Kind of misleading when you mention EU as its not really F2P
The only misleading train of thought here would be to pretend EU is not F2P.
EU is F2P regardless whether you feel the game "requires a huge amount of actual cash" or what you find fun.
Personal qualifiers do not apply.
That EU requires actual cash to play, is not really a matter of opinion, that you have to convert real money into PED or whatever its called now, is a fact, and no amount of harvesting sweat will garner a player enough in game currency to obviate that requirement. EU is not a game i would lightly recommend to anyone, simply because its has real currency requirements, and in my opinion, obviously, it is more akin to a gambling mechanism than an MMO, that its treated as a plaything by some particularly wealthy players is an observation that some might disagree with, but one which i personally feel to be true, personal qualifiers perhaps, but like your own, its the basis of having an opinion, and clearly do apply, even if you disagree with them.
Either way, i don't consider EU to have a real player driven economy, if anything its an outlier to other games economy types.
Wouldn't it be nice if mmo's would completly remove npc shops from the game.
Only have mobs/dungeons drop loot to be used for crafting.
Gardeners gather seeds for culunarian's
Fishers gather fish for culunarian's to cook.
Miners go into mines and gather stones for goldsmithers to make jewelry, necklaces, ect.
Farmers, use farms to grow stuff to trade to culunarian's to cook.
End game raids, finishing those would give special rare maats that would be required to make the best gear.
Have all the maats/crafted gear/anumintion/potions/foods/fish/furnitings/tools in game sellable on the Auction House.
Just basically have everything player driven exept the enviroment.
Sounds like Eve to me.
sounds like camelot unchained to me :P
If CU turns out to not have any NPC vendors, or quest rewards that give equipment, then yes it probably would, but first we have to see if the game does in fact have that kind of an economy.
Originally posted by Jean-Luc_PicardEntropia Universe is very VERY heavily cash shop based since day one. You get nowhere without using the cash shop or having no life (at all).That is a fact. If you don't like facts, well, keep on pretending this is not true. EU was the first "real life currency" based MMORPG, and they NEVER pretended to be anything else. I guess only the fans try to deny reality.
Where am I denying any of that?
The point is, it does not make the game NOT F2P, regardless.
F2P means that payment model of the game requires no upfront fee in order to play the game. No more no, no less.
For some odd reason though, people like to insert their own personal qualifiers into the term to express their own stance towards the game and it's monetization model:
1) They like to adjust what Free part is supposed to mean - for some the game should have no monetization at all
2) They like to adjust what upfront is supposed to mean - for some, if you spent monthly as much as on P2P game it is no longer a F2P
3) They like to adjust what play is supposed to mean - for some, if it is not fun, it does not constitute for play
Wouldn't it be nice if mmo's would completly remove npc shops from the game.
This presumes that the player in question is interested in crafting in the first place. I don't craft. I really never have. I also don't buy or sell on the auction house or in chat. So the fact that there is or is not an economy has zero impact on my game play. I never understood this need to acquire as much gold as possible in the past... at least now you can buy game time... assuming someone else has a desire to acquire gold.
So for the past 10 years I haven't had any interest at all in the things that you want in an MMORPG. The next 10 years will be the same.
CAMELOT UNCHAINED will have a completely player driven world. ALL items will come from player crafter's. You will make your own house and keeps etc.....you will even create your own spells , weapons....armor etc.
Entropia Universe is very VERY heavily cash shop based since day one. You get nowhere without using the cash shop or having no life (at all).
That is a fact. If you don't like facts, well, keep on pretending this is not true. EU was the first "real life currency" based MMORPG, and they NEVER pretended to be anything else. I guess only the fans try to deny reality.
Where am I denying any of that?
The point is, it does not make the game NOT F2P, regardless.
F2P means that payment model of the game requires no upfront fee in order to play the game. No more no, no less.
