65 replies to this topic

[Majer]

Thank you you I've just wasted 10 minutes to re-watch video all over again, and about to waste some more to answer you.

First. 3:10 at reference video -

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Let players earn every type of currency in your game, even the ones they can also pay for

Clearly, I did not forbid non-paying players to earn anything, and authors of the video clearly stated, that even selling money isn't bad, unless EVERYONE can earn it in-game.

Second: 4:35

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(...)many players will eventually decide that their time is more valuable than a small amount of money it takes to purchase a currency

Again, stated that purchasing a time is not bad, and that is exactly what I've suggested. All you gain by paying money is time, not power. So you can spend more of time playing the way you like, instead of performing less entertaining duties, that have to be done.

Third: 6:00 "The power selling talk"

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Even things like selling levelling speed is okay, (...) it doesn't unbalance your game, or affect any the other players

Spot on, what I was talking about.

Fourth: 7:03

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You should also never, ever, ever split the community. (...) and you only allow paying players to partake certain maps or specific zones. You've not only decreased the size of the community, but you've cordoned off paying player from non-paying players which is terrible idea.

Again, I did nothing of that. I did not suggest that players should pay to be able to do something, but other way around - let them optionally pay to not do some things, or more accurately - let them choose what to do, instead of having them assigned by command.
In Anarchy Online they had this terrible zone restriction for those who purchased addons and those who did not. Anyway this is not the case.
Compared to what you've written:

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It's a golden rule: Do not split the community by allowing rich players to entirely skip what non-paying players would have to spend time for.

You have totally twisted it other way around. It's not about letting player blast trough for money, it's about prohibiting anything for those that are not tossing money.
You did not notice that player riding golden tortoise? (~3:20) Didn't you think what he does symbolize?


I know what you're thinking. Face it, some players are rich, some are not. The rich are the ones that are making this game real - developers and investors are not volunteers. I know what's in your mind, but it never worked and never will. My country was behind iron curtain for a long time, and that communist crap in your head ruined my homeland the extand that I can taste it's poison even today. I won't let that get spilled even over virtual realm. You won't change the world in that matter, and others will find the way around just to take advantage of their money anyway. If this MMO game will ever get to the highest scale, keep it mind that it's policy have to compete with men willing to level characters for real money (I'm looking at your Chinese prisoners forced to grind money for whole day for less than a dollar, and not only you). This is harsh reality we're living in.
If you're not paranoid, you're clearly blinded by your ideas.

Watch the video again by yourself, since clearly you've missed few points and did not understand the concept.

Edited by Majer, 17 December 2011 - 10:16 AM.

[Tweaks]

Oh boy... here we go...

Majer, on 17 December 2011 - 10:11 AM, said:

Thank you you I've just wasted 10 minutes to re-watch video all over again, and about to waste some more to answer you.

First. 3:10 at reference video -

Clearly, I did not forbid non-paying players to earn anything, and authors of the video clearly stated, that even selling money isn't bad, unless EVERYONE can earn it in-game.

...any currency, not just anything. They are referring to being able to purchase C-Bills with cash. That's fine by all means. What's not fine, is to be able to bypass leveling or pre-requirements with cash (i.e. instead of grinding XP to unlock a certain skill, you buy it out directly with cash).

Majer, on 17 December 2011 - 10:11 AM, said:

Second: 4:35

Again, stated that purchasing a time is not bad, and that is exactly what I've suggested. All you gain by paying money is time, not power. So you can spend more of time playing the way you like, instead of performing less entertaining duties, that have to be done.

Again, wrong. That's not what they meant by "purchasing time". The video says "Even things like selling leveling speed is okay.", not whole levels, just faster leveling. You still have to work for it. You're saying you want to be able to bypass any fighting you don't want to do with cash. That may "take less time", but it's not what they meant by "paying for time".

Majer, on 17 December 2011 - 10:11 AM, said:

(...more stuff I don't care to coment about...)

