Station Cash.. a year of Bling [Archive] - EQ2 Forum Archive @ EQ2Wire

Jethal

01-07-2010, 08:50 PM

Though I understand your points, I have to state again, that there ARE players - such like myself - who simply dont have the time to invest in raiding, or crafting, to build up any funds to purchase the items that the hard working crafters put on the broker. So, station cash is an Alternative to the grind, not a replacement. <cite>Avirodar@Befallen wrote:</cite><blockquote>get things better than what crafters (who invest hundreds or thousands of hours of effort) can make.</blockquote>And would take quite some time (comparably speaking) to earn the money to buy. Trust me, I look at the Broker before considering opening the marketplace. Now, I can either spend a week or so hunting and questing (due to my limited play time) to earn the plat for that nice <a href="http://eq2.eqtraders.com/images/articles/gu52/i_MahoganyDiningTable.jpg" target="_blank">Mahogany Dining Table</a> that i want for my home, or I can pop down a couple dollars and buy the <a href="http://eq2players.station.sony.com/_themes/default/images/marketplace/small/sml_003155_cherryGrove.jpg" target="_blank">Cherry Grove Dining Set</a> (the station cash version).See now, this reminds me of the argument someone made at the Fanfaire about the annoucement that some of the Master Spells would be available through researchers... "Now people won't pay 100p for my level 80 Master scroll", to which Brenlo replied something like "yeah, maybe we're sick of paying 100p for scrolls".Believe it or not, I DO understand the argument against Station Cash. If I go through the headache of getting my Epic Mythical in game.. then see a weapon Just like it for $20, I'd be VERY upset.

Jethal

01-07-2010, 08:53 PM

<cite>Avirodar@Befallen wrote:</cite><blockquote>crafters (who invest hundreds or thousands of hours of effort) can make. </blockquote>And for the record.. I'm a level 80 Woodworker, with Epic Cloak. And I got there without the benefit of a bonus Exp weekend.. Guild Hall Harvest Depot, Guild Amenity Harvesters - and most of it was during the "Sub-Combine" days.

Brook

01-07-2010, 09:08 PM

<cite>Jethal@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite></cite>See now, this reminds me of the argument someone made at the Fanfaire about the annoucement that some of the Master Spells would be available through researchers... "Now people won't pay 100p for my level 80 Master scroll", to which Brenlo replied something like "yeah, maybe we're sick of paying 100p for scrolls".</blockquote>Thing that gets me is the thought processes behind a statement like that...At level 80 what else are you going to spend your plat on??? The shard system for outfitting yourself so your geared to do the content sure doesn't touch what the quest payouts are.I mean really think about it, the only people who really NEED a master (and that's subjective) is a raider who has more money than they know what to do with most of the time..they have research assistants for any masters that are required and don't cost anymore than the rare for the spell needed to upgrade which is also FREE if they harvest it.Its no wonder the game is in the shape its in with thinking like that.

Calthine

01-07-2010, 11:05 PM

<cite>Brook wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Jethal@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite></cite>See now, this reminds me of the argument someone made at the Fanfaire about the annoucement that some of the Master Spells would be available through researchers... "Now people won't pay 100p for my level 80 Master scroll", to which Brenlo replied something like "yeah, maybe we're sick of paying 100p for scrolls".</blockquote>Thing that gets me is the thought processes behind a statement like that...</blockquote>Heh, I remember of the huge roar of appreciation the crowd gave Brenlo when he said that. Definately positive.

Arkenor

01-07-2010, 11:32 PM

<cite>Jethal@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote>And would take quite some time (comparably speaking) to earn the money to buy. Trust me, I look at the Broker before considering opening the marketplace. Now, I can either spend a week or so hunting and questing (due to my limited play time) to earn the plat for that nice <a href="http://eq2.eqtraders.com/images/articles/gu52/i_MahoganyDiningTable.jpg" target="_blank">Mahogany Dining Table</a> that i want for my home, or I can pop down a couple dollars and buy the <a href="http://eq2players.station.sony.com/_themes/default/images/marketplace/small/sml_003155_cherryGrove.jpg" target="_blank">Cherry Grove Dining Set</a> (the station cash version).</blockquote>Remember the claims when Station Cash was coming out that it wouldn't hurt crafters?

Amise

01-08-2010, 12:00 AM

<cite>Maltheas@Lucan DLere wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Jethal@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote>And would take quite some time (comparably speaking) to earn the money to buy. Trust me, I look at the Broker before considering opening the marketplace. Now, I can either spend a week or so hunting and questing (due to my limited play time) to earn the plat for that nice <a href="http://eq2.eqtraders.com/images/articles/gu52/i_MahoganyDiningTable.jpg" target="_blank">Mahogany Dining Table</a> that i want for my home, or I can pop down a couple dollars and buy the <a href="http://eq2players.station.sony.com/_themes/default/images/marketplace/small/sml_003155_cherryGrove.jpg" target="_blank">Cherry Grove Dining Set</a> (the station cash version).</blockquote>Remember the claims when Station Cash was coming out that it wouldn't hurt crafters?</blockquote>The mere existence of items that crafters can not make does not hurt crafters, regardless of the means by which said items are acquired.

Arkenor

01-08-2010, 12:03 AM

<cite>Amise wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Maltheas@Lucan DLere wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Jethal@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote>And would take quite some time (comparably speaking) to earn the money to buy. Trust me, I look at the Broker before considering opening the marketplace. Now, I can either spend a week or so hunting and questing (due to my limited play time) to earn the plat for that nice <a href="http://eq2.eqtraders.com/images/articles/gu52/i_MahoganyDiningTable.jpg" target="_blank">Mahogany Dining Table</a> that i want for my home, or I can pop down a couple dollars and buy the <a href="http://eq2players.station.sony.com/_themes/default/images/marketplace/small/sml_003155_cherryGrove.jpg" target="_blank">Cherry Grove Dining Set</a> (the station cash version).</blockquote>Remember the claims when Station Cash was coming out that it wouldn't hurt crafters?</blockquote>The mere existence of items that crafters can not make does not hurt crafters, regardless of the means by which said items are acquired.</blockquote>Jethal said it himself. He got a Station Cash furniture set instead of buying some furniture from a crafter because he found it easier.

salty21db

01-08-2010, 12:15 AM

<cite>Jethal@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote>Though I understand your points, I have to state again, that there ARE players - such like myself - who simply dont have the time to invest in raiding, or crafting, to build up any funds to purchase the items that the hard working crafters put on the broker. So, station cash is an Alternative to the grind, not a replacement.</blockquote>Ya know 8 years of MMO's and like 10-11 of online games in general, players still blow my mind nowadays. This statement that i bolded is great. So you play a MMO to buy things in game to? set there and look good? Now dont get me wrong u can do what u want with the game but i have to wonder. You play an MMO not to raid, not to craft, not to attain money to buy things which is normally done on the solo end, you play an MMO to buy things through a station cash system and thats it? Wow.So your MMO life has come down to logging on, buying some things off station cash, spending a few minutes to organize them or what not, log off. LoL. People are indeed getting lazier and lazier. In my opinion, let me state that again, in my opinion if you dont have enough time to do any of the above and would rather just pay your money that you are supposively so busy making, or whatever youre doing in your freetime, than play the game and earn things....then why are you playing the game at all?This isnt only a rant on you really its a rant on most people in MMO's these days. Time and time again i see phrases like "i want what he has but i dont want to raid" "i have to do what to get that? why cant they just give it to me". Really is starting to blow my mind what this "WoW generation" has brought to the table (heck with that game for bringing in a community that lacks dedication). Everyone wants what everyone else has but dont want to put in the same time for it. Then they pop this "my real life makes me where i cant achieve it like you, you have no life, etc" when realistically thats a load of ****. Some things yeah take time, but in reality it just takes a few dedicated to the same goal to achieve it, problem is nobody wants to even put a ounce of effort into it, ever.In the end. If you dont have time to enjoy the game and just buy things or whine or complain or w/e that it should be easier, dont play.

