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3rd party programs and Gold selling
Hey guys,
I have been playing mmo games for 10 years now. During the time I have never used any 3rd party programs, like bots, auto clickers or anything similar. Also, I have never bought any in-game currency, like gold. I clearly remember that these issues appear in any mmo game sooner or later and that makes me sick of it. I am very curious how @Steven and his team will be dealing with these issues?
Guys, what are your thoughts on this matter?
I have been playing mmo games for 10 years now. During the time I have never used any 3rd party programs, like bots, auto clickers or anything similar. Also, I have never bought any in-game currency, like gold. I clearly remember that these issues appear in any mmo game sooner or later and that makes me sick of it. I am very curious how @Steven and his team will be dealing with these issues?
Guys, what are your thoughts on this matter?
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Comments
In a game like this, immediately free up any properties they hold too. Foreclosure auction!
And put the character's head on a pike!
https://www.panopticonlabs.com/
What about banning individual user sale? Example, in UO people sold their homes for RL cash.
Account selling will be hard to stop.
i dont think email changing is enough to track sellers on.
This assists increasing the player base for new comers that doesn't have the ability to pay for a sub based game and so they can take time to farm up the gold. Another thing to add on is character transfers where people can utilize these forums to post X built character and I want X gold. Seller pays $20 transfer fee to Intrepid and buyer pays in game gold and bam no need to buy another account since you are too damn lazy to level yourself, even though you have all that time to farm that gold.
It generates no income to IS. I don't know why anyone would throw 15$/month into the cash shop if they can't a sub.
It forces players to mine so they can pay sub cost as opposed to playing game. This reduces fun and allows gold farming, an example would be farming for 1 month to pay for 2 months of free play.
Allowing players to trade game time for gold or vice-versa seems ridiculous and allows players to play for free effectively reducing sub profits.
Imo this would be something that prevented Ashes from making a great MMORPG.
Reducing sub profits intentionally leads to free-play. Free-play leads to pay-to-win or the game dying completely. I know what pay to win means, it's how games can market themselves as "free-to-play" but guarantee profit from players that want full access, better gear, etc. Free-play leads to P2W or a dead game (unless someone just throws millions away so others can enjoy their game).
I think a better alternative to give it a large push at launch would be give the free trials to the friends of people investing in the game to their friends.
I think with some of the new packages in the store and as well as old packages already bought to keep it fair I think adding an extra 1 or 2 free trials at launch would be a much better way to do it.
It would sweeten the deal to get people to purchase packages and and add more value to those that have already been purchased it would also help promote the game which is much safer than just handing out free trials to random people.
Free sub-trials at launch would be, imo, a horrible idea. We all know server numbers and size are always an issue at launch. Adding a bunch of accounts that only play for a month and then drop because they don't want to pay the sub could really throw a wrench in profit managing.
I am not a fan, overall, of free trials. I have noticed some of the most harsh reviews of games came from critics that were involved in Alphas, Betas, Early-Access, and free-trials. They decide they don't ever want to pay the games actual cost or sub and feel empowered to discredit the game everywhere they can. Of course, this is not by any means always the case. Often enough investors that feel disappointed are also raging critics.
What's 15$ to play a (close to if not) AAA game for a month? A lot of indie titles cost close to that and are only worth 10-20 hours of play anyways.
As for player being forced to mine so they can pay the sub cost, well shit it sucks for them to be unable to afford $5 a month. But if they really want to be apart of the community they will make it happen. I had corp mates in Eve mission run half the month so they can pvp for the rest of the month and the next month. Also, paying $15 for one month means that Intrepid gets a full sub instead of the reduced amount for people doing more then one year or six months.
I am sorry to break the bubble for you, but most people don't like sub based games hence why there is so few on the market. I had this argument on the Trion forums during alpha as well, but the thing is you can't justify having a system like I am talking about unless you have a way to create scarcity in the economy.
These methods I am describing has been done quite effectively and creates alternatives. So if a player is stupid enough to use illegal means to acquire funds or toons outside what Intrepid provides, then they can't cry on the forums that their account has -1 mill gold. It also makes it easy to monitor players who launder their in game funds which if you have read CCP's previous posts it is quite enlightening.
Unlike Eve where botting is still easy because of how controls are this all buy assures that gold farming is dead as profitability would be zero.
And you have to read the whole thing and the comments before to really understand what I am saying.
I was saying that increasing the amount of handout trials to friends would be a better alternative initially to just giving out free handouts to random people.
Please reread what I wrote and maybe do some research on various forms of marketing used for games depending on the size of the company and the amount of money they have to invest into it. Games sometimes give out free trials towards the beginning to give the game more exposure without having to spend too much on advertising.
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Maybe this will be easier to understand.
A club is having it's grand opening the first night, weekend and week it opens is important. You want it as packed as can be on opening night lot of people go there they have fun word spreads.
Sometimes clubs use special promotions opening night to draw in a very large crowd like a celebrity handing out free merch discount drinks and no cover.
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When the game releases haveing a larger amount of people at the begining even if not all of them will continue to sub after the month will give it a better push at the begining and if the game is good the word will spread out that much more.
So people were discussing if you followed the discussion about free trials and how it can be bad cause it can be abused by gold farmers.
which is why I suggested increase the number of friends people can invite that have purchased packages and will purchase packages.
By allowing 1 or 2 more friends it would in crease the value of the current packages enticing more people to invest prelaunch. This would make the people who invested even happier.
If they were planning on giving out free trials any ways this I think would be a better method bringing potentially better future customers and limit gold farming early on. If they still needed a few more people they could do a limited quantity free trail keys through an mmo website for the remain target population they were going for in the first week of release.