Originally posted by Loktofeit For those against devs selling game gear, what are your thoughts on letting players sell their old soulbound gear as an alternative?
I don't know. It all depends I guess. I suppose if it was done with in certain parameters within the game. It can be a problem for the long term economy of a game if the same types of items are continuously being spawned in as more and more players obtain the item, and later trade for in game money, but then are forever in circulation.
Gameplay would be imbalanced if you could sell such gear, it might be possible you could put in a system to rectify this, not sure how it would work though. The old way of only letting players who have achieved something in game to obtain an item seems fine to me.
The central isuue was brought up by Bill, this is not a matter of choice, of choosing not to do content you do not want to do. If the content is so bad you want to buy your way past it why are you playing the game? I don't even see this as a matter of time, we are not talking about raid gear yet. We will be talking about raid gear being sold before next year at the current rate MMO's financial models are changing.
Originally posted by Loktofeit For those against devs selling game gear, what are your thoughts on letting players sell their old soulbound gear as an alternative?
I don't know. It all depends I guess. I suppose if it was done with in certain parameters within the game. It can be a problem for the long term economy of a game if the same types of items are continuously being spawned in as more and more players obtain the item, and later trade for in game money, but then are forever in circulation.
Gameplay would be imbalanced if you could sell such gear...
Honestly... I wouldn't lie to you... there are other ways to make an MMO besides WOW and some of them actually do work well.
Half the battle in these discussions seems to be getting people to understand that, while WOW is well made, it is not the only way to make an MMO.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Originally posted by Loktofeit For those against devs selling game gear, what are your thoughts on letting players sell their old soulbound gear as an alternative?
I don't know. It all depends I guess. I suppose if it was done with in certain parameters within the game. It can be a problem for the long term economy of a game if the same types of items are continuously being spawned in as more and more players obtain the item, and later trade for in game money, but then are forever in circulation.
Gameplay would be imbalanced if you could sell such gear...
Honestly... I wouldn't lie to you... there are other ways to make an MMO besides WOW and some of them actually do work well.
Half the battle in these discussions seems to be getting people to understand that, while WOW is well made, it is not the only way to make an MMO.
Honestly, I wont lie to you, your reply to that guy almost doesnt fit at all with what he said lol Its almost as if you just wanted to mention WoW for some odd reason. Your initial question tlaked about would it be fine for Dev's allowing you to sell old SB gear...for which you are implying the game in question for your scenerio is a loot treadmill....what else would you expect someone to reply to you with? lol
Originally posted by Loktofeit For those against devs selling game gear, what are your thoughts on letting players sell their old soulbound gear as an alternative?
I don't know. It all depends I guess. I suppose if it was done with in certain parameters within the game. It can be a problem for the long term economy of a game if the same types of items are continuously being spawned in as more and more players obtain the item, and later trade for in game money, but then are forever in circulation.
Gameplay would be imbalanced if you could sell such gear...
Honestly... I wouldn't lie to you... there are other ways to make an MMO besides WOW and some of them actually do work well.
Half the battle in these discussions seems to be getting people to understand that, while WOW is well made, it is not the only way to make an MMO.
I was actually thinking of Anarchy Online where such a mechanic exits. Some items are character bound, but not everything. Many top end items remain tradeable forever. And it has caused inflation problems.
Originally posted by Dope_Ranger PAY TO WIN ! That's where gamming is at these days. The unskilled will have to continue paying for rocket launchers to take me down.
I remember when SOE had a cheap credit day on PS2, suddenly everyone seemed to have anti air rockets. That's the sort of distortion pay to win brings to a game.
I feel as if I have seen this same debate with different people, 100 different times on a 100 different forums.
My 2 cents: What makes games fun is a sense of achievement. If you can buy stuff instead of earning it, you are taking away a large chunk of what makes games fun. Also the less you value your ingame achievements the less attached you are to your character and the game, and the more likely you are to just move on to the next big thing.
Certainly right about the 100 times - and I am sure there will be another 100 times!
I thought the OPs were well-argued as is the point here - but what is lacking is an appreciation of the variability of skill levels. Everyone accepts that people have different amounts of time and different amounts of money and then argue about the rights and wrongs of allowing these to be equalised by the cash shop. But people have different skill levels as well and this is not the same as time. I will probably be unpopular for arguing this here because I suspect that the small minority of gamers who post on forums like this tend to be highly skilled. If however you came to games late in life or your hand/eye skills are not that great or you just aren't that good at gaming then you are going to be low-skilled. I am low-skilled. I see no reason why a game should not allow me to compensate for this through either grinding or the cash shop or both. The MMOs I play are not rl competitive sports - what matters to me is immersion and an ability to play through the game; for this I (and I do not think I am alone) need help.