Gaige

01-08-2010, 01:14 AM

<cite>Jethal@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote>Though I understand your points, I have to state again, that there ARE players - such like myself - who simply dont have the time to invest in raiding, or crafting, to build up any funds</blockquote>Then don't play MMOs.

Gaige

01-08-2010, 01:16 AM

<cite>Calthine wrote:</cite><blockquote>Heh, I remember of the huge roar of appreciation the crowd gave Brenlo when he said that. Definately positive.</blockquote>Players wouldn't be paying 100p for anything if SOE didn't pour plat into everyone's pockets. Plat is meaningless which is why everything is so expensive. EQ was the same way and it seems SOE never learned their lesson. I have 11k plat, I wouldn't even sell a master for 100p, I'd just transmute it. 100p isn't enough.

Jethal

01-08-2010, 06:47 AM

<cite>salty21db wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Jethal@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote>Though I understand your points, I have to state again, that there ARE players - such like myself - who simply dont have the time to invest in raiding, or crafting, to build up any funds to purchase the items that the hard working crafters put on the broker. So, station cash is an Alternative to the grind, not a replacement.</blockquote>Ya know 8 years of MMO's and like 10-11 of online games in general, players still blow my mind nowadays. This statement that i bolded is great. So you play a MMO to buy things in game to? set there and look good? Now dont get me wrong u can do what u want with the game but i have to wonder. You play an MMO not to raid, not to craft, not to attain money to buy things which is normally done on the solo end, you play an MMO to buy things through a station cash system and thats it? Wow.</blockquote>Actually, it blows my mind that people tend to forget the one aspect of the game you left out..I dont raid.. I dont sit there and look pretty.. I dont log in just to buy things.. I role play.. remember that? role play? remember when EverQuest was a Masive Multi-Player ROLE PLAY GAME? And as a role player, I have a house and that house is furnished.You know what's gonna happen when the new expansion comes out? I'm gonna grind to 90, get it done and over with.. so i can relax, and ROLE PLAY..

Jethal

01-08-2010, 06:49 AM

<cite>Gaige wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Jethal@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote>Though I understand your points, I have to state again, that there ARE players - such like myself - who simply dont have the time to invest in raiding, or crafting, to build up any funds</blockquote>Then don't play MMOs.</blockquote>No.. I dont play PVP or FPS because I dont have the time.. I play EverQuest2 for the Role Play and the community.. funny how everyone seems to forget that this is a RPG

Jethal

01-08-2010, 07:05 AM

<cite>Maltheas@Lucan DLere wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Amise wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Maltheas@Lucan DLere wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Jethal@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote>And would take quite some time (comparably speaking) to earn the money to buy. Trust me, I look at the Broker before considering opening the marketplace. Now, I can either spend a week or so hunting and questing (due to my limited play time) to earn the plat for that nice <a href="http://eq2.eqtraders.com/images/articles/gu52/i_MahoganyDiningTable.jpg" target="_blank">Mahogany Dining Table</a> that i want for my home, or I can pop down a couple dollars and buy the <a href="http://eq2players.station.sony.com/_themes/default/images/marketplace/small/sml_003155_cherryGrove.jpg" target="_blank">Cherry Grove Dining Set</a> (the station cash version).</blockquote>Remember the claims when Station Cash was coming out that it wouldn't hurt crafters?</blockquote>The mere existence of items that crafters can not make does not hurt crafters, regardless of the means by which said items are acquired.</blockquote>Jethal said it himself. He got a Station Cash furniture set instead of buying some furniture from a crafter because he found it easier.</blockquote>Let's not twist my words.. I found it easier than hunting and questing for the plat to buy the items.. so the items themselves are not in question.. it's the plat. Now, if I were a carpenter, and not a woodworker (and i'm a woodworker for Role Play reasons.. gee, do we see a pattern in my responces here?) I would make the items myself and not worry about it, now would I? but, seeing how people seem to think that these prices (see screenshot) are resonable.. I see Station Cash as a reasonable solution for me. disagree? don't use it.<img src="http://kithicor.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/broker_pp.jpg" width="547" height="512" />

Avirodar

01-08-2010, 12:30 PM

Perhaps in your RP adventures, you should roleplay in the general direction of seasonal events and monthly moonlit enchantment events to obtain items you desire, at a time of your choosing.The hedge tapestry is from halloweenThe pillow is from erollisi day. Sathirian Carpet is playermade. RP finding a carpenter to make you some for a few plat each.Teak mirror - low level common combine. RP finding a carpenter to make you some for a few gold. (5g each on befallen)Bixie snowglobe - do some christmas rp activity. (they are under 1p on befallen)Mushroom circlet - moonlit enchantmentsGlacial Cauldron - free from one of the everfrost heroic zones.On any server, it is easy to find overpriced items. Being on page #4 of 1374 pages of house items, does not prove ANYTHING when you are sorting by price (high to low).The core concept of an MMORPG is a time synch. The basic principal is "Time + Effort = reward." The problem now arising, are the people who think "real $$ = reward" and do not see any problem with it. The people who do not see any problem with it should go and play station exchange enabled servers, and take the whole station cash system with them on the way. Then, anything offered via station cash can be given to tradeskillers to make on normal servers.

Arkenor

01-08-2010, 01:42 PM

I'm sorry you think I was twisting your words, Jethal. I'm a roleplayer too. If I want some carpentry done and don't like the broker prices, I find a carpenter, and ask them to make me it. You'll find folks are a lot more reasonable about prices if you take the time to talk to them, especially if you provide the rare material.Personally I find that to be more IC then to have a box of furniture mysteriously appear from the ether that didn't require any in-game activity to obtain.

EQ_Irving

01-08-2010, 02:38 PM

As an EQ2 player who is interested in seeing the game continually evolved, who is interesting in ensuring software development resources continue to be available to it, and who wishes the game servers continue to stay on, I have to take the pragmatic viewpoint that if the cash shop is good for Sony, then it's good for the players. Sony has a quest to increase their bottom line (because that's their job; they are a division of a larger corporation, and they're required to increase bottom line revenue). It appears they identified micro-transactions in the form of a mostly (but not totally) fluff cash shop was an effective solution. Bully for them.And we win out in the long-term.Perfect? No. Ideal? Nope. Better than many alternatives? You betcha.

