Oh yeah, and I should mention that I wasn't telling you to fuck off, I was saying that if you're looking for a group-based game that is subscription only and will never change or sell out then I'd suggest looking up Saga of Lucimia. They literally say "Fuck off. You aren't our target audience" It's a game they're building their own way, the way they want it and they're unapologetic about it. Seriously, if you're that concerned about models and who's going to be participating in the game, then I'd check it out.
Not interested in that game at all and honestly, I don't want to get into the details of why it will be complete garbage.
You do realize this is a PTP game right? That the FTP portion is just a means for new players to try it out? It won't be full FTP, you do realize this?
I definitely hear the concerns and don't disagree with most of them. We haven't committed to the details as to how the free trial will work, other than to say you won't be handicapped in the sense that you'll be able to try the full game out, levels 1-X (with X likely being 10). I'm not a fan of trials (games or really any software) that severely limit what you can do because you don't really get a good picture or feel for the depth and breadth of the game. We want people to have an opportunity to fully experience what Pantheon has to offer, at least at that level range. If we limit the 'Pantheon experience' then we limit people who've never experienced a game like Pantheon from truly experiencing it. Or for the more skeptical to see what the game is really all about.
That said, if it makes sense to have servers for those who pay up front, then we'll do it. Our server architecture is very flexible and cloud based. I mentioned in a post awhile back that if a server gets too crowded, we can easily and quickly deploy new servers. The same applies here.
We're going to learn a lot during alpha and beta, however. Not just what to tweak and balance, or what new systems work or don't, but also how the community builds and evolves. If we need to protect that community going into launch by having both free trial servers (I'm not going to use the term FTP, because FTP more often than not is not truly free -- you are handicapped and then barraged by cash shops) as well as servers only accessible to those who pay up front, then we will.
Like Dullahan said I'm mostly just concerned with hearing gold spammers selling their out of game wares in zone chats or say, free to play accounts is an easy-in for them to be able to do this with zero risk of getting real accounts banned, and will result in endless gold spam forever if we don't put some restrictions on it.
Archeage tried the "you can only post in general once per minute" and it basically resulted in a huge spam of gold sellers and real players every minute, and they shortly removed it and it went back to pure gold spam. We literally had no community because everyone had to turn off general chats. They even tried to have real GM's watching chat banning them constantly, and that worked for about a week, then they stopped because it was taking up too much resources and they made more money without them than they did with.
In my opinion without a limitation to chat usage for free to play accounts we'll have the same problems that a AAA company wouldn't solve because they wanted the same thing you did, a good free trial experience to bring in more revenue.
I definitely hear the concerns and don't disagree with most of them. We haven't committed to the details as to how the free trial will work, other than to say you won't be handicapped in the sense that you'll be able to try the full game out, levels 1-X (with X likely being 10). I'm not a fan of trials (games or really any software) that severely limit what you can do because you don't really get a good picture or feel for the depth and breadth of the game. We want people to have an opportunity to fully experience what Pantheon has to offer, at least at that level range. If we limit the 'Pantheon experience' then we limit people who've never experienced a game like Pantheon from truly experiencing it. Or for the more skeptical to see what the game is really all about.
That said, if it makes sense to have servers for those who pay up front, then we'll do it. Our server architecture is very flexible and cloud based. I mentioned in a post awhile back that if a server gets too crowded, we can easily and quickly deploy new servers. The same applies here.
We're going to learn a lot during alpha and beta, however. Not just what to tweak and balance, or what new systems work or don't, but also how the community builds and evolves. If we need to protect that community going into launch by having both free trial servers (I'm not going to use the term FTP, because FTP more often than not is not truly free -- you are handicapped and then barraged by cash shops) as well as servers only accessible to those who pay up front, then we will.
Like Dullahan said I'm mostly just concerned with hearing gold spammers selling their out of game wares in zone chats or say, free to play accounts is an easy-in for them to be able to do this with zero risk of getting real accounts banned, and will result in endless gold spam forever if we don't put some restrictions on it.
Archeage tried the "you can only post in general once per minute" and it basically resulted in a huge spam of gold sellers and real players every minute, and they shortly removed it and it went back to pure gold spam. We literally had no community because everyone had to turn off general chats. They even tried to have real GM's watching chat banning them constantly, and that worked for about a week, then they stopped because it was taking up too much resources and they made more money without them than they did with.
In my opinion without a limitation to chat usage for free to play accounts we'll have the same problems that a AAA company wouldn't solve because they wanted the same thing you did, a good free trial experience to bring in more revenue.
They can solve the chat problem by simply implementing a more granular based control for chat channels and players. For instance, give the chat utility a means to mute based on numerous conditions. Even allow standard security principals of least privilege. That is, allow people to shut off everything and open up at a granular level what they want to allow.
For instance, allow people to add allowance to what they see in a channel based on name, guild, class, etc... as well as numerous text based conditions (ie search strings on chat text) and you remove gold sellers completely from the equation. Then you can have reputation lists where people can add real player names/guilds to their filters over time. This will kill all gold sellers completely because the default is that nothing gets through and only through say and experience will that list grow, controlled by the community.
Buh bye stupid gold sellers. /shrug
Yes, I know there are initial draw backs, but only until you build a solid list of people.
I have given up on the idea that gold sellers and their associated spam can be stopped. In game after game after game, gold sellers are ubiquitous. I must have reported a thousand gold sellers if I have reported one. They just come back.
So long as a game has coin in it, and so long as coin can be transferred directly or indirectly from one player to another, there are going to be gold sellers. I have long advocated for an eat-what-you-kill game, where there is no coin, no economy, and if you have an item it's either because you helped kill what dropped it or made it yourself. But I seem to be the only one who wants this. Don't bother telling me it won't happen. I know.
Every new game says it's going to crack down on gold sellers, yet every new game ends up filled with gold sellers.
The one other thing they could do, but they never do because it costs money, is to post a CSR on every server who insta-bans anyone shouting out gold sales or spamming gold selling tells. That would not 100% eliminate the problem, because people can go to websites instead, but it would hamper their efforts considerably and keep people like you and me from having to hear them.
But seemingly the universe of all game developers has made a quiet collective decision that whatever harm gold sales do, it's not worth the wages of posting a sufficient number of CSRs to end them.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
I have given up on the idea that gold sellers and their associated spam can be stopped. In game after game after game, gold sellers are ubiquitous. I must have reported a thousand gold sellers if I have reported one. They just come back.
So long as a game has coin in it, and so long as coin can be transferred directly or indirectly from one player to another, there are going to be gold sellers. I have long advocated for an eat-what-you-kill game, where there is no coin, no economy, and if you have an item it's either because you helped kill what dropped it or made it yourself. But I seem to be the only one who wants this. Don't bother telling me it won't happen. I know.
Every new game says it's going to crack down on gold sellers, yet every new game ends up filled with gold sellers.
The one other thing they could do, but they never do because it costs money, is to post a CSR on every server who insta-bans anyone shouting out gold sales or spamming gold selling tells. That would not 100% eliminate the problem, because people can go to websites instead, but it would hamper their efforts considerably and keep people like you and me from having to hear them.
