Station Marketplace vs. Crafting

What do you guys think of the items available via Real Money on the Marketplace? For instance, this furniture is being added next week.
http://eq2players.station.sony.com/...mp;locale=en_US
Why is SOE in competition with ingame Carpenters?

As an 80 carp that worked hard to get there, doing all the factions to have all the recipes... /sigh.. I am disappointed. THis furniture is just what we have been asking for for so long... pretty stuff.. no skulls, no rips, no stains, no dust, etc I am very sad that I wont be able to make it myself.

Agreed, I have an 80 Carpenter and this is disappointing.

It is just like the fluff armor that has been in station cash since day one. Armorers and tailors should be making that stuff, just like carpenters should be making the new house items.

Of course, if it weren't for station cash, those items wouldn't exist because of time and budget. Not a fan of station cash still but, now the art assets are in when they otherwise wouldn't have been and retinting is relatively quick.

Its more than disappointing, its a slap in the face to those who worked really hard to get all the faction recipes and spent the time leveling the crafters.
What is going to be next? An upgrade to the mythical weapons if you are willing to pay for it so those who quested and raided for it, their work meant nothing?
I shouldnt be surprised by this, but its very frustrating, crafters do make up a large portion of the population on the game (at least on some servers) and this is just wrong.

I've already posted elsewhere that I find this very upsetting and disappointing.
If SOE wants to run their games on micro transactions, do it in the games that are coming out, not the established ones.

Please stop insulting the crafters. I am going to stop all crafting except for provisioning as I expect that at some point it will all be avail via station cash. So why bother doing any crafting writs, quests or anything related to it. You might as well add 'buy status points' to the list of fluff items that station cash provides. Please stop, just stop.

The problem is that a majority of the playerbase think of anything that doesn't add stats/procs for combat to be fluff items.
Anyone who chose: 1) to remain silent when Station Cash was introduced or 2) who said it was okay so long as items remained fluff can share in the responsibility for what appears on Station Cash currently and in future.

Ethin@Lucan DLere wrote:

If it doesn't assist in actual game play it is fluff. I know you'll try to argue semantics of what is game play, but what this furniture is...fluff...

I feel much the same as Aintdeadyet. What's the point of continuing to level any crafters if they won't be making stuff that's not available via buying it with rmt.
I have 80 armorer, 80 carpenter... I was working on becoming an 80 jeweler next. I don't feel I want to now.
I hear that blah, blah, blah... station crap has allowed SOE to add artists and what not. But really? The average $15 per account couldn't cover that? It seems that there was plenty of time and resources coming up with stupid things like that welcome screen nobody wanted and 97% of the playerbase is gonna disable, it simply wasn't possible to just apply that dev time and resources to, I dunno perhaps allowing the nice furniture to made by Carps or the silly appearance junk to be made by tailors or armorers?
What exactly is my $30 a month sub fee for two accounts being applied to? Just wondering...

Rashaak wrote:

I suppose it depends on how you define "actual game play". You can't disregard an argument by anticipating it.

Domino, please give us recipes for this furniture. Make it a different color for all we care, but give us this dining room set. Please. It's lovely.

What's the point in leveling up when a level 1 can spend 15 bucks and look cooler than your level 80?

This is the whole purpose of station cash. If you didn't expect to see furniture eventually, that's too bad but what did you really expect?

If I ever decide to splurge and use station cash, it will be to use a bunch of plushies to make a big chessboard. Not only will I spend money on station cash, but I'll also need carpenter crafted items to complete the whole thing. Having things on station cash will probably bring in a lot new 'customers' to carpenters than take away. The dining set is cool, but you need a nice house to put it in.

TheSpin wrote:

lol. Love your name. TheSpin...you certainly can put a positive spin on stuff.

Very disappointed with this. I have a question I'd really like answered, though: are all the really nice house items going to be limited to LoN and SC in the future? I'd really like to know. If things continue this way, there really isn't much point in continuing to craft on my carpenter. Heck, with SC updates every other week, I'd give it 6 months before an entire home can be decorated much more beautifully and lively than any crafter can create. That really, honestly, makes me sad.

RMT is a slippery slope that SOE is going down quickly. Started with LoN. Look at all the associated loot cards that you can not acquire within the game they are loot for. LoN was not another avenue for acquiring those items, it was THE ONLY avenue to get them. How many people bought tons of packs just to sell or acquire the loot cards? A majority would be my guess.
So as a company SOE looks and makes the logical conclusion - these people are willing to pay real money for virtual items that dont affect gameplay balance so lets come up with an alternate system to sell those at reduced cost in overhead (IE - we dont need developers to worry about game mechanics like those in LoN, just find a way to sell the little graphic nodes people want to play with), hence, Station Cash was born.
I would expect we will continue to see more and more fluff items and convenience items placed there for purchase. Then you will start to see more useful items ported to that mechanism.
If you are willing to pay for such trivial things, I wonder what you would be willing to pay for the good stuff??
And for those thinking useful items wont be placed in game, take a look at the potions for xp, aa, etc and the new ones for name change, gender change, etc.
Makes you wonder how long before they will SELL you extra storage for your toon(s). You will be able to rent bank boxes in Norrath like you do at your local bank. But for real money. One thing to spend plat, quite another to spend real currency on fake items.

Artemiz@The Bazaar wrote:

I don't disagree with station cash being used for the potions, name change and gender change though. Minus AP, you can get everything else insanely fast playing the game as is. Name and gender change change are just in gaem ways to use services they have externally in other games. Unless I'm missing something, everthing that they have added thus far is fluff, and my major gripe with SC is that the LoN loot cards aren't on it.I opposed LoN because the loot cards and BS booster drop rate made it backdoor RMT but at least station cash is honest. SOE is after all a business.

I worked hard to get all the recipes on my carpenter (or on myself for Moors ones)... Why is this entirely new type of furniture on SC ? Please, Domino, tell us that we will have the recipe of those items in a different colour if this comes to SC... Please...

Here we have really NICE looking furniture being added. Just a really nice solid set of furniture. And it's only available with StationCash. How does Smedley sleep at night?