New MMO subscription solution for ArchLord

[sinij]

Before, your choices to improve your PVP were to play more or, well, that was the only choice.

Now you can play more or pay more. I thought the accepted wisdom was that having choices was good, but perhaps a "true PVPer" wants his experience directed and simple: play more play more play more play more play more play more play more...

Dear ignorant PR spinmaster,

PvPers are after one or another form of a challange, 'charge my CC' is not one of them.

Please die in a watercooler fire,

PvPer

[tkinnun0]

PvPers are after one or another form of a challange, 'charge my CC' is not one of them.

Please die in a watercooler fire,

PvPer

You identify with my "true PVPer" and thus agree with me 100%.

[Telemediocrity]

You wrote that what you label the "true PvPer" wants his experience "simple".  You haven't explained, however, why "charging my credit card" equals "more complex experience".  Somehow, single player games and online free games manage to span a gigantic gamut ranging from terribly simple to mind-bogglingly complex, all without touching my credit card.  Was this really a new dimension of "gameplay" that thinking PvP'ers were clamoring for?

[Venkman]

Charging the CC only works for those PvPers that only want to win. The rest, who actually want to have some competitive fun and get better at doing so over time, are not as interested in this.

This is why I am glad ArchLord is doing this (and Space Cowboy). I think it's going to flop big in the US and EU, maybe closing the book for good on this sort of crap. RMTing as a black market works well because it's the exception. Legit-RMTing forces people to look at these games no different than they look at other expenditures. RMTing is here to stay, but when it's built into the game by the company itself, it's just a loose ponzi scheme. There's no way to "escape into a fantasy realm" with that sort of obvious money grab.

But the only way it can go away is if companies try it and fail publicly. So bring it on!

[Arrrgh]

They'll just point to all the other Asian games that failed here and blame it on nation origin rather than RMT.

[Venkman]

Yea, but the end result would be the same :)

[tkinnun0]

As I understand it, PVP boils down figuring out the answer to "what is the highest hill I can reach". In chess or Street Fighter 2 there is no answer, because the highest hill hasn't been discovered (yet). In Checkers and Reversi, almost.

While on a way to some hill, players are characterized by their knowledge of the required actions and their ability to execute them. Paying for an advantage can offer new dimensions to each, for example: there are nature magic items on sale but no fire magic items, so perhaps nature is superior to fire, or, instead of training myself to counter sheeping I can buy an enchantment to do it and train something else.

Darniaq, I agree, so the house rules are: no more than 10 hours a week or 50 bucks a month, add 10 bucks if you really suck but don't tell anyone.

Perhaps I've read too much Iain M. Banks.

[sinij]

I don't think you can spin such shameless milking and pay-to-cheat into positive light. Paying to get in-game advantage is not at all different from using a hack to gain advantage. If you think it is all about 'climbing hills' hacking is the way to go.

[hal]

My counter is that paying is the same as playing more than me. After all I'm earing money when not playing (or changing diapers...It doesn't matter. I've something to do). Not that paying is fair. It isn't and I don't support the concept. The point is being able to play more isn't fair either.

[Venkman]

Exactly. Don't blame RMTing. Blame time. Or, at least, accept that if someone else has more time than you, they're going to get ahead sooner. Personally, I've gotten used to it, since, like, I've had no choice. I'm not getting more hours in the day and I only play when the kids have already gone to bed, which happens later each year. Woe be my l33t sk1llz.

[Rithrin]

I think one of the big issues with this sort of built-in RMT is that there will be people who can't afford more than the basic package, who will then realize that no matter what they do, ever, they will always be behind the people who have the larger package. People like that won't stay in the game long.

In other games, everyone pays the same amount to play the game. There are no bonuses associated with outside elements. People who get better get better through actions within the game world. Built in RMT gives the ability to be good while barely playing the game at all. This leads to feelings of "Why am I bothering to play if others are always going to be more powerful than me regardless of whether they play or not?

