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It has occurred to me that I don't like the Idea of charging to play player made missions because:
1) If we pay it should be better than what we don't pay for but players are not professional writers so it's more likely to be not as good.
2) we were told that player made content would be a seamless as possible. Indistinguishable from official content.
Having to pay to get in is a big red flag, as well as a disincentive to play it.
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/browse/pub/3185/Crusader-Game-Books
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC48O9dPcNVdeyNM4efAvX6w/videos?view_as=subscriber
+1
I rather have a Perk called "Mission Builder" in one of the Micro Subs, and not charge other players IGC* for the pleasure to play it.
Before you know it, a handfull of some Very Popular User Generated Missions will become De Facto* Must Experience for All... which Enhances the players perceived Worth of CoT, even though it was actually created by player(s). MWM will be Getting Praise Indirectly. GPI ;)
These are good points.
It's an interesting idea, that a Player might earn IGC for a popular UGC mission. Perhaps, instead of IGC, a sufficiently popular UGC could earn a badge/title? It would be particularly good if there was an element of Dev involvement in this.
I remember one of the CoH Devs organizing regular forays into the UGC and reporting on the experience. Perhaps high-value UGC has a chance of being adopted into the Canon?
Perhaps any IGC earned by the UGC goes towards maintaining the 'published' state of that UGC? It makes sense that it would require some sort of payout to publish a UGC. Whether by IGC or mini-Sub, or a Star-purchase.
Perhaps it costs IGC to play UNpublished UGC? But any UGC that has been 'paid for' through publishing is then freely available. 'Testing' unpublished UGC has no cost, but also no Rewards.
It does seem that this subject should have its own thread.
Be Well!
Fireheart
If there were some sort of charging mechanic to play UGC, I'd probably hide it in the leads system. There's already discussion of one of the ways to obtain certain leads being simple expenditure of IGC with informants or professional sleuths or the like. What serves as a potential shortcut for MWM-made leads could be a gate for UGC leads. This would be particulrly attractive if the IGC were split between being sunk out of the game and being given as a royalty to the player who made the UGC.
[color=#ff0000]Business Manager[/color]
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/em claps hands together in brushing off way
Looks like my work here is finished.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
How about IGC charges for SGs to advertise recruiting and or events. A SG could pay so much for renting said billboard for a time or have it in the papers where the crier for a newspaper in a zone would yell "Extra! Extra! Redlynne's Roughnecks holding recruitment event! Read all about it." Being able to go to a news stand and check out the latest issue. How about things like this? Even charge a small amount to purchase the paper? I dunno, just thinking here. Maybe not worth the effort as it would spend development resources to support it.
A cover charge in IGC for a nightlub....tickets to an event....or transit system. Just thinking here and sorry if some or all have been voiced earlier.
I reserve the right to have an opinion. You reserve the right to not agree.
Heh.
Every time a PC who is not a member of your Supergroup sees the name of your Supergroup in chat (local, broadcast, tell, team, whatever), it costs the PC who made that mention 1 IGC.
So if you say in broadcast "Join the Justice Girls!" and there's 50 PCs not in your SG who receive that broadcast message, that advertisement costs you 50 IGC.
Of course, the way to defeat that pricing scheme would be to deliberately misspell the name of your SG in chat, resulting in an arbitrage payoff for using l33tsp34k to avoid paying the advertising fee.
Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Still, perhaps the idea of paying a price for using a chat channel might have some merit.
Every chat message sent in a broadcast channel (as opposed to local or a tell or team chat or whatever) costs 1 IGC. In other words, a mere pittance, per chat line, that is for all intents and purposes pretty negligible to an individual Player. But then, think about how many lines of chat it was common to see in Zone Chat and think how much IGC could be getting sunk out of the economy just by charging 1 IGC per line of it (specifically, hitting {Enter} to post the chat line).
Hey, if it helps "clean up" the mess that is "Barrens Chat" (World of Warcraft) or "ESD Chat" (Earth Space Dock in Star Trek Online), I actually think a lot of people would approve. This could even help sink upwards of tens of thousands IGC [i]per day[/i] on an ongoing daily basis out of the economy, spread out across the game's population of Players. The price per PC would be very low ... but the deflationary value to MWM would be significant when added up in terms of chat volume.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
I like the idea of giving people a small incentive to avoid putting pointless stuff on broadcast channels. If people were getting charged a small fee to post on public channels, there might be somewhat less "Hi, Bob, are you waiting for Joe?" type messages on broadcast, and that would be good.
Edit: I used to broadcast a lot of "looking for TF" or" looking for people to join my TF" type stuff, and I'd still be fine with charging some small amount of IGC for that.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
Of course, the system will need to mark that by adding ™ after every mention. ^_^
[i]Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...[/i]
I'd modify it slightly by giving either new accounts or new toons an initial "budget" of chat to spend. My reasoning being that I remember my early days of playing CoH where it could be a struggle to buy a 25 inf wakie. Keeping chat uncluttered is all well and good, but let's not unduly penalize new players in the process.
The flip side is that it is an excellent way to shut up gold spammers
I'm not sure it would have a useful impact on gold sellers. It would have a deliterious effect on low-level characters and new accounts, since they'd actually feel the pinch. I don't know if we have metrics for how many lines of chat actually scrolled by in all channels in all zones on a given server in a given day. My instinct is that it would be in the lowish millions on a large server (~5 Megaplayers on a given server over the course of a day, each typing ~1 kilolines of chat on average, would be 5 million lines of chat per day).
5 million inf/day across all players on a given server wouldn't have made a huge difference in the sink/gain ratio in CoH. That doesn't mean it can't for CoT, but it's something to keep in perspective.