But seemingly the universe of all game developers has made a quiet collective decision that whatever harm gold sales do, it's not worth the wages of posting a sufficient number of CSRs to end them.
An eat what you kill system wouldn't work unless there is no trading involved at all. Items will still have value and be bartered, thus people will RMT them.
Personally, I think you can stop gold spam to some degree. I haven't seen a game yet that had strict preventative measures in place. ArcheAge was the most recent example of a completely failed system. If they would have simply taken away a F2P players capability to talk in general channels, it would have removed 95% of the spam. The real problem is the model (F2P), because your hands are tied. You can't just disable broadcast channels to free players if your game is truly f2p... but I would.
Even then, people would still slip through the cracks. It would be nice for every server to have a CSR person to patrol the most populated areas IP banning every player that spams gold services, but it probably won't happen.
I have given up on the idea that gold sellers and their associated spam can be stopped. In game after game after game, gold sellers are ubiquitous. I must have reported a thousand gold sellers if I have reported one. They just come back.
So long as a game has coin in it, and so long as coin can be transferred directly or indirectly from one player to another, there are going to be gold sellers. I have long advocated for an eat-what-you-kill game, where there is no coin, no economy, and if you have an item it's either because you helped kill what dropped it or made it yourself. But I seem to be the only one who wants this. Don't bother telling me it won't happen. I know.
Every new game says it's going to crack down on gold sellers, yet every new game ends up filled with gold sellers.
The one other thing they could do, but they never do because it costs money, is to post a CSR on every server who insta-bans anyone shouting out gold sales or spamming gold selling tells. That would not 100% eliminate the problem, because people can go to websites instead, but it would hamper their efforts considerably and keep people like you and me from having to hear them.
But seemingly the universe of all game developers has made a quiet collective decision that whatever harm gold sales do, it's not worth the wages of posting a sufficient number of CSRs to end them.
There is a way, but the whole desire to have "player driven free open economies" is what ends up killing the ability to control it. I think I touched on some aspect of a solution in some previous discussion a while ago by having ALL trade only permissible through the games systems where prices are controlled by the developers systems entirely. That is, players would be able to trade items, but their control over the prices would be greatly limited and mandated by the games systems.
A system like this would have to be designed into the game from the ground up and a lot of thought would need to go into its balance and implementation. It however would give complete control and authority to the game developers which would allow them to mostly kill off the numerous aspects of abuses that occur with game economies.
It would be interesting to see in some game, some day even if just to see how it would work and the results it would produce.
I definitely hear the concerns and don't disagree with most of them. We haven't committed to the details as to how the free trial will work, other than to say you won't be handicapped in the sense that you'll be able to try the full game out, levels 1-X (with X likely being 10). I'm not a fan of trials (games or really any software) that severely limit what you can do because you don't really get a good picture or feel for the depth and breadth of the game. We want people to have an opportunity to fully experience what Pantheon has to offer, at least at that level range. If we limit the 'Pantheon experience' then we limit people who've never experienced a game like Pantheon from truly experiencing it. Or for the more skeptical to see what the game is really all about.
That said, if it makes sense to have servers for those who pay up front, then we'll do it. Our server architecture is very flexible and cloud based. I mentioned in a post awhile back that if a server gets too crowded, we can easily and quickly deploy new servers. The same applies here.
We're going to learn a lot during alpha and beta, however. Not just what to tweak and balance, or what new systems work or don't, but also how the community builds and evolves. If we need to protect that community going into launch by having both free trial servers (I'm not going to use the term FTP, because FTP more often than not is not truly free -- you are handicapped and then barraged by cash shops) as well as servers only accessible to those who pay up front, then we will.
Like Dullahan said I'm mostly just concerned with hearing gold spammers selling their out of game wares in zone chats or say, free to play accounts is an easy-in for them to be able to do this with zero risk of getting real accounts banned, and will result in endless gold spam forever if we don't put some restrictions on it.
Archeage tried the "you can only post in general once per minute" and it basically resulted in a huge spam of gold sellers and real players every minute, and they shortly removed it and it went back to pure gold spam. We literally had no community because everyone had to turn off general chats. They even tried to have real GM's watching chat banning them constantly, and that worked for about a week, then they stopped because it was taking up too much resources and they made more money without them than they did with.
In my opinion without a limitation to chat usage for free to play accounts we'll have the same problems that a AAA company wouldn't solve because they wanted the same thing you did, a good free trial experience to bring in more revenue.
They can solve the chat problem by simply implementing a more granular based control for chat channels and players. For instance, give the chat utility a means to mute based on numerous conditions. Even allow standard security principals of least privilege. That is, allow people to shut off everything and open up at a granular level what they want to allow.
For instance, allow people to add allowance to what they see in a channel based on name, guild, class, etc... as well as numerous text based conditions (ie search strings on chat text) and you remove gold sellers completely from the equation. Then you can have reputation lists where people can add real player names/guilds to their filters over time. This will kill all gold sellers completely because the default is that nothing gets through and only through say and experience will that list grow, controlled by the community.
Buh bye stupid gold sellers. /shrug
Yes, I know there are initial draw backs, but only until you build a solid list of people.
I really like how you guys are first bringing up great points and legitimate concerns, but then also potential solutions to the problems as well. This is very helpful and much appreciated. I too think the chat problem can be addressed similarly. Gold farmers are going to be a problem no matter what and we're going to have to deal with them in a variety of ways -- no easy solution there. Bots I'm not concerned about, especially levels 1-10 or so. And even at higher levels, the combat in Pantheon and the situational awareness necessary, especially in combat, will make botting and multi-boxing a challenge.... yes, I'm sure it will happen, but it's not going to be quite as easy as in the past.
edit: Would love to see more ideas about addressing the gold farmer situation given these constraints:
1. No, we probably won't be able to afford an army of CS staff running around and policing this in person. Now, I'm not saying we won't have good CS, or that CS/GMs aren't important -- I just don't think it's going to feasible to hire basically an in-game police force to hunt these guys down.
2. Pantheon is about player driven economies and open trade. It's really important to us. We do realize that opens the door to the farmer problem, but we think it's worth it, that the good outweighs the bad, *especially* if we all put our heads together and come up with some ideas to address the problem without simply shutting down player-to-player trading/selling/buying.
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-------------------------------------------------------------- Brad McQuaid CCO, Visionary Realms, Inc. www.pantheonmmo.com --------------------------------------------------------------
edit: Would love to see more ideas about addressing the gold farmer situation given these constraints
Nowadays gold sellers are more apt to steal gold than farm it, by hacking. So a solution begins with helping players protect their accounts; e.g., making authenticator devices available.
Require that player passwords be 10 characters long, require upper and lower case letters, some numerals, and at least one symbol.
Have a feature that if an account starts deleting or vendoring all the player's arms and armor, or giving away their coin, the account freezes, and the player will need to give customer service a safety word to unfreeze it.
Have a button players can press to easily report gold selling chat and tells (a dedicated button just for that).