Jethal

01-08-2010, 02:54 PM

Gaige

01-08-2010, 03:23 PM

<cite>EQ_Irving wrote:</cite><blockquote>As an EQ2 player who is interested in seeing the game continually evolved, who is interesting in ensuring software development resources continue to be available to it, and who wishes the game servers continue to stay on, I have to take the pragmatic viewpoint that if the cash shop is good for Sony, then it's good for the players. Sony has a quest to increase their bottom line (because that's their job; they are a division of a larger corporation, and they're required to increase bottom line revenue). It appears they identified micro-transactions in the form of a mostly (but not totally) fluff cash shop was an effective solution. Bully for them.And we win out in the long-term.Perfect? No. Ideal? Nope. Better than many alternatives? You betcha.</blockquote>The problem I have with this is by all accounts Free Realms isn't making them money and they're using profits from games like EQ and EQ2 to fund Free Realms. Free Realms is free and mostly micro transaction based, and designed that way from the ground up and yet its not turning a profit but tried and true subscription games are?I also agree with other posters that Jethal's posts are a bit misleading at best when he is posting the 4th page of house items out of over a thousand of pages while sorting high to low. Of course there are overpriced items but that doesn't mean they all are. He also never explains why he doesn't attempt to play the game IC and get those items made by a crafter, which seems more roleplayerish to me than punching in a CC number and buying things from some out of game shop. It was even more humorous that as pointed out most of those items are from extremely easy holiday events. I guess Jethal spends more time writing and talking about EQ2 than actually playing it, which is obviously the way things should be because he is a roleplayer? I guess I just don't understand what roleplaying involves.

Avirodar

01-08-2010, 04:42 PM

<cite>EQ_Irving wrote:</cite><blockquote>As an EQ2 player who is interested in seeing the game continually evolved, who is interesting in ensuring software development resources continue to be available to it, and who wishes the game servers continue to stay on, I have to take the pragmatic viewpoint that if the cash shop is good for Sony, then it's good for the players. Sony has a quest to increase their bottom line (because that's their job; they are a division of a larger corporation, and they're required to increase bottom line revenue). It appears they identified micro-transactions in the form of a mostly (but not totally) fluff cash shop was an effective solution. Bully for them.And we win out in the long-term.Perfect? No. Ideal? Nope. Better than many alternatives? You betcha.</blockquote>What good has SC done the game? Has it fixed client lag? No. Has it fixed server lag? No. Has it helped with the quality of GU's and LU's? No. Has it helped with the expansion? Time will tell 4 months in, any predictions prior to that are just guesses.It would appear that SOE has enough cash to spare. Fan Faires, block Parties, assorted other projects and events, they can NOT be cash strapped. If they wanted to invest more effort into fixing up EQ2 they already would have (true multicore, multiGPU, server lag, client lag, list goes on).If you want to say that it helps us, please give some examples of how? Because as it stands, I have not seen a single darn thing from SOE except greedy cash gouging, most likely to fund Free Realms and EverQuest Next. I do not care about Free Realms and will not play EverQuest Next.

EQ_Irving

01-08-2010, 05:13 PM

<cite>Avirodar@Befallen wrote:</cite><blockquote>What good has SC done the game? Has it fixed client lag? No. Has it fixed server lag? No. Has it helped with the quality of GU's and LU's? No. Has it helped with the expansion? Time will tell 4 months in, any predictions prior to that are just guesses.</blockquote>I come here from 2 years of playing another SOE title, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. It's marketed no differently than EQ2 to the general populace; it's marketed as a SOE MMORPG. But the worlds are night and day, my friend. VG:SOH has 2 or 3 full time personnel devoted to it, which is enough to do pretty much nothing. No expansions, no meaningful new content, and as a result, the game is desolate of players. The population is razor thin. I strongly believe the game will likely shut down this year. It gets no love whatsoever from SOE.EQ2, on the other hand, has had 6 (?) expansions, has a huge population compared to VG:SOH, and gets a lot of love and care from a lot of SOE staffers. A cash shop is but one way that Sony generates income. That income allows them to continue to provide this (comparatively) very high level of support to a product now in its 7th year. Without steady streams of income, SOE would have to lay off staff or assign them to other projects which generate income more reliably, and EQ2 would suffer the horrible fate that VG:SOH is suffering today.

Xanrn

01-08-2010, 07:21 PM

Oh please don't compare EQ2 and Vanguard, Vanguard was a flop from the start.None of the money from SC goes into EQ2, it pays for the developer to make more SC items while padding the profit report.Love and Care? don't make me laugh.5 Expansions were before SC and 1 after, which took longer for what appears to be not much if any more content than RoK.The game sales and suscribtions pay for EQ2, it always has had many more subscribers than Vanguard.SoE generates Income sure, none of that goes into EQ2 though. Or we would have seen a rise in production.Also how exactly does someone "roleplay" buying stuff from the Station Cash.Did a gnome give you the credit card as a reward for a quest?

Dracodo

01-08-2010, 09:18 PM

Avirodar

01-09-2010, 12:26 AM

<cite>EQ_Irving wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Avirodar@Befallen wrote:</cite><blockquote>What good has SC done the game? Has it fixed client lag? No. Has it fixed server lag? No. Has it helped with the quality of GU's and LU's? No. Has it helped with the expansion? Time will tell 4 months in, any predictions prior to that are just guesses.</blockquote>I come here from 2 years of playing another SOE title, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. It's marketed no differently than EQ2 to the general populace; it's marketed as a SOE MMORPG. But the worlds are night and day, my friend. VG:SOH has 2 or 3 full time personnel devoted to it, which is enough to do pretty much nothing. No expansions, no meaningful new content, and as a result, the game is desolate of players. The population is razor thin. I strongly believe the game will likely shut down this year. It gets no love whatsoever from SOE.EQ2, on the other hand, has had 6 (?) expansions, has a huge population compared to VG:SOH, and gets a lot of love and care from a lot of SOE staffers. A cash shop is but one way that Sony generates income. That income allows them to continue to provide this (comparatively) very high level of support to a product now in its 7th year. Without steady streams of income, SOE would have to lay off staff or assign them to other projects which generate income more reliably, and EQ2 would suffer the horrible fate that VG:SOH is suffering today.</blockquote>Wow. Your understanding of the matter, is severely lacking. Some tidbits from the wiki page for you.The game (Vanguard) was released on January 30, 2007, with an early access date of January 26, 2007 for pre-order customers. On May 15, 2007, it was announced in a press release that <a title="Sony Online Entertainment" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Online_Entertainment">Sony Online Entertainment</a> had completed a transaction to purchase key assets of Sigil Games Online, including all rights to Vanguard.On May 5, 2006 Sigil announced that they had reacquired marketing rights from <a title="Microsoft" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft">Microsoft</a> and that <a title="Sony Online Entertainment" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Online_Entertainment">Sony Online Entertainment</a> would take over marketing of the game. According to the terms of the deal, Sigil would maintain full control of development, funding, intellectual property rights, and in-game customer service, and SOE would be responsible for marketing, publication, distribution, subscription services and maintenance of game servers. However, some of SOE's game designers and artists did <a rel="nofollow" href="http://forums.vanguardsoh.com/showpost.php?p=1704390&postcount=129">participate</a> directly in the Vanguard's development. This partnership represented a homecoming of sorts for <a title="Sigil" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigil">Sigil</a> CEO <a title="Brad McQuaid" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brad_McQuaid">Brad McQuaid</a> who was - along with Sony Online Entertainment CEO <a title="John Smedley (developer)" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Smedley_%28developer%29">John Smedley</a>, Bill Trost and Steve Clover-one of the four original developers of <a title="Everquest" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everquest">Everquest</a> for SISA (<a title="Sony Interactive Studios America" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Interactive_Studios_America">Sony Interactive Studios America</a> renamed <a title="Verant Interactive" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verant_Interactive">Verant Interactive</a> in 1999). On May 15, 2007 Sony Online Entertainment announced they had acquired all assets of Sigil and retained over half the developers of Vanguard to work for Sony and to continue developing Vanguard. Brad McQuaid gave an interview two days later to F13.net but since then has not made any public comments about the game.What is not mentioned in any of the bits I pasted in... There was a LOT of anticipation for Vanguard in the early days. Then people learned that SOE reacquired marketing rights from microsoft, and there was a widespread groan. Then when Vanguard ran into development issues, SOE pounced and bought them out. The original Vanguard Dev team was halved, and I doubt they supplemented Vanguard with enough Devs to have viable resources for progression. And the whole time, since launch, Vanguard has struggled for subscriptions.I can only hope that now you see the error in trying to compare EQ2 station cash, to the game of Vanguard, especially as another mentioned, almost all expansions we have seen so far, would have been either released or largely completed before station cash existed.

