Stopping buying things with credits

[Grido]

Currently, with the way it is, you can buy creatures (et al.) with credits sent to other players, this means that if a person is quite well off monetarily in real life, they can get any creature (et al.) that they want, they just have to put a price on it, they don't have to put any effort into it, just click a few buttons on paypal (or such).

Now, this strikes me as unfair, in a system where spending money in the shop shouldn't give you an unfair advantage over those that don't, why should giving credits to other players, getting an unfair advantage in that capacity be allowed?

This may sound like me whining about me not getting creatures, it should, I am, there's a Rein and a GG on sale currently, stated specifically "credits only" which I won't do. But it's also true what I say.


I understand that such credit trades mean the game gets more money to it to manage costs, that might not have been given otherwise, don't get me wrong on that, and I want to be clear that I know there's a benefit of how it is, but I don't think it's a big enough benefit.


I added a poll, just for a quantitative measure, it's not entirely an accurate measure, less so than the posted responses at any rate, but it's a useful tool nonetheless.
Clearly I'd like it stopped/banned, else I wouldn't have made this thread, but I hope that I've managed to state both sides of the coin anyway.

Thoughts? Agree? Disagree? Discuss?

[Kyphis the Bard]

I understand where you are coming from, but I have to disagree (me being one of the people who can afford whatever I want most of the time, of course I would)

Consider this: MR Holy One just sold a Reindrach to me (Note: this is the FIRST creature I have EVER purchased from a player, for coins/credits/otherwise). To Unlock this creature from the MD shop it would cost ~55 credits, and it is only available at one time of year, once per account. I paid 30, his asking price was 25 (I just thought it was worth more than 25).

Consider if someone less financially well off than me had wanted a reindrach. Normally, they would need to spend ~55 credits, AT THE RIGHT TIME OF YEAR, to get it. From this case, they could get it at LESS than half price, at any time of year.

Then, let us consider if we DO ban purchase of things via credits. What do we use instead? Coins, creatures, and items.
Items are almost always worth far more than even a rare creature, and very few people are willing to part with them due to the way they are normally created (wishpoint+materials to create a character specific item). So while it happens, Item trading is not very viable.

Creatures are another case, with them being the main trade good. However, the majority of valuable creatures are obtained via the shop. This means that you are paying credits for them anyway, and as I showed in my above example with the reindrach, it is quite easy to get things cheaper as it currently stands. That means that being able to buy things via credits directly actually helps to make things fairer rather than unfair.

Now we move to coins. How are coins generated in the first place? (excluding Murvine intervention, of course) Via the MDShop, ie credits once again. There are certainly many ways of getting coins, such as gifts, quests, the shop, and trading, and these do serve quite a valuable place in the market, but ultimately they are only created via the expense of credits.

There are a further two benefits of the current system. The first is from a buyers perspective in gaining credits over coins, and the second is another way that this method is, in fact, fairer.

Firstly and quite obviously, credits are a lot more versatile (which says something considering how versatile coins are in the first place). Part of the appeal is that, if you have just gotten deep enough in the MD shop for the Sword and Shield items, if you sell for credits rather than coins, you can then turn those credits into the coins you would have otherwise gotten, with a nice stat boost attached.

The second aspect, which helps to keep things fair, is that players who themselves cant afford to buy credits can sell things to other players for credits. This helps even the playing field between those who have the disposable income to pay, and those who dont.



Now, all of this said, the above only really applies to someone who can't afford to buy credits selling things to get them another way. There is certainly a problem when you have people buying things for credits from others who can also afford to buy credits, as then you have a case of the rich getting richer and the rest of the community has a harder time gaining any benefit from it. This is why I have NEVER sold any creature (I only give them away) for anything, and why I have only ever purchased one creature by any means (although I have made offers in the past, I only make one offer and never haggle).

Overall, while the above is worrying, there is not too much you can do about it without making things more unfair in the big picture.

