SOE EQ2 Auction Site Opens

I received a phone call from SOE tonight to give me some pretty amazing -- and unsettling -- news. SOE's Station Exchange is now live. Station Exchange you ask? Oh no, is that what I think it is? Yes, Sony is now going to start allowing players to officially auction items and cash for real live money. Initially, it will be limited to two new servers they are creating for Everquest 2, with existing players being given the right to transfer to those servers where they can buy and sell with officially sanctioned impunity. However, this is just the experimental stage. It is clear from the FAQ that if this proves to be financially successful, there is no reason not to think that this experiment will eventually be expanded to all of EQ2 as well as SOE's other games, which include Everquest, Star Wars Galaxies and even possibly, given their large ownership share of Square-Enix, Final Fantasy XI. IGE, meet SOE. Is this the end of online gaming as we know it? Or is it just a natural and inevitable development? I know I personally feel a need for a strong adult beverage right about now. Feel free to post your feedback and opinions. Update. After I posted this, SOE posted a letter from John Smedley about it on their site. Here's the letter.

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Mythic Entertainment
# Apr 26 2005 at 7:56 AM Rating: Decent
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362 posts
Gamedaily.com posted an article by Mythic Entertainment CEO Mark Jacobs.

Click Here
Awful...awful...awful
# Apr 21 2005 at 9:51 AM Rating: Decent
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137 posts
I hate this idea and think it will further pollute the game. Any time you introduce a way to "buy" your way to better gear you put down all of the honest players.

Rather than admit defeat and try to join in they should work on fixing the problem. Make more stuff rare\ex...monitor transactions done by players...there are tons of ways they could stop selling gil\items in the RL economy if they really wanted.







/clap Ahrana
# Apr 21 2005 at 9:39 AM Rating: Decent
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138 posts
I think what they are saying is that it will be on a different server EXPERIMENTALLY. Meaning if it works, it will be incorperated to all existing servers.
I play an MMORPG because it's an alternate reality. One in which everyone starts out an equal ground. It doesn't matter what race or social class you are. I know gil selling/buying has already skewed this, but that doesn't mean that I want SE to support it. If/when SE does this to FFXI, I'm quitting. Period.

Edited, Thu Apr 21 10:44:28 2005
Great Idea
# Apr 21 2005 at 2:12 AM Rating: Default
instead taking a huge risk buying or selling a account and getting scammed, this provides a very secure way to do this.

if ppl want to buy e-items and accts they going to do it anyway

this might ruin the ecomony of the game but the economoy is screwed anyway

se banned those accts b/c they were mpking everyone near thier spawn not cus they were selling.

i hope se does this soon
Great Idea
# Apr 21 2005 at 2:09 AM Rating: Decent
Meh
# Apr 20 2005 at 10:02 PM Rating: Decent
Hmm well as long as they keep it to specific servers I don't see a real problem. My only ethical objection to this is some players having an un-fair advantage over others. I have the same issue when it comes to gilsellers and account sellers.
What seperates FFXI from other MMORPGs to me is that it requires a great deal of dedication and time. All MMORPGs do of course, just not at the level FFXI does. If you want the high level job with the awesome looking equipment you should have to earn it like everyone else.
As long as I don't have to deal with it I could really care less. If people want to take a mortage on the house so they can get a Vampire Cloak thats thier buisness.
This could be great
# Apr 20 2005 at 8:06 PM Rating: Decent
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71 posts
This could be the best thing to happen to non-gilselling non-gilbuying players. If an RMT server opens up, then SE will be taking a slice out of every RL transaction - this means that SE will have a financial interest to control all RL transactions.
Now, gilselling on a non-RMT server means you're now not only breaking TOS, but also taking money out of SE's pocket by not paying for the transaction. So, to protect the RL market, SE will finally try to shut down the gilsellers on the other servers.

Well lets look at some facts
# Apr 20 2005 at 7:33 PM Rating: Excellent
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3,777 posts
Long post here but one with some very good points

Ok this concept is a very sharp double edged sword. I cannot speculate nor can any of you what the real effect of this would be if implemented in FFXI. But I would like to point out some facts.

