Mythic Responds to Station Exchange

Just another indication that MMORPG's are some sort of freakish alternative lifestyle. You seriously have to not have a job and sit home playing them all day to be competitive, that's not a joke, it's reality, and a lot of people do it. I think integrating real money auctions is just going to make it even worse. I've never been a fan of the genre because it reaks of too many disingenuis motives... it's not gaming, it's a high priced ticket to not have a life, or a job. Gimmie the silly ass entertainment shit I can blow an hour or two a night on, not this sad uber time sink, uber expensive goose chase.

/cue a million, omg u r so wrong, spending 10 hours a day on a game doesnt effct my social lyfe at all fgt

It might be a good move business wise, but game wise it's a horrible one.

They are going to bank on this. SOE needs a few extra bucks? Login GM, /create 1,000,000 platinum, sell on auction at $20 a pop for 100 plat, hello $200,000

I haven't read enough about this, but is it confirmed that SOE will be taking a percentage of sales? Ebay style I guess.

I think this guy needs to spend less time worrying about what people are doing at other companies, take a look outside his office and worry about what is going on at mythic.

if things were so cherry over at that place. mythic would be the leader in the industry instead of soe now wouldnt they?

all i saw in that article was some ceo crying "i hate you for making more money than me"

meh

Gee,there are people killing themselves from exhaustion trying to get these uber-items,and people killing others when they lose them.Not add in all the in-game hacking and griefing,multiply it by real money,and the result is....

Ugly.

The thing Sony has to be extremely careful about is now that they condone and do this it opens up a huge amount of legal avenues against them. Up virtual item got lost? Never received it? Rollback? etc. They can say all they want in their TOS but its a can of worms.

Look at all the mythic crap for sale on ebay and various other sites. This is already being done with their game. SOE offering a secure way to do this while taking in the amount ebay or the other site would be making doesn't seem like all that bad to me.

If mythic was against people selling shit, I could understand why they would be upset but the fact is they don't care.

Between all the business crap Jacobs is spouting there is some unwritten set of ethical MMO rules that he's trying to say that SOE is breaking, without actually saying that.

Read the quotes, he keeps trying to tell SOE how bad of a business decision this is, but he keeps trying to say that it's bad for Sony. It's not bad for Sony, it's bad for everybody else who doesn't now copy this business model. Sony broke the unwritten rule and got in the middle of it, and now they are ruining it for the rest.

Fine, Mark, stay a purist and sell your game as such, let us know how it works out for you. Let quitting players keep their dead characters in limbo on dead servers while any person somewhat interested in the game at the 2-3 years-in point has a good 6-8 months of grinding ahead of them before they can even hope to compete in PvP.

Mark Jacobs is either a poor businessman or a poor spokesperson. Mythic is giving away a free trial right now to get people to join up, but he's trying to warn Sony how many problems they will create for themselves by doing this? Maybe his business teacher was different, but mine told me to shut the hell up when you thought your competitor was making a big mistake, and watch them drive themselves off the cliff.

Oh no, this is outrage over some broken set of unwritten MMO rules that Sony will make a killing off of. It will generate more interest in their games, and the purists who hate that aspect of it still don't have to involve themselves in it, they will move based on gameplay and this aspect of it will be a minor annoyance at best.

so would one solution be to group servers by open-trade and closed-trade? Then enforce the rules on any sales on external sites (like ebay) the same way they have/will be doing. Then everyone would be happy, unless I'm missing something?

HA. Mythic's Mark Jacobs will be blown away if he finds out about what the motherfucking bullshit NC has been doing in Korea. MOTHERFUCKERS.

"one of the worst decisions in the history of the MMORPG industry" and "Sony" in the same sentence. Gee, whoda thunk it.

Seriously, SOE has been the bane of the industry from day one. It's unfortunate that EQ was so successful for them, the damage that did is still with us and will be for a very long time.

It is clear to us that we have many loyal and honest players who simply don't have the time to take multiple characters through the game's higher levels of play and want a sanctioned, secure means to broaden their play experience. Increasingly, our customer service department has had to bear the brunt of futily attempting to assist these players when they are cheated by unsecure transactions. Station Exchange will enable these honest players to use an auction service without concern that they will be scammed.

AKA Because people don't like to grind they look for shortcuts - rather than reducing the grind for everyone we're taking a cut of the profit of selling shortcuts.

Whoa, I remember when it was the other way around, I was complaining about Verant being ass-backwards and living in the draconian age, and applauding that Mythic was hiring people who "get it" about what was wrong with EQ, like Tweety and Lum.

Now everything has spun around on it's head. Fuck you, Mark. Auctions may be stupid, but it's not like I tell you what you should do with your money. Clearly if people are willing to trade in-game items for in-game items, there has to be some sense of value to them, right? It's kind of dorky, but not completely illogical to suggest that can translate into the real-world economy.

If SOE is endorsing this as well, players could probably legally sue someone else for stealing an item from a monster when they were grouped together.

I can't wait to watch that on Court TV.

