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#### Was it a mistake to put emblems in the auctions?

Well just got a few sent back from the auction again..(1250 currants for emblems that before were selling between players for 3k).
What bothers me about the emblems now is not the loss in currants but the loss in game play. I remember when I first started playing this game and got the quest to create my first icon. I was so excited when it was finally created after putting in all of the work myself by donating.
I'm just wondering now if TS has made a mistake by making icons easy to obtain and taking away extended game play from the new players when the game goes live. I've seen quite a few posts on the forums of late saying players are bored and the game doesn't seem to have longevity (I don't agree personally) but obviously creating icons prior to emblems being available at the auctions did take a lot of time and planning and gave you/us a prize at the end. It gave us extended game play.
(on a separate note..still don't understand why the 'auction' is called the 'auction'. We don't bid. It's a marketplace)
Ramble over....

Posted 6 months ago by ~Arabesque~ | Permalink

### Replies

- I agree with this. I actually don't sell my emblems - even though I have a cabinetful of them at this point. I generally feel like achievements shouldn't be purchasable that way. It's not like it's that hard to make an icon, and as you say it's actually what the game play *is*. Why should every level 15 player have a houseful of icons?
  Prices were going to drop whether they went to auction or not, though. As all the older players collect bags and bags and bags of unneeded emblems, even in the marketplace they were bound to start going for nearly free.
  Posted 6 months ago by oscarette | Permalink
- I agree. The emblems don't seem so special now that they don't have to be "earned".
  ETA: I would support emblems and icons being unsellable and untradeable.
  Posted 6 months ago by Flowerry Pott | Permalink
- I don't think so - there is still the big emblem achievement that must be earned.
  Posted 6 months ago by Xupa | Permalink
- I agree as well. I don't sell my emblems anymore, but rather store them in SDB's and will one day blow them all to speed up new skills, but I miss the days when an emblem was something valuable to sell or trade, like a cubimal (and I wonder why emblems went to auction while they did not).
  I also agree about the names of auctions, and think it would be awesome if we could bid, a la eBay. At least on the more valuable/rare stuff! But I know it's a pipe dream...
  Posted 6 months ago by Mrs. Peacock | Permalink
- @Xupa, I don't think everyone is into collecting the badges though - the badge is just a bonus for those that do the full game play route.
  Posted 6 months ago by ~Arabesque~ | Permalink
- @Miss Peacock...cubi auctions would be fantastic!!! And bidding proper would be good fun too providing it was real time player bidding and not by sniper bots. If that doesn't come into play I'd like to see 'auction' changed to 'marketplace'
  Posted 6 months ago by ~Arabesque~ | Permalink
- I only have four icons so far, but I refuse to buy emblems. I don't care if others buy them, but to me, it's not nearly the same.
  I have received a few as gifts, which was very sweet. I also think that's fair, because making friends and playing cooperatively is also important to me.
  Posted 6 months ago by Aliera | Permalink
- i have no opinion on emblems, but the 'auction' label has bothered me from the beginning. very misleading.
  Posted 6 months ago by Lorikeet | Permalink
- embs used to be 5-7k a pop.
  now they are what, 1500 currants for one? its not any more or less difficult to make your own embs, but if folks want to buy them, by all means, buy them.
  they will make icons out of them, and that makes for...less emblems floating around.
  when you are at the point where it takes 5k favor for one emblem, well, you might not be so enthusiastic on donating or making emblems.
  I would like to make the Voltron icon out of 11 icons, tho'. Something to do.
  Posted 6 months ago by ☣ elf ☣ | Permalink
- Agreed. Its not an auction. Its a "buy it now" in ebay parlance.
  As for emblems, there has always been a market via the forums. It was just less visible or efficient. IMO the problem is that emblems are now simply the byproduct of the pursuit of img via donating. Xp had no economic value. It was for level status. Img is for leveling status as well, but it i valuable ti everyone for upgrades and cultivating. Emblems are niw the detritus produced by the most effective path to img.
  I think the solution is to find another purpose for emblems that will make the increased quantity of them useful. Maybe build a personal shrine from 20 icons?
  Posted 6 months ago by Koftun | Permalink
- Yep. IMO, once you get an icon of a giant you should stop getting emblems for that giant.
  Posted 6 months ago by WalruZ | Permalink
- Don't forget something very important: 2,000 currants might be less than pocket change to many of you, but for new players it will first be a massive amount of cash, and then a major percentage.
  I, for example, cannot really afford to buy any furniture in the auction house. One purchase would empty me of all my currants. So I don't. I'm slowly making purchases, but I don't really play the "high end" game that a lot of the other people in beta do. o.o
  It's kind of like how I've quietly chuckled at all you guys who got 1 million or more imagination struggling with that situation. I got under 100,000, which meant I needed to decide to spend it freely like stoot said, even though 100k was also his number for a full house. Ah well.
  Posted 6 months ago by Faranae | Permalink
- Hi faranae, it's not the currants that are the issue for me. It's the reduction in longevity of gameplay that allowing players to auction emblems causes. Prior to auction some people would trade emblems for emblems (some would sell privately too) but for the most part players would go out and donate to earn the emblems (thus earning the xp) and earning their icons :D
  Posted 6 months ago by ~Arabesque~ | Permalink
- I definitely don't agree with that "one icon and no more emblems."
  I'm working on a second set of icons. I know others working on a second set of icons. I know one player with somewhere are 30 million Pot icons. It's not one icon and done for a lot of players.
  And putting emblems on auction removed the repeatedly bumped marketplace posts and "Emblems for sale" spam in Cebarkul -- although the marketplace forum and the dip in population eliminated most of that spam too, there's still no compelling reason why it should be more complicated for these sellers or buyers just because some want emblems to feel special. And they were only difficult to earn very, very early in my time in the game, simply because resources for donating were more difficult to gather without maxed skills, and selling those items for currants to purchase tools was more compelling in the early game.
  I've played devil's advocate against cubi auctions elsewhere, but that was more to see if I could understand why TS doesn't have cubis on auction. I really didn't come up with much. Anything that is commonly being sold via the marketplace forum should just be on the auctions. Complicating things by forcing players to only be able to make a deal if they can log in at the same time is just that: complicating things for no real reason. I don't see how it adds to game play at all. Although I've never been a buyer or seller of cubis or emblems, I imagine all it does is add to their frustrations. Nothing fun about that.
  Posted 6 months ago by Red Sauce | Permalink
- But is "earning" the icon inherently valuable? Isn't a good portion of the point of glitch the ability to choose between any number of avenues to achieving a particular goal? Glitch does not confine, it frees. If a person finds the donation process tedious, ze may purchase the emblems for an icon, glitch does not force zer into a linear play style. I would argue that where glitch has shined the most has always been where it has presented numerous options - even if one option becomes, ahem, optimal for efficiency, it is not necessarily the route which players generally take (is not the assertion in this thread that it is more fun to earn emblems than buy them, and thus people choose not to, itself an example of this?)
  Posted 6 months ago by Faranae | Permalink
- You're right Faranae, but I was also trying to address the comments of those previously who were complaining that there was nothing to do or work towards in game (as in no end goal) and by auctioning emblems TS has taken away another goal set system.
  Anyone would be better off earning the emblems/icons as in doing so levels would rise and the IMG received would be greater on reflecting :D)
  Posted 6 months ago by ~Arabesque~ | Permalink