Have someone review those reports who acts on them quickly.
If 10 or more players report the same person, that should escalate a CSR response.
Have coding that flags suspicious transactions for review. I know it's not easy, but it's better to try than not to try.
If you have a limited number of CSRs, at least keep them moving around from city to city, and from zone to zone. That way they have a chance of spotting gold sellers as they travel. There is no good reason I can think of for CSRs to be sitting in some special cloud city away from the players sipping iced tea when they could be eyeballing what goes on in the game.
Post edited by Amathe on
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
There is also the option of needing a credit card just to activate a trial. I would make it 100% clear the player will not be billed at the beginning OR the end of the trial, and will have to manually subscribe to continue playing. It would likely reduce the number of trials, but a valid credit card would prevent so much misuse and put a severe limitation on people abusing the trial.
That wouldn't be a solution in a F2P game, but since every player will need to be able to make payments to continue playing the game anyway, I think its a reasonable option.
I cant give good advise about wbat to do. But I can on what noy to do. Be very careful with automated detection systems. FFXI mistakenly auto banned a few hundred people one time.
Also one of the main problems with FFXIVs (before they rebuilt the game) was the horrible engine and the built in overly done systems of double and tripple etc checks. Which slowed things to a crawl. They claimed they did this for security reasons to more easily track suspicious activities in order to nip botting and rmt activities in the bud. And Im surr it did exactly that........ but it should never be at the expense of gameplay. A very painful and expensive lesson for XIV.
Oh yeah, and I should mention that I wasn't telling you to fuck off, I was saying that if you're looking for a group-based game that is subscription only and will never change or sell out then I'd suggest looking up Saga of Lucimia. They literally say "Fuck off. You aren't our target audience" It's a game they're building their own way, the way they want it and they're unapologetic about it. Seriously, if you're that concerned about models and who's going to be participating in the game, then I'd check it out.
Not interested in that game at all and honestly, I don't want to get into the details of why it will be complete garbage.
You do realize this is a PTP game right? That the FTP portion is just a means for new players to try it out? It won't be full FTP, you do realize this?
Yes, I do realize it's planned to be P2P only. However, I also understand that there will be contingencies in place if and when populations begin to fall off. I wouldn't be surprised if a hybrid model would be considered if subscriptions fail to reach or maintain the expected levels. Anyway, the F2P or "trial" users are easily dismissed as not being valuable, but I can tell you from first-hand experience that my kids have spent over $120 in SWTOR this year. Oh, plus they got a 4-month subscription out of me. So $180 from one household. Still less than a subscription, but more than the $0 that would have been spent if SWTOR was still P2P only.
I understand that the idea/dream of a full P2P-only EQ-esque, social game still exists, and it's healthy among small gaming communities. However, in reality, the P2P-only trail is littered with the bodies of hundreds of games that felt they had "solved it". Additionally, you have games coming up which are very versatile as far as their appeal. There are a few games in the pipe, like Shards Online, which offer variable rulesets, stories, etc. Same with Crowfall. Albion Online too, maybe (I'm less familiar with that).
Point is that you're already creating a toxic community against these "F2P" folk, when the prevailing assumption is that any P2P-only game will not last more than a year.
Yes, I do realize it's planned to be P2P only. However, I also understand that there will be contingencies in place if and when populations begin to fall off. I wouldn't be surprised if a hybrid model would be considered if subscriptions fail to reach or maintain the expected levels. Anyway, the F2P or "trial" users are easily dismissed as not being valuable, but I can tell you from first-hand experience that my kids have spent over $120 in SWTOR this year. Oh, plus they got a 4-month subscription out of me. So $180 from one household. Still less than a subscription, but more than the $0 that would have been spent if SWTOR was still P2P only.
I understand that the idea/dream of a full P2P-only EQ-esque, social game still exists, and it's healthy among small gaming communities. However, in reality, the P2P-only trail is littered with the bodies of hundreds of games that felt they had "solved it". Additionally, you have games coming up which are very versatile as far as their appeal. There are a few games in the pipe, like Shards Online, which offer variable rulesets, stories, etc. Same with Crowfall. Albion Online too, maybe (I'm less familiar with that).
Point is that you're already creating a toxic community against these "F2P" folk, when the prevailing assumption is that any P2P-only game will not last more than a year.
FTP requires a specific design style. It requires PTW mechanism to exist (ie selling content circumvention items in a store such as exp, health, mana potions, bag space, mounts, clothing, etc... ) all of which are game play elements of Pantheon. In order to make FTP work, you have to design content to encourage the purchase of such things using gimmicks, gating, etc... Not only that, but you need a very large amount of players to be able to make up for the fact that you have zero income from subs or box sales which means you have to widen your audience even more to get as many people as possible playing it.
FTP is a cancer to game play. FTP is an entertainment gimmick that defines the mainstream industry, something that is so far at odds with Pantheon that you might as well call them mortal enemies in design.
So, in order to VR to appeal to that crowd, they essentially have to spit in the face of the very crowd they are attempting to cater to. So even remotely attempting to cater to that crowd in any way is going to make the niche crowd nervous and will run them off.
Here is the thing. Pantheon if it holds to its principals and is willing to accept a smaller success over the "mainstream" market, they will do well, be able to keep the doors open and continue putting out new content. Remember, EQ players played EQ for years before people started to move on and that was with other games competing.
All of the PTP games you might cite, I can point out exactly why the failed and it had nothing to do with their pay model and everything to do with catering to mainstream development ideals that can not be sustained. The market knows this which is why they are gimmicking the players to death and none of the games you mentioned are worth a crap as they are all mainstream gimmick games appealing to fad and hype. They too will fall flat on their face in time because that market is not a consistent market, it is a fickle one, just like the console industry has dealt with for decades.
As for the "creating a toxic community", I am not saying Pantheon should not offer a FTP trial, I am saying I don't want to play with the FTP players for the very reasons I pointed out and you were unable to rebuttal. I shouldn't be forced to play with people who can't be bothered to spend a bit of money for a sub. They get to make their choice, should I not be able to make mine or are we honestly here arguing about catering to FTP players demands in a PTP game? Seems a bit.. odd don't you think? Maybe a bit... well... stereotypical, as in.. entitled of the FTP base to expect such?
Yes, I do realize it's planned to be P2P only. However, I also understand that there will be contingencies in place if and when populations begin to fall off. I wouldn't be surprised if a hybrid model would be considered if subscriptions fail to reach or maintain the expected levels. Anyway, the F2P or "trial" users are easily dismissed as not being valuable, but I can tell you from first-hand experience that my kids have spent over $120 in SWTOR this year. Oh, plus they got a 4-month subscription out of me. So $180 from one household. Still less than a subscription, but more than the $0 that would have been spent if SWTOR was still P2P only.
I understand that the idea/dream of a full P2P-only EQ-esque, social game still exists, and it's healthy among small gaming communities. However, in reality, the P2P-only trail is littered with the bodies of hundreds of games that felt they had "solved it". Additionally, you have games coming up which are very versatile as far as their appeal. There are a few games in the pipe, like Shards Online, which offer variable rulesets, stories, etc. Same with Crowfall. Albion Online too, maybe (I'm less familiar with that).
