Here's another long read, fellas. Enjoy.

Better-- but not by such a margin as the BAR is.
Back in 2004, Era had expensive guns, that were the same tier(stat-wise) as the other guns.

They controlled the stock of the gun. When a new gun was released, only 15 of them were in stock. The first fifteen people to buy it got it.(It would be the equivalent of about 100 in stock on iEra player count).

People still bought the gun; and everybody wanted to have it. They bought it because it made you look cool to have a rare gun. Guns don't need to be overpowered to be desired. Scarcity works just as well.

In fact, people turned around and paid more for the gun than the shop sold it for, because of player trading. Once a gun was out of stock, it was up to the black market to set the price(player trading). Good times.

I see what you're saying, "close the gap"; per-say.
Which I've done to the guns such as M16, MP40, SMGPK, MK23s-- I've closed the gap on them to better compete with the M4 and Sten. They were a joke when I first got here.

But I'm not going to close the gap further, so they compete with the BAR.
I prefer my guns to require a certain level of skill; which I'm sure a PKer of your stature would agree with.

Not only that, but iEra's mentality of 'pay2win' would have been mind-****ed if I closed the gap this far. The BAR users would rage so hard, I'd fall into the same hole Cloyd fell into. All he was trying to do was make the game require skill-- same as I'm doing. We old schoolers tend to do that, because we remember a time when Era PC required skill; and recognize it as a better experience for the player.

One would have to understand where we're coming from. To be honest, the current M4 stats really don't measure much skill requirement, in my opinion. But it's the level that iEra has been trained to deem appropriate, so I deal with it. Cloyd and I 'grew up' in a time where top-tier guns generally functioned around the stats of the current P90; in terms of freeze. A gun like the M4 would have been considered OP back then.

Indeed; which is why I stated that I would need sufficient player response to even consider this-- no matter how much I support it myself.

Unfortunately, the person in charge of guns when the BAR was released was under the impression that this game should be pay2win.

I support the idea of refunds upon gun changes.
However, there are players that wouldn't have even cared about gralats until they seen a gun that's as powerful as the BAR.

Once I get more guns out that compete with the M4-tier guns, the idea of getting a refund for the BAR would sit much easier-- they'd want to buy a gun that's almost as good, for half the price.
Again- I don't really stand by this theory because in 2004, higher price wasn't based on a gun stats-- it was based on the gun's rarity.

"price = quality" is an entirely new-school notion conjured up by inexperienced iEra Gun Admins that clearly weren't playing prior to 2007.

I agree with you here-- work isn't not supposed to be fun.
You get what you earn.
It requires work regardless. If you're not working for it in-game, then you(or your parents) are working for it IRL and converting it to iTunes credit.

However, I believe more work should be put into learning to fight with a weapon, not the purchase of it.
I was just thinking about suggesting an HP increase today- weird.