Marketplace Item Gifting Now Available!

The season of sharing is fast upon us! Whether it's for the holidays, for a birthday or anniversary, or a "Thank you for saving my hiney in last night's raid" acknowledgement, players in EQII and EQ2X can now purchase items from the Marketplace and gift them to their friends in-game.
Starting today, when you make any Marketplace purchase, you'll see a “Gift” button right next to the “Buy” button.
When you click the “Gift” button, an in-game mail window will pop up, allowing you to enter the recipient's name, add a note, and send your gift.

To send a gift to someone on your server, just put their name in the address space. To send a gift to someone on a different server, put the server name first, then a period, followed by the character name. Example: Antonia Bayle.CharacterName. You can also write a note to the recipient if you wish to customize the gift message.
When your friend receives their gift, it will arrive in their in-game mailbox. They’ll see a message across their screen telling them that you sent them a gift, and they can claim the gift from their mailbox at their convenience. They'll cheer and dance and you'll be the recipient of endless gratitude*.
(*Actual in-game experiences may vary, depending on the disposition of each individual recipient. Especially if they're Dark Elves.)
So shower your sweetheart with goodies, honor a special occasion with your guildies, stuff some in-game stockings...the possibilities are endless. Visit the Marketplace today and spread some joy with virtual gifts!

Amnerys wrote:

Hi
Is there any way to Gift game time this way?

xXxIceStormxXx7 wrote:

Game time isn't available on the Marketplace. Yet, lol.

We were told things like this wouldn't happen, because it would allow people to pay real life money for things\favors in game. Why is it being allowed now?

I'm torn on this one. On one hand, this appeals for getting things for close friends - and the people in-game that I would spend real money on are all, without exception, personal friends that I know in real life. But I thought they'd scratched this idea when people pointed out that some folks could/would accept SC gifts as payment for in-game stuff like power-leveling or mythic runs. Essentially, it sets up RMT between players on non-Exchange servers, which Smed says is what he meant when he said RMT would never exist on non-Exchange servers.
SOE's gone some ways towards mollifying me about the Marketplace. They created an RMT-based version of the game, and they did start including Station Cash as part of a paid sub - only the annual, but it's there and I had hopes of it eventually being on monthly payments as well (even at 100SC a month would be something). But then this comes along, and I'm back to thinking they don't actually care how RMT affects the live servers at all, as long as they're getting the cash.
When it comes right down to it, I have to say I'd rather do without this little joy. If I want to spend real cash on my friends for in-game items, well, as I said before, I know personally all the people I'd ever consider doing this for, and I'd just as soon give them the cash directly.

Torvos wrote:

Can't someone already do this with Paypal if they wanted to?

Rothgar wrote:

Can't I theoretically offer someone $10 for 100 platinum if I wanted to?

Rothgar wrote:

Somebody could use a credit card and buy plat if they wanted to but get busted and loose their account because its against the rules, that is unless SOE is the one selling the plat, then its ok. Right?
I am just trying to understand your statement. I really couldnt care less what this company does anymore so I am not against any changes you guys make at this point to make it even more wonderful.

PLEASE add a "refuse" button that sends the item back to the marketplace and refunds the station cash to the purchaser.
I am going to be EXTREMELY upset if someone in game ever buys me a gift and I have no chance to refuse. I don't allow people to give me things in real life and I should be able to say 'no thank you' in game as well.

People will always find ways around any stops that are put in any game. It's just life and the challenge that type of person feels when they come up against a stop. We do our best to keep folks from doing harmful things, but if someone wants to "pay" another player for things/favors, they're going to find a way to do it with or without a gifting option, I suppose.
We've had so many requests over the past year to be able to give both Station Cash and items from the Marketplace to other players, and now we're able to offer the Marketplace gifting, so we thought that it was a good service to add on at this time. Station Cash gifting still isn't an option right now, and I think there's was once more of a concern of that type of gifting being abused. But again, people will find a way to do it if they really want to. I'd like to believe that the majority of our players will use this service for good, spreading happiness and smiles with their friends, just as an IRL gift would do.

Thank you dev for thinking of a way to give friends items. This is just in time for holiday season. I am truly sorry most people here post, well crap. So Thank you for dealing with them and thank you for this.

I'm indifferent to the idea of being able to gift items. What bothers me is that it seems I can't refuse them. I've had people pay attention to me in game just because I'm female and I don't want them to have the option of spending real money on things that I can't refuse. This is a huge deal to me - maybe enough to quit over.
I'm totally fine with gifting. It's a nice idea for the holidays. But no one should be forced to take a gift he/she doesn't want. Make them returnable please.

Rothgar wrote:

