Open Letter to Mr. Garriott - the pay to play thing

Ok, this is something that I can understand and agree with you on. In no other game have I ever paid more than the price of the game. I've never paid to have someone level my character or bought in-game gold (not in this game either). Because I find it distasteful, and when it comes to leveling a character I actually find it akin to cheating.

However, I also don't believe that "putting your time in" and spending every waking hour min/maxing the game should lead to power and give you a huge advantage over other players in crafting, pvp, or any other aspect of the game. Which is why I've never played WOW or EQ, or Guild Wars, because I find treadmill games to be equally distasteful, and honestly for the people that can play all day I find that to be a form of cheating that ruins the competitive nature of the game.

What I enjoy about SOTA is that time and money follow an exchange rate that is open and honest with the population of players. It's not perfect, it's not ideal, but it does give players the ability to be on the same playing field with one another (where other games say something is wrong but don't really have a way to enforce it consistently, SOTA says it's allowed and even provides ways for players to use their time in-game to obtain what others would pay for). Yes, this reality will continue to exist, but more importantly to me as a player it acknowledges that it would happen anyway even if it wasn't endorsed, so it supports players to make that environment the best it can be.

In other words, burying our heads in the sand about RMT doesn't make it go away - not here or anywhere else.

 

I agree with most points, particularly the idea that time should not be the overwhelming path to power, but even though RMT did exist in games where it was not supposed to, there was at least an attempt to curb it by banning accounts that participated in it. Obviously, never 100% successfully, but it limited to some extent the amount of the player base that could buy power or tokens of achievement.

Maybe this is a bit childish, but I remember going into an MMO and seeing some high level dude with an amazing armor and weapon set, and asking around, 'Wow, what did that guy have to kill to earn that?" Here, the answer is often, "Oh, you can just buy that in the store". Same goes with deco. "Wow, that's amazing, what level carpenter do you have to be to craft that?" "Oh, that's only in the store."

So, beyond the 'cheatery' aspect, I think we lose other types of achievement value from both store and player to player RMT. I have lots of things in my pro list for SOTA, for me this is a con. But everyone needs to decide for themselves whether or not it's a deal breaker. It's not for me.

 

Couldn't have said it better myself. The thread could essentially end on this particular post! It is astonishing that people don't get this.

 

Yes, we sacrifice some of that for sure.

However, it is true that...time = money, and so whatever one player may sacrifice in time they have the ability to obtain with money (or vice versa).

This is really important to understand because it's key to the fairness of our game. If you have time but not money, you can still be the richest person in the game. In fact, there are several players that are making an absolutely killing in the game and they've spent probably a small fraction of what I have. This is because they have so much time.

You never need to buy a COTO or anything in the add-on store...all you need to do is play enough and convert what you've crafted or gathered into store credit, cash, or even in-game gold. It doesn't matter which one you use, all of it is good here. There's literally nothing you can't get in this game for in-game gold.

 

This is not a universal truth of gaming. It is a design decision.

This can be harmful to fun factor. For me, it's fun to defeat a monster and receive the item and have that item on display/use it as achievement for defeating the monster. It's fun to achieve some mastery at a crafting profession and create something not everyone can create and have that on display for achievement. It's not fun to spend 200 hours mindlessly grinding for gold so that I can buy an item off a vendor that someone else paid real money for in a store. The current system by far lends itself to the latter. I'm not saying I'd rather have them unavailable except through the store, but the design decision to allow time to equal money creates this sort of low value game content (e.g. grinding to buy things off a vendor rather than pursuing achievement type activities).

I feel sort of bad continuing this discussion as I know it doesn't really matter, but I suppose I like to clarify ideas where possible. The merits of the current RMT system are that it allows people with lot's of time to receive real world value for their time spent in game and at the same time, allows people with real world money to buy tokens and somewhat reduce their time requirement to advance their character. I simply prefer a level playing field in which the effort in game and the effort in real life stay separate.

 

Yes, in single player games this is far less true. But in multiplayer games (like MMO's) involving trading and the acquisition of items, it's near 100% true.

I think you're speaking eloquently about your preference. But I also think you're captured by the illusion that this can be contained in an online game. You may have felt in the past that your accomplishments were not being duplicated by players that bought them, but that would only be if you were ignoring the many sites selling those very items and accomplishments.

 

Heh, because there are players who don't care about combat and dragons?

 

Just wanted to point out that in games, time = money but money doesn't always = time. The games where money = time usually falls under the category that we discussed about earlier.

 

We're talking about online games though right? Money always equals time in those.

Even in single player offline players have access to ALL the pledge rewards.

