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Bringing $$ Into This
BatCakez
Member Posts: 127
I was wondering, despite how cool many of these features are, if anyone stopped and questioned the idea of bringing real world economy as part of the living one in game? I can't help but be reminded of Second Life when I think about people crafting things, and placing them up for sale (rl cash) to other players. In theory it might sound alright to some, but has anyone thought it through, or felt a little uncomfortable about that feature? Otherwise, I reckon this game could stand a very good chance in todays market.
Comments
The tools are there and a system is in place to create just like the developers do. Not only that but in the same virtual world you play in, not another side program (like Maya). If someone, such as yourself, is talented enough to create content that either (A) SoE thinks is good enough to put in the game or (B) is good enough that other players are actually willing to spend $ to have it, don't you want a chance to do that? I guarantee you that many MC fans will be revving to go when they find out that their creations could be worth MMO fame or real $. If they create great structures and items for the game who loses?
I'm sure SL was looked at when deciding to design this way. Why not? SL is a huge success.
In a perfect world everyone would pay a sub and have these features for free, right? Unfortunately this cannot be the case anymore and SoE's model brings in many more players but needs to have monetization.
But it takes from the immersion and feel of EQNext. It may as well just be Minecraft in those regards. When all the focus gets dumped on that one particular side of the game, that's all it is anymore. It creates a bit of unbalance.
I get that having a RL$ aspect takes away from immersion, and I agree, but it depends on how SoE implements that aspect. If you can buy a separate "coin" with $ offline and then use it within the game just as you would with game coin the immersion breaking may be lessened quite a bit. This would especially be true if there were vendors instead of buying from an SC Marketplace screen.
As far as it feeling like MC I think that's the similarity they are looking for as a LOT of people play MC. How many playing MC have wondered what it would be like if a fully fleshed out MMO was built like it but with updated graphics... EQN seems exactly like that. I don't think they are designing all aspects to be attractive to everyone. Some people may like the combat, others the exploration, some the building. There will probably be people that don't even look at the building side or want to buy other people's designs. You don't even need Landmark to build things in EQN, even though you can build in LM ahead of time for when you eventually get a plot in EQN.
I think there will be a lot of focuses concerning EQN but I like the fact that SoE is trying to give players many things to do. The monetization is yet to be seen.
I think it's weird, because in a way you're developing the game, and if you're that good at making it,....you should be part of a developer team, and not someone getting a percentage on your work.
But for some it's a hobby, so I guess that's ok. I don't know.
All SOE games are monetized, and have so for quite a few years now. There's a reason why SOE pushed the player studio in EQ1 keynote speech, EQ2 keynote speech, EQNext keynote speech, and Planetside 2 keynote speech. They probably did it for other games but I didn't watch the keynote speech for other games. Don't think their offering has anything to do with giving players content or more things to do. It has everything to do with the fact that every player created items from player studio or landmark, will be monetized. Meaning they are strictly sold via marketplace. SOE will get a cut of what you create, and in order for people to use these items ingame they will have to spend real cash for it. This breeds two problems:
1. Developers have an incentive to not create as many items, because they want players to create items that way SOE can get a cut for it.
2. Developers have an incentive to not create as good looking items or structures, that way players are made to create them, thus SOE gets a cut for it.
It all leads to the bottom line that a lot of the items ingame will have to be purchased with real cash. That's the whole reason for player studio, it's because every item created with player studio are sold in the marketplace with cash, none are offered ingame via expansions or subscription. Think I'm making stuff up? If you've played Everquest for long, you would've known that SOE has slowly scaled back the amount of content they put into expansions. The scaling back of content coincided with their push for station cash marketplace and player studio. Less content are being released with paid expansions, more items are being put out on the marketplace to be bought with cash.
Now I'm not saying companies shouldn't make money. Quite the contrary, I've paid subscriptions in all SOE games I've played, including Planetside 2 which is a F2P game. I believe in supporting the games I like. But SOE is kind of like getting the best of both worlds. They are providing premium subscription accounts for players to pay for, while at the same time they're putting more and more content on the marketplace for sale via cash. It used to be that if I paid for a subscription, I would get content ingame. If I paid for an expansion, I would get a LOT of content ingame. But now paying for a subscription do not get me much content, I'm having to pay more money out of my pocket to get these items on the marketplace....things that used to be available ingame to those that paid for expansions and subscriptions.
