The Permeable Barrier of the StationCash Marketplace
On Thursday evening, a player logged in to discover that one of their gameplay-acquired mounts, a War-Barded Black Cavalry Horse, had unattuned itself. This led to the discovery that a variety of in-game mounts had vanished from the in-game Stable Merchants, only to be found later on the StationCash Marketplace for a cost of 1250SC ($12.50). Other mounts included the Two-Toned Warg , and the black-saddled Blue Flame Nightmare.
Kenazeer had this to say:
I really don’t see how a series of “mistakes” could lead to something “accidentally” disappearing off a merchant, “accidentally” being assigned a SmedBucks value, and “accidentally” appearing on the marketplace.
It is funny to see more people start to realize the true nature of SOE that some people have been warning about all along.
Game Update 57 has taken several strides towards pushing StationCash further onto the Live servers, despite the RMT opportunities which should have been provided by the introduction of the EQ2 Extended (Free-to-Play) server:
- Mastercrafted items appeared on the StationCash market on European servers (later withdrawn)
- StationCash button permanently added to the EQ2 Dock
- StationCash now dominating 60% of the no-longer-avoidable EQ2 Welcome window
At 4:46pm, Dave “SmokeJumper” Georgeson did little to allay fears with this justification:
The mounts are going to be replaced back into the vendors (stable masters). That will occur in Tuesday’s hotfix.
They’ll still be available as Standard Mounts in the marketplace also, but will be available at their regular plat/status prices in the vendors as well.
NOTE: Since there are actually two instances of those mounts, when you’re looking at the stable master, you’ll see one entry for plat/status, and one entry for SC. Choose whichever one you desire.
Once cornered on the issue of making previously in-game only mounts with Stats available on StationCash, SmokeJumper parried with:
I’m a bit mystified why allowing people to have an additional acquisition path for these mounts would upset you. Can you help me out by explaining how this impacts your gameplay in any way?
An eloquent response from Gaige:
We have certain expectations. One of those is that players need to earn their way. I personally don’t like players using their wallets to progress in this game. It brings real life into my hobby in a way that it never did before.
These mounts were previously only available via plat and status. Things you have to acquire in-game through progressing your toon. You’ve now totally done away with that and said “Hey you, Mr. Rich Guy, want this mount but don’t have enough status and plat, refuse to play the game as intended, no problem dude we take VISA!”
Sure its only a mount but EQ2’s short history shows that when you guys get an inch you take about 13,000 miles. Nothing makes me believe this will be the first thing this happens to. Eventually what is to stop you from saying “Hey you, Mr. Rich Guy, want this (Breastplate) but don’t have the ability to kill Rhoen Theer – no problem dude we take VISA!”
You have SC mounts already. Why take in-game mounts and add them there too, totally circumventing the need to actually play the game? What is wrong with people acquiring status and plat if they want a nightmare? If they want to give you money sell them one of the exclusive SC mounts you already offer.
You said, and I guess its my fault for believing you, that EQ2x was separate so things like this wouldn’t happen. I know you think our opinions are silly, but they matter to us. I haven’t paid SOE thousands or real life dollars on subs and expansions because I don’t care about the game, quite the opposite.
My only response to you is that if you can’t understand why we’re passionate about these things maybe you aren’t very well suited to leading this team. I have 100% confidence in your ability to build and grow EQ2x given your experience with RMT but I really doubt your ability to stay true to the history of the real EQ2 and the decisions and explanations you’ve made since coming here really don’t ease my mind at all, and I so badly wish they did.
Portree followed up with:
Then I fear you have no concept about why poeple play MMOs, and play them for years. The amount of time, effort, writ grinding, harvesting (to sell on the broker to earn the plat) that it takes for a player of that level to EARN a mount like the one you took from the live servers to sell for SC is immense. Players who achieve this goal on their first characters remember that sense of achievement forever.
This is where most real MMO players get the enjoyment from their game, earning their way to nice items and then setting themselves targets to achieve for their next endevour. THIS is what hooks your players in, this (and the communities they join to help them achieve their in-game goals) is what keeps them playing.
Items that then become available at the click of a button, no effort, no sense of achivement, undermine the very foundations of a good MMO. Your players don’t get hooked on their next big thing to work on because they can just buy it. Your players get bored very quickly and leave for a game with more depth and immersion.
As for the poor player who did all the hard work to get his beautiful mount… he’s has his pride in his achievment totally stripped from him by the player standing next to him with the same mount he got with a few clicks and a credit card.