[color=#ff0000]Business Manager[/color]
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Interestingly, whilst this could force people to join the global private channels faster, it then leads to the game players looking like they are ignoring everyone.
Now granted, if this is just for the "zone"/"yell/shout" channels (not help/request/other suitable channels) it would be ok.
But if it included the help/request/other larger channels then I would say that it would be a *pointless* fee.
Yes, its a cash sink, and it will affect everyone (potentially), but if it *EVER* forces a PC to not talk in a chat channel that they have rights to talk in, then it is a BAD sink.
Communications is one area in my mind that should be a one off cost[1], or free. You also have to remember, that depending on the chat channel restrictions for new players at the start, they might well HAVE to use these channels quite a bit to be able to team up/ask for help/organise events.
Awarding money at the start is just a stop gap measure.
I will say that I find it interesting that I am against this style of money sink, when I am actually FOR a "maintenance fee" style of inf sink for enhancements/gear (so that it would affect level capped characters as well)
The one other thing to remember, is that the tone of the channels changes from game to game. Some are really good (CoX style) others are not so good (WoW Barrens). But putting a "disincentive" to communicate with others (ie the fee) will more likely do more harm than good at the start of the games life[2].
[1] By this, I mean a small one off cost to allow you to chat in certain channels.
[2] I can almost guarantee that people will complain about this fee happening ALL the time whenever they talk. They will demand refunds, why they are unable to talk to their friends etc etc.
Umm.. maybe I should look into runnin' CoT in Windowed mode and join others on an Instant Messenger, IRC, etc.. chat client instead. :P
Isn't 5 million players times one thousand lines of chat each equal to 5 billion (with a b) INF though? I still don't know what that does overall as far as the economy is concerned, but if it makes the newbie think twice about typing personal BS chat on the broadcast channel, I'm all for it.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
Assuming IGC is as "plentiful" as INF was in City of Heroes, the impact on gold spammers would be:
Limit ---> 0
It wouldn't BE zero, but the impact would be approaching zero (for those of us who know what calculus is).
This falls into a "depends on how you build it" sort of thing.
For example ... I would have absolutely NO PROBLEM with allowing broadcast chat to be zero fee inside the Tutorial Zone (which will not be a "regular" city area). Furthermore, I'd have no problem with the Tutorial itself giving PCs an opportunity to generate IGC (perhaps even just 1 IGC per Foe Defeated) so as to give PCs that do the Tutorial some "seed money" upon entering the wider game world. This is effectively the same notion as having an optional Tutorial that yields sufficient XP for the PC to exit the Tutorial at Level 2, instead of starting the game at Level 1. Essentially, PCs who complete the Tutorial "start" playing the game with enough IGC to get some help if they need it through broadcast chat ... because by completing the Tutorial they've "earned" the right to do so.
I mean, if new PCs exit the Tutorial with 100 IGC, and the price per broadcast message is 1 IGC each ... are we really supposed to feel pity for someone who spam chats in broadcast their way to having 0 IGC? I know I won't ... and that's assuming that no one else swings by to drop a load of IGC charity on a new PC fresh from the Tutorial (which we all knew happened a lot in Atlas Park).
Yes, there would be edge cases where a Player could "silence" themselves from broadcast chat simply by having 0 IGC, including putting too much IGC in the Bank and leaving nothing at all on the PC for "spending money" for whatever. But pretty much all of those cases are going to be ones in which the "It's Your Own Damn Fault" rule would apply ... and it's not as if the condition would be permanent (ie. just go earn some IGC and you'll be fine). As Players of City of Heroes were probably well aware, INF wasn't exactly hard to come by when talking about small quantities of 1-10, even for newbie characters.
Furthermore, PCs would still be able to use Local chat for free, as well as private chat channels, Team chat and so on, so it's not like PCs would be completely "silenced" for having zero IGC. Inconvenienced, maybe, but neither gimped nor crippled ... and even then the condition would be temporary (ie. go earn some IGC).
In games where I expect to never need to use or spend IGC on anything while I'm playing the game, I usually just stockpile all my cash in the Bank so it's available to all of the characters on my account should they need it and I just zero out my personal cash and start racking it up again while playing. It's different when you need to keep a bit of "walking around money" on your PC to pay for incidentals. In World of Warcraft, the taxi services charged fees, so you'd always want to carry some cash on hand on every character. In Star Trek Online, you never know when you might need to pony up some Energy Credits to pay for something, and so I got in the habit of keeping 1 million Energy Credits on every Captain on my account and dumping the remainder into the Bank. I'd imagine something similar could (and really should) happen in City of Titans with respect to IGC.
Remember, the 1 IGC per broadcast chat message is only going to "bite hard" on Players that just can't stop chattering away in broadcast ... and even then, the "price" for doing so is going to be so dirt cheap as to be negligible (ie. hardly a barrier).
The other key point is that this isn't intended to be an All-In-One solution to sinking IGC out of the game economy, but merely a One-Among-Many options for doing so. I daresay that out of all of the IGC sinking options that have been brought up, this one is perhaps the LEAST "demanding" on any one single PC, and also one that has obvious avoidance strategies.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
How about charging a percentage of IGC of transfers from one toon to another regardless of if it is on the same account or different accounts? I wouldn't have any idea as to what might be acceptable as a transfer fee. I don't even know if it is a good idea. It's just an idea. It would keep people from side stepping the auction house fee though.
I reserve the right to have an opinion. You reserve the right to not agree.
Probably not; my point is mostly that, barring it being far bigger than I think it will be, it isn't a useful thing to do anyway.
And, as evidenced by reactions such as yours, it would also mostly just make people stop using that form of chat, which would reduce any sinking still further. (Raise the cost of something, and you have people make less use of it.)
