Real money auction house coming Soon™

[darkrune]

Per the release notes here http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=376774

New AH feature for BtC items using astral shards (purchasable by TP, purchasable by RL $).

The best parts...
1) The Shard Exchange will take a 30% cut (on top of the posting fee) when unbound items are successfully sold, and a 40% cut (on top of the posting fee) for bound items.
2) Posting fees for unbound items is one Shard, and posting fees for Bound on Equip items is five Shards. These fees are refunded if the auction expires.

So basically they are removing up to 40% per transaction of the AS that the buyer and seller purchase with RL money, plus the posting fee.

It's the great money grab of 2013, Charlie Brown. Really Fernando THIS is the best you got?

[Tolath]

interesting...so we will just get whatever raid item we want and sell it there?

the only good point is that will find a way to get astral shards without shop and spent them for ships etc.

anyway in every game all was against gold farmers and now the companies do it their own.
i am not sure if i will continue to play the game if this happen.

[RedHost]

So basically they are removing up to 40% per transaction of the AS that the buyer and seller purchase with RL money, plus the posting fee.

It actually removes up to 60% of the shards involved in the transaction, in disfavorable price points.

It's the great money grab of 2013, Charlie Brown. Really Fernando THIS is the best you got?

Do you think that the executive producer is the only person who makes any decisions, and controls all aspects of everything? I never thought that I would actually be saying this, but at what point was Fernando Piaz's name ever once tied to this? What is the basis of your accusation?

interesting...so we will just get whatever raid item we want and sell it there?

What raid items are Bind to Character on Equip?

[ThreeEyedBob]

Yeah, this is not BtC items. These are Bind to Character on Equip items and Bind to Account items. Straight up BtC can not be auctioned. So no raid items.

[Dilbon]

You can't sell anything in the shard AH that you can't already sell in the normal AH. The only exception are BtCoE items you have chosen to use yourself instead of selling. Now you can auction a piece of gear that is obsolete to you instead of vendoring it.

[Tolath]

its just a matter of time before they will put raid loot there as well.but nothing about bta items.
and still some of this items are the rarest all around items.shard of ring of spell storing and SoS etc.

[Chai]

It actually removes up to 60% of the shards involved in the transaction, in disfavorable price points.


Do you think that the executive producer is the only person who makes any decisions, and controls all aspects of everything? I never thought that I would actually be saying this, but at what point was Fernando Piaz's name ever once tied to this? What is the basis of your accusation?


What raid items are Bind to Character on Equip?

The producer is basically in the know about everything and has veto power. Its the easiest way to explain what they do.

As far as RL money influenced auctions, DDO has had those since selling point codes became the in thing to do, as well as being able to buy items in the store and sell them for plat or trade them for in game items.

The difference?

The shard sync is the kicker, and anyone who reads that and still participates, is basically paying RL money for the right to use the system, albeit through a convoluted one way process which converts RL money to an in game currency they will now take a large amount of simply for using the system. This of course keeps the economy from being saturated with shards, which keeps the demand for shards up to the point where people will still want to buy them regularly.

[THOTHdha]

its just a matter of time before they will put raid loot there as well.but nothing about bta items.
and still some of this items are the rarest all around items.shard of ring of spell storing and SoS etc.

You really need to stop making things up to incite people. Shards are not tradable on the Shard AH. There are some really problematic issues with this type of thing. Issues such as Astral Shards not being tradable for anything useful, such as Sovergn EXP or Guild potions.

But why are you saying that Shards can be traded on this, when that is not what is happening on Lamania?

[psteen1]

I don't like this. At all. Basically, we can buy items for real life money? That's what I see here. Why would anyone even use the normal AH anymore for anything decent? This is gonna kill the plat AH and give Turbine even more of a cash-grabbing Zynga image. Where is the dislike button???? Oh, yeah, it is coming up in the form of Neverwinter and Elder Scrolls Online.

[RedHost]

The producer is basically in the know about everything and has veto power. Its the easiest way to explain what they do.