Point is that you're already creating a toxic community against these "F2P" folk, when the prevailing assumption is that any P2P-only game will not last more than a year.
FTP requires a specific design style. It requires PTW mechanism to exist (ie selling content circumvention items in a store such as exp, health, mana potions, bag space, mounts, clothing, etc... ) all of which are game play elements of Pantheon. In order to make FTP work, you have to design content to encourage the purchase of such things using gimmicks, gating, etc... Not only that, but you need a very large amount of players to be able to make up for the fact that you have zero income from subs or box sales which means you have to widen your audience even more to get as many people as possible playing it.
FTP is a cancer to game play. FTP is an entertainment gimmick that defines the mainstream industry, something that is so far at odds with Pantheon that you might as well call them mortal enemies in design.
So, in order to VR to appeal to that crowd, they essentially have to spit in the face of the very crowd they are attempting to cater to. So even remotely attempting to cater to that crowd in any way is going to make the niche crowd nervous and will run them off.
Here is the thing. Pantheon if it holds to its principals and is willing to accept a smaller success over the "mainstream" market, they will do well, be able to keep the doors open and continue putting out new content. Remember, EQ players played EQ for years before people started to move on and that was with other games competing.
All of the PTP games you might cite, I can point out exactly why the failed and it had nothing to do with their pay model and everything to do with catering to mainstream development ideals that can not be sustained. The market knows this which is why they are gimmicking the players to death and none of the games you mentioned are worth a crap as they are all mainstream gimmick games appealing to fad and hype. They too will fall flat on their face in time because that market is not a consistent market, it is a fickle one, just like the console industry has dealt with for decades.
As for the "creating a toxic community", I am not saying Pantheon should not offer a FTP trial, I am saying I don't want to play with the FTP players for the very reasons I pointed out and you were unable to rebuttal. I shouldn't be forced to play with people who can't be bothered to spend a bit of money for a sub. They get to make their choice, should I not be able to make mine or are we honestly here arguing about catering to FTP players demands in a PTP game? Seems a bit.. odd don't you think? Maybe a bit... well... stereotypical, as in.. entitled of the FTP base to expect such?
I'm not sure which subscription games you're talking about. Can't think of any that are still active.
I'm not even going to argue with you over the community or F2P because it's not worth my breath. I guess we'll just revisit the subject when Pantheon goes F2P. No, I don't think you should play with anyone, actually. Honestly, I'm super glad that this game has someone like @Dullahan here to represent the game. The last thing a niche game needs is someone walking around shitting on mass markets full of people.
I'd try to explain how marketing works, but I'd be wasting my breath.
Yes, I do realize it's planned to be P2P only. However, I also understand that there will be contingencies in place if and when populations begin to fall off. I wouldn't be surprised if a hybrid model would be considered if subscriptions fail to reach or maintain the expected levels. Anyway, the F2P or "trial" users are easily dismissed as not being valuable, but I can tell you from first-hand experience that my kids have spent over $120 in SWTOR this year. Oh, plus they got a 4-month subscription out of me. So $180 from one household. Still less than a subscription, but more than the $0 that would have been spent if SWTOR was still P2P only.
I understand that the idea/dream of a full P2P-only EQ-esque, social game still exists, and it's healthy among small gaming communities. However, in reality, the P2P-only trail is littered with the bodies of hundreds of games that felt they had "solved it". Additionally, you have games coming up which are very versatile as far as their appeal. There are a few games in the pipe, like Shards Online, which offer variable rulesets, stories, etc. Same with Crowfall. Albion Online too, maybe (I'm less familiar with that).
Point is that you're already creating a toxic community against these "F2P" folk, when the prevailing assumption is that any P2P-only game will not last more than a year.
FTP requires a specific design style. It requires PTW mechanism to exist (ie selling content circumvention items in a store such as exp, health, mana potions, bag space, mounts, clothing, etc... ) all of which are game play elements of Pantheon. In order to make FTP work, you have to design content to encourage the purchase of such things using gimmicks, gating, etc... Not only that, but you need a very large amount of players to be able to make up for the fact that you have zero income from subs or box sales which means you have to widen your audience even more to get as many people as possible playing it.
FTP is a cancer to game play. FTP is an entertainment gimmick that defines the mainstream industry, something that is so far at odds with Pantheon that you might as well call them mortal enemies in design.
So, in order to VR to appeal to that crowd, they essentially have to spit in the face of the very crowd they are attempting to cater to. So even remotely attempting to cater to that crowd in any way is going to make the niche crowd nervous and will run them off.
Here is the thing. Pantheon if it holds to its principals and is willing to accept a smaller success over the "mainstream" market, they will do well, be able to keep the doors open and continue putting out new content. Remember, EQ players played EQ for years before people started to move on and that was with other games competing.
All of the PTP games you might cite, I can point out exactly why the failed and it had nothing to do with their pay model and everything to do with catering to mainstream development ideals that can not be sustained. The market knows this which is why they are gimmicking the players to death and none of the games you mentioned are worth a crap as they are all mainstream gimmick games appealing to fad and hype. They too will fall flat on their face in time because that market is not a consistent market, it is a fickle one, just like the console industry has dealt with for decades.
As for the "creating a toxic community", I am not saying Pantheon should not offer a FTP trial, I am saying I don't want to play with the FTP players for the very reasons I pointed out and you were unable to rebuttal. I shouldn't be forced to play with people who can't be bothered to spend a bit of money for a sub. They get to make their choice, should I not be able to make mine or are we honestly here arguing about catering to FTP players demands in a PTP game? Seems a bit.. odd don't you think? Maybe a bit... well... stereotypical, as in.. entitled of the FTP base to expect such?
I'm not sure which subscription games you're talking about. Can't think of any that are still active.
I'm not even going to argue with you over the community or F2P because it's not worth my breath. I guess we'll just revisit the subject when Pantheon goes F2P. No, I don't think you should play with anyone, actually. Honestly, I'm super glad that this game has someone like @Dullahan here to represent the game. The last thing a niche game needs is someone walking around shitting on mass markets full of people.
I'd try to explain how marketing works, but I'd be wasting my breath.
I am talking about any PTP games you might cite that went FTP as evidence that FTP is the optimal model.
There is no argument at all here. All that is happening is that you make a bunch of accusations, I bring logical counter points and you dismiss them and then play the role of the victim in an attempt to obscure the fact that you are the aggressor here (ie you got mad threw a tantrum and started talking crap because I have an unfavorable view of FTP).
I was merely discussing, while you have already proclaimed this game a failure that will sell out its niche crowd to serve the FTP masses.
So you can whine all you like, but the facts are right there in this discussion and I have been more than fair in meeting your points in honest discussion, no amount of drama queening will hide those facts.
Just a bit getting off topic here guys, we were discussing valid methods of preventing gold sellers/farmers from tainting Pantheon within Brad's listed constraints.
