Slashdot Log In
SOE Allows Purchase of In-Game Items In Everquest I, II
Posted by
Soulskill
on Wed Dec 10, 2008 12:57 AM
from the take-that-gold-farmers dept.
from the take-that-gold-farmers dept.
Zonk points out some big news for fans of the Everquest games; Sony Online Entertainment has rolled out a system which allows the exchange of real money for items used in the game. Sony is making use of a transaction system called Station Cash which charges your credit card in exchange for a virtual currency which is then spendable on the items. Massively has a walkthrough of how it will work, and shows some of the items up for sale, including vanity armor, non-combat pets, and potions that make various aspects of your character better. "Each of these types of flasks comes in a tier. Tier I flasks increase XP by 10% and cost $1.00. Tier II flasks increase XP by 25% and cost $5.00. Tier III flasks increase XP by 50%, and cost $10.00 each. All flask tiers last for 4 hours on use, and more than one can't be used at a time." Further details on the system are available in the FAQ and the Terms of Service. This comes alongside news today that upcoming MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic will not be subscription-based, but entirely based on micro-transactions instead.
Related Stories
[+]
Are Micro-Transactions the Future of Online Game Business Models? 68 comments
Last week we discussed news of Sony Online Entertainment's unveiling of a store that would allow players to purchase in-game Everquest items for real money. Massively spoke with John Smedley, SOE's CEO, about the system and what their goals were. He made the point that they were limiting sales to things that wouldn't unbalance the game. "They're fun and they're convenient. That's all they are. We're not selling power. There are a lot of respectable viewpoints on this, and a lot of reasonable people can disagree on them. Our view is that nothing here is gamebreaking." Edge Magazine has a related piece about Mytheon, an upcoming action-strategy game that will rely on micro-transactions to support its otherwise free-to-play business model. The game's producer suggests that micro-transactions are "a model that really gets us closer to the end user, and that's the way things need to be in the future, online."
[+]
Sony Bringing RMT To <em>Vanguard</em> 39 comments
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."
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
Money fight! (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds like someone is a little bitter. (Score:4, Interesting)
While I can understand why you feel the way you do, your statement is wrong.
First, a large amount of tournament play is "Limited" - that is, you use sealed product to play with, rather than your own cards. There are different variations that test different skills (Booster Draft vs. Sealed Deck), but both are extremely skill intensive, and an individual's collection has no bearing on their performance.
In "Constructed" events - events where you play with cards from your own collection - it's often possible to outplay or outbuild the decks loaded with expensive cards at the casual or semi-competitive level. Tarmogoyf, a card that was selling for upwards of $50 on the secondary market, was an extremely powerful and efficient creature, but it could still be addressed by standard creature removal spells, such as Terror and Deathmark. Budget decks can often be around 90% as effective as the more expensive decks.
At the ultra-competitive level, the cost of cards caps out and everyone ends up spending around the same amount of money on their decks (probably around $500 if I were to buy all the individual cards on the secondary market). While this does create a barrier to entry, I've never heard people complaining about paintball or racing as "determined by how much they spend on the game." Most hobbies have equipment, if you're looking at competitive level Magic, players invest in their decks, but everyone caps out on cards so money isn't a determining factor.
Finally, players will often loan and borrow cards among their friends, further lowering the cost of acquiring cards to create a deck.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
There's an old saying in racing, "How fast do you want to go?" The reply is "How much do you want to spend."
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Which is exactly the reason why I only played Sealed Deck tournaments. They were tons of fun, and absolutely not money related in any way, shape or form.
Actually got a quite high standing in that as well way back in the day.
Ah I get it (Score:3, Interesting)
So, they are basically second life now ...
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Not quite.
Everquest has 100% less flying penises.
Money, Time... what's the difference. (Score:5, Insightful)
Some people have money.
Some people have time.
The only problem would be the game representing it self to be something it wasn't.
It hasn't been a remotely "fair" game since the day it was released.
From 1999-2003, if you had 8 hours a day free and could get off before 3pm EST, you got every good camp (before anyone else got home) and got every rare spawn. I never saw "Venril Sathis" until I chewed on the Dev's ear at the Dallas Fanfest and finally convinced them to add random timers to the spawns- which were previously fixed at 24 hours- and the servers usually were rebooted during the afternoon in those days.