First, I want to state that the "you"s in the following rant are general at SOE rather than specifically at Rothgar.
Given that anyone, any time, could send Paypal money to anyone else for items in game and no one would notice because no one has access to half the transaction, this is a red herring. If SOE were really that apathetic about RMT, there would be no reason to ban plat farmers at all. Instead, SOE not only pursues them relentlessly, but has the best spam-blocking of any game I've played specifically so players don't even have to see the stuff. Aion's world chat was so full of RMT ads you couldn't use it for anything else, and WoW has open advertising in city channels and people making corpse-art that spells out urls. EQ2? Chat feed and in-game mail filters that automatically redirect suspected spam. Maybe 3-4 times a YEAR I've been hit by actual RMT spam that made it through the filter. So don't try to make us think you don't care what players exchange out-of-game for things in-game; actions make it very clear this is a MAJOR concern.
The problem here is this exact scenario was brought up in the Feedback thread, was addressed by a dev, and was treated as a Bad Thing. (Sadly, search doesn't seem to work on the feedback thread, so I'll have to search manually for the exact quote - be sure I'll be back with it.) And yet, a year later, it's happening.
There's a reason people keep using the slippery slope analogy concerning Station Cash - SOE keeps inching further down it. Sony will never support RMT - well, except on new Exchange servers. But RMT will only be on Exchange servers - except by RMT we mean cash exchange between players, not to us. But nothing will be sold that will affect the game - well, except potions to increase advancement, restore vitality, or give speed boosts. Oh, and that RMT only being between players thing? Yeah, that doesn't count either as long as the cash is going to us.
Fine, okay, we get it. You're a business, we're only your bottom line so far as the money we give you, and RMT is a cash cow. But would it really hurt to be honest about this stuff without us having to browbeat you with the facts? As they saying goes, you could have at least bought us dinner first.
Seriously, I would have been much less upset by this if you'd at least said, "We brought up this idea when the Marketplace first launched, and though some concerns were raised, after careful deliberation we've decided the benefits outweigh the risks." Yeah, some folks (okay, most) would have figured that was smoke blowing where it shouldn't, but it'd at least acknowledge the concerns. As it is, the post makes it sound like you're trying to pass this off as a brand new idea, hoping the fanbase forgot this was already addressed.
For the record, I also wouldn't have minded if this were just on Freeq and not Live, as there at least we know going in that the primary game concern is earning money through the RMT.
Edit: And count me in asking for a "Refuse" option. I've quit groups over people bringing their RMT fluff pets out, and while other options have somewhat mollified me to the existence of the Marketplace, I do not want my friends throwing away money on me for things I don't want. At least if they give me a gift from the store I don't want, I can return or exchange it.

Lodrelhai wrote:

Amnerys did a better job of expanding on my previous statement.
We take a stance against spam because its disruptive to your gameplay. We take a stance against plat farmers because that industry is a huge source of compromised accounts, stolen credit cards and all sorts of behavior that costs the industry a ton of money and in general hurts everyone's gameplay experience.
The gifting option was created with the idea of enhancing your play experience and to allow people to share with others that they have come to call close friends over the years that EQII has been in existance. Yes, some people will probably try to use it in other ways and we will continue to monitor that for problems. If we feel that a certain behavior is taking away from your gameplay experience, we will come up with ways to address that.
I hear a couple of you already asking for the ability to refuse a gift and I will certainly bring that up for discussion in the near future. It most likely won't be something you'd see prior to the expansion, but we will definitely look into it. Until then, if you feel that someone is abusing the gifting feature, you should petition Customer Service.

Will the transfer token be giftable in the future? It bums me out that you can't help people along with moving servers.

Rothgar wrote:

Will this new Gift feature impact the SC specials that we have seen in the past.... like the 50% off SC promotion we just had a lil' while ago? Once certain players start exploiting the selling of SC items for in-game plat, then they will use such promotions to "restock" their wares and double their profits... so to speak.

JenarieII wrote:

only on an internet forum would someone be "EXTREMELY" upset about getting something for free, why is complaining about nothing so important to some people?
and for the guy below, where is the down side of your scenario? I send someone a warg with my half price SC and someone sends me one back with their full price SC they didn't buy during the promo, what would acomplish? I would still have bought a warg at half price and he still bought one at full price, that's an exploit to you?
PlaneCrazy wrote:

Frankly at this point I just find it amusing that they posted this gift giving nonsense the same day they post yet another $25 mount. Gotta love MACRO transactions.

Said I'd be back. It was two years ago, not last year, sorry. Anyway, post from Froech, about 2/3 of the way down the page:
There has also been a comment or two worrying about trading these items which I wanted to address. We have no plans to allow any of these items to be traded, and in fact built the system with that expectation. Any item we add in the future will share the no-trade and no-value flags, so that unscrupulous folks can't jigger the system so that they can just buy the items, and either turn them into plat by selling them to others, or "sell" them at some reduced rate for cash. We spend enough time chasing down gold farmers, another issue that comes up repeatedly, and adding an additional way for them to operate was a non-starter for us.
It's not the discussion I was thinking of, but does still directly address this.
As for the Dev responses we have gotten...
1) Having this applied because people asked for it isn't exactly reassuring, since some people have also been asking for actual stat armor (good stats, not fluff), henchmen, "up-mentoring" potions that let you fight as a higher level character for a while, and unique recipes that crafter can't get any other way. All of which would be game-affecting and therefore things we've been promised won't show up - as we were with gifting, based on what Froech said.
2) Spin all you like on how good this is, how it's not really allowing P2P transactions, whatever - you are missing the point: we asked about this, we were told it wouldn't happen, and then it happened and you are acting like it is a new and novel concept that was never discussed with the player base before. Heck, even saying it was asked for only came after players started griping. You could have at least, in your post here if not the announcement on EQ2players, given us an acknowledgement of the prior discussion and the points raised.
Short version - I'm barely disgruntled that this exists, but I am furious that you pulled a complete 180 on us AGAIN and won't even acknowledge that your current actions contradict your previous promises.
To Luag, the issue here isn't exchanging gift items of comparable SC value. The issue is exchanging SC items for in-game platinum, or stockpiling SC during double-SC events, then later offering to sell SC items to other players for less than the full-rate cost of the items on the Marketplace. The exploit opportunities were seen by players as soon as SOE mentioned the idea of "gifting" SC back when it first launched, were brought to the attention of the devs then, and we're deemed not worth the benefits. Apparently the potential profit margin is now considered better than any losses P2P transactions might cause.

Rothgar wrote:

So it was a concern before, but we don't really care now?