10 Games Items That Took Too Long To Unlock Without Money
The best videogame items often are earned after quite a big andsometimes ridiculous grind. Or unfortunately, because it's 2021, there are items and things whereyou can just skip the grind and pay real-world,hard-earned dollars for it. And we wanted to highlight those today. We got 10, so let's get started. First we're gonna talkabout "Apex Legends" and the R-99 SMG Revolutionary skin. This is actually all connected to Apex Legends' infamous Season 7. This was a battle passwhen first launched. The biggest thing, the thing that a lot ofpeople were gunning for, was reaching level 110 and getting that sick Revolutionary skin. The problem was, at launchwith that battle pass, it was way too grind-y for most players. For example, thanks to a great breakdown by user looseygoosey on Reddit, in past seasons,respawning five squadmates was one battle pass level. Now, respawning 15squadmates is just two stars. 40 knockdowns is technically two stars. You have to win fivegames to get five stars, which is only half a Battle Point level. It takes 10,000 XP to get one star, so 100,000 XP for one battle pass level. Previously, the battle passXP tracks were much easier, and one of the kinda goodgimme weekly challenges that were pretty easy to knock off in previous battle passes' seasons were just not here. So it seemed like Respawnand "Apex Legends" realized that they pushed it a little bit too far. They said that they weretrying to make it engaging for the entire length of the season, and they wanted you to try outnew legends and play styles, but that they missed the mark, and they changed it pretty quickly, with XP required per star goingfrom 10,000 down to 5,000. And then they updatedthe weekly challenges to take much less time to complete, meaning more people couldget access to that level 110 and get that Revolutionary skin. Was it worth it? I don't know. Games as a service are alwaysgonna games as a service. But when they push it toofar, people get pissed off, and this is a good example of that. But over at number nine, let's talk about a single-player game. "Shadow of War," thesecond Middle-earth game, following up "Shadow of Mordor," was notorious at launch for having a lot of microtransactionsand loot box type stuff. But the biggest thing was the fact that you kind of had togrind to get the true ending. So originally the ending, and this cool, unique armor set that you would get for getting it, was gated behind The Shadow Wars, which was this kind ofendgame grinding mode that forced you to either getloot boxes with stronger orcs, or just grind a ton tosurvive the frustrating and overlong section of the game, where you just kind of have to constantly defend your strongholds. Especially considering the invasions would get pretty powerful andit would get pretty intense, it would take hours ontop of hours to finish. It would be even worse if you didn't spend realcash on the loot boxes to get the way cooler, more powerful orcs. And people were pissed, and rightfully so. That was ballsy of them to try and make it so the way you would experience the final act of "Shadow of War" was not really through playing the game, it was just through this weird grinding, and maybe considering buyingsome loot boxes type of thing that the game would push you towards. Thankfully, oh my god thank goodness, Monolith eventually wentback and changed this and got rid of all of that stuff and completely retooled the game. And I will say, now looking at the gamein 2021 and revisiting it, just now that the game is cleaned up and there's less focuson any of that stuff and you can just focus on the meat there, it is still absolutely just a core "Shadow of Blank" type game. Really worth experiencing, and we hope that theylearned their lesson, and we're really hoping that they make another one of these games, 'cause these are still pretty sweet. Next over at number eight, let'stalk "Black Desert Online," a very fun MMORPG, but there'sa big debate about the game and whether or not it's pay to win. Now, we're not gonnadive into it too deeply and debate it one wayor the other, because, while we do enjoy the game,we enjoy it kinda casually, we're not experts on it, we'renot gonna lie to you guys. A forum user who broke thisdown pretty intelligently, we'll link them down in the description, explained that basicallythe average person takes two and a halfyears to hit soft cap, compared to the averagetime of less than six months for a whale to hit soft cap, or somebody who's willing to plunk down a good chunk of cash into this game. But considering the style of games, some folks really mayjust enjoy that grind. But we also wanna highlightthe highest priced item sold. Now, things change all the time in MMOs, economies are tweaked, but throughout the