1) Gilselling already exists on all severs whether legalised or not. The legalizing of this will NOT add something to the game that is NOT already there. We can not stop gilsellers. We WILL NOT stop gilsellers from playing the game, and people already buy and sell online currency and items for RL cash. No matter how much we hate it gilselling and buying is and always will be a part of any MMORPG whether legal or not.
2) That said I honestly don't know if this would have that big of an effect on the game at all. People already have a firm stance on whether they are gil buyers or not. I like to think that most people who don't buy gil will not buy gil if this is added, and I like to think that the ones who DO buy will continue to do so at the same amount they do now.
3) Last I heard 1 million gil is worth approximately $30 Real Life. Now I don't know about you but even as a lvl 64 goldmither and a player of 1 1/2 years 1 million gil is not something that can consistantly be earned at a speed which would make doing this solely for money worthwhile. Many many players cannot make 1 million gil in even a RL month let alone a RL week or less. Lets face it, gil is worth very little in RL currency for the amount you get in game. Even if you farm at a rate of 100k gil an hour you are making $3 RL an hour which is less than half of minimum starting wage in most places. To do this as a way of living is fairly inconcievable.
4) I doubt high end items would stop being sold on AH and such. Personally I play this game for fun and not RL dollars. I would like to think that at least 90-95% of the people playing FFXI do it for fun. And if you are not concerned with RL currency then you will sell your in game items for gil and buy more in game items. You will continue to party and raise the job you want to.
5) Having servers dedicated to this and others to non selling allows segregation towards that which you prefer. If you want to play on a non-currency selling server then do so. You will be playing with like minded individuals. Then the problem of gilselling will most likely be less of a concern because with a dedicated non currency exchange server there should be very few to no clientel interested in gilbuying. If nobody buys it then there is no market so gilsellers will (hopefully) focus on servers where its allowed.

In summary I just want to especially stress point #1 that it ALREADY happens, just on the black market. When you look at probation of alcohol things got better after alcohol was legalized again. Taking the power out of the gilsellers hands may be a good thing or it may be bad, but you cannot KNOW beforehand its result. The effects would have to be seen.

FINAL NOTE: I don't care what this post says Square Enix is NOT owned by Sony. SoE has no say whatsoever in the way SE conducts business. Their share of stock in the company is less than 8-10% if that. SoE has no power whatsoever to make SE lgalise gilselling. I personally do not believe it will EVER happen in FFXI. That said I believe this topic does not even belong on the FFXI board and is totally a moot point. Allakhazam is full of speculations and thats all this is, there is very little chance FFXI will have this implemented ever in my opinion.

Anyways those are my thoughts. /wave to all you folks on the unicorn server. See ya in game.
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RE: Well lets look at some facts
# Apr 21 2005 at 2:06 AM Rating: Decent
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103 posts
I Looked inbto how much a gilseller would make in a month (didn't know where to look so i tried ebay heh), and I found that one gill seller alone makes on average $350 a month. Not much to a real job at all, but lets say even if the gill seller sells $20 worth of gill wich by his prices seemed to be around around 500K gil, then FFXI just payed for itself for him to play for free for a month. I don't know how much effert he put into gaining that much gill, but seems he is making money.

I never thought this would be a problem, but this seems to be a problem, for ppl who just want to have fun [wich is all of us]. I just want to kick back and relax and help whoever needs its and just have fun a day without ppl. talking about this gillsellers deal. Almost as bad as ppl. here in oregon talking about gay marraige or whatever (sorry bout spelling), get over it, let ppl. do what they want to do i guess.

My ground on where i stand is not gillseller yes or no, its whatever, do what you like. I'm just into the game, and to have the fun I am paying for monthly.

And come on, what is money anyways, you trade some time of your life for it, and trade that for something that someone else traded some of his time to make. Think of it that way.
The Good, the bad and the ugly
# Apr 20 2005 at 6:40 PM Rating: Decent
The good:
If people that wont buy items online have the ability to join a non-RMT server, then the gilsellers or whatever would have no business to peddle there and would have more competition on the servers where it is legalized.

The bad:
people will be legally capable of depending on a game as a source of income, more people overcamping, etc. which ruins the servers where it is allowed

The ugly:
that any game would think of doing such a thing ><
Name?
# Apr 20 2005 at 3:09 PM Rating: Decent
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1,049 posts
If they did make a few new servers for RMT, they need to name one Yojimbo. ^^

That being said, having servers for RMT would be an okay idea as long as when you created a character, it said as an option:
(Do you want to join a RMT Server?)
(Yes)(No)

At the bottom of the screen in big letters they would explain RMT.

And 95%+ of the gilbuyers would move since they wouldn't want theiur characters deleted. Thus, the gilsellers on the old servers would have little profit since nobody is buying from them. Their only option is to move onto another game, get a job, or make a characters on a RMT server.

That's the way I see it. While it would suck if they added it on all servers, that isn't going to ever happen. Everybody, including SE, knows that it would kill off their playerbase since so many people already complain about it.

It isn't nearly as bad as some people make it out to be.
IMO
# Apr 20 2005 at 2:41 PM Rating: Decent
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3,432 posts
I agree that on servers with this system any item with significant real world value will no longer be avalable as a trade for another in game item. It would be highly unlikely that if two items were roughly the same value that the two people wishing to exchange them would run into eachother. Basically the only good items you could expect to see on anyone would be rare/ex gear. The only character types you'ld see would be theives. Very rapidly you'ld see the value of items like the theif's knife, other +TH and +Steal items go through the roof since they would become RL investments.

