Character Auction

[Ernis]

And yes, saving time is an advantage. If you claim that it isn't then you would have no problem selling flasks, experience boosts, crafting items etc, since people could just spend some in-game time to get it, so why not just let them buy it? The same principle should apply to characters and leveling.

What the hell did you just wrote? Are you saying people can't buy potions and items from other players? :lol:
You see that's the point, selling items that players made is not p2w while selling artificial items is p2w... If you look at characters in the same way as those items it makes sense. Is it that hard to comprehend?

 

[Hagson]

What the hell did you just wrote? Are you saying people can't buy potions and items from other players? :lol:
You see that's the point, selling items that players made is not p2w while selling artificial items is p2w... If you look at characters in the same way as those items it makes sense. Is it that hard to comprehend?

But selling items and potions for out-of-game currency (such as stars or USD) is pay2win.

 

[Ernis]

But selling items and potions for out-of-game currency (such as stars or USD) is pay2win.

And how do you intend to stop that from happening? Also remember that the only thing that can be bought with stars is other chars or mounts etc. So it kinda becomes in-game currency of sorts no?

 

[Azalus]

While you make some good points you also seem to miss quite a few.
A person spending more time on the game wont have an advantage on me just like that. If he chooses to level more alts he will though, which is totally fair.
It becomes unfair when things that shouldn't affect the game (such as out-of-game currency) starts doing so.

And yes, saving time is an advantage. If you claim that it isn't then you would have no problem selling flasks, experience boosts, crafting items etc, since people could just spend some in-game time to get it, so why not just let them buy it? The same principle should apply to characters and leveling.

In a single-player game someone can cheat and spawn/buy more characters at their leisure, I dont care, it doesnt affect me. Here it does though, and that's why it's a problem.

In the end no one is saving time though.

No one is going to hit max level faster because of this, no one is going to get better gear, or maxed out professions, or other benefits from this.

If a character is owned and played by one person and that doesn't affect you, then why would having a different person owning and playing that exact same character suddenly cause you any kind of distress? For all you know that is going to happen on a black market anyway.

If you didn't know that a character changed owners you wouldn't have anything at all to be upset about. It's the fact that you can point at something that upsets you.

 

[CuRS3DSiLeNcE]

In the end no one is saving time though.

No one is going to hit max level faster because of this, no one is going to get better gear, or maxed out professions, or other benefits from this.

If a character is owned and played by one person and that doesn't affect you, then why would having a different person owning and playing that exact same character suddenly cause you any kind of distress? For all you know that is going to happen on a black market anyway.

If you didn't know that a character changed owners you wouldn't have anything at all to be upset about. It's the fact that you can point at something that upsets you.

Perfectly summed up!

 

[Lharts]

I love you Azalus!

 

[Psojed]

In a single-player game someone can cheat and spawn/buy more characters at their leisure, I dont care, it doesnt affect me. Here it does though, and that's why it's a problem.

By your own explanation, it does affect you just because you discover there is a possibility of cheating/spawning/buying more in the game.

But selling items and potions for out-of-game currency (such as stars or USD) is pay2win.

I'm buying potions and flasks for CS:GO skins. Did I just make WoW a pay2win game because I'm not trading with ingame gold?

PS: Well played, Azalus.

 

[Aieris]

All in all, it ends up in this - Will you feel that you must pay to catch up with those who pay or you will be forever behind? And if not, then what's the problem?

 

[Hagson]

And how do you intend to stop that from happening? Also remember that the only thing that can be bought with stars is other chars or mounts etc. So it kinda becomes in-game currency of sorts no?

The same way people stop gold selling. I'm not sure how but there is obviously a way, else goldselling would be way more rampant. Or maybe buying gold is ok since essentially you're just saving time and it's gonna happen anyway?

In the end no one is saving time though.

No one is going to hit max level faster because of this, no one is going to get better gear, or maxed out professions, or other benefits from this.

I could either level a character from 1-60 (let's say that takes a month) or I could buy a level 60 character (should only take a few minutes). Did I not just hit max level faster?

I could either grind BWL for years, or I could buy a character I happen to know have BiS. Did I not just get gear faster?

I could either skill my tailoring from 1-300, or I could buy a character I happen to know has 300 tailoring. Did I not just level tailoring faster?

So yes, you are getting all of those things faster, and thus buying an advantage.

If a character is owned and played by one person and that doesn't affect you, then why would having a different person owning and playing that exact same character suddenly cause you any kind of distress? For all you know that is going to happen on a black market anyway.

