Cash rules everything around Pathfinder Online

The latest in the series of Pathfinder Online developer diaries has just recently gone live, and this time it's covering something near and dear to the heart of many gamers: money. Even if you don't play an MMO specifically for the size of your bankroll, everyone likes having cash to spend and money in the bank. The diary explains that the heart of the game's economic system will be a currency known simply as coin, which is meant to be the driving force behind the virtual economy in-place.

Beyond the basics of the game's economic theory, however, the entry also reveals something of the game's business model, explaining that players will also be able to spend real money to purchase Skymetal Bits. These Bits work as microtransaction currency, running the gamut of the usual microtransaction services (skill training, cosmetic items, special content, and so forth). If you've been following the game along thus far, you'll probably want to see what information the latest entry is providing.

Reader Comments (31)

What an interesting, yet totally unintended concept: Plunking game tokens into your PC to purchase things! (Of course, how is the company going to collect those coins? Matter-transporter?)

I just miss Gaming/Arcade tokens (as shown in the picture). Anyone know where those particular coins came from? I am thinking they are called "Kanga-Coins"! (Since that's a Kangaroo shown there).

Sandbox + real cash purcharses & microtransactions ?

Khe he he. No thanks.

Bye.

@smartstep
yup see ya
another one bites the dust

@smartstep
I'd be cool with it if they didn't allow players to sell cash-bought items for in-game gold. That's the same as buying gold, it's as bad as GW2 and other such games.

Weird that they wrote all this stuff about economic theory and then proceeded to throw it all out of the window by allowing real money and in-game money to mix. :D

My friends and I were extremely interested in this game until the mention of a cash shop.

@(Unverified) They always said it was F2P... so its been pretty obvious that there will be a cash shop.

Wow. This was shaping up to be a great game too. What a shame. This sounds like shit.

I think its funny how they define virtual and simulated economies and then claim their's is a virtual economy. Uh....no. Its simulated, just like others.

And do you really think enough people are going to pay real life money for the ability to train, so all the other's who want to pay in game money to train? LOL. NOPE! This is going to be soooo lopsided. People will quit because they can't buy training or the training will cost outrageous amounts.

@oxlar
Look up Planet Calypso (Entropia Universe).

It's like Second Life in the sense that it's a free-to-play game with an in-game currency that has a very real exchange rate ($1 USD = 10 PED) and its sandboxy (no levels, just skills), but it's got more of the MMORPG gameplay that you'd expect (hunting, mining, crafting, etc).

It's a little too intense for me, as literally every shot you fire costs money and its basically an MMORPG-skinned casino, but it does have a decent population playing. So to answer your question... yeah, I do think people would play it (given the limited information we know today).

And after actually reading the article, I think you're overreacting a bit. The only part that is really questionable in any way is the part about buying skillbooks for real money. EVE has been successful with a similar system (the blog even reference EVE'S PLEX system), so I can see it working out fine here, too.

@potaco

Other than pointing out their definition of a 'virtual' economy is off, the only thing I did comment on was what you said seemed questionable. So, overracting? You can call it questionable, but I can't?

Interresting, sounds just like politics to me.

@potaco I agree with you on some of your points, I have played Entropia Universe several times. I have tried to get into it, but you it's a bit difficult do to the currency conversion rate. As you said 1USD = 10PED, this makes it very expensive, I put around $40 into the game at one point only for it to last me about 2 - 3 weeks.

So while I agree that a real world based economy can work with a sandbox (as a few people have made hundreds of thousands of dollars in Entropia). I also know that the people who have made a lot of money in that game had to put a couple thousand in just to get their feet wet and get started on the cash train.

Cool in theory, rough in actual use.

@Jetflame3 Wow I screwed that comment up lol here's my fix

"I have tried to get into it, but it's a bit difficult due to the currency conversion rate"*

I'll step out as very excited by this development. 99% of all MT haters have never really played a game with MT. And as my beloved writter Sam Clements once said "There are three kinds of lies; Lies, Damn Lies and statistics".