I'm not sure CoH ever had 5 million players on as a daily count.
I think CoT doing so would be highly optimistic.
[color=#ff0000]Business Manager[/color]
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Comes across as censorship. Pay to Say. However rare it might be or unimaginable it is to other people, there would be people who might run out of IGC and now can't talk in chat. Charging to speak even with fake currency is poor form.
Can't talk in [b]BROADCAST[/b] chat.
You'd still be able to chat in a variety of other channels ... including Local, Team, Supergroup and Private channels.
There is a difference between being locked out of Broadcast chat and being locked out of EVERY CHAT. Please don't conflate them.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Considering most of the chats you mention can stem from starting a conversation in broadcast. Let's see SG and gold spammers can't spam broadcast, I know lets spam local and private tell everyone on the zone list. People start running to the forums to whine how spammers are spamming local or private tells. Fix it by charging for that as well, yeah. Ignore option works wonders for spammers and limits no one.
I don't believe this will work the way you're saying it would. It seems to me that it would certainly be possible to prevent spammers for sending spam to everyone in a zone via private tells. You just don't let anyone ever send a private tell to more than one person at a time.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
I see. So the answer is more restriction. IGC sink to stop broadcast spam and time limits on PM's. All to avoid 2 clicks of the mouse to add a spammer to /ignore.
How does one PM more than one person at a time? Private message tends to mean one on one. I PM you, wait 2 seconds, PM another, rinse repeat.
Indeed. In every single game I have played online, when I have PM'd someone I have only ever been able to message one person at a time.
Now saying that, some games had the facility to be able to send a Mail to multiple people (typically SG mails are like this) either built in or via an addon (if the game allows them.
And PM's in game are typically a different beast from Forum PM's (which depending on the software allow you to PM several people at the same time or add further people to a conversation).
I guess we can make it official then. Paying 1 IGC [b][i]for anything[/i][/b] is too much of a price to have to pay.
Now, where did I leave my violin ...
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Good point Gangrel. If the spammer gets charged for broadcasting, spam them mail boxes. I am reminded of the saying "You are trying to build a better mouse trap." The best mouse trap ever built for spammers is the ignore list, not an IGC sink.
I remember the days when they wanted to charge a penny for every email. Argument for it was, well its just a penny and it will help stop the spam emails.
Yes, real world vs. game, but the underlining principle is there and I am a man who lives by his principles.
Yes Red, 1 IGC to speak is too high a price in game world. Just like paying a penny would be to high a price in the real world. More than happy to add my violin to yours, unless you want to charge me 1 IGC for every note I play, because it is just 1 IGC a note right?
I just remembered one game that had a "charge per PM" fee (well more like Private chat window)
Eve Online.
Each and every character could set a CSPA (I forget what it stands for), and it was defaulted to 2950 ISK (or there abouts); although you could set it to *WHATEVER* you wanted This was handy to prevent ISK sellers from privately messaging you, sending you team invites or sending you an ingame mail.
"Cool" you might be thinking "Peace and quiet". Which isn't so much of a problem unless you *REALLY* don't want people messaging you privately. And for some people it worked nicely like that.
However, for the more "sociable" and helpful people, it meant that they were leaving themselves open to PM spam.
Not so much of a problem really, as there was also a block facility just in case you did get a bad message.
But the thing is, even this fee (which wasn't all that much in the grand earnings of things) only worked for that "conversation". If the other person closed the chat window (even by accident), and you still wanted to talk to them you had to pay that fee again. Accidentally refused that fleet invite? The guy has to pay again.
So no wonder why a lot of people disabled the fee.
The other thing is that whilst you might be thinking "How to stop currency sellers from communicating" with others, you have to treat *EVERYONE* equal at the start. No-one will know anyone, and you would have to treat a total stranger as a currency seller from the perspective of the rules. What will affect the currency seller will hit the NEW player in the game the same, if not worse off (until the new player gets annoyed and quits, or learns the rules).
Side note: CCP recently announced that they are changing the *Default* fee from 2950 ISK to 0 ISK for all new characters and people who have it set to 2950 (as standard). This would make it more "newbie" friendly and more able for "older" characters to walk through stuff with new players more easily, without having to resort to the "pay a fee and pray the guy doesn't close the window" on you).
So even CCP have realised (even though it took them a long time) that "as standard charging" is not always helpful, and why the "vets" of Eve Online hated the CSPA charge[1]
[1] In fact, to be included in most (if not all) "open fleets" in Eve Online, for which Incursions are one small reason, you had to set your CSPA charge to 0. It gets tiresome to keep on clicking "confirm" when someone wants to join your fleet, and you see the ISK leaving your wallet as a result.
Hmm... I don't think I would prefer a blanket system charge for sending me a PM, but ...
If I could set up a list of preferred global accounts that could always reach me for free while also being able to set a fee for anyone not on my preferred list (especially if the fee was a pure IGC sink that did not profit me anything except a reduction in unwanted contacts), I might actually enjoy such a system.
It would be hugely complicated to program, so I'm not advocating for such a system, but I do find the concept attractive.
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The irony here is that I wasn't proposing the 1 IGC fee per chat line in Broadcast as any kind of deterrent or preventative measure against gold spammers. I was merely offering it as a sink to drain away a small amount of IGC from the in-game economy in a way that hardly anyone would notice, individually, but which MWM might appreciate in aggregate. It was meant to be a painless siphon of funds out of the game's economy, set so low as be practically useless as a deterrent, because that wasn't its intended function.