[Passant the Weak]

I am brand new in the realm, so please consider my opinion as it is: the opinion of a newbye. I dare to answer this thread because actually the way MD shop is built is something that I found very interesting when I discovered it.

1. The shop is very smart. It allows paying players to get nice stuff not only by paying credits, but also by making choices and digging in the shop. This is what I find smart: it involves strategy (in terms of spent credits) rather than brutal financial force. And I like the fact that I am not allowed to buy a creature just because I want it (supposing I have the financial capacity to buy it), but I need to be patien and dig in the shop.

2. What is allowed by buying creatures through credits is to bypass that system. I am a new player and I want to buy an extra rare creature, I can do it by offering unlimited amount of credits to someone.

I think, as a new player, I shouldn't be allowed to buy a super rare creature just by burning my credit card, and the current trade system is just setting up that limit: I need coins, or something tradeable (creature, items) to buy someone's creature. And I need time, to get those coins/ something tradeable. Just like I need time to beat the Loreroot guards, or find a way to access certain locations.

Making things easier for everyone will just result in allowing the richest players to be more lazy than the others to get what they want.

So, to me, buying a creature for credits shouldn't be allowed, because it allows to bypass the effort


That being said, the problem is: how would you enforce such a rule (not allowing the trade of creatures for credits)?

[Jubaris]

for the start, I don't understand how can you ban it?

Gifts are allowed - you are allowed to transfer creatures, you are allowed to donate credits to any account in MD, so how can you ban someone to transfer a creature to someone else, stating that his intent was illegal?

Similar thing Chewett posted here: http://magicduel.invisionzone.com/topic/8653-rules-for-central-market-forum/
Now, Chewett's topic has the same problem as I mentioned above, only his topic is justified at point - he was feared that money was redirected from MD; yours Grido, ain't that so. If someone wishes to spend a lot of money for getting creatures, then so be it, it helps MD, and a person having reindrachs, GGs, and such creatures won't be nor first nor last.
Some people are rich, and some people want those riches in RL - that's life.
Cutting off RL matters with MD matters would be impossible.

And also, technically, even without those transfer of creatures, someone investing 1000$ in MD shop, and using the spent credits wisely, could quickly rise to be one of the stronger fighters in the realm.


side note: I never spent money on MD, so I'm not saying anything for my own ambitions

[xrieg]

Hmmm there is like 5gc + 40sc per shop reset and even for paying players to get them all you need 100days+ activity.
Moreover, there is a discussion about extra features for consistent payers...
Credit trading (moreover: no chance of balance transfer from MD Store balance that non-paying players have access to, hard cash only) makes these a bit pointless. Of course, every in-game feature is a subject to abuse (like 'pay $40 to my paypal account and I will send you drach CTC as a gift...'') but it doesn't mean every rule is meaningless.
It's not about encoding some hardcoded rules - it's about ruling what is allowed and what is not. And what can be punished if detected - and what will not. I am a minor payer - but do not feel comfortable with buying hi-end MD features by paying hard cash to players' MD or Bank account. I think only gc/sc/items/ctcs should be allowed - or at least allow for balance transfer between accounts (->potential problem: alts abuse/ free credits).

Edited March 21, 2011 by xrieg

[Fyrd Argentus]

Too many "soft" rules. What is not prevented by game mechanics ought to be allowed - bugs excepted. If MD grows, you'll have no choice in the matter, as the ratio of players to police will keep climbing.

Besides, MD needs more dollars...

[Edit - to connect the dots - I say either allow credit transfers regardless, or stop them completely. Get rid of the soft middle ground being proposed here. And I think MD will get more dollars out of the rich if they can spend on more things. I think the game as a business entity is desperate enough to continue down this path already in place and can't afford to pull back on a source of income.]

Edited March 21, 2011 by Fyrd Argentus

[Burns]

A basic question for almost all online games: To what extent can you replace time and effort with money?

