Why no Plex system?

[Xatsh]

This is basically legalized rmt. And I say no to the highest levels on this.

I view ppl selling plex/WoW coin/The Archeage token things as being no different then those buying directly from RMT. It is literally the same thing without a risk to their account being hacked or credit card info stolen.

I do not understand how ppl can be for a plex system and against RMT. It makes no sense at all.

Yea it ruins illegal RMT... but all it is is making the Developers the RMT instead. Which is much worse in almost every way.

If they do add it should be $30-40 for a 1 month sub token, really screw over ppl for going the RMT route.

[Krotoan]

This is basically legalized rmt. And I say no to the highest levels on this.

Can we get a reason why funneling the money into the Devs pockets where it MIGHT (yes I'm not saying it WILL) get put back into our game, instead of into the Gil Farmers pockets where it WILL be turned into MORE bots and MORE spam is a worse scenario?

I don't see how you can equate the two. One gives the money to the game you love, the other gives it to people who are actively trying to squeeze as much cash as they can out of it while disregarding everyone else's playing experience. The money is THERE and being moved no matter which system is in place.

[Dualgunner]

snip

Okay so let's start with: In your opinion, what makes RMT bad?

[Vexander]

Okay so let's start with: In your opinion, what makes RMT bad?

I think for most people, RMT is bad because it is a disruption to their immersion and gameplay. To have your chat log spammed with long messages about discounts gets annoying quick, and putting the character doing the spamming on your ignore list is not a proper solution as these bots are deleted and made again once they're shut down. From there another concern is cyber safety and security as these sites can be hosting malicious programs meant to steal financial information. Beyond that, paranoid players will have the very real concern of being falsely accused of RMT transactions if they move large sums of in-game currency, even if it was obtained legitimately. I don't think SE has ever done false accusations and banning, but its always a real concern.

After that, I imagine most players find the idea of buying currency to be akin to cheating, which is a fair complaint to have. However, you'll always find players who enjoy cheating in a game for one reason or another, and an MMO may not let you type in a code for god mode, but RMT allows for economic cheats.

I will say the first time I experienced Plex was with World of Warcraft and at the time it came off to me as Blizzard trying to make money. I'm sure they are, but it certainly did a number on the RMT trading as well. Since players buying currency in MMOs seems like it'll be an inevitability, I have to admit, I would rather the game's developers gain the profit.

[RichardButte]

Yea it ruins illegal RMT... but all it is is making the Developers the RMT instead. Which is much worse in almost every way.

It's actually better in every possible way.

1. Players will see drastically less RMT spam in-game.

2. Players will have a much lower chance of having their accounts hacked. Pretty much the entire reason we have two-factor authentication is because RMT companies will do everything they can to hack into player accounts so they can drain them of money. Less RMT demand = less RMT activity = everyone is safer.

3. There will always be RMT. MMO devs with more experience and money than SE have done everything they can to snuff it out and you just...can't...kill it. The only way to beat it is to offer players a safe, legal means of doing it.

4. In the case of the developer doing it, all they're doing is acting as a broker between two players: one player who has an abundance of in-game money and the other who has more RL money to spend.

5. RMT companies tend to also farm up millions of in-game currency that causes inflation. If you ever wondered why the prices on marketboard items are so high, it's very probably due to the presence of RMT companies adding lots of additional currency to the game. Plex doesn't add currency to the game at ALL: it just moves money between one player to the next in exchange for game time.

6. It's better the money goes to the developer where it'll be spent on adding new content to the game instead of to RMT companies where it'll be spent on figuring out better ways to crack SE's security systems so they can hack into player accounts.

Seriously, this system works wonders in so many other MMOs that I'm actually very surprised SE doesn't have it already...

Most likely because they know they can't make a good econ and the top crafters on every server will have perma free subs.

They're not "free". It's just that someone else is paying for their sub. SE still gets the same amount of money either way (possibly more).

WoW's gold cap got raised specifically to accomodate the increasing prices of the WoW tokens. So yes, it has contributed to the inflation as well.

When?

WoW tokens hover at around 50,000g as of ~6 months ago. You sure you're thinking of WoW and not some other MMO...?

Which is pretty much a huge middle finger to people who actually invested time into saving up for something.

It's far less of a middle finger when the person who invested the time is being given a month subscription in exchange for this money, instead of it going to an RMT company.

This will only screw the market.

It hasn't "screwed the market" in EVE, WoW, or Wildstar. It wouldn't do so to XIV, either.

- people will buy gil from the RMT, than buy the subscription

-People will get banned/suspended.
-People will stop buying from RMT.
-We won't have to deal with annoying RMT spam every single time we teleport into a major city where they replace the barking bot every 30 minutes with yet another character that we need to report and blacklist.

[Snow_Princess]

Seriously, this system works wonders in so many other MMOs that I'm actually very surprised SE doesn't have it already...
They're not "free". It's just that someone else is paying for their sub. SE still gets the same amount of money either way (possibly more).



When?

WoW tokens hover at around 50,000g as of ~6 months ago. You sure you're thinking of WoW and not some other MMO...?



It's far less of a middle finger when the person who invested the time is being given a month subscription in exchange for this money, instead of it going to an RMT company.



It hasn't "screwed the market" in EVE, WoW, or Wildstar. It wouldn't do so to XIV, either.



-People will get banned/suspended.
-People will stop buying from RMT.
-We won't have to deal with annoying RMT spam every single time we teleport into a major city where they replace the barking bot every 30 minutes with yet another character that we need to report and blacklist.

