On arrival I was pretty keen on it. Of course, that was only after leaving and returning twice in order to get it to load. Then, as many have experienced, my eagerness to explore began to dwindle with each new Relocate Download and Disconnect.

The design and feel is fantastic, and really enables one to get lost in the feeling of the old West. Sadly, our choice of outfits is extremely limited, but I was in favour of the idea that you need to be dressed in Western attire in order to help sell the immersive experience. I was really grateful that the dev team let me play each game once for free, but quickly realized it was an attempt to hook me. After perusing the trading post/store I was really eager to begin playing more games for gold so that I could eventually hope to trade for some really great looking items. I quickly got started with the extra dough I’d made from my free Pick Axe in the Mines, and began playing a few games. Within no time I was poor. Where had all my gold gone? Did I really just lose it all that easily? I went back to each game and began tallying up the prices on the costs of playing. WOAH!!! Clearly I wasn’t paying much attention earlier. The prices are ludicrous!!

With what little money I had left, I decided to play the one game I’m familiar with. You see, I have DL’s Saloon personal space, and I do really well at Blackjack there. Clearly though, the Blackjack tables in the Frontier are coded differently, because it’s nearly impossible to make it to the plus side of your wallet. I’m convinced that random is not actually random here, but I have trust issues with money making game companies to begin with, sooooo…..

Anyways, after realizing how broke I was I toyed with the idea of buying more gold for real money. Before doing so, I looked again at the prices to play the games, as well as the prices of merchandise for trade/sale. I’m glad I did, because as Kassadee has alluded to, the conversion rates are so astronomically out of whack that you’d have to be rich, a fool, or a rich fool to spend the kind of money you’ll need to in order to acquire anything here that’s actually worth acquiring.

It was a nice place to visit, and I really thought it was going to give Acorn Meadows some competition and pull me away from it, but it’s outrageous prices will keep me out of that place for good now. I have my Saloon personal space, and I can get my Western fix there. If you need to find me, I’ll still be hanging out in Acorn Meadows where they did it right… allowing me to level for free without wasting my time panning for gold for 2 gold nuggets per minute, or spending real money for hours and hours of my time playing a Pick Axe version of Rock Band.

The conversion rates are so out of whack that DL would stand to make more money if they would just allow people to buy all of their trading post items for real money in the store, at prices that are consistent with what’s already available on Home from all the developers. Honestly, once people catch on to just how much of a rip-off these items are, they will stop buying and the Frontier will just become another ghost town.

It’s a shame. I really wanted that buffalo.

There’s something wrong with the mining thou. In order to get your $1 worth of coins for the cost of the pickaxe. You need around 90 min of non stop mining.. maybe a little more! At this rate 8hrs of mining out of your 12hrs pick will earn you $5 worth of coins… at the $1 “bundle” value… A net profit of $4 for 8hrs of tedious button pushing. Enough to drive even the most dedicated Home user insane.
But it get worst. A $5 axe bundle will get you 7 axes (40% bonus) While a $5 gold bundle will get you 10 times the value of the $1 bundle! Wich mean you’ll actually need to work each picks an average of over 2hrs to get your money back. Over15hrs for the whole bundle BEFORE you start making any profit!!! This make buying a X7 daily pass sounds like a bargain!!!

I know you need to be damaged to truly appreciate Home but this is beyond simple damage. You need to be insane to do this to get gold coins. Only reason I see someone mining is to level up in the mini game. The gold is just a little extra to make the effort worthwhile

If you want to grind for gold play the 5 fingers filets knife game. Easy to earn a 10 gold profit. Much faster than mining, free and somewhat more interresting.

Another problem I have is the stagecoach race.
I played against a slitghty upgraded coach. I did’nt stand a chance. It look more like a gamble game where you have no idea of the odds than a race. You have a low and a high stakes table and you pray for the best. At 500 gold I could play a high end arcade race game for the same price… And 120 000 golds for a fully upgraded stagecoach? Something around $30,00! Sound a bit off the scale for the game.