Aout wrote:So you are saying buying time is completely different from buying other means of advantages ?
Got it. Thanks.
Don't put words in my mouth. I said nothing of the kind.
Aout wrote:The mortal example: You may say this makes it pay2win, I'd say it makes it pay2play. In that sense, you could argue any MMO that can be bought is pay2win since you can always buy more accounts, giving you an edge. The thing is, most human beings are only able to control 1 toon at a time; and you need to make an actual in-game investment into your newly acquired toon. Mortal also makes it clear what you get (as stated above); which pretty much is what I'd like to see from LiF as well. Just tell us what "premium account" means. There must be at least *some* rough ideas. Instead we get "uhm, dunno yet". They also don't sell you starter kits and premium currency and all that other extra crap.
Pay2play is a different business model than free2play. It cannot be both, for you to call MO free to play but with a severe skill cap, and then call it pay2play completely invalidates your use of it as an example.
Yes - buying more accounts to give you an edge is another form of pay2win. I had 5 accounts in Eve, and I played all 5 at once many times as it greatly increased the amount of money I made. Granted, 1 or 2 were scouts sent out to watch local, but that is just more proof that this is a form of pay2win. Ultimately I got three of the accounts main characters far enough along that they stopped training and I created new characters that I would then sell, rotating one a month. This provided me with a reverse pay to win strategy as I only ever paid $20 a month for all 5 accounts.
And they have given a rough idea of what it is. Sharana has given an idea of what it is. You just don't like the answer.
Aout wrote:What I am against is instant gratification through cash shops. If I can just go ahead and buy some skill points (which essentially is what a Skill Booster does) I'll bypass an in-game effort that people who don't buy the booster have to make. I can just do other things instead of grinding skills - i.e. make more in-game money.
Its not the same at all. EvE now has that instant gratification. Spend real world money to buy skill injectors - poof - you can fly a carrier now. Now I have friends who still play the game who love this because those newb pilots are easy kills in expensive ships. That's not what I look for in a game, which is why I quit playing it.
Aout wrote:Now, the concept of grind is yet another topic I'm not eager to delve into right here in this post. It would explode. Suffice to say using your skills in order to accomplish things should be where the game is at, not "grinding" those skills up. Regardless of your premium currency budget.
Show me a game that doesn't have some sort of time investment and I'll show you a game not worth spending time on. Further - what you call raising skill by actually doing something worthwhile I will still call a grind, since nothing you accomplish in a game actually translates to real world value (unless of course, you are selling it to another player for real world money, in which case you are supporting pay2win).
Aout wrote:I'll make it simple: A skill boost is not cosmetics. Can we agree on that one ?
Good.
My stance: Being able to buy non-cosmetics via premium currency is bad, Mkay ? You may disagree, but you have to deal with the fact that I'm not the only one turned down by it. Heck even if it is only cosmetics it's detrimental to an immersive sandbox game. If I wanna look fancy, I wanna be able to craft something that looks fancy. If I see someone looking fancy I don't want to hear "oh I bought the skin" when asking who the tailor is or where he found it. Cash shops suck. Deal with it. What happened to good old monthly subs ?
Actually, I agree that I would rather this be a one character per account, monthly sub type of game. I have visions of seeing characters walking around in massive shoulder-pads or totally unrealistic weapons or dragons meshed over horses. I have hope this will not be the case, but can only judge based on what bitbox has provided over the last several years of development.
That doesn't mean I am going to jump to conclusions and run around screaming that the sky is falling like some adolescent two year old with a boo-boo on the knee (FYI - that's not directed at you).
Finally, I will tell you why a skill booster in this game is not the end of the world - or game breaking.
Skill Caps and
Skill Loss. In a game like Darkfall (the original), or Eve, yes, it is a horrible pay to win mechanic that rewards the lazy (and greedy game companies).
In a game like MO or even an oldie like UO, its not as bad, as the skill cap evens everyone out eventually. In LIF it means that someone will get to the skill cap faster but that is always unfair as it is ultimately based on the amount of time played. I'll be capped out in just a few days. Not with the skills I will ultimately be working toward, but with skills to build my stats where I want.
Now add in skill loss and that money someone spent just got wasted. In fact, some might consider it the ultimate in game player grief.
I hope they won't make horse riding unlockable by money...
"10 сотки" (the paid one) is 250 ingame tiles and the wiki says up to 250 as well.