Majer, on 17 December 2011 - 10:11 AM, said:

I know what you're thinking. Face it, some players are rich, some are not. The rich are the ones that are making this game real - developers and investors are not volunteers. I know what's in your mind, but it never worked and never will. My country was behind iron curtain for a long time, and that communist crap in your head ruined my homeland the extand that I can taste it's poison even today. I won't let that get spilled even over virtual realm. You won't change the world in that matter, and others will find the way around just to take advantage of their money anyway. If this MMO game will ever get to the highest scale, keep it mind that it's policy have to compete with men willing to level characters for real money (I'm looking at your Chinese prisoners forced to grind money for whole day for less than a dollar, and not only you). This is harsh reality we're living in.

What a load of crap... I don't know how you think you know what I think, and don't know where you're getting all those assumptions from, but it really made me laugh. I'm not a communist at all by the way, and this is no place for this kind of talk either (politics).

It's a fact in our world today: Money is power. The rich always wins over the poor, in our world. MWO is a game, not the real world.

Hopefully, PGI will do the right thing and make it fair for everybody so that rich players can't dominate the game by buying their way through everything. If you want to be able to manage your time and feel like the game takes too much out of it, then it's very simple: Don't play it!

Edited by Tweaks, 17 December 2011 - 11:43 AM.

[Majer]

Tweaks, on 17 December 2011 - 11:15 AM, said:

...any currency, not just anything. They are referring to being able to purchase C-Bills with cash. That's fine by all means. What's not fine, is to be able to bypass leveling or pre-requirements with cash (i.e. instead of grinding XP to unlock a certain skill, you buy it out directly with cash).

Where did I offer such things like skill unlocks or equipment?

Quote

Again, wrong. That's not what they meant by "purchasing time". They meant it more like "XP booster", meaning you could gain XP at a faster rate, but you still have to fight to get XP in the first place.

Again, where did I offer reward for not participating in duties? Duties are supposed to be fulfilled, either by the ones that were assigned to, or the well paid mercenary. I see nothing wrong in that.

Quote

You're saying you want to be able to bypass any fighting you don't want to do by simply purchasing the requirement away with cash. That may "take less time", but it's not what they meant by "paying for time".

I didn't say anything about baypassing any fighting. In contrary, I was talking about bypassing scenarios that do not guarantee fighting. Backbone of war campaign. Things like logistics, or security. Things that are rewarded, but not as "fun" as battles, sieges. Things that player should spend some time on, to maintain supplies needed for krieg. I do not suspect MWO having you to spend your time digging in mines, or fishing on a boat, and that is one of core gameplay elements of most MMORPG games. We've still a plenty of space for things like convoy escort, or fortification building. I cannot imagine a success of a game with only intense battles going on over and over. People will get tired and need other activities. It was surprisingly quick for me to get bored of World of Tanks. By a part, because game mechanics were simple and dull, but the other part was it was nothing besides those game mechanics.

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What a load of crap... I don't know how you think you know what I think, and don't know where you're getting all those assumptions from, but it really made me laugh. I'm not a communist at all by the way, and this is no place for this kind of talk either.

If not a straight commie, then a hard headed socialist. The thing is, that my ideas do not limit players anyhow it just gives some privileges to those who invest money in this game. The game that is played by all. The players who pay for content, so you can play this game. How naive can you be, to believe that people will be willing to buy eye-candy stuff to the extend to cover costs of maintenance. If developers won't find things, that will lure those willing to pay (read: Rich), and in the same won't hamper rest of community, then whole Free2Play strategy will collapse. You cannot breed equal people in this artificial world as long as real people play these games. They will find a way to use money to get better, so better let them waste money on things like those mentioned by me, than a veteran WoW gold farmers who will ruin economy.

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It's a fact in our world today: Money is power. The rich always wins over the poor, in our world. MWO is a game, not the real world.