Uh... Have you read any of Fernando's actual statements? The ones that bare no resemblance to anything that is actually going on. ;-) Like I said, I never thought that I would be in a position to defend him, but... really, I don't see any reason to lay a personal attack at his feet, which is what the post I was responding to was doing. Pay credit where credit is due. And I can't say that this is something that the blame can be positively laid on Fernado's clumsy feet. Seems much more like the work of Jai Singh to me, based just on past works.

[Therigar]

anyway in every game all was against gold farmers and now the companies do it their own

From the outset I suspected that Turbine was behind the gold farmers and really only got upset when someone horned in on their business.

But, the ASAH is a blatant money grab. Combine it with the decision to feed the gambler instinct with the daily dice roll and we see the absolute worst in corporate greed.

Both are designed only for one thing -- to make more money.

Now, normally I'd say that Turbine making money was a good thing. Except that the product isn't getting any better. Bigger, but not better.

Server side lag is still an issue. Continued program errors generating bugs (some of which have huge impacts) still persist. Long and well established bugs still go unfixed.

If Turbine is going to make money, it would be almost acceptable if they were reinvesting it into the game.

But, the money will just go towards the overall corporate profit. It won't really help anyone on the player side. It probably doesn't help anyone on the Turbine workforce side.

It is just corporate greed. Nothing less, nothing more.

And, it is deplorable.

[Clatterfist]

It doesn't sound all that terrible: people who want to spend more on the game can do so, and then pass those shiney credits on to other people in the game who might have a surplus of stuff, but less inclination to spend real life money. Win/Win for the players, and more revenue for the company. If the waters of gaming purity have to be muddied to make ends meet, this strikes me as one of the least objectionable ways to do that: and even if it is just for profit, a more profitable product is more likely to attract development and care.

[Chai]

Uh... Have you read any of Fernando's actual statements? The ones that bare no resemblance to anything that is actually going on. ;-) Like I said, I never thought that I would be in a position to defend him, but... really, I don't see any reason to lay a personal attack at his feet, which is what the post I was responding to was doing. Pay credit where credit is due. And I can't say that this is something that the blame can be positively laid on Fernado's clumsy feet. Seems much more like the work of Jai Singh to me, based just on past works.

Fernando doesnt make all the decisions, he likely OKs them. Its a matter of knowing just enough to be dangerous about everything in the game -vs- knowing all the little intricate details of one subset of the game and knowing very little about the rest. Producers are usually the former. Most of his statements are vague with promises of a few specific things here and there to warrant interest, and rightly so, because anything promised in those statements is taken as an ironclad unchangeable irrefutable set in stone promise by the forumites, and more and more rage builds up the longer the forumites have to wait for said promise to occur. People raged about druids from 2007 when it was mentioned until we got them 6 months ago, and there are still people raging about being able to remove the paralyzing effect from a kama and put it on a more desireable weapon. Yeah, theres a reason why they dont just come out and state their every intention in every post, but saying hes entirely removed from the situation is unrealistic.

[Therigar]

To get a full picture of just how greedy this is, take a close look:

This new auction house functions similar to the original Auction House, and offers a convenient place to trade equipment for Astral Shards, a currency that provides additional in-game services! The Shard Exchange is available by visiting an Auction House NPC or by selecting the Shard Exchange in the start menu (the "dragon coin" in the lower left of the screen.)

* The Shard Exchange is available to Premium and VIP players.
* The Shard Exchange utilizes Astral Shards both as a bid and reward currency.
* Unbound and Bound-to-Character-on-Equip items can be traded. Equipped Bound-on-Equip items can be sold even after they are bound, but become immediately bound to the buyer.
* Posting fees for unbound items is one Shard, and posting fees for Bound on Equip items is five Shards. These fees are refunded if the auction expires.
* Premium players can currently post up to ten items, and VIP players can post up to 20 items.
* The default bid for unbound items is three Shards, while the default bid for Bound on Equip items is fifteen Shards.
* The Shard Exchange will take a 30% cut (on top of the posting fee) when unbound items are successfully sold, and a 40% cut (on top of the posting fee) for bound items.
* LAMANNIA ONLY: There is currently a bug in the Shard Exchange that causes the Exchange to take at least 100 shards from Auction profits. This is not intended, and will be fixed for the system's deployment to the live servers.

