Sony Bringing RMT To Vanguard

Eurogamer reports that Sony Online Entertainment will be adding the ability to do real money trading to at least some of their Vanguard: Saga of Heroes servers. It's the same service they opened for a pair of Everquest II servers a while back. Quoting: "The service, offered by Live Gamer, allows players to sell items, currency and characters for real cash through a secure channel, authorised by the game operator. Most real-money trading in MMOs is a 'grey' market that doesn't have the operator's consent. ... Sony Online Entertainment recently said that it had no intention to bring its other real-money trading initiative — the Station Cash item shop — to Vanguard."

Comments

Sheer Rumour

[glowworm]

According to Mr. Smedley at http://www.massively.com/2009/03/13/soe-brings-real-money-transactions-to-vanguard-despite-smeds-e/ this is totally a rumour. RMT will not be hitting Vanguard.

IMO

[derfy]

Best to have the RMT market run by by the people in charge rather than having a black market with recalls and chargebacks.

Lesser of two evils, I suppose.

Re:IMO

[revlayle]

Honestly, this should have happen long ago... this way there is LESS gray area to weed through, people get their goods, the "people in charge" make more money and the rise of less legitimate operations slow down.

Is it perfect, nope, not a bad way to go ultimately.

Re:IMO

[KDR_11k]

A problem is that when you get real money from stuff that drops randomly you essentially randomly win money. That's gambling.

Rumor?

[Anenome]

This is just a rumor, as it turns out. But, I could swear, for a moment there, I felt a disturbance in the force... like millions of money launderers cried out in joy and then were suddenly silenced.

Re:Rumor?

[Danidas]

It is not a Rumor and is confirmed, they are adding live gamer to all Vanguard servers.

All Vanguard Servers

[Sage Gaspar]

According to their FAQ on the official forums they're adding it to *all* Vanguard servers, which is actually more problematic than in EQ2, which opened up specific new servers. Although I guess if you want to milk the cash cow and you only have four servers there's not much you can do.

I think this is a really poor move on Sony's part though, what little playerbase they have in VG tends to be the "hardcore" gamers that care about "accomplishments" and all that kind of time investment in the game. Especially considering Sony thought their RMT servers underperformed in EQ2 compared to their expectations.

Re:All Vanguard Servers

[vux984]

I think this is a really poor move on Sony's part though, what little playerbase they have in VG tends to be the "hardcore" gamers that care about "accomplishments" and all that kind of time investment in the game.

I agree completely. I think the whole 'real money' aspect of any game is just pathetic and I wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot pole, and I'll avoid players who use it with the same pole.

HOWEVER, that said, I have no real gripe with 'people who want to ruin the game for themselves and those around them' (to put it one way) or to put it more diplomatically... 'people who wish to engage in a play style that differs from mine'.

If people actually want to buy and sell gear and characters and keys and flags and titles and mounts ... I'm completely fine with that as long as they do it somewhere else on a different server where it doesn't affect me. So I, and people like me don't have to have our enjoyment of the game impacted by those people.

Re:All Vanguard Servers

[Opportunist]

Well, when they open another Van server, the average one person that you meet per hour vanishes as well, so...

Then again, unless something changed considerably since I left (roughly a year ago, after they offered 2 weeks of free "come back and look how great it is now" time), you don't want to meet others because as soon as someone shows up, the lag spikes become unbearable.

Re:All Vanguard Servers

[Doctor Morbius]

What he's complaining about is that he spent huge amounts of time and effort getting what he has and he doesn't want anyone else to get the same stuff without also spending huge amounts of time and effort. This is a common problem in all MMO games as time goes on. They add new features to the game to reduce downtime and improve playability and all the old timers whine about how how hard they had it when they started playing etc.

Re:All Vanguard Servers

[vux984]

How exactly does someone buying ingame items with RL cash have ANY affect on you whatsoever?

First: A lot of people measure their progress in these games as a sort of 'score'. If you can simply purchase 'progress' that undermines it as a measure.

