Certain Fears and Trends ^_^

[Keilyn]

I woke up this morning and was given a heads-up by my gaming groups. I was told that that the Quake Con Pack and Skyrim together cost around $110. It was nice to see QuakeCon do so well again. Nice to see Steam coming through for people again.

So I have my main computer turned on, messengers active and finally I am asked about Phantasy Star Online 2. I remember saying that I am a little scared, not of the game itself but of what may become of PSU. SEGA is giving players what they want...overpowered weapons through events and milking the public for what its worth under any new content.

We did figure out that the exchange rate between Dollars and YEN was 100 YEN = $1.27. Of course if you order internationally there is also the bank fee. Turned out that due to the exchange rate, that PSU is costing more and more per month. This time it was $13.64 and of course the .41 cent charge combined breaks $14 to play this game monthly. This also affects the cost of GC and everything tied to a Japanese Game. 10,500 GC now costs $143.61 when the bank fee + GC cost is processed.

A month ago it was $137.13 for 10,500 GC. (GC + Processing Fee)

Some of us, including myself have bought GC so we used our bills to put together a list of how these costs are increasing over time...and its staggering.

Due to the Exchange Rate itself, right now we have determined that PSU is by far the most expensive game to play right now for a person living in the United States. I don't know about the European Situation....

Now comes our fear in PSO-2

I was informed recently that the reason PSU costs more to play is because if we played another computer game online, we could buy 3-month to 6-month plans in a bundle were you save per month. Doesn't exist in PSU for westerners if using a credit card.

If we chose to play PSO-2 and the monthly fee was 1000 YEN and the exchange rate keeps getting worse, then we might see anywhere from $14.50 - $15.00. This is standard in a lot of high end games for a monthly fee, but this almost means this would affect everything we would buy...Expansions would cost around 40% - 50% more....any service would cost 40 - 50% more. Of course if the monthly fee was 1500 YEN, that comes across easilly as over $20. (The percentage comes from combining the exchange rate percentage difference with the international charging rate)

Its not that we don't have the money since we all work and do our things, its we don't want a second PSU to occur...where for the first 2 years PSO-2 turns out to be nice and shiny...possibly cute....Then lay a cash-shop that turns PSO-2 into PSU, GC-Era. We don't want to reach a point where it costs us $80 - $100 for an Expansion (as it will be a PC-ONLY GAME), then pay for $30 - $40 for DLCs.

What we decided on doing was to go Free Course. I will be on it the longest, from September to March/April. I will play on Weekends because of new work starting September.

We decided to try to move to a more serious game that isn't so much about grinding and GC-Hacking equipment to new heights, but some of my friends told me we are looking forward to PSO-2 but with fear. We figured that if PSU is the most expensive game out right now, yet very limited and monotonous/Tedious during events...that a lot of games are out there which are cheaper and provide a more serious experience, and thanks to PSU, we no longer care about monthly subscription fees in any games out there since anything is cheaper than PSU.

Just curious on what thoughts people have about this....Its true that I can make a deal with a client, work for 2 - 3 hours and make $400 - $500 at times in my line of work, but I wonder at what point do people start thinking about where their money actually will go in the long term in a game.

I remember Arena Net saying in regards to Guild Wars I "We will keep the servers alive until 2050 as long as people play the game and we still exist...and that game has no subscription fees." I wish I could have a Japanese Guarantee that PSU will remain up for as long as possible....

[Crysteon]

GC can be really expensive, and I'm fuly concerned about it, lol...it can be a pain in the ass to do a few of those transactions around here without thinking twice.

I'll be honest on this one. Yes...PSU can be really expensive in comparison to other online/offline games, but that fully depends of the user. Remember GC is an optional service and it's not exactly the way to win the full game...enough proof is there with people who have remained on Free Course for a long time. If X or Y person earns money and decides to spend and/or overspend his bucks on this game is 100% his responsability and outside of 3rd parties' concerns. If people is that weak mentally to the extent of believing that spending 500dlls a month to make himself/herself the player with the best and fully grinded shit around...well, it's their problem (I would say it's a psychological issue). Overspending money for a momentary glory means a lot for certain people, and it means absolutely nothing to others. In my case, I try to use GC moderately, without losing my sanity if things dont turn well (I rarely use GC to grind stuff to +8, unless it's something truly special to me).

Events can be a royal pain in the ass, seriously...and I know Sega intends to put very low drop rates on "elusive" weapons to make the player grind infinitely through the same map over and over or to induce him to use any other kind of options as a false hope...then again, it's the user's choice if he wants to deal with that or incur in RMT or GC abusing to get his/her beloved item. It's stressing when you hunt something for weeks and it just doesnt drop for you...but we're still here!! We so love that Korean MMOs syndrome, lol. But yeah, I'm not that dumb to skip other games...I've taken my rests from PSU in determined moments to enjoy other picks...we have the right to do so, after all.

