He is demonstrably wrong. Just because X happens does not mean that automatically Z will happen.
It is fear-mongering and it is 100% wrong.
It’s principal behind it. Tree of Savior, as it stands right now, is so anti-social it is insane. I literally cannot grind for anything in a party of friends unless everyone has a token and trades leftover. There is no loot system of any kind and honestly, partying with anyone, beyond faster quest clears and maybe exp is pointless.
Being able to trade is a very important social aspect of a multiplayer game. It makes things much more fun. IMC just wants to charge for it. It doesn’t stop RMT at all. I can understand being unable to trade silver, but basic gear? Common materials? Get real.
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Why can you understand being unable to trade silver, but not items? Not trying to be confrontational, but I legit want to understand why that is the case.
Since, as was stated, there are workarounds to everything, why not allow silver 1:1 trade?
One thing that token-based trading helps fight against is the game’s econ devolving into a barter system, it helps retain the value of silver. Also you can always determine the value of silver based on the value of a token in the AH, since it is the $ equivalent to in-game money.
Token-based trading doesn’t fight against anything. All it’s doing is requiring money or silver for a trade. A token can do everything you’ve listed without keeping trading hostage.
I legit don’t understand why this concept is hard for people to grasp. Token-based trading doesn’t stop anything. It’s simply one more step someone has to take and it’s one that is quite easy to take. Token prices have already began to inflate and it’s barely been a week into the game’s life. The price has already doubled, going from 200k to 500k. It will only get higher.
If you want to hide behind the token trading system, why not go all out and simply remove trading all together? That’ll show those RMTs, right?
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I am sorry but all i wanted to know was why you are against silver trading but OK with item trading.
You do realize that if IMC holds that stance they will kill the game pretty soon right? I’m sorry, I know that you’re trying to find a reasonable argument behind being anal about language and definitions, this is clear IMC pushing the frontier of monetization.
This practice is not only dangerous for ToS but if gaming consumers allow this to happen, this aggressive and damaging money scheme might spread to other games and continue to advance.
I’ve been playing MMORPG’s for over 20 years, they have all always had unobstructed trading. This is not any added value. This is a trick to make people like you spend a large sum of money early in the game, while other players (who are more careful about their money) leave. Effectively IMC will milk you and whatever other unaware payers remain until you are the only people left in the server. Soon after the game will die because some of you will find out that paying for a solo MMORPG isn’t fun.
The end result will be a short lived game which squeezed every last penny it could from it’s player base before just closing doors. It’s a “make money and ditch” strategy by IMC.
And i don’t mean this as to try to be offensive or superior at all, it’s just that I and many other cannot play this game in it’s current state, and if you and a few others continue to support these harmful practices you will inevitable kill the game. You’ll only enjoy your solo-ToS for a few months and then it will be gone.
Besides, what harm would it bring to YOU if trade were allowed? Would it really make the game awful for yourself?
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Well the obvious answer is because it makes RMTs have to use other revenues to actually give a player silver, but socially, silver is the least required thing. If you want to work together with players towards a goal, you generally farm things for materials and trade them in for items or craft. Not many goals require you to grind out silver for unless it involves the market place. Silver is distributed in parties rather fairly. I never have to worry about my friend stealing all my silver.
Gear and materials are more tangible, they are less common. You can be in a situation where you need gear and materials but your friend doesn’t. Everyone can use silver and everyone can earn silver in a party setting and roughly the same pace. Now you can argue that round-robin in a party will eventually evenly distribute gear, but that would only balance out, in the most average cases, after a very long period of time. So it’s not realistic.
Basically, gear and items are more sociable. In terms of living, you don’t really need silver unless you’re trying to cheapen out a grind.
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OK thanks for clarifying.
If IMC was to make a ‘Need vs. Greed’ system for loots and keep the token system as it is, would that be a reasonable compromise for you?
It seems that most of your discontent is not being able to divvy loot among party members and that would solve the problem. Granted, we are talking about an eastern MMO company so I am not really expecting anything.
Why would you choose the “good” option when there’s another one that’s simply better?
Fun fact :
Some people think that it would be better to come back to trading IRL (at least a little) instead of using money for everything (and being subject to banks and financial crisis).
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Need, Greed and Pass would help so much. It is mindblowing that this game doesn’t have that yet. It’s so basic.
However, I still don’t agree with trading behind hidden behind a token. Either remove it or make it for everyone. I don’t see why players have to shell out $18 to be able to surprise their friends with materials or even help a newbie in their guild get started.
Token prices are stupid to begin with. Should be slashed in half in the first place. When all the tokens from the Founder’s Pack are out of circulation, just how much will their price inflate?
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I agree it is unprecedented. Whether or not this is the deciding factor for people to ultimately play or leave their game is yet to be seen. People can complain on the forums but ultimately suck it up and keep playing.
No company wants to win in the short-term while losing in the long-term. That is suicidal policy making. I think IMC is treating this as long-term strategy, but again if people actually leave their game in droves then they will need to adjust in the short-term.