last fewyears, especially after launch, "Black Desert Online"was known for its grind. The grind people refer tois more about killing mobs to grind experiencepoints more than anything, and also maybe grinding some gear, which does lead to the mostexpensive thing in the game. It's hard to pin down inMMORPGs, it fluctuates, but we've seen items sellfor billions of silver. Yes, billions with a B. A few years back we saw a TET Ogre Ring sell for over 7 billion silver. But check the BD databaseand you'll see stuff going for millions andmillions all the time. Like the Rich Merchant's Ring. Actually, it seems like a lot of the most expensive stuff is rings, which are useful, so it makes sense. Not an egregious exampleon our list by any means. A lot of people sign upfor this type of stuff, but yeah, it's still worth mentioning. Next, over at number seven, let's talk Khora parts in "Warframe." So Khora was essentiallya pretty sick-ass Warframe that you could work towards. She's incredibly badass looking, she was a very much sought-after suit from what we've seen out there, and you had to grind for those parts to be able to get this Warframe. You could, of course,also buy your way into it, but the grind was pretty intense. A lot of people have issueswith the "Warframe" grinds, some of them can be pretty tough, and I think honestly,if you ask everybody, they might have a different one, but from what we've seen insome forums, overwhelmingly, a lot of people say Khorais one of the top ones that took a lot of grinding. We've seen some players cite243 runs at eight waves each. You live and die bythe RNG in these games, and it seems like Khora, Equinox are just a big pain inthe ass to work towards. But maybe it's worth it,especially if you get it without putting a dime into the game. Next over at number six, if we're talking aboutgrinding for stuff in games, you know we're gonna talk"Grand Theft Auto Online." We wanna highlight specificallythe Buckingham Luxor Deluxe. This is a golden private jet, one of the super-sleek, nice-looking ones. It's from Elitas Travel, and it costs 10 million bucks in the game. Just for perspective, themost expensive property, the Aquarius Yacht, costs $8 million. This costs more than an underground bunker or an entire office building. Now, grinding heists canget you around 400K an hour, so the price isn't too unreasonable, but heists require up to four players who know what they're doing. Playing solo makes grindinga lot more time consuming, and there's been lots ofdebates throughout the years about how grind-y "GrandTheft Auto Online" is. It's had its ups and downs, but we just wanted to pointout one item in particular, and it's this crazy,ridiculous, expensive jet. Is it worth it? Next at number five, you knowwe were gonna mention it, "Star Wars Battlefront II." This has become a much better game, we just wanna say that upfront. We revisited it, and oncethe microtransactions and loot box stuff were completely fixed, it's a fun, competent "Star Wars" fps. But man, in the beginningit was a complete disaster, and we think it was somethingthat needed to happen in the video game industry. Like, they had to push it this far and it had to have become a controversy and get more eyeballs onit, because it's important. Because people estimated when "Battlefront II" first launched that it would take 40 hours of grinding just to be able to get theability to play as Darth Vader. People on Reddit did the math, and the way it worked was that the most expensive charactersin the game that were locked would be Luke Skywalker andDarth Vader at 60,000 credits. To earn 60,000 creditsjust through playing, it would take roughly 40 hours, and that would be just to buy one of the single cool heroes in the game, with other characters, like I think Princess Leia and Chewbacca, being at 40,000 credits. You couldn't buy creditswith real-world money, but you could buy crystals, and then you could do the loot box thing, and then convert those loot boxes, and essentially launder money in order to kind of buy yourway towards these heroes, and people really didn't likeit and it was a whole big mess with EA and DICE trying to defend it. EA said, and I quote, "theintent is to provide players with a sense of pride and accomplishment for unlocking different heroes." A grind is one thing, and we've highlighted them in this video in certain instances where some games it just takes a long-asstime to get something cool. Sometimes you have theoption to buy your way in, especially if it's cosmetic, but when it comes to manipulativeloot box gross practices, that's where it's the worst, and that's where it should be called out. And it was here, and thankfullyit was fixed, but still. Next over at number four, you know we were gonna mention "CS:GO." Since it became a thing, the virtual