SOE Allows Purchase of In-Game Items In Everquest I, II

Zonk points out some big news for fans of the Everquest games; Sony Online Entertainment has rolled out a system which allows the exchange of real money for items used in the game. Sony is making use of a transaction system called Station Cash which charges your credit card in exchange for a virtual currency which is then spendable on the items. Massively has a walkthrough of how it will work, and shows some of the items up for sale, including vanity armor, non-combat pets, and potions that make various aspects of your character better. "Each of these types of flasks comes in a tier. Tier I flasks increase XP by 10% and cost $1.00. Tier II flasks increase XP by 25% and cost $5.00. Tier III flasks increase XP by 50%, and cost $10.00 each. All flask tiers last for 4 hours on use, and more than one can't be used at a time." Further details on the system are available in the FAQ and the Terms of Service. This comes alongside news today that upcoming MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic will not be subscription-based, but entirely based on micro-transactions instead.

Comments

Only Fluff Items

[MarioMax]

Take it from an actual EQ2 subscriber, the items being sold are fluff items. Nothing more.

You've already been able to buy tons of fluff items with their Legends of Norrath card game (booster packs often contain in-game items to use and trade). This is no different, only more direct.

Blizzard isn't innocent either, they're planning the same thing. http://www.thegrouchygamer.com/?p=157#more-157

Re:Only Fluff Items

[Todd Knarr]

You already get 55% XP potions as veteran-reward items. Nothing new there. The only new thing is the achievement-XP potion. That's 10% or 25% for 4 hours, 50% for 2 hours. But it only boosts AXP you earn. Unlike regular XP, relatively few things give AXP. Quests, discovery locations and named-mob kills are the big things. And how many quests can you complete in 2 hours? How many nameds can you realistically find and kill? And you can't farm them, you get AXP for any given quest, discovery or named kill once and once only. So that potion isn't adding a lot in the end. Plus, with TSO they've already added automatic experience boosts for adventuring and crafting based on the number of max-level characters you have (up to 50%), and a bonus to achievement XP for mentoring down and completing lower-level content at an appropriate level. You can get more of a boost for free than the best buyable potions will give you. Overall, I'm filing the effects of those potions as minimal.

I'll start to have heartburn when they start selling access to content via microtransactions. When you have to shell out real dollars (beyond buying an expansion when it comes out) to be able to get your epic weapon, or to get access to an instance or raid zone, things like that. That'll only fly if it's done from the very start of a game, so people know going in what the ground rules will be. And I'm betting that approach won't be popular. Not in the sense that people will complain about it, people will always scream. In the sense that a lot of people will look at the whole framework and go "I don't want the headaches. I don't want to have to worry about my friends wanting to do an instance and I can't because I have to buy access and I won't have the money for it until payday.". It's an American thing: we're willing to pay $40/month for unlimited phone service when we normally only make $20-25 worth of billable calls because we'd rather spend the bit extra for the certainty that we're not going to get dinged with an exceptionally high bill some month.

Re:These people deserved to be crushed by WoW

[MarioMax]

You realize Blizzard is planning the exact same thing right?

http://www.thegrouchygamer.com/?p=157#more-157

Smedley just sacrificed the cash cow.

[Anonymous Coward]

Title says it all. John Smedley has screwed up the management of SOE so badly that there is nothing new coming out any time soon. So, in hopes of increasing getting some more cash flowing in in the meanwhile, he has sold out the very people who stuck by him.

SOE (read Smedley) has consistently screwed over it's customers. Somehow they still managed to hold onto a small but loyal customer base. This is a slap in the face to those people. SOE will see a short term burst of cash-flow, but realistically, they just blew their own foot off. There already abysmal subscription numbers will plummet, as their loyal customers realize that SOE just became the very same gold seller they try so hard to fight.

SOE is doing this as a stop-gap to fill the time until they can get FreeRealms out the door. But, word on that is that it's also a cluster-fsck.

Nice job John! I'll give you about 1 year before Sony hangs you out to dry given the recent economy and downsizing.

Re:huh ?

[aetherworld]

Maybe you didn't read my post thoroughly enough.

MarioMax was pointing out that Blizzard was planning to implement a micro transaction model.

*I* was pointing out, that they already *did* implement such a microtransaction model (realm change, name change). I was *also* pointing out that this is *not* game changing.

Basically my point was/is, that Blizzard did implement it in a non-harmful way, whereas Sony screwed up (they tend to do that quite often).