[Venkman]

It does break the magic circle. However, everyone eventually comes to terms with time. That is the quintessential out-of-game advantage. A 22 year old living on their own working their first fulltime gig with only the shit they carried through college and therefore fits in their trunk has an inherent advantage a conscientous 36 year old bread-winning home-owning husband father of two. Both people pay the same money to play in the same world, but they are both playing at very different levels. They can be friends, but the former is going to lap the latter in levels many times over.

Not that I speak from experience as that latter. *nods* ;)

[geldonyetich]

I'm not blaming either RMT or time for an uneven playing field, I'm blaming RMT and time and a plethora of other MMORPG design issues for preventing an even playing field to exist.  Those who play all day are perfectly free to engage in RMT, after all, and boost their position further. 

Really, the very activity of true competition within a MMORPG doesn't exist.  The basis of character advancement is the only place time really applies, but even if everybody had the same character you've still got problems.  If you're competing for resources it's always first come first serve.  If you're competing in open PvP it's really more of a popularity contest with haves and have-nots falling randomly to each side.  The Guild Wars method, restricting team sizes and playing them against eachother, is the only fair way to do PvP online.  Even then, ending up with perfect strangers on your team means a very uneven player skill distribution.

I'd probably care more about ArchLord offering an even playing field if I had any reason to believe the game itself was worth playing.

A 22 year old living on their own working their first fulltime gig with only the shit they carried through college and therefore fits in their trunk has an inherent advantage a conscientous 36 year old bread-winning home-owning husband father of two.

RMT doesn't even the tables, it skews it further.  The 22 year old can probably leverage that full time job to buy him some RMT goodness.  The 36 year old bread-winner may not be able to afford RMT in the face of paying his spouse's doctor bill.  A 14 year old who plays the game 100 hours a week in his mother's basement has time to farm uber items he can sell via RMT, and this provides him capital to buy other items in RMT to cement his #1 spot.

That was, however, a great scenario to explain the neccessity of having sidekick systems ;)

[Merusk]

Fairness and equity are myths and lies.  Someone always has an advantage, regardless of how many rules you put in place to 'level the playing field.'

This is simply changing the playing field to favor a different group than usual. (Those with both excess time and excess cash.) Not that I expect anyone to play it; but then I didn't expect anyone to 'play' PE, either.

[Telemediocrity]

Why not slant the playing field toward the smartest players?  Games that reward you for being skilled at them to some extent reward time invested, but even more than that they reward those who use their time smartly to learn the most that they can.  Lum always fallaciously equated twitch skill systems with "whoever has the most time to spend is the best at the game", essentially the same sort of tyranny as a system based on hard levelling - and I've always disagreed.  Different people play different amounts of time, but in a system based on skill the differences in how they spend their time will usually be the most meaningful.

[Righ]

Why not slant the playing field toward the smartest players?

Based on accepted garbage measurements, I guess we should start with a a sixty second standardized psychometric test and let people allocate that number of character development points towards their character each play session. I'm sure that you could get MENSA to sponsor such a MMORPG.

[Strazos]

Games that reward you for being skilled at them to some extent reward time invested, but even more than that they reward those who use their time smartly to learn the most that they can. 

Utter nonsense. Finding mobs to farm takes neither skill nor smarts. Having no other hobbies takes about the same attributes. Being "efficient" with your play time doesn't really take skill - you just socialize less, and grind more. Whoop dee doo.

[Draive]

If the focus of Archlord is pvp (which it looks to be) and the game is item centric, or takes forever to max out levels, it will fail. Just like how TOA ruined DAoC for a lot of us. PvPers will accept a reasonable amount of time invested = advantage in a fight, but only to an extent.

Giving someone the option to buy their char to pvp readiness is irrelevant, so long as I can compete on an even level w/in a reasonable amount of time I dont care if you bought or grinded your character. Honestly, from what I can tell, pvpers are getting less and less patient with grinds, I'm still suprised Lineage II went over as well as it did, I highly doubt it would happen again.

