »

True but now consider that the governments of many nations have changed to way they calculate inflation times and times again, mainly with the result that it is reported lower from then on. There are actually sites that calculate inflation according to older formulas to show how that went.

Again, not saying that minimum wages shouldn't exist or that they are coming from a bad place but enforcing them through government which has a conflict of interest in that regard seems to not work out in the long term.

This is getting dangerously close to an argument of "we can't do it perfectly, so we may as well not do it".

Of course the way inflation is calculated changes over time and in different regions. Thing is, those differences are going to result in fractions of a percent difference, and when you look at the literal cents that a few percent means, fractions of a percent are literally meaningless. All you need to do is just increase the minimum wage by what ever you calculate inflation to be at that point in time.

Also, governments are the only body that exists that can set and enforce minimum wages. I mean, if you set up a new body to do this, that new body then literally becomes a form of government by actual, literal definition.

It isn't as if the private sector can be left to sort this out - companies exist to make a profit (and have a legal mandate to do so), so it is literally going against their purpose for existing to increase a minimum wage.

This is why so many large companies put so much money in to trying to convince so many people that minimum wage increases don't work. it is literally in their best interests to do so.

As someone that has run many businesses in the past (including businesses hiring unskilled workers part time that were happy to work for minimum wage), responsible increases absolutely work. Unfortunately, I can't find any examples at all in the US of responsible increases over a reasonable span of time. The fact that the federal minimum wage hasn't increased in almost 14 years is an indictment on the entire country, to be perfectly honest.

Kilion

Noaani wrote: »

This is getting dangerously close to an argument of "we can't do it perfectly, so we may as well not do it".

That might be your take but that is not what I said or meant.

Noaani wrote: »

Of course the way inflation is calculated changes over time and in different regions. Thing is, those differences are going to result in fractions of a percent difference, and when you look at the literal cents that a few percent means, fractions of a percent are literally meaningless. All you need to do is just increase the minimum wage by what ever you calculate inflation to be at that point in time.

I'm however at how the calculation has changed since the 1970s and what that meant for real wages. And what I see is the reason the rich got richer and the poor staying poor with the middle class slowly joining them. Take the calculation methods from the past and you suddenly are much closer to what people have lived through in the past 2 years than "just" 9% official inflation.

Noaani wrote: »

Also, governments are the only body that exists that can set and enforce minimum wages. I mean, if you set up a new body to do this, that new body then literally becomes a form of government by actual, literal definition.

Well if your base case is that people themselves are to incapable to demand appropriate salaries for their job, then sure, then you need an institution to do so.

Interesting talk but I'll end it here, this is way off topic

Noaani

Kilion wrote: »

Well if your base case is that people themselves are to incapable to demand appropriate salaries for their job, then sure, then you need an institution to do so.

The vast majority of people are in exactly this situation.

I am not, you may well not be, but the vast, vast majority of people are in a place where they can not demand this.

I mean, look no further than Amazon warehouse/delivery employees - they can't even demand appropriate toilet breaks.

I'm however at how the calculation has changed since the 1970s and what that meant for real wages. And what I see is the reason the rich got richer and the poor staying poor with the middle class slowly joining them. Take the calculation methods from the past and you suddenly are much closer to what people have lived through in the past 2 years than "just" 9% official inflation.

Since the parts of the world that has had the greatest gap between the rich and poor over that time period also happen to be the parts of the world that have not adequately maintained their minimum wage at all (again, no increase in the US for 14 years), you really can't go looking at how inflation is calculated.

I mean, what impact is the rate of inflation (or the method in which it is calculated) going to have on a minimum wage increase that doesn't even happen?

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