MMORPG polls

[Gurck]

For those of you who wouldn't play an MMORPG because of the monthly fee, please assume for these questions that it's a free one or that someone was footing the bill for you, etc.

Note: You have to answer each question and then vote; voting will reset answers for polls you haven't voted in to the default.

 

[DaveSimmons]

I would not buy items, though I have a good job and could easily afford them.

I would not respect those who do, I'd love it if the items worked but were marked as tainted :evil:

I do not feel it is wrong for a company to offer "clean needles" or a safe way for item addicts to get their fix without visiting a criminal underworld.

I do feel though that the company should then be held accountable for preventing obvious instances of in-game farming for real-world sales.

In Sony's case they claimed huge number of support hours lost to dealing with black-market sales. If true, creating a white market should free up those hours for enforcement / monitoring to prevent profiteering.

 

[Litchfield285]

I would never buy in game items with real cash, and I will never buy a game from a company that endorses this practice... It just seems stupid to me that you would be able to bypass all the hard work and time it takes to get items legitimately, by forking out real life cash for the stuff.

Completely stupid... Im glad I cancelled my eq2 subscription before my free month ended... Worthless game, worthless company....

 

[shortylickens]

I dont like online only games. To include all the MMORPGs and such. As well as the 'Virtual Cards' you have to buy in Magic : Online. Thats sick.

I also dont care for the fact that you HAVE to be online to activate and decrypt HL2 and CS:S. Also, even after they put bots in CS:S I have noticed that Steam says I need to be online to check with the servers before I can begin a SP game.
That blows. I wanted my gaming machine to be isolated from the net.

 

[BigPoppa]

Question 4 is worded poorly if you're trying to guage the response to SOE's decision. They're not selling anything. They broker the sales between people.

 

[Gurck]

Originally posted by: BigPoppa
Question 4 is worded poorly if you're trying to guage the response to SOE's decision. They're not selling anything. They broker the sales between people.

Really just curious about peoples' thoughts on it, while this is certainly & obviously inspired by Sony's recent decision it doesn't necessarily have to be about it specifically.

 

[Super56K]

It's kind of sad that people will shell out so much for these games. They become so engrossed in the game that a $20 item or propably more is no big deal compared to how "godly" they'll be. And I'm only talking about my experience with Diablo II. Still to this day I see people selling their items on the Battle.net trading forums for paypal cash.

 

[Gurck]

Originally posted by: Super56K
It's kind of sad that people will shell out so much for these games. They become so engrossed in the game that a $20 item or propably more is no big deal compared to how "godly" they'll be. And I'm only talking about my experience with Diablo II. Still to this day I see people selling there items on the Battle.net trading forums for paypal cash.

No, it takes a special kind.. and I mean that in a "short-bus" special kind of way. Plenty of people are engrossed in the game - for many it's because they enjoy working together with others and putting in time to improve their character though..

 

[Super56K]

I wasn't lumping everyone that plays online games into a category of addicts or anything. I realize that for the majority of people it's just a form of entertainment no different than watching a movie or tv shows each night. It's just always a little perplexing to see people shelling out money for virtual items when most likely a year or two down the road they'll be wondering why no one stopped them. Kind of like cults, hehe.

Now, I don't really like the idea of the game company setting up their own store fronts within the game, but I suppose that either way items will get sold for cash. The company might as well take over and alleviate a lot of problems from scammers like others have suggested. Maybe it would lower subscription fees.(doubt it) One thing I'm not sure about though is how they would(have they already?) implement the sale of items in the game. I mean, can players say, find one of the hard to get items and sell it to the store for real cash or subscription discounts at a low enough price for the store to make a profit when they resell it? Or will they just have x amount of each item and trickle them into the game economy?

 

[erikistired]

what the hell do you care what people do with their own money? it's not like a lvl 2 can go out and get a set of lvl 50 armor, because they still have to work their way to lvl 50. you can do the same thing by farming an area for in game gold, or you can go to 1 of a million places to buy gold. all SOE is doing is taking the 3rd party out of it, so get your panties out of a wad and just enjoy the freakin game. i realize you have the need to crap on SOE constantly to make yourself feel better about spending money on WoW but get over it. you sound like those people who can't get over the fact bush won the election.

 

[Gurck]

Originally posted by: fisher
what the hell do you care what people do with their own money? it's not like a lvl 2 can go out and get a set of lvl 50 armor, because they still have to work their way to lvl 50. you can do the same thing by farming an area for in game gold, or you can go to 1 of a million places to buy gold. all SOE is doing is taking the 3rd party out of it, so get your panties out of a wad and just enjoy the freakin game. i realize you have the need to crap on SOE constantly to make yourself feel better about spending money on WoW but get over it. you sound like those people who can't get over the fact bush won the election.

Settle down, Beavis...

 

[Schadenfroh]

No
No
Maybe
No

 

[Nebor]

Yes to all of the above. Some people can afford to spend a ton of time playing the game, and they get ahead. Some people don't have the time to spend, but have the money to spend to get ahead. I suppose the second person isn't really "playing" the game... but meh.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Originally posted by: Nebor
Yes to all of the above. Some people can afford to spend a ton of time playing the game, and they get ahead. Some people don't have the time to spend, but have the money to spend to get ahead. I suppose the second person isn't really "playing" the game... but meh.

What do you think of the idea of marking them as "bought" players instead of "earned"? Sadly, this probably won't happen.

 

[JBT]

I answered no to all. I have never playing an MMO though so I might change my mind on 1 or 2 of them had I.

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

I can't respect people who pay farmers for gold so they can buy the items the farmers either bought out at a cheaper price or farmed for only to have the farmers use the gold to either crush the market further or sell the gold right back to the morons that don't realize how bad they are screwing up the in game economy.

 

[nageov3t]

I wouldn't have a problem with people buying gold to get a jump start and make the lower levels easier.

buying accounts is fvcked up, though. it introduces high level characters who don't know what they're doing or how to play their class, which in turn, can totally ruin an instance and make me waste my time.

 

[Sunner]

1: Hell no.
2: Maybe, depends I guess, but no one I give a crap about(read: my friends, as in real life friends) would do that, so I don't forsee a problem with this.
3: If the game was completely awesome in every other way, enough to offset this, I guess I would, especially if they did it the way EQ2 does it, with separate servers where it's allowed/disallowed.
4: No, that would just be lame.