SC Black Market - Additional PS2 revenue stream

I am not explicitly disagreeing with you, but the asymmetric balance is why it can be perceived as buying power.

As an NC, I have access to the Jackhammer. Which means I am the King of Shotgunnia and the VS and TR must bow to me.
As a VS, I have access to the Lasher. This means I can throw a disco party wherever I want, and make the NC and TR dance.

As a free VS player, I do not have the power to be King of Shotgunnia BECAUSE these weapons are asymmetrically balanced. So if you are buying a Jackhammer you are buying power I do not have. It might not necessarily be MORE power; but it is power. As a free VS layer my power is to make people dance - you are paying money to get the power of Shotgunnia, which I do not have.

Alternatively, you are paying for the "power" to not have to switch factions to use this weapon. You can continue to play with your friends and outfit, while using this asymmetric weapon, while to get that play I must leave my friends and outfit behind and change factions.

You can make the system work for both free and paying players, but still make it a revenue stream for SOE, by simply making it more time/cost effective to pay cash for it.

This is why I looped in z1967 and JustBoo here - because a cert sink would be incredibly useful in this case and let both features discussed here co exist happily.

We can go two routes - you either buy the weapon like a rental (as I suggested) or you buy it and pay to fix it. Functionally they work the same - though the fix idea is cheaper for the player in the long run.

You would make the cert cost of purchase disproportionately high to the SC cost. For example, 2000 certs for the weapon (2-3 days of play for most), or 200 SC ($2 USD), with (random time) 2 days (48 hours) of use. Then you can either just make that it, and after 2 days they pay the same to get it back, or add a reduced price to get it repaired. For example, 1000 certs to add 24 hours, or 100 sc.

The repair route can even be used to play to peoples gambling nature by letting you select how much time you repair it for. So if we assume an hour of use is 5 SC a player might be like "I only need 1 more hour to get this Aurxium" and they pay 5 sc now, but then they have a bad hour or have to take out the trash. Well now they need to pay alittle bit more for that last little bit. Trying to maximize their time with the gun to cost, but ultimately just making a constant trickle of cash to SOE.

This goes hand in hand with the Cert market mentioned by JustBoo, because now with a viable cert sink (remember, the cert cost will be disproportionately high to the SC cost) members have a reason to buy certs from eachother besides just getting full nanoweave or some such- and since more are (theoretically) being used, there is less on the market. Which means more SC transactions for Sony.

The Implant system could be looped into this as well. They are already available for certs or SC in a similar situation, and come through drops, but what if you made it so you could also trade specific Implants for SC or certs? It would allow an in-game economy to form.

This also conforms to SOE's desired business model. Cosmetics can continue to be "cash only", but any item of "power" in the game is still available to the free player. You are just paying for convenience - be it the convenience of not switching factions and staying with your friends, or the convenience of not having to grind up a few grands of certs every day to keep your gun fetish running.

And I am going to disagree because The Jackhammer is not the king of Shotguns, the end all be all, because it balanced in relation to the other shotguns, it has a few unique features, but it is not better, it is an alternative. SOE has gone to great lengths to keep most weapons especially faction specific weapons balanced between the 3 factions but also balanced with the common pool weapons. I would agree if the Shotgun or the Lasher where more powerful then what is available as a common pool weapon, but they are not...

We are just going to need to agree to disagree and as you say it comes down to perception. You seem to think that being able to access a cross faction weapon which is already balanced vs other faction weapons and balanced vs common pool weapons would give a paying player a power advantage over a non-competing free playing player on the same faction. I am sorry but I just do not see it that way.

Now if the faction weapons were not balanced vs cross faction and common pool weapons then I would agree but that simply is not the case and as you said it is a convenience for a paying customer not to have to switch factions to use a particular specific weapon.

Here is what it comes down too....F2P players are not buying anything, period, and most paying customers are only going to purchase so many items, until they have reached a saturation limit, which I know I for one fit into that category. I have what I want and anything new that gets added, I will just purchase with cert points, cosmetics do very little for me because they are irrelevant or I have what I want. There is very little if anything to motivate me, but something like this would open my pocket book or at least get me to spend some SC that has been accruing with my membership.

Implants just aren't going to do it and the only way they would is if they went further down the p2p road and I think you and I both agree that would be a mistake, if they are easy enough for a free player to acquire, then they are easy enough for a paying player to earn. Therefore we get into the situation SOE is currently in, which is no one is buying implants, SO they need to start limiting them making them much harder for free player and paying customer to acquire, which may motivate a paying players to purchase
for that additional power.

Ok, so every faction would run with TAR and Orion.

Hurray?