This is why Gold Farmers HATE Obsidian Crowns

Check out the 6 minute mark of this video.


If the developers of a game start selling gold themselves, they can control the price. Because gold farmers and brokers rely on wild swings in the economy to create profitable margins, this makes a game with a secondary currency like Obsidian Crowns a very risky proposition.

It is my belief that some of the people yelling about Obsidian Crowns the loudest are the gold farmers and the gold brokers that are worried that there will be almost zero profit in farming SOTA gold.

Please, someone explain to me how gold farmers and gold merchants will be able to profitably farm and sell gold in this game. I don't see it.

 

I never had issues with the gold sellers in the past games since I did due diligence before making any trades.

The farmers on the other hand is different, their goal is to make in-game money as much as they could with the least amount of time. So the overall experience when encountering them were always bad. The worse one was Lineage2, where I got to the point I couldn't enjoy the game because all the zones I could.play were plagued by the farmers. They didn't type English and they're rude as hell.

 

I'm more interested in the impact to the economy. I don't think this will be a profitable game for gold sellers.

• Our population is low at the moment, so there's very little demand.
• Portalarium controls the price of gold so the supply can be managed to hurt gold farmers.
• Obsidian Crowns are sold directly to the player so a gold farmer would have to sell that same thing for less money than it could be purchased through the store. Right now that means a gold farmer would need to 1. Pay whatever their operating costs are. 2. Sell Obsidian Crowns for less than .85 cents a crown. So very low margins there.
• But wait, they can still farm gold or get gold from hacked accounts which cost them next to nothing. Yes, but players can sell their Obsidian Crowns and other pledge/add-on store items for gold in-game. So again the path to get gold doesn't go through gold farmers because everything is transferable between players.
• The most viable profit making enterprise in SOTA is item resale. But those people want cash, not in-game gold. In-game gold is only valuable in-game, and before you're going to pay a gold farmer money, you'd be far more likely to just convert your cash to store credit, buy something you know players will give you gold for and sell it to them. No middle man.

So again, please someone educate me on how gold farmers are going to come anywhere near this game.

 

I really have no idea what gold farmers' opinions are of obsidian crowns, but please don't try to delegitimize other peoples' opinions on the subject by painting them as villains with ulterior motives. There are valid reasons for people to be concerned about this change and I highly doubt that any significant percentage of people voicing their opinions on the subject are doing so because they are secretly gold farmers trying to manipulate the game in their favor.

 

That is a really interesting video BDF. Thanks.

@Womby , be careful, they are on to you.
12:15 mark.

Edit: note that I make a post two down that I think is far more important than this lighthearted post.

 

100% agree. Obsidian Crowns is the real thing that will keep the game subscription free forever. And it's rare for a secondary currency to able to be found in-game by players, rewarding them for playing. It's a win-win for players and developers. I'm sure gold sellers will try to sell them, but of the many MMOs I've played with secondary currency, 99% of the sales to the developer would be my guess, as opposed to illegal gold sellers. I saw that video before and it still applies today.

 

If anyone is skimming through the video, then I find this part really important : mark 31:20.
In short, game accounts are hacked mostly by hacking the databases of fan and community sites and forums.
Email addresses and passwords are often the same or similar.

I'm off to change my password, just in case.

 

~Welcome to the Time Lord's Future Internet Gold Farm and After School Baby Sitting Palace?~

I think we can do without this and that's just one of the many reasons why I love the Add-On Store and what Portalarium's been doing with it...
~Time Lord~

 

~The Very Ugly Reality~
I had 5 gaming nut college kids that wanted to know how much I'd pay them to then farm my account, leveling up my characters, and more than likely then farm it out to their younger siblings...
Not that I would ever do it... but I just met these guys in a bar and they started babbling about working up my character's skills because that's what they do in their games which they all play together.
Yet one of these guys owned an internet café... and did make money by paying younger players extremely small amounts of actual cash to gain things in game that he then would sell on the open market.
A person can meet allot of strange people in bars that have entirely different moral values than your own... I didn't think it was such wide spread until that moment !'

Richard Garriott has spoken out on this issue himself ... my guess is from his trips around the world and have witnessed the same first hand
He's quite against such practices "for that exact same reason, among others"...

