The Portable Trader GMS will now be usable by everyone for a few bucks.
...
What.
Gee thanks FunCom. Screw individuality, screw interesting little tools, let's just hand them out to everyone! Oh, and "real life money won't get us power?" BUyable VPs don't fall under this now? People sell VP nanos (and now, armor) for credits... you're basically selling credits, now. This is insipid.
How about doing something awesome and useful and improving the effing Trader shop?
Yes, they probably are the reason behind the changes. But I don't think they've realized the implications of letting people buy levels. Short term (maybe over the next year) it will increase profits slightly. Longer term, a year from now this will certainly hurt AO's profitability, drastically, and FC certainly doesn't want that. They need all the profit they can get.
Can't believe no one has commented that this has been reduced to two mouse clicks
Buy lvls when u already have a 220 is ok.
Buy VPs is ok.
Make OFAB armor YesDrop is ok.
All things above at once is silly. Doesnt really break the game but... Will turn everything harder for newbies AND many ppl dont like/hate those things. And OMFG it allows trade between real money and AO creds.
Lainbr - 220/30/70 Meta-Physicist Nanomage - E / Spirals - 220/30/70 Enforcer Solitus - E / Kokusho - 201/22/55 Fixer Nanomage - Equip Soon ;o
Traderbr - 180/0/0 Trader Nanomage - / Kaoru - 60/0/0 Meta-Physicist Nanomage - totw semitwink
Proud veteran of Spartans
To devs: You failed redesigning MPs as NTs with pets. I want my debuffer back.
Dreamer: Basically - I wish THIS much effort was put in to ALL profs rebalance docs.
Kintaii: Genele is more hardcore than you, your guildmates, and anyone else you've ever played with
Anarrina: Trust me, I'm not that scary in real life.
Again, HOW is this impacting your gameplay? What is it about this shop that changes things for YOU?
Me, to the contrary, believe that this is a good move by Funcom if it brings in more revenue from Anarchy Online. No MMO is based on charity. They cost money to keep on the net going from day to day. Now, Means said that AO isnt in any trouble revenue vice, but lets get real here...if the execs at Funcom says AO's time is up, then its time is up. Nothing Means can do about that. So its better to keep the game well above the red ink. It might even get Funcom to invest MORE into AO. Isnt that a happy thought to consider? YOU dont need to pay anything extra for it though because its based on choice. It's all those other guys who think their time is more worth than grinding out those levels or VP's and pay real money for it who would be footing the bill. I'm not saying it WILL happen, but I do hope it could happen.
Look at what the RMT did for Dungeons & Dragons Online. It totaly revived the game. Look at the effort that Turbine is putting into DDO now that it has become a cash-cow. They are cranking out content faster than ever.
Please try to relax a bit. YOUR game wont be impacted by this if you dont want to pay anything extra. Actually, it might even improve!
Ingame names;
Slayertank 220 enf | Slayerbabe 200 adv | Mythic 175 mp
Xziztenzia 180 doc | Loveleet 205 engie | Babita 175 crat
Slayershade 59 shade | Savio 213 NT (main) | Anlor 201 mp
Slayerfixer1 213 fixer | Bjirk 220 sold | Murder101 178 trader |
I approve of these changes.
As far as buying levels goes, there are already dozens of ebayed 220 noobs running around who seem to have bought their accounts from others - if there's toon-selling going on (and really there's no way to stop that) it may as well be FC that gets the money for it.
Some will be noobs and not know their prof. Some will figure it out. In other words, no different from the current kite noobs.
In all, the only negative impact this will really have is on the finances of NTs at kite hill
The ones who will buy this service anyway are the same who sit afk on kite hill all day, so it's not like we'll notice them missing from "real" teams.
RK1: Flipyap
I duelled GM... AND WON!!!
People that can afford luxury will buy it, but in the airplanes case they aren't buying reduced traveling time, the passengers all get there at the same time.They are simply buying convenience and extra service.In AO's case you are getting an extra service with the illusion of convenience.At the end you still have to buy all the AI armors, farm pande and gain AI lvls and LE lvls ect ect, and if one couldn't be botherd to lvl something to 199 I doubt that same person can be botherd farming all the other things that go with it.
As for the MMO trends, based on my own MMO experience adding Micro-transactions is done by companies that are trying to milk a deflating product, e.q AION/NCsoft and any other MMO that has failed to reach the target audience and goals.
Last edited by Coookiez; Nov 12th, 2010 at 21:10:30.
Somebody lied.
Autohead 220/30/70 Solitus Soldier - Synergy Factor
Auron 220/25 Keeper ::: Shadowslave 220/23 Shade ::: Radius 211/21 Nano-Technician
Sunza 207/21 Martial Artist ::: Voss 182/15 Engineer ::: Shadowhead 150/16 Agent
Some of the classes have already been quite unique to play compared to others. Playing solja hardly teaches you how to heal others as doc. Or how to play a calmer. And they are making the classes even more unique now.
All of which - apart from nodrops - will be buyable with Visa - thanks to Ofab becoming yesdrop (and nanos already were, smaller demand tho). Takes about 5 minutes to take a look on some sigs on forum to get an idea what to use your $$ for.
How exactly is creating more bad players going to improve AO? Even if we "avoid" them.
