This will break the game. And no, I'm not trolling.

All I can say here is god bless the shroud team and give them the strength to survive the forums. It seems like every thread these days is the crystal sword is too curvy, everyone should have a house, this game has let me down and it's pay to win. Pay to win what, we haven't even seen Pre-Alpha 2 yet! The inventory system is on trial number two, crafting is getting it's first look.. combat is down the line with pvp. I guess all I'm saying is the sky isn't falling yet because it's still being created. Lets try and observe the process without so much doom and gloom. Then as things are getting along and systems have settled we can see what's going to happen. Oh.. and if that crystal sword shows up in the cash shop we'll grab some pitch forks and /rabble rabble!

 

I just cant get why we cant follow a Dota 2, Team fortress, valve model here: hats.

In dota 2 i can buy diferent looks of an item or trade it with players. I Buy them to support the game AND because they look diferent.

How i think it could work in SOTA:
Sell cosmetic items for houses, that is easy and not game breaking. But!, the trick is to sell things that you can not get in game and must always have an alternative looking item ingame.
Sell alternative cosmetic looks to weapons, aka skins. I Loot/craft an ingame great item. I use it a lot and it defines my playstyle, why not add an alternative look?. The trick? I must earn the item ingame first, THEN a could use a skin. If i not have the item then i can not skin it with the alternative from portalarium.

Selling currency is a bad idea imo. There are alternatives.

 

What I see is twisting of words to fit an agenda.

 

Well agonizing over the precise definition of pay to win aside, when you purchase gold you are basically buying progress to save time and effort. Most monetized free to play games out there encourage you to give them money to save you time and effort.

Selling gold might not be the same as purchasing high level weapons and armour but it buys you the ingame means (without any time and effort) to acquire those high level weapons and armour that exist in the game. Just 'cause the train has to take a detour along the way doesn't mean the destination is any different. =P

And for anyone who thinks "well portalarium selling gold doesn't affect me" (which as someone above said is effectively the game company duping gold rather than the players) then I'm afraid to say that unless you're in single player offline mode, it does. The price of everything goes up (while NPC prices and game generated creature/loot drops remain static) along with the typical bandaid fix that is usually the addition of a bunch of terrible gold sinks that either impact you directly, or sell very desirable things you can't afford.

 

Buying in-game gold with real money is a very bad idea... this concept definitely puts me off the game, no matter what spin is put on it. :-(

 

I still think that ingame currency is not the best idea. BUT, how it would be to have an alternative currency that only allow you to buy selecetd items? and that currency be selled by portalarium?

I mean, we could have "british coins" that only can be used to buy cosmetic alternative to existing items (aka skins), home rent, cosmetic items. Maybe we could buy "british coins" with ingame earned currency, but we should no be able to sell "british coins" to other players.

 

I'm against buying in game gold pending further evidence.

For the people saying there is always a way to buy gold/items by going to the "black market": This is the point that makes the discussion worth having. But it isn't as simple as "people can buy it either way". I think much more people will be willing to buy from the official game makers (especially when it's explicitly advertised) than from sketchy black markets. Under that assumption, there will be fewer people getting ahead by using real-life money if there is only the black market. If I thought people using real money to get ahead was the norm rather than the exception, this game will have lost my interest.

Now, I have no idea how big a difference there will be between number of people buying if there is an official gold seller versus a black market that sells gold, and if someone has convincing evidence that it is largely the same, then I'm totally with DarkStarr - Portalarium might as well be making that money. But if the difference is large, as I (admittedly without much evidence) suspect, then I am strongly against RMT.

 

Also, this is something we need to loudly protest as they will be gauging the response to the idea of buying gold with money. .. I am a big supporter of this game but this concept will put many people of off buying and backing.

 

Selling gold is probably going to lead to runaway inflation. Even if another player gets the gold in exchange for whatever they're selling prices will go out of control as people will just price things really high cause they know some fool will pay it.

 

Incoming wall of text... you've been warned!

How to do in-game gold selling right:
Well..... NWO/GW2 had a good solution about controlling this... the market was split with a separate currency that had to go through exchange... if they keep that system then you're not really buying gold (you can exchange it for a rough penalty both ways) and they convert all the add-on store stuff to purchasable with the new currency and set the prices exactly to what the USD (current primary currency) rate is... then the in-game value is basically set off of gold farmed by players and IT IS NOT created by Portalarium because it's only available via players who sold their gold to get the currency for the add-on store without spending IRL money. As the currency lessens the cost changes... etc etc.

IMO that's the winning model that fixes your viable complaint.

How to handle neighbor envy:
The other complaint about how the guy next door just purchased something with IRL money... have you played an online game in the last 18 years? This is something you gotta work on by setting your goals based on what you can do not other people/players. Be the best you can be!!! (no seriously, envy is an antonym for a forsaken virtue that they'll likely find a way to test)

Gold spammers and "encouraging" them?
I haven't played one where I didn't get hit with gold spam sooner or later and NWO was by far the best for it's first month (that's all the longer I played due to no draw to play after that if you weren't designing content). GW2 was about the same... and the best part about it??? it didn't break the game! Those games sucked (sorry just being honest here) only due to lack of content if you ask me... we have LB (proven content creator) and Tracey Hickman (NYT Best Selling author and proven content creator) working on not just the story line but an entire book as the back story! I mean seriously this is not a game breaker here... the problem is you want to make everyone do everything the exact same way... I really hope that's not the model. I think this game will be great because everyone will be able to come at it and do what they want how they want and that INCLUDES the whales (the well off people who drop monies) who want to skip some playtime and get some stuff from the rest of us (players who crafted the items, players who farmed resources for those crafters, and Portalarium who's creating the content/hosting the game/patching the issues/balancing the skills and economy/etc) so everyone can "win" not just the person who buys a bit of currency.

