Skill Points As Currency

There were a lot of things to be excited about headed into this past weekend’s Beta Weekend Event. There was a new zone to explore in Gandarren Fields. There was Explorable Mode Ascalonian Catacombs. There were even structured PvP tournaments! But the one that caught my eye the most was The Mystic Forge.

The Mystic Forge is located in the heart of Lion’s Arch. It was actually there during BWE#1 back in April, but it wasn’t active until this past weekend. ArenaNet’s preview explains it as such:

On a less dangerous note, the Mystic Forge has arrived in Lion’s Arch. This strange forge actually holds the imprisoned djinn Zommoros, who hails from distant Elona. If you offer the Mystic Forge gifts (like unneeded items and weapons), you will receive a gift in return. Got a pair of pistols that you don’t need? Drop them in the Mystic Forge and see what Zommoros gives you in exchange!

As an aficionado of the unknown, this piqued my interest.

On the one hand, it sounded a bit like a slot machine, albeit one where you always win something. Put a number of like items in, and get an item out – sometimes better, sometimes one you can’t use – my results were all over the map. But there had to be more to it than a random item sink just to keep surplus gold out of the economy.

Sure enough, I found something next to the Mystic Forge that was even more interesting – Myani, the Mystic Forge vendor NPC.

Myani has two tabs in her store panel. The first one is a “recipes” tab that contains Mystic-quality recipes for every crafting profession, and these are sold for gold. These recipes, presumably, can only be crafted at the Mystic Forge. This gave me pause and got me thinking that perhaps the Mystic Forge is also sort of like a “super” discovery station for all crafting skills.

The second tab in Myani’s store is even more intriguing. This tab lists Mystic “items” for sale that can be used as an ingredient in the Mystic Forge. There were four items:

The Siege Master’s Guide: Used by the Mystic Forge to upgrade siege weapons.
Philosopher’s Stones: Used by the Mystic Forge to change one material into another.
Crystals: Zommoros loves crystals.
Orb of Power: An orb of pure power used to create legendary weapons (even though the color is purple, and legendary items will be red!)

That really got my mind racing as to the possibilities! What does this all mean?

Perhaps the most interesting part about these Mystic Items is how you acquire them. As you can see in the screenshots, these items are sold for Skill Points. Yep, the very same Skill Points you earn from the various Skill Challenges around the world.

We know there are many more Skill Challenges out there then there are skills available, but with the Orb of Power going for 100 Skill Points, they’ll disappear quickly! This makes me wonder why ArenaNet decided to add another currency to the game. We already have a non-tradeable currency in Karma, which would be a unified unit of currency that everyone earns for everything (in addition to gold.) On the other hand, perhaps that’s precisely the reason – ArenaNet wanted players to spend a finite resource to assure that very few of these legendary weapons exist.

I could go on, but I really want to hear what you think about the Mystic Forge and Myani, the vendor that uses Skill Points. Did you use it over the weekend? Did you purchase any of these Mystic Items? Let me know!

http://www.guildwarsinsider.com/mystic-vendor-skill-points-currency/

TH