Even today, People who can play 8 hours straight have a 100% chance of getting most rare spawns in one sitting, while someone who plays 2 hour sessions may never see the rare spawn (and probably can't get the rare spawn camp).
And fairly early, some wealthy players took the other route-- you can play 40 hours a week-- or you can just drop $500 and get a fully developed character from someone who played 40 hours a week (the hourly rate was often ludicrous-- probably 70 cents an hour). $700-$900 for a character with 100 days played (2400 hours).
Then there was the Legends server-- scheduled spawns, and "The best guild money can buy".
I had a good time playing- I learned some important life lessons, and my guild leading experience lead to my current team lead job (and awareness that being a manager is probably not worth it).
But I know a lot of folks are going to feel put off because of the money-- and that's just an arbitrary opinion. Having $1000 to spend is no more unfair than having 40 hours (hell- some played 80 hours) a week to play. The game was never rocket science-- I was in one of the top ten guilds for six months and it was almost identical to the casual guild I spent years in- except the people their played 6 hours a day, 6 days a week instead of 4 hours a day, 3 days a week.
Re:Money, Time... what's the difference. (Score:5, Interesting)
Money cannot buy authenticity.
Parent
Re:Money, Time... what's the difference. (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Expect a flood of Brokeback Mountain trolls to follow...
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Arguably, one can get the authentic WoW experience in about 1% of the time it requires to actually play. The player who has spent that amount of time intrinsically understands the game the same way that the person who simply got bored and grinded for 40 hours a week.
Being a cowboy requires skill. Being a level 70 mage simply requires time.
Re: (Score:2)
And cowboying is certainly a job that takes skill. Certainly you don't think that Bush was a professional cattle herder before taking office?
Re:Money, Time... what's the difference. (Score:4, Insightful)
What's 'authentic' about killing a million rats to level up a character? It's no more valid than flipping a million burgers and using your pay cheque to buy a character that's killed a million rats. Similarly, what's the difference between buying an item, and winning it in a lucky roll?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Especially when apparently only 20-30% of those rats have eyes, ears, or whatever other part of their anatomy you're supposed to collect.
Re: (Score:2)
Keep telling that authenticity spiel to yourself when your character gets Pwned in PvP by a little kid that bought a Sword of Pwnage and a Dollar Potion of Mega-boost with his daddy's credit card.
Game items that you can buy with real money should never change game balance in any way - they should be pure vanity items. Even XP boosters are bad for the game ...
Recruit-a-friend (Score:5, Insightful)
You can't actually tell people they can directly buy XP increases. You have to setup something to obscure the issue and pretend it has a legitimate usage...
*cough* WoW recruit-a-friend *cough*
Re: (Score:2)
Good point, although the recruit-a-friend EXP bonus works even with free, trial accounts (which are capped at level 20) and ceases to work on any account at level 60.
So in total, you could argue that this is a shell game to make you pay for an experience bonus, but it's only going to matter for a level range that is perhaps 1/3rd or 1/4th of the leveling process.
I actually really enjoy the leveling process in WoW. I can't imagine how it used to be in EQ, where you would just camp one spot in a dungeon and r
Mudflation? (Score:2)
I'm not familiar enough with EQ's economics or it's loot mechanics but were I playing the game I'd be seriously concerned with the impact this would have on it's mudflation. I'm guessing at this point SOE, they are still running it right?, does not really care enough. (And from what I've heard they have never really cared that much at all but...) And are going to thinly veil this as something that won't have any 'real' impact.
Re: (Score:2)
The items offered for sale are not game breakers. The XP potions are a cool thing, but each expansion, every player account is handed boxes of those.
For those not familar with EQ2, once a character reaches level 20, there are two sets of item slots. Normal armor (which gives stats), and appearance slots, which do not affect character stats in any way, but they just give a look. For example, a raid inquisitor (DPS group healer) can be wearing plate, but appear to be wearing robes and a santa cap. This al
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It won't, really, at least in EQ1. Having diminishing returns on power from experience--the Alternate Advancement system--ensures that the relative power boost from even a fulltime 50% experience bonus would be modest. The remaining items besides experience potions are mostly cosmetic. The virtual trading card game, Legends of Norrath, did far more damage to game integrity, and even then I only consider one of the Legends of Norrath items to be truly game breaking (the Kiss of Erollisi Marr).