NrthnStar5

01-09-2010, 02:36 AM

I love when people talk about the inner workings of finance within a company... when they have absolutely no clue what they are talking about! Unless you are an employee, you know NOTHING about where generated money goes to or how it's allocated. But yet, everyone wants to talk about it like they know! You know what that is? GOSSIP. Any why do people care so much! I mean, it's a game, it's a business, you either enjoy it or you don't. You either want to play or you don't. Why does everyone take things so personal? I have never understood that and never will. If something irritates me that much, i'll just quit. Oh... and guess what? I bought some station cash the other day! And you know why? Because I wanted to buy some nice appearance armor for my inquisitor! -- Forum re-enactment ---> OMG! Can you believe what he just did!? He bought that awful station cash! Putting all our tradeskillers and hardworkers to shame! I spent 28 hours total to earn MY armor! ---> Forum re-enactment over. Why do people respond this way? It is armor with NO stats and only appearance, so WHAT IS THE HARM???The times are a changing... simple as that. Bugger off if it is so character degrading. Just sounds to me like some people need to get a life and stop dwelling on such INSIGNIFICANT things.

Kamimura

01-09-2010, 03:12 AM

<cite>Gaige wrote:</cite><blockquote>I also agree with other posters that Jethal's posts are a bit misleading at best when he is posting the 4th page of house items out of over a thousand of pages while sorting high to low. Of course there are overpriced items but that doesn't mean they all are.It was even more humorous that as pointed out most of those items are from extremely easy holiday events. </blockquote>Exactly. If you want to use station cash then go for it, but don't try to justify it with poor arguments like that.

Dreyco

01-09-2010, 03:22 AM

Beyond anything else, though, I love how people seem to think that the game is some kind of charity service. They are a business. No where does it say that money they take from us goes straight into EQ2.And yet, at the same time, EQ2 gets the most attention in live updates compared to any game that i've currently seen on the market. Funny how that works with such a "Small" player base, as people love to remind us.How about a little eye opening for those who are naieve of how businesses like this works.1.) SOE is a business. They are out to make a profit. A greater profit means that they can go to the higher ups of their parent company and say "Hey, look! XYZ Game is doing really well!" Then parent company will give them money to hire more developers to do more things. Games like Vanguard didn't get more developers because the game's sub rate was awful and they weren't able to present any reason why they should up the game's dev team. It just works that way.2.) SOE is currently working on other projects to expand its portfolio. And before everyone jumps all over me and goes "ZOMG THEY SHOULD JUST PAY ATTENTION TO EQ2"... I will kindly remind you that you and your game are not the only game on the face of the planet, and as a business, them trying to get more products makes good business sense and increases their ability to do things WITH EverQuest II as their bottom line goes up. Bottom line goes up? More money to work with current and other projects. And if people want to jump up and down and say that DC Universe Online is a waste of time? I will point you to YouTube to watch some of the hype that they've gotten at places like ComicCon and what not. The lines are huge.3.) Money does not grow on trees. On top of that, your subscription rate is a piddly amount of revenue. What you're giving them is probably not enough anymore. The sub rate hasn't changed in years. They really can't raise it. People would quit. They have to find alternate sources of revenue. They have to fund their projects, keep the servers online, maintained, and pay ever-rising bandwithe costs. They have to pay the developers of new games, and new developers for old games. They have to contract artists that cost a fortune, and pay more overtime hours than you could probably believe.And then you think that your wonderful 15 dollars does a lot to help with this? You're on another planet. You don't want Station Cash, you don't want LoN, you don't want any of this stuff. You think that yours, and my, 15 dollars is enough even to pay for celebrity commercials and air time on NBC and Fox in some cases. If you seriously believe this? I really want what you're smoking. Because i'd be in heaven with how blind to the rest of the real world i'd be.If you really don't like station cash, don't buy it. Guess what happened when they implemented Live Gamer on Vanguard servers? People didn't use it! It fell through! Amazing how that works.(This rant has been brought to you by the letter F and the numbers 3, 10, and 98,653)

EQ_Irving

01-09-2010, 10:07 AM

My purpose in comparing EQ2 with VG:SOH was intended to illustrate how good EQ2 has it. I have no intention or desire to fight with folks, so I won't pursue the idea. But I think a few of the posters above, respectfully, lack perspective.

Juravael

01-09-2010, 11:17 AM

I guess that I can see both sides of the discussion here but to me it just boils down to what each of us wants to get out of the game that has been presented to us.Station Cash - If you want to use it, use it. If it bothers you or you are not able to afford the items, then do not use it. It does not affect me or my playstyle in the slightest.I role play often while playing the game but I also do the "min/max" thing with my gear and occaisionally will make the time to raid, especially if I need an update in such a zone. I guess I'm just an odd mix of it all. The role play & "min/max" styles that I have both come from back when I used to play the pen and paper Dungeons & Dragons in the 1970's and 1980's and has been with me ever since no matter what game I am playing.I have also sold items such as the ones that were shown for multiple plats. I know that the prices can be insane but some people will just pay the high prices and I use the money to keep our guild hall funded. Grassy squares come to mind, they are easy to obtain once a month and I can run all 17 of my alts ( yes, two accounts ) through the instances and aquire quite a few of them. They easily sell for 2p-4p each on the broker before the event returns.At the end of the day, just have fun playing the game no matter what your style is and don't worry about what the other person is doing. You'll have more fun!

