A personal struggle with the ethics of gold selling and crowns

For the last 20 years of MMO's there has never been anything that irked me more than gold sellers. I think that is because I was there to have fun and they were there to devalue my fun. I would spend tireless tedious hours to accomplish something and they would sell the result for cash. And then I would experience other gamers accusing me of buying those things. This concept of gold selling has only hurt me over and over again.

More Money Than Time:
There are those that say that gold selling is OK because there are people with more money than time. I am an extremely busy person and sometimes I have to go months without playing. Yet, somehow, when I can play, I accomplish something. It seems reasonable to me that people that play should want something more than bragging rights out of game, especially when effortless bragging rights pisses on everyone that actually earned it.

More Time Than Money:
Lets be serious.... If someone is making gold just to sell, there is a 99% chance they are in a place where jobs are difficult to come by. More importantly, working at something is by definition not a game. The entire motivation is screwed up. This is very illogical, said the Spock . In truth, 9 of 10 people doing this are in a third world country.

COTAs for the Poor:
I want to be very careful with what I say here. This is largely unpredictable territory. I respect the opinion that COTAs will cap the profitability of gold selling. However, my opinion is leaning towards this being an encouragement of cheating over controlling it. Only time will tell and I do believe we need to give it time.

The Policy to Allow Gold Selling:
This by far came the closest to making me quit than all other things combined. Just look at the text above to see why. Still pissed about this to be honest.

Stopping Gold Selling Is Impossible:
Many have said that they cannot afford to stop gold selling and even if they could afford it, they would never win. There is evidence since the billions that WoW makes has not succeeded in stopping gold selling either. However, my point of view is that conceded defeat is is not the way! The courts will literally kill you for murder, but people still commit murder. Does that mean we should just toss our hands up and assume a position of murder acceptance?

The Insider's Perspective:
At SOTAcon, I took RG aside and said I wanted an honest response to this question of COTAs, gold selling and etc. Further, I said I would keep his response private, but he told me that is it private is not needed. To my surprise, when I asked about the change in policy to allow gold selling, he answered with that he did not know it was a change and that he felt that allowing gold selling was always the path. Further, he said P2W before I could. Than he spoke of how COTA's give them control over something (gold selling) that they cannot stop anyway.

My Current Stance:
It's not my game, but I do enjoy playing it. I am not happy about gold sellers and I will never be. However, I really do respect RG, Starr, Chris, ... and I am 99.99% certain that they believe what they are doing is in our best interest, and in the interest of being successful as a game company. I am putting my faith in them. It won't change my attitude towards gold sellers, but hopefully, it will pave the way for years of gaming fun.


Don't get me started on experience selling...lol

 

What are your thoughts on Experience selling?

But i think i agree with you pretty much 100%.

 

Couldn't agree more, Tahru.

However, my stance is more laissez-faire. Since I firmly believe the quest IS the journey, taking shortcuts (of any nature) only detracts from my own experience. I don't buy gold/XP, because that would actually shorten my enjoyment of the game. Others would do? More power to them. They will simply burn out earlier than me. I consider myself lucky.

 

I also agree. I even started a huge thread about this issue almost 3 years ago. Of course, after the community made a huge stink, the devs then said they listened to us and would NOT sell gold. Of course RG had no idea

Like many other aspects of this game, I gave up on this subject a while back. I just stuck it in the bookshelf of broken promises.

 

Why let it bother you? Life is too short to have it bogged down by these concerns. I do not personally care if everyone is buying gold. It doesn't affect my level of enjoyment or game play. Those that would accuse anyone of buying what can be earned are too short sighted to be addressed.
Everyone has a way of playing that makes them happy. As long as you can find a way that makes you happy put the blinders on and continue to enjoy that way.

 

COTO hasn't even had a chance to realize it's full potential in game yet. With PVP comes COTO gambling and that'll be available even in guild vrs guild warfare. Online gambling realized in the form of real world currency - but made ok because reasons it's not real money... but it is if you do the leg work. I have a suspicion that the entire add-on store will transfer ingame at some point and be available for COTO... If RMT gold sales persist, it'll be a dance to see which currency trades produce more money for Port on the back end... they're hands-off approach probably isn't truly hands off - I'd say it's more like hedging bets on which currency supports where they're taking IGG and COTO in game - I mean they control the drop rates on both and have said as much about controlling COTO drops based on gold/COTO commodities trading.