Most games don't allow trading their goods at all, those that do don't allow trades for money. Why is that?
Requirements, such as levels and experience, usually have a point to them, to make them unavailable to players that are still within regions newcomers play in, but also to make sure people have to invest either time or money to get to the place where they can get them.

In my opinion, trading stuff for credits is a way to get around those requirements, and picking up on Kyphis' arguments, if you can buy a reindrach either from Mur for 55 or from THO for 30, it's only sensible from a hosts point of view to not allow such, because he doesn't really win the 30 that were paid, but rather loses the 25 that weren't.

On the other hand, there's hardly anything that stops it from happening. I don't approve of such, but there's no end to it unless there are severe changes to trading in general.

[TTLexceeded]

Well md shop actually offers a lot of advantages to people who pay. I have made all the choices i wanted on the shop and still i cant afford to buy the avatar which i want so badly. Its ok its just some more days, I cant get my VE to 400k with shop thing, its ok i am trying and raising my VE sacrificing my time and with a lot of effort. I dont have 40 creature slots, or fancy tokens, nor any silver or gold coins bought from the shop, that is ok as well. BUT buying a drach with 25 dollar crosses the line. It doesnt help the game earn more money, as burns said, and it gives a big advantage to players that can pay.

Now lets say i wanted to take part in that auction, if i said 26 credits i am actually saying 78 days. you can then of course pay 2 more dollars and say 28 on the spot but i cant just say 29 but please, wait 12 days. So its pretty much unfair.

Edited March 21, 2011 by TTLexceeded

[Sharazhad]

[i][color="#2e8b57"]Correct me if I am wrong here, I thought that the purpose of items is to encourage trading in game - which I assume includes critters.... Or dont we use items all together? Perhaps we should close the inventory box then? The way I see it, trading with credits is a way to get rich of a game that doesnt belong to you - which in my opinion is ethically wrong. Just because loads of people do it, or because a few big wigs do it doesnt make it right. The only person who should be making money from this game is the game creator Mur and of course Akasha. People who are gaining from these credits are then not putting money into the game themselves so in a way MD is losing, and the person that is buying the credits is paying twice for them, 1) Mur, and 2) to the person whom he is purchasing from.

MD shop was generated to create an income to support this game, and I believe that awesome items were placed deeper in the shop so that the purchasing of game credits is encouraged. Of course no one is going to ban trading credits but I think the amount traded should be limited to $5.00 or something so that people dont make a career out of it. [/color]
[/i]

[Chewett]

I like the idea of being able to stop rich players buying up crits and such, Is it fesible? Probably not.

[Nimrodel]

I kinda disagree with you grido. Why?

1. Those who are rich will get coins from the MD shop to buy the crits. You cant restrict people from doing that. It still becomes a rich man's game.

2. Other face of the coin: 100 creds for a windy. Aged. Untokened. Pay for it with credits, money goes to the game, the customer gets his crit and the seller can spend them any way he wants to. Game happy, customer happy, seller happy. Win Win win. Buy it with coins? Arguments over exchange rates. Not everybody's willing to exchange 15s for 1G. And many dont even want coins. Usable items and rare crits. Thats what they want. What would one want for an aged windy? Can the 'poor' afford that many coins or crits or items?

@burns: those 50creds to get a rusty from the shop come from free creds and heads contest wins. In Most cases. What does the game get? Zilch. Votes? Yeah. But without cash, there is no real use of the voting system.

3. Also, if i buy a reindrach from xyz For 30 creds, the game's getting 50 + 30 creds or more not just 30 creds becoz someone must already have spent 50creds to get it from the shop.

4. What should really be controled is selling stuff for paypal cash... But ofc thats not possible...

Note: All this is coming from me who's never bought anything using credits.

[Shemhazaj]

[font="Book Antiqua"][color="#696969"]is buying crits with creds unfair? prolly yes.
so is MD Shop and Tombola.

you want equal chances, get rid of them all.

