Turbine Points for GP

[appshadow]

Concept: Allow players to purchase Turbine Points to sell to other players for gold in AH
Rationale: By sanctioning this, you eliminate gold farmers, increase Turbine profit and keep two groups of players happy

I've seen this done in other online games. Basically there are two types of players--those with money and those with loads of gaming time. The folks with money don't mind spending it and those with loads of gaming time, end up with a lot of in-game loot. If DDO were to sell a "Bag of Coins" for Turbine Points in the DDO Store for a set value, which could be bartered in the AH (and only in the AH), DDO would likely see a spike in sales. The player who wants a boost in gold can buy a "Bag of Coins", sell it on the AH for whatever they deem is appropriate (market will dictate going rate after it balances itself out) and the player with loads of gold, but not real money can buy the bag, cash it in for Turbine Points and buy that guild charter or character race or whatever they desire.

Yes, I am aware that players already earn Turbine Points by gaining favor, but the beauty of this system is it doesn't lose money for Turbine (as they are still selling stuff in the store) and keeps itself in check by basically regulating gold for Points in-game where it is monitored and controlled by DDO (instead of the shady outside parties that try to sell gold for cash). Limits could be placed on this such as: a player buying a "Bag of Coins" would not get Premium status, as they haven't spent any money with Turbine and are hence, still F2P; only so many "Bags of Coins" could be purchased and put on AH at a given time by a player; all sales would be final (no buying a "Bag" on AH and then reselling it again to drive up market prices--binds when acquired from AH); value of "Bags" could be kept low for test purposes (250 points to start, then possibly expand to 420 or whatever the $5 value is at the time) and to control crazy auction prices.

Again, the concept allows players with excess cash to provide a benefit to players with no cash and vice-versa. Of course, DDO would benefit from both sides as money is still gained from DDO Store, AH surcharge is still charged for product (keeping gold values in game in check) and more players get the bug for DDO Store items, which could eventually lead to increased sales there as well. Thoughts? I apologize if this has already been suggested, I tried to search for it and found nothing.

[SilkofDrasnia]

i have played many "free" mmos out there n this is a bad idea its always seems nice n good on paper but never works out like u think it will.

take perfect world for example : prices of other items got way out of hand cuase of this, yes it made "tp" more available for peeps but at silly prices and rich peeps get "gold" rich n this causes stupid price inflation on other items.

[herzkos]

don't like the idea at all.

if turbine were to do something like this, I would far prefer that they offer a certain
amount of plat to be purchased in the store.
Allowing people to auction TP for plat just seems silly to me.

As far as the economy goes, I'd rather have turbine change the way the AH works:
Every item must have a buyout before it gets posted. The posting "fee" is a fixed percentage of
the buyout. 5 or 10% at the highest. There is no selling fee for the transaction.
This would serve to limit the amount of trash on the AH as well as lower the prices since people
would want to ensure that their item sold. It would also severely limit those using the AH as additional
storage for their characters.

[donfilibuster]

Think we already have "stupid price inflation on other items" but yeah, no need to further worsen it.

[Memnir]

No.

[Arel]

No.

... Yeah, pretty much sums it up.

[PopeDX]

Hyperinflation sucks.

[appshadow]

I understand the fear of hyperinflation and hope that it could be controlled via simple limitations added in during the design of this feature (as an example)

Player A purchases 5 "Coin Bags" for $15 (let's assume they equate to roughly $3 each for easy math)
Turbine has just made $15
5 other players purchase these bags via AH for 153846.15PP/ea
Player A now receives 500,000PP (after losing 35% to AH -- which means 269230.76PP is lost to DDO)
5 other players now have 150,000+ gone (but have Turbine Points to spend)
And Player A has lost $15, but has money to spend in AH or stores or wherever
In this scenario, PP are actually removed from the market, which should lower inflated prices

The suggestion to actually sell PP for Turbine Points would drive inflation, as the gamer with loads of cash could simply buy their way into anything, devaluing the worth of the PP for the rest of the gamers that play the old fashioned way--crawling through the adventurers.