If you didn't know that a character changed owners you wouldn't have anything at all to be upset about. It's the fact that you can point at something that upsets you.

That is just one of the many uses of this system though. People could either sell their druid and buy a rogue, no big deal. Or someone could dump a bunch of money into the game and buy 5 tailors, use their mooncloth CDs to get gold, thus esentially having bought gold.

By your own explanation, it does affect you just because you discover there is a possibility of cheating/spawning/buying more in the game.

That wouldnt affect me since it's a single player game. Lowered potion prices due to more herbalists (for example) would affect me.

I'm buying potions and flasks for CS:GO skins. Did I just make WoW a pay2win game because I'm not trading with ingame gold?

Yes. You are paying money to get an in-game advantage. It doesnt get much simpler.

 

[CuRS3DSiLeNcE]

The thing is, the level 60 won't come from nothing. Someone has to level the character to 60 first, in order for you to buy it => the char was leveled and it took SOMEONE time to do it. Therefore there is no difference for you, since someone had to level the character to 60, he didn't pop out of thin air.

And you think there are tons of people having nothing better to do than leveling characters to 60, BiS them and sell them for COINS they can't use for anything but VANITY items. They won't get any money from it.

 

[Dalloway]

Uff, just voted NO in the Should Character Auctions be restricted to other Twinstar projects? thread, and now I stumble upon another on the same debate

Look, I have never played on a private Realm before, never bought a character, nor gold or anything, so I have no first-hand experience.

But I have a rule of thumb: you cannot label a system Pay-To-Win if what you are acquiring is given to you by other players. I.e. it is not spawned by the developers, but rather created through the exact same means you would have to go through to obtain it.
This includes gold as well by the by. The reason gold-selling is banned is not because it allows for Pay-To-Win, but rather because it creates inflation in the in-game economy and thus affects the market for all players. If gold-selling would be forbidden because it was considered Pay-To-Win, gDKP runs would be a ban-worthy offense too. They are not; they create some inflation also, but it is too small in the scheme of things to warrant action.

The Twinstar system seems to be a great boon and, to my mind, I hope it will gain traction given the x1 leveling rates*.
I know there are players who simply enjoy leveling characters. I knew quite a few overtime. I hope we will have them here too and the mount/minipet rewards will motivate them even more, allowing PvP players and others reluctant to go through the leveling grind an option to join our community.


*Who came up with that brilliant idea by the by? I personally don’t care, I will reach maximum level on Kronos even if the rate is x0.5, though it will take me quite a while given my current schedule. Having all gameplay mechanics close to their original state is too good to pass up. But it seems this Realm –hopes- for a population of 1000. I.e. 500 on each side, of which perhaps half will play every day. Of this half, a good part will be in a completely different time zone. So you are at best looking at ~100-150 players online for your faction at the time, not all of them your level. And this, IF the population is what is hoped for. So every player counts. Why shoot ourselves in the foot by discouraging even a handful by not introducing the fixed (yes, fixed; the x1 leveling rate was, quite simply, a development mistake) x1.6 TBC leveling rate Oh well, rhetorical.

 

[Hagson]

Uff, just voted NO in the Should Character Auctions be restricted to other Twinstar projects? thread, and now I stumble upon another on the same debate

Look, I have never played on a private Realm before, never bought a character, nor gold or anything, so I have no first-hand experience.

But I have a rule of thumb: you cannot label a system Pay-To-Win if what you are acquiring is given to you by other players. I.e. it is not spawned by the developers, but rather created through the exact same means you would have to go through to obtain it.
This includes gold as well by the by. The reason gold-selling is banned is not because it allows for Pay-To-Win, but rather because it creates inflation in the in-game economy and thus affects the market for all players. If gold-selling would be forbidden because it was considered Pay-To-Win, gDKP runs would be a ban-worthy offense too. They are not; they create some inflation also, but it is too small in the scheme of things to warrant action.

The Twinstar system seems to be a great boon and, to my mind, I hope it will gain traction given the x1 leveling rates*.
I know there are players who simply enjoy leveling characters. I knew quite a few overtime. I hope we will have them here too and the mount/minipet rewards will motivate them even more, allowing PvP players and others reluctant to go through the leveling grind an option to join our community.


