For Want of a Horse…

Darren’s post about the Runes of Magic $10 horse certainly echoed through the local blogesphere.

RMT is still controversial.  It still seems like cheating to some.  But then I came from a time when posting quest details to a public forum was considered cheating, so times change.

Comments ran from Keen’s call for more people to “join the anti-RMT/microtransaction initiative” to Andrew’s post on Of Teeth and Claws stating that this is “an example of RMT implemented correctly.”

Darren thinks there is a simple answer, which runs along the lines of “if you buy the horse, you’re an idiot.” (The horse is a lie!)

Tobold’s response somewhat echoes my own sentiments on the topic, which was pretty much “Everything is relative.”  I’m with Potshot, I’d plunk down cash for an epic flyer in WoW for my alt, but I couldn’t tell you what my price point is.  I can tell you that the epic flyer, in and of itself, is a lot of fun as well as being a heck of a time saver.

Meanwhile Beau jumped on a single sentence in this discussion and built a post around people needing to play item store financed games before they say such things. (Though he only used the term “e-peen” once.)

How about you?  Would you consider buying that $10 permanent horse?

(I will add any “other” answers to the comments.  Figured out how to see them finally.)

39 thoughts on “For Want of a Horse…

  1. Pingback: Potshot on Runes of Magic « pΘtshΘt

  2. Sara Pickell

    I put down sure, though it is complicated to some degree.

    From what I’ve heard, the horse is permanent, meaning once you buy it it never goes away. So lets say you play the game for six months, and buy the horse so you can get around quickly without worrying about timers. If it’s the only thing you buy in those six months, you’ve just saved $80 over a usual sub game. And they aren’t even requiring you to pay that, just asking politely.

    So even if the horse isn’t, in and of itself, worth $10, you’ll still be saving money over the alternatives from subscription games.

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  3. We Fly Spitfires

    I voted maybe. I’ve done stupider things and spent money on a lot worse. If it was a really cool horse, impossible or very difficult to get by other means, and was for a long term character I was attached to then, yeah, I probably would buy it.

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  4. Bhagpuss

    Your point on how it used to be seen as “cheating” to post to, or use, websites for game info is the key here, I think. In a few years from now this discussion about the horse is going to seem so quaint and naive.

    When I started EQ, Verant used to call Allakhazam and its ilk “Spoiler Sites” and actively discouraged players from visiting them. Now they, and most other game companies, supply the big info sites with direct information, do commercial deals with them and try to integrate their functions directly into the games themselves.

    The golden days of MMOs as a “hobby”, with a hobbyist’s club rules, are almost over. For those who want that, it will be on offer in niche games, but for the mass market it will be “who pays wins”. After all, that’s what happens to every other aspect of life, so why would MMOs be any different?

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  5. *vlad*

    I don’t play the game, so I would need to know more about the ‘permanent’ aspect of this. Are non-permanent horses expensive? How long do they last?

    10 dollars is trivial, but it’s the feeling of being conned that would make me not buy it.

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  6. Draxi

    IMHO the different ways people think about RMT is due to the simple fact that in the real world you buy a coke you drink it, you hold it in your hand it is there and its yours. In the virtual world whatever you buy is a variable of bits in some server far far away. It exists only for as long as the server does and in reality you don’t actually own those bits, even trying to sell them is against the rules most of the time. So what kind of transaction is this? It’s almost like buying a star. You lift your head and you see it, you have a deed that says its yours but in the day you can’t see it and you DON’T own it!

    I understand the subscription model, its a service model I know how that works. I understand WoW’s RMT to change sex, server, name, faction again it is a service, go down to your town hall to change your name a fee applies. But the RMT with most games is more hard to grasp. I get it I just don’t feel inclined to use it.

    I would feel better if Runes of Magic or any other game came up to me and said straight up: Yo! This is F2P but if you gimme 10 bucks you’ll become a member and I’ll give you a free horsie to go play. You’ll also get access to the exclussive member channel which is worthless and pointless but will make you feel special.