If anything, "cleaning up the broadcast chat" would have been a side effect, rather than the goal, of charging the penny pinchers a penny to chat in Broadcast instead of using Local chat. And already we've got people here trying to "work the refs" (ie. Devs) arguing that even THAT is such an onerous burden that it will cause all socialization to collapse. When 1 IGC is [i]too high a price to pay[/i] for something, you know what kind of (forum) personalities you're dealing with.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
sarcasm/
Your first mistake, Red, is that what you came up with was not a "good" idea for IGC sinking, as the title of this thread suggests. It's clearly a "bad" idea as evidenced by the fact that people on the forums seem to not like it (not me, I'm fine with it, but I'm evil and want everyone who plays CoT to be constantly poor, you must remember). So, you see, "good" ideas for IGC sinks are defined as the ones people like. Since people hate IGC sinking in and of itself, this meas that the "good" ideas for IGC sinks are defined as things that DON'T sink IGC terribly effectively, but only CLAIM to do that, so as to satisfy the people who seem to want everyone to be poor by having to pay for stuff. Sinks that actually SINK some IGC now and then are therefore "bad" sinks.
/sarcasm
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
Just try to make it an IGC Sink / Transaction that all players feel is Fair! :)
How about all the IGC sinks to my account? I'd like that
Pinky, that comes after "We .... ..... ... .....!" >:D
[img]http://i.imgur.com/Aa8Eraq.png[/img]
ohh... I wonder how much that's gonna cost? :{
Being locked out of Broadast chat is just a bad idea. Yes, it might help keep people from using it as a way to have an open discussion about whatever is floating their boat at that time, it could hamper others.
Lots of ideas for ways to kill peoples IGC and a lot of them seem bad. Like this one.
Really Red what kind? I would like to be enlightened as to what forumite I am?
I have already posted that it is a principle I am discussing. I break things down to the lowest as best as possible for my understanding. The idea I am against is CHARGING to speak. Does not matter the price tag which you seem to focus on. The charge is what I am focusing on. Also to my simple mind you seem to being going after me personally instead of the counter argument I pose.
Again enlighten me how stating "Paying 1 IGC for anything is too much of a price to have to pay. Now, where did I leave my violin ..." and "When 1 IGC is too high a price to pay for something, you know what kind of (forum) personalities you're dealing with." is debating the merits for or against paying a fee to broadcast?
Player's aren't going to like having to pay 1 IGC to chat. Yes, they can chat in every other channel, but they'll feel way to restricted.
I just doubt they'll think "Wow! This is innovative!"
This makes my head hurt and sad at the same time.
If we're all walking around with like >10million IGC all the time from doing missions, like in CoX, I for one won't even notice the chat fees. If it's more like we're all barely scraping by and tend to be broke as often as not, then you probably don't need this as a sink in the first place.
I guess what I'm saying is, in an economy where hyperinflation has sent in, this sink is woefully inadequate, doesn't really make a difference, and is therefore not effective enough to be worth doing. In an economy where all the other sinks are working TOO well and the cost of chatting ends up being a problem, then it's unnecessary anyway. I'm not sure I believe in the existence of the latter scenario anyway though, and in the former, every little bit helps, I suppose.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
Being permanently locked out would be over doing it. Agreed.
So how hard is it to "escape" from the "locked out" condition as I've defined it?
Is it hard to do?
How hard?
Oh ... that's not that difficult ...
I mean, seriously ... if I've got 1000 IGC on a PC, I'm hardly going to worry about a broadcast chat fee. If I've got 10,000 IGC on a PC I'm going to worry about it even less.
If I've got 1,000,000 IGC parked in the bank and 0 IGC on my PC ... whose fault is it that I'm locked out of Broadcast chat until I either go earn some more IGC or go back to the bank to make a little withdrawl?
Again, people routinely drop $1 or more per day into vending machines for drinks and snacks and thing NOTHING of it. The psychology at work here isn't really any different.
So the only way to lock yourself out of Broadcast chat is to have 0 IGC remaining on your PC. As far as I'm concerned, pretty much every single edge case that produces that result is the Player's Fault and is so easily (and obviously) remedied that if this hurdle is too high for people to deal with, you have to start wondering just how big the training wheels on this bike are going to have to be so that no one ever falls off.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Wow, just wow. No one is haggling over the price tag. The issue is, you have to pay to speak in broadcast
If IGC is a non issue then why not go father to make the sink better. Charge that 1 IGC for all chat. To you it will rain IGC so what does it matter?
As to your vending machine analogy, hmm?
Give a dollar to the vending machine, get a consumable drink.
Give 1 IGC, allowed to speak in broadcast.
... and nothing of value was lost ...
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
It's an interesting concept. It's one I don't think the mmo created by fans and volunteers needs to be the first MMO to do. It could easily drive away players.
Only the value of speech, but who needs that anyway. Very sad to see a response like that.
You pay to speak over a telephone...
And we're paying to play the game.
Not... really. If you're using old-style landlines and talking long distance, you're paying by the minute, but otherwise, most people pay a monthly fee for telephone service and just talk to their hearts' content. (There are cell plans that are by the minute, too, still, true.) A closer analog would be texting, wherein I understand some plans charge by the text message.
My issue with this idea is not the IGC sinking, but rather that it does not seem to sink enough IGC to be noticeable, will have dynamic effects which shrink the IGC sinkage further (as people [i]will[/i] find ways around it, or simply chat less; you see it when taxes are raised IRL: it never raises as much revenue as the official estimate because the official model assumes nobody's behavior will change to try to minimize the individual uptick in tax liability), and will, if it impacts anybody, impact negatively those already most hurt by IGC inflation.