Let's say that you are posting an unbound item. It costs you 1 shard to post. Now let's say that your item only sells for the minimum bid, 3 shards. Turbine is taking a 30% cut out of that. You get 2 shards. Good for you, you doubled your shards.

But, those 4 shards (the one you used to post the auction and the 3 the buyer used to make the purchase) generate just 2 shards. The other 2 shards leave the game. They are taken completely out of circulation.

Now, let's say that it cost $1 per shard. Two players have just spent $4 to earn $2. And that is supposed to make sense? Turbine can give a 10% reduction on astral shards and still ends up taking as many as half of them out of the game. They effectively double the price of astral shards in one fell swoop.

And, bound items are no better.

It costs me 5 shards to post a bound item. If it sells for the minimum that is 15 shards. But, Turbine's take is 40%. That is 6 shards. So I don't even double my shards. Of the 20 shards in the transaction, only 9 remain in the game. At the same $1 per shard that means two players have spent $20 in order to earn $9. Now Turbine has more than doubled the price of a shard.

Note: the $1 per shard is just to make it easy to understand. It doesn't matter if it is 10 cents or 50 cents -- the bottom line is that Turbine is eliminating half or more of the shards from the game just by means of posting fees and profit cut.

Where but in America can people rob you and make you ask to be robbed again?

What a great country we live in.

[Chai]

To get a full picture of just how greedy this is, take a close look:

This new auction house functions similar to the original Auction House, and offers a convenient place to trade equipment for Astral Shards, a currency that provides additional in-game services! The Shard Exchange is available by visiting an Auction House NPC or by selecting the Shard Exchange in the start menu (the "dragon coin" in the lower left of the screen.)

* The Shard Exchange is available to Premium and VIP players.
* The Shard Exchange utilizes Astral Shards both as a bid and reward currency.
* Unbound and Bound-to-Character-on-Equip items can be traded. Equipped Bound-on-Equip items can be sold even after they are bound, but become immediately bound to the buyer.
* Posting fees for unbound items is one Shard, and posting fees for Bound on Equip items is five Shards. These fees are refunded if the auction expires.
* Premium players can currently post up to ten items, and VIP players can post up to 20 items.
* The default bid for unbound items is three Shards, while the default bid for Bound on Equip items is fifteen Shards.
* The Shard Exchange will take a 30% cut (on top of the posting fee) when unbound items are successfully sold, and a 40% cut (on top of the posting fee) for bound items.
* LAMANNIA ONLY: There is currently a bug in the Shard Exchange that causes the Exchange to take at least 100 shards from Auction profits. This is not intended, and will be fixed for the system's deployment to the live servers.

Let's say that you are posting an unbound item. It costs you 1 shard to post. Now let's say that your item only sells for the minimum bid, 3 shards. Turbine is taking a 30% cut out of that. You get 2 shards. Good for you, you doubled your shards.

But, those 4 shards (the one you used to post the auction and the 3 the buyer used to make the purchase) generate just 2 shards. The other 2 shards leave the game. They are taken completely out of circulation.

Now, let's say that it cost $1 per shard. Two players have just spent $4 to earn $2. And that is supposed to make sense? Turbine can give a 10% reduction on astral shards and still ends up taking as many as half of them out of the game. They effectively double the price of astral shards in one fell swoop.

And, bound items are no better.

It costs me 5 shards to post a bound item. If it sells for the minimum that is 15 shards. But, Turbine's take is 40%. That is 6 shards. So I don't even double my shards. Of the 20 shards in the transaction, only 9 remain in the game. At the same $1 per shard that means two players have spent $20 in order to earn $9. Now Turbine has more than doubled the price of a shard.