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  7. Shawn

    I put down $10 for a permanent horse in RoM back in January after playing the game for a month and loving what I saw. 6-7 months later and that’s still the only money I ever paid for the game. In any sub-based game, I’d have paid about $100 to play the game so far, and probably would just be getting a mount now.

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  8. Andrew

    @Vlad:
    You can rent horses for in-game gold…. there are a variety of plans for that from 3hrs to a week, iirc. The kicker here is that you even use in game funds to buy a permanent horse.

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  9. Reatu Krentor

    It’s complicated. I don’t think I would buy it outright if there is a “free” way to get it, provided that isn’t a grind belonging to the Nightmare.
    The working towards it, the journey, is a reward in itself, as long as it doesn’t become the aforementioned grind.
    Would you enjoy your epic mount just as much if you would’ve just plunked down x $ for it?

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  10. syncaine

    Atlantica Online had a similar/same deal, where you could buy a mount for X amount and it was permanent, or buy temp mounts in-game. One key thing I have not seen mentioned is that after 3-4 months of a mount being the top choice, a new RMT mount is released which is X% faster, and you once again buy or go without. Add in the fact that in AO mounts also gave stat bonuses, and that AO’s end-game was PvP, and well, you better jump on the RMT treadmill if you want to avoid being a non-factor.

    Multiply buying a mount with however many OTHER items you ‘can’ purchase to stay afloat, and that $15 a month is starting to look like a bargain.

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  11. dave

    I’ve never played Runes of Magic, so I don’t know if $10 is a reasonable price point for the mount. I do know that if World of Warcraft offered Epic Flying for $10, they would have had at least $50 dollars from my household.

    The pain in the ass that is gathering 5000g in WoW is definitely worth $10 of my money. I tend to look at my time spent on line as a mirror of what I could earn offline. I make $32 an hour, so $10 is 20 minutes of work. If an epic mount saves me 20 minutes in game, it’s worth its $10.

    I have 3 80’s and my wife has 2. Two of my 80’s have the epic flyer, one of hers does as well. It took us waaaay to long to get 15,000 gold for them. The difficulty is I will not buy from gold selling companies because all of them have been responsible for screwing over players by hacking accounts and selling off real players hard earned stuff.

    In the good old days gold farmers just grinded out items and materials to sell to other players. If gold farmers just did this I would have no problem buying because grinding out and selling items is a legitimate use of an account in my opinion. But the hacking has dirtied the farming industry to the point where I can’t support it with a clear conscience.

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  12. darren

    My simple answer really is that the horse is not worth $10 because you ain’t getting anything but the horse. There is no content behind it.

    You’re paying $10 for code that looks like:

    if(player.hasRMTHorse()) {
    player.speed = player.speed * 1.65;
    } else {
    player.speed = player.speed *1.0;
    }

    …yeah…$10 value right there.

    ;P

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  13. p@tsh@t

    @Darren

    …And my retort is that what is in effect a permanent speed buff actually permits those with the buff to access additional content that they would not otherwise be able to as a result of time constraints.

    The delta in accessible content for the individual that purchases it is where you find your value….;)

    What about a paid character transfer that allows you to play with your friends who are on another server?

    player.server = [new server name]

    I think there’s value in that too. I wish it were free, but if my choices are 1) roll a new toon and try to catch up (invest more time and/or sub money to get to the “new” content with your friends), 2) pay for a character transfer (instant access to “new” content playing with your friends or 3) leave the game and your friends behind, I think I’d probably go with #2 depending on the price.

    Whether that price is something you are willing to bear is a function of each individual’s time and the entertainment benefit that is now open to you.

    I think I’d have a bit more trouble in an F2P game with the velvet rope model you seem to be ok with. Each expansion is effectively that anyway. But then again, I always liked amusement parks where you pay one admission price and can ride all the rides for “free” but still have to pay for funnel cones.

    mmmm. funnel cones…..