What most of
Exchange rate (Score:2)
So when you spend money in-game does Sony pay tax on that?
Re: (Score:2)
So when you spend money in-game does Sony pay tax on that?
Tax would be paid at point of conversion, same as if you buy gift vouchers.
Station Exchange (Score:2)
So, basically this is an upgraded version of Station Exchange [sony.com], except that it's active on all servers?
Only Fluff Items (Score:4, Informative)
Take it from an actual EQ2 subscriber, the items being sold are fluff items. Nothing more.
You've already been able to buy tons of fluff items with their Legends of Norrath card game (booster packs often contain in-game items to use and trade). This is no different, only more direct.
Blizzard isn't innocent either, they're planning the same thing. http://www.thegrouchygamer.com/?p=157#more-157 [thegrouchygamer.com]
Re: (Score:2)
50% extra experience gain = "Only Fluff Items"? Giving a player with more money a competitive advantage with the core gameplay mechanism is "Only Fluff Items"?
Blizzard rewards from Blizzcon, Collector's editions, or card games are "Only Fluff Items". This crosses a terrible line.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You already get 55% XP potions as veteran-reward items. Nothing new there. The only new thing is the achievement-XP potion. That's 10% or 25% for 4 hours, 50% for 2 hours. But it only boosts AXP you earn. Unlike regular XP, relatively few things give AXP. Quests, discovery locations and named-mob kills are the big things. And how many quests can you complete in 2 hours? How many nameds can you realistically find and kill? And you can't farm them, you get AXP for any given quest, discovery or named kill once
Re: (Score:2)
That's not a competitive advantage, just a time advantage. It means you can get to the same place in 20 hours of killing goblins rather than 30, giving you an extra ten hours to do something actually entertaining.
Sounds like this. (Score:2)
Heralding the end of the game? (Score:2, Interesting)
Later on, they will start consolidating servers (through the guise of Free Character Transfers, and later forcibly).
Then, they'll release Everquest 3 and hopefully draw even more of the population off of EQ1&2.
I'm actually not being sarcastic here. I think it's a pretty clever way to ramp down an aging and/o
Re: (Score:2)
All the links and everything about Everquest 3 is an April Fools joke
Breaks the point of the game (Score:5, Insightful)
"What's great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you know that the President drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think, you can drink Coke, too. A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the Cokes are the same and all the Cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the President knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it..."
-- Andy Warhol
In WoW or WAR I am on the same turf as everybody else. My character isn't limited to my bank account, my status, my job, be it good or bad. This maintains the fragile illusion of these games, that you are in fact someone else. This shatters completely as soon as you bring reality (in this case money) into the game. Be it micro-payments or macro-payments, the alternate reality is broken and dead. Spock no longer just have a little beard, he also has purple hair and moonboots.
This is just a combination of poor games and greed. Instead of improving the product (or replacing it) or being happy with what you got, they hope to make more money this way. I won't fall for it myself and I hope others won't either. This decision was taken by someone with dollar signs in front of their eyes, not someone who dreams of Jedis, Orcs, and Elfs. I only play games made by and ran by fellow dreamers.
It Works Like Platinum, But It's... Er... "Fun." (Score:3, Insightful)
Anyone get a flashback to the "Itchy and Scratchy Land" episode [snpp.com] of The Simpsons:
[Homer and family are at at Itchy and Scratchy Land gate buying tickets.]
Homer: One adult and four children.
Woman: Would you like to buy some Itchy and Scratchy Money?
Homer: What's that?
Woman: Well it's money that's made just for the park. It works just like regular money, but it's, er..."fun".
Bart: Do it, Dad.
Homer: Well, OK, if it's fun...let's see, uh...I'll take $1100 worth.
[Homer walks in and sees all the signs: "No I&S Money", "We Don't Take Itchy and Scratchy Money", etc.]
Homer: Aw!
Don't tell Square-Enix! (Score:3, Interesting)
Tier I flasks increase XP by 10% and cost $1.00. Tier II flasks increase XP by 25% and cost $5.00. Tier III flasks increase XP by 50%, and cost $10.00 each. All flask tiers last for 4 hours on use, and more than one can't be used at a time."