 

The point is that the game would not exist unless they sold things like housing and decorative items. How do these things allow anyone to WIN?! I am so confused by this entire thread, and the arguments that this game is "Pay 2 Win." This game could be considered under the category of "Pay 2 Buy Some Cute Things You Don't Deed When Advancing Your Character." I think that label would be fair.

 

Yes. What I mean is that it's not always easy to convert money into time in most online games.

Unless you're talking about illegal power-leveling services. Many online games where items are soul bound/bind on pick up also makes it difficult to convert money into time. I guess you could pay money to a raid for them to carry you and get you the item.

 

As long as you ignore MOBAs, FPSs, sports games, strategy games and MMOs that don't subscribe to this design philosophy, then sure.

 

I totally agree, the company needs to monetize.

They could choose focus mainly on monetizing items that aren't in the domain of player craftables is the perspective I'm viewing it as. That'll still allow them to exist while strengthening what I feel is a weak point in their game, non-combat crafting.

In a sandbox game, combat isn't always the main focus. The "cute things" could be the focus of a player and in that context. Paying would be the main way to acquire the cool things. .

Just sharing my perspective on this.

 

I'm not ignoring MOBA's or FPS or sports games...they're just irrelevant to the conversation since SOTA is not anything like those.

Even MMO's that are not designed that way have no way of controlling it. Name an MMO and then tell me it doesn't have a leveling or item seller.

 

No leveling service in Eve, Runescape managed for a while after disabling their item seller service. I'm not an expert in MMOs though, others could name far more I'm sure.

 

Good point about Eve.

So Star Citizen would be another example where there are no levels so you can't do that. However, you also can't advance your character so it's kind of a moot point.

 

Do you consider games where money easily converts to time Pay 2 win?

 

Depends on how the game shakes out, noteriety via kills and trade would be possible to buy, but easy for the devs to render expensive, conversely corporations will likely let people buy their way in. Personally I think Port would have had a better game if they followed CCP's lead for crafting levels at least, with some modifications, less grindy at least.

 

It's utterly dependent on how you see the 'game,' and what you want to get from it. My perspective (which is, I admit, a seemingly rare and strange one ) would be that, in the sense of 'items', virtual or even otherwise, nope, you can buy it all. However, those are almost all things that, over enough time, you are able to get anyway, some people pay to get there 'right now' but not everyone approaches mmos the same way. In the stuff that's genuinely valuable, and actually matters, to me - how about ...

Time spent in the online company of people you like? The sense of achievement from working out a situation, puzzle or encounter? Understanding how bits of the lore fit together and form a whole? Completing a house (if they are ever complete) that fits your picture of what you want? Making and/or running events that people enjoy?

Pretty much all the things that make life fun, really... because in the end the game world is competing with the real world for my time, and if it can't to some degree mirror the rewarding things I can get from real life, it won't get played.

I fully appreciate that my priorities are not everyone's (it would be a rather boring world if they were) and for many the item/game skills/'level' aspects are hugely important, and imbalance of those can destroy the fun for people, be it through broken pvp or pvm, or simply the feeling that others have 'achieved' things unfairly compared to themselves, and so needs very careful designing - where most (in my experience all, but I have not tried every one...) mmos fail to keep people is in that really hard balancing of some styles or elements of play at the expense of others. There will always be some tradeoff, and people will be passionate about their styles of play, but in the end every game is a balance of everyone's priorities, which is why so many of us have played and moved on from many mmos, and keep looking for 'the one' that meets our needs. For me, UO got very close, but even then, over time, bad design decisions and a poor management/support approach drove me away, so far SotA is mostly avoiding those issues, but has others of it's own to cope with.

In short - there isn't one way to win, that's why mmos design is hard and especially hard if you are trying to offer a 'sandbox'. I've not seen anyone succeed at it yet. I've seen games where people could 'win' by their personal criteria - and usually what happens then is they leave to find something else, because that one's not challenging any more. Being able to buy the things that 'win' shortens the time people take to reach their goals. It's the 'intangible' stuff that keeps people a long time.

 

No. I consider examples of pay to win where you have the ability to buy power.

Here's the difference.

Game #1: Pay $100 to get this special +20 Axe of Vanquishing! It's the most powerful weapon in the game! You'll also get 65,000 XP and a bucket of chicken that will allow you to defeat all poultry related mobs!

That's pay 2 win.

Game #2: For $1000 you get a cloak, a house, an an aardvark. These are unique but offer you no help in leveling or fighting.

That's not pay 2 win.

I think what you're asking is, if SOTA (or another game) were to offer XP or faster XP rate (which takes time) for money, would I consider that P2W? Yes, and I'm not a fan of the "leveling services" that some people offer here. However, that's being offered by players and not Portalarium. And please, before anyone says that Portalarium should stop it, let's remember that they can't they can only show the illusion of stopping it.