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  14. Wilhelm2451 Post author

    @Darren:

    You do obstinately persist in not seeing anybody elses point of view on this, don’t you? The underlying code is irrelevant, though the fact that you are trying to prove your point by yet another odd angle is telling.

    I’m not sure how you can continue to pretend that there is no value in something that moves you from point A to point B more quickly in an MMO. It is an indisputable matter of fact that such a speed increase will move a person through, around, and to content faster. It further follows that somebody who is invested in the game but who has limited time to play may, in fact, see that $10 horse as an enabler of more fun, allowing them to see and experience more content in the game.

    And let’s face it, you are preaching to a group of people who have a demonstrable habit of spending $20-80 on games at the drop of a hat. How many RMT horses could you afford if you could get your money back for every game that you bought and played for 2 hours or less? If you’re going to go on about wasting money, there is a ripe topic.

    You and the $10 horse have to learn to live together in peace.

    Either that or you have shed the hypocrisy of your position, this equine persecution in which you are engaging, and broaden your scope and start a crusade against against all non-content RMT/microtransaction items. Which, frankly, is almost all of them.

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  15. bluelinebasher

    Loving TAGN polls!

    I voted never since I haven’t in an MMO but it should have probably have fallen under complicated — since I have been guilty of buying the occasional special/collectors edition of a game which gives items, and spending XBox live points for additional DLC. But I have never bought gold or a virtual item in an MMO (wait did preorder of Warhammer come with a gem or something, does that count?). I feel these acts enable a trend that other companies are picking up on through their market research (I’m looking at you EA!!!) which withholds game content for an additional fee. When it’s a luxury item, like a speed buff, is it ok to charge? When it’s Free To Play, is it ok for the company to charge for extra items? But it doesn’t stop there — look at the Collector’s Edition of Sims 3 which came with a coupon for 10 Sim Store bucks. After shelling out 50-60 for the game, now I have to pay more for aditional items to appear in the game via the Sim Store for content that is ready at release but withheld for profit? Maybe yes because people are paying money for virtual items like horses and it is seen as another revenue stream. Start the crusade already!

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  16. Saylah

    @Blue – TS3 and EA can kiss my azz with that crap. Especially when their content doesn’t hold a candle to the player created content we’ve been using all these years, so they’ll never get a nickle of mine for their items. I do however, subscribe to two very good TS resource sites so yes, I pay for additional content because NOTHING IS FOR FREE. Someone spent time developing the items and I show my appreciation and respect by subscribing so they get something in return.

    ROM is free-to-play and those games only survive if some % of players pay for fluff and non-fluff items. Sub + required/necessary RMT is a no for me but Free + RMT is a sure, hell yes, how on earth would they make money otherwise?

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  17. Dorath

    Right now I’m personally spending ~US$15/month to play a subscription based MMO. I’ve been doing it for many years, and I feel that it’s a fantastic value for the money spent.

    After giving the matter some thought I’ve decided that if I were to stop playing a subscription based game and start playing a F2P-RMT game, then I’d be comfortable spending ~US$15/month to pick up items in that game.

    Either way I’m still out 15/mo.

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  18. Sören

    @darren #14: Then you must stop learning skills in Eve.

    if( currentSkill.isFinished() ) {
    player.modifyAttribute(
    currentSkill.getAttr(),
    currentSkill.getLevel()
    );
    }

    Entering the conditional block costs 4€-15€ on lvl5-skills. I’m currently training “Mining lvl5”, which gives me a 5% yield-increase at around 5d ~4€. Then there is “Mining drone ops lvl5” in the queue (10d ~8€). It gives me access(!) to digital, virtual drones with +67% mining yield. Not even the drones itself. And of course – no content. Aah, well, wait: CCP offers regular free content upgrades, which I obviously have paid with my training time. Oh, and Frogster (RoM) already announced the next content upgrade for september. I guess my two mounts paid some of the devs involved.