Rainmare

01-09-2010, 11:23 AM

the problem people have with Sc is the same thing we've already seen now with LoN. your right, Sc is mostly fluffy stuff, appearance armors, and things of that nature. they've moved some of thier services like transfering server to SC as well. the problem is the 'slippery slope'. take for example, LoN now. the best mounts in the game, are LoN cards. there's a new 'key' lon rare card, that can get you a wrist item that I can tell you right now, as a raiding player, I would wear in a heartbeat over virtually everything I've seen raiding in tso thus far. and LoN is basically a lottery. spend hundred or so real world dollars, get a shot a MAYBE getting one of these items. or you may get reallly insanely lucky and spend 2 dollars and get one. we're seeing the carpenter trade go to heck, because people would rather buy the much better looking LoN paintings and the Cherry Grove sets. my armorsmithing is virtually non-existant, becuase people find it easier to buy the SC appearance armors then to spend even 5g more then it costs me to MAKE the armor in the first place I can create. and asking for them to buy a rare or harvest it? out of the question.I don't play the 'free' mmos for a reason. I don't want my game play to be dictated soley by how much money I can spend. games like Free Realms are just that. your character is as tough, and can only go to teh places, your willing to pay for. and I don't want to see down the road SC items that are like that bracelet from teh LoN 'key'. I don't even wanna see more of the lon 'keys' either.But the more people that are willing to use SC, the more people willing to spend the cash on LoN, the more likely that's going to be.I pay 15 dollars a month to play this game. adn frankly, times being as they are, 15 dollars a month should be enough to have access to everything in the game. I shouldn't have to spend more money to get the best looking items, or to get better loot, or to get better appearance armor. I should get that by playing the game, making friends with tradeskillers, and questing.

Avirodar

01-09-2010, 12:14 PM

The basic principal of an MMO is... Time + Effort = Reward.Station Cash and concepts like it, go against that very principal. Different people have different goals. Appearance is very important to some people, and I have known people who have invested great amounts of effort into obtaining matching armor sets, and trying different combinations. Station Cash now allows people to replace time + effort, with $$$. People who see no issue with station cash (what it is now, and what it will very likely become) share a similar mentality to children who get a walkthrough and/or cheat codes for a game, before they have even removed the shrink wrap. They miss the entire purpose of playing a game."I want it now, and I do not want to have to put in any time to learn it or earn it! $$$ buy buy buy $$$ I beat teh game!"There was a time when people taken pride in earning / achieving their goals. Supporters of SC stand to create a future where any fool with station cash can delude themself into thinking they achieved something, while leaving the honest players shaking their heads in dusgust.

Avirodar

01-09-2010, 12:42 PM

<cite>Rainmare@Oasis wrote:</cite><blockquote>....But the more people that are willing to use SC, the more people willing to spend the cash on LoN, the more likely that's going to be.I pay 15 dollars a month to play this game. adn frankly, times being as they are, 15 dollars a month should be enough to have access to everything in the game. I shouldn't have to spend more money to get the best looking items, or to get better loot, or to get better appearance armor. I should get that by playing the game, making friends with tradeskillers, and questing.</blockquote>Well said. I also did some fast research (I encourage people to do their own) to try to get a rough idea of what the income revenue of EQ2 would be. Charts and lists I have seen (obviously not official SOE data) indicate EQ2 to have peaked subscriptions at approx 325,000 and to have been over 100,000 ever since.If you add up the revenue that would have been made from over 100,000 accounts over 5 years, along with the purchase of each expansion... 100,000*40*6 ($40 for original game + expansions DoF KoS EoF RoK TSO) and 100,000*15*12*5 ($15 per month over 5 years) and you hit some significant numbers.Of course, this is not official SOE data, and I have no doubt every fanboy will pounce on such, but when our "measley" $15 per month sub fees are added up over 100,000+ accounts, over 5 years, the figures are massive.

Aurel

01-09-2010, 02:26 PM

I know, I know. The reaction everyone has when someone from Bazaar posts about Station Cash... Our opinion doesn't matter because we buy all of our loots anyway, or something like that. d: I just wanted to point out a few things that I always want to make sure are acknowledged whenever SC gets brought up.While people claim that SC is stealin' all our moneys with a few fluff items, they also offer... Grottos, Tinkerfest, Frostfell, Nights of the Dead, Erollisi Day, the SS plushies, tradeskill red shinies... I think they give us WAY more for theoretically free than they do on SC.Also, for tradeskillers that claim SC is stealin' all their customers... Almost every robe/armor piece that I've worn in the past came from mobs or quests or merchants. Right now, I'm wearing a robe dropped in Butcherblock Mountains. I'm harassing NPCs on alts for quests that give house items I want. Quests and mobs are probably the largest "threats" to losing your customers. d:And lastly, I like my backpack. I wouldn't care if it were a 10-slotter. I like it. I doubt that the 44-slots will be that impressive when the xpac comes out. d:[EDIT] Oh. And I take offense to the generalization that just because someone doesn't see a problem with SC, that means they "share a similar mentality to children who get a walkthrough and/or cheat codes for a game, before they have even removed the shrink wrap. They miss the entire purpose of playing a game." I don't see a problem with SC, and I think my mentality is just dandy!

Gaige

01-09-2010, 02:46 PM

<cite>Dreyco wrote:</cite><blockquote>And yet, at the same time, EQ2 gets the most attention in live updates compared to any game that i've currently seen on the market. And then you think that your wonderful 15 dollars does a lot to help with this? You're on another planet. You don't want Station Cash, you don't want LoN, you don't want any of this stuff. You think that yours, and my, 15 dollars is enough even to pay for celebrity commercials and air time on NBC and Fox in some cases. If you seriously believe this? I really want what you're smoking. Because i'd be in heaven with how blind to the rest of the real world i'd be.</blockquote>If you think EQ2 gets the most/best live updates, you aren't paying attention to enough MMOs. Especially in the last year EQ2 has fallen way off the table when it comes to live update "free"content. TSO was a miserable live update experience.If EQ2 just had 75,000 subs it would generate $1,124,250 dollars per month solely off subscription revenue. That isn't counting LoN or Station Cash at all. If you're telling me that is chump change and not useful at all, you're the one from another planet.