To make it worthwhile, it would have to be something like "x% (round down) of your IGC per line" or the like, which would lead to people finding ways to shelter their IGC when they chat more than leading to people really sinking a lot of IGC. (x would have to be 1 or less.) This would, if it didn't trigger extensive dynamics to dodge it, sink effective amounts of IGC because it would hit those with the most for the most IGC, and would do so in proportion to how much they have.
Even so, I suspect the behaviors it would perversely incentivize would be more trouble than this particular sink would be worth. Sinks will work best if they're things people want rather than things people perceive as being extorted from them. This is not an easy balance to strike, but charging for something most games do for free (or a nominal IRL fee to impede spammers) will generally feel more on the extortive end.
Still, it is an interesting idea; examining it thoroughly was instructive.
Supergroup incorporation fees could be a good sink, however. Make them be a minimum amount per member, with a percentage-taking of membership fees, and that could work. Membership fees flow into the SG, and the SG can use them on things like their base, their base rent, etc., maybe on a few other SG-wide perks. If the SG ever dissolves, the IGC evaporates rather than going to any one griefer who thought he would pocket it. (Maybe with an appeals process to reinstate the SG if it is the act of one bitter individual that dissolved it.)
[color=#ff0000]Business Manager[/color]
[img]http://missingworldsmedia.com/images/favicon.ico[/img]
+1
When a bitter SG leader tries to Dissolve it, the SG is still active for a Month (or Two)? and the SG's Name is Generic'ed! ;D
Who ever gets Elected SG leader can pay some IGC to Rename the SG. :)
You could then sell that SG's physical assets to someone else, who could call the new SG "The SG Formerly Known as Prince and the Revolution (Now Under New Management)" and when you move into the new base, it comes with "Please excuse our mess" signs on the walls. :)
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
One game that might be worth looking at for inspiration is Team Fortress 2. And before you say anything, no I don't want to charge for hats any more than any other costume piece at a tailor. No, I'm looking at another kind of item.
[b]The Pile O' Gifts[/b]
What it does, basically, is give everyone else (up to 23 people on the same server) a free random loot roll. Could be a boring old Sandvich, could be the rarest of hats. But what makes it awesome is that the giver gets nothing, except having his name show up as the gift giver, and some numbers added to the hidden Gifts given stat which changes the appearance of some cosmetic items.
Basically, this item is a [b]social item[/b]. You get to show off that you can afford it, and everyone else gets cool stuff. Or at least stuff, it being actually cool is random. And since City of Titans will have some kinds of loot, these kinds of items would still work here. And the best part is, these can be prohibitively expensive if using in-game currency. Like if it was in CoH, I'd price them at [b]a billion inf[/b]. Seriously. They are total vanity items to make a player show off how awesome they are and make everyone love them for a short time. You get to be that guy landing at the feet of the Atlas Statue and give everyone there something nice. Generally, the value of the items given on average should be less than the gifting item costs. The point is to destroy currency, after all.
Then put in some cosmetic item, or an emote that you upgrade for every five of these you fire. Like a total Captain Awesome perfect smile complete with a shining star on those perfect teeth, or a special cape that gets more and more excessive embroidered edges. No badge for it, though, it has to be something that is not even remotely useful for the giver, other than vanity.
Make it fun to blatantly waste ingame currency. Let people show off just how rich they are by showering everyone else with items and a stupidly steep cost. I mean, people threw expensive enhancements or millions of inf at newbies in CoH all the time. There was even that marketeer movement that burned inf in the extremely unfavorable prestige conversion because they wanted it out of the game. Let's make that an actual mechanic and make it extravagantly awesome to do. And expensive.
Everyone else gets free stuff, one guy gets to be the awesome guy of the moment, while a billion disappears from the economy. Win-win-win.
A good idea for a IGC sink would be retcons! Like CO's but without it feeling like it costs everything you have!
Hm. Assuming a "retcon" is a respec...
What if respecs started off relatively cheap, but followed a polynomial or even exponential function of the number of times a given character has been respec'd to determine the cost of the next respec?
[color=#ff0000]Business Manager[/color]
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Yes, I'm fairly sure this "respec" I've seen mentioned on these forums = "retcon" as used in CO. ^_^
And increasing the cost based on how many times you've respecced before seems to be a good idea; sort of a tax on indecisiveness. But I do hope that there would be an exception for changing your most recent power, at least until you've had a chance to try it out. Also, if there are major changes in the way a power works, a free respec token might be a good idea, and shouldn't count towards this increase in cost.
Foradain, Mage of Phoenix Rising.
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Wouldn't be unheard of.
Now, depending on the game there are several things to possibly do:
1) Increasing cost with level.
2) Increase cost with the AMOUNT of change you are doing. This means that tweaks of an existing build are not expensive, full on rebuilds ARE expensive.
3) Increase the cost by how recently you altered your build.
You can combine these, use one one of them or whatever, but this is how various games do it.
They might also put a cap on how much it would cost.
WoW had an escalating fixed fee (single ability change was the same as a total build change) that increased the more often you did it in a time frame; but there was also a CAP as to how much it would cost you. If you didn't respec for a period of time (a month I believe) then the cost dropped back down to the bare minimum.
Wildstar does the "increase cost per level, varies according to how much you change as well" for their AMP setups. AMPS for them are more of the "passive background" effects (increase X type damage, increase armour values), and just a *FEW* click abilities that you can use in your Skill Setup. So whilst you might just want to tweak a couple of AMP points around, and keep the vast majority the same, then it won't cost you as much as it would if you were doing a total respec.
Once again, there is also a Maximum fee payable of 50 gold for a total respec. But a total respec at lower levels is cheaper.
But in my mind, preventing people from experimenting with their builds because the cost is prohibitive in terms of amount of money needed is not really a good thing in my mind.