    BTW: Yesterday in late evening I collected some number on the money I spent on several online games:
    http://towt.wordpress.com/2009/07/06/rmt-vs-subscription-harder-numbers/
    Sub and RMT are on par.

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  19. Sören

    Ooops, I used a working month (4weeks * 5d) for calculation instead a calendar month (30d). So it should be 2,50€ and 5€. ;-)

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  20. darren

    @ Potshot:

    “…And my retort is that what is in effect a permanent speed buff actually permits those with the buff to access additional content that they would not otherwise be able to as a result of time constraints.”

    Access to content does not equal content. Are you saying that paying $10 for access to content “faster” is better than getting actual content for the same amount of money?

    @Wilhelm:
    “I’m not sure how you can continue to pretend that there is no value in something that moves you from point A to point B more quickly in an MMO. It is an indisputable matter of fact that such a speed increase will move a person through, around, and to content faster. It further follows that somebody who is invested in the game but who has limited time to play may, in fact, see that $10 horse as an enabler of more fun, allowing them to see and experience more content in the game.”

    I’m not pretending, I actually see no value in paying $10 for a horse that has no content behind it. Again, the fact that it gets you TO content faster is irrelevant because that content is there anyway for those patient enough to wait the extra minute to get there by walking or using portals which are even faster. It doesn’t give you anything

    I’m not questioning the horse, or the RMT at all…I’m questioning the price point. If that horse was $2.99, we wouldn’t be having this discussion. It’s a rip off…plain and simple. Look the RMT gift-horse in the mouth….

    But you’re right…that’s my value system kicking in and if you’re willing to buy, anything really, at that price…go for it. If you think horses, or anything, in game with no content behind them are worth $10…by all means, get one. I see you’re point of view, I just wholeheartedly and fully disagree with it.

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  21. darren

    oops..forgot this one:

    @John:

    “Either that or you have shed the hypocrisy of your position, this equine persecution in which you are engaging, and broaden your scope and start a crusade against against all non-content RMT/microtransaction items. Which, frankly, is almost all of them.”

    ..no need to get snippy ;)

    Tell me this. Which do you prefer:
    a) paying $15 at the gate and getting access to all the rides or
    b) getting in free and paying $10 per ride.

    In terms of the crusade, well…point me to another hyper-inflated price point for a non-content RMT item. Is there a $20 hat that you just paid for an are not happy with :)

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  22. Wilhelm2451 Post author

    @Darren:

    Tell me this. Which do you prefer:
    a) paying $15 at the gate and getting access to all the rides or
    b) getting in free and paying $10 per ride.

    That is a flagrantly false comparison. What we are comparing here is more like:

    a) paying $15 at the gate for each visit to the park and getting access to all the rides
    b) getting in free all the time, but paying $10 once for something that lets you skip ahead in line for each of the rides.

    And, to fill out the comparison, the RMT that you are in favor of would look like:

    c) getting in free but paying $5-20 for lifetime access to select premium rides on a ride-by-ride basis.

    My own preference would vary depending on the situation. There are situations where I might choose any of the above.

    As for the original question, the $10 for a horse, I still agree that it seems like a lot of money, but I say that not being invested in the game. If RoM became the main game I played, with the limited time I have to play most weeks, I bet I might change my mind and prefer to spend that $10 once rather than having to grind diamond to keep renting a horse.

    But to contend that there is an overall “right price” for the horse is just silly. At any price point you will find people who think it is too much and people who would gladly pay more.

    And yes, Darren, you are pretending because you are claiming that $10 is the wrong price and you act like everybody else is insane for not agreeing. It is the wrong price for you. Stick with that and we’ll all relax. To prove that the horse is really over priced in some universal sense you’ll need a lot more data than just your gut instinct and your sense of outrage.