Its the same as going to the track to run a timed lap with a club stopwatch. If its accepted policy that if you can't get the times you want, or don't feel like actually even driving, that you can just buy whatever 'best time' you want. Then the any sort competition is a complete farce and there is no point in posting the best times, or having a leaderboard, or anything else.

MMOs are the same sort of thing. A lot of people are competitive. And if they've been playing the game like this for a couple years, then its very poor to pull the rug out from them and completely change the rules of advancement so that any twit can just buy what they want.

Second: It can distort the in game economy, attract hordes of gold/item farmers, cause in game price inflation, and even impact your ability to get groups.

Thirdly: Like attracts like. I enjoy playing with other people who have a similiar outlook on what it means to "play a game". People who advocate RL transfers tend to be the sort that just want to get to the end and have no interest in actually playing the actual game. If there is a shortcut they take it. If they could buy their epic quest items so they don't have to do the epic quests, they would. If they could skip raid progression for a few bucks and jump straight to the end they would.

If SOE wants to run a game where that is allowed, or even just a fraction of that, they are welcome to launch a server dedicated to it. I don't have a problem with that. I even welcome it.

Why should I care how he got it unless it's via duping or some major exploit like that?

Some of us do care, and we are perfectly willing to accomodate players who want RL transfers by giving them their own server to transfer to their hearts content. If that makes us happy, and it makes them happy, and you don't care in the first place, what possible objection could you have to it??

Re:All Vanguard Servers

[vux984]

They add new features to the game to reduce downtime and improve playability and all the old timers whine about how how hard they had it when they started playing etc.

Because the 'old timers' played the game for YEARS. The reason they did this was because they enjoyed the gmae just the way it was. Making it ever faster and easier pisses them off because they actually liked it just the way it was. That's why they played it for YEARS.

Worse, they dumbing it down for the benefit of the new players who are whining that the game is too slow or too hard. But no matter how fast and easy they make it, there are always some more new players who wish it was even faster and easier. So they are pissing off their long term customers to please their new customers, most of whom will quit within six months anyway.

Now games like EQ1, had real problems at the beginning. The boats for example were terrible. But it wasn't terrible because the boats took time. It was terrible because the boats didn't work properly. Too often the boat would zone and you'd fall off, so you'd have to wait for the next one. Or a shark would kill you through the wall of the boat. Or the boat would 'glitch' and not stop where it was supposed to so you couldn't board...so a boat trip wasn't merely a bit of downtime it was often an exercise in futility, and to top it off there was nothing to do on the boat. If they'd given us a banker, or some vendors... we could have at least organized our inventory a bit, etc, etc.

So, yes, there was no question in anyone's mind, INCLUDING the old timers, that the boats needed a lot of improvement. But SOE always went too far. They didn't fix the boats, didn't make them faster, or add a ship to the rotation to make the wait shorter, or make them more reliable, or add vendors or bankers to make the downtime more productive... no instead they added free teleporters everywhere that you can take at level one.

Re:All Vanguard Servers

[KDR_11k]

The difference to track records is that a record only improves if you actually perform better while an MMO character improves as long as you perform good enough. Records are an indicator of skill while character levels are usually an indicator of time spent playing.

Re:All Vanguard Servers

[vux984]

The difference to track records is that a record only improves if you actually perform better while an MMO character improves as long as you perform good enough.

1) Being able to make RL transfers means that you longer have to even 'perform good enough'.

2) Your character level by itself is pretty irrelevant by itself, its the gear you are equipped with that represent the places you've been and the encounters that you defeated that are the record of your skill and accomplishments, and the level of in game wealth you've been able to accumulate.

Being able to buy and sell that gear and wealth undermines things. And even for gear / items that can appear in the in-game markets, being able to 'farm enough cash' to afford whatever you want doesn't quite boil down to simply 'time spent'. There is an in game economy, and playing 'well' impacts your position greatly; and to get past a certain point you need to play it well, not merely play it a lot. Sure you'll hit maxlevel simply by playing a lot, but that's just one small aspect of your character.