[Righ]

I think that there are about 50 people playing Lineage II. The rest of the 'players' are farming bots.

[damijin]

Lineage 2 wasn't originally very PvP centric. It was mostly a PvE game where people took a break every 2 weeks and dropped off about 3 days worth of exp in a mass slaughter 2 hour siege. PvP happened outside of sieges but... it wasn't like WoW or anything because there wasn't enough incentive to kill your enemies and a lot to risk if you died.

Still though, this made the fewer and further between PvPs feel like a lot more fun, and people would play really smart because there was a lot on the line.

It's kind of upsetting to me that the designers didn't feel people were PvPing enough in L2. I guess when the politics of the server get stale, subs go down in pretty large numbers because without PvP you don't have that endless stream of player generated end-game content. So now PvP has less risk, far less reward, and little scrolls that will let you instantly return to town in case you can't handle a fight. But it happens more.

Honestly the only real problem with L2, like Right said, is the fact that if you run a well balanced 9 man (full group) bot party, you can level 9 characters from 1 to 78 (current cap), in under 4 months. 6 months at the most if you're really slow. And one person can do this entire party by himself. In contrast, you could level a character legit, look for party, find friends who are support classes and hit 78 within 2 years... maybe.

Support classes increase leveling ability exponentially. Support classes blow ass to play. Botting mostly goes unpunished.

Pretty broken, but the game is still fun if you don't take it too seriously.

[Venkman]

I thought L2 was sold as a PvP game though? If so, then what you describe is expected. Why bother with PvP before the level cap at all? It's Shadowbane all over again. Hit R5 (level 50) and then go play the game as intended. And level up the most efficient way possible (in a group, one player active, everyone else soaking up XP AFK, take turns).

Really, the very activity of true competition within a MMORPG doesn't exist. The basis of character advancement is the only place time really applies, but even if everybody had the same character you've still got problems

It does not exist at the game mechanic level. However, it very much does exist at the experiential one. The perceived inbalance comes from player expectations. If they could stop caring about what others have and can do that they themselves do not have nor can't do, all these problems would go away. Instead, we have farming, twinking, powerleveling services and RMTing. It's a very real and tangible aspect of the genre that only an instantaneous collective epiphany would dissuade. Or, in other words, "never".

RMT doesn't even the tables, it skews it further. The 22 year old can probably leverage that full time job to buy him some RMT goodness.

You took my statement out of context. My comparison is about what the players are capable of doing in the game. The RMT thing is a separate element. My comment on that would be that the 22 year old (as I've described him, not all 22 year olds) simply has less to worry about. I make way more money now than I did 14 years old, but the bills are bigger and there's more than just me to feed, cloth and entertain :)

Why can't I be 22 today?!.

Why not slant the playing field toward the smartest players?

Games already do that. It's what is considered "smart" that is different.

[Der Helm]

Honestly the only real problem with L2, like Right said, is the fact that if you run a well balanced 9 man (full group) bot party, you can level 9 characters from 1 to 78 (current cap), in under 4 months. 6 months at the most if you're really slow. And one person can do this entire party by himself. In contrast, you could level a character legit, look for party, find friends who are support classes and hit 78 within 2 years... maybe.

Are you kidding me ?!?

[HaemishM]

No, he really isn't.

[Telemediocrity]

Lineage 2 wasn't originally very PvP centric. It was mostly a PvE game where people took a break every 2 weeks and dropped off about 3 days worth of exp in a mass slaughter 2 hour siege. PvP happened outside of sieges but... it wasn't like WoW or anything because there wasn't enough incentive to kill your enemies and a lot to risk if you died.

By the time WoW is a "PvP centric" game by comparison... wow.

[geldonyetich]

[A balanced playing field in a MMORPG] does not exist at the game mechanic level. However, it very much does exist at the experiential one. The perceived inbalance comes from player expectations.