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  23. darren

    “And yes, Darren, you are pretending because you are claiming that $10 is the wrong price and you act like everybody else is insane for not agreeing. It is the wrong price for you. Stick with that and we’ll all relax. To prove that the horse is really over priced in some universal sense you’ll need a lot more data than just your gut instinct and your sense of outrage.”

    First…sorry. Not pretending anything and you’re going to have to take my word for it I’m afraid, either that are call me a liar outright and get it over with. I’m sorry you think that of me, sir…and I’m kind of wondering where your angst about me having a strong opinion is coming from. Sorry…won’t let it go…can’t let it go…live with it.

    /wonders when I pissed in John’s cornflakes.

    Second…this is the wrong price point for this. Absolutely. This is not just a gut feeling. Sorry I didn’t whip out the power point slides and drawings for you, but if you look on Steam or Popcap or Direct2Drive or Impulse and browse there, you’ll see what you can get for the ballpark of $10 (…or less…)and you tell me if that type of item is worth it or not.

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  24. Wilhelm2451 Post author

    @Darren:

    Darren, you went around pissing on this whole thing and you’re wondering how some got in my cornflakes? Some quotes:

    …fool and his money. Go crazy. Knock yourself out…but your fuckin off your rocker if that horse is anywhere near making sense in this place we call reality.

    …are you out of your fuckin mind?!?!

    You should be DEMANDING new experiences and content for your money…not bullshit vanity items that give you nothing.

    As for this:

    Sorry…won’t let it go…can’t let it go…live with it.

    Then you will have to live with me and other people saying that you are spouting a load of unsubstantiated bullshit. Who pissed in my cornflakes? Again, you seem to be doing all the pissing but can’t seem to figure out why other people take issue.

    As for “this is the wrong price point for this” I didn’t ask for PowerPoint slides, but all I have seen is you stomping your feet, swearing, and thinking up bad analogies. Go find something of equal utility in an RMT supported MMO that is at your price point. Not PopCap. Not fancy fluff hats. Something that give you an permanent speed buff and the utility that goes with it, and tell me what the price is.

    Basically, put up or shut up, because everything you have written so far is opinion and conjecture.

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  25. brent

    Question to the commenting horde:

    What if the micro-transaction was $10 for 1000 in-game gold-pieces and 300 gold pieces just happened to be the price of a basic horse? How does or doesn’t that change your view of the scenario. Instead of micro-transacting for a single item, you’re micro-transacting for … whatever it is you can purchase in the game. And, you can do it again and again. Want 10 horses in your stable? $100 will get it. Want one horse (1000gp), an awesome player house (2000gp) with a busty house-maid (6000gp), a hot tub (500gp) and a lawn-mowing goat (500gp)? $100 will set you up nicely. Do you like that idea more or less than “you can buy a horse and only a horse for $10”

    Like

  26. brent

    (i mean to say: “hat if the micro-transaction was $10 for 1000 in-game gold-pieces and 1000 gold pieces just happened to be the price of a basic horse?”

    Like

  27. Wilhelm2451 Post author

    @Darren: Agree to disagree.

    Dude, that’s essentially what I’ve been saying for the last 10 comments here, there, and everywhere. How many times have I written that $10 is too much for me as well, from my perspective at the moment?

    But you have been holding to a line of intolerance for anybody thinking that the horse could ever be worth $10 under any circumstances. Seriously, go read what you have written and find where you allowed anybody that room without calling them a name or being dismissive.

    Look at this thread. You’ve gone all Syncaine on me buddy. I want to find room for your view, but you have to allow me room for mine as well. And when you start in with absolutes, well… this hasn’t been your most Canadian of moments.

    Can’t we all just get along?

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  28. Wilhelm2451 Post author

    @Brent: You can always drop me a note or an IM and say, “Uh, fix this typo plz.” I feel partially responsible for the unforgiving comment system, if only because I have chosen WordPress.com.

