P2P & Cosmetic Items

If cosmetic items are like a Whetstone (ie, they confer a bonus that is temporary and specific to a single item and are used up) and are tradable to other players, you have introduced P2P into POE.

Players who want to play for free, or even those that don't, will willingly trade items to acquire these cosmetic consumables. They will trade power in order to look cool.

This is essentially how EVE Online works. You can purchase your subscription using in-game currency rather than real money, but someone has to buy the subscription and put it on EVE's market for a price. It's basically legalized gold-selling and it not only keeps CCP in business, but prevents the "chinese gold-farming effect" from infiltrating the game.

If cosmetic items are like a Whestone and are tradable, people will use cosmetic items as a means of currency. This is going to happen.

On the plus side, tying in cosmetic items to the economy means everyone, whether they pay real money or not, can have access to every item in the game, even the 'premium' ones. It likely means GGG will make more money.

On the negative side, it introduces a limited amount of P2P. Limited only in how willing players are to trade super powerful gear or items for some cosmetic lifts.

What is GGG's stance on this? Will cosmetic items be something we can trade in the larger economy? Or will they only be available who pay, and not be trad-able? I can see some distinct trade-offs in both cases.

In the case of EVE Online, the game is better for it I feel. People can play the game for free if they farm often enough, and other people who can't play the game as much can purchase in-game gold with real money in order to buy ships and equipment they need. This kind of system wouldn't really work well if ships in EVE were permanent, but they aren't - ships are very transient in EVE. You're bound to lose that super expensive capital ship in a battle at some point. Almost in the same way you're going to find better equipment in POE at some point, and want to upgrade its aesthetics. So I could see this system working and be "fair", but at the same time, I'm wary about P2P and the backlash that could occur if P2P behavior arises out of cosmetic item trading.

I imagine that this is something that's actively being discussed by GGG internally.

In some ways this is already in the game. The Demigod's Presence unique item was given to some of the ladder rush winners. This is an item just like any other and can of course be traded. Its stats are mediocre so it's mostly just a vanity item.

Given that we cannot trade kiwis, I am not at all inclined to believe any of the cosmetic purchases will be tradable. On the one hand, you can say, they are limited edition collector's items -- yes, that they are. But there's no real reason why they can't be traded *other than* the game does not actually recognise them. They exist at a level 'above' the game, visible only to players. In trying to come up with a clarification, I somehow want to talk about the way sports commentators draw squiggly lines around the players to aid their explanations. The players can't see the lines, of course, but the viewers can. This augments the viewer's experience without at all affecting the game itself.

On the other hand, other games HAVE allowed the trading of cosmetic goods, Guild Wars 1 included. Collector's edition pets were very high sought after indeed, although rarely actually traded.

Of course, if GGG do introduce the trading of cash shop goods, then you definitely have to consider an amendment to their mission statement of 'you will never be able to buy power from our store' -- because I imagine quite a few people would give me a lot of in-game power if I were to offer up one of my birds.

...Not that I ever would, but the point remains.

And yes, they'd probably make a LOT more money doing it EvE's way. I am not sure that's the point right now.

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anubite wrote:

Players who want to play for free
...
This is essentially how EVE Online works.

Your post got me thinking a bit, and I think even if it does become possible to trade cosmetic items there would still be a significant difference between what you've said above, and this next bit below.

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anubite wrote:

On the negative side, it introduces a limited amount of P2P. Limited only in how willing players are to trade super powerful gear or items for some cosmetic lifts.

That is, in EVE players have 2 options: pay for your subscription, or pay other players in game for it (or don't play, ok 3).

In this case though the options would be: play for free and look drab, play for free and trade away some in game stuff to look cooler, or play for free and pay to look cooler.

I agree there would be an ability there for people to buy cosmetic items and trade them for in game items, but as you said it would be limited by peoples desire for cosmetic upgrades - as opposed to in EVE where it's limited by peoples desire to keep playing the game at all.

Maybe it's not such a big distinction or I'm missing the point or something though... I mean yes there would be nothing gameplay wise forcing you to either spend money or trade away your in game items, but on the other hand someone with real world cash could potentially have more in game trading power than you...

Well, at least we have a hard word on not being able to sell max level characters and freespec them.

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anubite wrote:

If cosmetic items are like a Whetstone (ie, they confer a bonus that is temporary and specific to a single item and are used up) and are tradable to other players, you have introduced P2P into POE.

Players who want to play for free, or even those that don't, will willingly trade items to acquire these cosmetic consumables. They will trade power in order to look cool.

This is essentially how EVE Online works. You can purchase your subscription using in-game currency rather than real money, but someone has to buy the subscription and put it on EVE's market for a price. It's basically legalized gold-selling and it not only keeps CCP in business, but prevents the "chinese gold-farming effect" from infiltrating the game.

If cosmetic items are like a Whestone and are tradable, people will use cosmetic items as a means of currency. This is going to happen.

On the plus side, tying in cosmetic items to the economy means everyone, whether they pay real money or not, can have access to every item in the game, even the 'premium' ones. It likely means GGG will make more money.