FFXI has been doing this for free [ffxiclopedia.org] (at the cost of some in-game numbers that you can easily get doing normal XP leveling) for a long time. 50% extra XP for 3 hours for 1000 max XP (which means you get a total of 3000 using it), and there are a couple of other rings with different rates and times. Depending on how you get your XP, it could be used up in one hour, or you could go all 3 hours without finishing it off (which is why the other rings exist).
3000 xp is half a level in the 20s. There is also a 16-hour cooldown time, and a limit of 7 charges per week for this item, but that's still better than forking over 30-70 bucks to $ony.
Re: (Score:2)
So, they're intentionally making the game a grindfest so that they make more money? How can anyone argue that isn't asinine? You buy the game, you pay a subscription fee, but it's only REALLY fun if you pay 10 dollars every 4 hours.
Well the gameplay mechanics themselves required what we refer to as 'grinding'.. At least as far as developers for Verant could see in the days of EQ. I really can't comment on EQ2, but EQ1 was released at a time when MMO's remained unproven. And fans were as committed as ever to prevent real world money equating enhanced game experiences. And it still holds true today, Bliz has been taking baby steps in direction of micro transactions but thus far has remained with Name Changes and Character Transfers. It'
Re:These people deserved to be crushed by WoW (Score:5, Interesting)
They are also going to fuck people's sense of achievement. I read in Predictably Irrational (or Freakanomics, I forget which) that as soon as money is put on the table, people consider it a financial transaction, and disregard any intrinsic motivators (which is why it's really bad to tell your date how much the dinner cost, unless they would not be offended if a stranger offered them that amount of money for any favors you were expecting). Formally putting a price on XP will tell gamers what their time was worth, and lots of them will be pissed off that the price was too low.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You realize Blizzard is planning the exact same thing right?
http://www.thegrouchygamer.com/?p=157#more-157 [thegrouchygamer.com]
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Changing your race and class is a fair bit different to selling XP (and let's be honest here, this is more or less what they're doing.)
Re:These people deserved to be crushed by WoW (Score:4, Interesting)
In Everquest, experience potions already exist and are on occasion available from mobs, quests, and the trading card game as a loot item.
There is also a veteran reward available that allows you to get double experience for 30 minutes, once a day. It's commonly called the death buff. It seems whenever you use it, you die.
In any case, they are not introducing anything that is not available already in the game. Fancy graphics and pets and 1 charge potions.
I don't see it as a big deal. I've played EQ since beta (98) and this doesn't bother me at all.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
You're missing the point. While this stuff might already be in the game, you have to work for it in some fashion. There's some sort of reward / penalty risk you actively have to seek out. They've bastardized that with, "give us money and you have it without working for it".
Part of the fun in any game is accomplishment. Once you take out incentives to accomplish something, the game has taken a turn for the worse. It loses a lot of value with individual players and in a sense, the entire community.
Re:These people deserved to be crushed by WoW (Score:5, Insightful)
Exact same thing? I didn't complain about the vanity aspects of what Sony is selling, and I won't complain about it from Blizzard either.
The bonuses that Blizzard gives players from things like Blizzcon or Collector's editions don't change the gameplay at all. What Sony is selling is something that actually changes the gameplay and gives you an advantage over other players.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
In fact, Blizzard already DID what you're mentioning there. You can transfer your character for 20$ or you can change the character name for 8$.
However, I'm not sure anyone complains about Sony selling vanity pets or vanity armor. Personally I don't care whether anyone is running around in a black dress they bought for 10$. I also couldn't care less if someone changed their hair style or color for 20$.
I DO care though when some player is able to get better gear or progress faster. A new hairstyle doesn't de
huh ? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Maybe you didn't read my post thoroughly enough.
MarioMax was pointing out that Blizzard was planning to implement a micro transaction model.
*I* was pointing out, that they already *did* implement such a microtransaction model (realm change, name change). I was *also* pointing out that this is *not* game changing.
Basically my point was/is, that Blizzard did implement it in a non-harmful way, whereas Sony screwed up (they tend to do that quite often).
Irrelevant to this issue (Score:2)
Re:These people deserved to be crushed by WoW (Score:4, Interesting)
of course, this is just a toe in the water before they'l put in a mechanic enabling you to buy temporary extra damage on your opponent in a fight for more money. swipe your credit card now if you need to take out the biggest baddies!
Parent
mod parent properly (Score:2)
Re:Signs of death (Score:4, Funny)
Parent