    Anyway, what you say sounds idyllic in a way. No sweat, if you want to earn the gold by grinding, do it. If you want to drop us some cash for the gold, we’re good with that.

    But what RoM has done has made the permanent horse only available via a cash transaction while what you can buy in game via your own efforts is only a rental horse that you have to pay for every month.

    And you and I both know why they did that. They want there to be an incentive to spend money versus time. They need to finance the game after all.

    Now, they could tinker with the system. They could keep the cash drop rate in game the same, introduce the perma-horse at a huge price in in-game currency, and then instead of giving you, say, 1,000 diamonds for your $10, they could give you 10,000. But I haven’t played nearly enough to speculate as to how much of the rest of the in-game economy they would then have to re-jig to account for a big influx of RMT purchased currency.

    I’ve mentioned that I would put down cash for the epic flyer riding skill in WoW if the wanted to sell that. But only if the skill remains at its current 5K price. I don’t want to grind 5K in gold. But if they changed it to 2.5K, I might just grind the gold. Even the proposal in WoW 3.2 to allow faction to play into the price of the skill, it could knock it down to 4K gold, would change the value of the skill to me in real dollars.

    And the relative value to me is no doubt completely different than the next five people you might ask.

    Now what were we talking about?

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  29. darren

    “But you have been holding to a line of intolerance for anybody thinking that the horse could ever be worth $10 under any circumstances. Seriously, go read what you have written and find where you allowed anybody that room without calling them a name or being dismissive.

    Look at this thread. You’ve gone all Syncaine on me buddy. I want to find room for your view, but you have to allow me room for mine as well. And when you start in with absolutes, well… this hasn’t been your most Canadian of moments.”

    …indeed. But I’m confused at your impression of my intolerance above given what I wrote here, which was my current view of the matter:

    Bush and The Agency

    “It’s obvious that some of us are going to agree to disagree on this one. I think $10 on, what amounts to, a speed buff is a waste of money for no content…and some think it’s a hell of a deal. That’s fine with me and I can certainly live with it. I’m of the philosophy that we teach people how to treat us and if we want to teach the MMO industry that this is the way to go, well…who am I to shout into the wind, eh ;) Just don’t start bitching when they charge $20 for a glowing eye effect that let’s you see in the dark between 8:30-10pm.”

    …and my comment here today:

    “But you’re right…that’s my value system kicking in and if you’re willing to buy, anything really, at that price…go for it. If you think horses, or anything, in game with no content behind them are worth $10…by all means, get one. I see you’re point of view, I just wholeheartedly and fully disagree with it.”

    I’m giving plenty of room…I already conceded that….but then you got snippy and started throwing “hypocrisy” and “pretending”…as if faking this position in the first place. So…I’m confused.

    ..all good though.

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  30. Saylah

    It has occurred to me, that when WOW gold farming/buying was really starting to kick in, one of the frequent reasons for players gave for buying that gold, was to buy epic mounts – level 60 mounts!. At the 500 gold or so it was back then, that’s probably about 10 bucks. So really, people being okay with spending that much gold on a mount versus spending their entertainment time farming isn’t anything new.

    Then when the farming/selling go treally crazy, you know what reasons players were giving for buying all that gold? TO RAID IN WOW – hardcore raiders, who were raiding 5x days a week, didn’t want to spend the other two days farming gold for repair bills and consumables. They wanted to – you know, actually hang out and play the game.

    If memory serves correctly, world first guilds like Nihilum admitted to buying gold to fund raiding. This amounts to…
    1. Paying real money to repair virtual goods (giggle)
    2. Paying real money to buy virtual consumable goods (potions and flasks were crazy expensive to buy or treacherous to farm the mats for) (laughing)
    3. Paying real money to run content in order to acquire virtual items to replace the virtual items they already had (ironic)
    4. Paying real money to be the 1st to say, we slayed these pixel bosses. (boggled by this one, but hey, to each his own.)

