About selling tokens

[HeavyPetter]

There's a thing I wanna bring up. Please don't hate me too much for asking this question, but does anyone else think that the current system of being able to "donate for a friend" is being massively abused? I mean, donations are supposed to be just donations and not purchases. I endorse the idea of giving the donor a small reward, but right now donations are being systematically used by "Token sellers" to directly turn real world money into pokemoney. In my mind this is very questionable especially since the game is being played by many minors who could easily succumb to the temptation of spending more money than they should on the game.

Furthermore, players who can afford to put lots of real world money into the game get a really big advantage over those who cannot, something that is generally frowned upon even in the world of commercial MMO games such as World of Warcraft.

I would actually go as far as suggesting that the system of donating for a friend was removed, and furthermore I would suggest making the all pokemon bought from the token store untradeable to emphasize the fact that they are a reward for the donor, the idea not being to turn them into pokedollars which is a general reward for playing the game.

 

[matileo19]

I really like this idea... They are DONATING anyway and what you say about donators having advantage... Hello! Has happened, specially with the TSC, they have already a big advantage. I agree with your idea and I feel you're right, if they want to donate, they can, however what they're getting as a thank for donating (ms and/or pokemon) should not be tradeable. I asked for this long time ago, without getting an answer from staff members.

 

[ScruffyHusky]

Although I get most of what you're saying, you also have to keep in mind of the people who can't afford to donate or people who can't donate through paypal(especially these people). If they work hard in-game, and get enough pokemoney to buy themselves tokens, which in turn they can buy themselves membership/more pokemon, what's the problem with that? In my opinion that's just as fair as someone who works in real life and buys/sells tokens.

In your example of minors, in my opinion, that's where the responsibility of a parent steps in. I doubt every "minor" has access to their own paypal, and if their parent's let them pay, I also don't see the problem with that.

 

[Pastor-Of-Muppets]

The problem I see is that for those who are not able to set up a paypal account, linked to their bank account or what have you, makes it so that apart from random token give aways they would be unable to get tokens . This would make it even more Pay to Win. Then only those who have access to paypal can get Membership. That makes your argument of those who can put money into the game get a larger benefit even more grossly benefited. It would make it even worse by removing donating for a friend.

Where are the parents then in all of this? Its not a games responsibility to teach money management and the dangers of gambling (praying for S chance and Good IVs)? Im not trying to attack you.

 

[HeavyPetter]

I see your points, both ScruffyHusky and PastorOf Muppets, but I'm not really convinced by them. Or rather, the benefits of the system that you point out do not, in my opinion, compensate for the major problem namely the ease of turning real world money into pokemoney and how systematically that is being done at the moment.

If the exclusivity of Paypal is a problem, then I think that problem should be solved by introducing other means of donating rather than having the current system. And people who can not have a Paypal account due to age restrictions should not be allowed to donate on their own. If their parents allow it, sure, then the donation should come from the parents Paypal account.

Note: The role of parents in teaching their kids the value of money is not the main issue i'm trying to highlight, but as i already said, the relation between real money and pokemoney.

 

[MasterOfTheHunt]

If you remove donating for a friend but are still able to donate for yourself. That would even further distinguish the gap between players who cant afford to donate to those that can.

 

[HeavyPetter]

Well, MasterOfThe Hunt, indeed if donors are rewarded, there will undoubtedly be a gap between donating and non-donating players. I mean, completely removing that gap would be equivalent to removing the reward for donating, right? So on that point I can't really argue with you.

However, I think you are straying from the core of the issue that I stated in the main post as well as the post just previous to yours. It should not be as easy as it is right now to see an equivalence between real money and pokemoney.

To go even further, I would ideally like to see that rewards for donating were unique untradeable collectables, which would not put you at disadvantage in battle for not donating.

 

[MasterOfTheHunt]

I agree with that much that the gap is easy to see. I would like to see it get narrowed in the future.

 

[Pastor-Of-Muppets]

That thought will always be there, regardless of removing the option of donating to a friend or not. The only way to actually stop this kind of thinking is to removed tokens by donation and have it on a giveaway system only, which lets face it the majority of players do not want that.

Edit: The thought being real money purchases tokens.

 

[HeavyPetter]

Agreed Pastor_Of_Muppets, you make a valid argument. But I still think it would be possible to keep the idea "Real money buys Tokens" while removing the idea "Real money buys Pokemoney". The simplest solution that came to my mind was making it impossible to take the step "Tokens buy Pokemoney". Maybe my suggestion on how to accomplish the goal is not the best possible one, but that shouldn't discourage us from trying to reach the goal somehow.