In terms of the excellent 3 tick cartoon I have time and money but not skills. I think the arguments tend to ignore this particular configuration.
"Let's get right into this. Buying gear for real money is just another way to get to the content you like and skip what you don't. "
No - it's about the developers needing to make money. And they do NEED to make money in most cases - or the development stops ond the servers shut
The "buyers" are NOT going to keep buying "clothes dyes" and "Helms that look a bit different but act exactly the same"
Very quickly - as a buyer - you decide that you will only buy something that actually HELPS or ADDS TO the game.
Even worse - the cosmetic stuff can often be a burden. It marks you out as a "cash spender" to others
Those helmets they are selling in the WoW shop at the moment? The GRIEF players get who wear them "Noob" and "what a waste of money - you look like a dork".
Cosmetic stuff and a couple of inventory unlocks are NOT going to get the buyers continually reaching into their pocket and ARE NOT going to sustain a game's development.
As for F2P and even B2P models - this is the price you pay!
Living in fantasy land for real if you think a game can survive and continue development on selling inventory unlocks and cosmetics - that is just not going to happen - ever.
In my opinion this article dances around the true problem and that is gear trumps all. Time, skill, and money is a false equation. Time and gear are one in the same. Skill is non existent in most mmo's. Money should not even be a consideration.
It takes little to no skill to PvE. PvE takes time and this time allotted gets you the gear. Now when gear decides 99% of most battles, buying gear with real currency is an issue. If skill and intelligence decided most battles, then buying gear with real currency isn't an issue.
This leads me to believe that gear based games are the problem. I am sure if you design a game where people attain gear doing what they enjoy, people are less inclined to pay for it. The problem is that most games force you into monotony to gain the gear needed to participate in the part of the game that you do enjoy.
Lol I agree, that comic is fake, I thought a lot of people had Money but no time or skill !! Or maybe a tiny bit of skill and a tiny bit of money mixed with a tiny amount of time....
Since when do they have money and skill? You can't earn skill if you have no time, it takes time to earn the skills...
Most people with time would have the skills, unless they are lazy and play multiple games at the same time, or they just don't feel like pushing buttons...
People with money, usually don't have time because they are working and have real lives...
I agree entirely gear takes to much of the challenge out of most games, you get the gear all challenge is gone!! You now solo older raid zone content and older heroic zones, congratulations!! Go roll another alt, and grind your equipment all over again with lockouts!!
I enjoyed the low level game which had no gear requirements, the problem is you fly through it so fast no one remains there. If games took forever to level like back on Everquest 1, we could all be enjoying the journey as a bunch of mid-levels... Instead of all being bored max levels, waiting on content patches and new expansions!!
We used to have so much fun back then, actually grouping and less soloing... back when games had a challenge to them... Levels need to take a lot longer, and there need to be raids from low levels to high level that scale in difficulty, so that when a max level shows up in his max level equipment, it all scales down appropriately to lowbie status raid gear...
Expansions need to quit overpowering equipment and making all previously earned raid gear worthless, we need to find a way to make horizontal gear work, by making expansions fun and not merely equipment/level upgrades...
Oh, and Everquest 2 was dying by being nerfed into oblivion way before Sony added the cash shops, they made it way to easy... they killed grouping... everything got nerfed so much...
In order to have groups and pug raids, you need content that is difficult, and yet doable, a fine line... Make it so easy that people can solo or box it and you've killed off pug raid/groups... make it so hard it requires raid equipment, and you've killed off pug raid/groups... Most people only group with their guildmates, raid, solo, or craft... Very little grouping and almost no pug raids...
What they need to do is boost up old raid mobs like Ladon, that spider in nektulos forest, and all of those old epic x 4 mobs that got badly nerfed, and make all this overland content useful pug raid content again, as well as add more public raids, they should have added a third in eastern wastes for jewelry and a mount/cosmetics... but alas, they never did, and they allowed their 2 public quests to be trivialized by chains of eternity's overpowered equipment.
Oh, and Sony's response? In hindsight we never should have put fabled gear in solo zones. Seriously? You explain killing off the public quests with it being our fault for soloing?
