Is it me, or is it pay to win

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Bornhald, Jun 26, 2014.

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  1. Akrondar

    Akrondar Avatar

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    Not true. When you pledge or buy, another plot is created for you. This happens because the game is not even created. You are not "selling" a limited stock of a product. So, your capacity to achieve whatever you like in game is not even touched.

    Oh, there i no MMORPG where you start in the same condition of the players that are already playing. If you start lvl 1, there will be always a lvl 2 that began 3 minutes ago :p.
     
  2. Lordy

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    This thread is as absurd as funny.

    Rules have been 100% clear from the very beginning. It's soooo funny how late comers now moan and try to change things in their favour: at first with the Royal founder thing and benefits those of us pledgeing day 1 had, compared to those arrived like 1 year laters....and now those about premium spots and pay per win.

    Really i'm amused :)
    Keep it up, that said things will simply stay as originally planned....sorry folks
     
  3. Hayate

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    Just the way the world goes round. Everyone sooner or later wants what someone else has. If someone is not satisfied with the product direction, I direct you to the player marketplace, you will get fair value or even market value on you account. It's much better than complaining about something that was known since the launch of kick starter.
     
  4. Bornhald

    Bornhald Avatar

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    Than why does the faq explicitly say plots are limited

    https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/?page_id=19#faq_52
     
  5. Sir Frank

    Sir Frank Master of the Mint

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  6. Trenyc

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    Lots will be limited once the limit is set. That limit, however, will be based on the number of lots sold pre-release. The initial numbers they were tossing around were an additional 30-50%, but that was some time ago, before the releases of Row lots, secondary houses at certain pledge tiers, and player-owned towns.
    We don't actually know that. With the release of the player towns, they might reduce the number of NPC village lots. That would be kind of nice, actually. Owl's Head and Kingsport both look a bit odd packed full of player houses.
     
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  7. Sir Frank

    Sir Frank Master of the Mint

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    You're correct. We don't really know what the limit is, other than it is supposed to be substantially more than they sell.
     
  8. Akrondar

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  9. Bornhald

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    Personally I think it is bad advertising. It is important formation to know if you don't follow the forums, especially for someone completely new to the concept
     
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  10. Drocis the Devious

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    I think with the introduction of player towns, the new question to ask is "how many lots will be available in NPC towns?" As NPC towns may, at least during the early days after launch, be more stable and feel more "alive".

    So now the prime real-estate becomes water front property in the largest and safest NPC town.
     
  11. Trenyc

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    That is true. There have been lots of misunderstanding of pledge rewards and such due to inadequate advertisement or unclear language. I would love to see them step up their game on this front.
     
  12. Trenyc

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    Personally I'm curious if there will be any mechanics that might influence a player's decision to live in an NPC town or a player town. It actually seems to me it would be without question advantageous to live in a player city if given a choice due to the fact that someone can actually manage who lives there, but of course to do that you have to get the permission of the town owner.
     
  13. Drocis the Devious

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    If the player town is run well and you have great leadership, it stands to reason your experience will be FAR better than anything an NPC town can deliver.

    However, is that likely to occur? I would say that it's not. I've asked a lot of the current player run towns how they plan to govern disputes and so far no one's given me an actual answer. In fact most of the leaders have seemed to be thinking "gee I never thought about that, let me get back to you". I've also wondered what's to stop a poor leader from just kicking people out of the town the moment they disagree with them on some silly topic? Currently, there's nothing to stop that from a design standpoint.

    Lastly, I'm concerned that player towns will appear "dead". Just try walking around a player town in R7 right now. Most of them are dead. This isn't a slam on the game, I'm totally in favor of having player towns. It's just a fact that people can't be online 24 hours a day "actually living in these towns." For example, Pax Lair, which is the defacto gold standard in player towns had an event last night at 4 AM! It looks like it was great fun for anyone that was actually there, but I can tell you that when I stopped by at 8 PM last night it was completely dead.

    See my point? Player towns are probably the future, and they're much more flexible and have more potential than NPC towns. But NPC towns offer a baseline in stability and activity that the game design currently doesn't help player towns match.
     
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  14. stile

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    I hear a lot on play to win, rarely comment on it.

    The first 3 years I played UO i never had a house. At some point I fell into rares and retail dealing, found I enjoyed it a lot and was good at it. Owned many houses and made millions every week.

    At some point or another I remember a friend wanted a tour. For the most part i kept my wealth in game to myself. Oh there was a circle of rich people I had gotten to know from doing business with them, but most of the people I enjoyed the game with didnt apply to that.

    So im showing him around and hes seeing some uniques I owned.. Not rares mind you, but uniques. When explaining them he asks what I paid. I dont remember the answer to that except it would have been in the tens of millions and up.

    What i do remember is he was having a hard time digesting it and believing it was possible. So i gated us to the bank and did a bank balance.

    His response was that in 5 years of playing hed never seen more then 30k at one time. Having spent many years much the same I could relate. I never dealt in real money just in game only, although looking back at the housing I GAVE away i probably could've made a very nice secondary income to go with my barely over minimum wage job :)

    Point is.. I enjoyed housing, rares, and dealing a LOT, as one aspect of the game.

    i also enjoyed a dozen other aspects of the game where none if that mattered in the least, with people that didnt have that stuff and i spent years enjoying the game without that stuff.

