Apparently you don't realize what an investment it is in taking a starter area.
I was the one primarily responsible for the Ronfaure takeover (Before anyone says I wasn't the only one, yes I know you probably leveled there during the week, yes I know some of you probably traded in items too. But once you see my numbers you'll understand).
Using my woodworking 76 mule, I spent the early part of the week making bolts and trading them in until I started getting diminished returns. (Instead of getting greatly increased influence messages, I was now getting moderately influenced). I then switched up my game and spent the rest of the week camping the AH for items that were close to a ratio of 1:1 AH to NPC price. At the end I was even getting diminished returns on all armor and weapon types.
Here is the breakdown of what I spent:
Quote:
-300k spent on crafting supplies to craft acid bolts. About 2/3rds of each craft returned at least a +1 result.
-300k misc items across four characters. I could have AH'd them but it would have taken forever and this is a more worthy investment I think.
-700k trolling the AH. I went down the AH list and compared the AH price to the NPC Price on wiki. I bought any item that was close to a 1:1 AH to NPC ratio, though to be honest a lot of purchases were closer to 2:1. At this point I was too far invested to turn back and went all out.
So yes, while someone turning in even 100k in items probably did budge the bar a bit, I can safely say that 95% of the influence gained by bastok in ronfaure last week was because of me. I do want to do this with saruta sometime soon, but I can't afford to drop that much for something one of my two characters already has.