I would definitely put a cap in terms of how much it would cost, so that even if it took a player 4 days to *grind* the money out, then at least it is doable. The thing is, you want to make sure that it doesn't hit a stage of "2 years to grind the cash up to respec, because I made a lot of tweaks early on... damn me learning the game as I progress".
There is nothing to say that respec costs cannot be tweaked later on in the games life. That is always a valid choice. Hell Wildstar initially only let you do total respecs... now you can do it on a point by point (and cheaper cost) basis.
Agreed, put a cap. Don't make it take all one's IGC. It just seems like it's a perfect way to add a IGC sink without having to rely on free respec tokens (which the game could still sell on the cash shop for people who don't want to spend IGC).
If they're available for IGC, people can spend real money on Stars and buy IGC with Stars from other players.
[color=#ff0000]Business Manager[/color]
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One thing I would caution about is that the devs will likely want to tweak numbers here and there over time, and in so doing the player response to that will bet to want to respec to roll with the changes. If the respec costs escalate, any rules tweaks might get viewed by players as a veiled attempt to sink IGC and nothing more. So this brings into question the "freespec" option, which is what CoX did to assuage peoples' fears that it was just about sinking IGC or spending money. IF there are freespecs, I personally would hope that they don't accumulate over time like the ones in CoX did, and that a new toon made in year 5 of the game doesn't come with 25 freespecs due to that. Maybe give people a limit of ONE freespec they get whenever rules are changed and if they use it fine if they don't, they keep their ONE freespec but do not get another on top of it.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
I'm personally okay with having a currency cap that is the equivalent of like 1 months regular play (like 4 hours a day for 5 days a week at max level).
For the big things (fully re-creating a character with respec, avatar, name, the likes) wipe the player out! For something like that with the ability to keep your level and perks without buyiung a new character slot (presumably with Stars).. that is worth a month's play IMHO.
I say the same thing for anything really worth its weight in the Auctions.. let players wipe out but no more than a months' currency. Keep the cap low enough and people will keep engaging in the exchange. If the cap is so vast (EVE online) then most of the items are simply NEVER attainable.
**One month is my general time table for every piece of endgame .. its enough to re-engage someone who dis-engaged but not so much that you need to pay a whole lot. If I earned my .. say 10 pieces of specialization over 10 months I'd be happy.
Crowd Control Enthusiast
I personally don't like the idea of turning a level capped toon into a completely different toon via the respec, as in "I want to make my tanker a blaster so instead of just making a new blaster, I'm going to respec and not bother with the leveling up". As such I would prefer that making profoundly different characters would be the stuff of "make a new toon" not "respec from one class into another". I don't want people to be able to so that for any respec price, frankly.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
Reclassifying a character altogether is less of a gameplay function (what IGC should be used for) and more of a service for the player to utilize. As such, a reclassification should be limited to cash shop purchases only. The reason for why this is a good service to provide is to allow players who desire to play the game at launch with their "main character" when their prefered classification isn't available at launch. This way when their prefered classification does become available, a player doesn't have to "reroll" their main and lose all the progress they've achieved on the character, but play the character they intended from the very beginning but couldn't because we couldn't provide the power sets necessary.
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I agree. Sorry I didn't specify in my post. Full class changes should cost Stars. I was stuck in Champions brain when the word Retcon was mentioned. But if you have 3 slots and 5 classes you should be prepared to delete a character or pay to play the slots/classes you aren't playing (used as a hypothetical obviously)
Crowd Control Enthusiast
I'd prefer that recon prices rise as a function of doing them repeatedly, with a "decay" function which brings that price back down if the option isn't exercised for a defined length of time. Do it a lot in a hurry and it will cost a lot (in a hurry!), but if you wait a while the cost will come back down.
I do not like the one way ratchet which by way of side effect penalizes PCs that have been in the game for a very long time. My reasoning for that is that the game itself isn't going to "stand still" (or "stand pat") on its past developments. The game will continue to evolve into the future, and imposing a "lifetime" penalty onto PCs for evolving WITH the game does not sound equitable or fair to me.
I agree on the "penalty for indecisiveness" angle, where if you want to retcon 3 times in one day, the PC ought to be paying more for the privilege of doing so many retcons in such a hurry. But that shouldn't be held against the PC in perpetuity for the rest of their gameplaying lives by making every retcon after that even more expensive ... forever.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
That is how most other games do it, either with a forcible respec (to zero) or a non stackable respec. And for the msot part it works.
The only downside is if you have spent a lot of time away from the game and go back and discover that you have to rebuild your character from scratch in terms of how powers are picked.
But depending on the level of change, that might well be the only option available.
One thing that Redlynne brings up is very good to take note off:
The game won't stand still, it will evolve over time. Hell, the developers have already said that the planned cap for the game will be Level 50, even if it *doesn't* release in that state.
If you limit the respecs before you have even hit cap, you have basically told people "sorry, but screw you if you want to tweak, you might regret it later". That will inevitably give people far less incentive to experiment with builds, especially if later powers make earlier choices redundant.
This is why in CoX, you could have "level 50 builds" and "levelling builds". Because some abilities that you got in the high end of the game, replaced/made redundant earlier choices. But being able to flick that around a little bit helps out a load, and in some cases allowed you to make more powerful "level 50" picks compared to what you would have normally had levelling up the game normally.
Of course, with sidekicking as it worked in CoX, the order in which you picked abilities mattered as well, so if you exemped down, you didn't want your "bread and butter" abilities to be ones that you picked later on in the games life.
Side note: If I am away from a game for a LONG period of time and I return, I tend to roll up a new character to get into the flow of things, and then go back onto my old main character and rebuild them.
