Commitment email

[littlewierdo]

... I just wish I had bought my car outright instead of though financing....

Now see, this is interesting, I missed this little nugget.

Lets just assume for a moment that you drive the cheapest car thats widely available in the states (this is nothing about you personally, this is to make a simple point).

Now, before the 'literal net' gives me crap about some silly car thats cheaper, I did a quick Google search for the cheapest current car in 2015, I didnt spend hours on this.

The 2015 Nissan Versa came up at basically $12,000 (as sourced http://www.autobytel.com/top-10-cars...e-cars/coupes/.

Now, what you're saying is, you had $12,000 sitting around just waiting to go into a car?

Ill even give you the benefit of the doubt, you talked them down to $8,000 and even got air conditioning with power steering added in, you just had that kind of cash waiting to be put into a new car?

There is a reason most people finance a new car and Zygor is just a smaller scale.

[AussieEevee]

Littleweirdo, have you ever done web development? No? It's not just a case of dropping it in and turning it on. Zygor uses vbulletin as a backend, but the rest of their website has either been coded by the team (Time) or they hired an outside company to code it for them (money). As an experienced PHP programmer myself, I estimate that it'd probably take at least 5 to 6 hours to programming, and I have no idea how long it'd take to create all the necessary parts for the updater.

Lastly (on this topic), Blizzard is constantly adding new content to the game. You act as if the expansion dropped and their will be no more content until the next expansion and as such, the Zygor team will no longer need to add any more content.

Blizzard provides updates (Patches) to their game for free... and Zygor does the same. If a new patch comes out with a new leveling zone, Zygor's team will be all over that in the PTR and then provide us with that guide as part of the Draenor guide, free of charge if you already own that guide.

Zygor's guides are 100% custom. The guide viewer was coded by the zygor team. Open up World of Warcraft\Interface\AddOns\ZygorGuidesViewer and see how many files there are. Take a look inside the files and see how much coding has been done. Except for the Libs folder, all that was programmed by Zygor's team. Zygor has to pay the guys that are doing the coding for him. This isn't just about profit. It's about expense too. The money from the guide sales has to pay for vbulletin license, coding of the website, coding of the guide, any fees Clickbank and Paypal take, etc.

Now see, this is interesting, I missed this little nugget.

Lets just assume for a moment that you drive the cheapest car thats widely available in the states (this is nothing about you personally, this is to make a simple point).

Now, before the 'literal net' gives me crap about some silly car thats cheaper, I did a quick Google search for the cheapest current car in 2015, I didnt spend hours on this.

The 2015 Nissan Versa came up at basically $12,000 (as sourced http://www.autobytel.com/top-10-cars...e-cars/coupes/.

Now, what you're saying is, you had $12,000 sitting around just waiting to go into a car?

Ill even give you the benefit of the doubt, you talked them down to $8,000 and even got air conditioning with power steering added in, you just had that kind of cash waiting to be put into a new car?

There is a reason most people finance a new car and Zygor is just a smaller scale.

My car, a 2005 Mitsubishi Magna, cost AU$4999 (I bought it in 2013). Because I was arrogant enough not to save up for a vehicle and got it though financing, the vehicle itself is now going to cost me AU$7000 (gotta love interest).... Add to the fact that I'm stuck paying it off for 3 years.
I should have saved up but I was too stupid to think about the consequences of my actions.

I'll tell you this. Never again am I buying a vehicle on finance. I will be saving up for my next vehicle and buying it outright.

EDIT: Also, I think that Nissan Versa looks like an amazing vehicle. But it's not a V6 compared to my Magna.

[littlewierdo]

Littleweirdo, have you ever done web development? No? It's not just a case of dropping it in and turning it on. Zygor uses vbulletin as a backend, but the rest of their website has either been coded by the team (Time) or they hired an outside company to code it for them (money). As an experienced PHP programmer myself, I estimate that it'd probably take at least 5 to 6 hours to programming, and I have no idea how long it'd take to create all the necessary parts for the updater.

1. The updater doesnt need to be changed as the only thing it is validating is whether you are allowed to receive updates.
2. 5-6 hours I believe is exactly what I said, give or take 2 hours. BFD, a day of work. The packages already exist here, they just need to be tweaked. The infrastructure is already in place.