Sorry for taking you out of context again, but I'm going to totally agree with you here and say that this is the only reason RMT exists.  Players build up an expectation they're going to compete with other players in a MMORPG, when we've already established that MMORPGs do not function as competitions.  So, that RMT happens at all is just preying on delusion, which I really can't approve of.  I'd rather smack those players and tell them, "Hey, wallet for brains, it's not a competition - put that thing away and learn to enjoy being where you are now."

That said, ArchLord comes off as no less balanced than any other MMORPG since they cannot operate as fair competitions regardless of the pay model or amulets of experience gain.   Considering that (if you pardon the stereotyping) Archlord made by a Korean company, it's probably just another Korean-potency grind.  That means I likely wouldn't won't be heavily involved in it anyway... maybe a little investigation investigation if they run a beta or free trial to see if my stereotyping was incorrect.

[tazelbain]

> we've already established that MMORPGs do not function as competitions.
Come on, that's not established at all.  It's high dependant on the game in question.

> So, that RMT happens at all is just preying on delusion, which I really can't approve of.
No the crappy, timesucking trendmills are very real.

[geldonyetich]

Come on, that's not established at all.  It's high dependant on the game in question.

That's true.  What we've established is that we can logically determine a game in which the participants start at different times, play different amounts of the day, and where players have different amounts of access to the methods of advancement do not allow character progression to be a fair basis of competition.  Sure, that excludes most MMORPGs, but I'm sure there are a few out there that don't make character progression a major factor.

No the crappy, timesucking trendmills are very real.

You're saying the timesucking treadmills are the cause of RMT.  So am I, but I look a step further, at why the timesucking treadmill is seen as a problem that needs to be solved.  A person hates level 10, he wants to be level 20, so he treadmills.  It's that desire to reach that level that generates the misery of a crappy treadmills.  The use of RMT is seen as a means to fill this desire faster.  However, the misery is caused by the player's belief that he can't be happy at level 10, not the lack of RMT.  When you're level 20, you'll want level 30, you'll still be miserable. The desire for artifical levels to make you 'happy' is the delusion, so blame that. 

That's looking at the skinner's box from the outside.  Blaming the designer for adding a time sucking treadmill is like a mouse blaming us for putting cheese on the trap.  This mouse chooses not to eat the cheese, but rather admire the traps for their unique architexture and move on once I've bored of them, and so RMT (buying a stepladder to reach the cheese) strikes me as delusional.  (Mice with stepladders courting death - such an adorable analogy.)

In other words, I think a better policy is to quit playing games the minute you realize you can't stand to play anymore.  RMT is paying somebody for cheats so you can continue to pay the developers who couldn't make a game enjoyable without cheating.  If enough people quit instead of RMT, maybe MMORPG developers will get the message that treadmill times that exceed the enjoyment of the game are bad ideas.

[Venkman]

Be careful with words like "most mmorpgs". The only "most" here is as seen in a single unit of measure (subscription accounts) as published by SirBruce. Personally, the number of subscribers is an irrelevant comparison. It does not answer any of the real questions that need to be asked, about different business models, different sub-demographics, different experiences.

Considering that (if you pardon the stereotyping) Archlord made by a Korean company, it's probably just another Korean-potency grind. That means I likely wouldn't won't be heavily involved in it anyway... maybe a little investigation investigation if they run a beta or free trial to see if my stereotyping was incorrect.

It's not about being Korean. It's about using the exact same game mechanic that specifically works well for RMTing, which lots of companies offer. Blizzard may hate what GPotato likes, but the player motivations in the game are the same. The former can turn its back on the practice and let all the extra bling go to the black market while the latter is both the pusher and the provider. And RMTing doesn't require diku either. It just requires inbalance.

24/7 Persistent world > Self-directed investment > Time-Inbalance > Farming > Twinking > Powerleveling > RMT.