Sort like even a monkey on a bicycle will get across the finish line on the track; but you aren't being measured soley on simple "finish" vs "did not finish". Similarly there is a big difference between 'max level, good gear, raid flags, high tier loot' and 'max level, wearing stuff people gave you because they felt sorry for you.'

Records are an indicator of skill while character levels are usually an indicator of time spent playing.

Even track records aren't so pure. They reflect on your vehicle (and your mechanic), and the condition of the track, too. Being good enough will let you place. And even being the best doesn't mean you'll actually "win". But at least the people on the leader boards aren't complete incompetents who just bought their scores.

Re:All Vanguard Servers

[vux984]

How can you be competitive in an MMO without it being PVP?

In precisely the same way you can have a racing competition without it being 'smash up derby'. Or a rifle competition without shooting the other competitors. Its really not hard.

Going OMG WE MANAGED TO FIGHT IN x PVE INSTANCE AND WIN! is not competing,

No different than sking, mountain climbing, sprinting, rappelling, fishing, sprinting, weight lifting, skeet shooting, or a hundred other sports where the competitive objective is to beat your opponent by outperforming him without necessarily there being any direct conflict between them.

it's just sad.

Its only sad if they obsess over it... but that's true of anything.

There is no legitimate challenge to an AI that has a limited number of attacks and a limited proportion within which to use each attack.

Frankly I think its a more legitimate challenge than what you claim you do.

I am a PK, I kill anyone not in my guild.

Really? Do you frequently jump people 40 levels above you? How often do you gank people 40 levels below you? And you have the gall to accuse -me- of doing something lacking legitimate challenge? I've played on PK servers. I was on Asherons Call Darktide and Everquest's Rallos Zek.

I had a lot truly good fights too that made it worth the bullshit... but there was a LOT of bullshit.

Most of the players were FAR more interested in tilting any fight as far from 'legitimate challenge' as possible, by engaging lower level players, engaging them while they were already fighting challenging pve content, engaging them while they were doing corpse recoveries and had no equipment... engaging them at zone lines or entering dungeons taking advantage of the fact that some players load faster than others, and of the fact that you could start hitting them before they'd gain control of their characters... so you could kill the fastest loading member of the opposing group before the slowest loading member was even in the zone.

And to top it off most MMOs aren't even remotely PvP balanced at the duel level.

Yeah, that's a way more "legitimate challenge". Ridiculous.

I don't care if person X bought his suit of armor or items or if he got it legit, I'll put my personal skill up against his and see who wins.

You go girl!

Face it, at the best of times you were competing on just one set of skills. Circle strafing, Postitioning, gaming the environmental, interface, and terrain quirks, identifying your opponents class and abilities, and anticipating and counteracting their strategies. Sure that's competive.

Of course that's at the best of times. As a self professed 'PK' who kills anyone not in his guild, you probably spend most of your time being a complete asshat to opponents who know they can't win, and have no interest in fighting you.

Hint: beating up unwilling people smaller than you isn't a 'legitimate challenge' nor a case of 'putting your personal skill up against his'. Its just being an ass.

Me I was mostly an anti-PK, which meaning I spent a fair bit of my time beating people like you into a pulp until you logged of. Of course, your type outnumbered mine a 100 to 1, and gave us a thrashing on a regular basis, but I gave as well as I got, and more importantly these were precisely the 'legitimate challenge fights' I actually enjoyed. I didn't care to gank weak unwilling targets, so I hunted the people who actually claimed to want a fight: PKs. There was no shortage of targets.

An interesting factoid for you... when we showed up in a force that matched the PKs they usually fled; turns out they didn't want to fight the people who could fight back. And the self professed PKs whined at being being beaten more than anyone else. I guess its only fun to be an ass when you win.

