NCSoft and the Online Gaming World at its knees

[Cheddar]

FYI, STONE SOUR is back together, and starting their fucking tour in my home town, Virginia Beach.  Yeah.  I am uber excited and super hung over.  Last night kicked ass on so many levels.  DD for the win.  <ramble ramble ramble>

[Signe]

Take a nap!

[HaemishM]

Rare drops such as Vis'kag from Onyxia CANNOT be purchased. Quest items such as Black Sinew, or the leaf or Eye from Domo cannot be purchased.

Yes they can. Buy an account.

Well, thats a whole nother ball of wax.

I guess i was trying to start some sort of conversation regarding how the industry could take advantage of people with fat wallets with nothing else to spend their money on as long as they did it in a controlled matter to not piss off the fanbois, and make the casual gamers pleased by these options.

You mean other than character transfer services charged at insane prices? Or how about charging for event coordination? How about a Legends server with 1.5 times more GM interaction at 4 times the price? Ooo ooo, can we do the one character per account thing? Or make buffbots practically necessary? Or design a game so punishingly grindy and group-focused that multiple account holders outnumber single-account holders?

The industry has been taking advantage of people with fat wallets and little sense for years now.

[Xilren's Twin]

Well, thats a whole nother ball of wax.

I guess i was trying to start some sort of conversation regarding how the industry could take advantage of people with fat wallets with nothing else to spend their money on as long as they did it in a controlled matter to not piss off the fanbois, and make the casual gamers pleased by these options.

You mean other than character transfer services charged at insane prices? Or how about charging for event coordination? How about a Legends server with 1.5 times more GM interaction at 4 times the price? Ooo ooo, can we do the one character per account thing? Or make buffbots practically necessary? Or design a game so punishingly grindy and group-focused that multiple account holders outnumber single-account holders?

The industry has been taking advantage of people with fat wallets and little sense for years now.

From a link on Lum's site, try Dan Rbenfield's response.  Sicne the developers can create items/money with a wave of the mouse, they should always be able to undercut farmer's.  While that's technically true, so long as farmers can still obtain such items in game by playing, they can always try to undercut the prices offered by the dev house to maintain SOME market.  If you drive down the cost low enough, they'll just switch from items/gold to maxxed out characters.  Whatever facet of the game is the biggest time sink, THAT's the area the farmers can make a profit on.

Remember, there not selling items/coin/, they are selling TIME SAVINGS.

In truth, a mainstream game that has no monthly fee's but direct micro payemnts for items/skills/stuff can't be but so far off.  What I hope most developers headed down this road realize is Micro payments cannot be a substitue for FUN.  If the base game sucks, you're still outta luck (and cash).

Xilren

[UD_Delt]

In truth, a mainstream game that has no monthly fee's but direct micro payemnts for items/skills/stuff can't be but so far off.  What I hope most developers headed down this road realize is Micro payments cannot be a substitue for FUN.  If the base game sucks, you're still outta luck (and cash).

Xilren

Isn't that Project Entropia? Not that they are mainstream but they seem to get their name out in the news once in a while for some catassery or other. I can't say that I've paid too much attention to it though since getting banned there for ummm "beta-testing their forums".

[Xilren's Twin]

Isn't that Project Entropia? Not that they are mainstream but they seem to get their name out in the news once in a while for some catassery or other. I can't say that I've paid too much attention to it though since getting banned there for ummm "beta-testing their forums".

You buy PE dollars, whatever they are called, then use them to buy "stuff" in game from other players (or npcs i believe).  The major difference being Project Scamtopia claims you can withdraw money back out by playing their shell game, thus "you to can make money while playing a game!"

Most dev house aren't interested in that i suspect.

Xilren
PS Oh yeah, they forgot the whole "fun" part too

[Hoax]

Once I find a L2 account @ 74+ w/ a good pvp class on Bartz, Kain or Sieghart for $80 or less I'm going to buy it.  I will not even feel dirty doing so.  I'm curious what the game is like at high levels, I mean there must be some fun somewhere right?  Right?  Plus I heard the castle siege system is very cool.

[Cheddar]

Take a nap!

I did.  And thanks for the reminder!

edit.  I am thinking about doing something CRAZY and renewing my L2 account.  Its been awhile, so the game has to of improved.  Right?

[Cheddar]

Anyone want to join me in L2?  I am DL'ing it now, and will be on around 7-8 pm EST! 

[Slayerik]

Anyone want to join me in L2?  I am DL'ing it now, and will be on around 7-8 pm EST! 

Got any hot pokers for my eyes?

[WayAbvPar]

Anyone want to join me in L2?  I am DL'ing it now, and will be on around 7-8 pm EST! 

I would, but I am scheduled to beat my balls with a tack hammer at the exact same time.

