46 replies to this topic

[William Petersen]

...Then what's going to be the "Real money" currency? Surely they're not going to just give us actual real-world dollar denominations and not cleverly hide the transactions behind an intermediary (Ala Microsoft Points, Riot Points, Gold, et al).

So whatcha think?

I'm holding out for Star League Scrips. /nod And it would work for both IS and Clan! B-)




Tangentially, shouldn't the Clans also have a different currency when they're introduced? I'd have sworn I read something about K-Bills (Kerensky, duh) in one of my source books, but can't find anything on Sarna about it.

If I understand it correctly, you'll be able to switch factions more or less at will (even between the IS and Clans), and them using K-Bills would keep folks from "grinding up" their C-Bills before the clans come out, swapping clan and blowing all their cash on shiny new ClanTech.


Note: If anyone doesn't know, the C in C-Bill is for ComStar.

[Hef]

Clearly real world money will be exchanged for Urbanmechs.
Each urbie is worth approximately US$0.03
Expanding your 'Mech bay will cost 100 urbies or about $3.00 (depending on your exchange rate).

You could pilot the urbies, of course, but they're far more useful spent on attaining a real 'mech.

Edited by Hef, 06 May 2012 - 11:03 PM.

[autogyro]

Why can't you just buy items with real money or convert directly to c-bills? The only other currency I've read about is h-bills, i believe.

[William Petersen]

autogyro, on 06 May 2012 - 11:05 PM, said:

Why can't you just buy items with real money or convert directly to c-bills? The only other currency I've read about is h-bills, i believe.

...I hadn't considered that. Shush you! That's no fun, even if it is imminently practical! ^_~

[Togg Bott]

autogyro, on 06 May 2012 - 11:05 PM, said:

Why can't you just buy items with real money or convert directly to c-bills? The only other currency I've read about is h-bills, i believe.

H-bill is refering to HOUSE-bill. Money that each house issues as their own currency. depending on the House the H-Bills are worth between 0.6x and 1.2x that of a C-Bill.

if i recall that correctly

[Zylo]

William Petersen, on 06 May 2012 - 11:08 PM, said:

...I hadn't considered that. Shush you! That's no fun, even if it is imminently practical! ^_~

I still see a system like WoT where a player buys some of the premium currency and can use a portion of it to buy a premium sub for a month and save the rest for other things like buying another garage spot. Such a system would be like you suggested in the 1st post of the thread.

I prefer this type of system as it is a single transaction for currency and then a player can make multiple small purchases in game without any need to verify the transaction with MC, Visa or whatever each time they want to buy some "premium" option.

[UncleKulikov]

Togg Bott, on 06 May 2012 - 11:13 PM, said:

H-bill is refering to HOUSE-bill. Money that each house issues as their own currency. depending on the House the H-Bills are worth between 0.6x and 1.2x that of a C-Bill.

if i recall that correctly

That would be useful for merc corps working with different houses and altering prices for house influenced technology.

[Siilk]

Hef, on 06 May 2012 - 11:02 PM, said:

Clearly real world money will be exchanged for Urbanmechs.

You. sir, just made my day!

[Woodstock]

I severely hope there will be no GOLD (or equivalent) in game. this just leads to the devs creating items that only some people can get.

What I hope for is that everything will be purchasable with C-Bills - but something will be exorbitantly expensive. Special skins/names for your mechs etc. These items will not be practical to be purchased with C-Bills and will normally be bought directly with real money from a store.

But if people want to they could save up their c-bill and go that route if they wanted.
I really hope they don't release mech variants via the real world money route though.

[Gyric]

perhaps we'll be able to buy codes, which are then transferred into shop-points or credits or something.

[Cruxshadow]

Real money can equal credits or megacreds. I am sure that they have some new currency setup for premium credits.