How about still let us soloists get gear in instances, but give us better upgraded gear in public quests?? How about making group/raid gear have pretty looking graphical procs that are cool, not just boring statistics? I personally, couldn't care less when my solo gear looks exactly identical cosmetically to raid gear, except it has less stats. I'd never go out of my way to raid for statistics, and some boring procs...
Sentinel's Fate had the prettiest raid gear in the history of Everquest 2 hands down. I raided during it, and it was worth it for the cosmetics and the procs. I hate the art direction they have gone in since Skyshrine released... Soloists should have gear with entirely different cosmetics, yet not ugly, just different, raiding should be encouraged and not forced upon anyone... There should be long soloable quest lines for mounts and companion pets/fluff, that are shorter when grouped, and shortest when raided.
very good topic, I think you will find those that have unlimited time feel their standard should be applied, and those with limited time should have their standard applied to this issue. For me I am a father of 4 who works full time as a manager and have VERY limited time. I enjoy games but don't like not being able to compete in pvp when those who I am playing against have unlimited time to get the uber gear. This puts me at a severe disadvantage. Likewise in pve. Those with the time can do all the raiding and get the best drops etc. I can't invest that much time, so the model by definition excludes me from the best parts of the game, that is not fair or right.
The "Consumer Voice" has spoken and companies are starting to listen, welcome the dawn of a new age and stop fighting a losing battle. Pay to Win is here to stay!
I find any pay-for-gear annoying as hell. From there to pay-to-win it's only a small step to which many games (mostly mobile games atm) have already succumbed -pay to win as in: skills, skill-slots, gear and stuff like that, that is only available through ingame shop or gated behind massive time sinks designed to persuade you to buy to even progress through content. And then you have games that have you pay to play as much as you want. So on and so forth.
I'm a gamer since Commodore/Spectrum and I'm pretty much disgusted in to what the games are turning now. Quick uninspired cash-grabs and gtfo to make part 2, 3... MMOs with nothing to offer just same old same old with a gimmick or two that is marketed as the next best thing since sliced bread and overhyped to high heaven. Hell, vast majority of MMOs can't even make 4-5 classes that are somewhat balanced for PvP (or understand the concept of how to balance), let alone make content interesting enough to play for longer time. As is, when I'm deciding what I'll play for the next few months I'm looking at what sucks least not what is best.
Originally posted by Ebany The "Consumer Voice" has spoken and companies are starting to listen, welcome the dawn of a new age and stop fighting a losing battle. Pay to Win is here to stay!
It works in China. It is only time before it is the norm.
Originally posted by Ebany The "Consumer Voice" has spoken and companies are starting to listen, welcome the dawn of a new age and stop fighting a losing battle. Pay to Win is here to stay!
It works in China. It is only time before it is the norm.
Convenience's...everywhere. Game(r)s' doom is coming...? There'll always be gaps for the brave to fill... Glory may be success' reward.
Games are made to make money, they aren't made to be played for free. Why wasn't this a talking point regarding cash shops. This site likes to think that F2P is a legal contract to provide content for free, it is not. What F2P truly means is Free to Try for a period, then you must switch to Pay for Play. I am constantly harping on this site about the four types of gamers: Killers, Achievers, Explorers, & Socializers. Socializers tend to buy the cosmetic stuff. Explorers buy the zone access. Achievers want everything, from loot to levels. They tend to buy gear, xp buffs, zone unlocks, & dungeon unlocks. Killers are "Trolls, hackers, cheaters, and attention farmers, along with the most ferocious and skillful PvP opponents." They tend to buy nothing, and whine about P2W.
Why is geared sold in cash shops, to get the Killer type gamers to pay for their game time.
Pardon any spelling errors
Konfess your cyns and some maybe forgiven Boy: Why can't I talk to Him? Mom: We don't talk to Priests. As if it could exist, without being payed for. F2P means you get what you paid for. Pay nothing, get nothing. Even telemarketers wouldn't think that. It costs money to play. Therefore P2W.
Originally posted by iRels Convenience is -no- fun. Better don't play, even.
You need a Classic Korean Grinder to fully experience "no fun".
And yes, better don't play.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Comments
Gameplay would be imbalanced if you could sell such gear, it might be possible you could put in a system to rectify this, not sure how it would work though. The old way of only letting players who have achieved something in game to obtain an item seems fine to me.
