Luminary status

I think that Aeria Games planned to go from open beta to release version of Luminary this week, but there appears to be a delay. There were lots of promotional events, where players were handed AP, the currency for the item shop, or items otherwise only available in the item shop, with the obvious purpose of getting players interested in the item shop. But the item shop still isn't open, and as the shop is the only difference between "open beta" and "release" (there is no wipe), Luminary remains in beta. As it is perfectly playable without microtransaction items, most players don't care. Although I must admit that 1-day unlimited teleport ticket was really nice to have.

Anyway, my main character, Tobold, is still level 44. 6 more levels before I can become mentor. The reason I haven't advanced faster is that I've been playing with alts a lot. I have three level 30 and one level 20 alt on two accounts. Running two accounts simultaneously (but not more) is explicitely allowed in Luminary, because otherwise doing things like farming or mining would hardly be possible. You can't really let them run indefinitely unsupervised, lets say over night, because they need to eat from time to time, or they become sick. But playing one character on one account while letting another character on the other account farm or mine on the laptop works perfectly for me. Alts also increase the number of items you can have for sale, and your inventory space. And of course your skill points are limited on one character, so it is much better to have one character specialized in mining, another in farming, another in capturing monsters and so on.

There is no denying that combat is Luminary isn't challenging at all. You just click to autoattack, then drink potions when you are hit, and once in a while eat some food. But then, WoW solo combat has never really been challenging for me either, even if there are more buttons to press. So I find Luminary combat kind of relaxing, even if for some quests I have to kill a hundred monsters of the same kind. I like the fact that I can specifically choose quests that give me the resources I need, which is a lot better than doing WoW quests for some green magic item you're not going to use anyway.

The strength of Luminary is certainly the economic and political game. Once in a while new towns open up, and you can buy shares. I traded the 40 shares I got from the two subscriptions I participated in for 40 shares of the one mining town I wanted to live in, and am now a resident there. Already participated in one town meeting to decide what building we want to build with the town funds, and I even donated a sizeable sum of money to the cause. I can afford it, last count I was the 45th richest player on the server, out of over 5,000. The economic game is important, because without some business acumen you're not going to be able to afford the very best armor and weapons money can buy, not to mention the skill books, of which you need 5 for every point after skill level 10, and 15 books per point after skill level 20. But there are more crafters now, so compared to my first week in the game it is now easier to buy weapons and armor on the market, or find a crafter to do the item for you.

I have no idea how long I am going to play Luminary, but it probably won't be for years and years. It's a fun little game, but obviously doesn't offer the volume of content a huge game like WoW has. Right now I'm still having fun, and that is the most important thing.