A personal struggle with the ethics of gold selling and crowns

SotA is a reskinning of Zynga Ultimate Collector

"Ultimate Collector is really three games in one," says Garriott, Portalarium's co-founder and creative director. "It's a collecting game where players go on a major hunt for collectibles ranging from toys, gadgets, historical weapons, novelties and famous art and display those collections in their homes. It's a shopping game where players can visit shops and stores in our game, some of them from national retailers, to purchase items and add to their collections. And it's a world building game that allows players to outfit a home, show off their collections to their friends, sell virtual items to other collectors and make in-game money to upgrade their house and grow it even larger."

That was from gamesindustry.biz

Sound familiar? RMT is undoubtedly at the heart of this game. UC failed in 2012 a year before our kickstarter.

 

I am very grateful that everyone has remained respectful in this thread. It is valuable reading the many opinions.

I had wanted to share before but the threads all seemed to get locked or removed before I could.

Thanks!

 

Chris said* if you level from 0-98 with the 25% bonus, you get enough experience to get levels 99 and 100 for FREE!!!

That is a LARGE advantage in my book.

* I think during the last port mortem or telethon Chris said that. Feel free to look it up.

 

Hmmm... not sure how your book is calculating it however the difference in damage performed by a skill at 98 as compared to 100 is so minimal as to be essentially negligible. Are you referring to the amount of time saved that one doesn't have to grind out those last two levels?

 

Yes.

 

Well... that's a good question. Having paid for it, I'm not convinced that it would actually be worth paying for again! Basically the value proposition is to pay $45-55 for 100K gold, or to hang out in a control point for 3-4 hours and loot chests. Sure... I could keep pumping in fifties and "get ahead" by 3-4 hours but in all reality how many fifties can I justify pumping in?

Truth is, I'm still sitting on most of that gold because I haven't really been able to find much to buy for it. I did purchase a couple of pieces of +8-9 new cloth armor, and when I reached out to the Artisan to commission a full set, and to ask if they were interested in selling items in my consignment shop, they graciously offered the remaining pieces to me free of charge. Incidentally, the new and improved armor has not made that huge of a noticeable difference that I would deem a significant advantage in terms of PvE or PvP as far as I can tell.

I don't need to buy many resources, because having chosen not to do Blacksmithy or Carpentry, I give all the ores and wood I gather to my friends and neighbors. They in turn, share the Cooking resources they find with me. I did buy a whole bunch of dyes from various vendors, but I don't see how that would really give me a gameplay advantage. What I'm probably going to end up doing is buying more COTOs and using them for rewards in some quests I am working on. But honestly, I'm having a hard time thinking of anything I can actually buy with gold that gives me a huge advantage over anybody else. (Anybody have any ideas? )

There are a few certain things that have been sped up- for example I don't feel like I need to ration my potions and scrolls any more. But I can't say even that has translated into much advancement. It seems to me that most of the players I know are still advancing faster than me.

But more to your point of why not play the game "as is"... well to me RMT is part and parcel of "what is" about the game. I didn't make the game that way- Portalarium did. It kind of seems to me that the argument that the game "shouldn't be" like this and railing against it is- in its own way- a refusal to play the game "as is."

It's an interesting scenario... maybe @Silis would be willing to run some numbers. However- there are other elements to consider. Even if we imagine RMT is out of the picture, spending months out in the mines (also I'm not sure how many actual hours you would be mining in those months) isn't the only way for you to come up with those ores. Another option would be to join a guild, and spend about 3-4 hours looting treasure chests in a control point while your guildies effortlessly held the point (gaining xp in the process) which basically creates zero risk to you for the "reward" of about 100K gold in that 3-4 hours. Then with that 100K you earned in 3-4 hours, you could turn around and purchase those ores from somebody else who spent "months" in the mines, and the price wouldn't even matter that much to you.

So what it comes down to is that a person who is spending so much time down in the mines... is simply doing that because that's an aspect of the game that they enjoy. If not- why would you do it at all?

At the end of the day, somebody still has to go down into the mines and harvest resources. The time spent is the time spent. If it really takes that long (months) to collect 100K worth of ores, then the value proposition of that effort becomes absurd. The person on the other end is making something like $1-2 an hour. If there are a few people in SotA doing that because it is genuinely their best gig, I say more power to 'em!

As for resource gluts, yes I think that is a valid point to consider however I'd still say that the biggest problem is that there isn't enough demand for finished products. To that end, having extra gold in my pocket helps the casual player because:

1. I am more likely to happen upon their shop since I am not out grinding so I can make potions and scrolls to keep grinding to make potions and scrolls... (MMORPG cycle of poverty)

2. Once I happen upon an item I want, I will be more likely to purchase it because I am feeling more free with my gold and am less likely to spend time shopping around for a better price.