Note: the $1 per shard is just to make it easy to understand. It doesn't matter if it is 10 cents or 50 cents -- the bottom line is that Turbine is eliminating half or more of the shards from the game just by means of posting fees and profit cut.

Where but in America can people rob you and make you ask to be robbed again?

What a great country we live in.

Yeap exactly - in order to make a profit they have to design a severe sync into the system to keep it from being saturated with shards. This keeps the demand for shards up to a point where people still need to buy them in the store to use the system again, which is just going to tax them again per use.

[THOTHdha]

Let's dissect this a little bit.

It doesn't sound all that terrible: people who want to spend more on the game can do so,

This is pretty contested. People feel pretty strongly on it, both ways. Some people think that selling ingame items for real money is sacrilege. Other people think that actually having a job and spending time at it means you can't play MMOs.

and then pass those shiney credits on to other people in the game who might have a surplus of stuff, but less inclination to spend real life money.

This is even more wishy washy. The biggest issue seems to actually be that there is no ~real~ use for Astral Shards. You can buy hirelings with them. Or you can buy them with worthless Plat.... You can buy Augments with them. Or you can buy them with worthless Plat... Maybe this will be addressed, maybe not? Can't really say at this point.

Win/Win for the players, and more revenue for the company.

Actually, it is more Lose/Lose for the players. Right now, people are asking Turbine Point Cards for really high end items. This gives players another way to pay with real life currency, but.... it doesn't really give any way to cash in on that, right now. This simply allows what is already going on to continue to go on, and it taxes players almost half.

If the waters of gaming purity have to be muddied to make ends meet, this strikes me as one of the least objectionable ways to do that: and even if it is just for profit, a more profitable product is more likely to attract development and care.

There is certainly the 'MORAL INDIGNATION' aspect going on here. But really.... I think that what most players are upset about is the way that more or less all of the assurances that were made when DDO first went F2P, and pioneered the model, years ago are now totally and completely broken. Maybe this is the way of the future. Maybe this is the sign of things to come. But really.... this ish is money grubbing. Plain and simple. Trying to pull in the most that they can bleed out of suckers, rather than finding the balance with their customers.

[Therigar]

Lastly, on the pay to win side of it.

Pretend for a moment that you have unlimited real life cash and that I don't. Who wins every bid if it is really something worth having? That's right, you do.

Now, stop pretending and think about how this affects your game. Because, there is someone (more than one someone) with much deeper pockets than you have.

You will spend $50 in real money to get shards so you can bid for that one crucial item. And someone else is going to spend $500 dollars and just out bid you.

Now you're stuck with worthless shards -- so you'll waste them away or give them to your guild for that eventual ship upgrade. At least, until the next time you see something that you really want.

Then the scenario will repeat itself.

And the players who can afford the endless pockets are unaffected in real life. But you, living at or near the edge on the normal pay check to pay check roller coaster of life -- you are screwed.

Big thumbs down to Turbine on this. Big problems in real life for people who won't be able to control their spending. Big, "it isn't my fault" from Turbine as they steal people blind.

[TimethiefXVI]

Turbine, Stop it. Is that really the way we, the comunity want this game to go?

[Miow]

Well the only way to fight it is not use it.

[Clatterfist]

The shard sink does mean that someone is paying more for the eventual number of shards that end up getting used, but the key thing to bear in mind is that they're much more likely to be willing to pay. In most games that operate under a cash shop model, it tends to be true that 80% of the sales come from 20% of the players, and furthermore that within that "top spender" group, 80% of those sales come from 20% of those players. Anything that lets that very high amount of spending at the top find its way to the other 80% / 96% of the playerbase has at least a bit of merit to it, compared to a system where only 20% to 4% of the playerbase ever has access to meaningful amounts of what's being purchased.

It's also the case that in addition to adding shard sinks, they're also adding shard sources: you can get them as random results from this new "daily dice" lottery thing they're introducing alongside the shard exchange. So, while they maybe be taking a fat additional cut from people who use the system, they're also making astral shards more accessible to the average player.