Micro transactions Mega Thread

Most of the suggestions are not pay to win. There is no way they are making a god mode I am wondering if that guy is trolling or just trying to get people on the offensive? The devs have already said clearly they will not have pay to win items (weapons, armor balance wise) in there.

You already get 1.5x XP for subscription, I'm not sure another 15% with potions would make much difference, if they are tradable you could give them to people who DONT subscribe or trade them to them. Multi-boxing is also part of their payment model (they dont allow you to pay 1 price for all accounts) and its always been part of the game. Simple fact is people who run 6 accounts will probably always have an upper hand right now. I'm not sure that has anything to do with MTX or cash shop though thats more a balance thing in general.

Also while we are talking about cheating, etc. Keep in mind this is a game designed literally to allow people to scam, steal, and rob houses if measures are not taken - this is pretty crazy in todays terms of MMORPGs. Although devs have mentioned considering a trading window.

Play it your own way. I don't really care. But it is artificial means to win a game fight, no matter what you call it.

You’re correct that the majority of suggestions here aren’t P2W. I’m not a big fan of taking content that already existed (glowies) away from the experience and re-adding them at a premium, but it’s still cosmetic and not P2W. That’s where I draw the line between things I don’t really like and things that are not broadly acceptable in online gaming culture.

Sidhe, what would you like to see available via MTX?

My personal feeling is that I don’t like MTX at all, but I know it’s an important part of their business model. So I would say things that I wouldn’t mind being on an MTX store include items like new skins for gear, cosmetic pets, housing decorations, maybe things like a custom portrait frame for when someone clicks you in the world or views your bio/equipment page.

In a game like Realm, there are some things I’d avoid even though they’re fine in many other games. Name changes are a bit risky due to the scamming/reputation part of the game, but probably aren’t that harmful. Race/class changes would be bad because people could then choose to level up on the “easy” builds to play something entirely different that they didn’t work for at endgame. And even though I used PLEX (game time tokens) on EVE, I don’t think they’d fit well in Realm. This is because in EVE, you could drop thousands of real life dollars on PLEX and use them to buy a fancy spaceship, but other players could send you a serious message by permanently blowing it up. In Realm, once you’ve bought your gear, you likely never have to replace it.

A couple of things about these systems in other games I’ve played:
PLEX 100% did not remove or even slow down RMT/gold farmers/bots in EVE. It set an upper limit on how much they could charge, but they were already undercutting those prices and it didn’t really affect their business much.

The mere existence of “extremely expensive items” has been found in other games to alter player behavior, paving the way for bots, gold farmers, and hackers by gIcing them a market. You can’t really avoid this, and games that have tried (Final Fantasy XI and XIV) usually just end up with very awkward systems that confuse and irritate legitimate players but don’t really curb bad behavior. So while I’m not saying we should be asking for draconian systems to try to do the impossible, we also shouldn’t assume that the things we’re asking for will be the end of RMT. They won’t.

Rat Labs made it clear early that they would support a cash shop/MTX, so it shouldn’t be a surprise. In my opinion, the best way to curb illicit trading is to offer the high-end cosmetics via MTX. Powerful items that affects your character’s ability to fight should remain as obtainable only as an in-game drop (or in-game trade).

Oh no, it’s not a surprise and I’m fine with them doing it. Just to answer your question honestly, I don’t personally get enjoyment out of cash shops. But as I said, there are a great deal of items I’m open to having in the shop so they can make some money. There are just some things I also think should not be made available, no matter the price, to preserve the integrity of the gameplay experience and to avoid devolving into a scenario where the game’s core design is influenced by the MTX monetization strategy.

Fair enough. Thanks for the input!

Can you make rare dyes drop in the world??! Some could be buyable but there should be lots of rare dyes that we can find in dungeons or the over world. Please.

I also agree that level baldrics should be offered in the cash shop for when players blow theirs chanting. This doesn’t really change much other than convenience, but may be helpful.

I second the rare dyes and the level baldies. I miss having the rarer dyes drop and I really liked being able to buy the baldies if I needed one.

1. Subscription Tokens for 8$ that can be traded to other players for gold (allows free players to buy subs, keeps real life trading away)
   I love this, but let's lower the price down to the price of a month's subscription. Charging extra for the same seems strange.

2. Supporter Titles and housing plaques (IE: 25$ for "Settler" plaque and title")
   I'd be interested in something like this. Especially if the item description is editable by the owner

3. Name change, race change, stat change tokens (also tradeable to other players for gold - helps free players, keeps real life trading away)
   I'd love a race change token. I have a L750 that I wish I had made as a human. Being able to change race/stats is VERY useful, especially since NMG/RL is changing the game at times and certain combos that were once great are less powerful for PvP.

4. Experience potions (tradeable) grants 15% additional XP for 4 hours. (Stacks with all other bonuses)
   I love this idea. I'd buy a few of these for sure. I think 25% increase is more in line, though.

5. Backpack of Greed - You can right click this backpack to sell the contents for full shop value (provides warning box prompt before sale)
   Again, great idea. I'd buy this.

