220s "Wakizaka", "Sneakygank", "Wakimango", "Wakisolja", "Tardersauce", "Bushwaki", "Midgetgank", "Bugfixxx", "Ramsbottom", "Paskadoc"
200s Chrisd, Malema, Delbaeth
TL5s Youfail, Bugfixx, Riothamus, Johndee
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I hope the credit value of this GRACE item wont decrease, no matter what. As in it's not inflationable (is that even a word). Else it'll end up like the Breed change/Token packs, costs a lot, but the profit is very small compared to what it was in the beginning.
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https://www.youtube.com/user/caloss2 for guides/walkthroughs/letsplays and all your other AO needsOriginally Posted by Mastablasta
I was just musing about the progress on this.
Good to see it's being tested finally.
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Originally Posted by Lazy
Not having actively played AO for quite some time now I don't really know how bad the credit seller issue is / has become.
But I do know what EVE had serious issues with them too a long time ago, and most of them were successfully driven out of business with the addition of PLEX (EVE's equivalent of this) alone, and the rest were practically eliminated by additional methods (mostly semi-automated tracking of large sums of ingame money moving between unrelated accounts without anything being provided in return).
And since, unlike regular ingame items, this item not only is added to the game economy but also consumed, its price tends to find an equilibrium dictated by supply and consumption (although in EVE the prices have been steadily rising due to incorrectly managed inflation, and the constant decline of playerbase willing to put additional RL money into the game other than covering their own subs).
So once the market had settled for a price that both sellers and buyers find reasonable, it's likely will either stay around that point, or slowly rise over time. The most difficult / problematic thing will be to see where the initial price will be set by the first sellers, since from that point that price will likely become self-sustaining: no one will be willing to go much lower, and no one will be willing to buy much higher. (TBH, FC should somehow determine an "ideal" price point and seed the market with them at that price, even if it means practically giving away free game time, otherwise the price may get out of hand in such way that only very few will be willing / capable of buying these with ingame money, and without demand, no one will consider paying real money for them either.)
"All things point to that they didn't play to win, but for the game itself and to play well. ... Later in their evolution, they forgot all about playing and having fun. When their corrupted minds only cared for what new ways they could gain power, there was no room for the simple things in life."
- One Who Will Always Listen"Hope is the first step on the road to disappointment."
- Librarian Isador Aikos, W40k: Dawn of War"If you want to make enemies... try to change something."
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You and Traderjill are at the same time right and wrong
What you wrote make sense in a "normal game / economy", however situation of AO is far from normal for 2 main reasons:
1 - Over the years there were so many exploits that resulted in creation of gazzilions of credits which are now stored on countless number of froob accounts or frozen accounts. FC was never able to (or wanted to) trace those credits, delete them and ban accounts. Now if FC implements GR.A.C.E big part of those credits will be used either directly or through credit sellers...
2 - Creating new item and using GMI for getting more game time is even more risky as FC already proved how incompetent they are when it come to GMI "coding security" or protection against dupe exploits. One way or another I bet that implementation of GR.A.C.E will be exploited ...
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When this is something like the plex from Eve Online then its a nice idea.
Buying gametime for ingame credits is not Bad.
But in Eve it works only because they hunt credit spammers and their customers.
It only works when there is a High risk to get caught.
CCP Bans tbousands of accounts every month. How many accounts in AO got banned for this last month?
Last edited by Xolim; Jul 9th, 2014 at 10:07:11.
Very good news!
This will kill off quite a bit of cred spam i think since it gives people with the will to buy creds a legal ( well, TOS compatible) alternative. In the long term it will also serve to take credits out of the economy through GMI taxes.
Last edited by Notcrattey; Today at 05:51:45. Reason: Didn't actually edit it, was a mistake!
Lets wait till it become in game.
So far discussed it with several peoples from "top-10 (maybe 25)" AO Billionaires.
