Re: Turbine pondering to sell gold/items

In article <f3lrvb$io$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, nostromo@xxxxxxxxxx
says...

It basically come down to "how much money is my time worth to me?" for a
lot of casual, or time-limited players. The REAL issue here is that mmos
want to keep you hooked for months/years, but don't want to provide
content to keep you interested, just phat loot & grinding for the OCD
mob. That also leaves the casual gamers to never experience top-end
content or more advanced levels/play. I'm not going to say it's unfair,
as that's far too shortsighted. What it is is economically
self-defeating, because casual players will drift off after 2-3 mths
perhaps never to be seen again. They have to find a way to keep hardcore
& casual players interested for a long time. They do a bit of that now
with bonus xp (ala LOTRO & others before it), but it barely scratches
the surface. The REAL question is: should grinding & time sinking be the
only measure of reward for effort in a mmo? Should reward even come into
it if you've already paid to see an entire game, only for 50% or more
of it to be withheld from you unless you burn 500+hrs of your life away...?

I think the secret is to withhold a little, so the obsessives get their
reward, and nobody else is put out.

WoW is not bad, you can happily level away for months, slower or faster
as you choose. Sure, you might never get to _The Hardest Dungeon of
them All_, but what matter if there are lots of other dungeons along
the way, and in principle you will get there anyway if you keep on
going? And if you take one character to a given level on a server, you
can twink all the alts you want below that level.

What a lot of people are missing is that the situation is no different
from other CRPGs such as roguelikes or single-player CRPGs. Or
Solitaire. We choose to put ourselves throgh artificial dificulties,
so that we will appreciate our artificial rewards. If indeed this is a
flaw, it's in human psychology, not in MMORPGs, which are simply
designed to cater for this psychological phenomenon.

'Ham Pastrami' wants games to reward skill rather than commitment - but
what's the difference, really? All he wants is for the game to be
hard, but in a way he thinks, probably without evidence, will benefit
himself above others. He wants the same 'prestige' from being able to
hit the buttons quickly in the right order that players currently get
from relentlessly struggling on despite all setbacks until they defeat
the Big Dragon. It could be argued that the current system is more
democratic. But anyway there are other games he could play with a
bigger skill factor.

- Gerry Quinn









EVE does this a bit better than most because they only allow in-game
currency (isk) to be trade for real money on their exchange site, but
then you can buy/trade whatever you want with it in-game. It mitigates
the adverse affects & the game dynamic to a large degree if you prevent
in-game items being sold on ebay & such for real money.

I got no probs with ppl paying for items or game currency if that's what
they want. I've done it exactly _once_ in my life - $10 for 20 SoJs in
D2 BNet HC Closed Realms - traded my missy & me into pretty good gear
with them, gear that we would've taken *years* to acquire normally &
probably kept dying/never progressing w/o it - best spent $10 ever :).
Just stick real money on a separate server(s). Also, give me, a
time-limited player, a 2-4-hr per day max server(s), with commensurate
xp bonuses, so I can see the end boss in 3 mths too, not 3 yrs. I pay
the same per mth, so why do I get penalised? In fact, the hardcores
using the services far more tham me should get charged extra or
penalised, surely...? Everything is upside down with mmos as to normal
laws of Capitalism *sigh*.

I am probably just jaded from years of reading Guild Wars forums where
people just go ON, and ON, and ON about bots and gold farming. I just
think some people should get over it already. No amount of shaming these
people as losers is changing anything. There are many people who are lazy
and want fast rewards, or perhaps have limited time (and too much money)
and want things more quickly. Either way, if it doesn't affect my gameplay
experience, I couldn't give two shits.

Ditto. They just have to find a better way to please all of the ppl all
of the time ;).


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