With the new Lost Relics update about to arrive there are a lot of people considering buying a membership pendant.
These pendants can be purchased from the website at imo reasonable prices. Still, many people will wonder if they should spend money on these.
Should you spend ~$20 per month for membership to Lost Relics?
Good Things About the Membership Pendant
The membership pendant gives a lot of benefits.
You get a 10% experience boost whenever you run a dungeon as a member. Considering that this game is all about running dungeons repeatedly to farm items and experience, a 10% boost can add up a lot across months of playtime.
In addition, to unlock most of the levels (~60%) you will need a membership pendant. If you want the "full experience" of the game a pendant is pretty much necessary especially after the first few weeks.
To access the forging and engineering skills, two of the item crafting skills in the game, you will need membership.
The pendant gives you a yellow name in chat (as opposed to grey for non-members) and grants access to the exclusive members-only chat.
Is it Worth It?
The membership pendant in my opinion is worth it for a few reasons.
1: Support the game
Compared to movies or even books, video games tend to offer the best value of hours of entertainment relative to cost of the product. At an extreme example, I've played the pokemon-style MMO TemTem for 2k+ hours after a single expense of $40. That means I spent about $0.08 per hour of playtime in that game.
With the membership pendant for Lost Relics it doesn't last forever so the math isn't quite as good, but if you are playing the game 10+ hours a week it is still an incredible deal. Hell, buying a one day pendant and grinding for 4 hours would be like paying $1 per hour of entertainment. Even JUST THAT is cheaper than a movie... so the "support the game" reason here is obvious.
2: Skip The Waiting List
One thing I haven't mentioned yet is that any pendant of a week or longer will allow you to skip the waiting list and start playing immediately. Considering the wait list is 90,000 people long right now, it's probably worth buying at least a week pendant just to get in.
Once you are in, you're in, so no need to buy more pendants just to keep playing.
3: The game has moved towards needing the pendant for more and more things
While I respect the idea of free-to-play gaming, the truth is that Lost Relics is clearly moving towards more essential features and items being gated behind the membership token.
If you want to enjoy and experience this game for a long time to come, you will probably need to become a member eventually. For me the need to have a pendant for forging and engineering is enough to make it essential, let alone the 10% experience boost.
With all that said, let me explain one last thing in post about pendants:
It's OK to Play Without Membership
At the end of the day a 10% experience boost and a yellow name in chat is not something you need in order to enjoy the game.
There are still a lot of levels available at a variety of difficulties and requiring different kinds of gear even if you're only playing the free levels. You can still grind and climb and maybe even get a few valuable items just by playing the game.
If you play for long enough or grind during holiday events you can get enough gold to buy a membership pendant within the game, thus completing a certain free-to-play milestone that makes the Lost Relics economy really cool.
Conclusion
I have spent hundreds of hours grinding Lost Relics without a pendant active during times when I was really frugal and saving up for other opportunities. If you do the same, don't sweat it.
On the other hand if you aren't even in the game yet -- or worse, not even on the waiting list -- realistically you should buy a week-long pendant if you plan on playing the game soon.... since otherwise you can't even get in! :-P
Personally I plan on having a pendant pretty much all the time from now on, at least starting in the near future when I buy my first one. I want to support the game and I'd like access to all of the game's features and content, especially with my role as a content creator for the game.