Throwing this out there: what if respecs were respecs, and retcons were "go back and play an alignment-changing (or similarly significant) story arc over again, and have the replay's outcome take effect"? Would that be worth IGC?
[i]Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...[/i]
You want to get a ReAlignment? :P
Now.. You can go Kick the Tires! ;)
I prefer to think of it as a ... [i]malignment.[/i] ^_^
[i]Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...[/i]
+1 I like this idea. Pay by the day or pay by the hour to have your sg advertised in a paper or on a billboard. This would give players a place to go if they are looking for a specific type of sg. On a further note maybe players could use this to promote their ugc as well. If someone has made something they're proud of they should have the right to pay to advertise it if they want to right?
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMcQdRLgVpMwXi_3yTCN5iA/videos
In the beginning, respecs in CoH/CoV were rare things indeed that basically required running a task force. As time went on and more adjustments were made to powers and powersets, it became common to include a free respec with every new issue. Near the end Veteran's Rewards provided respecs and respec tokens could be purchased in the cash shop.
I used many respecs. Especially on my main character. I enjoyed experimenting with different variations on powers and enhancements. Therefore, I do NOT like the idea of exponential cost increases, nor even gradual cost increases. I would prefer a single, fixed cost for a respec, even if it is relatively high. When I consider how much variation there will be in this game with Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary powers, Augments, Refinements, and so on. I foresee myself doing frequent respecs to experiment with different combinations, different strategies, and different functional states.
Reclassifications, on the other hand, I'm not real big on. I can see the advantage of offering them through the cash shop, and maybe for free once or twice as new powersets are released, but my preference (and if I were designing, my paradigm) would be for a new classification to require building a new character and starting from scratch. This is going to be a game built around customization and experimentation. Encouraging players to have a variety of alternate characters would be a good thing.
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I would never offer a free reclassification. For that there is rolling a new character or paying the cash shop. Makes even more sense when you need some enticement for the cash shop.
The minute you give away a free reclassification, people will be begging for them. If our powers aren't available at the start, there is nothing wrong with having to roll a new or pay the cash shop fee.
It would not be unreasonable to issue a non-stacking free respec for every character every major update. Essentially, "The game has changed to some degree; if you find it's done so to the detriment of your build, you can fix it."
Heck, a stacking free respec probably wouldn't be TOO overwhelming.
[color=#ff0000]Business Manager[/color]
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If the devs are gonna change the game, the players are gonna change their PCs. It only follows.
[i]Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...[/i]
Just so long as it isn't applied at the account level I wouldn't have a problem.
One annoying thing that I ahd with CoX was when I did make a new character: BA-DING: 5 (or 6) respecs available out the door, AND I could do the trial on top a few times.
I never used those: I would personally rather run the Respec Trial if I could find others to do it. But at least on my server, the amount of respecs that characters had KILLED that content from ever being ran.
Those would be the per-character respecs from veteran rewards. Are you contending that awarding per-character respecs as veteran rewards isn't a good idea?
[i]Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...[/i]
I have NO problem with characters being rewarded a respec per "year" that they are alive (ie from when they were first made).
It was that they were awarded to *EVERY* character that you made as SOON as they were made. Because it was an "each and every character got them".
Personally I would split the awarding of respecs into two types:
1) Account awarded respecs: These form a general pool of respecs that can get used as and whenever you want, on ANY character that you want. This means that 10 respecs could be used by one character, 2 characters, 3 characters... however you want. This is where I would put the "vet reward" ones.
2) Character awarded respecs: These are bound on the character level. I would award these for powerset changes/game changes that affect that character (ie no respec, if all the ability changes are for other powersets and not any that you use). And also on the *age* of the character (if needed). So a new character wouldn't get any, but an older character (in terms of created date) could have built up 2/3/4 or more and still be able to use the "account level" ones.
Guild Wars (and Guild Wars 2) do "presents" for your characters when they have been alive for 1/2/3/4/5/6 years (ie date from being made). So this means that the older characters will have more "fluff" stuff around. They also do a present package for your character for each year that you ahve had the account (and a few other things IIRC). I believe I am up to year 8 or 9 of my vet rewards soonish there.
For me, I didn't really alt, and so when I did make a new character, I ended up getting 5 respecs per character. And then there was my main account which ended the game with 5 unused respecs and 3 free respecs (and over 100+ tailor tokens on the main). I had already used up the 3 ingame Terra Volta respecs within the first 5 months of the game being live EU side.
Don't ask me how, my account was borked on such a level that I had all 4 of the CoH pre-order sprint variations the day that CoV was released. Not bad seeing as EU accounts were only meant to have 1 of them; and the others didn't become available to EU accounts
Sooo, wont this also make players think twice about deleting/creating more ALTs?
Is that what is wanted? :{
No it won't. Look at CO. People make plenty of alts, delete old characters and it's very limited to the amount of respecs it hands out.
To be fair as well, the Power House helps out a load so you are able to at least try the power before hand, before you confirm your choices.
But I don't think it would limit the number of alts/deleting of characters as you would think.
CoX players did this before Veteran Reward Respecs were handed out, and you were just limited to 3 respecs total (as standard) in the game. Infact, making Alts for a lot of people was the REASON to play the game.
Yes, there was the "free respec" that you might get with a new issue, but that was never a guarantee.
The thing is, if you are having to use a respec THAT early in a games life and then deleting them, then there is something wrong with the either the player OR the powerset combination.
However, ideally I would prefer a system where flexibility in terms of how/when you can use a respec is implemented.
All my restriction/types of respecs would do is spread the bonus around a little bit. It gives those who have been there for a long time a pool of respecs to use, it gives characters their OWN pool of respecs to use (on top), and then there would be the ones that you could earn in game.
