Kind of hard to focus on the screen now, been coding for so long. Easily written a few thousand lines of code and made quite a few images. Sadly, my development got pushed back by family visiting to wish me happy birthday. I've got the new Platinum Market working on Dev and Platinum transfers, still PayPal and OneBip integration left to finish.

So, some more information on how this is going to happen. All current subscription will be converted in to unbound Platinum. So yes, if you trade it now it will not be bound when the new system is implemented. There are 2 types of things you can purchase using Platinum, detailed below.

Unlocks are permanent additions to your account, you Unlock the Friends List for example and you have it forever. Expanded Inventory, Permanent Account and Increased Turn cap are all permanent unlocks from one time purchases. Outfits will also be permanent but are separate.

Boosts are temporary additions to your account, these include getting extra trades on hunting drops / item purchases, +2 ability point training per hour and increased daily tokens / cheaper token exchange. These will be purchased on a weekly basis much like the current subscription.

I imagine most subscribers will want the increases trades and ability boosts permanently, if you purchase these 1 week at a time then it will not work out much less than buying subscription now. However, buying them for say 10 - 20 weeks at a time should work out a significant saving over the weekly cost of having them now.

In addition to this we'll also be allowing players to sell items on the market for platinum, buy platinum for credits from one player to another as a gift and be giving those who refer players free platinum when their referrals make their first few purchases! So lots of ways to get hold of it!

Platinum system is coming along well, it's now a fully implemented currency on the Dev server. Just working on getting the OneBip and PayPal stuff working for it. Platinum will definitely be out later today, hopefully so will the store. We're not going to have a fully featured store straight away, we'll build up to that. The most important thing will be to get the Artist side of stuff finished so graphics staff can start adding new stuff.

For now, subscription count down is disabled on main. This means your subscription time will no longer count down every hour. This is just in preparation, you can still buy subscription if you wish. It will be converted to unbound platinum when the system goes live.

Some added information about how this new currency will work. There will be two types of platinum, if you simply wish to spend it on things for yourself and friends in the Platinum store you need not concern yourself with which is which. However, if your desire is to trade it to others it will be important.

Platinum purchased via PayPal or OneBip will come to your account as regular Platinum. This can be traded, given away or sold on the platinum market for credits. However, platinum acquired from other players using credits or as gifts will arrive to you as 'Bound Platinum'. This platinum cannot be traded, given away or sold on the platinum market. It can only be used to purchase from the platinum store for yourself or as gifts for others.

In short, what this means is only players purchasing Platinum for money will be selling it on the market. Nobody will be able to buy out cheap platinum with the intention of selling it at a higher price. This is one of the main complaints we had about the subscription market, hopefully it will remedy this.

It also means when we give away free platinum as prizes we can give it away as 'Bound Platinum' and stop it from inflating prices on the market as people sell it.

Tonight we're going to be moving our subscription model over to a new points system. The points will be called Platinum (thanks for the suggestion Arryn). Each hour of subscription will be turned in to 10 platinum, so a week will become 1680 platinum. All subscription will be automatically moved from the market to accounts, this new currency is static and will not count down over time.

What can you do with this new currency?
We'll be putting a platinum shop online that will sell various temporary and permanent things for your account, mostly made up of the current subscriber features for now. Outfits will also be added as permanent 1 time purchases.

Can I still buy platinum for credits?
Of course, the market will be reset tonight but after that people will be free to trade platinum for anything they like.

Why is this better?
The main reason this system is being implemented is that it allows us to pay graphics designers for their work. Outfit sales through this system will see a percentage cut go to their designer, inspiring new and wondrous things from Dk16 and others.

The change will be a gradual process as we move to the currency, shut systems down and update them. It should all be concluded in the next day or so though.