Station Cash

Bovive · Post by **Bovive** » Sat Dec 20, 2008 3:43 pm

Taken from Allakhazam:

Last week Sony Online Entertainment announced Station Cash, which was met with an uproar from the community. Station Cash is a new virtual currency program that gives players the option buy in-game items from their virtual wallet. This has been seen by many as a short sighted attempt to put money in their pocket without consideration of tomorrow. I don't know about you, but my letter to Santa didn't say anything about getting screwed by Sony. That's how I feel though. I feel somewhat betrayed by the company that I've always talked about as one that listens to their players. It seems that this is no longer true of Sony Online Entertainment.

This isn't the first time that SOE has pushed the same kind of envelope. The launch of Station Exchange back in July of 2005 was met with the same criticism. So what's different this time around? Everything! First of all, we're not getting the choice this time. With Station Exchange they only implemented it on select servers that players had the option to transfer to. The same was true with the introduction of PvP into EverQuest II. First there was discussion which resulted in the creation of dedicated PvP servers because this was what the fans indicated they wanted. This time around it's being forced on everyone, and it was done that way no discussion, no warning and no choice.

My biggest question is why they decided to ninja implement such an important “enhancement” if they didn't already know it was going to piss people off. It's my opinion that they did know; they just simply didn't care. It seems that a simple compromise, like creating specific Station Cash servers for people to transfer to, would have been held with higher regard in the community. So why didn’t they go that route? That's a question as enigmatic to me as their choice to continue PS3 MMO development.

Currently this is live in EQ, but makes me wonder if it will come to SWG.

Tenvik · Post by **Tenvik** » Sat Dec 20, 2008 5:04 pm

Yeah this just showed up in EQ2 as well also ran by SOE I still have a EQ2 account active and my wife currently plays but we haven't monkeyed around with it yet.

Post by **Lexx Yovel** » Sat Dec 20, 2008 7:52 pm

I think Valara or someone else said there are "currently" no plans to implement the same thing for SWG. Of course things can change...

Bovive · Post by **Bovive** » Sat Dec 20, 2008 9:27 pm

I sure hope not. Although I would rather pay $10 for a sith speeder than a bunch of packs and getting crap (just an example).

Apium · Post by **Apium** » Sat Dec 20, 2008 11:02 pm

That really pisses me off. There are so many things wrong with this. If I pay my 15 dollars a month, I should be able to enter a world where I have the same opportunities as everyone else. I do not want to be faced with a money versus time decision everytime I sit down to play a game that I view as my stress reliever; there is no reason to bring up my economics class quite that frequently.

I poured a lot of hours into EQ2. I mean, I never made it to the max level, but my experience feels somewhat trivial when I imagine someone who is not a poor college student coming in buying experience potions and grinding his way up in 1/10 of the time it took me. Even if I had the money, I would never want to take a similar route. It is an insult to MMO gamers everywhere. This is pretty much SOE's attempt to get into the lucrative gold farming business.

bah, maybe I am just babbling, but I say fuck SOE nevertheless.

Kurke_Aumea · Post by **Kurke_Aumea** » Sat Dec 20, 2008 11:51 pm

Apium wrote:That really pisses me off. There are so many things wrong with this. If I pay my 15 dollars a month, I should be able to enter a world where I have the same opportunities as everyone else. I do not want to be faced with a money versus time decision everytime I sit down to play a game that I view as my stress reliever; there is no reason to bring up my economics class quite that frequently.

I poured a lot of hours into EQ2. I mean, I never made it to the max level, but my experience feels somewhat trivial when I imagine someone who is not a poor college student coming in buying experience potions and grinding his way up in 1/10 of the time it took me. Even if I had the money, I would never want to take a similar route. It is an insult to MMO gamers everywhere. This is pretty much SOE's attempt to get into the lucrative gold farming business.

bah, maybe I am just babbling, but I say fuck SOE nevertheless.

You're assuming they will sell things that allow you to level up faster than someone who won't make the purchase. What if all they sell are clothes or furniture for your house in SWG? At that point you're buying it to be flashy and hold no advantage over other players.

Not saying that's what will happen. I mean, you may be 100% correct about them getting into the gold farming business, but until you know what they're selling you can't jump to conclusions.

And I've always been of the fuck SOE sentiment... hehehe

Corvallon · Post by **Corvallon** » Sun Dec 21, 2008 10:49 am

This scares me.

Apium · Post by **Apium** » Sun Dec 21, 2008 11:27 am

Kurke_Aumea wrote:
Apium wrote:That really pisses me off. There are so many things wrong with this. If I pay my 15 dollars a month, I should be able to enter a world where I have the same opportunities as everyone else. I do not want to be faced with a money versus time decision everytime I sit down to play a game that I view as my stress reliever; there is no reason to bring up my economics class quite that frequently.

I poured a lot of hours into EQ2. I mean, I never made it to the max level, but my experience feels somewhat trivial when I imagine someone who is not a poor college student coming in buying experience potions and grinding his way up in 1/10 of the time it took me. Even if I had the money, I would never want to take a similar route. It is an insult to MMO gamers everywhere. This is pretty much SOE's attempt to get into the lucrative gold farming business.

bah, maybe I am just babbling, but I say fuck SOE nevertheless.

You're assuming they will sell things that allow you to level up faster than someone who won't make the purchase. What if all they sell are clothes or furniture for your house in SWG? At that point you're buying it to be flashy and hold no advantage over other players.

Not saying that's what will happen. I mean, you may be 100% correct about them getting into the gold farming business, but until you know what they're selling you can't jump to conclusions.

And I've always been of the fuck SOE sentiment... hehehe

You are right. Most of the items that can be purchased are simply cosmetic, but they are selling experience potions and apparently health potions. They haven't released the list of items for EQ2, but experience potions are one of the items the Station Cash website mentions.

Kurke_Aumea · Post by **Kurke_Aumea** » Sun Dec 21, 2008 1:29 pm

Apium wrote:but they are selling experience potions and apparently health potions. They haven't released the list of items for EQ2, but experience potions are one of the items the Station Cash website mentions.

And that's where my red flag would go up.

Saurat Seerdon · Post by **Saurat Seerdon** » Sun Dec 21, 2008 10:22 pm

that is so lame, just as lame as the trading card game giving the loot and junk. it's annoyingly lame.