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[Kaleigh Doyle]

I'd be much more upset if they charged money for tools that are required to play the game effectively. Most of those Korean MMOs seem to do that, where you can play for free but the quality of loot increases depending on the subscription you have. IE. you can pay 10 bucks a month and actually get something useful when a monster dies.

If I was a hardcore pvper in EVE, and they introduced items and ships that could only be purchased in the store, and the items provided such an advantage that they became a STANDARD in combat, then I'd be dropping EVE very quickly. That said, if they introduced vanity ships and other trinket type toys, you know, like cheaper than that monacle, I'd totally go for that. I've bought so many of those vanity pets and mounts in WoW and it didn't feel like a waste of money to me.

Buying standings...I'd never do this myself, but it's just a grind, and if people have the financial backing to sidestep it, I'd say more power to them.

[Casiella]

The idea that they'd just sell the sorts of things that many of us consider gameplay - getting faction standings, building ammo and ships - says to me that they don't think my play style matters.

I hope for some sort of rebuttal / remediation today from CCP, because I want to believe.

[Casiella]

Kaleigh: they still can buy tags for data centers with ISK from PLEX. The difference is that someone had to go get those tags.

[Kaleigh Doyle]

Kaleigh: they still can buy tags for data centers with ISK from PLEX. The difference is that someone had to go get those tags.

I'm not sure what portion of my post you're referring to with this statement.

[Morwen Lagann]

Kaleigh: they still can buy tags for data centers with ISK from PLEX. The difference is that someone had to go get those tags.

I'm not sure what portion of my post you're referring to with this statement.

Buying standings. The datacenters let you boost your faction standing in exchange for giving them a bunch of NPC pirate tags that are looted from rat wrecks and sold on the market.

I'm a little ambivalent about the idea of buying faction standings via Aurum - I would be cautiously accepting of it if there were, say, an upper limit to what you could "buy in" to - say, full neutral, or maybe +1, and generally fine with the idea of an upper limit that was a negative number (say, -4, so you could get into that faction's highsec). To some extent it makes sense within the context of the game, in this case someone bribing the officials to look the other way rather than trying to kill them every time they jump into their space. But even bribes only go so far.

[Ken]

Perhaps if it's spun in a faction appropriate way, there could be some tongue-in-cheek RP value to a standings purchase mechanic.  Say, massive, publicized donations to the Luminaire Orphans Society or to the Imperial Cathedral of the Repentant Pilot.  Bit of positive PR for a pilot to put him/her (back) in the good graces of the faction?

[Kaleigh Doyle]

Kaleigh: they still can buy tags for data centers with ISK from PLEX. The difference is that someone had to go get those tags.

I'm not sure what portion of my post you're referring to with this statement.

Buying standings. The datacenters let you boost your faction standing in exchange for giving them a bunch of NPC pirate tags that are looted from rat wrecks and sold on the market.

I understood that part. Just curious about why I was addressed I guess. >.>

[Casiella]

I was referring to the last paragraph of the first post on this page of this thread.

[Kaleigh Doyle]

I was referring to the last paragraph of the first post on this page of this thread.

*head explodes*

[Casiella]

Sorry :/

[Kaleigh Doyle]

So are you trying to say that you feel running missions and gaining faction standings the old fashioned way is invalidated by buying it instantly from CCP? I'm just trying to figure out how this is significant enough to quit the game over.

[Casiella]

Well, yes, actually. If you can buy gameplay results directly from CCP -- nobody had to do anything IG -- then the sandbox is gone. Same goes for the sales of ammo and ships they mentioned in the doc.

If I want to play a spaceships pew pew game based on MTs, I'll go try out Black Prophecy or something. EVE PVP and such matters to me because there are consequences to it IG.

[Victoria Stecker]

While I wouldn't quit over it, I can see the problem with how it impacts the economy and particularly the sandbox concept.

In the case of plex, a plex doesn't actually do anything in game. It converts IRL money into gametime, which can then be bought and sold. We already use IRL money for gametime, but now we can buy at sell it to each other, etc. While it does allow someone to quickly convert IRL cash into ISK, that isk didn't come from nowhere - someone had to earn it.

The basis of the EVE economy is that everything has to be made by a player in some form or fashion. Isk is earned running missions and killing rats. Ships are made from mineral which are mined. Standings are earned either by running missions or by turning in tags earned by killing the enemies of a specific faction.

Anything that removes the intermediary steps and lets you go straight from Plex --> Stuff hurts the concept of the sandbox and the player driven economy. The Player economy sets the price of goods - but it doesn't look like player supply and demand will impact the price of aur, except through pushing the price of plex up.

This results in something like when shuttles were seeded as NPC sell orders: It sets a ceiling on prices. Previously, the price of Trit could never exceed 2.4 isk p/u because if it did, people would just buy and reprocess shuttles for trit. If aur can be used to buy standings, then it will set a ceiling on the price of tags - if it costs less isk to buy a plex, turn it into aur, and buy standings, than it would to buy the equivalent standings via tags, no one will buy the tags, and vice versa.

On it's own, this isn't a huge deal. But EVE sells itself as the only sandbox game out there, and allowing MT to buy you things previously made/earned in the game fucks up the sandbox.

EDIT: sniped by cass

[Louella Dougans]

high faction standings allow high-sec POS.

There are characters ingame who hire themselves out to allow corporations to anchor highsec POS. This is a player-created activity, arising entirely from player imagination and action.

Selling faction standings carries the possibility of eliminating this POS anchoring service.

Damaging/destroying player-generated content, reducing the amount of interaction between players, for microtransaction money.

That is one reason why faction standing for Aurum is not good.

[Ciarente]

I'd also like to add, having thought about this and talked to others over the past 24 hours, that 'buying your way past' gameplay, for many (including me) reduces enjoyment in that gameplay even if it's something we enjoy doing.

No, this isn't perfectly logical. If an activity is fun, it should be still fun if there's no actual benefit, right?

Well, wrong, for many. I noticed in other games that had purchasable progression options that, once I reached the level that allowed me to use them, my enjoyment in the gameplay diminished, no matter how much I had enjoyed it up until then. There's a reason single-player games don't put the cheat codes right on the back of the box, after all. Many activities that are enjoyable when coupled with a sense of achievement - even a fleeting and artificial one, like a game reward - are not enjoyable when they become meaningless repetition that is being done for no purpose.

When I first got out into the workforce and started earning real money, I spent a bunch of it on things to make my parents' lives easier - a lawn-moving service, a regular maintenance guy, etc. My mother, however, politely but firmly refused the laundry service that would have washed, dried and ironed all their business shirts once a week. She explained that she enjoyed spending a quiet Sunday afternoon ironing, and I was trying to ruin  her favourite part of the week.

Being young and stupid, I asked, "But if you want to iron sometime, can't you just iron the stuff again?"

That, she told me, was not the point.

And it isn't.

People's reactions to this proposal are not just about someone else buying an advantage. They're about a fundamental change to their gameplay and their enjoyment.  'Opt out' cash-buttons are not compatible with what I enjoy in EVE.

They may come, and they may be popular, and they may bring in new players. But they will not be without cost for others.