RuneScape and Illyriad

Payment models are endlessly fascinating because so many players normally didn't think about them until free-to-rs gold and freemium models stopped being something that only came from foreign shores. Now, everyone has an opinion about which payment model is the best. I tend to love simple ones, as close to simple as I can get. If a runescape is truly wonderful, however, I don't care if the developers ask players to cut off their right arms. I've paid my fair share and continue to do so.

In fact, in one of the most disturbing trends of the last few years, players have begun bemoaning the lack of a free version of their favorite runescape. I see it all the time: players publicly wishing for the time that their favorite runescape will go free-to-play so they can return without paying a dime. Sure, I can understand being strapped for cash and needing an easy way to get back to an old title, but come on... those titles might not be around much longer if players do not support them in the first place. I am not a fan of free-to-play because I am cheap or because I need to avoid paying developers what they deserve. I have said it before, and I will say it again: I am a fan of free-to-play because it lets me decide when I want to spend my money. There's a big difference.
Let me tell you about Illyriad first. Illyriad is a browser-based runescape gold that stands out from the crowd by offering real-time skill training, a robust and simple trade system, and open-world, hardcore PvP. I love it because I can play for literally 20 minutes a day or sit and blow three hours on a runescape session. It is a runescape of choices. The artwork has a hand-drawn quality to it and all of it runs within HTML5, making it flexible across all platforms. More buy runescape gold, buy runescape accounts?

Most of the runescape accounts titles I come across offer a cash shop or microtransactions that truly do sell power. I love how wonderful Evony looks and plays, but you can literally buy goods with real-life cash. The same is true of many titles. When it comes to combat, most of them are sort of babyish. Sure, someone can attack you and take some of your stuff, but you are almost always guaranteed some sort of safety system that keeps plenty of goods around for the next round. In other words, you are never truly "out." This has created a popular culture of "farming" players, the same players who smack-talk each other in these titles and warn that they "will farm the crap out of you." They can do that because there is no real price to pay. Well, in Illyriad, a player can wipe you off of the map almost literally, leaving you with nothing but the skills you learned and any goods you might have protected in a vault. This has created a quiet tension in the runescape, as if everyone is pointing loaded guns at each other. War takes money and time, time that allows your enemy to gather his friends.

So how does real money work in Illyriad? Simple. You spend cash to buy prestige and then spend that prestige on a few things. You can slightly buff your defenses and the output of your resources. You can even buff the combat effectiveness of some of your troops, but as James Niesewand told me in a live video interview this year, the amount is very small and is only one of many, many factors in combat. You can also spend prestige to speed up building times on buildings. Even with all that, a player cannot speed up skill learning. As in EVE Online, players nominate a skill that is learned in real time. One skill can take days to learn. These skills are often needed to build certain buildings or to perform certain tasks. As in other PvP runescapes, items mean nothing without the skills to use them. Illyriad's payment system is easy to understand, it's cheap, and it doesn't significantly affect runescapeplay.