[Cheddar]

Poo on you guys!  I remember being really excited about this game (I actually enjoyed the first one) and hope they have patched in "the fun."  I cannot decide what class to play though; I was thinking either dwarf or orc. 

[Hoax]

I'm telling you the fun has not been patched in, the grind is unbearable.  But you can just bot if you want.  There are some accounts being sold for reasonable prices though, usually at L74 which is right before you pick up the subclass and become a noble or something like that if I remember right.

[damijin]

The grind isn't as bad as it was.

Newbie buffs help you get to 30 with relative speed, but I would recommend playing no less than two characters. Having a personal buffer is pretty much required after 30.

Other than that... I hear the mid-50s to 60s pvp clans are pretty fun. I'm stuck on a server with 2 major end-game clans going at it. We both cheat a lot, and it's not very entertaining. Lots of ganking. Lower level wars are much more fun, I think.

These days theres enough castles that I think low-level clans own 1 or 2 castles on every server. The high levels can't control them all because they wouldn't be able to defend them.

Oh and adena is cheap, so buy yourself something pretty.

Edit: Oh and yes 74 is right before you subclass. On a lot of servers though, getting the subclass quest done is a real pain in the ass. Raid boss farmers often kill the bosses required to complete the quest. It really depends on if the farmers are nice and will let you get the required quest items or not.

You don't become a noble until after you've reached 76 on your main and secondary class. Once you've become a noble you can compete in the monthly tournament to be the hero of you class, which makes you glow like a small star and give you some pretty cool gear.

[Cheddar]

<words>

I am having a surprising amount of fun.  You are correct; noob buffs are kicking rad!  I have a dwarf at level 12 on one server, and an old character at level 18 on another.  I was a little turned off after heading to Gludin, though; there was (not exaggerating) around 200 people with personal stores EVERYWHERE.  I could not imagine wading through that with a lesser computer.  What server are you on?  My only gripe is I have no one to play with currently (or chat with, for that matter). 


And keke la or something.

[Xanthippe]

Did somebody call me a mangina?

[schild]

<words>

I am having a surprising amount of fun.  You are correct; noob buffs are kicking rad!  I have a dwarf at level 12 on one server, and an old character at level 18 on another.  I was a little turned off after heading to Gludin, though; there was (not exaggerating) around 200 people with personal stores EVERYWHERE.  I could not imagine wading through that with a lesser computer.  What server are you on?  My only gripe is I have no one to play with currently (or chat with, for that matter). 

And keke la or something.

Weak. Not weak sauce, just weak.

[Signe]

Did somebody call me a mangina?

Maybe they were confused.  Were you wearing a mandana on your head?

[caladein]

Once I find a L2 account @ 74+ w/ a good pvp class on Bartz, Kain or Sieghart for $80 or less I'm going to buy it.  I will not even feel dirty doing so.  I'm curious what the game is like at high levels, I mean there must be some fun somewhere right?  Right?  Plus I heard the castle siege system is very cool.

Hmm, best comparison would be.... EVE, with Elves, but Korean (thus, lotta rang rang, lotta bots). Castle Sieges were fun-ish, unless you were like me, and a Bishop, i.e. gank bait (although honestly, the drama got real bad on Kain around launch, and not even in entertaining ways so I got sick of it) .

This is coming from someone that handed their account to their guild before Chronicle 2 (maybe a touch after), so it might have gotten less retarded (although I do hear the starter buffs are really helpful in getting you up to speed), but if anything remains in an MMO it's the drama. Your mileage may very though.

[Engels]

The grind isn't as bad as it was.

I would recommend playing no less than two characters. Having a personal buffer is pretty much required after 30.

Did I hear you correctly that you need a second account? Or can you simultaneously play with two characters on the same account? Is this 'working as intended'?

I'm having trouble reconcileing these types of statements that suggest a game more disfunctional than the Charlie Manson Family Hour and the previouis statements by the original poster claiming that this game is somehow at the vanguard (no pun intended) of the MMO market.

[damijin]

<words>

<less words>

I'm on Gustin. But I don't play much. The fact that all of my friends cheat really depresses me about the genre. I tried to cheat, but my class sucks too bad to cheat effectively with :(

Did I hear you correctly that you need a second account? Or can you simultaneously play with two characters on the same account? Is this 'working as intended'?

I'm having trouble reconcileing these types of statements that suggest a game more disfunctional than the Charlie Manson Family Hour and the previouis statements by the original poster claiming that this game is somehow at the vanguard (no pun intended) of the MMO market.

Heres where it gets tricky. Yes you need multiple accounts for your multiple characters to play the game with any relative speed. Yes the game is disfunctional. I do not often recomend the game to anyone.

The big debate comes in when you start to look at design choices and updates to classes. These have, at times, seemed to promote multiple account ownership and even botting.

