Yes, the Retreat costs 290k. #KillGuyTakeBuildingForFree!
I've seen some flavor of "isn't X ridiculously expensive!?" pop up a few times and I figured I'd offer a game design philosophy perspective on it.
If we were to graph Total Play Time (x-axis) and Quantity Of Players (y-axis), we would expect something like an F-distribution. Most players will spend a
short amount of time in the game, a few people will spend a
medium amount of time, and very few will spend a
large amount of time. Incredibly expensive stuff (i.e. The Retreat) is effectively irrelevant to
most players simply by its massive cost. Why put it in the game if most people won't use it? It gives the high-hour players an objective and a bit of game
content that most won't see.
In well-structured game content, something like a F-distribution is again a good aim for design. A new player should experience some of the best the game has to offer fairly quickly (to "hook" players). In MoR that's probably the first combat and/or banging your first slave.
If the player is still around after several hours, the next-level content can become a bit harder to reach (expensive slaves/equipment).
The Retreat and similarly extravagant purchases are the MoR equivalent of 100% Complete achievements in Dark Souls, or catching every Pokemon. You can see and enjoy the heartiest experiences MoR has to offer long before affording The Retreat. However, for those
few players who want a stretch goal (or are willing to cheat), The Retreat is there on the horizon.
Of course, it could still be reasonable to argue that $X price is
too far out on the horizon. Maybe a different price would reflect a better balance of rewards to costs. This design logic of spaced content doesn't negate that sort of balancing effort.
Cheers!
