Should MMO Companies Sell Gold? (ASK Ep 12)

no.

a few questions question

Do you think more future MMOs will go with cross genre?

i see a rising trend in this like Tera has elements of shooter controls with fantasy or some games using sci fi in a fantasy world and i think the question need to ask is

Will cross genre games be the newest normal in the mmo scene?

Awesome show MM! Hey i had a question. What are your thoughts on Hellgate Global? I have been playing it a lot lately & i can't get enough. They did an awesome job with all the new patches & is not pay to win. Please do a first look vid for Hellgate. & check it out. It has gotten way better I want more gamers on Hellgate you will not be disapointed. Please tell your friends.

hi magicman as you know well by now im huge advocate of vr and it's possibilities and i agree with you for the part where atm in it's infancy it would be more a hindrance, but that being said if they make it lighter make it more comfortable and make it so you only need to lay down on your bed or where ever and have your 5 senses read and written to so you don't have to move. where eating in game food could taste real and even fill you up ( an excuse for more real girls to play mmo's " i only play it for the dieting potential") even if you don't eat. or even go hardcore and feel pain or permadeath ala sword art online (i noted that mortal online and wizardry merged into one game would literally make sao hehe) and according to sao it predicts this will be available in 2022 (yeah i know its fiction i can dream though).

Question:
which energy drinks do you recommend for the long haul gamers mmo or otherwise (i generally clock 100 hours a week if i don't have work or college)

lol i am posting this becuse i feel like i am takeing all of magicmans questions and mybe slightly takeing over this thread (Nine posts so far!) if you have a question you might like me to answer reply to this i promise ill answer it best to my ability and spelling standards. good luck, have fun, see you later.

Hey Magicman!

I agree DC Universe does controllers well, I enjoyed playing it. I have a Logitech controller and it works well. Vindictus I think it worked well while fighting.

On a side note I think Vindictus has the best fighting style of any MMO specifically because you can pick boulders and what not up and throw them and it has other cool aspect like the character that can use chains to pull the beast you're fighting down. I wish other Devs would bring that type of vercitality into MMO's.

Hey Magicman i know this kinda unrelated but i would like to ask if you could review SEYKEN:Crystal Kingdom, its an indie JRPG MMO that is java based, very much like Seiken Densetsu series, it seems very promising but its not ver well known their page is http://www.seyken.org/ they had made a funding campaing like Akaneiro sort of did but they kinda failed reaching their goal info here http://www.indiegogo.com/seyken im highly interested in your opinion about this game.

my question is what do you think is a good mmo that ceaps you wanting to play it i have played alot of them but none have realy cep me wanting to play them.

nice

I think the mmo trinity needs to be done away with.First off while it does force people to team up these days that's not a good thing.A decade or so ago it was a good thing but look at mmos today.The trinity leads more to foul mouthed kids and 40 yr old virgins creating a less friendly experience.I play plenty of mmos and I can login to any of them at any time and will see some new player ask a question.Only to see half the games players chastise them for being new.And that's in between the spewing of homophobic and racist speech that clutters the chat logs on many games.At least with a game that doesn't follow the trinity if I meet someone in game that is a decent person I don't have to worry if we have the right classes to team up.It also means that if I form a regular group on a game everybody gets to play the type of character they want.And we don't have to risk teaming up with an a$$hole because we need to fill a role that a group member doesnt fill with their toon.I deal with enough idiots in real life I shouldn't have to see them in game.