I admit I have bought some crits with creds, but not only for myself, more than I kept I gave as gifts for different occasions.
And I know, I'm not the only one. So that kinda proves that the system does benefit not only the "rich" ones.

oh one more thing:[/color][/font]
[quote]side note: I never spent money on MD, so I'm not saying anything for my own ambitions [/quote]
[font="Book Antiqua"][color="#696969"]words like that make me want to hide my supporter status in shame...[/color][/font]
[font="Book Antiqua"][color="#808080"][color="#808080"]
edit: that is not an attack on you Rhaegar, just it seems that your sentence reflects what is the major opinion on people who pay for the game - lazy with ambition to become strong without effort...[/color][/color][/font]

Edited March 21, 2011 by Shemhazaj

[Burns]

[quote name='Esmerelda' timestamp='1300731925' post='81009']


3. Also, if i buy a reindrach from xyz For 30 creds, the game's getting 50 + 30 creds or more not just 30 creds becoz someone must already have spent 50creds to get it from the shop.

[/quote]

But if you bought the drach for the usual 50 creds, that'd be 20 more for the game. The one bought by the potential seller already exists anyway, those 50 are spent and gone. If the new owner gets the old one for 30, that's 20 less than if he got a new one himself.

[Grido]

What I didn't mention in the first post, which I should probably make clear is that I could, if I wanted, buy up all those creatures with credits if I was so inclined, I just don't, because I don't think it's right, and I try to avoid being hypocritical.

I refer to Burns' posts about the difference of buying off a player and buying from shop. The restrictions on getting things from the shop are there for a reason, there is the age, the xp, the loyalty and ofc the depth of the item (probably others)

@Princ, you seem to have misread that topic of Chewett's, it is not him suggesting the alteration, it is the council messaging him and him confirming about it via email to them. Also, according to your logic, a player should be able to get away with anything they like so long as they plow money into the game - my experience with Mur would lead me to believe that this would be incorrect.

You may not be able to stop every instance, to prevent it from possibly happening, but there is a lot of power of deterrence in something being stated as against the rules, and where it is found, can be punished still. It also restricts how a player can go about doing it, for instance, it would no longer be able to take place publicly, which would reduce the number of occasions a sale might happen.

[Kyphis the Bard]

[quote name='Burns' timestamp='1300735607' post='81012']
But if you bought the drach for the usual 50 creds, that'd be 20 more for the game. The one bought by the potential seller already exists anyway, those 50 are spent and gone. If the new owner gets the old one for 30, that's 20 less than if he got a new one himself.
[/quote]
And what about in the instance that I illustrated, where you can only get it once per account? It is IMPOSSIBLE to buy it a second time. I already have a Reindrach. The ONLY way for me to get it is via another player.

You can add to that list the Santa and Nutcracker as well. No matter what, the only way to have more than one is to buy off someone else. Thus, to trade with credits for these creatures INCREASES the amount of cash Mur gets.

Then, when you consider the creatures you can't get from the shop (Dream Mutation, Mutant Drachorn, TS, GG), every credit is once again just pure profit. At no point is Mur taking a loss. The only creatures with the ultimate possibility of Mur taking a "loss" are the more common shop creatures, and excluding the SW and SS these are almost never sold for credits.

[xrieg]

[quote name='Kyphis the Bard' timestamp='1300744629' post='81025']
And what about in the instance that I illustrated, where you can only get it once per account? It is IMPOSSIBLE to buy it a second time. I already have a Reindrach. The ONLY way for me to get it is via another player.

You can add to that list the Santa and Nutcracker as well. No matter what, the only way to have more than one is to buy off someone else. Thus, to trade with credits for these creatures INCREASES the amount of cash Mur gets.
[/quote]

... but following this logic in order to increase cash flow no crit should be availaible once per account...