For some odd reason though, people like to insert their own personal qualifiers into the term to express their own stance towards the game and it's monetization model:
1) They like to adjust what Free part is supposed to mean - for some the game should have no monetization at all
2) They like to adjust what upfront is supposed to mean - for some, if you spent monthly as much as on P2P game it is no longer a F2P
3) They like to adjust what play is supposed to mean - for some, if it is not fun, it does not constitute for play
etc.
Ridiculous...
Well, in that you can download and install the game at no charge, and you can log into the game, yes, its F2P, but if you want to do anything other than harvest sweat, then you need to use your credit card.
Oh and if things haven't changed since i last tried the game, sometimes harvesting sweat can cause the beasty to turn nasty, and it kills you, so, not only a tediously boring experience, but also a bit of a risky one, i am not quite sure what type of person would consider that a fun type of game play, although as a demographic its probably one that includes a rather unhealthy dose of masochism.
As for their monetisation methods, they positively make EA/Bioware look angelic by comparison, at least in SW;TOR you can actually play the game without paying anything, and without having to harvest sweat for 7 or 8 hours beforehand
FFXI accomplished this in a bit of a bad way,by making npc prices way out of hand to buy as well as npc items rarely had any bonus stats.
The real problem is drops,no game is ever going to remove drops and in most cases,they make drops the best items in games.I feel groups/races of npc's should cater to their one crafting idea,example perhaps Orcs only make clubs and leather loin cloths.What happens then is if you die to say an Orc,he takes your weapon,so now he may yield a powerful sword or some spear.Technology should advance over time,so perhaps every 3 months,each race gains a new tech field to advance gear/crafts/addons/items etc etc.
That way crafting and drops can coexist with one not outweighing the other.It could end up your barbarian race makes some powerful swords and shields,you die to a Giant,then next thing you know that Giant is wielding your sword and Shield.Then some player comes along kills that giant and now has your old gear.
Same thing again for say arrows.Perhaps your race can only make wooden shafts but poisoned tip bone arrowheads.Well perhaps some race of Giants can make bone shafts or a human race can make steel shafts ,you would go around killing various races to attain various mats.Your goal as a crafter would to be able to craft the mats,this would take a lot of tries to be able to achieve it once then master it with stats.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
For the most part, you have to have someway to get goods into the system. This will be a safety net in case there isn't the population to produce everything the game needs. If that happens, it could snowball. Not enough goods, people get frustrated, people leave. Fewer population, even less goods, more people leave....
Originally posted by mgilbrtsn For the most part, you have to have someway to get goods into the system. This will be a safety net in case there isn't the population to produce everything the game needs. If that happens, it could snowball. Not enough goods, people get frustrated, people leave. Fewer population, even less goods, more people leave....
This backfires because we end up leaving the game anyway when we feel our crafting/gathering has no real value. Also, games that do have a player economy will over look other things we want like a PvE no gank world, large map, 3d fancy, Skyrim graphics, interactive furniture, complex character creation, mod'able UI, my char isn't an f'ing space ship, responsive ticket support,
This backfires because we end up leaving the game anyway when we feel our crafting/gathering has no real value. Also, games that do have a player economy will over look other things we want like a PvE no gank world, large map, 3d fancy, Skyrim graphics, interactive furniture, complex character creation, mod'able UI, my char isn't an f'ing space ship, responsive ticket support,
DRAGON BREEDING AND GENETICS
etc etc etc.
Eh in the majority of MMORPGs crafting does have real value. Nearly always it's a shortcut to typical item progression, sometimes a way to get best-in-slot items, frequently a way to reliably produce items you might not find through normal course of questing, and sometimes a good way to make money.
Whether players are able or willing to see the value is another thing. But just because they have the opinion crafting is worthless doesn't mean that opinion is fact.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
This backfires because we end up leaving the game anyway when we feel our crafting/gathering has no real value. Also, games that do have a player economy will over look other things we want like a PvE no gank world, large map, 3d fancy, Skyrim graphics, interactive furniture, complex character creation, mod'able UI, my char isn't an f'ing space ship, responsive ticket support,
DRAGON BREEDING AND GENETICS
etc etc etc.