ANYWAY, I think this is a really good thing. Anyone, who knows anything about Paizo knows that they kind of do the free thing with their PnP game, so not doing it with the MMO was something I was curious about. If they do this like Turbine or better yet, the way they've done with the PnP version of the game, I think it can work out very well for them.

And from what they have laid out, it sounds like a solid mix between EVE and LoTRO. I'm down for that!

@jmerriex
Yep, I was just about to comment after fully reading the dev blog that this MT system sounds like EVE meets LOTRO (not exactly, of course, but similar), with the two biggest points being:

- There is an optional subscription that will provide perks that can otherwise be purchased a la carte.
- There is an (apparently essential) item that can be bought with real money to be used or sold in-game.

While I'm not familiar with the IP at all, everything I've heard from these guys seems very well thought-out. Granted, it's all words and ideas at this point... guess we'll see how it turns out :)

@jmerriex

Think you're wrong.

I know many ppl that dislike MT and played games with them.

I actuall played alot of f2p / freemium / mt games.

Think like ~ 10.

Let's see : Lotro , DDO, AoC , UWO, Vindictus and few others.

I don't like it.

wow ! seem like I am in this 1%

@jmerriex

"I'll step out as very excited by this development. 99% of all MT haters have never really played a game with MT. And as my beloved writter Sam Clements once said "There are three kinds of lies; Lies, Damn Lies and statistics"."

Ha! ROFL!

You quote Sam Clements about Lying and Stats and before that, you throw out your own stat of 99% of MT Haters?!?!

Irony, your name be jmerriex! ;P

I admit, it does seem like a high number, but we don't know the percentages. There are many, differing reasons to hate MT and they can range from personal stance to having it invade their existing game to it getting out of hand to more.

I am not a total MT hater myself, but there are limits. So don't "assume". ;)

I LOVE Pathfinder. It is basically D&D 3.75. Paizo did a big "beta" period when they were designing it and you can get the rules FREE on their SRD site: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/

The caveat there is that the campaign settings and other peripheral rules are not available there. So you have to buy them. You can also choose whether to grab the PDF which is cheaper than the printed books and most book purchases come with the PDF for free.

They basically turned the entire genre on its head. I run a pathfinder campaign and I had a number of people who had never played D&D before and because of the way the game is set up, they didn't have to pay anything to get started, but now several of them have purchased books because they enjoy it so much.

@jmerriex
I'm actually not familiar with any PnP games (/gasp?), mainly because it's not really something anyone I knew was even remotely interested in. Guess I can read up on it and pretend like I know what it's all about...

@jmerriex
That's not their SRD site, that's a third party SRD site that exists because all Pathfinder content is required by the OGL to be covered by the OGL.

In either case, that site includes almost all of the mechanical rules for the game, including the ones from the Chronicles books and third party books.

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Cash rules everything around Pathfinder Online

Reader Comments (31)

Posted: Mar 28th 2012 7:14PM Space Cobra said

Posted: Mar 28th 2012 8:09PM smartstep said

Posted: Mar 28th 2012 9:15PM Deliverator said

Posted: Mar 29th 2012 1:58AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Mar 28th 2012 8:13PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Mar 31st 2012 12:35AM EndDream said

Posted: Mar 28th 2012 8:46PM theBeast said

Posted: Mar 28th 2012 10:41PM oxlar said

Posted: Mar 28th 2012 11:12PM potaco said

Posted: Mar 29th 2012 12:16AM potaco said

Posted: Mar 29th 2012 1:56AM oxlar said

Posted: Mar 29th 2012 10:40AM Jetflame3 said

Posted: Mar 29th 2012 10:48AM Jetflame3 said

Posted: Mar 28th 2012 11:13PM jmerriex said

Posted: Mar 28th 2012 11:29PM potaco said

Posted: Mar 29th 2012 5:53AM smartstep said

Posted: Mar 29th 2012 9:00AM Space Cobra said

Posted: Mar 28th 2012 11:38PM jmerriex said

Posted: Mar 29th 2012 12:12AM potaco said

Posted: Mar 29th 2012 8:45AM Jayle said

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