I really don’t think you understand MMOs at all now to be honest.
SmokeJumper then responded:
I get what you’re saying about the fact that you earned it and don’t want others to buy it. I’ll go talk to the team about it. Maybe we’ll do something like make the Standard Mounts in the marketplace slightly different so that they’re not the same item.
No guarantees, but I do hear what you’re saying here. Thanks.
…
To go a step further, we’ll be removing the current Standard Mounts from the marketplace in the morning.
When we add Standard Mounts back in, they will be different than the ones you had previously earned.
and later:
I’ve never said that we wouldn’t sell items, either with stats or not. I did go on record as saying that the one of the main reasons we set up a separate service was that our current EQII Live players didn’t want items with stats associated with them in the marketplace.
But mounts have always been excluded from that discussion because they already exist on the marketplace, and these particular mounts are a) already in the game, and b) don’t have stats as good as the other ones we already sell.
No promises were broken here.
Going Forward
There can be no doubt that Dave “SmokeJumper” Georgeson is testing the waters with just how far he and Smedley can go with StationCash and Free-to-Play. This surreptitious change took both players and developers completely off guard, according to sources.
It seems pointless to even attempt to draw a dividing line between StationCash Marketplace and the Live servers. SmokeJumper has made it clear that the only thing preventing him from rolling out full Free-to-Play and powerful Item Shop on the live servers is the crumbling wall of player outrage.
Tags: Daybreak Cash, smokejumper
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Comments (18)
Bob
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“Maybe we’ll do something like make the Standard Mounts in the marketplace slightly different so that they’re not the same item.” (SmokeJumper)
So really what I take away from what he said is that we will pull the “earned” mounts off of the station, paint them a different color, change their name and throw them back up. He then will say that, ” see, we did listen to you guys, that mount is not the same as the one you can earn.”
He really needs to change his moniker as a smokejumper is someone who puts out fires, not someone who starts them.
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Nalerian
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And this is why 4 subscriptions were cancelled in my household this last weekend. After seeing what he/they are doing to “my” game – I’ll cut my losses (over 6 years with beta time and around $5000) and try to move on. I was skeptical when people were ringing the bells of doom when this individual took the position, but now I’ve (along with everyone else here) seen what he does to games. Either by what his own agenda is, or what he won’t talk his boss out of.
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Starseeker
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Yet more double speak from smokejumper. Getting tired of it myself. Thanks for the article Feldon, and to comment on your last line, the wall of player outrage I think is already here perhaps just a small wall though…that will gradualy get bigger. I think you are right that SmokeJumper is testing the waters, seeing how far he push the line before it breaks.
However, there may be a point very soon where they just throw in the towel and implement RMT on all the servers, since the community is already outraged. However, they will sneak it in bit by bit…mounts, items…with no announcements (case and point: Tracking potions) so those who aren’t paying attention won’t notice till one day they go to a merchant and go WTF is this? When did this happen? and someone else will say …a few months ago man.
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zerigo
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This site has become the most depressing part of my day… sadly nothing to do with feldon or his great work here. Ol georgie here sure likes to get the players fired up. Another stupid idea, followed up with another lame ass response from the devs.
I love to see gaige tear em a new asshole, he sure has a nack for it.
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AlienShine
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SOE probably will make more money when this F2P project is done. I think it is certain within a year the servers wont be as we know them. It will be, throw in some dollars and you `might´ have some fun. I mean, everything that has been done for a longer time then they will admit has nothing to do with keeping current subscribers happy, we didnt even got a bone. All these cosmetic changes no one really cares about that anymore, we want some content, class -mechanics fixes etc. Neither or some very very minor steps are made on that front They are building a solid first impression for this game and especially dumb it down to the level every pvp arse can jump in and have some fun…
I really love this game but it boils down fast 🙁
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AlienShine
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and screw the 3 month update/patch cycle !!
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Feldon
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Remember when $15 a month was enough?
They want more money, for less content.
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Eschia
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When they do stuff like this it makes me think “what is the point of gaining platinum and status points if everything is being shifted over to Station Cash…”. I mean it gives me the feeling our hard earned in game currencies are being treated like confederate dollars.