Eh in the majority of MMORPGs crafting does have real value. Nearly always it's a shortcut to typical item progression, sometimes a way to get best-in-slot items, frequently a way to reliably produce items you might not find through normal course of questing, and sometimes a good way to make money.
Whether players are able or willing to see the value is another thing. But just because they have the opinion crafting is worthless doesn't mean that opinion is fact.
Because believing in an illusion of freedom is what makes corporations money. Wave your magic wand and make my dumb azs believe crafting has value when players can buy THE SAME ITEM I'm crafting off an npc (FFXIV, Aion, etc). Sorry, my anti-fairy ointment is still on my eyelids. Let me better define what I meant when I said I wanted a fantasy....
Because believing in an illusion of freedom is what makes corporations money. Wave your magic wand and make my dumb azs believe crafting has value when players can buy THE SAME ITEM I'm crafting off an npc (FFXIV, Aion, etc). Sorry, my anti-fairy ointment is still on my eyelids. Let me better define what I meant when I said I wanted a fantasy....
The data seems to show FFXIV crafting provides second-best-in-slot gear for white mages. How do you account for that, while claiming crafting is useless in that game?
Evidence shows crafting to be conclusively useful in this and most other games. Now maybe you can name some MMORPGs where that's not the case. Maybe Aion is one of them (though significant doubt is cast on that claim, given that your FFXIV claim was provably false.) But even if that's the case, most crafting is still useful. A single bad car design doesn't render all cars useless, and a single game with bad crafting design wouldn't mean all crafting is useless.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Because believing in an illusion of freedom is what makes corporations money. Wave your magic wand and make my dumb azs believe crafting has value when players can buy THE SAME ITEM I'm crafting off an npc (FFXIV, Aion, etc). Sorry, my anti-fairy ointment is still on my eyelids. Let me better define what I meant when I said I wanted a fantasy....
The data seems to show FFXIV crafting provides second-best-in-slot gear for white mages. How do you account for that, while claiming crafting is useless in that game?
Evidence shows crafting to be conclusively useful in this and most other games. Now maybe you can name some MMORPGs where that's not the case. Maybe Aion is one of them (though significant doubt is cast on that claim, given that your FFXIV claim was provably false.) But even if that's the case, most crafting is still useful. A single bad car design doesn't render all cars useless, and a single game with bad crafting design wouldn't mean all crafting is useless.
You realize that is way outdated right? Thryus Nexus is what...? 6 months old? More? If they were going to recommend a weapon for BiS it would not be a non-fully upgraded relic.
I think that a completely player driven economy could be done.
But the real question is: Would players really want it?
Several MMOs have already answered that, most of them running for over a decade.
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
You realize that is way outdated right? Thryus Nexus is what...? 6 months old? More? If they were going to recommend a weapon for BiS it would not be a non-fully upgraded relic.
So as recent as 6 months ago crafting produced a second-best-in-slot item (probably for dramatically less effort than the best-in-slot item, as that's usually how these things work.) If 1-2 raid tiers were added, they're still the 3rd/4th best-in-slot item.
If it's anything like WOW (and it seems like it is) then crafting will become progressively less useful as the current xpack (or base game in this case) ages. And then a new xpack releases, crafted stuff is 1st/2nd best in slot again, and the cycle repeats as new raid tiers get added and gradually make those best-crafted-pieces slightly less useful (but usually they remain one of the best ways to gear up new max-level characters to get them endgame-ready.)
While one could argue a better crafting design would be to have crafted items keep pace with raid tiers (which would require that crafting either (a) becomes as hard as beating those raid encounters or (b) requires items only available from those encounters)), it's still nowhere near "useless".
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Real-world economic concepts already happen in games. The economies are still limited by supply and demand in similar ways and can be manipulated in similar ways.
