I never found the couple I got to be anything game altering, just more for preference/lolz. Like I really enjoy the feel of the Ragriz F-22 when compared to the vanilla Garuda 1 F-22 (the extra armor helps too, me being a Brit as far as piloting goes).

Variations on a theme, really.

Only a few!

I swear!

I miss that game :(

AC 6 game night? Those co-op missions were the bees knees.

They were selling special planes to use in Multi Player that had different abilities, art work and colored missiles, and I really wanted the A-10 that was tweaked to not be affected by gravity.

It was a Gatling gun death spewing Christmas themed murder machine and I was gonna own it.

"The A10 Thunderbolt is a gun with a plane wrapped around it."

I swear!

I miss that game :(

I dunno, there's an awful lot of EVE players paying for multiple accounts. If CCP suddenly had all those players go down to just 1 account... I find it hard to believe that it wouldn't affect their income drastically. The guy who got me into it used to run 7 separate PCs, with separate monitors, each running a different account. And while not every EVE player is that extreme, it's far from unheard of in that particular community. I'd almost say it's common. My roommate runs... 3 or 4 accounts, I think?

Also, PLEX doesn't really factor in. It may have not cost real-life money to the person redeeming it, but they bought it in-game from someone else down the line who DID buy it. So somewhere along the way, CCP got paid for that game time.

Of course, I don't think that sort of activity is probably as common in most games as it is in EVE. So the multiple accounts issue might not be as critical for other developers.

And no, I don't play anymore. I found that I just wasn't playing it right (I was a total carebear, and never did anything with anyone), and it didn't make sense for me to keep paying for an MMO that I was essentially treating as a large single player game.

Yeah you touched on, and so did Cody, but yeah EVE is very different case :)

Also, PLEX doesn't really factor in. It may have not cost real-life money to the person redeeming it, but they bought it in-game from someone else down the line who DID buy it. So somewhere along the way, CCP got paid for that game time.

Of course, I don't think that sort of activity is probably as common in most games as it is in EVE. So the multiple accounts issue might not be as critical for other developers.

And no, I don't play anymore. I found that I just wasn't playing it right (I was a total carebear, and never did anything with anyone), and it didn't make sense for me to keep paying for an MMO that I was essentially treating as a large single player game.

The only game I ever really spent money on micro transactions was Ace Combat 6, and it was really early into the life of the game.

They were selling special planes to use in Multi Player that had different abilities, art work and colored missiles, and I really wanted the A-10 that was tweaked to not be affected by gravity.

Oh, so you were one of the few who kept on buying Idolmaster birds. :P

Granted, this is more for mobile gaming but I think the same applies to console gaming as well.

For me, I'd say I fit into their finding.

The only game I ever really spent money on micro transactions was Ace Combat 6, and it was really early into the life of the game.

They were selling special planes to use in Multi Player that had different abilities, art work and colored missiles, and I really wanted the A-10 that was tweaked to not be affected by gravity.

It was a Gatling gun death spewing Christmas themed murder machine and I was gonna own it.

So I hesitantly plunked down my 2.50 in MS points and didn't regret it after I had it.

Then they released a tweaked version of my favorite plane, the F-18 and I had to have it because reasons. There went another 2.50.

And then that was it.

I never bought another plane in that game again. Not because they didn't have anything else I wanted, but because I was simply content with what I had.

The ones I did get kinda helped me rank up faster, but only on certain maps where the things I bought had a slight advantage. They didn't come up every time and didn't fit every situation. And even when they did, it if everyone on the other team saw the plane I was using in the lobby they could change their plane to counter mine (and they often did, the Christmas hating dicks) and then my advantage was for nought. The OPTION to use it was really cool. It was very much like a secret weapon. Fun!

Long story short: The world of gaming as you know it is not ending. Yes, there will be dumb asses who pay tons of money for the game and dlc, and then spend more for in game crap that doesn't really make a difference but if they want to spend their money to "play" the game in that way, that is their prerogative.

The point is, I don't think there are as many people taking advantage of the whole pay to win\rank up\not play as you think there are. They exist, of course, but as the old saying goes a Fool and his money are soon parted.

Hell, some people multibox 8 heavy-hitter ships at once to be able to do 15+ missions per hour.

I'm not sure if this was brought up in some of the big old walls of text that people posted, but one of the main reasons that they're offering the pay for your 90 feature is for people who have already played through the game multiple times. I quit WoW ages ago, but even back then it was common for people to have multiple max level alts. I would imagine if what you're trying to do is level a particular class to end game to raid with your guild, you're probably not interested in playing through the same content for the 13th time.

Which would be completely solved by my proposed solution: Have any new character you create begin at (or lower than if you choose) the highest level character on your account. That way you only have to do it once.

I'd also add that my recollection of WoW's pre-end game content is that it was fairly well designed and enjoyable, and I actually liked it better than the end game stuff.

The 60 dollar price tag though, is just... amusingly high. From what I've read though 3rd party services would charge 200-300 dollars to level your guy to 90, so I guess the Blizzard version of that is a bargain, a really conveniently profitable bargain.

~m

same thing…but they do…you know, 'them'

Because they suck at the game and want to have the rank to act like they're good. But they're not. Being a high level in an MMO actually benefits you and does things for you. Being a 50 at Halo only gets you matched with harder opponents (usually). Totally not the same comparison.