Just a bit getting off topic here guys, we were discussing valid methods of preventing gold sellers/farmers from tainting Pantheon within Brad's listed constraints.
Agreed, but then this whole topic has gone off topic from what I initially started it as. Besides, someone was wrong on the internet, it had to be resolved! /smirk
I'm a little late to the party, but I still think the best gate to prevent gold farmers is to require a box purchase and then offer the 30 day free trial with the purchase of the game.
And, without a box purchase, I'm against a free trial up front as well. I don't think it will have as devastating effects to the established community (higher level players) as Sinist says if the trial is only 1-10; however, I do believe it could be a detriment to players checking out the game. Part of the major "hook" to EQ was the first few levels. If there's a ton of free players running around griefing, hoarding camps, etc. I could see where that could become an issue.
With that said, if the free trial is set in stone, Dullahan's suggestions will be the best bet.
I'll expand a bit on why I think the free trial won't be a huge impact on group content. Using EQ as an example, If you think about 1-10 content in EQ, there wouldn't be any significant group content that could be locked down.
I'll do a zone listing for an example that would even be able to be hunted in at level 10 (that were available at launch):
So, really, the only point that the griefing could occur would be at areas like the Minotaur Caves in Steamfont or Orc Camps in Greater Faydark.
So, I think the question that really needs to be looked at is the free trial worth the potential new subscriptions at the expense of potentially damaging the newbie experience (and losing subscriptions due to it).
I don't know the exact systems and design but i do know ,this team did not get it right in the past. I will point to one exploit that really did not sit well with me,the team knew of it,the players knew of it yet nobody cared,well except for me.
I am talking about non traded loot,where a group will sit on loot and then shout to sell that loot to some player who never even spent a minute in that zone.Non traded loot is meant to be non traded,but because of very poor design and a terrible community that allowed it to go on,the idea was squashed.
Yes i remember ALL those little things from game designs,i pay very close attention to all the detail in game designs.Then when i see mistakes i again watch to see if the team has learned and corrected their mistakes and this team did not show any ability to realize their mistakes.So yes it worries me,that they might yet again just try and sell me some EQ or VG all over again,sure those games had some nice ideas but i don't want the loose baggage that goes with it.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
On the same note,i have no problem if a game just removes non tradeable loot,however what th game needs to do is make sure rare loot is RARE and again this team did not do that in the past.So then anyone or any RMT could spend a short amount of time and just sell all the best loot to players who never earn it.
The focus of a game should NOT be on that one dimensional loot fest,if that loot is very rare then the average players will focus more on the game as should be and only the real die hard will spend a whole day or two or three to get that loot.You also do NOT make it instance because that right there removes any notion of rarity.
Yet also one more mistake in game design and that is RAIDING.Of course if you force players to form groups of 24+ you will alienate thousands fo players,then of course they are going to look for the easy way out such as rmt to cheating,bad game design encourages it.Keep the game reasonable,5-6 man groups for all content,allow the entire server base to at least have a crack at all content.
You do as i said then loot truly feels special and rare and earned.If a Boss has to be camped by the entire server it will be a rare drop,people won't easily just sell it,that removes a lot of the shananigans from the game.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Three easy issues I can see in your posts. First if loot is rare than people will be camp spawns/carry people through content for either in game or real world currency. Second how is your example of someone spawn camping a mob in order to sell an item any different than crafting? In both instances a player invests time to recieve an item in order to sell it to another player. Third 5-6 man content is quickly chewed through by players in all games no matter the difficulty. How would you propose to make loot rare in this content?
I am not sure where you got the idea that rares were easy to get in EQ. They were indeed rare and could require some extensive camping to obtain a given specific loot item. Remember how you had layers that process? You had rare spawns and then rare loot from those spawns? So the idea that there will be hundreds of a given item being sold in the player markets is not as likely, especially with the many features they are looking to add to the game that will give players benefit for holding on to their items. Check out the features list on what they have planned for dealing with these issues.
As for raids, I think it has already been mentioned here many times that raids are only 15-20% of the content, so the worry that people will be left out is not a real concern here.
Demanding the game only cater to non-raid demands is not realistic. Raiding should exist, but it should be a part of the game, not the focus (ie lets bury the gimmick of "end game" with Pantheon) and not at the expense of group content.
I'm a little late to the party, but I still think the best gate to prevent gold farmers is to require a box purchase and then offer the 30 day free trial with the purchase of the game.
And, without a box purchase, I'm against a free trial up front as well. I don't think it will have as devastating effects to the established community (higher level players) as Sinist says if the trial is only 1-10; however, I do believe it could be a detriment to players checking out the game. Part of the major "hook" to EQ was the first few levels. If there's a ton of free players running around griefing, hoarding camps, etc. I could see where that could become an issue.
With that said, if the free trial is set in stone, Dullahan's suggestions will be the best bet.
I'll expand a bit on why I think the free trial won't be a huge impact on group content. Using EQ as an example, If you think about 1-10 content in EQ, there wouldn't be any significant group content that could be locked down.
I'll do a zone listing for an example that would even be able to be hunted in at level 10 (that were available at launch):
So, really, the only point that the griefing could occur would be at areas like the Minotaur Caves in Steamfont or Orc Camps in Greater Faydark.
So, I think the question that really needs to be looked at is the free trial worth the potential new subscriptions at the expense of potentially damaging the newbie experience (and losing subscriptions due to it).
Doesn't have to damage the new comer experience. The solution is to allow people the choice to play on a server that does not have FTP on it. This way, people can still play as they choose. Some people who aren't concerned about the FTP portion, can still choose to play on a server that has it and those who are concerned and would like to avoid it, can choose a server that does not have it on it. This way, everyone is happy.
Also consider that if they are able to create a special rule-set server for "difficult" play, do they really need to put FTP on it? I mean, would it not be better for someone who is completely new to the game to start out on a less difficult server rule-set before they jump into that level of play?
As I have said, I am not opposed to FTP as Brad has planned, I just want to have the option to avoid playing in such an environment.
Nowadays gold sellers are more apt to steal gold than farm it, by hacking.
Hacking requires that the game has an error.
About poor passwords, well: nobody can help a slob that chooses the same account name as his character name, plus a "123456" password. But there are standard techniques to make login with a reasonably secure password safe, like:
1. Naturally encrypt all such network traffic (as well as all other traffic between client and server).
2. Check passwords for basic security, warning about too trivial passwords "Accounts are targets of hackers on a regular basis. Your password is too simple and phrone to hacking attempts. A good password should look like this: ..."
3. Player has to identify accounts with an email address, instead of an username, making it much harder for attackers to guess the correct user name.
4. On failed attempts: no mention if the username or the password was wrong, or if the account is currently banned; just a generic "username or password was wrong or account is currently banned; three unsuccessful login attempts cause a temporary one hour ban" message every time.
5. Allow long passwords, since that allows humans to choose like four random words from a dictionary - a password that is easy to remember for a human being, but hard to crack for a computer.
6. Introduce delays between attempts. As a general rule, 15 seconds between attempts on a connection, three unsuccessful attempts cause a one hour ban, and a reasonable limit on parallel attempts from the same IP as well.