It's one very ugly reality, and a reality I could never ignore...
~Time Lord~

 

As you stated, we don't really need COTO to deter gold sellers to come and spoil that game !

So why do we bother with COTO and add them to this game as it is a mandatory feature to play the game in competitive conditions ?

 

~COTA Take Gold Farming Almost Totally Out of the Picture~
There's no possible way to ever undercut our Poralarium's pricings for in game gold with COTA being sold...

~PvP~
Our PvP battles last "seconds and a few will last a full minute long"... If any player wants to give themselves a boost by some Add-On Store purchased COTA to have that seconds long battle won, "go ahead and knock yourselves out I say!" !'

I think some of our more outspoken player's against COTA's are looking for a way to farm the game... while others still believe that there's some online moral fiber to be adhered to, "despite the fluid availability of outside markets having such wide spread ability to gold farm any game".

I do know that somewhere and at some time this guy has said to himself that he should have never given this interview LoL

"Any Game... They can and do, Do it"
But now not so much our SOTA...
~Time Lord~

 

I think you raise a very valid concern about account hacking. This game absolutely needs two factor authentication. People post their account information openly in the forums - we would all benefit from open dialog about safe practices and account security.

 

I do. Gold sellers should be eradicated from a game ASAP and gold buyers should be perma-banned first offense. No exceptions.

Also, if someone claims to be a gold seller and you know what country they are from, screenshot what they've said and turn them in. Forget about it and let authorities take it from there. They will contact the game developer if they think it's worth pursuing. It's not illegal, but in many countries profits from RMT can be taxed. Make their lives miserable.

 

Nice Gestapo spirit !

 

well i get that you think that this we deter gold sellers but it wont. we will buy lots and houses to sell for cash, lots of materials or full masterwork weapon and armor sets or even just crowns.

the only thing that will stop gold selling is if there is a very small ingame population and i dont think anyone wants that.

no matter what you do you cant win against people who think its fun to make a couple of dollars playing a video game. , even less so against the ones that make a living doing it.

as an example check out tree of savior. they introduced some of the most convoluted trading rules and restrictions ive ever seen in a game to stop it but... its still done.

you need to worry about bots hacks and exploits rather than people like me that play the game the same way you do.

i will never understand this hate for gold item sellers... as long as we are following the rules of the tos not using bots hacks or exploits why do you care?

 

You ruin the enjoyment of a game for the majority of the population, that's why.

Hey, it works. I do it all the time and I know for a fact that once it resulted in a tax bill for someone. Due to that, I'll keep doing it. Let the game developers worry about the buyers.

 

I've already had a painful discussion with someone who claimed to be a gold broker on these forums that said gold farmers/brokers would love Obsidian Crowns, without giving any explanation as to why. It was a very frustrating conversation because it felt like there was a hidden agenda to every comment that person was making.

If individuals don't like Obsidian Crowns they have every right to voice why on these forums as a form of feedback. However if they use the reason "because gold farmers will love it and it will ruin the economy" then they better back that up with examples. I've provided a very creditable video as evidence that the logic doesn't back up the false narrative of that person, so please don't attempt to delegitimize other peoples opinions on the subject by painting them as villains with ulterior motives of delegitimizing other peoples' opinions.

It's my opinion that there's very little if ANY support that Obsidian Crowns are bad for the economy or that gold farmers will somehow benefit from their existence.

 

how do i ruin anyones enjoyment of a game? i have no more impact on your gameplay than the cash shop.

 

So you enjoy ruining one player/gold seller IRL life because you disagree with him selling gold and you "do it all the time" ?

Don't know if such a practise is common in the USA... I guess this is one of the many "cultural differences" I can't catch...

EDIT: You could also denonciate players making profit by selling their pledge, as any kind of profit have to be declared on some countries !! Help yourself, you have tons of exemple on the Player marketplace.

 

crowns have a set real world value. they can be resold third party at 50% or lower.

archeage rift devilian have items they sell in the cash shop like crowns that unlock premium features. these tokens apex as in archeage were 10usd each so buy ingame resell for 5-8 usd. its much easier than trying to put a price on gold materials or items.