Dreyco

01-09-2010, 04:58 PM

<cite>Gaige wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Dreyco wrote:</cite><blockquote>And yet, at the same time, EQ2 gets the most attention in live updates compared to any game that i've currently seen on the market. And then you think that your wonderful 15 dollars does a lot to help with this? You're on another planet. You don't want Station Cash, you don't want LoN, you don't want any of this stuff. You think that yours, and my, 15 dollars is enough even to pay for celebrity commercials and air time on NBC and Fox in some cases. If you seriously believe this? I really want what you're smoking. Because i'd be in heaven with how blind to the rest of the real world i'd be.</blockquote>If you think EQ2 gets the most/best live updates, you aren't paying attention to enough MMOs. Especially in the last year EQ2 has fallen way off the table when it comes to live update "free"content. TSO was a miserable live update experience.If EQ2 just had 75,000 subs it would generate $1,124,250 dollars per month solely off subscription revenue. That isn't counting LoN or Station Cash at all. If you're telling me that is chump change and not useful at all, you're the one from another planet.</blockquote>You know, I am contract right now to a medical device company that has about 50 employees with their sales force, and with this kind of monthly revenue just off of product sold, they're still looking for ways to save money. That tell you anything?Yes, that kind of money is chump change when you're paying for the majority of the entire city of San Diego's bandwithe usage.Yes, that kind of money is chump change when you're paying god knows how many developpers to work on products like DCUO and the Agency, plus current development staff.Yes, that kind of money is chump change when you're having to run dozens upon dozens of servers that need continuous hardware upgrades, updates, maintenance, replacements, etcetera.Yes, that kind of money is chump change when you're trying to negotiate space in Las Vegas to drag our rear ends to every year (Fun event though! <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /> ) just for the sake of PR, and all the special things that go with that.Yes, that kind of money is chump change when it comes to paying all of their employees salaries, bonuses, and time off during the holidays. We're talking more than just the twenty people who work on the EQ2 development team. Dozens of Customer Service agents, QA, Compatability testers, coders, and maintenance people. Beyond that, there's the staff that have to manage documents, train employees, deal with regulatory, finance, and marketting. Oh, and they also pay for contracts for Medical, Dental, and Vision coverage, as well as insurance coverage.I've already well spent that supposed revenue from the 75,000 subscribers, but I think i'll keep on going anyway.Yes, that kind of money is chump change when you're trying to attend trade shows and gaming conventions in other countries, shipping computers and sales accross oceans to demonstrate your product.Yes, that kind of money is chump change when you're trying to make contracts with places like Amazon and Gamestop to please please please pretty please shelve their product, and then have to pay more when they find loopholes that make them not carry it for whatever reason they see fit.Yes, that kind of money is chump change when they're paying for web space to advertise, and then for Free Realms, really short TV Spots on channels like Cartoon Network.Yes, that kind of money is chump change when you're hiring voice actors like Mark Hammil and Christopher Lee to do voice work.Yes, that kind of money is chump change when you're hiring Phillharmonic Orchestras to do your soundtrack for new titles and current titles.Yes, that kind of money is chump change when you're paying for the acquisition of such games like Vanguard, which probably costed millions of dollars.Add onto that Leases of Buildings, cost of phone systems and maintenance, cost of...... good lord, I could go on for a while.With the other company that I was working for, we were making 1,000,000 dollars from our products... which we had three lines of, and various different types of sets. We were barely breaking even with that, and the company was about 100 employees, and didn't have any of the kinds of "Good lord, we need to hire the Seattle Orchestra do to our sound work for this product."And don't even begin to think that it isn't necessary. We're trying to compete with a game company that could belch a game name and probably garner millions of pre-orders. That's our competition. Video games are becoming more and more competetive. Game companies are having to pull out all the stops to wow folks now adays.SOE currently has three products that are in development that aren't taking in revenue. Sony's companies are responsible for operating on their own. DC Universe Online is paying folks like Jim Lee. EverQuest Next is going to be another HUGE amount of funding that i'm sure they're taking funds from station cash to help pay for.If you think that the 75k subs worth of funds is a lot of money for a business like SOE? Well... i'm sorry that you believe that, because it's not. A million is a drop of water in a lake for what they're trying to do. And we're well aware that they have probably have more, but i'm sure that entire list gobbles it up quicker than you would believe.Companies need money. They need more funds to do more things. We are lucky that they put a lot of this back into their business.Oh, and as far as other companies and their game updates... Blizzard's monolith has I don't know how many subscribers anymore. A friend came back to the game recently and joined my guild. He said that the EQ2 Development team pushed out twice as much free content last year than Blizzard managed. Twice as much. This is coming from a guy who played WoW for years and loved it to tears. Millions of subscribers, and look what they get. We have hundreds of thousands, and look what we get. If you think that's a lot of nothing? I'm sorry, but then your accusation really holds no water.15 dollars a month is nothing. You're not even paying an hour's developer's salary with that one bit of fifteen dollars. The money you mention, Gaige, is helpful, but it's not nearly enough. That's like folks saying that "I Pay my 20 dollars a year for this magazine, and they put all this god-awful advertising in it! My 20 dollars should be enough for that!"

Thunderthyze

01-09-2010, 06:44 PM

<cite>Calthine wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Brook wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Jethal@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote> See now, this reminds me of the argument someone made at the Fanfaire about the annoucement that some of the Master Spells would be available through researchers... "Now people won't pay 100p for my level 80 Master scroll", to which Brenlo replied something like "yeah, maybe we're sick of paying 100p for scrolls".</blockquote>Thing that gets me is the thought processes behind a statement like that...</blockquote>Heh, I remember of the huge roar of appreciation the crowd gave Brenlo when he said that. Definately positive.</blockquote>Because we all know the Fanboi Faire attendees are SOE's harshest critics. I also doubt if Brenlo has ever played the game enough to actually amass 100p through bona fide means. These forums really reek and those of you who think SOE are doing a fine and dandy job of managing this game fully deserve its present state.

Gaige

01-09-2010, 08:25 PM

<cite>Dreyco wrote:</cite><blockquote>Yes, that kind of money is chump change when you're paying god knows how many developpers to work on products like DCUO and the Agency, plus current development staff.Yes, that kind of money is chump change when it comes to paying all of their employees salaries, bonuses, and time off during the holidays. We're talking more than just the twenty people who work on the EQ2 development team. Dozens of Customer Service agents, QA, Compatability testers, coders, and maintenance people. Beyond that, there's the staff that have to manage documents, train employees, deal with regulatory, finance, and marketting. Oh, and they also pay for contracts for Medical, Dental, and Vision coverage, as well as insurance coverage.I've already well spent that supposed revenue from the 75,000 subscribers, but I think i'll keep on going anyway.</blockquote>Sure, if EQ2 was the only thing that made SOE money. They also have EQ, Vanguard, Planetside, EQOA, Free Realms etc etc etc.I was talking about EQ2 subs paying for maintaining EQ2, which it does and then some.You're also ignoring for the fact that most of SOE's current dev team don't have lots of experience and therefore don't demand premium salaries. You're ignoring the fact that all but the lead QA are temporary employees who start at $10 an hour. You're ignoring the fact that one of the highest paid positions on EQ2 was filled by an SOE employee, not someone hired from the outside.Lockeye, who used to work on EQ2, posted a really great post on EQ2Flames detailing just how much/hard he worked for just how little money when he first started at SOE.To put it plainly, you're even less informed than I am.

Calthine

01-10-2010, 12:24 AM

I'm digging how everyone is an expert on the inside workings and finances at SOE <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />Whups, sorry, my sarcasm is showing.