Re:All Vanguard Servers

[velen]

This is a bad move. If this goes on, we will have to worry about paying taxes on revenue generated from online gaming and provide a statement of accounts on what we f!@#!@ did with virtual currency in a virtual world.

Furthermore, the US government is already doing it's analysis on how to enforce taxation on funds in MMOs. This will give them an excuse to do something stupid.

What next, you sell a lvl 1 bat wing for 1000USD and get picked up by the Feds?

Re:All Vanguard Servers

[Sage Gaspar]

Or just boot up Dawn of War, Starcraft, Warcraft, Civ, TF2, Counter-Strike, Natural-Selection, Call of Duty, etc, etc, and go head-to-head with people on an equal footing and without all the timesink bullshit or the monthly fees. EVE or Planetside if you need an MMO fix truly designed for PvP. I never understood the PvP-or-die people that have nothing but disdain for "carebears" but insist on playing games where their main playstyle is a hastily cobbled together mishmosh of 80% "carebear" bullshit, 15% gank squad, 5% interesting combat.

Re:All Vanguard Servers

[Sage Gaspar]

Why play a game that has this PvE element at all? Is there a compelling reason you want unbalanced teams and a 20-30% handicap for not grinding? I sort of understand the thrill of "risking" something that you've invested time into, but when you invest time into a computer game for the sake of risking wasting it, it just seems very artificial. I prefer to just jump into the action and take the Pepsi challenge with people on an equal footing.

People still play vanguard?

[argoth]

That's the real news story here.

Re:People still play vanguard?

[Dachannien]

Yes, but they're all gold farmers.

Re:People still play vanguard?

[Opportunist]

I was wondering the same.

I played Van when it came out. Now, I've seen many MMO launches, from EaB and DAoC to WoW, but I've rarely seen such a bad one. Population was quite good (and lag absolutely unbearable when more than 5 people were in the same area), but balance was nonexistant (the Cleric of all classes was the overpowered one), 2/3 of the content (i.e. diplomacy and crafting) didn't work at all, broken quests wherever you looked (and some that worked were just braindead, one quest I remember contained an element of steering skill where you had to hop from one broken step on a ladder to the next or fall to a fiery death... mix with unbearable lag and questionable collision detection and you know how much fun that was). And so on.

I quitted after about 2 months, and seemingly I was anything but the first person to go considering how empty it quickly felt. I can do battle in other MMOs, and the "unique content" of Van simply didn't work.

Last year, I was invited back to see the changes. The game was dumbed down to cater to the WoW crowd, crafting was possible but utterly pointless (so much for the "choice of career"), diplomacy had gotten an overhaul (from not working to broken). When my warrior couldn't do his class quest I was told by support to go once around the world to the other trainer that would teach me (a trainer that's "hostile" towards me... without a chance to change that because the mobs I'd have to slaughter to change that can't be reached at my measly level 10). Little surprise, the two weeks of free time was all I used before I went away again.

And during the time I found actually a group. One. For about 3 hours. We went into some dungeon where I, as a Cleric (no, I didn't create it because it was overpowered at the start, I always play healer classes) spent more time casting offense spells rather than healing. It was simply unnecessary. Thinking back, I could have done the dungeon possibly alone, slower maybe, but if we went in alone, not as a group, it would not have made a huge difference.

Tell me again why I should play this game?

Re:People still play vanguard?

[drsquare]

What confused me most about Vanguard is why the graphics were so much worse than other MMOs, but the performance worse as well. I thought it was supposed to be inversely proportional, i.e. when you turn the graphics up the framerate goes down, these developers have managed to make it work the other way.

I was getting maybe 5 fps in the bland, completely detail-less starting area with buildings popping up ten yards in front of me. What the fuck? And the first-person perspective meant when I was killing tiny chickens they were off the bottom of my screen. This game is a joke.

Re:People still play vanguard?