You can dual client in L2. I don't know if you've played any other games with the GameGuard anti-cheat software, but L2 has it. In every other game I have played with this software (Gunbound and Rakion), GameGuard prevents the opening of more than one client. NCSoft purposely not to include this feature to encourage playing of multiple accounts.

Some classes (dark elf and light elf healers) are extremely easy to dual client. You just leave your main on target and click 1 or 2 keys every now and then. With a decent in-game macro (legal) it will auto-follow and cast heals/mana recharges on your character. This leads me to believe that NCSoft wants people to play more than one character at a time, simply because a single character is usually mind-numbingly simple to play. Many of my friends 2 or 3 box at every raid and even in PvP. However, some people are REALLY lazy and will bot these simple-to-play healers. This is a testament to the gamer's desire for maximum achievement for minimum work.

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NCSoft's strategy for causing players to own multiple accounts has worked. I have two. Many of my friends have up to 4 or 5. Some of my friends have 9 (bot party) or more. If anyone can dig up the NCSoft quarterly subscription reports (I losted it), you'll see that L2 is one of the few games that has gone UP in average monthly logins, concurrent logins, daily logins, etc since launch in NA. This is simply because as players leave, farmers and the remaining players pay for their accounts in order to support their mains.

I'm not saying this is good as a game model, but it deserves careful attention as a business strategy. I have my doubts about it's long-term viability, but it's working for now.

[Numtini]

And they pay you how much to play this disaster?

[damijin]

Around negative $30 per month.

Minus any money you might spend on RMT. I planned on buying money, but much like my failed attempt at botting, my clan mates gave me everything I wanted for free. 

Strange folks.

[Falconeer]

Anyone want to join me in L2?  I am DL'ing it now, and will be on around 7-8 pm EST! 

I suggest you to wait until Chronicle 5 (coming in a couple of months).
That has lots of new stuff, lots of Guild vs. Guild content, and basically... will make the game a little more different from the beta we all tried and despised.

I'll try L2 again myself out of boredom as soon as C5 comes out.

EDIT: oh, looks like you already did it. Bummer.

[HaemishM]

The grind isn't as bad as it was.

Newbie buffs help you get to 30 with relative speed, but I would recommend playing no less than two characters. Having a personal buffer is pretty much required after 30.

You know, for most sane people, that'd be a good fucking hint that the grind really is as bad as all that.

EDIT: And why WOULDN'T they promote multiple account users? More profit from less people.

[Daeven]

People have spent their entire income at times to buy in-game currency, ruining their real lives, to make their gaming life more enjoyable.  It's an addiction, it's a disease, and NCSOFT is the largest source of allowing this plague to MMO's continue.

Introduce the bastards to cocaine. That'll dry up that whole stupid MMO thing.

[Daeven]

It's to see if other's feel the same way I do about how bad things can get when these companies terrorize a gaming community.

This line made me giggle. I'm so damn happy.

NCSoft should make it their logo:

"We're so much fun you pay us to TERRORIZE you!"

[Mongoose]

  YIKES!!!   I could not read it all...  China is not the largest country that pharms, and the currency is not a multimillion, but a multibillion dollar a year industry, which drops the credit of the post.  Also where there is a demand, someone will play the role of a supplier.  What you are doing is the same as standing outside of an abortion clinic and screaming "ABORTION IS MURDER", no one cares anymore.  You do not like the currency market for MMO's then do not take part in it, to sit here and judge others is simply asking a judgement to be delivered on yourself, which side of God's throne do you sit on, that you may judge?

[schild]

YIKES!!!   I could not read it all...  China is not the largest country that pharms, and the currency is not a multimillion, but a multibillion dollar a year industry, which drops the credit of the post.  Also where there is a demand, someone will play the role of a supplier.  What you are doing is the same as standing outside of an abortion clinic and screaming "ABORTION IS MURDER", no one cares anymore.  You do not like the currency market for MMO's then do not take part in it, to sit here and judge others is simply asking a judgement to be delivered on yourself, which side of God's throne do you sit on, that you may judge?

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[Rasix]

Why does this entire thread make me very sad? 

[Hoax]

Somebody forgot to tell you to leave your faith in humanity at the door?

[Morfiend]

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The game sucks. Vote with your fuckign wallet already. Jesus. You act like they are forcing this shit on you. If you dont enjoy it, step away. If you do enjoy it.... There is no help for you.

[Strazos]

[damijin]

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The game sucks. Vote with your fuckign wallet already. Jesus. You act like they are forcing this shit on you. If you dont enjoy it, step away. If you do enjoy it.... There is no help for you.

I never acted helpless or complained that I didn't like it. The game is mildly entertaining and I enjoy the friends that I have there. It's a lot better than any game that has come out since WoW, and I don't really like joining old games because I always feel really behind or out of place. So I'll call this cesspit of botting, ebaying, and farmer scum home for now.

[Merusk]

That's fucking beautiful.  I'm going to save it and giv eit a print out when i get home.