Crowfall released its planned pricing scheme. They're planning on Buy-2-Play with a cosmetic cash shop and an optional subscription. Seems pretty reasonable to me.
Though the subscription looks really optional. The basic plan allows you train one character, while the subscription allows training for three.
There's also a PLEX-like item that can be traded for a month's subscription. I'm not sure about this. Crowfall's main draw is resetting worlds. Throwing this in the mix seems like it skews the resources on a single world. At least in Eve the universe is permanent.
Currency
The other interesting dev comment I saw was:
We are giving the players the tools of an economy but what becomes the defacto unit for trade will be decided by what people start selling their goods for. Could be wood, ore, ore smelted into coins, if so which ore is the one used? Fun times for sure!This strongly implies that there is no default currency like gold, credits, or ISK. Instead the entire game will work on barter. This also implies that there is no automated trade mechanism like an auction house.
This is a pretty interesting system. I have no idea how it will work out.
They could have a "trading post" which works like the trade in the settlers online: you specify what you give and also specify in what kind of resource you want to be paid. Then it works like an AH.
ReplyDeleteWow, that's interesting indeed! "Interesting" could in practice become "annoying" or "less accessible to casual players" (who have to keep track on what is hot to sell right now each time they return), but it sounds great from a roleplay or 'lore' perspective; either way, I can totally see managing resources become an important part of gameplay in Crowfall. Do you plan on playing this game?
ReplyDeleteThe system sounds like a throwback to Everquest where people stood around hawking their wares.
ReplyDeleteI like this solution better than ESO. I understand the drive to not have a hyper-competitive market where nearly every item's price is driven down to materials plus some marginal profit, either because of botting or because of a few people willing to "work" for basically nothing.
ReplyDeleteESO attempted to solve this by drastically increasing search costs, AH is (or was when I played) guild only feature limited to 500 people. You can be in 5 guilds giving a max of 2499 people that can see your wares without standing in a room and yelling about your longsword (last time I tried this my ex called the cops, go figure).
I like this idea better because it feels less artificial, a guild limit of 500 people felt like an arbitrary block when we all used the same AH dude. Simply posting, either through a persistent method (i.e. AH) or in chat "WTS longsword for 69 Wood" seems less artificial.
@Helistar, that's an interesting idea. A specific resource would probably become a default currency pretty quickly. Not to mention you can then offer "buy" orders, where you offer X of the default currency for Y of the resource you want.
ReplyDeleteYou might even see different resources be used as currency at different tiers. Cheap items might trade in iron, while expensive items trade in diamonds.
@Ravanel, Assuming nothing drastically off-putting comes out about the game, I plan on at least buying it and giving it a spin. I have no idea if it will become a long term game.
Barter does not really work, it pushes people toward self-reliance.
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