And not in November for the first time in several years.
So... anyone have any idea what this "NCCoin" stuff is about? Something to do with an upcoming feature set, maybe?
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
NCCoin is basically monopoly money you can buy from NCSoft to purchase in game things. They've been using it in at least one other game, Exteel, for a few
years now.
--
"We've got a lot of suppliers. We already know some of them are pretty
good and some of them are idiots. We don't expect the Y2K problem to
change this."
-Hart Scientific's Y2K plans
AS in "micropayment" on the "Golden Potato" model
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''
-- James Nicoll
All of those "play for free" games you see advertised use the GPotato model. You get minimal functionality for free, but if you want damn near anything to compete with other people you have to pay for it with real money.
I'm not sure how they could do that to CoX however. If they made any of the existing game's enhancement methods pay-only, it would cost them users. So they must be either planning something else down the pipe, or maybe its more generic.
[Edit]: Just had a look at an announcement on IGN, and it looks like the NCCoin model does follow the Gold Potato model very closely. Basically they nickel and dime clients instead of monthly user fees. To use the "play for free" model as an example, you'd buy Gold Potatoes (GP) for money. To use NCSoft's stated values, 100GP would be $1.00. Then when you went into the "special items" store in-game, you could only buy items you found in there with GP.
The catch is that as time goes on, after a very early ramp-up with generic items in the "regular store", everything costs GP. So although you can play online for free, you wind up paying vast amounts of money over time ramping your character up with better equipment.
I still don't see how they could apply that to CoX though. The existing model doesn't allow for it. They'd have to introduce some new level of market, that offers some new advantage that people would want. Frankly, the optional character packs work well for that purpose, so I don't see why they'd change the business model. But who knows? I"m still just guessing here.
---
Those who fear the darkness have never seen what the light can do.
Anarchy Online, my original MMO, incorporated a similar feature a couple of years back. You can buy Service Points from FunCom to convert into in game
"Paid Points" which you can use at certain shops in the game to buy special vehicles, nanos (AO's spells), and social clothing. You could use the
Service Points to purchase the old pre-reg specials for the AO expansions, such as the Luxury Apartment from the Shadowlands expansion, the Leet Pet from the
Alien Invasion expansion, and the Scout Mech from the Lost Eden expansion.
To be honest the ability to purchase the pre-reg stuff had mixed reviews. The people who missed said pre-reges were thrilled, but those that had them felt
gypped. Also, the Social clothing that could be purchased was the same stuff you could make by doing a complicated quest at any level, so those that had done
the quest (and thus had the cool clothing) were a little pissed that people could "throw money at Funcom" and copy their hard won style.
In Funcom's defense, though. The items that could be purchased via Paid Points were largely luxury items and didn't alter game play balance that much.
The worst one was the Phasefront Vehicles, and all that did was save people from having to save up 5-6 million credits to buy a Yalmaha. Everything else was
social or RP related.
Most folks have explained this already, but I'll note:-
NCcoin can only be used with Exteel.
No other NCsoft game uses it.
It's possible they may extend it to other games in the future, or produce other games that make use of it, but...well, Exteel's been out since December 2007, and it hasn't proliferated in all that time.
Admittedly, NCsoft doesn't have any other free-to-play but cash-shop title. Dungeon Runners is free to play, and subscription for members. Guild Wars and City of Heroes have in-game perks that can be purchased, but those are things that must be paid for with cash transactions...you don't purchase virtual currency and use it for in-game items.
I suspect the mention of NCcoin in the current EULA is simply due to NCsoft lawyers standardizing text across the agreements for different games.
On the subject of Exteel:
The really best items in the game are purchased with regular game currency, not NCcoin...and the NCcoin weaponry actually has a limitation - they do more damage, but overheat more quickly than 'normal' versions.
Moreover, Exteel is a fast-paced action game, which means that player ability is important. A skilled player using the free starting equipment can beat the snot out of a poor player using the most expensive stuff.
-- Acyl
I could see NCCoins
supplementing the existing model, instead of replacing it -- let people use them to buy, say, Architect Tickets...
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make
anything explode.
Quote: ECSNorway wrote:
I could see NCCoins supplementing the existing model, instead of replacing it -- let people use them to buy, say, Architect Tickets...
Archetect Tickets would be a waste of cash...even with the ticket nerf, it's easy to farm up to 9999 on a good team. Merits, on the other
hand.....
Something like "Plunk down $20 US and get 1000 merits." Now you can get all those expensive set recipes you need.
Yeah.
Still, I /like/ that it's harder to just plop down cash for uberness. It means people have to actually play the game.
That and the minimal PVP involved makes this much more fun for me than, say, WoW.
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make
anything explode.
Alternately, they could be considering more of the same sort of stuff that's been in booster packs, except in smaller packages. Grabbing the same
micropayment system they already had might make sense for such a thing.
-Morgan.
Hmmm. Selling the new costume items "a la carte", as it were? Could be....
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make
anything explode.