SOE Allows Purchase of In-Game Items In Everquest I, II 173
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.
Ah I get it (Score:3, Interesting)
So, they are basically second life now ...
Re:Money, Time... what's the difference. (Score:5, Interesting)
Money cannot buy authenticity.
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.
Re:Smedley just sacrificed the cash cow. (Score:1, Interesting)
Smedley is a mixed bag. Yes, his interest is in maximizing cash flow, but he saved EQ1 and Vanguard over the long haul. EQ1 is still with us, and still has a decent player base. Vanguard was nearly lost, as Sigil has so much secrecy, some argued that it was due to the fact that they didn't have much in the way of content, just some cool demos to show off and a good teaser website. Sigil burned through its dough, and if it wasn't for the fact that SOE grabbed the company, Vanguard would be in the same category as UO2, cool MMOs that never were.
SOE has a big problem though. They have four Everquest-like MMOs: EQ:OA (which I am flabbergasted that they keep running), EQ1, EQ2, and finally Vanguard. I wish there were a way to merge them, but they have such conflicting engines and combat mechanics that this is almost an impossibility.
Re:These people deserved to be crushed by WoW (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 destroy PvP. A new, better armor, attainable only through micro transactions, DOES destroy PvP and with it the game for a lot of people.
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/or failed MMORPG.
(and yes, I really wanted to make a Profit??? joke...you're welcome)
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!
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.
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.
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.