Basically the only value to in game currency would be for relatively low value items, purchasing from NPCs, and consumables. This would be very similar to what happened towards the end with Diablo II when RMTs became so rampant that blizard could no longer do anything to block them.
Real money trade for Gmae items/money, No thanks
# Apr 20 2005 at 2:12 PM Rating: Decent
buying things with real money for in the game kind of beats the purplose of the game isn't it?

:/

in the end it will only get worse imo.

nobody that likes to play the game "as it is intended to"
can aquire the things he/she want to by playing the game itself, because other players are hogging the means to get them >.>
(aka camping the NM's/logging/spawn point etc 24/7,


(must add i've been tempted to do it myself, but it only would ruin my game)

Edited, Wed Apr 20 15:21:24 2005
RE: Real money trade for Gmae items/money, No thanks
# Apr 20 2005 at 3:17 PM Rating: Default
Exactly. If they somehow do this on FFXI ill be pissed. If people think its bad now with gil sellers and riseing prices, think about when there are 4000 gil sellers. Everyone will raise prices, so they can sell for more. What about the people that don't feel like paying $50.00 for one ingame item that has no affect on your life at all..... Its a good idea, but there are already 100s of websites that do this illeagely. Letting every1 do it would ruin the game. Every1 would just try to make money, not have fun like they should be doing.
This could work, but will it?
# Apr 20 2005 at 1:46 PM Rating: Decent
Since the GM's will supposedly have all this freed up time, what are they going to be doing with it? If they invest it in keeping the "clean" servers clean then this could work. These servers could be kept relatively free of RMT's and they would be forced to comepete on the selling servers. In my opinion, the success or failure of this venture is very much dependant on their ability to keep the other servers clear of gil sellers.
hmmm
# Apr 20 2005 at 1:23 PM Rating: Decent
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1,006 posts
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sell_out

Will this stop NM camping no, will it make it more appealing probably, do i really care ... yes
Job
# Apr 20 2005 at 1:18 PM Rating: Decent
If you think about it, even if sony wil be taking part of teh money transaction to their profits, what they ahve just done, is make online gaming a job. as stands, you could quit your job, hunt items in game all day, and now LEGITIMATELY sell those items online. its kinds funny that we could be seeing say, 14 year olds, making more money than their parent make in months in a matter of a few days or weeks
SOE + SE
# Apr 20 2005 at 1:07 PM Rating: Decent
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477 posts
Sony only owns around 19-20% of Square-Enix. This is not a majority share. We don't have to worry about them making SE have the same system, because they can't force them to.
RE: SOE + SE
# Apr 20 2005 at 6:50 PM Rating: Good
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792 posts
The most Sony has ever owned is 10%, which was purchased around the time FF7 came out on the PSone. When Square and Enix merged, they bought back most or all of that.

Please do not feed this already completely ridiculous thread with incorrect information.
Hate to say it but...
# Apr 20 2005 at 12:55 PM Rating: Default
I told you so.

I've told many I've known that SE was not cracking down on this harder because they wanted to get in on the action.

They haven't yet and said that it won't happen in FFXI, but did not rule it out for future products.
I Don't get it??
# Apr 20 2005 at 1:11 PM Rating: Decent
Is it just me or is there absolutely nothing different with doing things through the exchange then there would be now in FF11?

I go out with my thf and farm. I get a stack of fire crystals and go to sell them at the AH. They sell for between 4-4.5K gil. I list them, the AH charges me to list the item and once the transaction goes through my fire crystals are listed.

Joe Schmoo player comes along bids 4k for my fire crystal and the transaction is complete. I check the AH it says my crystals were sold. I go back to my mog house and in my delivery box there is my Gil.

I want to buy an astral ring. They cost "X" amount of gil. So I need to farm so many stacks of fire crystals to get my astral ring.

Now instead of Gil, use the terms in dollars.

It will be no different then it is now except that you will be trading in a real life form of currency instead of an imaginary form. You will still have people camping as they do now. You will still need people to farm low level stuff for crafting and the market will work exactly the way it does now.
RE: I Don't get it??
# Apr 20 2005 at 4:32 PM Rating: Decent
24 posts
capitalism ^^.

it might actually be better for the "real players" too. example:

Farmer x camps for days to get item X. Farmer X has no luck because someone always gets it before him. (gil-sellers) gil sellers get say 80% of the drops. that's a very strong percentage on this item; they pretty much control the price. they raise it, raise it and raise it till farmer X just wants to scream.

What i think SoE is trying to do is make it so you can go to their site and just buy it. More options, less headache is all it is to me.