I think the only availaible sources of new income are new players. If this topis is discussion
how to drain current players more effectively I do seem to recall some pretty direct statements saying it's not the way MD is designed :-P

[Burns]

I am deeply convinced that, if Mur sets the shop to only have one creature of that kind, you shouldn't be able to buy another one with money at all. And things that are not in the shop even less. To me, there is a point to them being where they are and in what quantity they are there. And when they are NOT in the shop, they aren't supposed to be for sale. At all.

[Ravenstrider]

As someone above me mentioned, the whole MD economy is based on the MD shop. Every coin trade is in fact a credits trade. The person who bought the coins bought them with credits.

I can't really afford to give any RL money to MD, so I sell things for credits, draw avatars, vote, try to get people to register via my referral link and stick around until they become mp5 (hasn't happened yet -.-),... I "support" the game in any way I can...

You can't impose a rule like this on a game in which the economy is based on RL money... Sure, I'll stop trying to trade my creatures for credits, but give me a way to "farm virtual currency" and buy all the creatures/tokens from the MD shop with it and just leave cosmetics and trivial items in the shop... (as other games do)

[Kyphis the Bard]

[quote name='Ravenstrider' timestamp='1300748580' post='81029']
As someone above me mentioned, the whole MD economy is based on the MD shop. Every coin trade is in fact a credits trade. The person who bought the coins bought them with credits.
[/quote]
Since it is most likely me you are referring to, I'd just like to clarify that I didn't say the whole economy was based on that. You also have Wishpoints and Creatures like TS/GG funding the MD Economy.

However, yes, almost the whole economy does derive from the MD Shop.

[Muratus del Mur]

First of all, stopping such a thing means technically shifting it towards a black market not actually stopping it..lets be realistic. Plus from my point of view its far better to be credits than cash between players.

I totally disagree that people with money should be able to buy off their achievements and thats why certain things will never become trade-able.
Also think of this in this way, the people that are selling this stuff get the credits to spend, they kind of deserve it. Those buying a rare drach of completing their morph collection or whatever, wont be able to do that too much and i don.t believe they are a real threat.

I am open to suggestions anyway, but keep in mind i will not put a rule against something that cant be proved and that is not actualy cheating. You will have to be creative about this. One idea I can think of are alternate ways to increase achievement value, one example would be "initial owner" and "creature devotament" sort of features... tehnicaly there are ways to demoralize buyers from buying their way up, but i have doubts if their way is aimed to be up and if this is a smart thing to do at all.

[aaront222]

[quote name='Kyphis the Bard' timestamp='1300674472' post='80974']
Now we move to coins. How are coins generated in the first place? (excluding Murvine intervention, of course) Via the MDShop, ie credits once again. There are certainly many ways of getting coins, such as gifts, quests, the shop, and trading, and these do serve quite a valuable place in the market, but ultimately they are only created via the expense of credits.
[/quote]

Coins are no longer obtainable via shop. This is because someone got alts and abused free credits to "farm silvers". Now the amount of coins in MD is essentially an exact and set amount.
In that case there is in theory an INFINITE amount of Reindrachs and Rusties. They are PURCHASABLE from the shop bot only after lots of credits spent. WHY? So that you can't abuse free credits to get them. Because we keep getting shop resets we can spend $50+ (or about 145 days on free credits) per shop reset to get a Rusty/Rein. Over VERY LONG amounts of time what's not to say there are more Rusties/Reins then silvers? (I'm referring to EXCRUCIATINGLY LONG AMOUNTS OF TIME)

[Pipstickz]

[quote name='aaront222' timestamp='1300825517' post='81103']
Coins are no longer obtainable via shop. This is because someone got alts and abused free credits to "farm silvers". Now the amount of coins in MD is essentially an exact and set amount.
[/quote]
...no. Both gold and silver coins are still in the shop.

[Nimrodel]

and reins arent available on shop resets. Just the rusty.