Well, I think it would be okay. I don''t see why a lifeless 11-year-old should have an advantage over a hardworking 25-year-old just because he has neither job, nor wife, nor productive hobby. On the flip side, I think that there is a certain prestige and pride that comes with levelling your own character. So how about this:

When you start your account, you choose one of four "starting points":

Peasant ($10/month): You have no skills or stats beyond what you picked up working in the fields, but your eyes are filled with the light of adventure, and you set out with five gold coins and a mattock to find your destiny.

Soldier ($15/month): Conscripted at an early age, you were trained by the army for combat, and two other specialties of your choice. Your tour of duty is over, and you are set free to seek adventure with twenty gold coins in your purse and the equipment appropriate to your skills and specialties.

Elite Bodyguard ($20/month): Raised as a slave in the house of the King, you were trained in the use of many weapons, and received supplementary education in four specializations of your choice. Now, at age 30, you are freed from bondage and can wander at wil, seeking honor and glory as a liberated man, with twenty years of retroactive pay and fine equipment given to you by your former master.

Prince ($25/month): Second son of a foreign king, your training in all noble arts began before you learned to walk. Expertise in all forms of combat and general knowledge of all skill, you are highly trainged in six individual fields of specialization. Highly educated and wealthy, you were exiled when your jealous older brother ascended to the throne. Now, free of the chains of royalty and clad in the finest armor, you wander to a distant land in search of adventure.

When seven high-level guys get together, the peasants who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps can feel a certain pride at their skills and money-saving strategy, but the pricier characters can be glad that they didn''t spend 700 hours getting where they are today. It''s a win-win situation.

There are many online games already that sell items and equipment to players as part of their business model.

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Hi everyone!

Excellent posts! It does seem like a system of paying for more powerful characters has the potential of ruining a game if not handled properly.

Iron Chef Carnage, I commend your suggestion. (Binh bows to da masta). What an excellent idea. I love the idea of characters beginning at different backgrounds.

I would like like to add the idea of having a public history added to upper social class characters that people can view. For example a player who begings as a prince will be said to have been born into royalty. The reason for this is that some people might like to change their background as they play. For example a peasant who through many adventures may be dubbed a lord and this should appear in their public history. Just click on a character and read about them.

Think of the history as reports compiled by the media just as what happens in real life.

Hi Kylotan! Are there systems that you feel handles this feature well and are there systems that you feel do not?

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Today, is a good day to code.

[edited by - BinhNguyen on January 17, 2004 9:19:36 PM]

That would be so stupid. There''d be no reason to try and do well in the game, because you could just buy a better character. And even if you didn''t, know one would respect high level characters anyway.

Selling characters now is different in that someone has to part with their character to give a better character to someone else.

quote:

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Original post by cowsarenotevil
That would be so stupid. There'd be no reason to try and do well in the game, because you could just buy a better character. And even if you didn't, know one would respect high level characters anyway.

Selling characters now is different in that someone has to part with their character to give a better character to someone else.

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Hi cowsarenotevil!

It is possible that there will be people who see no point in trying to do well in the game, because you could just buy a better character and people who would not respect high level characters.

I believe that there are people who would take the time to build up their character. This would imbue them with a history. Imagine a peasant character who through many heroic deeds rises to become a great hero through blood, sweat and tears. I don't believe that many people would take the option of buying upgrades as it is expensive. If other people can click on them and read their history, this would really be a source of pride.

If I were a player who had built my character from the ground up I wouldn't mind adventuring with another person who has bought their character. Together we can go on and conquer the next challenge...

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Today, is a good day to code.

[edited by - BinhNguyen on January 17, 2004 10:45:25 PM]

Great idea... but it can''t be very very cheap. Cause then it would unbalence the game for the people who have too much money or the ones who like the game enough to spend more money on it..


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It''s Maxd Gaming, put in an underscore and I will beat you with a rubber ducky!
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Not following the new trend:
Looky here mommy! No cow pic!

maybe you should consider only selling items that do require skill but are very powerfull if correctly used, perhaps with clubs for ppl that bought items,for example:

I have (real life) money and in your mmorpg, my character has reached his full potential, however, that annoying kid next door also has reached his and keeps attacking me (this is purely fictional ), what if I give you a fiver and you get me the --only avaible through purchase-- crossbow that I can only use on certain players (to make it fair), that way, annoying kid next door leaves me alone and I can enter the "guild of buyers", where I can fight deathmatches or gamble on other ppl''s matches for items, thus prolonging the experience

this is only an idea, and to be quite fair, if I had to give money to be able to play the game, I don''t think I would spend even more just to be able to say that I have this or that item...

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Catteeuw Pieter-Paul

MUST.FIGHT.LAZYNESS. ah screw it...
*leans back an falls to sleep*

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I don''t like having the in-game caste based on cash spent in the real world. Things like petitioning for immunity from a given character could be done in-game, and purchased with game money.

Really, I don''t think anything beyond starting point should be accessible through direct purchasing.

Personally I don''t much like the idea of selling better equipment or advanced characters in games as it defeats my idea of what a game is about. However, one argument put forward is that it allows players with less time but more money to be able to play usefully with those who have a lot of time to put in. This might be especially useful in games where you have to be within a certain number of levels as someone else to group up with them, for example.

Let''s face it; most MMORPGs don''t require much player skill. They just require player time. If you''re persistent enough you can pretty much achieve anything. So it''s a straight trade-off of time for success. Therefore I can appreciate why some games may wish people to be able to trade money for success too, as long as there are some reasonable limits. It would be a shame if the only people who do well on a game are obsessed kids. Adding the secondary route to advancement might actually make the player base more balanced and mature, which is a good thing in many situations.

I''ve never played a game like this, nor do I think I''d want to. But they do work. Achaea is one such game, although it is text-based, not graphical. See the items they currently sell at http://www.achaea.com/creditsalt.htm. Note that the prices seem quite steep, but they do make a profit there. It seems that enough players enjoy this to make it viable.

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If you want to allow people to buy a good player then you cannot give them their good player overnight. How about they pay for say a level 100, and their level will gradually increase to level 100 over the period of time that it would take them if they were actually playing the game. This way some guy that just created his account doesnt have the best character in the game overnight and it gives the people who actually play the game a chance to compete with people with alot of money to waste.