Gaige

01-10-2010, 12:31 AM

<cite>Calthine wrote:</cite><blockquote>I'm digging how everyone is an expert on the inside workings and finances at SOE <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" />Whups, sorry, my sarcasm is showing.</blockquote>Like I said, the commentary isn't mine:"I had to wait for a year after submitting my resume after college before a QA spot opened. Two bachelor degrees with programming experience in C, I made $10 an hour (My college buddies working for Nokia, Microsoft, or Lockheed-Martin in Usability engineering or programming were making $60-80k at this point), no benefits, and mandatory 6 month contract with stiff penalties for leaving, and locked me from moving into any other position within SOE or being hired directly by them. Meanwhile, I was still doing volunteer work as a class team lead for Dark Ages of Camelot (Mythic) on their internal message boards (Thanks Sanya/Tweety!)As a tester, I found the most bugs on the game, and made suggestions directly to the development team for EQOA (which the team had great communication with its testers relative to other games). I ended up working on UI shortcuts at the dev studio as overtime pay toward the end. At the end of 6 months, I told the QA manager that this job was BS for my qualifications, so a month later when a position opened, I was made a QA lead, and a full time employee with benefits starting at $15/hour.While there, Planetside was in Alpha/Beta. For my own amusement, I wrote a program with spreadsheets to completely dissect the game in terms of weapon-armor-vehicle analysis of every possible scenario, including blast area, damage over time, damage degredation over range, armor types, and COF hits/range DPS ratios, all pre-launch. I showed that to the QA manager who said "you don't belong here".The Planetside team invited me to talk mechanics, and they were going to hire me as a mechanics designer for the combat system. Not too long thereafter, budget cuts closed positions that were opened and I was stuck in QA. An invite from the EQ2 development team (we're talking 2003) to the rest of the company invited anyone to submit there ideas and work as assistant designers (not designer pay, but work part time in the dev studio).I was hired early before the wave from CS/QA came in. I was assigned as the scripting designer and my first assignment was to design the boat tutorial around the story for it. Expectations were low, get a tutorial that guides a player how to move, learn some basic shortcuts and windows, and some simple combat. Instead, I scripted every single lively gesture of the characters, even during mid-sentence (which was not done anywhere else in game). I had many in-between assignments and used my college background to teach the other designers how to script, and even wrote a manual on how to do so specifically for the game. I almost lost my job because of it: not all leads are thrilled by that kind of initiative. I don't know if it was punishment, but I was assigned to work on basic population for ALL the city zones (all the hoodies, all the south/east/west/north sides, both cities). I added a lot of scripting to move the people and animals about town, and made sure to include something extra interesting about one or more of the characters that was scripted for each zone. Finally, I was hired as an associate designer, with no increase in pay (note: this was pre-Gallenite leading). In fact, I made less because as a QA lead/assistant designer, I made overtime pay, but I was salary once hired as a full-time dev. I had various other assignments and tools I've made between the time I finally landed myself as spells/combat mechanics dev a full 2.5 years after I was first hired into QA. The first 4 years were ridiculous amounts of overtime, and a good amount of it self-induced to improve/fix things because I was passionate about doing the right thing overall. I thank Gallenite's ability to prove that quick development cycles = slower increase in subs and my last year was not riddled with OT like the ones previous.Once you're in, you're in. I've turned down mechanics offers from various up-and-coming MMORPGs at the time. I interviewed for the mechanics dev for WoW (the OG left post-launch), but I just wanted to see the offer since I already knew I was applying to graduate school. In the overall scheme of the video game industry, it's still new, and it's tough to get past anyone responsible for hiring that hires among friends first, then within company to land a spot for a design position, regardless of qualifications/degrees outside of the game industry.EDIT: Office savoir-faire (street smarts) go a long way. Fresh out of college, I believed naively that one's skill in a field determines there success. In hindsight, had I been more relaxed, focused on making friends with the right people, I might had advanced faster through less working and with more pay as I saw a few others do around me."<div>Its from Lockeye, who would know a thing or two about SOE since he spent some years working there. I've talked to lots of people who did/do work for SOE, its not rocket science.</div><div></div><div>Locke states with two bachelor degrees he was making $10 an hour, how much do you think these designers they hired from the community with no experience are making?</div><div></div><div>Almost every experienced dev has either left SOE or been moved to another project, the EQ2 team is full of young designers getting experience, and those types of people don't demand premium salaries.</div>

Avirodar

01-10-2010, 12:33 AM

<cite>Gaige wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Dreyco wrote:</cite><blockquote>Yes, that kind of money is chump change when you're paying god knows how many developpers to work on products like DCUO and the Agency, plus current development staff.Yes, that kind of money is chump change when it comes to paying all of their employees salaries, bonuses, and time off during the holidays. We're talking more than just the twenty people who work on the EQ2 development team. Dozens of Customer Service agents, QA, Compatability testers, coders, and maintenance people. Beyond that, there's the staff that have to manage documents, train employees, deal with regulatory, finance, and marketting. Oh, and they also pay for contracts for Medical, Dental, and Vision coverage, as well as insurance coverage.I've already well spent that supposed revenue from the 75,000 subscribers, but I think i'll keep on going anyway.</blockquote>Sure, if EQ2 was the only thing that made SOE money. They also have EQ, Vanguard, Planetside, EQOA, Free Realms etc etc etc.I was talking about EQ2 subs paying for maintaining EQ2, which it does and then some.You're also ignoring for the fact that most of SOE's current dev team don't have lots of experience and therefore don't demand premium salaries. You're ignoring the fact that all but the lead QA are temporary employees who start at $10 an hour. You're ignoring the fact that one of the highest paid positions on EQ2 was filled by an SOE employee, not someone hired from the outside.Lockeye, who used to work on EQ2, posted a really great post on EQ2Flames detailing just how much/hard he worked for just how little money when he first started at SOE.To put it plainly, you're even less informed than I am.</blockquote>Dreyco appears to have not considered that EQ2's subscriber base was much higher in the past. Close to or over 300,000 subs will add up fast. Dreyco also neglected to consider that each release of the game comes at a cost, and there has been several (original game, DoF, KoS, EoF, RoK, TSO, and now SF incoming, none were free). At 100k subs there will have been at least 25 million dollars worth of expansion sales thus far. That is a conservative figure. The revenue from subscriptions will dwarf this.

Calthine

01-10-2010, 12:35 AM

Gaige: I was referring more to the financial aspect - what income pays for what, how various budgets are organized.

kelesia

01-10-2010, 12:40 AM

If the items from station cash were available in game, then i would glady pay a crafter to craft them for me. But they aren't. Backpacks are only available from the horrors of LoN or from Station Cash. I love Shard of Love for the reason that while it might take me forever and at 25 runs I -still- haven't gotten my wings, I have faith that through my hard work and perseverance I will one day get them.

Gaige

01-10-2010, 12:41 AM

<cite>Calthine wrote:</cite><blockquote>Gaige: I was referring more to the financial aspect - what income pays for what, how various budgets are organized.</blockquote>Someone who I trust at SOE straight up told me that Free Realms isn't making money and they've been using the profits from EQ and EQ2 to sustain it.Could I be wrong? Sure. But it wouldn't surprise me if its true. EQ2 paid for itself a long time ago, it has minimal servers and a young, inexperienced dev team (especially compared to the devs who used to be here) - combine the sub money with the LoN/SC revenue and EQ2 is printing money for SOE.Besides, I'm way too jaded to believe that SOE reinvests over $1.2 million a dollars per month into EQ2. The updates/support of the last year were virtually nonexistant outside of LoN expansions and SC store additions. I've played MMOs for a long time and its pretty easy to see when a game shifts from being important to being in "maintenance" mode and just maintaining what population it already has while shifting inexperienced devs here to learn.