Making BS run even less (can't complain too much here on RK1, heard TL5 BS is semi-deserted on Rimor thogh) does no good.
As said, it's nost just VP being made buyable - with it, people can buy credits. And that affects the gameplay way more than FC or anyone can yet understand - and when real money has started being converted to credits, it's kinda hard to stop it if/when you realise things get out of control.
It's no longer the same game many of us have fallen in love with over the years when your real-life wallet starts to buy you power. And it's not hard to see where this is leading. Some time ago Means stated they would never ever sell anything other than social items for real money. Last week we heard about XP stims for $ which were originally removed from trading due to "being too powerfull". Now they reveal tokens, VP, Reset points being for sale too. Buyable levels in the horizon. Really... it doesn't take Einstein to figure out where this leads.
Carebear as the changes are, they arent that game-breaking. Even VP is really not that hard to get, especially when ofab items are not nodrop anymore and you can just pvp on your favorite toon for an alt.
The only real problem i see are the crat/trader gms/bank items in there. Not sure what the deal with those is. In theory i dont see a problem with everyone being able to check gms from anywhere as its the bleeding future and we have smart phones as it is, but that would mean nerfing/removing one of the few unique abilities left in this game limited to a handful of professions and this trend is alarming to say the least. Some explanation would be nice from a credible source.
RK1: Flipyap
I duelled GM... AND WON!!!
My forecast is that there will be sweatshops of credit/vp/money farmers in game to support FC.
Of course, this is worst case scenario.
However, this sets a new precedent in bought and sold "unintended" gameplay. FC potentially creates a system that is convenient to "play to play" sure... but after the amount of what i've seen players in game, is more along of the lines of "pay instead of play".
Next thing you know you see an explosive number of PVP toons making notum wars happen on completely bought/farmed alts. Now, I realize this happens already, but lazy players often don't find the will necessary to make it happen. Now, its just a click away.
Towerblock, 220/30/70 Engineer
President of Steadfast
And way too many alts...
Sorry, I am giggling with the image of some raving mad lunatic being carried off in a straight jacket by the FC mods/orderlies.
With that said, I have some reservations about the pay to level part. It is not quite something I can put my finger on, just sort of a bad feeling. But, I will admit I am only basing my opinions on what I see now, not what might be.
I would ask what I hope is a simple question. What sort of population level does FC hope for (ofc, bazillions), or put more directly, does the current population level, if it goes neither up nor down work with the changes you have in mind?
Liamboru 220 Engineer - Brianboru 220 Soldier - Padraigboru 150 Soldier - Tadghboru 60 Engineer - Cormacboru 15 Engineer
...and ofc, the army of buff hoes
------------------------------------
PvPDood: Hey, come back and duel me again, I hardly ever get to fight a gimp like you! - Get a /tell like that and it sort of makes you want to evaluate what you thought was a twink!
Walker: Anarchy! Anarchy! Anarchy! Anarchy!
Texas Ranger: I don't even know what that means, but I love it!
I’m not saying I’m totally sold on the idea in general but I think the effect of buying levels on lower level players finding teams is being vastly overestimated. If someone has a 220 and they want a new twink of a given level- 60, 100, 220 etc... they’re not going to casually wander around joining teams of noobs to get there. They’re going to be powerlevelled and blow past low level players in hours if not minutes.
This change won’t make things better for low teams, but I can’t see it having much negative effect either. I can’t imagine that there are currently hoards of 220s rolling new twink toons every day- slowly leveling alongside new players up to their desired level. I suspect it’s not all that common that a 220 rolls a new toon for the express purpose of twinking at a given level. How many 220s do this in a given day that we’d be robbing the low level players of their experience and wisdom by letting them jump ahead 50-200 levels?
If someone does roll a new toon- to try out a new profession for example, there’s nothing that says they will automatically use the paid-level method. The experienced players who have 220s and want to take their time leveling and actually playing a new toon- while teaming and helping new players- will still do that. The people that will actually help new players won’t be using the “buy-level” method.
If someone wants to powerlevel to a specific level, you’re not taking anything away from new players by letting him just BE there. You can’t force twink-minded people to level slowly with new players. They aren’t doing it anyway.
Well if this goes thru I guess it is bye bye Ao, hello heck-noob online. I'm not interested in paying for this kind of game where you can buy levels, equipment and tokens.
I'll wait to see if this really goes live, but if it does. Bye bye AO
RK1 - Atlantean
Lise "Gimpeline" Everwhite - Omni - Level 220/30/70 Martial artist
Rudolph "Nissemann" Juhl - Omni- Level 220/30/70 Engineer
Omni-Mining
Mary "Gimpa" Wormwood 2xx/30/xx Advy R.U.R
Josephine "Gimpyposer" Dredd 21x/30/70 mp Omni-Pol
Jarwar 2xx/30/xx Crat Wanderers Sanctuary
Proud member of Leet Protection Agency
Having transfered a fr00b toon to a paid account not too recently (he was level 113), I personall shudder to think of starting a toon at lvl 199. Yes, you can immediate have your 1K board and a full set of OFAB armor/weaps. But dem caps. Unless you start at lvl 199/le 8/AI 17, it's still going to take you awhile to get up to snuff. At least if you are doing those as you go along, it doesn't feel like quite so much of a grind. Daily missions help of course, but starting a toon clean at 199 is not as awesome as it might sound.