 

[matileo19]

I used to play another MMORPG with monsters too (a known game, from a known anime) the system (not beta, a game pretty well developed by a company) for donators and non-donators was/is as follow:

- You can choose a monster to start with (no matter if you're or not donating)
- You can cath them all (no matter if you're or not donating)
- You can evolve them into diff monsters: Normal evolutions and SPECIAL* ones (card/s is/are needed, wich can be collected by killing MANY (MANY) monsters or by donating . By donating you'll get a % (donating or not) in the card, this means that the card wont be 100 % effective and the evolution couldnt succes if its not 70 %+ at least and nobody complain about this system)
- Everyone can get special items after complete a quest or an event made by staff members (every 1/2 weeks - an event to get an specific monster for example, or an event to get a diff things, depends). You can also get items by donating, but you can't trade these, you can't trade the ones from events aswell.

In a few words, the players that are ''donating'' are not the best ones, because the game is not giving special privilegies to the donators, its equal.

 

[Bluerise]

Friend donations are being removed for the Playerdex update. ~

 

[HeavyPetter]

Really? All right, that's good news Bluerise. Thanks for letting us know

 

[CheckeredZebra]

My perspective is skewed, as I'm now technically a "vet" (as well as a staff) in the game. But out of everything in PWO, I haven't had problems with the donation system. If anything, I've had problems with the game's overall difficulty for leveling and gaining enough money for a surfboard.

A lot of these "token only pokemon" issues can be resolved by adding the regions and putting those pokes there. Then, you'd adjust the token prices accordingly with all the (now) HRs. The gap is only this wide for the (semi?) short term, but not the future.

 

[franceska99]

I agree with CheckeredZebra. You should be thinking long term... When you add the new zones everyone will get their chance on the now UC pokemon.

 

[psychosamm]

Currently I don't really feel that people making pokemoney off of tokens is a problem. Think of it like this; what other ways are there to make money?
1) You could buy and sell, which some are better than others, this process regardless of who does it takes a long time to profit a few million pokedollars if you start from nothing.
2) You could hunt for rare pokemon and hope that they have great stats. Now this is 2x based on luck, it takes the many hours of walking back and forth to even find a HR pokemon, then once you do find one cross your fingers and hope its usable in PVP. What's the price range for Dratinis? it can go from 500k to over 150m, all based on luck, if you consistently have bad luck, then it can take an extremely long time for one to make enough money to buy the things they may want. The fact that it IS so difficult to obtain these pokemon is why there has always been a big problem with botting. If people don't have money to sell tokens, this is one of the methods they need to resort to in order to get anywhere in this game. And in the case of people who speak bad or no English, this is their ONLY option, because haggling without knowing what you're saying doesn't go anywhere good.

Now think about this, people who sell tokens gain a lot of money relatively quickly, and you seem to think this is a bad thing because they "run the market". I see it like this, BECAUSE they have so much extra pokemoney they can afford to buy the things that no normal player can afford. The big ticket items such as S VRs and S HRs, and even some epic battlers, that you who work hard to find can sell to these people. If anything token sellers help stimulate the economy because they happily spend their pokemoney on various things. And they don't only buy the great things, i know Eco likes to buy little things too just to have, he was currently wanting to buy a plain old shiny sandshrew.

I think if anything the game needs to be fixed so that it doesn't take so much unnecessary effort for little to no benefit, nothing extreme, but i really don't think token sellers are the real problem.

Friend donations are being removed for the Playerdex update. ~

I thought i remembered you saying that there are no "Friend Donations", but you can however donate tokens to yourself, and you will have the ability trade away your tokens on the mart or whatever.

 

[HeavyPetter]

Thanks for all input on this subject, it turned out to be quite a good discussion.

psychosamm: You mention that the problem with botting has introduced so much pokemoney into the game that we must supply other means of getting money to get the economy to function properly. I must say that I disagree with that, since it is basically saying that we should solve the problem of botting by introducing another problem. That is not an okay solution. It only redistributes all the botting money and the original method of obtaining pokemoney, namely fighting npc:s and wild pokemon becomes more and more inadequate.

 

[The-Predator]

I really understand that they give real money or "tokens" for suplying the game but mmm i see very ridiculous that now new players have S UC from token store than old players with lot of play time having mm "zero stuff" or bad pokes mm but i think this is the way PWO works we cant do a thing about it