Falkor said:I was very happy to see the strong response against PLEX from the community.
I've seen a few people say, "but cosmetics would be ok."
I want to register my strong opposition to this point. No, cosmetics for real money are not OK. Absolutely not.
In EQ1, when you saw someone who had finally gotten their epic, the fact that the epics were pretty much the only weapons with animations made it like "Damn, that guy is badass, he got his epic!" The cosmetic value is maybe as important as the stat value of items. The cosmetic is a reward for hard work and effort just like good stats on an item are a reward. And I think we should go back to the days where if there is animation on a weapon, it really means something. Not a level 10 Sword of Fire and everyone has one.
I agree, of course.
That said, I still think it's worth it to have a healthy conversation about it because the economics of these games have changed the past 20 years. It is worth talking about, just not worth implementing (IMO).
Let's be honest with ourselves though. If this game does not do well through subscriptions alone, and the choice is to shut it down or add plex ... we are getting plex, or other microtransactions. I wouldn't blame them for that.I would only blame someone if the game is financially strong, but people just get greedy and want more money (like with what EA is doing now days). Being a private company, VR doesn't have shareholders to answer to. That means their integrity has weight and they seem willing to make less money by standing up for what they believe in. We should applaud them for that.
@Zeem - I don't think there are any tricky legalities here. I could be wrong, but I think most games have you sign in the TOS that the game company can ban you if they wish to. There's no legal recourse for entrapment, they banned you and you're out of luck. There's no "you have to prove that I was the one doing RMT", they just ban you based on their best judgement. Are the gold farmers going to take VR to court? I would hate to see them going after buyers though. Maybe they're having a bad day and wouldn't have considered buying gold for the item they want if they didn't have someone shoving the offer in their face. The morality of entrapment does still apply here, which is why it's a even a legal term to begin with.
They would really have to figure out if this is something worth their time and effort, but I bet with one employee paid full time you could ban a TON of gold selling accounts. Also, you could consider banned accounts as profit for VR if they get replaced at full market value by the gold farmers :).
Falkor said:I was very happy to see the strong response against PLEX from the community.
I've seen a few people say, "but cosmetics would be ok."
I want to register my strong opposition to this point. No, cosmetics for real money are not OK. Absolutely not.
In EQ1, when you saw someone who had finally gotten their epic, the fact that the epics were pretty much the only weapons with animations made it like "Damn, that guy is badass, he got his epic!" The cosmetic value is maybe as important as the stat value of items. The cosmetic is a reward for hard work and effort just like good stats on an item are a reward. And I think we should go back to the days where if there is animation on a weapon, it really means something. Not a level 10 Sword of Fire and everyone has one.
With the situational gear they have said they are having, I was always for a gear set that is apperence only that you can "switch" or rotate too while in town or just out of combat or in combat if you want to fight with gear that has no stats. I can see cosmetic gear as gear with no stats and it actually replaces the equipped gear not just change the apperence. In eq2 I would put on a robe on my Iksar paladin for a bit fo roleplay in town but I had to take off my BP to do it. I was going for the cloaked figure look. So if they add cosmetic stuff I would want it to actual replace the gear being worn in a gear rotational set.
Zeem said:Falkor said:I was very happy to see the strong response against PLEX from the community.
I've seen a few people say, "but cosmetics would be ok."
I want to register my strong opposition to this point. No, cosmetics for real money are not OK. Absolutely not.
In EQ1, when you saw someone who had finally gotten their epic, the fact that the epics were pretty much the only weapons with animations made it like "Damn, that guy is badass, he got his epic!" The cosmetic value is maybe as important as the stat value of items. The cosmetic is a reward for hard work and effort just like good stats on an item are a reward. And I think we should go back to the days where if there is animation on a weapon, it really means something. Not a level 10 Sword of Fire and everyone has one.
With the situational gear they have said they are having, I was always for a gear set that is apperence only that you can "switch" or rotate too while in town or just out of combat or in combat if you want to fight with gear that has no stats. I can see cosmetic gear as gear with no stats and it actually replaces the equipped gear not just change the apperence. In eq2 I would put on a robe on my Iksar paladin for a bit fo roleplay in town but I had to take off my BP to do it. I was going for the cloaked figure look. So if they add cosmetic stuff I would want it to actual replace the gear being worn in a gear rotational set.
I'm all for cosmetic gear, don't get me wrong. Just not for real money. It should be bought from tailors in game, using in game money. And it shouldn't be flaming swords or anything extravagant. My opinion, of course.
Copying from another post, as it applies here.
I want to float this idea out here. What about making Housing a, purely, real money transaction?
Set it up just like the real-estate market, VR. Have the costs of the plot of land be determined by the location in relation to commodities/other cities/etc., and have the purchasing of those plots be done only through real currency. The furniture and extras could be crafted, but the actual plot itself would be bought with real money.
This would, I think, solve two problems.
One: Gives VR another way to generate income that isn't game-breaking. Nothing Pay-to-win about housing.