*Who came up with that brilliant idea by the by? I personally don’t care, I will reach maximum level on Kronos even if the rate is x0.5, though it will take me quite a while given my current schedule. Having all gameplay mechanics close to their original state is too good to pass up. But it seems this Realm –hopes- for a population of 1000. I.e. 500 on each side, of which perhaps half will play every day. Of this half, a good part will be in a completely different time zone. So you are at best looking at ~100-150 players online for your faction at the time, not all of them your level. And this, IF the population is what is hoped for. So every player counts. Why shoot ourselves in the foot by discouraging even a handful by not introducing the fixed (yes, fixed; the x1 leveling rate was, quite simply, a development mistake) x1.6 TBC leveling rate Oh well, rhetorical.

How is GDKP Pay2Win though? You're trading an in-game currency for in-game items. Pay2Win is using out-of-game resources to gain an advantage in-game.

 

[Dalloway]

Neither gold-selling, nor gDKP are Pay-To-Win, that was my point. The only problem is that they create inflation. gDKP merely creates too little to matter.
It does not matter to me whether you use in-game or out-of-game currency to obtain an in-game item, as long as the item was developed by another player through legitimate means. The only issues for the community appear when items are spawned by developers, stands to reason.

 

[quint]

I have been reading quite a few of the posts in threads with this particular topic.


Just wanted to say that I agree with Hagson's reasoning on every point (well done, and I mean this sincerely).


I simply fail to see how a purchase of a character can NOT be labeled as "pay for an advantage". Vanilla WoW seems (to me atleast) to be a game where spending more time will net you some sort of an advantage (be it higher character level, more gold, higher skill levels) over any other given player spending less time than you (assuming equal efficieny). Therefore purchasing a character for money will grant me an advantage. Essentially I purchase another player's /played time; time I did not myself have to put in to gain the advantage, which would otherwise be required of me to gain said advantage.


For me Hagson's argument regarding nodefarming illustrates this very well: Buy 10 x gathering proffesion capped characters, camp sought-after nodes and farm them, create auctionhouse monopoly = profit (atleast this is a theoretically possible outcome).


That being said I also don't believe the potential for said "P2W" through this system will be very big. In fact it will probably be very small as some already have stated - BUT this can of course in no way justify a flawed system.


All in all I personally choose to live with this feature because I believe kronos will provide an uncomparable level of quality in so many other regards.

 

[Longhorn]

Just ban that dumbass Hagson, he will just debunk all we say. He cannot be convinced, he came decided on this matter and started a "discussion" while already being fully one-sided ass.wipe.

Just ignore him, watch 2guys1stump instead.

- - - Updated - - -

How is GDKP Pay2Win though? You're trading an in-game currency for in-game items. Pay2Win is using out-of-game resources to gain an advantage in-game.

Define advantage... if you buy a character here, it WONT have better gear then others. It will be a character made on that very server under same conditions as any other character.

Just stop trolling ffs, if you are so convinced, why did you even start this thread in first place? F.ck logic.

 

[LaraDorren]

Just ban that dumbass Hagson, he will just debunk all we say.

Dissenting opinions will not be banned as long as they stay civil.

 

[goris]

gDKP runs would be a ban-worthy offense too. They are not; they create some inflation also, but it is too small in the scheme of things to warrant action.

How are gdkp runs creating inflation? I could understand it with the gold selling to some degree(even though the actual part that causes inflation here is the gold farming), but gdkp? All that happens there is gold changing hands with no additional gold being poured into the server economy out of nowhere.

Who came up with that brilliant idea by the by?

I'm not really sure, you would probably have to ask Jeniczek (twinstar admin) or some other founding member, but there are not many of them left around here as twinstar is over 6 years old. And the auction (idea) is probably even older.

 

[Azalus]

The whole idea that you can buy a bunch of characters and stack professions on them to gain an advantage is worthless.

If you really wanted, you could level up those characters yourself anyway. You only need to get them to level 30 or 35 to max out professions, or if you wanted to gather, you could level them to 60.

All of this can be done regardless of characters being purchased. If you really think there are going to be 10 level 60's with maxed professions up for auction at any time, and that a single person is going to shell out the money to purchase them, then you are delusional about how this system is going to end up working.

Yes, a lot of vanilla is about how much time you want to put into it. That's why the person who puts in the time is going to be the one that succeeds, not the person who was too lazy to even level on their own. The person buying a character will instead wait probably months until a high level character appears for auction, then what? Become a super no-lifer at that point and ruin the server single handedly? I don't think so.

So again, how does this hurt your experience on the server in any way that can't be done without the auction in place? Black markets will still exist. Everything related to people zerging characters up for professions can be done regardless, and probably faster than waiting for enough characters to show up on the auction.

