What is your view on microtransactions for credits?

[MegaJohnny]

As the majority of the people will argue that it doesn't matter what another person has in this game in respect to you, would it be fair to say that buying credits for real cash doesn't affect anyone at all?

There is no "win" in this game, hence it wouldn't be pay to win.

Absolutely not. Whether the game is singleplayer, multiplayer, sandbox, linear, whatever - introducing game changing items for money introduces the notion that the player's bank account is a balancing factor, consciously or otherwise. The game design will eventually be gimped up in an attempt to usher people into buying credits.

If they're worried about server costs, they could always add an offline option...

 

[Stressfest]

just no ....

exactly what I was about to write...

 

[philux]

If credits paid for with RL money can accelerate someone into a 'Conda that someone else would have to spend a few days grinding into, it counts as an advantage.

An advantage regarding to what?

Again, the game was designed as a single-player experience with an online background simulation. I doubt any player, that played a competitive PvP game in the last 15 years, takes the gimicky PvP multiplayer remotely serious let alone considers it a competitive discipline.

 

[Zvanya]

I'm pretty sure they are not going to introduce credits or ships for cash. Originally it was stated that they planned to offer credits for cash. The community made it clear that the majority are vehemently against it, and those that want it or don't really care are ambivalent. Much as you see in this thread.

In fact some of the arguments made by Remiel in particular convince me that there is at least the possibility of a negative impact on the game as a whole. So I change my position from indifferent to against. The risk of harm to the game outweigh the benefits - other viable means of funding are available.

Again, the game was designed as a single-player experience with an online background simulation.

Actually I think that it was designed to be multiplayer cooperative from the start. Nevertheless the competitive aspects do exist, and Frontier has never tried to imply that they don't exist or are of no concern.

 

[Remiel]

An advantage regarding to what?

Again, the game was designed as a single-player experience with an online background simulation. I doubt any player, that played a competitive PvP game in the last 15 years, takes the gimicky PvP multiplayer remotely serious let alone considers it a competitive discipline.

No it wasn't, it was designed for both single-player experience and multiplayer. As an EVE veteran, one of the most PVP-centric games around, I can tell you I absolutely DO take player interaction in a multiplayer environment quite seriously.

As for the other comments, including this one - everyone replying to me is making thoughtless assumptions about what other people want. What you need to do is be honest and admit that you don't speak for anyone but yourselves. At the end of the day, microtransactions that provide unfair advantages - which includes dodging time investment, no matter how you wanna spin it - are demonstrably bad in every PVP environment in the history of gaming. The fact that this game HAS a PVP environment, whether you take it seriously or not, means such a thing would do the game more harm than good. And make no mistake, the game was designed to incorporate a PVP environment. Just because it's not exclusively PVP, that does not exclude PVP and the need for it to be considered. So stop thinking about yourselves and start thinking about how this affects everyone. It's all been explained, by myself and others, and most of you supporting this idea have dismissed it with weak excuses. If you don't have the time to play games for example, then how is that anyone's problem again but yours? Again, you don't make sweeping game changes based on personal problems. You have to sort out your own time management, don't expect an entire game development to bow to your schedule.

As for the PVP experience being 'gimmicky', I'd much rather a good dogfight or furball against other players than the very predictable AI. I simply wouldn't be playing this game if that wasn't available.

 

[Amaze]

I think FD had micro transactions in mind when they balanced the prices or ships and modules.

It's not really about sorting out your time management in many cases.

It is that there isn't much choice of things to do to make credits.
I am not going to grind away with trading, repeating the same route over and over as quickly as possible just to fly the big ships.
I wouldn't do that even if I had free time for 6 hours per day, every day of the week.

So for me I have given up ever getting anything bigger than an ASP.
I will bet there are a lot of others too who "just wont bother" to try for those bigger ships.
They will play awhile in Cobra, Viper and maybe ASP.
Then when they find there isn't much more to do or to obtain in a reasonable time and will give up and quit playing altogether.

Also don't like some peoples attitude to this much.
Saying if they bring in MT that they will do what they can to make the game worse for everyone else. Just to prove a point.

 

[Remiel]

I think FD had micro transactions in mind when they balanced the prices or ships and modules.

It's not really about sorting out your time management in many cases.

It is that there isn't much choice of things to do to make credits.
I am not going to grind away with trading, repeating the same route over and over as quickly as possible just to fly the big ships.
I wouldn't do that even if I had free time for 6 hours per day, every day of the week.

So for me I have given up ever getting anything bigger than an ASP.
I will bet there are a lot of others too who "just wont bother" to try for those bigger ships.
They will play awhile in Cobra, Viper and maybe ASP.
Then when they find there isn't much more to do or to obtain in a reasonable time and will give up and quit playing altogether.

Also don't like some peoples attitude to this much.
Saying if they bring in MT that they will do what they can to make the game worse for everyone else. Just to prove a point.

If the point being proven is that MTs are bad, and the point gets proven by my actions, how is that a bad attitude? If something demonstrably bad gets demonstrated to be bad, such as a faulty axle on your car, wouldn't you want to remove it?

Besides that, I'm not here for the purpose of making you like my attitude, and don't much care. I want to see the game change for the better, not worse. If it gets changed for the worse, I will go out of my way to prove how bad it can really get.

 

[DieScream]

What i know is, if they sold credits and I wanted some credits..I'd buy some credits.

 

[Shotgun2097]

if i cant buy it in game with game cr i dont want it i dislike micro payments but some more money than sense sap spoilt kiddy will always take that option if available

 

[Predatar]

I don't really care one way or the other, so I dont have a horse in this race. Id never spend money on "power" myself, but I dont really care if others do in a game like this.

