Is SOE Doing Anything about Krono Resellers?

In this particular thread they think it will remove plat from the game like it once did per se.

There are also a fair number of players who want methods to improve their characters other than playing EQ and winning encounters along with those who would like to turn a profit by servicing those individuals.

Manastone.

I think it's the only item i never could get, but wanted.

(i know it's more or less useless now).

There's a bow that's ultra fast and awesome for HS. There are quite a few extremely good discontinued, given at Fan Faire, LoN, discontinued LoN items, etc that some would like to have available through gambling (especially if they got to put up free Gold Tickets rather than pp), buying LoN booster packs, buying what should be no drop items on FV, etc. rather than having to play EQ and earn them.

It's a horrid idea. IMO EQ should be about playing EQ and not about converting RL $$$ into pp, then pp into experience or ultra rare or discontinued items, such items or the ability of classes x, y, and z to PL into pp, pp into Kronos, $100 for this, $150 for that.

Most servers prefered not to be like FV and IMO don't want to end up like FV indirectly through strawman transactions. Oh, he didn't pay $100, he paid 5 Kronos and that's entirely and completely different. Yeah right, sure it is. That 1Mpp (purchased for 4 Kronos) is just like doing the raid in small pieces. PP for raid gear isn't buying advancement. Yeah right, absolutely.

We're getting pretty close to pachinko where you win a stuffed bear and sell it outside the backdoor for $100. It needs to stop and not grow.

Plus, you can get a golden ticket with loyalty points. The old days of buying one for 250k pp or spending a full day in the casino spending about that much anyway no longer exists.

What someone is saying is that people are converting pp to krono and then to RL money. Which is a terrible idea for people to buy I might add, because anyone engaged in a illicit enterprise is not likely to honor that privacy of that credit card number you gave them.

It benefits us in many ways to have the krono consumed, rather than banked, since we can't realize the revenue until they have been used for time. That being said we always knew that some people would play the market and buy and resell krono for excess plat. That's allowable, and so are the market shenanigans that result. As long as everyone is adhering to the Terms of Service.

Kind of like posting "For Amusement Only" signs on the pachinko machines, right. Gotta keep up appearances.

Now personally I think it's a terrible idea to buy Krono from SOE fro RL money, sell it in game for pp, and use the pp to buy PLing or rare chase items put in the game for a couple of weeks a year. Anyone who would enable that kind of thin dodge around not selling power isn't to be trusted.

I understand SOE employees have to take certain stands. But IMO most players didn't just fall off the turnip truck and can connect the dots. And just as obviously SOE will say, "What dots?"

If you want people to redeem more Krono make them redeemable for Station Cash, the same option that exists for a Game Card.

We've talked about this a few times, but that's trading one accounting issue for the same accounting issue. Until the SC is spent it's on our books as a liability and has the same issue with realized revenue. Gifting is a more likely possibility than tradable SC. That's still all speculation however.

You have a clear and well outlined stance on this issue. That being said, aside from about 5 items anything "powerful" is pretty much no drop. Plat can only get you so far.

You cant book the revenue on a prepaid, but you have the cash up front which is better than booking the revenue. Business 101 man! Perhaps you should generate internal cash flow statements instead of focusing solely on a P&L.

The point of Krono or Kroon being turned into SC is so that people will use it. Other than making another account Gold someone can't use a surplus a Krono. If they could turn the Krono or the Station Cash only version of Krono into SC they could get bags, mounts, illusions, LoN packs and such and use up 2 dozen Krono in a day instead of 6 months even if they maintain 4 Gold accounts.

It would also provide pretty much unlimited motivation for EULA respecting players to accumulate Krono (or plat to purchase Krono) most notably with each new LoN release likely to use up a lot of SC from Krono.

Right now non-EULA respecting players can benefit from getting 100, 200 or 1000 Krono while EULA respecting players are pretty much capped out once they have a few years of playtime banked in the form of Krono and they are likely to hoard them instead of click them because of the potential for another Ancient Cloak of Flames and/or the potential to make a friend and prefer to pay for their account in 2014 than their own account in 2018.

just make them were you have to use them in a certain amount of days after they are purchased or they are no good . just like the free SC bonus and free lon cards

No.
Losing something you never paid for is not that big a deal. Losing something you did pay for is a bit more of a sting. Its for those reasons people hate pre-paid cellular plans in the US where if you don't use up all the minutes, the carrier does not allow you to roll them over to the next month but instead resets your balance to zero.

How about selling bundles of LoN packs for Krono? does LoN participate in the Krono system at all?

If they did this, I doubt nearly as many people would be purchasing Krono's. It's in the players and SoE best interest not to add an expiration date. Man, what a horrible idea.


/boo's.

Yeah making them lose value after a time would be as popular as gift cards that start charging you an amount every month you don't use them. They are out there, but no one likes them.

I see no issue. Someone buys a Krono from Sony. It's paid for. What happens to it after that shouldn't matter. Surely Sony anticipated that the Krono would serve as a transfer medium of real money and plat.

Depending on how you look at it...you can even "buy" AA with real money. Buy Krono with real money, sell Krono for lots of plat, buy lots of collectibles with lots of plat, get achievements worth 10AA a pop.

I'd argue that SOE should not increase the number of items or services Krono can purchase - you should not be able to buy SC with it.

SOE understood that there might be some market shenanigans when it was introduced and decided that so long as these did not violate the terms of service they'd be accepted. Fine if that's SOE's position, that's what it is. However SOE should not encourage shenanigans by expanding what Krono can be used to purchase.

When, if ever, the amount of Krono exceeds the amount players would actually click and use to pay for subscription time the lower it's shenanigans value is. When players stop wanting to buy it in game to exchange for pp and other items it's value in game tumbles and should tumble.

Conversely when SOE puts highly valued items like Ancient Cloak of Flames in the game, allows LON loot cards to be traded, or allows classes x, y, and z to remain far more PLing capable than other classes it's value increases. RL money -> Krono -> pp -> woot. (With the exchange arrows perhaps not meant to but also operating in the opposite direction).

In short SOE might divorce itself from being the initiator of certain shenanigans (a printer of currency isn't responsible for what it's used for), but it can not claim that it's not to be an enabler of those shenanigans (those /cough 5 powerful not no drop items and highly PL capable classes). In such cases (my opinion being clear and all) the redemption center is rather close to the pachinko parlor. SOE ought not run the item exchanges itself.

Obviously SOE won't let things like this prevent them from creating things of value in the game. But they can regulate whether those things encourage player abuses or not.

My day is complete Piestro said shenanigans.