The central isuue was brought up by Bill, this is not a matter of choice, of choosing not to do content you do not want to do. If the content is so bad you want to buy your way past it why are you playing the game? I don't even see this as a matter of time, we are not talking about raid gear yet. We will be talking about raid gear being sold before next year at the current rate MMO's financial models are changing.
Honestly... I wouldn't lie to you... there are other ways to make an MMO besides WOW and some of them actually do work well.
Half the battle in these discussions seems to be getting people to understand that, while WOW is well made, it is not the only way to make an MMO.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Honestly, I wont lie to you, your reply to that guy almost doesnt fit at all with what he said lol Its almost as if you just wanted to mention WoW for some odd reason. Your initial question tlaked about would it be fine for Dev's allowing you to sell old SB gear...for which you are implying the game in question for your scenerio is a loot treadmill....what else would you expect someone to reply to you with? lol
I was actually thinking of Anarchy Online where such a mechanic exits. Some items are character bound, but not everything. Many top end items remain tradeable forever. And it has caused inflation problems.
I remember when SOE had a cheap credit day on PS2, suddenly everyone seemed to have anti air rockets. That's the sort of distortion pay to win brings to a game.
Certainly right about the 100 times - and I am sure there will be another 100 times!
I thought the OPs were well-argued as is the point here - but what is lacking is an appreciation of the variability of skill levels. Everyone accepts that people have different amounts of time and different amounts of money and then argue about the rights and wrongs of allowing these to be equalised by the cash shop. But people have different skill levels as well and this is not the same as time. I will probably be unpopular for arguing this here because I suspect that the small minority of gamers who post on forums like this tend to be highly skilled. If however you came to games late in life
or your hand/eye skills are not that great or you just aren't that good at gaming then you are going to be low-skilled. I am low-skilled. I see no reason why a game should not allow me to compensate for this through either grinding or the cash shop or both. The MMOs I play are not rl competitive sports - what matters to me is immersion and an ability to play through the game; for this I (and I do not think I am alone) need help.
In terms of the excellent 3 tick cartoon I have time and money but not skills. I think the arguments tend to ignore this particular configuration.
"Let's get right into this. Buying gear for real money is just another way to get to the content you like and skip what you don't. "
No - it's about the developers needing to make money. And they do NEED to make money in most cases - or the development stops ond the servers shut
The "buyers" are NOT going to keep buying "clothes dyes" and "Helms that look a bit different but act exactly the same"
Very quickly - as a buyer - you decide that you will only buy something that actually HELPS or ADDS TO the game.
Even worse - the cosmetic stuff can often be a burden. It marks you out as a "cash spender" to others
Those helmets they are selling in the WoW shop at the moment? The GRIEF players get who wear them "Noob" and "what a waste of money - you look like a dork".
Cosmetic stuff and a couple of inventory unlocks are NOT going to get the buyers continually reaching into their pocket and ARE NOT going to sustain a game's development.
As for F2P and even B2P models - this is the price you pay!
Living in fantasy land for real if you think a game can survive and continue development on selling inventory unlocks and cosmetics - that is just not going to happen - ever.
Scritty
It takes little to no skill to PvE. PvE takes time and this time allotted gets you the gear. Now when gear decides 99% of most battles, buying gear with real currency is an issue. If skill and intelligence decided most battles, then buying gear with real currency isn't an issue.
This leads me to believe that gear based games are the problem. I am sure if you design a game where people attain gear doing what they enjoy, people are less inclined to pay for it. The problem is that most games force you into monotony to gain the gear needed to participate in the part of the game that you do enjoy.
Lol I agree, that comic is fake, I thought a lot of people had Money but no time or skill !! Or maybe a tiny bit of skill and a tiny bit of money mixed with a tiny amount of time....
Since when do they have money and skill? You can't earn skill if you have no time, it takes time to earn the skills...
Most people with time would have the skills, unless they are lazy and play multiple games at the same time, or they just don't feel like pushing buttons...
People with money, usually don't have time because they are working and have real lives...
I agree entirely gear takes to much of the challenge out of most games, you get the gear all challenge is gone!! You now solo older raid zone content and older heroic zones, congratulations!! Go roll another alt, and grind your equipment all over again with lockouts!!
I enjoyed the low level game which had no gear requirements, the problem is you fly through it so fast no one remains there. If games took forever to level like back on Everquest 1, we could all be enjoying the journey as a bunch of mid-levels... Instead of all being bored max levels, waiting on content patches and new expansions!!