 

Where on earth would you get that idea? That will never, ever happen. At least, not while COTOs are available in any way whatsoever in-game as drops.

 

Because there are already add-on store items in game for COTO and more items are on the way - plus there are COTO exclusive items in game that can't even be procured in the add-on store. Take a look at the City bundles and look at what's not exclusive to the add-on store anymore... already there is a trend leaning towards putting "not rare" add-on items in game for COTO, and that's the majority of the add-on store.

 

It's okay to take advantage of a system that allows for gaining more XP for one style of play over another.
But it's not okay to take advantage of a system that allows someone to acquire lots of gold and sell it?

In both cases, someone is taking advantage of a system to benefit themselves.
If you don't like gold selling, don't partake in it.

 

I think its possible there is a disconnect here.

When Add-On Store COTOs were first introduced, they had a gold value. Therefore, you could actually buy gold in the Add-On Store. This was addressed with the devs and they agreed that shouldn't be the case; they want players to set the price of them, and having Add-On Store COTOs with a gold value essentially capped this. Therefore, they removed the value from these items; they can no longer be sold to NPCs for gold.

However, they have always said they will allow gold sales from player to player. Not only is there no getting around this, but it is essentially an extension of the system they put in place with COTOs; players can buy some item of value (COTO, Add-On Store item, pledge rewards, etc) for in-game gold, which is no more complicated that selling that gold for cash. The entire Marketplace forum is designed just for this purpose.

TL; DR - There are two meanings to "selling gold"; Portalarium selling gold is not happening, but player-to-player is completely fine.

 

I've purchased both gold and xp once, even though I tend to agree with the OP, and also with what @Katrina Bekers has to say on the issue.

Why did I do that? Well primarily because I wanted to challenge my own concept of what is "right" or "wrong" styles to play by doing something that didn't fit with my own ideology.

What I found out through the experiences was that doing this didn't ruin the game for me. I've actually been enjoying the game more since I'm no longer trying to play where I can't earn enough gold in order to buy the equipment and mats necessary to simply keep playing.

As for some kind of unfair advantage which many are worried about... I simply don't see that in my case. Firstly, most of the gear I wear is gifted to me anyway. Secondly, the 1mil xp I bought was enough to raise one skill to the 90s... hardly enough to make my character "godlike" in any stretch of the imagination.

If anything, purchasing gold and xp was a stupid move for me because I spent real money for these when I could have just joined a guild and hang out in control points collecting 1.2 mil xp and/or 30k gold per hour for free, and with almost zero risk.

In my opinion, the players with a whole bunch of time on their hands to play 20+ hours a week have the real advantage, and always will.

 

I've bought gold a couple of times. My enjoyment of the game is sometimes hampered by "being broke"; I have more fun grinding mobs and socializing than I do scrambling for every little gold piece I want to spend. Some people love the feeling of earning every cent they put into, for instance, decorating their houses. I understand that. But I paid real money for the house, so I don't see the sin in paying real money for some of the furniture I put in it...?

I don't participate in PvP yet, but even if I did, I really doubt that the relatively paltry sum I gained would help me out there. In other words, I still can't afford some of the best crafted gear, and even if I could, my competition is surely wearing better. And I usually use gold for things like house decorations, teleport/recall scrolls, etc. Not in uber gear.

I'm sorry you feel the way you do, but I think this is another instance of someone caring what their neighbor does, even if it really doesn't affect them.

 

How other people play this game shouldn't affect your own experience unless you let allow it to. If you don't think buying gold or commodities is makes for a good experience, don't do it. If other people do it, they're simply another part of the game as far as you're concerned unless you let that aspect get in your head.

 

There's more to friendly competition than just PVP though. For those of us that spend lots of time in the mines or chopping wood to level up our crafting skills so that when a new recipe drops we can be one of the first to craft it and put it on the market, it's a little disheartening when someone plunks down a bunch of real money and in 2 hours has the thing on their vendor I spent two months working on. I mean, I have plenty of real world bucks, I could do the same thing, but a large point of the game to me is playing to stay ahead of that curve so that I can be a 'first responder' to new content, particularly new content that involves the economy. I think it's a little dismissive to tell people, 'just mind your own business, it doesn't affect you' because, sure, sometimes it doesn't, but in some cases it does.

