Goblin Squad Member
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Frankly I think todays MMO Publishers find themselves in a bit of a "I want to have my cake and eat it too" situation. As a responsible business they want (possibly even need) the income from "Pay 2 Win". They've got investors/stockholders to serve as well as staff who's livelihoods depend upon the companies financial success to feed thier families.
Wearing that hat, one can clearly sympathize with the desire to maximize revenue streams. At the same time, they realize that the "Pay 2 Win" moniker will drive away business. So many of them scramble to try to find ways to spin what is essentialy "Pay 2 Win" into something that won't be percieved as that by the players so they can still have that revenue stream and not suffer the negative stigma attached to it.
As a gamer though.....the marketing or spin on a practice is irrelevent to me. I end up looking at what functionaly a particular practice does or means to the gameplay experience itself. If willingness to pay cash ends up providing a significant gameplay advantage over others...that simply makes a game not worth playing for me.
I don't really mind GW's mechanism in paying for training time since you can't advance any single character faster then real time. A person paying 100 X still isn't going to be advancing thier main character any faster then a person paying X, as long as X is equivalent to real time. That comes out to a simple usage fee to play the game and advance (similar to a sub) that would be affordable for most interested players. However where a player gets an ever increasing advantage the more they buy is where we really start to get into trouble. Consumables can certainly fall into that realm without some mechanical/practical limitations on thier use.
Taking it to an extreme (for illustrative purposes), if a player with infinite money could afford to pay to heal thier damage every single time I hit them....I litteraly would not be able to defeat them in a fight....what would be the point of playing a game that involved fighting them?
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm late to the conversation here... just a few thoughts. I believe that EVE's plex system is an excellent model for several reasons. First, it allows for sanctioned exchanges of real money for game currency. You may not like it -- I know I don't like it -- but gold sellers have been present in every MMO from the start. It's unavoidable. Bringing it in-house allows GW to control it, and it keeps the flow of money going one-way. As soon as people start playing to "cash out," the game becomes something other than a game. Exchange rates are controlled by the players and inflation is a non-issue, since no money is being created.
Other than that, I really would rather not see any other micro-transactions in PFO. No horse armor, no monocles, no special hair-styles. If I'm expected to pay a monthly subscription (something I have not done for quite a while), I want the entire game. That's not a complaint. I believe that PFO will be well worth the price. Most subscription MMOS fail because the players are simply not getting $15 worth of content every month. $15 may be the cost of a trip to Starbucks, but it's also the cost of an entire indie game on Steam. Sandbox MMOs are different beasts. Your subscription isn't paying for the latest raid or quest hub -- you're buying access to a simulation. The content is infinite because it's created by the players.
Cash shops weaken that value proposition by adding elements that are external to the simulation. If, for example, a player's character is a clothier and there's a special cash shop hat that he can't create, then the simulation has failed for that player. Too much of that kind of thing, and the whole point of the game is lost.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Too much of that kind of thing, and the whole point of the game is lost.
I completely agree. This is why I've been pushing - against the tide of popular opinion - to define the maximum acceptable limits to it. There are going to be people who don't mind if there are Cash Shop items that are "equivalent" to player-created items, even at the highest tier. I would like to find the red lines that even those players don't want Goblinworks to cross.
@Nihimon
We should not be looking for the red lines of the most tolerant we should be looking for the red line of the majority.
The red line of the most tolerant is a waste of time finding because by then you have enraged the other 90% of less tolerant players
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Grumpy: What Wargaming.net are doing is interesting: They're removing the P2W elements with a view to increasing the credentials of being a legit esport. Again this is another area that suggests if the game has:
1. Strong game play for eg competition aka esports this is enough for players to be very motivated/committed to enjoy/play the game en masse.
2. Virtual economy attracts serious players in these markets and again is a driver that takes care of itself.
3. Ryan mentioned the key to mmos is the social hub type of players that organise guilds which again ramp up the gameplay a factor or two.
4. Day-Z Arma highlights the interest of modding a game that also leads to expansive community around said game.
It seems if the game design has any/all of the above then the P2W is really not needed as the game fuels it's own growth and monetization. By contrast, the lack of a game to be able to stand out from the competition just leads to the devs working out ways to clip players of cash expediently. Also, the expectation of 3d graphics on a par with single-player games (almost) at the expense of interesting systems, maybe that is a trade-off for a mmorpg worth pursuing and equally worth relegating to the cash shop??