Blizzard provides updates (Patches) to their game for free... and Zygor does the same. If a new patch comes out with a new leveling zone, Zygor's team will be all over that in the PTR and then provide us with that guide as part of the Draenor guide, free of charge if you already own that guide.

You completely misunderstood why I wrote what I did.

I wrote what I did to explain that, when Blizzard adds content, Zygor will have to add content, which will require people to have their subscription active to receive (this was to address YOUR statement 'whats to stop people from paying initially and then not paying again for a significant amount of time).

Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't they use a third party guide addon that he created his guides for? Zygor's guides are 100% custom. The guide viewer was coded by the zygor team. Open up World of Warcraft\Interface\AddOns\ZygorGuidesViewer and see how many files there are. Take a look inside the files and see how much coding has been done. Except for the Libs folder, all that was programmed by Zygor's team. Zygor has to pay the guys that are doing the coding for him. This isn't just about profit. It's about expense too. The money from the guide sales has to pay for vbulletin license, coding of the website, coding of the guide, any fees Clickbank and Paypal take, etc.

Not correct. Heres a short summary:

They used a 3rd party addon and incorporated his guides into it (the addon was a free addon used for creating custom guides and he used it to write all of his guides and sold the guides using it as the 'viewer', if you will, with alot of his own custom tweaks in order to make his guides work).

The addon was sold to Zygor by the original creator, and likely, it was unknown to him that this sale had taken place.

Zygor threatened to sue the other guide company for using code that Zygor now legally owned, it very nearly went to court. Included was a cease and desist order.

They stopped selling his guides for around a month and a half and rewrote the viewer portion (the part that was the free addon they were using) from scratch.

My car, a 2005 Mitsubishi Magna, cost AU$4999 (I bought it in 2013). Because I was arrogant enough not to save up for a vehicle and got it though financing, the vehicle itself is now going to cost me AU$7000 (gotta love interest).... Add to the fact that I'm stuck paying it off for 3 years.
I should have saved up but I was too stupid to think about the consequences of my actions.

I'll tell you this. Never again am I buying a vehicle on finance. I will be saving up for my next vehicle and buying it outright.

EDIT: Also, I think that Nissan Versa looks like an amazing vehicle. But it's not a V6 compared to my Magna.

Thats fine, my point is simply that most people dont have 5k sitting around, thats why they finance.

Its nice that all of us are in such a financial situation that we just have $50 to plop down, some are not in that position.


Maybe Im wasting my time arguing for this, I certainly didnt intend the focus for this entire post to be a fight for micropayments.

I intended this thread to address their entire payment system starting with how the guides are priced, bundled, and upgrade pricing, among other issues listed that Im too sleepy to remember at the moment.

[AussieEevee]

1. The updater doesnt need to be changed as the only thing it is validating is whether you are allowed to receive updates.

That's a reasonable way to deal with the situation.

2. 5-6 hours I believe is exactly what I said, give or take 2 hours. BFD, a day of work. The packages already exist here, they just need to be tweaked. The infrastructure is already in place.

Let me question this, imagine only two people will ever use the sub model... Now is that 5-6 hours better spent on creating the sub model, or fixing bugs in the Zygor viewer.

You completely misunderstood why I wrote what I did.

I wrote what I did to explain that, when Blizzard adds content, Zygor will have to add content, which will require people to have their subscription active to receive (this was to address YOUR statement 'whats to stop people from paying initially and then not paying again for a significant amount of time).

I see. Sorry, I did misunderstand.

Thats fine, my point is simply that most people dont have 5k sitting around, thats why they finance.

Its nice that all of us are in such a financial situation that we just have $50 to plop down, some are not in that position.

I don't have 5k laying around either... But I do have the ability to put money aside to save up for a car, just as I have the ability to put money aside to save up for Zygor's guides...

If I need to. I have to be honest here, from my perspective, $135 is chump change. No, I am not rich, but I still consider the upgrade fees to be next to nothing. And you don't have to buy all the guides at once. So far I only have WoD's leveling guide as I haven't had a need for the other guides yet.

Maybe Im wasting my time arguing for this, I certainly didnt intend the focus for this entire post to be a fight for micropayments.

I intended this thread to address their entire payment system starting with how the guides are priced, bundled, and upgrade pricing, among other issues listed that Im too sleepy to remember at the moment.

You won't get here arguments here on the bundling side of things... At the moment, ZG forces you to either buy all at once (Their combo system) or one guide at the time, paying CC fees and any other fee multiple times. ZG has promised a shopping cart system to fix this.