Think about the idea of currency and what it all means in game and out. Try to break the norms you have already been molded into. To start, take a few steps back in time:
Mario had gold coins as a way to push the character to other platforms in the game. A sort of risk taking jump to get those 10 extra coins, or just leave it and move on. More coins meant 1 extra life possibly, but not really needed to pass a level. Usually perfectionist wanted every little coin collected, kind of giving a game withing a game. Sonic the Hedgehog had a similiar system etc. Other games replaced this value with other items like pizza and or crystals.
RPG came out and started in barter systems with coins. and evolved into todays MMORPG economy system, it was not until today that your real bank can be attached to this in game economies and that gold farmers in asia set up shop supporting thousands of overworked students based on your desire to trade for in game goodies.
NOw let us stop. Where do these coins come from? Dead boars, quests, etc. They mold around the idea of modern work force. Work for something and get rewarded. This can be very apparent in games like TERA, where coin is so limited you cannot complete all the craft and travel you might want to do. This effects in game items. as well. And generally has a healthy auction house for in game items. Vanilla wow was essential on building this coin as well. Other games, cash is nothing and so much of it can be acquired, that it seems like it is just a standard code in the development and the game has bee re-engineered to by pass that and focus on other things (WoW today, Perfect world, etc..) These games usually avoid the gold collection and skip right to the resource: Cash shop currency or other items to farm. It seems they all juggle an engineered dance around the cash shop.
- Look at Star Trek online or Forsaken world, this multi currency business is so rediculous. It is obvious patches over patches of games designed to use a "Reputation point" like farm in currency to keep you (A) Grinding in repeat content or (B) Paying your way out of it with real cash.
Honostly, TERA, secret world, and all these games that have a in game gold scale that slowly increases as you level and allows you to et just the right items for you r level or grind a few things out, is ok, but does hinder a little in progression.
I say, REMOVE ALL CURRENCY. Just drop the headache. Drop the calculations, drop the economy breaking principles that turn gamers away. Drop it, and gold spammers even go away.
Keep the crafting elements. and keep cash shop elements if you wish (potions, etc, can all be purchased with cash if you like) And create new tings based on NEW OUT OF THE BOX IDEAS.
One thing I can think of is scaled to level items. So, if oyu look at most games, there are shops that have things scaled to level and price: So that yummy 10K HP potion is 5gold and requires level 10 to have it. I obviously will have 10gold at level 10? That depends on the game designers intent. He either wants you to rinse and rpeat a Level 10 dungeon, usually putting you at level 20, and come back later to purchase this item. Giving you this sor tof reward feeling. BUt by then a level 20 potions i ready to use at a new price...and we usually just save the cash and move on, or we use the potion...the point is, REMOVE the gold, and use a meter "ready to drink" showing that the item cannot be purchased unless we prove to the NPC we are dungeon worthy...kind of like reputation...essentially, if the gold is removed, and the INTENT of the game designer is not hidden behind gold, that cuts out gold spammers, and abuse of cash shop (publisher greed). Or just give the item at level 10.
I usually enjoy games that scale everything to level. I mean hey, we are moving from point A to B right and not coming back? Those old dungeons rot unless we have an alt right? So why place this cash game and just scale it to DIRECT levels? I love games that offer new items and potions etc as I move to new towns at higher levels.
Older games like WOW vanilla had the example of good in game gold, because it matched the environment and lore. In game gold can give that "I am living in the middle age" ambience to games if done right. In WoW Vanilla, you found white items, from level 1, in major cities you came back to at all levels for several pieces of gold. IT was silly, but it showed people were still COMING back, to older items. Allot of things were not scalled to level. Allot of people put a value on items sometimes 5 levels lower than them, because they had a use still. Item use + value + non level scaling = GREAT use of GOLD. But look at wow today...you can just get rid of the economy (LOL) and have everything scale to level and faction as that is basically what is happening. After the 2nd expation, I never had a need for gold again. And we started to see the broken economy of items jumping up to 999999999999gold on the auction. Just no. It is over. The age of gold is over (unless your another run of the mill asian wow clone trying to milk that Vanilla nastalgia).
Look at MOBA, it uses cash on the go...some kills give bigger cash, but all in all, it is a SCALE war to match your level, and mid and end game tactics.
FPS is another rank + cash scale feature.
Take a look at your mmorpg, ask yourself, would it survive if gold was taken out, and level scaling, or factioning was in place. Most likely yes. Then you will have no gold spamming. And no broken economies...oh but wait...some one is not profiting... The publisher wanting you to exhange your real cash for gold itmes (Allods, PErfect world, all PWE titles. etc etc etc.) As long as greed is there, your gonna have this. Take out greed, insert creativity, and you have better things in your cash shop to worry about that people WILL ACTUALLY BUY.
You are welcome, when you companies profit from my ideas, send me my check in the mail.

Hi Magicman, cool shirt you got there.
With the limited amount of endgame content RaiderZ had to offer (before expansion) what do you think should be included in mmorpgs to keep players buisy once they reached the level-cap? (Gear-grind, PvP, professions, repeatable quests, events, ....)

why do so many mmo's have game breaking chase shops.