People just don't like this because they think it's unfair that someone could start at a point other than level 1. Sorry, but that's going to happen no matter what, and this system doesn't create any more problems than any private server already has. It DOES however allow Twinstar to monitor the process and make some money off of it so that they can continue to do what they do.

 

[quint]

Originally I actually only set out to show Hagson a litte back-up in this thread. It doesn't seem like he needs it, but I'll give him mine anyway. I find his posts to be very civil and well-founded (unlike some other posts), and nobody else seems to appreciate this. This I feel should be the case for anyone - also for those not agreeing with his viewpoints.

I still believe this system should be considered "pay for an advantage" definitionally speaking. It was my understanding some people felt otherwise.

I know 10 profession capped characters could be acquired regardless of the system, but that was actually besides the point. The point was that this system allows me to pay for them INSTEAD of leveling them myself - thus paying for an advantage. One would not need to "wait" for enough characters to show up on the auction - one could "zerg" AND purchase characters, even furthering one's advantage through real life money.

I fail to see on what basis you have the rights to call me delusional - you seem to have precious knowledge about the impact of a system yet to be tested (atleast on a x1 vanilla realm). To me it seems the impact of such a system is indeed hard to foresee and might not be as transparant as you might think.

 

[Dalloway]

How are gdkp runs creating inflation? I could understand it with the gold selling to some degree(even though the actual part that causes inflation here is the gold farming), but gdkp? All that happens there is gold changing hands with no additional gold being poured into the server economy out of nowhere.

Uhum, you said it. Both require/encourage hardcore gold farming. I was in a few guilds who organized gDKP runs. Indeed, my very last raiding guild used to do them almost weekly outside progress. And we had many players who would grind or play the auction house like crazy specifically to join our runs - and 90% would have not done it otherwise, according to their own words. And what did we do with the gold? We blew it on gems and leg armor and flasks and other similar items whose prices were -sometimes- rising specifically because of the ones playing the auction house. It was rather amusing.
Practically, anything that encourages hardcore gold farming or playing the auction house ends up creating inflation, because more gold than the one generated during usual activities enters the system and most players who simply do those usual activities will not have enough items to sell all the time to take advantage of the higher prices, so they fall behind, income wise.

I have no problem with it though.
Nor do I have with the x1 rates - on a personal level. Bit worried about population. But this private Realm business seems to be going on for years, so you chaps know more.

EDIT
@quint
I agree with your plea for civility, heed his words everyone!
I do think the system, as is, can only be a boon for the Kronos community, though I will personally never use it - bit OCD on character history.

 

[Azalus]

I fail to see on what basis you have the rights to call me delusional - you seem to have precious knowledge about the impact of a system yet to be tested (atleast on a x1 vanilla realm). To me it seems the impact of such a system is indeed hard to foresee and might not be as transparant as you might think.

You do realize that you're doing the exact same thing I am doing by talking about how easy it will be to buy characters, and how often it will occur. You're right, no one knows how this system will work, for all we know no one will even use it because if a person is going to quit they would rather get real money out of their characters than Kronos bucks.

If I was going to quit, for any reason, and I thought I had some accounts with characters worth selling I don't know why I would ever want currency that only helps me on the server that I don't want to play on anymore.

It's going to be a very specific market of people using this system, and until we see how it actually works all we can do is speculate. People are doing that on both sides, so accusing me of speculation is like saying that no one should ever talk about anything that hasn't happened yet BECAUSE it hasn't happened.

 

[Fact]

People nitpicking if this is P2W when the whole micro transaction idea is rotten to the core. Shit is shit no matter what we call it.

We have actual honest donations available, crowd funding, things we can support the server without getting anything in return other than standing working updating server. Look how much money Rebirth gathered with their scam.

If not buying lvl 60 or an item prevents someone from "donating", he's a leecher. "The money exchanged helps the server!" This is the main rationalization apologists give when they defend this character buying.

The other point people bring is similar to this quote:

Now, you might say ''yes but I have to grind for months to get what he had by paying some IRL money''. The answer is : you're right. But how does it make you enjoy the game less? Why would you care some person got a brand new character (which sounds totally boring anyway) ? If you can't manage to live with the fact some people have just more chance or more means than you do, well you're surely gonna have some problems in WoW and in your everyday life. Envy really is a terrible thing.

It's only envy if the other guy wants the same thing. And people actually have problem with that in everyday life, and they have the justified right for that. Egalitarianism has been popular political philosophy for a couple hundred of years.