[FaustianQ]

I'm personally holding out for player influenced but dev moderated game economy (to prevent a**hattery) with multiple currencies. Everything could be primarily in C-Bills, with houses currencies being earned through House missions or mercenary missions for a specific house, that would offer discounts on that houses canon equipment, and yet can still be exchanged into C-Bills for use elsewhere. Further, don't actually introduce a "premium currency" but allow money to buy C-Bills and simply make the "premium items" cost large sums instead.

[Jakebob]

Any Free-to-Play game is going to have to have some kind of 'gold' or premium currency for people to spend real money on premium items, premium subscriptions, etc...
Remember, it's a business. The reason any game is created is to make money. If they don't make money, the game goes away, it's pretty simple. Anyone who doesn't want to pay or isn't able to pay should be thankful for the ones who are buying all the premium stuff, they're the ones who keep the game alive financially. My hunch is that there will be quite a few premium mechs / items available... I know I'd shell out a few bucks to be able to drive an 'Unseen' Marauder, for example.

(and I'm sure they've already figured out how to do the premium currency, it was probably in the initial business plan when they decided to go Free to Play)

[Cruxshadow]

Jakebob, on 07 May 2012 - 03:16 AM, said:

Any Free-to-Play game is going to have to have some kind of 'gold' or premium currency for people to spend real money on premium items, premium subscriptions, etc...
Remember, it's a business. The reason any game is created is to make money. If they don't make money, the game goes away, it's pretty simple. Anyone who doesn't want to pay or isn't able to pay should be thankful for the ones who are buying all the premium stuff, they're the ones who keep the game alive financially. My hunch is that there will be quite a few premium mechs / items available... I know I'd shell out a few bucks to be able to drive an 'Unseen' Marauder, for example.

(and I'm sure they've already figured out how to do the premium currency, it was probably in the initial business plan when they decided to go Free to Play)

Agreed, my experience with free to play is World of Tanks where the have two types of currency coverine earned in game and real money. We will have to see if wallet warriors throw off the balance of the game.

[Aelos03]

Cruxshadow, on 07 May 2012 - 03:38 AM, said:

Agreed, my experience with free to play is World of Tanks where the have two types of currency coverine earned in game and real money. We will have to see if wallet warriors throw off the balance of the game.

Thats worst f2p model in world if it can be called f2p

[Cruxshadow]

Aelos03, on 07 May 2012 - 03:50 AM, said:

Thats worst f2p model in world if it can be called f2p

What is a better one to try out?

[Aelos03]

Cruxshadow, on 07 May 2012 - 03:57 AM, said:

What is a better one to try out?

league of legends have good f2p system, there is nothing you can buy to affect gameplay

Edited by Aelos03, 07 May 2012 - 03:58 AM.

[Cruxshadow]

Aelos03, on 07 May 2012 - 03:58 AM, said:

league of legends have good f2p system, there is nothing you can buy to affect gameplay

Thank you, I will check it out.

[Aelos03]

Cruxshadow, on 07 May 2012 - 04:03 AM, said:

Thank you, I will check it out.

ye check it i think its game with most players in world.

[Jakebob]

Actually, WoT is a pretty good F2P model... you can play quite effectively without spending a dime, or you can buy premium tanks, 'golden bullets', and other premium items and improve your chances of penetrating hits, improve your cashflow, etc... but it's definitely not a necessity to compete. The game appears to be profitable, and development of more nations, vehicle lines, maps, etc.. has continued. (plus the sequel, World of Warplanes is in alpha testing now, and the second sequel, World of Battleships is in development mode)
It's all about the profitability of the game in the end. If they can show a profit with whatever model they've come up with for MWO, the game will grow and more development will occur. If it doesn't show a profit, they'll have a choice between letting the game stagnate and die, or introducing more microtransaction items that will be either highly desirable or almost necessary to play, so that a large percentage of the player base buys them.
If MWO shows some of the same success as WoT, it'll be a good thing. A bad thing would be if it follows Star Wars: Galaxies.