Silly you.
Money is what made this forums exist. Money is what they cared to ask you a question, and money is why they consider what you had answered. In realm powered by real money, you won't be able to keep it free of it for a longer run. Let them spend their cash, to enchance everyone's game experience, by supporting developers, rather than giving their assets to those who value their time less, and bring nothing into the game. You know what your strategy encourages? Development of bots to grind money. You may laugh, but seen quite a few mmo's ruined by scripts making money for few, who were rich enough, to rent machines generate c-bills equivalent for them.

Quote

Hopefully, PGI will do the right thing and make it fair for everybody so that rich players can't dominate the game by buying their way through everything. If you want to be able to manage your time and feel like the game takes too much out of it, then it's very simple: Don't play it!

Again, you didn't even try to understand the concept, nor relate anyhow to what I've posted.

[Raeven]

Tweaks, on 17 December 2011 - 09:16 AM, said:

To me, having the option to skip something by paying for it with real money is cheating. It's happening in the real world every day, and it's what makes this world so full of violence and injustice. It doesn't have its place in MWO.

Ewww.. You're a dirty hippy!

[Dredger]

@Majer and Tweaks: Can we step back and take a deep breath before this very important thread escalates and gets locked? Thank you.

Edited by Dredger, 17 December 2011 - 12:17 PM.

[Majer]

No point having threads open if there's no place for discussion in them.


PS Violence and Injustice are things that I'm looking forward in MWO

Edited by Majer, 17 December 2011 - 12:39 PM.

[Tweaks]

Dredger, on 17 December 2011 - 12:17 PM, said:

@Majer and Tweaks: Can we step back and take a deep breath before this very important thread escalates and gets locked? Thank you.

I wholeheartedly agree.

[Raeven]

Really, it all comes down to people that don't have money to spend on a game are going to be jealous of the people that do. As long as everything can be purchased with in game credits, even if it's at an outrageous conversion rate, things will balance out.

I do agree with not being able to outright buy experience points that haven't been earned. Though, quickening your experience earn with cash isn't something that people should turn their noses up from.

[Tweaks]

Raeven, on 17 December 2011 - 01:39 PM, said:

Really, it all comes down to people that don't have money to spend on a game are going to be jealous of the people that do. As long as everything can be purchased with in game credits, even if it's at an outrageous conversion rate, things will balance out.

I do agree with not being able to outright buy experience points that haven't been earned. Though, quickening your experience earn with cash isn't something that people should turn their noses up from.

My point of view too. Basically what this mean, is that the right way is to only allow players to purchase C-Bills with cash. Then, with those C-Bills, you can buy in-game items or privileges, whatever they are. Because C-Bills can also be earned without having to spend a single penny of real currency, it's fair, as long as the amount of time it takes to earn the same C-Bills you can buy in 1 click isn't impossibly long.

[Dsi1]

Tweaks, on 17 December 2011 - 04:55 PM, said:

My point of view too. Basically what this mean, is that the right way is to only allow players to purchase C-Bills with cash. Then, with those C-Bills, you can buy in-game items or privileges, whatever they are. Because C-Bills can also be earned without having to spend a single penny of real currency, it's fair, as long as the amount of time it takes to earn the same C-Bills you can buy in 1 click isn't impossibly long.

Whoa whoa whoa, hold up here, buying currency, then using that currency to buy power is no different than directly buying the power. It's just obfuscated slightly.

[CeeKay Boques]

It's so darn... canon though! In the BTU, Cbills ARE power. They really are. In Star Wars, credits aren't much.

What if paying players bought non paying players? So here you are, a freeloader, and my friend. The faction you fight for is not of your choosing. No, you must fight for the House that pays for your Mech. Or, on a personal level, I paying money, can purchase you, but you will fly my colors. To play, you must offer yourself up for purchase. You will fight where directed, earning Cbills for victories. Perhaps there are ways to make more as you go...

Every point/cbill of profit that you make out doing my houses work, you can keep towards buying your own Mech. Once there... upkeep, other bills. You may go back to servitude at some point... but for now, if you can get to Solaris...