[Sage Gaspar]

Mostly people who value exploration and timesink accomplishment I think. The classes seemed pretty good to me after the revamps and I've heard the one raid zone they did eventually open was pretty fun although I never got near enough to try it out. They're in extreme danger of losing those people anyway now since an interesting dungeon that was available at launch and always broken was finally slated to be "released" in a completely revamped form last summer accompanying a level cap increase to 55... was delayed until the absolutely final deadline of March 1... no word has been received on it and then this announcement was made.

Besides all these delays, imagine the only content that is trickling out is one buggy dungeon per year. It's been up on test server for ten days and zero people have tried it out. Then imagine all that lag you experienced and multiply it by nine thousand when they raise the level cap to 55 and open up one group dungeon with a small raid area in the back as new tier content. Not to mention the fact that in Vanguard all of this is contested. Welcome back to EQ1 waiting on lines to experience this anemic content with nowhere else to go. The servers can still muster up enough people to ruin the experience.

Re:People still play vanguard?

[Joe U]

Sony bringing fun and entertainment to Vanguard would have been a BETTER FUCKING TITLE.

HELLO SOE?! Games are not meant to be frustration-fests.

Idiots raised Station Access to $30 a month and everyone I know took off. What were they thinking?

Re:People still play vanguard?

[chrisG23]

Tell me again why I should play this game?

I don't know why you should, but I checked it out for a month last month to see how it is doing. Here's a summary report:

Good - Population decent, travel is now easy thanks to a portal system and rentable flying mounts for lowbies (they last for 5-10 minutes). There is a starter zone that is nice, and it takes you to lvel 10 with decent gear.

Bad - Computers and graphics cards are now at the point where settings can be turned up and the graphics of the game can be appreciated. My jaw dropped when I flew up on my mount and was able to see across the whole continent in detail. HOWEVER there is something in the client code that causes stutter all the time, if I do a 180 degree turn there is stutter. That is unacceptable.

Ugly - This game is for hardcore players. Overall I was enjoying my experience. Combat is very tactical. There is a plethora of skills/powers available to all classes which gives awesome flexibility in how to approch encounters. I started to mess with crafting to make better gear, and then many hours later, and after consulting all sorts of instructional guides and messing around alot, I sort of understood it. After many more hours of making things (maybe 10-20) I looked at my crafting level (still low) and realized this game wsa to hardcore for me.

Re:People still play vanguard?

[drsquare]

My system plays other, better-looking games fine, it's just Vanguard that chokes. Why should a game with no graphics have such poor performance?

Re:People still play vanguard?

[Opportunist]

All nice, and the "fighting" content is slowly coming to a level where it's playable. But, bluntly, why should I play Van and not any other game if I wanted battle content?

Van touts its "three independent area" content, and it fails to deliver that. It was supposedly possible to become a fighter, a crafter and/or a diplomat and each and every area should be completely independent of each other. And that's simply not the case. Unless something changed considerably in the last 6 or so months, diplomacy is still a very tedious and incredibly slow path to "glory" (what glory, btw, there is no endgame diplomacy content), and more often than not you run into a wall where you simply cannot continue because you lack equipment, cards or the necessary renown, despite being sent somewhere by the quest line you're following. Imagine the same happening in combat, you don't get any more XP from level 10 mobs but level 11 mobs are simply too tough for you.

Crafting is doable, but pointless. Unless you plan to make only bags and horseshoes, you won't sell anything. Your "common" goods are worse than any crap drop. Your "rare" goods require insanely rare (and expensive) materials and even if you manage to squeeze out a 100% quality item, whatever uncommon item some trash mob drops simply blows your goods out of the water without even trying. To give you an idea, my level 15ish fighter collected three items just killing random mobs in about 6 hours of questing which are superior to a rare I could craft at level 25 which requires raw materials you could get in about 10 hours of dedicated harvesting. Where's the relation?

I don't question the battle content. But, bluntly again, if I wanted that I'd go to another game that is polished, balanced and doesn't stutter when I look over my shoulder.