7. After login, the user is informed about unsuccessful login attempts, with the option to alert the staff if it wasnt him.
There is also the option of needing a credit card just to
activate a trial. I would make it 100% clear the player will not be
billed at the beginning OR the end of the trial, and will have to
manually subscribe to continue playing. It would likely reduce the
number of trials, but a valid credit card would prevent so much misuse
and put a severe limitation on people abusing the trial.
That
wouldn't be a solution in a F2P game, but since every player will need
to be able to make payments to continue playing the game anyway, I think
its a reasonable option.
That doesnt help at all. Vanguard had that. The goldsellers simply inserted invalid information that wouldnt bounce until Sigil or later SOE would try to retrieve money from that account. Which caused secondary costs.
I'm a little late to the party, but I still think the best gate
to prevent gold farmers is to require a box purchase and then offer the
30 day free trial with the purchase of the game.
And, without a box purchase, I'm against a free trial up front as well. [...]
We had a ***load of goldsellers in Vanguard when exactly that was still true ?!?
I don't know the exact systems and design but i do know ,this team did not get it right in the past.
Visionary Realms is a new company and Pantheon their first
game ... so what "this team" exactly are you talking about ? From
context I suspect EQ, but thats really a different team and doesnt exist
anymore.
I definitely loved that you could give rares - which otherwise would just be sold for a small amount of money to the merchant - to others in Vanguard. I dont think it was gamebreaking, no item was THAT powerful. But you had found a nice item you couldnt use - and at least somebody else had use for it.
As
I have said, I am not opposed to FTP as Brad has planned, I just want
to have the option to avoid playing in such an environment.
Well, some f2p players can indeed be pretty rude, especially considering that they're playing for free and you just helped them.
But all in all I didnt find that the "freemium" concept hurt Vanguard much in respect to quality of gaming community.
Instead of making a separate server, I would suggest introducing an
"earmuffs" command which would allow people bothered by it to ignore
free players. Since the free players are only level 10 at maximum, you wont see much of them afterwards anyway.
Well, some f2p players can indeed be pretty rude, especially considering that they're playing for free and you just helped them.
But all in all I didnt find that the "freemium" concept hurt Vanguard much in respect to quality of gaming community.
Instead of making a separate server, I would suggest introducing an
"earmuffs" command which would allow people bothered by it to ignore
free players. Since the free players are only level 10 at maximum, you wont see much of them afterwards anyway.
I have played many FTP games, the problems of them aren't limited to chat issues. In fact, chat was never an issue in them as it was easily solved by turning off all chat channels and only operating in tells, group and in guild.
My problems I have listed in many points in this thread. You can't avoid the many problems that will come from such, especially when you consider population issues in contested content.
Also, I don't want my first 10 levels, which are supposed to be much longer lasting than games today to be spent with the desire to get through them as fast as possible so I don't have to deal with those issues. Having some servers that don't have FTP on them is not too much to ask I don't think.
Also, consider it won't be just for 10 levels anyway. Many zones in EQ had layered content with high level mobs in the same zone and many dungeons would start at low level and slowly increase up to max level (ie upper and lower Guk for instance). So, you will run into FTP more than just in the levels of 1-10.
Again, as I said, this isn't some big request. It is very easy for them to have some servers that are PTP entirely, with zero FTP access. I don't think it is unreasonable to request such and I know many people who would prefer to play on such a server.
If the worry is that by allowing such, all the PTP people will go off to those servers, well... that action alone would be a pretty telling point on the issue. If people think it isn't such a big deal, then nobody will care if some servers have it and some don't right? It is a win/win.
There is also the option of needing a credit card just to
activate a trial. I would make it 100% clear the player will not be
billed at the beginning OR the end of the trial, and will have to
manually subscribe to continue playing. It would likely reduce the
number of trials, but a valid credit card would prevent so much misuse
and put a severe limitation on people abusing the trial.
That
wouldn't be a solution in a F2P game, but since every player will need
to be able to make payments to continue playing the game anyway, I think
its a reasonable option.
That doesnt help at all. Vanguard had that. The goldsellers simply inserted invalid information that wouldnt bounce until Sigil or later SOE would try to retrieve money from that account. Which caused secondary costs.
You actually can validate a credit card, even if SOE failed to do it. Just a brief search on Google confirmed there are various ways to detect fraudulent credit card information without actually billing the customer.
Comments
You do realize this is a PTP game right? That the FTP portion is just a means for new players to try it out? It won't be full FTP, you do realize this?
Archeage tried the "you can only post in general once per minute" and it basically resulted in a huge spam of gold sellers and real players every minute, and they shortly removed it and it went back to pure gold spam. We literally had no community because everyone had to turn off general chats. They even tried to have real GM's watching chat banning them constantly, and that worked for about a week, then they stopped because it was taking up too much resources and they made more money without them than they did with.
In my opinion without a limitation to chat usage for free to play accounts we'll have the same problems that a AAA company wouldn't solve because they wanted the same thing you did, a good free trial experience to bring in more revenue.
For instance, allow people to add allowance to what they see in a channel based on name, guild, class, etc... as well as numerous text based conditions (ie search strings on chat text) and you remove gold sellers completely from the equation. Then you can have reputation lists where people can add real player names/guilds to their filters over time. This will kill all gold sellers completely because the default is that nothing gets through and only through say and experience will that list grow, controlled by the community.
Buh bye stupid gold sellers. /shrug
Yes, I know there are initial draw backs, but only until you build a solid list of people.
So long as a game has coin in it, and so long as coin can be transferred directly or indirectly from one player to another, there are going to be gold sellers. I have long advocated for an eat-what-you-kill game, where there is no coin, no economy, and if you have an item it's either because you helped kill what dropped it or made it yourself. But I seem to be the only one who wants this. Don't bother telling me it won't happen. I know.
Every new game says it's going to crack down on gold sellers, yet every new game ends up filled with gold sellers.
The one other thing they could do, but they never do because it costs money, is to post a CSR on every server who insta-bans anyone shouting out gold sales or spamming gold selling tells. That would not 100% eliminate the problem, because people can go to websites instead, but it would hamper their efforts considerably and keep people like you and me from having to hear them.
But seemingly the universe of all game developers has made a quiet collective decision that whatever harm gold sales do, it's not worth the wages of posting a sufficient number of CSRs to end them.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
Personally, I think you can stop gold spam to some degree. I haven't seen a game yet that had strict preventative measures in place. ArcheAge was the most recent example of a completely failed system. If they would have simply taken away a F2P players capability to talk in general channels, it would have removed 95% of the spam. The real problem is the model (F2P), because your hands are tied. You can't just disable broadcast channels to free players if your game is truly f2p... but I would.
Even then, people would still slip through the cracks. It would be nice for every server to have a CSR person to patrol the most populated areas IP banning every player that spams gold services, but it probably won't happen.
A system like this would have to be designed into the game from the ground up and a lot of thought would need to go into its balance and implementation. It however would give complete control and authority to the game developers which would allow them to mostly kill off the numerous aspects of abuses that occur with game economies.
