I have played many games with Ark and other friends over the years and in general I see characters disappearing off ahead of me level wise. In most games this means I can’t group with them due to the normal 3 to 5 level range that you can successfully group with people. My free time is pretty limited due to the number of hours I work each week coupled with other commitments so leveling at the rate that other people achieve is impossible for me. This generally means I end up dropping the game after a month or two since a big reason I play the games is to hang out with friends I rarely get a chance to see in real life.

In life there is always a balance between time and money, I am time poor so I don’t see a problem with spending a few dollars to get some fake gold coins which mean I can have more fun when I get time to play a game online.

To quote Ark “A level playing field for both friendly and unfriendly competition with other players has always been at the core of the attraction of MMO” but that is based on the assumption that everyone playing has the same amount of time to invest in an MMO, since they don’t it’s not a level playing field.

Now the part I semi-agree with is that I am less sure about the company itself selling the leveling potions, I would be happier with a system where leveling/xp potions were a loot drop available to anyone so if I have purchased some gold that gold will go to a player that has found the potion. (I know this then goes into a whole other argument about hyper inflation but I am going to stop waffling now).

JB