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Lost Pages of Taborea: Save those pennies
Seeing players farm high-level dungeons can be a constant reminder that your gear sucks. If you really want to get into running instances and being the baddest of the bad, it's easy to feel pressured into spending money. Spending money isn't inherently bad. It's what makes the world go round. But it may behoove you to spend your hard earned dollars judiciously. I want instant gratification as much as the next bloke, but it isn't going to happen for me. I have bills and a limited income stream. I have to budget time and money. Everyone will have to do it someday, no matter what his or her income potential is. Runes of Magic offers periodic sales that the savvy gamer can take advantage of. This guide offers advice, reminders and tips for getting the most out of your money. Players play differently and want different things from RoM. I'm looking at these money-saving ideas with the basics in mind, but you should be able to easily adjust how and what you want to spend money on -- based on your personal income and game preferences.
Score some cheap NCsoft game time
If you, like us, are always looking for a way to save a few dollars in your monthly MMO budget, then you may be glad to hear this news. After all, replacing all those robot minions when they get trashed can be really expensive - or maybe that's just us. In either case, if you're an avid City of Heroes or City of Villains, Lineage, or Lineage II player, then you'll be glad to hear that our friends over at GoGamer have a great sale on NCsoft time cards going on now. (We'd assume they'll work on Aion as well, considering their site lists these cards as being valid for Auto Assault....) Right now, you can score two months of prepaid game time for the seriously cheap price of $18.90. While there is a shipping cost, the charge becomes very minor compared to the overall savings when you stock up on multiple cards. Of course, if you don't really want several months of cheap game time, you could always go in on an order with friends - or just send them to us. We'd gladly take any spare pre-paid time off your hands. Expensive robot minion replacements and all that, you know.
The Daily Grind: More game for your buck
One of the news pieces we found out about last week was the pricing finally announced for Cartoon Network's upcoming MMO, FusionFall. According to our little mice within their network, it will start out at $5.95 for one account, and then jump to a Family Subscription rate of $9.95 for up to four accounts. Sony Online Entertainment has been offering a Station Access Pass on all their games for a long time now. One of their MMOs is $14.99, but to subscribe to more, you can get a pass that costs $30 per month, giving you access to all the SOE games you own - up to 8 different games in all. Lord of the Rings Online has run subscriptions at $9.99 per month - or $299 lifetime - for a truly gorgeous world.It seems that MMO companies are slowly starting to catch on that a cheaper price point will draw more interest; especially in the current economy when people are re-evaluating their MMO subscriptions. Our question today is this: what price point would get you to consider either trying a new MMO, or resubscribing to one you liked but just can't justify any longer? Perhaps $10 per month like LotRO's special pricing? $5? Would allowing you to group subscriptions up on the cheap like FusionFall's model get you to bring back another account?
Turn your change into apps
Ryan P sent us a nice tip about using Coinstar units to turn your spare change into iTunes apps. You've seen Coinstar at the grocery store before -- you throw your spare change in there, and then it spits out a receipt you can take to the service counter for cash (minus a little off the top for the counting). But Ryan told us Coinstar now offers gift certificates instead of cash, if you want, minus the coin counting charge.And one of those certificates can be used at the iTunes store, which means you can throw your coins in, and instead of paying Coinstar to count them, get the full value of your change in an iTunes card. And since apps on the App Store are so cheap, you can use your former quarters and dimes to pick up some terrific apps (may we recommend Sketches, or maybe Pennies -- since you're so coin-conscious anyway). And considering that the amount Coinstar takes out is almost 9%, putting the money in an iTunes card (if you're going to buy the apps anyway) can be a nice chunk of change.
Six ways playing WoW can save you money
Summer's here, gas prices are up, and the economy is suffering both in-game and in real life. Ultimately, it's a "dogs and cats sleeping together" kind of situation for your cash flow. Jagoex over at Warlock Therapy has your wallet covered with "10 Ways Gamers Can Save Money." He's talking about all gamers, and has quite a lot to say for the console gamers, but his tips pretty much apply to everyone. Of course, there are a few things you can do specifically as a WoW player to save your bank account some stress over this bleeding hot summer.
Analysis: Is the WoW laptop worth it?
So as you've probably already heard, Dell is releasing an ultraswank gaming laptop computer, bedecked in WoW paraphernalia like no computer ever has been before. If you're a WoW fan, this is the clearly the ultimate bling in laptops to own-- the kind of computer that Mr. T plays his Night Elf mohawk on. But it retails at a whopping $4500, which makes it too rich for my blood, and probably too rich for yours.Still, it does come with a lot of stuff-- not just a sweet 17" laptop, but also lots of Blizzard swag, and even that FigurePrints coupon. But the burning question is: when you add it all up, is the WoW laptop really worth it? I could probably think of better ways to spend $4500, and I'm sure you could, too. But if we really did want all of this stuff, and had the money to buy it with, would the Dell deal really be a bargain?That's what I'm planning to find out. After the jump, we'll break down what you get with the set, what it costs, and whether or not this Dell deal really is the WoW fan's biggest dream, or whether or not you could save some cash just by buying it all separately.%Gallery-11285%
