MxO, Vanguard, Planetfall, SWG.
Get rid of the fluff if you need money.

Don’t attack your player base and feed on their insecurities.

A game officially off my list next to LOTRO and Vanguard…wowsers, this is just bad.

And that’s what Free Realms should have been for.
Instead EQ and EQ2 get to be its guinea pig.

I do think they would continue down the slippery slope in future though. After all, it is in their interest, and really, how many people would terminate their accounts as a result despite all the outcry I’ve seen thus far? Insignificantly few.

And here’s what I fear about the “Fluff” items. How many more free fluff items are going to be added now that they can just charge for them? I’m guessing the number will be somewhere around zero. Why go to the cost of creating a fluff item and quests designed around them that players have to complete in order to earn the item, when instead you can design a fluff item, slap a price tag on it and fill the bank account?

No good will come of this. I urge people NOT to buy from this system. Buying fluff just sends a message that you’ll keep buying fluff rather than questing for it.

Lets watch and find out =)

When EQ2 first came out people complained about the baby dragon house pet that was exclusive to certain versions. They called that RMT. People complained about exclusives in EQ expansion packs too. But people got over it. It was just a house pet and nothing game breaking. Now they offer armored bears that are faster than what I can afford to buy in game; but I can get it with real money (if I can actually find a place that has an EQ2 box for sale…)!

When LoN first came out, Smed said this was not a slippery slope towards selling items directly to players. Well, that’s what we’re doing now.

When LoN first came out, it was mostly house paintings and things like that. Now you can get the house too.

So, over time, the definition of “fluff item” seems to have become somewhat broad. Its not quite “over the line” for me yet, but we’re getting awfully close to it.

That being said, as long as Sony manages the items very carefully, this could be a very smart move. I know I’ll probably end up buying appearance armor to dress up my toons (and I’m not even a girl…), so I can imagine there can be a lot of business made here.

I just think it would have been better to do this in a NEW game designed from the bottom up around microtransactions.

BUT ya i agree with you on this.

Players can do something about it, if enough people bitch or quit the game thing will change. The problem is not enought people feel that way to do it. I don’t like that change.. but it not enought to make me change the game.