I've had the idea floating around for a while, and talked about it briefly and people seemed to like it. I'm worried that TERA will suffer from gold inflation and there just won't be enough gold sinks in the game. Chrono-scrolls are not gold sinks, they do not take gold out of the economy. A gold sink is like armour repairs, buying materials from an NPC vendor, and paying the money to recustomize your gear. A better gold sink in my opinion would be allowing us to recustomize our character. Let us pay a reasonably expensive price to be able to change the appearance of our character, to basically go back to the character creation screen. Other games have done this, I've experienced three different systems: NexusTK had it be fairly cheap and easy to do, Ragnarok Online gave you a rather expensive and lengthy quest to change your hairstyle, and WoW made us pay rather expensive luxury prices to do it. I'd prefer taking the middle ground and having us pay a noticeable sum. And for those people who want to change their gender or even race, let there be a cooldown (one month?) and a very large sum of gold to do so. Of course, you should also just let them pay for it with real money, but having the option in game to pay for gold instead of real money would let a lot of people use gold that they really have no other use for at endgame, after they have good gear and have everything they really need. WoW suffers from this badly, and they could definitely benefit from a gold sink like this.

Would it cut into the profits for EME? Would it really be a terrible system, either abused or just too expensive for people to want right now? would they raise the costs as inflation would still occur, making it harder for people at a lower level to recustomize their characters? Maybe a scaling cost, more expensive as you keep leveling up, would be a suitable price to pay. What do you guys think? I know I would get tired of looking at the same character all the time, and I do.

Look up the guide that someone posted on Enchanting items. Makes this thread pointless.

I agree with most of the things you're saying, but I don't agree with being able to change race with gold. It just makes it worthless to even take the time to pick a race IMO.

Other than that, sounds good. :)

i often support the idea of in-game customization. but companies like to bundle it with their character rename option.

its been said that this game has economy issues but im not sure this is the way to go about it. id still like it as an option but not sure it would "fix" the problem.

game needs something people want, that they use regularly, that has a temporary effect on the player. that way they keep coming back for more. and something that wont get their panties in a bunch like temporary dyes do to some people >.>

every bit helps i suppose but economy problems is something you have to fine tune.

Quote: JPsama on 2012-02-20 15:20:59 UTC
You mean the massive gold sink that is enchanting and luxing? I've heard that they're looking into changing it, since it really is such a grind. I looked up the specifics, and it's incredibly expensive and I can't imagine doing it every time you get new content. I don't even want to make the calculations to find out how much gold it would actually cost, and that's with good luck.

The average player probably wouldn't do luxing, they wouldn't get as-good gear but they wouldn't spend incredibly amounts of gold. I can only imagine that would be one of the systems that would PROMOTE gold selling. I know I wouldn't really bother with it that much, especially since in this game you can get away with +9 instead of +12. Probably. This still wouldn't solve the issue that being unable to recustomize your character (or having to pay a lot of real money for it, equivalent to one MONTH of playing) causes for a lot of people.

Quote: JellyWalrus on 2012-02-20 15:24:30 UTC
I suppose I'd have to agree with that as well. Still, I'd like the option, perhaps just by having real money come into the equation. Beyond appearance, I've never played a game that let you change race with gold. And it would certainly make "FotM" races more prevalent.

As for your post Coax (the quote system is pretty clunk); I don't know if I said it would be a fix. If I did, I was wrong. Not everyone is going to use this system, just like not everyone is going to use the luxing system. Certainly, nobody is going to use this system enough to have it be a very good gold sink. I'm just thinking that it's a great option and one we don't have yet (or we do, but it costs real money). I got sick of having to spend even MORE money in order to change MY character how I wanted to, and I especially got sick of having to spend the equivalent of two months of gametime to be able to move MY character to play with friends. It's a necessary evil, since otherwise people would transfer everywhere, but I can't understand how not being able to recustomize your character without having to pay real money makes sense.

I don't think one system is going to fix it. Just that a large amount of gold sinks that a lot of people are interested in, could probably help rather than hurt. Sadly, I have to go to class (EARLY morning Chemistry followed by Math three hours later, ugh) and can't follow this thread until late tonight. I do hope someone at EME finds it and gives it some thought, I really would like this system or something similar.

The game will always have "economy" issues because, there is no economy. Items only enter the market, and they do not leave the market, unless they are enchant fodder but then you never use your best stuff for that. Problems will always be had in systems that do not have a good Item sink.

Quote: JPsama on 2012-02-20 15:20:59 UTC

this, there are more money sinks in this game than every single western mmo combined.

well the title of your post is economy and gold sinks. and this was your suggestion for that "problem" so it made me think your intent was to "fix" it.

and like i said, every bit helps. i just dont see how this would do that in any measurable way.

you seem to be more enamored with the recustomization idea rather than the economy issues. could simply just suggest having that in the game and let EME worry about pricing and its effects on the economy.

I personally hate when there's a service/option to change appearance/race/gender/class or whatever. Cause i kinda see it put there for nitwits. If there was something about your character you didn't like why didn't you fix it when making him...

I'm making a High elf because thats what i want. He's gonna look the way he does because I liked that look and thats what I choose. He's a slayer cause thats the class i wanted to play him as.

My other character are all the same way, in any game i played they look the way the look for a reason.

Like a friend of mine in WoW that i called a retard continually, he made a warrior dwarf. There isn't hardly a day i can remember playing with him that he said he wished his dwarf was a different race.

While I would love the ability to pay in game gold so I can play as an X berserker instead of a Y berserker without needing to reroll, I too think that might be a bit much.

Simpler cosmetic changes like hair style, hair color and facial decorations (the different looks of the base selected face) should be a planned reality though. We should like the characters we make when we make them, but eventually people can tire of sporting the same look after years of playing.

As far as I know though, in Korea this is a cash shop feature. Not ideal for some people, and it won't help keep the economy stable, but at least we know it can exist in some form here in NA.