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

I don't claim it will lead to less, I don't actually care if they sell gold or not. I'm just pointing out that you can't stop it, so if you do care, your only option is to try to minimize it by effectively legalizing it, by allowing portalarium to sell it.

Even that won't stop it, but it MIGHT help lower duping/farming so long as its not too pricey .

But I can guarantee that gold farming/duping/selling will happen no matter what you do, and so if you care about that (which I don't, its not a deal breaker for me) then you can try to minimize it, but you will not eliminate it.


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Tax rates would be designed in order to buy money. All those points are absolutely correct if they sell it. CONFLICT OF INTEREST! How do they ballance an economy if you can buy gold directly. People who are very wealthy automatically have an advantage, and they will have to offset this increase in gold with gold sinks (which will hurt the players who aren't buying gold from Portalarium)

Actually from that perspective it is pay to win. Actually it ruins the game. Taxes and gold sinks might force people to trade goods for other goods and ignore the gold currency all together.

I wouldn't want to play a game like that. I would personally leave the game after a while because it really is pay to win sorry darkstarr but you're wrong... buying gold is pay to win. It totally ruins the reason to go out adventuring to find treasure!!!

At least with gold farmers the treasure was gathered naturally. However if it's generated on the spot for a fee, that takes away all immersion for me. I can't justify that in my imagination. The gold farmer is like a trader who earned the gold and gave it to another player. That's more tolerable than spontaneous generation.

 

You can't. Reality check.


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Well it looks like the Devs made more village lots appear out of nowhere so it doesn't seem like a huge stretch for them to make gold appear out of nowhere for anyone to throw money at them.

For a game that is touted to be story-focused and not a rush-to-endgame type of game, what is the purpose of selling gold in the first place?

If the purpose is to sell to people who do not have the time to play and earn enough gold to pay taxes on taxable lots, then one needs to re-evaluate whether owning property and/or playing the game is worth it if one does not have the time. But it also begs the question as to how crazy that tax rate would be and how often would it need to be payed -- things that haven't been defined for us.

If the purpose of selling gold is to offset the initial potential advantage that land owners may have with the crafting tables and tax-free vendors they purchased as pledge rewards, then it screws with those who are slogging it out on public crafting tables standing around for a turn to use them, and pouring gold towards those who can churn out better items earlier and faster which further skews the economy in favor of a minority of players.

If the number of players one encounters in any mode of the game is limited in the first place (as opposed to everyone being on a single shard), then why would I want to compete against a handful of random people I may or may not see on a daily basis anyway? Why would that compel me to buy gold? Why would I want to hurry and craft the shiny sword to cut off the head of Sir So-and-So when I probably won't run into him again?

One would think that gold selling by the publisher would make sense only if it is observed that folks cannot seem to purchase property lots, houses, etc. from in-game gold because the economy is not robust enough to support those purchases or if people are losing their lot placement because they are unable to pay the taxes associated with them. In other words, it would make sense as a last ditch solution and not something put in front of a system that has not been given the opportunity to be broken yet. What would come next? Booster packs?

I don't know. The more these revelations come to light, the more I feel that this is what learned helplessness feels like.

 

Nah. Chill out and do it for your own fun and sense of accomplishment. You'll be happier in the long run.


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I agree with you up until here.

This is where you've lost me.

 

Very good questions indeed. Maybe I add one:
If after a while no one buys the original x gold for y $ as people can obtain it cheaper from private parties, will you just sell 2x, 4x , etc. golf for the same price to keep the flow of revenue coming?

 

Finding solutions to problems isn't your area of expertise then I take it?

 

I'm confused by this response.

An "agenda"? What does that even mean? I don't think I've twisted anyone's words or put words in anyone's mouth. In fact, I feel like I am being quite straightforward.

 

How did I lose you? Its the only way to ATTEMPT to minimize the black markets. You'll never stop them completely, and it may not work well, but its the only way to try.

I personally don't care either way, but if you care about the issue then its your only option that might help.


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Lol, I can see your point, but honestly, the reality is that you can't stop it, and the sooner that is recognized the sooner we can concentrate on issues that can be resolved. Could have saved this thread 12 pages of comments


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There won't be fun and a sense of accomplishment for me if I'm only one in 20,000 people playing. This game is a scam if they sell gold directly. I'm really shocked. Several times I thought they were trying to scam us and I always end up calming down and giving them the benefit of the doubt.

However if they actually sell gold then I've wasted my pledge because I was hoping to have a cool game to play for years to come. Instead this game is just a single player ultima that is also a quick scam. There will be no real persistent world like UO that has been around for 15 or 16 years but this game will be around for maybe six years if this is how they manage the game economy. Once you play the storyline it's over. The rest of the game is pay to win.

 

Independently of portalarium selling gold and items or not, you can minimize it by a game design that makes the game unattractive for farmers and speculators.
A game that is played for its mechanics and story rather than in game items usually accomplishes that.

 

I don't see anywhere in the discussion where Darkstarr says they will be selling gold for real life money.
So it seems to me this is extremely overblown, and you are using something Darkstarr didn't say to support your doom and gloom. Your underlying purpose seems to be to rouse people to take up torches and pitchforks to prevent Portalarium from doing something they haven't said they're doing.

 

I'd rather have the black markets. Portalarium stands to make a great return on investment why would they suck us dry by nickle and diming us? You do realize they are the ones who regulate the gold sinks. That's a joke if they are selling gold too.

I bet this drives away more players that would buy the game, than selling gold will bring in as far as cash. They will make less money in the long run.

 

players are already being driven away because of the pledge tiers. It is already viewed as pay to win by some. Why make that image worse?

 

Oh, you lost me because you are apparently talking about minimizing black markets. I've been very explicit that I am talking about ANY trading of cash for gold, "legal" or "blackmarket". You're talking specifically about blackmarket. Yes, you can probably cut down on blackmarket trading if you put gold in the cash shop. That's not relevant to my concern, though. My concern is about increasing the number of people buying gold with real cash.

 

Well, why not prevent them from something that would clearly drive away backers in droves?
If they haven't made up their mind, some help showing them how much it would upset people should settle that very quickly and will only have benefits to all sides.

 

To be honest this thread has spiraled out of control and into the realms of potentially being damaging.

There is no confirmation that gold is going to be sold. There is only an interpretation of "even if we allow gold purchase" that has been translated into "we are going to sell gold".

I dont know about anyone else but if I use the words "even if", I am normally making a hypothetical point rather than saying "this is going to happen".

This thread is ridiculous, sorry Bubonic the time and place for this should have either been in Dev+ or during the 6 hour Q&A session tomorrow.

 

I think the OP has a very valid point that should be discussed and considered.

I don't have any issues with buying ingame items (i.e. fluff stuff) that does not seriously compete with the ingame producers. Portalarium need to make money and a profitable Portalarium means a happy Portalarium and (hopefully) a longer lasting better game. Win/Win.

I do however have concerns about buying ingame gold.

Previous posts have brought up the source of my concern.

If one can purchase gold (i.e. as much ingame gold as they can afford on a regular basis) then how does Portalarium control the integrity of the economy? It is like the equivalent of the world banks just printing infinite amounts of money without any concern about the impact it will have on the economy. It doesn't make sense for a company who has stated on several occasions that they want a decent in-game economy (im looking at you Starr Long).

How does one manage hyperinflation? As far as I see it, you can't!

I look forward to a dev response on this issue.