What i'm really trying to get at is: the more options you have to get this item, the less demand there will be and therefore the prices will drop because the gilsellers won't have a monopoly on item X; thereby causing you to get less frustrated when you try to farm enough fake money to buy it/farm the item and have no luck.

there is another thing in buisness called "follow suit" if this works out well for SoE, i would NOT be suprised if it came to FFXI.
RE: I Don't get it??
# Apr 25 2005 at 3:38 AM Rating: Decent
46 posts
good point.

PLUS

what if SE destroys the gil/item-selling market with unbeatably low prices?!

but then again, if they're too low, it will destroy the game o_o

tricky tricky...
the sky is not falling yet
# Apr 20 2005 at 12:41 PM Rating: Decent
for 5 seconds put the emotions away and really think about how the system is going to work. sony steps in and takes goods/money from player x and goods/money from player y. when both parties agree, sony exchanges the goods/money. its nothing more than an in game escrow.
Need more proof that SOE is gay?
# Apr 20 2005 at 12:36 PM Rating: Default
I read that fool's article and this is basically what he said:

1. Yeah, we know that people trade real money for e-items in our games.

2. Yes, we are too lazy to deal with it any longer.

3. Yes, we are now caving in. Here's a RMT server just for you pussies who don't want to work for it.



/em flushes online gaming's integrity down the toilet
hmm
# Apr 20 2005 at 12:21 PM Rating: Decent
i think its a 20-day old april fools day joke
damn you sony!
# Apr 20 2005 at 12:19 PM Rating: Decent
I noticed how it said that RMT would only be allowed on select servers. For the record, I hate gilsellers (re: I HATE THEM AND I WANT THEM TO BURN IN HELL) But, if RMT were allowed on select servers, this would actually be a good idea. All the gilsellers would flock to these servers since they're despicable activities would actually be tolerated. This would leave non-RMT servers almost clean of it. Those that don't want to participate can play on non-RMT servers and actually have bragging rights for everything they've accomplished, and the lazy useless people can play on the RMT server where having 1337 has no meaning!
Legal mumbojumbo
# Apr 20 2005 at 12:07 PM Rating: Excellent
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574 posts
think of the doors this opens though for all kinds of complications regarding property rights and compensation. Lets say there is some kind of ***** up with the server maybe you lose your character or your best sword. well how will they compenstate you for that? Cash or virtual reimbursment? What about when the game is about to go off line? They will have to compensate you somehow for all the effort you put into your vitual goods witch they now say have a legal, monetary value. This is going to lead to some legal battles that are very well going to change the way intellectual property rights are handled for all things virtual.
RE: Legal mumbojumbo
# Apr 20 2005 at 12:13 PM Rating: Decent
Quote:
maybe you lose your character or your best sword. well how will they compenstate you for that? Cash or virtual reimbursment?


Or WOULD they? When's the last time a GM has ever given someone back an item that has been lost, legitimate or not? If you open that door, think of the amount of money you WOULD loose, not might. Sounds to me like you are wasting money and not having any insurance to protect your investments.

Everyone call Allstate before playing EQ so you can purchase Virtual Asset Coverage. ^^ Think of the new marketing strategies this could lead too

Edited, Wed Apr 20 13:18:26 2005
RE: Legal mumbojumbo
# Apr 20 2005 at 4:03 PM Rating: Decent
Ow! Ow! My poor brain!
lmao!

I'm sure there'd be an "At your own risk" clause somewhere.
Might actually be good...
# Apr 20 2005 at 12:03 PM Rating: Decent
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133 posts
Hey, if FFXI does do it then I would assume they would do it like EQ2 did and make diff servers for it.

I think its a good thing if they do it right. Think of it like this, Diablo 2 had Open (Cheaters, lol) and Closed (supposed to be Legit) servers.

If FFXI were like that I think SE could more actively pursue Gilsellers on the Closed servers and possibly lower the ammount of them, not to mention all the gilbuyers would more than likely migrate to a cheater server.

You just gotta look at it the right way and not jump on the "Oh Nos!" bandwagon.
meh
# Apr 20 2005 at 12:03 PM Rating: Decent
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867 posts
I can see what they are trying to do. If you can't beat them join them, they are trying to get rid of the 3rd party money sellers by selling the money theirselves. Think about it, another way that they can make money from you the player. It makes sense in a sick way but I don't think it's gonna work. And besides, I really doubt SOE is gonna effect anything that SE is doing... I mean how would it look for SE to start selling gil after banning 800 accounts? Exactly... it's not gonna happen.
Sweet
# Apr 20 2005 at 11:43 AM Rating: Decent
Gave Up The D
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12,281 posts
Sweet. Everyones gonna quit the game because of this, now I can have the whole server to myself!!! :)
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