Also, what about making this feature only available to guilds vs individual players? Players in guilds donate PP to the guild bank account (used to buy airships and other items). That bank account could then be used to buy Turbine Points (again from other players who post "Coin Bags" in AH), which could be used for the guild to buy items from the DDO Store to enhance the guild. This way, no individual player benefits (only guilds); guilds with players that don't have deep pockets, but love DDO can still enjoy some of the DDO store benefits; players with deep pockets still can enjoy the game without having to invest a lot of time to earn PP to buy that sword they see in the AH. Just another idea. Thoughts?

And yes, without trying to change the original concept of this post--the AH could be fixed to avoid hyper inflation. If you charged a listing fee based off base price (not buyout), this would keep prices lower. List your item for 1PP, pay a smaller list fee (even if buyout is 500,000, anyone can win it for as little as 1PP) vs list it for 500,000, pay a higher list fee. You could then remove or lower the final sale price fee (instead of 35%, it could be 5% and 30% to list), which would likely stop players from using AH as a place to store items at insane prices and make the AH some more money, as some players will still do it, but will have to pay huge list prices, which would eat at their reserves.

[Pyromaniac]

/no thanks. Don't need anymore plat inflation in DDO.

[Cyr]

/not signed

We've had enough intrusions into gameplay from the store without adding in the ultimate one for anything unbound in the game.

[Phidius]

No

Regarding the other suggestion...

...
As far as the economy goes, I'd rather have turbine change the way the AH works:
Every item must have a buyout before it gets posted. The posting "fee" is a fixed percentage of
the buyout. 5 or 10% at the highest. There is no selling fee for the transaction.
This would serve to eliminate the worthwhile items on the AH as well as force people to use the forum's marketplace since people
would want to ensure that they got the most plat for their items...

Fixed that for you. People still use the Auction House because the buyer is the one paying the fee - if I had to pay the fee, I'd just use the forums for the good stuff, and sell everything else to the vendor. Provided, of course, that I don't just sell it to the bartender.

Sounds to me like you want them to take the AH out of the game - why not just stop using it? It's the same benefit to you.

[b3h0ld3r]

Well,

This is how i see it.

All the interesting items in the AH are overvaluated (¿2 million pp for a electric haze? ... omg, 20 million of the old gold !!! O_o) Dont know if they really make the sale, but the reason they put it at that high prices is because someone sold it. And it was sold, because someone has the money to buy it. And yes, for some people, money is not important. They have all the important items they need, they have their own named collection on banks, and they have millions to spend. They create a new toon, and they need a planar gird? No problem, go to AH, and buy it now for 400.000pp. Next time the seller will put the planar for 500.000pp.

For me, why the whole economy (AH, trades, everything) is inflated, is because money, doesn't have a real value for the top-end of the game. Don't know if buying turbine points is the best way to solve it. My personal bet, like in the PS2 game Dark Alliance, is spending gold for XP. Somekind of "we have found a link to your family, but we need more resources to finally come to an end" .... 400.000pp -> 40.000XP (whatever the numbers are). Then, the question for the guy who bought the planar is ... What's more useful now, planar or xp? (Well, he probably buy both lol), but he has now, another way to spend his tons of money, using in their TRs, instead of repeating so many times the same quests.

[rossiza]

If players can buy "gold" with real money inflation will go crazy..

I need a large scale.. look theres one on AH for 3128713223 Plat, swipe, yey!

It would also unbalance the game, there would be Massively twinked, characters dripping in epic items who don't know where Meridia is and then there would be people of normal income.

[Visty]

Well,

This is how i see it.

All the interesting items in the AH are overvaluated (¿2 million pp for a electric haze? ... omg, 20 million of the old gold !!! O_o) Dont know if they really make the sale, but the reason they put it at that high prices is because someone sold it.

the reason they put it as that high is cause noone will buy it at that price and they use the AH as a bank that way

[Sker-lyn]

Really bad, bad idea...

Yeah, the prizes will be affected by this (they are already affected by vets with tons of gold-cash in their hands) 'cause is a sum of infinite plat for people and, in the other hand, this is one of the things that destroy korean games mainly: the posibility of purchasing cool items with real money.

The good thing about DDO (the reason that I'm playing it and spending euros in it too) is that money, real money, isn't the most important playing this game. You can farm, you can quest, you can farm TP with favor... you can achieve everything in game and you don't need to spend money in the DDO Store to complete your toon or whatever. Truely, allowing give TP in exchange for plat isn't gonna change that but will affect the economy of the game in such a way that you will have to buy TP to get the gear you want.