    Sure i want and enjoy that stuff!! But play to win? Its a game.. If your having fun, you win. So its only play to win if you require it to have fun. My ten cents.
     
  15. Lord Tachys al`Fahn

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    I was wondering when someone was going to catch on to that... (enough to comment, that is *grins*)
     
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  16. Bornhald

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    you might not be able to do that from day 1, but you will have your chance to get all the 10k worth of ships he has. Exactly the same ships (save perhaps LTI) but he does have a major starting advantage. But he has nothing unique (well LTI again but that is why CIG was so against it and it not coming back ever ever again)

    The running cost of those ships will also be huge compared to your single aurora. So he needs to have more money to actually fly those ships. There is a cost involved. Landing rights, taxes on goods etc. Also for speedy delivery you might be faster with your LN than he is with his massive Idris so you can actually make the delivery with your Aurora brethren long before he can even enter the system with his Irdis loaded with goods. you will get the premium pricing with your Aurora delivery. So it is not unlikely that having an Aurora might be an advantage is some cases.

    Also insurance is going to almost be able to instantaneously deliver you your aurora where he has to wait for a significantly longer period of time to get his destroyed Idris back.

    As for the pvp advantage, he will have more ships, but if his skills are bad a lot of his advantage is lost. And i dont think a slow turning massive turret on the Idris is going to hit you if you stay out of its way, it is intended to track larger targets. Also your Aurora is much faster and more agile.

    I dont get your point about the hangars though, as they dont have any significant advantage. if everyone wants a hangar on planet X everyone can there are no special places or front seats.

    However with bigger ships he does have to pay more to land on any other spot than where his hangar is situated. But it is not like you can not be based at exactly the same planet as he is with your hangar.

    So in fact he does have a point there concerning SC.

    Although starting out with a bigger ship and the money to fly it is an advantage so can be seen as "pay to win" so i can agree with that. But it still is possible for everyone to get exactly the same he has on the same planet(s).
     
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  17. Noctiflora

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    Here I am!! *waves*
    Wow. At what point did you think that making a pledge, of any size, would give you everything that the people who pledged $10,000 of their own hard-earned money pledged? Or even everything the guy one tier above yours gets?

    Where is there a place you can pledge now, or could pledge during kickstarter, where you were unaware that those at higher tiers were getting something you would not? It's all spelled out very clearly and it boggles my mind that anyone could have possibly missed it.

    And really, it's completely irrelevant whether anything gives an advantage or not. I still say they don't, but whatever, a few are determined to believe they do so there's no point arguing about it.

    Bottom line is, if you don't like the crowd sourcing model, as you say, then you shouldn't have pledged. Having done so anyway (if you did) without paying attention to what you were pledging to, then that's your fault and no one else's, and you still have the option to sell your pledge and get your money back.

    btw Ara....since you mentioned "opinions" on mmorpg.com in this thread. Are you that guy Aragon100 over there who is constantly bashing the game and RG and the devs? Just wondering due to similarity of name, and you talk like him.
     
  18. Joviex

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    you are welcome.

    you hadn't looked at it from the perspective of your own interrogative?

    This is an old topic, I suggest you merely search for it if you want the thoughts from people, like me, who have been active in the forums over such matters, since day one.

    cheers.
     
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  19. Trenyc

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    You probably don't want to go down that road. That's actually the very idea that offends people who are opposed to P2W--that people who are able to scrape together $10,000 of their own money, whether easily or not, will receive a significant in-game advantage. This is worrisome because lots of players who are economically disadvantaged in real life appreciate the reasonably level playing fields that video games offer. I should know. As a teenager and college student I became extremely wealthy in UO, WoW, SWTOR, DAoC, and Vanguard, but there is absolutely no way I could have put in $2,200--let alone $10,000--back then to start any of those games with tools that offered a competitive advantage in the market. Whether those tools would have made or broken my success in those games can only be a product of speculation, but one thing is certain: I might not have even tried if I felt I didn't have a chance. And since one of the things I love about multiplayer games is navigating the economic systems within those games, if I hadn't believed I had a chance, I likely wouldn't have played at all.
     
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  20. draykor darkale

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    Basically communism in gaming.

    Yet SC that you bang on about has just that. Contradictory.

    Yet its no different than nearly every MMO and/or kickstarter going, fallacious.

    Yet this happens with every MMO (supported by devs or unsuported) and the majority of multiplayer games.

    No, that wasn't how it was, in UO the best plots were taken day one, people also took multiple plots day one, they used this to make vast sums of money either by selling for over inflated prices or by general trade to get an advantage over people who weren't able to place lots at the start, an over inflated housing economy meant late joiners like me we're totally priced out for years, or johnny come lately could go on UOauction and pay real money for it. You don't know your MMOs, you don't know your history and you absolutely have no clue about present day and future MMO's because this is how they are funded and this will stay that way.

    Welcome to capitalism.
     
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