It would be interesting to see in some game, some day even if just to see how it would work and the results it would produce.
edit: Would love to see more ideas about addressing the gold farmer situation given these constraints:
1. No, we probably won't be able to afford an army of CS staff running around and policing this in person. Now, I'm not saying we won't have good CS, or that CS/GMs aren't important -- I just don't think it's going to feasible to hire basically an in-game police force to hunt these guys down.
2. Pantheon is about player driven economies and open trade. It's really important to us. We do realize that opens the door to the farmer problem, but we think it's worth it, that the good outweighs the bad, *especially* if we all put our heads together and come up with some ideas to address the problem without simply shutting down player-to-player trading/selling/buying.
--
--------------------------------------------------------------
Brad McQuaid
CCO, Visionary Realms, Inc.
www.pantheonmmo.com
--------------------------------------------------------------
Require that player passwords be 10 characters long, require upper and lower case letters, some numerals, and at least one symbol.
Have a feature that if an account starts deleting or vendoring all the player's arms and armor, or giving away their coin, the account freezes, and the player will need to give customer service a safety word to unfreeze it.
Have a button players can press to easily report gold selling chat and tells (a dedicated button just for that).
Have someone review those reports who acts on them quickly.
If 10 or more players report the same person, that should escalate a CSR response.
Have coding that flags suspicious transactions for review. I know it's not easy, but it's better to try than not to try.
If you have a limited number of CSRs, at least keep them moving around from city to city, and from zone to zone. That way they have a chance of spotting gold sellers as they travel. There is no good reason I can think of for CSRs to be sitting in some special cloud city away from the players sipping iced tea when they could be eyeballing what goes on in the game.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
That wouldn't be a solution in a F2P game, but since every player will need to be able to make payments to continue playing the game anyway, I think its a reasonable option.
Also one of the main problems with FFXIVs (before they rebuilt the game) was the horrible engine and the built in overly done systems of double and tripple etc checks. Which slowed things to a crawl. They claimed they did this for security reasons to more easily track suspicious activities in order to nip botting and rmt activities in the bud. And Im surr it did exactly that........ but it should never be at the expense of gameplay. A very painful and expensive lesson for XIV.
Yes, I do realize it's planned to be P2P only. However, I also understand that there will be contingencies in place if and when populations begin to fall off. I wouldn't be surprised if a hybrid model would be considered if subscriptions fail to reach or maintain the expected levels. Anyway, the F2P or "trial" users are easily dismissed as not being valuable, but I can tell you from first-hand experience that my kids have spent over $120 in SWTOR this year. Oh, plus they got a 4-month subscription out of me. So $180 from one household. Still less than a subscription, but more than the $0 that would have been spent if SWTOR was still P2P only.
I understand that the idea/dream of a full P2P-only EQ-esque, social game still exists, and it's healthy among small gaming communities. However, in reality, the P2P-only trail is littered with the bodies of hundreds of games that felt they had "solved it". Additionally, you have games coming up which are very versatile as far as their appeal. There are a few games in the pipe, like Shards Online, which offer variable rulesets, stories, etc. Same with Crowfall. Albion Online too, maybe (I'm less familiar with that).
Point is that you're already creating a toxic community against these "F2P" folk, when the prevailing assumption is that any P2P-only game will not last more than a year.
Crazkanuk
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Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
Durnzig - 90 Paladin - Emerald
Demonicron - 90 Death Knight - Emerald Dream - US
Tankinpain - 90 Monk - Azjol-Nerub - US
Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
----------------
FTP requires a specific design style. It requires PTW mechanism to exist (ie selling content circumvention items in a store such as exp, health, mana potions, bag space, mounts, clothing, etc... ) all of which are game play elements of Pantheon. In order to make FTP work, you have to design content to encourage the purchase of such things using gimmicks, gating, etc... Not only that, but you need a very large amount of players to be able to make up for the fact that you have zero income from subs or box sales which means you have to widen your audience even more to get as many people as possible playing it.
FTP is a cancer to game play. FTP is an entertainment gimmick that defines the mainstream industry, something that is so far at odds with Pantheon that you might as well call them mortal enemies in design.
So, in order to VR to appeal to that crowd, they essentially have to spit in the face of the very crowd they are attempting to cater to. So even remotely attempting to cater to that crowd in any way is going to make the niche crowd nervous and will run them off.
Here is the thing. Pantheon if it holds to its principals and is willing to accept a smaller success over the "mainstream" market, they will do well, be able to keep the doors open and continue putting out new content. Remember, EQ players played EQ for years before people started to move on and that was with other games competing.
All of the PTP games you might cite, I can point out exactly why the failed and it had nothing to do with their pay model and everything to do with catering to mainstream development ideals that can not be sustained. The market knows this which is why they are gimmicking the players to death and none of the games you mentioned are worth a crap as they are all mainstream gimmick games appealing to fad and hype. They too will fall flat on their face in time because that market is not a consistent market, it is a fickle one, just like the console industry has dealt with for decades.
As for the "creating a toxic community", I am not saying Pantheon should not offer a FTP trial, I am saying I don't want to play with the FTP players for the very reasons I pointed out and you were unable to rebuttal. I shouldn't be forced to play with people who can't be bothered to spend a bit of money for a sub. They get to make their choice, should I not be able to make mine or are we honestly here arguing about catering to FTP players demands in a PTP game? Seems a bit.. odd don't you think? Maybe a bit... well... stereotypical, as in.. entitled of the FTP base to expect such?
I'm not sure which subscription games you're talking about. Can't think of any that are still active.
I'm not even going to argue with you over the community or F2P because it's not worth my breath. I guess we'll just revisit the subject when Pantheon goes F2P. No, I don't think you should play with anyone, actually. Honestly, I'm super glad that this game has someone like @Dullahan here to represent the game. The last thing a niche game needs is someone walking around shitting on mass markets full of people.
I'd try to explain how marketing works, but I'd be wasting my breath.
Crazkanuk
----------------
Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
Durnzig - 90 Paladin - Emerald
Demonicron - 90 Death Knight - Emerald Dream - US
Tankinpain - 90 Monk - Azjol-Nerub - US
Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
----------------
There is no argument at all here. All that is happening is that you make a bunch of accusations, I bring logical counter points and you dismiss them and then play the role of the victim in an attempt to obscure the fact that you are the aggressor here (ie you got mad threw a tantrum and started talking crap because I have an unfavorable view of FTP).
I was merely discussing, while you have already proclaimed this game a failure that will sell out its niche crowd to serve the FTP masses.
So you can whine all you like, but the facts are right there in this discussion and I have been more than fair in meeting your points in honest discussion, no amount of drama queening will hide those facts.
And, without a box purchase, I'm against a free trial up front as well. I don't think it will have as devastating effects to the established community (higher level players) as Sinist says if the trial is only 1-10; however, I do believe it could be a detriment to players checking out the game. Part of the major "hook" to EQ was the first few levels. If there's a ton of free players running around griefing, hoarding camps, etc. I could see where that could become an issue.