Two: If the buyable land is not instanced, and the worry is the rush of players and the overcrowding of these areas, I think this would even that playing field out. Only those serious about their housing in-game would be interested in spending actual money on it. I'm willing to bet there are plenty of people out there who would shell out the cash for it, but not SO much as to make it as chaotic as we've seen in other games.
Just a thought. Wondering what others think.
Note: I KNOW we don't want in-game items to cost real money. That's a perfect world. I'm thinking of ideas that might help VR keep the lights on.
Aradune said:Let me try to throw you guys a curve ball -- curious as to what you guys think of:
An alternate ruleset server where you *can* buy an item that represents a month of playtime (but that's all, no other real money purchases)?
Sometimes called PLEX. Here's how WoW originally described it:
"We’re exploring the possibility of giving players a way to buy tradable game-time tokens for the purpose of exchanging them in-game with other players for gold. Our current thought on this is that it would give players a way to use their surplus gold to cover some of their subscription cost, while giving players who might have less play time an option for acquiring gold from other players through a legit and secure system."
Sickening. Slippery slope. Demoralizing to even hear about. It flies in the face of everything a game like EQ stood for, to me. Not everybody gets to have that one item they want. It was a real world where there were haves and have nots, based on their investment in the world. This is an awful idea.
Personally really dislike loot boxes when money is involved.. if it's not gambling it's certainly promoting/simulated gambling.
I personally see cosmetics as a reward, being able to just buy them defeats the point of the Journey you've taken through the game with the items you wear and character apperance.. if you can just buy that.. well seems to go against the entire philosophy IMO.
Any mechanism that "legally" allows real money into the game that can then be traded is P2W. Yeah people find a way but to have it in the game just makes it easier and possibly liable for loss of in game items via bugs etc? people go outside of the system to "trade" and they lose it then tough.
A system that stops all the ills in MMORPGS.. well good luck... if it was possible it would already exist. For gold farming.. No shortcut as it requires report/ban procedures and people to do it, as long as it's not F2P and people can just keep making new accounts then it makes it difficult and costly to gold farm as you ban the mule chars doing it and the hierarchy "bank" characters and will soon kill it off. Failing that restricted IPs and severs for those that want that.
Zeem said:Lets have some Early Access Pledges
$100 2 day
$250 4 day
$500 7 day
Haha, in all honesty though, people willingly give money to a cause they want to see happen. However, once that happens those same people will vehemently fight to keep what they paid for from becoming an illrevelant place to spend time online.
Prindan said:I know this conversation is getting a bit derailed, but I would totally pay real money for a plot of land in a non-instanced world :D
I brought this up, over on the houseing thread, but it has been ignored but would be a great way for VR to work the housing market and earn money.
Kittik said:Zeem said:Lets have some Early Access Pledges
$100 2 day
$250 4 day
$500 7 day
Haha, in all honesty though, people willingly give money to a cause they want to see happen. However, once that happens those same people will vehemently fight to keep what they paid for from becoming an illrevelant place to spend time online.
Lol I was kinda being serious I'd drop another $500 for 7 days early on launch.
I'm not sure why anyone would care if its on an isolated server with no tranfers. There is no "bleeding" to other servers if they cannot xfer off it. If a guy spends 20 hours a month on this server to farm enough plat to buy one of these so he can play on another "normal" server how does that affect anyone? It doesn't.
Also, I have said this before on these forums and i'll say it again. You people are dreaming if you think there wont be a cash shop in Pantheon. Whether its cosmetic/P2W/1st year/4th year at some point there will be a cash shop.
I would personally prefer a cash shop day one with cosmetic and housing items only. I spent more than i care to admit in EQ2 on housing items for houses/guild halls. Starting this day one would give them a nice buffer to hopefully stem the inevitable P2W items that will be added when the game starts to die(3-5 years down the road) and hopefully give us a few extra years of playing before that happens.
Kittik said:Prindan said:I know this conversation is getting a bit derailed, but I would totally pay real money for a plot of land in a non-instanced world :D
I brought this up, over on the houseing thread, but it has been ignored but would be a great way for VR to work the housing market and earn money.
I'm sure some people would, but in general I can only imagine this would be looked upon by the MMO community as a whole as a questionable if not scummy move unless alternate instanced housing was made available to players for free with subscription.
beautifully said:Also, I have said this before on these forums and i'll say it again. You people are dreaming if you think there wont be a cash shop in Pantheon. Whether its cosmetic/P2W/1st year/4th year at some point there will be a cash shop.
Could you have written this in a more pretentious way? Probably not. So congrats on that. But I'm sorry, there is no fundamental law of nature, economics, or business that absolutely requires VR to implement a cash shop. Are there incentives to do so? Yes. But is it inevitable? No. This post of yours does nothing to move the conversation along, and, if anything, just normalizes and makes more probable the implementation of a cash shop. Not helpful.
Damn, I fell for the bait.
