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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.
I'm imagining a game between two people determined by how much they spend on the game. Oh wait, they already did that with Magic The Gathering.
God spoke to me.
Some people have money.
Some people have time.
The only problem would be the game representing it self to be something it wasn't.
It hasn't been a remotely "fair" game since the day it was released.
From 1999-2003, if you had 8 hours a day free and could get off before 3pm EST, you got every good camp (before anyone else got home) and got every rare spawn. I never saw "Venril Sathis" until I chewed on the Dev's ear at the Dallas Fanfest and finally convinced them to add random timers to the spawns- which were previously fixed at 24 hours- and the servers usually were rebooted during the afternoon in those days.
Even today, People who can play 8 hours straight have a 100% chance of getting most rare spawns in one sitting, while someone who plays 2 hour sessions may never see the rare spawn (and probably can't get the rare spawn camp).
And fairly early, some wealthy players took the other route-- you can play 40 hours a week-- or you can just drop $500 and get a fully developed character from someone who played 40 hours a week (the hourly rate was often ludicrous-- probably 70 cents an hour). $700-$900 for a character with 100 days played (2400 hours).
Then there was the Legends server-- scheduled spawns, and "The best guild money can buy".
I had a good time playing- I learned some important life lessons, and my guild leading experience lead to my current team lead job (and awareness that being a manager is probably not worth it).
But I know a lot of folks are going to feel put off because of the money-- and that's just an arbitrary opinion. Having $1000 to spend is no more unfair than having 40 hours (hell- some played 80 hours) a week to play. The game was never rocket science-- I was in one of the top ten guilds for six months and it was almost identical to the casual guild I spent years in- except the people their played 6 hours a day, 6 days a week instead of 4 hours a day, 3 days a week.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
You can't actually tell people they can directly buy XP increases. You have to setup something to obscure the issue and pretend it has a legitimate usage...
*cough* WoW recruit-a-friend *cough*
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
You realize Blizzard is planning the exact same thing right?
http://www.thegrouchygamer.com/?p=157#more-157
In Everquest, experience potions already exist and are on occasion available from mobs, quests, and the trading card game as a loot item.
There is also a veteran reward available that allows you to get double experience for 30 minutes, once a day. It's commonly called the death buff. It seems whenever you use it, you die.
In any case, they are not introducing anything that is not available already in the game. Fancy graphics and pets and 1 charge potions.
I don't see it as a big deal. I've played EQ since beta (98) and this doesn't bother me at all.
Exact same thing? I didn't complain about the vanity aspects of what Sony is selling, and I won't complain about it from Blizzard either.
The bonuses that Blizzard gives players from things like Blizzcon or Collector's editions don't change the gameplay at all. What Sony is selling is something that actually changes the gameplay and gives you an advantage over other players.
In fact, Blizzard already DID what you're mentioning there. You can transfer your character for 20$ or you can change the character name for 8$.
However, I'm not sure anyone complains about Sony selling vanity pets or vanity armor. Personally I don't care whether anyone is running around in a black dress they bought for 10$. I also couldn't care less if someone changed their hair style or color for 20$.
I DO care though when some player is able to get better gear or progress faster. A new hairstyle doesn't destroy PvP. A new, better armor, attainable only through micro transactions, DOES destroy PvP and with it the game for a lot of people.
of course, this is just a toe in the water before they'l put in a mechanic enabling you to buy temporary extra damage on your opponent in a fight for more money. swipe your credit card now if you need to take out the biggest baddies!
They are also going to fuck people's sense of achievement. I read in Predictably Irrational (or Freakanomics, I forget which) that as soon as money is put on the table, people consider it a financial transaction, and disregard any intrinsic motivators (which is why it's really bad to tell your date how much the dinner cost, unless they would not be offended if a stranger offered them that amount of money for any favors you were expecting). Formally putting a price on XP will tell gamers what their time was worth, and lots of them will be pissed off that the price was too low.
While I can understand why you feel the way you do, your statement is wrong.
First, a large amount of tournament play is "Limited" - that is, you use sealed product to play with, rather than your own cards. There are different variations that test different skills (Booster Draft vs. Sealed Deck), but both are extremely skill intensive, and an individual's collection has no bearing on their performance.
In "Constructed" events - events where you play with cards from your own collection - it's often possible to outplay or outbuild the decks loaded with expensive cards at the casual or semi-competitive level. Tarmogoyf, a card that was selling for upwards of $50 on the secondary market, was an extremely powerful and efficient creature, but it could still be addressed by standard creature removal spells, such as Terror and Deathmark. Budget decks can often be around 90% as effective as the more expensive decks.
At the ultra-competitive level, the cost of cards caps out and everyone ends up spending around the same amount of money on their decks (probably around $500 if I were to buy all the individual cards on the secondary market). While this does create a barrier to entry, I've never heard people complaining about paintball or racing as "determined by how much they spend on the game." Most hobbies have equipment, if you're looking at competitive level Magic, players invest in their decks, but everyone caps out on cards so money isn't a determining factor.
Finally, players will often loan and borrow cards among their friends, further lowering the cost of acquiring cards to create a deck.
Be the Ultimate Ninja! Play Billy Vs. SNAKEMAN today!
cowboys and whores analogies in the same thread. could it get any better than this?
Stop Computers/Cars Analogies on S
"What's great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you know that the President drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think, you can drink Coke, too. A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the Cokes are the same and all the Cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the President knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it..."
-- Andy Warhol
In WoW or WAR I am on the same turf as everybody else. My character isn't limited to my bank account, my status, my job, be it good or bad. This maintains the fragile illusion of these games, that you are in fact someone else. This shatters completely as soon as you bring reality (in this case money) into the game. Be it micro-payments or macro-payments, the alternate reality is broken and dead. Spock no longer just have a little beard, he also has purple hair and moonboots.
This is just a combination of poor games and greed. Instead of improving the product (or replacing it) or being happy with what you got, they hope to make more money this way. I won't fall for it myself and I hope others won't either. This decision was taken by someone with dollar signs in front of their eyes, not someone who dreams of Jedis, Orcs, and Elfs. I only play games made by and ran by fellow dreamers.