    So I look at a free game that has decent content and think NOTHING of spending $10 to get on with doing the content. And I can’t be offended by the price or surprised because gold sinks and farming suck. I have better things to do in game.

    This isn’t new and the price to me at least, isn’t even high. WOW Dailies are Blizzard’s way of letting players farm gold versus buying it. I’d bet they’d make a mint if they just sold the damn things for cash for players inclined to buy it versus slave for it, which isn’t all that entertaining.

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  31. Saylah

    @Wilhelm – Someone said this earlier… ROM doesn’t need to offer both directly, they already do. Players are free to grind gold til their heads burst and buy diamonds via the auction house from another player. EVERYONE can have access to a permanent mount using the means by which they are most comfortable. They are also free to do neither and keeping walking or renting. So I really never saw what the big deal was, given all of those options.

    The last couple of days that I was playing a player was BEGGING to buy diamonds for a mount. It was when they had those special mounts hovering mounts and were changing which one you could buy daily. I’d long since had a permanent mount but I want one of those and bought.

    Anywho, I saw someone begging for over an hour to buy diamonds and wasn’t getting any takers. I whispered her and asked – curious, what she wanted them for and he/she explained that she wanted the unicorn mount. I had plenty of diamonds having bought them 1/3 price during a downtime and sold her what she needed by coordinating the sale on the AH. She gave me a staggering amount of gold. I don’t want to misquote and don’t recall but I do remember being shocked by all the 0s. She said that was the going rate. I thought it was insane so I thru in an 15 extra diamonds so she could buy a house item or something.

    The game is already designed such that players comfortable with RMT can do that and those who aren’t but want RMT items can farm gold in trade for diamonds. Seriously, what more should they really have to do?

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  32. p@tsh@t

    Awesome threadnought.

    Little to add, but since Darren called me out (#24), I feel compelled to respond with the metaphysical.

    Rather than consider whether access might equal content (where Darren clearly considers access != content), consider it from another point of view– denial of access != content.

    Let me be less cryptic: If a game’s design has cockblocks built in to gate access to content whether that is pure time, attunements, gear checks, effective party/raid size, etc., for the player on the wrong side of that gate, all that content effectively DOESN’T EXIST.

    Can’t experience it. Can’t get there, can’t go there. Can’t afford the time required to gain the access. Egad, too bad, so sad (and thanks for the $50 box and $15/mo sub). Jeff Kaplan SUPER genius…

    A player’s perception of the gameworld changes as a function of ability to access it changes. The rate at which they can move through that dramatically changes the amount of content they can experience in any given gaming session. Their accessible content is determined in part by the speed with which they move through the game world.

    Boats? Taxis? Ports? Meeting Stones? Jump Clones? Why were they added to games in the first place?

    How did your world change when you got your first bike? Then what about your first car? What life content were you able to experience that your friends without a bike or car couldn’t? That for them simply didn’t exist even though they were members of the same community you were.

    Why on earth would I pay $X for a car that didn’t deliver additional content? The video arcade/music club/book store/gun shop always was where it was. All you had to do was walk the 5 miles there. In the snow. At night. As long as you didn’t have a curfew.

    Content is experienced as a function of time and that time goes to zero, the content beyond the time envelope goes to zero as well.

    THEREFORE, since denial of access effectively removes content for the player without access, access effectively adds that content.

    A final thought:

    “At a dinner party one night, an inebriated Churchill asked an attractive woman whether she would sleep with him for a million pounds. “Maybe,” the woman said coyly. “Would you sleep with me for one pound?” Churchill then asked. “Of course not, what kind of woman do you think I am?” the woman responded indignantly. “Madam, we’ve already established what kind of woman you are,” said Churchill, “now we’re just negotiating the price.”” — Winston Churchill

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  33. darren

    Actually Potshot…you’re correct. Doesn’t WoW have content that is only accessible through flying mounts??

    Finally…

    /gives John a big, wet kiss.

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