That said, if I look at two people, and one of them works his butt off making a great living, but still enjoys playing video games for an hour a day, and I look at a 24 year old guy sitting in his moms basement playing video games 18 hours a day... the guy working for his money is not the one Id slap the LAMER flag on....

but maybe thats just me.

Well said!!!!

 

[Swan]

I've no problem with it at all. The only caveat is that there are no MT 'exclusives' like quad-power pulse laser special edition etc.

 

[Tenshi]

How are they going to fund future development of the game?

Credits have many sinks to them and buying credits is one way to fund the game further into the future. Many mmo's have this option and it never seems to bring any unbalance to the game from what I have seen only mmo where it does bring an unbalance is Neverwinter where the more cash one puts into the game the better they are in pvp.

As long as they keep it to buying credits and paint jobs/decals along with other cosmetics such as character clothing and tattoos, then I honestly can not see a problem. Sure some will buy their way into Anaconda ships and kit them out but with the upkeep costs on their wallets being high they will have to keep buying credits to pay for the wear and tear as they have already shown they can't actually afford one to begin with through normal play. It is a win/win for FD in this case.

Buy credits for anaconda, need to keep buying credits to keep using it due to time limited in actually playing the game.

 

[Spook]

[FONT=&quot]As soon as you have easy credit transfer (any asset of value really) between players, you have an external market for credits.

The only question is; who regulates the market? [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]By FD not participating they pit limited expensive development resources against organised credit farmers. FD lose the potential revenue, the player base suffers the chat spam, account hacks, USS Farming, monopolisation of trade routes and more lucrative moneymaking activities by farmers.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]By FD participating and undercutting the Farmers you secure the income stream for future support and development of the game. They get to set the value and as long as it remains low enough to remain uneconomic for the Farmers then it’s a better game for the player base, more money available for development and more resources dedicated to creating that content.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]FD are a company, they’re here to monetise the Elite IP. I suspect I know which choice is IMHO better in the long term. Even CCP ended up introducing cash for credits, as unfortunately it makes the most sense. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]In short – It’s a necessary evil in this day and age.[/FONT]

 

[Barronism]

In regards to allowed micro transactions, here are a few off the top of my head.

1. Skins, Skins for every ship. Nation flags and recolors. More variety than they currently have.
2. Ship insurance, Lets say you have 25% off on insurance costs. Would encourage more people to pvp if the 25% off was cheap enough. But would not be required.
3. System permits, allowed to enter systems without the permit gained through rep. Permits could last one month and cost "X" amount.
4. Ship permits, Buying a ship ingame with earned credits without the rep. Players would still be required to gain the credits for and all its modules, but wouldn't have to grind reputation.
5. Recall function, such as I can set a home some where that If I'm at another dock I can instantly travel to my "home" if I have no cargo on me.
6. Clear Bounty, Lets say you hit someone and don't want to travel all the way back to clear up a 100 CR bounty. Lasts "X" amount of days and can only clear "X" amount per day.
7. Triple A, a service that would allow you to refuel anywhere. Much like the system that used to be in place.

Would all be acceptable and they would not give players advantages over others and would allow players a little more freedom in play style.

 

[Krait_79]

As the majority of the people will argue that it doesn't matter what another person has in this game in respect to you, would it be fair to say that buying credits for real cash doesn't affect anyone at all?

There is no "win" in this game, hence it wouldn't be pay to win.

I'm actually for it. I have no wish to use it myself. However i don't care what credits other people have and there are plenty of people who would pay to take shortcuts, and whilst i don't like this i realise it would raise money which could be ploughed back into the game improving it.

 

[DYSEQTA]

@OP: My view is that the notion is nothing short of idiotic for anything short of a game designed to farm cash from players for a short period of time (see any facebook game). Ask Blizzard what selling a games goal does for a game.

Deciding not to sell credits was a wise change of plans by Frontier.

 

[Bomba Luigi]

To me, MT are all cool if they are used for something like Skins, so the Paint Jobs you can buy now are the right way to go in my Opinion. Thats cool.

But anything related to important ingame Economy or Gameplay would not be that good. The Problem is not even that someone can easy buy an Anaconda or whatever, the Problem is that as soon as MT for something like this is implemented it will likley effect the Gamedesign itself.
In Theory that could work without effecting the Gamedesign but from all I have seen over the Years when it comes to MT it always did. Being able to buy Credits would probably just end in earning Credits ingame becoming harder.

I do have some trust in Frontier, but when it to comes to stuff like that TRUST NOBODY.

 

[Jason S]

It's better than a subscription model.

 

[Zplintz]

At least it is voluntary.

I see no difference in fairness between a player who spends 35 hours a week or buys cr with rl cash and someone who plays 5 hours a week.

This difference between a hardcore player and a casual Player in cr making terms is so huge that it matters not in the long term IMO.

Even with the best ship [Insert your choice here] and all A equipment, it is not a guaranteed win situation in ED.

Ultimately if it helps fund ongoing development then it's a good thing.

 

[Remiel]

At least it is voluntary.

I see no difference in fairness between a player who spends 35 hours a week or buys cr with tl cash and someone who plays 5 hours a week.

This difference between a hardcore player and a casual Player in cr making terms is so huge that it matters not in the long term IMO.

Even with the best ship [Insert your choice here] and all A equipment, it is not a guaranteed win situation in ED.

Ultimately if it helps fund ongoing development then it's a good thing.

What about someone who plays 35 hours a week AND buys credits?