As for pricing, I'm sure most users would love to see the prices come down, including myself despite the chump change comment above. But they do need to balance expense with price, and still make a profit. (That's business 101)

With all due respect though, You seem to be very fond of the other guides, so why not just use them?

[littlewierdo]

Again, while coming up with the money is easier for some people, it isnt for others, especially those on a fixed income or extremely tight budget. Personally, I have a flexible enough income that I can afford a $60 purchase every now and again but I live next door to a disabled veteran who cannot afford such a purchase.

Second, Im very fond of BOTH Zygor AND the other guide. I also like the other guide's business model and his attitude toward his customers.

Zygor and the other guide both cover alot of the same content, but also cover unique content between the two (in other words, the other guide covers some things Zygor does not and Zygor covers some things that the other guide does not). So, I use them both and the other guide is affordable enough that I recommend others try it as well. You might initially be turned off by the other guide, his viewer is horrible, but the quality of the guide content is spot on. For example, his leveling guides launched with WoD containing all of the 'loremaster' quest chains and had no mistakes for any of the zones. I had some trouble with his travel system but the actual guides were more accurate and complete than Zygor.

[AussieEevee]

Again, while coming up with the money is easier for some people, it isnt for others, especially those on a fixed income or extremely tight budget. Personally, I have a flexible enough income that I can afford a $60 purchase every now and again but I live next door to a disabled veteran who cannot afford such a purchase.

I never said it was easy for me to come up with money... Just that it's easy to save up the money.

Let me put it this way, how much does an xbox player spend? Probably $100-200 every month. How much do I spent, considering I only play WoW? $570 every two years... That accounts for the expansion price (For the sake of maths, $75), Sub fees ($15 over 24 months, less if bought in bulk) and Zygor's upgrade fees ($135 every 24 months). If I put away $23.75 a month, I can afford WoW, it's sub, and Zygor every two years.

Zygor and the other guide both cover alot of the same content, but also cover unique content between the two (in other words, the other guide covers some things Zygor does not and Zygor covers some things that the other guide does not). So, I use them both and the other guide is affordable enough that I recommend others try it as well. You might initially be turned off by the other guide, his viewer is horrible, but the quality of the guide content is spot on. For example, his leveling guides launched with WoD containing all of the 'loremaster' quest chains and had no mistakes for any of the zones. I had some trouble with his travel system but the actual guides were more accurate and complete than Zygor.

There is no loremaster achivement in WoD, so how can he launch with loremaster support?

But on that note, Zygor's team has noted that they intend to add a guide for the zone achievements. But we'll be getting that guide free of charge, I won't need to pay for the update.

As I said before, even I agree that the guides could be priced lower. But I do not think a sub fee option is a good idea. Either way though, that's up to ZG's team.

Heck, if they had a way to encourage people to use the ZG updater every day, they could include ads in that and greatly reduce the fee. But most people (Including myself) only use the updater occasionally, and only to check for updates.

[littlewierdo]

There are quest line achievements for each zone, its setup exactly the same way MoP was, Zygor didnt have them all in at launch, other did, one such achievement is titled 'As I walk through the valley of the Shadow of Moon' for completing the Shadowmoon Valley quest lines. In addition, other also covered at launch as part of the leveling process (ie. it was in the leveling guides) all the bonus objectives for each zone, something the Zygor team overlooked.

For me, if I want a $40 thing, no big deal, Ill drop $40 without thinking about it. For my neighbor, he struggles to pay his $15 Eve Online subscription price.

[AussieEevee]

There are quest line achievements for each zone, its setup exactly the same way MoP was, Zygor didnt have them all in at launch, other did, one such achievement is titled 'As I walk through the valley of the Shadow of Moon' for completing the Shadowmoon Valley quest lines. In addition, other also covered at launch as part of the leveling process (ie. it was in the leveling guides) all the bonus objectives for each zone, something the Zygor team overlooked.

The ZG team focused on what they believe was the optimal way to level. There are many here who will disagree with overlooking the bonus objectives. myself included. I believe they are correcting that oversight... And we get that update for free.

For me, if I want a $40 thing, no big deal, Ill drop $40 without thinking about it. For my neighbor, he struggles to pay his $15 Eve Online subscription price.

My point is, if someone struggles to pay for the guides, they can always save up for it.