I mean, I'm not talking buying power, I'm talking buying power. So, you and a bunch of your pals pitch in money for the Draconis Combine. Every dollar you spend, a bit goes to your faction...I log on, a non paying player. There are some contracts. I post my own. DC snaps me up, and ships me off to who knows where. . They direct my fight.

ah pipe dreams, that'll never work.

Dsi1, on 18 December 2011 - 11:33 PM, said:

Whoa whoa whoa, hold up here, buying currency, then using that currency to buy power is no different than directly buying the power. It's just obfuscated slightly.

Edited by Technoviking, 19 December 2011 - 01:33 AM.

[Tweaks]

Dsi1, on 18 December 2011 - 11:33 PM, said:

Whoa whoa whoa, hold up here, buying currency, then using that currency to buy power is no different than directly buying the power. It's just obfuscated slightly.

By "buying power" they meant only allowing paying customers to own certain items that are overpowered. If both payers and non-payers can get the same things, then nobody has the upper hand on the other, as long as the cash-to-C-Bills is fair.

[AlanEsh]

Tweaks, on 17 December 2011 - 09:16 AM, said:

What you're suggesting is exactly what it will do. It will create casts of players (the rich and the poor). The rich will have everything more easily without having to work for it, while poorer players will have to grind for it the hard way. This is wrong, just plain wrong!

Ah yes, but consider this. I have little Time to spend on the game, but I have Money. However Mr. Unproductive Citizen of the World who has no job and lives in his mom's basement plays 12 hours per day and so grinds through the content to obtain top tier stuff in record time. Your method puts me, the VERY WILLING TO PAY customer at a severe disadvantage to the cellar dweller who isn't paying a cent into the game. -I- am the more valuable member to PGI, am I not? I'm going to give them money, and thus trade some cash for some Time, avoiding some of the grind.
As long as I'm not buying superior technology, or fake augmented "Pilot skill", I should be allowed to take reasonable shortcuts through the grind by paying some cash.
/edit
(and no, i didn't read the second page of this thread )

Edited by Angelicon, 20 December 2011 - 08:36 AM.

[feor]

One thing that seems important to remember: It's don't sell power, not don't sell powers. People seem to get those confused a lot.

Take, for example, Champions Online, a free player gets access to a half dozen different power sets. (Ice, Fire, etc) If players want another power set (lightning, for example) they can spend some real world money to unlock that power set (at which point it s available for any new characters moving forward). Now lightning isn't a better power, per se. It's different than the "free" ranged dps power (fire does dps with dots, lightning does dps with stuns/slows) but it's not better. So no one complains that much. (Though admittedly Champions then shoots itself in the foot a bit with "freeform" characters for gold members)

Similarly in MW:O they might do it that without spending their real world converted currency (which I agree should also be earnable in game, but we'll ignore that for the sake of non-convoluted sentence structure) you have access to non-lostech equipment. But if you want, say, an ER Large Laser, you need to spend real world money on it. The knee **** reaction is "But that's more powerful!!1!", however, it has its drawbacks. Higher heat and maintenance costs at the forefront of them. If you can balance it against the regular Large Laser, then its suddenly not selling power, it's just selling a different ability. (longer range for higher heat/recycle time, perhaps)

[CeeKay Boques]

feor, on 20 December 2011 - 09:13 AM, said:

One thing that seems important to remember: It's don't sell power, not don't sell powers. People seem to get those confused a lot.

