Is it me, or is it pay to win

Bornheld
Truth is indeed stranger than fiction. In your ideal egalitarian world, some of us would willingly support the development of SoTA with no expectation that we would have any advantage over someone coming in after the game is fully up and running and competing on a level playing field for resources.
Truth is, nothing in reality works that way. I can't speak for others, but as a long time UO player, I bought in for a modest amount to see what this was all about. I liked what I saw and decided to (selfishly???) upgrade my pledge level to assure myself of a lot, house style, additional avatars, and vendors so I can play the game as I wish.
This is a decision that every potential player is free to make. Wait until things are complete and safe to participate, or take some risk and get a leg up on the late arrivals.
It won't guarantee me any advantages in the future as the game matures and new features and options are unveiled, but damn right I'm going to enjoy the rewards of rolling the dice and backing development of a game that may possibly never get beyond the latest pre-alpha release.
Just one man's view

 

Speaking of UO, I liked the free-form design of UO combat so much more than any MMO made ever since. I wish SotA combat was more like it (e.g. timers independent of each other for different skill uses, depending on individual character stats and gear). I know this probably won't happen, but a guy can dream right?

 

It seems that the days of MMO gaming have been on the decline for years, once the Developers decided to join in selling in game items for real $, the gameplay was going be the casualty to secure casual players willing to spend $ for a few months.
SotA as now gone that far down the road of selling/gifting everything. That most player's would give as their main reason to play.
It seems even the old UO players have thrown in their virtues for the sake of paying real $ to be have lots of gifted digital rares.
If Richard Garriott buys virtual gold the days of roleplaying MMO's are done & all we will be getting are casual trash for the masses.
And we have the virtual gold & fluff buyers to Blame/thank depends on your idea of gaming.

RG's interview on buying virtual gold:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/art.../issues/issue_42/252-Scratching-the-Surface.4

read it & weep.

 

that is a super old article. Portalarium has already gone on record saying they would not sell gold.

 

I read your post and I did nearly weep.

I really don't see your point...........there will always be an $ market for items in games that allow trade between players. In fact I would say that if people are prepared to pay large sums of money for particular items is a very strong indicator on how successful a game is/likely to be. I'm not quite convinced by your comment on MMOs being in decline either.

 

An eight year old article from what has to be the height of the gold buying debate... I'd say it was relevant if it weren't the digital equivalent of saying the Spanish inquisition is directly responsible for the cost of a large order of fries at McDonald's

 

I was making the point that because games had introduced selling gold/ items to make playing easier was available, even RG was lured into taking the easy route. Most use the usual excuse "I don't have time to play".
Time doesn't matter the game does not have an ending.

Post me the link to were they have said they will not be selling gold, last I saw it was still in debate.

 

No their as not always been a $ market selling from an in game shop. Their as always been a $ black market for the must have's.

What's the point of a role playing sandbox MMO, and as you stated earlier has no ending, if you can have everything on day 1.
All you have left is a skill grinding game.

 

You have said it yourself by referring to black markets.......black markets only exist as there are no legitimate mechanisms to transact the goods. Either way you look at it there is demand for the purchase of items with $ whether there is an ingame shop or not (always has been). Your living in fairy land if you think people only purchased rare items through a black market...... I know for a fact that people will buy anything including bulk resources etc.

The real point behind this is that you play the game for you. If you choose to take shortcuts to buy items then it's your choice.

 

Sounds like a lot of player's on here should take up a sporting or financial career, shortcuts now seem to be the norm to participate there too.
UO never had an in game shop, just players willing to break the rule's in UO's fair play policy of selling/ buying in game items.

 

An empire founded on lies and filth... of which I'm the sad residuary legatee.

I'm going on record once again in saying I was a seer in UO and I was offered a very hefty sum WHICH I REFUSED (and not only that I purposefully let my server birth and seer rares decay along with my house and characters, with a letter to EA as a protest to their new "privacy-full" disclaimer that protected hackers, EA was aware of the value of my items (over 10K real cash))... the compensation I was offered was to "pay" for my "programming skills" which I had not even offered volunrarly to those IN-HOUSE abusers. Oh they were glad cause I gave them a bug (actually a very sophisticated script that fooled the server) thinking they would fix it, but they instead used it to rampage and ruin the UO economy completely. They even distributed it at large and it ruined so many games...

That was a gold selling ring started by the games own GMs and it lasts to this day, instead of selling duped items now however, they sell legit items by paying kids in china to farm it for them. all financed by UO gold... I was merely 14 years old and I knew how wrong it was, enough to refuse 50K (and joining the ring to make money forever doing nothing)... I don't know if you guys know how much that was worth in 1999, but it would have brought me a VERY comfortable life because I know how to invest.

Yes I ended up pretty much alone, with even my childhood friends leaving me because I was having visions and could only speak of this great evil. They joined WoW in short order and started their own item-selling scheme... I spent pretty much 7 years as a hermit, caught flesh eating bacteria in my jaw out of the blue, took so much medicine I ended up with cancer.

There isn't a darker story in the book of UO and MMO...

 

Thank you all for your feedback in this epic thread!