I could be wrong, but if I understand correctly it is the aim of Portalarium to allow for certain kinds of advantages to be "purchaseable" while leaving other kinds of advantages untainted by RMT. As far as I can tell, they are being mindful of this. But certainly it is an important topic to discuss, and for players to keep an eye on in terms of holding them to their word.

 

Couldn't agree more. Solid post.

 

This makes me sad

 

It does not make me sad. Just eyes wide open. I still hope they think that a solid game will make the Ultimate Collector aspects of the game work vs. collecting rares for rares sake with no good quests, content, NPCs. I do still feel like our devs genuinely work their asses off every release and I play daily when I'm home because of it. I understand and expect that they are looking to run a business at the same time. Must be a hard balance to strike.

 

Lot's of good points. We'll have to agree to disagree on the fundamental issue. I don't think there's much left to say without rehashing the same old points. I just wanted to clarify a few things:

Yes, my week in the mines is probably a day or less for a power gamer. Casual play makes me take a 'slow but steady' approach.

I have no problem rewarding team effort or playing 'smarter' to maximize return on time spent in game. I just don't see that as equivalent to RMT.

Because I disagree with RMT and want to advance certain crafting skills in the game. I get that I could alternatively grind the gold.

I wonder, though, how many resources are harvested with the specific intent of selling them for real dollars. The problem is that those resources don't make it on to the in game vendors, thereby not causing a supply induced reduction of game gold price (and also results in a potential glut of crafted goods). I guess the point is, if the real money incentive was removed, would we have less overall resources produced or would we have more resource sellers competing to drive down the in game gold price for resources? Just one example of how the acceptance of it potentially affects the in game economy.

I certainly have no legitimate means to suggest you are wrong on this point. It's hard to wrap my head around RMT as a 'gameplay mechanic'. I wouldn't say we are 'railing against it' so much as we were surprised by it (as it was not suggested by the kickstarter and it went through 'tolerated' then 'formally accepted' phases) and want to continue to debate it's merits and form of implementation. But like I said, I've mostly discussed my issues with it....NEXT!

 

Portarlium is making the game, so I've given money to Portarlium for everything but COTO's. I don't plan to ever do that. If COTO's ever become necessary to play the game and you have to buy them, then 'bye. I'll never give money to another player because they've done nothing to earn it.

 

I've no issue with people having fun. My issue is that the entire gaming scene is changing to adopt this trend. It's not as if we had some new genre that we could simply ignore if we so choose to. This is changing all of online gaming.

Well, not really. In the past, you bought a game and that was it. There were no microtransactions. That was something that came along when developers realised they could sucker people into believing their game was "free". SOTA took that even further...

That person didn't "lose" the gold though. The problem is what is done with it.

Example:

I spend 10 hours to gain 100 gold via in-game means. I buy a consumable worth 100 gold and use it to defeat player X. To repeat that action, I'll need to spend another 10 hours to gain that 100 gold.

Player Y comes along and uses real life money to purchase the same consumable, every hour for 10 hours. He now has an increasing advantage over me regardless of my effort. The only way to compete, is to counter his metagame influence.

What? People win... by winning? I'm not really sure what point you're trying to convey? My point is that metagame influence upsets the balance of a game by introducing pay to win scenarios... So people have a right to use real world currency, ontop of already existing costs, even if it tips the balance of competitive aspects of the game, because they are having fun? That doesn't really justify it at all...

 

I can answer this, as someone who has paid for gold: I didn't pay for gold to "have an advantage" over anyone; I paid for gold so that I can do things in the game which I enjoy.

 

Why are you changing what I said?

Not everyone has to be constantly "winning the game" to have fun. It's the journey, not the destination. In fact, if there are no impediments to winning, I'd say the game wouldn't be fun to anyone. PvE players who don't have fun at PvP, eliminate this part of the game for themselves. I bought gold to eliminate another part of the game because it wasn't fun.

 

This is usually one reason for this:

Just saying.

And while we are at it I never met a person with this syndrome.
I never saw somebody in game or in this forum saying something along those lines.

 

I have certainly seen people in this forum treating people with lower pledges like second class citizens. More than once.

 

As far as "nyah have more money"...I was going to reply to this to say "I'm disabled, I'm on social security, and do not have a lot of money to spend on a video game". But of course, being disabled means I probably have far more time on my hands than some other people. So I have more time to play. Ah well, it is what it is.

 

I didn't.
Idiocy isn't connected to pledge level. That's what I learned from this forum if there was anything to learn in that direction.

 

I've often wish we could see the average donation of posters in a given thread, if only to help determine the proper salt serving before reading them.

 

I'm trying to understand what you said...

I made a comment against microtransactions and how they often lead to "pay to win" scenarios. Your rebuke was that "people win by having fun"?...