I enjoyed Capitalism 2, but it seems poorly suited to multiplayer. It's the sort of game where your rate of interesting decisions will change a lot, based on your situation (sometimes requiring a pause; sometimes requiring you to fast-forward.) Which means when you get multiple players, some players will want to slow/pause the game during the period where another player wants to go faster. Same thing as Europa Universalis and Crusader Kings -- fantastic games, but poorly suited to multiplayer.
I do think there's opportunity for multiplayer econ sims (Offworld Trading Company is a recent attempt I hope turns out well -- early access ended up a little disappointing,) though I'm not certain long-term econ sims would be all that fun (OTC is played like a non-combat RTS, with games lasting 30-60 mins, but everyone starts on equal footing each match.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
That is completely incorrect. The only reason of existing of auction houses in present days are cash shops. In the past that was the price control. How the publisher can prevent the hyperinflation in wrong economic model? With auction house. It is easier than fixing the model. Most of the games have hyperinflation in term of real world, but the prices will jump millions of times if there is no auction houses.
Now we get to the PvE vs PvP. Because that is exactly the same dispute - players shops vs auction houses. Trade is a way of competition and prices are a way of communication. If you replace players shops with auction houses, and players with NPCs, you make the game solo, and you actually remove the features that provide competition and communication among the players.
Only players can have demands, NPCs cannot. And only in competition among the players you can see the fair prices, or as you call them wrong - reasonable.
Almost all MMORPGs have very poor, wrong and completely broken economic models. Auction houses and NPC shops fix the price issue, because the publisher can control and manipulate the ingame market.
The problems with player driven economics are: First, you need players, more than one for sure /but if there is no players, seems the game has big flaws anyway/. Second, you need free competition and cooperation, so FFA PvP, open world and etc. Also you need risk/reward ratio with every feature in the game. So in every crafting the items may to fail, for example, but this fail shall be related to the crafting skills of a player, not random. And you need entropy simulation, to create constant demand. You need harder mobs and crafting specialization to create a competition in production. You need to reduce the money inflow in the game, and to bond the money with players actions. So no drop of gold from mobs. And etc. It is very complex and sophisticated task to create a players driven economic model in a game. Lineage 2 had such, before NCSoft to kill it with GoD /they killed the whole game too/ Wurm has amazing economic model, but also has very old engine and UI. WoW is far, far away from good economic simulation.
Why would you claim I'm "completely wrong" and then not address a single point that I made? All of the things I said in that post definitely are how player economies work.
Auction houses are about convenience. Convenience increases trading volume. But trading volume doesn't interact with inflation much.
Inflation is predominantly related to the supply of money: money is created at a steady rate as players kill creatures (it also leaves the economy at a much lower rate as players quit the game.)
We know all these things with certainty because there were MMORPGs before AHs and prices did not "jump millions" in those games.
As for other stuff:
A player economy doesn't magically disappear completely -- people don't just stop trading -- when NPC vendors exist. The implementation of those NPC vendors is designed so they're deliberately bad to sell to (in most games you'd be a fool to offload ore to a vendor instead of selling it at a much higher price to players, who actually need it.)
Neither does a player economy magically disappear without FFA PVP or an open world. Those elements can potentially add meaning to a player economy, but they aren't required. (Also it's only potential. You can certainly have FFA PVP and an open world without any player economy at all; they're separate concepts and neither relies on the other even though they can be made synergistic, to where they both feed into each other.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Comments
That EU requires actual cash to play, is not really a matter of opinion, that you have to convert real money into PED or whatever its called now, is a fact, and no amount of harvesting sweat will garner a player enough in game currency to obviate that requirement. EU is not a game i would lightly recommend to anyone, simply because its has real currency requirements, and in my opinion, obviously, it is more akin to a gambling mechanism than an MMO, that its treated as a plaything by some particularly wealthy players is an observation that some might disagree with, but one which i personally feel to be true, personal qualifiers perhaps, but like your own, its the basis of having an opinion, and clearly do apply, even if you disagree with them.
