Ill rebut both those statements in turn.
First, this is not a Terminators initiative. It was originally proposed by the Hegemon of HoB. Terminators does support it, however, and Ive made a few posts in this thread supporting and detailing that. We have a FORUM mod playing in terminators.. not a game mod or admin. Big difference. Hes a player just like you who signed up to help with forum. He holds no authoritative benefit or incentive beyond the ability to moderate forum posts. This is common in many MMOs because helping with this work saves $ for the game owners. It does not directly impact game play itself. Further , he has no direct link to pass info onto the game devs.
Second, Im a modest coiner bordering on a free player. My GF bought me drachmas once on my birthday (10$), and since we both had enjoyed playing , I also put a like amount in a couple of times on the game. Far less than many. Prior to that I had played the game 'free' for about 7 months.
I am concerned what will happen to the free player base because I realize what many are going to discover: when your troops are only 40% amped compared to a coiner who has them amped out to 420% of your value, its going to make you feel a bit insignificant. Plarium previously had a dynamic whereby you could hit someones offense if left out and do enough damage to seriously injure a coin player. With an over 200% boost to the ofensive units defense , not only is your smaller army not going to kill even 1/3 as much , but your going to lose that small army too as the increased defense does more damage to you. The absence of this pathway further renders the free player marginalized.
That there is a huge population of free players still playing and joining 'blissfully' unaware of the impact of the changes does little to comfort me. Im concerned with how people who play for a length of time and are serious enough to examine game mechanics becoming disenchanted with the impact they can make on the game, and hence their long term enjoyment and relevance. I submit to you that it will result in people becoming disinterested in the game in an increasing rate and detract from the appeal of Sparta. Once this starts to sink in, this impact will accelerate.
That Plarium monitors metrics is no news. Im sure they do. But they also follow inflated stats. Declaring you have 250M accounts doesnt equate to having 250M active participants. My RL friends account is still 'active' a year after he quit. A game full of non starters and e-cities doesnt have the same quality as a game more populated by human players.
Anyhow , dont take my word for it. Look at the different coalitions involved in posting here. Look at what OTHER coas are saying if you dont want to listen to terminators.
Its not the first time a moratorium on buying coin has been suggested. Its the first time its had this much support from other coas across the board, however, and the first time so many pay players are actually concerned enough to try to participate to make a collective voice heard.
Its not a fancy story to advocate for the overall health of the game.
