NoDrop

[darknightt]

Why isn't everything bought from the item shop no marked as nodrop? "[Shopping] wts Token Package: 500 550m " is almost as bad as those dumb cred buying sites that spam occ all day

[Difs]

because reasons

[Traderjill]

Let me quote a question I asked Means and his response.

When you put tradeable items in the items store that provide power/great benefit to players (i.e. Victory Points and Token Packages) did you foresee that players would start to use these items as a way of "buying credits" (using real life money to purchase from the item store and then selling them in-game for credits)? If so, why put these types of items in game as they are? If not, any plans to fix such things?

We absolutely saw that this would happen...and if we are all completely honest we know it was happening already. People were purchasing credits from third party companies..at significant risk I might add...and using these purchased credits to buy the tokens and VP items they wanted. I also see this as a way for people who will NOT give us real-life money to obtain these items. Either way nothing for sale in the store offers up advantage to end-game characters that is not available through normal gameplay mechanics.

[darknightt]

ahhhh, the usual "People are already breaking the rule so lets make it easier"

[ultion]

This is just the officially sanctioned version of credit selling courtesy of FC. It's ok when it fills their coffers.

[jorricane]

ahhhh, the usual "People are already breaking the rule so lets make it easier"

It is actually fairly common for modern MMOs to allow some sort of exchange of real money to credits - sometimes it's more convoluted, sometimes less.

People have always bought gold - sellers have been around almost as long as MMOs. It makes good business sense for the MMO companies to get in on the action.

The problem with it in AO is that it's just making the inflation situation worse - since it is cheaper to buy credits from a seller and then buy the shop items for credits, seller credits are still flowing steadily into the economy and causing the inflation to continue spiraling upwards.

This happened because although the YESDROP shop items are intentional, they were not implemented as part of a larger game plan. Yet another band aid on top of a band aid.