In Broken Ranks, players have several currency types at their disposal and many options to use them. Today, we’d like to give you an overview of all of them with a special emphasis on letting you know which ones are available for real-world currency and which ones can only be gained by just playing the game.
You'll find our previous article ("Monetization part 1") HERE.
Standard Features
First, we would like to say that we have pretty standard features (as far as MMORPGs go) that can be bought with platinum, that is:
- name change,
- sex change,
- avatar change,
- changing the color of gear,
- pet skins,
- attributes and skills reset,
- expanding the friends list,
- expanding the deposit (place for holding items).
We’d also like to say that the above options will for sure be implemented, but some may not be available at release.
Gear
There are several types of gear in Broken Ranks:
- epics,
- psychorares,
- rares,
- sets,
- synergetics,
- normal items.
The items from the first five classes can only be obtained by playing - defeating bosses and champions (special mobs). The game has no option to “conjure” them with real-world currency. Of course, you can also get them from the lucky people who looted them, but we’d like to emphasize that if no one loots an item that you want or doesn’t want to sell it, you won’t be able to get it using outside of the game means.
Normal items, as the name suggests, are very common. They can be farmed from mobs, gained as quest rewards, bought from NPCs for gold or for gold combined with platinum.
In the table below you can see how you can get the equipment:
Gear Skins
Skins are another gear type. They don’t provide any bonuses, only their appearance is important. Actually, every item in the game can be used as a skin - all you need to do is go to a special NPC who will transfer the appearance of one item onto another.
Let’s say you manage to loot a piece of armor that better matches your look. All you need to do is go to a smith and transfer the appearance to your currently equipped piece of gear. In this case, the NPC will just take a small donation in platinum (you’ll have to buy a special item called morph) and viola! Besides, if you get bored of the look, you can always transfer it to another item and sell the skin to make a profit!
There’ll also be event skins (available only for special activities) and skins available for platinum only.
Upgrading and Repairing Gear
In Broken Ranks, you can ask NPCs to upgrade your gear. You need special ingredients for this:
- Gold (a small donation to the NPC),
- Inhibitors of various ranks to match the gear rank. You can buy them from an NPC, loot them, or craft them.
- Upgrade flasks of various types and sizes - depending on what attribute you want to add to the item and the rank of the item. You can craft them, loot them, or buy them from other players.
And there’s the matter of repairing gear. Let’s say you’ve defeated a difficult boss that dropped a rare sword. If you want to equip it, you need to repair it at an NPC. They’ll charge you for this. You can pay with gold or make a combined payment with both gold and platinum. You only need to do it once - gear in Broken Ranks doesn’t break in combat.
We’d also like to point out that the crafting time is quite short and you can also buy ingredients from other players (instead of using premium currency).
The table below shows how you can get items to upgrade your equipment:
Pets
Pets can help you in your everyday struggle. Each of them has a unique set of abilities and they also look great and have awesome animations.
There are several types of pets:
- One-time pets (bought from an NPC with Emperors). You can use them until they die or are sent back.
- Basic - those available for gold only.
- Pets that can only be obtained if you have a guild.
- Special recipe pets for which you need a formula and ingredients. The formula can be bought not only for the premium currency, but also from other players.
It’s worth noting that we’ve made some changes in Broken Ranks - some pets previously available only for platinum will now be available for gold.
Additional Options
This category contains options that make the gameplay smoother. They are available for platinum, but you can also get them by just playing the game. Remember that the premium currency can also be bought from other players.
- Elixirs that restore health, mana, or stamina. There are several elixir sizes. The bigger the elixir, the more resources it restores. You can get them for completing quests, buy them with platinum, loot them from mobs, craft them, or get ingredients for them from other players. However, you don’t really need to use them too much - you may as well rest to restore your resources by clicking the campfire icon. There are some zones (so-called red zones) where this is not possible, so you might want to have some elixirs with you just in case.
- Charging the temple provides guild buffs - you can do it using gold or platinum. Similarly, you can use these currencies to charge the teleportation tower or construct guild buildings.
- Scroll of Teleportation to Trentis that can be used to return to the starting town (however, you can’t use it in every zone),
- Additional spots for guild pets (the size of the kennels is limited).
In-game Currencies
Gold and platinum aren’t the only currencies in Broken Ranks. You also have Emperors and Vorling Ducats. Both are free and give you access to some mechanics:
- Emperors - available for gold or platinum, but you can also get them from other players. They let you buy one-time pets, exchange upgrade flasks at NPCs, and use guides (special NPCs that let you teleport around the world).
- Vorling Ducats - you can buy them with gold or from other players, loot them from mobs, or get them from daily quests. Ducats can be used to teleport to a special instance and obtain additional items used for upgrading gear.
Platinum Can Be Traded Between Players
As we mentioned in the previous part, platinum is a normal item in the game that can be traded between players. It’s up to you if you want to buy it from a player or from our shop. We, as developers, don’t sell gear or any other powerful items. You can only get them by spending time in the game. If no one loots an item (or doesn’t want to sell it), then no one will get it. Also, the player who finds the item will be at an advantage, because they’ll be dictating the conditions and the price. A player who buys platinum pays them for their time and abilities.
Making platinum tradable was suggested to us by our players and we haven’t looked back since. Let’s be honest - people will always try to use their real-world wealth to get an advantage in the game through, e.g. auction websites where they can sell or buy items, premium currency, or even accounts. It’s not possible to fight this, but we can make it less profitable and, at the same time, provide better benefits for those of you who are invested in our game. The risk of cheaters farming various currencies is also lower.
What’s Next?
We’ll try to add many appearance customization options for gear, players, and pets.
In the next post of the series, we’ll focus on premium accounts.