Now, "microtransactions" are also emerging, but a bit differently. There's a big market for offering further ways to customize characters, portals and ingame worlds, but most of these do not include customizing one's ability in a game. This is the RMT that has no mechanical/balance impact, specifically offered in worlds that are not built on normal RPG conventions.

Just as lucrative, not as damaging to the player psyche :)

[Samwise]

The desire for artifical levels to make you 'happy' is the delusion, so blame that. 

Levels are by no means "artificial" in the sense of having no intrinsic "fun" value.  In many games, certain aspects of gameplay (PvP in most games, but sometimes even socialization tools like decorating and emotes) are gated by levels, and the levels can ONLY be gained via treadmilling.  If what you want is to engage in PvP, and you need to be level 50 to PvP "effectively", then you want to be level 50.  There's nothing artificial or delusional about that. 

The blame for using timesinks/RMT/cockblockery to gate gameplay lies solely on the shoulders of the developer.  Blaming treadmilling on players is what shitty game designers do when they don't want to face the natural consequences of their own shitty designs.

[Venkman]

No, they do it because it works. As in, it sells and is enjoyed. Not by everyone obviously, but by enough for it to naturally perpetuate.

There are different gamers to get though, so different developers go get them. Semantic nonsense yea, but really, that's the difference between competing for the same mindshare and creating or harnessing a new one. Spend $80mil on the WoW player or $10mil on a different one.

[Dren]

Time -> Better character/items + Better learned player skill + time to enjoy said character and skills

Money -> Better character/items + still no time to enjoy character -> Stand at bank for 30 minutes each night showing off stuff.

This assumes people pay money for more in a game because they don't have the time.  They still won't have the time after they spend the money and they certainly won't have the skills to survive in a heavy PvP environment.  It takes practice to do that.  They will have skipped that part.

If the game is so transparent that items and levels make up the majority of deciding who wins and who loses a fight, then the PvP population will go away anyway.  No true pvper will stick around in a game when they know people can bypass the content and whoops their ass just because they bought levels and items.

So, you'll be left with a bunch of people standing around the bank showing off their stuff without any real pvp'ing going on because nobody has the time.  It is a perfect MMOG for RL Executives.  Well, the ones too geeky to get into the country club.  Maybe this should be called Country Club Online!

[Rithrin]

so transparent that items and levels make up the majority of deciding who wins and who loses a fight

And this is what makes or breaks a PvP game. As long as someone with crappy gear and good "skill" (Be it twitch, strategy, knowing when to use certain abilities, whatever the game is based on) can defeat someone with uber gear and no skill, then the game will do good. But seeing as Archlord is offering things like health buffs to people who pay more, I doubt the game will be anything other than item-centric.

[geldonyetich]

It's not about being Korean. It's about using the exact same game mechanic that specifically works well for RMTing, which lots of companies offer.

I was saying it was about being Korean (stereotyping as that may be) because I wouldn't play such a boring Korean potency-treadmill with or without RMT. ;)  But you're right that's not what we're discussing here.

The blame for using timesinks/RMT/cockblockery to gate gameplay lies solely on the shoulders of the developer.  Blaming treadmilling on players is what shitty game designers do when they don't want to face the natural consequences of their own shitty designs.

We're not in disagreement here, but rather looking at it from two sides of the same coin.  On one hand, the developers shouldn't make shitty treadmills.  On the other hand, players shouldn't buy RMT in order to continue to play shitty treadmills.

[Venkman]

Most of the "potency-treadmills" you've burned out on, from EQ through WoW, were not of Korean origin :)

[Samwise]

We're not in disagreement here, but rather looking at it from two sides of the same coin.  On one hand, the developers shouldn't make shitty treadmills.  On the other hand, players shouldn't buy RMT in order to continue to play shitty treadmills.

The point of buying RMT is to circumvent the treadmill and try to get to the game that's theoretically at the end of it, be that PvP or raiding or whatever.  Of course, in most cases it will turn out that the game at the end sucks as much as the treadmill did, but the RMTer still wins out because he found out that much quicker.