I do think the price could probably afford to come down a bit... but my beef is with how they handle guide launches. In my opinion, the price of the guide should be known well in advance of the launch date.Not a few days. not a week... As soon as they announce the guide, they should have a price and maybe even a preorder.

Take the gold guide for example. It was announced in late november, i believe. According to a post i saw earlier this week, they want to get it out by this time next month. But we still don't know how the pricing structure is going to work, We don't even know if the guide will be faction independant or faction specific.

But i still think the sub model is a bad idea.

[littlewierdo]

Yes, except, A., the bonus objectives and complete story line objectives ARE part of what we should be purchasing. They are leveling AND loremaster guides after all, and I might argue the choice of optimized leveling since they opted to completely ignore the dreanor treasure stuff as well which is essentially free xp on the way from one quest to another.

Someone on low income saving $10 a month and it taking 4-6 months to buy a single guide isnt reasonable. By the time theyve saved to buy all 6 guides for a single faction, its time to pay for another upgrade ($30 * 5 + $40 = $190), thats a year and a half if $10 a month is saved. If they want both factions, forget about it, and that doesnt even cover the gold guide.

Now, if the guides were more properly bundled and some of them given away as a freebie, especially considering the lack of attention or lack of necessity they have post 4 months into the expansions, we would be talking about affordability in a different story as well (I contend the dungeons and gear guide is absolutely not worth the money they are charging, especially since it still remains half broken).

[AussieEevee]

Yes, except, A., the bonus objectives and complete story line objectives ARE part of what we should be purchasing. They are leveling AND loremaster guides after all, and I might argue the choice of optimized leveling since they opted to completely ignore the dreanor treasure stuff as well which is essentially free xp on the way from one quest to another.

It's not a loremaster guide though because there is no loremaster in Draenor. Hey, I agree with you on this point. They should have been included in the guide at release. Why the team missed those things, I do not know.

Someone on low income saving $10 a month and it taking 4-6 months to buy a single guide isnt reasonable. By the time theyve saved to buy all 6 guides for a single faction, its time to pay for another upgrade ($30 * 5 + $40 = $190), thats a year and a half if $10 a month is saved. If they want both factions, forget about it, and that doesnt even cover the gold guide.

As I said before, if this person on a low income saved just under $25 a month, over the 24 months between expansions, he or she would be able to afford the guide, the WoW Expansion, and the subscription for 2 years.

Now, if the guides were more properly bundled and some of them given away as a freebie, especially considering the lack of attention or lack of necessity they have post 4 months into the expansions, we would be talking about affordability in a different story as well (I contend the dungeons and gear guide is absolutely not worth the money they are charging, especially since it still remains half broken).

Well the gear part of the guide, at least to me, seems to be working now... but I have not touched the dungeons this expansion (Limited internet. It's not fair to get a group with 4 other people knowing that my internet could fail), so I can't really comment on the dungeon part.

Your free comment to me doesn't seem like it'd be good business sense. It's like asking McDonald's to provide a free drink with every burger. I don't think that's going to fly, considering this is a business.

Keeping in mind that we do not know how many team members Zygor has to pay with the money he gets from us. I've counted at least 5 staff on the forums.

[littlewierdo]

It's not a loremaster guide though because there is no loremaster in Draenor. Hey, I agree with you on this point. They should have been included in the guide at release. Why the team missed those things, I do not know.


As I said before, if this person on a low income saved just under $25 a month, over the 24 months between expansions, he or she would be able to afford the guide, the WoW Expansion, and the subscription for 2 years.



Well the gear part of the guide, at least to me, seems to be working now... but I have not touched the dungeons this expansion (Limited internet. It's not fair to get a group with 4 other people knowing that my internet could fail), so I can't really comment on the dungeon part.

Your free comment to me doesn't seem like it'd be good business sense. It's like asking McDonald's to provide a free drink with every burger. I don't think that's going to fly, considering this is a business.

Keeping in mind that we do not know how many team members Zygor has to pay with the money he gets from us. I've counted at least 5 staff on the forums.

Except Mccdonalds does provide a free drink with every burger in the form of a combo.

The dungeons and gear guide is so outdated (much of my 615 gear shows no upgrades available in Zygor) and obsolete, and it doesnt even take into consideration LFR which anyone can do now for gear. A fresh level 100 need only do about 10 dungeons and can immediately get into LFR and then the dungeons are obsolete.