Do other MNO's have a poor/ low activity econ? RIGHT NOW! with how our game encon works, having these tokens will not work. All it would do is make the hosing situation WORSE! because that be the only reason to sell them.

For the idea someone else is basically paying for the sub, point taken but I do not see good coming out of it. I think people will whine about some people having perma free subs or something because gil is hard for them.

WoW hasn't had any of those legal problems because there is no way to convert gold into money. The, 'Legal,' issues he pointed out may as well apply to a game of monopoly. You bought the, 'Fake Currency,' and are, 'Gambling,' since you're rolling dice to determine what you gain and lose and all. If there was a way to convert Gil into money, yeah, there would be an issue. But Plex systems don't do that. The idea that using money to buy game time and selling game time to another player would cause issues with consumer laws is laughable since in most MMOs if you buy something off of a Cash Shop you can vendor sell it for money which is just one additional step in this logic of violating consumer laws.

The person you are quoting is correct to an extent, SE did say it is why they had trouble coming out with the GS to begin with. However the GS has a low limit of converting, to have GS money be it's own thing basically so it does not step on any laws. Remember each country has different laws when comes to those things.

[RichardButte]

Do other MNO's have a poor/ low activity econ? RIGHT NOW! with how our game encon works, having these tokens will not work.

I made ~30 million gil in the 2 months after returning to the game, so I'm really not sure where you're getting the notion that the economy is "low activity".

Also, if they want to add more gilsinks, all they need to do is add some obscenely expensive mounts/pets/glamour to the game.

WoW did this by adding a spider mount that costs 2 million gold, and you had better believe that some people have bought them.

And I'm still not convinced that gil is as devoid of value as you say it is when people do so much to get it.

Hell, the fact that RMT barkers are barking by the aetheryte in every major city should be evidence enough that Plex WILL work: if they weren't making money doing that, they wouldn't be doing it.

The RMT presence is a clear indicator that enough players currently want gil badly enough that they're willing to risk their account being banned to buy it. That says everything right there...

[Snow_Princess]

I made ~30 million gil in the 2 months after returning to the game, so I'm really not sure where you're getting the notion that the economy is "low activity".Also, if they want to add more gilsinks, all they need to do is add some obscenely expensive mounts/pets/glamour to the game.

WoW did this by adding a spider mount that costs 2 million gold, and you had better believe that some people have bought them.

And I'm still not convinced that gil is as devoid of value as you say it is when people seem to still do so much to get it.

Hell, the fact that RMT barkers are barking by the aetheryte in every major city should be evidence enough that Plex WILL work: if they weren't making money doing that, they wouldn't be doing it.

The RMT presence is a clear indicator that enough players currently want gil badly enough that they're willing to risk their account being banned to buy it. That says everything right there...

You made that money because of no competition because no one cares, since there is no reason to care. I explained this to you before. The individual able to make money =/= how good or bad the econ is. Also it is easier to have higher profit margins per sale then high pop servers only to reinforce what I am saying further. There is a reason why my server is called buyer friendly compared to others. Too many crafters/ not enough buyers = little activity. There is not enough buyers because you do not NEED to buy anything to progress,, outside world firsts.

[Celef]

This is basically legalized rmt. And I say no to the highest levels on this.

I view ppl selling plex/WoW coin/The Archeage token things as being no different then those buying directly from RMT. It is literally the same thing without a risk to their account being hacked or credit card info stolen.

I do not understand how ppl can be for a plex system and against RMT. It makes no sense at all.

Yea it ruins illegal RMT... but all it is is making the Developers the RMT instead. Which is much worse in almost every way.

If they do add it should be $30-40 for a 1 month sub token, really screw over ppl for going the RMT route.

You can't destroy RMT, we've seen this so far so the best solution for SE is to "supervise" it. It's a battle they can't win

[Aylis]

I view ppl selling plex/WoW coin/The Archeage token things as being no different then those buying directly from RMT. It is literally the same thing without a risk to their account being hacked or credit card info stolen.

I do not understand how ppl can be for a plex system and against RMT. It makes no sense at all.

Yea it ruins illegal RMT... but all it is is making the Developers the RMT instead. Which is much worse in almost every way.

The bolded and underlined bits explain exactly why those of us who don't mind nor care about a PLEX system in place and the exact RMT were against for the exact reasons.

On the dev side of it is "here's the system, it's there if you wanna use it, we won't bother you"

On the illegal side of it is "Were gonna spam your chat box with floods of advertisements 24/7 and annoy the hell out of you, were going to be disrupting your game play because we need gil to sell, and if you do buy from us were gonna load your computer with viruses, drain your bank account and steal your character(s), drain every gil we can (including what you just bought!) and turn you into an advertising zombie"

That's the difference between the two.Dev designed RMT isn't intrusive and isn't a pest...it's just there...Illegal RMT is all intrusive, all annoying and reminds you constantly that it's there.

*EDIT*
More thoughts!

If someone chooses to spend money for in game currency. That's fine, that's there choice. It's not my money and it doesn't effect me or my game play. That's why I support DEV created RMT. It lets people have there choice, safe and secure and most importantly, it has no effect on me or my game play. Illegal RMT on the other hand DOES effect me and my gameplay, because the constant flood of advertisements and chat spam alone is enough to drag me into it when I didn't make the choice to want to be involved in it.