If a character is needing THAT many respecs during the games life, then there is something wrong. Somewhere.
And that is not taking into account respecs that could be awarded for when your powersets change.
Or multiple builds (which I know a few people ending up using their 2nd/3rd build for because it hard for them to get a team together to run the respec trial)..
It just doesn't give new characters on old accounts 300million respecs at the start (exaggeration of course, but even after a few years, it does add up).
It won't put the brakes on alts at all. I knew several people who had loaded all their alt slots back when the only repsecs were the ones from Terra Volta.
[i]Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...[/i]
Yep. The availability of respecs had zero impact on how many alts I created.
I think if respecs in CoX were really cheap and easy to do, which they were, after a while, the only thing stopping people from doing them more often were be the rules regarding what you could or could not change (primary and secondary sets could not be re-chosen, but powers within them could) and the fact that you might need a boatload of new IOs if you WERE able to switch ATs. In CoX as it was, those rules (no changing primary or secondary sets) were probably the reason why nobody ever deleted an alt in favor of just respeccing a toon instead.
I know one guy, the leader of my SG, made and remade the same toon (same name) like 4 times just to try to get his powers etc in line with the backstory he had in mind for the character. That's an example of a "good" reason to delete and start over and that guy would have jumped at the chance to ust respec the toon when the new powersets came out that caused him to want to rebuild the toon from square one (he was a time traveler, so when Time Manipulation came out, that was a big re-make right there). That said, I would rather make that guy's life a little more difficult if the result is that people can't just turn one level 50 toon into, effectively, any other in order to avoid having to level up another toon for PVP or whatever.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
CO allows you do basically respec every aspect, even going from one AT to another to a Freeform back to an AT, and people STILL have alts. I don't think they should stop people from being able to just pay to keep their levels/badges/whatever CoT has and do a total rebuild.
CoH didn't allow it, but CO I think has shown it really doesn't keep people to one character and then done with the game. Even me, I had my main, but then when I felt like just leveling up a new character for fun/giggles/help lower levels out while still leveling myself/what have you...I made a new character :p
But encouraging Alting is not the 'purpose' of limiting Respecs.
Be Well!
Fireheart
Going back to IGC sinks (the original topic) for a minute: remember how in CoX there were some widgets you had to get during the TF, like in the Statesman TF, you had to get the thorn from the tree to be able to defeat Dr. Aeon's force field. Or in trhe Abandoned Sewer thing you could get those special guns, or like in the Keyes Island Trial itr was helpful to have Fly, etc?
What if those types of content had some form of temp power crafting station in them and a way to make those items (special gins, jet packs, forcefield messer-uppers, etc) by collecting vital components in the TF and then crafting the thingy, paying IGC to do so?
One thing this could lead to is a way to prevent people from shortcutting parts of the content. So instead of letting the hostage die in the Lady Grey TF to save time maybe you then don't get the vitally important component you (probably) need the defeat The Honoree at the end, etc.
For what it's worth, HOW vitally important this stuff should be to any TF or Trial or Raid is open to some debate. I would expect a badge for doing the content without using any "helpers" if nothing else.
Edit: This also leads back to the question of "Which would you rather spend, time or money?" in the sense that people could try to do the TF faster by buying lots of helpers or cheaper by buying none (or the bare minimum) of them.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
Temp Powers that cost IGC per use ... even if they have "infinite" uses.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
I encourage alts.. but I think they should cost cash unlike in CO where you'd get a new slot every time you hit endgame, I think you should start with 2. Get one free at lvl 40 (3) then be forced to buy all the additional slots you want to alt.
Crowd Control Enthusiast
Ooh, here's a fun idea.
You remember the whole Fog of War thing that City of Heroes had going on? And the Reveal Temp Power that could clear all that Fog of War off the map?
If you wanted to do something similar in City of Titans, have the Fog of War [b][i]come back after a certain amount of game time spent[/i][/b] ... that way, you never clear anything PERMANENTLY. That then sets things up such that use of the Reveal Temp Power offers a limited duration effect, meaning you'll have to KEEP USING IT. Design the Reveal Temp Power to cost INSANE amounts of IGC to use "quickly" but then have a decay curve in which the IGC cost to use the Temp Power goes down [i]the longer it has been since last used[/i] until it eventually becomes piddly cheap nothing to use after something like a few hours (or whatever). That way, the IGC cost for using it is completely variable and the effects of clearing the Fog of War are only temporary as well. There isn't a Recharge to be reduced, there's only a price tag in IGC to be paid to use.
That way you have a supply and demand situation that never runs out, leaving you with an IGC sink that can keep draining, if Players are willing to pay IGC for the benefits.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
I think 'returning' Fog-of-War would only be useful if the zone content itself was changing. However, I DO see the value in 'Reveal' being temporary. So, let areas that have been personally surveyed remain clear. Let anything revealed by other devices be temporary, until or unless the character has visited the locale.
Be Well!
Fireheart
Mind you, the whole Fog of War deal kinda sorta depends on what there is to see on the mini-map. If there's no mini-map (ala Elder Scrolls Online) then there's no need for a Fog of War and no real need for a Reveal Temp Power.
There's also another angle to it of whether the Fog of War is black (often done in Hazard Zones and Instances) or merely transparent grey (done everywhere else). The real advantage of Reveal was to show you the layout of the map and give you the terrain. In City of Heroes you didn't have pixel markers telling you where the glowies or the Foes were on the mini-map.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
I'll be dropping some big bucks into this game.
How about with a subscription ($15/month)you get the full 8 slots, and they will be permanent if you stay subscribed for a full year.
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