I've considered going FC a few times also because of my current rhytm of life. It's not certain if I'll stay in this game for the next 6 months to fully see what it's coming...and I'm not sure if I will consider playing PSO2 the way I played this game either.

If you wanted a personal reaction, there you have mine. I'm also interested about what other people think about it, lolz.

[str898mustang]

where's the tl;dr version?

[Keilyn]

An important thing in Online Games is Investment-Security. This means that the time (or money)spent towards achieving something actually carries its value for a long time. That you can be proud and nice that you managed to engage in something nice.

Example of bad investment-security is when you spend your time looking for the parts of Eternal Dimension, trade for a few of them and next thing you know....DIOS comes out cancelling a lot of the work that you did...and in 40%+ usually as a GC drop.

How about when players were exchanging for Demolition Comet and Unity Wills...then came out Meteor Cudgel which is far better?

The main difference between a Korean MMO and PSU is that if I obtain a super hard to get rare item in a korean MMO after working my ass off to get it, they aren't going to release something next week which will cancel my effort and tell me that I wasted my time.

Oh yes...have you ever wondered why so many free course players are in the lobby and you talk to them in Japanese and they dont reply? Its because since this event you get points, Japanese Players use Game Cards to create seperate accounts and sub them for a month.

They then bring the players to the counter and they SPAM C to get points faster, they do this so they can have double or triple the poitns (specially those who own a desktop and a laptop) and then get their 40%+ set of swords, and save others for when their price goes up. Trust me, I've had enough suggest this to me among the jpn crowd....

I was even told by some European Players that they have permission to use their friends accounts to be able used to get double or triple points in spamming C.

If I hacked the game itself and hacked my equipment to 40% vs Paying GC to formally hack my stuff to 40%, its true that in one method, its criminal and the other method is legal..

But isn't this the very same as actually cheating in a game whether I did it legally or illegally?

[redroses]

Ah, I am a little confused but I hope I got it right.
Anyway, in europe PSU is actually cheaper then it was when we still played on the EU/US servers because currently euro are worth a little bit more than yen.

The problem is, I think you shouldn't compare the JP price of PSU to other games, but the price that the XBOX players pay for example. Of course the JP version of PSU is going to cost way more for you.

And as Crysteon said, you don't have to use GC. There are enough players that don't really care about their equipment. Besides, in PSU it really isn't that important what kind of equipment you use, unless you time attack of course.

Also I am not really sure what this has to do with PSO2 (yet) as nobody knows how much PSO2 will cost, or if we will get worldwide servers were everybody pays the same amount in their currency ($10, 10€ etc.), or if there will ever be something like GC in PSO2.

[Keilyn]

Thank You.

I didnt know about the European Situation. Yes, if PSO-2 Turns out to be like the original PSO that had Global Servers regardless of version, I would be happy to tread across the Japanese Blocks again.

What gets to me is when players work hard to get their gear, just so that GC comes and makes the gear one worked so hard to obtain obsolete.

[str898mustang]

The different between Unity Will and Meteor Cudgel is one doesn't cost GC. Unity Wills in high % are easy to get. Meteor Cudgel isn't and its not always going to drop. GC Missions are not a garunteed drop(Main reason I dont run them).


Yeah the bills may stack up but it doesn't bother me. I made the money and I spent it. GC is a choice, not mandatory.

[Keilyn]

If you want to get technical...

The difference between a Meteor Cudgel and Unity Will is that unless you spiral dance to a wall you will miss on a Combo 3 from Combo 2 pushing an enemy away on a Unity Will, while a Meteor Cudgel usually by combo 2 Freezes an enemy with Freeze Level 5 which allows for combo 3 to fully hit without wasting time.

"GC is a choice, its not mandatory"

...like many things its a choice that if you go against, you stand in one way or another to pay heavily in the long run and in the grand scheme of things.

This thread is not an "Anti-GC" thread, but a thread focusing on when does GC itself reaches a point where it becomes intolerable to the gamer who plays without it, who has to compete against those who depend on GC.

[str898mustang]

If you want to get technical...

The difference between a Meteor Cudgel and Unity Will is that unless you spiral dance to a wall you will miss on a Combo 3 from Combo 2 pushing an enemy away on a Unity Will, while a Meteor Cudgel usually by combo 2 Freezes an enemy with Freeze Level 5 which allows for combo 3 to fully hit without wasting time.

"GC is a choice, its not mandatory"

...like many things its a choice that if you go against, you stand in one way or another to pay heavily in the long run and in the grand scheme of things.

This thread is not an "Anti-GC" thread, but a thread focusing on when does GC itself reaches a point where it becomes intolerable to the gamer who plays without it, who has to compete against those who depend on GC.

Yeah I wish Meteor wasn't a GC weapon b/c the lvl5 freeze would be nice. They did a horrible job on the design of it though.