 

It shows that the devs have experience with this and thought it through : the COTO system is probably the best one yet in the industry to control the phenomenon while reducing to a minimum the inflation effect of in-game-gold economy. Hats off!

 

I understand, I really do. I promise never to buy anything from you or sell anything to you. (I'm joking with you of course)

 

Portalarium is selling gold. They sell gold crowns of the obsidians for real world dollars. They can regulate the GP value of COTOs in 2 ways. They can reduce the number of items that the COTO vendor at the bank sells; this shifts the demand curve to the left, this lowers demand for COTOs in the market and lowers the value of COTOs in Gold Piece currency. Increasing the number of items that the COTO vendor at the bank sells shifts the demand curve to the right; this increases demand for COTOs and increases the the value of COTOs for in game gold. For example, in our current market the new COTO vendor at the bank has a bunch of new items; this drives the Value of and Demand for and Price of COTOs up. This means that it will take more Gold Pieces to purchase 1 COTO in game. If it takes more GP to purchase 1 COTO, it means your Gold Piece currency value has been devalued. Consequently, this means that the grey market will provide more Gold Pieces for less U$ Dollars. Another way to look at it is all the cool **** to buy in game is on the COTO vendor making COTOs cooler to have than Gold Pieces. That being said, there is 2 more factors that can adjust the value of in game gold pieces: 1) adjusting the amount of Gold Pieces in PvE drops 2) adjusting the price and items available on Portalarium controled NPC vendors. Both of these factors can adjust what in game player vendors sell their crap for.

So what can we extrapolate from all of this:

1) Portalarium can control the Value of/Demand for COTOs vs Gold Pieces very easily by adjusting the items that are available to buy with COTOs and by adjusting the price of what is available to buy with COTOs.
2) Portalarium can inflate and deflate the value of in game Gold Pieces by controlling the Value of/Demand for COTOs, NPC vendor prices, & PvE drops.
3) Portalarium can control the price and quantity demanded ( 'quantity demanded' NOT 'demand') of in game Gold Pieces v.s. real world U$ Dollars by devaluing or revaluing in-game gold

The one thing they CANNOT control is the 'Demand' (not 'Quantity Demanded') for in-game-GP using real world U$ Dollars. So no matter how much you complain that your neighbor is using real world U$ Dollars to purchase in game gold there is nothing that can be done about it. This goes for every online game. You need to just rest with the knowledge that by using the tools available to them, they can keep the value of in game gold pieces pretty flat vs what you can buy with them. This control of prices allows you to purchase the items necessary to gain XP in the game at essentially the same rate as your neighbor (whether your neighbor can afford a Ferrari or not). The only perceivable difference to you will be your neighbor buys more stuff than you.

So, at least regarding Gold Pieces vs COTO vs U$ Dollars, the one constant that unifies everyone whether you are rich or not is kept on an even playing field: XP gain is the same no matter what you can buy.

This is the reason why buying in-game gold isn't as controversial as say a +25% XP increase for PVP (which is a temporary 'test').

 

Interestingly, when deciding which crafts to focus on, I strayed away from blacksmithy and carpentry because it seemed to me that I would never be able to compete with the players who spend several hours a day in the mines in single-player mode. To my perception, the rate at which I saw people pulling in wood and ores (based upon how quickly the vendors were filling up after persistence) I surmised that there is no way I could ever possibly catch up and be "competitive" in those areas.

Instead, I chose Cooking... which I do enjoy however is a case-in-point that all the gold in the game does little to help me craft any of the new recipes. They all require ingredients from high-level mobs, most of which I cannot solo and some of which I still don't even know where to find.

I get the sense as the build-out continues with crafting, we will continue to see this kind of trend. I think the devs are cognizant about building in mechanisms to the game that can't simply be overcome with a hoard of purchased gold.

 

Do I struggle with it? You bet! I HATE it!!! I absolutely HATE the way our hobby has evolved with all of this gold selling, microtransactions and fiscal materialisation of in-game items. I absolutely detest it and it bothers me that SOTA went that route beyond belief... I'd give anything just to go back to the days of buying a game, and if you want additional/ongoing content, you either buy expansion packs or pay a subscription. It was simple, the field of battle was truly even for all and the whales didn't exist yet.

Absolute disgrace the way it has evolved. It's the reason I sold off so much for this game. I tried to adapt and it felt horrible. So I've reduced my pledge to a base game.