6. My personal preference is to also have SOME dyes and cosmetic items (maybe original glowie helms, etc) as drop table items only.
   Any item that is purchased that you can wear should have 10ar, be un-enchantable, and cosmetic only… but I'd be all for it.

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Everything that you buy should be a tradeable item (like it is on UO with the tokens). Sure, people will buy them to buy gold in-game, but who cares.

Another thought is to do something similar to how other MMOs do their market (specifically SW:TOR). Instead of simply two tiers of player (Citizen / Noble) there should be three tiers.
Visitor: Has never paid anything and has the same features as Citizens currently have
Citizen: Has paid for something some time in the past - Access to Heroic Dungeons
Noble: Pays for a monthly subscription - Full access - Earns an amount of credit to use in the pay shop every month

I like it Endal, thanks

I disagree with anything being tradable that can lead to people buying gold for real $$ by trading mtx items. All you are doing is feeding the lazy people who don't want to work for the gold and making them comparable to those of us who work our butts off to make and have gold. Let's not allow everyone to faceroll whatever item they want off trade by spending real money…

I agree with Goof…anything purchased with real currency should be bound to the account it was purchased on. Many many issues have arose in other games that allow trading items that are bough with $$.

I disagree with anything being tradable that can lead to people buying gold for real $$ by trading mtx items. All you are doing is feeding the lazy people who don't want to work for the gold and making them comparable to those of us who work our butts off to make and have gold. Let's not allow everyone to faceroll whatever item they want off trade by spending real money…

Guy works 50 hours a week, has a wife, kids, dogs. etc. - he plays Realm when he can but he can't put as much time into the game as someone who plays 10 hours a day and runs 6 accounts. His money he spends brings tokens to people who can play but don't have real life money for subs. His MTX items he buys goes to people who can play but don't have RL money for subs. His money goes to the devs instead of RMT. Is he lazy? Or is he stimulating the economy and bringing value to players who bring value in other ways? This is also assuming this prevents this. I can assure you over the last 10 years RMT has been rampant in this game. People spending HUNDREDS and thousands of dollars on RMT behind the scenes even when the economy and population was horrible. There will always be people who try to game the system, it just depends on if you want to try to control it. I lean toward limited 1-2 items that are tradeable (subscriptions and XP potions) but anything that is tradeable will have more value to people, sell more, and bring in more money for development. Also, when you quit and give away all your gold and items to a friend, or have a drop and give away all your stuff. Are those people lazy? It's pixels. I've seen people give away 5-10 years worth of items, accounts, etc to friends when they quit. RNG system isn't even merit or work based. I've seen people find 5-10 million gold worth of items in 2 dungeon runs, while someone else runs it 100 times. You can spend 100 keys and get no GBoNs someone else might find them in 3 tries. The only way to make things all about work is to have all items in a shop and give people currency for completing dungeons or levels, so that there is no RNG or rewarding "lazy lucky" people.

@LilGoofsta
To add on to what Rookie said, the person who is rocking TRO and getting high level and getting the good gear that the other guy isn't getting, being able to sell the items means he can start to work his way up there. This game is ruled by RNG, so even high-level players who can handle the hard content sometimes aren't getting the gold. I have two characters over L500 and I've barely got 1m gold on me. Being able to buy a month's token and selling it for gold would get me a couple million that I can then spend on better gear that I'm not able to buy regularly.

I do think a good route would be to make the items that are out there be fixed prices. Make it so that there is an NPC vendor in the game who will sell all of these items for gold as well so you never have to pay if you don't want to.

$5 for a monthly subscription, or 2.5m gold (personally, I'd rather pay the $5, that takes me 15 minutes to make at work ;)

all of it. Let me buy levels and hats and dyes, character account management options(no name change cuz of scammers) stat changes, class changes, appearance changes.. you name it i want a price next to it.
Give me a special enchant aura that cost 10 bucks but increases my success rate by 10% or whatever you feel is appropriate to keep 6x from being possible. we should be able to buy everything from the mtx except for final end game content, think starter or mid level tier.
most important we should be able to buy "built" toons… naked, no mana no gold bump to any level of your choice based on the price.

i forgot to add all purchased items should be BOUND!!!!!!!!

I disagree with anything being tradable that can lead to people buying gold for real $$ by trading mtx items. All you are doing is feeding the lazy people who don't want to work for the gold and making them comparable to those of us who work our butts off to make and have gold. Let's not allow everyone to faceroll whatever item they want off trade by spending real money…

define lazy? because i have a good real life job im lazy?

I disagree with anything being tradable that can lead to people buying gold for real $$ by trading mtx items. All you are doing is feeding the lazy people who don't want to work for the gold and making them comparable to those of us who work our butts off to make and have gold. Let's not allow everyone to faceroll whatever item they want off trade by spending real money…

define lazy? because i have a good real life job im lazy?

Says the guy who wants to be able to buy everything in the game, Realm isn't P2W and as the devs have already said will not be, sorry if that's what you're looking for bub. Go play Archeage, from what I hear you don't have to do anything but open your wallet there.

Let’s not let the conversation degenerate into a “grinders have no life” or “casuals are lazy” troll fest and keep the great ideas rolling.

