SencneS
Rebellion Against Big Irreversible Dinks
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Posted - 2011.06.24 15:24:00 -
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Edited by: SencneS on 24/06/2011 15:24:32
I don't really have a problem with what either of the two people said on that PDF. The difference between them is John is much better at getting his point across, Kristoffer is lacking that skill, and makes it sound horrible!
There was also a little bit of profiling going on..
John - apparently plays the game, led alliances, and has changes his live for EVE.
Kristoffer - Plays another MMO and spend money on that MMO's micro currency dresses for his avatar.
If you take Kristoffer's words and re-word them to be more about the player and less about how irrational he thinks the eve players are you get something like this.
 Originally by: Reworded Kristoffer
I would like virtual goods sales in EVE. In fact, I'd like to sell a lot more than vanity items. I've been using virtual goods sales for a long time now and actually prefer them over subscriptions. Why? Because they let me manage my spending, a subscription is a flat rate, you pay an amount each month regardless of if you want something, this forces upgrades on people that they may not ever use, or have any desire to use. Why pay for something you'll never use.
Does that mean that they'll universally good, and we should slap a price-tag on everything? Probably not, and like any other changes we make to our game, they need to be well thought out and well executed. But most important of all, they need to provide value to our customer. This reinforces the concept of a virtual good. If something has value, it will get purchased a lot, and helps our designers and developers understand what it is the players want, rather than guessing or taking the ideas from a very small select group of people who use the forum or comment on the CSM.
I'll give you an example of something I think provides value to our customer. Right now, you can store 50 personal sitting on our servers. That's more than enough for the average EVE player, but for a subset of our users, it's too small a number. Allow the purchase of more space for a small amount of money is value to these customers. Using a different currency other than ISK and allowing people either use ISK or spend Real money to acquire those upgrades allows a lot of flexibility.
If we also give people small amounts of micro-currency for being loyal subscribers, or even as a reward for high level gameplay, the micro-currency can be kept under reasonable control. This allows players to obtain upgrade items that are sold by just playing the game.
If you ask me that sounds a lot better than what was submitted. I get that EVE might one day not require a subscription, and that if you're good at generating ISK, you can play EVE and buy anything that is available. If your not good at generating ISK you can still get some times via doing PVP activities in game.
However, I do sympathize with John's perspective too, I don't want to be double-billed, and I certainly don't want items that make it impossible for a player who didn't purchase something to kill a player that did. That's an out right imbalance. And there lays a problem with the concept of selling enhancements that directly affect performance of the player when it comes to combat. If something gives you a huge an advantage, and it becomes too powerful, and the devs re-balance it, you need to be given the option to "cash it back" which is likely to happen, but the value just dropped, so it's not exactly fair. If they do this CCP needs to set some minimal buy back, which removes the item from game, and gives you so much AUR in return.
I would however support the concept of BPO for AUR.. And that the BPO produces something special, something which is expensive. Which is about the only real item I would be totally comfortable with, Instead of selling the Monocle, they should have sold the Monocle BPO for 4 PLEXes, hell sell it for 10 PLEXes if you really want, but it needs to last forever.
No items.. Screw that, give us BPOS for clothing and mods etc. That is CCP's solution right there.
Amarr for Life |