Riot/Microsoft/Nexon/Whatever Points

[MeChaNiZ3D]

The only thing I dislike that is inherent to points of any kind is they're often not able to be turned back into money, so through gift cards or gift systems, or forced initial overtransfer, people are left with points they'll never cash in. Maybe they only wanted the one thing and had to convert more anyway to make a minimum amount. Deviant Points on dA are a particularly good example of a digital currency no-one wants to use. Artists now have the choice to offer commissions in Deviant Points, but what are they going to do with the points? The only thing they're used for is buying other commissions, dA merchandise and art from other people. Artists don't want points. Basically, I don't like points because they narrow your purchasing options irreversibly.

The other main thing I've seen mentioned is that there can be a minimum amount, ensuring you'll never use it all because you'll have 'change' left over, but this is common to proper money as well in many systems so it's not a problem concerning points. There's also the issue of strange conversion rates designed to f*** with you and distract you from the price of what you're buying, and that's probably got some merit to it as well.

 

[Strazdas]

i dislike it as well, i prefer point system that is more consistent. like 100 points for 10 euros, so you know that 1 point is worth 0,1 euro.

 

[Something Amyss]

I don't know what MMO's you've been playing, but most of the ones I've seen are all too happy to spray your screen with giant damage numbers bleeding from every pore. WoW raiding, especially for healers, involves covering your screen with bars to watch and cooldowns to monitor.

That's nice, but it has nothing to do with immersion.

Back to my thesis: people don't understand the concept of 'immersion'.

 

[loa]

It's in place so the store is still usable by people without a credit card, paypal or whatever other means to pay online and it has to be a "new currency" because it is an internationally used service unlike your local walmart.

It could be handled better by allowing for the purchase of exact amounts of points at a constant price rate.

 

[Newtonyd]

I don't know what MMO's you've been playing, but most of the ones I've seen are all too happy to spray your screen with giant damage numbers bleeding from every pore. WoW raiding, especially for healers, involves covering your screen with bars to watch and cooldowns to monitor.

That's nice, but it has nothing to do with immersion.

Back to my thesis: people don't understand the concept of 'immersion'.

Since you won't bother to say what your 'concept of immersion' is, I'll just assume you don't understand it.

 

[mike1921]

The other main thing I've seen mentioned is that there can be a minimum amount, ensuring you'll never use it all because you'll have 'change' left over, but this is common to proper money as well in many systems so it's not a problem concerning points. There's also the issue of strange conversion rates designed to f*** with you and distract you from the price of what you're buying, and that's probably got some merit to it as well.

Having a minimum purchase amount is one thing. Demanding all purchases be in multiples of a given number is the problem. I Yes I can't buy only 300 points when the minimum is 1000 but I also can't buy only 10,300 points, I need to buy 11,000

I don't know what MMO's you've been playing, but most of the ones I've seen are all too happy to spray your screen with giant damage numbers bleeding from every pore. WoW raiding, especially for healers, involves covering your screen with bars to watch and cooldowns to monitor.

That's nice, but it has nothing to do with immersion.

Back to my thesis: people don't understand the concept of 'immersion'.

Since you won't bother to say what your 'concept of immersion' is, I'll just assume you don't understand it.

Read what I'm saying , I think it's pretty safe to say that what he's thinking is close to what I'm thinking (MMO's don't/can't ever have immersion).

That's the only reason he would start it off saying that you don't have a grasp of what immersion means. You responded with a statement arguing that current MMO's are not immersive and that obviously prompted a response as if you were giving a total non sequiter.

It's in place so the store is still usable by people without a credit card, paypal or whatever other means to pay online and it has to be a "new currency" because it is an internationally used service unlike your local walmart.

It could be handled better by allowing for the purchase of exact amounts of points at a constant price rate.

If you're saying it's in place because of those cards you can buy at a local store: You can buy gift cards for a $ amount. You can buy cards for credit on PSN in $ amounts.

You need to accept multiple forms of currency at some point. Just have different storefronts. Steam is internationally used and I can give them money.

 

[Newtonyd]

Read what I'm saying , I think it's pretty safe to say that what he's thinking is close to what I'm thinking (MMO's don't/can't ever have immersion).

That's the only reason he would start it off saying that you don't have a grasp of what immersion means. You responded with a statement arguing that current MMO's are not immersive and that obviously prompted a response as if you were giving a total non sequiter.

I don't know if that's what he's saying, but regardless I kinda disagree. I think MMOs are definitely capable of immersion, otherwise nobody would play on the RP servers that seem to come stapled to every major MMO, it's just that developers aren't trying very hard / don't care about it.

It's not all that difficult to have names like xXxsephirothxXx impossible to enter into the name panel, and fix names that get around the wall. Obviously, you won't get much immersion when people around you spam 'lulz' and 'noob', but any good MMO should have parts where you're alone or with a few friends and get into the story. The real problem is that MMO stories are almost invariably generic and shitty, perhaps because they have to spread content out so thinly.