economy for thisgame has absolutely exploded. You've probably heard all about it, all the controversies and everything. People go absolutely crazyfor skins and pay top dollar for the ones that havethe rarest drop rates. Now this always changes,the market is very volatile, but as of right nowaccording to esports.com, some of the most expensiveweapon skins right now are the Souvenir DragonLore at factory new coming in for around $26,000, the StatTrak M9 BayonetCrimson Web, factory new for almost $10,000, and of course, a Karambit, a factory new crimsonone, coming in at $9,000. We've also personally seen theSkeleton Knife go for a ton. We don't have exact numbers right now, but it's extremely rare, on topof the extremely low chances of getting a ShatteredWeb Case that it comes in. And of course, like I saiddescribing the other weapons, the fact that thesecome in different rates, you have field tested, and of course factory newbeing the one that people want, the most valuable one typically, it just gets really complex and insane, and there's a lot of money in it. It's a whole different world. We don't wanna get too deepinto it and mess up any facts, but yeah, "CS:GO" is no joke. Down to number three, let'stake a trip down memory lane with the Blue Party Hat from "RuneScape." This thing showed up way back in 2001. This is a really, really old in-game item that was coveted by players. It was extremely rare,even though it was just this little blue pointy hatthat your character had, and along with the red partyhat, this item was the first to pass the 1 billion pricemark on the Grand Exchange. That happened in March of 2011. So the way it works, "RuneScape" gold, one US dollar is about 2 million, and the price of the partyhat got as high as 23 billion. Yes, for a dinky little hatfor your "RuneScape" character. But "RuneScape," like a lot of other massively multiplayergames with loot and items, sometimes the coolest stuffis the hardest to get, and if there's an opportunityto buy your way into it, someone always will. It's not good, but it happens. Also, just shoutout to"RuneScape" for a second. It's just still going strong, probably for as long asI've almost been alive. We should make more "RuneScape" videos. Anyway, next at number two, let's talk about the pinkcourier war dog from "Dota 2." Now of course, MOBAsgenerate a lot of money, they have marketplaces, peoplewant the randomized drops, and they'll pay up to get the good shit so they don't have to grind. And a courier is an in-gamething that's not your character, but it brings you items in battle, and the pink courierwar dog went for a ton just because it was an extremelyrare combination of things. It's pink, it's a dog, people love it, and people wanted it, andthey came out in droves. According to Engadget,a pink war dog courier sold for 38,000 US dollars. Yes, that is real. I don't know what elsethere is to say about that, other than holy hell. Now at number one, wegot one more for you, and that is from "Eve Online," let's talk about the Gold Magnate. This is a ship that youcan get in the game, it's like a royal type ship, and it's considered a work of art itself that took a long time to make, and it sold for 1 millionPlex, or roughly $32,500. What is nice is that thismoney went to benefit the Australian wildfire relief from 2020, and it was purchased byYouTuber Scott Manley. Now just the context here, these days it's pretty toughto grind out enough Plex to afford the monthly subscription price. People literally say you have to grind for 16 hours straightevery day for a month if you're just trying to get Plex from playing the gamewithout using the market. It's theoreticallypossible, but that's it. Now, if you wanna earn itwithout paying the crazy prices, it is very rarely given out as a first place prize forthe Amarr Championship, with only two known to still exist. So one went for a massive amount of money and an incredible sale, but at least it went to a good cause, and we thought it was worthhighlighting here at the end. But those are some crazy expensive items that can be bought for a ton of money or a bunch of grinding. We kinda flip flopped back and forth, but we wanna hear from you in the comments if you have any other examples, something that you grinded for that you hated or really loved earning, or something that, you know, come clean and admit that you paid money for. You shouldn't, but ifyou did, hey, it's okay. Just let us know in the comments,anything you want at all. But if you enjoyed this video,clicking the Like button is the best way you can help us out. And if you're new, consider subscribing and maybe hitting that notification bell because we put outvideos every single day. But as always, thanks for watching. We'll see you guys next time.
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