http://www.myth-games.com/news3416.htm

Bleh, micro transactions, that is a very bad thing. If they can somehow make it balanced, then that will be okay, but there always seems to be an unfair advantage to the people that pay to the "micro transactions" (a cash shop for those of you that do not know).

If they have servers for people that pay, and other players who do not pay, that would even it about a little.

Cash shops=fail

yeah bad idea

You only only hitting on part of the real idea behind micro transactions. To be specific as defined by wikipedia :

Micropayments are means for transferring very small amounts of money, in situations where collecting such small amounts of money with the usual payment systems is impractical, or very expensive, in terms of the amount of money being collected.

Basically you would be able to keep some sort of account balance with a company that you could use to pay for goods and services.

To give you some ideas of how these could be used in the context of something we are all familiar (Runescape) here are a couple examples. ( Not that any of these will ever happen, in Runescape or any other game Jagex makes.

1. Instead of paying a membership to get access to all the members areas you may be able to pay a toll which gives you access to those areas for some period of time. Kind of like the gates to Al Kharid only with real money. The transactions would occur in game, so that when you accepted the toll the money would get deducted from a real account.

2. You could hire a runner, NPC or real person, to run your ore from mining back to the bank for you. Each load would have a cost which would get transferred to Jagex in the case of an NPC, or to another live persons account, in which case they would be able to use the money to pay for their membership or goods and services they receive in exchange from other people.

Basically micro-transactions can happen anytime a good or service is rendered, either by the Company or another real person. It could be used in place of a subscription system, where you may only use a handful of the new features available to you. Quite possibly it could help overall development of the game by forcing the developers to develop content that users will actually pay for. How many people out there have been happy with every single update to members Jagex has released? One of the most disliked ones (at the time at least) was farming. So instead of having to weight if all the updates we receive are really worth the membership costs, we can make that decision on a case by case basis.

For those of you who have played Second Life you may already know all about micro-transactions, and it is a great example of how a game can be kept free for everyone to play, while at the same time raising enough money to keep itself in existence. Lets face it, no FTPer in Runescape enjoys having ads on their screen, so instead of having players block those ads, why not just simply try to get them to spend significantly less amounts of money in game than having a full blown membership.

Regardless of what you said, I hate microsanctions so much it means the richest person in game is probably rich in real life (bad example but you know what I mean)

But its a two way street, if your a member of Runescape your already paying regardless of whether you use the services they pay for or not. The only exception to this is RWT which they have already practically killed. As long as the money that is exchanged stays within the context of the game ( using money gained from in game activity on other game activities ) then there is no real transfer of wealth to or from any player that wouldn't already be taking full advantage of that situation.

And if they enable players to be involved in the micro-transaction system that works out even better for everyone else. If you've played Second Life then you already should understand my point here.

What you named is hardly ever in any MMOs. If you look at games like Mabinogi, Flyff, Maplestory, 2Moons etc., they make it necessary to use the cash shop. If you don't you are at a huge disadvantage to other players. These games pretty much force you to pay [massive] amounts of cash to these micro transactions, and if you don't the grinding experience is even worse. I know people who have gotten pulled into the addiction of cash shops and have paid over 300 dollars a month to games like Maplestory.

Paying for skills doesn't work either. This would lead to people purchasing things like quests as well. How much it will cost is a different story. When you make people pay for skills, they will then add items for these skills into the cash shop...BAM! Then you are paying for more than the amoutn you planned on paying. Don't you see? These things can be easily abused, and have been in the past, which leads to people paying more than an average cost of subscribtion.

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That was just going off of your examples (which are the less used examples of using cash shops). Usually, it is for items or more experience gained or money. These kind of things, as people get to a higher level, become almost necessary to actually keep up with others. Using the cash shop gives an unfair advantage to people who wind up giving money into the cash shops.

Now, cash shops CAN be balanced, but it would be tricky. Selling bonus items, that don't effect the actual gameplay, could work (it was done n MythWars I believe). Yuo could sell things like santa hats and party hats, since they don't really effect the skill of a player.

As for your example with Second Life, it doesn't really work. Second Life is NOT an MMORPG, andc is not at all like most games on your market (or the games that RS is making).

In the end, cash shops wind up getting abused by the companies pretty much forcing people to pay to the cash shops.

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Once again, your example of Second Life does not work here. There is NO balance in any uses of cash shops (unless they are bonus items). In Second Life, you can make money in return, while in a game like RS (for example) you cannot. You are just paying for the gaming experience, and liek I said, thesse things can and will get abused.

Using your skill example here (again): If I pay to get, say, herblore. Now you say there is no disadvantage? Players who use these skills will have easier access to money, making it a disadvantage to players who do not pay to the cash shop. Not only that, but guess what will get added once herblor is in...Herbs, other herbloring items, etc. So now players wind up paying more to get the skill up, which makes them money. Cash shops are nothing but making the game simpler for players, and some people are willing to pay for things like that.

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Like I said, if there are servers for players who pay, and servers for people who do not, then fine. Let them fall into the addiction of cash shops, but I do not want to be at a disadvantage to them just because they have a fatter wallet.

So seeing that MechScape will be their second mmorpg it won't have micro transactions? Wow, that thing seems like a bad idea but at least we're safe from it in MechScape.

FYI... Second Life is and MMORPG

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/83

And it just so happens it is a perfect example of how micro-transactions work very well when you design a game around handling them properly.