Calthine

01-10-2010, 12:46 AM

Well, without actually seeing budget sheets, I'd be inclined to think it works like this:All income goes into the big SOE bucket. SOE establishes a budget for each game, and pays it out of said bucket. So honestly, no game is paying for itself. All games pay SOE, and SOE then pays all games. SOE has assets (money and personnel) that it distributes amongst its potential reveue sources.The idea that moneys from one income source are being "stolen" by another game always amuses me.

Gaige

01-10-2010, 12:47 AM

I never said stolen, it just frustates me that the money isn't reinvested into EQ2, which imo is what needs to be done. Instead the game is basically on life support with the newest devs, the least experience, hardly any updates, a lot less content than two years ago, etc etc. The fact that it generates so much money but sees so little of it is a bitter pill for me to swallow.

Calthine

01-10-2010, 12:55 AM

<cite>Gaige wrote:</cite><blockquote>I never said stolen</blockquote>Oh, wasn't specifically talking about you hon; more like a general statement on some of the posts in this thread <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

Dreyco

01-10-2010, 03:27 AM

I'm not saying that I have expert knowledge of anything. This is all just speculation on my part, but everything all adds up.It just irritates me to no end that people want want want, clammor clammor clammor, and won't give SOE any leeway to try to try to help their own bottom line.They'll scream and cry foul that SOE is doing things like Legends of Norrath or Station Cash, that they have Live Gamer/Station Exchange, and then in the same breath, cry to the high heavens that we don't have celebrity advertisements like "that other game".*Shrugs* It's called being realistic of how much they might be spending. What i'm saying is not by any means exact, there are a lot of things that people really don't take into account.If my long winded posts came accross as brash, I apologize. The length was to try to double underline a point, but oh well. *Shrugs*

Amise

01-11-2010, 06:45 PM

<cite>Maltheas@Lucan DLere wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Amise wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Maltheas@Lucan DLere wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Jethal@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote>And would take quite some time (comparably speaking) to earn the money to buy. Trust me, I look at the Broker before considering opening the marketplace. Now, I can either spend a week or so hunting and questing (due to my limited play time) to earn the plat for that nice <a href="http://eq2.eqtraders.com/images/articles/gu52/i_MahoganyDiningTable.jpg" target="_blank">Mahogany Dining Table</a> that i want for my home, or I can pop down a couple dollars and buy the <a href="http://eq2players.station.sony.com/_themes/default/images/marketplace/small/sml_003155_cherryGrove.jpg" target="_blank">Cherry Grove Dining Set</a> (the station cash version).</blockquote>Remember the claims when Station Cash was coming out that it wouldn't hurt crafters?</blockquote>The mere existence of items that crafters can not make does not hurt crafters, regardless of the means by which said items are acquired.</blockquote>Jethal said it himself. He got a Station Cash furniture set instead of buying some furniture from a crafter because he found it easier.</blockquote>Yeah, but that doesn't mean crafters have been "hurt". You seem to be defining this as arising from an instance where someone acquires an item by means other than crafting, which is patently ridiculous.I mean, I only have five level 80 crafters, so what would I know, but I have not felt any ill effects from the addition of Station Cash. Nor has any other crafter I know.The point being, EQ2 is not a zero-sum game. Adding to one part of the game does not necessarily mean taking away from another part. Not enough people understand this concept apparently.

guillero

01-12-2010, 07:39 AM

Seeing they start adding more and more ingame-affecting stuff to the Cash Shop.They already are crossing the line now (just one more lie to their stocklpile of previous lies really)....... what makes you think that they won't start adding real gear and items to the cash shop anytime soon as well?Now it's carpenters that are hurt by the cash shop since last year. Soon the other crafting professions will follow.No worries about that. This game is more and more going towards a full Item Mall game on top of your monthly subscription.Jer

Avirodar

01-12-2010, 03:31 PM

Oh look what you can now buy on SC!Buy up your evac potions! Buy buy buy!! $$$SOE$$$SOE$$$SOE$$$And this is not the end, it is just the beginning.

Kendricke

01-12-2010, 06:17 PM

<cite>Jethal@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote>Trust me, I look at the Broker before considering opening the marketplace. Now, I can either spend a week or so hunting and questing (due to my limited play time) to earn the plat for that nice <a href="http://eq2.eqtraders.com/images/articles/gu52/i_MahoganyDiningTable.jpg" target="_blank">Mahogany Dining Table</a> that i want for my home, or I can pop down a couple dollars and buy the <a href="http://eq2players.station.sony.com/_themes/default/images/marketplace/small/sml_003155_cherryGrove.jpg" target="_blank">Cherry Grove Dining Set</a> (the station cash version).</blockquote>How much time do you really think it takes to gain platinum? Even during the parts of the year when I'm working 80+ hours a week, I'm able to open up EQ2 for 5-10 minutes each morning to check the broker for buying/selling. <cite>Jethal@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote>See now, this reminds me of the argument someone made at the Fanfaire about the annoucement that some of the Master Spells would be available through researchers... "Now people won't pay 100p for my level 80 Master scroll", to which Brenlo replied something like "yeah, maybe we're sick of paying 100p for scrolls".Believe it or not, I DO understand the argument against Station Cash. If I go through the headache of getting my Epic Mythical in game.. then see a weapon Just like it for $20, I'd be VERY upset.</blockquote>The point was that master level spells should be rare and require much effort or trade to acquire...just as your mythical. Besides, the problem wasn't that masters were selling for so much. It's that platinum is too easy to acquire in the game and there's no real method for removing the coin from gameplay (read: when there is more currency in the economy than there are goods to purchase, prices on items will rise - this isn't exactly advanced economics theory here). Honestly, there were any number of solutions that could have been chosen to address the "I don't wanna pay Xpp for a master" problem: smart loot, increased drop rates, quested masters, dropped master runes that are turned in for specific spells (old Everquest uses this, actually). SOE just decided to go the route of an in-game merchant who hands them out for free. In response, other items became more expensive. That's fine for players such as me, because I make most of my platinum from buying up those items when players unwittingly put them on the broker for the old prices and then I resell them (sometimes for 4-5 times as much - occasionally 10 times the price).

Arslan2000

01-15-2010, 02:05 PM

The SC is a waste of money that is clearly starting to interfere with the original stated goal of not affecting game play. The majority of the money earned, intelligently, goes back into the SC development to make more money on SC. This is not to say that the crafters are being shafted, or that fun appearance stuff is not making it into the game. I do feel they need to either go back and modify the look of many 'fun' crafted items, (Clothes, furniture, etc. Perhaps more appearance only items for all crafters.) but they are doing a good job of adding said things to the game via quests and live events.My biggest pet peeve is that it's to expensive. $10-$20 for a fun costume or furniture set for one character is not worth it. If anyone had a sense of perspective, they would realize this. Even the booster packs in City of Heroes apply to your whole account, including several costume sets, emotes, and a fun power. All for $10.I am also livid still at the price change potion. They nerfed the <bleep> out of the races, ruining the diversity IMO, and refuse to give us even 1 race change potion and charge outrageous prices for it. (No, I am not going to reroll. Do you know hole long it took me to get all my AA's, levels, and advanced crafting books? Reroll is not an acceptable option.)