Its hardly justified to charge $50 for a horde & alliance version of this guide (and even more silly is that there even is a horde and alliance version as they are basically the same).

With regards to loremaster, I completely disagree with the notion there isnt a loremaster achievement. Blizzard merely changed the generic 'complete x number of quests in y zone' to 'complete all storyline objectives in y zone'. It still requires you to complete a certain number of quests to complete said storyline (this number is a set number, it just isnt a specified number and merely is stated as 'storyline').

Using Reagan economics (I know, its a dirty word), lower your taxes and you receive more income. Theres a balance between how much you can get away with charging and making a profit and how little you can charge and make a profit via quantity of sales. Its a concept hard for people to wrap their minds around, but this is why everyone is making a mass exodus from California, they cant afford to pay the taxes anymore and are moving to low / no state tax states like Nevada, Arizona, Texas, etc.

Business works the same way:

You cant charge $5 for a box of paperclips, no one will buy them, but you also cant charge $.01 and make a profit (even at a pence for paperclips, the increase in sales that would occur doesnt cover the cost of making said paperclips). But priced just under $1, there is just enough profit on each sale and a large enough group of sales that you can expect to make a reasonable amount of profit.

There is a balance and Zygor needs to play with the pricing to find it. Considering other products out there similar to Zygor are doing fine priced considerably lower, Zygor would and should do well priced around the competition.

[AussieEevee]

Except Mccdonalds does provide a free drink with every burger in the form of a combo.

Maybe McD works differently in the US than here, but the combo is more expensive than just the burger on it's own. That's because the fries and drink still cost money. They are just reduced in price.

The dungeons and gear guide is so outdated (much of my 615 gear shows no upgrades available in Zygor) and obsolete, and it doesnt even take into consideration LFR which anyone can do now for gear. A fresh level 100 need only do about 10 dungeons and can immediately get into LFR and then the dungeons are obsolete.

I can't comment on LFR, but I didn't say the gear guide was perfect. I said it was working. For a leveling toon, it is working. No one can deny that it needs a lot of work still.

Its hardly justified to charge $50 for a horde & alliance version of this guide (and even more silly is that there even is a horde and alliance version as they are basically the same).

Once again, I do agree with you on that point.

I quote now from the commitment email that started this thread.

We will be implementing new changes to our pricing structure in an effort to make the guides more affordable and accessible. A shopping cart is also being added for convenience.

I admit they haven't told us WHAT those changes mean in terms of end results.

With regards to loremaster, I completely disagree with the notion there isnt a loremaster achievement. Blizzard merely changed the generic 'complete x number of quests in y zone' to 'complete all storyline objectives in y zone'. It still requires you to complete a certain number of quests to complete said storyline (this number is a set number, it just isnt a specified number and merely is stated as 'storyline').

The loremaster guides are in relation to the specific set of achievements called "Loremaster". There is a Loremaster for all expansions up to and including Mists of Pandaria. There is not one for Warlords of Draenor. That said, Zygor's team have stated previously that they plan to add the specific achievements you mentioned to something similar to the loremaster guide.

Using Reagan economics (I know, its a dirty word), lower your taxes and you receive more income. Theres a balance between how much you can get away with charging and making a profit and how little you can charge and make a profit via quantity of sales. Its a concept hard for people to wrap their minds around, but this is why everyone is making a mass exodus from California, they cant afford to pay the taxes anymore and are moving to low / no state tax states like Nevada, Arizona, Texas, etc.

I'm sorry, but I'm not sure I follow... As we do not have state taxes here... We have one Federal tax known as the GST (Goods and Services Tax - it serves as our sales tax), and a single income tax (Forgive me, I know nothing about this tax).

Business works the same way:

You cant charge $5 for a box of paperclips, no one will buy them, but you also cant charge $.01 and make a profit (even at a pence for paperclips, the increase in sales that would occur doesnt cover the cost of making said paperclips). But priced just under $1, there is just enough profit on each sale and a large enough group of sales that you can expect to make a reasonable amount of profit.

There is a balance and Zygor needs to play with the pricing to find it. Considering other products out there similar to Zygor are doing fine priced considerably lower, Zygor would and should do well priced around the competition.

You can charge whatever you like for that box of paperclips... That is the nature of a free market. I can charge you $100 for that box of paperclips if I want... the question is, are you willing to pay that much for it.