Take, for example, Champions Online, a free player gets access to a half dozen different power sets. (Ice, Fire, etc) If players want another power set (lightning, for example) they can spend some real world money to unlock that power set (at which point it s available for any new characters moving forward). Now lightning isn't a better power, per se. It's different than the "free" ranged dps power (fire does dps with dots, lightning does dps with stuns/slows) but it's not better. So no one complains that much. (Though admittedly Champions then shoots itself in the foot a bit with "freeform" characters for gold members)

Similarly in MW:O they might do it that without spending their real world converted currency (which I agree should also be earnable in game, but we'll ignore that for the sake of non-convoluted sentence structure) you have access to non-lostech equipment. But if you want, say, an ER Large Laser, you need to spend real world money on it. The knee **** reaction is "But that's more powerful!!1!", however, it has its drawbacks. Higher heat and maintenance costs at the forefront of them. If you can balance it against the regular Large Laser, then its suddenly not selling power, it's just selling a different ability. (longer range for higher heat/recycle time, perhaps)

Yes, this is precisely what I'd like to see with BattleTech Fluff being added to weapons. Different companies AC10 actually fire differently. We could buy those differences for real world money.

[Phatt]

Say no to Micropayments that give people an ingame advantage.

I don't care about cosmectic stuff because it makes no difference to gameplay.

I have quite a few friends who have expressed a great deal of interest in playing MWO, however they have all said that they will not play if Micropayments will have an effect on the balance of ingame power. As far as i'm concerned it's the same as cheating/hacking.

[CeeKay Boques]

Well, I hope they can sell outside physical product then... because unless its wildly compelling, I can't see myself actually purchasing Mech hats, color changes, camoflage, hula girls, faction badges, numbering schemes... monocles... they will have to sell some sort of gameplay modification to get my money. And I really want to give it to them! Take my money please, make more Mech! Different functioning weapons should be fine, although there may be tears if people are defeated with them.


What if they sell power today, that you can earn tomorrow?

[Tweaks]

Angelicon, on 20 December 2011 - 08:33 AM, said:

Ah yes, but consider this. I have little Time to spend on the game, but I have Money. However Mr. Unproductive Citizen of the World who has no job and lives in his mom's basement plays 12 hours per day and so grinds through the content to obtain top tier stuff in record time. Your method puts me, the VERY WILLING TO PAY customer at a severe disadvantage to the cellar dweller who isn't paying a cent into the game. -I- am the more valuable member to PGI, am I not? I'm going to give them money, and thus trade some cash for some Time, avoiding some of the grind.
As long as I'm not buying superior technology, or fake augmented "Pilot skill", I should be allowed to take reasonable shortcuts through the grind by paying some cash.
/edit
(and no, i didn't read the second page of this thread )

No you're not more valuable to PGI than the average Joe player. Watch the video in the OP... You'll see that non-paying are as important (if not more) important than paying customers, for a simple reason: THEY ARE the content of this game. Since they make the bulk of the player base, it's what makes the game fun to play.

Nobody will pay for a game if they are going to be the only ones playing it. For this game to be fun, you need as many players as possible. Hopefully, PGI won't fall into the same pit-hole as other F2P games have fallen into and attribute as much importance to non-playing players as they put on paying players.

The shortcuts that I would allow are time shortcuts. By that, I don't mean being able to completely skip things, but rather being able to go through them faster. So, if you don't have time to grind 20/7, find, pay for it and it will take you half as much time. What I don't want however, is that you are able to completely skip the grind altogether.

If you don't have time to play a game, then don't play it. It's simple.

[Hayden]

Tweaks, on 20 December 2011 - 04:56 PM, said:

Watch the video in the OP... You'll see that non-paying are as important (if not more) important than paying customers, for a simple reason: THEY ARE the content of this game. Since they make the bulk of the player base, it's what makes the game fun to play.

This. I plan on being a paying customer, but I want non-payers to have access to everything I have (maybe some cosmetic exceptions). A game like this is no good without other players to players to fight against. The more the merrier.

[CeeKay Boques]

I feel you here, but I'd also like MWO to be a quadruple A title and for PGI to make elebentiy bizillion dollars, to give me a high quality experience. Exactly how many cosmetic changes do you think you and I are going to buy?

Hayden, on 20 December 2011 - 05:01 PM, said:

This. I plan on being a paying customer, but I want non-payers to have access to everything I have (maybe some cosmetic exceptions). A game like this is no good without other players to players to fight against. The more the merrier.