SOE now selling PLAT for RL money!

[Tallenn]

Just got an email from SOE. You can now pay your mercenaries with "Bayle Marks" purchased with Smed cash.

For those that haven't been following the doings of live at all, mercenaries are NPCs you can hire to basically PL you, at least at lover levels (below 60 or so). They come in either tank or healer varieties, and they charge you platinum (the higher the level the higher the charge) every 15 minutes you have them active.

So, now that you can pay them with what is essentially real life money, you can indirectly buy platinum from SOE, conveniently charged to your credit card!

Un - freaking - believable.

[Tenpin]

sooo sad to hear this

[Slugs]

Welcome to the MMO Market of 2010

[Dantes]

I never understood the desire to pay real money for getting ahead in a game. It's like a sicker version of cheating. Makes me want to call up SOE and ask them "How do you sleep at night???" Despicable.

[Zoloph]

And I just noticed a banner ad at the bottom of the forums about EQ2 Plat and Lvling for real currency...

As long as there's a market for these services and in-game items they will be available.

[Bones]

Originally Posted by Slugs [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Welcome to the MMO Market of 2010

Yup. Just like kids can now buy epic mounts in WoW for $25 a pop.
As sad as it is, gotta give props to these companies for knowing how to screw over kids using their parents credit card, and rake in tons of extra cash.

No pixels are worth paying for! Except classic EQ [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[BuzWeaver]

On EQII you can now pay $5.00 a month for 3 days worth of play.

[mitic]

Originally Posted by Dantes [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I never understood the desire to pay real money for getting ahead in a game.

whats not understandable by doing this? usualy if someone fails in life, he tries to be the tough guy on the nets

[BuzWeaver]

Originally Posted by Dantes [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I never understood the desire to pay real money for getting ahead in a game. It's like a sicker version of cheating. Makes me want to call up SOE and ask them "How do you sleep at night???" Despicable.

This is what separates us on the EMU from the "New Gen" players. For them its all about the instant gratification. Sadly, SOE is now enhancing this enabling behavior. I suppose for them its another way to generate cash, you have to applaud their marketing team for studying their metrics/demographics.

[BuzWeaver]

From the Ten Ton Hammer News Letter today:


The next tidbit of news comes from Sony Online Entertainment and its flagship MMOG, EverQuest II. SOE has opted to acknowledge that people might long to play EQ2, but…not enough to pay a $15 monthly subscription. They’re offering veterans with currently closed accounts a sort of subscription microtransaction called the EverQuest II Passport--a payment of $5 buys you 3 consecutive days of gameplay in a 30 day period.

Good idea? Maybe. To me, $5 for 3 days doesn’t seem like much of a deal when I can buy a whole month for $15. And yet, the option might appeal to my husband who has recently expressed an interest in playing EQ2 with me again but can barely find time to squeeze in a few hours of the game, let alone a month’s worth. With SOE's new pricing plan, he could pay $5 for what amounts to a weekend pass and join me for some adventuring in Norrath. Since he works 10 hour days and attends college 3 nights per week, one weekend is probably all he can spare, anyhow.

There are other solid reasons why the EQ2 Passport might make sense to some people. It would be a great boon for multi-boxers who don’t want to maintain multiple 30-day subscriptions but do want the occasional advantage of rolling up an alt-bot to support their main. It’s also a good way to take advantage of seasonal events, if they appeal to you, or for /claiming login bonus items. But…

On an internal Ten Ton Hammer news discussion email, Jay “Medeor” Johnson commented that he felt SOE had made an interesting move, but that the new pricing option had too many constraints. He proposed that a number of non-consecutive hours for the $5 fee might be a better approach. I have to agree that I’d be more tempted to play if I had X hours to kill at my leisure than if I had to burn a weekend (or any other 3 days straight) to get my money’s worth. Who knows why SOE didn’t do it that way. Perhaps it’s much easier technically to flag an account by the consecutive day than by hours played. Or maybe a passport by the hour didn’t make monetary sense.

Still, it’s encouraging to see SOE thinking outside the $15 per month subscription box most AAA MMOGs find themselves in. I’ve played a few MMOGs in my day that left me thinking, “I enjoy this, but I don’t play often enough to justify a monthly subscription.” I’m not sure SOE’s found the right answer to dilemmas like mine, but it does my heart good to know that at least one AAA developer is searching for them.