Firstly, way to ignore every other point I made.

Secondly, if you visited that site, you would know I am an avid user. Anyway, show me the role playing in Second Life...people don't really consider them MMORPGs, since they are just simulations of real life. It's called "real life" genre.

Also, all of the other games I showed are perfect examples of how cash shops can be abused. If you read my post, you would realize that, in especially ACTUAL MMORPGs, this system can be abused. It becomes a necessity at higher levels. Also, in SL, it is different from an actual MMO. I know people who make money by using SL, but you can't make money in any other MMOs (except Etropia Universe).

Show me one MMORPG, besides Myth Wars, that actually handles a cash shop fairly.

My intent behind not commenting on several of your points was to avoid drawing myself further into a discussion were I could never clearly get my point across to you. Point and fact, Second Life is an MMORPG and the simple fact you can't identify the RPG aspect of it means you have not played it, or have tried it once and didn't like it. I could go on giving plenty of examples of how Second Life is an RPG, some perhaps too R and X rated for this board, but the fact is that it is still an MMORPG and people do actively play it as such.

Second Life is not an MMORPG because it is not a game. However, people can do role play inside Second Life if they wish (but you can RP in the "real world" too if you like, and that doesn't make the real world an MMORPG). To quote the official FAQ:


Back on topic: By "plans for a third MMO in 2010" I assume Jagex means "plans to begin work on a third MMO in 2010" as opposed to "plans to release a third MMO in 2010". Do you guys agree?

Thanks Ren

I believe they should make another MMORPG- it is important for big companies to continue in their field. I believe that it will be held off though, since that seems to be happening a lot lately.

Anyway, I agree with making an MMO, and it should be ineteresting to see how it turns out, but I don't agree with the payment system (and neither to several others here).

I imagine that would be the case. If they had have been working on it alongside Mechscape then someone would have caught wind of it before now; unless it's a fairly simplistic MMO that hasn't required much input that would attract attention. Either that or they plan to pump it out over the next year.

So yeah, begin work on it in 2010 seems the most likely to me.

Yea begin working sounds good to me.. Maybe they have already created like the concept of it.

Well, I know one of the employees was pushing for a mystical winter world, but that might not be their concept.

Cash shop? :S I hope not, The runescape system right now ( pay $5 for one month to use everything) is working out just fine for me. hope they reconsider and don't change it.

Allot of kids that do play runescape and will prob play mech-scape get their parents to use their Credit cards or pay pal accounts or ask for permission to use the phone to get a membership, and the parents know that is is $5 flat no more no less.....
But with Micropayment the kid have to constantly bug their parents for their CC or paypal acc which will prob start to bug them and ultimately they'll stop letting their kid use their cc thus Jagex loose a costumer.

Or am i missing something here with Micropayments?

Seems to have been written by Jagex's Henrique Olifiers, Head oh MechScape:

They could make it so instead of having a cash shop where you can buy Items which give you an advantage in the game, real world money=Game money. So Maybe you would pay $5 to get 5000 coins. You could then spend these coins how you liked but also you could trade with other people to make more coins which could then be traded back into real money.

I heard somewhere that they were looking to Conquer RWT at a concept level in the next MMORPG so maybe something like this could happen?

ugh, not micro transactions.



What a horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible, HORRIBLE, example. If any of you have any recent experience with Maplestory, the game is highly dependent on cash shops. It quickens the way to gain levels, and it still takes long. The one person that reached max level said he spent 200-300$ a week on the cash shop. They purposely make the leveling longer to force peopel to use the cash shop. We all better hope they don't follow after Maplestory.



Depends on how many players you have.



Kind of like what you did for both sides of the fence, eh? Jagex's customer support is horrible, for P2P and F2P. The fact you're not willing to help out your players is pathetic.

The irony is, all P2P players were F2P at some point. I, and probably others, would never play a game where you have to pay for customer support.



This statement is very naive as well. How many micro-transaction games do you know of? None? Thought so.

The fact is, with 99% of cash shop MMOs, you are forced to pay or you are at a disadvantage of those who are paying. They will end up being left behind, since the game just works like that. If it didn't work like this, then cash shops wouldn't be getting money; would they?

Sooner or later it doesn't become optional.



Having a cash shop isn't innovation, Asia has been doing it for years. But, now since a larger company does it, it's innovation? Pfft... The Mythic developer interview Ren gave a link to sums it up really well - they never really say HOW much money they make.

Mr. Olifiers, you need an editor whenever you do an interview like this. It's rather depressing that you're actually in head of Mechscape.

-Mike

Very interesting, I truly did not expect another (third) MMORPG to come out so soon after MS does. I hope Jagex are not biting off more than they can chew, replacing quality for quantity. Personally, I think having two on the go at the same time is enough.

Micro-transactions sound interesting, but I do not think they would have an overall positive impact on the game, being able to buy from 'cash-shops' leading those who are richer in real-life to beocme richer/more powerful in-game. If they do introduce micro-transactions into ThirdScape, JagGx have truly changed their ways, letting those who are more advantaged out of the game gain extra advantages in game, which I never believed JaGex intended to do.

I think they are seriously considering micro-transactions. If they do, I might have to stick with RuneScape. I really don't want to pay more then $5 a month for an online game (That's why I don't play WoW).