Modern EQ

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by quakedragon, Jun 28, 2021.

  1. Stymie Pendragon

    /em Buys Heroic level 85 boost and armor customization. Needs 30 more levels to catch up to everyone else...
    /Charlie Sheen "Winning!" :)
  2. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    EverQuest II actually tried a RMT model known as Station Exchange, it was probably an experiment to test if it could lower their CS costs:

    https://www.everquest.com/news/imported-eq-enus-50007

    That system was only for specific servers and allowed players to trade items for RL cash, I think it was phased out after Krono was introduced and there are no Station Exchange servers remaining.
  3. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    I disagree with this assessment.

    Pay to Win is the game company selling you player power/statistical advantages for real life money.

    IF EQ marketplace was selling group armor, weapons, jewellry and potions that were equal or above the top tier you can obtain in the group game
    or was selling raid armour, weapons, jewellry and potions that were equal or above the top tier you can obtain in the raid game
    THEN the game would be Pay to Win, that's pretty much the industry standard definition of the practise.
    The more player power that is held behind a company paywall the more pay to win the game becomes.
    How much player power is held behind a paywall in EQ? none
    Your sub gets you access to the game AND the most powerful equipment in the game, no additional paywalls exist beyond the sub.

    RMT was originally spending real life money with "3rd parties" that does not directly get spent with the game company - such as happened with Yantis's MySuperSales.com, Ebay.com, Player Auctions and that kind of RMT still exists to a smaller degree today but Krono has gradually eroded that market and probably now takes the lion's share of it. So DayBreak got into the RMT market would be a completely fair assessment, but that's not P2W.

    If you want to say the two things are the same in your opinion, sure go ahead you'll still be wrong and ignoring the realities of the wider industry, but whatever.

    XP potions, runspeed postions yes those are Pay to Win in isolation but you can obtain all but the XP potion effect in game from player buffs - so not P2W but convenience saving you the effort of finding a player to buff you.

    XP potions are really just about the only Pay to Win thing in the game, and with ToV's new "xp model" their relevance is further degraded.
    Gyurika Godofwar, Niskin and Ssdar like this.
  4. Jumbur Improved Familiar

    Buying a krono for real cash, and trading it for raidloot(or equivalent) is pay2win(imho).
    In EoK attunable chase loot was equivalent to BIS-raidloot. and on TLP-servers, lots of high-end loot is exchanged for kronos.

    It is true that Darkpaw isn't selling those items directly in the marketplace but they are an integral part of the transaction chain(all kronos come from them in the first place). That players are also involved in the transaction, does not change that it is pay2win. It just means that Darkpaw doesn't control the availability and price of the individual items directly.
    Darkpaw still receives the extra cash(although indirectly) from the transaction.

    There is not a lot of difference between a "traditional real cash shop", and "selling access"(krono for real cash) to a system that allows access to "free" wares. In both cases darkpaw gets real money and the buyer will be at an advantage if he spends extra real money. Thus destroying the even playing field.

    The only redeeming factor, is that equivalent gear is also available through normal gameplay(if it wasn't because of perma-camping by krono-farmers). Instancing and the random-loot mechanics for the new TLP-servers should (hopefully) solve the perma-camping problem.
  5. Niskin Clockwork Arguer

    You can also buy Kronos with plat and trade them for raid loot. If Kronos didn't exist you would just use plat to buy it instead. Even so, that's not winning, just advancing. It's hard to define winning in a game that doesn't end, which is why this argument is hard to settle.

    The original definition of P2W, as early as I ever heard it (e.g. "Don't play World of Tanks, it's Pay2Win"), was that if you played a game without spending money you would be at such a disparate disadvantage that even with top player skill going up against almost no player skill, you would still lose. Hence the term "2Win" rather than "4Advantage."

    The closest to that in EQ, as was stated, is exp potions. In a controlled environment like the launch of a TLP, an exp potion could allow you to access content before others and potentially gate them from it. For that scenario specifically, I would accept the argument that exp potions are P2W. This can repeat with every expansion pack release to some degree, until things get instanced. Even so, with AoC's, this gets mitigated a bit. It's mostly the leveling content that can be gated by monopolizing spawns with superior DPS due to levels and spells acquired first.

    Everything else, bags, cosmetics, mounts, etcetera, that's just shopping. It's Pay 2 Acquire. If all of that dropped off tomorrow, never to exist again, the game itself (mechanic-wise, content-wise) would remain the same. Yes, DPG would go out of business and the game would cease to exist, because they need the income, but until that moment happened, the game would play exactly the same.
    Ssdar likes this.
  6. Jumbur Improved Familiar

    True, that doesn't apply to EQ1. There are no "paywalls", everything in the game can be achieved through normal gameplay, if you put in a moderate effort. :)


    Otherwise, I would have quit ages ago.
    Niskin and Skuz like this.
  7. Atomos Augur

    P2W isn't exclusive to games with PVP. Besides that, PVE is also quite competitive, especially on games like Everquest.

    As an example, the world first guild for World of Warcraft Shadowland's first raid spent 330,000,000 gold. They make mules to check the auction house on all the servers, buy the Mythic BOE drops, and pay for server transfers to their main server. That's a lot of gold in case you don't know, especially to be spending that every single time a new raid comes out. It's not possible for the guild to be making that much gold without simply buying and selling WoW Tokens.

    Everquest isn't as extreme, but it's a pretty safe gamble that the people who have advanced the fastest and furthest are using P2W like EXP pots and Clarity pots and buying Krono to trade for better gear.

    Experience/levels is 100% player power. Someone even just 1 level higher than you is stronger than you. That makes a difference if you're at a competitive camp. I'm sure this is more of an issue on TLP than Live.

    And you can twist the phrase however you want, Pay For Advantage, Pay For Convenience, it doesn't matter, if you're gaining anything in the game using real money, you are using Pay To Win. There are different levels of P2W, buying an EXP pot is more P2W than buying an illusion for your pet.

    Oh and whoever mentioned boxing is P2W, I 1000% agree and that's one of the reasons I don't do it.
    Jumbur likes this.
  8. Zanarnar Augur

    This is why the forum needs a DISLIKE option. No no no no no and NO.
  9. Randel Flag Elder

    This thread went way off topic and is really dumb now.

    The only thing on EQ that is even close to P2W is trading krono for "chase" drops. and that isnt even winning since its last years or the year before raid drops so it doesn't even come close to what you can get at a real raid. The exp pots are junk, the cosmetics get you nothing and whoever said boxing is P2W just need smacked in the head.....

    I also find the only "Example" Atomos has is not even from EQ but it's WoW hilarious.
    Gyurika Godofwar and Tatanka like this.
  10. Atomos Augur


    Only example? You didn't read very much then. I gave several examples and so have others.

    I used WoW as an example because of a paragraph that I typed out but originally deleted, regarding "top" and "world first" guilds and racing, and how those experiences revolve around P2W.

    And then I gave EQ based examples and I deleted the paragraph and noted "Everquest isn't as extreme" instead.
  11. code-zero Augur

    I have 2 that I play and a third that I keep all access for a trader though I may be turning one of the alts on each of the play accounts into a trader and make them work while I'm logged off. Shared bank is much handier than all the parcel shipping I do when I get busy with trading