Gnog said:beautifully said:Also, I have said this before on these forums and i'll say it again. You people are dreaming if you think there wont be a cash shop in Pantheon. Whether its cosmetic/P2W/1st year/4th year at some point there will be a cash shop.
Could you have written this in a more pretentious way? Probably not. So congrats on that. But I'm sorry, there is no fundamental law of nature, economics, or business that absolutely requires VR to implement a cash shop. Are there incentives to do so? Yes. But is it inevitable? No. This post of yours does nothing to move the conversation along, and, if anything, just normalizes and makes more probable the implementation of a cash shop. Not helpful.
Damn, I fell for the bait.
Well actually he is right. To keep a game funded after subs drop you have to add in a new revenue source which is usually purchasable items to improve revenue or they shut the game down. It called business. Brad isn't a billionaire who can fund VR like Elon Musk does with Space X or Jeff Bezos with Blue Origin. You either pay the bills or you don't.
And I don't think he was "pretentious" at all but stating fact based off MMO history. Best you get off that #mmofakenews :)
Zeem said:Gnog said:beautifully said:Also, I have said this before on these forums and i'll say it again. You people are dreaming if you think there wont be a cash shop in Pantheon. Whether its cosmetic/P2W/1st year/4th year at some point there will be a cash shop.
Could you have written this in a more pretentious way? Probably not. So congrats on that. But I'm sorry, there is no fundamental law of nature, economics, or business that absolutely requires VR to implement a cash shop. Are there incentives to do so? Yes. But is it inevitable? No. This post of yours does nothing to move the conversation along, and, if anything, just normalizes and makes more probable the implementation of a cash shop. Not helpful.
Damn, I fell for the bait.
Well actually he is right. To keep a game funded after subs drop you have to add in a new revenue source which is usually purchasable items to improve revenue or they shut the game down. It called business. Brad isn't a billionaire who can fund VR like Elon Musk does with Space X or Jeff Bezos with Blue Origin. You either pay the bills or you don't.
And I don't think he was "pretentious" at all but stating fact based off MMO history. Best you get off that #mmofakenews :)
This will be my last post on this digression from the main thread. Yes, it was pretentious to say "you people" are "dreaming" based on a purported greater understanding of how the real world works, which was the clear subtext of that post. The pretention of that post derives from the posters decision to belittle an entire group of people as "dreamers" instead of just stating a position. It was not a neutral statement of fact, as you now say.
Nor is it a fact that cash shops are required to keep an MMO running. WoW was always profitable without a cash shop. The cash shop just made it MORE profitable. Hell, there are private WoW servers with 100,000+ active players that do not have cash shops and run exclusively on player donations. Now if VR decides they are going to maximize profits by any means necessary, then yes a cash shop is more likely. But if they instead manage their budget conservatively and remain content with a reasonably good profit margin, they may be able to avoid using a cash shop altogether. Once the development cost of the game has been recovered, the ongoing cost of keeping servers up will be dramatically lower (not including additional content) and that cost may be coverable using subscriptions only. Again, there are WoW private servers that serve >100,000 active players for like $1,000 per month in server hosting costs. So no, cash shops are not inevitable so long as VR decides they are not an option.
Alright, I have said my piece. Save your breath if you are going to respond with another facile argument about business realities.
The first time I saw an epic in EQ I was in awe. Twas a hairy footed Druid with his scimitar.
I can certainly see where you are coming from Falkor. MMO's were profitable long before cash shops. That said, if there ended up being a cosmetics shop, it likely wouldn't make or break the game for me.
Gnog said:beautifully said:Also, I have said this before on these forums and i'll say it again. You people are dreaming if you think there wont be a cash shop in Pantheon. Whether its cosmetic/P2W/1st year/4th year at some point there will be a cash shop.
Could you have written this in a more pretentious way? Probably not. So congrats on that. But I'm sorry, there is no fundamental law of nature, economics, or business that absolutely requires VR to implement a cash shop. Are there incentives to do so? Yes. But is it inevitable? No. This post of yours does nothing to move the conversation along, and, if anything, just normalizes and makes more probable the implementation of a cash shop. Not helpful.
Damn, I fell for the bait.
Having a monthly sub fee and then selling expansions/DLCs is how we've been modeling our business plan and it is very profitable without resorting to changing the revenue model. Additionally, changing the revenue model to include RMT and pay2win is not compatible with how we are designing the game with an emphasis on hand crafted content, community, challenge, shared experiences, etc. I've seen first hand what cash shops do to an MMO: the designers end up being rewarded for and focusing on putting interesting items into the shop instead of adding new features, content, etc. They end up looking for ways to make money short term and lose track of retention and a healthy game long term. This in turn makes the game less sticky and also focusses the team on monetizing a small minority of players as opposed to monetizing everyone through a subscription fee.
You can see the snowball effect above, the focus on the few and not the many, the focus on the short term and not making a great long term game, etc. It's really horrible to watch first hand but I was there when this happened at SoE. I saw it, and we will *not* be gong there with Pantheon.