On the negative side, it introduces a limited amount of P2P. Limited only in how willing players are to trade super powerful gear or items for some cosmetic lifts.

What is GGG's stance on this? Will cosmetic items be something we can trade in the larger economy? Or will they only be available who pay, and not be trad-able? I can see some distinct trade-offs in both cases.

In the case of EVE Online, the game is better for it I feel. People can play the game for free if they farm often enough, and other people who can't play the game as much can purchase in-game gold with real money in order to buy ships and equipment they need. This kind of system wouldn't really work well if ships in EVE were permanent, but they aren't - ships are very transient in EVE. You're bound to lose that super expensive capital ship in a battle at some point. Almost in the same way you're going to find better equipment in POE at some point, and want to upgrade its aesthetics. So I could see this system working and be "fair", but at the same time, I'm wary about P2P and the backlash that could occur if P2P behavior arises out of cosmetic item trading.

This is pretty much what i wanted in another thread.

But i got chewed and spit out. Likely because i worded it badly...

Gw2 uses this method too with the gem system. I love it.

Other than the subscription part.

The flaw in your post: whetstones are not cosmetic. They confer a bonus.

Cosmetic stuff would be like having a kiwi... or giving the templar pants. Or having so that you're fire-damage sword looks on fire. It doesn't make it any better, but it looks better.

Cash-bought cosmetic items being tradeable would mean people could indirectly buy in-game currency for cash money. Lucky for us, I'm pretty sure GGG is against P2W in any way, shape or form. :)

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WippitGuud wrote:

The flaw in your post: whetstones are not cosmetic. They confer a bonus.

Cosmetic stuff would be like having a kiwi... or giving the templar pants. Or having so that you're fire-damage sword looks on fire. It doesn't make it any better, but it looks better.

I suppose I'm assuming how the cosmetic system works when I say "like a whetstone". Currently, I'm imagining that I could spend 100 GGG shop points to buy an "Orb of Fire Enchanting" to give any weapon I want a fancy fire effect. The devs have mentioned letting us enchant our weapons or armor to have various particle effects -- there are a limited number of ways they can do this, or at least, in my eyes.

If this "Orb of Fire" can only enchant one item per charge, then we have a slight problem -- how many times a day do you swap out a new weapon? You'll have to keep buying an Orb of Fire if you constantly want that fancy fire effect on your weapon. This creates a very tangible demand for this item, because even amongst those who spend lots of money on POE, these items will be in short supply - they'll be burning through them quickly even if they only use them on weapons they plan to keep for 10-15 levels or even several weeks. No matter how you slice it, a cosmetic upgrade to your weapon is almost certainly a temporary upgrade.

If this "Orb of Fire" is not an item modification but some kind of permanent upgrade to your character so that he always has fire on his sword, then that's completely different about how I'm envisioning this system to work.

If this "Orb of Fire" is a consumable that cannot be traded -- but you can enchant any weapon you wish -- does that mean you can no longer trade that item once it's enchanted?

I suppose I'm trying to analyze something we don't have enough details on, but my point is: If we can trade cosmetic effects at all, to any effect - that is buying power, even in some small way. If we can't trade cosmetic effects at all, then that's fine.

In either case, GGG has to be smart how they create these systems so as to encourage people to purchase them, but also to prevent the desire of these fancy effects from resulting in an imbalance of power.

Also, EVE is a little more complex than "buy or don't buy" a subscription. People buy subscription items and hoard them like an investment. Subscription items are like gold standards in EVE, they're worth a lot of in-game currency and players trade them en masse, not just because they let you play the game for free, but because they command a lot of the in-game economy. Subscriptions, like item-shop items, are tied to real tangible money and will always represent some amount of in-game currency - proportional to their USD cost. In theory, how POE could turn out if cosmetic items are like whetstones and are tradable? The economy could look exactly like EVE's, where cash-shop items are safe to hoard against inflation and highly sought-after.

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Minttunator wrote:

Cash-bought cosmetic items being tradeable would mean people could indirectly buy in-game currency for cash money. Lucky for us, I'm pretty sure GGG is against P2W in any way, shape or form. :)

The problem is: this is what drives F2P. I have to reference back to something like Perfect World. All of the purchasable items were cosmetic: new mount, clothing, emotes, etc. But what drove the real money economy is that people would buy 5 or 6 cosmetic items, and then sell them to players who didn't want spend real cash for the cosmetic items.

As much as I hate the concept of "P2W", purchasable cosmetics are almost required to be trade-able if the game is to make money.

I disagree. I don't think it's absolutely necessary, but a system that does not allow you to trade your cash-shop items to other players needs to be marketed EXCEPTIONALLY well.

League of Legends has yet to let you trade anything to other players, and it is functioning fine as a F2P game inspite of its horrible pricing and shop system (no really, the design there is just atrocious, they could be making so much more money if they were smart). There are other examples as well.

Overall, it would be easier for GGG to make money if cash-shop items were tradable, but it would not be an impossible task for them to make this game profitable without tradable premium goods.