So... is a big no, for the game's sake.

I prefer to see the posibility to buy adventures packs for friends and give them in the same way as invitations that to see that horrible idea coming to live.

[b3h0ld3r]

the reason they put it as that high is cause noone will buy it at that price and they use the AH as a bank that way

Visty, maybe some of them do ofc. But, i think the majority of the AH vendors think like "let's see if it sells!!!"

[appshadow]

Well, the idea seemed interesting, but it seems it has very little support.

People continue to go back to the idea of buying gold for real cash - this is not the intent - which would inflate prices. I never suggested that gold could be purchased for real cash, but perhaps I wasn't being too clear. My goal was to bring more income to Turbine (keeping the updates coming), allow players with loads of gold to exchange that for Turbine Points and allow gamers with deep pockets to keep the entire mechanism going. No EXTRA gold would be introduced into the system, outside of what is already in players pockets. By again, it seems to have little support or I'm not being clear enough--either way, thank you for the feedback on the idea. Game on!

[Syntax42]

Most people hate the idea of pay-to-win games. Take a look at mmorpg.com and read the forums on any game that is pay-to-win.

The game's economy is the way it is right now because level 20's make ten times more gold than a level 15, 100 times more gold than a level 10, and so on... That's all because of the scale they put on item values.

Level 20s know how easy it is to make gold, so they want a meaningful amount of money from rare items they sell. Level up to 20 then you will be able to afford the items you thought were overpriced.

[wlmartin]

I disagree with this 100%.


Whilst this idea could create a very efficent gold sink it would just be a dressed up version of gold scamming. It is against the rules of DDO to purchase Gold/Items in game for real money, so why would Turbine turn around and say "Wait, its ok to do that as long as we are getting a cut of the action!"

I have rewritten this post 5 times now and although I have a lot to say I don't want to get into a "Im right, your wrong argument" - I do feel that this is wrong but instead want to propose an alternative.

Why not have a DDO Points for DDO Gold system that is a 1 on 1 transaction with player and turbine.
You have 4 mil plat in the bank? Want to start a new toon and now Turbine have offered a 2mil plat purchase of +4 tome that is BTA... go for it

This game needs some serious goldsinks and i am sorry but 10% vendors, the 1/3 AH Juice and repairing just isnt cutting it... Obviously the game can't attract people if the instant gratification is gone but that needs to be balanced with sensible gold sinks.

[NOTE : For anyone that doesn't know the term Gold Sink - it is the term for a device within an online game that is designed to allow players to SPEND currency without contributing back to the econcomy.. such gold sinks in DDO would include potions, hirelings but not items that either don't expire or expire very slowly]

Personaly I think they went wrong with Guild Ships... there was the opportunity to go in a different direction and allow people to trade MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF PLAT for Astral Diamonds... but that didnt seem to come up at any turbine development meetings then!


In Summary
DDO Points for Gold, DDO Points to be traded = Bad
DDO Points for Gold, DDO Points to be used on that account = Good
Any other way to allow Rich Players to spend money that goes down the drain and not into another players pockets = Good
Finding new ways to allow Rich Players to spend money that goes back into the pockets of other players and contributing to the massive over-rich gold-sink-starved econcomy we live in = Bad

[herzkos]

No

Regarding the other suggestion...



Fixed that for you. People still use the Auction House because the buyer is the one paying the fee - if I had to pay the fee, I'd just use the forums for the good stuff, and sell everything else to the vendor. Provided, of course, that I don't just sell it to the bartender.

Sounds to me like you want them to take the AH out of the game - why not just stop using it? It's the same benefit to you.

I didn't say I wanted them to take the AH out of the game.
Please do not try to put words in my mouth.

I am sorry if my suggestion would cause you to stop using the AH, however it wouldn't change how I use
the AH at all. Since if I post something, I really want it to sell. I usually put the buyout at the base price of the
item though on some rare items I will go as high as 3x base.

I would greatly appreciate it if you would remove the changes to my post that you quoted as I didn't say that.
The changes you made are your idea and should be attributed to you, not to me.

have a nice day.