Home Modifications
1) Moving Day: Being able to relocate your home to the town of your choice (repeatable)
2) Home Skin Modifications: Having a few options for the exterior and interior of your house would be pretty cool, perhaps have 3-4 different options based on the town structure that's already in place. Caer Fandry would be a bit broken down, Usk would have pine trees, Drune would have an elven flair to it, perhaps even have an Orc option that the house is a tent or a shack of some sort.
3) Secure House: With this option, only the house owner can pick up items in the house, perfect for decorators!
4) Additional rooms: Let's set up a cellar, meeting room, training room, storage room, etc in the houses. I know we touched on this in the Guild thread for guild halls, it would be great to have those options for player homes as well. This is actually a pretty easy thing, they would just have to make the stock house hold all of these rooms and doors, but the door is locked unless your account has unlocked the room.

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Character Modifications
1) Shave and a Haircut: Being able to go back into the face editor
2) Dude looks like a Lady: Gender swap! Random appearance assigned, so you will probably also want a Shave and a Haircut
3) Attribute Reassignment: Using this would get you back to the attribute assignment screen. Great for players who had set stats, got to L1000, and then realized that they have made a huge mistake.
4) Name Change: This one seems easy enough, change a character's name. Let's put a timer on this so you can only use it once per month.
5) Race Change: I love this idea because I rolled myself an elf and I'd much rather be a human, but don't want to spend two months grinding back up to 1k. Again, random appearance would be applied so you would likely need a Shave and a Haircut and some Attribute Reassignment

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Account Settings
1) Heroic Access: Allows non-paying players to be allowed to access Heroic Dungeons

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Items (all of these should be tradeable)
1) Bauble/Potion of Experience: This potion doesn't give you experience, but it allows for a linear 4-hour boost in XP by 25% that will work in tandem with other XP bonuses
2) Bauble/Potion of Nobility: Gives your character one month of Noble Citizen status
3) Mundane Glowies: Glowies are the symbol of the Townie, allowing players to buy a set of cloth glowies would be a great boon for many of us who love the look, but just can't seem to find the right chest to unlock. No magical properties are applied to these items but they can still be enchanted
4) Level Baldrics: Mine poofed, I need another. :(
5) Coppers: Because sometimes waiting to gather enough face-time with the game makers is just too long.
6) Bald Cap: This is a head item that would make your character bald. Why would we want this? Quite simply because it would mean you would have a head item that shows your entire face. We could perhaps expand on this and make different hair styles available, but it would require race/gender checks to wear them. Tie this in with the Tome of Properties suggestion below, and it reall opens up.

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Controversal Suggestions
1) Tome of Properties: This one is purely cosmetic, I swear! The idea is that you would use the Tome, select a magical bit of gear in your inventory, then select a second bit of gear of the same wear type (chest for chest, leg for leg, etc). The properties are then swapped. This would allow you to turn your Cloth Hood into a Nightmare Helm. The stats would transfer entirely, including the AR, durability, weight… all of it. I love this idea because it opens up a few avenues for us to customize our characters a bit more. I love my Mage's Hat, but I hate my character's face showing. Being able to switch that into a Hood or a Bandanna would be AMAZING! It would also be cool to allow this for items that behave the same way, like a Club that is now a Wrath. This is purely cosmetic, so having a club that throws daggers would be a thing. The one exception to this is the Bald Caps I mentioned above since the race/gender checks are required for those, we may need to make it so that restrictions are still maintained.

I do not think name changes should be allowed, I believe this would promote scamming. I know there will be people saying someone can just scam and then roll a new character, which I agree. But at least they can't rename their current 1k characters after scamming… I think name changes should be allowed to remove guild tags only, or add guild tags, but that the default name has to remain. So MECHGoof could rename to Goof, or NORGoof, but couldn't rename to BillyBobJoHanson. Obviously at this point this probably couldn't be automated though.

Let’s not let the conversation degenerate into a “grinders have no life” or “casuals are lazy” troll fest and keep the great ideas rolling.

Not trying to, just pointing out that making MTX items trad able allows someone to roll a level 1, not leave town and have millions of gold and buy whatever they want. Isn't fair to those who work for their gold, and in everyone elses logic 'cant afford to buy gold by trading mtx items' You are selling gold for rl and make in game currency then it is P2W.

As someone who tried to dabble in scamming in the distant past I've gotta' say, I always used a low level character, dressed them up nicely (GBoT!) and once I had the gold I dropped it off at my stash house, dropped my gear, quit, and remade a new character. I would never sully my main character's name. (looks at his username and avatar image) Well shit. Even if it was a high level character, it drops into that field of they have to pay real money to change the name, and most people wouldn't bother with that for something as silly as scamming, especially when the free option is there. The name-change is one of those items where the few who might possibly consider abusing it is significantly outweighed by those who wouldn't. It's like you said, this would 95% be used for Guild Tags, 4.99% for people who just want to change their silly ass name, and 0.01% for scammers who want to change their name.

I definitely do agree that all of the items sold in the shop should be mundane, though I love the idea I had above about the Tome of Properties. That way we can turn the mundane items we buy into specialty items. I'm thinking it would be super hard to code something like that, though.