We used to have so much fun back then, actually grouping and less soloing... back when games had a challenge to them... Levels need to take a lot longer, and there need to be raids from low levels to high level that scale in difficulty, so that when a max level shows up in his max level equipment, it all scales down appropriately to lowbie status raid gear...
Expansions need to quit overpowering equipment and making all previously earned raid gear worthless, we need to find a way to make horizontal gear work, by making expansions fun and not merely equipment/level upgrades...
Oh, and Everquest 2 was dying by being nerfed into oblivion way before Sony added the cash shops, they made it way to easy... they killed grouping... everything got nerfed so much...
In order to have groups and pug raids, you need content that is difficult, and yet doable, a fine line... Make it so easy that people can solo or box it and you've killed off pug raid/groups... make it so hard it requires raid equipment, and you've killed off pug raid/groups... Most people only group with their guildmates, raid, solo, or craft... Very little grouping and almost no pug raids...
What they need to do is boost up old raid mobs like Ladon, that spider in nektulos forest, and all of those old epic x 4 mobs that got badly nerfed, and make all this overland content useful pug raid content again, as well as add more public raids, they should have added a third in eastern wastes for jewelry and a mount/cosmetics... but alas, they never did, and they allowed their 2 public quests to be trivialized by chains of eternity's overpowered equipment.
Oh, and Sony's response? In hindsight we never should have put fabled gear in solo zones. Seriously? You explain killing off the public quests with it being our fault for soloing?
How about still let us soloists get gear in instances, but give us better upgraded gear in public quests?? How about making group/raid gear have pretty looking graphical procs that are cool, not just boring statistics? I personally, couldn't care less when my solo gear looks exactly identical cosmetically to raid gear, except it has less stats. I'd never go out of my way to raid for statistics, and some boring procs...
Sentinel's Fate had the prettiest raid gear in the history of Everquest 2 hands down. I raided during it, and it was worth it for the cosmetics and the procs. I hate the art direction they have gone in since Skyshrine released... Soloists should have gear with entirely different cosmetics, yet not ugly, just different, raiding should be encouraged and not forced upon anyone... There should be long soloable quest lines for mounts and companion pets/fluff, that are shorter when grouped, and shortest when raided.
I find any pay-for-gear annoying as hell. From there to pay-to-win it's only a small step to which many games (mostly mobile games atm) have already succumbed -pay to win as in: skills, skill-slots, gear and stuff like that, that is only available through ingame shop or gated behind massive time sinks designed to persuade you to buy to even progress through content. And then you have games that have you pay to play as much as you want. So on and so forth.
I'm a gamer since Commodore/Spectrum and I'm pretty much disgusted in to what the games are turning now. Quick uninspired cash-grabs and gtfo to make part 2, 3... MMOs with nothing to offer just same old same old with a gimmick or two that is marketed as the next best thing since sliced bread and overhyped to high heaven. Hell, vast majority of MMOs can't even make 4-5 classes that are somewhat balanced for PvP (or understand the concept of how to balance), let alone make content interesting enough to play for longer time. As is, when I'm deciding what I'll play for the next few months I'm looking at what sucks least not what is best.
It works in China. It is only time before it is the norm.
Convenience's...everywhere. Game(r)s' doom is coming...? There'll always be gaps for the brave to fill... Glory may be success' reward.
Games are made to make money, they aren't made to be played for free. Why wasn't this a talking point regarding cash shops. This site likes to think that F2P is a legal contract to provide content for free, it is not. What F2P truly means is Free to Try for a period, then you must switch to Pay for Play. I am constantly harping on this site about the four types of gamers: Killers, Achievers, Explorers, & Socializers. Socializers tend to buy the cosmetic stuff. Explorers buy the zone access. Achievers want everything, from loot to levels. They tend to buy gear, xp buffs, zone unlocks, & dungeon unlocks. Killers are "Trolls, hackers, cheaters, and attention farmers, along with the most ferocious and skillful PvP opponents." They tend to buy nothing, and whine about P2W.
Why is geared sold in cash shops, to get the Killer type gamers to pay for their game time.
Boy: Why can't I talk to Him?
Mom: We don't talk to Priests.
As if it could exist, without being payed for.
F2P means you get what you paid for. Pay nothing, get nothing.
Even telemarketers wouldn't think that.
It costs money to play. Therefore P2W.
You need a Classic Korean Grinder to fully experience "no fun".
And yes, better don't play.Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.