Personally I think you're making an issue out of something that will happen with or without portalarium's consent. I hope people understand that I will likely not buy gold and will play to gain what I have and if they do make an exchange I might even sell some gold for the exchange market stuff to get a cool house or something (I will likely buy more add-on store stuff so this would just be another way to get it). I like playing games and I like to spend lots of hours playing them... so it makes sense for me to work for what I get. I have family (my uncle who is a backer, for example) who get a couple hours a week to play tops... he's dropped $200+ on the Diablo3 market to keep up with me in that game... and I didn't even play it that much! I thought it was great that they had the system in-place so he didn't have to spend time crafting (I did... and made 100s of items... he just purchased what he had that someone else who made it sold). Seriously will be an oversight if they do not do something to make ongoing money and this seems like the best way to do it WITHOUT BREAKING THE GAME.

Why did I respond to your semi-troll titled thread?
I hope you realize I'm taking the time to post this because I think your mind can be changed and my points are all drawn from other games that were trying to do something that likely they didn't get 100% right (D3 for example was, imo, a broken farm-fest for high end L4-4 gear that turned into a cash dump for that random item because crafting was so random/crappy). I think SotA will need to grow and will not get it all right from the start. I do fully believe that the people who work at Portalarium have enough brain matter and experience to identify, understand, and solve issues and balancing during both the testing and post launch phases of this game. I also think those same people can understand economics to the point of creating a virtual market without a pay-to-win.

 

In my view it all depends of the mechanics of the game and how the economy works.

GW2 I class as pay to win because I can pump $50 into the game, buy all resources from the global auction house (black lion trader) and within 4 hours I have maxed each of the crafting skills and end up with a max level character. This is instead of grinding for hours and hours and hours.

Personally I'd rather not see 'gold' for sale, but in the same breath anything that is sold is fairly liquid and can be traded for gold.

Also have to consider is how much impact will it have on completing the story, some might say far too much.....well that's down to the individual.

 

I can't decide if it is pay to win, if portalarium allows to buy ingame currency with real money. It would be pay to win if you could buy a level 20 weapon for a level 1 char, but it wouldn't be if you could use it only with a level 20 char. The same goes potions or scrolls. Our biggest problem at the moment is that we don't know the whole picture and so long it is a real bad idea to talk about buying ingame currency with real money.

 

Which is why the only answer is: "don't have high level weapons and armor." If there's no grind to win, there's no pay to win.

This keeps coming up.
1) If you're a Killer / PvPer, you want a level playing field. Player skill wins fights. Not gear or grind.
2) If you're a social / RPer, you'd like to be able to wear the cool gear which fits your personality and vision for your character. Not be forced to acquire and wear gear for the stats and look just like everyone else.
3) The concept of achievements (and titles, and other cosmetic items) came out to reward the last two groups. The explorer types who wanted to try weird, unique things all over the world and the achiever types wanted to show how awesome they were and killing the biggest dragon the fastest but...not tie all of this to a WoW style gear treadmill.

Keep the gear about variety and cosmetics. Someone can still "win" by buying many of the games trophies. (Or buying something from the store like a lot and trading it.) But this doesn't really give them some combat advantage.

And as far as economic advantages, you again have to look at what will really break the market and but the right throttles in place. e.g. you can't load up on the tools to get all the best buffs and craft a million swords instantly.

 

completely off topic , but .... SPATHI ? XD

 

Truth is, if a player wants gold.....they will get it anyway. It can either be from a store where money goes back into further development or it can be from another player vial paypal. Nobody should ever be under the illusion that they can prevent out of game sales within a game with an open economy.

This all falls down to how the economy works, how to prevent hyperinflation......that is the true challenge if it is to work.

 

I'm not keen on the idea at all. The main concern for me is the overall effect on the economy by creating gold from nothing.. but as I began thinking about it while skimming through the post a simple solution occured to me.. and I would be surprised if the devs didn't think of it also. Just allow the game to remove excess "loose" money from the economy to balance out the input. Gold held by merchants or in the process of being recycled through loot.

The game has to manage all of that anyway.. the net result is basically moving currency already in the system from potential loot to the purchasing player for zero net gain to the global economy.

The rest for me is just a matter of principles and perceptions. And just to weigh in on one other point.. I don't consider this pay to win.. but I really don't like it as a matter of principle. But as I won't be making use of it then it won't be breaking my game at all.

 

This conversation is moot. If people want to buy gold they will buy it. If its not from portalarium it will be from gold dupers/farmers. Better to give it to portalarium in my opinion. Its like drugs, you can't stop the black market, you can only shrink and minimize it by making it legal

Sent from my SGH-I337M using Tapatalk

 

what if - as a game maker OF COURSE you want to make money from it - you can insure items for money ?

 

Lol. You must be an old timer like me. Long live the ur quan empire lol.


Sent from my SGH-I337M using Tapatalk

 

I really do not understand what the big issue is with 'pay to win' - in a sandbox like SotA what exactly are you winning? There is no point where you can say, 'I have won'.

Anyone who has pledged thus far, has in some way paid for an advantage, however small, for early access, game insight ahead of release, real estate, it does not mean you win but it is a bonus for those who enjoy gaming and want to engage ahead of release and it is a benefit for taking a chance.

Buying gold is sad, because you are doing it for what purpose, there is no benefit that you cannot attain in a game with a little effort, and it is that challenge that creates the interest. But that malaise will always be there if there is a system of commerce be it in equipment or in-game currency, from the transcript it looks like they are acknowledging that reality, which is not the same as condoning it or promoting it.