The Manastone Calculation

[Castle2.0]

How many hours does it take? What is it worth? How much should I sell one for? How much should I buy one for?

Manastone takes approximately 40-80 hours to camp. When people hear this, they immediately start doing "plat-per-hour" calculations. This is a poor approach.

First, these 40-80 hours and the Manastone itself need to be understood in light of this important context:

1. No substitute -- Manna Robe doesn't even come close with 3 sec cast and int caster only limitation
2. Consecutive hours -- you can't put in 2 hours here, 3 hours there -- dropping at 30 hours = 30 hours wasted -- Seen it happen at much higher hours
3. Focused hours -- due to AFK checks you don't get any real breaks to make or even join in a serious meal with friends/family, can't take a long shower, can't take a nap worth taking
4. Exclusive location -- Can only be camped from one, single spawn point
5. Exclusive time frame -- Can only be camped until Sol Ro releases
6. Hard limit on quantity -- There will only ever be so many manastones - from Sol Ro onward the number will only decrease (quitters, banned cheaters)
7. No other benefits -- 28-minute spawn with no other monsters and no other loot (besides the bag that constantly rots) -- you will get negligible exp, if any

Let's look at plat in a 1-to-1 comparison with the above list:

1. Camping Items -- You don't even have to camp plat, you can camp rare items or any item that sells for plat -- your choice
2. Flexible hours -- Camp as much as you want, as long or as short as you want. You keep all your platinum from any time put in - no risk of loss for taking a long break, or stopping your session altogether
3. AFK Camps FTW -- Hadden earring goes for 7k and you just have to be at your keyboard once every 6 hours for 1 minute. Single spawn giants in Karanas or Rathe only require 1-2 minutes of your attention every 6 or 7 minutes. Take as many breaks as you like
4. Plentiful locations -- Can get plat in a LOT of spots and the number of spots grows over time. You can camp rare items, gems, plat, or vendor trash items. HGs in multiple zones, seafuries, Dino, guards (paineel is coming too), you can corner [specialize in] certain items (ex: golden haired mermaid for 6-8k raincaller bow), etc.
5. No time frame limit -- From Day 1, level 1, you start accumulating plat, and will continue to do so for the life of your characters
6. Ever-increasing commodity -- Very few plat sinks in EQ. Total amount of plat is always increasing, and thus prices
7. Added benefits -- Can get exp as you get plat or camp rare items. Up to you which camp suits you best

CONCLUSION:
I'm not trying to tell you what the Manastone is worth to you. I just want to point out simple plat-per-hour comparisons are an asinine approach to find a more objective, more concrete approach to value the Manastone.

In the end we each make our own subjective valuations, but these subjective valuations are best informed by the objective facts listed above.

P.S. WTS Manastone PST