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Eschia
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Jumper got pwned
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Azzlan
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This is simply another test to see how many of us will argue. He’ll try it again in the new year I can guarantee it. Fewer people will argue and SOE will tout that more veteran players are now ok with the changes. In fact they support and promote changes which take the effort out of accomplishment and put it in your wallet. My only hope is that EQ2X falls on its face but, my friends, our MMO is lost to capitalism now.
Excellent comment, Feldon, about the $15/mo.
Sad SOE…not unexpected…just sad.
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Kruzzen
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It is not a matter that the wall is smaller. It is simply people have been ignored, lied to, and had smoke blown where it should not be. Everyone is so tired of smokeblower that at this point we are looking for the day he either is fired or wrecks eq2 and we all move on to another game.
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foozlesprite
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I remember working hard for everything I earned, and I’ve still got the screenshots of my first mount to prove it (I opted for the mount a rung above the cheapest, better value for my plat!) But I haven’t played for a while now, just log on halfheartedly for live events since it’s the only content in game that’s new to me. I agree with Feldon…we used to pay $15 a month and get a LU every month, with what seemed like more content overall. They’re getting so greedy and lazy!
I’m hoping Guild Wars 2 will live up to the hype; the original GW has a marketplace but none of the stuff in it is essential to play at all, and there’s no monthly fee. It’s kind of nice, actually.
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Eschia
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“They’re getting so greedy and lazy”
Emphasis on “lazy”. I’ve noticed countless times they pick the lazier path. Like how in RoK and TSO the overland zone textures are all bland and stretched out, they never could give a decent childlike appearance to nathan ironforge and his freeport counterpart, and don’t get me started on the selections of background music they started using since RoK. Why can’t we have more music like we had in EoF? I kept my music on all the time back then. Now i leave it off because the stuff we got now is hideous and sounds like it was rushed. The point being; this game could have been far more then it is now if the had just focused on it rather then rushing things. When we ask for them to change things, they give us results completely different then we ask.
Like us healers back in TSO we mentioned we had to whack a mole cure all the time and meanwhile our tanks died because we spend out time curing rather then healing. How did SOE solve that? By making the newer stuff have a lot more Incurable detrimentals. Yea no more whack a mole. Moar lyke No more curing… Ok done ranting. 😛
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Twisted_Mentat
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I prefer the SF curing (watch for curses, keep your team alive, and use your tools to maximum effectiveness). 🙂
TSO raids were the reason my healer alt only got levelled after i’d seen raiding for a few areas.
But, “putting Money Making Opportunities into the MMO” seems to be smokejumpers prime goal. That new UI xp bar, gets in the way more than it helps (the old choice of opening up the persona page to see xp bonuses is gone, as are the old buttons so not only can people not choose to remove the bar but profit UI has no way of showing xp bonuses anymore).
Can’t blame a company for wanting to make a profit, but ripping old content out of long established in-game vendors to sell for an insane ammount of real cash is taking things to far.
Evan a declaration of intent to remove content would be enough to annoy a lot of people, but to actually go through with it “ninja” until amassing outrage froms #subscribers#, is not the way to keep loyal supporters happy.
By all means make new and interesting things, just don’t rip out what was already in place if it wasn’t broken. Random, stealth remodeling is gunna bring this game to its knees (or turn it around to, full on F2P). :'(
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Karofin
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QUOTE : “When we add Standard Mounts back in, they will be different than the ones you had previously earned.”
I can live with this personally. I am happy that I can stand next to a guy and his mount does the same as mine but looks different. As long as the difference is significant enough. I can then have something I have clearly earned, no matter what it is and he cannot buy this, he MUST earn it or he cannot get it at all.
That is as simple as this gets for me personally.
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AlienShine
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I guess I’m the only one, but I really liked the TSO raids, sometimes curing was out of wack but even with the easier mobs kept me on my toes. I need to be challanged on a 3,5 hour raid night. Even the fail conditions made everyone pay close attention. Now with SF, once we where a bit geared up, the easy mobs are totally boring. I have to get my fix now from the few hard-modes we demolish, and in between them they put a few easy encounters, what a dumb idea.
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Vorodor
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Im glad i gave this game up a good bit back have tryed a few times to get back into it but the magic’s gone and its just getting worse. R.I.P EQ2 as we know and love it
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angryvet
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@Azzlan: I think you mean our mmo is lost to socialism, as that’s what F2P is. Capitalism built EQ2, and EQ, and the rest of this genre, but the something-for-nothing crowd is doing a fine job of destroying all that.
Anyhow, sad news, but great coverage from EQ2Wire as always.
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