AMD HOLODECK ;p

That was interesting i was typing about my opinion about your answer for inflictious and then i hear my name and stopped typing lol anyways

First of all i would like to tell you MM about inflictious question i do not think that will matter since companies show their greed WITHOUT putting gold in their games since betas/alphas are pay to get in the 2 most common examples would be neverwinter and dirtybomb
Also a lot of f2p games show their greed anyways by their ridicilous prices in their cash shop even if its fashion or items that will make your gear op like enchant items and so on

About my question you pretty much covered what i was going to ask u next(aka if FF's will switch from p2p to f2p ever)I will take your opinion as someone who is actually more experienced then me cause i never really played any FF mmos and all i've done so far is watch FF videos while you actually have played 11(and i quess u'll most likely get 14 as well)Thank for your answer appreciate it

About wildstart i would really love to see how it is but i wont until i get a cb date or alphate date cause honestly(and please dont be offended)i dont wanna end up like you MM losing my excitement and be like meh ok wherever it comes out i will try it out(considering that already happened for 2 games already)

Also i really prefer seeing ur pc that seeing u freezing to death just sayin :P and i like the whole 4 screens covering all your vision idea its pretty cool if you have a big enough desk lol

Awesome work as always keep up the good work and a little advice MM breathe bro we want you alive if u go away whos gonna do mmbomb live/ask mmobomb and f2p cast?

Hey magicman been checking your site for along time,but after seeing this show i had to sign up :P Iv had a question iv been pondering for a while and would like to know how you and others feel about it....Do you feel that ! and ? (quest givers) kinda kills the RP in RPG ? , I remember playing older mmos before this fad,some of which have switch over to this system in later years :( ,when you had to search in a new town or city and meet ,talk with all the npcs to find who has the quests.
I feel like when i play these games with !/? i get tunnel vision and im just running back and forth on a track, never stopping to take the time to interact with the living world of the game

Question: Besides the "Trinity" being a tool to create dependencies for grouping and community based play in MMOs, what other options do you believe developers can try in games to create a rich and deep social experience? I personally like having defined roles being an old time RPGer, but I find the communities in MMOs to be rough at times to maintain one role. I really find myself not getting deep with one character at times in an MMO because they give me too many options like role switching. Many times I have feel like I have multiple personality disorder and lose interest in my role(s).

With Akaneiro demon hunters, Totem, and the up and coming City of Steam, it seems that saying something will be browser-based doesn't necessarily mean it will be a bad game. So, what do you think about the future of browser-based mmos?

Question you think games are getting easier ? MMO's and other games alike only reason i ask this is because Iv'e recently started playing tera and soloing BAM's can be quite easy if not long but i used to play monster hunter and fighting something on that is in my opinion allot more challenging.

Actually, you are absolutely right magicman. You know TSO (the settlers online) uses the same method whereby Gems (currency purchase-able) gets pitted with currency ingame and prices vary, sometimes soar high and sometimes stoop low. I think that is how it should be.

Hi MagicMan
People talking about virtual reality only because "Sword Art Online" was really good anime and they would like to play games that looks like that i'm mentioning this anime because i know that you are not anime guy.
and did you ever heard about ESF:Final (Earth Special Forces)

Unless they're willing to inflate their own game economy to insane levels, the Chinese will always beat their prices. They already do sell gold by proxy, selling items that can be traded in the auction houses etc.

My question for the week is do you think that the mmorpg In general have grown stale or do you think the players are just plain tired of the same old crap, Or is the market so full of crap games atm that no one wants to play. I notice myself jumping from me to mmo hoping for that feel good feeling where i can not stop playing and calling in sick to get stuff done but lately have found my self looking for more and more mmo's that just are not there. Am i the only one ?

They already do..a prime example is SWtOR.
With the recent changes to repair costs..anyone not buying and selling cash items will be left behind.And I really think that a repair item in the cartel market is coming.

What do you think of trading card based MMOs? Examples being Magic: The Gathering Online or the Pokemon TCG Online.

we wont be seeing virtual realty gaming till 2025 when we are playing sword art online, lets just hope we don't get stuck in the mmo and cant log-out :P

Great show, World of Tanks has an in game gold system and a lot of people don't like the premium tanks you can buy but the people who haven't used them don't know that for the most part the premium tanks have serious disadvantages against non-premium tanks. Mostly the only advantages the premuim tanks have is better matchmaking than their non-premium counterparts and better in game credit earning, the common insult in WoT "Wallet Warriors".


Also what is the name of the song in the intro of the vid?

You have a big melon.

Great show :D. How do you feel about Dust 514 and EVE Online? Should more games go this route, or be able to do it?

Great show as always, odd question for ya lol i first started coming to this sit beacuse it had a pet givaway for AION and now i visit it daily lol but ive noticed ppl will get pet/gear keys and then sell them ingame, saw it in AION alot do you think this is a good thing for the game or at least advertisement for a site such as this anyways love the show and thanks for all the hard work you put into it

Great show Magic!

Only 1 questions this week: Do you happen to have heartburn or acid reflux? I see you do little like half burps all the time. I do the same and its from bad heartburn. If so, I feel you pain brother!

Can someone tell me what's the name of the intro music?I love it!

mounted