These are things that can be fixed, but haven't been for one reason or another. The development just hasn't gotten that far, and certainly won't while MMO developers continue to try to one-up each other by adding features to essentially the same game with infinite variations

Just an idea: What if your character didn't have a name floating above his head. What if, when you made your character, you didn't input a name at all? If someone asks, you can tell them your name, and they can friend you and put in your stated name as a 'nickname', but you could always simply have lied about your name. Maybe you use several different aliases, or maybe someone else will try to impersonate you. It brings a whole new aspect of communication and relationships to an MMO.

 

[Newtonyd]

Whoops, double post.

 

[Legion]

yeah I hate it too, I think the point was to help with currency conversions or something like that but honestly it just makes it worse for the consumer.

I assumed it was so they could make you buy 1000 points, and then charge things at 800 points. You then have 200 points, but nothing is sold for 200. So you can either buy more, or buy something that costs 160 points. But of course nothing costs 40 points, so you can either buy more, or have them sitting there doing nothing, effectively wasting money.

 

[mike1921]

Read what I'm saying , I think it's pretty safe to say that what he's thinking is close to what I'm thinking (MMO's don't/can't ever have immersion).

That's the only reason he would start it off saying that you don't have a grasp of what immersion means. You responded with a statement arguing that current MMO's are not immersive and that obviously prompted a response as if you were giving a total non sequiter.

I don't know if that's what he's saying, but regardless I kinda disagree. I think MMOs are definitely capable of immersion, otherwise nobody would play on the RP servers that seem to come stapled to every major MMO, it's just that developers aren't trying very hard / don't care about it.

It's not all that difficult to have names like xXxsephirothxXx impossible to enter into the name panel, and fix names that get around the wall. Obviously, you won't get much immersion when people around you spam 'lulz' and 'noob', but any good MMO should have parts where you're alone or with a few friends and get into the story. The real problem is that MMO stories are almost invariably generic and shitty, perhaps because they have to spread content out so thinly.

RP servers are ones where everyone is actually actively trying to be immersed, a rather awkward thing to do.

Not every person is good at making names if you can't use things like that considering you can't have duplicates. Especially as a game becomes more popular. It's like if every couple in the world had to call their kid something no one alive has. Also, there's always that one friend who wants to skip , or who obviously doesn't give half a fuck, or hell they just can't get into it and make a joke. When you bring in more people a game turns from whatever type of experience it is into a social one, and people just don't get immersed in fiction while they're in social situations.

There's a reason you're supposed to stay quiet at movie theaters, and they darken it up, and tell you turn your phone. Because if you're going for immersion than your best bet is to minimize social contact.

These are things that can be fixed, but haven't been for one reason or another. The development just hasn't gotten that far, and certainly won't while MMO developers continue to try to one-up each other by adding features to essentially the same game with infinite variations

Just an idea: What if your character didn't have a name floating above his head. What if, when you made your character, you didn't input a name at all? If someone asks, you can tell them your name, and they can friend you and put in your stated name as a 'nickname', but you could always simply have lied about your name. Maybe you use several different aliases, or maybe someone else will try to impersonate you. It brings a whole new aspect of communication and relationships to an MMO.

A cool idea but it seems to me like an ability to impersonate and confuse people has potential for (possibly unintentional) abuse that's not worth it. People tell friends things in MMO's sometimes, things about their personal lives. Things you don't want spreading around. And if everyone expects that kind of thing and anyone at any time could be a fake than how can any sense of community exist?

 

[Something Amyss]

Isn't immersion more of a state of mind than anything else? I mean, my immersion when playing Pathfinder wasn't ruined just because a D20 rolled over my character sheet.

Silly RPG fan, you were never immersed! How could you be without HD graphics and cover-based first-person shooting?

...Yeah, I know the guy I quoted never talked about that, but the general consensus in gamers is that "immersion" means "realism" and realism means "not really realism but an excuse to have samey brown shooters."

 

[tkioz]

The points system is a cheat on behalf of the seller, and it really needs to die. The whole point of a "points" system is that they want you to forget you've done it.

I mean how often have you seen something you want to buy for say 460 points, but you can't buy 460 points, the smallest bundle is 250 or 500, so you've got 40 points left over... Assuming it's a $1 = 100 points model, that's 40 cents they've got out of you, unless you remember somewhere along the line to use it... but chances are you'll forget all about the service before the time you've accumulated enough "extra" points to buy something.

I much prefer just a dollar figure (we honestly need an international currency, something like the Euro, but for the whole world, working along side national currencies, that internet vendors can set prices in that, and customers don't have to bother with working out exchange rates/etc) on items, I'll give you $4.95, but not 500 points, don't make it more of a hssle for me to buy crap or I wont.

 

[Something Amyss]

Since you won't bother to say what your 'concept of immersion' is, I'll just assume you don't understand it.

That would still not change the fact that you've demonstrated you don't understand it.

 

[Something Amyss]

yeah I hate it too, I think the point was to help with currency conversions or something like that but honestly it just makes it worse for the consumer.

I assumed it was so they could make you buy 1000 points, and then charge things at 800 points. You then have 200 points, but nothing is sold for 200. So you can either buy more, or buy something that costs 160 points. But of course nothing costs 40 points, so you can either buy more, or have them sitting there doing nothing, effectively wasting money.

It probably doesn't hurt that most people don't seem to be capable of easily translating funny money into real figures. I don't know why: the first thing I do when looking at a game is translate it back to real money, but this is a time-tested method of furthering income streams.