Companies just don’t think this way. Every company wants to win and keep winning. “make money and ditch” would be an insult to the creator of the game and not a sustainable business strategy.[quote=“viniciusuk, post:59, topic:160307”]
Besides, what harm would it bring to YOU if trade were allowed? Would it really make the game awful for yourself?
[/quote]
It would do me no harm either way to be honest. I am playing and enjoying their game, and I am already on the record saying I would not pay for a token this expensive unless there was a bulk deal or 60/90 day token. $20/month is a joke.
I wish it were true, @Remiri . I agree that any rational individual and any rational company would never do that. I have a degree in economics and trust me, i know your point and it is absolutely true theoretically. The thing is, in real life not all companies and individuals are rational. I doubt IMC hired an economist to analyze these things before monetizing their game and I do think that their current strategy is far from the market equilibrium and is not profit maximizing.
They’ve hiked the price up and quality down, lowering the total surplus, while giving the producer surplus a larger share of the pie in comparison to consumer surplus, ultimately though, this is unsustainable. Especially with so many substitutes out there to compete with IMC for cheaper price and higher quality.
And to your last comment, if it does you no harm then why lobby against it? You’re allowed to enjoy the game obviously (and nothing against that). But others aren’t, so why not just let them voice their opinion? And honestly, i do believe you could be better off if these things were changed. It would mean you’d have to pay less (even though you might be ok with the current prices) and it will mean the game lives longer for you to enjoy it.
Again showing your lack of knowledge. It’s WAY more complex.
Hint : http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/181710:KS
I will not elaborate. We’re not in an economy course (and my knowledge in this is lacking too).
NHN company’s business strategy is quantity over quality. They pump out tons of small games and continue to do so. It took me 5 seconds on their site to recognize this.
This is a long-term business strategy. If anything you are proving my point. They are not ‘making money and then ditching’, they are building a brand that is known for smaller, time-waster styles of games.
IMC is going for quality over quantity. They have a huge game that they want to sustain as opposed to smaller games.
I agree they are behaving in an ‘off-the cuff’ manner. It reminds me of the small company I work for now, that evolved from 2 employees to 500 over the course of 15 years(been working there for 9 of those years). I agree that IMC probably did not do a full business case here, that is almost obvious given how quickly they backed off the 3-month strategy.
They are shooting from the hip, which can be dangerous but also it might be what they need as a smaller company to survive. As long as they continue to tweak things on a weekly basis it could work out. Now, if there is radio-silence for weeks on end, then I agree that they are a failure as a company.
I don’t think that I am not letting people voice their opinion…if anything, displaying a counter-viewpoint will facilitate a better discourse on the topic. It encourages both sides to display their points as opposed to one big hug-box without much content.
IMC has a lot to learn, and reasonable topics like this (for the most part, has some troll comments) will help IMC to adjust their business strategy.
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Actually it seems that they bought themselves back from NHN ent. … Maybe they are indeed broke like @Seiryuu told me many times 
Anyway, like I already said, this is not an economy course.
edit : moar data http://www.koreagamewatch.com/wp/?p=707 (there is an error, Kim, Hak-Kyu and Kim, Se-Yong are from IMC, not Hambit)
Yeah, I know, I’m late to the party.
Maybe so, but when you comment on someones ‘lack of knowledge’ expect a retort. 
I want IMC to succeed as much as most people in this thread.
I was summoned ö,ö
Erm…
Looking at the whole picture, it looks like IMC was trying to solve RMT problems somehow without taking much care for the comfort of their costumors. That was the plan, now we have a ton of bots annoying the hell out of anyone adding even more discomfort to the paying costumors. I can’t even step into tenet chapel F1 without getting my client damaged by them -.-"
Thats by all means not what IMC had in mind but it looks like they expected it in a way, thus decided to add such annoying mechanics to the trade system. TBH its effective as in making it really really hard for the goldselling spammers to actually make enough revenue to sustain the effort for playing cat and mouse over a long period. And thats ONLY for the EA period. Once its free2play the goldsellers don’t even need to pay/fakepay an access to annoy the hell out of any player in sight, looking for stupid victims.
IMC should be aware of that, sacrificing a working ingame economy and making playing really incomfortable for us wasn’t a particulary good idea - even if it kinda works. The amount WE have to pay is too much.
It’s time to limit the dmg now, getting these RMT rogues under control without bugging the paying customers any more than necessary. I’m sure IMC is open for creative and practicable solutions, so it up to us now to be constructive.
And yes, IMC got liquidity problems. That forced them to flip some earlier plans. But seeing how many packs they sold on steam, the investors should be quite pleased - opening the path for new investments soon.
I’ve played aura kingdom a bit and must say, even if that game didn’t invent anything anew, it was one hell of a comfortable and user friendly game. IMC could use a lot of systems over there to raise the mood of some of their customers.
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