You might laugh at the notion of comparing the character auctions at social democracy or whatnot, but simply put the issue is this. Equality. Money is not the only resource. Time is one of them. Time has always been the definitive resource in early MMORPG's. With character auctions you can bypass the resources needed to have a level 60 character.

People love to revel in the nostalgia on these forums how the vanilla was the hard long journey and everything gets handed to players in retail nowadays. The irony.

 

[quint]

Very well put Fact. I totally agree with you. Hat's off to you!

 

[Aieris]

For me, it seems that you still don't see one essential fact - When you buy char on AH, you gain a character, yet someone else will LOOSE this character. Yes, you can gain BiS rogue if you buy right one, yet someone else will loose BiS rogue. You can buy 5 chars with maxed tailor to make money from mooncloth, yet someone else loose 5 chars with maxed tailor and loose oportunity to make mooncloths.

Do you see that? For anyone else ingame, nothing changes. There are still the same characters, that have been ingame for weeks to get to 60, get BiS, max profs. You will still meet them, you will still raid with them, only the person behind them will change.

For me, P2W is bad, because you can go to raid with someone, who have blue gear and then you meet him next day and he's sudenly full epic even through nothing droped for him yesterday. Then you ask him - Where did you get that? And he answers - "I bought it, it's cool, isn't it". This won't happen here.
And if he buys new char with bis gear? Well, then it's still the same char you met yesterday with bis gear, nothing changed for you.

Edit: It's all about the feeling. In Runescape, I feel that I must pay to be able to enjoy the game in full scale (well, it's not only the feeling, it's fact). And that's not how it feels on twinstar servers.

 

[Hagson]

Neither gold-selling, nor gDKP are Pay-To-Win, that was my point. The only problem is that they create inflation. gDKP merely creates too little to matter.
It does not matter to me whether you use in-game or out-of-game currency to obtain an in-game item, as long as the item was developed by another player through legitimate means. The only issues for the community appear when items are spawned by developers, stands to reason.

I don't see how you can say that gold-selling is not pay2win. Having more gold lets you buy more potions, thus becoming more powerful that the other guy. Sure that could also buy potions, but then he'd have to grind for the gold which you bought. If combined with GDKP you can use the bought gold to "buy" gear with gold, thus esentially buying gear (with a few middlehands). When buying gold you are trading an out-of-game currency for a valuable in-game currency that can be used to get you an advantage. You're buying an advantage, thus pay2win.

The reason GDKP is not pay2win is that you're spending in-game currency (gold) to get in game goods (item drops). In a sence it's not that different from, say, buying potions from an alchemist. You're trading gold for his time.

For me, it seems that you still don't see one essential fact - When you buy char on AH, you gain a character, yet someone else will LOOSE this character. Yes, you can gain BiS rogue if you buy right one, yet someone else will loose BiS rogue. You can buy 5 chars with maxed tailor to make money from mooncloth, yet someone else loose 5 chars with maxed tailor and loose oportunity to make mooncloths.

Do you see that? For anyone else ingame, nothing changes. There are still the same characters, that have been ingame for weeks to get to 60, get BiS, max profs. You will still meet them, you will still raid with them, only the person behind them will change.

For me, P2W is bad, because you can go to raid with someone, who have blue gear and then you meet him next day and he's sudenly full epic even through nothing droped for him yesterday. Then you ask him - Where did you get that? And he answers - "I bought it, it's cool, isn't it". This won't happen here.
And if he buys new char with bis gear? Well, then it's still the same char you met yesterday with bis gear, nothing changed for you.

Edit: It's all about the feeling. In Runescape, I feel that I must pay to be able to enjoy the game in full scale (well, it's not only the feeling, it's fact). And that's not how it feels on twinstar servers.

Someone else looses a character yes, that makes this system less bad than creating new characters. You will still "resurrect" dead characters though, thereby "creating" more herbalists, tailors and whatnot than there otherwise would be.

If this system got changed into a "character trading" system where you trade one character for another and that's all you can trade it would be less p2w and have less of an effect on the server economy. Noone would be able to get additional characters, and you'd have less tailors being resurrected, but you would still keep the advantage of letting people reroll (this is the main reason for this system I've seen, other than it generating money for twinstar).

Your example about the bluegeared character is an interesting one, because your bad scenario could easily happen with this system. Say you meet a guy when leveling, you talk to him, you add him to friends and you get to know eachother. You raid with him like you said, but he doesnt get any drops.

The next day he whispers you from another character with full BiS gear, but with a different name (though this could be changed as well). You ask him where he got that gear and he answers "I bought a character with it, it's cool isnt it?".