Either way, i don't consider EU to have a real player driven economy, if anything its an outlier to other games economy types.
sounds like camelot unchained to me :P
"I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"
If CU turns out to not have any NPC vendors, or quest rewards that give equipment, then yes it probably would, but first we have to see if the game does in fact have that kind of an economy.
"I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"
Since you are not capable to keep consistency in your claims and keep interchanging opinions for facts, any further discussion is moot...
Where am I denying any of that?
The point is, it does not make the game NOT F2P, regardless.
F2P means that payment model of the game requires no upfront fee in order to play the game. No more no, no less.
For some odd reason though, people like to insert their own personal qualifiers into the term to express their own stance towards the game and it's monetization model:
1) They like to adjust what Free part is supposed to mean - for some the game should have no monetization at all
2) They like to adjust what upfront is supposed to mean - for some, if you spent monthly as much as on P2P game it is no longer a F2P
3) They like to adjust what play is supposed to mean - for some, if it is not fun, it does not constitute for play
etc.
Ridiculous...
This presumes that the player in question is interested in crafting in the first place. I don't craft. I really never have. I also don't buy or sell on the auction house or in chat. So the fact that there is or is not an economy has zero impact on my game play. I never understood this need to acquire as much gold as possible in the past... at least now you can buy game time... assuming someone else has a desire to acquire gold.
So for the past 10 years I haven't had any interest at all in the things that you want in an MMORPG. The next 10 years will be the same.
CAMELOT UNCHAINED will have a completely player driven world. ALL items will come from player crafter's. You will make your own house and keeps etc.....you will even create your own spells , weapons....armor etc.
FOR ME......this is extremely attractive.
Well, in that you can download and install the game at no charge, and you can log into the game, yes, its F2P, but if you want to do anything other than harvest sweat, then you need to use your credit card.
Oh and if things haven't changed since i last tried the game, sometimes harvesting sweat can cause the beasty to turn nasty, and it kills you, so, not only a tediously boring experience, but also a bit of a risky one, i am not quite sure what type of person would consider that a fun type of game play, although as a demographic its probably one that includes a rather unhealthy dose of masochism.
As for their monetisation methods, they positively make EA/Bioware look angelic by comparison, at least in SW;TOR you can actually play the game without paying anything, and without having to harvest sweat for 7 or 8 hours beforehand
FFXI accomplished this in a bit of a bad way,by making npc prices way out of hand to buy as well as npc items rarely had any bonus stats.
The real problem is drops,no game is ever going to remove drops and in most cases,they make drops the best items in games.I feel groups/races of npc's should cater to their one crafting idea,example perhaps Orcs only make clubs and leather loin cloths.What happens then is if you die to say an Orc,he takes your weapon,so now he may yield a powerful sword or some spear.Technology should advance over time,so perhaps every 3 months,each race gains a new tech field to advance gear/crafts/addons/items etc etc.
That way crafting and drops can coexist with one not outweighing the other.It could end up your barbarian race makes some powerful swords and shields,you die to a Giant,then next thing you know that Giant is wielding your sword and Shield.Then some player comes along kills that giant and now has your old gear.
Same thing again for say arrows.Perhaps your race can only make wooden shafts but poisoned tip bone arrowheads.Well perhaps some race of Giants can make bone shafts or a human race can make steel shafts ,you would go around killing various races to attain various mats.Your goal as a crafter would to be able to craft the mats,this would take a lot of tries to be able to achieve it once then master it with stats.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
I self identify as a monkey.
This backfires because we end up leaving the game anyway when we feel our crafting/gathering has no real value. Also, games that do have a player economy will over look other things we want like a PvE no gank world, large map, 3d fancy, Skyrim graphics, interactive furniture, complex character creation, mod'able UI, my char isn't an f'ing space ship, responsive ticket support,
DRAGON BREEDING AND GENETICS
etc etc etc.
Eh in the majority of MMORPGs crafting does have real value. Nearly always it's a shortcut to typical item progression, sometimes a way to get best-in-slot items, frequently a way to reliably produce items you might not find through normal course of questing, and sometimes a good way to make money.