- reasonable GMI price somewhere between 800 and 1500 mil for 30 days of playtime
- it may work only if AO get enough "fresh blood" or succeed against "illegal cred sellers"
- to beat "illegal cred sellers" FC shall set prices for creds sold by own 1.5-2x (as max) of current prices of illegal sellers
- considering there are players sitting on 100+Bil creds which can afford "G.R.A.C.E" for 5-10 years - FC need to ensure/enforce/double-test: "G.R.A.C.E" item - can be sold/bought only once w/o any possibility for further resales
Candle645 - Soldier, 220/30/70; Arieel - Keeper, 220/30/70; Candleadv - Adventurer, 220/30/70; Candlemech - Engineer, 220/30/70; Candlekicks - Martial Artist, 215/26/67; Candlegrids - Fixer, 126/15/max; Candledoc - 200 uber froob
Just to kinda take a few points, if we are going to be paying $15 USD for a G.R.A.C.E. and as you said for it to be competitive vs cred sellers it will have to have an ingame value of around 2b otherwise spend $12 USD get 1 billion credits and don't have to wait for someone to buy your G.R.A.C.E. but this way it's pay FC $15 and get about 2 billion credits out of the ingame economy.
Now here's where it gets tricky, to someone in a country paying in Euro and adding VAT the monthly cost of a sub is closer to $20 USD before VAT isn't that person going to PRAY some North American player (where cred sellers are located mainly btw) is buying that G.R.A.C.E. for $15 putting it on GMI at 1.5-2 billion credits the Euro player then buys 1-2 billion credits from a credit selling source, puts that in GMI and gets their 30 days of game time out for $12-24 USD or less if credit sellers as they most likely will, drop their prices slightly so they are still a viable option I remember seeing spam not that long ago 1 billion credits for $10 USD or less.
TL;DR North American player buys G.R.A.C.E. for $15 USD; Euro player buys 2b creds from xyz112 in bor for $20 USD (14.66 Euro); Euro player buys game time from N/A player not FC gets their monthly sub for 5+ Euro cheaper and no one pays the mother-f'ing government their tax on not real virtual goods.
Gaveup 220/30/80 Smg
This doesn't take credits out of the game (aside of the market tax), it only transfers them from one player to another.
However, if the price will indeed be anywhere even close to 1b, then the whole thing will be dead in the water from the start; at least I highly doubt there are all that many people who can grind 1b+ credits per month on a regular basis. There probably will be some market activity for a short while after launch, then once those who had reserves to buy a few of these run out of creds, the market for it will die.
And while it is true that the price should be competitive with the offer of the credit sellers, there is one major difference: buying / selling this item is guaranteed to get you what you paid for, since the two sides of the transaction takes place at the same time. You don't have to give real money to some shady person / company in advance for the promise of them transferring credits in return some time afterwards... or not.
The EU vs US price difference, however, indeed does create an interesting situation. Maybe it would be time to finally even the subscription prices by converting them correctly instead of the usual (and ofc incorrect) 1 USD = 1 EUR formula...?
"All things point to that they didn't play to win, but for the game itself and to play well. ... Later in their evolution, they forgot all about playing and having fun. When their corrupted minds only cared for what new ways they could gain power, there was no room for the simple things in life."
- One Who Will Always Listen"Hope is the first step on the road to disappointment."
- Librarian Isador Aikos, W40k: Dawn of War"If you want to make enemies... try to change something."
- Adam Jensen, Deus Ex: Human Revolution
So this cant be used in anyway to reactivate an account. Its a shame as this could be used to entice players back from froob which looses the potential of keeping said player as paid once they have retasted paid life.
That being said... I thought this was a good suggestion at the time and bumped for it when it was suggested so I'm glad another good suggestion gets implemented. Gj on the implementation
220s "Wakizaka", "Sneakygank", "Wakimango", "Wakisolja", "Tardersauce", "Bushwaki", "Midgetgank", "Bugfixxx", "Ramsbottom", "Paskadoc"
200s Chrisd, Malema, Delbaeth
TL5s Youfail, Bugfixx, Riothamus, Johndee
Proud President of Haven | TL5 PvP
Needs to borrow some more of the PLEX features such as being storable to use at a later point. Such as reactivating a dormant paid account. Is it giftable?
It has been requested by plenty of people and when implemented in a smart manner can help to kaibosh cred sellers.
And please, for the love of everything, do not do what Carbine did with its CREDD and have it somehow 'expire' so your real money is taken for NO services rendered.
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To speed up planning and implementation, just look at other game companies implementations:
https://www.everquest2.com/krono