I'm not a fan of SOE's models, but I've given up fighting about it. SOE certainly isn't going to change what they're doing because there are plenty of people with deep pockets willing to pay to win, or pay to impress.
EQ1-AC1-DAOC-FFXI-L2-EQ2-WoW-DDO-GW-LoTR-VG-WAR-GW2-ESO
RL cash for recipes is as far as it gets
http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/08/04/soe-live-2013-delving-deeper-into-eqns-landmark/
The community will also be empowered to help one another experience various aspects of Landmark. There will be in-game support for people who want to write reviews on properties. You can also subscribe to favorite builders and receive updates on what they are doing (in whatever medium you want, including in-game or via Twitter, etc.) as well as subscribe to favorite reviewers.
And finally, will Landmark have other aspects of MMOs like adventuring, guilds, and such? Yep! SOE did note that character customization may not be as detailed as other games. Players will also have to gather communally to craft at public stations, though that sounds to us like a perfect place to trade recipes and materials and an optimal spot for some bartering!
The role of Player Studio
Now what about Player Studio? Will all the hard work that a player devotes to finding certain materials or building an awesome structure give others an easy route to building? Can players buy a completed structure with Station Cash and just plop it down? Nope. Remember those templates I just mentioned? Players will be buying just that -- a template. They will get a blueprint of the item/structure/masterpiece and will have to collect the required ingredients themselves in order to actually construct it. Each blueprint will also clearly state what ingredients are necessary to make the item so players will be informed before the purchase.
Royalties in Landmark will also work a bit differently than in the other titles in SOE's portfolio. We already know that if your item is used in the construction of another that is sold, you receive royalties based on the percentage of your item compared to the whole. But what about a group project that is built on a single property? All members can receive the royalties in that instance as well. When an item is created, the game knows who placed what voxel where. Royalties can then be split on an exact per-voxel rate, or settings can adjusted to assign percentages to each contributor.
EQ2 fan sites
I think they will be getting a lot of their money from selling classes, like LoL gets money from champions they sell to people....If I play, I will not be buying someones design, I would make my own.
That is all still up in the air though.
i dont think classes will be on the soe marketplace but i dont know
i would expect DLC tho -- like how DCUO does it
EQ2 fan sites
I think the classes for say $10 each would seem like a natural for the shop, and I do not like cash shops, but I just see this as a way they would get people to want to pay for things pretty easily.
I could also see them selling gear that had the lowest levels or one step higher the refresh and reduction cost things for the class abilities.
They mentioned something about tiers in each class, not sure what it is, but this would be the area for the xp potions, even though they said no levels, but it would increase the gain.
We will see, but I see all those as strong possibilities.
Having a "cash shop" absolutely overflowing with items in all shapes and sizes and colours of the rainbow is a bad thing ? 0.o
The normal problem with "cash shops" in F2P is that the content (such that there is) is made by the developer, and most importantly, priced by the developer. This leads to abominations like the $40 mounts in PWE games.
When all the items are made by the developers, the prices have to be high, because they can only produce a limited amount of them, and they want maximum profits.
When you have 100K players making items for the "cash shop", what will happen ?
Well, other than large amounts of really awful items (
) , there will be the usual undercutting of other people's prices. A $40 doorknob is just not going to sell.
SOE is setting up the "Wallmart" of cash shop designs. Massive product range, high volume of sales, low prices and margins.
So where is the REAL money going to be in all this ?
Resources, baby
You can buy a 1000 templates for 1c each in the cash shop, but you need to gather (or buy) resources to build them all...
Selling classes or gear would go against what they are trying to create in this world, where learning new classes or tiering up is based on in-game achievements. I would be pretty disappointed if they did either.
Hopefully they stick to cosmetic gear, convenience items, house items or even adventure zone DLC (hard to do in an open world without being obtrusive, although I guess they could sell boat tickets or airship tickets to certain locations).