Defense : "Your honor, my defendant never stated he and the plantiff were going to roll for the "Greaves of Black Magic +5". When he looted them off the Withering Ochre he had no recollection of any previous agreements"

Prosecution: "We would like to submit the logs from that evening where the defendant, "Sir Quackselot" stated in guild chat :

" u can roll 4 the greeves - just give me 2 plat if they drop"

You think the legal system has a hard time deciphering the internet - wait until you have an 80 year old guy trying to wrap his brain around the concept of "ninja looting".

I'm wondering if they are going to crack down on non-sanctioned sales or allow those to co-exist with the new system.

I also think Mark Jacobs is correct in stating that this new system doesn't alleviate any customer service problems. It actually seems like it elevates them because, like he stated, when the server deletes my $76 dollar sword of gnome slaying I'm going to be pissed.

I also think it's funny what he said about IGE because it's so fucking true. Those guys are probably like " Wait - SOE is going to handle all our transactions, customer service and billing? Bwhahaha" as they drive off in their Mercedes.

Sony's always been the one rolling out new ways to make money from MMORPG's. They bear the financial (and community) brunt of these ideas (Everquest Legends, anyone?), clearing the minefield, as it were, for the small companies trying to make their own way. For that, I'm glad they're around.

That doesn't mean I'm going to stop being critical. :) Indeed, I think this move to support real-world sales of virtual items is a hell of a slippery slope and kind of short-sighted.

One of the things that makes this game (and any like it) so appealing to the hard-core players out there is the element of unpredicability with rewards. It's what drives you to camp that dragon for 3 hours so that maybe he'll drop that last piece of the set of epic armor you need. Basically, it's the same reason people play slot machines for hours on end, because maybe you'll hit the jackpot.

It's the chance of it all. If someone were to post a sign that broke the activity down to cold-hard numbers, that you'll need to drop $175 over 150 minutes for a $200 return, hardly anyone's going to do it. Likewise, if that same set of epic armor's got an $11.95 price tag on it, who the hell's going to bother with the quest? The magic disappears, the incentive is lost, and so is the interest in playing.

Just my 2¢ :)

I have no doubts Sony would sell generated items/gold for freakishly high rates which means the underground sellers would barely have to cut their current markets if at all.

Plus, you have to look at the global economy angle.

$500 a month through selling crap and converting it is a $62,000 a year lifestyle in India and a $35,000 lifestyle in the Koreas... I'd venture to bet that in China it would be closer to a $80-100k a year endeavor.

Let's be honest, in Daoc you can make that by levelling 4-5 toons together or by selling ~200 plat, which is easy to do if you're farming the right things.

They aren't going to stop until it's not worth their time.

It's gonna be an ugly situation.

I actually think this is quite forword thinking because this type of stuff is going to happen with or without sony anyway. If it happens it might as well be official so be people don't get scammed. Besides they are only enabling it on some new servers so if it is a disaster it wont mess up current players of non-exchange servers. I am very interested to see how this works out.

Mythic can keep crying about how its games are just games.

I think i will sell my planetside account if theres interest for it.Ive got three high level toons and the account is just sitting there gathering dust...

Who thinks this could eventually lead to SOE specifically creating items for sales? I think it's a very real possibility in the future. (I don't mean secretly and pretending it's a player selling the items, I mean adding an 'item shop' type thing where you pay real money for game goods)

The sad part is they have the vision and right captains over at Mythic, but the execution that trickles down to the final game is atrocious.

Their TOA expansion is a nightmare of time sinks and caused most of the game's population to leave, now Mythic is pitching a non-TOA server as a reason to come back.

That's a pretty big mea culpa to me, they are willing to offer servers that totally avoid a $30 product they sold as a revolutionary expansion, says a lot about what the players thought of it.

The story at Mythic is all about potential, they got it right 10% of the time and man o man was it good.

Kudos to Jacobs for the opinions though, even though DAoC is in a shambles at the moment.

And soon enough they will all start doing the same thing, so don't jump on the bashing bad wagon and say grats to so and so company for not doing this. Because soon you will be eating your words, Sony is a major player and if you think everyone is going to sit back and watch them roll into the cash and not join in you are clueless.

People sometimes talks about this as if SOE is the first ones to tie ingame stuff to real life cash. Some people are worried about how nobody will ever give away stuff for free ingame any more.

Well, Project Entropia did this a while ago and it actually worked out quite nice according to those who stuck with it for a bit. And since there was no monthly fee and you could cash in in-game cash for real life cash you could actually make a few bucks playing the game.

I'm very impressed with Mythic's response. He makes very many good valid points. This type of intellect at the helm of Mythic makes me look forward to their new MMORPG Imperium.

Wow, go Mythic! :O I enjoy how people in the gaming industry are so vocal, it's nice to see developers standing up for the 'not-suck' side of things.

Mythic is a good company, this doesn't surprise me a bit. I'll reacitivate my account for a month and throw $12 their way to say "GG" :)

I want to go out & buy DAOC today, just to show my support for this company.

Very bold of him to make this statement, and I agree with what he said 100%.

Personally I don't mind them doing this. Sales are going to go on whether or not they do this. If I was in the same position I would do the same thing. What would be nice is if they would lower the monthly fee a bit since they are making money this way, but that will obviously never happen.

If I could stand moving from Texas, I would go work for Mark Jacobs. Kodos to him for making such a strong statement against this poor choice.