With that said, if the free trial is set in stone, Dullahan's suggestions will be the best bet.
I'll expand a bit on why I think the free trial won't be a huge impact on group content. Using EQ as an example, If you think about 1-10 content in EQ, there wouldn't be any significant group content that could be locked down.
I'll do a zone listing for an example that would even be able to be hunted in at level 10 (that were available at launch):
Antonica:
Befallen - Nope
Blackburrow - Nope
Runnyeye - Nope
Faydwer:
Crushbone - Nope
Unrest - Nope
So, really, the only point that the griefing could occur would be at areas like the Minotaur Caves in Steamfont or Orc Camps in Greater Faydark.
So, I think the question that really needs to be looked at is the free trial worth the potential new subscriptions at the expense of potentially damaging the newbie experience (and losing subscriptions due to it).
I will point to one exploit that really did not sit well with me,the team knew of it,the players knew of it yet nobody cared,well except for me.
I am talking about non traded loot,where a group will sit on loot and then shout to sell that loot to some player who never even spent a minute in that zone.Non traded loot is meant to be non traded,but because of very poor design and a terrible community that allowed it to go on,the idea was squashed.
Yes i remember ALL those little things from game designs,i pay very close attention to all the detail in game designs.Then when i see mistakes i again watch to see if the team has learned and corrected their mistakes and this team did not show any ability to realize their mistakes.So yes it worries me,that they might yet again just try and sell me some EQ or VG all over again,sure those games had some nice ideas but i don't want the loose baggage that goes with it.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
The focus of a game should NOT be on that one dimensional loot fest,if that loot is very rare then the average players will focus more on the game as should be and only the real die hard will spend a whole day or two or three to get that loot.You also do NOT make it instance because that right there removes any notion of rarity.
Yet also one more mistake in game design and that is RAIDING.Of course if you force players to form groups of 24+ you will alienate thousands fo players,then of course they are going to look for the easy way out such as rmt to cheating,bad game design encourages it.Keep the game reasonable,5-6 man groups for all content,allow the entire server base to at least have a crack at all content.
You do as i said then loot truly feels special and rare and earned.If a Boss has to be camped by the entire server it will be a rare drop,people won't easily just sell it,that removes a lot of the shananigans from the game.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
First if loot is rare than people will be camp spawns/carry people through content for either in game or real world currency. Second how is your example of someone spawn camping a mob in order to sell an item any different than crafting? In both instances a player invests time to recieve an item in order to sell it to another player. Third 5-6 man content is quickly chewed through by players in all games no matter the difficulty. How would you propose to make loot rare in this content?
I am not sure where you got the idea that rares were easy to get in EQ. They were indeed rare and could require some extensive camping to obtain a given specific loot item. Remember how you had layers that process? You had rare spawns and then rare loot from those spawns? So the idea that there will be hundreds of a given item being sold in the player markets is not as likely, especially with the many features they are looking to add to the game that will give players benefit for holding on to their items. Check out the features list on what they have planned for dealing with these issues.
As for raids, I think it has already been mentioned here many times that raids are only 15-20% of the content, so the worry that people will be left out is not a real concern here.
Demanding the game only cater to non-raid demands is not realistic. Raiding should exist, but it should be a part of the game, not the focus (ie lets bury the gimmick of "end game" with Pantheon) and not at the expense of group content.
Also consider that if they are able to create a special rule-set server for "difficult" play, do they really need to put FTP on it? I mean, would it not be better for someone who is completely new to the game to start out on a less difficult server rule-set before they jump into that level of play?
As I have said, I am not opposed to FTP as Brad has planned, I just want to have the option to avoid playing in such an environment.
Hacking requires that the game has an error.
About poor passwords, well: nobody can help a slob that chooses the same account name as his character name, plus a "123456" password. But there are standard techniques to make login with a reasonably secure password safe, like:
1. Naturally encrypt all such network traffic (as well as all other traffic between client and server).
2. Check passwords for basic security, warning about too trivial passwords "Accounts are targets of hackers on a regular basis. Your password is too simple and phrone to hacking attempts. A good password should look like this: ..."
3. Player has to identify accounts with an email address, instead of an username, making it much harder for attackers to guess the correct user name.
4. On failed attempts: no mention if the username or the password was wrong, or if the account is currently banned; just a generic "username or password was wrong or account is currently banned; three unsuccessful login attempts cause a temporary one hour ban" message every time.
5. Allow long passwords, since that allows humans to choose like four random words from a dictionary - a password that is easy to remember for a human being, but hard to crack for a computer.
6. Introduce delays between attempts. As a general rule, 15 seconds between attempts on a connection, three unsuccessful attempts cause a one hour ban, and a reasonable limit on parallel attempts from the same IP as well.
7. After login, the user is informed about unsuccessful login attempts, with the option to alert the staff if it wasnt him.
Etc
That doesnt help at all. Vanguard had that. The goldsellers simply inserted invalid information that wouldnt bounce until Sigil or later SOE would try to retrieve money from that account. Which caused secondary costs.
Um, judging from your posting, no you really dont understand ...
Its a bit baffling how many people have trouble to understand what "Pantheon will be P2P only" really means, isnt it ?
We had a ***load of goldsellers in Vanguard when exactly that was still true ?!?
Visionary Realms is a new company and Pantheon their first game ... so what "this team" exactly are you talking about ? From context I suspect EQ, but thats really a different team and doesnt exist anymore.
I definitely loved that you could give rares - which otherwise would just be sold for a small amount of money to the merchant - to others in Vanguard. I dont think it was gamebreaking, no item was THAT powerful. But you had found a nice item you couldnt use - and at least somebody else had use for it.
Well, some f2p players can indeed be pretty rude, especially considering that they're playing for free and you just helped them.
But all in all I didnt find that the "freemium" concept hurt Vanguard much in respect to quality of gaming community.
Instead of making a separate server, I would suggest introducing an "earmuffs" command which would allow people bothered by it to ignore free players. Since the free players are only level 10 at maximum, you wont see much of them afterwards anyway.
My problems I have listed in many points in this thread. You can't avoid the many problems that will come from such, especially when you consider population issues in contested content.
Also, I don't want my first 10 levels, which are supposed to be much longer lasting than games today to be spent with the desire to get through them as fast as possible so I don't have to deal with those issues. Having some servers that don't have FTP on them is not too much to ask I don't think.
Also, consider it won't be just for 10 levels anyway. Many zones in EQ had layered content with high level mobs in the same zone and many dungeons would start at low level and slowly increase up to max level (ie upper and lower Guk for instance). So, you will run into FTP more than just in the levels of 1-10.
Again, as I said, this isn't some big request. It is very easy for them to have some servers that are PTP entirely, with zero FTP access. I don't think it is unreasonable to request such and I know many people who would prefer to play on such a server.
If the worry is that by allowing such, all the PTP people will go off to those servers, well... that action alone would be a pretty telling point on the issue. If people think it isn't such a big deal, then nobody will care if some servers have it and some don't right? It is a win/win.