This is something you often see people complaining about with regards to the ingame auction house. These people believe there should be a cap on how much someone can charge for something... Which is a silly idea.

A product is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it. A vendor needs to take cost and profit into account, naturally... but if no one is willing to pay that (cost + profit) number, then the product is not worth that price.

Take the Apple iPhone for example. No, I don't want to debate if it's a good phone or not... Let's stick to the business side of it.

The iPhone's price is very heavily criticized by the product's critics.The most expensive version of the iPhone on sale is A$1249.00 (iPhone 6 Plus 128GB version). That's roughly $400-500 more than it's closest rival (The Samsung Galaxy Note 4)... There are many that would say that the Galaxy Note 4 is a better product, that it is more advanced than the 6 Plus. That Android is a better operating system than iOS. Again, I don't want to get into a debate about weather or not it is.

My point is... Despite what these critics say, the iPhone 6 (Normal and Plus versions) sold out in 30 minutes. That is 4 million units sold in only 30 minutes, despite being the most expensive phone on the market and POSSIBLY inferior to it's competitors (I don't agree with that assessment).

Apple HAS to make a profit... To not do that is a stupid business move... But regardless of cost verse profit, 4 million people were still willing to buy that device within 30 minutes of it being released.

To bring this back to about ZG, The biggest problem with what you've argued is that we are willing to pay that. We have both said it, I called it chump change and you said that $40 for a guide is basically nothing to you.

Despite this, Zygor's own email notes that they plan to implement changes to make the guides more affordable. Sadly, they never stated what those changes will be... and I hope they elaborate on them soon.

[littlewierdo]

I have been super busy and havent had a chance to respond, tho, there isnt much to say that hasnt been said already.

To clarify the mass exodus from California statement...

In the United States, we have 2 forms of taxes, federal and state taxes. Federal taxes are the taxes paid for the federal government, the one that oversees everything involving multiple states which includes the military, interstate commerce, and the post office (without getting too political, technically speaking, federal income tax was only supposed to be temporary to help pay for World War 2 but as with everything government, once you start something its hard to take it back). The federal government is supposed to receive its income from the state taxes, and, again, without getting political, has WAY overstepped its bounds on spending and taxation, the US constitution very clearly states what the limits are on the federal government, but, I digress.

State taxes are things like sales tax, hotel taxes, fuel tax, and in most states (but not all), income tax (where a small amount of money is taken out of your income on top of the federal taxes). A small handful of states do not have income tax (Texas, Florida, and Oregon I believe).

Essentially, the way the United States was set up was for each state to set up their own set of rules and taxation, originally, 13 colonies (now called states) operated as 13 different markets. If you didnt like the rules in your state, move to another. Even on a local level, moving to a different city but staying in the same state is an option, each city within a state is also competing for residents.

If you look at several states in the United States right now, there are several states on the verge of bankruptcy, California is one such example. They have such a high tax rate that people cant afford to continue to live there. It has a negative effect on businesses as well, taxes and regulations have forced businesses to close or move out of the state because the tax rate is so high. Without businesses, people have no place to work and are forced to relocate, often times to a different state where taxes are lower, businesses are paying lower taxes and as such, can afford to hire more people, people pay less for taxes, and generally speaking, the cost of living is lower (this is where things like property tax come into play).

Alot of people make claims that taxes in the United States are lower than anywhere else in the world and this is simply false. When you take into account everywhere we pay taxes, we actually pay close to 60% of our income in taxes (some taxes I didnt mention, your cable bill, your cell bill, gasoline, 'snack' tax, car registration, drivers license fees, cigarette tax (if applicable), the 'unaffordable' health care act, and thats just a few off the top of my head).

Anyway, hopefully that clears up my comment about people making a mass exodus from California, my apologies, I forgot we are dealing with a global audience here.

[AussieEevee]

That state tax thing sounds like it'd get confusing for anyone that travels cross country, for business or holiday.

Thanks for the expanation. I have to admit that I still don't follow completely but i think i get the gist of what you are saying. Cost of living too high, move somewhere more affordable.

Anyway, hopefully that clears up my comment about people making a mass exodus from California, my apologies, I forgot we are dealing with a global audience here.

A very easy mistake and one i have made before on other forums. Using Australian terminology seems to confuse Americans :P (We call it bonnet, you call it hood. Both refer to the piece of metal covering my car's engine :P)