Whether players are able or willing to see the value is another thing. But just because they have the opinion crafting is worthless doesn't mean that opinion is fact.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Because believing in an illusion of freedom is what makes corporations money. Wave your magic wand and make my dumb azs believe crafting has value when players can buy THE SAME ITEM I'm crafting off an npc (FFXIV, Aion, etc). Sorry, my anti-fairy ointment is still on my eyelids. Let me better define what I meant when I said I wanted a fantasy....
The data seems to show FFXIV crafting provides second-best-in-slot gear for white mages. How do you account for that, while claiming crafting is useless in that game?
Evidence shows crafting to be conclusively useful in this and most other games. Now maybe you can name some MMORPGs where that's not the case. Maybe Aion is one of them (though significant doubt is cast on that claim, given that your FFXIV claim was provably false.) But even if that's the case, most crafting is still useful. A single bad car design doesn't render all cars useless, and a single game with bad crafting design wouldn't mean all crafting is useless.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
You realize that is way outdated right? Thryus Nexus is what...? 6 months old? More? If they were going to recommend a weapon for BiS it would not be a non-fully upgraded relic.
I think that a completely player driven economy could be done.
But the real question is: Would players really want it? Chances would be that economic concepts we know from the real world would slowly form within the game. But then I'd rather prefer a game like "Capitalism/Capitalism II" (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism_%28video_game%29 or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism_II) where you can save/pause the game.
Several MMOs have already answered that, most of them running for over a decade.
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
So as recent as 6 months ago crafting produced a second-best-in-slot item (probably for dramatically less effort than the best-in-slot item, as that's usually how these things work.) If 1-2 raid tiers were added, they're still the 3rd/4th best-in-slot item.
If it's anything like WOW (and it seems like it is) then crafting will become progressively less useful as the current xpack (or base game in this case) ages. And then a new xpack releases, crafted stuff is 1st/2nd best in slot again, and the cycle repeats as new raid tiers get added and gradually make those best-crafted-pieces slightly less useful (but usually they remain one of the best ways to gear up new max-level characters to get them endgame-ready.)
While one could argue a better crafting design would be to have crafted items keep pace with raid tiers (which would require that crafting either (a) becomes as hard as beating those raid encounters or (b) requires items only available from those encounters)), it's still nowhere near "useless".
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Real-world economic concepts already happen in games. The economies are still limited by supply and demand in similar ways and can be manipulated in similar ways.
I enjoyed Capitalism 2, but it seems poorly suited to multiplayer. It's the sort of game where your rate of interesting decisions will change a lot, based on your situation (sometimes requiring a pause; sometimes requiring you to fast-forward.) Which means when you get multiple players, some players will want to slow/pause the game during the period where another player wants to go faster. Same thing as Europa Universalis and Crusader Kings -- fantastic games, but poorly suited to multiplayer.
I do think there's opportunity for multiplayer econ sims (Offworld Trading Company is a recent attempt I hope turns out well -- early access ended up a little disappointing,) though I'm not certain long-term econ sims would be all that fun (OTC is played like a non-combat RTS, with games lasting 30-60 mins, but everyone starts on equal footing each match.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
well .. games are all illusions anyway. Illusion of freedom, illusion of a world, illusion of achievement, illusion of values.
Why would you claim I'm "completely wrong" and then not address a single point that I made? All of the things I said in that post definitely are how player economies work.
Auction houses are about convenience. Convenience increases trading volume. But trading volume doesn't interact with inflation much.
Inflation is predominantly related to the supply of money: money is created at a steady rate as players kill creatures (it also leaves the economy at a much lower rate as players quit the game.)
We know all these things with certainty because there were MMORPGs before AHs and prices did not "jump millions" in those games.
As for other stuff:
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Wurm does have NPC merchants last time I checked though. They take silver which is the game's real-world currency conversion.
Whoa this Wurm game seems awesome
Do a lot of people still play it?
Sway all day, butterfly flaps all the way!