Now here is the problem, you mixed up monetization of the product and the F2P - P2P business relation to the in-game economy, totally unrelated. Understand this: Plat players or people who do offers and then liquidate it to gold does not add any gold to the economy, they only rotate the gold.
Gold comes to the economy from ingame content and gold sinks ensure that it returns to the game - its the cycle that ensures the stability of the economy, which is currently broken.
This isn't a discussion about if AL should be F2P or P2P, or how monetization works. They are all required and have their own special place.
But, if you think that its alright for an average player to take forever to gear up because its a FREE Game, well then its just sad, and I am sorry to say but you are not aware how this business works.
There is a reason why most of the mmo are made free to play and then have added monetization, it might surprise you but free players are equally important in F2P - P2P model. I will even say that F2P players work as contractors instead of consumers
(please read about it, it will too long if I explain it here).
So leaving all the factors that does not affect economy (but affect you emotionally
) the answer to my question is "1 year" or forever.
Now here is the thing, I remember this from a very old interview of Gary (in context to AL) - he said they are totally against pay to win, and they try to add best items as drops in the game. And it is totally there. You can totally OP yourself with the Mythic items and Set items which are launched with every expansion. Yes these items comes from chests, as well as dropped from the content.
So in an
ideal scenario the game was designed in a way that P2P players can have arcane rarity item or, some advantage and bonus for paying, but at the same time, free players can achieve set items, mythic items by investing time.
Now in order to that to work there are 2 factors:
1) In-game content should provide the necessity in terms of gold/gear etc. Basically making the player content/expansion ready.
2) The player should be able to achieve the set items and mythic gear in the period of that expansion. Which means - regulation of items based on the player time invested and the expansion time remaining.
When this model fails, people start finding alternatives, and then those alternatives becomes trends. "Need" only gives an upper hand to the already wealthy to rotate the gold which in long term causes inflation. Merching is an in-game profession, this game is not built around merching, hence its optional. An optional component should not have upper hand on the economy, it should not be a driver to make in-game currency.
So, as I said before: Yes, you think its normal and fair because you are born into it, or got used to it.
(Now I quit
I cannot have more boring conversations like this
)
Originally Posted by PsychoNuke
Now here is the problem, you mixed up monetization of the product and the F2P - P2P business relation to the in-game economy, totally unrelated. Understand this: Plat players or people who do offers and then liquidate it to gold does not add any gold to the economy, they only rotate the gold.
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